[Mt.Fuji] The Mountain of Blessing

Mt.Fuji■The Mountain of Blessing

From ancient times, the Japanese have drawn close to Mt. Fuji and lived there, putting its blessings to use.

Traces of Ancient Lifestyles
Traces of ancient settlements have been found in the Mt. Fuji area, and it is thought human beings were living there more than 10,000 years ago. The Oshikakubo Remains in present-day Shibakawacho are said to date from the so-called ‘Incipient Jomon Era’, roughly between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago, making this one of the earliest settlement remains in Japan. Among the things found here are the remains of pit dwellings in a horseshoe pattern, arrangements of rocks thought to have been set there for cooking, and other stones distributed in such a way as to suggest some ceremonial purpose. At this time the volcano was erupting frequently, and while this would have menaced those dwelling around it, it is thought that the abundance of food and water it provided were blessing enough to make it worth living there. The patterns and arrangements of rocks at the Sengo Remains in Fujinomiya, which dates from the Middle Jomon period, are well known as one of the best examples of their kind in the country. Some of these arrangements have been tentatively identified as religious or funerary, oriented toward Mt. Fuji.