Let Us Set Out in Search of the Meaning of Life's Journey

In the southern part of Totsukawa Village, on a mountain ridge, lies a small hamlet called Hatenashi. From near Totsukawa Onsen, a mountain path of steep stone steps climbs steadily up to it. Above old stone walls, fewer than ten homes stand along the ridge, and to the north the view opens onto layer upon layer of mountains reaching far into the distance. There are several theories about the name Hatenashi, which means 'without end.' One says it comes from the mountains that go on and on without end, an idea said to appear even in writings of the Edo period.

The narrow path running between the homes is the Kohechi, one of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes. It runs about seventy kilometers from Koyasan to Kumano Hongu Taisha, crossing the Kii Mountains from north to south. With three passes higher than a thousand meters, it is known as the most demanding of the routes to Kumano. It began as an everyday path for the people of the mountains and is thought to have existed by the Heian period. In the hamlet, the old path passes right between one family's main home and its annex. Here, daily life and pilgrimage share one and the same path.

The oldest recorded pilgrimage along the Kohechi is said to be that of Doi Kiyoyoshi, a warrior of Iyo Province in the sixteenth century, who walked it to pray for the soul of his father, killed in battle. In the Edo period, merchants from Osaka and people from the distant eastern provinces also came this way. Those from the east set out only after the autumn harvest was in, so by the time they reached these mountains, it was already winter. Even so, it is said, they crossed passes buried under three shaku, nearly a meter, of snow, as if it were nothing at all.