Tree cutting ceremony at Kurami Shrine

Visiting Kurami Shrine involved a small detour off my pilgrimage route,  but I deemed it worthwhile as it was supposed to be a fairly important shrine historically.

As I approached the shrine I could see some activity going on in the grounds that as I got closer appeared to be a ceremony of some kind.

The ceremont contained the three elements that I associate with Shinto ritual, offerings, in this case sake which was then shared with the participants, the reading of norito, and purification.

Apparently one of the trees in the grounds needed some serious trimming work doing on it and the priest held the ceremony for the tree and for the men doing the work. I have not seen this before so am not sure how common such ceremonies are. I have seen trees being cut in shrines with no preparatory rituals.

Fudo Myo O of Shikoku part 7

The Daishi-do in Oda Town in the mountains of Ehime south of Matsuyama, is a zenkonyado, a free place for pilgrims to spend the night. Obviously the main statue is Kobo Daishi, but there was also this nice one of Fudo.....

Along the path leading to temple 44, Daiho-ji, in Kumakogen, Ehime.

2 views of the statue on the approach path to temple 45, Iwaya-ji. also in Kumakogen, Ehime.

Iwaya-ji is a mountain temple and had many statues of Fudo, more of which I will post next time.

Take Shrine

Take Shrine, another small village shrine on the shore of Nakaumi, gives the appearance of being abandoned. The grounds have not been kept up and there are no signs of activity. However, it was once a fairly important shrine, being listed in the Engi Shiki, which meant it received offering from the imperial government. Behind the shrine are two altars to Kojin, but they look as if the rope serpent has not been replaced for several years.

The 2 kami enshrined here are Takemikazuchi and Futsunishi, 2 martial kami associated with the ceding of Japan to the Yamato. The Kojiki has Takemikazuchi being the kami that Amaterasu sent down to Japan to ask Okuninushi to cede the land. the Nihonshoki says it was both takemikazuchi and Futsunushi. The Izumo Fudoki mentions only Futsunushi. So why the disparity?

In a nutshell, the Kojiki is really just a family history, a justification for the ruling clans divine right to rule Japan. At the time of its writing one of the most, if not the most, powerful clan was the Nakatomi/Fujiwara, who by this time had appropriated Takemikazuchi as one of "their" kami. The Nihonshoki was the official national history in Chinese style. It is much larger and contains many, many variations on the stories, reflecting the diversity of "histories" that existed at that time just as "Japan" was being formed out of many regional polities. The Fudoki were local gazeteers written to compile local histories, legends, and features.

The Kojiki was pretty much ignored for a thousand years until the Edo Period when National Learning scholars began to analyze the language of it. It really came to prominence with the rise of State Shinto and its focus on the Imperial family.  As noted above, the Nihon Shoki, sometimes called Nihongi, is much more detailed and therefore took longer to be completed but in my opinion is a far more interesting read. The Fudoki are almost completely lost, but the Izumo Fudoki is complete and is largely the reason why Izumo legends are so well known. Futsunushi, mentioned in the Izumo Fudoki was associated with the Mononobe Clan, the ancestor of which is buried near Izumo. The Mononobe were destroyed by the Nakatomi in their rise to power. I think this brief explaination shows why the three different versions of the myth exist.

Obata Ebisu Shrine & Inari Shrine

Obata is a small fishing port just north of Hagi. Like virtually every fishing harbor in Japan there is a small shrine to Ebisu, the patron kami of fishermen.

However, running fromn the side of the shrine is a path running up the hillside lined with red torii, a sure sign of an Inari Shrine.

Halfway up the path was one, and then further up another. It is possible to find single Inari shrines, but more often their will be several. Inari, like Buddhas, are in a sense "universal" deities, but in Japan they are often localized with specific local identities.

The Inari ( or other kami or Buddha) will have different local manifestations, so you have, for instance, hundreds of different Inari shrines at the main Inari shrine near Kyoto, Fushimi Inari.

Junisho Shrine

Junisho Jinja

Junisho Shrine is another small village shrine on the banks of the Nakaumi just about 1k north of Oi Shrine. Junisho means "twelve places" and refers to the 12 different kami enshrined here.

The first two are Izanagi and Izanami, the brother-sister, husband-wife, pair who really are the most important of the Japanese kami. It was they who created the Japanese islands and populated them with a whole pantheon of kami.

Among the kami created by Izanagi and Izanami perhaps the most important are the siblings Amaterasu and Susano, both also enshrined here. Amaterasu is often called the most important Japanese kami, but that is really just a hangover from State Shinto, her importance being that the imperial family claim descent from her. In real terms Susano is more important. He "descended" to Japan long before the descendants of Amaterasu, and there are far more shrines in Japan to Susano and his lineage than there are for Amaterasu and her lineage.

Between them, by "trial of pledge", Amaterasu and Susano created the  Gonansan Joshin, 5 male and 3 female kami, 6 of whom are enshrined here. The three females, often called the Munakata Kami, were kami strongly connected with travel between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. They are Tagitsuhime, Takiribime, and Ichikishimahime. The three male are Kumanokusubi, Ikutsuhikone, and Amenohohi. Its not clear why 2 of the eight are not enshrined here, nor why the only kami enshrined here, Konohanasakuyahime, that is not part of the obvious grouping of twelve.

There is also an altar/shrine to Kojin.

Hinase, Okayama

I started my walk along the Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage at the small port town of Hinase as this was the closest train station to the most easterly of the pilgrimage temples, number 3 Shoraku-ji.

As the towns draincover shows, it now includes the cluster of small islands just offshore.

The towns main industry is oyster farming, but obviously shrimp are another locally caught product.

The town is home to an unusual museum on Latin America. Started with the collection of a local man who collected arts and archeological artifacts from his visits to that part of the world, I really wanted to visit it but was there several hours before they opened and as I had a long day ahead could not afford to wait.

My route climbed above the town and headed inland.....

Fudo Myo O of Shikoku part 6

Some nmore of the Fudo Myo statues found along the Shikoku Pilgrimage. This first one is at temple 38, Kongofukuji.

This one is on the approach to the main hall at Kanjizaiji, temple 40 located at Ainan in Ehime.

This rather unusual one was in a small roadside shrine not too far from Meisekiji, in Seiyo, Ehime.

The final 2 photos are from Ozu in Ehime, at Eitokuji temple, which is the 8th Bangai temple and more commonly known as Toyogahashi after the legend of Kobo Daishi sleeping under the bridge there.

Oi Shrine

Oi Shrine is a small village shrine on the shore of the Nakaumi. It is listed in the Izumo Fudoki and therefore must be at least 1300 years old. In the Fudoka it was called Oisha and the kami enshrined was Okuninushi. However the main kami is now Amaterasu, along with Amenokoyane, Nakatsutsu (one of the Sumiyoshi kami), Yamato Takeru, & Homuda Wake (Ojin), along with Okuninushi.

It woud be interesting to know why this whole slew of Yamato kami came to supplant the local Okuninushi, but I can find no information as to when or why this happened.

There is a small Inari shrine next to the main shrine, and, like all the shrines in the region, altars to the local Kojin, in this case 4 in total. Before the twentieth Century these would have been out in the local communities, but the government, in their bid to strengthen their new Shinto religion, closed many of the local shrines and forced the local people to move their altars/shrines to a central shrine more often than not enshrining a "national" kami.

It is obvious that these Kojin altars are the site of much more activity than the main shrine.

Shisa of Okinawa 3

Here are some more Shisa, the uniquely Okinawan version of guardian dogs. This first one is at the small museum inside the theme park Okinawa World.

This pair of very unusal ones were also in that museum. They look quite old and possibly are more closely related to the earliest imported from China.

This is a large, modern one outside a monorail station in Naha.

This little guy was peeking out up in the far north of the island.

And this one was on a traditional building in the grounds of the Prefectural Museum in Naha.

Ishigaki Sea Salt

Kora Shrine

Kora Shrine

Kora Shrine, located on the small hillside overlooking the Ohashi River just before it empties into the Nakaumi, appears to be just a small, local shrine, however, it is listed in the 8th Century Izumo Fudoki, though using different kanji to write the name.

The kami enshrined is is listed as Tamatare, known as Kora no Tamatare, the main kami of Kora Taisha a big shrine near Kurume in Fukuoka. According to the myth, he was a "minister" serving Jingu during the mythical subjugation of Korea. He is represented as having a long white beard. (Quite a handsome guy :))

The main shrine itself seems barely used, however, there is a substantial altar to Kojin with a very, very long body, and this seems to be the main focus of the shrine.

Kojin is often called the Kami of the Hearth, but here in Izumo its identity is more complex. It is a mix of land kami, ujigami, Tanokami, etc and is obviously the main kami for the people of the area, as opposed to the elite and rulers of the area.