[O-05] Geology and culture of the active plate margin

[O05-P05] Utilizing lava rock walls as a place of worship in the mountains: Kubote-san Shugendo, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

★Invited Papers

*Norihito Kawamura¹ (1.School of Regional Resource Management, Graduate School, University of Hyogo)

Keywords:lava, sacred place in mountain, Mt. Kubote, Fukuoka Prefecture

One of the sacred mountains of Shugendo include Mt. Kubote-san in Fukuoka Prefecture. “Gokakutsu”is the general name for five places of worship among the ascetic practices of Shugendo in Mt. Kubote, Fukuoka Prefecture. The author investigated of these “kutsu” in order to reveal relationships between the geology and worship places in sacred mountains, and found that the five places are located at the base of cliffs where relatively hard and an erosion-resistant lava layer. The author also found that there are two types of "kutsu," one with an artificially formed cave and the other without a cave. This is in contrast to the relatively soft rock of tuff layers in the mountains near Mt. Kubote-san.

Reference
Kawamura, N. (2024) Geology of mountain sacred sites: Utilizing lava rock walls as a place of worship by practitioners of Kubote-san Shugendo, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Report of the Team Research, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 200, 93-97.