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Yoshino Kumano NP, Wakayama
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In shrine tradition, the three-legged Yatagarasu guided Emperor Jimmu from Kumano toward Yamato; its legs symbolize heaven, earth and humankind. The same crow appears on Japan’s football association emblem.
Kumano Hongu’s distinctive goō talisman arranges 88 crows into crow-shaped writing. It was also used for solemn vows: believers feared that breaking one would kill a crow and bring ruin on the oath-breaker.
Local tradition says court nobles brought tea from Kyoto and planted it in Otonashi during Heian-era pilgrimages. Today, the shrine offers first-picked leaves from its own tea garden at a spring tea ceremony.
At Oyunohara, the shrine’s former site, a steel torii rises 33.9 meters and spans 42 meters. Built in 2000, this 172-ton gateway took about 6 months to assemble.
In the April 13 Yunobori rite, boys aged 2–3 are purified at Yunomine Onsen, then carried by their fathers over the 3.4-kilometer Dainichi-goe trail. Their feet must not touch the ground outside the ritual.
The shrine keeps an inscribed iron kettle cast in 1198, once used to sprinkle boiled salt water on people for purification. Its repair uses imported copper identified as the same kind used for Kamakura’s Great Buddha.
A low corridor beneath the shrine halls once sheltered pilgrims who meditated, copied sutras or slept. It is also said to be where monk Ippen received a 1274 revelation to teach without judging people’s faith or purity—a defining moment for Jishu Buddhism.
Before a bridge reached the former island shrine, pilgrims waded across the river with their hems wet. In the cold Otonashi River, that crossing served as a final water purification before entering the sacred grounds.
On April 15, the shrine’s deities are carried in a portable shrine back to Oyunohara, their former home. There, festival participants enact rice planting around a symbolic 3-meter-square plot and pray for a good harvest.
The shrine’s origin legend tells how 3 moons descended into a giant tree at Oyunohara. The central moon identified itself with the main deity, the 2 beside it with other Kumano gods, and their command led to the shrine’s founding.
Kumano Hongu’s main deity is also called Funatama Daimyojin, or “Ship-Spirit Great Deity,” because tradition credits the god with teaching shipbuilding. Sailors revered the deity, and an annual festival prays for safe seas and full catches.
After the 1889 flood destroyed much of the shrine at Oyunohara, surviving halls were moved to higher ground. The other 8 shrine deities are still honored at the old site in 2 stone shrines.
From Emperor Uda’s pilgrimage in 907 to Emperor Kameyama’s in 1281, the shrine drew more than 100 imperial visits, according to its history. Court poet Fujiwara no Teika recorded being unable to hold back tears on a journey.
Kumano Hongu Taisha calls itself the grand head shrine of more than 4,700 Kumano shrines across Japan—a strikingly wide-reaching network rooted in this mountain sanctuary.
At the New Year’s “Opening Tiger” rite, the priest opens the main sanctuary doors at the hour associated with the Tiger. The shrine links this timing to its chief deity, Susanoo, whose zodiac sign is Tiger.
The shrine’s broad, sweeping roofs are made of Japanese cypress bark, with some materials sourced from the shrine grove and nearby Tsukimigaoka Shrine. The bark covering is replaced roughly every 40–50 years.
More than 900 years ago, a pilgrim described 5 main pavilions enshrining 12 deities at Oyunohara—and a stage for music, dance and Noh offered as worship. The old shrine grounds were several times larger than today’s.
