was a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

located in Aira District,

Kagoshima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,599,779 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 9,187 km2 (3,547 sq mi). Kagoshima Prefecture borders Kumamoto P ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. As of June 1, 2005, the town had an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 9,041 (4,202 men and 4,839 women) and the

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...

of 71.27 persons per km². The total area was 129.66 km². On November 7, 2005, Makizono, along the city of Kokubu, with the towns of Kirishima (former), Fukuyama, Hayato, Mizobe and

Yokogawa is a Japanese multinational electrical engineering and software company, with businesses based on its measurement, control, and information technologies. It has a global workforce of over 19,000 employees, 84 subsidiary and 3 affiliated compa ...

(all from Aira District), was merged to create the city of Kirishima and no longer exists as an independent

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

. Some of the first inhabitants of this area were the

Kumaso The were a mythical people of ancient Japan mentioned in the '' Kojiki'', believed to have lived in the south of Kyūshū until at least the Nara period. The last leader of the Kumaso, Torishi-Kaya was killed by Yamato Takeru in 397. The name o ...

people of the early

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

. Archeological digs in the Manzen district have revealed ancient artifacts most likely used by the Kumaso. Kumaso no Ana in the neighboring town of Hayato (now also part of Kirishima) is a cave thought to have been used by the Kumaso. The earliest recorded name of Makizono, is Inazumi-go. In Japanese "ina" refers to rice and "zumi" means a vast collection, or a pile. "Go" means village or hamlet. In other words, the area was known for its bountiful rice harvests. Later texts from the

Tokugawa period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterize ...

name the area that is now Makizono, Odori-go. "Odori" is the Japanese word for dancing, and it is said that this name was given to the town by visitors who noted the jovial nature of the local residents. While you rarely see mention of these former names in the current town, the hot spring inn located in the Shukukubota district, Iwaibashi Onsen Inn, has the characters for Odori-go written in large print on the side of their hot spring facilities.

References

* Japanese Wikipedia article about Makizono

External links

Official website of Kirishima
Dissolved municipalities of Kagoshima Prefecture {{Kagoshima-geo-stub