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Kagura dance for the gods

April 23, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Ryuichi Kimura performs the *shishimai* (lion dance) at the Sanriku International Arts (Deck)

Ichikawa Kagura: Saving the dances of the gods

by Andrew Deck, Japan Times, Apr 21, 2019

Accompanied by the whistling of a yokobue flute and the repetitious pounding of a taiko drum, a performer takes the stage on the grounds of a centuries-old castle’s ruins.

On his hands and knees, he bows toward a black lacquered mask baring menacing golden teeth, before standing and disappearing beneath an indigo-dyed cloth that drapes behind it. The shapeless textile suddenly takes on new dimensions, twisting and contorting theatrically as it becomes the body to the snapping jaws of the mask. Known as shishimai (lion dance), the performance involves a dancer wrapping his body in the cloth to embody the form of a wild animal.

Behind the mask is Ryuichi Kimura, a student of kagura (a type of Shinto theatrical dance) who has been training with the Ichikawa Kagura troupe since elementary school. At just 19, he is notably younger than his fellow members, the oldest having recently turned 93. The visible age disparity is not a coincidence — it illustrates a concerted effort by Ichikawa Kagura to pass on the traditions of one of Japan’s oldest and most endangered performing arts to a new generation.

Miko dancing kagura at Kyoto’s Ebisu Jinja

Today, kagura is only practiced in small pockets throughout Japan, with local troupes keeping regionally specific variations alive. Shimane Prefecture and the city of Hiroshima are noteworthy hubs where the dance continues to thrive. Hachinohe, the home of Ichikawa Kagura, is a portside city in Honshu’s northernmost prefecture of Aomori.

The literal translation of “kagura” is “god entertainment,” and for over a millennium the Shinto theatrical style of dance has been practiced in Imperial courts, on shrine grounds and at seasonal festivals. Although kagura has evolved over the centuries, its earliest iterations predate the recognized staples of Japanese traditional performing arts, namely noh and kabuki.

In late February, visitors to Hachinohe’s frosted streets for the Sanriku International Arts Festival saw some of the prefecture’s best kagura — including Ichikawa Kagura’s shishimai. “The influence of Japanese culture is very strong now,” says Norikazu Sato, producer of the Sanriku International Arts Festival. “But many don’t know that there are forms of Japanese folk arts from ancient times that have been passed down for generations.”

With support from the Japan Foundation Asia Center, the festival organizes an annual showcase of regional folk performing arts with events held up and down the Sanriku coast, which encompasses Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori prefectures.

Founded by Sato in 2011, the festival’s original mission was to revitalize areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami through cultural projects.

“After we make a seawall, raise the soil, build new buildings and move forward with the tangible side of things, the next challenge is community in the disaster area,” says Sato. “Establishing a firm base of local culture and art makes it easier for local people to gather, to come together and also be stimulated by people visiting the region to experience that local culture and art.”

The festival has also helped elevate interest in regional kagura at a time when some of its performance styles are on the cusp of extinction. Largely an oral tradition, kagura relies on the minds and bodies of each troupe’s elder members. The Sanriku region, however, is not immune to Japan’s aging crisis and, as small Tohoku towns lose inhabitants to old age, local artforms like kagura are also at risk of dying out.

In 2017, an annual Iwate kagura festival was canceled when the lead dancer suffered a debilitating back injury. As the only performer who had learned by rote the required moves to perform the lead dance, his absence meant the town was left with no choice but to cancel the festival in its entirety.

That same year, a report by Kyodo News stated that 60 traditional festivals and dances — all designated intangible folk culture assets — had been canceled or postponed due to rural population decline.

One of the masks used in kagura performances in the Shimane area

Backstage at a Sanriku International Arts Festival event, as elaborately costumed performers pass by in preparation for their moment onstage, Sato explains that during Japan’s prewar period there was a similar decline in the performance of regional folk dance, but that the erosion of regional traditions was later followed by a period of revival in the 1960s. Contemplating the future of kagura, Sato hopes for a similar trajectory.

“Perhaps there has been a decline in folk performing arts recently,” he says. “But if people remain within the art form, I think we will be able to resurrect it again.”

The burden of sustaining the traditions of regional kagura falls on the shoulders of young performers like Kimura, who was first introduced to the Ichikawa Kagura troupe as part of his recruitment program at Hachinohe’s Taga Elementary School.

Unlike most students, who dropped out in their middle school years, Kimura continued to study the art form throughout high school. Now at university, he still devotes time to kagura and his skills on stage are undeniable. Kimura seamlessly transitions between two traditional dance styles, one that includes dramatic spins of a fan with one hand, and another that requires his metamorphosis into the grizzly shishimai creature.

Kimura is also far from a passive member of Ichikawa Kagura. With the help of Ren Kimura and Kouma Izumi, two close friends who also joined Ichikawa Kagura in elementary school, Kimura was able to revive the troupe’s spring prayer ritual last year — a tradition that had been out of practice for more than 20 years.

By restoring the celebration, which entails hundreds of house-visit performances in Hachinohe, the younger generation brought back a small dose of kagura into the homes of the local community.

“Considering the age of our teachers, I feel that it will be up to us to maintain Ichikawa Kagura and make sure it doesn’t come to an end,” Kimura says following his performance, his two friends close to his side. “That is the future of kagura.”

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For a piece on the kagura origins of kabuki, see here.
For kagura at Takachiho, see this piece here.

The lion dance (shishi) comes in many guises depending on the region.

Ghosts of the Tsunami (Parry)

April 21, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

March 11, 2011 was a devastating day for Japan. Over 18,500 people perished in the gigantic tsunami that swept over the coastline of Tohoku in the country’s north-east. What’s more it led to a nuclear meltdown, the consequences of which are still on-going. Ghosts of the Tsunami, as indicated by the title, concerns itself with the natural disaster, not the man-made one.

The book, published in 2017, was written by Richard Lloyd Parry, correspondent for the UK’s The Times. It is remarkable in many ways, not the least for the technical feat of turning a sustained investigation of despair and destruction, of grief and mourning, into a compelling read. Based on interviews with both bereaved and survivors, the subject matter is a potential minefield, for a single inappropriate or insensitive statement could blow up in the writer’s face.

Even more astonishing, the book turns out to be a page turner because of the sense of immediacy. The focus on real-life individuals provides a feeling of involvement, and the multiple narratives are skilfully handled in such a manner that the reader is constantly curious as to what or who will be featured next. There’s even a sense of mystery about the elementary school and the court case that comes to dominate the final sections, a mystery that is never fully resolved.

The book covers a broad section of fields: spirituality, folklore, cultural insight, political apathy, legal deficiencies, social values and the role of gaman (endurance, fortitude). Of particular concern for this blog is the conclusion Parry comes to after his intensive examination of the tragic events.

When opinion polls put he question ‘How religious are you?’, Japanese rank among the most ungodly people in the world. It took a catastrophe for me to understand how misleading this self-assessment is. It is true that the organised religions, Buddhism and Shinto, have little influence on private or national life. But over the centuries both have been pressed into the service of the true faith of Japan: the cult of the ancestors.

A typical butsudan, family altar for the dead

Parry follows this up with a description of the part that the family altar, the butsudan, plays in Japanese life. The dead are represented in the form of memorial tablets called ihai (black lacquered wood, on which is inscribed the posthumous name of the deceased). The contract between the living and the dead is simple: the dead will watch over the living as long as their memory is cultivated by respectful attention. Offerings of food, fruit and drink etc. are placed before the altar, a bell is rung to summon attention when paying respects, and reports made about important family developments. ‘The dead are not as dead there as they are in our own society,’ Parry quotes religious scholar, Herbert Ooms, ‘It has always made perfect sense in Japan as far back as history goes to treat the dead as more alive than we do … even to the extent that death becomes a variant, not a negation of life.’

The diligence with which Japanese tend to family graves is a further indication of the importance of the dead in the life of the living. And most of the kami that rule people’s lives are simply dead ancestors with special powers. Memorial days for the deceased are marked in religious fashion, and at the great festival of the dead in the summer, known as Obon, the sense of closeness to the dead reaches a peak as the veil between this world and the next opens and spirits return for the three days between the welcome back festivals and the sending off festivals.

The memorial tablets known as ihai that bear the posthumous names of the deceased

It’s possible to read Parry’s book as one long treatise on the role of the dead in Japanese society. ‘When grief is raw, the presence of the deceased is overwhelming,’ he writes. ‘When there’s a fire or earthquake, the ihai are the first thing that many people will save, before money or documents,’ a priest observes. ‘I think that many people died in the tsunami because they went home for the ihai. It’s life, the life of the ancestors.’

For the simple down-to-earth villagers of Tohoku, the tsunami was a cruel interruption to the normal pattern of their lives. Family altars, family graves and family ihai were swept away forever. And those who had died prematurely and were robbed of their dreams become gaki, or hungry ghosts, destined to wander the earth unhappily. Placating them is a vital matter, but impossible when even the necessities of life for survivors were missing. And what of the ancestors who had lost all their living descendants and had no one to care for them?

The book is notable for the way the survivors talk to the dead, comfort them, and show a strong sense of closeness. In such circumstances it was only natural that there should be a swarm of ghostly sightings, and the number of spirits roaming the landscape is striking – there are descriptions of possession, mediums who communicate with the dead, and in one remarkable case a Buddhist priest who exorcises no fewer than 25 different tsunami victims from a single woman.

At this point I couldn’t help thinking of that great ghost believer Lafcadio Hearn, and indeed he was the first foreigner to lay out in book form the central role of ancestor worship in Japan. Surprisingly Parry doesn’t reference him, even when talking of the kaidan, the strange tales, that characterised Tohoku folklore in the past and did so again after the tsunami. (In a note Parry acknowledges use of a more recent book on the subject, Robert J. Smith’s Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan, 1974.)

Graveyeard lanterns at Obon welcome the dead back to their descendants

What comes over strongest of all in Parry’s account is the relentless, almost obsessive drive of survivors to locate the bodies of their family kin. This goes on in some cases for weeks and months of unending toil, even in one case turning into a lifelong quest for closure. Sometimes it results in gory encounters with mud-sodden corpses, rotten beyond recognition, yet still there is a sense of relief, comfort even in having located the body. It’s as if the spirit is still attached and can’t be consoled until the physical entity is properly processed. The Japanese determination to repatriate the remains of soldiers who died in WW2 can be seen in similar light.

In plunging into the depth of misery caused by the disaster of March 11, Parry captures the essence of the Japanese soul. In the passing of the baton from one generation to the next, there’s something very consoling for the memory of the dead is fostered by the living, who in turn are watched over by the deceased. But when disaster strikes, it can all go tragically wrong. You couldn’t get a more vivid depiction of this most Japanese style of disaster. The book is simply a tour de force that exposes the true bedrock of the country’s religious thinking.

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For Lafcadio Hearn and ancestor worship, see here. For Hearn and ‘ghost-houses’, see here. For more on ancestor worship, see here. For another review of Parry’s book, click here. For other pieces related to ancestor worship, see the relevant Category in the righthand column.

Enthronement Ceremonies (ISSA symposium)

April 8, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

The past waves goodbye as the future prepares to take over. Emperor Akihito on the right, who will abdicate on April 30, and Prince Naruhito who will take over on May 1 (BBC photo)

ISSA is the International Shinto Studies Association, the head of which is emeritus professor Michael Pye based in Kyoto. In the past it’s been something of a shadowy organisation, with little attempt at outreach. Now however there seems a newfound sense of purpose with an updated website and a clear agenda – “We seek to combine a high standard of academic research into Shinto with a creative and socially responsible program of activities for the wider public,’ states Michael Pye in its publicity brochure.

Michael Pye, ISSA president, making introductory comments

In addition to Michael Pye as president, Mark Teeuwen (featured previously on Green Shinto) is a board member, as is Fabio Rambelli and Alexander Bennett. It was with great interest therefore that we learnt of an ISSA seminar in Kyoto on April 6, for it was on a most topical subject – the forthcoming enthronement ceremonies for the new emperor.

As readers may know, the present emperor Akihito is abdicating on April 30, the first emperor to do so for over 200 years, and his son Naruhito will be enthroned, with the new imperial era of Reiwa taking over from the former Heisei.

As the ISSA advertisement for the event put it, “In the course of the present calendar year of 2019 there will be several ceremonies relating to the enthronement of the new Emperor of Japan, Naruhito. Most important are the senso no gi 践祚の儀, the sokui no rei 即位の礼, and the daijōsai 大嘗祭.”

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The seminar consisted of three talks, the first by John Breen of Nichibunken on emperor-making ceremonies in Meiji, Taisho and Showa Japan. This was followed by Michael Pye on the separation of religion and state in postwar enthronement ceremonies, then finally Shinto priest Kato Taishi who spoke about the universality of Shinto in the enthronement ceremonies (Taishi’s talk will be covered in a separate post; he has featured previously on Green Shinto here).

As the speakers made clear, the basic procedure to install the new emperor is that an ascension ceremony, known as the Sokui rite, is followed at a later date in the autumn by a separate symbolic ceremony known as the Daijosai. This is said to be an elaborate form of harvest festival, during which prayers are offered for the well-being of the people and gratitude expressed for the yield of rice. However since it marks the sacralisation of the emperor, and the emperor is the symbol of the nation, the Daijosai is widely seen as the supreme Shinto ceremony in which the country asserts its divine origins. All members of the government attend, but no foreigners.

Kato Taishi, Shinto priest at Hattori Jinja in Osaka, currently working at Dazaifu Shrine in Kyushu

The symposium began with John Breen of Kyoto’s Nichibunken, who gave an overview of changes in post-Meiji enthronement ceremonies. Though the ceremony can be dated back to the 7th century, there was a 270 year gap when it was not performed. And as with nearly all Shinto matters, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 introduced a marked change from former ways – not so much a restoration as a radicalisation.

An example John Breen gave was the ceremony of Emperor Komei at the end of the Edo Era, which in Breen’s words was ‘thoroughly sinified’. However, the ceremony for his son Emperor Meiji was deliberately Japanese in tone. It also introduced the custom of a single era name being applied to a single imperial reign, whereas in former times the era name had been changed after misfortunes, in order to signify a fresh start – much in keeping with Shinto notions of renewal and purification.

Controversy has surrounded the enthronement ceremonies in postwar times because the Japanese constitution stipulates a separation of state and religion. Michael Pye said that there are no fewer than 240 legal cases being prepared to contest the ties of religion and state in the coming enthronement ceremonies. This raises the question of the distinction between ‘private’ and ‘public’ rites about which John Breen and Michael Pye apparently hold different views.

The issue is weighted in the government’s favour by a key court case in 1977 concerning the legality of a payment by a prefectural governor for a jichinsai ceremony. Religious rite or social custom? As the Kokugakuin encyclopedia puts it, the court ‘found that judgments on the religious nature of a certain act should be based on standard social conceptions, and must take into account the average person’s estimation of the religiosity of the act, and the intent and the expected effect of the act.’

In the opinion of the court, then, it all has to do with ‘intent and effect’. So find an average person and ask him if it’s a religious act or a Japanese custom – a question that could be asked across the whole range of what looks like religious behaviour in Japan. People visiting a shrine and paying respects, participants in a matsuri, buying the omikuji fortune, talking to the dead – ‘it is a Japanese tradition,’ is a standard answer.

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john Breen talking in front of a screen with the title of his talk, ‘Ritual interventions: Emperor-making in Meiji, Taisho and Showa Japan’

The Daijosai ceremony is an intriguing ritual involving two temporary halls, the Yuki-den and the Suki-den, in which there are beds. One school of thought is that the emperor ‘sleeps’ with the sun goddess in what Michael Pye described as ‘priestly marriage’ but which could also be seen in terms of ‘fossilised shamanic possession’. (The imperial household agency apparently denies that the emperor uses the beds during the night he spends in the halls.) Either way, it’s assumed that the emperor is communing with his ancestors.

The whole issue of the enthronement ceremonies thus raises some fascinating questions, given that until the end of WW2 the emperor was said to be divine. To what extent is the emperor considered to undergo transformation in the Daijosai? Is he simply honouring his ancestors, or is he becoming part of a sacred lineage? Is the ceremony a state ritual akin to coronation, or is it inherently religious? Indeed, is Shinto a religion at all (traditionalists claim it is part of the fabric of Japanese life)?

The question of who’s paying for the rites is thus a key point. According to Kunaicho, the imperial household agency, the cost of the Daijosai will be ¥2.72 billion of which the government will pay ¥1.8 billion. The new emperor’s younger brother, Prince Fumihito, made an unusual intervention by suggesting the private imperial budget should be used instead of public funds, which would necessitate a reduction of some 90% in expenditure. The scale of the event can be seen by the two grand banquets that are to be held, with a reduced number of 700 officially invited guests (down from the previous 900). This is after all the grandest ceremony of an imperial emperor in what is claimed to be the longest single ruling dynasty on earth.

(For details of the costs of the enthronement, see this Jiji news agency report.)

A full house, reflecting how interest in Shinto has grown in recent years

Cleveland Exhibition (Dazaifu)

April 7, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art opens next week at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ten years in the making, this exhibition — on view only in Cleveland — features a selection of rare works designated by the Japanese government as Important Cultural Properties. The timing of this exhibition coincides with a new era in Japan’s history, the name of which, Reiwa, has connections to the artwork on display in the CMA’s exhibition. You can dive deeper into these connections in an essay, Seasonal Connections: Japan’s New Era, Plum Blossoms in Dazaifu by Sinéad Vilbar, the CMA’s curator of Japanese art and curator of the exhibition ‘Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art.’

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Extract from a longer piece by Sinéad Vilbar on Dazaifu Shrine in Kyushu, its kami Tenjin, and portrayals in Shinto art.

Tenjin Shrine Scrolls (detail), 1600s. Edo period (1615–1868). Handscroll, ink and color on paper; 25.9 x 638.7 cm. Second scroll from a set of two. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Richard P. Gale, 74.1.2.2

Dazaifu is the site of a famous shrine dedicated to the kami Tenman Tenjin, the posthumously deified spirit of the courtier Sugawara no Michizane (845–903). Tenjin is strongly associated with the plum. He had a beautiful plum tree outside his home in the ancient capital Heian (now Kyoto), to which he composed a tearful waka poem when he left to travel to Dazaifu to assume a government post in de facto exile. This fraught scene depicting Michizane saying goodbye to his beloved plum is touchingly painted in the second scroll of the 1311 illustrated handscroll set The Illustrated Miraculous Origins of Matsuzaki Tenjin Shrine (Matsuzaki Tenjin engi emaki), on view during the first rotation of the exhibition (April 9–May 19) in the section titled “Gods and Great Houses.

*Illustrated Scrolls of the Miraculous Origins of Matsuzaki Tenjin Shrine (detail)*, 1311. Kamakura period (1185–1333). Ink, color, and gold on paper; 34.2 x 1,420.5 cm. Second scroll from a set of six. Hōfu Tenmangū, Hōfu, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Important Cultural Property

This set, belonging to Hōfu Tenmangū, an important Tenjin shrine in Yamaguchi Prefecture, is designated as an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government.

Tenjin’s shrine in Dazaifu is called Dazaifu Tenmangū. This April has been a momentous time for Dazaifu Tenmangū, as its head priest has retired and his son has taken the chief position at the shrine. Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art includes three works from this shrine dedicated to Tenjin over the two rotations that take place during the exhibition. One of the works is the record of a poetry gathering thought to have been held at the shrine in the Nanbokuchō period (1336–1392). Renga, or linked-verse poetry, was composed as a ritual means of honoring Tenjin.

Record of 1,000-Linked Verse Session Held by Imagawa Ryōshun, “Fu nanihito renga (Linked Verses Devoted to “Person”), 1382. Nanbokuchō period (1336–92). Book: ink and color on paper; 16.5 x 47.5 cm. Dazaifu Tenmangū, Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture.

Just as Buddhist monks might read sacred texts called sutras before Buddhist deities as a ceremony, composing poems together before Tenjin was a religious activity.

*Sacred Name of Tenjin Invocation and Seated Tenjin in Formal Court Attire*, 1600s. Invocation by Emperor Go-Yōzei (Japanese, 1571–1617), painting by Kuroda Tsunamasa (Japanese, 1659–1711), inscription by Kakugen (Japanese, dates unknown). Hanging scroll, ink, color, and gold on silk; 169.4 x 51.9 cm. Dazaifu Tenmangū, Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture

The other work from Dazaifu Tenmangū on view in the exhibition’s first rotation is a marvelous calligraphic rendering of the name of Tenjin by emperor Go-Yōzei (1571–1617) that is affixed to an image of Tenjin painted by a regional leader of Dazaifu.

Tenjin is shown in formal courtly garments seated before a pine tree and a flowering plum tree. Paintings and calligraphies like this one would have been displayed as the presiding icon over poetry gatherings offered to Tenjin.

May we all be hardy like the plum blossom, the first flower to bloom after a cold winter!

Reiwa – a new era

April 6, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Announcement of the new era’s name

An informative piece below on the naming of the new era, which will start from the ascension of the next emperor on May 1, 2019. This is extracted from a longer piece by the curator of Japanese art at Cleveland Museum, Sinead Vilbar.

Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the names of eras changed fairly frequently in order to signal a fresh start after some disaster or tumultuous event. Beginning with Meiji, however, it has become the custom for one imperial reign to be given one era name.

It’s worth noting here too that plum blossom, about which the term Reiwa was taken, used to be a favourite of the Japanese court before cherry blossom was adopted in the later Heian period. The reason for the change was the greater brevity of the cherry, and also to promote Japanese identity as different from the Chinese (from whom the cult of plum blossom was originally taken).

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On Monday, April 1, Japan announced the name of its new era: Reiwa (令和). When the new Japanese emperor ascends to the throne on May 1, the current era, Heisei (平成), ends and the Reiwa era begins. Heisei is said to mean “achieving peace” and is the name of the era associated with the currently reigning emperor, who took the throne in 1989. He is the first emperor in 200 years to abdicate and will do so on April 30.

Manyoshu, a selection in English

Historically, Japanese era names changed at critical junctures in an emperor’s reign, often to bring a sense of renewal. Now the era name remains the same for the entire reign. In the past, era names were selected from classical Chinese literature. For the first time, the era name has been chosen from classical Japanese literature, specifically the Man’yōshū (A Collection of Myriad Leaves), the oldest existing anthology of Japanese poetry, containing some 4,500 poems on numerous themes by more than 350 known authors.

“It is now the choice month of early spring, the weather is fine, the wind is soft. The plum blossom opens…” — Japanese literature scholar Mack Horton’s translation of part of the preface to the fifth book of the Man’yōshū (A Collection of Myriad Leaves)

Reiwa was taken from the preface of the fifth book of the anthology, which contains poems dating from the year 815 and beyond. The section’s theme centers on the plum flower (also called an apricot flower). According to Japanese literature scholar Mack Horton, the preface reads in translation, “It is now the choice month of early spring, the weather is fine, the wind is soft. The plum blossom opens.” “Choice month” is reigetsu (令月), or the second month of the year, and “soft wind” is kaze odayaka (風和). Another way to translate this is, “in this auspicious early spring month, the air is clean and the breeze is gentle [hatsuharu no reigetsu ni shite kiyoku kaze yawaragi].”

Otomo no Tabito composing his poem

The first character of reigetsu and the second character of kaze odayaka or kaze yawaragi (also read wa) were combined to form Reiwa, which has been given a variety of English glosses but is generally said to connote “pursuing harmony.” The content of the preface draws upon welcoming remarks made by the courtier Otomo no Tabito (655–731) at a gathering he hosted in 730 at his residence in Dazaifu (in contemporary Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu).

Guests composed and sang their own poems as they admired the plum blossoms flowering in the garden. Otomo is said to have suggested, “with the sky serving as a canopy and the ground as a carpet, we are sitting relaxed and close together and exchanging sake cups. Let us make this ume (plum) garden the subject of the poems we compose.”

Dazaifu is also the site of a famous shrine dedicated to the kami Tenman Tenjin, the posthumously deified spirit of the courtier Sugawara no Michizane (845–903).

Izumo photography

April 3, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Every 60 years the stunning Izumo shrine buildings are reconstructed. Lafcadio Hearn called it the premier shrine in Japan, and it is thought to be even older than Ise. This is where all the kami of Japan gather every year, and there is a kind of dormitory where the myriad kami are put up.

A photographer named Yukhito Masuura has documented the rebuilding rituals, and his photos are being exhibited at the moment in New York’s Foto Care. It promotes the aesthetic of Kehai, namely the idea of truth and beauty contained in the natural world. ‘I would like t show the world the evidence that it is possible to continue beauty and maintain a sustainable society for more than 1000 years,’ says the photographer.

The collection is unique, for Masuura is the only photographer to have been given access to all rituals. Some of the photos are stunning….

(For more about the wonderful Izumo Taisha, click the Izumo category in the righthand column of this page.)

The ‘dormitory’ where kami stay during the kamiari festival

Rooftop view of the katsurogi crossbeam and the diagonal chigi

Moving the kami unde a protective sheet so as not to be polluted by human sight

The characteristic Izumo shimenawa, largest rice rope knots in the world

Fence around the Izumo compound

Taoist links with Shinto

March 29, 2019 / John D. / 9 Comments

3, 5, 7 are lucky numbers in Taoism .

Not many people realise the debt Shinto owes to Taoism. It’s usually asserted that Shinto is the native religion of Japan, as if it is a purely indigenous creation. In fact, up to 70% of modern Shinto rituals are taken from Taoism (also written as Daoism).

Take the divination for instance, which comes from Taoism. Or take the 7-5-3 numerological symbolism which comes from Tao. Or even the mitsu tomoe, symbol of Shinto, which derives from the Taoist triad of heaven, earth and human.

In a youtube video the presenters put forward five general principles of Taoism, which also speak to the core values of ancient Shinto.

1 God and the universal way are beyond comprehension.
In Taoism it is often said that the Way has no name. Similarly in ancient Shinto the kami had no name. They were seen as local manifestations of a universal force that ran through the universe and were beyond understanding. Talking about the incomprehensible is meaningless. That’s why Shinto has no dogma and doctrine. Only as the Yamato state asserted its power through the means of strategically sited shrines did kami take on the names with which we are familiar today.

2) Good and evil are human perceptions, which do not exist in nature
Christians often attack Shinto as being amoral, and Catholic missionaries of the sixteenth century thought it akin to devil worship because the ‘gods’ of Shinto included malicious as well as benevolent aspects. Taoism, like Shinto, recognises that you can’t have good without evil, any more than you can have light without darkness, or truth without falsehood. There is no supreme good, and Amaterasu is not an almighty and all-knowing goddess.

Mitsu tomoe emblem on a Hachiman horse

3) Nature’s laws are heaven’s laws
Taoism looks to nature as the supreme teacher, and Shinto is rooted in kannagara, the way of nature. ‘Heaven follows the way of Tao, and Tao follows the laws of nature,’ says the Tao Te Ching. The consequence that both Tao and ancient Shinto draw from this are similar: ‘living in harmony with the earth, keeping your body healthy, taking care of your family, living a simple natural lifestyle – these are the ways to cultivate contentment, virtue and life,’ runs the Taoist ideal. Similar values are found in ancient Shinto, which put forward the ideals of sincerity, simplicity and naturalness.

4) Karma is self-inflicted
There is no divine punishment by some entity which judges our moral behaviour, but rather natural consequences that flow from our actions. Heaven and the ways of nature are impartial. Selfishness and wrong-doing however result in suffering. You reap what you sow.
(Taoism combines this with a belief in reincarnation, which I think differentiates it from Shinto, where life after death is left to Buddhism and ancestor worship.)

5) All is one
We are all part of one universe and share in the ultimate mystery. Words and the naming of things spread division, but silence and wonder are the natural response. ‘The unity is said to be the Mystery. Mystery of mysteries – the door to all wonders,’ says the Tao Te Ching. Take life as it is, lead a balanced lifestyle, keep healthy, contribute to the community, practise tai chi or aikido, strive for oneness, don’t cultivate the ego. Selflessness. Here Taoism merges with Shinto which merges with Buddhism. All is ultimately one.

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For a 8.30 minute long video of Five Beliefs that Make You Taoist, click here.

Purification rites like this derive from Taoist influence. Simple, healthy, life-affirming immersion in nature.

A multifaith meeting at Ise with Taoists front centre