Susan Tennant

The 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage of Takamure Itsue: an English Translation of Musume Junreiki Susan Tennant

A young woman of 24 set off alone in 1918 to walk the 1400 kilometre pilgrimage route around the island of Shikoku. Her dream of a solitary journey ended when an old man of 73 met early on her journey insisted that he accompany her as servant and protector because he believed that she was an attendant of Kannon Bosatsu. This book is her account of their extraordinary experiences during the five month journey. The 105 newspaper articles that she wrote while making her pilgrimage made her a celebrity in Japan. In later years the woman, Takamure Itsue, became well known in Japan as a poet, intellectual, scholar, historian, feminist and anarchist.