The 20th January issue of Jinja Shinpō had a front-page article about this year’s hatsumōdë. The editorial on the second page said that this year was relatively calm and trouble-free. Given that last year had a natural disaster and a plane crash, and the previous three years were in the throes of a global pandemic, “relatively trouble-free” is not a high bar. Even taking a longer view, it does seem to have been a good year, with pleasant weather over most of the country.
This article is based on interviews with a handful of significant jinja. In recent years, there has been another one in a few weeks drawing on a wider range of reports, and if this year is the same there may well be a follow-up to this post.
Isë Jingū recorded 416,111 visitors to the Inner and Outer Sanctuaries over the first three days of the year, an increase of 39,100 (just under 10%) on last year. The Noto earthquake on January 1st last year makes comparisons a little tricky, because some people might have decided not to visit jinja after the news spread (and Jingū reported a substantially higher number on the 3rd this year than last), but the priests there attribute this increase to the rising awareness of Jingū as the Shikinen Sengū approaches. That is also plausible, although the data from the next few years will be the test.
One thing about these numbers is that it is not entirely clear whether one person visiting both the Inner and Outer Sanctuaries would count as two people. They probably would, because it would be impractical to track individuals. Since the total is odd, that can’t be everyone, and indeed I would expect quite a lot of people to only visit the Inner Sanctuary. In the absence of data from Jingū, I am going to guess that this number represents about 300,000 different people. This is still impressive, given that the total population of Isë City is just under 120,000. Even if all of them visited Jingū (they didn’t), most of the visitors were still from further afield. The headline number represents at least 208,056 people, which is still almost double the population of the city.
Meiji Jingū, in Tokyo, reported that numbers, both of visitors and of formal prayers, were up on last year, but still not back to pre-pandemic numbers (so still under three million). The priests commented that the number of foreigners paying their respects stood out when they looked at the crowd, and that the number of foreigners offering formal prayers had also gone up.
Hokkaidō Jingū, in Sapporo, said that there were more visitors than last year, and more foreigners. Ikuta Jinja, in Kōbë, reported 850,000 over the first three days, and if you add the 4th and 5th (which were Saturday and Sunday this year — for the benefit of people reading in my future) the total almost reached a million. They moved the food stands out of the precincts and onto what I assume is the approach road during the pandemic, and that has proved very popular.
Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja, the jinja for that prefecture’s war dead, reported about 590,000 visitors, and an increased number of formal prayers. The population of Hiroshima City is about 1.2 million, which would suggest that half the population of the city visited this jinja.
Hakosakigū in Fukuoka reported about 500,000 visitors, with formal prayers at normal levels. They reported that a lot of foreigners, particularly Chinese, visited, and that there seemed to be more than before the pandemic.
Kanahebisui Jinja in Miyagi Prefecture had about 150,000 visitors, which is roughly twice the normal numbers. That is because the jinja’s name means “Gold Snake Water Jinja”, and this is the year of the snake.
It is interesting that three jinja explicitly mentioned an increased number of foreigners. This is just reported as another fact in the article, neither good nor bad in itself. I do wonder whether a greater proportion of foreigners are going to hatsumōdë, or whether this is just due to the increasing number of foreigners in Japan. I also wonder how many of them were tourists.
As these numbers suggest, hatsumōdë remains extremely popular. If we do get reports from less prominent jinja, it will be interesting to see how they compare. I know my local jinja had queues for the first three days of the year, and so I expect that most jinja still see the benefits.
Does Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja enshrine civilian war dead?
That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer. In general, the Gokoku Jinja have looser standards than Yasukuni Jinja, and, for example, some enshrine members of the Self-Defense Forces or police officers who have died on duty. However, I think they only enshrine people who died in service to the country, at least in the main sanctuary. Of course, there is an obvious reason why Hiroshima might be different, and they do have an annual matsuri for those killed by the atomic bomb. But the website is not specific about who is enshrined, and so I do not know.