Revd Tagawa’s series of columns in Jinja Shinpō continued in the December 16th issue. This instalment covers the beginning of her service as a priest. As she mentioned in the previous column, she had found a place at Imari Jinja, fairly near her home, and she was soon given responsibility for gokitō (formal prayers). This was not just in the jinja itself, but also in their wedding hall.
There, she had a problem. The miko were older than her, and their reaction was to laugh. “What? A female priest?” Now, she thinks it was just an expression of surprise (a female priest who is younger than the miko is, indeed, very unusual), but at the time she felt as though she was being mocked.
This was one of the events that made her determined to be beyond reproach as a priest. She reminded herself that every gokitō was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the people attending, and that she must not make mistakes during the ceremony. Not stumble over the norito, not put a foot wrong… She realised how tense she was when she noticed that her legs were trembling during the matsuri.
At the same time, her home jinja (Fukumo Hachimangū) had just started work on rebuilding the jinja office. The existing building was about a century old and on the verge of collapse. Whenever she had time, she went round the local area with the chair of the building committee and the chief sōdai, introducing herself as the new senior priest (negi) and future chief priest. A lot of the people were encouraging, but a few were not.
“Don’t go calling me an ujiko. I’ve no idea where the jinja is, and have nothing to do with it, but you come round just because you want money. It’s voluntary, right? Don’t start the conversation on the assumption I’ll contribute.”
As a new priest, this was not easy for her to hear, and it confirmed to her what she had heard about the weakening of links between jinja and ujiko.
Nevertheless, they did eventually collect the money, and the acting chief priest suggested that she should lead the jōtōsai, a matsuri for raising the ridgepole, by herself. It was the first time she had done such a matsuri, and there were a lot of guests of honour, but most of all she wanted the construction to be completed safely.
While she was calling the kami down, a butterfly fluttered by. One of the ujiko told her that her grandmother (who had died some time previously) had come to support her, and Revd Tagawa felt the same way.
At the end of the ceremony, rice cakes were scattered from the roof, which is very traditional, and the town was lively again for a while.
Soon after the construction was finished and the matsuri to mark the completion of the building had been held, she went to the old jinja office. When she opened the door, she found that the whole ceiling in the hallway had fallen in, and she could see the sky. She felt that the kami’s protection had now moved to the new office, and deeply appreciated the way that the old office had been kept functional until it was no longer needed.