A Geography of Prayers to Calm the Wind: The "God of Wind" and wind-cut pine trees in Kashiyama, Yamanashi (1950s-1970s)

A Geography of Prayers to Calm the Wind: The "God of Wind" and wind-cut pine trees in Kashiyama, Yamanashi (1950s-1970s)

Kashiyama village in the former Kiyosato Village in Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture, was a wind-damaged area where strong, cold winds from the Yatsugatake downpour blew down in the winter. A 30-meter-wide causeway runs along the edge of the village, along which pine trees are planted to form a windbreak. People call these rows of pine trees "windbreak pines" and have maintained them as a windbreak. In the rows of windbreak pines, there used to be a small shrine called "Kaze-no-saburo-sha" enshrining the god of wind, thus creating a double mechanism to suppress the wind from both "physical" and "prayer" perspectives.

The small shrine was later moved to the Tone area, a short distance from the center of the village, for reasons that are unclear, according to local records. The shifting of the site of the shrine coincides with a phenomenon seen in many areas during the postwar to high-growth period, when agricultural land consolidation, housing development, and tourism development progressed, suggesting that the belief in the wind god was also influenced by land use and the reorganization of local power. In addition, field records kept by local volunteers confirm a small shrine of "Kaze no Saburo-sha" that was moved to the side of Tone Shrine, indicating the continuity of the tradition.
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Topography and livelihood were behind the fear of wind in Kashiyama. The northern edge of the Kofu Basin and the southern foot of the Yatsugatake Mountains are subject to localized winter monsoon winds. In Kashiyama, it is said that people had to be careful about the dates of winter work (pruning, etc.) for field crops and fruit trees to coincide with the "Yatsugatake downpour," and the wind was a natural force that dictated the calendar of daily life. In the explanation of windbreaks and bamboo fences, the example of "Fukikanudo (halls for praying to the wind god)" in the Tonami region of Hokuriku is mentioned, contrasting the fact that there were "places to calm the wind" widely scattered in strong wind zones, although the names were different in each region.

Prayer is not the only way to deal with the wind. During typhoons and strong winds around the "Hundred and Ten Days" period, people tied knives (such as grass sickles) to the ends of bamboo poles and set them up on roofs, in gardens, and in fields in a wide area from the central part of Japan to the Tohoku region. It is said that there are similar examples in other regions of the Japanese archipelago and in Asian countries such as Ainu and Bhutan.

This local belief had its roots in prewar rural society, but survived in a different form amid the postwar wave of residential development and tourism. Windbreaks = wind-cut pines were a "life skill," while shrines and rituals complemented each other as a "method of adjusting relationships. The shrine and rituals complement each other as a "way of adjusting relationships. In recent years, a local website has reported that the Kiyosato area is called "Kaze-Kiri no Sato" (wind-cutting village), and that the tradition of Kaze no Saburo is woven into the narrative of the Sanja visit, and the story has been transformed into a tourist culture.