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Daisen-Oki NP, Shimane
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A 6.385-kg meteorite punched through a home’s roof and floors in Sōzu, Mihonoseki, on 10 December 1992, stopping beneath the ground-floor boards. The rare fresh-fall meteorite is now displayed nearby at Meteor Plaza.
Before refrigerators, Mihonoseki fishing families preserved mackerel by salting it in rounds with the innards still inside. After about 6 months of fermentation, it becomes intensely savory saba no shiokara, now used even like anchovy in pasta.
A belief that Miho Shrine’s deities love music inspired offerings of 846 instruments, from drums, flutes and shamisen to accordions, music boxes, harmonicas and tiny toy instruments. The collection is designated an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property.
On 3 December, 2 hollowed-out fir canoes carry 9 parishioners each through Miho Harbor. They race and splash cold seawater at one another, reenacting the mythic messengers who rowed in to negotiate the transfer of Izumo.
At Yokota Shrine in Moriyama, a local legend says Ōkuninushi was so grateful for a fisher family’s red-shell rice porridge that he put their rice tub on his head. The annual dance with a tub prays for good harvests and catches.
Miho Shrine’s 2 main halls sit side by side but form one building, joined by a chamber called the shozoku-no-ma, or garment room. Rebuilt in 1813, this unusual paired-hall design gives each deity a distinct sanctuary.
The eastern tip of the Shimane Peninsula, now called Cape Jizozaki, was once known as Mihonosaki. In an 8th-century Izumo legend, a god used a rope to pull extra land into the sea, forming this cape and Hinomisaki.
About 4 km offshore, Jinogozen and Okinogozen remain part of Miho Shrine’s precincts. Local fishers traditionally watched Okinogozen’s subtly shifting outline—affected by humidity and air pressure—to judge the weather before heading out.
Local stories recorded by Miho Shrine say sacred kagura music can be heard echoing from the seabed around Okinogozen Island. A small worship site was built on nearby Cape Jizozaki in 1973, inspired by the old tradition.
First lit in 1898, Mihonoseki is San’in’s oldest stone lighthouse. Its protected historic ensemble includes the keeper’s house, first storehouse, old lens and rotating mechanism—rarely preserved pieces of a working coastal station.
Each 7 April, local ritual attendants ride boats decorated with green brushwood in a ceremony linked to Ebisu’s withdrawal from the visible world. Preparations begin days earlier, including ritual seclusion and fasting by the appointed attendants.
The Edo-era stones of Aoishi-datami Street were working port infrastructure, not just decoration: carts carried goods along them, while narrow covered alleys moved cargo from beachside ships to the road. Rain brings out the stones’ blue-green sheen.
The temple now called Bukkokuji is said to have sheltered 2 emperors bound for exile on Oki: Go-Toba in 1221 and Go-Daigo in 1332. Their ships stopped at Mihonoseki, where the temple’s predecessor served as a place to wait out the weather.
Writer Lafcadio Hearn described hundreds of lanterns glowing from the upper floors of Mihonoseki’s waterfront inns and reflecting in the bay. His account also captures the lively nights of sailors, gamblers, geisha and dancers in this busy port.
Mihokan’s family traces its Mihonoseki roots to 1180. Over the centuries, its businesses included Kitamaebune shipping, whaling and money-changing; when railways weakened sea trade, the family shifted toward innkeeping in 1905.
According to local tradition, 5 pines once guided ships into Mihonoseki. When a Matsue lord ordered one cut because it spoiled his view, boatmen lamented the loss—and their grief is said to have inspired the folk song Sekino Gohonmatsu-bushi.
O-kage Well, beside Miho Shrine’s gate, was dug during a drought in the summer of 1861. Its water was precious not only to townspeople but also to ships calling at the port; the well is now a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.
In Katue, a New Year tradition uses slices of daikon to dab stove soot onto people’s faces. The smudges are part of a prayer for health through the coming year—a strikingly hands-on community custom in Mihonoseki.
A 1927 night-exercise collision involving Japanese destroyers off Jizozaki claimed 119 sailors. A memorial at nearby Gohonmatsu Park was built in 1929; in 1952, its name was changed to the Peace Memorial Tower.
