The branches of this beautiful cherry tree hang over a group of old memorial stones from the Edo period. A bit further up the road stands a stone lantern of the Akiha Kodō pilgrimage route. Among the stone memorials is a Kōshintō, which are very common on the Akiha Kodō and historically had peculiar social function. In the Edo period public gatherings were prohibited, as the Tokugawa military government was very afraid of protests and uprisings among the population. To come together in public, people needed a religious occasion that was not suspicious to the government. One such occasion was kōshin (or kanoe saru), the metal monkey of the Chinese zodiac. This day repeats very 60 days, so there are 6 kōshin days per year. People came together at Kōshinto memorials on these days and spend the night with praying nembutsu and often drinking alcohol. Associated with this ritual was the believe that there is a small spirit bug, called sanshi-no-mushi living inside a human body. On kōshin this bug would try to leave its host body while they are asleep and report their wrong doings to the heavens, telling the gods to punish the host with an early death. To avoid the bug leaving their bodies people met and kept each other awake in these gatherings called kōshin machi. By the great number of Kōshintō memorials along the Akiha Kodō you can tell that this tradition was extremely popular in Southern Nagano during the Edo period.