Tsukisamu Jinja

Quick facts

Address

3-4-1-56 Tsukisamu-nishi 3-jo, Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido

Spiritual entities

Inari (稲荷大神)

About this place

Tsukisamu Jinja stands in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo. Its deities are Ukanomitama, Oyamatsumi, Ichikishimahime and Umashimaji. It was founded on 7 September 1900 and raised to village-shrine rank on 2 November 1918. It was enshrined at Nishiyama-dori in Toyohira-cho, Sapporo district, in September 1884, and on 7 September 1900, by Hokkaido government directive number 2307, it was styled the unranked Nishiyama Jinja and permitted to be founded. On 28 October 1903 it was renamed Tsukisamu Jinja and applied to move to Tsukisamu village 17, permission being granted on 24 May 1904. On 16 February 1918 it applied to move to Tsukisamu 498, its present site, and permission was granted on 4 March that year. On 2 November it was raised to village rank and designated a shrine receiving offerings. On 2 December 1971 the hall, assembly room and shrine office were completed, as they stand today. The annual festival is 8 September, with the eve festival on 7 September. No benefit that may be prayed for is stated.

Origin and history

It was enshrined at Nishiyama-dori in Toyohira-cho, Sapporo district, in September 1884, and on 7 September 1900, by Hokkaido government directive number 2307, it was styled the unranked Nishiyama Jinja and permitted to be founded.

On 28 October 1903 it was renamed Tsukisamu Jinja and applied to move to Tsukisamu village 17, permission being granted on 24 May 1904. On 16 February 1918 it applied to move to Tsukisamu 498, its present site, and permission was granted on 4 March that year.

On 2 November that year it was raised to village rank and designated a shrine receiving offerings. On 2 December 1971 the hall, assembly room and shrine office were completed.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Founded by directive number 2307

  On 7 September 1900, by Hokkaido government directive number 2307, it was styled the unranked Nishiyama Jinja and permitted to be founded.

  documented history

• Origin

  A renaming and two moves

  It was renamed Tsukisamu Jinja in 1903 and permitted to move in 1904; a further move to its present site was permitted in 1918.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Village rank and offerings

  On 2 November 1918 it was raised to village rank and designated a shrine receiving offerings.

  documented history

This shrine’s history is almost entirely paperwork. By Hokkaido government directive number 2307 it was styled the unranked Nishiyama Jinja and permitted to be founded — the directive’s number is part of the record. What follows is a series of paired dates, petition and permit: applied 28 October 1903, granted 24 May 1904; applied 16 February 1918, granted 4 March 1918. The substance of the record is not where a god came from but when the procedure cleared.

Sapporo holds another shrine written this way. Sapporo-mura Jinja gives its petition and its permission as its history, and its very name is the trace of an application that was refused. The Sapporo pages on this list divide into stories of a god carried and stories of an office passed through.

The name changed partway too. It was Nishiyama Jinja first, and became Tsukisamu Jinja in 1903 — renamed in the same breath as the application to move, taking the name of the new ground.

Of its four deities, Ichikishimahime appears across this list. At Munakata Taisha in Fukuoka she is one of the three goddesses of Amaterasu; at Tenkawa Daibenzaiten in Nara she is worshipped as Benzaiten. The same deity is enshrined in Kyushu, in Yamato and here.

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. 月寒神社 — 北海道神社庁札幌支部 (accessed 2026-08-16)