Kashima Shrine

Kashima Shrine is a Shintō shrine in Hitachi Province, east of the Kantō plain, dedicated to Takemikazuchi, a kami of thunder, war and the martial arts. Its cult dates to at least the seventh century, when a ritual hall was rebuilt in 649 on ground where the local kami was believed to have descended.

The Nakatomi clan, ancestors of the Fujiwara, made it a base for extending Yamato rule over the east and for campaigns against the Emishi, and its treasury kept a bucket said to be a trophy taken from the Emishi leader Aterui.

Minamoto no Yoritomo endowed it with estates, and the early Tokugawa shōguns rebuilt its halls: Ieyasu in 1605, Hidetada in 1619, and the tower gate given by Yorifusa in 1634. In 1687 the poet Matsuo Bashō recorded a pilgrimage there in his travel journal Kashima Kikō.