Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
The hamlet of Rakuzan, known only for its bright yellow pottery and its little Shinto temple, drowses at the foot of a wooded hill about one ri from Matsue, beyond a wilderness of rice-fields. And the deity of Rakuzan-jinja is Naomasa, grandson of Iyeyasu, and father of the Daimyo of Matsue.
The tomb of the emperor lies on the slope of a low hill, at a distance of about ten minutes' walk from the village. It is far less imposing than the least of the tombs of the Matsudaira at Matsue, in the grand old courts of Gesshoji; but it was perhaps the best which the poor little country of Oki could furnish.
Sakusa, the hamlet where the Yaegaki-jinja stands, is scarcely more than one ri south from Matsue. But to go there one must follow tortuous paths too rough and steep for a kuruma; and of three ways, the longest and roughest happens to be the most interesting.
And in remoter districts, Japanese children are still apt to cry at the first sight of a European or American face. A lady of Matsue related in my presence this curious souvenir of her childhood: 'When I was a very little girl, she said, our daimyo hired a foreigner to teach the military art.
"I was anxious to see something of a class so singularly situated and specialized; and I had the good fortune to meet a Japanese gentleman who, although belonging to the highest class of Matsue, was kind enough to agree to accompany me to their village, where he had never been himself. On the way thither he told me many curious things about the yama-no-mono.
I had first heard in Matsue of Agonashi-Jizo, while suffering from one of those toothaches in which the pain appears to be several hundred miles in depth one of those toothaches which disturb your ideas of space and time. And a friend who sympathised said: 'People who have toothache pray to Agonashi-Jizo. Agonashi-Jizo is in Oki, but Izumo people pray to him.
I leave Matsue for Kitzuki early in the afternoon of a beautiful September day; taking passage upon a tiny steamer in which everything, from engines to awnings, is Lilliputian. In the cabin one must kneel. Under the awnings one cannot possibly stand upright. But the miniature craft is neat and pretty as a toy model, and moves with surprising swiftness and steadiness.
Inari has been multiplied by reason of his different attributes. For instance, Matsue has a Kamiya-San-no-Inari-San, who is the God of Coughs and Bad Colds afflictions extremely common and remarkably severe in the Land of Izumo. He has a temple in the Kamachi at which he is worshipped under the vulgar appellation of Kaze-no-Kami and the politer one of Kamiya- San-no-Inari.
To the worthy are many given; to the unworthy few. 'Not from the parents, then, do the Souls descend? 'Nay! Most ancient the Souls are: innumerable, the years of them. 'And this I desire to know: Can a man separate his Souls? Can he, for instance, have one Soul in Kyoto and one in Tokyo and one in Matsue, all at the same time? 'He cannot; they remain always together. 'How?
There is probably not one of the multitudinous temples of Matsue which has not some marvellous tradition attached to it; each of the districts has many legends; and I think that each of the thirty-three streets has its own special ghost story. Of these ghost stories I cite two specimens: they are quite representative of one variety of Japanese folk-lore.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking