The Gateway into Izumo Province｜The Town of Isotake and the Karakami Shiragi Shrine in Iwami

Isotake, a small fishing town in Oda in Shimane Prefecture, is my grandfather’s hometown. It is an unusual place whose name is the name of a god itself. It belonged to the old province of Iwami and lies on the sea side of the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine. The neighboring province was Izumo, and the cape of Isotake sits a little way down the coast from Izumo Taisha.

Okuninushi, enshrined at Izumo Taisha, and Isotakeru, enshrined here, are deeply connected. What binds the two is Susanoo, who is worshiped at shrines such as Kumano Taisha.

Isotakeru is a child of Susanoo and is told of as one of three siblings, together with Oyatsuhime and Tsumatsuhime. After his famous slaying of Yamata no Orochi, Susanoo is said to have crossed with the three siblings to Silla on the Korean Peninsula, taught forestry and other skills there, and then returned to the homeland where his mother goddess dwelt. On that journey, it is said, the gods first landed on Karashima, an island a little to the south of here, took off their wet clothes, and then descended upon a huge rock that rises from the sea off the coast of Isotake.

Because of this origin, the small fishing town is home to a very unusual shrine called the Karakami Shiragi Shrine, where the god Karakami is enshrined. Behind it rises Mount Karayama, and the sound “kara” turns up all around. It is truly a place on the front line of ancient crossings from the continent. This character of the land carried on into the age of the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine, which boasted one of the largest silver outputs in the world, and people of different origins from all over the country lived here together and built up a history of their own.

In other words, the traces of a vast trading network that linked the ancient Korean Peninsula with the whole Sea of Japan region are still clearly inscribed here today. Unless it is raining, if you climb the cape of Isotake you can see across to the Shimane Peninsula, where Izumo Taisha stands. The seafaring Ama peoples who landed here or approached this coast in ancient times could go on into Izumo by sight alone. Standing here, you understand well that this was the gateway into the province of Izumo. From here, I believe, they advanced inland by way of Lake Jinzai, Lake Shinji, or the Hii River in Izumo, and gradually came to rule the Japanese archipelago.

So this is not a place told of through a mythical worldview. It is still the front line where history and myth meet. Even now, when you stand on the cape, a fierce wind blows, and rough waves break against the rock where the gods descended.

What is interesting is that, as in the myths of the birth of the land in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, whenever the gods descend, they always first land, or descend, on a small island, rock, or mountain nearby. Going straight onto the mainland was probably not proper in their faith, or in the most primitive form of their misogi purification. They would rid themselves here of the impurity they had taken on, and only then set foot on the new land. One can imagine that they shared some such common rite.

As I watch the rough waves break against the rock where the gods landed, my imagination begins to wander. What did they prepare when they landed here, and where did they cross to from here? Seaward of this rock, the horizon stretches away. What can be said for certain, though, is that beyond it lies the Korean Peninsula.

Silla was founded in 57 BC and in 676 unified the Korean Peninsula for the first time. Many legends about pirates from Silla remain along the coast of the old province of Iwami, and it is possible that Isotakeru is in fact connected with them. The name of the god is read Isotakeru in Iwami, but Itakeru in Izumo and elsewhere.

The Karakami Shiragi Shrine does not appear in the Izumo Fudoki, but it is first recorded in the Izumo section of the Engishiki Jinmyocho, where it is listed as the “Karakuni Itate Shrine” (韓国, read here as “Karakuni”). “Itate” is “Itakeru,” and it also means “itate” [射盾], an archer’s shield. For this reason, some think that in this region the god Isotakeru was worshiped as a symbolic god who protected the seaside villages from the pirates of Silla.

Isotakeru remains wrapped in mystery, yet he is worshiped across the whole country, and apart from Iwami he is most deeply revered on the Wakayama side.

When I think of how history and myth meet in this land, I wonder whether it is a trace of the fact that, from ancient times, the gateway for anyone heading from the area around Silla on the Korean Peninsula to the Japanese archipelago was not northern Kyushu but the coast from Izumo to Iwami.