Shimenawa 1 ~ Zuou Jinja

 

Japanese Name:  頭王神社
Romanized Reading: Zuou Jinja
English Translation: Head King Shrine
Size: Medium
Deity: Kakumiya Gorou no Mitama
First Visit: 9-Dec-2018
Location: Masaki
Address: Ekubi, Masaki, Iyo District, Ehime 791-3141
Coordinates: 33.79561,132.72713

On my hike south towards the town with the inviting name of Inari, I came across this shrine where I encountered a small crowd of people in  the process of knurling a new Shimenawa. They were quite excited to see a foreigner take an interest in a little shrine in the middle of nowhere, and I for my part was quite excited to have run into a rare event like this by pure chance.

The Shimenawa is a knurled cord of rice straw that traditionally signifies the boundary between the human world and the spirit world. You'll find them at most shrines, usually adorned with little zig-zag shaped paper strips. I was told that the Shimenawa represents the clouds, and the paper strips represent divine lightning.

As for the shrine's deity Kakumiya Gorou no Mitama (頭王弥五郎霊 "Head King Increasingly Five Sons Deity"), if I read the nearby explanatory billboard correctly, it was a benevolent local ruler who was posthumously deified, maybe around the year 940 or so. In case anyone can read Japanese better than I, here's said billboard: