On the Road to Inaba and Hoki

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On the Road to Inaba and Hoki

Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.

Kaido wo yuku Vol.27 hoiki・Inaba .

In the previous article, I described an island trip around Okinawa Prefecture.This trip will be to the Tottori region, which is steeped in ancient culture, including Shirouto Beach, known for the myth of the “White Hare of Inaba,” and places associated with Ōtomo no Yakamochi, a Manyo (Japanese classical poetry) poet. The route will start from Hayano in Chigashira-cho, Tottori Prefecture, and return along the riverside national highway to Tottori, where Yanagi Sōetsu‘s folk art movement will be described, and after visiting the Inaba National Office site and thinking about Otomo no Yakamochi, the tour will head to Tottori Sand Dunes, then leave Tottori for the Hakuto Coast, famous for the myth of the “Inaba White Hare“. Then, we will go to Kurayoshi, eat tofu at Santokuzan Kaiseiin and talk about the charm of Kurayoshi kasuri, and head to Yonago, where we will see Mt. Daisen

This trip was to Tottori Prefecture. The trip starts from Chigashira-cho, Yatashira-gun, in the Chugoku Mountains from Tottori City. Chigashira is a town with heavy snowfall in winter and used to be a post town of the Tottori clan. The town of Chigashira is being revitalized under the concept of “Kurashiya,” or “living house.

The eastern half of Tottori Prefecture (centered on Tottori City) is called Inaba-no-kuni, while the western half (centered on Yonago) is called Hoki-no-kuni. To reach Chigashira, one must take the highway from Osaka, where Ryotaro Shiba lives, through Banshu (Hyogo Prefecture) and Sakushu (Okayama Prefecture) to enter Inaba Province.

This area was part of the Kibi cultural sphere, and most of the mountains contained iron sand, which was used to make iron in ancient times. Iron farm implements increased in productivity, and by the end of the 5th century, the Kibi maintained a power that rivaled that of the Yamato regime, but in the 6th century, the Kibi came under Yamato subjugation. According to the Chronicles of Japan, Kibitsuhiko-no-mikoto, from whom the name Kibi is derived, is said to have been the origin of Momotaro, a character who was dispatched by the Yamato regime to subjugate the indigenous tribes living in the Kibi mountains (considered demons in the old tales).

In contrast, the provinces of Inaba and Hoki belonged to the Izumo cultural sphere and formed a religious state centered on the Sea of Japan side. Here, too, Susano-no-mikoto, dispatched by the Yamato regime (according to the Kojiki, he was banished), went to Izumo, killed the Yamata no Orochi (the prototype of King Ghidorah, a legendary creature that appears in the Kojiki), and then, in a battle with the Yamata no Orochi, defeated the eight-forked serpent.

It is said that he established a country there, but eventually handed over the country to the Yamato regime on condition that the Izumo Taisha shrine be built.

古代の出雲大社の想像図

This is also believed to be the actual conquest of the Izumo region by the Yamato regime, and is depicted as a story behind the Kojiki in “Shigeru Mizuki’s Ancient Izumo” by Shigeru Mizuki, a native of Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, for example.

Hayano, the starting point of the trip, is located near one of the best hiking trails in the Chugoku region, called Nagiyama.

From Hayano, the tour will descend the Chiyogawa River and head for Tottori. In Tottori City, they will visit the Inaba-no-Kofu ruins.

The Inaba-no-Kofu site is the site of the government office that ruled Inaba Province during the Nara and Heian periods. When excavations were conducted, the site was found to contain the remains of a shoden (main hall) where government officials used to rule, dugout pillars, earthenware, inkstones, and ceramics.

The governor of this provincial government was Otomo no Yakamochi, a poet who composed more than 10% of the long and short poems in the Manyoshu (Anthology of Myriad Leaves). yakamochi came to Japan in 758, and was a man of many things and refined manners who was not suited to power struggles, and his departure to Inaba was also a leftward shift.

The Otomo clan was a powerful aristocrat in the ancient Yamato court, but lost the power struggle when the Fujiwara clan, a newly emerging power, rose to power. The rise of the Fujiwara clan was triggered by the Taika Reform (645), when Emperor Nakano oe and Fujiwara Kamatari stabbed to death the Soga clan (as described in “Takeuchi Kaido and Ancient Japan“), a very powerful aristocrat in ancient times, inside the court.

His most famous poem is the last of the 456 poems in the Manyoshu (Anthology of Myriad Leaves)

The snow that falls today in early spring, the beginning of a new year, is heavy with good fortune.

The poem is called “No, heavy snow falling today is a good omen.

Tottori is also a place where “folk art” flourishes. “Mingei” was proposed and practiced by Yanagi Sōetsu in the late Taisho period (around 1920), and together with the aesthetics of Sen no Rikyu, it became a representative of the originality of Japanese culture. In “Mingei,” the Japanese daily utensils are reexamined to rediscover that random beauty is created not out of a sense of beauty but out of a sense of “use. At the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba 4-chome, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, visitors can see a variety of folk crafts collected by Yanagi Muneyoshi, and at the Tottori Folk Crafts Museum in Tottori, visitors can see unique folk crafts such as Inshu Nakaiyaki pottery.

In his book, Muneyoshi Yanagi also describes how he walked through the mountains of Tottori to visit a person he knew as “Genza of Inaba,” or “Myoko-jin,” and compiled a record of his sayings and deeds.

Myokonin refers to a person who has entered the state of enlightenment in the Zen tradition, a person who shines with Buddhist enlightenment in even the most trivial aspects of daily life, and is a historical figure who has attracted attention from the perspective of intellectuals such as D.T. Suzuki, who introduced Zen to the world, and artists such as Muneyoshi Yanagi.

Yanagi Muneyoshi, for example, described the beauty of metal fittings as “metal fittings that make things strong. Each is true to its purpose. The beauty of these things comes from their sincerity.

I believe that these words can be connected to the functional beauty of Bauhaus and the beauty of programming using LISP, as I mentioned in my previous article “The Common Beauty of Art and Programming“.

A little further west from Tottori City, you will come to Hakuto Beach and Hakuto Shrine. This is said to be the place where Okuninushi no Mikoto saved a rabbit that had been skinned and stripped naked by a crocodile in the Kojiki.

In the story of the White Rabbit of Inaba, Okuninushi no Mikoto and his brothers (eighty deities), who had inheritance rights in the ancient Land of Izumo, went to Inaba to marry a beautiful woman named Yagamihime in the Land of Inaba, but were swept away by a flood to an island called Okinojima, and to return to land they asked a crocodile (said in one passage to mean a shark) in the sea, “Which of my kind is more numerous than yours? He pretended to count the number of crocodiles in a line and flew over them, and when he came to the back of the last crocodile, he turned around and said, “I have deceived you,” which caused the crocodile to “strip” him of his clothes. When the eighty gods passed by and told him that he would be cured if he bathed in seawater and exposed to the wind, he was in agony, but Okuninushi taught him a remedy: “Take the yellow pollen of the Gamo plant that grows at the mouth of rivers, scatter it on the ground, turn over and roll on it, and it will return to normal. The white hare was restored to its original state, whereupon it suddenly took on a divine nature, and was told, “You will take Yagamihime to wife (i.e., become the sovereign of the Land of Inaba).

The actual island of Oki no Shima is a small rock island only a short distance from the land, as shown in the photo above.

From Hakuto Beach, we headed further west to the town of Kurayoshi, located at the foot of Mount Hokuidaisen. Hoki Daisen is 1729 meters above sea level, the highest mountain in the Chugoku region.

Kurayoshi has been a prosperous town for a long time and still retains old-fashioned houses and warehouses reminiscent of the Edo period.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Kurayoshi is also famous for its unique Kurayoshigasuri (patterned fabric), a specialty of the area.

Further west from Kurayoshi is Yonago. Yonago is called the Osaka of the San’in region, and is a city of well-developed commerce. Kaike Onsen Hot Springs, located on the ocean side of the city, was the site of Japan’s first triathlon. The race starts at Kaike Onsen Beach, swims 3 km along the ocean, climbs up to the foot of Mt. Daisen for 140 km, and finishes at Yonago for 42.195 km to Sakaiminato. The race is held at the end of July, which is unusually hot for an endurance race, and is run at temperatures approaching 35 degrees Celsius, making it the ultimate endurance race.

Sakaiminato, which serves as the course, is home to Mizuki Shigeru Road, where the works of Shigeru Mizuki adorn the streets, and the Mizuki Shigeru Memorial Museum.

In addition, there is the Eshima Bridge, famous for the “sticky bridge” often seen in commercials and other media.

Next trip was on Daitokuji Temple in Murasaki, Kita-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, as described in “Mahayana Buddhism, Nirvana Sutra, and Zen Teachings” and “The Zen Way of Life” among others.