Suwa Mishaguji Legend

The Suwa Mishaguji legend records a stratum of indigenous earth-deity worship in the Suwa basin (Nagano) that pre-dates the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki and survives within later shrine ritual. Mishaguji - written variously as Mishaguji, Misaguchi or Misakuchi - is a small deity that descends into trees, stones and snakes, and protects mountain entrances, boundaries and water sources. The Jincho-kan Moriya-ke Monjo, the documentary lineage of the Moriya house that served as senior priests at Suwa Upper Shrine, records the ritual for 'calling down' and 'sending up' Mishaguji and its central place in the Ontosai festival. After the arrival of Izumo myth, Takeminakata-no-Kami is said to have descended to Suwa and overcome the local deity Moriya-no-Kami; Mishaguji was thereafter positioned as a hidden substrate of Suwa upper-shrine ritual. The cult survives at the Maemiya of Suwa Taisha (Chino) and at small mishaguji shrines across Nagano, Yamanashi, Aichi and the Tokai region; small wayside 'shakujin' or 'sangu-ji' shrines in the Kanto plain belong to the same lineage. Primary sources include the Jincho-kan Moriya-ke Monjo (designated cultural property of Chino), the Suwa Daimyojin Ekotoba (1356) and the Kamakura-period Suwa Nobushige Gejo, with twentieth-century studies by Imai Nogiku, Yamato Iwao, Miyaji Naokazu and Nakazawa Shin'ichi.