Kayashima Shrine

What Kayashima Shrine Is

Kayashima Shrine is a Shinto shrine at the centre of the Minokaya plain in Hiezu Village, Tottori Prefecture, whose foundation date is unrecorded but which land deeds trace to before 1545, and whose eight precinct buildings were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 November 2018. The name is read Kayashima Jinja, and villagers still call it Daijingu-san.

The "shima" (island) in the name refers to a low rise in otherwise flat ground. The Hino River has shifted its course repeatedly across this delta, and the shrine has been caught by the floods more than once. Hiezu Village's education board credits the survival of the site to that slight elevation, chosen when the buildings were first set out.

Before the Meiji period the shrine went by several names, among them Hiezu Daijingu and Ise-gu, and the ridge tablets record it as Tensho Kotai Jingu. The present name was adopted in the first years of Meiji, taken from Kayagō, a district name that appears in a tenth-century gazetteer. Two deities are enshrined: Amaterasu Ōmikami and Takahime no Mikoto, one from the Ise tradition and one from the Izumo line.

The shrine served as tutelary shrine for the twenty-nine villages of Kaya-no-shō. According to the Tottori Prefecture Association of Shinto Shrines, the Amago clan endowed it with land and rebuilt the halls in 1545; the Kikkawa clan followed in 1591, and the Ikeda lords of Tottori domain in 1633. Smaller shrines from the surrounding villages were merged into the precinct in the early Meiji period, and two more, Imamura and Imayoshi, in 1916.

How the Precinct Is Laid Out

The precinct covers about 7,980 square metres, and every building faces south. Walking north up the approach, you meet the Zuishin Gate first, set across the path so that it frames everything behind it. Beyond it the path opens out, with the Kagura Hall on the east side and the Treasury on the west facing each other. Further in stand the worship hall, the offering hall behind it, and the main hall at the far end, the three joined in a single line.

A covered corridor runs east from the worship hall to the food preparation hall. Two very small halls sit behind the main sanctuary, Toyouke Shrine to the west and Tenjin Shrine to the east, built to identical dimensions as a matched pair. Because the eight buildings follow one after another in this order, five minutes of walking covers the lot.

The grove around the buildings holds tall timber, including an old chinaberry. Ginkgo trees along the approach turn in late autumn, and red spider lilies come up at the edge of the precinct in early September.

The Eight Listed Buildings

Japan's Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the eight buildings on 20 July 2018, and the listing took effect by official gazette on 2 November of that year. They were the first nationally recognised cultural properties of any kind in Hiezu Village. All eight were listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape, and carry consecutive registration numbers from 31-0258 to 31-0265.

• Main Hall, 1868, floor area 39 square metres
• Offering Hall and Worship Hall, 1833, floor area 73 square metres
• Sacred Food Preparation Hall and Connecting Corridor, 1900, floor area 33 square metres
• Kagura Hall, 1900, floor area 63 square metres
• Treasury, also used as a temporary sanctuary, 1900, floor area 29 square metres
• Zuishin Gate, 1900, floor area 12 square metres
• Toyouke Shrine, about 1868, floor area 5.4 square metres
• Tenjin Shrine, about 1868, floor area 5.4 square metres

The village gives two reasons for the listing. The main hall of 1868 is unusual in its size, its internal arrangement and the amount of carving it carries. And the precinct as a whole was reorganised in 1900 into a working layout, which shows how a rural shrine equipped itself in the modern era. An Edo-period worship hall with a Meiji-period precinct built around it, left largely as it was.

Festivals

The annual festival at Kayashima Shrine falls on 11 October, and the spring festival on 11 April. The Kagura Hall is the stage for these occasions; it stands empty most of the year, but on festival days the dancing is watched from the veranda on the approach side.

Dates can shift, so anyone travelling specifically for a festival should confirm with the shrine office on 0859-27-2518 before setting out.

Visiting and Getting There

The precinct is open, with no admission charge and no fixed hours. Tottori Prefecture's cultural property database records the buildings as closed internally, however, so none of the eight interiors at Kayashima Shrine can be entered. What you see is the exterior work, the open central bay of the gate, and the front of the worship hall.

Photographing the buildings from outside is not normally an issue. Anyone wanting to photograph inside a hall, or to shoot during a rite, should ask at the shrine office first, and the same courtesy applies to setting up a tripod.

The nearest station is Hōki-Daisen on the JR San-in and Hakubi lines, about 1.5 kilometres to the south, or roughly twenty minutes on foot. From Yonago Station the drive takes about fifteen minutes. The shrine sits just southeast of the Aeon Mall Hiezu, under ten minutes' walk from it. The village is flat farmland, and the shrine grove stands up out of the rice fields clearly enough that it is hard to lose your bearings once you are close.

Parking and whether anyone is staffing the shrine office vary from day to day. Call ahead if you are driving, or if you want a goshuin seal.