At Shikaumi Shrine, head shrine of Japan's sea gods on Shikanoshima, the year's chief rite begins by praising the mountains — 'a fine mountain, a lush mountain' — purifying three hills with brushwood, drawing a bow, and miming a sea bream's catch. A Fukuoka Intangible Folk Cultural Property where sea and mountain close into one ring.
At the mouth of Hakata Bay lies a small island, Shikanoshima — known as the island of the golden seal. Deep on it stands Shikaumi Shrine, the head shrine of the sea gods (watatsumi), enshrining the three Watatsumi deities who guard the sea's bottom, middle and surface. For generations it has been served by the Azumi, one of Japan's ancient seafaring clans.
At this head shrine of the sea, the most important rite of the year begins by praising the mountains.
Every year on the 15th of April and the 15th of November, the chief priest breaks a branch of 'kotonaki' brushwood and purifies the three hills of Shikanoshima. Before the sacred hill a fan is opened, a beat is struck, and a voice rises toward the mountains: "Aara yoi yama, shigetta yama" — "A fine mountain, a lush mountain."
They are words that people of the sea call out toward the hills. The rite goes on to a hunter's dialogue, to the drawing of a bow, and ends with a straw fin in hand, rowing out to mime the catching of a sea bream. Praising the mountain, hunting, fishing the sea — the fortunes of mountain and sea close into a single ring within one festival.
Its origin reaches back to the legend of Empress Jingu, whom the fishermen of Shiga are said to have feasted with the bounty of sea and mountain; that feast became the shape of this rite. The spring festival adds the motion of sowing seed; autumn keeps the hunt and the catch. A year of the sea people turns between the mountain and the sea.
Its order and chants have shifted little by little from Edo-period records, yet in keeping an old form alive it is a rare festival even within the prefecture — an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Fukuoka. Those who live by the sea watch the mountains most closely; in those plain words of praise remains the memory of a life lived with sea and mountain as one.
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