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Setonaikai NP, Oita
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In Kunisaki’s Shujō Onie, the oni are benevolent: at Jōbutsu-ji, 3 torch-bearing figures tap worshippers’ shoulders for health, then visit village homes and receive hospitality.
At Kumano Magaibutsu, Buddhas about 7 m and 8 m tall are carved into a cliff. Local legend says an oni built the approach’s 99 stone steps in a single night.
Kunisaki’s shiitake begin in sawtooth-oak forests: logs grow mushrooms for 3–4 years, then the cut trees regrow in about 15. The cycle also helps replenish water in the volcanic landscape.
At Kushiku Shrine’s Kebesu festival, a masked figure battles bonfire guardians, who whirl burning fern bundles among spectators. People welcome the sparks as a health blessing, though the rite’s origin is unknown.
At Morota Shrine’s spring planting rite, the comic farm drama ends with a staged birth: a red or white cloth baby traditionally foretells whether more girls or boys will be born locally that year.
Kunisaki’s shichitoi is a sedge, not ordinary igusa rush. Its strong woven mats were used for judo at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics; today, only a few farmers still produce it.
At Tashibunosho Osaki, village names, field divisions and water channels match medieval records. The basic layout documented in the 14th–15th centuries survives in a landscape still used for farming.
Across the Kunisaki–Usa agricultural heritage region, about 1,200 small ponds form linked water systems. They help irrigate rice where volcanic soils drain rain quickly and short rivers offer little dependable water.
The oldest known inscribed Kunisaki Tower, at Iwato-ji, dates to 1283. Its hollow body contained 3 iron chisels and human hair; these distinctive local pagodas were made to enshrine sutras.
A record of Kunisaki’s Mine-iri mountain training dates to 855, making it one of Japan’s oldest documented pilgrimage practices. Monks still cross the peninsula’s sacred ridges about once a decade.
Rokugo Manzan is no single monastery: it names about 100 Tendai temples and rock sanctuaries scattered across Kunisaki’s 6 historic districts. Shinto shrines and Buddhist halls often share the same sacred sites.
