Fukuoka
Fukuoka faces the continent, and much here is about crossing: island shrines on the sea route, a harbour city whose gods were merchants’ gods, and the offerings left on an island now counted in tens of thousands of national treasures. It is also where an exile ended — the scholar Michizane died at Dazaifu and is buried there.
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Places in this collection
ShrineDazaifu Tenmangu
- Career & Work
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
The shrine stands over Sugawara no Michizane’s grave, on the spot where the ox drawing his funeral cart lay down and would not move; prayers here begin with passing an entrance examination.
ShrineMunakata Taisha
Three goddesses, daughters of Amaterasu, enshrined across three halls, with some eighty thousand national treasures excavated from the island of Okinoshima confirming traces of state ritual.
ShrineHakozakigu
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
- Money & Prosperity
A Hachiman shrine built in 921 after Emperor Daigo, by divine instruction, handed down a piece of imperial calligraphy that the shrine still keeps as its first treasure.
ShrineKashiigu
- Family & Home
- Fertility & Children
- Protection & Safety
It began when Empress Jingu built a shrine with her own hands for the spirit of her husband Emperor Chuai, and a second hall for the empress herself was later added on her own oracle.
ShrineSumiyoshi Shrine
- Protection & Safety
- Purification
Said to be the first of the 2,129 Sumiyoshi shrines in the country, and revered as a deity who guards against every calamity by means of purity of body and mind.
ShrineMiyajidake Shrine
- Wish Fulfillment
Empress Jingu is said to have prayed from this mountaintop before sailing — “grant me, I pray, an opening of fortune” — and the deity here is revered as one who grants any wish at all.
ShrineHomangu Kamado Shrine
- Love & Romance
- Protection & Safety
Ritual began on Mount Homan because it stands at the demon gate of the Dazaifu government office, and the shrine derives its matchmaking virtue from the characters in its deity’s own name.
ShrineSuitengu
- Fertility & Children
- Protection & Safety
The head shrine of all the Suitengu in Japan, enshrining Amenominakanushi together with Emperor Antoku, Kenreimon’in and Nii-no-Ama of the Taira, and known for safe birth and protection from drowning.
ShrineUmi Hachimangu
- Family & Home
- Fertility & Children
Empress Jingu gave birth to Emperor Ojin here, holding on to the branch of a pagoda tree, and the town’s name comes from that delivery.
Sacred MountainHikosan Jingu
- Career & Work
- Protection & Safety
A mountain shrine that began as “the mountain of the sun’s child” and had its name altered twice by imperial act, in 819 and again in 1729; its virtues are the guarding of farming, mines and factory safety, and fortune in winning.