Delivering the Sacred Trees

After the trees that will be used to make the Mihishiro (御樋代) have been felled, they need to be transported to Isë, a couple of hundred kilometres from both the forests where the trees are harvested. Historically, they were floated down the river, and then pulled on carts. These days, most of the journey is done by truck, but there are still a number of ceremonial and celebratory elements, which were reported in the June 23^rd issue of Jinja Shinpō.

The only departure ceremony described was for the trees felled in Nagano Prefecture. It may be that less was done in Gifu — the events in Nagano clearly took a lot of organising, and it may be that no-one in Gifu took the initiative to do so. There is also clearly a sense in which the Nagano forest is the “primary” one, which may also have had an influence.

In any case, the description is of events in Agematsu, the town in Nagano Prefecture closest to the site of the felling matsuri — although it is about 13 km away, out of the mountains proper. The trees were brought there on the day that they were felled, and prepared overnight by the somafu (杣夫), the people responsible for felling them. The trees were cut into logs about 6.6 m long and 48 cm in diameter, with a weight of 1.5 to 2 tonnes. They were also wrapped in straw mats, to protect them while travelling, and the end was carved into a rough dome shape.

On the following day, June 4^th, the weather was clear, unlike the rain for the ceremony itself. The trees were loaded onto wagons, and pulled by hand through the streets of the town, to the railway station. Apparently, about 1,400 people in total were involved in pulling the wagons, while another thousand or so lined the streets to watch. The group organising the ceremony recruited people from a wider region to help with this — as the total population of the town appears to be less than 4,000, they would need to.

At the station, the chief priest of the local jinja officiated at a matsuri praying for the safety of the trees, at which a pair of miko danced kagura. The town then held a three-day festival, including performances and fireworks, before the trees were seen off on the 6^th.

When the logs got to Isë, on the 9^th, it was raining again. The three trunks were delivered to the area in front of Ujibashi (宇治橋), the main bridge into the precincts of the Inner Sanctuary. After they had been welcomed by representatives of Jingū, Mië Prefectural Jinjachō, and the group that organises the pulling of the trees (who is also the mayor of Isë), they were taken downstream to be loaded onto wooden sleds.

The logs for the Inner Sanctuary are pulled there along the Isuzu River, and the people pulling the sleds are sometimes in water up to their chests. (This is one reason why the event doesn’t get cancelled just because it is raining.) The logs were brought to land within the precincts of the Inner Sanctuary.

The logs for the Outer Sanctuary arrived on the following day, and they are pulled over land, on wagons.

Similar events are held for other, slightly less sacred, timber, and it is possible to apply to help pull the wagons. For this one, however, you have to be a resident of Isë, or a student at Kōgakkan University, the Shinto university in the city. I do plan to see whether I can participate in one of the later ones, which start next year.

There are a couple of mysteries (for me) about this. First, as described in my earlier article, a total of four trees are felled, two in Nagano and two in Gifu. The logs are two sets of three. The description of the trees suggests that you could get all three logs out of one tree, which would be consistent with the idea that the Outer Sanctuary’s Mihishiro is also made from timber from Nagano. However, the description of the departure from Nagano only mentions three logs, and the three logs for the Outer Sanctuary arrived in Isë on a truck owned by a Gifu company, which suggests that they came from Gifu. There are potential opportunities to move logs between trucks during transport, but I have to say that the account does not quite add up. I think there is something that is not being mentioned, probably because it doesn’t seem that important.

The other mystery is that the Mihishiro is fairly small. I do not know exactly how big it is, but it is a box for a large mirror that can be carried by a handful of people, and it fits inside another box. There is no way that it needs four to six tonnes of timber. Again, I suspect that there are other details, which are much less important than the fact that some of this wood is used for the Mihishiro.

In any case, another important part of the 63^rd Shikinen Sengū has been successfully completed.