ハワイからの四国遍路巡拝団の歴史

This paper examines the history of groups from Hawai`i who have come to Shikoku to visit some or all of the eighty-eight sacred sites along the Shikoku pilgrimage route. Previous research by Hoshino Eiki and Kondo Ryūjirō, have examined and presented details about the various replica miniature eighty-eight pilgrimage routes in Hawai`i yet until now no one has attempted to determine when the earth was removed from each of the sacred sites in Shikoku and taken back to Hawai`i to create these miniature pilgrimage routes or osunafumi (walking on sand) pilgrimages. There are a few references in books etc. of groups coming from Hawai`i, but details are scarce and, until now, little concrete proof has been provided as to when these groups came, how long they stayed, how many people participated, or information about their pilgrimage tours. For the first time, this study will present these answers based on documents such as newspapers found in Shikoku and Hawai`i as well as from interviews with guides and staff at bus companies. As a result, it will be clear that group tours were held before 1953, the year when Iyotetsu bus company first offered a pilgrimage bus tour, that tours have been held quite frequently reaching a peak in 1974, the 1200th anniversary of the birth of Kōbō Daishi, and that the groups usually used Iyotetsu or Setouchi company buses. This study demonstrates that Buddhists in Hawai`i have been participating in pilgrimage tours to Shikoku for such longer and to a greater degree than previously assumed.