Kikuta Shrine, Shinto shrine in Tsudanuma, Narashino, Japan
Kikuta Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Tsudanuma, Chiba Prefecture, whose grounds are shaped like a boat in memory of the ship that carried the exiled Fujiwara no Moritsune ashore. A 50–60 m approach leads from the torii, rebuilt in December 2011 after the 2011 earthquake toppled the 1858 original, past three pairs of komainu to the hall, whose roof was re-covered in copper sheeting in September 1973.
Kikuta Shrine was founded around the Kōnin era (810–824) as the tutelary shrine of the old Kukuda village, then called Kukuda Daimyōjin. A 1597 ridge-tag copy records that in 1181 the exiled Fujiwara no Morotsune drifted ashore at Kukuda Bay and enshrined Fujiwara no Tokihira alongside Ōnamuchi. The shrine was renamed Kikuta Daimyōjin in the Hōreki era (1751–1763), and in 1912 six nearby shrines, including a Kotohira shrine, were merged into its grounds.
The shrine's name changed from Kukuda Daimyojin to Kikuta Daimyojin in the Horeki era (1751–1763). On the Sunday nearest 15 March, the Anba-sama procession carries a portable shrine through the district while chanting "Anba-osei Daimyojin"; the rite began in the Meiji period to ward off smallpox, after a peddler brought back a talisman from Osuwa Shrine in Ibaraki. In the Ushi and Mi years the shrine takes the role of "uncle" in the Shimousa Miyama Seven-Year Festival.
Kikuta Shrine is a five-minute walk from Keisei-Tsudanuma Station on the Keisei Line, or about fifteen minutes on foot from JR Tsudanuma Station on the Sobu Line. The approach runs roughly 50 to 60 metres to the hall. The torii rebuilt in December 2011 replaced one erected in 1858 that collapsed in the Great East Japan Earthquake; fragments of the old gate were displayed on the grounds until around 2020.
The shrine grounds are shaped like a boat, said to commemorate the landing of Fujiwara no Moritsune's party, who drifted ashore at Kukuda Bay in 1181 after being exiled to Shimōsa. The pond's water is said to come from Ninomiya Shrine.
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