Virtual Old Akita 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #2 Yoshizawa Shrine

 

     Yoshizawa Shrine was founded by Urabe Munenao along Yoshizawa River, a branch of Omono River, on September 9th, in 1005.  It is unknown whether the shrine still enshrines the image of Eleven-Faced Ekadasamukha even after the Meiji Restoration Government issued the Gods and Buddhas Separation Order in 1868 or moved it to somewhere else.

     Inferring from dates, Urabe Munenao could have been the grandfather of Urabe Yasumasa, who organized the Old Akita 33 Kannon Pilgrimage in the 1040’s.

     Yoshizawa is located where the Yoshizawa River runs out of Ou Mountains into the Yokote Basin.

     The Yokote Basin is mostly flat with an area of 693.59 square kilometers, consisting of several alluvial fans created by the Omono River and its tributaries.  The Omono River, which flows from the southeastern part of Akita Prefecture to the northwest, winds its way through the mountains between the basin and the Sea of Japan, and flows down to the sea.

     From around the end of the Tertiary period (from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago), compressive forces from the east and west, caused by the westward movement of the Pacific plate, began to be applied to the area that is now the Tohoku Region.  As a result, folds and reverse faults occurred alternately, and lowlands and highlands appeared alternately from the east to the west like wrinkles stretching from north to south.  From Akita Prefecture to Iwate Prefecture, the topography has been divided into lowlands (Akita Plains), mountains (Dewa Mountains), lowlands (Yokote Basin), mountains (Ou Mountains), lowlands (Kitakami Basin), and mountains (Kitakami Mountains).

     During the Quaternary period, from 2.58 million years ago to the present, mountains were further uplifted by compressive forces, and lowlands became even lower, where rivers carried large amounts of sediment, resulting in the development of basins covered with thick sediments.  Several alluvial fans have been formed along the Ou Mountains in the Yokote Basin.  Near the ground surface in the central part of the Yokote Basin, which belonged to Shimoyoshida and Tamura Districts, there are peat layers that indicate that these areas used to be wetlands, and the newest peat layer dates back to approximately 5,000 years ago.

     Approximately 10,000 years ago, the ice age ended, and rising temperatures led to the Jomon Transgression.  When the Jomon transgression was at its peak, the sea level was about 3 to 5 meters higher than it is today.  The amount of water in the rivers is also thought to have been larger.  In the Yokote Basin, where the slope is gentle, and the floodplain is wide, the Omono River changed its flow path several times.  Eventually its tributary rivers carried sediment from the Ou Mountains side (the east side). The development of alluvial fans gradually moved the flow path westward.

Address: Yoshizawa 2, Sugisawa, Yokote, Akita 013-0001

Phone: 0182-32-0650