Oonamuchi Shrine

Quick facts

Address

697-3 Iyonaga, Chikuzen, Asakura, Fukuoka

About this place

Oonamuchi Shrine is in Chikuzen, Asakura, Fukuoka, and is said to be the oldest shrine in the country. Its history is dated to the ninth year of the fourteenth sovereign, Emperor Chuai, around the year 200. After Empress Jingu subdued the chieftain Hajiro Kumawashi, who held power around Notori in what is now Akizuki in Asakura, she raised troops for the campaign against Silla; and when they would not assemble and she was at a loss, she built a great shrine — written also as Omiwa — and offered swords and halberds there. In 806 the court granted it sixty-two tribute households, and the Engishiki of 927 lists it as one of the eleven shrines of Chikuzen province. The present main hall was rebuilt in 1687.

Origin and history

Its history is dated to the ninth year of Emperor Chuai, around the year 200. After Empress Jingu subdued the chieftain Hajiro Kumawashi, who held power around Notori in what is now Akizuki, she raised troops for the campaign against Silla; and when they would not assemble and she was at a loss, she built a great shrine — written also as Omiwa — and offered swords and halberds there.

In 806 the court granted it sixty-two tribute households. The Engishiki of 927 lists it as one of the eleven shrines of Chikuzen province.

The present main hall was rebuilt in 1687.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  The troops would not assemble

  When troops raised for the campaign against Silla would not assemble, Empress Jingu built a great shrine and offered swords and halberds there.

  folk tradition

• Power spot

  Said to be the oldest shrine in the country

  The shrine is said to be the oldest in the country, and the Engishiki of 927 lists it among the eleven shrines of Chikuzen province.

  folk tradition

• What people do here

  A hall rebuilt in 1687

  In 806 the court granted it sixty-two tribute households, and the present main hall was rebuilt in 1687.

  documented history

This shrine was built to solve a problem. The troops would not assemble and she was at a loss, so a shrine was built and swords and halberds offered. The purpose is stated plainly, and so is the fact that it worked. On this list Tatsuta Taisha in Nara was built exactly as a dream directed during failed harvests and plague, and records that the crops then flourished and the plague withdrew. Shrines that write down the outcome as well as the intention are not common.

This shrine calls itself the oldest shrine in the country. But three claims of a similar shape are already on this list, and two are in this same prefecture. Sumiyoshi Shrine in Hakata says it is the first of the country’s 2,129 Sumiyoshi shrines; Arahito Shrine in Nakagawa says it is the root and the oldest of those to the Sumiyoshi three; and Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka is here too. This page does not decide which is oldest. It records that each says so.

The documented treatment is specific. In 806 the court granted it sixty-two tribute households, and the Engishiki of 927 names it among the eleven shrines of Chikuzen. The present hall was rebuilt in 1687.

The history page states neither the enshrined deities nor any benefit, and this page states neither.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 大己貴神社の歴史 — Oonamuchi Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)