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Shimogamo New Year

January 10, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Kamo kami

New Year arrow for good luck in the year of the dragon

Living next to a World Heritage site has its advantages, one of which is being able to pop across the road to make the first shrine visit of the new year. I did it rather late this year, on Jan 7, but there were still crowds of people and in front of the main shrine more than 100 in a long queue to pay their respects to the kami: legendary Kamo clan leader, Kamo no Taketsunomi, and his daughter, princess Tamayori. And thereby hangs a tale…

It’s said that Princess Tamayori (whose name means spirit caller i.e. a shamaness) was doing purification at the river one day when a red arrow came floating past. She picked it up, took it home and placed it by her as she slept (one variant has the arrow manifesting as a shining young prince). Lo and behold, she became pregnant and her child turned out to be a young prodigy, Wakeikazuchi. When asked one day about his father, he proclaimed that he was in fact a thunder deity and shot up into the sky. He is now enshrined at Kamigamo Shrine.

In one of the Shimogamo leaflets it explains the spiritual characteristics of their kami. Princess Tamayori, understandably, is a deity of childbirth and parenting. Her father, Kamo no Taketsunomi, is a guardian of Kyoto and by extension of the country as a whole. He also, oddly, is a kami of world peace, which makes one wonder why Emperor Komei in 1863 should have come here to pray that no foreigners be allowed to despoil the sacred soil of Japan.

Rice bundles donated by various companies

In shrine lore, Kamo no Taketsunomi is associated with yatagarasu, the three-legged crow of Japanese mythology (now used as a symbol for the Japan’s soccer team). The crow was an emissary of the sun-goddess sent to aid Emperor Jimmu as he battled his way across the Kii peninsula. My supposition is that a Kamo ancestor – a shaman of the crow clan – aided the Yamato invaders and that sometime later a descendant settled on Mikage hill in Kyoto’s eastern mountain range (Mikage shrine marks the site of his palace). The two figures were possibly conflated in the figure of Kamo no Taketsunomi – but that’s mere supposition.

Later it seems the family moved to the site of the present Shimogamo shrine, where princess Tamayori got herself pregnant. The early death of her son prompted the clan to deify him as a thunder deity, and a split in the Kamo clan led to the setting up of a new shrine in his honour at Kamigamo, followlng a vision that the thunder deity had landed on a stone altar (iwakura) Mt Koyama towards which the shrine is oriented.

(The above is simply my attempt at a literal reading of the mythology, so I hope no one will take it for historical fact. For one thing the priests at Kamigamo assert the primacy of their shrine and claim Shimogamo is an offshoot, so I may be getting myself in hot water!)

Changes

Shimogamo is noted for its antiquity, and no one knows for sure when the shrine was founded. It was here before the capital was established in 794, and remains from Jomon times have been found on the precincts. The pride of the shrine is a forest called Tadasu no mori mentioned in the Tale of Genji (c.1000) and supposedly a remnant of the original primeval forest that once filled the Kyoto basin.

I’ve been living next to the shrine for fifteen years now, and surprisingly there have been some dramatic changes during that time – including to the Tadasu woods. Replanting, path making and restoring an ancient waterway have meant constant activity. It seems every time I visit Shimogamo there’s an innovation of some kind, for the shrine is constantly striving to attract more visitors. It’s a reminder of how even the biggest shrines have to pay for themselves and earn their way.

In recent years I’ve noticed a number of improvements. More noticeboards with explanation and historical information. More leaflets and literature. There’s even a new pavilion for visitors to enjoy a green tea set. It’s said that large shrines like Shimogamo can earn enough for the whole year’s expenditure from the New Year period, so hatsumode (first visit of the year) is big business. It’s an opportunity too for folk to show off their finery…

The shrine offers good photo opportunities

There's a nice tea set too to enjoy

The new tea pavilion in the grounds

Posing for a New Year pic before the torii

This time I made an interesting discovery in the woods, where a pathway has been cleared. Excavations have unearthed a small island shaped like a boat, dating from early Heian times. A noticeboard in English says that in shrine lore it’s known as the Heavenly Bird Boat and is thought to be where the kami descended. Ceremonies were held before it in the woods – nice! On one side is a well, which was the site of rain dancing rituals right up to the Edo period and pre-modern times.

Heavenly Bird Boat Island

The shrine’s currently undergoing its 34th cycle of the shikinen sengu rebuilding, which means buildings being temporarily out of action. The rite is carried out every 21 years, as at Ise, and is due for completion in 2013.

Only about ten shrines still keep to the practice, which originally meant complete rebuilding but at Shimogamo is limited now to repairs. It’s a fundamental part of Shinto’s belief in renewal and revitalisation, and it’s thought that the 21 year cycle is generational in allowing a new breed of craftsmen to learn from their predecessors in the many skilled jobs involved – nailless carpentry, thatching, weaving, etc.

Good connections

One feature the shrine has eagerly promoted since I moved into the area is the Aioi Jinja – a subshrine dedicated to ‘good connections’ (enmusubi). There’s been a boom in recent years for such shrines among young Japanese women, a demographic which is said to have the biggest surplus spending capital anywhere on earth. When I arrived fifteen years ago, the subshrine was in a poor state and pretty much neglected. Now it’s been nicely fenced, prettified with bell ropes, and a small walkway made around the ‘renri no sakaki‘ tree whose intertwined trunks are a symbol of conjugal devotion. I noticed that for the New Year there was an extra touch: flowers decorating the perimeter fence.

Praying for a 'good connection'

Colourful Genji-themed fortune slips

The shrine leaflet points out that prayers here need not be limited to the young, for parents can make requests of on behalf of their children. Nor need the ‘good connections’ be limited to love, for they could also affect other areas of life. But couples who are brought together by the kami in this way are welcomed to celebrate their wedding at Shimogamo – good business for the shrine.

Brightly coloured fortune slips have been made specially for the shrine with a Genji theme, since the Tadasu woods are mentioned in the novel. The colours mirror those of the elegant kimono worn by the aristocrats of those times, and each fortune slip is titled after a character in the book. Mine was no. 50 amongst the males and was named after Azumaya. Apparently if I’m patient, something or someone good is going to turn up, so it looks like I’ll have to bide my time.

The shrine is doing its best in terms of outreach, even to those unable to visit the shrine for some reason. You can simply phone in your request and the priests will pray on your behalf and send you the relevant amulet. This time too I noticed quite a few extra goods in the shrine shop. Dragons were much in evidence of course, as well as the shrine’s motif of the aoi leaf after which its most famous festival is named. One popular motif is that of yatagarasu, the three legged crow associated with Kamo no Taketsunomi. All in all, this New Year, I got the impression things were flourishing at Shimogamo. Perhaps it bodes well for the year ahead…..

Tie for sale featuring the aoi leaf

Children's kite featuring a happy crow. Count the feet...

Large dragon ema board on display for the New Year

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Both Shimogamo and Kamigamo have websites with some English information provided. Kamigamo also offers English-language tours and purification for visitors to the shrine.

The awesomeness of C.W. Nicol

January 6, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

In an inspirational article in the Japan Times, Welsh-born C.W. Nicol, now a leading Japanese conservationist, talks of the spiritual strength he derives from the country’s woodlands. Below is an extract… (the full article can be seen here.)

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C.W. Nicol (photo by Simon Wearne)

It’s reckoned that 67 percent of the country is covered in trees, most of which are neglected, secondary-growth mixed woodland or single-species plantations of conifers — and here in Nagano Prefecture [Nicol lives near Kurohime] it’s almost 80 percent woodland and forest. Yet despite such abundance, Japan imports 80 percent of its lumber and employs only 50,000 people in the forestry business…

Speaking of great unknowns, though I was raised as a Christian and enjoyed singing carols in the church choir as a boy, I feel no deep sense of reverence in a church, a cathedral or a Buddhist temple. I’ve never been inside a mosque, so I don’t know about that. However, in a great, ancient forest, I feel a deep sense of awe and wonder. In our woodlands I feel gratitude and a confirmation of life.

I’ve spent a lot of time with the Canadian Inuit, and learned more from their elders than I ever have from any vicar, bishop, preacher or priest. So when I first heard about Ainu beliefs from the great Ainu leader and linguist Shigeru Kayano (1926-2006), Inuit chords were strummed in my heart. I felt that here in Japan, there also still lived a vibrant and genuine respect and reverence for sustaining nature.

Twenty-five years ago, on a freezing winter day in Hokkaido, I sat around a fire outside going through an Ainu ritual with a group of elders who had urged me to take part. Not long after, a photograph of us all garbed in Ainu robes and headdresses appeared in The Japan Times — with a caption indicating that I was one of the Ainu elders. Oh, how my head swelled! I was proud.

Woods were mankind's earliest temple

In traveling many times to Hokkaido, and having made several documentaries there, I have taken part in many Ainu rituals. However, it was particularly special for me when, at his home in Nibutani on Jan. 17, 2006, Shigeru Kayano declared that I was an “honorary Ainu,” and handed me an Ainu kimono his wife — who’d prepared a delicious venison stew — had made and embroidered for me.

It was the last time I would meet and talk and laugh with that wonderful elder. In the evening, when I gave a public lecture, the Kayano family told me to wear the kimono, and ever since I’ve started going into our woods on New Year’s Day, I’ve worn it. With the kimono I remember him.

I never forget that the woods, the streams, the lakes, the shores and all life are a part of us and that we are a part of them. This is, as far as I am concerned, an indisputable truth. Therefore, are we to be a healthy, renewing part of the body of life — or a cancer destroying it?

The choice must be made by each and every one of us. The planet itself is not endangered; Earth has gone through many trials before and has immense time on its side. But we humans, and everything altered or created by us, could easily wither and vanish. Let’s not keep on doing the same old things, challenging and presenting futile barriers to nature. Let this Year of the Dragon be the year of a happy dragon, not a rejected and angry one.

Celebrating the awesomeness of trees on the island of Yakushima, whose ancient woods inspired the spiritual content of Miyazaki Hayao's animated film Princess Mononoke

Downtown New Year decorations

January 5, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

My first visit to downtown Kyoto in the year of the dragon revealed an array of New Year decorations. A previous entry discussed Japan’s New Year (see here), but today led me to investigate the symbolism further. It’s amazing what is going on in these simple displays: no wonder Derrida called Japan an Empire of Signs!!

Kyoto style with rice rope, white shide paper strips, daidai orange, rice grains and urajiro fern, complemented by a red mizuhiki string (red and white being congratulatory colours). The rice rope is to protect the building and is said to be a reference to the Rock Cave myth when Amaterasu was prevented from reentering by a rope stretched across the entrance.

This display says 'Shomon' meaning Laughing Gate, the idea being that if you smile or laugh (both are warau), then happiness will enter into your house.

Car decoration, with rice rope, daidai orange, yuzuriha leaves and urajiro fern leaves. The yuzuriha new leaves push out the old ones, symbolising the passing to a new stage of life. Urajiro leaves are white on the back, and the fern symbolises conjugal life because the fronds form in pairs from the stem.

Kanto style with with fan spread out to show the future, urajiro conjugal fern leaves, a couple of rice cakes and an intricate mizuhiki knot in the style of a lobster (for long life).

This Kadomatsu decoration says Geishun (Welcome Spring), a little early you might think in the midst of January snows but in the old lunar calendar, when the Japanese New Year coincided with the Chinese instead of the Western calendar, it made good sense.

Kadomatsu in traditional style. Bamboo (for perseverance), pine (longevity), and plum (for the coming spring) with nanten red berries (bad things will turn to good) and habotan cabbages (for luck).

Artistic contemporary style using traditional materials, with a splash of gold and silver for the congratulatory effect

Sword and Blossom (Book Review)

January 5, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Sword and Blossom: A British Officer’s Enduring Love for a Japanese Woman by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams Penguin, 2006 345 pages

This is not a Shinto book at all, but a love affair between an Anglo-Irish officer, heir to a large estate, and an ordinary Japanese woman who bore him two children. Arthur Hart-Synnot was from a military family who saw service in the Far East as a career opportunity. Masa Suzuki was taken on as housekeeper and interlocutor.

The relationship is pieced together by the authors from a treasure trove of 800 letters, written by Hart-Synnot in Japanese on handmade paper in lengths of several feet which were carefully folded and enclosed with pressed leaves and dried flowers. They cover the period from 1904 to World War Two, but were only discovered amongst heirlooms in 1982.

It’s a fascinating read, not just for the relationship itself but for the wealth of detail in the background and times. In terms of international politics, it covers the period of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, which emboldened the Japanese to take on the Russians in a campaign for which Hart-Synnot acted as observer.

The atmosphere of Meiji Japan and Edwardian England are graphically illustrated, and we learn of the love affair between Britain and Japan in these years when Japonism was all the fashion. The island mentality of the two countries was seen as cultivating people of similar stock, and a Japanese artist painted Britannia arm-in-arm with Yamatohime, founder of Ise.

With training from the British, the Japanese victory at Tsushima against the Russians was hailed as the greatest naval victory since Trafalgar, and fittingly it took place in the centenary year of the battle. Togo was seen as the reincarnation of Nelson, and bushido was celebrated as on a par with gentlemanship. ‘The English gentleman is a peaceful samurai, and the Japanese samurai is an armed gentleman,’ ran a World War One pamphlet. (How things had changed by World War Two!)

One of the hits of the era was a play called Darling of the Gods, which the Japanese ambassador went to see. He objected that people were forever bowing in conversation, whereas in reality Japanese only bowed at the beginning and end of exchanges. He also noted that Shinto and Buddhism were treated as if they were one religion, whereas in fact they were separate – an indicator of how much the Meiji split had taken hold by the early twentieth century.

Hirohito (Emperor Showa) dressed in the robes of high priest during his coronation ceremony in 1928 (courtesy of US Library of Congress)

A notable feature of the observations is the strongly patriotic spirit in Meiji times. ‘By far the most remarkable feature in the Japanese army is the wonderful feeling of devotion to the emperor and their country that pervades all ranks and arms,’ notes Hart-Synnot. One of his fellow officers spoke of ‘a fanatical wish to die for their country.’

In 1928 Hirohito was enthroned as the new emperor in Kyoto in a ceremony described by one observer as ‘a sacred pantomine’. The most intriguing aspect of the ceremonies is the Daijosai, where the emperor communes with the spirit of Amaterasu (there’s a good description on the Wikipedia site here.) At one point the new emperor dons a Robe of Heavenly Feathers, clearly a legacy of shamanic rites when the ruler-priest assumed authority by his ability to communicate with the spirit world. The present emperor controversially underwent the same ceremony (in Tokyo rather than Kyoto), which for some served to confirm his role as descendant of the sun-goddess.

Historically the narrative moves smoothly through the Taisho democracy movements to the increasingly militaristic and repressive 1930s. All in all, this is a fascinating and meticulously researched account of Japan in the first part of the twentieth century. It’s revealing too of the surprisingly close Japan-UK friendship of those times, until separate interests forced the countries apart. Oh, and there’s also an absorbing romance! It grows from infatuation to intensity of passion, but later takes a most surprising twist. It may not be Shinto, but this is a book well worth reading, and belongs up there with Samurai William as one of the most readable of books with a historical theme.

Thank goodness that with all the doom in the publishing world good writing still survives!

Unleashing the dragon within

January 4, 2012 / John D. / 3 Comments

Today in Kyoto it’s snowing, and after the warmth of the Philippines I’m freezing! Meanwhile, the year of the dragon is well under way. In an article in the Japan Times our friend Amy Chavez has great fun with the role of the dragon in Japanese folklore… well worth checking out for a humorous and fast-paced dragon ride. Click here.

In more serious vein, the dragon is just about ubiquitous in Japanese religion, for it’s not only a guardian of Buddhism but a much featured part of Shinto too. You’ll find dragons on the roofs of Zen temples (Jake Davis has a stunning shot of Kyoto’s Kennin-ji roof here). And you’ll often find dragons at water-basins in Shinto shrines, where they act as a symbol of good fortune. Unlike the fire-breathing monsters of the Western tradition, Japanese dragons tend to be benevolent.

It’s said the dragon originated in China in ancient times, long before the arrival of Buddhism with which it later became associated. My supposition would be that immigrants from the continent brought tales of the mythical creature to Japan, which came to haunt the Japanese imagination. It helps explain why the legends and folklore are so unclear about whether there’s a snake, serpent, dragon or monster involved.

The true dragon is a composite figure, made up of a variety of creatures. In this way, presumably, it has the attributes of all of them, hence its potency. Maybe there’s a theme there to work on this year: how to harness the strength of different animals. Unleash your inner dragon!

The picture below, taken from a defunct Japanese website, shows the Frankenstein manner in which the dragon is patched together. As can be seen, the body is indeed snake-like… (Incidentally, a curious bit of trivia: the Chinese dragon tends to have four claws, but the Japanese dragon three.)

Thanks to Mark Schumacher for drawing my attention to the above image and detailing the dragon’s provenance. For those interested in reading more, he’s suggested looking into water deities such as Suijin and Mizu no Kamisama which may well have predated Chinese and Korean immigration. See this page of his wonderful website: http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/suijin.html

New Year

December 24, 2011 / John D. / 2 Comments

A merry festive season

Get set for the year of the dragon

You could say that New Year is Japan’s equivalent to Christmas. It’s family-orientated, involves eating special food, and celebrates birth of a kind. The decorations feature an evergreen tree, and instead of midnight mass, there are midnight visits to a shrine.

At the heart of the Japanese New Year is the notion of renewal. In the Shinto view of life, the material world is subject to ‘pollution’ and depletion. Rituals of purification and shrine visits help bring about revitalisation. The desire for renewal is what lies behind the 20 year cycle of rebuilding at Ise; it’s what lies behind the cult of newness in Japanese culture as a whole. And that’s what the New Year is all about too – starting afresh.

Shuffling off the old

Getting ready for the New Year is serious business and takes up the end of December. The preparations involve, above all, osoji (big cleaning). The idea is that the home will be cleansed of negative energy and receptive to ancestral spirits. It’s the Japanese equivalent of spring cleaning – which originally it was, more or less. In 1873 Japan moved from the traditional Chinese-style calendar (based on the lunar cycle) to the Gregorian calendar, as a result of which the New Year moved from late January/ February to its present position.

The physical cleaning before New Year is matched by an emotional clean-out – wiping one’s mind clear of the debts and favours of the past year. This entails settling business accounts, mending relationships, offering thanks and tidying up personal affairs. There’s a sense of satisfaction in starting the New Year by having finished off the old one properly.

There are parties too ‘to forget the old year’ (bonenkai), usually with work colleagues. In these office parties, drunkenness washes away concerns about propriety and rank. Like Saturnalia, the conventions of everyday life are overturned in cathartic manner. Purged in this way, one is ready to truly start afresh.

Move along please! Meiji Jingu at New Year is packed, so if you like being crushed this is the place for you....

Syncretic celebration

The way Shinto and Buddhism complement each other is never more clearly seen than on the night of Dec. 31. Buddhism is other-worldly, concerned with individual salvation. Shinto is this-worldly, concerned with rites of passage and social well-being. At New Year the two religions come together like yin and yang, either side of midnight. Buddhism sees out the death of the old; Shinto celebrates the birth of the new.

In the dying minutes of the year, people line up at a Buddhist temple to hear the bell riing, or to ring it themselves. By tradition it is rung 108 times, once for every attachment that plagues the human condition. The atmosphere is solemn, and in the darkness the booming of the large bell carries with it a mournful feel.

New Year fortune arrow to dispell negativity and help you hit your new year's target

Afterwards, by way of contrast, it’s fun to head straight for a shrine to pick up arrow and amulets for protection through the coming year. Following the contemplative pre-midnight atmosphere comes the a celebrative mood. Suddenly there are laughing voices, bright kimono, and gaudy lights. Stalls with aspiring yakuza sell candy floss and goldfish. Here all is jollity and smiles.

‘Akemashite omedeto’ (Congratulations on the New Year) is heard on every side, as people toss coins into offertory boxes over the heads of those in front. Hot saké is served spiced with ginger. Young women in kimono stand huddled over their fortune slips. With the blessing of the kami, the Year of the Dragon will surely turn out to be a good one.

Traditions and customs

New Year is a time of special food too – osechi ryori – beautifully displayed in lunch boxes as only the Japanese can do. The custom originated with the Heian aristocracy, for whom New Year’s Day was one of the five seasonal festivals. Since it was taboo to cook during the three day event, food was prepared beforehand.

The New Year food is a feast for the eyes as much as the stomach, full of symbols and auspicious elements. There’s tai fish to signify ‘medetai’ (congratulations), and black beans as a wish for good health (mame can mean bean and health). Broiled fish cake (kamaboko) is laid out in red and white layers, traditional colours of celebration and suggestive of the rising sun.

Traditional New Year's fare: a feast for the eyes (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

Although the first shrine visit of the year (hatsumode) is supposed to be done within the first three days of the year, people pay respects for several days afterwards. Each year has its own auspicious direction, calculated by Chinese astrology, and one’s supposed to visit the shrine that lies in that direction though few actually follow the convention. It seems the majority of Japanese visit a shrine at some point, though attendance is difficult to interpret since some people may visit two or more shrines.

Numbers are eagerly collected, as if like GDP they reflect the well-being of the nation. Meiji Jingu tops the rankings, with just over three million visitors (who counts them, one wonders). In the Kansai region Fushimi Inari comes top with over two and a half million – one reason why I’ve never dared visit it at New Year, much as I love the place.

From now on the New Year is all about firstness and freshness. There’s the first dream of the year, which if it is about Mt Fuji, a hawk or an aubergine (!) is held to be particularly auspicious. There’s the first snowfall, the first sign of spring, and the year’s first haiku…

A new year dawning:
First snow on Hiei’s sacred peak
Forms a fresh sheet

One interesting custom is the giving of money to children, known as toshidama. Toshi is the year, and dama is its soul or spirit – so it’s as if one is renewing the spirit of the year through the gift. No doubt the money helps give extra vigour to the young!

Kyoto-style New Year decoration (courtesy of japan.visitor)

Decorations

The traditional decoration is a length of shimenawa (sacred rice rope), festooned with ferns and the stem of a bitter orange, which is hung on the door. The fern is an evergreen and a symbol of the lifeforce, while the bitter orange is called daidai, which can also mean ‘generation to generation’. It shows the continuing vitality of the household.

Commercially produced kagami mochi with daidai orange on top. The red and white wrapping signifies congratulations.

It’s customary at this time of year to have steamed rice cake (mochi). This was traditionally done by pounding it by hand and eating fresh, but nowadays supermarkets are filled with plastic packages containing two circular rice cakes on top of each other surmounted by a bitter orange.

Rice is a symbol of fertility, and the mochi cakes symbolise renewal of vigour through the eating of rice. Circular cakes are known as kagami mochi (mirror rice cakes). According to tradition, the sun-goddess Amaterasu presented her grandson with a circular mirror and told him to treat it as if it were her very self. It’s why mirrors are often used in shrines as the sacred ‘spirit-body’ of the kami. In this sense partaking of the round mochi is a kind of sacrament, the Japanese equivalent of communion. The rice in the mochi

The prime symbol of the New Year are the kadomatsu decorations seen in front of stores and large buildings. These can be grandiose affairs, and consist of three upright pieces of bamboo of differing length to represent the Taoist triad of heaven, earth and human.

Pine and plum branches complete the arrangment – pine not only as a symbol of constancy and vitality, but because the needles ward off evil spirits. The plum symbolises the promise of spring (before cherry blossom, the plum was Japan’s favourite tree for its early flowering amidst the austerity of winter.) Bamboo stands for persistence, a much admired trait among Japanese.

Kadomatsu (literally 'pine placed before the gate'), a traditional New Year decoration

The dragon is a magical creature, seen as a messenger from heaven. It moves freely in air and water, combining yin and yang, and it possesses something of all Five Chinese Elements. Unlike the monster of the Western tradition, the dragon is looked on as an auspicious creature of spiritual import, which is why it adorns the ceilings of Zen monasteries. In Shinto shrines, it’s usually seen at the water-basin dispensing the water through its mouth. Let us hope that the dragon spells for us too a magical year.

WITH BEST WISHES FOR A GOOD 2012 TO ONE AND ALL!!

Animism trumps Ancestor Worship

December 20, 2011 / John D. / 0 Comments

Shinto as nature worship

Animism versus ancestors
Is Shinto a nature religion? It’s often referred to that way, but the truth is that it’s much more complicated. Animism is married to ancestor worship and tribalism. If you look at the major shrines, nature spirits comprise a small percentage of the kami being worshipped. The vast majority are former humans – either past emperors, or clan founders, or legendary figures, or angry spirits needing to be placated.

Commentators have long argued about the true essence of Shinto: animism or ancestor worship. W.G. Aston and others affirmed the primacy of nature worship, since its roots are so much older than ancestor worship. Some even trace the roots back to the Jomon Period.

Lafcadio Hearn, however, believed that the defining characteristic of the Japanese mindset was ancestor worship, and a scholar named Sato in an article for Japanese Religions (Vol. 3, no. 1) argued that the simple nature worship of old could not be considered ‘Shinto’. Only with the introduction of ancestor worship did the concept of Shinto as an essentially Japanese religion arise. It is precisely for that reason that Shinto is sometimes described as a tribal religion, or as a religion of Japaneseness.

Shinto as ancestor worship

The advent of ancestral kami

In ‘Kami, Death and Ancestral Kami’, published in the Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Shinto Studies (1955), Delmer Brown examines how exactly the worship of ancestral kami might have been conjoined to the animism of old. The problem, as he sees it, is why the souls of dead people should come to be worshipped by a religion that saw death as pollution? After all, the shamanistic belief of ancient times worshipped vitality in nature. Blood, disease and association with death were shunned.

Brown’s starting point is that nature worship was originally centred around agricultural rites to do with the rice harvest. Completely separate from this was the veneration of dead heroes. Burial tombs were filled with valuable objects to accompany them. Were these to console the dead spirit, given as offerings, or simply a disposal method of ‘polluted items’? Altar-like knolls at the side of the burial tombs may have been places to hold rituals, but were they celebrating the dead, trying to secure for them a good afterlife, or performing genealogical rites of succession? No one can be sure.

According to Brown, it was during the sixth century that some of the leading clans began to foster belief that their putative founders should be worshipped as kami. It was a time of instability when clans sought legitimacy, and the idea was stimulated by the introduction from China of more advanced forms of ancestor worship. These founder kami were idealized rather than real historical figures, belonging in the realm of mythology (Amaterasu, the sun-goddess, would be an example). Later they were incorporated into the mythology of Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720)

From idealised to real ancestral kami

Shrine priests entering into Iwashimizu Hachiman-gu, dedicated to an ancestor of the emperor

During the eighth and ninth centuries a further development took place, with the notion of former emperors being kami. The first instance was the announcement of Hachiman as the spirit of the late third-century Emperor Ojin. Afterwards Hachiman was celebrated at court as an ancestral kami of the emperor, and the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine dedicated to that end was on occasion ranked even higher than Ise.

After the introduction of the Hachiman-Ojin idea came worship of the spirits of other deceased persons, all of whom were members of the ruling class: Sugawara Michizane as Tenjin, for example. Later still came deification of leaders such as Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and several daimyo. For Delmer Brown this shows that the practice of making kami out of ancestors was essentially an agency of state practised by the ruling class and not affecting folk practices.

‘It seems safe to conclude that the worship of ancestral kami, and of souls of the dead, emerged very slowly in Japanese history and never became central to the Shinto faith,’ he writes. To my surprise, Brown’s examination of ancestor worship thus ends by suggesting that the true essence of Shinto is animism after all. It endorses those who see nature worship rather than the legitimation of state as the basis of the religion.

Primal Shinto at Omiwa Jinja, with direct worship of the mountain