Osaki Hachimangu

Osaki Hachimangu is a Shinto shrine in Hachiman, Aoba Ward, Sendai, enshrined to the northwest of Sendai Castle. According to the shrine's history, it began as Chinjufu Hachimangu, which Sakanoue no Tamuramaro founded in what is now Mizusawa, Iwate, by inviting the deity of Usa Hachimangu to pray for success in battle. In the Muromachi period the Osaki clan, the shogunate's governors of the north, moved it into their own domain and revered it as their guardian deity, and so it came to be called Osaki Hachimangu.

After the Osaki clan fell, Date Masamune moved the sacred object to a small shrine inside Iwadeyama Castle, and after founding the castle town of Sendai he enshrined it on the present site. At the same time he also enshrined Narushima Hachimangu, which the Date family had long revered in Yonezawa. Sendai's official tourism site describes the shrine as the Date family's guardian deity, originating from Narushima Hachiman, moved here from Iwadeyama. Revered by successive lords as the chief guardian shrine of the Sendai domain, it was called Osaki Hachiman Jinja from the Meiji era, but returned to its present name in 1997.

The National Treasure shrine building was built from 1604 to 1607 (Keicho 9-12) on Masamune's orders, with master craftsmen such as Umemura Hyuga-no-kami Ietsugu, who had served the Toyotomi family. The national cultural property database dates it to 1607, in the Momoyama period. It is in the ishi-no-ma style (gongen-zukuri), in which a hip-and-gable main sanctuary and a worship hall are joined by a stone-floored hall. Above the tie beams it is decorated with richly colored bracket sets and carvings on a white gofun base, while below it is finished in calm black lacquer. Look also for the large triangular chidori gable on the front of the worship hall, the curved karahafu gable over the entrance, and the wooden-shingle roof.

Inside the worship hall are wall paintings of Chinese lions by Sakuma Sakyo of the Kano school, and the coffered ceiling of the stone-floored hall is painted with 53 kinds of plants and flowers. The shrine calls the building the only surviving structure of its kind from the Azuchi-Momoyama period; it was designated a Specially Protected Building in 1903 and a National Treasure in 1952. The Nagatoko hall in front of it is an Important Cultural Property, and its plain unpainted wood makes a striking contrast with the ornate shrine. The stone torii gate is a prefectural Important Cultural Property. The shrine building was completed in autumn 2004 after about five years of conservation work.

At the Matsutaki Festival (Donto-sai) on January 14, New Year decorations and old talismans are burned, and the naked pilgrimage toward the sacred fire is a well-known sight of Sendai's winter. The Matsutaki Festival was designated an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Sendai City in fiscal 2005. The grand festival in September includes Noh kagura, horseback archery, and a procession in which about 500 people accompany a large portable shrine, lacquered all in black like the shrine building, through the neighborhood. The Taigensha shrine within the grounds opens its doors on its festival day, August 1, when visitors can worship its sacred image.