Mitsuishi Shrine and the Oni's Handprints (三ツ石神社（鬼の手形）)

Quick Facts

Type

Shrine or temple

Prefecture

Iwate · Morioka

Nearest station

Morioka Station (JR Tōhoku Shinkansen)

From the station

Bus about ten minutes to the Ōizumiguchi stop, then five minutes on foot

English signage

some

Opening hours and admission

See the official site · information checked on 2026-11-03

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.

What is there

In a residential quarter east of Morioka station, a small shrine stands in front of three granite boulders taller than the houses around them, with a gap between the stones and a rope across the largest. The handprints are said to show on the rock face after rain. The shrine is plain, the grove is quiet, and the place is best known for the summer dance of Morioka, whose drummers and dancers trace their festival to the oath sworn here.

Why here

A demon called Rasetsu had been robbing the valley, and the people prayed to the god of the three stones. The god bound the demon to the rocks, and the demon swore never to come back, pressing its hands into the granite as the seal of its oath. The name of the prefecture, Iwate, is read as “rock hand”, and the old name of the castle town, Fukōzu, as “never to come”; the people’s dance of joy at the demon’s going became the Sansa dance of August. The oni of this tale is the kind that can be bound and made to keep its word.

Yokai you will meet

Oni 鬼 — The handprints the bound demon left in the rock, and the names of the prefecture and the town that came from them.

Getting there

Morioka Station (JR Tōhoku Shinkansen). Bus about ten minutes to the Ōizumiguchi stop, then five minutes on foot.

Sources and further reading

Reliable secondary Mitsuishi Shrine Tōhoku Tourism Promotion Organization Regional tourism page for the shrine and the three stones with the oni's handprints.

Database Mitsuishi Shrine (三ツ石神社) Wikipedia (Japanese) The three granite boulders, the legend of the bound demon, and the origin of the names Iwate and Fukōzu and of the Sansa dance.

Other places with these yokai

Namahage Museum and Shinzan Folklore Museum なまはげ館・男鹿真山伝承館 Museum Oga, Akita — Oni

Kijin Shrine 鬼鎮神社 Shrine or temple Ranzan, Saitama — Oni

Kinasa Folk Museum and the Demon Woman Momiji 鬼無里ふるさと資料館と鬼女紅葉の里 Museum Nagano (Kinasa), Nagano — Oni

Seimei Shrine and Ichijō Modoribashi 晴明神社・一条戻橋 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Kamigyō), Kyoto — Oni

Japan Oni Exchange Museum 日本の鬼の交流博物館 Museum Fukuchiyama (Ōe), Kyoto — Oni

Kubizuka Daimyōjin 首塚大明神 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Nishikyō, Oinosaka pass), Kyoto — Oni

Onitake Inari Shrine on Mount Ōe 鬼嶽稲荷神社 Shrine or temple Fukuchiyama (Ōe), Kyoto — Oni

Gangōji 元興寺 Shrine or temple Nara, Nara — Oni

Kibitsu Shrine 吉備津神社 Shrine or temple Okayama, Okayama — Oni

Kinojō, the Oni's Castle 鬼ノ城 Site Sōja, Okayama — Oni

Other places in Iwate

Kappa-buchi and Jōkenji カッパ淵と常堅寺 Site Tōno, Iwate — A quiet pool on a stream behind a temple in Tōno, the place the town points to when it tells its kappa tales.

Denshōen 伝承園 Museum Tōno, Iwate — A folk park built around an old L-shaped farmhouse, with a hall of a thousand silkworm deities and a room for the storyteller whose tales became Tōno Monogatari.

Tōno Municipal Museum 遠野市立博物館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — The town museum of the valley whose tales were written down in 1910, with the oshira-sama, the kappa and the storytellers of Tōno Monogatari.

Tōno Folktale Museum とおの物語の館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — A sake storehouse turned into a hall of tales, with the inn where the folklorist stayed and a stage where storytellers tell the tales in the dialect they were told in.

Ryokufusō, the Inn of the Zashiki-warashi 緑風荘（座敷わらしの宿） Site Ninohe (Kindaichi Onsen), Iwate — A hot-spring inn at the far end of a small spa village, where a house spirit called Kamemaro is said to have lived in the inner room for six hundred years.