Golden Week Walk, 2014

It's become a tradition of mine to go for a nice long walk in the countryside during Golden Week, and this year was no exception. I walked a 4 day leg of the Iwami Mandala Kannon Pilgrimage. I have been calling it the Iwami 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, but apparently they added another ten temples and changed its name.

The first day was the section from Kawamoto to my own villlage, and for logistical reasons 1 walked it in reverse. A good section was following the Gonokawa, a quite beautiful river, the longest in West Japan, but mostly unknown to anyone other than locals. The rest of the day was in and out of the mountains to visit a temple. In the mountains I found this wild boar skeleton. I had driven down this road less than 2 weeks ago and it wasnt there then, so it has been picked clean in a very quick time. It was quite a long day, clocking in at 35k of walking.

Day 2 was from my village to Arifuku, an onsen resort in the mountains halfway between Gotsu and Hamada. For the first couple of hours I followed the Yato River and then went up Nagatani (Long Valley) before going over the pass and then following a tributary of the Uya River down to Arifuku. What was most noticeable was the damage from last summers storms. There were many landslides, embankments of the river washed away, even a bridge totally destroyed. A very pleasant 25k jaunt.

Day 3 was Arifuku to Yasaka, much higher and further inland. Just outside Arifuku I discovered a couple of old style potteries that I hadnt known about before dropping into the main valley of the Uya River. Heading upstream I passed several tunnels and half-built bridges that were going to be for a rail line running from Hamada to Hiroshima. It never got built. At Kanagi I stocked up with food and drinks as for the rest of the day there would not even be a vending machine. For a few k I Had to follow the main Hamada to Hiroshima road, but soon cut off and headed across the mountains. I topped out at 450 meters before dropping down into Yasaka. I spent the night at a friends guest house. He is a hunter, so wild boar was on the menu for the evening meal, washed down with home made doburoku, the tastiest sake I have ever drunk. an exhilarating 35k walk.

On day 4 I headed from Yasaka to Mito through sonme nice, remote country without a single vending machine for 25k. There were some serious ups followed by downs, but for some reason the older I get the less difficult I find it. At the top of one remote valley I found a wonderful mountain shrine. The tengai was old, suggesting they no longer do kagura there, but the shrine was still looked after. What I noticed most on this day was that Golden Week is pretty much a city thing. In the mountains people are far too busy to go off on mini vacations. There were many people working in the paddies. I mnet one old guy with a great collection of bamboo shoots he had dug out of the forest. I saw another couple picking wild food from the roadside, one man tending his bees, and another old gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow filled with firewood for heating his bath. I aarived in Mito Onsen as a festival was under way and enjoyed the reassuring beat of the kagura drums. Another excellent 27k walk.

Shrine Chickens

It is not uncommon to see chickens running free in the grounds of shrines, like these first two photos in Aoiaso Shrine, Hitoyoshi.

Some say it is because the rooster heralds the arrival of the sun, the sun goddess Amaterasu.

Some say it is because in the Iwato myth the assembled kami brought in roosters to try and trick Amaterasu out of the cave.

This third photo is from a small shrine next to Suwa Shrine in Nagasaki.

These last two photos  are from Iminomiya Shrine in Chofu, Yamaguchi.

Personally, I think the reason you find chickens at shrines is because the priest and family like free eggs.

Hihara Shrine

This is another ancient shrine listed in the Izumo Fudoki. The main kami enshrined here is Ohirumemuchi, which is either an old name for Amaterasu, or, as some sources suggest, a kami-shamaness who became Amaterasu after death.

Ohirumemuchi was the primary kami of Suika Shinto, an Edo period ant-buddhist school of "shinto" that was heavily confucianist and was predicated on the Tokugawas right to rule.

The other two kami enshrined here are Amenohibaraoshinadomi and Wakatsukushimenokami, and all that is known of them is that they were among the many, many descendants of Okuninushi.

There is a very large quartz rock known as Hall of Mirrors, that is supposedly very sparky and reflective when wet.

There is also a huge, ancient Katsura tree that is registered as a National Monument. It is 40 meters tall and the trunk has a girth of 14 meters.

An unexpected Matsuri

On the afternoon of September 4th, 2011, I was approaching Byodo-ji, Temple 22 of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, when I spied a torii with banners flying, a sign that a matsuri is underway.

As I got closer I could hear the shouts of children which suggested that the matsuri was underway at the moment. For me, there is no greater pleasure than coming upon a matsuri, especially one in a rural village shrine.

It was a Yasaka Shrine, a branch of the famous shrine in Kyoto formerly lnown as Gionsha. The main kami is Susano, and also many of his "family", which is kind of apt as he is known as the kami of storms and the last 2 days this area has been hit with a massive typhoon.

There wasn't anything going on right now. Kids were running around and playing, and a small group of the village elders were inside eating and drinking. They invited me in for food and beer, and though daytime drinking in the heat of the day is not a usual habit of mine, as I was a pilgrim I could not refuse their offer.
After a second beer I insisted I had to leave and they showed me a path leading out of the shrine which was a shortcut over the hill to Byodo-ji

Serida Shrine

It may look like a small inconspicuous village shrine, but Serida Shrine has some vintage. It is listed in the Izumo Fudoki, so has existed since before the 7th Century, and is also listed in the Engi Shiki, therefore it received offerings from the imperial government in the Heian period.

The main kami enshrined here is listed as Kanayamabiko, who came into existence from the vomit of Izanami as she was dying after giving birth to fire. However, according to an excellent website on the history of iron in Japan at Hitachi Metals, it was probably called Kanayago before the Meiji Period.

Kanayago is a very popular kami among iron and metal workers and the head kanayago shrine is a little east of here. The Chugoku region and especially this part of Izumo was a main center for iron production in ancient times, and there are many Kanayago shrines.

Also enshrined here is Izanami and Kotosakano and Hayatamano, the latter two being the kami that came into existence at the time of Izanagi's oath of divorce from Izanami. Curiously they are linked with Izanami here rather than Izanagi.

This area is between the entrance to Yomi where Izanagi visited Izanami, and Izamani's tomb on top of Mt. Hiba.

Naka Homan Shrine

Climbing out of the Fukuoka Plain on a small road that leads over to the next pilgrimage temple I spied a torii and went to investigate and found Naka Homan Shrine.

Less than a kilometer away is Homan Shrine, and I'm guessing this was built as a branch of it in 1675.

The three kami listed are Tamayorihime, Okinagatarashihime, and Homuda Wake. The latter two are more commonly known as Empress Jingu and Emperor Ojin, but this is not called a Hachimangu. According to the myth Jingu gave birth to Ojin not too far from here in Umi.

Exactly who Tamayorihime is remains a mystery. There are several famous kami with the same name as it really just means a woman who lies down with a kami and bears his child. However, Mount Homan is not far away and on it is Kamado Shrine, built to protect Dazaifu from the NE direction. A female kami appeared and said she was Tamayorihime and protected this mountain. The main Homan shrine near here, that this shrine is a branch of, is near a tomb that local legend says contains Tamayorihime. 

The previous post in this series exploring my walk along the Kyushu pilgrimage was on Chiroku Shrine.

Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Temple 14 Renge-ji

Like so many of the temples on this pilgrimage, Rengeji has great views over the inner Izumo area.

The Kannon sculpture that is the honzon is dated to the mid eighth century so that suggest the temple will date from that time too.

Now it belongs to the Soto Zen sect, but earlier it was a Tendai temple.

There is a spring behind the temple that legend says has healing powers and people still come here to collect the water.

Toko-ji Temple, Hagi

The gate to Tokoji in Hagi has a somewhat Chinese feel because it is an Obaku Zen Temple founded in 1691. Obaku was a new sect of Zen founded by Chinese monks who came to Nagasaki to serve the Chinese community there.

Tokoji was founded by the third Mori lord as a second temple housing the graves of the Mori and their wives. The 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Lords are buried here. The other are buried at Daishoin on the other side of town.

Most of the structures date from the 17th Century and are listed Cultural Properties. The temple complex is much reduced in size from earlier times, but it is still quite large and spacious, set in woods on the eastern edge of town.

The honzon, the principle deity statue, is Shaka Nyorai, which in English we would call the historical Buddha.

Ayo Shrine

Ayo Shrine is a small village shrine at the base of the mountain on which is located Rengeji, the 14th temple on the Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage. The two kami enshrined here are Susano and Kunitokotachi. Susano is well known and prevalent throughout this area, but this was the first time I encountered Kunitokotachi.

Which is actually kind of surprising since Kunitokotachi was the first kami to come into existence. Out of chaos heaven and earth separated and in the space between Kunitokotachi emerged out of "something like a reed". That is according to 4 sources in the Nihonshoki. In the Kojiki,  Amenominakanushi was first, and when the Kojiki was revived in the 19th Century Amenominakanushi started to receive more attention. It is generally believed that the first stories in the ancient myths concerned with the creation of the universe are Chinese in origin.

The shrine has a fine example of Izumo-style shimenawa and a nice ancient tree.

Manhole Ohanami

The annual cherry blossom viewing season is now over for most of Japan, but the cherry blossom can be seen year round by looking down. Not surprisingly given its cultural prominence the sakura appears as a design element in many, like this first one from Tadotsu in Kagawa, Shikoku.

It features as a minor design element in countless designs, like this one from Kamo Town in Izumo.

As I sorted through my files to find these I was expecting sakura to much more common than it is. I was surprised to find the Azalea being more common. The sakura above is from Mizukami in Kumamoto.

From Miyahara, also in Kumamoto, also featuring a rose.

From Toyoshi in Kagawa, with azaleas in the center.