To me the great marvel of the Hinomisaki-jinja is that structures so
vast, and so costly to maintain, can exist in a mere fishing hamlet,
in an obscure nook of the most desolate coast of Japan. Assuredly the
contributions of peasant pilgrims alone could not suffice to pay the
salary of a single kannushi; for Hinomisaki, unlike Kitzuki, is not a
place possible to visit in all weathers. My friend confirms me in this
opinion; but I learn from him that the temples have three large sources
of revenue. They are partly supported by the Government; they receive
yearly large gifts of money from pious merchants; and the revenues from
lands attached to them also represent a considerable sum. Certainly a
great amount of money must have been very recently expended here; for
the smaller of the two miya seems to have just been wholly rebuilt; the
beautiful joinery is all white with freshness, and even the carpenters'
odorous chips have not yet been all removed.
At the shamusho we make the acquaintance of the Guji of Hinomisaki, a
noble-looking man in the prime of life, with one of those fine aquiline
faces rarely to be met with except among the high aristocracy of Japan.
He wears a heavy black moustache, which gives him, in spite of his
priestly robes, the look of a retired army officer. We are kindly
permitted by him to visit the sacred shrines; and a kannushi is detailed
to conduct us through the buildings.
Something resembling the severe simplicity of the Kitzuki-no-oho-yashiro
was what I expected to see. But this shrine of the Goddess of the Sun is
a spectacle of such splendour that for the first moment I almost doubt
whether I am really in a Shinto temple. In very truth there is nothing
of pure Shinto here. These shrines belong to the famous period of
Ryobu-Shinto, when the ancient faith, interpenetrated and allied
with Buddhism, adopted the ceremonial magnificence and the marvellous
decorative art of the alien creed. Since visiting the great Buddhist
shrines of the capital, I have seen no temple interior to be compared
with this. Daintily beautiful as a casket is the chamber of the shrine.
All its elaborated woodwork is lacquered in scarlet and gold; the
altar-piece is a delight of carving and colour; the ceiling swarms
with dreams of clouds and dragons. And yet the exquisite taste of the
decorators--buried, doubtless, five hundred years ago--has so justly
proportioned the decoration to the needs of surface, so admirably
blended the colours, that there is no gaudiness, no glare, only an
opulent repose.
This shrine is surrounded by a light outer gallery which is not
visible from the lower court; and from this gallery one can study some
remarkable friezes occupying the spaces above the doorways and below
the eaves--friezes surrounding the walls of the miya. These, although
exposed for many centuries to the terrific weather of the western coast,
still remain masterpieces of quaint carving. There are apes and hares
peeping through wonderfully chiselled leaves, and doves and demons, and
dragons writhing in storms. And while looking up at these, my eye is
attracted by a peculiar velvety appearance of the woodwork forming the
immense projecting eaves of the roof. Under the tiling it is more than a
foot thick. By standing on tiptoe I can touch it; and I discover that it
is even more velvety to the touch than to the sight. Further examination
reveals the fact that this colossal roofing is not solid timber, only
the beams are solid. The enormous pieces they support are formed of
countless broad slices thin as the thinnest shingles, superimposed
and cemented together into one solid-seeming mass. I am told that this
composite woodwork is more enduring than any hewn timber could be. The
edges, where exposed to wind and sun, feel to the touch just like the
edges of the leaves of some huge thumb-worn volume; and their stained
velvety yellowish aspect so perfectly mocks the appearance of a book,
that while trying to separate them a little with my fingers, I find
myself involuntarily peering for a running-title and the number of a
folio!
We then visit the smaller temple. The interior of the sacred chamber
is equally rich in lacquered decoration and gilding; and below the miya
itself there are strange paintings of weird foxes--foxes wandering in
the foreground of a mountain landscape. But here the colours have been
damaged somewhat by time; the paintings have a faded look. Without the
shrine are other wonderful carvings, doubtless executed by the same
chisel which created the friezes of the larger temple.
I learn that only the shrine-chambers of both temples are very old; all
the rest has been more than once rebuilt. The entire structure of the
smaller temple and its haiden, with the exception of the shrine-room,
has just been rebuilt--in fact, the work is not yet quite done--so that
the emblem of the deity is not at present in the sanctuary. The shrines
proper are never repaired, but simply reinclosed in the new buildings
when reconstruction becomes a necessity. To repair them or restore them
to-day would be impossible: the art that created them is dead. But
so excellent their material and its lacquer envelope that they have
suffered little in the lapse of many centuries from the attacks of time.
One more surprise awaits me--the homestead of the high pontiff, who most
kindly invites us to dine with him; which hospitality is all the more
acceptable from the fact that there is no hotel in Hinomisaki, but
only a kichinyado [2] for pilgrims. The ancestral residence of the high
pontiffs of Hinomisaki occupies, with the beautiful gardens about it,
a space fully equal to that of the great temple courts themselves. Like
most of the old-fashioned homes of the nobility and of the samurai, it
is but one story high--an immense elevated cottage, one might call it.
But the apartments are lofty, spacious, and very handsome--and there
is a room of one hundred mats. [3] A very nice little repast, with
abundance of good wine, is served up to us, and I shall always remember
one curious dish, which I at first mistake for spinach. It is seaweed,
deliciously prepared--not the common edible seaweed, but a rare sort,
fine like moss.
After bidding farewell to our generous host, we take an uphill stroll
to the farther end of the village. We leave the cuttlefish behind; but
before us the greater part of the road is covered with matting, upon
which indigo is drying in the sun. The village terminates abruptly
at the top of the hill, where there is another grand granite torii--a
structure so ponderous that it is almost as difficult to imagine how
it was ever brought up the hill as to understand the methods of the
builders of Stonehenge. From this torii the road descends to the pretty
little seaport of U-Ryo, on the other side of the cape; for Hinomisaki
is situated on one side of a great promontory, as its name implies--a
mountain-range projecting into the Japanese Sea.