Keta Taisha Shrine

In Jike-machi, Hakui, facing the Sea of Japan, stands Keta Taisha, long revered as the ichinomiya, or chief shrine, of Noto Province. Its deity is Onamuchi no Mikoto (Okuninushi), known as a god of good matches. It is ranked as a Myojin Taisha among the shrines listed in the Engishiki, and in the old shrine ranking system it was a Kokuhei Taisha. Behind the buildings spreads the Irazu no Mori, a sacred forest that no one but the priests has been allowed to enter.

According to shrine tradition, it was founded in the reign of Emperor Kogen or Emperor Sujin. Its earliest appearance in the written record is a poem Otomo no Yakamochi composed on a visit in 748, included in Volume 17 of the Man'yoshu. The Shoku Nihongi records a grant of households and rice fields in 768, and the Engishiki register of 927 lists it as a Myojin Taisha. From the medieval period it was the ichinomiya of Noto and enjoyed the generous protection of successive lords such as the Hatakeyama and Maeda clans. It became a Kokuhei Chusha in 1871 and a Kokuhei Taisha in 1915.

What catches the eye first in the precincts is the group of buildings designated Important Cultural Properties. The main hall was built in 1787 in the sangen-sha ryonagare style with a cypress-bark roof. The worship hall, said to date from 1653 to 1654, has a hip-and-gable roof covered in cypress bark, and the shrine tradition dates the four-legged gate to 1584. The main hall of Hakusan Shrine (1787) and the main hall of Wakamiya Shrine (1569) are also Important Cultural Properties, and these five buildings are designated together as the Keta Shrine buildings. The log-built storehouse and the Zuishin-mon gate are designated by Ishikawa Prefecture.

The Irazu no Mori covers about 30,000 square meters of evergreen broadleaf forest dense with tabu trees and other species, and is a national natural monument. An inner shrine stands in the forest and is closed to ordinary worshippers.

The best-known annual event is the Ugai Festival on December 16. A captured sea cormorant, called Usama, is released in the worship hall, and the way it moves toward the inner sanctuary is read to foretell the next year's harvest. The customs of the Keta Ugai Festival are designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. The Heikoku Festival (Oide Matsuri), held from March 18 to 23, is a procession in which a sacred horse leads priests around two cities and two districts, including Hakui and Nanao, over five nights and six days. At the annual festival on April 3, the Janome Shinji ritual is performed.

From JR Hakui Station, take a bus for about 15 minutes to Noto Ichinomiya and walk about 5 minutes. By car, it is about 2 km from Yanagida IC on the Noto Satoyama Kaido, and parking holds about 300 cars. Many visitors combine the shrine with the Chirihama Nagisa Driveway, a beach you can drive on, and it is wise to allow plenty of time to walk through the halls and the forest.