is a

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

in the Ichinomiya neighborhood of the town of

Ichinomiya is a Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise t ...

in Chōsei District,

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

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 ...

. It is the ''

ichinomiya is a Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise t ...

'' of former

Kazusa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa province ...

. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on September 13, and features ''

kagura is a type of Shinto ritual ceremonial dance. The term is a contraction of the phrase , indicating the presence of gods () in the practice. One major function of is , involving a procession-trance process. Usually a female shaman will perfor ...

'' performances, which are listed as an Intangible Cultural Property of Chiba Prefecture

Enshrined ''kami''

*, the mother of

Emperor Jimmu was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the '' Nihon Shoki'' and '' Kojiki''. His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC.Kelly, Charles F"Kofun Culture"Watatsumi , also pronounced Wadatsumi, is a legendary ''kami'' (神, god; deity; spirit), Japanese dragon and tutelary water deity in Japanese mythology. is believed to be another name for the sea deity Ryūjin (龍神, Dragon God) and also for the , which ...

History

The origins of Tamasaki Jinja are unknown. The shrine is located in an area of the

Bōsō Peninsula The is a peninsula that encompasses the entirety of Chiba Prefecture on Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. It forms the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay, separating it from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula covers ...

with a favorable climate, which has been settled since at least the

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 ...

Shell midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

s and

burial mounds A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a ...

are common in the area. Its earliest appearance unhistorical documentation is an entry date 868 in the ''

Ruijū Kokushi is a historical text that categorizes and chronologizes the events listed in the ''Six National Histories''. It was compiled by Sugawara no Michizane and completed in 892. The text was commissioned by Emperor Uda. Contents The text was originall ...

'' followed by the ''

Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku , abbreviated as Sandai Jitsuroku, is an officially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 901, it is the sixth and final text in the Six National Histories series. It covers the years 858–887. Background Following the earlier nation ...

'' in 877. The shrine is mentioned as the ''ichinomiya'' of Kazusa Province in the ''

Engishiki The is a Japanese book about laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History In 905, Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of the ...

'' records from the early

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

. However, repeated fires and other disasters over the centuries have destroyed all of the old shrine records and buildings. The shrine was burned down in 1562 during a battle involving the

Satomi clan The was a Japanese samurai clan of the Sengoku period (1467–1573) and early Edo period (1603–1868). The clan ruled Awa Province as a ''Sengoku daimyō'' and was a major military power in the Kantō region during the wars of the Nanboku-c ...

and was rebuilt by the Satomi in 1587. Additional structures were donated by

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

in 1591 and the shrine reconstructed in 1687. During the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the shrine was designated as a under the

Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines The was an organizational aspect of the establishment of Japanese State Shinto. This system classified Shinto shrines as either official government shrines or "other" shrines. The official shrines were divided into #Imperial shrines (''kampeisha ...

.Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' pp. 125. The shrine is located a seven-minute walk from

Kazusa-Ichinomiya Station is a passenger railway station located in the town of Ichinomiya, Chiba Prefecture Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Kazusa-Ichinomiya Station is served by the Sotobō Line, and lies from the starting point ...

on the

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

Sotobō Line The is a railway line in Japan operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, on the eastern (i.e., outer) side of the Bōsō Peninsula. It connects Chiba Station in Chiba to Awa-Kamogawa Station in Kamog ...

Gallery

Tamasaki-jinja, honden.JPG, Honden Tamasaki-jinja Kaguraden.jpg, Precincts 玉前神社神楽殿.JPG, Kagura-den Tamasaki-jinja Gate.jpg, Ichi-no-torii

Cultural Properties

National Important Cultural Properties

* ,

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, designated National Important Cultural Property in 1953. The mirror has a diameter of 20.5 cm and a thickness of 3.5 cm, and is made of

cupronickel Cupronickel or copper-nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. (Monel is a nickel-copper alloy that contains a minimu ...

(an alloy of copper and tin). The two small holes on the edge are presumed to indicate that this mirror was once hung in front of the shrine as a ''

shintai In Shinto, , or when the honorific prefix ''go''- is used, are physical objects worshipped at or near Shinto shrines as repositories in which spirits or ''kami'' reside.''Shintai'', Encyclopedia of Shinto ''Shintai'' used in Shrine Shinto (Jin ...

''. On the reverse side is a design of running water with an old plum tree on the right and pampas grass to the left, with two sparrows plating on the trunk, which is bending left. This is an idealized spring scene typical of the Kamakura period.

References

* Plutschow, Herbe. ''Matsuri: The Festivals of Japan''. RoutledgeCurzon (1996) * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959)
''The Imperial House of Japan.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 194887

External links

* *

Notes

{{Authority control Beppyo shrines Shinto shrines in Chiba Prefecture Kazusa Province Ichinomiya, Chiba Ichinomiya