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Saikai NPKujukushima, Nagasaki
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Hidden Christians in Nozaki’s Nokubi and Funamori hamlets concealed their faith as Shinto shrine parishioners and joined its rites. They also belonged to a Buddhist temple on Ojika and underwent fumie, foot-treading tests.
Just 17 households built Nozaki’s 1908 brick church: adults ate 2 meals a day, fished for kibinago herring, and did heavy labor themselves. They repaid the full ¥3,000 construction cost at its opening.
Behind Okinokojis Shrine stands Oeishi, a torii-shaped rock formation 24 m high and 12 m wide. Whether it was shaped by nature or people is unknown; local legend says a deity appeared atop it.
Okinokojis Shrine’s collection includes 18 mostly Chinese and Thai ceramics dated to the 14th–17th centuries. Used in Edo-period rites, the rare, nearly complete vessels hint at trade links across East and Southeast Asia.
A local account traces Funamori’s beginnings to an Ojika shipping merchant who sheltered a Christian parent and child fleeing persecution. Their descendants called his family “danna-sama” and brought them New Year gifts.
Nokubi and Funamori each had a church, but Mass was celebrated at only one at a time. Worshippers walked the steep path between the hamlets; after Christmas Mass, some made the return trip in darkness.
The former Nokubi Church’s missing cross decoration resurfaced in 2011 at the former Shitsu Aid Center, wrapped in paper marked “Nokubi Church.” The carpenter’s name on its back matched a name on the church altar.
For Ojika islanders, Nozaki’s woods were part of daily life: they grew crops on flatter Ojika, then crossed by boat for firewood and charcoal. This island-to-island routine helped shape a nationally designated cultural landscape.
The 1908 Nokubi Church was architect Tetsukawa Yosuke’s first brick church. It preserves nearly all its original form and marks the period when churches in the Goto Islands were shifting from wood to brick.
Nozaki’s 3 villages held more than 650 people in the 1950s. In 2001, the island’s last local resident—the priest who cared for Okinokojis Shrine—left, and the once-busy island became practically uninhabited.
Deer browsing helps keep saplings down, leaving old terraces visible—but heavy grazing also strips undergrowth and exposes soil. Researchers have documented this ecological tug-of-war on Nozaki.
