LINES OF (IN)SIGHT

A Tribute to Kurozumi Hideo by John Billingsley from Northern Earth 66
July 22, 1913 - December 26, 1995

One of Japan's pioneer geomantic researchers, Kurozumi Hideo¹, died on December 26th, 1995, aged 82 years. I have a deep feeling of gratitude for Mr. Kurozumi, as if I had not had the opportunity to meet him on a brief visit to Japan in 1980, it is unlikely that I would have returned there to live for nearly ten years, a decade that enriched my life immeasurably, spiritually and otherwise.

It started, as these things often do, in a satisfyingly coincidental fashion. A short item on an otherwise raunchy late night men's programme on Japanese television drew my attention away from the conversation in the room, it was about a 5th-century CE stone circle in Okayama Prefecture, known as Tatetsuki, featuring an elderly man explaining the geomancy of the circle and what appeared to be alignments from it! This got me so hooked that the next day my friend, Toyama Hiroko, contacted the programme's producer, who in turn put Kuroda Akiko and me in touch with Mr Kurozumi. Less than a week later, we were being shown around Tatetsuki and other aligned ancient and sacred sites of the Kibi district of Okayama, and seven months later I was living in Japan...

We visited Kurozumi and met other fringe archaeological researchers twice, and each time were given intensive tours around a wealth of standing stones, sacred rock outcrops, ancient carvings, holy hills, Shinto shrines and prehistoric remains - we were even taken by small motor boat to a sacred island off Okayama city! It was a side of Japan that the tourist, or even expatriate resident like myself, all too rarely finds; indeed, even most Japanese people I met had no idea of these more arcane aspects of their cultural history.

In this issue, Nakagawa Kenzo describes the Way of the Sun, as Kurozumi termed the east-west alignment that ran through Okayama Prefecture on its way from the westernmost parts of the main island, Honshu, to the ancient capital territory of Yamato. Such long-distance alignments are not nowadays accepted as leys, and it is true that the accuracy of the line, even over short distances, would probably not meet the criteria insisted on today in order to confer statistical credibility on a ley. So it should be clear that we are talking here about a broad alignment, not a ley; and in common with other long and approximate alignments, it is more apt to think of them as 'corridors' of some particular sanctity. In this case, the sacred element is undoubtedly the sun, since the sites involved, as well as the orientation of the line itself, invariably have solar associations.

Strict accuracy in line is not necessary when the aim is symbolic. That such an aim may be involved is surely suggested when we bear in mind that the eastern most sunrise was over the Yamato Plain, home of the clan who not only ruled Japan but also claimed descent from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. In symbolic terms, therefore, the goddess' path across the land was mapped out through her subordinate domains, to whom she brought, on the days of equinox, a balance between light and dark; and a spiritual, celestial, power that symbolically emanated from the seat of temporal, earthly, power. Religion, geomancy and politics combine in the Way of the Sun, the sites upon it and the initial point from which the alignment emanated - a psychological synthesis whose influence upon a pagan magical culture should not be underestimated.

In Kibi, this layer of meaning was further enhanced by another alignment. Shorter and essentially a local line, it not only intersected the Way of the Sun at Tatetsuki (the primary geomantic site of the region,with its own unique omphalos stone), but also related to Tatetsuki in a group of legends (see boxes) that underscore both the interrelationship of the sites and the tension between early and celestial powers. A fuller discussion of the relationship of the Kibi alignments, the legends and their meaning appears in articles elsewhere², but the legends are included here with a brief commentary of my own, intended as a tribute to Kurozumi Hideo and the fascinating world of ancient Japan to which he introduced us.

One of Kurozumi's principle methods was to take a sacred hill, and extend a line from it in the direction of the summer solstice sunset or winter solstice sunrise. The former direction, extended from Okurayama (Great storehouse mountain), led to Hitanijinja (shrine of the valley of fire/sun), Ohakayama (tomb mt.) and Kojindani (valley of the ancients) remains on Daikokuyama, where a stone circle and a hoard of 358 copper swords were found. The winter solstice sunset line from the same mountain led to Sannozan (mountain king mt.) and Honguzan, a mountain seat of a major dragon deity. Mountains are traditionally seats of the divine in Japanese religion, and he demonstrated that other sacred sites were frequently placed in accordance with these orientations from the local holy hill. In principle, this is a similar idea to that pursued by pre-war German researchers such as Josef Heinsch, although Kurozumi was not aware of their work, and the Germans tended to emphasise precise geometrical angles, stellar rising points and alignments of regular distances rather than the basic solstitial template. In practice, Kurozutni would not necessarily take the actual rising or setting line, i.e. the direction where the sun actually appeared or sank below the horizon, but its 'ideal' direction, producing a six pointed star of the solstice settings and risings, plus the north-south axis; this pattern, he felt, informed the geomantic layout of early sacred sites in Japan. By this method, Kurozumi was able to locate a number of sacred sites, some previously unknown, and to re-evaluate Shinto shrines previously considered minor.

Kurozumi Hideo was intensely a man of his local landscape, intimate with the sacred places of his area; he was one of a quite small number of people who can look at the historical landscape with vision and a readiness to ask unconventional questions - a pioneer's approach that stretches and gradually advances our whole understanding of our past and our ancestors. It is a great shame that such an energetic and enthusiastic man is no longer in this world to share his insights into the old holy places that he loved. Yet I feel something of him will always remain in those hills, among the holy stones and sacred pools; and perhaps some sensitive scholar in the future will visit them and receive some idea, some sharing of the land's secrets, as Kurozumi once did, so sincerely, to Kuroda Akiko and myself.

1. In line with Japanese usage, the family name precedes the personal.

2. The programme was '11 P.M.'. For details of Kurozumi's work at Tatetsuki stone circle and the alignments and geomantic folklore associated with it, see: Billingsley, John, & Kuroda, Akiko. 'Japanese Earth Mysteries', The Ley Hunter 92 (1981) 'Return To Tatetsuki', TLH 103 (1987); also Billingsley, John. 'Lines & Legends: Memories of Geomancy, Kyoto Journal 5 ( I 988).

Up in the hills where the massive remains of Oni-no-Sashiageiwa and Kinojo are located, there once lived a community of giants or ogres under the leadership of a certain Ura. From their hilltop castle, they looked down upon the people of the plains. Relationships between the two peoples were tense, and things came to a head when the giant stole or refused tributes due to the Yamato government in Nara and kidnapped some of the lowland women. Faced with such rebellion, the government sent along a warrior to pacify the giants. His name was Kibitsu-hiko, and he wasted no time on trifles. Arriving at Tatetsuki, he faced Ura 's stronghold at Kmojo, four miles away, and took aim with his bow. But the arrows he shot did not reach the castle, for as soon as Kibitsu-hiko loosed his bow, Ura dispatched a huge stone which knocked the arrow down in mid-flight. Some of those stones can still be seen, lying outside the shrines Yakui-no-miya (arrow-eating shrine) and Kibitsu-jinja. The stalemate was broken by the Yamato warrior, who fired two arrows simultaneously; one, of course, was struck down by a stone, but the other one reached its target and stuck home in Ura's eye. The blood which flowed from the giants wound poured downhill into the river below, Chisuigawa (blood-flowing river). Ura seriously wounded, chose another weapon shapeshifting magic. He became a carp, and swam off down the river. Kibitsu-hiko, however, was himself no stranger to magic, and turned himself into a cormorant The fisher-bird located the carp, pulled it out of the river and ate it at Koikui-jinja (carp-eating shrine)... The elements of this tale make classic earth mysteries fare: the megalithic remains strung out in a line, the tale of an arrow's flight linking the sites, the place-names 'corroborating' the legend and locating it firmly in a sacred landscape, the ancient race of earth giants, the magical dimension of the conflict and the ritualistic death of the vanquished hero. The hero of the Sun line, Amaterasu's chosen warrior, triumphs over the local earth-bound figure. Kibitsu-hiko in fact appears in the ancient histories and can be dated to around the late third century CE, the century in which Tatetsuki stone circle was built. The time he appears is also recorded as a time of conflict between the Yamato clan's celestial deities, under the sun goddess Amaterasu, and the more earthly deities represented by O-Kuni-Nushi-no-Mikoto of the Izumo-affiliated clans. There is thus the unmistakable implication that the ancient legend commemorates this religious power struggle over fifteen hundred years ago, and describes the geomantic axes upon which it revolved in Kibi.

 

In the second major set of tales featuring Ura, the rebellious giant has not been eaten but has certainly been beaten. However, he manages to assure himself of a continuing religious role in the area that continues to this day... In early Japan, defeated rebels were decapitated and their heads publicly displayed. Yet Ura would not go quietly or rest in peace. His severed head roared and bellowed ceaselessly, whatever action was taken. It was thrown to a dog that ate the flesh off the bone, And still it moaned; it was buried eight feet underground in what is now the shrine Kibitsu-jinja , but still the locals could get no rest. After thirteen years of this, Kibitsuhiko had a dream - Ura appeared to him And promised peace if his wife, Asohime (princess of Aso), were allowed to work in the shrine kitchens, preparing the sacred foodstuffs. Kibitsu-hiko made the necessary arrangements, And Asohime came to work in the kitchens, which were located at or near to the spot where the head was buried and there developed a rapport between the buried head and the kitchen work. Asohime, and priestesses after her, were able to prophecy the future in the sound made by the boiling of water in the kitchen cauldron, an oracular ability derived from Ura's communication from the underworld. The tradition continues today; for around 3000 yen (£20), one can have ones fortune fold by priestesses in charge of the cauldron of Kibitsu's shrine; while the water boils, the woman listens to the volume, length and nature of the sounds and divines accordingly... Both these stories have remarkable symbolic similarities with the folklore motifs familiar to earth mysteries in the west, and this second tale, with its undying, oracular head, shows how widespread has been the idea of the severed head as otherworld communicant. It also takes the narrative of religious revolution in Kibi, begun in the previous tale, a stage further, by describing the integration of the old with the new, and the integration of the solar with the terrestrial. The earth-giant, Ura - now buried within his own element - and his consort-priestess, Aso (whose name is presumably connected with the place-name Aso that lies on the line between Kinojo and Tatetsuki), are brought into the territory and rites of Amaterasu's pantheon in a shared shamanic role that one can discern in later Japanese shamanic traditions (where male Buddhist ascestics paired up with spontaneous female mediums). The correct maintenance of Ura's oracle and its interpretation by Aso's successors play a key role in maintaining this anciently established balance within the Kibi landscape.

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