Kogarasu Shrine

Kogarasu Shrine, a Hilltop Sanctuary South of Tenjin

Kogarasu Shrine (小烏神社) stands on a low hill in Kego, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka City, and its seven structures, all built in 1929, were listed as national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 5 December 2019. The deity enshrined here is Taketsunumi no Kami, who in the chronicles of Emperor Jimmu's eastward campaign took the form of Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow that guided the imperial army. Both the shrine's name, which contains the character for crow, and the old district name Furukogarasu that survives nearby are said to derive from that deity.

The shrine sits about a kilometre south of the Tenjin shopping district. From Jonan-dori you turn into a narrow residential lane, and a stone torii appears between houses and apartment blocks. Beyond it a flight of stone steps climbs to a terrace raised above the surrounding streets, where a stand of mature broadleaf evergreens muffles the traffic.

The name is read Kogarasu Jinja. In Edo-period maps and in local usage the shrine appears as Kogarasu Daimyojin. It should not be confused with Kego Shrine on the Tenjin crossing, although the two have a shared history described below.

An Undated Founding and a Shrine Drawn on Old Maps

The founding date of Kogarasu Shrine is unknown. The name Kogarasu Daimyojin is said to appear in the Hakata Oko-zu, a map attributed to the Kamakura period, and the shrine is remembered as the tutelary sanctuary of the Yakuin district. Shrines to Taketsunumi no Kami are concentrated in Kumano and in the old capital region, so why this particular deity came to rest on a hill in Chikuzen remains unexplained.

Shrine tradition holds that when Kuroda Nagamasa built Fukuoka Castle, the settlement and its shrine were moved to Kego village, and that the shrine was later relocated again to its present site. A 1777 map of the castle town, the Fukuoka Gojoka Ezu, shows a small sanctuary labelled Furukogarasu-sha in a hamlet outside the samurai quarter south of the castle. Fukuoka City's survey report notes two things about that drawing: a minor hilltop shrine was thought worth including at all, and the shape of the precinct in the map closely resembles the shape of the ground today.

In November 1872 the shrine was ranked as a village shrine, or sonsha. Yakuin village then comprised nine neighbourhoods, and Kogarasu Shrine served as their tutelary shrine. From the Meiji era onward the surrounding land was developed as housing on the edge of the growing Tenjin district, and it has remained a quiet residential quarter ever since.

The Rebuilding of 1929

Almost nothing survives at Kogarasu Shrine from the Edo period or the Taisho era. Apart from the shrine office, every principal structure in the precinct dates from the early Showa years. Newspaper reports of the time record that the halls and their surroundings were rebuilt with donations from the parishioners at a cost of roughly 40,000 yen, and that the work was completed in 1929.

Several inscriptions confirm the date. The donors' tablet hung in the worship hall is dated the fifth month of 1929. On the back of the stone pillar beside the worship hall the date 19 May 1929 is carved, together with the names of Watanabe Kushiro, Watanabe Kukichi and Watanabe Kinzaburo, members of a family known as entrepreneurs who helped shape modern Fukuoka. The water basin in the ablution pavilion carries a 1929 inscription as well.

Seven structures were listed, all of them built in that single campaign.

• Kogarasu Shrine Main Hall (listing number 40-0166)
• Kogarasu Shrine Worship Hall and Connecting Hall (40-0167)
• Kogarasu Shrine Offering Place (40-0168)
• Kogarasu Shrine Tenmangu Shrine (40-0169)
• Kogarasu Shrine Temizusha (40-0170)
• Kogarasu Shrine Mizugaki (40-0171)
• Kogarasu Shrine Dedication Tower (40-0172)

Six of the seven were listed as models of design; the stone pillar alone was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. Fukuoka City's assessment describes a group of buildings that follows the conventions of shrine architecture as they were codified in the modern period, executed in good Hinoki timber with traditional joinery, and valuable because it shows in concrete terms what a village shrine of the early Showa years looked like. Among former village shrines in Fukuoka Prefecture, this was an early listing.

Walking the Precinct

The ground is small. What rewards attention at Kogarasu Shrine is how compactly the functions a shrine needs have been fitted onto a narrow hilltop.

At the head of the stone steps, the ablution pavilion stands beside the approach. It measures one Ken each way, and its four square posts lean very slightly inward, a technique called Uchikorobi. The worship hall faces you at the end of the path, oriented south. To its left rises a stone pillar six metres tall, crowned by a bronze figure of Yatagarasu.

Behind the worship hall the ground steps up again. A connecting hall with a wooden stair of eleven treads leads to the main hall, which occupies the highest point of the precinct inside an openwork fence called a mizugaki. Standing in front of it, you can read the roof of the three-bay Nagare-zukuri hall and the carving over its entrance through the slats. A covered passage runs from the side of the worship hall to the offering place, the only tile-roofed building here; among the copper-sheathed halls its colour and texture stand apart.

West of the main hall, in the corner of the grounds, is a miniature shrine to Tenjin. It covers 3.42 square metres, yet the workmanship repays close looking. An Inari shrine also stands in the precinct, and the ground behind the halls adjoins a small neighbourhood park.

Visiting Kogarasu Shrine

The precinct is open at all hours, admission is free, and no ticket is required. None of the buildings are open inside, so a visit means looking at exteriors. Photography from within the grounds is not restricted, but houses press against the boundary on every side, so stay off private ground and choose angles that keep neighbouring windows out of frame. The shrine office is not permanently staffed; it usually opens for New Year and other festival days, which is when seals and amulets can be obtained.

The nearest stations are Sakurazaka and Yakuin-odori on the Fukuoka City Subway Nanakuma Line, and the shrine lies roughly midway between them, about ten minutes on foot from either. Tenjin is a walk of a little over twenty minutes, and Nishitetsu Yakuin Station about fifteen. Because you enter the residential lanes from Jonan-dori near Chikushi Jogakuen, nothing is visible from the main road. Look for the stone torii; the characters on its plaque are unusually legible.

A slope beside the steps leads up to a small parking area in the grounds, but the surrounding lanes are narrow and many are one-way, so public transport is the safer choice. In summer the grove is dense; in winter, with the leaves down, the whole group of buildings can be seen at once. For looking at the architecture, come in the morning, when shadows are shallow.