S P O T ／ SPOT-288

Sugi no Osugi — The Great Cedar of Yasaka Shrine

杉の大スギ（八坂神社）すぎのおおすぎ

In a small mountain shrine in Kochi stands a cedar so old it predates almost everything human around it—estimated at more than three thousand years. Sugi no Osugi rises from a single base into two enormous trunks leaning toward each other, which earned it the name 'the husband-and-wife cedar.' The larger, southern trunk climbs to about 60 meters with a girth near 20 meters; together they form the largest tree found in any shrine precinct in Japan, designated a Special Natural Monument in 1952. Legend credits the storm god Susanoo with planting it, and a warrior is recorded enshrining three deities at its roots in the year 912. But the story that draws visitors today is more recent: in 1947 a nine-year-old girl injured in a traffic accident nearby came to pray here, asking the tree to make her the greatest singer in Japan. The girl was Misora Hibari, who became exactly that—and after her death the town built a memorial garden where her songs still play on the breeze beside the colossal trunks. Standing beneath two living things older than the country's written history, with a postwar icon's voice drifting through, is the particular strangeness of this place.