Tōko yasaka-jinja, Shinto shrine in Japan
Tōko yasaka-jinja is a Shinto shrine in the Tōkō district of Katagami, Akita Prefecture, with a nagare-zukuri main hall whose front roof slopes forward over the veranda. Its grounds hold three pairs of stone komainu guardian dogs: slender, tall figures from 1845; muscular, flat-faced ones from 1865; and a pair from 1933. The shrine is a five-minute walk from JR Tōkō Station.
According to shrine tradition, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro founded it in 801 after the third Emishi campaign; the first documented transfer to the present site dates to 1060, with a festival recorded in 1061. In the Edo period the Kubota domain's Satake lords honoured it as one of the Akita Twelve Shrines under the name Gozu Tennō-sha. It became a prefectural shrine in 1881 and took the name Tōko Yasaka-jinja in 1884.
The shrine's name changed with the times: it was called Mine-no-hoko no yashiro in antiquity, Tōko no miya in the Middle Ages, and Gozu Tennō-sha in the Edo period, when the deity Gozu Tennō was worshipped here. The annual festival on 7 July features the kumo-mai spider dance and the ushi-nori ox-riding rite, performed by the tōnin, rotating festival stewards from the Ten'nō and Funakoshi districts. The tōnin rites were designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1986.
The shrine is a five-minute walk from JR East's Tennō Station on the Oga Line. The main festival is held on 7 July each year, with related rites in the Tennō and Funakoshi districts on 7 and 8 July. The Tōnin rites, designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1986, run through the year from the new tōnin's bamboo reception to the following year's shimenawame.
The shrine keeps three pairs of stone komainu from different eras: slender, tall figures carved in 1845, muscular flat-faced ones dated 29 July 1865, and a pair from 7 October 1933. Comparing their styles shows how the shrine's guardians changed over nearly a century.
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