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Yoshino Kumano NP, Mie
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The little Jizō at Magose began as a place to pray for travelers’ safe journeys. Later, local parents asked it to quiet children crying at night; baby bottles are still left there as offerings.
Look down to spot two unusual stones: one bears marks no one can now read, while another is heart-shaped. Local guides say the inscription’s maker and meaning remain unknown.
A beloved local folktale links Magose to Gonbei, the farmer in the song about crows stealing seeds. He is said to have killed a giant serpent on the pass, then died from its venom.
About 2 km of Magose’s path is paved with local stone. Edo-period builders arranged it to guard against Owase’s torrential rain—and shaped the steps to rise gradually with a walker’s stride.
Owase sailors prayed to Magose’s Iwafune Jizō before setting out to sea. Its stone boat bears a 1723 inscription; local tradition says a traveling sumo wrestler carried the statue here and married into the tea-house family.
The branch from Magose toward Mt. Tengura leads to a natural rock shelter holding 33 stone Kannon figures, linked to the Saigoku pilgrimage. It’s a surprising layer of pilgrimage history just above the pass.
After arriving in 1852, haiku poet Karyōen Tōitsu spent about a year teaching locals; they raised his 1.95-m stone monument in 1854. Its poem hears mountain water above blossoms at night.
The hinoki lining Magose is part of a centuries-old working forest: Owase forestry dates to around 1630. Dense planting and repeated thinning help produce the area’s strong, tight-grained timber.
Near the Owase-side foot of Magose, Fudō Falls flow past a rock-cut shrine to Fudō Myōō and the mountain ascetic En no Gyōja. In the Edo period, people prayed here for rain during droughts.
From the 17th century, many travelers visited Ise Shrine and continued along the Iseji toward Nachi’s Seiganto-ji, the first temple on the Saigoku 33-temple pilgrimage. Magose lay on their route south.
Magose wasn’t only a pilgrimage path: Mie Prefecture records that it remained a prefectural road until the early Shōwa period, carrying everyday local traffic into the 20th century.
On the Owase-side descent, Sakurajizō recalls a former cherry-viewing spot. Because water flows beside its shrine, locals also call it Mizunomi Jizō—“Water-Drinking Jizō.”
One stream crossing uses a single broad slab of stone as its bridge. It’s a small marvel of local-stone ingenuity on a trail whose paving was built to withstand heavy rain.
