A Brief History of Shinto (Part One)

It’s time for…

An Actually Marginally Academic Post

After reading a whole lot of books for my thesis and a whole lot of books for class and a whole lot of books in general, I have come to a realization—a lot of scholarship on Shinto is really, really boring.  I have trouble keeping my eyes open when reading some of it.*  And that’s too bad, because it’s a fascinating subject that not many people know about!  So my goal for these posts is to present information about Shinto (or Shinto-related topics) in a non-snore-inducing manner.  Plus, I figure that this is good practice for when I have to teach people about this stuff (or just explain it to people on the street).

So, here we go!

Academic Post #1

A Brief History of Shinto (part 1): If You Stab a Lot of Powerful People, You Should Probably Come Up with a Good Explanation for Your Behavior

For as far back as the archaeological record stretches back in Japan (and that’s a pretty long time), people have worshipped spirits.  These spirits, called kami,** are believed to inhabit everything: the water, the air, the trees, the rocks, the plants, the mountains, everything.  They’re invisible***, and they act a lot like humans.  They can get angry (and cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and floods and famines) or they can be pleased (and grant good weather and bountiful harvests and good health).  If nobody worships them, though, they lose their kami powers and become disgruntled spirit-animal-monsters called youkai, which pretty much just wreak havoc everywhere.

In ancient Japan, the basic societal unit was the uji—the family or the clan.  Most uji had an ujigami, that is a kami specific to that uji.  If it was an uji of farmers, the ujigami was often associated with farming; an uji of fishermen might have an ujigami of the seas; an uji that lived in bear-infested mountains might worship an ujigami that took the shape of a bear.  The ujigami varied as widely as the uji, as did people's ways of worshiping them, and most people didn’t know about kami outside of their local area.

Fast forward in time to 645 CE!  Naka no Oe, the head of a prominent uji, somehow got a bunch of prominent families in a room; sources vary on what he actually did to get these people together  (I’ve seen it told as his being present at a ceremony or as his throwing a feast for the other clans and then locking the doors so no one could escape), but, to make a long story short, he, with the help of some friends, assassinated several powerful political figures (by stabbing them to death with spears), and then claimed the throne.

Of course, once his family had taken the throne, they realized that there was nothing stopping anyone else from following their lead and stabbing them to death, so Naka no Oe’s daughter told a writer at the court to compile a history of the family, linking them to their ujigami, Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess), and explaining why they were chosen as the imperial line.  The writer (and his assistant who may or may not have been female) went above and beyond the call of duty, however, and integrated the kami and creation myths of other powerful families into the narrative.****  Of course, the politics behind this move are clear—by presenting the kami of other powerful families as working alongside Amaterasu, the imperial family honored these families and (very subtly) suggested that they should work together, just as their kami did.  Interestingly enough, one of the kami who gets the most page time actually belonged to a region that did not want Naka no Oe ruling over them; eventually, however, the region was successfully integrated into the kingdom, just as its kami was integrated into the story.  The finished book of stories is called the Kojiki (『古事記』; usually translated as “The Record of Ancient Matters”), and is generally accepted as the oldest extant piece of Japanese writing.*****

…meanwhile, everyone outside of the court didn’t know about all this political intrigue and pretty much kept worshiping their kami the way they always had.

"But wait!" you cry.  "Where's the Shinto?  You haven't used that word at all in this entire post!"

Well, dear reader, that's because it wasn't called Shinto yet.  Remember how I said that no one really knew about kami outside of their local area?  In fact, there was no conception that any of the kami worship occurring was connected in any way whatsoever to any of the other kami worship.  If you had picked a random person and plopped them down 200 miles from their birthplace, they probably wouldn't have been able to recognize the local kami as a kami, or been able to make any sense out of the local customs and festivals.

So at this point, we can't really say that Shinto existed.  Yes, people worshiped kami, and, yes, people worship kami in Shinto, but at this point the kami worship was almost entirely localized and unconnected to any larger organization.

And what happened next?  Well, Buddhism showed up, and things just got more complicated.

Further Reading

Kojiki translated by Donald L. Phillipi

There are a variety of translations of the Kojiki, but this one is generally accepted as the best.  Of course, it's also out of print, so have fun getting your hands on a copy of it...  I'm probably going to eventually give up and pay an arm and a leg for my own copy.

Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions by a whole slew of people

A good introduction to Japanese religions.  It's more useful as a bibliography than as an in-depth text, though.

Shinto in History by a whole slew of people

Do not read unless you have an incredibly strong stomach for academic writing.

Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume One edited by William Theodore de Bary

This is pretty much the Bible of East Asian Studies.  It's also an amazing book full of translated historical documents.  Also also, my advisor at Brown's advisor is the editor!  So, basically, I need a copy of this too.  SO MANY BOOKS TO BUY.

*Although the only book I have ever literally fallen asleep while reading was about Zen Buddhism.

**Or mi or nushi or chami or a variety of other things depending upon the time period.  I’m simplifying here.  I'm actually simplifying a lot, which is why it's a brief history.

***Although that can be confusing in the case of, for example, Mt. Fuji.  Mt. Fuji is worshipped as a kami, but (theoretically) it’s not the actual mountain that’s being worshiped; it’s the invisible kami of the mountain. Of course, if you ask worshipers, some of them will inevitably tell you that the kami is the mountain, making academics very disgruntled.

****This also had the interesting side effect of creating gaping plot holes, such as when the world is created at the beginning of the story—only to be created again a hundred chapters later by a different kami.

*****It’s also one of the hardest books you could possibly read, since it’s written using a writing system that was used only for that book.  It uses Chinese characters phonetically…sometimes…and for their meaning…sometimes…and sometimes it just has a bunch of characters on the page and you have no idea what’s going on.  After a while, people just gave up on trying to read it...until the National Learning movement, but we'll get to that later.

Orientation day 2

So this morning two of the other girls and I went to Nogi Shrine.

(There I am, squinting into the sun like a dork.)

It was a pretty small shrine, and we arrived just as the shrine was opening, so we got to see a lot of the early morning routine, which was super neat.  There was a whole gang of guys in dressed entirely in white cleaning the shrine and raking the gravel out.  One of the priests was also paying his respects to all the kami*, which was quite a long process, since there were at least three separate shrines within the shrine complex and then about six or seven sacred trees!

This was a super cool place to tie omikuji.**  Much nicer than the strings people usually tie them on at shrines.

This was a random hallway leading down the side of the shrine.  We think it's used for weddings and other ceremonies, but we're not entirely sure.  I've never seen another shrine with such a thing!  Then again, Nogi Shrine is very, very new, in terms of shrines ('cause General Nogi didn't die until 1912, and the shrine wasn't built until 1917), and the architecture reflects that.

This was a super cool rock they had on display.  It's called "the chrysanthemum face rock" in Japanese, and (although it's hard to see in the small picture, so you should really click on it) it has flower-shaped patterns all over its surface.

So then, after two of us received 5 mosquito bites apiece over the course of about fifteen minutes, we decided to head back to the hotel and then head over to orientation.

Today's orientation was more useful than yesterday's, 'cause we talked about things we'll actually need to know for the program, like how to get a cell phone and how to sign up for classes and how to get our Alien Registration Cards.  There was also a lot of information for people who need to get apartments.  I am so glad I don't have to do that, 'cause it sounds insanely difficult and complicated.  We also got a lot of information on what to do in the event of a major natural disaster, because the Fulbright program organizers didn't know enough or given enough information about forced evacuations and voluntary evacuations when 3/11 occurred, so they've decided to remedy that this year.

On the less helpful side, we kept being told, "Yes, it's really hard to balance study and research and a social life and not go insane from overwork.  But make sure to do it."  Auuuuuugh.

On the other hand, I'm glad I'm not in the sciences, because apparently staying in the lab from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. is expected of graduate students.  We're not sure whether it will be the same for Fulbright Fellows, but we're hoping they'll have to do less, since they, you know, want to have lives and actually see sunlight sometimes.

After orientation, we went to Meiji Jingu, but unfortunately due to orientation running late, we didn't have much time there before the shrine closed.  So I don't have many pictures, despite its awesomeness.  Walking through the gates into Meiji Jingu is bizarre, because the street outside is your normal, bustling Tokyo street, and the shrine is essentially located in a forest.  You can't even hear the street outside once you get far enough in.

These were some random barrels of French wine inside the gates.  SO STRANGE.

And here're the more normal barrels of sake.  One of the other girls thinks that maybe the wine was there because the shrine was built during a time when there was a lot of pressure in Japan to Westernize.  Still, it's surprising that the wine wasn't taken out later, during the anti-Western movements.

We found a huge billboard with a poem written by the Meiji Emperor's wife outside the inner gate, and we were all trying to figure out what the poem said, 'cause it was written in an older form of Japanese.  Someone asked, "Can anyone here actually read this?" and immediately several people said, "Ask Dana!"  It was kind of amusing.  I guess I've become the official Hard Japanese Reader.  I could read most of it, but there were a few vocabulary words that I didn't know (and I still can't find them in the dictionary, so they're probably not used any more).

Here's the main shrine.  This was taken from just inside the gates, so as you can probably tell, there was a huuuuuuuuge courtyard.  It was paved too, which is unusual, since a lot of them are gravel!

After that, most of us returned to the hotel.  I registered myself for the State Department's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, and then went out to a random hole-in-the-wall restaurant to get dinner.  And then I walked all the way to Roppongi (a big nightlife distance) just because I could. It was interesting to see Roppongi, since I've heard so much about it, but really not my thing.  Although the extremely tall black guy advertising the nude girls club was kind of amusing.  It was like if Simon sold nude girls instead of sushi...?

A bunch of other people from the program are going out for drinks this evening, but since I don't drink (or particularly enjoy being around people who are drinking) and I'm really, really tired, I'm just going to stay in.

And some random thoughts before signing off:

A lot of us have already gone into gaijin-spotting mode.  It's kind of sad, actually, that whenever we see a non-Japanese person we do a double-take.  Of course, a lot of them are standing out like crazy because they're doing dumb things like shouting in the middle of the street or standing on the wrong side of the escalator***, so we're not entirely at fault.

During lunch we decided to make a list of the things we will miss the most about the U.S.  What we came up with was:

1. Mexican food (actually, about three of us said this one simultaneously)

2. Cheap produce

3. Really good dark chocolate

4. Skim milk

5. Being able to show your shoulders (i.e. wear tank tops) in public

And now I'm going to hit the sack, because I am way too tired to do much else.

*Kami are the spirits believed to inhabit pretty much everything.  Unlike the Western conception of god(s), they don't have any particular moral compass, and often behave a lot like humans.  If you're nice to them, they'll usually help you out, and if you're a jerk to them, they'll make your life miserable.  They can also throw temper tantrums, which is how earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and bad storms happen, so it's usually good to keep them happy.

**Omikuji are fortune-telling slips.  You should tie your slip up if you get a good fortune--or if you get a bad one, depending on who you ask.  Basically, everyone ties them up.

***In Tokyo and pretty much everywhere else, stand on the left and walk on the right.  In Kansai, stand on the right and walk on the left.  Yay, Kansai being randomly rebellious!