This shrine is dedicated to Kakinomoto Hitomaro who was a great Japanese poet in the Nara era, about 1300 years ago.  It’s said that the shrine was originally built on Kamoshima Island near the mouth of Masuda River.  But the shrine sank off the coast of Masuda due to a tsunami (big tidal wave) in 1026. Only the statue of Hitomaro floated to Matsuzaki and the shrine was rebuilt there.
Afterward in 1681, the shrine was moved and built in Takatsu by Koremasa Kamei who was lord of Tsuwano.
 Hitomaro was born in Toda village. After he grew up, he went to Nara( the capital city on that time) and served as a court poet for three emperors:-Tenmu, Monbu and Jitoh.

 He traveled various places, supporting these emperors and making many poems. About 450 of his poems were put in Manyoshu, a book of the oldest poems in Japan.  When he was older, he came back to Masuda and died at Kamoshima in the year 724.
The successive emperors of the Edo era had dedicated many poems to this shrine.They are displayed in the treasury of this shrine.

On leaving his wife as he set out from Iwami for the capital.   �U:131-3

Along the coast of Tsunu
On the sea of Iwami
One may find no sheltering bay,
One may find no sequestered lagoon.
O well if there be no bay!
O well if there be no lagoon!
Upon Watazu’s rocky strand,
Where I travel by the whale-haunted sea,
The wind blows in the morning,
And the waves wash at eve
The sleek sea-tangle and the ocean weed,
All limpid green.
Like the sea-tangle, swaying in the wave
Hither and thither, my wife would cling to me,
As she lay by my side.
Now I have left her, and journey on my way,
I look back a myriad times
At each turn of the road.
Father and father my home falls behind,
Steeper and steeper the mountains I have crossed.
My wife must be languishing
Like drooping summer grass.
I would see where she dwells---
Bend down, O mountains!

Source: "1000 Poems from the Manyoshu" by The complete Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Translation