Stories of Kyushu, Japan

Kyushu’s People and Way of Life, Shared with the World

Vol.5 | Living with the God Who Came Down the Mountain Mountain faith, still part of daily life in Unzen and Shimabara

Still praying to the mountain

Small shrines, stone monuments and stone figures are scattered through the mountains of Unzen. People climbing here stop at them, bow, and then walk on. On the Shimabara Peninsula, praying to the mountain is not a special occasion. It is simply what you do before you go up.

Bringing the god down to the villages

It began in 701. A travelling monk named Gyoki is said to have chosen this mountain for his practice, founding the temple of Manmyoji and enshrining a god alongside it — a god people here believed protected the whole of Kyushu. In time, people did not leave that god on the summit. They built branch shrines throughout the peninsula and welcomed the god into their own villages. Those shrines are still known here by the affectionate name Oshimen-san, and they still stand within sight of people's homes.

The mountain and the villages

On the mountain, temple and shrine once stood together as one. Then, in 1637, a large uprising swept through this region and everything burned. Later, government decree pulled temple and shrine apart. Each time, people rebuilt. The main hall of Manmyoji standing in Unzen today came back that way.

In its grounds, eighty-eight small stone figures stand in a row. For those who could never make Shikoku's famous 88-temple pilgrimage, a former head priest walked it himself, collected sand at each temple, and buried it beneath these figures. The circuit takes about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, the god who came down to the villages lives on in another form.

The masked figure who runs

In early September, as the typhoon season arrives, the coastal villages of Shimabara hold their annual shrine festival, Kazayoke-sai — a festival to shield the ripening rice from the wind. Running ahead of the portable shrine is a masked figure known here as Hanadago, who takes the role of a local deity clearing and leading the god's path. Hanadago races through the streets, marking the faces of everyone he meets with charcoal powder. Those marked are said to be spared misfortune for the year. Children run away laughing. The shrine is then carried into the sea to be purified, and on to a shrine by the shore. The god brought down from the mountain still runs through these villages, once a year, every year.

This is not heritage kept under glass. It is a relationship between a mountain and the people who keep it going. Walks in these mountains and villages can be arranged with a local guide.