Kagawa · Shiwaku IslandsNo.647★★Open in map →
Sanagishima
— Island of the double graves
A narrow island off Tadotsu with two villages joined by one coastal road. At the northern village the old double-grave custom survives, and its burial ground is designated by Kagawa Prefecture as a folk cultural property.
- FromTadotsu Station
- ~1 hrFerry from Tadotsu, via Takamijima
- Get off atHonura Port, Sanagishima (Tadotsu Kisen ferry)
- On foot
- Sanagishima
The sweet spot
Sanagishima is documented and signposted, and Japanese visitors come for the cats that live around the harbour. It stays quiet because the boat runs only a few times a day and calls at another island on the way, so nobody arrives here by accident.
Where it is
19 more notes in Kagawa · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Honura Portthe landing at the southern village, with a small waiting room by the quay
- Hachiman Shrinethe village shrine at Honura, holding a votive model of a kitamaebune trading ship
- Otengu Shrinea hilltop shrine up a zigzag stone stairway, with a tengu figure cut into the rock
- Nagasaki burial groundthe designated double-grave site at the northern village, mounded with beach stones
How to actually get there
- Tadotsu Station → Tadotsu Port (walk).
- Tadotsu Port → Honura Port, Sanagishima (Tadotsu Kisen ferry via Takamijima, about an hour).
- Honura → Nagasaki (about 30 minutes on foot along the coastal road).
- Walk back to Honura Port for the return sailing.
- Tadotsu Station to Honura Port by Tadotsu Kisen ferry
- Tadotsu Station → Tadotsu Port on foot → Tadotsu Kisen ferry to Sanagishima, calling at Takamijima on the way → Honura Port at the southern end of the island. Reckon on about an hour on the water. Sailings are limited to a few a day, so check the timetable before you set out rather than at the quay.
- Back from Honura Port to Tadotsu
- The same ferry returns from Honura, again by way of Takamijima. There are only a handful of departures, and the last one is the end of the day's options: there is no accommodation you can count on finding at short notice, so build the whole visit around that sailing.
About the place
Sanagishima lies 14.8 km northwest of Tadotsu, long from north to south and narrow across. Two villages hold the population: Honura at the southern end, where the boat comes in, and Nagasaki at the northern end. One road connects them along the coast, and there is no other way to move on the island but to walk it. There are no shops and no vending machines, which the town's own notice states plainly and repeats: buy what you need before you board. That single line tells you most of what the island is like.
How to enjoy it
The walk between the two villages takes about 30 minutes each way, so the first thing to fix is which boat you are leaving on and then work backwards. A sailing out in the morning gives time to reach Nagasaki, look properly, and come back along the same road without hurrying. The stairway up to Otengu Shrine is a separate climb, so treat it as a choice rather than an addition.
Background & history
In the double-grave system the dead were given two places: a burial ground where the body was laid, and a separate grave visited for prayer. At Nagasaki the burial ground was built up with rounded stones carried from the beach and heaped over each plot, which is why it is read as a record of how burial once worked in Japan. Kagawa Prefecture designated the Nagasaki burial ground as a tangible folk cultural property in 1965. The same custom is kept on Takamijima, the island the boat calls at on the way over.
Before you go
- Cash
- There are no shops and no vending machines on the island, so bring food, water and cash with you from the mainland. Ferry tickets are handled at the port.
- Before you go
- The island road is exposed and unlit, and the stone stairway to Otengu Shrine is steep. Both villages are lived in, and the burial ground is in active use, so it asks for the manners of a cemetery rather than a viewpoint.
- Another way
- Every sailing calls at Takamijima, where the same double-grave custom survives, so the two islands can be seen on one run if the timetable allows it.
- After you get off
- From Honura Port the village lanes start immediately behind the waiting room. Nagasaki is about 30 minutes north on the single coastal road, and the burial ground is on the shore side of the village.