Enko-ji, Yasugi

I took a detour around some hills rather than continue on along the main road because I find main roads far less interesting or enjoyable, but also because when studying the maps before my walk I noticed a small temple with a pagoda.

There was no-one around at the temple and no signboards so I have been unable to find out anything about it other than that it belongs to the Soto sect of Zen.

The pagoda is an east asian development of the Nepalese stupa. In China its architecture adopted elements from towers and palaces and that is the form that became adopted in Japan where they are exclusively connected to Buddhism.

The one at Enko-ji is a Tahoto, a Japanese style believed to have originated in the Heian Period. Whereas almost all pagodas have an even number of storeys, the tahoto has only 2, the lower square and the upper round.

A distinctive feature of Japanese pagodas is how far out the eaves extend and overhang, something common to many traditional types of structure and believed to be so that the abundant rainfall of Japan can be kept away from the structures foundations.

Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Day 1

After finishing my walk around Kyushu on the Kyushu Pilgrimage, this summer I started walking the Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage which will take me through Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane, and Tottori. I think it will end up being over 1500 kilometers. I started at Hinase in the east of Okayama near to Shoraku-ji, the third temple on the pilgrimage.

At Shorakuji the Niomon was undergoing renovation, and so was able to observe one of the craftsmen working on repairs to the Nio.

Instead of heading directly west towards the next temple I took a detour and headed NW to visit the Shizutani School, a school founded in the early Edo Period for common people. Some of the architecture there is listed as a National Treasure.

From there I headed over the hills to reach a tributary of the Yoshii River which I followed down towards the south and the next temple.

Towards the end of the day I stopped in at the Bizen Sword Museum where swords are still made in the traditional way....

Local Shrines in Arashima, Yasugi

After leaving Arashima Hachimangu I headed off around the hill towards a temple on the other side. Just a hundred meters from the Hachimangu I passed a small wayside shrine, a hokora. There are an untold number of such things everywhere in Japan, though they are usually not officially listed as shrines. There is no way of knowing the name of the kami enshrined unless a local person can be asked, and even then the kamis name may have been lost in time...

Another couple of minutes another shrine in the middle of the paddies. Obviously an agricultural shrine, and obviously well used as attested by the newish tori and the plentiful offerings, yet once again this is not marked on maps as an official shrine.

A little further around on the north side of the high ground another small shrine, though this time it is an "official" shrine with kami listed in the prefectures directory. It may be called Misaki Shrine, or Osaki Shrine, but there was no-one around to ask.

The three main kami enshrined here are Amaterasu, Susano, and Gonansanjo, a term I can find nothing about but which translates as " 5 male, 3 female" and suggests a collective identity for 8 kami. In the grounds are three small shrines to Okuninushi, Kotoshironushi, and Oyamagi.

Shisa of Okinawa 2

This is the second post on the shisa of Okinawa.

All of these photos wre taken at Okinawa World, a "theme park" in the south of the main island.

The making of small shisa for roofs has become a folk art

The main reason for visiting Okinawa World is for the cavern.....

Arashima Hachimangu

Arashima Hachimangu is located right on Route 9. Hachiman is usually a trio of kami, Homuda Wake, the name of Emperor Ojin, is usually the primary, and the other two being taken from his mother, Jingu, his father, Chuai, or his wife, Himegami. Unusually this one lists Homuda Wake, Jingu, and Takeuchi Sukune, who was Jingu's minister.

It is a direct branch of the Usa Hachimangu. Almost two thirds of Hachimangu nationwide are branches of Iwashimizu. Like all the other shrine in this area there was a Zuijinmon which also had a pair of nice wooden komainu.

Again, like all the other shrines in the area there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami in the region that hardly gets a mention in any sources on Shinto as it is neither national nor imperial. Represented as a rope snake, in my neighboring area the name is different, but it is just as prevalent and important.

There are several outcroppings of smooth, rounded rock in the grounds. The smaller one has a hokora to Sumiyoshi in a small hole carved into it.

The larger one has steps carved into it that leads up to an Inari Shrine.

Making hemp fibre

Whereas hemp had and has many uses in ritual and ceremony as well as medicine in traditional Japan, its main use was as fibre, and that was one of the main focuses of the matsuri.

All morning a very tall steamer had a fire burning under it.

By lunchtime the stems of the plant were ready and removed and placed in the stream to cool down.

After a short while everyone collected some stalks and began peeling off the outer skin, something surprisingly easy to do.

I has presumed that it was the whole stalk of the plant that was used to make fibre, so was surprised to learn that it was just the thin bark. The strips of fibre were then scraped with a bamboo scraper to remove the vestiges of "stickiness", and that about it. We now all had a small amount of one of the best fibres in the world.

It could be used to weave, or could be used to make a gohei, a purification wand used by Shinto priests, pictured below.

2nd Annual Hemp Festival

Last weekend went to the second Annual Hemp Festival up in the mountains near Chizu, Tottori. The festival was organized by a small, local hemp farm to showcase the second most important plant in ancient Japan.

The day was kicked off by a purification ceremony by a Yamabushi from Mount Fuji.

There were lots of stalls selling clothing made from hemp, probably its most important use in ancient Japan. There were also demonstrations of extracting oil from hemp seeds and a small loom where visitors could try their hand at weaving with hemp.

The folks from the Hemp Car Project arrived in a bus powered by hemp oil. There were about three hundred people there, mostly younger people who have moved into the rural areas of Japan and practice a more sustainable lifestyle. There were lots of young children. The Mayor of Chizu gave a speech and suggested that he may be naming Chizu "Hemp Town" in the future. I met an old guy from Hiroshima who told me about a Shinto Sect shrine in central Hiroshima that has links with hemp. In return I was able to tell him about the Hemp Mountain and Hemp Shrine near our home.

There were stall selling other hemp products, and several example of traditional hemp products including some bell ropes from Kyoto and a Gohei, a purification wand used by Shinto priests. Throughout the day musicians performed.

As at any other festival in Japan there were plenty of food stalls including some vegan offerings. I settled for a Wild Boar Burger even though I have been eating a lot of boar this week. 600 yen a pop for a hemp beer from Germany was a bit too pricey for me but the brand name is kind of clever.

The main event of the day was the making of hemp fiber, and that I post next.....

Hashima Shrine

Hashima ( or Hajima) Shrine is located on a small rounded hill among the rice paddies just outside Yasugi town center, just off Route 9. The hill is called Gongenyama, and until the Meiji Period the shrine was called Daigongen Shrine. Gongen are/were Buddhist manifestations in kami form.

Like all the shrines in this area of eastern Izumo there was a Zuijinmon ans a nice pair of unpainted Zuijin. At the base of the hill was a stone carved with the name of Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Sun Buddha who was the identity of Amaterasu for a thousand years. However the kami now listed for the shrine are Onamuchi, the Yamato name for Okuninushi, and his "sidekick" Sukunahikona. The Gongen for Okuninushi was Yakushi Nyorai.

There were a couple of smaller shrines in the grounds, an Inari, one to Konohanasakuya, the wife of Ninigi most often equated with Mt. Fuji, and an Oyamagi Shrine.

Like all the shrines in this region there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami of all. Every shrine has at least one Kojin altar, often more.

Yasaka Shrine near Sakai, Bungo Takeda

By lunchtime of my first day walking across the Kunisaki Peninsula I was approaching the foothills and the valley I was going to follow up to the center of the peninsula. In the middle of the rice paddies in a small village east of Bungo Takeda I came across this Yasaka Shrine.

Being a branch of the famous Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto, and formerly known as Gionsha, it enshrines Susano as well as various members of his "family" Like most of the shrines I'd visited today there was a carpet of golden gingko leaves.

There was a small secondary shrine in the grounds but there was no sign so I could not find out which kami was enshrined there.

Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Day 9 Yasugi to Iya

For the ninth day of the Izumo Kannon Pilgrimage I started out in Yasugi. Now I head back West. Today I will not get to a visit any of the pilgrimage temples.

I will, however, be visiting lots of shrines. This area was where the provincial government of  ancient Izumo was based, and also home to some of the earliest of the myths of Japan.

I will be following the route of the Sanin-do, the ancient imperial highway that linked the region to the capital. It is generally believed to be the least travelled of all the ancient routes. Nowadays Route 9 follows its route, though I hope to be spending a lot of time off the busy road and on side roads.

The route takes along the southern edge of the Nakaumi, marked as a lake on maps but actually a shallow lagoon.