In ancient Japan, places were named after the specific characteristics of the lands they inhabited. Miyazaki Prefecture was once known as Hyuga no Kuni, ‘the country that faces the sun’. It is widely regarded as the birthplace of Japan, a highly symbolic place where mythology, ritual, and daily life converge to honour the Shinto gods. In Shinto, the sun is a sacred entity, a reverent, tangible expression of a living kami...