Suwa Shrine, Nagasaki

Suwa Shrine is the major Shinto shrine of Nagasaki, Japan, and home to the Nagasaki Kunchi . It is located in the northern part of the city, on the slopes of Mount Tamazono-san, and features a 277-step stone staircase leading up the mountain to the various buildings that comprise the shrine.Suwa shrine was established as a way of stopping and reverting the conversion to Christianity that was taking place in Nagasaki. In modern times it remains an important and successful center of the community.The shrine in Nagasaki is one of many Suwa shrines, all of which are dedicated to Suwa-no-Kami, a kami of valor and duty, and are linked with Suwa Taisha, the head shrine of Suwa-no-Kami worship. Two other kami spirits are also enshrined at Suwa shrine, all three of which are celebrated during the Kunchi.HistoryThe official date of construction for Suwa Shrine is 1614, the same year as Tokugawa Ieyasu's Edict against Christianity, although there was little more than a small structure to mark the position of the future shrine at this time. At that time, Nagasaki was home to the largest Christian population in Japan, and had destroyed many of the former Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. The Tokugawa Shogunate had taken power and reversed its friendly policy towards Christianity. The government had begun forcing Christians to reconvert to the Japanese religions of Buddhism and Shinto. It was thought that establishing a major point of Shinto worship would be important to these efforts, giving the local population a central point of worship and a sense of community.