Shikoku angya 四国行脚
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Commentary by Erin Schoneveld
Posted August 11, 2016

The Shikoku angya (Wanderings in Shikoku) documents the travels of the American anthropologist Frederick Starr (1858–1933) on the occasion of his first pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku. (For more on Starr, see San’yō angya; on the term angya, see Kinai kenbutsu.) The Shikoku henro (四国遍路), or “Shikoku pilgrimage,” is a 1,200 kilometer route established by the Buddhist Shingon school monk Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 (774–835) that includes eighty-eight Buddhist temples and other sacred sites.

Starr extensively chronicled his explorations of the Japanese archipelago. Following his completion of a pilgrimage along the San’yō route in February 1917, Starr immediately boarded a ferry for Matsuyama, where he began a ten-day (March 3–13) pilgrimage around the northern island of Shikoku. He finished only a small section of the route at that time, returning in 1921 to do the entire length in thirty days. Shikoku angya is based on Starr’s 1917 trip and records his impression of the route’s designated (and non-designated) sites as he journeyed through the northern part of Shikoku.

Accounts of this Shikoku pilgrimage were initially published in the 1919 book Ofuda angya お札行脚 (Ofuda [votive slip] wanderings), which documented Starr's travels to various places, including Kyushu, Korea, Hokkaido, and Mount Fuji. Later that year, his Shikoku pilgrimage was released as the stand-alone publication Shikoku angya.

This 970-page travelogue contains 10 color, 78 black-and-white woodcuts, and 101 black-and-white photographs. Highlights of the book include Starr’s vivid, detailed descriptions of the places he visited, such as the Dōgo Hot Springs and Konpira Shrine, together with chronicles of his many encounters with people along the way. For instance, on his arrival at the station of the Zentsū Temple, Starr observes, “Men, women, children, church society banners, welcome flags by scores at the station. I did not know whether to laugh or cry, to be pleased or angry. . . .” At the temple precinct he comments, “We are now taken for a tour of complete inspection. . . . We were then led in around and behind where no-one other than priests are generally allowed.” [1]

The Pulverer copy has sustained some water damage to both the front and back covers as well as along the edges of the pages. The staining and discoloration of the paper is quite evident; however, this does not have a significant impact upon the prints and photographs, which are in good condition.

Selected readings
Helen Merritt, Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990).

Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).

David C. Moreton, “An Account of the Shikoku Pilgrimage by Frederick Starr,” The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 4, vol. 9 (2005), 106–11.

Henry D. Smith II, “Folk Toys and Votive Placards: Frederick Starr and the Ethnography of Collector Networks in Taisho Japan,” in Popular Imagery as Cultural Heritage: Aesthetic and Art Historical Studies of Visual Culture in Modern Japan: Final Report, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research no. 20320020 (PI: Kaneda Chiaki) (March 2012), 1–51.

Oliver Statler, Japanese Pilgrimage (New York: William Morrow, 1983).

[1] Moreton 2005, 106–11. The Zentsū Temple was well known as the birthplace of Kōbō Daishi.