Seeking materials for reconstructing Matsue Castle’s Otemon Gate!!

Matsue City aims to reconstruct Matsue Castle’s Otemon Gate that was torn down in the early Meiji Period, and is seeking source materials on which to base it.

○Requested Materials:　Old photos or blueprints of Matsue Castle’s Otemon Gate (materials than can be used for reconstruction purposes)
○Reward Money:　5,000,000 yen
※This is only applicable in cases where an expert reviews the materials and determines that they are useful for reconstruction purposes.
○Deadline：March 31, 2016
※Application period may end sooner upon finding usable materials.

If you have applicable materials, please contact: kokuhou AT city.matsue.lg.jp.

Advertisement

 

Ou-no-Mori, the forest of grandiose myth

Allow to borrow a few panels of my comic retelling of the legend of Kunibiki (starts here), in which the god Yatsukamizuomitsunu-no-mikoto dragged land from Korea and other parts of Japan to expand on the land of Izumo and build what we now know as the Shimane Peninsula.

(And now allow me to borrow from part of my later explanation of the legend in relation to history and geography.)

Way back when this legend was being recorded in the Izumo-no-Kuni-Fudoki, and for a few centuries surrounded that, the governmental affairs of the region were handled from a district in what is now southern Matsue. This district was known as… Ou!

Yes, that “Ou” which Yatsuka shouted when he declared his work a job well done. Not only does the interpretation of the utterance vary slightly, but the spelling varies as well, and is further complicated by how it was written then and how it was written later on and how it’s even written differently now. Are you ready for some language nerdiness now? His shout, whatever it expressed, was recorded with the characters 意恵 for the sounds as opposed to their meanings. Phonetically, they were later expressed as おゑ, which may look strange to the hiragana-inclined readers among you. This is because we no longer use the character ゑ (ye) in Japanese syllabary. It’s usually replaced by え (e, like eh) now, which is why the lucky god (and San’in native) Ebisu is usually called えびす, but depending on what beer you’re drinking you might still see ゑびす from time to time. However, in this case, “Oye” (oh-yeh, not oi!) was not usually transcribed as “Oe” but as “Ou” (like oh, not oo) or… “Iu”?

Now we need to get back to the use of characters used for pronunciation, though when it comes to place names, you’ll find the general rules of standard pronunciation for Chinese characters mashed around to fit the Japanese language are not always followed. For our purposes here, it’s not worth trying to make sense of. Let’s just accept that although Yatsuka may have shouted 意恵, the area named after his shout was recorded as 意宇. Although in some place names it would still be read “Ou” in keeping with the desired pronunciation cast upon these unsuspecting characters stripped of their meaning in favor of phonetics, the more common sense reading for them is “iu” (ee-oo).

Still following? Good! Because you find both “Ou” and “Iu” throughout the region. While the district of Ou has been parsed out and reorganized into other little neighborhoods that retain many names passed down from the Izumo-no-Kuni-Fudoki, when the area is called “Ou” you’re usually referring to the ancient government center and its ruins and the historic shrines found throughout that area. The aforementioned Fudoki-no-Oka is the best place to go to learn about this, though so far I haven’t visited the indoor exhibits because I was running out of time the day I have visited (having spent too much time that day at the neighboring shrines and folklore village, Izumo Kanbe-no-Sato). On the eastern stretches of good old Ou, there is the Iu River flowing down from Lake Nakaumi.

But what of that forest, made from Yatsuka’s rake?

Now for the update—–I have finally found the forest.

While my friend and I were already in the area searching out the Manai springs and surrounding shrines, we searched it out, transversing the narrow roads between rice paddies, following a handful of maps, keeping our eyes peeled, when at last we found it, the forest of legend.

…Huh?

That’s it?

That’s it.

As much as I like searching out spots associated with the loads of mythology that took place in this region, this one is humorously underwhelming. We got a few laughs out of it as we took our pictures, an a curious farmer parked his truck behind us to strike up a conversation in his thick Izumo dialect. Seems a festival had taken place there recently, but since he lives in the neighboring neighborhood instead, he wasn’t sure of all the details.

One of the things he was sure of was that way back when he was young, this area was all forest.

Underwhelming through Ou-no-Mori may be now, these quiet hills are heavy with history of passed centuries, as the Izumo region was ruled from here, affectively hundreds and thousands of lives and remaining mindful of the gods’ mythological influence on them. Though what happens here now merely seems to affect the sparse locals, the awareness of mythological presence lingers on.

 

“Nan darou…”

One day, a friend asked me to go to Manai Shrine and Rokusho Shrine with her.

What? I thought. Usually I’m the one asking people to drive me out into the countryside hunting for mythological shrines.

Naturally, I agreed, as these two have been on my visit list since I wrote that first Kojiki manga about Izanagi and Izanagi. Manai Shrine is up a long flight of stone steps and quietly hidden away against a mountain, which made it strike me as a counterpart shrine to Kamosu Shrine, which is dedicated to Izanami and located in the same general area. Rokusho Shrine was located directly next to the local Izumo government offices back in the Heian period, so it was used as an organizational base for all the shrines in the area.

All three of them have the same crest, the character 有 (ari, “to have”) inside of a tortoise shell. The tortoise represents longetivity and is therefore lucky, while 有 is made up of the characters 十 (“ten”) and 月 (“month/moon”), which, when paired together as 十月 mean “October” (or at least, they referred to the 10th month of the agricultural calendar beforehand, but that’s been a mess since the Gregorian switch). Of course, the 10th month is special here in the Izumo region. While it is traditionally referred to as Kannazuki (“the month without gods,” written 神無月 (gods-nothing-month)), only here is it referred to as Kamiarizuki (“the month with gods,” written 神在月 (gods-exist-month), but can also be written as 神有月–there’s that 有 again!). This is because the 8 million gods from around Japan congregate at Izumo Taisha during that time.

Back in the old days…

We visited Manai first, and found it quiet and sparse, in a refined sort of way.

Rokusho turned out a bit more interesting, as we found the remains of some recent festival. “Nan darou…” we both trailed off many times as we noticed things around the shrine, the straw weavings and the gohei (paper streamerson small sticks) left around the trees. “Nan darou… I wonder what this is…?” We found other little things, such as a handwashing font partially hidden under the trees at a back entrance, a boat possibly for use on the nearby Iu River, and a basketball hoop. “Nan darou…”

What really brought my friend out to those southern hills and valley at the outskirts of Matsue was not the shrines so much as the Manai Waterfall, which the nearby shrine was named after, and is said to be holy water with healing properties. It is about three meters high, and nestled away up into the hill, and we made a few rounds around the neighborhood following a handful of different maps trying to find it. “Doko darou… where could it be…” we said over and over.

We asked directions from an old lady taking a break from her gardening who answered us in very thick Izumo dialect, and later on we asked directions from an old man with a dialect almost as thick. He was cheerful and helpful, but trying to be those things sometimes comes off as discouraging. “You’ll see that sign for the soumen shop, and it’ll be right up behind it, you can’t miss it! But nobody’s used it for years, they don’t make nagashi-soumen there anymore. Nobody bothers with the waterfall anymore. It’s nothing much. But yeah, there’s a parking lot, and you’ll find the waterfall right there! It’s too bad about the soumen…”

Little did we inner-city dwellers know about this supposedly famous nagashi-soumen (soumen is a type of thin, white noodle, and when served nagashi-soumen style it slides with water down a bamboo shoot and you try to catch it as it goes by–a popular thing to do in summer). I saw one big sign for it by the road as we passed around the tiny neighborhood and the hill a few times, but mistakenly thought it was referring to the building it was fixed to instead of to the little abandoned stall we found by the other sign the old man told us to look for.

The view from the parking lot

As soon as we stepped out of the car, we heard the sound of water, and found its source much sooner than we expected. Filled though the neglected pond was with fallen leaves, the water was perfectly clear.

“Maybe we should wash our hands with it?”
“A rinse couldn’t hurt.”
“You think it’s safe to drink? Dou darou… I wonder…”
“Dou darou… maybe fill your water bottle and then take it home and boil it?”
“Ah, good idea.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Nan darou…”
“I wonder if it works. Dou darou…”
“Dou darou…”

I took a look around the forested area and noticed this little sight next to the pond.

“Hey, it’s an Inari statue… hhm, the head’s fallen off. That’s unsettling.”
“Nan darou…”
“Nan darou…”

And then we found another by a tree behind us.

“Nan darou…”
“Nan darou ne…”

Beyond the tree, there was a little blocked off clearing of mysteriously placed rocks, and the carved ones were not legible.

“I wonder why we can’t go here?”
“I wonder if there’s something buried.”
“I wonder what it says.”
“Nan darou…”
“Nan darou…”

Neither of were particularly wary, merely curious. We stood and looked up at the branches and fresh spring leaves high above us, rustling in the wind on that cloudy April afternoon. The light and sounds were different in that space from the sleepy neighborhood and rice fields below, the forgotten gathering spot for catching noodles sliding down the supposedly holy water.

“Hmm.”
“Hmmmm.”
“That’s pleasant.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad we found it.”
“Yeah, me too.”

We went on trading our darou‘s throughout the rest of that shrine hopping afternoon in the southern stretches of Matsue, and the heart of where the Izumo region used to be ruled from.

 

Hokki Shrine: For a goddess who turned into a bird

Although the tale of Kaka-no-Kukedo, the birthplace of the primary deity of Sada Shrine, is a more riveting tale, I included another Izumo-no-Kuni Fudoki legend in this story. The Fudoki (like 8th century encyclopedias of Japan) in part set out to determine names for all the major geographical features of the country, which included assigning fortuitous kanji (Chinese written characters) for them. Quite often, the names they chose required some mythological background.

This is case, a village derived its name from a little bird.

Read about this bird’s role in Japanese culture here.

The Cettia diphone, clumsily translated as the Japanese Bush Warbler or Japanese nightingale, is simpler to refer to as the known here as uguisu (鶯). In ancient times, it used to be called a houki-dori, a Houki bird (法吉鳥). The legend states that Umugi-hime (sometimes known as Umuka-hime while her sister Kisagai-hime is sometimes known as Kisaka-hime) changed into a Houki bird’s form and flew to that place. Hence, it was called Houki Village (法吉郷).

Years later, the written characters remained, but their pronunciation changed to Hokki. This district of Matsue remainds under that name, and also retains an uguisu as its symbol.

There is, of course, a shrine dedicated to Umugi-hime, though it has changed locations from Uguisu Valley to a spot with a better vantage point. Seeing as she and her sister made their big appearance in the Kojiki when they answered Onamuji’s mother’s pleas and healed his burns and brought him back to life, it is a shrine popularly associated with mothers’ love.

Nearby, there is a pond called Takido. It is said to have salt water because it is connected to the sea, and because many fish get lost there, you can catch quite the haul. Specifically, it is said to be connected to Kaka-no-Kukedo, but given the distance, I can’t help but find this a bit fishy.

Despite the self-proclaimed connection to uguisu (and for that matter, saltwater fish?), the area is probably better known for a good firefly viewing spot in summer.

 

Matsue Castle: Still original, now a treasure

On May 15, 2015, Matsue Castle was deemed a National Treasure!

It was already Important Cultural Property and one of the twelve remaining original castles of Japan, noted especially for the atmosphere within from its wooden floors, pillars, and stairs, steep and uneven with the same character they had when the castle was completed back in 1611. It is now the fifth castle around Japan to enjoy this status, one that a dedicated citizens’ group had long been working to achieve. Matsue Castle has a history of relying on its citizens, as it was only due to the citizens’ insistence and fundraising to purchase it from the government that it was saved from being burned down during the Meiji Period, when many castles were deemed unnecessary by the Westernizing government and subsequently torn down (only to be rebuilt in concrete years later). The black castle, affectionately nicknamed Chidori-jo (Plover Castle) for its sweeping, gabled roofs, and the original rock walls and moats and canals, and even the town layout designed to protect the castle from intruding armies remain much as the same as they were in the Edo period.

It’s okay to be a little jealous that I get to see this National Treasure every day from my window. Life here is pretty cool.

Click photo for Facebook source.

 

Tsuwano (3 of 3): Horseback archery, samurai style! It’s Yabusame!

Samurai. Horses. Feats of martial prowess. Sounds like a good time to me.

Especially if it involves period dress, you can bet I want to be there. I don’t often see processions in Kamakura style outfits, so that made me very excited!

This is Yabusame, a horseback archery started first for keeping warriors sharp in times of non-war, and continued in many spots throughout Japan today for the entertainment of the gods. However, Tsuwano is home to one of the oldest Yabusame ranges still in use, making it one of the more impressive places to see this event as well. (I’ve also seen Yabusame at a neighborhood shrine festival and it was… not as riveting, to say the least). You can read more about its history and practice in these articles:

“Tsuwano Yabusame Festival” by Jake Davies
“Witnessing the ancient yabusame ceremony in Tsuwano, Japan” by Clyde Holt

I’ll write more about my experience!

It was the second week of April, so many of the cherry blossoms had already fallen, but many were still scattering–enough that I found a few in my bag and in my hair. The weather was between warm and cool throughout the day, and it was a good day to stand outside for an outdoor event. Unlike other Shinto rituals I’ve stood outside and waited for, this one started right around the time it was promised (once at 11am, and again later at 2pm).

It started with a procession of the horses, warriors, and various footmen and attendants. They walked one way down the track, and then back up the other way.

These outfits are called “Suikan” and I love them.

There was a bit of a crowd, but it was easier to see the whole thing than I expected it would be. It’s a very long track, which provided the crowd lots of space to disperse, and there is a slight slope along which people in the back stand to get a few over people’s heads. There are three targets down the track to stand near and watch, so as far as crowded Shinto rituals are concerned, this one provided a number of good vantage points.

With no time wasted, they began having archers-both men and women–ride their horses down the track every few minutes. That means, with my cheap old point-and-shoot camera, I had plenty of chances to snap pictures. Which is good, because many times I didn’t get a photo until the horse was already long gone.

By each target, there was a group of people dressed like this. If they hit the target, the guy with the stick would raise it in the air.

The arrows had big, blunt tips that made big thumping sounds when they hit the targets, and quite often when they were hit, the boards–at about the height of a warrior’s face–would break. The boards, including the ones that were not hit, were collected after each run and later sold, I believe, with the ones that were hit being an especially nice good luck charm. By that time, the boards were already covered in calligraphy.

Thankfully, people like my friend Melissa had much better technological skills. This is a slow-motion video she took of an archer breaking a target (thanks for letting me post it, Melissa!):

Overall, the event took about 45 minutes, which left us both satisfied and with plenty of energy and time left to see the town. I’ve been wanting to see this event ever since I came to the San’in region, and it was a well-spent 45 minutes.

 

Should have had more tea: Gensuke Pillar of the Matsue Ohashi Bridge

This is a story about one of the chilling spots in a ghost-story laden town, and how the custom of drinking two cups of tea at time started in Matsue:

In the 13th year of the Keicho Period (1608), when there was difficulty in constructing the first Matsue Ohashi Bridge, a man named Gensuke happened to cross at the wrong time and was sacrificed as a human pillar. It was thought that if there was a human sacrifice, then the bridge would be stable. It could have been anyone, so they decided to toss over the first man who crossed wearing a certain kind of trousers.

It’s hard to say whether this story is fact or fiction, or whether Gensuke really was the victim’s name, but the story caught on enough that there is a memorial stone for him on the south bank of the Ohashi River, by which a famous cherry tree blooms. Though not the original, one of the middle pillars on the east side of the Matsue Ohashi Bridge is sometimes still called “Gensuke-bashira” (Gensuke Pillar). I can’t say for sure which one it is, though.

It is said that on that morning as he was having tea, his wife asked, “Why don’t you have another cup and take your time before you leave?” To which he replied, “I have to hurry and get to work,” and then left after having finished one cup. If he had stayed for the second cup, perhaps he would not have crossed the bridge at the wrong time and would not have been sacrificed. That story spread, and Matsue’s custom of drinking two cups of tea was born.

Or perhaps he could have been saved by wearing a different pair of trousers, but that hasn’t had quite the same cultural impact.

Even without the interesting story to go along with it, Matsue Ohashi is my favorite of the four bridges connecting the northern city center with the southern city center (with a fifth further east). It is the second one to the east from Lake Shinji, and that route takes you between two charming shopping streets, and the granite railings and lanterns give it a nice atmosphere. It’s also the best spot from which to view the O-bon lanterns floating down the Ohashi River every August.

Memorial pillar in nearby Gensuke Park

 

Heavy Consumption of Tea Culture in Matsue

It’s any given dinner party that’s been running late, and the little seafood restaurant with decorative scrolls, flowers, and dolls throughout the room we’re taking up has served us matcha (green tea made from powdered tea leaves) at the end of the meal. Casual though the setting is, my tea ceremony training kicks in, so I’m sitting formally in seiza and turn the cup two times clockwise before downing it in three sips or so.

A talkative man sitting on the other side of the table takes notice. “You drank the tea very well.”

“Ah… well… yes. Thank you.”

A friend smiles and fills in for him that I practice tea, which leads us to finding out he and I both practice the omotesenke school of tea and that he knows my teacher. As we talk a bit more, he lets us all in on an open secret: “Actually, in Matsue, you’re a little uncultured if you don’t know how to drink matcha. Most people have at least a little practice.”

This isn’t surprising to me, and I’ve heard similar comments from many other people. I’ve spent time in other parts of Japan and had wide social groups there, but here in Matsue, a much larger proportion of my social circle has practiced the tea ceremony to some extent, or at least has enough passing familiarity to know the basics and be able to explain them, be it to foreign guests or Japanese guests from parts of Japan where the tea ceremony seems more archaic. That’s not to say everyone is an expert (though there are plenty to be found here).

However, to say that Matsue is stiff about tea rituals would be incorrect. Rather, Matsue’s tea culture started to take a strong hold when the tea ceremony had already developed into something like a Pokemon trading card frenzy, in which rich people were all seeking the fanciest of tools, and artisans and merchants were selling off second-rate tea cups for exorbitant prices given the amount of prestige they could associate with their use. In many ways, the the world of tea (chanoyu) had become a world of ego and showing off ownership of expensive tools.

19-year-old Matsudaira Harusato (later known by his tea name, Fumai), grew up in the bustling city of Edo (later known as Tokyo) and saw the ebbs and flows of high culture there. As much as he was accused of having his head stuck in his tea cups instead of on preparing to be the lord of the financially troubled Matsue domain, he wrote “Mudagoto” (“Useless Words”), which was a criticism of modern tea culture, in which he stated:

Making chanoyu a luxury, exhausting beauty to make it splendid is a distressful thing… rather, it can be made an adjutant to governing the country well.

In response, Matsue’s popular tea culture cuts many of the frills. Although there are many social elements tied directly to a system of hierarchy and harmony and a wealth of tools enough to fill 18 volumes worth of “Kokon Meibutsu Ruiju” (“Classified Collection of Famous Utensils of Ancient and Modern Times”), ultimately, chanoyu is about drinking tea.

It’s not to say that no one drinks sencha (green tea made from steeped leaves), but the uncited but often quoted fact that Matsue drinks more matcha per capita than the rest of Japan does is also unsurprising. Besides the Grand Tea Ceremony every fall and other tea events throughout the year, on a walk between JR Matsue Station and Matsue Castle I can already call to mind seven or eight casual places you can stop in for a quick cup of matcha with wagashi refreshment, and that’s before you even get to the ten or so other places that come to mind once you get to the castle area and beyond. Quite often I wander in just to take a look at tools and I wind up being served a cup of matcha I didn’t order.

When I hang out at people’s houses, a lot of them have working knowledge of how to prepare matcha and have at least one decent tea cup and chasen (tea whisk) with which to serve tea. While being served a cup of sencha while visiting people may be common elsewhere, many homes here regularly serve matcha, not just for special occasions. What’s more, it’s a local custom to serve two cups of tea, not just one.

There are a couple reasons for this. First, back in Edo period, especially when Fumai was the ruling lord, he gave the domain a financial overhaul and then Matsue had extra cash on hand with which to indulge in tea culture. Besides documenting the aforementioned list of valuable tea tools and compiling a treasure trove for the domain of over 800 exquisite tools, the common people had more money to afford to drink matcha. While different kinds of sencha are made from different flushes of leaves from different parts of the tea bush grown in different conditions, matcha is made from only the very top leaves in stricter conditions, and the best grades of thick matcha only use the very, very top leaves. Hence, drinking matcha on a regular basis will take a bigger chunk out of your household budget than regularly drinking sencha will, but the townspeople grew quite a taste for it.

Given the city’s proximity away from the more active trade and travel routes and relative self-sustainability with local rice and seafood, the culture here was less influenced by the changes going on outside of the region, and therefore had a strong base for a self-developed culture. This is still evident today, as while much of the rest of Japan is caught in a post-bubble era, in the San’in region, it’s more like, “bubble? What bubble?”

But why serve two cups of matcha at a time? There’s an early Edo period reason for that I’ll touch on in the next entry. In the meantime, it’s always worth taking a look at the flip side of all of this. Although matcha is part of the cultural face of Matsue, people are individuals, each with their own lifestyles that may or may not fit an image of the city.

On a visit to an elementary after-school club, the students prepared matcha for us as thanks for the things we had prepared for them before. It was quite an affair—there were old, broken chasen everywhere, yokan chomped on from the ends of toothpicks, and cups/tea bowls for everyone. It seems the kids were supposed to bring their own. Some had beautiful chawan that they brought to school in sleek wooden boxes labeled with the tea bowls’ credentials, while others brought miso soup bowls or tupperware. There was frustration as they could not get the tea to froth, and a handful of the kids who had some experience walked around all their schoolmates and the cups of hot tea everything to go grab the chasen and froth everyone elses’ tea. A friend of one of the club members told me later that they had originally planned to serve manjuu, but something went haywire and they switched to cutting up youkan at the last minute. There were a couple hushed complaints about the taste of matcha while the kids snapped at each other to hurry up because the guests’ tea was getting cold. This was after we had already waited in the office for a little while as the kids did all the preparation.

Serving matcha to us as an introduction to Japanese culture was something the kids thought of a long time ago, and only when asked directly by the teacher if I had ever tried matcha before did I admit that I practice the tea ceremony. As expected, that made her and the few students who were paying attention a little embarrassed, but the teacher played it off well by pointing out loudly to the rest of the club members that I am so interested in Japanese culture.

However, instead of stopping there, I really appreciate what she said next.

“Most of these kids have never had matcha, believe it or not. Even though it’s Japanese culture, a lot of Japanese people pay no attention to it at all. Kids, a show of hands, please. How many of you drink matcha at home?”

Out of 20-something kids, less than a third raise their hands.

The teacher’s point is proved. As nice as it feels to celebrate surface culture, one should always be aware of the culture of how people actually live their personal lives. Still, I can’t help but think there would be fewer hands going up in other places.

That’s still a lot of matcha.

 

Feudal parade in Matsue, 2015

I snapped a few photos at this event as well, but it’s the kind of event that calls for beautiful photography. For beautiful photography, visit Made in Matsue!

 

The Cape of Miho: Ebisu’s Home

Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815) illustration of Daikoku and Ebisu (Museum of Fine Arts Boston–click for source!)

We’ll start out with a fun fact: “Shimane” is written as “island” (島) and “root” (根), as it is like the root of the islands of Japan. As many cultural innovations entered Japan from the Asian continent through this area, this name makes some sense. Hideki Yukawa, the first Japanese recipient of the Nobel Prize, took it a bit further and said that Mihonoseki, the Cape of Miho at the northeast end of Shimane Prefecture, is where one can find the roots of the Japanese soul.

According to the Izumo-no-Kuni Fudoki (see below), this place is named after Okuninushi’s son Mihosusumi. Mihosusumi’s mother Nunagawa-hime was from the land of Koshi (modern day Ishikawa Prefecture), and according to their local mythology, Mihosusumi eventually returned to the Noto Peninsula. According to another Fudoki legend, the Cape of Miho was literally taken off the tip of the Noto Peninsula and dragged through the Sea of Japan and attached to the Shimane Peninsula. These myths, as well as archeological evidence, suggest there were strong ties between ancient Izumo and ancient Koshi.

After city mergers, Mihonoseki became a district of Matsue City, the capital of Shimane Prefecture (technically, Mihonoseki-cho). It happens to border another district within the city called Shimane-cho. Don’t get too confused yet–we have many other confusing bits to sift through in this entry!

Specifically, who or what are these local deities and how are they related?!

Although I try to keep things simple by saying I write manga interpretations of the Kojiki, I draw material from more than just the legends as they are written in that book (and even then, every translation into modern Japanese, English, or illustratration has its own spin on the Kojiki’s contents). The Kojiki was completed in 712, and was a mash of clan myths from around Japan mainly compiled by a nobleman named O-no-Yasumaro. It was written in Chinese characters that more or less fit Japanese pronunciation, which is why the deities have such clunky names with kanji you’d rarely see used together like that.

The 48 Fudoki, records of individual provinces under the imperial court’s rule, underwent compilation starting in 713, the year after the completion of the Kojiki. In addition to geographical, economic, and ecological data, the Fudoki also expanded on Shinto mythology. Of them, only the records of Izumo Province remain mostly intact today.

A few years later, in 720, the Nihonshoki was finished. This had more of a national history textbook approach and political basis with a different sort of mash of writing in Chinese style. It also included Shinto mythology, and O-no-Yasumaro likely contributed a lot to this project. However, there are some differences, and many of the same gods are recorded under different names than were used for them in the Kojiki.

Jump ahead about nine or ten centuries, and Shinto evolved into something almost indistinguishable from Buddhism in general practice. Many famous Shinto deities merged with Buddhist deities, many of which had Chinese or Indian origin. Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods, a jolly group of folk favorites, were not a home grown group, but they were so beloved that at some point in the Edo era their personas merged with Shinto deities as well. The lines between canon and fanon were blurred past the point of no return outside of scholarly circles, and despite the efforts of Kokugaku (“nativist studies” looking for the heart of Japan) scholars and Meiji Period policies to forcefully seperate Shinto and foreign influences like Buddhism, these mashed identities persisted.

That leaves us today with all the following phrases being more or less correct:

“Okuninushi, the Lord of the Land who ruled over the lands of Japan, is the god at Izumo Taisha.”
“Okuninushi’s son is Kotoshironushi, who is the god at Miho Shrine.”
“Daikoku-ten and Ebisu-ten, two of Japan’s favorite lucky gods, reside at Izumo Taisha and Miho Shrine respectively, on either end of the Shimane Peninsula.”

1856 illustration of Daikoku and Ebisu by Utagawa Kunimori II (Museum of Fine Arts Boston–click for source!)

Daikoku-ten is originally an Indian deity called Mahakala (among other names), and came to Japan via China with most of the other lucky gods and has a few funny similarities with Okuninushi like being able to write their names in synonomous ways (大国 and 大黒 can both be read “Daikoku”) and that they both get along with rats (recall that Okuninushi was rescued by them, and Daikoku is often pictured with them because where there are rats, there is grain–they are a sign of prosperity and plentiful food).

Ebisu, however, is the only Lucky God who is native to Japan, supposedly born without outside cultural influence. Good for him, at least we have that much straight. Besides the story that he washed up to shore (thereby implying having come from somewhere else anyway? That’s my question!), there are a lot of different stories about his origins. If we accept that he is Kotoshironushi, Okuninushi/Daikoku’s son, then he is the son of the Lord of the Land, and he and his father are best buds. If we accept that he is Izanami and Izanagi’s son Hiruko, the leech-like baby they didn’t make very well and sent away at sea, then he is a deity who overcame terrible hardship as a child, eventually grew bones, and became a cheerful god who brings great luck to fishers.

Other stories about his traits are also very inconsistent. For instance, it’s fairly commonly accepted that Ebisu does not attend the gods’ meeting at Izumo Taisha every October because he is deaf and does not hear the summons. However, it is also said that Ebisu is a god of music because he loves a good jam. Which is it? If Ebisu were really Kotoshironushi, he’d be like a bratty teenager ignoring his father telling him to do something by not attending that meeting.

As Japan has fishing villages just about everywhere, Ebisu is a favorite and highly revered god throughout Japan. Although Miho Shrine is said to be the head of all 3,385 shrines that honor Kotoshironushi, or by extended definition Ebisu, it’s hard to think that he spends much time there. He is known as a traveling god who spontaneously washes up on shore (sometimes in forms we would think not-so-lucky, like drowned corpses) to bless the local fishing industry.

At the very least, we can say with some confidence that he enjoys fishing. Mihonoseki boasts of a favorite fishing spot of his, a tiny island off the very eastern tip of the peninsula (now called Jizo Cape, where the historic Mihonoseki Lighthouse stands). On a clear day you can see both the Oki Islands and Mt. Daisen and there, and it is also said to be the spot at which he first washed up to the islands of Japan.

Literally, the Douzen islands (Chibu, Ama, Nishinoshima) are the “front islands” and Dougo (Okinoshima) is the “back island.” By the way, they’re all part of a fantastic Geo-Park and visiting them was one of the best vacations I’ve ever taken.

Hence, Miho Shrine is located nearby. Given the now inseverable connections with Daikoku and Ebisu, it is known as katamairi (visiting only one side) when you pay a visit to either Izumo Taisha to the west or Miho Shrine to the east, but ryomairi (visiting both sides) when you double your luck by visiting both.

However, Ebisu/Kotoshironushi does not get Miho Shrine to himself. We’ll take a closer look at this unique double-shrine in the following entry.

—–

2018/3/5 UPDATE: This blog is no longer updated. However, I would like to include a comment from Bluedon here for more/better information:

I just wanted to point out that Koshi is hardly limited to modern-day Ishikawa Prefecture. It also covered what is now Fukui, Toyama and Niigata Prefectures, hence why the latter three were later called Echizen, Ecchuu and Echigo.

Nunakawa-hime (Nunagawa-hime) is actually from what is now Niigata Prefecture. Her name is linked with 沼川郷, a region which is now known as Itoigawa City. Many shrines in the Itoigawa are dedicated to her, her husband, and their son, including Nunagawa Shrine, Nou Hakusan Shrine, and countless Suwa Shrines.

Legends about Nunakawa-hime’s use of jade were what led to the rediscovery of jade in Itoigawa and the discovery that in fact all Jomon period jade in Japan had originated in Itoigawa.