Mugiwara Zaiku Traditional Straw Crafts

 

Mugiwara Zaiku is a traditional type of craft that nowadays is practiced in just one location in Japan, Kinosaki Onsen in northern Hyogo.

It uses dyed wheat straw that is cut into intricate patterns kind of like marquetry and other types of inlay.

It is most commonly used to decorate boxes, though it is also used for other objects like fans or dolls.

The straw is prepared, dyed, then cut and flattened.

Nowadays modern chemical dyes allow a wide range of sometimes bright colours, but traditionally the colours would have been more natural earth tones.

As well as being cut, like veneers in traditional marquetry, the strips of straw are sometimes woven into patterns before being used.

In the early 18th century a visitor to the hot springs from Tottori, a certain Hanhichi, made small objects out of the local straw to help fund his travels.

Local people imitated his work and now Kinosaki is the only place in the country where it is still practiced.

The European physician Siebold took examples of mugiwara zaiku back with him in the 19th centuryand are on display at several museums in Europe.

The collections are of such good quality that craftsmen from Kinosaki traveled to Europe in 2001 to study them. As well as shops selling the crafts now in Kinosaki there is also a small museum dedicated to the craft housed in a former storehouse. Here visitors can take classes and produce their own articles.

The previous post in those series on Toyooka was on Gokurakuji Temple

Miyajitake Shrine Sasebo

 

Miyajitake Shrine in Sasebo is on a steep hillside in the downtown area.

I can find no history of it, though at the entrance there is a cluster of small local shrines that would have been moved here probably in the early 20th century, if not earlier.

The architecture is modern, as the original would have been destroyed in the great bombing raid of 1945.

The new structure is quite unique, with a long covered structure leading to the main hall.

It is a branch of the quite famous Miyajidake Shrine further north in Fukuoka.

It was built around a major kofun for a powerful, local ruler and is now considered to be Empress Jingu.

Also enshrined are two of her brothers.

The previous ost was on the Fudo Myo statues below nearby Saihoji Temple.

Isotake Port

 

Just a short walk past one small inlet after Takuno and I came into Isotake Port.

Named after Isotakeru, one of the sons of Susano, the small shrine at the harbour, Karakamishirahige Shrine is where I first read about the myth of Susano coming here.

The shrine's name roughly translates as " foreign gods from Sila" and enshrines Susano and a couple of his daughters. Some versions say that Isotakeru came with them from Sila, some say he was born here.

The shrine records say that Susano and others would travel back and forth to the Korean Peninsula, a story confirmed by other legends further down the coast at several coastal towns in  Yamaguchi. The myth of Susano's arrival in these parts is also recognized at the previous port of Takuno.

It is a decent-sized harbour with quite a few inshore fishing boats.

A friend and I stopped in here in a small yacht many years ago, and the local fishermen were intrigued by our boat.

If you look back through all the posts in this series documenting my explorations of the Sea of Japan coast, you may notice there are only fishing boats, no pleasure boats of any kind. Yachts and pleasure boats exist in Japan of course, but not in this neck of the woods.

Like traditional towns, these little fishing settlements have lots of very narrow alleys between the houses.

The previous post was on Takuno Port.

Fudo Myoo's below Saihoji Temple

 

Just below Saihoji Temple in downtown Sasebo, but quite outside its grounds, is an altar with numerous Buddhist statues, most being Fudo Myoo

Because there were no statues of Fudo inside the temple  and grounds, I surmised that this altar was not connected to Saihoji.

Saihoji is a Soto Zen temple, and Fudo is most usually associated with Shingon or Tendai Buddhism, the so-called esoteric sects, and with Shugendo, the syncretic mountain religion with strong ties to those esoteric sects.

I can find no information at all about this small site.

The previous post was on Saihoji Temple.

Saihoji Temple Sasebo

 

Saihoji Temple is considered to be the oldest and the most important temple in Sasebo.

It was rebuilt after being destroyed at the end of WWII in a bombing raid. The impressive Niomon was not actually completed until 2001.

Inside the Niomon were a pair of statues of Fujin, the Wind God, and Raijin, the Storm God.

Ostensibly Shinto in origin, being created by Izanami while in Yomi, they are usually found, like here, in Buddhist temples.

According to the temple's website, the Nio were each carved in China from a single piece of wood.

It is a Soto Zen temple with a Shaka Nyorai as honzon.

The original temple was Rinzai and founded in the early 13th century. It fell into disrepair but in the mid 15th century it was moved to its current location by the Akasaki Lord and rebuilt as a Soto temple.

The previous post was on nearby Kameyama Hachimangu Shrine.

Narufuchi Dam Sasaguri

 

The Narufuchi Dam is on the Narufuchi River that flows into the Tatara River running through Sasagura and down to Fukuoka City.

It was completed in 2001 and is 308 meters wide and 67 meters high. The reservoir behind it can hold up to 4.4 million cubic meters of water.

Like the vast majority of dams in Japan the ostensible reason for its construction was "flood control" but it also provides some drinking water.

It generates no electricity, and like 70 percent of all dams in Japan it cannot release extra water until it's full.

There is a park below the dam and hiking trails along the reservoir banks. I visited after coming down the mountain towards the end of our first day walking the Sasaguri Pilgrimage.

The previous post was on Saigokuji, a small, unmanned temple just upstream from the reservoir.

Kameyama Hachimangu Shrine Sasebo

 

Located on top of a small hill in what is now central Sasebo, Kameyama Hachimangu is by far the biggest and most important shrine in Sasebo.

The shrine claims to have been founded directly from Usa Hachiman Shrine in the late 7th century.

At that time it was a Kyushu cult and had not yet been adopted nationally, nor was it yet associated with the legendary emperor Ojin.

The Hachiman cult was adopted by the samurai and so assumed major importance in later Japanese history, so when Sasebo became a major naval port in the late 19th and  twentieth centuies the shrine was patronized by the local naval officers.

Like much of central Sasebo, the shrine was completely destroyed by bombing in 1945.

As a Hachman shrine the main kami are Ojin, his mother Jingu, and his father Chuai. Unusually Nintoku, his son, is also listed here. There are also numerous secondary shrines within the grounds.

In the modern, postwar ranking of shrines Kameyama Hachiman is listed as Beppyo, which means more important than a regular shrine.

I was exploring Sasebo at the end of day 71 of my Kyushu pilgrimage walk as I had been based in Sasebo for several days. The previous post was on Mimasakachinju Shrine.