Tomb of Kikuchi Masataka

The short life of Kikuchi Masataka (1491–1509) illustrates the weakened state of the Kikuchi clan in the 1500s. By Masataka’s time, several warlord-led families within the clan had gained enough power and influence to challenge the leadership directly. In 1505, the year after Masataka had been made head of the clan at the age of 13, his generals overthrew him and seized control, installing a local strongman named Aso Korenaga as clan leader.

Masataka and those who remained loyal to him left the castle town of Waifu to bide their time and raise an army capable of retaking command of the Kikuchi. Their attempt to do so in 1509 proved unsuccessful, and Masataka’s remaining force of 200 warriors retreated to the area around Ankokuji Temple. There the sides clashed again, and the defeated Masataka retreated to Ankokuji, where he committed suicide before the temple was burned down by Aso Korenaga’s warriors.

Internal conflicts and threats from rival warlords continued to weaken the Kikuchi in the decades following Masataka’s fall. The clan gradually lost its lands, and was then vanquished entirely in the mid-1500s.

Kikuchi Masataka’s tomb stands behind Ankokuji Temple. The current headstone was erected at some point during the Edo period (1603–1867), on a base in the shape of a kifu, a Chinese mythological creature with the features of a turtle and a snake that was considered auspicious. This style was popularized in Japan during the Edo period and was used on the graves of several Kikuchi lords when they were rebuilt in the 1700s and 1800s.

※About the Kikuchi clan.（菊池一族とは）

※Other cultural property explanatory boards are also multilingual.（この他の文化財説明板も多言語化しています。）

菊池政隆の墓（菊池政隆公墓）

　菊池氏２３代政隆の墓は、久米安国寺の裏手に所在します。

　永正元年（１５０４）菊池政隆は、先代能運の遺命により菊池宗家を相続しました。しかし翌２年、菊池氏家臣団８４名は連署をもって「政隆は将の器にあらず」とその地位を剥奪し、阿蘇家大宮司の惟長を迎え入れました。惟長は菊池武経と改名して肥後守護の座を継ぎました。追われた政隆は内空閑、相良氏を頼り更に筑後で菊池復帰の機会を伺っていましたが、４年後の同６年（１５０９）豊後大友氏の支援を受けた武経と臼間野（南関町）で合戦し、敗れて捕らわれの身となり、久米道を阿蘇氏の本拠地矢部浜町に護送されることとなりました。そこを菊池の旧臣玉屋三郎貞親が与力の兵２００を率いて田島陣塚で待ち伏せ、護送団一行を襲って政隆奪還に成功し久米安国寺に入ります。これを知った武経は兵５００を率い反撃し、両者は久米原で激突するも、再び敗れた政隆は安国寺に入り自刃して果てました。