Somashikiba is the name of a graveyard for dead cows and horses that had worked on local farms, originally being built in some villages in the Edo period about 400 years ago. The Somashikiba in Sugaruya Village was located in the border with Koenbo Village.* There are five small (about 50cm tall) stone pagodas standing as its only remnant on the side of a farm road, surrounded with trees. On the surface of one of these stone pagodas, the year 1798 and the era name (Kansei, 10th year 寛政十年) were carved, along with a relief of a figure of a horse that is running on the terrace with Buddhist sculptures. Another one has the name of a headman of Sugaruya Village in the late Edo period, Suzuki San’emon, and the year 1876 and the era name (Meiji, 9th year 明治九年) were carved on it. San’emon’s name is also carved on the other stone pagoda from 1885, which has a eulogy dedicated to the souls of their farm animals. All the other stone pagodas were badly weathered, so we cannot read the letters carved on the surface any more. According to the residents’ survey of Sugaruya Village back in 1840, the village had about 68 houses, 20 horses and 14 cows. Also, the survey shows that the headman of the village Suzuki San’emon had one of each horse and cow. The lore of Somashikiba in Sugaruya village is still alive, and perhaps this might be the only place that still has kept its historic flavor in the Miura Peninsula in the present. Unfortunately, only a few people remember that this place used to be a graveyard for dead cows and horses that worked in local farms. Even local residents barely know about it. The oldest record on the name of Sugaruya goes back to the Muromachi shogunate era in 1448. It was also called Sugariya in the old days. ‘Sugari’ used to mean ‘bees’, and there is a belief that the name of Sugariya came from the episode that the village had a lot of bees in those days. Also, there are a few other beliefs that ‘Sugaru’ was an old name of Ammophila (hunting wasp), and that it was another name of a deer. In Nagasaki dialect, Sugari means ‘ants, and in Toyama City area, it means ‘a bag of net’. *Note: This area is still a border between Yokosuka City and Miura City today.