Ancient Sacred Treasures

The Sacred Treasures of Kumano Hayatama Taisha

Open one of the lidded lacquer boxes kept at Kumano Hayatama Taisha and you find a complete world in miniature: a bronze mirror, a silver box for tooth-blackening paste, another for face powder, tiny silver tweezers and scissors, an ear pick, an eyebrow tool, and a stack of nearly thirty lacquered combs. These are not objects made for a living woman. They were prepared as offerings for a deity, around the year 1390, and they have survived more than six centuries almost intact.

The shrine in Shingū, on the Pacific coast of Wakayama, holds roughly 1,200 items grouped under a single National Treasure designation called kojinpō, meaning the old sacred treasures. Together they form one of the most complete sets of medieval Japanese court furnishings anywhere, and a rare chance to see how the aristocracy of the age actually lived, dressed, and groomed.

How the Treasures Came to the Shrine

Kumano Hayatama Taisha is one of the three grand shrines of Kumano, a pilgrimage destination that drew retired emperors and commoners alike from the Heian period onward. By custom, the furnishings dedicated to the deities were periodically renewed, and the worn older sets were retired rather than discarded. The group now designated as a National Treasure represents one such renewal.

A surviving inventory of shrine treasures records that part of the collection was prepared during the Meitoku era, and the finest lacquer boxes are dated to around Meitoku 1 (1390). Tradition at the shrine holds that they were offered by the imperial court and by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, made under the direction of the Muromachi government. The work matches what the period could produce at its highest level, drawing on the lacquerers, metalworkers, and weavers who served the court and the shogunate.

Thirteen toiletry boxes were originally commissioned, one for each of the principal sanctuaries of the shrine complex and one for the nearby auxiliary Asuka Shrine. The Asuka set passed into national ownership after the Second World War and is now held by the Kyoto National Museum. Eleven boxes remain at Hayatama Taisha. In 1950, with the shrine buildings badly in need of repair, there was even discussion of selling some of the treasures to fund the work, a reminder that their survival was never guaranteed.

Why the Collection Is a National Treasure

The treasures were designated a National Treasure on June 22, 1955. What makes them exceptional is not any single masterpiece but the combination of three things rarely found together: high artistic quality, a documented date, and sheer completeness.

Because the boxes can be tied to a specific moment around 1390, scholars treat them as a fixed reference point for dating other lacquerwork, textiles, and metalwork of the late Nanboku-chō and early Muromachi periods. Objects whose age is uncertain can be compared against these. Many of the smaller items, such as the silver grooming implements and the painted fans, have almost no surviving counterparts elsewhere, so the set fills gaps that no other collection can. Beyond their craftsmanship, the treasures record the everyday material culture of the medieval upper class in unusual detail, down to the contents of a cosmetic box.

What to Look For

The toiletry boxes and their contents

The lacquered tebako, or toiletry boxes, are the heart of the collection. Cosmetic boxes of this kind were perfected in the Heian period, but few examples from before the medieval era survive anywhere, and almost none with their contents complete. Here, eleven boxes still hold their fitted trays and the full set of accessories: the mirror and its case, silver containers for tooth-blackening paste, face powder and incense, and a row of grooming tools, alongside a white porcelain dish and a single silver comb among the lacquered ones. Seeing the assembled kit gives a far more vivid sense of court grooming than any isolated object could.

The three boxes with the densest gold

Eight of the eleven boxes use a nashiji ground, in which gold flakes are scattered across the lacquer to suggest the speckled skin of a pear. The other three were made with the most lavish technique available, ikakeji, where gold powder is packed so densely that the surface becomes a solid field of gold, then worked in raised relief and inlaid with silver mother-of-pearl. Two of these, decorated with paulownia, were dedicated to the Musubi and Hayatama sanctuaries, and a third, with paulownia and scrolling vines, to the Shōjōden. The paulownia crest belonged to the imperial family; the Ashikaga were permitted to use it by the court, which is why it appears on offerings of this rank.

Beyond the boxes

The designation covers far more than cosmetics. There are court costumes and accessories, sets of gyokuhai, the pendant ornaments hung at the waist of full court dress, thirty kazashi flower ornaments for the hair, gilt-bronze swords, lacquered quivers with gilt-bronze arrows, and a wooden ritual scepter that is itself a rarity. Among the most admired pieces are the painted cypress fans, or saie hiōgi: thin slats of cypress faced with gold and silver foil and painted with landscapes, birds, and flowers. The braided silk cords are so labor-intensive that a single one is said to have taken about a year to make, and only fragments now survive.

Planning a Visit

A portion of the treasures is shown in the Kumano Shinpōkan, the shrine's treasure hall, which stands inside the grounds across from the great sacred nagi tree. The hall is generally open from 9:00 to 16:00, with admission of 500 yen for adults and free entry for high school students and younger. Because the objects are fragile and the displays rotate, the specific pieces on view change, so it is worth checking before you go if there is something particular you hope to see. Entry to the shrine grounds themselves is free, and the gates are open from early morning until late afternoon.

The shrine sits within easy reach of the town center, about a twenty-minute walk from JR Shingū Station, with parking on site for those arriving by car. The vermilion buildings, the thousand-year-old nagi tree designated a natural monument, and the small Yatagarasu Shrine to the three-legged crow of Kumano legend can all be seen in well under an hour, leaving time for the treasure hall.

Nearby

Kumano Hayatama Taisha is part of the World Heritage site Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, and the other two grand shrines of Kumano are within reach for those continuing the pilgrimage. A short distance away in Shingū is Kamikura Shrine, set on a steep hillside reached by a long stone stairway, where the Gotobiki-iwa boulder marks the spot where the Kumano deities are said to have first descended. The auxiliary Asuka Shrine, whose toiletry box now lives in Kyoto, lies near the mouth of the Kumano River. Inland, the Kumano River route and the famous waterfall at Nachi reward anyone with an extra day in the region.