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 ...

located in the Kawakita neighborhood of the town of Tsuno,

Miyazaki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Miyazaki Prefecture has a population of 1,073,054 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 7,735 km2 (2,986 sq mi). Miyazaki Prefecture borders Ōita Prefecture to the north, Kuma ...

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 the former Hyūga Province. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on December 5.

Enshrined ''kami''

The primary ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' enshrined at Tsuno Jinja is: * head of the ''kunitsukami'', the gods of the earth, and the original ruler of the terrestrial world,

History

The foundation of Tsuno Shrine is unknown. According to the shrine's legend, it was founded six years before Emperor Jimmu's accession to the throne, when the Emperor departed Hyūga on his expedition to conquer the east. It is also claimed that

Empress Jingū was a legendary Japanese empress who ruled as a regent following her husband's death in 200 AD. Both the ''Kojiki'' and the ''Nihon Shoki'' (collectively known as the ''Kiki'') record events that took place during Jingū's alleged lifetime. Leg ...

worshipped at this location for the safety of her fleet during her conquest of the

Korean Peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, and said that the first time that the shrine was built was after the Empress's triumphant return. In addition to the ruins dating back to 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 ...

, the Tsuno area is home to more than 20 burial mounds (the Tsuno Kofun Cluster), and pottery and

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s have been excavated near the site of the shrine. In 837 the shrine was promoted to a government shrine, and in 843 was awarded Junior Fifth Rank , per the "

Shoku Nihon Kōki is an officially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 869, it is the fourth volume in the Six National Histories. It covers the years 833–850. Background Following the earlier national history ''Nihon Kōki'' (840), in 855 Emperor ...

"). In 858, it was promoted to Junior Fourth Rank per the '' Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku''. In the '' Engishiki'', it is one of only four shrines listed for Hyūga Province, and at that time it was the largest shrine in Hyūga Province, with magnifient shrine buildings and vast estates. It was also involved in a protracted conflict with Tsuma Shrine, the

Sōja shrine in Sōja, Okayama, where 304 ''kami'' of Bitchu Province are collectively worshipped is a type of Shinto shrine where the ''kami'' of a region are grouped together into a single sanctuary. This "region" may refer to a ''shōen'', village or geog ...

of the province. The details of this conflict are unknown as all of the anient records have been destroyed. By the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

the Tsuno Shrine was regarded as the ''

'' of Hyūga Province. It was rebuilt by the local warlord Itō Yoshisuke in 1549; in 1578, during a conflict between Ōtomo Sōrin and the Shimazu Yoshihisa, the shrine was destroyed by fire, and the shrine buildings, shrine treasures, and ancient documents were all destroyed. The shrine never recovered, and by 1675, traveller's accounts stated that it was a small, unattended shrine. The shrine was restored in its current form by Akizuki Tanemasa, the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of

Takanabe Domain The was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hyūga Province in modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu.

, and in 1701, estates worth 20 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

'' were donated for its upkeep. Successive ''daimyō'' of Takanabe supported the shrine through the end of the

Edo 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 characteriz ...

. 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 ...

era of

State Shinto was Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto. The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that emphasized the Emperor as ...

, the shrine was rated 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 ...

in 1871.Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' pp. 125. in 1934, the area of the shrine was expanded and improved as part of the "celebrations of the 2600th anniversary of the founding of Japan" project sponsored by the government. The main shrine building was rebuilt in 2007. The shrine is located 25 minutes on foot or five minutes by car from Tsuno Station on the

JR Kyushu The , also referred to as , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It operates intercity rail services within Kyushu, Japan and the JR Kyushu Jet Ferry Beetle hydrofoil service across the Tsushima Strait ...

Nippō Main Line

Gallery

File:Tsuno-jinja haiden.JPG, Heiden File:Tsuno-jinja kaguraden.JPG, Kagura-den File:Tsuno-jinja kusu.JPG, ''

Camphora officinarum ''Camphora officinarum'' is a species of evergreen tree that is commonly known under the names camphor tree, camphorwood or camphor laurel. Description ''Camphora officinarum'' is native to China south of the Yangtze River, Taiwan, southern ...

'', (Tsuno town Natural Monument) File:Tsuno-jinja kitaootorii.JPG, North Torii

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