Nishioka Hachimangu

Shrine · Sapporo

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In short

Begins in 1890 when Mori Kinzō, a settler from Kōjiro village in Mihara district, Hyōgo, raised a small shrine on unnumbered land at Yakiyama and enshrined a divided spirit of his home village’s Hachiman shrine.

The hall of Nishioka Hachimangu in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo. — Ozizo / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Quick facts

Address: 4-8-293 Nishioka, Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido
Spiritual entities: Hachiman (八幡神)

About this place

Nishioka Hachimangu stands in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo. Its deities are Emperor Ojin, Empress Jingu and Hime-no-Okami. In August 1890 Mori Kinzō, a settler who had come to Hokkaido from Kōjiro village in Mihara district, Hyōgo, raised a small shrine on unnumbered land at Yakiyama as guardian of the settlement and enshrined there a divided spirit of his home village’s Hachiman shrine. The first hall was built in 1906, and a monument to the settlement raised at the same time; since then the shrine has been maintained by the settlers’ own hands. A second hall was built in 1934, and after repeated repairs a hall was built in November 1991 to celebrate the hundredth year of enshrinement, with large-scale work on the precinct the following year. The annual festival is 14 September, with the eve festival on 13 September. No benefit that may be prayed for is stated.

Origin and history

In August 1890 Mori Kinzō, a settler who had come to Hokkaido from Kōjiro village in Mihara district, Hyōgo, raised a small shrine on unnumbered land at Yakiyama as guardian of the settlement and enshrined there a divided spirit of his home village’s Hachiman shrine.

The first hall was built in 1906, and a monument to the settlement raised at the same time; since then the shrine has been maintained by the settlers’ own hands. A second hall was built in 1934.

After repeated repairs, a hall was built in November 1991 to celebrate the hundredth year of enshrinement, with large-scale work on the precinct the following year.

What it is locally associated with

Origin
From Kōjiro village in Hyōgo
In August 1890 Mori Kinzō, a settler from Kōjiro village in Mihara district, Hyōgo, enshrined a divided spirit of his home village’s Hachiman shrine.
documented history
Origin
A shrine on unnumbered land
He raised a small shrine on unnumbered land at Yakiyama as guardian of the settlement and enshrined the divided spirit there.
documented history
What people do here
Kept by the settlers’ own hands
The first hall was built in 1906 with a monument to the settlement, and the shrine has been maintained by the settlers ever since.
documented history

This shrine names its home place down to the village. A settler from Kōjiro village in Mihara district, Hyōgo — prefecture, district and village, and the man’s full name besides. Few pages on this list record the origin of a carried god so precisely; Toyohira Jinja, which gives its parent shrine’s address at Sarukayama in Aomori, is the nearest match.

The places Sapporo’s gods came from now extend to Hyōgo. Miyagi, Akita, Aomori, Iwate, Fukushima, Nagano, Niigata, Kyoto, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Toyama, Fukuoka and Hyōgo — the pedigree of this region’s deities is simply a map of where its settlers came from.

Even what the ground was called survives: unnumbered land at Yakiyama, that is, land without a lot number. Naebo Jinja in the same city records that the land settled there was called Kōgo Village No. 1. Several shrines here were built on ground that had no name yet, or no number.

It was the settlers who kept it. The first hall was built in 1906 with a monument to the settlement beside it, and since then the shrine has been maintained by the settlers’ own hands.

Claims and evidence levels 2

Mori Kinzō, a settler from Kōjiro village in Hyōgo, enshrined a divided spirit of his home Hachiman shrine on unnumbered land at Yakiyama in 1890. documented history
The first hall was built in 1906 and the shrine has since been maintained by the settlers themselves. documented history

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