Retired emperors once made the arduous walk to Kumano as ordinary pilgrims, on a route now formally paired with a very different pilgrimage on the other side of the world.
A route imperial pilgrims actually walked
The Kumano Kodo, a network of pilgrimage trails connecting the three Kumano shrines, was walked historically by numerous retired Japanese emperors undertaking the journey as an act of religious devotion, a demanding trek through mountainous terrain that placed even the most powerful figures in the country on the same physical path used by ordinary pilgrims.
Sister status with a Spanish route
In 1998 the Kumano Kodo became one of only two pilgrimage routes in the world, alongside Spain's Camino de Santiago, to receive joint UNESCO World Heritage recognition specifically as a pilgrimage path rather than as a single destination site, a pairing that has since led to a formal sister-route relationship and mutual pilgrim credential recognition between the two.
Ascetics who blended traditions deliberately
The Kumano region is closely associated with Shugendo, a mountain ascetic practice combining Shinto, Buddhist and folk religious elements, whose practitioners, yamabushi, engaged in physically demanding ascetic training across the region's mountains, a syncretic tradition partially disrupted by the forced Shinto-Buddhist separation this entry's companion article addresses in relation to Nachi Falls specifically.