Pilgrimage to Suwa · Sanae's Homeland

Suwa's story begins with two lost wars. The first is recorded in the Kojiki: Takeminakata, son of Ōkuninushi, refused the ceding of the land to the heavens, wrestled the war god Takemikazuchi, lost, and fled to the shore of Lake Suwa — allowed to stay only on a vow never to leave. The second version is the one Suwa locals tell: the invader Takeminakata (Suwa Daimyōjin) defeated the indigenous mountain god Moreya, who yielded rule of the land. Suwako Moriya's spell card "Suwa Great War" is this second war, exactly. The defeated never disappear here: the winner's line (the Ōhōri, living gods) and the loser's line (the Moriya, priests of the deepest rites) served the same shrine for over a thousand years — the blueprint for Kanako and Suwako's uneasy cohabitation in Gensokyo.

Local legend says the two gods fought with vines against kaji (paper-mulberry) wood — which is why the crest of Suwa Taisha is still a kaji leaf.

A 15th-century Suwa text tells of an eight-year-old boy named Arihira who led the deity's spirit-troops to subdue "Moriya" — and then became the deity's living vessel: a ara-hitogami, the first Ōhōri of Suwa's upper shrine. Until the Meiji era, the official goshintai (sacred object) of the upper shrine was not a mountain, a tree or a mirror — it was the living Ōhōri himself. Sanae's setup — a human worshipped as a god — is not an exaggeration; it is the thousand-year orthodoxy of Suwa, with the Moriya family as the priests who made the god manifest.

The Moriya held the office of Jinchōkan — keepers of the Mishaguji rites, the most secret layer of Suwa worship — from antiquity until Meiji. In the Sengoku era, Jinchō Moriya Yorizuma mediated the peace between Takeda Nobutora and Suwa Yorimitsu, ringing the shrine's ancient iron bell as the pledge; the family later served under Takeda Shingen. When Meiji dissolved the old priesthood, the orally transmitted secret rites ended — Sanae's "secret art passed down to a single heir" is this family history, rewritten into fantasy.

The family is still real: the 78th head, Sanae Moriya — yes, our Sanae's namesake — was an elementary-school principal in Tokyo who spent her retirement lecturing on the environment. The Jinchōkan Moriya Archives (Chino City, Miyagawa 389-1, next to the Maemiya shrine; closed Mondays, ~¥200) keeps the Moriya documents — for a Sanae fan, effectively the family records office.

There is no fixed order for the four-shrine circuit; each issues its own goshuin (seal-stamp). The treasure halls (¥500 adults) hold the Nara-era mirror and the Heian "Megaumi-hōri-in" seal — the word hōri in it refers to the Ōhōri, the living god.

In the years of the Tiger and the Monkey (a seven-year cycle), the Suwa region halts for the Onbashira festival: giant century-old fir trees are cut in the mountains, hauled by human muscle over ridges, streets and rivers, and raised at the four corners of each shrine — the oldest form of the sacred boundary. The yamadashi (April) includes the famous ki-otoshi, riders sliding downhill astride the logs; the satobiki (May) drags them through town; the treasure-hall relocation completes the cycle in June. Over 1,200 years old, broadcast live on local TV, it is Suwa's own festival of faith — and the next one falls in 2028. Start saving days off now.

Not formally part of Suwa Taisha, but weightier for Tōhō fans: Moreya Shrine in Okaya enshrines the defeated indigenous god himself. The stone marker "Moriya-no-Ōkami Gokyūseki" nearby — inscribed by the 75th Jinchōkan, Moriya Saneari (1825–1903) — marks the god's original seat. The shrine became Suwako's pilgrimage site, and in 2017 the wave of visiting fans made the Asahi Shimbun: gods losing faith, shrines regaining it in a new form — a very Gensokyo loop.

Food to save room for: Shinshū miso (and miso soft-cream), nozawana pickles, gohei-mochi (rice, smashed flat, painted with miso and grilled — the standard pilgrimage ration), oyaki, and shinshū soba. Seasons: cherry blossoms with residual snow in spring, fireworks over the lake in summer, leaves plus onsen in autumn, and — if the cold is deep enough — the O-watari, faith written in ice across the whole lake.