Chigi

What chigi are

Chigi are the timbers that cross above each end of the ridge on a shrine hall. They are treated as a pair with the short billets laid along the ridge, and records name the two together.

The main hall of Kameoka Shrine in Nagasaki Prefecture, built in 1880, is described as standing on a high stone base at the northern edge of its precinct on the site of the second bailey of Hirado Castle: three bays by two, Kirizuma-zukuri and entered from the eaves side, roofed in sheet metal, with a veranda round the front and sides, crossed finials and billets on the ridge, and a front canopy roofed Irimoya-zukuri with Sangawara-buki.

That entry shows how independent these are of the roof itself. The hall and its canopy differ in both shape and covering, yet the ridge carries the same fittings regardless.

They are therefore not information about the form of the roof. They belong to a separate question: what sits on top of the ridge.

Telling a shrine from a temple

These fittings belong to shrine halls and are not used on Buddhist buildings. Seen from a distance, timbers crossing and projecting above the ends of a ridge identify the building as a shrine.

Records use a fixed phrase for them, naming both parts in one breath. Entries that mention only one are unusual, and where that happens the other may genuinely be absent or simply left unsaid.

On site, follow the line of the ridge. The members that project diagonally and cross at each end are the finials; the short pieces lying across the ridge at even intervals are the billets. A hall built in Nagare-zukuri, with one roof slope far longer than the other, still reads the same way along the top.