OSAKA, Japan — The 1,000-year-old pilgrimage to the Kumano Sanzen — the three great Shinto shrines on Japan’s Kii Peninsula south of Osaka — was once so popular that “like ants on the Kumano pilgrimage” became a popular description of crowds.
Today the swarms are in the cities, and the Kii Peninsula’s mountainous landscape is gloriously empty. Emerging from days of peaceful walking along its forested mountain trails to shrines with tour buses in their parking lots is something of a shock.
The network of Kumano routes is one of only two pilgrimages ever to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, along with the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This is a matter of national pride, and has brought improved trail maintenance and signposting, and the offer of a new nine-day guided walk from cultural trek specialists, Walk Japan.
The great Kumano shrines were approached by several different routes. Some paths were for commoners, and others were favoured by feudal lords, such as the Nakahechi route from Takijiri-oji near the Kii Peninsula’s tip. During the 11th and 12th centuries assorted emperors came this way, making over 100 pilgrimages altogether.
Some of the walking is along sunlight-dappled ridges with vast views and some in dense forest with a sort of theatrical, Brothers Grimm gloom that might have given even Red Riding Hood pause for thought.
There are no wolves now, but a sign at a small wayside shrine encountered on the first day has it that a local deity required one empress to abandon her newborn there because it was unclean. Suckled by a she-wolf, the baby survived until the mother’s return.
The route passes long-forgotten teahouses, and many tiny sub-shrines and statues of Jizo, the Buddhist patron of children and travellers. Although few other walkers are encountered these images often stand knee-deep in offerings of coins and fruit.
While occasional path-side signs tell stories of pious emperors, starving pilgrims, and folk tales, the landscape itself also says much about modern Japan. One night’s accommodation is in the village of Takahara whose inhabitants have dwindled from 200 to 40 — evidence, along with occasional abandoned houses, fallow fields and untended forests, of steady migration to the cities.
Much specialist background information comes from a nimble practitioner of shugendo — a mountain-worshipping fusion of Japan’s native Shinto religion and Buddhism — who joins us as a second guide. As pilgrims did for centuries before, she carries a conch that she blows to announce our departures, arrivals and the crossing of passes, and occasionally to help stragglers catch up.
Three days’ pleasurable effort bring their reward with a late-afternoon arrival at the first of the three grand shrines, the Hongu Taisha. The gold trim on the great sweeping eaves of a magnificent collection of dark cedar wood halls, glows welcomingly in the dimming light.
The symbol of Kumano — a three-legged crow that in the Japanese creation myth guided the first emperor to unify Japan — is on charms sold to ward off evil spirits, and appears in cast iron atop a black-painted postbox.
Pilgrims drop coins into a slatted chest and tug on a fat rope to sound a bell suspended from a crossbeam, attracting the hidden deity’s attention before submitting a prayer.
Nearby Yunomine Onsen has a boiling river flowing through the tiny town, long a major pilgrimage stop for ritual purification. The geothermally heated waters are now piped into a well-organised resort with basement baths that provide the perfect means of recuperation.
Pilgrims in times past frequently succumbed to fatigue and hunger, but there’s no shortage of comforts on this tour. At Yunomine it includes the freshest sashimi, chicken pie and flash-boiled shaved beef dipped in a tangy sauce of yuzu vinegar and meringue.
No true pilgrimage is without its penitential plod, and the first few days of walking provide essential strengthening for a long climb on day seven to the Ishikura Pass — a StairMaster for the soul. Finally reaching the summit produces an endorphin-driven euphoria that might well be mistaken for religious ecstasy.
Even the poet Fujiwara Teika admitted he was lost for words after walking this section in 1201, and wrote that its toughness was impossible to describe. Over 800 years later the group’s handful of 50-somethings look a little pink-faced, but smug.
Eventually we reach views of the sea, and a steep descent to the sober Buddhist temple and gaudy Shinto shrines at Nachi, picturesquely huddled together beside Japan’s highest waterfall.
To reach the third Kumano shrine at Shingu we cheat, taking a panoramic coastal train ride. But even five centuries ago, pilgrimages were often just an excuse to travel for pleasure, and if we’ve accrued any merit it’s counted not in karma but in a sense of physical well-being.
Pilgrimages should bring revelation. Ours is knowledge that there’s a calm and beautiful rural Japan that few foreigners ever see.
NEED TO KNOW
Walk Japan’s Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage runs 16 times a year, begins in Osaka and ends in Ise, both well-connected by train and plane to Tokyo. It begins with a visit to Mt. Koya, one of Japan’s most important Buddhist sites, including a night in a monastery there, and ends with a bullet train ride to Ise, the most important Shinto shrine. On most days hikers buy their own packed lunches, but in remoter areas these are provided by hotels. Dinners are elaborate feasts featuring local delicacies such as local river fish and wild boar from the forests. For a full itinerary, see walkjapan.com.
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