Tag: Ainu worship

Japan by Train 2: Asahikawa

March 10, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

From Wakkanai heading south, Asahikawa is the next significant outpost of civilisation. The train takes almost four hours, which gives an idea of the scale of Hokkaido. Asahikawa is not well-known, but is Hokkaido’s second biggest city with a population of 350,000.

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At the Information Office, I looked for something special about Asahikawa. Guidebooks pitch it as the gateway to the Daisetsu mountain range, which is Hokkaido’s no.1 tourist destination. ‘Do you have something on mountains, perhaps?’ I asked, and sure enough a glossy brochure was produced – ’Coexisting with the Kamuy: The Kamikawa Ainu’ (Kamuy is the Ainu name for spirits, Kamikawa a sacred river). Inside was a map of Ainu villages and an area labelled ‘Playground of the gods’. Perfect.

The brochure spoke of ‘magnificent waterfalls’, ‘mysteriously-shaped rocks’ and ‘enigmatic lakes’. There were religious sites too, such as a riverside rock from which shaved sticks called Inau were offered to the river god for safe passage through the rapids. One caption spoke of ‘Gorges filled with snow which has not melted in ten thousand years.’ I needed a moment or two to take in the time scale. Seeing that, touching it, savouring it – now that would be special!

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Hokkaido was once two separate islands, which merged into each other as the tectonic plates beneath them collided. The movement forced up the Daisetsu range, which the Ainu named, descriptively, ‘Vast Roof Covering Middle Hokkaido.’ The tallest of the mountains, the highest in Hokkaido, is Mt Asahidake (2291m, 7513 ft), and the Visitors Center at its base has a list of adventurous activities, which along with hiking and river rafting include snowshoeing, air boarding, dog-sledding, and even ‘treeing’.

The route to the top is six kms (3.7m), which there and back takes eight to nine hours to complete. The volcano is still active, so there is no shortage of hot springs available afterwards to soak weary limbs. Skiing is particularly popular, because, according to the Visitors Center, the mountain has ‘the best powder snow in the world’. Really?

Near the Visitors Center a ropeway runs up to 1600m (5200 ft), transporting passengers literally and figuratively to a different realm. In ancient times mountains with a special sense of presence were considered sacred, and Asahidake was sacred to the Ainu. The ride is spectacular – the rarefied atmosphere, the soaring heights, the magnificence of nature. With its waterfalls, pristine lakes and alpine flowers you can see why the Ainu would have thought it a paradise on earth.

At the top a one-hour walk leads to a volcanic landscape with crater lakes. It is the first place every year to display autumn colours in Japan, and the crowning glory is the sight of bright red maple leaves against thick white snow. How divine is that! In winter there are pillars of light and sparkling ice crystals known as ‘diamond dust’, while in spring streams burst into life with the melting of the snow, surging down to the valley below. As in India, the fresh mountain water was seen as a living entity, gifted from the gods on high. Amongst the animal life here are brown bears and – new to me – a furry relative of the rabbit called pika which burrows underground. Cute!

Within this paradise were swarms of dragonflies, darting back and forth in delight at the sunshine. It reminded me of Emperor Jomei, who as early as the seventh century had written of ‘My Yamato, Island of Dragonflies’. It was only when I got back to the wifi comfort of my hotel that I discovered there are a staggering 5000 varieties worldwide, of which 200 exist in Japan alone. Dragon is a powerful moniker for such a fragile creature, yet it captures the appeal of the brightly coloured creatures, for in their flight and love of water they evoke the vision of transitioning between realms. Perhaps the Pure Land priest, Issa, had something similar in mind when he wrote…
dragonfly –
distant mountains
reflected in its eyes

Another writer with an affinity for insects was Lafcadio Hearn, whose interest resulted in a remarkable twenty essays of detailed observation. His eyesight was abysmal, but his one-eyed myopia led him to focus on close-ups through a magnifying glass. He particularly appreciated the value given to insect song in Japanese culture, for ’the music of insects and all that it signifies in the great poem of nature tells very plainly of goodness of heart, aesthetic sensibility, a perfectly healthy state of mind.’

Ainu Religion (Bird) Pt 2

January 15, 2021 / John D. / 3 Comments

This is the second part of a series based around the writings of the remarkable Isabella Bird, who visited Japan in 1878. In Part One she is taken by some Ainu villagers to visit a hill shrine dedicated to Yoshitsune, the medieval warrior. In the passage below, taken from p.274-5 of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, she discusses nature worship and Ainu gods. (The libations of saké, sprinkled in different directions is the same purification rite as in Siberian shamanism.)

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There cannot be anything more vague and destitute of cohesion than Ainu religious notions. With the exceptions of the hill shrines of Japanese construction dedicated to Yoshitsune, they have no temples, and they have neither priests, sacrifices, nor worship. Apparently though all traditional time their cultus has been the rudest and most primitive form of nature-worship, the attaching of a vague sacredness to trees, rivers, rocks, and mountains, and of vague notions of power for good or evil to the sea, the forest, the fire, and the sun and moon. I cannot make out that they possess a trace of the deification of ancestor, though their rude nature worship may well have been the primitive form of Japanese Shinto. The solitary exception to their adoration of animate and inanimate nature appears to be the reverence paid to Yoshitsune, to whom they believe they are greatly indebted, and, it is supposed by some, will yet interfere on their behalf.

Their gods – that is the outward symbols of their religion, corresponding most likely with the Shinto gohei – are wands and posts of peeled wood, whitted nearly to the top, from which the pendent shavings fall down in white curls. These are not only set up in their houses, sometimes to the number of twenty, but on precipices, banks of river and streams, and mountain-passes, and such wands are thrown into the rivers as the boatmen descend rapids and dangerous places.

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I have taken infinite trouble to learn from themselves what their religious notions are, and Shinondi tells me that they have told me all they know, and the whole sum is a few vague fears and hopes, and a suspicion that there are things outside themselves more powerful than themselves, whose good influences may be obtained, or whose evil influences may be averted, by libations of saké.

The word worship is in itself misleading… it simply means libations of saké, waving bowls and waving hand, without any spiritual act of deprecation or supplication. In such a sense an such alone they worship the sun and moon (but not the stars), the forest, and the sea. the wolf, the black snake, the owl and several other beasts and birds have the kamoi, god, attached to them, as the wolf is ‘the howling god’, the owl ‘the bird of the gods,’ a black snake the ‘raven god’; but none of these things are now ‘worshipped,’ wolf-worship having quite lately died out. Thunder, ‘the voice of the gods,’ inspires some fear. The sun, they say, is their best god, and the fire their next best, obviously the divinities from whom their greatest benefits are received. Some idea of gratitude pervades their rue notions, as in the case of the ‘worship’ paid to Yoshitsune, and it appears in one of the rude recitations chanted at the Saturnalia which in several places conclude the hunting and fishing seasons; –

‘To the sea which nourishes us, to the forest which protects us, we present our grateful thanks. You are two mothers that nourish te same child; do not be angry if we leave one to go to the other.

‘The Ainus will always be the pride of the forest and of the sea.

The solitary act of sacrifice which they perform is the placing of a worthless, dead bird, something like a sparrow, near one of their peeled wands, where it is left till it reaches an advanced stage of putrefaction. ‘To drink for the god’ is the chief act of “worship,” and thus drunkenness and religion are inseparably connected, as the more saké the Ainus drink the more devout they are, and the better pleased are the gods. It does not appear that anything but saké is of sufficient value to please the gods. The libations to the fire and the peeled post are never omitted, and are always accompanied by the inward waving of the saké bowls.