S P O T ／ SPOT-260

Kasado Shrine (Shiratorizuka Tumulus / Yamato Takeru Tomb Tradition)

加佐登神社（白鳥塚古墳・ヤマトタケル墓伝承）かさどじんじゃ

Kasado Shrine stands in Kasado-cho, Suzuka City, with Yamato Takeru as its principal deity. Formerly called "Mikasado-no-sha," its most distinctive feature is that it enshrines as its sacred objects the conical hat (kasa) and staff (tsue) said to have been held by Yamato Takeru until the moment of his death at Nobono on his way home from his eastern campaign. The Shiratorizuka (white-bird mound) tumulus adjoining the shrine to the northwest is locally said to be the tomb of Yamato Takeru, and has been regarded as the site of the white-bird legend handed down since the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, in which the buried hero's spirit flew off to the capital as a white bird. Separate from the official Nobono Mausoleum designated by the Imperial Household Agency (in Kameyama City), the Kasado area is dotted with several mounds—including Shiratorizuka and mounds said to enshrine his robe and crown—carrying into the present, as folk tradition, the story of Yamato Takeru's death and ascent. The humility of enshrining a traveler's hat and staff rather than weapons, and the archaeological fact that a mound once thought to be round proved on excavation to be a scallop-shaped keyhole tomb, give this place a singular field of force at the crossing of legend and history.