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This is the earliest account of the Shikoku Pilgrimage in English that we know of, which appeared in Japanese under the title of “Musume Junreiki” in Japanese before being translated into English by Susan Tennant in 2010. This solo Japanese woman made the pilgrimage in 1918 during the Taisho Period and wrote articles for a local newspaper.
Book Description:
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.
Books on Asia’s take:
This is not a guidebook in any way but the author does talk a little bit about each temple and her experiences at and around each, so it is a book that can be used to follow the basic route. A variation of kikō bungaku (prose and poems melded into a travel account), the book is a mix of her experiences walking the pilgrimage and her own tanka poems. She went on to publish many books of poetry in Japanese.