is a harbinger of many spring festivals and attracts crowds. Three rustic floats, abundantly decked with pink paper flowers, are pulled through the neighborhoods. The festival also features a magnificent fireworks show at night.
Take the right turn by the shrine (before the main road) and walk straight ahead to a 丅 junction. Turning first right and immediately left, you will come to another ryokan, Araki Kōsen 新木鉱泉, on your right. Taking the next left turn will bring you back to the bus road. Cross it, turn right and then take the first left. On your right is a Canon Electronics parts factory, and farther ahead to your left you will see a large traditional house with an elaborately crafted tile roof. This is the home of a deceased political leader of Chichibu and a former member of the Diet. Wealthy people used to take pride in the design of their tiled roofs, especially the top ridge, as this was the portion of the house visible from a distance. Continuing along the road, which curves to the right, you will come to Temple 4, KINSHŌ-JI 金昌寺.
Featuring a large, eighteenth-century, two-story gate hung with a pair of enormous straw sandals, Kinshō-ji is the most popular of all the thirty-four temples of the Chichibu pilgrimage. A square stone pillar in front of the gate is inscribed with several Japanese characters written by Matsuda Kaiken, one of the finest calligraphers in Chichibu, who lives in this neighborhood. The people of Chichibu have a great fondness for calligraphy, and local masters of the art are often commissioned to write the names of community shrines or temples. It is a great honor for the calligrapher to have his work on permanent display.
The temple compound is filled with more than a thousand stone statues, some smiling, many in meditation, still others looking as if about to dance. You are supposed to be able to find at least one statue resembling someone you know. Carved out of soft sandstone and greatly eroded over two centuries, these statues continue to speak for their Edo-period donors, who sought the patronage of Kannon. Inscriptions on them reveal that many were offerings for the repose of the souls of the family dead.
Hiking up the gradually ascending path to the right you will find the most celebrated statue in the compound, that of a young mother nursing her baby. It is placed in front of the Kannon hall to the right (as you face it). This lovely pair rests on a pedestal in the shape of a lotus flower, a classical motif of Buddhist art. The inscription on the lotus petals says that a wealthy man from Edo donated it in 1792 to pray for the happiness of his ancestors. However, the sensual rendition of a young woman and her plump baby in such a relaxed stance is completely unlike any of the other figures in the compound, or even anything else from the same period. It is so much like a baroque sculpture of a Christian saint that people call it the Virgin Mary Kannon, crediting its creation to the Japanese Christians of the Edo period, a time when Christianity was banned by the shogunate. To avoid persecution, they created images of the Blessed Virgin in the style of Kannon, hiding in the work motifs of Christianity, such as a cross. This particular statue is said to reveal a cross when seen from above, and the stone relief of a frog on the back of the statue provides another bit of evidence, as the Japanese word for frog shares some syllables in common with the Japanese pronunciation of St. Michael. This temple is also administered by Kōmyō-ji, but the inscription can be obtained in the shop by the gate. At another building in the compound, simple dishes such as noodles are served.
If you wish to return to Seibu Chichibu Station from here, turn right when leaving the temple, returning to the main road you crossed earlier. To the left on this road is the Kinshō-ji bus stop, in front of a liquor store. Timetables for buses to three different designations are listed. The two left-hand columns give the time for buses to Seibu Chichibu Station 西武秩父駅, the farthest to the left for Mondays through Saturdays, the next column for Sundays and holidays. (You might wish to look at the timetable when you first cross this road after Araki Kōsen.)
If you elect to continue your pilgrimage, turn left after leaving Temple 4. At the fork, bear left and walk through the village of Yokoze, with Mt. Bukō watching over you. Many small silk spinning and weaving factories were located in Yokoze until shortly after World War II. It is said that silk farming and weaving were known in this area as early as the seventh century. A reminder of this old tradition is a small shrine dedicated to the goddess of weaving called Orihime-jinja 織姬神社. To visit it, turn left when you reach a 丅 intersection; the shrine is around the corner to the right. Notice the distinct Korean style of the buildings, suggesting the origin of the silk farming and spinning expertise transmitted by immigrants.
Continue along the main road, you will pass another Canon factory and a few weaving factories. The Kannon hall of Temple 5, CHOKO-JI 長興寺 is located right on this road. When you come to a crossroad with a large white signboard on a left corner, indicating the temple 長興寺経所, look to the far left for the red-roofed temple. The Kannon hall, however, lies ahead along the main road, with its rustic niō (guardian god) gate protected by red-and-white steel railings. Visit the Kannon hall first before going to the temple. Though most drivers rudely ignore it, the Kannon hall bears the romantic alias, Goka-dō 語歌堂, or Hall of Poetry. It is believed that the hall was donated by a wealthy man called Magohachi, who was inspired by the teachings of Jikaku Daishi, a famous ninth-century Buddhist saint. Magohachi happened to possess a Kannon statue by this saint and so built the temple to house and preserve it.
Magohachi was well schooled in classical poetry. Once he spent an entire night discussing the art of verse with a visiting stranger, who mysteriously vanished at dawn. Magohachi was puzzled, but later learned that the mysterious traveler was in fact an apparition of Prince Shōtoku, the early seventh-century regent of Japan and an ardent supporter of Buddhism. In commemoration of the miracle, Magohachi gave the hall this elegant name.
Apparently the hall fell into ruin after his death, and another legend tells how it was revived. It happened that a poor old woman who lived in the province of Shinshū (in present Nagano Prefecture) led a penurious existence with her only daughter, who suddenly disappeared one day. Half-crazed with grief, the old woman looked everywhere, praying to Kannon for help, but in vain. She crossed the mountains and came to the Chichibu area, but collapsed from the fatigue of the journey. Semiconscious, she thought she heard her name called and, opening her eyes, saw her daughter escorted by Kannon. In appreciation of the recovery of her beloved daughter, the woman worked to restore the abandoned hall to its former beauty. Although such stories may be dismissed as mere legends, they reflect the joys and sorrows, hopes and aspirations of the local people, and indicate some of the hardships involved in a pilgrimage.
The existing Goka-dō, dating from the late-Edo period, looks rather prosaic, with few design features other than the knobbed railings and the arrangement of the rafters. Some old hollowed trunks of wood can be seen to the left of the hall; these were formerly used as shells to launch rocket fireworks. At Temple 4, also, some of these hollow trunks are kept in a side section of the front gate. The people of Chichibu love fireworks and use them lavishly at festivals. They claim that formulas for gunpowder and shell-making were developed by medieval warriors from the region, who used them to send signals over mountains and forest, and that only later did these technologies find their way to Edo.
At Chōkōji, the inscription is done at a counter behind the slatted doors in the right-hand section of the temple building. Leaving the temple, backtrack a short distance and take the first small path on the left, leading straight away from the front of a house on the right with a nameplate 若林 on the gate. The footpath soon becomes a paved road through lush fields. Mt. Bukō beckons from the far distance.
This neighborhood is noted for its preservation of the traditional art of folk puppetry. Called Yokoze ningyō 横瀬人形, after the name of the area, the hand-puppet show retains an old style popular before Bunraku. It flourished in the days when entertainment was rare in rural villages. Each puppet is operated by one man, who uses his right hand for manipulating the puppet’s head and arms, and his left for moving the strings controlling the eyelids and mouth.
