Looking Beyond the Post Town: Off the Beaten Path of Seki-Juku
The simplistic, scenic splendor of Edo period artisan Hiroshige’s woodcut prints has captured the imagination of the aesthetically-inclined both inside and outside Japan. Among his plethora of works, one series of pieces, The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, depicts the “Eastern Sea Road” that connected the Shogun’s capital in Edo (present-day Tokyo) to the imperial capital in Kyoto. So-called post towns or shukuba along the road welcomed travelers and magistrates with lodging and refreshments, the most well-preserved of which can be found in the city of Kameyama in Mie Prefecture to this day.
Nobono Shrine
Address：1409 Tamura-cho, Kameyama City
Address：1409 Tamura-cho, Kameyama City
Final Thoughts
Having lived in Mie Prefecture for just over a decade, I had been to the post town of Seki-juku and had heard the legends of Amaterasu and Yamato Takeru. But I did not know how deep the lore actually went. It was so fascinating to discover just lying in the outskirts around Seki-juku the remaining puzzle pieces to what is essentially the origin story of the country itself. The fact that these mythological figures are treated as real historical figures in the tomes they are featured in suggests they were an amalgamation of historical figures. The shrines may have been shrunken down since political movements to decrease them interrupted their proliferation, but the essential aspects of the most important parts of them remain. Walking the Tokaido resonates with the lives of ordinary people in olden Japan, but the ancient shrines nearby that became one of the reasons for the existence of the road and these post towns exhibit a special glimpse into the divine precursor of Japanese spirituality. The people involved with watching over these sacred places show an enormous amount of passion and their liveliness is infectious. Mie Prefecture is uniquely situated in these momentous aspects of the nation’s cultural identity and it would be a shame for travelers not to experience these millennia-old monuments themselves.