Preface
This article extends the recently reported findings of Kobayashi and Tokuda about the solar calendar of the megaliths in Hida Kanayama, Gifu prefture.
Possible System of Megaliths: From Mount Kasagi in Gifu to Achi Shrine in Nagano
The thesis about the megalithic calendar system of the previous post may be supported by ancient Jomon documents. The three locations – Mt. Kasagi, Mt. Ena, and Achi Shrine – play an important role in the Jomon civilisation. They are centered around Nakatsugawa and cover an east-west spread of about 90 kilometers. The blue route has a driving distance of 58 kilometers.
Wosite Jomon Documents
In addition to my work with the Kanayama Megaliths, I have studied ancient documents written in the Wosite language of the Jomon period. These documents are not well known in Japan, even less in Western countries. The Wosite documents Hotuma Tutaye (also written Hotsuma Tsutae) and Hutomani (Futomani) are at least 2,000 years old. They represent a possible connection between the solar calendar of the megaliths and the ancient Jomon calendar. The Wosite word for calendar koyomi is still in use today.
Omoikane Achihiko, Jomon Calendar Maker
The Wosite documents quote a prominent scholar of his day, Omoikane Achihiko. He was appointed as the first Hiyomi no Miya, whereby hiyomi refers to the solar calendar (koyomi), and miya indicates a high social position.
Omoikane took responsibility for the transformation of the lunar calendar into a solar calendar. He is remembered as a deity in shrines around the towering 2,191m Mt. Ena, which borders the prefectures of Gifu and Nagano.
The enshrined gods (kami) of Ena Jinja are Isanami and Isanagi, the parents of his wife Wakahime. The inner shrine, okumiya is located on the top of Mt. Ena and the more accessible lower shrine is on the western foothills of the mountain. The prayer hall of the latter faces a notch in the mountain ridge which indicates the direction of the winter solstice sunset.
Omoikane no Kami
The great Togakushi Jinja in northern Nagano enshrines Omoikane, who is considered the god of wisdom, learning, and scholarship, and his two sons: the first, Tajikarao, in the Oku-sha and the second, Uwaharu, in the Hoko-sha of Togakushi.
Achi Jinja
It is said that Omoikane Achihiko's found his final resting place in the Achi Jinja shrine in the town of Achi, southern Nagano, to the east of Mt. Ena. This shrine is considered to be the original one built before Togakushi Jinja.
The original location of Achi Jinja was the Motomiya, also called Okumiya, an ancient place of worship. There is an Iwakura stone to which the revered kami are said to descend. The stone is said to be aligned with the four cardinal directions and the winter solstice sunrise. The kami are Ame no Yakokoro Omoikane no Mikoto and his son Ame no Uwaharu no Mikoto.
Concluding Remarks
In modern Japanese, there are completely different variants for the writing of the names Omoikane, Ena, and Achi. These inconsistencies indicate that these names must be very old, originally written in Wosite characters. It must have been much later that different ways of writing them in kanji developed. Perhaps it was Omoikane Achihiko himself who established the Jomon megalithic solar calendar system. That is why we are enthusiastic about Kobayashi's and Tokuda's findings as reported in previous articles and the Japan-Insights topic on Jomon Astronomy. Carrying out fieldwork and analysis, running astronomical software, researching ancient documents, and learning about the history of shrines lead to revelations about the broad and deep extent of Jomon knowledge and achievements.
Additional information about Wosite and Omoikane can be found here:
woshiteworld.wordpress.com
iwakage.wordpress.com
Learn more about the Kanayame Megaliths by reading Harriet Natsuyama's article Jomon Astronomy, the Solar Calendar of the Kanayama Megaliths. at Japan-Insights.jp!
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