Hananoiwaya Shrine, Shinto shrine in Kumano, Japan

Hananoiwaya Shrine in Kumano, Mie, has no worship hall: its deity is the 45-meter-high rock face called Hana no Iwaya, which blocks the entrance to the underworld. At its foot, a recess about 6 meters high, 2.5 meters wide and 50 centimeters deep, known as hotoana, is held to be Izanami's burial place, marked off by white gravel and a stone fence. A tall concrete pillar stands beside the rock, from which the festival rope is stretched.

The Nihon Shoki, compiled in 720, records that Izanami was buried at Arima village in Kumano after dying from burns while giving birth to the fire god Kagu-tsuchi. The site was long treated as a tomb rather than a shrine and is absent from the Kojiki and Engishiki; it received shrine status only in the Meiji period. In 2004 it was inscribed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.

Twice a year, on 2 February and 2 October, the Otsunakake Shinji is held: seven straw ropes are bound into a single cord about 170 metres long, hung with three rope banners and fans holding seasonal flowers such as camellias in February and cockscomb in October. It runs from the summit of the rock to a concrete pillar in the shrine grounds, formerly a sacred pine, and on toward the coast of Shichiri Mihama. The rope is left until it breaks naturally; a surviving rope is considered good luck and a new one is hung beside it.

You can walk to the shrine in about 15 minutes from Kumanoshi Station or take a short four-minute bus ride from the Mie Kotsu transportation center. The location is fairly easy to reach and there are multiple ways to approach the site.

The 170-meter rope used in the rope-hanging rite is left in place until it breaks on its own; when an old rope holds, a new one is hung beside it, and two ropes seen together are taken as a good omen. The seven thin straw ropes bundled into it stand for seven deities, among them the wind, sea, wood, grass, fire, earth and water gods.