Gokanosho, Heike Village (五家荘 平家の里) 五家荘平家の里
Valley where tradition hides the Heike, defeated in 1185, among mountains 1,300–1,700 m high.
Gokanosho (五家荘) is the collective name of five small localities in the eastern part of Yatsushiro: Kureko, Shiibaru, Nitao, Haki and Momiki, at the source of the Kawabe River, in the mountains of Kyūshū. The people who lived there were wood turners (kijishi), grew buckwheat and millet by slash-and-burn and grew tea. Tradition says that after the battle of Dan-no-ura (1185) Taira no Kiyotsune, a leader of the Taira clan, also called Heike, fled to Kyūshū and that his descendants, under the name Ogata, governed the area; according to other accounts the Zōza family descends from Sugawara no Michizane. The area became part of the quasi-national park of the central Kyūshū mountains in 1982 and since 2005 has been part of the city of Yatsushiro. The themed village 五家荘平家の里 belongs to the city and has a hall, the ‘Heike densetsukan’ (平家伝説館), with exhibitions, films and a pavilion of puppets, and a nō stage (能舞台) where kagura and events are held. The same municipal regulation also governs the historic houses of the Ogata and Zōza families, the old village of Kureko and the Umenoki-todoroki bridge park.
Kumamoto
