Legendary bird attracts tourists to shrine
TANABE, Japan: Visitors to Kumano Hongu Taisha shrine will spot numerous statues and other depictions of a three-legged crow called Yatagarasu.
According to legend, Yatagarasu serves Susano no mikoto, a Shinto deity enshrined in Kumano Hongu, and guided Emperor Jinmu and his troops through a rocky path in the Kumano region (present day Wakayama Prefecture) to the Yamato region (now Nara Prefecture) during the Emperor’s eastern expedition.
Kumano Hongu Taisha is one of the Kumano Sanzan shrines and the leading facility for the more than 3,000 Kumano shrines across Japan. The shrine’s precincts are enclosed by trees and vivid greenery.
Yatagarasu is known as the deity of guidance and has recently attracted much attention. A three-legged bird resembling the fabled crow is emblazoned on the jerseys for the Japan national soccer team, which is currently competing for a spot at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The bird’s image was adopted because Kakunosuke Nakamura (1878-1906), considered the founder of modern Japanese soccer, hailed from the Kumano region. Nakamura established a soccer club in Tokyo Higher Normal School, predecessor of the modern-day University of Tsukuba. It is believed that a predecessor organisation to the Japan Football Association introduced the logo in the years before World War II.
Following the 1998 soccer World Cup in France, marking Japan’s first appearance in the tournament, JFA officials and national team players began visiting the shrine to pray or offer thanks for victory.
Soccer-related paraphernalia is displayed in the shrine’s hall of worship, including uniforms autographed by Homare Sawa, who led the Japan national women’s team to a championship at the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Many soccer fans have visited the shrine as a result.
A number of goods are also sold at the shrine, including omamori amulets and ema picture tablets. Wa no omamori tablets designed by Hirohiko Araki, author of the popular manga series “Jojo no Kimiyo na Boken” (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure), are particularly popular with visitors.
When the Kumano Sanzan shrines were registered as parts of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, Ietaka Kuki, 61, chief priest of Kumano Hongu, had an epiphany. Recognizing the worldwide appeal of manga and anime, Kuki decided to use pop culture to convey the shrine’s appeal to the world.
Kuki then asked Araki, who had visited the shrine frequently, to design goods to be sold there.
The drawings on the amulets feature the long-winding Kumano Kodo pilgrimage path and Yatagarasu spreading its wings. The designs also display images from the Jojo series world, which has many fans overseas.
Tomoko Takada, 27, and Miki Shinohara, 27, company employees from Hannan, Osaka Prefecture, said they spent four hours at the shrine in hopes of obtaining wa no omamori amulets. They said through giggles that they would not have visited the Kumano region or known about the site if not for the amulets designed by the Jojo series creator.
Wandering through the shrine grounds, I saw a crowd gather around a dark black mailbox with a small statue of Yatagarasu perched atop it. The mailbox is popular with young people who like posting photos and videos of it on Instagram, a popular image-sharing platform.
“Yatagarasu is accepting of everyone, regardless of generation or nationality. I hope visitors will feel deeply the Kumano region’s atmosphere and look at themselves in a new way,” Kuki said. I came to feel how the region truly embraces everything.