Tokumori Shrine

Tokumori Shrine (Tokumori-jinja) stands in Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture, and serves as the tutelary shrine of the Tsuyama castle town and the broader Tsuyama domain of the Mimasaka region. The main enshrined deity is Amaterasu-Omikami of Ise Jingu Naiku, recorded in the Kojiki (712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (720 CE) as the imperial ancestral deity. According to shrine tradition, the shrine was relocated to its present site in 1604 by Mori Tadamasa, founder of the Tsuyama domain, as the protective tutelary of the new castle town established at the same time. The shrine was elevated to gosha rank in the Meiji era. The annual autumn festival held in October, featuring the procession of the Mimasaka long-pole portable shrine (one of Japan's largest mikoshi), is designated an Okayama Prefecture Intangible Folk Cultural Property and is widely known as a representative castle-town festival of the western Sanyo region.