I recently heard a talk by Peter Watson, author of a book entitled The Great Divide about the way the New World of the Americas was divided from the Old World of Europe and Asia for some 16,500 years. It was the first time in history for a substantial population to be cut off in this way, which makes it interesting to study the cultural differences that evolved. Here’s the timeline…

c.180,000 BC – Early humans develop in Africa
c.125,000-80,000 BC – Migration out of Africa
c. 20,000-16,000 BC – Movement into Siberia
c. 16,000 BC – Movement over the land bridge (now Bering Strait) into America
c.15,000 BC – Ending of the Ice Age with sea levels rising a massive 400 feet. Bering Strait fills with water.

Courtesy of Vera Alexander

As a result of this, the New World became cut off from the Old Asian one. Despite this, the New World immigrants are linked genetically to East Asians through features such as the Mongol spot, and culturally through language similarities and shared myths.

Izumo’s land-pulling myth

One of the results of the ending of the Ice Age was the impression it left in the myths of peoples living close to the sea. On both sides of the Pacific there are so-called ‘Land Rising Myths’ in which the land arises mysteriously out of the sea. A typical example is of the land being torn off from somewhere and dropped by birds. Such stories are found on the Pacific rim, but nowhere else according to Peter Watson. In this respect I couldn’t help thinking that the Izumo ‘land-pulling myths’ might belong to the same group.

In the land-pulling myth (or kunihiku), one of the local deities at Izumo thinks the land is too narrow and pulls over land from four places that he can see across the Japan Sea, including the Korean peninsula. These bits of land are then attached to the Izumo region (now Shimane Prefecture), thus expanding the territory and pushing back the sea.

Part of the Izumo coast

The traditional explanation of the myth is that the bits of land pulled over are connected through immigration with the Izumo region. Thus the land is symbolic of the people crossing over in Yayoi times. However, I can’t help wondering if there is not a folk memory too of the land appearing out of the sea in the distant past. Could the miraculous appearance of new land after the Ice Age underlie the Yayoi myth?

Religious developments
Another aspect on which Peter Watson dwelled was the difference between New World and Old World religious development. Here he was mainly contrasting the ‘supplicatory’ religions of Europe, based on a secure agricultural cycle, with the ‘propitiatory’ religions of S. America where natural disasters were common and life was more fragile. In a land of earthquakes, tornadoes, famines, El Nino etc, he suggested, the notion of offering sacrifices to appease the gods was more likely to arise.

In this sense it would seem Japan belongs more to the New World than the Old, because of the link of Shinto with the precariousness of life in a country prone to natural disaster. However, given the links of Japan with East Asian religion in general, I wonder if Peter Watson’s theory stands up.

He also suggested that there might be a link between the pastoral nomadic culture of the Old World and the development of monotheism. This was largely through the dynamic instability caused by horse culture, which provides movement and competition between neighbouring tribes. Through conflict came the impetus to innovation, leading to the bronze age, iron age and eventually, he suggested monotheism. And the idea of an abstract God had developed who was knowable through his works led to scientific exploration and greater curiosity about the world. The result was that by 1492 it was the Old World which discovered the New, and not vice versa.

It’s a theory that makes one think of Japan, with its pattern of rice-growing communities nestled in the country’s many small river basins. Japan’s “civilisation” was very slow to develop by comparison with the mainland, and the country lagged behind China by some thousand years.  Could it be linked with the lack of dynamism that came with the horse-riding cultures of the great plains, one wonders? Did rice-growing communities foster the kind of status quo stability that enabled feudalism to last right up to 1868?

Food for thought…

Orderly but static harmony?

Today’s Japan Today carries a lead picture of a memorial service held in the nuclear exclusion zone in Tohoku.  (photo courtesy of AP)

Shinto priests hold a memorial ceremony in the abandoned town of Namie inside the 20-km nuclear exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on Sunday. A group of former residents returned to the area for the day to hold the ceremony at the site of the ancient Kusano shrine that was destroyed by the March 11, 2011 tsunami.

The origin of Shinto is a hot topic, because it determines how one views the religion.  Is it a uniquely Japanese affair which has continued since ancient times, or is it an invented tradition which has been constructed to serve the ends of the ruling class?

When did Shinto begin?  Here are seven possible answers.  Take your pick…

Jomon man (Kokugakuin University Museum)

1) Jomon Period.  (c.10,000 BC – 300 BC)

Some commentators see links between the spirituality of ancient Jomon people and Shinto animism. Clay figurines of pregnant women may have been used in fertility rites. An archaeologist at my university, who specialises in Jomon religion, believes there was a form of ancestor worship (based on their family burials).

This viewpoint is particular popular with traditionalists, who see Shinto as an indigenous faith which has existed in Japan since time immemorial.  ‘Shinto is the traditional faith of Japan, with a history extending from remote antiquity to the present,’ writes Umeda Yoshimi, director general of the International Shinto Foundation.  State Shinto maintained mythical Emperor Jinmu founded Japan in this age in 660 B.C.

2) Yayoi Period. (c.300 BC – 250 AD)

This may be the standard view, since it’s said that Shinto is based around wet-rice cultivation which was introduced to Japan in this age.  Rice, rice-rope and rice wine remain essential components of ceremonies, and many of the most important rites and festivals celebrate the planting or harvesting of rice.  The notion of kami moving down from the mountains in spring to return in autumn is also associated with this period.

The influx of influences from the continent, together with differences in body type, has led to debate about the extent to which the newcomers affected native ways and the genetic stock.

3) Fourth or fifth century.

Archaeological evidence at sites like Omiwa, Izumo and Okinoshima suggest that offerings and rituals date back to around this time.  It was most likely a time of clan kami, rock worship and temporary shrines in clearings.  The shamenness Himiko lived in the mid-third century, and not long afterwards the Omiwa court flourished with worship at its sacred mountain.  It was the nucleus of the emerging Yamato kingdom, whose religious practice was to shape what is now known as Shinto.

4) Sixth century

The arrival of Buddhism in 537 brought awareness for the first time of a native tradition.  Up to this time there had been a range of diverse practices, including shamanism, fertility rites, kami worship, nature deities, exorcism etc. There was no sense of commonality.  However, the arrival of foreign deities threatened traditional practices and native deities, which were championed by the Mononobe and Nakatomi clans.  The powerful Soga clan on the other hand proclaimed Buddhism, and the two sides clashed at the battle of Shigisen in 587.  The victory of the Soga led in 604 to Prince Shotoku’s 17 Article Constitution, which cemented the country as Buddhist though the emphasis on harmony made it plain that kami too should be respected.

Kojiki's publication in 712 wove a coherent narrative of divine origins out of divergent myths

5) With the Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720).

The first recorded use of the word ‘Shinto’ comes in the Nihon shoki, where it is used to differentiate the native traditions from Buddhism.  It followed a coup in 672 by Emperor Tenmu, who usurped his nephew and then sought to legitimise his power by investing the ruler with spiritual authority.  Mythologisers were ordered to compile histories which would show the emperor’s divine lineage, together with that of the clan leaders who supported him. It led too to an official hierarchy of shrines organised under imperial patronage.  It was around this time that comes the first usage of the title ‘tenno’ (emperor).  The centralisation suggests the beginning of an organised religion, though it’s argued that this only affected the small court circle and did not affect the population at large.

6) Medieval times.

In recent years the notion has been gaining ground that a self-conscious ideology called Shinto only emerged in medieval times.  The view has been championed by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen in their book A New History of Shinto, in which Yoshida Kanetomo (1435-1511) is credited with being the first to articulate a theory that could be in any meaningful sense be called Shinto.  It was in this age too that other theoretical forms of Shinto emerged, such as Watarai Shinto.  The argument here is that previous to this there was no consciousness of identifying with something called Shinto.

7) Meiji times.

The scholar Kuroda Toshio argued forcefully that Shinto as we know it today was a Meiji-era invention, and that previous to that no independent religion but rather a Japanese form of Taoism (in ancient times) and a form of esoteric Buddhism (after the Heian age).  Such was the case during the Edo period, when most kami worship was carried out by Buddhist priests.  With the Imperial Restoration of 1868 politicians decided the country needed a state religion in the manner of Western countries, which were bolstered ideologically by Christianity.  The government decided therefore to separate Shinto from Buddhism, despite more than a thousand years of integration.  Shrine-temple complexes were divided, Buddhist items removed from shrines, and priests forced to choose to be either Shinto or Buddhist.  Syncretic practices like shugendo (mountain asceticism) were banned altogether. The emperor was championed as supreme spiritual authority, and the imperial link with Ise was cemented by Emperor Meiji making the first visit since the time of Empress Jito in 692.