It was Friday, June 26th. That morning, I was heading north in Shisho’s beat-up light car, bound for Sasagawa Town in the northern part of the prefecture. Since City O, where we lived, was situated in the south near the Seto Inland Sea, it was quite a long drive to the northern towns.
"Glad it’s a clear day," Shisho said, letting the wind blowing through the window wash over her face with a pleased look.
On such a refreshing morning, Inagawa Junji’s ghost stories were playing from the stereo.
"So, about that Koshin faith, I looked into it just in case." "Oh?"
Since she hadn't been paying attention to me for a while, I used direct force to silence Junji.
"Hey, you little—"
"Koshin comes from combining the Sexagenary cycle—specifically, the *kanoe* (yang metal) and *saru* (monkey) signs out of the sixty possible combinations. It rolls around every sixty years for years, and every sixty days for days. *Koe* literally means 'older brother of metal,' and in the Five Elements theory, *saru* carries the element of 'metal' right alongside the rooster. So, Koshin is a state overflowing with the energy of metal, and there was a superstition that children born on a Koshin day would be obsessed with wealth and grow up to be thieves."
"Right, right. Natsume Soseki was born on a Koshin day, so they gave him money from the start to ensure he wouldn't become a thief. His real name was Natsume Kinnosuke, after all."
"I-I already knew that. Anyway, in China, there’s this Taoist concept called the *Sanshi* theory, which says there are three insect-like spirits living inside the human body. On the night of Koshin, these three insects slip out of the person's body and snitch to the Heavenly Emperor about the host's bad deeds. The person who gets snitched on gets punished and has their lifespan shortened. That's why people stay up all night on Koshin nights to keep the *Sanshi* from escaping. That culture made its way to Japan, turning into what they call *Koshin-machi*, where family members and neighbors gather together to watch each other so nobody falls asleep, chatting and drinking all night long. Back in the day, there were tons of these gatherings called *ko*, and those Koshin groups have continued in an unbroken line right up to the present. Something like that, right?"
"They haven't continued in an unbroken line at all. The northern part of the prefecture was originally big on the Koshin faith, and a few years ago, I actually got invited to join a Koshin-machi once. About a dozen local people belonging to the group gathered at the district hall at night. Once they finished reciting prayers to their principal image, a hanging scroll of Shomen Kongo, they immediately started the *naorai*—in other words, a drinking party. And even that broke up before midnight. Everyone went home and slept like logs. Under the guise of a 'Koshin vigil,' it’s literally just an excuse to hold a social gathering once every two months. Everyone gets together to happily exchange complaints and backstabbing until just moments before. If the *Sanshi* actually slipped out, they wouldn't just be snitching on you alone, they'd bundle up the sins of half a dozen people at once! That's what it's really like. There's no way anyone today actually spends the night eating temple food every sixty days."
"Then what on earth is the 'Great Seclusion' of Iwakura Village that we're heading to? If multiple Koshin groups are gathering, that means twenty or thirty people will be coming together. Staying up all night with a crowd that large is making a huge deal out of it. Besides, if the date is fixed around the end of June, it has nothing to do with Koshin (*kanoe-saru*). No matter how much time has passed and rituals have been simplified, it doesn't make sense to hold a Koshin gathering on a non-Koshin day."
"Yeah, and to top it off, the deities they enshrine are Izanagi and Amaterasu. If it were Buddhist, it would be Shomen Kongo, practically without exception. Even on the rare occasion there's a Shinto-style gathering, it's normally Sarutahiko Okami. Since they forcibly tried to attach something that originally came from Taoist philosophy onto Shinto, it completely throws any sense of auspiciousness out the window. It started out as a pun anyway."
"A pun?"
"Koshin is *kanoe-saru*, so they assigned the monkey deity (*saru*) to it!"
"Hence Sarutahiko?"
I chuckled a little. Could that really be true?
"Mr. Sato said, didn't he? That because Izanagi and Amaterasu had close relatives who went away to *Kakuriyo*—in other words, the spirit world—that's precisely why they are deities who protect *Utsushiyo*, this world."
"Ah."
"And at the very end, he said it wasn't Susanoo. That close relative who went to the *Kakuriyo*. Susanoo is Amaterasu's younger brother, right?"
"......"
Shisho didn't answer. She seemed to have realized something from her interaction with the old man Sato, but she still wore a puzzled expression. I decided to voice what had just crossed my mind.
"I've been thinking. For people of the past, wasn't the end of June a time to catch a breather, right after rice planting was finished and the rains started falling? Summer festivals are usually held around that time, aren't they? Combined with prayers for a bountiful harvest. So, isn't this 'Great Seclusion' just a kind of local *hare* festival? Instead of the usual subdued Koshin gatherings, everyone gets together on that day to throw a massive all-nighter. The purpose isn't to suppress the *Sanshi* insects; it's more like a wrap party vibe."
"Maybe so," Shisho said, gazing out the window at the idyllic mountain scenery. Her voice lacked enthusiasm.
Part of me was optimistic, secretly hoping this request would turn out to be surprisingly easy to solve. After all, it's a rural village. There probably aren't many young people around. Since we're looking for Satomi's twin brother, a twenty-one-year-old guy, we'd probably find him in no time even if we searched every inch of the place. That was what I had thought. But at the same time, a vague sense of unease was undeniably welling up inside me. A feeling of helplessness, as if I were standing on an unstable plank. Satomi saying she felt like she could hear the song of *Kagome Kagome*. And old man Sato, sitting silently in the reception room. The emotion of dread lingering in both of their eyes...
Trying to shake it off, I spoke up in a light tone.
"I wonder what kind of place the minshuku we're staying at starting today will be like?"
After all, it was a trip for two. An investigator and her assistant. It reminded me of the hot spring inn we went to last Christmas, the one haunted by the ghost of a Shinto priest. Back then, things happened, but there ended up being almost zero romance. I wondered how it would go this time. Wasn't there a chance? Oh man. I didn't bring *that*, did I? Should I have bought some beforehand? This is an *over-night* stay, after all.
I could feel myself growing restless.
"Just so you know, I rented two separate rooms."
Shisho’s merciless words pierced right through me. She had completely read my mind. What is she, terrifying? A *satori* mind-reader?
After that, we continued driving along the mountain roads until we reached the somewhat open downtown area of Sasagawa Town. As we crawled along in the car, an old-fashioned yet strangely graceful townscape came into view.
"It's a town of white-walled storehouses!"
I stuck my head out the window. Old wooden buildings lined the road, all of them featuring white plaster walls and latticed windows. There were only a few pedestrians about, but the shopping district looked just like an old Japanese town from the Meiji or Taisho eras seen in the movies.
"We're heading to the town hall."
We stepped inside the town hall building located in the center of town. It was still before noon. After staring intently at the lobby directory, Shisho consulted the residents' division to see if they could tell us the current population of the Iwakura district.
The young male clerk who assisted us flipped through some documents and replied.
" Uh, Iwakura, right? ...Kami-Iwakura has 37 households and 120 people. Shimo-Iwakura has 26 households and 73 people. That's a total of 63 households and 193 people. Those are the figures from the end of last fiscal year."
193 people. Exactly as the client had said, but somehow it felt larger than the mental image I'd had.
"Is there a branch office in the Iwakura district?" "No, there isn't." "What about a hospital, or a branch clinic? Or even a medical office?"
Pelted with rapid-fire questions from Shisho, the young clerk sought help from an older, veteran colleague.
"We used to have a town-run clinic back in the day, but nowadays it's just doctors coming over to make house calls from the clinic in the neighboring district," an older, plump female clerk answered. I asked her because she looked knowledgeable, but she said she wasn't originally from Iwakura.
Under their questioning gazes—wondering why she was asking so many things about Iwakura—Shisho introduced herself as a "university student conducting folklore research."
"I don't think anyone from Iwakura works at our town hall," she added.
Thanking them, we left the residents' division. Next, we headed to the Board of Education secretariat. There, we cornered a veteran employee knowledgeable about regional culture and played him the tape of the Iwakura version of the *Kagome Kagome* song.
He listened with great interest, but said he'd never heard it before. The other staff members said the same.
"Huh? The Koshin deity? It looks like some places are still doing it nowadays. Well, it acts as a function to maintain the local community, right? You don't see it around here, but maybe they still do it out in the sticks. In Iwakura? Hmm, I wonder..."
With that kind of response, we didn't reap many harvests.
Finally, we checked a local history book at the nearby town library.
Sasagawa Town had been formed in April of Showa 30 (1955) through the merger of one town and three villages. However, even though it was called a merger, it was essentially the existing Sasagawa Town absorbing Iwakura Village and two other villages.
The population of Iwakura Village at the time of the merger was listed as 700. Since it's 193 now, it certainly had shrunk considerably over the span of thirty-some years.
The main industry was forestry. Because it was a mountainous region, there were few plains, and agriculture was limited to rice cultivation, chives, and a little bit of buckwheat.
"Ah, here it is. A shrine. Iwakura Shrine."
Shisho pointed at a photograph printed in an article within the local history book. Its location was in the northern part of Iwakura. Looking at the map, the Iwakura district bordered Hatsukabi Town to the north of Sasagawa Town, with several thousand-meter-class mountains running between them. Iwakura Shrine was located right around the foothills where that mountainous terrain began. Iwakura was surrounded by mountains not only to the north, but to the west and south as well, leaving me with the impression, when seeing it like this, that it was quite an isolated backcountry.
"Well, I guess that's about it for preliminary information gathering. Shall we get going, then? To Iwakura."
Shisho said, stretching her arms. She was dressed in a black cap and hot pants. June was already coming to an end, and it was a season that was only going to get hotter. It was Shisho's signature summer outfit, but I couldn't help a stray worry that it might be a little too cold for heading into the mountains.
Furthermore, she stood out glaringly among the old men and women who were at the library in the middle of a weekday. Bathing in the bewildered, starry-eyed gazes of the grandpas, Shisho and I left the library.
After climbing into the car in the parking lot, Shisho pointed at the map and said,
"To get to Iwakura, we go east from here. But if you keep going northwest like this, you hit Hatsukabi Village. And further northwest of that is Shinjo Village, right on the prefectural border."
She explained, tracing her finger over the map.
"This Shinjo Village is the one. The village with the legend of the tengu's meat that I talked about once before."
I remembered. A story Shisho experienced when she was a child—a terrifying experience where a weirdo tricked her into eating something claimed to be tengu meat. I had a vague recollection of her saying that meat had been passed down in some shrine, but had it been in this Shinjo Village? As I stared in surprise, Shisho continued.
"And actually, the neighboring Hatsukabi Village has an interesting legend too. It's a marsh with a bizarre name called 'Modori-numa' (Return Marsh). There's a folklore saying that dead people come back to life and crawl back up out of the marsh."
"Do they submerge corpses in it to bring them back?" I asked, frowning at the gruesome tale. Shisho shook her head.
"They submerge other *living* people into the marsh."
How grotesque. What kind of legend is that? As I stood there dumbfounded, Shisho told me, "Well, I'll take you there sometime."
"More importantly, look at this. The shrine of Shinjo Village's tengu legend is right here. And Hatsukabi Village's Modori-numa is right here. And Iwakura, where we're heading now, is right here."
Shisho drew a circle in pencil on the map. Then, she connected those three circles with a line.
"Ah."
The line formed a straight diagonal. A straight line extended upwards and to the right, heading northwest from Iwakura.
"Pretty interesting, right? This is a 'ley line'—a mysterious straight line on a map that connects ancient ruins that have no direct relation, as if they were laid out intentionally. Britain's St. Michael's Ley Line is famous, you know. In Japan, there's a ley line running from Kashima Jingu in Ibaraki, through Meiji Jingu, Mt. Fuji, and Ise Jingu, all the way to Mt. Tsurugi in Tokushima, which is rumored to hold King Solomon's treasure, and right on to Takachiho Shrine in Miyazaki. Exciting, isn't it?"
"It's certainly interesting, but isn't the placement of the Iwakura circle intentional? Even if it's just one district now, it used to be a village, and even just calling it Iwakura, it's pretty large. You went out of your way to pick a spot on the extension of the straight line connecting the tengu and the return marsh just to draw that circle."
I protested, pointing at the circle drawn near the northern part of Iwakura Village. Shisho clicked her tongue, *tck, tck, tck*.
"Are you saying it's cherry-picking? You saw it at the library earlier, didn't you? The location of Iwakura Shrine. That's right here."
*Ah,* I thought.
"Listen, place names like Iwakura are all over Japan. Their etymology almost always comes from 'Iwakura worship,' which is written with the characters for 'rock seat.' An *iwakura* is basically a boulder. Ancient Japanese people believed that mystical powers dwelt within giant boulders—a boulder worship found all over the world. Those giant boulders were places where gods dwelled. What would you name a shrine built to revere and worship an *iwakura* as a seat of the gods? Obviously, it'd be called Iwakura Shrine (*iwakura-jinja*). I figure there was a giant boulder that had been the object of worship since ancient times, which was called an *iwakura*, leading to the creation of an Iwakura Shrine written with those 'rock seat' kanji, and eventually, the current kanji characters for 'Iwakura' came to be applied to it. And then that became the name of the administrative unit, Iwakura Village."
I was impressed by Shisho's reasoning. Even if it was just pure guesswork, it made sense. Maybe it really was just like that, surprisingly enough.
"Iwakura Shrine is probably the center of this village as a power spot. Tengu Shrine, Return Marsh, Iwakura Shrine. It's fascinating that these three form a ley line. Gives me the chills."
Shisho looked delighted. It made me happy too. You couldn't talk about stuff like this with the folks in the university lab. Shisho was the only one with whom I could share this kind of unhealthy, frivolous fun.
Though our interest had been piqued by the Tengu Shrine and the Return Marsh, the car started rolling toward Iwakura. Shisho promised that if we wrapped up this request quickly, we'd stop by on the way back.
"Well then, let's get going! To Iwakura Village!" "Oh, looks like you've got some motivation now. Alright, cue the BGM."
Harboring new thrills, the beat-up light car sped on, enveloped by the voice of Inagawa Junji saying, "Oh man, this is bad... this is creepy..."
◆
After driving east and further east for a while along a mountain road with no sign of human habitation, we came to a fork in the road. One road headed east, and the other headed south.
"To the east. Iwakura Village is just past here."
With those words, Shisho turned the steering wheel to the left, but after going a short distance, she eased up on the accelerator.
"A *dosojin* boundary marker."
Standing by the left side of the road was a large stone. We stopped the car at the side of the road, got out, and walked over to take a closer look, finding a stone monument easily over a meter tall enshrined on a sturdy base stone.
Carved into the stone were statues of two figures facing each other, with no letters or inscriptions to speak of. It looked like a fairly old monument, covered in moss and chipped in places.
"Hmm. A double-figure *dosojin*," Shisho said, tracing one of the statues with her finger.
"Sometimes double-figure *dosojin* are hard to distinguish from two-figure carvings of Jizo used on stone markers like the Six Jizo. But these are clearly a male and female pair, so it's a *dosojin*."
I see. The statue on the right, from the direction we came, was wearing something like a crown on its head. That must have been the male. The statue on the left had long hair hanging down. Though both were stylized somewhat like Jizo statues, it was unmistakably a representation of a man and a woman.
"This area must have been the border of the village," I muttered, surveying the road we had come from and the road ahead. The mountains were deep, and visibility wasn't great. The road was paved, but bumpy and poorly maintained.
Shisho happily began walking in circles around the *dosojin*.
"As you probably know, a *dosojin* is a border deity. To a community, it's an important guardian deity that defends the boundary separating the *sato*—the village—from the *soto*—the outside. Originally, it traces back to deities appearing in the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki*, such as Chikaeshi no Okami or Sayarimasu Yomido no Okami. When Izanagi went to visit his wife Izanami in the land of Yomi, he saw her rotting corpse and fled in terror, throwing peaches and creating rivers to block the wife pursuing him. Finally, he placed a giant boulder at the Yotsu-Hirasaka pass to block the path. A divine name was given to that stone, and the boundary deity dividing the land of the living from the land of the dead was born. Ever since then, deities were placed on roads separating the world of humans from the outside world of the otherworldly. Deities that block and bar the way—*Sahe-no-Kami*. *Dosojin* is a relatively modern word. Originally, the sound *Sahe-no-Kami* was written using the kanji for 'road' and 'ancestor,' and with 'deity' attached, it became the three kanji characters for Road-Ancestor-Deity, which was read *on'yomi* as *dosojin*. While a *dosojin* is a deity that protects travelers, it's also a deity that chases away evil spirits and misfortunes from the outside world so they don't get invited into the village."
"Sounds like someone's about to chase *you* away, Shisho," I joked.
When I tossed out that casual tease, she touched her chin with a look of impressed contemplation, saying, "You know, you're right."
"There are various styles of *dosojin* monuments; some are just plain stones, while others are shaped like male or female genitalia. The most orthodox ones are monuments simply carved with the characters for 'Dosojin.' Double-figure *dosojin* are also quite common. They depict two figures, a male and a female, representing a husband and wife. Rather than the role of a deity blocking misfortunes, they tend to carry more of a crowd-pleasing divine nature, like matchmaking or the prosperity of descendants. In Nagano Prefecture, the home turf of *dosojin*, these double-figure ones are common, and they're a bit interesting. The man and woman carved into them are husband and wife, but they're also said to be older brother and younger sister."
"Eh?"
"In other words, they're statues of incestuous marriage between siblings. Traditions featuring this sibling incest as the origin story of *dosojin* worship are common in central Honshu, like Nagano Prefecture, and in the central Chugoku region. Which means this area might also be under that influence. Though I don't know if this particular one is."
Take a look here, Shisho said, pointing to the space right between the facing male and female statues.
"There's a gap. Normally, double-figure *dosojin* snuggle up close and affectionately. They hold hands, or press their cheeks together. Some even look like they're kissing. But this Iwakura *dosojin* feels somehow strange. Their expressions aren't smiling either. They're somewhat distant, expressionless. How should we interpret this gap?"
Shisho let out a low groan, "Hmm."
I felt a strange coincidence and grew confused. Iwakura Village, just ahead on this road, was a village that shunned twins. Our client, Hanegawa Satomi, had asked us to find her twin brother. The sister cast out of the village, and the brother left behind in the village. The gap between the facing double-figure *dosojin*, which could even be taken as a rupture...
Come to think of it, the village lay ahead of the male statue on the right. The left side of the female statue was the outside of the village. Two people separated at the boundary of *uchi* (inside) and *soto* (outside). What kind of alignment was this?
"The tip of the foot on the female statue is strangely large."
Shisho muttered as she observed the *dosojin*.
Now that she mentioned it, the feet of the female statue peeking out from the hem of her robe were indeed carved quite large. Did that have some meaning too?
"Well, let's..."
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