Anyone who has set foot in Japan will have wondered, at least once, what is this arcane institution called Shinto and above all what these Shinto shrines, those enigmatic places of worship, hide.
In view of the Ohoshi matsuri, the sacred festival, I had the privilege – more unique than rare for a foreigner – to reside for a week in the house next to the ancient Tsumori Jingu in Kumamoto, one of the oldest shrines of the region.
The priest (guuji) was named Kai-san and he’s been guarding the sacred house for over 30 years.
“Shinto is so much part of the life of a Japanese that many do not even realize that they have a religion,” he says when I ask him about the meaning of this religion so ineffable that everyone, even locals, finds it hard to define.
The deities? The wind, the lightning, the sky. They go from Mount Fuji to the big sugi trees. He assures me that “in the land of the 8 million gods (yaoyorozu) they come in all kinds of shapes and forms.” The deity to awaken sexual life is located in Chiba, and is a phallic trunk with all the details of a hyper-realistic sculpture.
Unlike Christianity, Shinto does not live on creeds and dogmas and the priestly hierarchy finds meaning and orientation in tradition. After the post-war reforms (separation of state and religion) they also allowed women to officiate functions but the novelty was dictated by a practical need. The priests who could count on a regular salary before the war (they were as a matter of fact regular public employees) suddenly found themselves without an income and had to reinvent a profession for themselves.
It was indeed a real revolution if we consider that the resistance was considerable. He explains to me that if women had not taken charge of the shrines many would have been extinct today, and Shinto itself perhaps a faint reminiscence of the past.
If at the beginning of the last century, religion and state worship were indistinguishable entities (embodied by the Emperor) to what extent does Shinto affects current politics?
“Little and only for the things that really threaten the tradition,” he says.
In short, no appeals against abortion or euthanasia (concepts that are too modern) but when talks emerge of the possibility of sending a woman on the throne of the Chrysanthemum, they feel the tradition is being challenged. And so it is when “gender politics” come along, as the tradition here is unequivocally clear: there are only two genders, women and men.
Now defining the guuji as the one who officiates the functions is nothing short of an understatement. He has to beat the drum, stamp notebooks, write dedications by hand, bless cars, clean up the honden (the sacred area), cut bamboo and even take souvenir photos of visiting families.
And how much does a priest earn? It all depends on the offers generated from the devotees. Part of which will flow into the coffers of the sanctuary agency (the administrative offices).
A shrine agency in each prefecture keeps the various priests updated the old-fashioned way, through newspapers and magazines. The number of sanctuaries (80,000 throughout Japan, one for every 1,500 inhabitants) that fade due to the demographic downtrend will be merged with the neighboring ones.
But their destiny is not for secular use, unlike the Western deconsecrated churches converted to bars and pubs. If the legal registration of the sanctuary expires, they will be abandoned and no one will dare to touch them (for everyone they still remain sacred places).
But where does the mikoshi, the “house of divinity” hide? Sometimes it’s a mirror, but it depends on the area. It may well be that before it was a stone or a tree branch. Nobody knows for sure.
But we know with certainty that the local festival has been going on for over 600 years. This festival consists of a crowd of young people carrying the mikoshi on their shoulders, shouting “the kamisama – deity – has arrived!”
Then the deity, sheltered by thick curtains and among dances and the sounds of flutes and drums, will be delivered to the next town. Here it will provide protection to residents for another year before it will be passed on to the next village.
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