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Ise-Shima NP, Mie
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At the June festival, fishers in loincloths wrestle in the muddy paddy for sacred bamboo topped with huge fans. Pieces go home to boats as offerings to their guardian deity—charms for safe voyages and good catches.
Local tradition says 7 sharks visit Izawanomiya on June 24. The story made the day a no-fishing day for ama divers, who traditionally left the sea and came to pray at the shrine instead.
The shrine’s official history notes that Shima’s abalone and Ise lobster are still offered as sacred food, continuing the region’s ancient role in supplying seafood to Ise Jingu and the imperial court.
Izawanomiya is the only one of Ise Jingu’s 14 subsidiary shrines, or betsugu, with its own sacred rice paddy. Every June 24, that field becomes the stage for the celebrated Isobe no Omita planting rite.
The festival’s sung and danced procession takes an unhurried route from the paddy back to Izawanomiya: a journey of only about 200 metres that takes roughly 2 hours.
Izawanomiya is revered as a distant sanctuary of Amaterasu, but its ties reach the coast: local fishers and ama divers traditionally wear the shrine’s Isomamori sea amulet when they go out on the water.
A detail in the medieval chronicle Azuma Kagami links the shrine to the samurai age: after praying at Ise Jingu, Minamoto no Yoritomo reportedly sent a sacred horse to Izawanomiya.
About 800 metres from Izawanomiya, its affiliated Samine Shrine is also called Ho-otoshi, or “Rice-ear-dropping Shrine.” Its name recalls a local story of a manazuru crane dropping a rice ear there.
The Isobe festival is sustained by 9 local communities taking turns in its service. Residents fill the roles of drummers, flute players, singers and rice planters, passing the ceremony on locally.
Tradition places Izawanomiya’s founding about 2,000 years ago. A firmer historical sign is its name in a court-submitted shrine record from 804, showing it was already recognized as a subsidiary shrine by then.
