In the 4th intercalary month of 1189 (Bunji 5), Minamoto no Yoshitsune was attacked by Fujiwara no Yasuhira at Koromogawa-no-tachi in Hiraizumi and took his own life. His severed head, preserved in fine sake, was conveyed to Koshigoe by Nitta Kaja Takahira. On the 13th day of the 6th month, Kajiwara Kagetoki served alongside Wada Yoshimori as chief witness at the official head inspection — the Azuma Kagami records this day with the entry 'Yoshimori, Kagetoki, etc. inspected at Koshigoe Bay.' Barred from entering Kamakura, Yoshitsune was never brought before Yoritomo himself, but disposed of after the verification by these two elders alone. Kagetoki had once fought beside Yoshitsune at Ichi-no-Tani, Yashima, and Dan-no-Ura, but, serving as army magistrate, had bitterly opposed him since the famous 'reverse-oars debate' at Yashima; the Heike Monogatari attributes the slander that began Yoshitsune's downfall to him. For Kagetoki, then, the head inspection at Koshigoe was the ritual closure of a fate he had himself set in motion. Years later in 1249 (Hoji 3), local tradition holds that Yoshitsune's head drifted up the Sakai River to this very site, and Shirahata Jinja was established here to console the tragic hero — so that, with cruel irony, the man whose downfall Kagetoki had hastened came to be enshrined as the guardian deity of Fujisawa.