Looking for the Lost by Alan Booth

Author:Alan Booth [Booth, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kodansha USA
Published: 2021-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

3

Home of the Gods

Hours later I stepped over a dead fox and tramped into the town of Takachiho. It was to the hill on which this town stands that the grandson of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami descended from the High Plain of Heaven in order to establish his rule over the Central Land of the Reed Plains. His name was Ama-Tsu-Hiko-Hiko-Ho-no-Ninigi-no-Mikoto, the meaning of which (admits W. G. Aston in his 1896 translation of the Nihonshoki, the eighth-century chronicle in which these wonders are recorded) “is doubtful,” so he was called the August Grandchild for short. He brought with him the Imperial Regalia, the sacred mirror, sword, and jewel which were to become the emblems of the emperors of Japan for generations unbroken. Then he built a palace, to which he fetched as his bride a young woman named the Princess of the Deer Reeds, but who was known in addition as the Princess of Upper Ata and who also answered to the name of the Princess Who Blossoms Like the Flowers of the Trees. After one night of intercourse this princess declared herself pregnant, a development which the August Grandchild stoutly refused to credit, saying, “Not even a god can screw that good,” or words to the same effect. But the August Grandchild was mistaken, and the Princess Who Blossoms Like the Flowers of the Trees subsequently produced triplets who were impervious to fire.

Small wonder that the municipal authorities of Takachiho have outdone those of little Hinokage in striving to impress upon visitors the unusual pedigree of their town. As Hinokage has gone in for cassettes and Englishmen, so Takachiho has gone in for gods. The signs along National Highway 218 proclaiming it The Highway of Myth and Legend continue into the outskirts of the town (population 19,000), where they are superseded by mass-produced placards on the streetlamps outside all the shops that welcome travelers to The Home of the Gods. These were a brainchild of the works department. On many of the shops’ metal shutters there are bright gloss-painted representations of the masked dances called kagura, which are intended as entertainments for the gods and which have been performed each evening for fee-paying spectators at the Takachiho Shrine ever since 1972. The shutters were all painted by the same busy artist a couple of years before my visit and were a joint project of the town hall’s tourist bureau and the local retailers’ association. The signs and shutters and posters and shops lend Takachiho a uniform air of prosperity. There is a ryokan with a sign that says English Speaking, a bar called Kagura, carefully lettered notices that identify all the trees in the vicinity of the shrine, telephone booths built like rustic log cabins, loudspeakers at the railway station that broadcast a tape loop of the town’s most famous folk song, “Kariboshikiri Uta” (The Scything Song), played on a bamboo flute and, on the day I tramped in, the Takachiho High School kendo team had just won the all-Japan fencing championship at the Budokan in Tokyo.

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