Sakitsu Village

Sakitsu is a working fishing village on the western side of Amakusa Shimoshima, and one of the twelve components of the Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki and Amakusa Region, listed by UNESCO in 2018. During the ban on Christianity, villagers held on to their faith with what the sea and their work gave them: statues of Daikokuten and Ebisu were venerated as Deus, and the mother-of-pearl pattern inside abalone shells stood for the Virgin Mary. In the 1805 crackdown known as Amakusa Kuzure, about 70% of the village was exposed, yet people were only told to hand their devotional objects over at Sakitsu Suwa Shrine. The Gothic Sakitsu Church, rebuilt in 1934 to a design by Tetsukawa Yosuke, has a tatami floor, and its altar is said to sit where the headman's house once held e-fumi. Villagers still worship here. Book a visit in advance through the Kyusanko booking page, keep quiet inside, and do not take photos in the church.