The ichinomiya of Iki Province

What the Japanese sources say

Two shrines, Amenotanagao Jinja (天手長男神社) and Oki Jinja (興神社), are connected with the title of ichinomiya, the first-ranked shrine, of Iki Province. What is distinctive here is that Iki City’s official tourism site is worded so as to allow both of them that status.

It calls Amenotanagao Jinja “the ichinomiya of Iki (Province)”, and it says of Oki Jinja that it is “one of the seven shrines of Iki, and was once the ichinomiya of Iki Province”.

Oki Jinja’s basis is its closeness to the provincial capital (kokufu, the seat of provincial government). Iki Kankō Navi, the city’s official tourism site, says that “according to the shrine’s own records, the place name nearby is Oki, and the provincial capital of Iki is thought to have stood there”. This is the same form of reasoning that Saga Prefecture set out for Hizen Province: that the shrine near the provincial capital is the ichinomiya.

How Amenotanagao Jinja came to be identified with the myōjin taisha, a high-ranking category of shrine, listed under Iki District of Iki Island in the Engishiki jinmyōchō (延喜式神名帳), the shrine register of a law code completed in 927, could not be confirmed in any official source — not the city’s, not the prefecture’s, and not the shrine’s.

Written from Japanese sources, each quoted. The Japanese page has the same discussion with the original wording.