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Ise-Shima NP, Mie
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A Mie Museum account traces the 1830 pilgrimage surge to children who slipped away from Tokushima to visit Ise. By late summer, about 5 million people had arrived—roughly 1 in 6 of Japan’s then population, the museum estimates.
Akafuku, the famous sweet of Naiku’s approach, traces its founding to 1707. In 1911, an imperial order prompted a softer white-sugar version; the company says that recipe became the ancestor of today’s Akafuku mochi.
One Uji Bridge torii is made from a pillar from Naiku’s former main sanctuary. After 20 years as a shrine pillar and 20 as a bridge gate, it moves to Sekinotsu for another 20 years as a torii.
For about 1,500 years, meals for Amaterasu at Naiku have been prepared at Geku and offered morning and evening: rice, fish, seaweed, fruit, salt, water and sake, cooked over a fire kindled by hand.
When new shrine timbers are brought to Naiku, local teams haul them on sledges through the Isuzu River, with work songs and shouts of “Enya!” At Geku, the timber is pulled along roads instead.
Naiku’s periodic rebuilding is an eight-year undertaking, not a single construction season. About 30 ceremonies accompany it, and the sacred garments and treasures are remade along with the buildings.
Naiku’s innermost sanctuary houses the sacred mirror associated with Amaterasu, but visitors cannot see it. Four layers of fences surround the main sanctuary; worshippers pray from outside the third enclosure.
The stone-paved Mitarashi beside the Isuzu River is said to have been donated in 1692 by Keishōin, mother of shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. Visitors still use the water’s edge to wash their hands before worship.
Naiku’s main sanctuary roof carries 10 ridge logs called katsuogi, while Geku’s carries 9. Their roof-tip details differ too: Naiku’s chigi are cut inward, a subtle signature of the two shrines’ distinct designs.
Uji Bridge began being rebuilt with the shrine’s 20-year cycle in 1889. After the postwar shrine transfer was delayed, worshippers ensured the bridge was still rebuilt in 1949; ever since, it has been replaced 4 years before the transfer.
In the shrine’s origin story, Princess Yamatohime traveled through several provinces seeking a permanent home for Amaterasu. A divine message led her to settle beside the Isuzu River, about 2,000 years ago.
The Isuzu is also called Mimosuso-gawa. Local tradition says the name recalls Princess Yamatohime washing the hem of her robe in the river—a story that links the water beside Naiku with ritual purification.
