Koshi and Princess Nunakawa

World Heritage Sites and the Sea, Mountains, Rivers, and People, Part 7

According to the Suwa Taisha website, Okuninushi and Koshinumakahime are the two gods enshrined as parents, and Yae Kotoshironushi, Takeminakata, and Yasakatome are their children.

If you are from Aizu, you might want to read “Yae” as “Yai,” but you should pay more attention to “Koshinumakawahime.” It was Takahashi Tomio, the first director of the Aizu (Fukushima Prefectural) Museum, who could be considered a pioneer of “Ezo Studies,” who said that the center of Koshi Province, or Koshi Province, was Aizu. And in this section of the August issue last year, I mentioned that the “koshi” in Koshi, Koshi, and Koshi means “star.”
This time, I would like to touch on the fact that the marriage partner that not only Okuninushi but all the lords in the archipelago desperately desired was Nunakawahime (Kojiki) of “Echigo (Star) Country,” and that the person who gave her to Okuninushi was none other than the god of Suwa, who seems to be boasting, “It was me!” If “Echigo” is “star” then Nunagawahime (Izumo Fudoki) would be the princess of the starry river, the “Princess of the Milky Way.”
Looking around here, relying on the feel of “nunakawa,” I find that there is a “nanukawa” in a place surprisingly close to home. It is the name of a station in Aizuwakamatsu city, written as “Nanukamachi Station” but pronounced as “Nanukamachi-eki.” Although “nuna” has been reversed to “nanu,” in the Nihon Shoki it is written as “Nakawa” (or Naonogawa) and is read as “Nanukawa” or “Nakawa.” “Nu” stands for “jewel,” or “jade,” and “na” stands for “food,” but both are important rivers.
If Aizu was also “Echigo Province,” then this river would be the Agagawa River (Agano River), Echigo Province’s top river. It seems that the stretch from Aizu to Suwa, from the “Nanukawa/Nakawa” to the “Shinanukawa/Shinokawa,” is likened to the “Milky Way” on earth. The “Shinanugawa” is the present-day Shinano River. It would seem very natural to boldly liken the stretch from Akita Prefecture, where Koshio Shrine is located, to Fukui Prefecture in Echizen, to a river of stars flowing across the night sky of Echizen Province, and call it the Nuna River or the Nanu River. This would also be a positive reason for calling Echizen Province a “land of stars.”
Some people consider the “Hime River” that flows through Itoigawa City, Niigata Prefecture, to be the “Nuna River.” It is true that jade is produced in Itoigawa City, but if we do this, we would have to limit “Echizen Province” to just Niigata Prefecture. Considering that the longest river in Japan is the Chikuma River (the name for the Shinano River in Nagano Prefecture) and the second longest is the Agano River (the name for the Agano River in the Aizu region), the Hime River is not long enough to be called the “Milky Way.”
The reason why “Takoshinuma Kawahime-no-Kami” is enshrined as the main deity at Suwa Taisha Shrine is simply to represent that “Takoshi” occupies a large area in the sky like the Milky Way. In other words, the earth (the great country) and the sky (the Milky Way/Nunagawa River) are connected by Suwa-no-Kami (Mishaguji).

Matsumoto Nissei