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Priestess singer

November 1, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

courtesy Suzue

This year’s Ted Talks x Kyoto featured an opening session with Suzue, a Shinto priestess at Ono Hachiman shrine. Rather unconventionally (she was born in Brazil), she also has a career as a singer-songwriter with Studio Kotodama, in which guise she adds a New Age spirituality to her music.

Her performance at the Ted Talks is now available on the internet here.

From her website is this self-description…

“Rev. Suzue was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1978, and raised in Tokyo, Aomori and Kobe, Japan. In 2002, she released her first album,”Umashiashikabi”, which received critical acclaim in the press. In January 2006, she moved to New York as a goodwill ambassador priestess to propagate Japanese Shinto culture. In the same year, she performed at the opening ceremony in front of former Prime Minister Koizumi at the World Conference of Religions for Peace 8th World Assembly Kyoto and received a roar of applause.

In 2007, she held the recital in Carnegie Hall (NYC), and received standing ovation. it proved that there is no border in her musicality. Her concert was successful also in Brazil, Russia, China and Thailand.

She collaborated as a singer on the new album of the Grammy-nominated world-music group 1 Giant Leap, entitled ” What About Me? “, which released worldwide in the summer of 2008. She released her 2nd album,”Konohanasakuya”, in 2009.

Inspired by her poetic interaction with mountains, rivers, flowers and trees, she sings about the relationship between nature and humans, as well as the inner dimensions of human nature, so as to kindle in the people of Japan and around the world a sense of awe and appreciation for life. She is a descendant of Inazo Nitobe, the internationally renowned author of Bushido.”

Official website: http://suzue.asia/
Official blog: http://suzue-blog.iza.ne.jp/blog/

Halloween and Obon

October 31, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Day of the dead

Today being Halloween is a timely moment to think of the connections between the western tradition and that of Obon in Japan, which takes place in midsummer. Both centre around the spirits of the dead, but whereas Obon is seen as a friendly reunion with family ancestors, the Halloween custom focusses on eerie ghosts and spooky phantoms. However, its origins may well lie in pagan customs as suggested by the wiki entry for the festival of Samhain which follows below…

Samhain customs
The Samhain celebration marked the end of the harvest, it was considered to be a good time to slaughter animals because there was no longer any long grass for them to eat. The word “Samhain” appears in Irish literature from the 10th century onwards as an important date in the calendar, the time when fighting and trading were to stop and a good date for tribal leaders to gather their people together. The goings-on at those gatherings became a popular theme for Irish folktales.

Not a Halloween costume, but an eerie lion dance put on at Obon

The name Samhain means “summer’s end”. It marked the end of the “lighter half” of the year and the coming of the “darker half”. It is believed to have been the Celtic New Year, which would mean that many people would be thinking about their future and might have tried to find out what the coming year would have in store for them by means of magic.

Bonfires played a large part in the celebration of Samhain, as they still do in the celebration of Halloween in the Republic of Ireland and in the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night in the United Kingdom today. On the night of Samhain people and their animals would pass between bonfires as part of a cleansing ritual and the bones of slaughtered animals would be thrown onto the flames.

There does not appear to be any truth in the persistent modern rumor that Samhain was the name of ancient Celtic death deity, however, Samhain appears to have been a festival of the dead on which people believed that ghosts returned to their old homes. It has been suggested that the modern Halloween practice of dressing up in costumes originated in a Samhain custom. People are said to have disguised themselves either to frighten away evil spirits or to fool ghosts into thinking that the costume wearers were ghosts too, so that they would be left alone.

Samhain and All Saints’ Day
It is commonly held that Gregory III, who was pope between the years 731 and 741, fixed the date of All Saints’ Day on November 1 to Christianize the Samhain festival of the dead. However, the Christian All Saints’ Day appears to have been observed on November 1 in Britain since the 7th century and was officially celebrated on May 13 in the rest of Western Europe until the year 835.

Samhain celebrations today
For many Wiccans and neopagans today Samhain is an important religious festival. There are many different neopagan religions and the way these different groups celebrate Samhain can vary greatly. It is not unusual for neopagans to hold Samhain parties on October 31 which are largely identical to other Halloween parties.

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Here is Wikipedia’s take on Obon as opposed to Halloween….

Descent into the underworld (Kyoto at Obon)

Obon (also known as Bon or Bon Festival) is a Japanese Buddhist festival that has some similarities to Halloween. It is said that spirits of the departed return to Earth from the land of the dead during Obon and visit their old homes. The holiday probably has its origins in the Chinese Ghost Festival, although the manner in which the Japanese celebrate Obon is now quite different to the way in which the Chinese mark Ghost Festival.

The holiday has been celebrated in Japan for at least five hundred years. It is a summer festival which lasts for three days. The date on which it starts differs in different regions of Japan. Different municipalities adopted different dates for its start when the Western calendar was introduced to Japan in the 19th century. In most parts of Japan, Obon begins on August 15, in other areas, including Tokyo and Yokohama, it begins on July 15 and in some regions it begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the date of which varies in the Western calendar.

Obon is a time of year when people are supposed to honor their ancestors. Many families mark the occasion by visiting and cleaning their ancestors’ graves, as some people do on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day in other parts of the world. As a result, Obon has also become a time of year for family reunions.

The last day of Obon is [often] marked by a ceremony in which illuminated paper lanterns are placed in a river and left to float downstream. The lanterns symbolically tell the spirits of the departed that it is time to leave the land of the living and return to the afterlife. The ceremony usually ends with a public fireworks display.

Although it is said that spirits of the departed return to Earth at Obon, it is not normally associated with evil spirits returning from the land of the dead. However, new horror movies are always released in Japan before Obon. Watching horror movies is a popular pastime around the time of Obon, largely because they give viewers a chill that helps to relieve them from the summer heat.

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To read about the growing popularity of Halloween in Japan, click here. For ancestor worship and Obon, see here or here. For the Japanese way of coping with death, see here.

The fearsome Enma, lord and judge of the afterlife

Tree power

October 29, 2014 / John D. / 3 Comments

Shinto has long recognised the special qualities of trees

An article in the UK’s Independent highlights the alarming war that has been waged by mankind on trees around the world. Currently forests covering the size of Greece disappear each year, but now a movement has been initiated by the UN which may bring about reforestation. Meanwhile, the shrine groves of Japan have shown how reverence for the spiritual quality of trees can act as a powerful impulse towards conservation in a society that values materialism and utilitarianism.

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Is this the end of the ‘war on trees’? UN members pledge to restore woodland and safeguard rainforests
IAN JOHNSTON The Independent Sunday 07 September 2014

At Ise Jingu visitors are often awed by the majesty of the cedars

Since the birth of agriculture thousands of years ago, humans have cut down the world’s forests to grow food and expand their population. But now experts believe the end of our “war on trees” is in sight amid what some are calling a new “green revolution” – finally breaking the causal link between growing numbers of people and falling numbers of trees.

At a United Nations meeting later this month, countries are expected to pledge to restore between 10 and 15 million hectares of woodland and to safeguard significant areas of the Amazon rainforest. Several of the world’s biggest food firms have already made “no-deforestation” pledges that could substantially reduce clear felling in South-east Asia for palm-oil plantations, and more could sign up at the summit, which is being held in New York by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon on 23 September.

While trees are still being felled in alarming numbers, the rate has slowed dramatically. In the 1990s, 16 million hectares were lost every year, but this fell in the 2000s to about 13 million hectares – an area about the size of Greece.

Tim Christophersen, of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), expressed “cautious optimism”.
“I think we are seeing a real sea change in the way deforestation is being addressed and prioritised,” he said. “Looking at the list of possible [summit] announcements … there will be quite a few pledges of new funding and of new areas of forest that countries pledge to restore, turning the tide on deforestation, and some key private-sector commitments.” But he cautioned: “Some commitments are still being tied down… It will be interesting on the day to see how much is actually being pledged.”

In Shinto some trees are singled out as being sanctified by the presence of kami

Mr Christophersen, Unep’s senior programme officer for forests and climate change, said the change in attitudes was partly because of the growing realisation of how valuable forests are. Recent research has added rainfall creation to the list of “eco-system services” provided by trees, such as removing carbon from the air, storing and purifying water, maintaining soil quality and providing a rich habitat. “A lot of these services are outside the market, so they are not priced, but they are priceless in a way,” he said.

In Brazil, deforestation was 70 per cent less in 2013 than average for the decade up to 2005, partly because the soy and beef industries signed up to a moratorium on felling forest for farmland. Brazil has unveiled a plan for an 80 per cent cut by 2020. A report by the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, called “Deforestation Success Stories”, said in June that Brazil’s actions had “already made a very large contribution to combating climate change – more than that of any other nation on Earth. For this… Brazil can rightfully be very proud”.

In South-east Asia, palm oil has been a main driver of deforestation. About 3.5 million hectares in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea were felled to make way for the crop from 1990 to 2010, says the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an umbrella group that includes Oxfam and WWF. The resulting devastation threatens the survival of species such as the orang-utan and Sumatran tiger.

Shinto's sacred trees stand out on account of their age, their size, their peculiarity or through being struck by lightning

But “no-deforestation” pledges by food giants Wilmar, Unilever and most recently Cargill have raised hopes of a paradigm shift. Glenn Hurowitz, of US consultancy Climate Advisers and its activist group Catapult, which has helped persuade palm-oil companies to act, said: “This is something of a second green revolution – upending the fundamental civilisational assumption that expanding agriculture was necessarily associated with conversion of native ecosystems. I think the fundamental reality that many of the companies have hit is they don’t need to cut down forest in order to grow.” But he did add that this was partly because there is now so much land that has been degraded by human activity and is available relatively cheaply.

“The war on trees is alive and well unfortunately, but in some countries we are winning battles against the war on trees … I think it is the beginning of the end,” Mr Hurowitz said. “There are countries where forests are actually regrowing, including Europe, the US, India, China and Vietnam, and even some in Africa.”

However, the scale of the problem is daunting. Research by Maryland University, Greenpeace and others, published on Thursday, showed that more than 104 million hectares – three times the size of Germany – of our last remaining undisturbed forests was degraded between 2000 and 2013.

Dr Christoph Thies, senior forest campaigner for Greenpeace International, called for governments to take “urgent action” to safeguard forests “for their economic, social and conservation values”.

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For more on Shinto’s sacred groves, click here. For an article on shrines and their trees, see here. For pagan connections, see here. For Shinto and environmentalism, see this piece by Aike Rots.

Trees covered for protection in the sacred grove of Shimogamo Shrine

Danjiri festivals

October 27, 2014 / John D. / 0 Comments

Typical Danjiri floats (this and others courtesy Wikicommons)

The Kansai Scene this month has a special feature on Kansai’s Danjri festivals. These autumn festivals are a high-speed dangerous version of the more sedate Gion Matsuri, with elaborate carts sponsored by particular areas racing through the streets, resulting sometimes in damaged buildings and occasionally in death. The most famous of them is the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri, which takes place in September. There’s a well-produced five minute video of it here, which gives a sense of the risks involved.

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Dashing Danjiri Draw Kansai Crowds
by Sam Evans • Oct 1, 2014

Danjiri festivals are some of Japan’s most enchanting spectacles, and the most revered of them all is held just a stone’s throw away from us Kansai dwellers in the south Osaka town of Kishiwada.

Much of the excitement comes from the figure stood perilously on top of the float

The famous Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri dates back to 1703 when the town’s daimyo (feudal lord), Okabe Nagayasu, created a festival to pray to shinto gods for a bountiful harvest. The festival’s popularity grew rapidly as, for this short period, the otherwise strictly-prohibited locals were permitted into the castle’s grounds to drag danjiri (portable shrines) through the area.

The competitive nature that spawned from attempts to outdo each other before the eyes of the daimyo has since evolved into the modern-day festival, in which armies of young men from surrounding neighborhoods heave their danjiri through the town in an exhibition of strength, agility and bravery. But what is it that makes Danjiri Matsuri unique among the thousands of festivals in the Japanese calendar?

Arriving in Kishiwada at the stroke of 10am, the streets are already jam-packed with people, but luckily I manage to squeeze into a prime spot outside the station where the festival is filmed for national TV. Excitement and anticipation fills the air as well as the aroma from the myriad of street vendors selling everything from Indian cuisine to Brazilian barbecue to the staple Kansai treats okonomiyaki and takoyaki. The danjiri have been touring other parts of town since 6am when the hiki-dashi, or “opening pull”, signalled the beginning of the festival. Now, the hayashi (the drum and flute music played on the floats) echoes from out of sight, growing ever louder to signal their imminent arrival to the main street.

The crowd erupts as the first of many danjiri comes into view, lugged by dozens of men dressed immaculately in their troop’s traditional uniform. The floats themselves are four-ton colossal works of art made exclusively of keiyaki (zelkova) wood and interestingly, without the use of a single nail. Each group’s danjiri is adorned with carvings called horimono which depict scenes from historical battles and add further to their majestic beauty. But just as I find myself getting lost in the intricate patterns, I’m snapped out of it by the intensified beating of taiko (drums).

With performers on top of the roof, the floats race at high speed through crowded streets

The action is about the begin. The troop stops and the ropes used to haul the floats become taut and the ubiquitous chanting loudens. Suddenly, in an explosion of flutes and cheers the danjiri is pulled to running speed and made to skid around the corner; the man on the float’s roof jumps and dances athletically while desperately trying not to lose balance and fall to his death like some have in years past.

This exhilarating performance is repeated as different troops parade along the main street, looking increasingly exhausted as the sweltering day draws on. At this point I took the opportunity to talk with Masaharu Ishikawa, a veteran of the Nimura troop in Takaishi City’s festival. He talks about what danjiri events mean to their participants: “I have pride in my danjiri group because we represent my hometown, Higashi Hagoromo. My uncle, cousin and best friends are all in the same group and it’s this sense of camaraderie that makes danjiri very important to us. I’m sure other groups feel the same way, but I think my group is the best and the most fun.”

Masaharu reveals that troops begin training twice a week in the months before the festival, increasing their regime to a gruelling 1-3 hours of running and pulling practice every day in the final few weeks. “Turning corners is especially exhausting and it takes a lot of practice, but it’s worth it because the festival is so exciting! Afterwards, all the girls want to take pictures with us and at night my group and I barbecue together.”

As day turns to night the festival does indeed grow more benign. The pace slows as the danjiri are embellished with lanterns and coaxed through the streets in a procession resembling a Disneyland parade. The mobile shrines are then parked together for everyone to admire closely, the hiyashi music still whistling tenderly in the background as the stars of the show take a well-deserved rest. The dazzling Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri is over for another year, though Kansai is awash with danjiri festivals throughout October that, although not quite as famous as this one, make up for in convenience what they lack in size. Forget about arriving early for a spot or having to fight through a sea of people to get to a food stall. These later festivals are ideal for a more laid-back weekend jaunt where one can still experience danjiri at its truest, just in a more intimate atmosphere.

Excitement as a float turns a corner at the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri (courtesy Edge Wave Sensor)

Danjiri Festival dates in 2014 were as follows (the 2015 dates may vary somewhat):

Kishiwada City
Oct 11 (6-10pm), Oct 12 (7- 10pm) Kishiwada’s more spiritual danjiri festival. 47 floats as opposed to the September festival’s 34.　　Access: Around Kumeda, Shimomatsu and Higashi Kishiwada Stns on the JR Hanwa line

Takaishi City
Oct 11 (2-5pm), Oct 12 (9-11am, 1-5pm) A more grassroots danjiri festival with less TV cameras and more of a homely vibe.　　Access: Nankai Line, Takaishi Stn, East Exit

Sakai City
Oct 3, 5,11 & 12 (afternoon/evening) Similarly underpublicised compared to Kishiwada’s matsuri, experience the pride and passion of the people of Sakai. Access: With so many shrines along these routes, the best bet is to get to JR Sakai Stn and follow the crowds to the nearby viewing spots.

Nada no Kenka “fighting” Danjiri festival, Himeji City
Oct 11 & 12 (all day) If Kishiwada’s festival is dangerous then this is outright carnage. Watch as the different troops ferociously clash their danjiri together. Fight on! Access: Matsubara Hachiman Shrine; 3-min walk from Shirahamanomiya Stn on the Sanyo Dentetsu honsen line

Shrine café

October 26, 2014 / John D. / 2 Comments

Kamigaminomori (courtesy the shrine café)

I once asked a Korean woman about shamanism there. ‘Oh, you mean fortune-telling,’ she responded. It sometimes seems that Shinto is viewed in similar fashion by many of the young people who flock to shrines for ‘enmusubi‘ (making good ties) or eagerly wait in queue for their fortune slips. An article in Japan Today suggests some enterprising Japanese have seen a further business opportunity in the trend.

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New ‘Shrine Cafe’ in Tokyo offers fortune-telling and counseling services with your tea
By Krista Rogers Japan Today OCT. 25, 2014

TOKYO —
With only a little over two months left in the year, you might find yourself already looking forward to what the new year has to offer. If you’re especially eager to get a sneak peek of what 2015 has in store for you, then a new Shrine Cafe located in Tokyo’s Takadanobaba neighborhood may just be the perfect place for you. It only opened its doors on Oct 14, but it already promises to fill a niche in Japan’s already abundant and eclectic cafe scene.

But wait – just what the heck is a shrine cafe? A quintessential aspect of Japan is the omnipresence of Shinto shrines, known as jinja (神社), located throughout the country. Providing a detailed description of jinja is beyond the scope of this article, however, the basic idea is that they serve as dwellings and places of worship for the various kami, or spirits/gods (神), found within the natural world.

Miko at Omiwa Jinja

In the picture, you may recognize the distinctive red and white garb of the “miko,” or Shinto shrine priestess/maiden (巫女), from facets of Japanese popular culture. In particular, Sailor Moon’s Rei Hino and Inuyasha‘s Kikyo come to mind as two examples of anime characters who serve as “miko” at jinja.

But actually, you won’t find the “miko” pictured above at a typical Shinto shrine. Instead, you have to go to a new location in Tokyo called Uranai Hiiringu Kafe x Jinja: Kamigaminomori-jinja (占いヒーリングカフェ×神社　神々の森神社), which translates to something like “Fortune-telling and Healing Cafe x Shrine: Forest of Gods Shrine.”

Kamigaminomori is located an easy three-minute walk from Takadanobaba Station, which can be reached on the Yamanote Line. Upon arriving at its third floor entrance in the Izuei Building, you’ll immediately see that this is no ordinary place by the decorative exterior of the door.

As a unique shrine/fortune-teller/cafe combination, the cafe area boasts an impressive stock of over 20 varieties of high-quality tea from around the world. You should note that Kamigaminomori is not a half-hearted attempt to incorporate a shrine into a cafe, nor is it a full-fledged cafe designed with elements of a shrine in mind. Rather, you can think of them as two separate and complete entities sharing the same space.

Continuing inside, you’ll enter the actual shrine area, which comes complete with a selection of books and a TV displaying images of scenery found at different shrines. The unique atmosphere causes you to completely forget that you’re inside a building.

Comparing fortune slips at Jisshu Jinja in Kyoto

You’re probably wondering by now the reason for building an indoor shrine in the first place. According to the staff, they wanted to create a calming ambiance that wouldn’t be affected by the weather, as well as a convenient location near the station, particular for women, to come to after a stressful day at work. Furthermore, it’s open till 11 p.m., so you shouldn’t have a problem getting there in time even if you work overtime. Yup, sounds like the perfect healing place to us!

All of the staff members are professional and fully qualified Shinto priests, counselors, or fortune tellers. Below is an example of a “therapy room” where you can have your fortune told or receive counseling. The atmosphere is a bit different from the open shrine area.

In general, you don’t need to reserve a spot for gaining entry to the shrine and cafe area. After all, you don’t make a reservation when you stop by any other jinja, do you? In addition, the 500 yen entrance fee gives you unlimited refills of the previously mentioned 20 varieties of tea. However, you might want to reserve a place if you’re seeking the fortune-telling or counseling services. By the way, have you been feeling a bit “tainted” recently? Apparently, the staff will even perform free Shinto purifications!

Regardless of the intent of your visit, your time at the Kamigaminomori-jinja Cafe is sure to be memorable and relaxing. Why not take this opportunity to visit a unique establishment that’s so intricately tied to traditional Japanese culture

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神々の森神社　概要/Kamigaminomori-jinja

Shop name: Uranai Hiiringu Kafe x Jinja: Kamigaminomori-jinja (“Fortune Healing Cafe x Shrine: Kamigaminomori-jinja“) Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays 6pm-11pm (reservations are accepted until 10pm) Location: 3rd floor of the Izuei Building, 4-13-12 Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 〒169-0075 Tel: 070-6469-724

Omikuji fortune slips at Suwa Taisha tied up after being read, either to cement the good luck or take away the bad

Kamigamo group tour

October 21, 2014 / John D. / 4 Comments

The group pose before the gate into the inner compound of the shrine (courtesy Inui sensei)

Shrine staff filing out for morning prayers

.. and filing back again afterwards

Kamigamo Jinja offers shrine tours by an English-speaking priest, and this week a group of young Germans were able to make a special visit to this World Heritage site. It was a rare chance to hear directly from a Shinto priest familiar with Western thinking. It enabled participants to enter into parts of the shrine normally off-limits, as well as to see firsthand the work involved in the 21-year cycle of rebuilding. By good fortune, the beginning of the tour coincided with the procession of shrine staff to their morning prayers, and the end of the tour with a purification ceremony prior to a ritual celebrating the empress’s birthday. It was quite an experience.

Inui Mitsutaka explains about Shinto to the group of Germans. In the background is one of the two conical piles of sand representing the shrine's sacred hill

After an initial introduction to the history of the shrine (‘Kyoto’s oldest’), Inui sensei led the group to the water basin, where they were instructed in the proper etiquette – left hand, right hand, left again and wash out your mouth. One interesting observation was that afterwards the ladle should be held up so that the water runs down the handle in order to clean it for the next person – in this way the Japanese custom of consideration for others is expressed.

As we approached the shrine proper, it was pointed out that there were three bridges in all that worshippers would pass over – a kind of purification in itself. The streams passing through the shrine grounds are an example of early Shinto’s reverence for nature, and one building set over a stream, considered the most pure in the shrine, is reserved exclusively for the envoy of the emperor.

The shrine is full of symbolic crossings, the passage over water conveying the visitor to a purer world.

The shrine was built by the Kamo clan, who settled the area some 1500 years ago, and dedicated to a thunder deity called Kamo Wake Ikazuchi no mikoto. In the inner courtyard a room with paintings by a twentieth-century artist tells the story of the his virgin birth. His mother, a shamanness called Tamayori no hime, was purifying herself in the river one day when a red arrow came floating by. She took it home and placed it in her room while she slept. Next day she found herself pregnant.

Inui sensei prepares to perform the purification ritual

When the young boy came of age, he was asked at a ritual of celebration to place a cup of saké in front of his father. Declaring his father to be up in heaven, he ascended into the skies accompanied by thunder and lightning. Later he appeared in a dream to his mother and told her that he would revisit if a suitable ritual was put on for him with aoi leaves (thought in the past to be a protection against misfortune). This was the beginning of the famous Aoi Festival held every May, the oldest of Kyoto’s Big Three Festivals.

Prior to visiting the main sanctuary where the kami resides, Inui sensei conducted a purification ceremony and instructed the Germans in the correct way to pay their respects (2 bows, 2 claps, 1 bow). The clapping he pointed out was a way of connecting with the kami, with the left hand representing heaven and the right hand earth. Mindful of the fact that the young Germans were attached to a Christian organisation (the NCC in Kyoto), Inui sensei was careful to stress that activities such as washing hands and paying respect were cultural rather than religious activities.

Our ‘prayers’ took place not in front of the Honden, which was under repair, but the adjacent Gongen – ‘a permanent temporary sanctuary’. This is unique to Kamigamo Jinja, and indicative of the high status the shrine enjoyed in times past when it was ranked no. 2 after Ise in importance. Unusually the komainu guardians are not statues, but painted on the wall. However, at the Shingu Shrine adjacent to the Honden are strikingly colourful statues of komainu, made of wood covered with lacquer and then silver-leaf in one case and gold-leaf in the other.

A silver-leafed komainu...

... facing a gold-leaf covered komainu

Every 21 years the shrine is renewed in a shikinen sengu cycle (only about a dozen shrines still keep this expensive custom, including most famously Ise Jingu). The roof alone involves an extraordinary amount of time and labour. First strips of cypress are torn from a tree, which must be over 80 years old. The bark will grow back after ten years, and the reason for the use of cypress is because it is resistant to bugs. After the renewal, the old bark strips are returned to the soil to be recycled by nature.

The strips are carefully laid one on top of each other, and considerable skill is required in the rounding of the roof shape to ensure rain runs off it. Progress is slow – less than a meter a day – and bamboo nails are used to fix things in place (only two people are left in the whole of Japan, a father and son, who are able to produce these nails!). For the roof above the kami, ceramic tiles are never used because they are made from soil on which humans have trodden. It’s symptomatic of the high esteem in which the kami is held.

Inui sensei explains about the cypress strips that are used in the roofing

Our visit happened to coincide with the empress’s birthday, and Inui sensei explained that the ceremony held to honour this was also for the well-being of the country as a whole since it was written in the constitution that the imperial family was the symbol of the nation. Before dispersing, we were able to watch the priests’ purification prior to the ceremony, at which they pass a small stick over their body to absorb impurities which is then placed into the stream to be washed away.

Priests line up in front of the stream for ritual purification. A small stick is waved over the body to absorb impurities, then thrown into the stream in the background to be washed away eventually to the sea.

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For tours of the shrine, notice is required in advance. Tel 075-781-0011 Fax 075-702-6618 (Tour time of 20 to 30 min. Donation 500 yen, per person (Group: 20 and more 450 yen per person)

For a detailed guide to Kamigamo Jinja, see Shinto Shrines by Cali and Dougill, p.115-118

Kamigamo neighbourhood

October 20, 2014 / John D. / 1 Comment

Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto once used to lie well beyond the city limits. It’s one reason why it has managed to retain so much greenery (it still owns several small hills and even the neighbouring large golf course).

Next to the shrine there grew up a small village consisting of shrine personnel and members of the Kamo clan, who first settled the area around the fifth or sixth century. With little streams running through it, the area retains a delightful and distinctive atmosphere even today, though it has been engulfed by Kyoto’s expanding urbanisation. Some of the houses were built specially for Kamigamo priests, and though many have been replaced the article below describes how a foreigner is working to preserve those that are left. (Thanks to Paul de Leeuw for pointing out this article.)

Gert van Tonder bought this 110-year-old house in Kyoto as a wedding gift for his wife.

Living in the Shadow of Shinto Priests
Liza Foreman Published: May 16, 2013 NYTimes

KYOTO — Centuries ago, it would have been difficult for anyone other than a Shinto priest to enter the sacred district of Kamigamo, let alone live here. But now this quaint neighborhood of narrow streets and old houses, nestled between the river Kamo and Kyoto’s northern mountain range, is home to Gert van Tonder, an educator born in South Africa, and his family.

Mr. van Tonder purchased the 240-square-meter, or 2,600-square-foot, property, which included a house and garden, in 2005. It was a present to his wife, Ai, a local artist, following their wedding at the nearby Kamigamo Shrine. They spent the equivalent of $1 million buying and renovating the 110-year-old house, which Mr. van Tonder says is one of the best-preserved homes in the neighborhood.

The house was built of cedar and cypress wood, with bamboo and clay walls, a roof of baked-clay tiles and a stone foundation. It was designed in the sukiya style, which emphasizes naturalism and sometimes is called the Japanese teahouse style.

In the prewar period Shinto scholar Richard Ponsonby-Fane was much taken with the area and resided there for many years

The home was in good condition when Mr. van Tonder purchased it. But to make it more comfortable, he added underfloor heating and improved the bathroom. He also turned the attic into an extra room, now stuffed with toys as a playroom for the couple’s daughter.

“I bought my house from an urban developer,” Mr. van Tonder said. “He did a fair amount of restoration, but he never lived here. He wanted to sell it to somebody who would preserve it as it is, and he had tremendous trouble finding someone.

“Many younger Japanese would love it but would not be able to afford it. The older generation, generally, does not want to live in a traditional house,” he continued. “If he were unable to sell the house, the plan was to demolish it and create a parking lot — a very common fate for old houses in Kyoto.”

The house consists of five main rooms in addition to the attic playroom. Just to the left of the main entry door is a large, sparsely decorated tatami room, which is used as a living and sleeping area and for Mrs. van Tonder’s painting. Its floor-to-ceiling windows offer broad views of the garden, which Mr. van Tonder brought back to life and is one of his favorite pastimes. It contains more than 60 varieties of moss and 20 kinds of small wild orchids.

“Nobody thinks that a foreigner can maintain a garden here,” he said, explaining that he became fascinated with moss as a child and developed a desire to move to Kyoto when he realized that he might find lots of it there.

To the right of the tatami room, there is a modern kitchen that overlooks the garden, and beyond a room stuffed with futons. The bathroom has a cedar tub and a small toilet room. Since completing the renovations a few years ago, Mr. van Tonder, an associate professor in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, has become interested in saving and restoring other neighborhood houses.

The house where Ponsonby Fane lived, now taken over and being done up by a company

In the recent past, Mr. van Tonder said, there were many old homes in the area, including at least 400 sha-ke, or shrine houses, built for the Kamigamo priests and dating to the Edo Period (1603 to 1868). Now only 20 of them remain, he continued, the others torn down in Japan’s drive for modernization or because the country’s steep inheritance taxes made it impossible for the next generation to maintain them.

“One of the distinct features of the sha-ke houses are their white facades with black wooden latticework, like a Tudor house,” Mr. van Tonder said. “The houses are divided along the length into two halves, one with a ground floor and another with a raised tatami floor. Each half has its own front door — the lower door serving for peasants, the upper door for official visitors. The sha-ke houses are surrounded and hidden by high clay walls.”

The professor now is working on plans to ask some of Kyoto’s larger businesses and other companies overseas for donations to buy some of the surviving homes, which he wants to use for a small architectural research center. While the Kyoto city government designated one of the houses he wants to save as a “cultural asset of highest significance,” there has been no additional support, he said.

“These houses are in a neighborhood that existed as a village for the last 1,500 years — that is three centuries before Kyoto was founded as a city and capital of Japan,” Mr. van Tonder said. “The architecture of the old dwellings is a blueprint for much of the quintessential sophisticated Japanese architectural design famous from the 1700s onwards.”

“I personally consider the whole area a zone of very high cultural and architectural significance,” he said. “If preserved properly, by 2050 it will definitely be a Unesco heritage site that will be on the list of everyone visiting Kyoto.”

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For a report on Kamigamo Shrine, see here or an account of its horse race see here.
For more about Ponsonby-Fane, click here.

Kamigamo Shrine, a World Heritage site, is the area's biggest landowner and dominates the activities of the neighbourhood to its south, where descendants of the original Kamo clan can still be found.