Takekoma Shrine

On the left bank of the Abukuma River, in Inaricho, Iwanuma, stands Takekoma Shrine, an old Michinoku shrine known as "Takekoma Inari." It is said to have been founded at a key crossing where the Tosando and Tokaido roads first met, and was formerly called Takekuma Myojin. It is sometimes counted as one of the three great Inari shrines of Japan, but several shrines use that title, and there is no fixed list.

The chief deity is Ukanomitama-no-Kami, with Ukemochi-no-Kami and Wakumusubi-no-Kami enshrined alongside; the three are together called Takekoma Inari Okami. They have long been worshipped as deities who protect food, clothing and shelter.

According to the shrine's tradition, it was founded in 842, when Ono no Takamura, serving as governor of Mutsu Province, invited the deity of Fushimi Inari. There is a story that when the Heian-period poet Noin visited, the deity appeared in the form of a child; a hermitage was built nearby as a result and later became Takekoma-ji Temple. The shrine declined for a time in the Sengoku period, but flourished under the veneration of the Date family, including a land donation by Date Tanemune, and in 1807 it received the rank of Shoichii. In the 1869 separation of Shinto and Buddhism, the Buddhist temple Takekoma-ji moved elsewhere.

The present shrine buildings are of all cypress wood, completed in 1993 after the earlier ones were destroyed by arson in November 1990. The main hall is in the nagare-zukuri style and the worship hall in the gongen-zukuri style with a chidori-irimoya karahafu roof. Some buildings escaped the fire: the Zuijin-mon gate (a two-story gate) built in 1812 is made entirely of zelkova, houses statues of guardian deities and fox messengers, and is designated by Iwanuma City. The Mukai-karamon gate, built in 1842 and also of zelkova, became a Miyagi Prefecture Tangible Cultural Property in 2019. Among the auxiliary shrines, Atago Shrine is said to date from 1717, the oldest building in the precincts.

At the back, on the site of the original shrine, stand the Okumiya and the Myobu-sha (dedicated to the fox messengers), followed by a path of vermilion torii gates built to mark the 1,180th anniversary of the shrine's founding. Near the second torii is Futaki-zuka, a monument to a Matsuo Basho poem, and there is a bronze statue of Ono no Takamura. The Equestrian Museum, completed in 1938, is a nationally registered tangible cultural property; it holds horse-related materials such as a plaster statue of Date Masamune on horseback, and opens only during the Hatsuuma Grand Festival and the autumn festival.

The main event is the Hatsuuma Grand Festival, which lasts seven days from the first Day of the Horse in the old second month. "A Hatsuuma visit brings good fortune," it is said, and it has long been loved as a festival that brings spring to Tohoku. In 2026, March 22 was announced as the day of the mikoshi procession through the city. The New Year shrine visit during the first three days of January is also said to be among the busiest in Tohoku. In 2022, "Takekoma Ichiba" opened in a renovated visitors' rest area.

It is about a 15-minute walk from the east exit of JR Iwanuma Station. Allow about an hour to see the precincts. It is about 16 km from central Sendai, so it also fits into a historical outing around Sendai together with Zuihoden and Sendai Castle.