Someone had left a bottle of wine on the ledge at the Hakusanhime shrine on Mount Yasumandake. It is something of an all-purpose shrine, hallowing both Buddhist deities thought to reside in or on the peak and also Shinto spirits of the ancestors of people who live there. Such an arrangement – a syncretic bringing together of the two dominant faiths in the island grouping – is not unusual. It’s a sign of the remarkable mixed-mode toleration which Japan historically extended to a number of religions. Except, very notably, one. Hidden a little way from the Hakusanhime shrine is another shrine. It consists of little more than a short central column, now struck at an irregular angle, and a clearly carved stone acting as a pagoda-style roof. They might attract the eye’s briefest scan of attention, but then again, in a nation where shrines are the norm, it might be mistaken for a misplaced bollard. To most passersby it appears to be simply a crude collection of stone – the “just rocks” my friend warned me about. 

This is the Kirishitan Hokora. The Christian Shrine.