Diverse statuary at Kosenji Temple

Kosenji Temple in Ebino, Miyazaki has a wide range of statues on display inside and out. Flanking the large Fudo MyoO statue were a pair of very stylized Tanuki statues, the one on the left being obviously male.Not sure of their relationship with Fudo though.

There were several "child-like" Jizo. Known as guardian of deceased children, many have this child-like appearance, but seems to me to be more a part of the general "kawaii" culture that is such a large part of contemporary Japanese culture....

There was a fairly standard statue of Kannon, a deity which has many forms. One forms sees young children around her, but here there were frogs.

The frog is called kaeru in japanese, which is also the same word for "return", so commonly frog statues are a kind of good luck charm for returning safely from a journey etc....

Tanokami of Kiyomachi Onsen part 2

Kiyomachi Onsen

Kiyomachi Onsen is a hot spring resort town and typically the accomodations are quite pricey, certainly more than I could pay. However I did find a really cheap place.3.000 yen for a tatami room with access to a kitchen in a small, old, run down building that a local onsen used. The baths were in a couple of small old building next door. There were absolutely no tourists, the place was used purely by locals, kind of like a sento.

My hosts were very friendly and told me I was the first foreigner who had ever stayed there. I explained that I was walking the Kyushu pilgrimage and that also I had an interest in the Tanokami. He promptly told me to get in his car and then drove me a few minutes away where there was a large collection of Tanokami statues that had been brought in from the surrounding communities.

When we got back I took a bath in my own private onsen bathroom. It may be a cliche, but my experience has been that the further you get away from the main tourist sites and the cities, the more friendly and helpful people become....

Of course its not as convenient or simple, but well worth the effort....

Tanokami of Kiyomachi Onsen part 1

I dropped down into the Ebino Valley with its great views of the Kirishima Mountains and headed to Kiyomachi Onsen where I had a room for the night. I stopped in at the small tourist office near the station and discovered a group of Tanokami statues that had been collected together from the neighborhood.

This is Miyazaki Prefecture, but historically it was part of the Satsuma Domain which is where a particular culture of Tanokami developed in the Edo Period. Here the Tanokami, "rice paddy god" was seen very much as a tutelary deity, and statues were found everywhere.

You can pick up a map which shows the location of these statues, some of which have been gathered together. Many of the statues are painted.

These last two photos show a particular feature of many of these statues..... the weirdly exaggerated hats which look odd until you view the statue from behind when it all becomes clear. The Tanokami here have an obvious relationship with fertility......

The Clam Digger

I believe this gentleman was digging clams, but it could have been some other type of shellfish or creature. It was in the Fukushima River, an obviously tidal river near where it entered the sea in southern Miyazaki.

What was quite remarkable was that this was 3:30 in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, in the last week of July, the hottest part of the year, in what is often the hottest part of Japan.

Of course he was dependant on low tide, a factor outside his control, and you can see he is dressed for the conditions...... notice the reflective sheet covering his back and shoulders,.... but I can tell you it was blistering hot

I had left Obi castle and the surrounding samurai district and caught the train back to where I left the pilgrimage and I was heading to Shibushi, a little further west along the coast.

Obi Samurai District

Around the old castle ruins in Obi is an area of former samurai residences. Closest to the castle were the highest ranking samurai, moving down the ranks further away from the castle until you reach the old merchant district.

Being somewhat off the beaten track the area has retained many of the buildings and the basic layout of these former times and is registered as a Historic Preservation District of groups of Traditional Buildings. There are more than 100 of these districts scattered across Japan, and while some are in major tourist areas, many are not.

I've come across quite a few on my walks in the backcountry, and in my experience some of them are quite delightful, being non touristy and ungentrified. Links to many of them Ive visited can be found at this index over at Japanvisitor.

On this trip I was in a hurry to carry on with my pilgrimage, but recently I revisited the area and spent time exploring in the houses open to the public and can recommend it to visitors to Miyazaki

Obi Castle

On the 25th day of my first walk around Kyushu I started out by taking a train and backtracking a ways as I wanted to visit the castle at Obi.

It is not a well-known castle, nor very large, but it is surrounded by a well preserved samurai district and the stone walls are in good condition. The gate house was quite impressive also.

I'm not sure if it ever had a keep but there is a reconstruction of the daimyos "palace" and a museum displaying armour and weapons and such.

For more details on the castles history, access, entry fees etc please see a longer piece I wrote for Japanvisitor.

Sugimura Kanamono Honten

Some architecture I find intriguing, some not. It is not always clear to me why. This building I found intriguing.

It may be because it was different from the other buildings around it. Or it may have been something instrinsic.

It's not particularly old, being built in 1932. When I visited it a few years ago it was a hardware store that was still in business, though it seems to have closed now. It is located in Aburatsu, an old port town in Nichinan, Miyazaki.

I was there on the 24th day of my walk along the Kyushu Pilgrimage, visiting a temple in the town.

Yowara Shrine

In the mountains of Nichinan, Miyazaki, about 25 kilometers southwest of Udo Jingu, is the rather grand and elaborate shrine of Yowara Jinja.

Brightly painted in vermillion, with an impressive two storey gate that still houses 2 Buddhist Nio guardians, and an equally impressive Bell Tower, the shrine was founded in 1658 by a local man whose lover insisted on its construction.

It is, in essence, a branch of Udo Jingu and enshrines the same 6 main kami as Udo Jingu, Amaterasu, Ninigi, Hoori, etc.

I believe the architectural style is called Gongen Zukuri, gongen being Buddhist manifestations, and the style of architecture incorprates a shared roof over the worship hall and honden. Udo Jingu was itself a Buddhist institution until 1868, and many, many shrines still have Buddhist architecture and features.

Yowara Shrine is not well visitedm though it is now the tutelary shrine for the area so gets lots of visitirs at the New Year.

Nakiri Shrine. Another Cave Shrine

About a 15 minute walk along a path through the woods from Udo Jingu is a small cave with Nakiri Shrine within it.

It is not as impressive as he cave at Udo Jingu, but it is closer to the sea and you are likely to be the only visitor, and so is more atmospheric and even dramatic.

Next to the small shrine is a statue of Fudo Myo. In this case a Namikiro Fudo, a "wave-cutting" Fudo Myo who protects seafarers. In 1868 the cave stopped being a home to a Buddhist deity and became the "shinto" Nakiri Shrine. Can't find any info on which kami they enshrined here, thoufg there is a carving of a fish hanging from the shrine.

This is also what happened at Udo Uingu, which was established as, and existed as for more than a millenia, a Buddhist site, until 1868.

It is well worth the walk from Udo Jingu

The cave at Udo Jingu

The shrine, or rather shrines, at Udo Jingu are inside a cave in the cliff overlooking the sea. The main kami is named Ugayafukieazu, though there are variations on the name and its spellings. In the mythology, he was the father of Jimmu, the first emperor.

In the legend his mother, Toyotamahime constructed a birth hut here made out of cormorant feathers. and told her husband Hoori, sometimes known as Hohodemi or Yamasachihiko, not to look while she was giving birth as she would revert to her non-human form as the daughter of Ryujin, the undersea Dragon King.

He peeked and then freaked out at her appearance and she was so ashamed that she left the child and ran away. For some reason the shrine is considered lucky for newly-weds.

Deeper in the cave , behind the main shrine, are numerous smaller shrines that enshrine Yamasachihiko, Toyotamahime, Ninigi, Amaterasu, Jimmu, etc.

In the cave roof are rocks shaped like breasts. It is said that as a baby Jimmu suckled from them. The shrine sells a kind of candy made from the water that drips down the rocks.

Aoshima Shrine

Heading down the coast out of Miyazaki City on the 23rd day of my walk I came to Aoshima Shrine.

The small island is now connected by a short bridge, and much of the island itself is rock formed into parallel ridges like a washboard.

Leading from the main building, a tunnel of ema lead to a grove where you can toss small ceramic discs, representing plates I believe, at a target for good ;uck. Underneath the target is a small mountain of broken pottery.

The island is lush sub-tropical jungle, though some say it is tropical. The two main kami are Hikohohodemi, a grandfather of the mythical first emperor Jimmu, and his wife Toyotamahime. The myth about their story is told in a series of tableaux in the shrine museum, and that I will turn to next.....