Nagoya Hikes: Sekigahara

By Sally Griffith | Sunday, Jun 1, 2008

The sight of a bloodthirsty battle and the beginning of the Tokugawa period is now a peaceful agricultural town.

The Battle of Sekigahara is one of the most famous battles in Japanese history and is seen as the unofficial beginning of the Tokugawa era, which went from 1600 to the coming of Commodore Perry's black ships in the 1850s. What makes Sekigahara even more interesting is that it hasn't greatly changed since those days. A sleepy, slightly down at heel rice farming community, Sekigahara didn't have a single samurai, let alone a castle. It's pivotal role in Japanese history came about because of its position – it is at a crossroads of paths between the mountains. Nowadays, the train lines, expressways and power lines that also take advantage of this pathway somewhat spoil the country scenery, but the town itself is as quiet as if nothing ever happened.

The tourist information right outside the station is keen to give you as much information as you can physically carry, as well as tell you all they can before you continue on. The day we were there, the volunteer was an elderly man who didn't seem to speak English but he was kindness itself. He took one look at our map (taken from the Sawayaka Walking tours book) and told us to ignore it and go to the museum first, pointing enthusiastically to the roof that we could just see. So we did – what else could we do? - and we were glad to have taken his advice. 

The museum at Sekigahara is a small affair but it has a knack of bringing the history to life. The museum attendant handed us an English brochure about Sekigahara which was both informing and entertaining. Not only did the museum have the usual assortment of weapons and armor owned by important people, it also had things from ordinary people – the bags they carried into battle, for example. It also had a very graphic display of the difference in protection from bullets between Japanese and European armor.

We continued on our way, going from memorial stone to memorial stone, each one commemorating someones first camp, or last camp, or a famous general, or a famous last stand. Not knowing much about Japanese history I must admit that the walk was of more interest than the various markers along the way. We passed rice farmers planting their crops, and then old houses as we went through the small town, and then went up into the foothills of the mountains behind the town.

As we walked into a bamboo grove, we saw a sign warning us of bears but we were still so close to the town we decided to keep on going. After all, the path wasn't closed, and the sign only said to be aware, not to turn back. A little further on, and a little deeper into the woods, there was another sign and we began to grow uneasy. A walk through the forest isn't quite so relaxing when it could well be your last act on earth. Fortunately, we began to return to the town again before long. In all the time we were walking we never saw anything bigger than a bird.

One of the last stops was the place of the final battle, marked by a shrine and flanked on either side by rice fields. It really struck us here how strange it was that anything had ever happened here; that once there was the flower of the Japanese nobility and all their men wading through the fields, cutting each other down, and now – well, now there isn't anything much at all. A little further on is a small park, half devoted to children's playing equipment and half kept as a memorial as directed by Tokugawa Ieyasu, to commemorate where he inspected the severed heads of his enemies, complete with a pictorial representation. It seemed a little incongruous, to say the least, but it fit in perfectly with the feeling of the town. Great things happened here, once. But before that, and ever since, people have just got on with their every day lives.

Getting there: Sekigahara is on the Tokaido Line, just before Maibara. A one way ticket costs 950 yen from Nagoya.

No Japanese? There are a lot of possible walks in this town, including several in an English brochure available from the museum. There are even more in Japanese both from the information centre outside the station and in the JR Sawayaka Walking pamphlet, available from many JR stations. The walk we took was the Western Armies course, on pages 17 and 18 of the Sawayaka pamphlet.

Further information: The walk we did has been temporarily withdrawn from the JR Sawayaka Walking offerings because of recent bear sightings. Although we did not see any bears I wouldn't necessarily recommend ignoring the signs. It wouldn't be too hard to avoid the areas that could have bears though, as most of the points of interest are in the semi-rural surrounds of the town rather than in the woods.

For more information on the battle of Sekigahara, have a look at the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sekigahara

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Sally Griffith is an Australian living, working and writing in Nagoya. She also writes hot spring and sento reviews under the name of The Naked Gaijin.

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