Introduction
Few of us can fail to remember the fear and paranoia of the early COVID-19 pandemic years — the slightest cough or sniffle was enough to send the masked people around you skittering across the street. No official statistics are forthcoming, but it’s fair to say that during those years, Shinto shrines in Japan that specifically dealt with throat and nose ailments saw an uptick in worshippers praying for immunity against the virus.
The following shrines are mostly dedicated to Oseki Daimyōjin — one possible translation of this is ‘Great Shining Cough’ — and offer the promise of relief from coughs and colds. In general, throat ailments fall within their remit, making them popular with asthmatics, hayfever sufferers, people in the entertainment industry when they need their voice back, or are hoping for a little extra help with those pesky nodules and polyps on their vocal cords.
Oseki-sha, Kyoto
This sub-shrine near Yakuriki Waterfall at Fushimi Inari Taisha may be one of the most-visited places of worship when it comes to throat ailments. In a previous life, Oseki-sha was apparently called Oseki Inari お関稲荷, and appears to have been a checkpoint en route to the summit where the main shrine building is located.
A legend says that a kabuki actor whose voice had grown hoarse visited the shrine, and his throat was healed shortly thereafter. From this time, oseki お関 (checkpoint) was changed to the homophone お咳 (cough), and the shrine has continued to attract entertainers of all stripes from actors to musicians. Fans even visit to make offerings for their favourite singers afflicted with voice-related woes.
At Oseki-sha, one can make offerings of throat lozenges before taking them home; this supposedly increases their potency. Should you be unable to visit in person, there is even a postbox to which you can send prayers or thank-you letters. It seems that if you send them to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the priests will hand-deliver them to the postbox next to the altar, ensuring that your petition reaches the Great Shining Cough deity.
Oseki Inari-sha, Kanagawa
Morito Shrine was founded around 1180 by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun of the Kamakura period. Perched on a small peninsula along the Hayama coastline, this beach shrine is quite possibly one of the prettiest in the area — perfectly clear days offer views of Enoshima Island and Mount Fuji, and the sunsets are often beautiful. There is also a small red torii gate belonging to Morito Shrine, that stands on a small, rocky island some ways out to sea.
Oseki Inari-sha is a modest subsidiary shrine on its precincts dedicated to Ukanomitama, the kami of food and agriculture, who is often associated with Inari, the deity of rice. Not only is it popular with voice actors and anyone suffering from a persistent cough, people also pray to improve their voice-related skills — if you’re a voice actor, broadcaster, singer, public speaker, or anyone in a profession where you have to talk, take note.
Miwasato Inari Shrine, Tokyo
Established in 1614, this shrine began life as an enshrined branch of Haguro Ōkami of Mount Yudono in the Dewa Province (present-day Yamagata Prefecture). Its association with curing throat ailments stems from a ‘secret’ ritual performed on Mount Yudono, that culminates in offering konnyaku amulets to worshippers on the first horse day of the year, as indicated by the lunar calendar. Yes, really, that konnyaku — the bouncy jelly made from devil’s tongue that takes more calories to chew than consume.
The belief is that boiling and eating these particular amulets will cure your throat, voice, and cold ailments. However, konnyaku is also a common fatal choking hazard if not chewed thoroughly enough to safely swallow, so it’s possible that any reported cures are a result of survivorship bias. We’ll let you decide.
Mihokashima Shrine, Tokyo
If you merge two separate shrines, what do you call the new one? Mihokashima Shrine went with the easy route — they simply mashed both names into a single one.
Mihokashima Shrine came into being in 2004, although it’s not clear from existing sources as to why the merging was necessary. Suffice to say that it is a small ocean (okay, a pond) of tranquility amidst the skyscrapers of Tokyo’s concrete jungle. The building stands on the site where Kashima Shrine was formerly located.
Both of the original shrines are reasonably old. Their respective dates of founding are unclear, varying with sources. Miho Shrine was founded in 1479 or 1525. Kashima Shrine might have been built sometime 1624 and 1644, or between the eighth and twelfth centuries.
Kashima Shrine’s origin story (legend) is especially fun. Long ago, a shrine drifted ashore at Shibahama, the sacred objects enshrined within miraculously dry despite the sea. Some time later, several people from Hitachi Province passed through the area, and recognised the shrine as theirs — it had been washed away from Kashima Grand Shrine. They tied it to their boat and rowed it back. But the same thing happened, and the shrine drifted back to the shores of Shibahama. So it was that it came to be enshrined where it is now.
Miho Shrine attracted devotees for its efficacy against smallpox, while Kashima Shrine drew worshippers for its promise of relief from whooping cough. However, we haven’t encountered any accounts that tell us why this is the case.
Washinomiya Shrine, Tochigi
Can abstaining from chicken meat and eggs cure whooping cough? Hōjō Masako, wife to Minamoto no Yoritomo, the second shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate, certainly thought so. When their young son Yoriie came down with a bad bout of whooping cough, she stopped eating poultry and prayed at Washinomiya Shrine for his recovery. You know how the rest of the story goes: the child recovered, and the shrine gained a reputation for banishing coughs.
This tale would have taken place sometime during the 1180s. By this time, Washinomiya was already a venerable shrine in its own right, having existed since 808. One of its enshrined deities is the sun goddess Amaterasu-no-Mikoto. Her divine messenger is the chicken, so the chief priest of every generation has traditionally abstained from eating chicken meat and eggs; worshippers who visit are supposed to do the same.
Their main festival held on 23 November features the Gōran-shiki, or the ‘Strong Egg Ceremony.’ It is a unique variation on a ritual where participants are urged to eat rice served to them; it is expected that they will resist these temptations. At Washinomiya, the rice is replaced by raw eggs. Participants will be purified by the shrine priest before being invited to drink sake by a tengu, representing the deity’s messenger. Then, the tengu will pressure them to eat the raw eggs; participants are expected to decline and point out that the eggs are offerings to the deity.
To the right of the shrine’s main hall is the large ‘Dream Egg.’ Place your hands on this stone egg and recite your wish three times. Your dream will grow within and eventually come to fruition. For extra blessings, you can pick up a ‘cough-stopping amulet,’ a ‘great wish fulfilling egg amulet,’ or a kumade covered in auspicious motifs.
Kamenoko Tawashi Shrine, Yokohama
People will try all sorts of cough and cold remedies before going to a doctor. Drinking honey and lemon spiked with whiskey, gargling with salt water, applying Vicks VapoRub to the feet… Over in a small suburb of Yokohama, you can add this to the list: vigorously scrubbing your throat with a spiky turtle-shaped brush.
En route to Sankeien Garden is a nondescript little neighbourhood shrine on a triangular plot of land. This is Kamenoko Tawashi Shrine, or ‘Baby Turtle Scrub Brush’ Shrine, and its principal deity is a rock, on which several scrubbing brushes have been arranged.
The legend of its founding is rather sad. Long ago, the fishermen at the nearby beach found a baby turtle in their nets. Instead of returning it to the sea, they left it in the hold of their boat and forgot about it. Some children playing on the beach spotted the baby turtle, and in the manner of children, threw it around and kicked it as though it were a ball, eventually killing the turtle.
That night, the weather turned violently stormy. A nearby cape collapsed, burying the dead turtle beneath the debris. The villagers felt this was no ordinary storm. They dug the turtle out of the rubble to hold a memorial service for its spirit, and found that it had turned to stone. An old woman felt a sudden burst of pity, and stroked the stone. You guessed it: Her asthma symptoms miraculously vanished.
The custom is to borrow one of these brushes (which are literally called kamenoko tawashi) from the shrine and use it to wash bowls used by the sufferer, or rub one’s throat with it. Once cured, offer two of these brushes to the shrine as a token of gratitude. However, how they went from stroking the stone to using a (painful) scrubbing brush on one’s throat centuries later is unclear.
Written by Florentyna Leow