A meizanologist's diary (135)

29 March (cont): on the way home, we stop at the Hill of Oshitoishi. The place is listed in the Aso Geopark's application for Unesco heritage status as just "a group of megalithic andesite stones located on a hill 845 metres above sea level", but we understand that it has a bit of a new age vibe too.  

Arriving at the car park in one piece, no thanks to the rough approach road, we fork out three hundred yen each at a makeshift booth. In return, the attendant hands over a brochure, proudly pointing out to us the bit about Oshitoishi’s mysterious alignment along paths representing water, fire and the sun. These, the brochure suggests, may be divine paths created during the Jōmon period.

For my money, the “Path of the Sun” is the one to watch. The brochure shows it slanting away directly from this hill through the Tokugawa mausoleum at Nikkō and then right on out into the Pacific. Follow it far enough, I reckon, and you’d surely end up at Glastonbury.

Taking leave of the amiable attendant, who has also lent us a brace of compasses, we wander uphill in search of stones. 

The brochure says that a 360-degree panorama awaits us up there, along with a sacred Jōmon site and the power spot of Oshitoshi. And by way of background, it relates that

The Minami-oguni Town Board of Education discovered mysterious engraved patterns on the megalithic group at Oshitoishi Hill. They commissioned Kei Koda, president of the Japan Petroglyph Association, to investigate, and it was confirmed that these were Sumerian characters (petroglyphs). Subsequently, this megalithic group was recognised by international academic societies, including the UNESCO Society for Petrology and the Petrology Societies of the United States and Canada, as a prehistoric megalithic cultural site consisting of nine artificially arranged stone rows.

Artificially arranged or not, we are grateful for those stone rows. Fatigued after our vigorous morning hike, we arrange ourselves over the first of them for a rest. 

Although the sky has clouded over, Oshitoishi delivers handsomely on its promise of a 360-degree panorama. We can still see the central peaks of Aso-san to the south, while eastwards rise the volcanic tumps of the Kujū range. 

The view is spacious, austere and bracing all at once. It explains why talented photographers like Kawauchi Rinko keep seeking out these vast and rolling hillscapes…

Behind us, just upslope, is the Kagami-ishi that we’ve come so far to see. Now it’s time to inspect it. Again, I reach for the brochure to see what mysteries this “mirror stone” may reflect:

The Kagami-ishi bears Sumerian inscriptions representing a serpent god and a sacred bull. Our local place name is Nakabaru in Minami-oguni Town. As the serpent god is read as 'Naga' and the sacred bull as 'Baal', it is thought that the place name Nakabaru is derived from the Sumerian characters.

To the untrained eye, all that can be seen are flecks of lichen and some rune-like rills and cracks. But that doesn’t mean that the bull isn’t there, or the serpent. It’s a fact that the Sumerians and the Jōmons overlapped for more than two millennia – allowing ample time for a venturesome Sumerian to sail his (or her) reed boat as far as Nagasaki and hop on the Shinkansen down to Kumamoto, chisel in hand…

This reverie is interrupted when the Sensei hands me a compass. Momentarily bemused, I take another glance at the brochure.

The Oshito Stone is 5.5 metres high, has a circumference of 15.3 metres, and forms the centre of a group of megaliths. The North Star lies directly north of its apex. Strangely, the magnetic field around this stone is abnormal, so that a compass spins wildly when brought near it. Legend has it that it will rain if you try to climb the stone. It was formerly known as 'the demon's beanbag', and has attracted people’s admiration since ancient times.

Naruhodo: the compass should swing if we bring it near the rock. But nothing would be less surprising – since all the rock around here is andesite, as it is in half of Kyushu, it’s more than likely to be magnetic. That said, the Oshito is an exceptionally magnificent megalith. In days gone by, warlords would have fought for the privilege of planting it in their gardens.

I’m about to give the compass a whirl anyway when we’re distracted. A mother – and is it just me, or do I not detect something faintly Sumerian in her lineaments – is handing a spoon to her pig-tailed daughter. Just an ordinary tablespoon, mind you, but given that we’re standing at a veritable ganglion of ley lines, something is bound to happen.

Nor are we disappointed. Steering her daughter by the shoulders, the mother begins to shuffle round the Oshito Rock in a clockwise direction. The little girl walks on ahead, holding the spoon upright in both hands like a votive candle. And right then and there it happens – the spoon bends and wilts in her hands like a plant you’ve forgotten to water.

At least, that’s how the Sensei later describes it to me – she actually saw the bent spoon, if not the spoon bending, with her own eyes, but my gaze is diverted elsewhere at the critical moment. In fact, I’m looking at the handwritten sign that somebody has left at the foot of the rock. 'Supūn wo okanaide,' it says – please don’t leave your spoons.

I look up at the Sensei. There is a hint of concern in her expression: something seems to be troubling her. "That sign," she says, 'it’s ungrammatical. It should read Supūn wo itte okanaide." Don't leave without taking your spoons with you.

So there we have to leave it, I'm afraid. Nobody can say for certain whether the Oshitoishi will bend your spoons. So don't blame me if it does. Or doesn't. One thing can be avowed, though - once you get within the old stone's spot of power, you need to watch out most carefully for your sense of style and syntax...