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Painted votive tablet (ema) depicting an okage-mairi (pilgrimage to Ise)
Painted votive tablet (ema) depicting an okage-mairi (pilgrimage to Ise)
Prefecturally Designated Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property (designated 1972)
Made: Edo period（19th C.) Dimensions: 60.3×204.8cm
Ushimado shrine, Ushimado, Ushimado Town
A lively depiction of a troupe on an okage-mairi, a group pilgrimage to Ise Shrine, has been painted on a framed rectangular Japanese cypress board. Based on the lettering and signature on the piece, we can work out that this picture was painted by Inoue Bunmei, and that its subject is the okage-mairi in Bunsei 13 (1830). Inoue Bunmei is believed to have been an Ushimado Shrine priest and it is thought that he painted this picture using a woodblock print of the 1830 okage-mairi as a reference. During the Edo period, a pilgrimage to Ise Shrine, now in modern Mie prefecture, was very popular among the common people. In this picture, many place names, such as Awa, Ōsaka, and Kyōto are written on the procession members’ flags and woven sedge hats, indicating that worshippers to Ise Shrine came from all over Japan. In addition, a flag, which in the original woodcut print bore the name Satsuma (modern Kagoshima prefecture), has been replaced in this tablet with a banner emblazoned with the name Ushimado.
