A village of kagura,
calming the Kojin.

Kojin is a deity believed to hold fierce, untamed power, thought to combine the character of a hearth god, a household god, and a local guardian spirit all at once. This devotion to Kojin has long been deeply rooted across the Bingo region (eastern Hiroshima Prefecture), and "Kojin Kagura" has been offered to the god in many places.

In the Toyomatsu district of Jinseki Kogen too, this Kojin Kagura is performed in spring or autumn. A program said to have begun during the Anei–Tenmei era of the Edo period (the 1770s–80s) is said to be handed down to this day. To calm a fierce god, entertain it, and turn its power toward protecting the community — this is what kagura is for.

Kojin has long been feared because its power was believed to swing sharply toward either good or ill. Handled incorrectly, or exposed to ritual impurity, the god was said to bring misfortune down on a household; properly enshrined, that same Kojin became an unusually reliable protector of the hearth and home against fire and illness. Fierce enough to hold great power, yet turned toward protection only once that power is purified and calmed — this duality sits at the very heart of Kojin devotion.

• Hearth Kojin (kamado)
• House Kojin (yashiki)
• Land Kojin (fields & hills)
• Sanbō Kōjin (Three Treasures)

Shinto has long held that a single deity can carry two opposing sides at once: the "aramitama" (rough spirit), fierce and capable of bringing misfortune, and the "nigimitama" (gentle spirit), calm and inclined to bless. Many festivals and kagura performances exist as rites meant to calm a god's aramitama and turn it toward its nigimitama.

Kojin devotion can be seen as a particularly clear expression of this pattern, widespread across Japanese folk religion, of entertaining and calming a fierce god rather than driving it away. Kojin figures found across the country are feared as powerful deities tied to fire and the hearth, yet properly enshrined, that same Kojin becomes a reliable guardian protecting a household from fire and illness — a duality found broadly in Kojin and hearth-god devotion across Japan, not only in the Bingo region.

That kagura centered on Kojin is handed down under names such as "Kojin Kagura" or "shinden kagura" in many places can be read as a mark of the wisdom of earlier generations, who chose to entertain this god with dance and music and turn its power toward protecting the community, rather than simply fearing and avoiding it.

Among the kagura traditions of Jinseki Kogen, the one with the oldest pedigree is the "Hakkasha Kagura" ("kagura of the eight shrines"). Tradition holds that in the second year of Joutoku (1098), the shrine families of eight manors, including Toyomatsu and Sasao, joined forces to found this kagura — in the late Heian period, more than 900 years ago.

The Hakkasha Kagura first developed as a kagura offered at the festival of Toyomatsu Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine. It was later refined by incorporating elements of Bicchu Jindai Kagura, court kagura, and Ise kagura, and is said to have become, in both name and substance, a complete performing art.

What is intriguing is that these eight manors are said to have straddled a provincial border. Alongside Bingo-side communities such as Toyomatsu and Sasao, tradition holds that a community on the Bicchu side (present-day Okayama Prefecture) was also among the eight — and this geographic proximity may well explain why the Hakkasha Kagura absorbed elements of Bicchu Jindai Kagura so early on.

A night of Bingo Kagura begins with "shinji-shiki," ritual dance to purify the space, before moving into "nōmai," the narrative dance that tells a story. Roughly thirty nōmai programs are said to survive, and depending on the piece, a single dance can easily run over an hour — in the past, kagura would sometimes continue through the entire night.

Compared with the elaborate embroidered costumes seen in Iwami Kagura, Bicchu Kagura, or Chiyoda Kagura, Bingo Kagura keeps to a relatively plain look, generally built around a kariginu hunting robe or a lighter hitatare. Goddess roles wear festive kimono suited to the celebratory occasion. Masks are carved from wood, each one shaped by hand by local mask-carvers.

Music is built around taiko drums and flute, moving in step with the dancers' breath to shape the story's rhythm. Toyomatsu's own kagura preserves demanding set pieces such as "kirikimai," in which a warrior role spins rapidly on the spot again and again — a feat of stamina and skill that, combined with a narrative style rich in dialect and improvised comic exchanges, keeps audiences engaged throughout.

Ritual-heavy pieces also remain widely characteristic of Bingo Kagura as a whole, including "gogyō-sai," a rite that purifies the space with five-colored sacred wands, and "oshiki-mai," a spinning dance performed while balancing cups on a tray. Sources vary on exactly how much of this ritual repertoire survives within Toyomatsu's own kagura, but there is no doubt that pieces of this strongly ritual character are what keep Bingo Kagura an offering to the gods, rather than mere spectacle.

Kagura programs generally fall into two kinds. The first is "shinji-shiki," ritual dance meant to purify the space and welcome the gods — dances performed with sacred wands (toримоno-mai), or the dance of Sarutahiko, the deity who opens the way. The second is "shin'nō," dramatized mythic narrative, often drawn from Izumo mythology, performed with dialogue and gesture as a true performing art built on the gods' own stories.

Toyomatsu's kagura hands down both kinds. Its shin'nō repertoire has included "Kuniyuzuri," the story of the gods ceding control of the land, and the tale of Susanoo no Mikoto slaying Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed serpent.

Across Japan more broadly, the myths kagura's shin'nō most often dramatizes are the creation of the land by Izanagi and Izanami, the story of Amaterasu withdrawing into the heavenly cave, and Susanoo's slaying of the great serpent — the central myths told in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. How much of Toyomatsu's own repertoire preserves an ancient form, and how much was reshaped in more recent times, varies by source, and tracing each program's exact lineage remains, in part, a task for future research.

Jinseki Kogen's kagura belongs to the broader tradition known as "Bingo Kagura," found across eastern Hiroshima Prefecture. Other kagura traditions of the Chugoku region — Iwami Kagura from western Shimane Prefecture, and Bicchu Kagura from Okayama Prefecture — differ considerably in both origin and appearance, and should not be confused with it.

Iwami Kagura has been widely covered on television in recent years and is often spoken of as though it stood for all Chugoku-region kagura, but it developed along an entirely different stream from Jinseki Kogen's own tradition. Bingo Kagura is better described as a lineage that has valued storytelling and ritual over spectacle.

Kojin Kagura has traditionally been offered, in spring or autumn, at whichever household in Toyomatsu holds the year's turn as "kōjin-mochi" — the community's designated Kojin keeper — with the role rotating from community to community. Rather than being tied to a dedicated kagura hall, the troupe travels to that year's host household and dances there: a form of offering closely tied to what is known as "shinden kagura," and one deeply rooted in the local community.

The Hakkasha Kagura, by contrast, has always been offered at the festival of Toyomatsu Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine. Today, too, the basic form remains a dance offered before the shrine, timed to the annual festival of the community's guardian deity.

More recently, events such as the "Jinseki Kogen Grand Kagura Joint Performance" have also brought together the dances of all seven kagura troupes, giving visitors the chance to enjoy several programs back to back at a single venue. Beyond visiting an individual community's own festival, attending one of these joint performances lets you compare Toyomatsu's three lineages — Kojin Kagura, Hakkasha Kagura, and Kibi Kagura — side by side. Timing and venue change from year to year, so it is worth checking with the Jinseki Kogen Tourism Association or the Kagura Promotion Council before visiting.

The star deity of Mt. Hoshinokoyama, the stone god embedded in a place name, Taishakuten of Taishakukyo Gorge — layer upon layer of devotion to various gods remains across Jinseki Kogen. Kagura may well have been the most intimate device for binding people to these unseen gods.

Precisely because every highland community had its own shrine, and every shrine its own kagura troupe, an art with a founding legend more than 900 years old continues unbroken even now, as depopulation advances. What has been passed from dancer to dancer, across generations, is surely not just choreography, but the very memory of how this land has honored its gods.