S P O T ／ SPOT-362

Eboshi-iwa of Mount Anjinsan

安神山の烏帽子岩あんじんさんのえぼしいわ

On Omishima, the largest island of Ehime and one of the stepping-stones of the Shimanami Kaido, a granite peak called Anjinsan rises behind the most important shrine in the region. Oyamazumi Shrine is the head of every Yamazumi and Mishima shrine in Japan, the war-god's shrine where samurai for a thousand years dedicated their armor, and the mountain at its back is not scenery but sanctuary — a shintaizan, a mountain that is itself the body of a god. Climb it and the divinity becomes literal and tactile. The summit ridge bristles with megaliths the locals have named for what they resemble: Kabuto-iwa, the helmet; Karajishi-iwa, the lion-dog; and above all Eboshi-iwa, two enormous granite slabs split clean down the middle and standing upright like a torn court cap, framing the blue islands of the Seto Inland Sea through the gap between them. This is iwakura worship in its rawest form — not a deity housed in a building but a boulder you stand before and revere. The hike from the shrine is short but the rock is real, a continuous scramble of warm pink granite, and at the top the sense that the stones themselves are watching is hard to shake.