Sakurai Futamigaura's Couple Stones

This guide to the Couple Stones at Sakurai Futamigaura in Fukuoka follows the yearly ritual that rebuilds the thick straw rope binding two sea rocks, believed to house the gods Izanagi and Izanami. It traces what the rope is meant to represent and the fishing families who have kept the tradition alive, before turning to the older story behind that marriage. Stand where the seabed lies exposed at low tide, the same ground roughly fifty townspeople wade across each spring to haul the rope up fresh.