Hachiman Shrine Kawagoe

 

A little over a kilometer further upstream from the main part of Kawagoe village and bridge is another sizable settlement.

Called Watari on old maps it is now just part of Kawagoe but had a quite large Hachiman Shrine.

One source says it was founded in the early 11th century, which seems feasible as on the opposite bank of the river is a large temple founded even earlier.

I have been to all-night matsuris in almost all the shrines in this area, but not this one. I suspect the main shrine for Kawagoe is the new Suwa Shrine back in the main part of the village. The interior of this one did not have a tengai, the overhead canopy under which kagura is performed.

Being a Hachiman shrine, the three main enshrined kami are Emperor Ojin, his mother, Jingu, and his wife. Also enshrined here are Amenokoyane, Futsunushi, Takemikazuchi, and Ebisu.

The previous post in this series on my walk up the Gonokawa River to its source was Along the Gonokawa to Kawagoe.

Along the Gonokawa River to Kawagoe

 

After leaving the riverside fields of Tazu, the road heads about half a kilometer sandwiched between the forest and the river until the land opens up again in Kawagoe.

This was the next stop on the train after Tazu, and Kawagoe has a post office and used to have an elementary school. A road runs inland up into the mountains.

The bridge across the river is relatively new. When we first moved here the old bridge was still being used, but in the first few years a new one was built and the old one was demolished.

There is a small shrine in this first part of Kawagoe. It is unusual in that it has no kagura group. Back in a major flood in the 1960's all the costumes and masks were destroyed, and the cost to replace them was simply too high.

I continue on along the top of the embankment that separates the river from the strip of agricultural land that continues on to the next settlement of Wataru.

The previous post in this series documenting my walk along the Gonokawa River was on Tazu.