Nachi Falls (Hiro-jinja)

Hiro Jinja in Nachikatsuura, Wakayama, is an auxiliary shrine of Kumano Nachi Taisha that takes the 133-meter Nachi Falls itself as its deity body. It enshrines Onamuchi no Kami, identified with Okuninushi. The shrine has no main hall, only a place of worship facing the basin of the falls, preserving an archaic form of waterfall cult. Engishiki (927 CE) registers the Kumano shrines, and through the medieval period Nachi-mode pilgrimage drew imperial and aristocratic devotees. The falls and the shrine are constituent assets of the UNESCO World Heritage "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range" (2004). The July Nachi Fire Festival is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.