Kitsune of Saijo Inari

Kitsune, foxes, are the messengers of the kami Inari, so statues of them can be found at all Inari shrines and temples. Like Komainu, there are a variety of different designs and styles.
All of these photos are from Saijo Inari in Okayama.

Most kitsune statues are carved in stone, but here there were many large ones of clay. I believe they are known as Bizen style.

There were a pair of strange looking ones made of concrete!!

Often the kitsune will have a scroll in its mouth. The scroll contains wisdom.

Occasionally there will also be komainu as well as kitsune.

Small ceramic kitsune are left as offerings, along with sake (omiki)

The Love Shrine

Tucked away behind the famous Kiyomizudera Temple in the hills of Kyoto lies a small but very popular shrine, Jishu Shrine, known locally as the Love Shrine.

Here you can buy all manner of charms and amulets to aid in finding the love of your life.

There are also a pair of "love stones" set in the ground. If you touch one and then walk towards the second one with your eyes closed and successfully reach it you will be lucky in love.

The main kami is Okuninushi who nowadays is known as the kami of love and relationships. There is also an Inari shrine .

The shrine was built by Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1633.

Nagashibina: Origin of Hina Dolls

This is one of the more than 1000 Hina dolls on display at the Nagashibina Doll Museum in Mochigase Town, Tottori



Nagashibina refers to a festival that was once common throughout Japan but is now only celebrated in a handful of places, Mochigase being one of them.




These are some of the dolls used in the festival. Based, like much of Japanese ancient religion, on Taoist rituals, the dolls are akin to scapegoats, bad luck, impurity, sin, etc being carried away by the dolls as they float down river to the sea.




The festival takes place at the end of March, but if you can't attend it the museum has displays showing the festival, including this tableau with dolls.



There are also life-size tableaux showing Hina Matsuri.

With over 1,000 dolls on display it is easy to spend several hours in the museum.



For some reason I was more drawn to the almost two dimensional paper dolls rather than the more intricate (and expensive) dolls.



If you are interested in dolls I would suspect it is well worth a visit, though like many of the more interesting sites in japan it is nowhere near Tokyo or a Shinkansen station. Mochigase is located on a local rail line south of Tottori City. Entrance to the museum is a mere 300yen.

Hakata Port Tower

This was originally known as the Fukuoka Tower, but was renamed Hakata Port Tower when the new Fukuoka Tower was built.

It was built in 1964 and is 103 meters tall with an observation deck at 73 meters.

It was designed by Tachu Naito who designed many TV towers in Japan including Tokyo Tower.

Its open every day of the year and entrance to the observation deck with a decent 360 degree view is free.

A new red hanya mask

In the months of December and January there is almost nothing to do in the garden, and with more than enough firewood for this winter I have had enough "free" time to finally get round to finishing some masks.

Red hanya masks exist in other parts of the country, but I have never seen one in an Iwami Kagura dance.

There was a program on NHK a few days ago that included an interview with a master maskmaker from Hamada, and onbe thing he said was that if a mask was meant to be scary, then make it scary. That's what I have tried to do here....

More komainu of Kunisaki

This wooden komainu was in the museum at Usa Jingu. It is a type of komainu that is no longer as common as the stone ones found at the entrances to shrines and temples. If a shrine has a Zuijinmon, an entrance gate with pairs of zuijin (guardian statues) there will often be a small wooden komainu with them.

The most common komainu now are the stone ones found along the entranceways. These are mostly from the Edo-period.

Here is an excellent paper on different komainu styles. The author discusses many of the different styles and their geographic ranges, as well as laments modern japans drive towards national homogenity which is seeing one, modern, national style of komnainu increasing.

For me, the diversity is what is fascinating.

All of these komainu were found on the Kunisaki Peninsular of Northern Kyushu.

The other place to see komainu is carved into the beams of shrines and temples.

Wakamiya Hachimangu

Known locally as Toki Shrine, the Wakamiya Hachimangu is located near Gojo a little south of Gion in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto.

This is the heart of the old pottery district, and in August the Kyoto Gojozaka Ceramic Festival is held at the shrine with stalls along the street in front.

The primary kami is Hachiman, now equated with the legendary Emperor Ojin, and also includes his mother Jingu and father Chuai. There are other secondary shrines including this one to Inari.

There is also a Touso Shrine, enshrining the famous Shikoku potter Toushiro. I think this is a twentieth Century addition.

This is the Rengeishi (Lotus stone) donated to the shrine by Ashikaga Takauji, the founder of the Ashikaga Bakufu in the 14th century.

The shrine was originally built some miles to the west in 1053 and was moved to its current location in 1605

Nagashibina Doll Museum

This is the draincover for Mochigase Town, now part of Tottori City.

It shows the Nagashibina Doll Museum which houses a collection of over 1,000 Hina dolls of the Edo period from all over Japan.

Mochigase Town is one of the few places in Japan that still practises the rituals at the heart of the Hina Matsuri.

There is a nice little garden and pond within the grounds

With the obligatory hungry koi!!!

The building itself is an unusual example of a large wooden building built in the traditional style.

Saijo Inari

The Niomon at Saijo Inari is most unusual. It is built of stone in the style of an Indian Palace.

The nio are quite remarkable, though taking photos of them is hindered by the wire grill protecting them.

Saijo Inari is often considered on of the top three Inari in Japan. It is located a little off the Kibi Bike Path, and well worth the detour.

Saijo Inari is officially a temple named Myokyo-Ji, and is sometimes known as Takamatsu Inari.

According to legend it was originally founded in the 8th Century as a Tendai temple. In the 16th Century it became a Nichiren temple, and in 1954 it became the head temple of its own separate sect known as Saijo Inarikyo.

According to the founding legend the founder of the temple, a monk known as Hoon Daishi, had a vision involving a deity riding a flying white fox, though it is quite possible that this is a Meiji-era invention created after the separation of the buddhas and kami.

Also worshipped here along with Inari is the Lotus Sutra, and behind the main hall of the temple the cliff has been sculpted supposedly into a sculpture based on the Lotus Sutra.