sacred forests

The 10th February issue of Jinja Shinpō had a couple of articles about sacred trees in it. The one I want to write about today was concerned with the practical problems that arise, an issue I have mentioned before. The article was by the chief priest of the jinja concerned, Wakamiya Hachimangū in Yamanashi Prefecture (to the west of Tokyo, up in the mountains). This jinja is some distance from the local village, up a flight of 70 stone steps, with a flat area of about 350 square metres where… Read More »Tree Surgery

One of the regular columnists in the “Thoughts in the Forest” section of Jinja Shinpō is Kanzaki Noritakë, a scholar of traditional culture and chief priest of a jinja in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan. In the September 30th issue, he wrote about a ceremony he was asked to perform before the felling of a tree. The tree in question was a massive cedar, growing beside the steps up to a local jinja, and beside the community hall. It had become old, with its interior hollowed out, and branches dropping off.… Read More »Felling Purification

A few weeks ago, I visited Suwa Jinja in Kitakami, Iwatë Prefecture. (No English on their homepage.) This is a nice example of a fairly large jinja of significant local importance, but that people outside the area would not normally have heard of. The main jinja has six kami, and there are five subsidiary jinja, two of which share a building, but I am writing this article because it has a very impressive sacred tree. This tree is a sawara (Google says Scomberomorus niphonius  — no, wait, that’s a fish.… Read More »Sacred Tree

I have mentioned before that the magazine The Imperial Family also carries articles about jinja that are not directly connected to the Imperial family. The Summer 2023 issue had such an article, about the forests at Jingū. As readers of this blog are probably at least vaguely aware, Jingū rebuilds all the main sanctuaries once every twenty years, and moves the kami from the old to the new, in the Sengū. The old sanctuaries are then disassembled, and sent to jinja around the country that need new ones. However, even… Read More »Forests at Jingū