Hello, there, Linguaphiles!
Partly sunny, 15C (15C)
This is a translation request--or, more like an explanation request.
I could go to the trouble to searching for all these kanji in my computer and piece together a vague understanding--spending hours upon hours of my life, or I could ask for help.
This sign is posted atop a "Crazy Miko Yama" (as I fondly call it) near my apartment in very-inaka Japan. I've been meaning to invest the energy in understanding it since I 'discovered' it almost a year and a half ago. There are supposedly several "burial mounds" in my 'town'--I've gone looking for them more than once, without any luck, though, so their being here is all a matter of JR-heresay, AFAIC.
Below the cut, you'll find a ton of pictures (25) that I took in/around the site, today. It's pretty interesting, I just wish I could understand it better and I am still FRUSTRATINGLY BAD at Japanese. Full-size images are available in my scrapbook (starting here).
I think I understand reasonably the spiritual world of Japanese--I have a semi-morbid interest in such things, especially and including death and disposal rites; I know random things like children were somewhat regularly sacrificed to improve harvests and make bells and such, so I don't really expect to be surprised, but I'd like to know which case, specifically, this is about.
This area was historically not an upstart community. It came under Tokugawa rule almost without consequence (other than that the preceding family power were sent to Kyushu to die in battle...) very early (well before Sekigahara) and is a very quiet, isolated, farming area. It's on a narrow bit of land between the mountains and the coast so the population never grew very large, and strong winds (Yamaji-kaze) kept the rice from ever being terribly plentiful (they grow mainly root-vegetables around here to this day for the same reason).
I don't need a word-for-word translation, I just want to understand the gist; what is the point of this place, why is it there, what's with the conspicuously open-grave-looking fixture, why the gated overgrowth (what spirit is supposed to be living there, if that's the case?), and why on Earth is there an oversized concrete clown head in the middle of what appears to be a religious site (gov't pork, much?)????
MUCH APPRECIATION IN ADVANCE!!
