ABSTRACT
The Shikoku application was a fabrication with multiple omissions and evasions of elements that shaped the pilgrimage historically and in the present. Shikoku government agencies were, like the authorities in Toyama Prefecture, using linguistic stratagems to justify spending state resources to improve pilgrimage infrastructure and promote the pilgrimage. The prevalence of motorised transport on the henro reflects a recurrent reality of pilgrimage: as new forms of transport are developed they are invariably incorporated into pilgrimage infrastructure and used by pilgrims. The idea is attributed, according to some interviewees, to Oyamada Kensho, the head priest of of the pilgrimage temples. Temple priests recognised that, although pilgrim numbers grew in the late twentieth century due to promotional campaigns portraying the pilgrimage as Japan’s most “traditional” and “national” pilgrimage, difficult times might lie ahead.
