Hirohachiman Shrine

What Hirohachiman Shrine Is

Hirohachiman Shrine is a Hachiman shrine in Kaminakano, Hirokawa Town, Wakayama Prefecture, where six buildings ranging from a main hall of about 1413 to a worship hall of 1704 are designated Important Cultural Properties. The three enshrined deities are Emperor Ojin (Hondawake no Mikoto), Empress Jingu (Okinagatarashihime no Mikoto) and Emperor Chuai (Tarashinakatsuhiko no Mikoto). The shrine was once called simply Hachimangu and served as the tutelary shrine of the Hiro estate; its name is also written 廣八幡宮 and read Hirohachiman Jinja.

The founding date is unknown. Shrine tradition holds that Empress Jingu visited Hiro on her return from the Korean peninsula, and that the deity was brought here from Konda Hachimangu in Kawachi Province during the reign of Emperor Kinmei (539 to 571). The Edo-period topography Kii Zoku Fudoki records that a local strongman named Umemoto Kakugon moved the shrine to its present site in the Oei era, early in the Muromachi period, though this cannot be confirmed.

In 1585 the Toyotomi campaign against Kii burned the treasury and the monks' quarters, and the shrine declined for a time. When Asano Yoshinaga became lord of the province in 1600 he granted it ten koku of shrine land, and after the Kii branch of the Tokugawa took the domain in 1619 successive lords continued that patronage. The survival of a complete set of Muromachi and early Edo halls at Hirohachiman Shrine owes a good deal to that protection.

An Edo-period illustrated guide, Kii no Kuni Meisho Zue, shows the precinct as Hirohachimangu with a two-storied pagoda, a bell tower, a west gate and a Kannon hall, a clear picture of the Shinbutsu-shūgō that prevailed before the Meiji era. The 1868 separation of Shinto and Buddhism scattered those buildings: the pagoda went to Mitakidera in Hiroshima, the bell tower to Hozoji in Kaminakano, and the west gate to Anrakuji in the Hiro district of the same town.

Walking the Precinct

Hirohachiman Shrine faces west with a wooded hill of roughly 40 metres at its back, near the centre of the district its parishioners occupy. The road in front runs east to west; going west it passes through the old town of Hiro and reaches the red gate of the Hiromura embankment. Locals call this road the Omichi, and the portable shrines of the autumn festival follow it.

Steps lead up from the road to the two-storied gate, and through the gate the precinct opens out. A dance hall, the Buden, stands directly ahead, with a votive-tablet hall to the west and the shrine office to the east. A ridge tag dates the Buden to 1765, and it is a Wakayama Prefecture designated building.

Behind the dance hall a second flight of steps reaches the worship hall, and beyond the inner gate and its fence stands the main hall. Facing the main hall, the Wakamiya auxiliary shrine sits to the right and the Kora and Tenjin auxiliary shrines to the left. Four cypress-bark roofs in a row, Tenjin, Kora, the main hall and Wakamiya from the left, form the core of Hirohachiman Shrine.

Yahiro Hachiman Shrine, Kakugon-sha, Myojin-sha, the offices, the palanquin store, a banquet hall and the Tenjin worship hall are scattered around the grounds. The palanquin store holds a town-designated portable shrine with curved gables on all four sides, said to have been presented in 1806 from what is now Shinkamigoto in Nagasaki Prefecture. The stone water basin beside the dance hall was given in the Horeki era by Sakiyama Jiroemon, a man of Hiro who opened the harbour at Tokawa in Choshi, and carries three characters meaning water for washing.

The Rice-Sheaf Fires and the Memory of Evacuation

Hirohachiman Shrine is also known as high ground above the town. When the tsunami of the Ansei Nankai earthquake struck on 5 November 1854, Hamaguchi Goryo took refuge here and then went back out to find villagers, setting fire to stacked rice sheaves so the survivors could see the way up in the dark. Lafcadio Hearn retold the episode as "A Living God", and it later reached every Japanese schoolchild as the reader "Inamura no Hi".

A monument to Hamaguchi Goryo stands in the precinct. Katsu Kaishu, who knew him well, composed the text and the title inscription; the calligraphy is by Iwaya Ichiroku, counted among the three great brushes of the Meiji period, and the carving by Miya Kinen. The monument is a prefecturally designated property, and from the terrace where it stands you can see the pines along the Hiromura embankment that Hamaguchi Goryo paid for out of his own pocket after the wave.

Hirohachiman Shrine is still an official tsunami evacuation site, and a shelter was built in 2013. On 5 November, World Tsunami Awareness Day, Hirokawa Town holds the Tsunami Festival, and the ceremony is followed by an evacuation drill up to the shrine. That working role sets the precinct apart from an ordinary historic site. The Agency for Cultural Affairs includes it in the Japan Heritage story known as Hyakusei no Ando.

Designated Properties in the Precinct

Six buildings at Hirohachiman Shrine are Important Cultural Properties: the main hall, the Wakamiya, Kora and Tenjin auxiliary shrine main halls, the worship hall and the two-storied gate. The main hall, Wakamiya and Kora were designated on 6 April 1929, and Tenjin, the worship hall and the gate on 26 February 1947; each is carried as a separate entry in the national register. Ridge tags are designated as attached items with five of the halls and are the evidence for their construction and repair dates.

Beyond the buildings, a Kamakura-period short sword signed Rai Kunimitsu is also an Important Cultural Property. Wakayama Prefecture has designated the dance hall, a pair of three-colour Nanki Otokoyama ware guardian dogs and the Hamaguchi Goryo monument; Hirokawa Town has designated a pair of wooden guardian dogs, six hundred volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra and the four-gabled portable shrine. The glazed guardian dogs measure 57 centimetres for the open-mouthed figure and 54 for the closed, both 81 centimetres tall, coloured with yellow, green, purple and white glazes.

Among intangible traditions, the dengaku field dance offered at the autumn festival was placed on the national register of folk performing arts requiring documentation in 1973, and the Otoda lion dance became a prefecturally designated intangible folk property in 1971.

The Festival Year

Close to forty rites are performed at Hirohachiman Shrine over the year. The largest is the autumn festival on 1 October, known locally as the Hiro Matsuri and the first harvest festival of the season in the Arida district. It opens with a vigil on 30 September; at noon the following day priests and parish elders hold the main rite in the worship hall and main hall, and the sacred object is placed in whichever portable shrine has drawn the lot.

The dengaku of Kaminakano is then danced in the Buden. Also called the Shippara dance, it is performed by fourteen people: two sleeve-wavers, six central dancers with bamboo clappers, two drummers, one Oni, one Wani and two lions. The sequence traces the farming year from seedbed to harvest, with the lions standing for storm and crop-raiding animals until the Oni subdues them and the dance turns to its finale. As the dengaku reaches its middle passage, the Otoda lion dance from Yamamoto begins in front of the Otoda Tenjin shrine on the north side of the hall. Its three parts are said to follow the stages of the Tokaido road, and in the last the lion rears up to full height.

The portable shrines and floats of each district then process to the Hama no Miya resting place. Below the two-storied gate the leader of each group strikes a target three times with a fan, a gesture called matouke that survives from the days of horse racing at the festival.

Other observances include the New Year rite on 1 January, the burning of New Year decorations on 15 January, the first Tenjin day on 25 January, the bean-throwing rite on 3 February, the spring festival on 25 April, the summer festival vigil and lantern rite on 14 July, the summer festival on 15 July, the Nagoshi rite on 31 July and the harvest thanksgiving on 23 November. A festival for the rice-sheaf fires falls on the third Saturday of October. Monthly rites are held on the 1st and 15th, and for the Tenjin shrine on the 25th.

Visiting Hirohachiman Shrine

The precinct of Hirohachiman Shrine is open to worshippers, and the official website announces neither an admission charge nor fixed opening hours. The interiors of the halls are closed, and because the main hall and the three auxiliary shrines sit inside an inner gate and fence, they are viewed from outside that fence. The shrine office handles requests for prayers, but no counter hours are posted, so it is safest to call ahead on 0737-63-5731 or 0737-62-2371. Nothing on the official site prohibits photography, though it is worth staying out of the way during rites and processions.

The nearest station is Yuasa on the JR Kisei Line, about 20 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by taxi. By car it is about 5 minutes from the Hirokawa interchange on the Hanwa Expressway and about 10 minutes from the Arida interchange. There are two car parks: the first, 80 metres north of the two-storied gate, takes buses and cars and holds about 40 vehicles; the second, 70 metres south of the gate, holds about 15.

The grounds run up a slope against the hill, with steps to the gate and more steps from the gate to the worship hall, so sensible shoes help. The halls have been through a restoration campaign begun in 1978 and known as the Heisei rebuilding, and the vermilion on the main hall, the Tenjin shrine and the gate is still fresh.