The Town of Dual Dragons

And the legends they created.

The moment our plane left Narita airport after a two-week high school trip in 2005, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. I dedicated the next 5 years to bumping up my Japanese skills, and getting to Japan.

After a 6-month study abroad in 2008, I was accepted on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program to live here in 2010. The Japanese consulate handed me a slip of paper that read:

“Shonai Town, Yamagata Prefecture”

Disclaimer: This is not Shonai Town! I did the in thing and asked AI to create an image of my life. The only thing I can think of to change would be making the mountains rounder, and changing the weird snow formations.

Never heard of it. Somewhere up north? Must be the Inaka (countryside). I did what anyone would do. I searched the internet for “Shonai Town, Yamagata Prefecture”.

Nothing came up.

Nothing. Did I type it wrong? Was there just no information on the place in English?

Probably a combination of both.

But I didn’t care.

I just wanted to live in Japan.

So I got on that flight to Tokyo, took the three-hour Shinkansen (bullet train) ride to Yamagata City, was then picked up by my new colleagues and driven a further two-hours north to Shonai Town.

Immediately my thoughts were:

Why didn’t anyone tell me you can fly here in an hour from Tokyo?

And…

The Inaka!

The Inaka on a good day. The summit of Gassan lies in Shonai Town, even though you can’t climb up from there. And yes, again, that’s Chokai-san we can see.

I ended up living in Shonai Town for four more years. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realised Shonai Town had yet another identity:

The Town of Dual Dragons

Last week I introduced the dragon deity of Tachiwazawa. That dragon the townspeople had to deify to subdue, and then they got some famous rice out of it, or something. But this second dragon is a bit different to say the least.

How this second dragon came about is kind of similar. It comes from a river too, only a much larger one.

You see, The Tachiyazawa River flows down to eventually reach a tiny hamlet called Kiyokawa. Here it meets The Mogami River. Kiyokawa marks the exact spot Matsuo Basho got off the Mogami River. Plus, The Mogami River is the longest contiguous river in any prefecture, and one huge reason why Sakata City was home to the richest family in Japan until the end of WWII.

If you follow The Mogami River north-west of Tachiyazawa, you’ll come to yet another small township named Amarume (余目, lit. left-over eye(!)), where I lived in a tin can for four years.

Seriously.

Kiyokawa and the Tachiyazawa River are at the bottom right. Highlighted on this map mistakenly as ‘Hiryuden Shocchi Kinnuma Yahata Shrine’ Kanuma Jinja lies on the site of a former branch castle of the former Fujishima castle. Fujishima Castle is the ‘Fujishima Historical Park’ at the bottom. Shima means island. Did the Mogami river also make Fujishima an island? It’s certainly possible.

It was probably the first time I had experienced minus -0°C inside the house. It was certainly the first time I experienced a frozen-over toilet and ice in my shampoo. Oh, and frozen bananas not meant for banana cake.

Never again.

Proof.

Anyway, due west of Amarume township lies a small marsh called Kanuma, ‘golden marsh’, where Kanuma Jinja (shrine) lies. This marsh was apparently formed with water from the Mogami River. If you look at a modern map of the area, you see The Mogami River is quite far from Kanuma.

Much like the dragon of Tachiyazawa, The Mogami River is also a powerful beast that we can barely contain, if this footage from this July is anything to go by. So, it is certainly believable The Mogami did reach that far.

And the dragon?

Legend has it that an evil dragon lived in this marsh, but not just any evil dragon; an evil dragon with an appetite for young women. Locals believed that each year around the time of the harvest, if they didn’t sacrifice a young woman, the dragon would wreak havoc on their farms and destroy all their crops.

Until…

Until one year, not happy with being chosen as a sacrifice, one young woman came up with a cunning plan. Instead of just giving herself over to the dragon, she went about memorising the Kannon Sutra.

When she came face to face with her adversary, she put her heart on her sleeve, and gave her best rendition of the Kannon Sutra.

And you know what?

It worked!

Not from the summit, but this is a sort of reverse picture from before with Gassan centre-left. Shonai Town is around the middle of this photo, Sakata to the right. You can also kind of make out the Mogami River.

This pacified the dragon, it had a complete change of heart, and instead became a guardian dragon of peace and rice cultivation for the region.

Talk about a turnaround!

So now each year in August, both the dragon from Tachiyazawa, and the dragon from Kanuma, dance a fiery dance at the Kiryusai Festival (Japanese link) in Shonai Town,

The Town of Dual Dragons.

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Resources (Japanese):

Here and here.

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Daily Yamabushi for This Week

The Torii gates to the Dewa Sanzan with Haguro-san (left) and Gassan (right)

Daily Yamabushi posts for the week of November 29 to December 5, 2024.

Read Daily Yamabushi for free at timbunting.com/blog or Medium.com.

1. Where you are

2. When to give haters the light of day

3. Living off instinct

4. ‘Accidentally’ forgetting your phone

5. Standing out

6. When not to stake your claim

7. Don’t even think it