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Yoshino Kumano NP, Wakayama
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Tsuboyu’s UNESCO connection comes through the pilgrimage route: UNESCO includes the 1.8-km Dainichi-goe between Kumano Hongu Taisha and Yunomine, where pilgrims purified themselves in hot water.
In legend, Oguri Hangan returns from the dead gravely disabled, is hauled to Yunomine in a cart, and recovers after 49 days in Tsuboyu. The tale later spread through storytelling and kabuki.
At the riverside Yuzutsu, nearly 90°C spring water cooks eggs and vegetables in a public basin. Nearby shops sell what visitors need, turning the hot spring into Yunomine’s little shared kitchen.
Yunomine’s namesake fern, ユノミネシダ (Yunomine-shida), was first found here in 1887. This warm-climate species reaches its northern limit in Japan at Yunomine, where its habitat is protected as a National Natural Monument.
Local tradition credits Kumano chief Oato Sukune with discovering Yunomine in the 4th century. By the early 12th century, a pilgrim’s journal already recorded a bathing booth here.
At a Yunomine inn, spring water goes beyond the bath: it is used to make yudofu and morning rice porridge. The inn describes its hot-spring tofu as so tender it seems to melt.
Tsuboyu is said to change color 7 times in a day, earning its “seven-colored bath” reputation. Hot-spring hues can shift with chemistry, air and light, so the saying isn’t a reliable seven-color schedule.
On April 13, children are purified at Yunomine, then fathers carry them over Dainichi-goe to Kumano Hongu Taisha; their feet must not touch the ground. For 3 years afterward, adults avoid touching their heads while scolding them.
At Tokoji, Yunomine’s healing-Buddha icon is said to have formed as mineral-rich spring deposits solidified. Legend says water welled from its chest, giving the old name “Yunomune” (“hot-water chest”), later Yunomine.
Local tradition says 13th-century preacher Ippen carved Buddhist words into a rock here with his fingernail after 100 days of practice at Kumano Hongu. The stone’s nickname is “claw-writing rock.”
Another Oguri legend says straw from the pilgrim’s hair tie took root and produced rice year after year without sowing. Makazu-no-ine—the “unseeded rice”—keeps this uncanny little tale planted in Yunomine.
In an Edo-era hot-spring ranking, Yunomine’s “Kumano Hongu no Yu” held the kanjinmoto (organizer or sponsor) position—not a numbered rank. It was a special seat in the hot-spring version of a sumo tournament.
Yunomine-oji, the small pilgrimage shrine, once stood within Tokoji Temple. After a fire in 1903, it was moved to its present site—a reminder of the close shrine-and-temple traditions around this sacred spring.
A stone at Yunomine-oji carries a haiku by Takahama Kyoshi celebrating Yunomine in full bloom. Its short line adds a literary note to a village better known for pilgrimage and hot water.
