2023 Volume 86 Issue 5 Pages 511-516
This report investigates the location characteristics, layout structure, and problems for the succession of shrines, which are the center of the local community in the Nishiizu area. Through a comprehensive study, we identified 167 sites, but could not find approximately 30 of the past lists of shrines. Shrines located at the foot of mountains were the most frequent (51.5%), and a tendency was observed for the shrines situated at the boundaries between inhabited areas and mountains, considering their location with settlements. Only 18.0% shrines were outside the tsunami and landslide risk areas, according to overlapping hazard maps, which did not necessarily imply that the location was safe in this district. We realized that the shrine layout structure combining the areas of subsistence and livelihood is peculiar to the Nishiizu area, with several shrines located in response to the cove and core shrine. However, interviews with Shinto chief priests showed that shrine activities, which once had the function of integrating the community, are shrinking. The significance of the succession of indigenous Shinto chief priests was proposed for the maintenance and revitalization of local cultural events. In village units where loss and enshrinement occurred at small shrines, it was assumed that in the future, they would be racking one after another from the marginal shrines in this shrine layout structure.
