Nihonjika

This photograph was taken in August 2015 on my honeymoon and features a posing sika deer in the backdrop of the Kōfuku-ji (興福寺) in the city of Nara. The sacred deer roam free and are symbolic of Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto, the first of the adjacent shrine’s four deities, who arrived in 768 AD riding a white deer. Today, the Nihonjika, or Japan Deer, revel in their status, posing for photographs and bowing in return for deer crackers.