castle town

Common people believe in nearby Jizo to ask solvation of their sorrow or pain. The word Jizo is freely translated Sanskrit Ksitigarbha or the mother’s placenta of the earth into Japanese, the earth strage, and Jizo is widely called Jizo Bosatsu. Jizos have a variety of answering prayers. Namely Koyasu Migawari Jizo will become substitute for pain of people who are suffered from trouble, in addition Roku Jizos stand at the entrance of Roku-do or six kinds of annoyance, hell, starving beast, Asura or frenzy, human being and heaven, also relieves people’s agony. Each of Jizos is enshrined as various styles at the temple, at the corner of the town, on the road, at the house and so on. The statue of Jizo is wore a red hood and a red bib because of custom of amulets that keep children from evil. On the day of Jizo-bon in summer, children make a pilgrimage to Jizos in the town so that they get snacks. Jizo watches us common people and grants us wishes on everyday life. 

The seaside area in the castle town of Akashi is dotted with many shrines of various sizes, or instance, Iwaya Shrine, Izanami Shrine, Izanami Shrine Otabisho or the rest spot for the portable shrine during the festival, Izanagi Shrine, Wakamiya Shrine and so on. Approaches of these head for the sea. As many gods of these are related to the sea or the river, it is easy to presume them to be shrines surrounded by beautiful fences have long history, so a lot of residents believe on them firmly. On the other hand, small shrines are made enshrined quietly among houses. Each of them has different kinds of gods because wishes of people who keep the shrine are different. The small shrines are made small and simple also don’t have outer shrines. Most of them have the offering instead of the outer shrines. The offering stand is thought of a simple boundary between sacredness and the world. 

When the castle town of Akashi was a planted in the Edo period, sailors were moved to the south area of the Akashi River from the port of Akashi. Then the fishing village called Tozu Village Shinhama was born. This area suffered war damage. As the village was reconstructed by following old foundation stones, afterward many wooden houses were built close together messily like that used to be. Because the village is connected with the sea closely, a lot of narrow roads face to the beach and houses were built along them. As the local residents are connected with common purpose like fishing, so they share one well and each group of them enshrines each own statue of Jizo and form an independent community. The height of roofs and eaves of their houses is the almost same, in addition, width and depth of them aren’t very different. At this area narrow allies crisscross and houses are closely together, so residents become more familiar. 

Before Akashi became the castle town, there were only two villages. Nakanosho Mura village in the same were along the old Sanyodo route face to face. Akashi Castle was constructed on the hill, Mt Akamatsu, which was in the middle of the Akashi River in the west and the Ryoma River in the east. The old Sanyodo route went along the foot of the hill and was moved south. And then, the outer moat was built. They placed houses of samurai of the lowest rank and officers also temples near the both rivers as the buffer zone against the enemy. They didn’t build any bridges to prevent the easy invasion till the end of the Edo period. They installed Himeji-guchi gate at the west end of the town and built Juodo temple by it. They built Kyo-guchi gate at the east end of the town and arranged Ikko sect Komyo-ji or Asagao-Komyo-ji temple by the gate. There was Samurai-machi town between outer moat and inner moat. Tradesmen and artisans lived in the south of the outer moat and sailors were gathered in the west from the port. The domiciles where tradesmen and artisans lived in the early Edo period depended on their careers and were named from east to west, such as Kajiya-machi for smiths, Saiku-machi for craftmen, Higashi-uo-machi for fish shops, Higashihon-machi, Nishihon-machi, Nishi-uo-machi, Shinano-machi, Higashi-taruya-machi for the barrel, Nishi-taruya-machi, Akashi-machi. They set tradesmen zone on the middle and artisans zone on the east and west of the former. They could buy fresh fish and processed fish paste in Higashi-uo-machi only, and dried fish and marine products in Nishi-uo-machi only. Now Hon-machi includes Higashi-uo-machi and Nishi-uo-machi, so both of names disappeared. Though modern-day towns use the old names, their substances are quite different.