About This Print

Print number 48 四十八 in the series Nihon chishi ryakuzu (Simple Illustrations of Places in Japan) consisting of at least 78 prints.  The series formed a type of geographical primer of Japan and the prints were sold individually and bound into albums as can be seen in the below book in the collection of the British Museum.

This print pictures the Sea of Japan off the coast of Nishioshima Island, one of four islands making up the Oki Islands in current day, Shimane Province.)  Takuhiyama, a 452 meter high mountain, on the island of Nishinoshima, is the highest point in the Islands and the Torch Shrine (Takibi no Yashiro), was a well-knownsacred place among fishermen and sailors, who, when passing by the islandwould devote their prayers to the shrine's kami (deities.) The man on the boat in thepicture is shaking a gohei, a kind of ritual wand and offerings of cloth were presented to the kami by attaching them to a staff.