Kumano Shrine: A Historic Shinto Shrine in Saitama, Japan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Unclassified
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Unclassified
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Sanctuary
On this page8 sections
History
Kumano Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Fukuda, Namegawa, Saitama, Japan, traditionally regarded as a branch of Kumano Hayatama Taisha in the former Kii Province. Its foundation date is uncertain, although its origins may reach back before the Muromachi period.
Early religious history
The shrine was historically associated with Fukoji, a Tendai Buddhist temple. Tendai is a major Japanese Buddhist tradition, and before the modern separation of Buddhism and Shinto, an associated temple could administer a shrine as its betto, or supervising temple. Fukoji is thought to have begun during the Kamakura period and exercised religious authority in the Shimofukuda area until the late Muromachi period.
The shrine’s early history is also reflected in its precinct, where cedar trees believed to be more than 500 years old grew. Fukoji’s founding abbot, Ken’i, died in 1684. On that basis, the shrine’s establishment as the local guardian shrine is estimated to have taken place around the same time, though 1684 is not a certain foundation date. Its three principal deities are Izanami no Mikoto, Hayatamao no Mikoto, and Kotosakao no Mikoto. Stone images of the Kumano Three Gongen are enshrined in the inner sanctuary. A Gongen is a Buddhist-influenced manifestation of a kami, and the Kumano Three Gongen are the principal sacred manifestations associated with the Kumano religious tradition.
Modern institutional changes
The 1868 separation of Buddhism and Shinto was a Meiji-era government policy that ended many longstanding Buddhist-Shinto institutional arrangements. As a result, Fukoji’s administrative control of Kumano Shrine ended. The shrine became a village shrine in 1871, then received the higher designation of designated village shrine in 1933. In 1913, Ise Shrine, Yakumo Shrine, and Inari Shrine within Fukuda were merged into Kumano Shrine.
Festivals and local traditions
Kumano Shrine’s annual observances include the regular festival on April 15, the summer festival on July 15, the autumn festival on October 17, and the great purification rite on December 25. The April festival traditionally sought protection from illness. Four settlements in the shrine’s parish formerly offered large trays of dango dumplings. Representatives collected two measures of rice from each household to prepare them, and the dumplings were distributed to worshippers after the ceremony. This offering practice is no longer performed.
The summer festival belongs to Yakumo Shrine, also called Tenno-sama, and is held to ward off epidemic disease and prevent it from entering the local community. The Shimofukuda Sasara Shishimai is performed at both the summer and autumn festivals. Sasara Shishimai is a Japanese folk lion-dance tradition in which separate dancers wear lion heads and perform choreographed movements. The dance expresses prayers for national peace, abundant harvests, prosperity for descendants, and the safety of the shrine’s parishioners.
During droughts around the early Showa period, the Kamifukuda and Shimofukuda lion dances were performed together at the dance ground of Sengen Shrine on Mount Sengen as a rainmaking rite. Representatives wearing straw rain capes and hats scooped water from a pond at the summit, and rain was believed to begin before the water reached the foot of the mountain. The Kamifukuda dance offered at Sengen Shrine is now suspended.
Shimofukuda Sasara Shishimai is a one-person, three-lion dance that began around the middle of the Edo period. Of the five lion dances formerly practiced in Namegawa, it is identified as the only one to have continued without interruption to the present. The dance received the Saitama Prefecture Culture Torch Award in 1980 and became an intangible folk cultural property of Namegawa in 2014.
Remains
Precinct and inner sanctuary
Ancient cedar trees
The shrine precinct contains large cedar trees believed to be more than 500 years old. Their age supports the understanding of Kumano Shrine as a place with roots extending well before the modern shrine system and possibly before the Muromachi period.
Stone images of the Kumano Three Gongen
The inner sanctuary houses stone images of the Kumano Three Gongen. The stone was quarried in a nearby mountain area, and the images carry the signature of a stonemason identified by the inscription as Miyamoto. The stonemason is said to have moved from Echigo Province to Fukuda Village during the Kansei period, an era within the Edo period lasting from 1789 to 1801.
