Teine Jinja

Shrine · Sapporo

Sapporo Jinja Distant Worship Site

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In short

Began when 250 households, unable to reach Sapporo Jinja in winter or at harvest, petitioned for a place to worship it from a distance — and later became a shrine itself.

The precinct of Teine Jinja in Teine-ku, Sapporo. — 禁樹なずな / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick facts

Address: 2-3-4-28 Teine-honcho, Teine-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido
Spiritual entities: Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神) · Inari (稲荷大神) · Ōkuninushi (大国主命) · Tenjin (天神, Sugawara no Michizane)

About this place

Teine Jinja stands in Teine-ku, Sapporo. Its deities are Okunitama, Onamuchi, Sukunahikona, Amaterasu, Toyouke, Ukanomitama and Sugawara no Michizane. The settlers of Teine village were accustomed to worshipping at Sapporo Jinja, but finding the journey inconvenient in winter and during the farming season, the village’s 250 households petitioned on 26 December 1896 for the establishment of an official distant-worship site facing Sapporo Jinja, and permission was granted on 4 September the following year. On 10 September 1898 they petitioned to have it converted into a shrine, and this was granted on 18 May 1899. It was ranked a village shrine on 23 August 1917 and a district shrine on 1 April 1941. Inaho Jinja was merged in 1912, Otarunaigawa Inari Jinja in 1972 and Shinkawa Jinja in 1973. An inner shrine was built on the summit of Mount Teine on 8 October 1947. The annual festival is 15 September. No benefit that may be prayed for is stated.

Origin and history

The settlers of Teine village were accustomed to worshipping at Sapporo Jinja, but finding the journey inconvenient in winter and during the farming season, the village’s 250 households petitioned on 26 December 1896 for the establishment of an official distant-worship site facing Sapporo Jinja, and permission was granted on 4 September the following year.

On 10 September 1898 they petitioned to have it converted into a shrine, and this was granted on 18 May 1899. It was ranked a village shrine on 23 August 1917 and a district shrine on 1 April 1941.

Inaho Jinja was merged in 1912, Otarunaigawa Inari Jinja in 1972 and Shinkawa Jinja in 1973. An inner shrine was built on the summit of Mount Teine on 8 October 1947.

What it is locally associated with

Origin
Petitioned as a distant-worship site
Finding the journey impractical in winter and at harvest, the village’s 250 households petitioned on 26 December 1896 for an official distant-worship site facing Sapporo Jinja; it was granted the following September.
documented history
Origin
From worshipping to worshipped
On 10 September 1898 they petitioned to convert it into a shrine, and this was granted on 18 May 1899.
documented history
What people do here
An inner shrine on Mount Teine
An inner shrine was built on the summit of Mount Teine on 8 October 1947.
documented history

This shrine began as a place for worshipping another shrine from a distance. The settlers of Teine village were used to worshipping at Sapporo Jinja, but the journey was impractical in winter and at harvest, so the village’s 250 households petitioned for a distant-worship site — applied for on 26 December 1896, granted on 4 September the next year. The shrine they faced, Sapporo Jinja, is today’s Hokkaido Jingu.

This is the second such site on this list. Munakata Taisha’s Okitsu-gu Yohaisho in Fukuoka exists because Okinoshima forbids entry to all but priests. There the barrier is a rule; here it was snow and the farming season. And there is a second difference: this one outgrew its barrier. In 1898 the villagers petitioned to convert it into a shrine, and the following year the place that worshipped became a place that is worshipped.

Two hundred and fifty households applied. Like Kotoni Jinja’s 240 and Nishino Jinja’s five, a Sapporo shrine tends to record how many families stood at its beginning. What is different here is what those 250 asked for: not a new god, but a shorter distance to a god already there.

Mergers and additions continued — Inaho Jinja in 1912, Otarunaigawa Inari Jinja in 1972, Shinkawa Jinja in 1973 — and an inner shrine was raised on the summit of Mount Teine in 1947. Seven deities are enshrined, the three colonisation deities standing beside those of Ise, Inari, and Sugawara no Michizane.

Claims and evidence levels 2

The shrine began as a distant-worship site facing Sapporo Jinja, petitioned for by 250 households in 1896 because winter and the farming season made the journey impractical. documented history
It was granted conversion into a shrine in its own right on 18 May 1899. documented history

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