Shinto

“Kagura” is the term within Shinto for sacred dance and music, and these days it normally brings to mind either miko dancing during a jinja ceremony, or masked dances telling stories from Shinto myth. However, the term is far broader than that, and those are not the oldest forms. Recently, I read a book by Revd Kanzaki Noritakë (神崎宣武), Priest and Village Folklore (神主と村の民俗誌). This book was originally published in the early nineties, although I read the 2019 reissue from Kodansha. Revd Kanzaki is still active, and writes a regular… Read More »Oracular Kagura

An English-language book about Shinto, Yasukuni Fundamentalism (affiliate link) by Mark R. Mullins was published earlier this year. It is an interesting book about some of the political activities of people connected with Shinto, and I wrote a full review of it as part of my Patreon. It is well-researched. It covers a wide range of topics, and, in the areas that I already know about, the facts reported in the book are almost all true, with a small number of trivial inaccuracies. Since Mullins does not make any important… Read More »Yasukuni Fundamentalism

In the November 22nd issue, Jinja Shinpō began an occasional series of articles on the sacred forests (鎮守の森, chinju no mori) of jinja. I have mentioned before that all jinja aspire to have a sacred forest, even if practicalities sometimes restrict it to a single tree, and the first article in the series, by Revd Sonoda Minoru, tackles the history of that reality. Revd Sonoda is a very important figure in this area of Shinto. He is the chief priest of Chichibu Jinja in Saitama Prefecture, and has written extensively… Read More »The Sacredness of Forests

Students at Kōgakkan University in Mië Prefecture were asked by the prefectural Jinjachō to make some videos to advertise ofuda, the sacred plaques that are venerated in household shrines. They produced three, all using glove puppets. Bunny Rabbits (30 seconds) Bunny Rabbits (90 seconds) Grandmother & Granddaughter (90 seconds) These are, apparently, targeted at women in their 20s and 30s, who are the group least likely to know about Jingū Taima and other ofuda, and were conceived and directed by, I think, a member of the target demographic. (I am… Read More »Ofuda Advertising

There are some famous jinja ceremonies that involve tall poles. The most famous is Suwa Taisha, in Nagano Prefecture, where four tree trunks are set up at the sanctuaries in a matsuri held once every six years. Naturally, some people have suggested that this is phallic symbolism. I was reading a book on a different topic the other day, and it suggested that jinja as a whole were symbolic of the female reproductive organs. The torii is the vulva, the sacred path is the vagina (both are called “sandō” in… Read More »Dubious Symbolism

The Tōshōgū (a jinja enshrining Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1600 to 1867) in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, has just completed a major rebuilding, and celebrated with a full-page article on the back of the November 1st Jinja Shinpō. So far, so standard. The style of the rebuilding is not at all standard. The original honden has been kept, and enclosed in a glass-and-marble structure that looks like a high-class hotel or shopping mall. The jinja’s website does not have any photographs up yet,… Read More »Jinja Architecture