Sakusa, the hamlet where the Yaegaki-jinja stands, is scarcely more than
one ri south from Matsue. But to go there one must follow tortuous paths
too rough and steep for a kuruma; and of three ways, the longest and
roughest happens to be the most interesting. It slopes up and down
through bamboo groves and primitive woods, and again serpentines through
fields of rice and barley, and plantations of indigo and of ginseng,
where the scenery is always beautiful or odd. And there are many famed
Shinto temples to be visited on the road, such as Take-uchi-jinja,
dedicated to the venerable minister of the Empress Jingo, Take-uchi, to
whom men now pray for health and for length of years; and Okusa-no-miya,
or Rokusho-jinja, of the five greatest shrines in Izumo; and Manaijinja,
sacred to Izanagi, the Mother of Gods, where strange pictures may be
obtained of the Parents of the World; and Obano-miya, where Izanami is
enshrined, also called Kamoshijinja, which means, 'The Soul of the God.'
At the Temple of the Soul of the God, where the sacred fire-drill used
to be delivered each year with solemn rites to the great Kokuzo of
Kitzuki, there are curious things to be seen--a colossal grain of rice,
more than an inch long, preserved from that period of the Kamiyo when
the rice grew tall as the tallest tree and bore grains worthy of the
gods; and a cauldron of iron in which the peasants say that the first
Kokuzo came down from heaven; and a cyclopean toro formed of rocks
so huge that one cannot imagine how they were ever balanced upon each
other; and the Musical Stones of Oba, which chime like bells when
smitten. There is a tradition that these cannot be carried away beyond a
certain distance; for 'tis recorded that when a daimyo named Matsudaira
ordered one of them to be conveyed to his castle at Matsue, the stone
made itself so heavy that a thousand men could not move it farther than
the Ohashi bridge. So it was abandoned before the bridge; and it lies
there imbedded in the soil even unto this day.
All about Oba you may see many sekirei or wagtails-birds sacred to
Izanami and Izanagi--for a legend says that from the sekirei the gods
first learned the art of love. And none, not even the most avaricious
farmer, ever hurts or terrifies these birds. So that they do not fear
the people of Oba, nor the scarecrows in the fields.
The God of Scarecrows is Sukuna-biko-na-no-Kami.