Author: John D. (Page 109 of 202)

Shinto’s Two Faces

April 30, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

David McNeill is one of the best contemporary writers on Japan, and someone much to be admired for his brave stance against the yakuza and violent extremists. A Tokyo-based writer, he is the Japan correspondent for The Independent, teaches political science at Sophia University and has written for numerous publications including Japan Focus. In the piece below, he turns his attention to the delicate matter of Shinto’s contemporary stance. Is it primarily cultural and environmental in nature, or a political tool of emperor-centred rightists?

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Re-engineering Shinto
BY DAVID MCNEILL SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES NOV 23, 2013

Japan’s ancient, indigenous religion, premodern Shinto, was considered one of the world’s least dogmatic, laidback belief systems. Many of its earthy, animist rituals were tied to a love of nature and tradition, anchored around festivals and ceremonies honoring kami (gods) found in all aspects of life.

The open celebratory face of Shinto

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Shinto was retooled for the modern, bureaucratic state. The first reformists purged Buddhism, made Shinto a state religion and elevated the Emperor to head of state, making him the divine link in an unbroken chain going all the way back to the sun goddess. As such, the religion became inextricably bound up with the rise of Japanese nationalism and its central tenets. The Emperor had a divine right to rule Japan, which was superior to other nations. Millions of Japanese children were taught these supremacist beliefs, fueling the clash with foreign imperialisms.

In January 1946, Emperor Hirohito famously renounced his divine status in an imperial transcript known as his “declaration of humanity.” The statement, made under the U.S. Occupation, was a prelude to the rewriting of Japan’s Constitution the same year. This was just a part of a profound re-engineering of the Japanese state. Shinto was stripped of its public status in a bid to separate church and state along U.S. constitutional lines. The Imperial Rescript on Education was scrapped, ending the Emperor’s role as source of individual and social morality. Japan’s ability to wage war was permanently renounced in Article 9 of the new Constitution.

Mark Mullins, director of the Japan Studies Center at the University of Auckland, describes this re-engineering as an example of “imperialist secularization” — the coercive, top-down removal of religion from public institutions by a foreign power. “This is very different from . . . the gradual decline of religion with the advance of modernization,” Mullins says. Many conservatives resented the changes. When the Americans left, they fought back.

The two faces of Shinto today are present in the organization’s headquarters. The affable spokesman for the religion’s International Section, Katsuji Iwahashi, stresses Shinto’s essentially peaceful roots and its overwhelmingly benign role in the lives of millions of Japanese as well as its modern, internationalist outlook.

Organized beliefs can be used in any nation, he explains, for good and bad. “Religion is a very good tool to unify people toward a single goal,” he says in fluent English. Iwahashi is critical of political Shinto. “They misinterpret Japanese culture as nationalism.”

A more nationalistic face of Shinto

Though now constitutionally a “symbol” of Japan, the Emperor is still the central figure in the Shinto drama and conservatives still spend a great deal of energy trying to interpret his often oblique statements and actions.

One of the great debates in Shinto is about why Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting Yasukuni in 1978. Accepted wisdom is because he was upset at the decision by its head priest to secretly install memorial sticks for Japan’s 14 Class-A war criminals.

In 2004, Hirohito’s son, Emperor Akihito triggered another debate when he told Kunio Yonenaga, a member of the Tokyo Board of Education, that it was “desirable not to force” teachers to sing Japan’s flag and national anthem in schools. Yonenaga had been enthusiastically reporting to the monarch that it was “his job” to have schoolchildren sing the anthem, a peon to the man in front of him.

Some interpreted this incident as evidence of the current Emperor’s liberal leanings, but Yuzawa disagrees. “In this case, Yoneyama was taking an extreme position, so his majesty was trying to show other opinions and give space for the public to discuss it. It doesn’t mean he was against Yoneyama’s stance, he was just giving an alternative way of thinking about it.”

Where does the Emperor stand on female succession? We don’t know, but Shinto conservatives oppose it because allowing an Empress would dilute the “purity of the imperial line,” says Yuzawa. “What if a woman succeeds and marries a foreigner? Non-Japanese blood will be mixed.”

Fox legends

April 29, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Foxes have played a significant part in Japanese folklore, quite apart from their role as a servant of the agricultural deity, Inari. The information below, showing the continental and international connections, is edited and abridged from a recent item posted on the Japanese Mythology and Folklore site, (For the full article, please click here.)

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The clear link between foxes and Inari is documented in Edo Period illustrated works, in which there are depictions of “fox weddings” with humanized foxes going through weddings. In Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the Inari festival held on November 3 every year, there is a re-enactment of a wedding between foxes.

The re-enactment refers to the legend that a white fox couple at that shrine was looking for something lost, and was deified as a god of good harvest and thriving business. The ones who perform as the fox couple are selected from among the people of Kudamatsu, but it is said that as the female who plays the part of one of the newlywed is going to be blessed with a good match, there is a benefit to marriage at that shrine.

The most probable explanation for the fox wedding, and other fox legends, is that it was an ancient agricultural and seasonal astronomical rite, that was inherited from the Altaic-or Northern Chinese continental migrants who brought grain agriculture into Japan, both millet and rice. From studies of archaeology and astronomical knowledge, fox legends are believed to have a four-thousand year old history, associated with prehistoric earth and sky agricultural rites and a part of the ancients’ rich body of calendrical knowledge of cyclical-seasonal readings.

Fox sculptures are known in archeaology from Turkey’s Gobleki Tepe site, and fox myths and temples are found in abundance across pan-Mesoamerican and South American sites, where there are fox temples featuring earth offerings and sightings of celestial bodies’ alignments and seasonal predictions.

A 2011 study, published in the Journal of Cosmology, reviews the “evidence associated with the fox representations [and] argues that the beginnings of hierarchy in Andean South America occurred with the rise of a priestly cult who maintained a complex knowledge of astronomy.” The article entitled “Ancient South American Cosmology: Four Thousand Years of the Myth of the Fox”, states:

“The mythology of the South American fox is associated with both the sky, into which he ascended, and more strongly, the earth below. He brought back carbohydrates from the heavens in the form of agricultural plants, and animal protein in the form of fish. His association with climate change and prediction of crop success is told in stories over much of South America. His constellation is visible to indigenous peoples in a number of South American countries. From coastal Peru to southern Ecuador, shamans still use the fox to make prophesies, and variations on the fox myths are still heard from Central to South… The first representations of the Andean fox were found at the site of Buena Vista, Chillón Valley, Perú.

In Japan, with its adopted western Gregorian calendar, the calendrical associations of fox myths are for the most part forgotten, however, vestiges of the seasonal significance remain. For example, according to legends of Fukushima Prefecture, it is said that in the evening on the 10th day of the 10th month of the luni-solar calendar, if one wears a suribachi on one’s head, and sticks a wooden pestle in one’s waist, and stands under a date plum, it is possible to see a fox’s wedding. In Aichi Prefecture, it is said that if one spits in a well, intertwines one’s fingers and looks through a gap between them, one is able to see a fox’s wedding.

Shapeshifters, a separate Indo-European or Indo-Iranian development

The above 2011 study emphasized that stories of shape-shifting foxes belong to a separate tradition and are possibly a later Indo-European/Aryan development. This appears to accord with the Japanese situation, where shapeshifting foxes are mostly medieval developments showing diversified late Silk Road Eurasian influences.

There are also stories of weddings not just between foxes, but also between a human male and a female fox, and a representative work is the story about the birth of the Heian period Yin-Yang Wizard, Abe no Seimei [said to be the son of a white fox]. Also, in the Konjaku Monogatarishū there is the story of a fox who appeared before a married man, shapeshifted and disguised itself as that person’s wife. In the collection Tonoigusa published in 1677, there is the reverse story where a male fox fell in love with a female human, shapeshifted and disguised itself as the woman’s husband, which resulted in the birth of children with atypical appearance.

Finally, in Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (edited by James Huntley Grayson) on pp.396-7 a Korean Fox Wife tale is compared with its counterpart, a Japanese Fox Wife tale. At the same time, it is suggested from the background of the next tale of the fox who became the Empress of China, that the fox-ancestry or fox-descent tales of both Korea and Japan originate from Chinese sources which in turn likely originated from Iranic or Dravidian sources, and are a variant of the Mongolic wolf-descent tales.

Source and references:
“Ancient South American Cosmology: Four Thousand Years of the Myth of the Fox”, Journal of Cosmology, 2011

Folk Shinto

April 27, 2014 / John D. / 3 Comments

A festival on the Inland Sea conducted by islanders themselves

Folk Shinto has much to commend it. It is free of dogma, morality and hierarchy. It fosters a form of spirituality based on nature and ancestral spirits. It is open to anyone with a sense of tradition and the numinous. Moreover, it’s a product of ordinary people, rather than being imposed from on high by authorities with vested interests.

Cultivating a sense of spirituality has become an important strand of contemporary society as people grow disenchanted with the hypocrisy and divisions of mainstream religions. The popularity of meditation, freed of its religious trappings, is just one example. The boom in shamanism is another.

In the song ‘Imagine’, John Lennon who took an interest in Eastern spirituality sang, ‘Imagine there’s no countries/ It isn’t hard to do/ Nothing to kill or die for/ And no religion too.’ It showed a distaste for the frictions and wars fostered by religions, which seek to impose their own version of ‘the truth’. The role of State Shinto in WW2 is an unfortunate reminder of the way in which nationalists can all too easily exploit religion.

Dosojin fertility statues were once common across Japan

It’s a theme taken up in The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit by Joseph Chilton Pearce. A leading thinker in spiritual matters, he writes with expertise in the fields of neuroscience, cultural anthropology and developmental psychology. “In this remarkable book Joseph Chilton Pearce goes to the very memetic ‘DNA’ of our culture and recodes it to affirm life’s potential. He masterfully helps us to release the destructive aspects of religion and modern society, while affirming the magnificent reality of the spirit and the heartful intelligence that can guide us forward,” says Barbara Marx Hubbard, president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

“Folk Shinto is a Shinto faith which was customarily practiced by common people without being systematized,” states the The Shinto Online Network Association. It goes on to claim that Folk Shinto developed as a separate entity in the seventh century at the time of Emperor Temmu, when indigenous practice was first codified and underpinned by an imperial theology.

“After that, Folk Shinto gradually developed by itself forming a complex form of rituals and festivals which sometimes amalgamated even with Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Among them, those which have not lost traditional forms of Shinto are considered now to be Folk Shinto.

In an agricultural community, for instance, there is a custom that rituals are performed by a lay-man without involving a priest. A member of the community (often young boy) is nominated as “Toya”, and he performs rites to worship the deity of the locality for one year under the rotation system. Another example of Folk Shinto are rites of passages of life and the year-round observances.”

Reading the accounts of early Meiji times by such commentators as Ernest Satow, W.G. Aston, Percival Lowell, Lafcadio Hearn, and B.H. Chamberlain, one soon comes to realise how very much of Folk Shinto was swept away by the Meiji ideologues, determined to strip the country of ‘superstition’ and marshal the practices into an emperor-centred, Ise-focussed ideology. The purpose was to bolster the new emperor and to make the country seem respectable in the eyes of the West. Phallicism and crude nature worship thus became embarrassing irrelevancies. Even the spiritually charged Shugendo was banned.

It was left to Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), founder of modern folklore studies, to rescue the surviving traditions from oblivion. His lifework amounts remarkably to 31 volumes and 5 appendix volumes. He observed that “These are written with great care and dedicated as always with wishes for providence from Suzu no Mori, the tutelary deity (ujigami) of my hometown, and from a humble Shinto scholar I greatly respect, none other than the spirit of my late father Matsuoka Yakusai.”

The great achievement of Yanagita, for which he deserves wider recognition, is that he redirected attention away from the ruling élite and restored commoners to the heart of history. He left us with an account of just how varied Japanese spirituality was in times past, deeply syncretic in form and localised in practice. It shows too the richness of a Shinto world that existed outside the confines of the modern shrine system, which was invented and imposed by Meiji-era officials.

For more about Yanagita Kunio above, see his Wikipedia page here or Gabi Greve’s piece for World Kigo here.

Fuji Self-Sacrifice

April 23, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Green Shinto is privileged to carry this piece by Pat Ormsby, a licensed priest with Kompira Shrine. Resident in the environs of Mt Fuji, she has written previously about the Seven Sacred Trails up the mountain. She also has a unique insight as a foreigner into the Fuji-ko sect rituals, which she attends, and in the piece below she writes of one of the earliest leaders of the sect, Jikigyo Miroku (1671-1733).

(For an interview with Pat Ormsby, please click here.)

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The Self-Sacrifice of Jikigyo Miroku

By Patricia Ormsby, in memoriam of Michael C. Ruppert

Background
Confucianism is a philosophical tradition that has had a major impact throughout the Orient. According to one expert, Royall Tyler, “The essential character of what I call here a ‘Confucian mode of thought’ is an absorbing religious or philosophical concern with achieving, and more particularly, with maintaining a stable and harmonious society. It goes without saying that Confucianism has an essential ethical dimension and that it has much to say about self-cultivation…” (1)

The major concerns of the medieval period in Japan (1185-1600), a time of constant warring, had to do less with that than with suffering, passions and enlightenment, which Buddhism addressed. During the prosperous Tokugawa reign (Edo Period, 1600-1860s), however, Buddhism took a backseat to new religions, with three historical figures of note, Suzuki Shosan, an unorthodox Zen master; Hasegawa Kakugyo, founder of the Mt. Fuji faith; and Jikigyo Miroku, a popular leader of the 1700s who turned the Fuji faith into a major movement, the Fuji Confraternity.

A photo of Fuji Confraternity members from the early twentieth century (exhibited in the Togawa Oshi house)

The Fuji Confraternity
The Fuji Confraternity incorporated elements of nature worship (i.e., folk Shinto), Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, and also bore some influences from Christianity, which had recently been popular and then was banned in Japan. Having finally achieved peace, the people of Japan wanted to ensure its stability and a time of prosperity for all, much like the Christian concept of the “millennium” after a time of terrific traumas and a major die-off, but they associated this not directly with the outlawed Christianity, but with the Buddhist concept of the Maitreya bodhisattva (Miroku in Japanese), a future Buddha who it is said will appear at a time when all Dharma has been forgotten, and will bring about a period of enlightenment. (2)

Jikigyo’s Life
On Jikigyo Miroku, the Encyclopedia of Shinto (3) explains,

“His lay name was Ito Ihei, and he was born to a peasant family [in 1671 near Ise]. He moved to Edo [now Tokyo] at the age of thirteen, where he worked at a kimono fabric shop. A hometown compatriot introduced him to the cult of Mount Fuji, known as Fuji Shinko, and in 1687 he took the religious name of Jikigyo [meaning “fasting practice”]. The following year he made a pilgrimage to the summit of Mount Fuji, where he experienced an eschatological revelation that the “renewal of the world of Maitreya” (Jp. Miroku) was beginning.

In 1717 Jikigyo became the sixth leader of the Fujiko confraternity and in 1722 added the appellation Miroku to his religious title. In addition to his business activities, he conducted an aggressive proselytizing campaign, appealing to all potential converts, regardless of who they were…Jikigyo’s distinguishing hallmark was [his] focus on interior faith.”

Jikigyo prophesized that he would die on Mt. Fuji at age 68. To put his life and faith in perspective, commoners were not allowed to travel freely across Japan during the Edo Period. Only religious pilgrimage was allowed. The cost of that, however, was equal to a farmer’s annual income. (4)

Even now, when travel has become nearly prosaic, we can still relate to it as a life-altering experience, giving new insights and inspirations. The word “cult” has been used a lot in reference to the Fuji Confraternity. Because of its popularity, the authorities considered it a potential threat, and they tried banning certain of its practices. More than once its leaders were interrogated on suspicion of Christianity. The followers, however, found ways to observe the letter of the law while fulfilling their need for spiritual sustenance.

For Fuji-ko members, the foot of the volcano represented this world and the rarefied air of the summit enlightenment.

Mount Fuji
To Shugendo pilgrims (Buddhism combined with Shinto, of which the Fuji faith continues to be one part) the plains and villages at the foot of Mt. Fuji represented this world, of mundane concerns; the deep, dark mossy forests on black lava fields of its middle reaches, the transition—perhaps death; and the bare slopes, rarefied air and fabulous views from the summit, enlightenment.

Tyler (1) again:

Pilgrimage costume of the Fuj-ko Confraternity

“Jikigyo, as he admitted, had no learning whatsoever. Certain writings of his are nonetheless revered in the Fuji cult, though the only one published is entitled Sanjuichinichi no maki [31-Days’ Scroll]. This document contains Jikigyo’s last teaching. Perhaps it was transcribed from Jikigyo’s oral instruction by a disciple, it is not as badly written as Jikigyo’s letters, but the Fuji cult was assuredly not a literary movement.
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“Jikigyo’s spelling of the name Miroku (which he received, spelling and all, from Sengen [goddess of Mt. Fuji]) is highly significant. Mi means oneself, or myself, but it also means mibun, or one’s station in life. Roku, the word for a samurai’s stipend, is the material largess which one receives from above, from a lord, from heaven, or, as in this case, from Sengen. It is also a pun on roku, flat, or straight. Thus the name Miroku evokes a plenty to be enjoyed in average life by the average, but true and honest man.
…
“Jikigyo was assiduous in the cult and never missed the regular annual ascent of Fuji. Indeed, it is recorded that when he and his ko [fraternity] lodged at the Yoshida-guchi (on the north side of the mountain), he performed his devotions so loudly and late into the night that his fellow ko members were unable to sleep. At last they complained to the oshi (guide) [in essence, ‘travel agent’] in charge of their quarters. When Jikigyo refused to desist, he was expelled from the building. Unfortunately, his reputation was such that no other oshi would have him. Only one Tanabe Juroemon was at last willing to take him in. This Tanabe became an important disciple and attended Jikigyo during his last days.

By the time of this incident, Jikigyo had probably already done the inevitable: he had given away all of his personal wealth to the clerks and manager of his business.

The Age of Miroku
Jikigyo announced the coming of the Age of Miroku. He traveled and everywhere saw evidence of misrule and injustice. He continued to have visions from Sengen, who instructed him to advance his plan by five years. That plan was to “achieve perfect union with Sengen by fasting to death on the summit of Mt. Fuji.” (1)

He had a portable shrine about three feet high made and transported in from Edo, and he sat in this shrine as he fasted. Only he was not allowed to sit at the summit of Mt. Fuji. True to the authoritarian nature of the time, the Sengen Shrine, which had jurisdiction over the summit forbade him to do so at the last minute.

He nonetheless fulfilled his vow to help all sentient beings at a crag called Eboshi-iwa, a few hundred meters down from the summit on the north slope. He drank only one cup of snow water each day, possessed almost continuously by Sengen. Tanabe Juroemon, who was assisting him, transcribed his messages. On the 30th day, he said, “Well, now I am going home.” He recited the litanies of Fuji and closed his eyes. Tanabe wept, closed the doors of the shrine, heaped rocks over it and descended.

Monument of Jikigyo Miroku near Shiraito_Falls (Wikicommons)

Jikigyo’s Death and Teachings
His death was a sensation. The tabloids of the time, single page block prints hawked on street corners in Edo, spread the news, and the cult grew rapidly.

Jikigyo was actually not quite dead then. Tanabe went back up and heard a voice from within the pile of stones. The voice stressed Jikigyo’s four cardinal principles: uprightness, compassion, kindness and frugality. Tanabe stayed around, but after repeated inquiries brought no response, he finally went back down again.

Another lesson Jikigyo repeatedly stressed, that undoubtedly contributed to the success of the Fuji Confraternity, was the essential equality of all people, including women, who he believed should be judged on their achievements rather than their status. He urged the practice of Confucianism, with its emphasis of diligence on one’s proper work in this world. In this way, he never constituted a threat to the hierarchy of Japan’s society at that time. He recognized the class divisions, but he emphasized their unity.

Jikigyo was a difficult man, but his life and death had, and continue to have, a big impact.

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1Tyler, Royall (1997) “The Tokugawa Peace and Popular Religion: Suzuki Shosan, Kakugyo Tobutsu, and Jikigyo Miroku.” In: Peter Nosco, ed., Confucianism and Tokugawa Japan, pp.92-119. (Where not noted otherwise, my information on Jikigyo comes from this source.)
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya
3 http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/modules/xwords/entry.php?entryID=464
4 http://ichinen-fourseasonsinjapan.blogspot.jp/2013/07/mount-fuji-4.html worth reading! Provides great photos and a sense of the places the worshippers visited.

8th Station of the ascent of Mt Fuji, at the Ganso Muro hut where a small shrine has been erected. The steps to the right lead up to the spot where Jikigyo Miroku died. (photo by Kenji Saito)

More on hemp

April 21, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

There is a long article on a website entitled Hemp Culture in Japan by David Olsen, which covers the plant’s many connections with traditional culture. Though the author is evidently not an expert on Shinto, he does make reference to a large number of books, as can be seen in the extract below from the full-length piece. (For those wishing to read the whole piece or follow up on the book references, please click here.) It’s worth noting that hemp is a variant of the cannabis plant; marijuana is a different variant.

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Hemp Culture in Japan by David Olsen

Hemp was already a well-established crop by the time written language and recorded history appear during the Yayoi Period. The indigenous Ainu on the northern island of Hokkaido made their colorful costumes from hemp fiber during this period, circa the 3rd century AD (Constantine 1992). These people lived in patriarchal clan groups and wore clothes of hemp and bark. Also, the complex Shinto system of multiple patriarchal deities developed as numerous clans each adopted a patron saint. (Hooker 1996)

Hemp field in France (courtesy Wikicommons)

A few centuries later, Bukkyo (Buddhism) made a similar journey starting from India across the Himalayas to China, on to the Hermit Kingdom of Korea, and ending up in Japan. In the long migration from India to China, the teachings of the Buddha were modified. However, from China to Korea, the basic tenets remained unchanged.

Upon arriving to Japan however, the natives adapted and intertwined Buddhism with both the traditional mythological religion of Shinto and their reverence for hemp. Shinto is the ancient ‘way of the gods’, a ritualistic expression of profound respect for the kami (the intrinsic god-like spirit) in nature. Purity and fertility are held paramount, and hemp is considered a symbol of both.

The Kojiki (the native chronicle of Japan) relates that after creating Japan, the ‘primal pair’ [Izanagi and Izanami] consulted each other saying, “We have now produced the great eight-island country, with the mountains, rivers, herbs and trees. Why should we not produce someone who shall be lord of the universe.” (Moore 1991) This pair then begot the founding goddess-figure, Amaterasu Omikami (sun goddess) who is enshrined at Ise.

The prayer recited at the shrine is called Taima (hemp) [Jingu taima refers in fact to the Ise amulet]. Hemp [seed], salt and rice are the sacred staples that are used as part of all the rites at the shrine (Yamada 1995). The emperor himself is regarded as a direct descendant of these gods and acts as the high priest of the folkloric Shinto belief.

“At Shinto jinja (shrines) and Buddhist tera (temples), certain objects are symbolically made from hemp. For example, the leg-thick bell ropes, and the noren, a short curtain that hangs over the doorways and brushes the top of the head as one enters the room, must be hempen. The noren acts as a symbolic purification rite, meant to cause evil spirits to flee from the body.” (Robinson 1996)

Indeed, the Shinto priests and faithful used hemp fibers as symbolic elements in their religious ceremonies. One such use was the waving of a gohei (a short stick) with undyed hemp fibers attached to the end. Shaking these asa fibers above the patron’s heads apparently drove the evil spirits from the soul. Further, hemp was a symbolic gift of acceptance and obedience from the groom’s family to the bride’s in times of matrimony (Robinson 1996).

Historically, the priests dressed in hemp robes as well. It is in death that Shinto and Buddhism blend into a common braid. The relatives continue to visit the graves, leaving offerings and praying in the Buddhist way. Yet at home, a family shrine with the departed’s picture and memorabilia is tended in the Shinto tradition with hand claps, incense, and worshipping of the kami (deity) within.

The Japanese traveled long distances searching for salt, seeking enlightenment and following pilgrimages. In olden times, these merchants, wandering pilgrims and traveling believers were obliged to leave an offering to the sahe no kami (protective deities) before embarking on a journey. “These deities were represented by phalli, often of gigantic size, which were set up along highways, and especially at cross-roads, to bar passage of malignant beings who sought to pass . . . Standing as they did on the roadside and at cross-roads, these gods became the protectors of the wayfarers; travelers prayed to them before setting out on a journey and made a little offering of hemp leaves and rice to each one they passed.”(Moore 1991)

Hemp has various practical uses, including string and clothing (courtesy Rakuten)

In another old tradition, rooms of worship were purified by burning hemp leaves by the entrance. This would invite the spirits of the departed, purify the room and encourage people to dance. “On the first evening, fires of hemp leaves are lighted be-fore the entrance of the house, and incense strewed on the coals, as an invitation to the spirits. At the end of the three days, the food that has been set out for the spirits is wrapped up in mats and thrown into a river. Dances of a peculiar kind are a conspicuous feature of the celebration, which is evidently an old Japanese custom; the Buddhist elements are adscititious (derived from outside).” (Moore 1991).

This ritual took place as part of a Buddhist holy day for “giving respect and making amends with departed ancestors”. The current tradition at this August Obon festival involves the similar practice of leaving offerings of the departed’s favorite foods on the grave, perhaps to purify or satisfy the restless soul. At some time in the past, hemp leaves were likely a part of this ritual as well.

Zen (the meditative Taoist-influenced branch of Buddhism) was especially influenced by hemp. Samurai (elite warriors) and scholars who followed the subtle tenets of Zen express hemp’s inspiration in arts like haiku (short poems), aikido (a martial art), kyudo (archery) and chanoyu (tea ceremony).

A well-known children’s adventure story tells about a technique used by ninja (warriors) to improve jumping skills. The student ninja plants a batch of hemp when he begins training and endeavors to leap over it every day. At first this is no challenge, but the hemp grows quickly everyday and so does the diligent ninja’s jumping ability. By the end of the season, the warrior can clear the 3-4 meter high hemp. This certainly attests as much for hemp’s vitality as the ninja’s ability (Mayuzumi 1996, Masuda 1996).

The formal dress of the Samurai warriors was hempen as were the training clothes of meditators and martial artists. In kyudo (archery) the bow’s string is specifically hemp, which reflects a connection with the meditative practice of Zen as well as hemp’s toughness as a fiber (Mayuzumi 1996).

In an elaborate, pre-bout ceremony called dohyo-iri, the reigning Sumo wrestling grand champion Yokuzuma carries a giant hemp rope around his ample girth to purify the ring and exorcise the evil spirits. This continues even today, as the belt worn by Hawaiian-born champion Akebono is also made of hemp (Wein 1996-97).

Sumo champion Akebono doing the 'dohyo-iri' ritual (courtesy chijanofuji)

Hemp is also being grown in Nagano Prefecture for making the bell ropes, curtains and other essential goods for Shinto and Buddhist houses of worship (Maeda 1995). In this area, the hemp tradition lives on in festivals and dance. The Japan National Tourist Organization tells about this in their on-line brochure:

“Oasahiko Shrine: Just walking to this quiet shrine is a lovely experience. On either side of the road are 400 to 500-year-old black pines designated a Prefectural Natural Monument. Several wonderful festivals are held here: . . . a lion dance (shishi mai) in November to honor the god who brought hemp and cotton to the province . . .”

On the smallest of the four main Japanese islands (Shikoku) hemp is grown for the use of the imperial family. When Emperor Hirohito died in 1989, a coronation was held for his heir. Since Hirohito’s son was succeeding him as the ‘living entity of God’, there was to be a special Shinto ritual. In Shinto beliefs, hemp symbolizes purity, and the new emperor was bound by tradition to wear hemp garments, which had become unavailable over the course of his father’s long rule.

When a new Emperor ascends the throne in Japan, specific symbolic rituals and ceremonies usher in the passing into the new era. Even the years in modern times are measured by the Emperor’s years of reign, indeed history is divided into eras of rulers. As hemp is a symbol of purity in the Shinto tradition, the Emperor wears hemp robes for many of the ceremonies. The principal ceremony is called “Great rice offering” and while the details are a secret, there must be a roll of hemp waiting at the foot of the royal futon at the end of the day.

Since the last occurrence (pre W. W. II, Emperor Hirohito), hemp had been criminalized. A group of Shinto farmers in Tokushima-ken had thought ahead, planted a symbolic yet illegal crop, and presented the emperor with his new clothes made of pure local hemp (Gruett 1994, Bennet 1997). They are still producing this hemp crop for the exclusive use of the imperial family.

In the village of Koyadaira-mura and Yamakawa-cho town, the country people spun and wove the cloth into the sacred fabric called “aratae” (fine cloth) 13 meters long and 34 centimeters wide. The villagers presented it to the Imperial family so the ritual could go on (Bennet 1997). These farmers were rewarded for their efforts and continue to cultivate pure hemp exclusively for the Imperial family on their semi-tropical island between the “Seto-kai” (Inland sea) and the Pacific Ocean.

Household accessories such as washcloths and curtains continue to be sold, but are made from Chinese and Korean hemp. More recently, new hemp products from Western hemp manufacturers are taking off … Some Japanese realize this is an indirect trade.

“The struggle to liberate and revive hemp is therefore a struggle to renew Japanese culture and liberate the country from the occupation policies and colonial subjugation of the United States. Speaking spiritually, I believe this struggle is every bit as important as the movement in Okinawa today for the removal of the American bases. We are talking about physical and spiritual independence.” (Yamada 1995)

The national government also continues to maintain its own seed reserves. Since 1946, when Cannabis hemp was in short supply due to the war, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Medicinal Plant Garden has maintained a seed stock and bred varieties of asa for research at a large secure complex in suburban Tokyo. Given the Japanese knack for detail and research, it is certainly a valuable cache of information and genetics. The director, Torao Shimizu, maintains that the plants are just to teach people what hemp looks like so they can dispose of it should it be found it growing in their area (Lazarus 1994). While the original intent seems to have been for medicinal use of Cannabis, this motive has been lost under a cloud of paranoia, though the use of seeds for medicine is common information. “The seeds are used as bird seed and can also be used as a medicine (asashijingan), as a mild laxative” (Kojien 1991, Wein 1997).

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For a piece on Japan’s 2nd Annual Hemp Festival, please click here.

Emperor and Yasukuni

April 21, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

On a day when self-declared nationalist, prime minister Shinzo Abe, has again made a political statement by sending an offering to Yasukuni, it’s worth remembering the attitude of Emperor Hirohito. As revealed in a document in 2006, because of the enshrinement of war criminals there he made a decision never to worship at the shine again. (The article below comes from The Telegraph, July 21, 2006.)

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Why Hirohito snubbed the Yasukuni Shrine By Colin Joyce in Tokyo (21 Jul 2006)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1524492/Why-Hirohito-snubbed-the-Yasukuni-Shrine.html?fb

The late Emperor Hirohito stopped paying respects to Japan’s war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo because he objected to the enshrinement there of war criminals.

(Photo courtesy The Telegraph)

Yesterday’s disclosure, contained in a recently discovered memo, is a devastating blow to nationalists who believe Yasukuni is the only proper place for Japanese to honour countrymen killed in wars since the mid-19th century.

The document, written by one of Hirohito’s closest aides, shows that he shared concerns that the shrine was sullied by the inclusion of the 14 Class A war criminals deemed most responsible for leading Japan into the Second World War.

The men, including the wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo, were either executed by the Americans after the war or died in prison. They were enrolled at Yasukuni in a secret Shinto ceremony in 1978.”After that enshrinement I never worshipped there again. That was my conscience,” Hirohito is quoted as saying in the document from 1988, the year before his death.

There is little doubt about the authenticity of the memo, found among the notebooks of Tomohiko Tomita, the former head of the Imperial Household Agency. Mr Tomita, who died in 2002, was a confidant of the emperor.

The Showa Emperor, known in the West as Hirohito

Hirohito did not visit Yasukuni after 1978 and his son, Emperor Akihito, has never visited since he succeeded. Until now the reason for this has been a matter of debate but nationalists must face the fact that their views clash with those of Hirohito, whom they revere.

Hirohito had particularly objected to the enshrinement of the wartime foreign minister Yosuke Matsuoka and Toshio Shiratori, the former ambassador to Rome who was instrumental in allying Japan to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Experts say Hirohito rarely criticised individuals yet the memo quotes him saying: “They even enshrined Matsuoka and Shiratori.”

Japanese emperors are not simply heads of state but central figures in the Shinto religion. Hirohito’s views will strengthen the argument for the inclusion of the criminals at Yasukuni to be reversed.

“There will be no solution unless Class A war criminals are worshipped separately or if another memorial facility, which has no links to a particular religion, is built,” said Taku Yamasaki, from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Cannabis

April 20, 2014 / John D. / 3 Comments

Japan has some of the harshest punishments for cannabis use in the world. One might presume this stems from the country’s dedication to hard work and efficiency, but it’s rather the legacy of the US occupation after WW2. In fact, historically the country has been very favourable to growing cannabis, and 160 kilometers north of Tokyo is a dedicated museum to the subject run by Takayasu Junichi.

The Japan Times carries a lengthy interview with the museum head today, in which its use in Shinto is touched upon. It’s a topic that Green Shinto has covered previously in a posting entitled High on Hemp. Hemp and mariujana, incidentally, come from two different types of the cannabis plant. (The following is an extract; for the full Japan Times article, please see here.)

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Cannabis: the fiber of Japan BY JON MITCHELL (Japan Times)

Priestess with a head band made of hemp

“Most Japanese people see cannabis as a subculture of Japan but they’re wrong,” Takayasu says. “Cannabis has been at the very heart of Japanese culture for thousands of years.”

According to Takayasu, the earliest evidence of cannabis in Japan dates back to the Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.), with pottery relics recovered in Fukui Prefecture containing seeds and scraps of woven cannabis fibers. “Cannabis was the most important substance for prehistoric people in Japan,” he says. “They wore clothes made from its fibers and they used it for bow strings and fishing lines.”

It is likely that the variety of cannabis from which these Jomon Period fibers originated was cannabis sativa. Tall-growing and valued for its strong stems, it is from sativa strains that today’s specially bred industrial hemp is derived.

In the following centuries, cannabis continued to play a key role in Japan — particularly in Shintoism, the country’s indigenous religion. Cannabis was revered for its cleansing abilities so priests used to wave bundles of its leaves to bless believers and exorcise evil spirits. This significance survives today with the thick ceremonial ropes woven from cannabis fibers that are displayed at shrines. Shinto priests are also known to decorate their wands with strips of the gold-colored rind of cannabis stalks.

Cannabis was also important in the lives of ordinary people. According to early 20th-century historian George Foot Moore, Japanese travelers historically used to present small offerings of cannabis leaves at roadside shrines to ensure safe journeys. He also noted how, during the summer Bon festival, families burned bundles of cannabis in their doorways to welcome back the spirits of the dead.

At Obon people used to burn bunches of cannabis to call back the dead

Until the mid-20th century, cannabis was cultivated all over Japan, particularly in Tohoku and Hokkaido, and it frequently cropped up in literature. As well as references to cannabis plants in ninja training, they also feature in the “Manyoshu” — Japan’s oldest collection of poems — and the Edo Period (1603-1868) book of woodblock prints, “Wakoku Hyakujo.” In haiku poetry, too, key words describing the stages of cannabis cultivation denoted the season when the poem is set.

“Cannabis farming used to be a year-round cycle,” Takayasu says. “The seeds were planted in spring then harvested in the summer. Following this, the stalks were dried then soaked and turned into fiber. Throughout the winter, these were then woven into cloth and made into clothes ready to wear for the next planting season.”

With cannabis playing such an important material and spiritual role in the lives of Japanese people, one obvious question arises: Did people smoke it?

Takayasu, along with other Japanese cannabis experts, isn’t sure. Although historical records make no mention of the practice, some historians have speculated that cannabis may have been the drug of choice for commoners. Whereas rice — and the sake brewed from it — was monopolized by the upper classes, cannabis was grown widely and was freely available.

Some scientific studies also suggest high levels of psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in cannabis plants in Japan. According to one survey published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 1973, cannabis plants from Tochigi and Hokkaido clocked THC levels of 3.9 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. As a comparison, the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project revealed that average THC levels in marijuana seized by U.S. police in the 1970s were only around 1.5 percent.

Nor are Japanese people averse to taking advantage of the medicinal benefits of cannabis. Long an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, cannabis-based cures were available from Japanese drug stores to treat insomnia and relieve pain in the early 20th century.

However, the 1940s — in particular, World War II — marked a major turning point in the story of Japanese cannabis production.

One of the few licensed farms allowed today in Tochigi, Tohoku (photo by Takaysu Junicihi)

At first, the decade started well for farmers. “During World War II, there was a saying among the military that without cannabis, the war couldn’t be waged,” Takayasu says. “Cannabis was classified as a war material, used by the navy for ropes and the air force for parachute cords. Here in Tochigi Prefecture, for example, half of the cannabis crop was set aside for the military.”

Following the country’s defeat in 1945, however, the U.S. authorities occupying Japan brought with them American attitudes toward cannabis. Washington had effectively outlawed cannabis in the United States in 1937 and now it moved to ban it in Japan. In July 1948, with the nation still under U.S. occupation, it passed the Cannabis Control Act — the law that remains the basis of anti-cannabis policy in Japan today.

There are a number of different theories as to why the U.S. outlawed cannabis in Japan. Some believe it was based upon a genuine desire to protect Japanese people from the evils of narcotics, while others point out that the U.S. allowed the sale of over-the-counter amphetamines to continue until 1951. Several cannabis experts argue that the ban was instigated by U.S. petrochemical interests in a bid to shut down the Japanese cannabis fiber industry, opening the market to man-made materials such as polyester and nylon.

Takayasu locates the cannabis ban within the wider context of U.S. attempts to reduce the power of the Japanese military. “In the same way that U.S. authorities discouraged kendo and judo, the 1948 Cannabis Control Act was a way to undermine militarism in Japan,” he says. “The wartime cannabis industry had been so dominated by the military that the Cannabis Control Act was designed to strip away its power.”

Whatever the motivation, the U.S. decision to prohibit cannabis created panic among Japanese farmers. In an effort to calm their fears, Emperor Hirohito visited Tochigi Prefecture in the months prior to the ban to reassure farmers they would be able to continue to grow in defiance of the new law — a surprisingly subversive statement.

For several years, the Emperor’s reassurances proved true and cannabis cultivation continued unabated. In 1950, for example, there were approximately 25,000 cannabis farms nationwide. In the following decades, however, this number plummeted. Takayasu attributes this to a slump in demand caused by the popularity of artificial fibers and the costs of the new licenses cannabis farmers were required to possess under the 1948 act.

Nowadays, Takayasu said, there are fewer than 60 licensed cannabis farms in Japan — all of which are required to grow strains of cannabis containing minimal levels of THC.

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For a piece on Japan’s 2nd Annual Hemp Festival, see here.