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Okinawa 2: Castle rites

November 30, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Remains of Nakajin gusuku (castle)

Much of the Okinawan World Heritage registration has to do with castles dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Visiting them reveals how important a role the so-called ‘Ryukyu religion’ played, for sacred sites and altars abound. These were clearly a religious people, and as elsewhere in East Asia their religion combined ancestral worship with animism.

Spiritual authority was delegated to females, who were responsible in a literal as well as symbolic way for keeping the home fires burning. Traditionally it was the woman’s job to look after the household gods and ancestral spirits, as well as to pray for the well-being of the family’s males when they were away at sea or at war. During the time of the Ryukyu kingdom, the arrangement was systematised with a hierarchy of female priests to pray for the well-being of the nation and the king.

At Shuri Castle the outer courtyard features a utaki (sacred site) housing a sacred tree, while inside the palace is a space reserved for religious rites. Outside the palace is a gate which was never opened, for behind it stood a grove inhabited by spirits. Before departing, the king would stop and pray before it, while on his return he would give thanks for his safety.

Shuri Castle utaki (sacred site)

Sonohiyaun stone gate, which never opened

Space reserved for rites in Shuri Palace

Other castles too had their sacred sites, and I was lucky enough to catch a brief ceremony at one carried out by a local noro (priestess). It was at Nakijin Castle, a ruined castle in the north of the main island. First the group of four women honoured the Hinukan, fire god or god of the hearth. In terms of the wider community, the Hinukan was responsible for the social well-being. “Worship of the fire god [in Okinawa] is very old and predates worship of ancestral spirits (sorei) at the Buddhist altar, now the center of family ritual,” says the Kokugakuin encyclopedia.

As well as prayers, there were offerings of rice and incense – with one big surprise: the bunch of incense was lit with a blow-torch. Afterwards a similar ceremony was carried out at the ruins of a utaki (sacred site). Casual and done in squatting style, the ceremony reminded me of Korean shamanism, also carried out by females. It’s a reminder of how Okinawa lay at the maritime cross-roads of China, Korea, Japan and southern trade routes in times past. The resulting cultural mix produced the distinctive flowering of the Ryukyu kingdom, which was one of the chief criterion in the island’s World Heritage citation.

Ceremony in the castle ruins at the former utaki (sacred site). Notice the squatting style. The noro (priestess) conducting the ritual is in the centre of the utaki.

Two of the attendants at the Hinukan ceremony. As god of the hearth, the fire god has his own building. From what I could gather, the woman in white was the apprentice noro (priestess).

Sacred site at Nakagusuku castle ruins

Former atlar at the Nakagusuku ruins

Okinawa 1: Dragon king

November 26, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Shuri Castle in Naha City, former seat of the Ryukyu king and guarded by two vertical dragon figures on either sie of the entrance steps, with dragons painted on the pillars and dragon heads on the roof. The palace was restored in 1992; the remains of the original palace are listed as a World Heritage Site.

Okinawa is special. It’s got a subtropical climate, its own distinctive culture, and the longest living people in the world. The hundreds of islands in the archipelago stretch for over 1000 kilometers, as if a bridge to Taiwan.

For long Okinawa was independent of Japan, with its own kingdom, language and religion. In 1609 it was invaded by the Satsuma domain of southern Kyushu and made a tributary state. Then in 1879 it became a formal part of Japan, comprising its southernmost prefecture.

Dragon detail from the interior decor

In WW2 the prefecture suffered terribly in the fighting, and a quarter of the population perished. Until 1972 it was administered by the US, then reverted back to Japan. Still today US bases occupy 18% of the main island.

In the past the country was associated with the dragon, and the king adopted it as his symbol. It was a symbol of sea power, and Shuri Castle is covered in dragon decorations, many of which are in A-Un pairs (one with mouth open, and one with mouth shut, to signify yin-yang polarity). With regard to the dragon connection, Mark Schumacher has this to say on his website about Japanese religions…

In Japanese mythology, the Dragon King’s Palace (Ryūgu) is said to be located at the bottom of the sea, near the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa), and it belongs to Ryūjin, the Japanese name for the dragon king. The palace is also known as the “Evergreen Land.” In his book Japanese Poetry, Professor B. H. Chamberlain says the Japanese word for Dragon Palace (Ryūgū) is likewise the Japanese pronunciation of the southernmost Ryūkū islands. He writes about one ode in the Man’yōshū (Japan’s oldest anthology of verse compiled in the 8th century), which says the orange was first brought to Japan from the “Evergreen Land” lying to the south. The many-storied palace is built from red and white coral, guarded by dragons, and full of treasure.

The castle is the most famous of the nine properties belonging to the World Heritage Site known officially as “Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu”. The Ryukyu kingdom existed from the 15th to 19th centuries, and gusuku is the Okinawan word for castle, of which there are five altogether in the World Heritage registration if one includes Shuri Palace. The other sites consist of a royal garden and mausoleum, as well as a sacred gate and the country’s chief religious centre. For the past week I’ve been visiting the sites and learning something about the religious practices of the past (and present). More of which anon….

Dragon head on the roof of the palace

The curious case of the sacred tree

November 26, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

An Okinawan sacred tree

One of the items in the morning’s news on television concerned the death of a sacred tree in Ehime prefecture in Shikoku. Because it had withered, it was due to be cut down at considerable expense to the shrine. However, mysterious holes were found near the base of the trunk, and upon investigation it was found the openings had been used to inject poison into the tree.

Killing a tree is sacrilege enough, but the intentional poisoning of a sacred tree would seem particularly heinous. Who on earth would do such a thing, unless they held an unusually strong grudge against a shrine or its kami? Well, it seems that criminal proceedings are being focussed in a different direction altogether. They’re centering on people in the timber business.

Because of over-foresting in the past, trees that are broad and strong are in short supply. Sacred trees on the other hand have been protected down the centuries, and they may well have been chosen because of their robustness and distinctiveness. Such trees are now rare and worth a lot of money. They play a vital part in the rebuilding of historical buildings such as temples, a recent example being that of Kofuku-ji in Nara which had to import wood from Africa because nothing suitable was available in Japan.

The tree poisoner evidently knew what they were doing, for the poison used kills the tree without damaging the wood. Moreover, it turns out that there was a similar case recently in Ehime, in which another sacred tree was also found to have been poisoned. Police are now also looking at the death over the past ten years of other sacred trees in Kyushu.

Having just visited Yakushima, I dread to think what the materialist criminals would make of the wonderful and special trees that enrich the environment there. In today’s secular world, one is tempted to ask whether nothing is sacred any more!

Sacred tree at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto, wrapped in plastic to protect it from disease - and poison!

Quiz answers

November 24, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Here are the quiz questions again, followed by the answers:

1) What is the correct way to pass through a torii at the entrance to a shrine?

Before passing through the torii, one should bow towards the shrine in respect to the kami.

2) What should you be careful about when walking down the sando (entrance path to the shrine)?

Not to walk down the middle, as that is where the kami passes.

3) When you wash your hands at the wash-basin, which is the correct order to wash them?

Left hand, right hand, then rinse your mouth by cupping water in your left hand

4) When you throw your money into the offering box, should you throw more according to whether you have a lot of things to ask the kami?

This was a surprise to me, but according to the programme it is not necessary to add any extra money for multiple requests, so a ten-yen coin would suffice for whatever you may want to ask.

5) When putting your hands together to clap, should they be exactly the same height or should one extend beyond the other?

The left hand should slightly extend beyond the right, as in the illustrative poster above by Jinja Honcho…

6) When praying, what should you tell the kami apart from your name and what you want?

You should give your address so that the kami knows which particular person it is, otherwise a different Suzuki Masao might be blessed with your request.

7) Finally, what does a shimenawa rope around a tree indicate?

It indicates the place where a kami may reside, in other words a sacred area.

Quiz

November 23, 2012 / John D. / 3 Comments

I don’t usually watch Japanese tv but I happened to turn it on the other night, and lo and behold there was a quiz about shrine etiquette. A curious coincidence.

The quiz was intended to prepare people for Hatsumode (New Year), and in true Japanese fashion it was all about the correct form. Belief in the kami was never mentioned or considered: it was irrelevant. Nor was the word ‘Shinto’ ever used; the ideology was irrelevant also. It was simply about how to behave correctly when you visit a shrine. Situational ethics, not faith, is the guiding principle.

Here’s the quiz that was put to the studio guests (who didn’t get them all correct, by the way). I’ll post them here for people to mull over and put up the answers in a separate post.

1) What is the correct way to pass through a torii at the entrance to a shrine?

2) What should you be careful about when walking down the sando (entrance path to the shrine)?

3) When you wash your hands at the wash-basin, which is the correct order to wash them?

4) When you throw your money into the offering box, should you throw more according to whether you have a lot of things to ask the kami?

5) When putting your hands together to clap, should they be exactly the same height or should one extend beyond the other?

6) When praying, what should you tell the kami apart from your name and what you want?

7) Finally, what does a shimenawa rope around a tree indicate?

Yakushima

November 22, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Yakusugi (cedars) are over 1000 years old

Yakushima is an island 60 kilometers south of Kyushu, most of which is registered as a World Heritage Site on account of its primeval forest featuring giant cedars, known as Yakusugi. These magnificent giants are literally thousands of years old; the acknowledged star – the Jomon sugi – is thought to be roughly 7000 years old.

With its mountains and flourishing greenery, Yakushima is just the kind of place you’d imagine to be prime Shinto territory. Nowhere else is the gift of fresh flowing water so readily apparent, for it’s said to rain here 35 days a month. Water cascades down the unusually steep mountainsides with an energising life force.

Gnarled, twisted, magnificent

As in Niigata and Nagano, I’d expected to find shrines round every corner, celebrating each copse and sacred rock. Yet on a bus ride round most of the island, all I could see were three or four humdrum shrines. Even Yaku Jinja, the island’s premier shrine, has a desolate air with no one in attendance.

Puzzled, I asked someone at the Environmental Culture Village Center about the apparent lack of interest, and they gave me to understand that the island had for long been dominated by Buddhism. When it came to Meiji times and the promotion of Shinto by the state, the authorities were hard pressed to enforce the new religion.

Interwoven with the island’s Buddhism was an age-old folklore. Like other mountain-islands, the mist-covered peaks must have been viewed as a sacred abode of the kami, and pilgrimages are still made twice a year to give homage to the deity of the island’s highest mountain, Miyanoura. Ebisu, guardian of fishermen, played a vital role in the life of the coast-hugging villages.

Ebisu, guardian of fishermen

Yakushima’s ancient cedars, gnarled, twisted and magnificent, are awe-inspiring monsters which have a brooding sense of presence, and the idea of them being spirits was brilliantly visualised in Miyazaki’s animated film Princess Mononoke. Host to numerous parasites, they often support different types of tree which spring improbably out of their sides or from their very top,

That Buddhism should have flourished on an island of such striking natural phenomena should come as no surprise, for in its way it’s as much a nature religion as Shinto. Curiously enough, I was reminded of this during my journey to Yakushima by reading Journey in Ladakh, by Andrew Harvey. The book is as much an exploration of Tibetan Buddhism as of a geographical space, and the writing is superb.

Some of the most enthralling passages have to do with becoming one with nature – and with one’s buddha-nature. Harvey manages to wax poetic about the spiritual beauty of Ladakh’s bare mountains; I couldn’t help wonder what the author would have done with the breath-taking contortions of Yakushima’s phantasmogoria!

Yakushima's forests throw up intriguing shapes and anomalies

Yaku Jinja, the island's premier shrine, with no one in attendance and the shrine office shut

Fortune slips at Yaku Jinja tied between two trees - how they were done originally?

Senpiro waterfall, in the south of the island. Water seems to flow everywhere in Yakushima, fostering the luxuriant vegetation

The hiking on Yakushima can be pretty tough, but the Yaku monkeys seem to take it in their stride

Itsukushima

November 16, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Otorii at low tide, taken from just a few meters away with the shallow water reflecting its giant vermilion pillars. (All photos by John Dougill)

Itsukushima Jinja is Japan’s premier World Heritage shrine. Inscribed by Unesco in 1996, it was cited for ‘setting traditional architecture of great artistic and technical merit against a dramatic natural background and thereby creating a work of art of incomparable physical beauty’.

The Shinto shrine’s villa-style corridor, with the tide out and Buddhist pagoda behind

According to shrine tradition it was founded in 583, though there’s no evidence for its existence until the early ninth century. But as far as the present layout is concerned, it dates back to 1168 when the samurai leader Taira no Kiyomori invested in a prestigious complex styled after the aristocratic villas of Kyoto. The reason? Well, guidebooks suggest that Kiyomori ascribed his military victories to the kami of Itsukushima, but Joseph Cali in Shinto Shrines goes a bit further…

It’s said that after Taira no Kiyomori was placed in charge of Aki Province (part of present-day Hiroshima), he often visited the existing shrine and he had a dream of an old monk who told him that if he established a shrine here himself, he would achieve control of the country. He ordered buildings to be constructed and Itsukushima was considered the family shrine of the Taira from around that time.

Kiyomori also donated thirty-three scrolls of Buddhist sutra to the shrine, some of which can be seen in the shrine’s treasury. The huge complex was a typical Buddhist-Shinto mélange run by Buddhist priests, which the Meiji ideologues of the late nineteenth century found difficult to separate. Though they destroyed some structures and moved others, the World Heritage citation is not limited to the Shinto shrine but includes neighbouring Buddhist features such as a five-storey and a two-storey pagoda.

There are plenty of websites with good information about Itsukushima, including this Unesco one which explains the reasons for the World Heritage status. Meanwhile, here are some other key points:

* Miyajima – the island on which Itsukushima stands – was a divine island in ancient times, with a sacred mountain (Mt Misen) and lush forest suggestive of the abode of the kami. Still today Mt Misen primeval forest covers 14% of the island, and taboos exist about birth and burials on the island.

* The shrine is brilliantly located so as to appear on land at low tide while floating on the sea at high tide. It really needs to be visited twice, because it’s tantamount to two different shrines, or one shrine in two guises.

* The great torii set in the sea is 16 meters high, weighs about 60 tons, and its two big pillars were made of camphor trees between 500 and 600 hundred years old. It was intended as the entranceway for pilgrims coming by boat. The vermilion, taken from China, not only protects the wood but was thought to drive away evil.

* There are three theories I’ve come across as to why the shrine was built on the sea. One is an attempt to recreate the mythical Dragon Palace, because the enshrined kami (the three Munakata sisters) are goddesses of the sea. Another theory has to with the Buddhist paradise, which is separated by a stretch of water from this world (Kiyomori’s design was done at a time when there was a fashion for Pure Land recreations, such as Byodo-in). Yet a third idea is that it was taboo for anyone to set foot on the divine island of Miyajima so as not to pollute it, so the shrine was set on the sea to act as a liminal space between the profane and the sacred.

* The shrine’s location in the sea created some unique problems for the designers, and some unique solutions, such as gaps in the corridor floor so as to relieve the pressure from the rising water beneath.

* The shrine has the only Noh stage in the world to stand in the sea. Noh stages usually have a pot for acoustic effect below the stage, but here the floorboards have to carry the acoustic resonance themselves.

* The deer make the ones at Nara look positively wild. I’ve never seen deer so domesticated, almost as if they’re begging to be petted.

Shinto shrine with Buddhist pagoda behind

The shrine at low tide

The shrine at full tide presents a quite different picture

The full tide seems as if it’s about to flood the shrine; brinkmanship architecture at its best.

The shrine packed for a celebration of tea by the Urasenke school, and the audience look as if they are afloat as they await eagerly the offering of sacramental tea to the kami.

Imperial Messengers Bridge, untrod by any but the emperor’s special envoys

A miko arranges the fortune slips, aesthetically displayed as if in a window onto a different world. Look carefully and you can tell that the tide is out.

The deer at Miyajima are so civilised that they even queue up at shops. It’s said they live a salaryman lifestyle, retreating to the woods at night and commuting by day to eke out a liviing from the tourists.