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Updated: May 14, 2025
Long ranges of temporary booths have been erected within the outer court of the temple; and in these are suspended hundreds of long white tablets, bearing specimens of calligraphy. Every schoolboy in Kitzuki has a sample of his best writing on exhibition. The texts are written only in Chinese characters not in hirakana or katakana-and are mostly drawn from the works of Confucius or Mencius.
And the figure of a fox in stone sits before the Name of the August Spirit-of-Food. The miya or Shinto temple itself is quite small smaller than most of the temples in the neighbourhood, and dingy, and begrimed with age. Yet, next to Kitzuki, this is the most famous of Izumo shrines.
Thereafter I hold my peace on the topic of calligraphy. Vast as the courts of the Oho-yashiro are, the crowd within them is now so dense that one must move very slowly, for the whole population of Kitzuki and its environs has been attracted here by the matsuri.
'There are many deities enshrined at Kitzuki, are there not? I ask. 'Yes; but the great deity of Kitzuki is Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, whom the people more commonly call Daikoku. Here also is worshipped his son, whom many call Ebisu.
On the other side of the street rises a cyclopean retaining wall, massive as the wall of a daimyo's castle, and topped by a lofty wooden parapet pierced with gates; and above it tower the roofs of majestic buildings, whose architecture strongly resembles that of the structures of Kitzuki; and behind all appears a beautiful green background of hills. This is the Hinomisaki-jinja.
'In the period when the temple was built upon a larger scale, I ask, 'were the timbers for its construction obtained from the forests of Izumo? The priest Sasa, who guided us into the shrine, makes answer: 'It is recorded that on the fourth day of the seventh month of the third year of Ten-in one hundred large trees came floating to the sea coast of Kitzuki, and were stranded there by the tide.
Nishida tells the Governor that I came to Japan to study the ancient religion and customs, and that I am particularly interested in Shinto and the traditions of Izumo. The Governor suggests that I make visits to the celebrated shrines of Kitzuki, Yaegaki, and Kumano, and then asks: 'Does he know the tradition of the origin of the clapping of hands before a Shinto shrine?
We have reached Kitzuki, the holy city. Over a long bridge and under a tall torii we roll into upward-sloping streets. Like Enoshima, Kitzuki has a torii for its city gate; but the torii is not of bronze.
Kitzuki, founded by the ancient gods, who 'made stout the pillars upon the nethermost rock bottom, and made high the cross-beams to the Plain of High Heaven' Kitzuki, the Holy of Holies, whose high-priest claims descent from the Goddess of the Sun; and Ichibata, famed shrine of Yakushi-Nyorai, who giveth sight to the blind Ichibata-no-Yakushi, whose lofty temple is approached by six hundred and forty steps of stone; and Kiomidzu, shrine of Kwannon of the Eleven Faces, before whose altar the sacred fire has burned without ceasing for a thousand years; and Sada, where the Sacred Snake lies coiled for ever on the sambo of the gods; and Oba, with its temples of Izanami and Izanagi, parents of gods and men, the makers of the world; and Yaegaki, whither lovers go to pray for unions with the beloved; and Kaka, Kaka-ura, Kaka-noKukedo San -all these I hope to see.
As it is the Japanese custom to set cakes and tea before visitors, I always have both in readiness, and an especially fine quality of kwashi, made at Kitzuki, of which the students are very fond. Adzukizawa alone refuses to taste cakes or confectionery of any kind, saying: 'As I am the youngest brother, I must begin to earn my own living soon. I shall have to endure much hardship.
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