Showing posts with label rokusho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rokusho. Show all posts

Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Kojin of Rokusho Shrine



Rokusho Shrine, like all the other shrines in this part of Izumo, have altars to the land kami Kojin, represented as a serpent made of rice straw.


Nowhere near the scale or complexity of the ones at nearby Adakaya Shrine, and lacking eyes, nostrils, or a tongue, they are however more complex than the equivalent serpents in my area.


Here there are 5 separate altars, suggesting that they come from 5 different communities in the area.


Curiously, one thing they all lack is bodies. They are just heads. I have never seen that before, usually the serpentine body is wrapped around a tree.