AWASHIMA JINJA

 This little known shrine is way, way off the beaten track in Wakayama prefecture, but it's definitely worth a visit if ever get the chance. It ranks right up there with the Kama Hachiman, the Tagata Jinja, and Otagi Nenbutsu-ji in terms of quirkiness, and is a photographer's wet dream as well.
Awashima jinja is a shrine for women, and is most famous for its enormous collection of dolls. There are a lot of Japanese superstitions about dolls, and a good number of people in Japan seem to find them a little mysterious or frightening, believing that they have souls, or the power to influence human lives. There are a number of shrines and festivals where people dispose of their old dolls and toys because they feel that if they just threw it in the garbage, the doll's soul might come back to haunt them like a ghost. At other observances, people give dolls to temples if their daughters are sick, hoping that the illness or misfortune will be passed onto the doll and cured by the shrine's god.
 Awashima jinja is mainly for Hina Ningyo, dolls that are given to young girls to be displayed every year on girl's day, March 3. The festival dates back from 1687, and is a time for praying for the health and happiness of a family's daughters. Hina dolls, especially the older handmade ones, are works of art and become family heirlooms. New sets have to purchased, however, if the old ones become damaged or lost, and in that case, instead of throwing them out, people bring them to shrines like Awashima Jinja.
 Every year on March 3rd, Awashima jinja is home to a doll festival called Nagashi Bina, in which boatloads of hina ningyo are launched into the ocean. As the boats are rocked by the waves, the dolls fall overboard and sink into the ocean. It is believed that the dolls will take away the sicknesses and bad luck afflicting the owner and the ritual has become very popular.
 The Awashima shrine is said to date back to the 3rd century and the legendary empress Jinmu. On the way home from a military expedition to Korea, her ship encountered a storm and was nearly sunk. During the storm, she had prayed to the gods to save her ship, and threw a rush mat called a toma into the sea. She followed the current that the mat was floating down, and arrived safely  to an island called Tomogashima (then known as Awashima), where she found a small shrine dedicated to the god Sukunahikona-no-mikoto. She was so thankful for being saved that she donated the treasures she was carrying on board her ship to the shrine. The Shrine's deity was a medicine god, who had the power to cure female diseases, and to help women become pregnant. Because of the empress's association with the shrine, it became associated with feminine things like dolls, sewing needles, fertility, and gynecological illnesses.
 During the Edo period (1603 - 1867), women began to make offerings of their underwear to Sukunahikona-no-mikoto, hoping that he would cure them of karyoubyou (literally 'flower and willow diseases', a euphemism for STDs) and various other women's complaints.

 Awashima Jinja's collection is not limited to Hina Ningyo, however. There are literally thousands of dolls here, and an even greater number of sculptures, figurines, carvings and statues. You'll find tanuki, maneki neko, daruma, frogs, yoshitsune, shichi fukujin and many more. I spent hours here taking pictures and examining the collection of cute, beautiful, terrifying, and just plain bizarre dolls.
 As if the dolls and statues weren't odd enough, this shrine has a huge collection of ema (votive plaques), with women's panties attached to them. The custom started during the Edo period (1603-1867), and the panties are offerings made by women who are trying to conceive, or want to ensure that their baby is born healthy. If you look carefully, inside the shrine building, there is also a huge collection of phallic objects. There's also a small museum, with a nice collection of antique dolls (300 yen).

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Getting There:
By train: Take the Nankai express from Namba station (61 minutes). Get off at Wakayama station, and change trains to the local bound for Kato (28 minutes). The fare is 930 yen. Twenty minutes walk from the station.
By car: From Namba, follow route 26 south towards Wakayama. Exit the highway to the right at the Fuke Rotary (just after Misaki Park) and take the Misaki Kabutoko Sen (route 65) along the coast. It's about 12 km from there to the shrine, which is plainly visible on a hill on the coast.
By train: Nankai line from Namba, change at Misakikoen to a local train bound for Kinokawa; there change to the Nankai Kada line to Kada Station then 15-min. walk. From Wakayama take the Nankai Kada line straight to Kada.
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Address: Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama City, Kabuto

Tel: 073-459-0043

Official Homepage (Japanese only): http://www.kada.jp/awashima/
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To learn more about Japanese dolls, visit this excellent homepage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jshoaf/Jdolls/uses.htm

Votive plaques and panties	Battledores and dolls	Miscellaneous statues
Tanuki (raccoon dog) statues	Phalluses	Saying goodbye to old childhood friends

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