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Yasui Konpira festival

October 15, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Part of the parade at the Yasui Konpira festival, a Heian-era style covering for aristocratic women

Glorious autumn sunshine, Kyoto, and the season for Shinto festivals – what could be finer. Amongst the festivals this weekend was the Taisai (Big Festival) of Yasui Konpira-gu. This is when the kami spirit is transferred temporarily into a mikoshi (portable palanquin) which is paraded around the parish in an annual rite of renewal and solidarity.

Putting your head in the lion's mouth brings good luck they say

The shrine is set in the heart of the geisha area of Gion. Next to it is a Love Hotel, and it’s close to the Zen temple of Kennin-ji. It’s a quintessential Japanese setting.

The shrine is famous for promoting enkiri enmusubi – the breaking of bad relationships and the making of good ones. This has to do with a rock through which one is supposed to crawl. One direction is to ensure the breaking of a bad relationship, the reverse brings good luck in forging a new one. Before doing so, you should fill in an ofuda piece of paper stating your aim, then stick it on the rock. While crawling through, you keep your mind on your intended goal.

While the mikoshi parade was setting up, there was a huge long queue of people waiting to make or break a relationship, mainly young girls. There were also plenty of startling ema (votive plaques) on show. The wife of a philandering husband not only publicly named the woman he’d had an affair with, but added the address and phone numbers of the mistress and the hope that she’d die soon!

Yasui Konpira-gu is also famous for its ema museum, which was closed during the festival, though on display are a number of ema by famous visitors to the shrine together with some representative examples from the past.

The parade itself was a lively affair, with kagura court music and shishi lion dance. The eye-catching Heian costumes lend colour and elegance to the affair, and given the warmth of the autumn sunshine everyone was in high spirits. October is traditionally a time of harvest and well-being in Japan. What better time to celebrate?!

One of the shrine ema has to do with the legendary origins of the shrine when a kami descended into a gohei, though I'm sure there's more to the story than that... something to explore on a future visit, methinks.

Participants dressed Heian style waiting to take their part in the parade

Some of the gorgeous festival ornaments stand ready to take part in the parade

Meanwhile, the enkiri enmusubi rock was doing good business. Notice all the ofuda papers covering the rock, bearing the wishes and hopes of hundreds of visitors

The musicians wait for the parade to start. It looked like a gagaku band to me, but the shrine describes them as kagura.

And off goes the parade, with a sakaki branch tucked at the back of the costume, an unusual touch

One of the parade elements was a bird atop a pole, suggestive of a shamanic bird of flight. I presumed it was a phoenix, but the person holding it told me it was raichou (Japanese ptarmigan) which according to legend is a bird of protection.

Pagan pasts 2) Yayoi Japan

October 12, 2013 / John D. / 2 Comments

Model of how Yayoi ceremonies may have looked

Miko priestess conducting a Yayoi-era rite

Human settlement in Yayoi Japan (300 BC – 250 AD) was characterised by small groupings in river basins, surrounded by mountains and largely dependent on waterways both for rice cultivation and as a means of transport. In From Shinto to Ando (1993), Gunter Nitschke describes early belief as centering around the mountain-water-rice relationship, so vital to the survival of the small communities.

The need to guard against failure of the rice crop led not only to propitiation of localised kami, but to obeisance to the mighty kami responsible for the many disasters to which Japan was prone – earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons and tsunami. (The country lies on the interface of three major plates, as a result of which it has 10% of the world’s active volcanoes and is one of the most earthquake-prone countries on earth.)

A sakaki branch on a pile of earth, mimicking early hilltop worship of a sacred tree, acts as a yorishiro vessel into which to draw down the kami

Worship of kami took place outdoors in temporary sacred areas called himorogi, whereby a rope with shide (paper strips) was stretched between bamboo branches marking the corners of a square. (The himorogi are still used in ceremonies such as the jichinsai ground-breaking ceremony). Kami were nameless, formless and invisible, as if pure energy.

There are no written records to show what festivals or ceremonies were like, though it’s supposed that rites centred around the movement in spring of a mountain kami (yama no kami) down to the valley basins to preside over new growth, where it became known as the ricefield kami (ta no kami). In autumn, following the harvest, the kami would return to the mountains.

To foster the growth of their crops, the communities therefore developed two important rites, one in spring and one in autumn, as Nitschke notes: ‘The main festivals are related to kami-oroshi, “calling down (welcoming) the deity” to the field and kami-age “sending up (seeing off) the deity” to the mountain.’

Experts in archaeology have been able to piece together the probable development of kami worship thereafter, and an account is given in the authoritative Kokugakuin University Encyclopedia of Shinto. At some point during the Yayoi era, the kami came to be regarded as inhabiting natural phenomena such as trees, rocks, waterfalls and mountains. These were conceptualised as the ‘spirit-body’ of the kami (goshintai) and worshipped as sacred objects. The ancient Omiwa Jinja is a famous example of a shrine which still carries out direct worship of ‘a spirit-body mountain’ (kannabi).

In time the animist spirits were conflated with ancestral clan deities, which were tutelary gods of particular tribal groups. Attachment to the land thus went hand in hand with ties of blood: ‘there was no sharp distinction between a deity of nature and a spirit of the dead,’ writes religious scholar Masaharu Anesaki. Ancestors thus merged into the landscape they inhabited.

Omiwa Jinja, which to this day has no Honden (Sanctuary) but worships directly the sacred body of the mountain

Yasukuni – not

October 12, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

An article in yesterday’s Japan News speculates that prime minister Abe is unlikely to visit Yasukuni Shrine this autumn for fear of the political repercussions. The piece originated in the conservative-orientated Yomiuri Shimbun and is interesting for highlighting a number of issues connected with Yasukuni.

One point that is not widely known is that the summer anniversary of the end of WW2 is not the only time that public visits to Yasukuni take place – there are occasions in the spring and autumn that are of significance too.

Another point emphasised in the article is the degree to which the shrine has become a political issue, as opposed to the purely spiritual issue that those on the right maintain it is. A third point is the role of the US in clearly wanting to defuse the Yasukuni issue, and in this respect it’s worth noting the recent visit of Secretary of State John Kerry to Chidorigafuchi, promoting it as a neutral alternative to the Yasukuni Shrine whose war-glorifying museum and enshrinement of Class A war criminals make it, in the words of scholar John Breen, ‘symbolic space’.

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As prime minister, Shinzo Abe is nervous about making a repeat (private?) visit to Yasukuni. Photo: Xinhua

Abe may skip Yasukuni visit to aid diplomacy
October 11, 2013 The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is increasingly inclined to forgo visiting and worshiping at Yasukuni Shrine during an upcoming annual autumn festival to be held there, government sources said.

Abe’s tentative decision apparently reflects his desire to pave the way for improving relations with China and South Korea, as well as to address U.S. concerns about tensions between Tokyo and Beijing. The U.S. administration fears the current situation could be further exacerbated if Abe visits the shrine, according to the sources.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe, a self-confessed nationalist (Wikicommons image)

What remains unchanged is Abe’s admitted desire to worship at Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines the nation’s war dead, including World War II leaders convicted as class-A war criminals at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo Trials.

However, the prime minister may not want to rock the boat as circumstances have become increasingly conducive to the possibility of holding official talks with top Chinese and South Korean leaders.

Yasukuni Shrine’s four-day autumn festival will begin Thursday. Instead of visiting the shrine, Abe is considering having someone take masakaki-ryo, a cash offering, for him to its altar using money out of his own pocket, according to the sources.

Abe’s planned move will be comparable to his action taken at the shrine’s annual spring festival in April.

“Even making a cash offering may prompt China and South Korea to complain, but [what Abe chooses to do at the autumn festival] will never be less than what he did at the spring festival,” a close aide to Abe said.

Abe believes visiting Yasukuni Shrine at its annual spring and autumn festivals is more important than going to the facility on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of World War II. Over the years, the war dead, including those who died in World War II, have been commemorated at the facility during such events as figures who sacrificed themselves for their country.

In fact, the prime minister has told his aides and others close to him that “the spring and autumn festivals are the best occasions to visit the shrine as the top leader of the country.” However, Abe will likely give up worshiping there during the upcoming festival, hoping to forgo translating his political beliefs into action. The decision is apparently aimed at not antagonizing China and South Korea further at a time when bilateral relations are seriously strained.

Most visits to the shrine by successive prime ministers have taken place on three major occasions—the spring festival in April, the war-end anniversary on Aug. 15 and the autumn festival in October.

If Abe does not visit during the upcoming autumn festival, according to many observers, he is unlikely to make a single trip to the shrine this year.

The Japan-U.S. relationship has been a significant factor behind the prime minister’s decision on whether to visit the shrine. The U.S. administration has conveyed its concerns to the Japanese government through several unofficial channels.

As circumstances currently stand, the United States must focus its diplomatic resources on dealing with such pressing issues as Syria and Egypt. Given this, Washington does not want to see Japan-China relations deteriorate over a Yasukuni visit by Abe, as it will inevitably affect U.S. foreign policy.

Abe’s second Cabinet was inaugurated in late December. Postponed summit meetings with China and South Korea have been partly attributed to his possible decision to visit the shrine at its upcoming autumn festival.

Abe believes it is possible to use his decision on whether to visit Yasukuni as a diplomatic bargaining chip. If he decides not to visit, Abe hopes, it may significantly improve relations with China and South Korea.

One of the extreme nationalist groups – Gambare Nippon – that celebrate the war dead at Yasukuni (photo Reuters)

“[The government] has taken a step-by-step approach in dealing with China and South Korea, and this process is being expedited, creating an environment conducive to summit meetings [with these countries],” a government source said.

Abe shook hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the venue for a recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Indonesia. Conversation between the prime minister and South Korean President Park Geun Hye took place during a dinner at the venue for the APEC summit meeting, which closed Tuesday. “I often enjoy Korean cuisine,” Abe told the president, a move that apparently served to close the distance between them.

It should be noted, however, that the forthcoming Yasukuni autumn festival will not be the final opportunity for Abe to worship there, as he seems to be increasingly confident that his administration will be able to continue for an extended period. “There are many more chances left [for Abe to visit the shrine],” a close aide to the prime minister said.

One of Abe’s advisers regards the prime minister’s decision on whether to visit the shrine as a tool in dealing with China. “Once a Japan-China summit meeting takes place, it will enable the prime minister to use the Yasukuni visit issue as a diplomatic bargaining chip. All he has to do is to hint at visiting and worshiping at the shrine,” he said.

Yasukuni – a Meiji-era invented tradition to honour the souls of those who died for the emperor in an emperor-centred state

ISF seminar

October 12, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

On October 26 the International Shinto Foundation is running a seminar and discussion to mark the completion of the shikinen sengu (fixed term renewal) of Ise (20 year cycle) and Izumo (60 year cycle). The event which will take place in Tokyo is being held in Japanese. The topics concern the spiritual authority of Ise and Izumo in the past, and amongst the presenters are some well-known Western commentators on Shinto, including John Breen, Michael Pye and Fabio Ravelli.

Place: Seisaku Kenkyu Daigakuin Daigaku in Minato-ku, Tokyo

Time: 13.30-17.00

For further details from ISF, contact: info@shinto.org (Eng lang homepage: http://www.shinto.org/worden/)

Places limited to 250 people.

For a full-size copy of the poster for the event, click here.

Pagan pasts 1) Japan and Britain

October 11, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

Britain and Japan lie on opposite sides of the world, yet the similarities between them have been often noted. They are both island nations close to a continental mainland, from which they derived their cultural trappings. Both have maintained an aloofness from the continent, and a sense of separateness has gone along with a sense of specialness.

Both countries boast temperate climates, which has fostered a bond with nature, and in both cases the people are associated with phlegmatic reserve and polite distancing. Both have an imperial past, both retain a monarch, and both are noted for their love of ritual and hierarchy. Perhaps because of the insularity, the two countries developed distinctive cultures, marked by a love of tea ritual and garden design. Britain boasted the gentleman; Japan fostered the samurai and the geisha.

The commonalities struck nineteenth-century commentators, such as W.E. Griffis who noted too similarities in terms of recorded history:

In Albion, as in Japan, there are traditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back of genuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in the fifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there are other reasons besides those commonly given for calling Japan ‘the England of the East’.^{^[1]}

Dwellers in the Glastonbury lake village in a pre-Christian era

In religious terms too the countries have much in common, though this has been overlooked by commentators keen to emphasise the obvious differences. It is striking, for example, that both countries adopted axial religions from the continent at around the same time. Buddhism came to Japan in 538 (or 552 – the date is disputed) as a gift from a king of Paekche, anxious to win support of the Yamato court against possible invasion. Christianity came to England in 597 in the person of Augustine of Canterbury, whose conversion of King Aethelbert of Kent established a close alliance with the ruling class. (Christianity had in fact been introduced earlier under the Romans, but when the country was overrun by polytheistic Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century, the Roman religion was marginalised to the Celtic fringes.)

Because of the lack of documentation, much of the religious practice carried out in ancient times before the arrival of Buddhism and Christianity has had to be surmised from archaeological remains. As elsewhere in the world, it’s supposed that beliefs formed around animist and ancestral spirits, accessed by shamans. Certainly something along these lines appears to have happened in Japan, with scholars disputing which came first: ancestral or animist spirits. For Lafcadio Hearn in Japan: An Interpretation (1904) there was little doubt, and his book argues that Japanese culture as a whole is best understood in the light of an underlying ancestor worship. Even after a hundred years the book remains in print and remains persuasive.

Yayoi housing settlement

It’s generally supposed that modern Shinto has its roots in the Yayoi Period (300BC-250AD), when immigrant waves brought with them advanced wet-rice agricultural methods. How far this marked a break from previous practice is a matter of dispute, and in The Masks of God (1959) Joseph Campbell claims that the ancient hunter-gatherer beliefs of the Jomon Period were absorbed rather than rejected by the incomers. ‘Culturally the blend from these [Jomon rites] to the more primitive aspects of Japanese Shinto is very smooth,’ he asserts. The next passage is instructive, since it makes a connection between the wave of immigrants into Japan in early Yayoi times with the Celtic wave of immigration into Britain around 250 BC.

The source of both peoples was Northeast and North-Central Asia – a zone from which numerous entries into North America were also launched. And since continuous contributions from the same North Asiatic circumpolar sphere likewise flowed into Northern Europe, astonishing affinities turn up throughout the native lore of Japan, touching fields of myth as widely separated as Ireland, Kamchatka, and the Canadian Northeast.

Recreation of a Yayoi altar

Joseph Campbell’s thesis has not won many supporters in modern times, and there is a tendency among scholars nowadays to suppose that nothing identifiable as ‘Shinto’ can be found before the arrival of Buddhism, which made Japanese think for the first time about their own practices. The first usage of the term comes in the Nihon shoki (720), though the meaning has been disputed by Mark Teeuwen who claims the kanji were pronounced jindo and referred to a branch of Buddhism (Kuroda Toshio thinks it was rather a reference to a Japanese form of Daoism, taken from the Chinese shendao).

Nonetheless, whatever might have been meant by the word ‘Shinto’, it is clear that in ancient times there was a variety of localised practice based on fertility rites, shamanism, agricultural rites and the worship of kami. Moreover, what we today consider by the term Shinto had its roots in the cultivation of wet-rice farming, which was introduced from the mainland in Yayoi times (300 BC-250 AD).

This new style of agriculture was accompanied by continental beliefs and customs based around the seasonal cycle, as well as cultural innovations such as advanced weaving, metalworking and pottery techniques. These were brought in by successive waves of immigrants who changed the racial composition of the country. ‘DNA tests have confirmed the likelihood of this hypothesis. About 54% of paternal lineages and 66% of the maternal lineages have been identified as being of Sino-Korean origin,’ says a website on Japanese Culture, History and Religion.

Model of an ancient Korean shaman – did Korean immigrants long ago bring their religion with them into Japan?

Chidorigafuchi, peace cemetery

October 4, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

People pay respects at Chidorigafuchi cemetery (courtesy Getty Images)

Lost among the news of the transfer of Amaterasu to her newly built shrine at Ise was an item by Associated Press of the visit of two prominent American government representatives to Chidorigafuchi. The cemetery offers a more neutral and less contentious space than the politically charged Yasukuni Shrine, and the American initiative shows how easy it would be to reach a compromise on the issue. Sadly however it appears that far from compromising, the Abe-led Japanese government is set on military expansionism. Plans are afoot to ditch the anti-war clause in the constitution, and anyone opposed to this can find a petition to sign at https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_our_peace_constitution_a/?djgzuab

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Kerry and Hagel lay wreaths in memory of Japanese dead in WW2 (AP photo)

Kerry, Hagel lay wreath at Japan’s national cemetery
Japan Today OCT. 03, 2013 AP

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday became the most senior foreign dignitaries to pay their respects at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery near Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, since the Argentinian president in 1979. A cemetery official told AFP the visit had been instigated by the U.S. and had not come about as a result of a Japanese invitation.

U.S. defense officials said the cemetery was Japan’s “closest equivalent” to Arlington National Cemetery. That view contradicts hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has likened Yasukuni shrine, where 14 “Class A” war criminals are among the 2.5 million enshrined, to the U.S. national cemetery in Virginia.

During a visit to the U.S. in May, he told Foreign Affairs magazine that the shrine, seen throughout East Asia as a symbol of Japan’s militarism, was a tribute to those “who lost their lives in the service of their country.” “I think it’s quite natural for a Japanese leader to offer prayer for those who sacrificed their lives for their country, and I think this is no different from what other world leaders do,” he said.

Abe, who was also prime minister from 2006 to 2007, has stayed away from the shrine after China and South Korea angrily denounced predecessor Junichiro Koizumi’s annual pilgrimage. But a growing number of his ministers have visited it. Unlike Arlington, Yasukuni’s caretakers promote a view of history that is controversial even at home, with the accompanying Yushukan museum staunchly defending much of Japan’s wartime record.

Respect for the true equivalent of Arlington: a not so subtle message from US government representatives (AP)

A U.S. official told media Kerry and Hagel were paying tribute at Chidorigafuchi in the same way that “Japanese defense ministers regularly lay wreaths at Arlington”. “This memorial is the closest equivalent. It honors Japanese soldiers, civilians, and support personnel killed on WWII battlefields but whose remains were never recovered by their families. It is a gesture of reconciliation and respect.”

Seki Tomoda, an expert on international politics and diplomacy, said the wreath-laying could be Washington’s attempt to nudge East Asia over the hump caused by the Yasukuni issue, by conferring legitimacy and respectability on Chidorigafuchi. “What’s worrying America most is the fierce row among Japan, South Korea and China over the Yasukuni issue,” he told AFP. “Visiting a more neutral place may be a message from Americans… that they want the three countries to ease their confrontation. Yasukuni, unlike Arlington, is a religious facility… I think it’s impossible that Hagel or any other American leader would visit Yasukuni. Chidorigafuchi was an option (for the U.S.) in order to send a message.”

Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery was built 1959 to house the remains of unidentified Japanese who died overseas during World War II. The Tokyo memorial, maintained by the environment ministry, honors 358,260 dead, mainly soldiers, whose remains have been returned to Japan, but also some civilians who died overseas. The prime minister customarily lays a wreath at the cemetery ahead of the formal Japanese service of remembrance held at a large hall in Tokyo.

Ise Renewal Completed

October 3, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

Ise has featured prominently in news programmes today, following the ceremony last night when the holiest 'spirit-body' in the land was transferred to its newly-built shrine. The shrine was closed off during the ceremonial transfer of Amaterasu's bronze mirror spirit-body, and the people in front of the torii are camping out all night so as to be first in when the shrine opens at 5 in the morning.

The climax of the 20 year cycle at Ise took place last night at 8 in the evening, and the event has been featured widely on the television news. The programme I watched had views of the torchlight moving of the ‘goshintai’ (spirit-body) of Amaterasu behind protective sheets, together with assertions of how special the occasion was, how important it was to keep up traditions, and how increasingly difficult it is to find the raw materials and skills necessary for the renewal.

Amongst those in attendance was the younger son of the emperor and the present prime minister. The rites are overseen by a princess priestess, daughter of the emperor, representing the old office of Saigu (for more about the post, click here.) Much was made of how the Ise renewal (shikinen sengu) represented a different view of life from the European church tradition, where belief is set in stone once and forever. Mention was made too of how this year coincides with the Izumo renewal programme, and that therefore it signifies a time of big change.

The renewal programme is an astonishing affair, which comprises much more than simply removing the kami’s spirit-body to a new shrine. (For a previous posting on the subject, click here.)

Completed in eight years, the renewal process requires 14,000 pieces of timber, 25,000 sheaves of miscanthus reeds, and 122,000 shrine carpenters; this massive project reconstructs over sixty structures, including the Main Sanctuaries of the Inner and Outer Shrines, treasure houses, offering halls), sacred fences, torii gateways, the buildings of fourteen “auxiliary sanctuaries”. All offerings of vestments and sacred treasures presented by the imperial family are also replaced.

The first example of the replacement of imperial offerings dates back to 849 but the shrine’s current list totals 714 categories consisting of 1,576 articles (189 categories comprising 491 sacred treasures and 125 categories comprising 1,085 vestments). This diverse range of objects can be divided as follows. Vestments include room fittings, “kami seats” and rugs, furnishings, and ritual artifacts for the “transfer of the deity” (Sengyo) ceremony.