Nagano Izuna Legend

The Nagano Izuna legend is the cycle attached to Mount Izuna in northern Shinano, a Shugendo centre near Togakushi and Nagano. Yamabushi retreats on the mountain were said to receive the protection of Izuna Gongen, depicted as a crow-tengu figure, and to acquire the Izuna-ho, a ritual practice for using small fox familiars called kuda-gitsune. Adepts were said to dispatch the kuda foxes to possess rivals or to gain victory in battle, and the cult attracted Sengoku-era warlords. At the village level, however, Izuna users were shunned as kuda-mochi households; the cult therefore combines the authority of the Shugendo lineage with the dread of folk possession belief. The structure has three layers: the honji-suijaku identification of Izuna Gongen as a crow-tengu form; the mastery of Izuna-ho by yamabushi and use of kuda foxes; and the coexistence of warrior patronage (Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen are traditionally counted among believers) with the rural stigma of possession. The cult centres on Mount Izuna and its foothill villages around Togakushi and Imoi, with related sites at Minakami Shrine on Mount Minakami in Nagano City. Izuna confraternities spread widely in the Edo period, reaching Takaosan Yakuoin in Tokyo and Iizuna shrines in Soma, Fukushima. Sources include the Edo Shugendo manuals Iizuna Dai-Gongen Hiden and Izuna-tsukai Hidensho, Yanagita Kunio's Santo Mintan-shu (1914), Miyata Noboru's Kami no Minzokushi (1979), Murayama Shuichi's Yamabushi no Rekishi (1970) and the folklore volume of the Nagano prefectural history.