Independence Day, also known as Wednesday

Hey, everyone.  Long time no write, I guess.  I've been working on my paper, which has sort of consumed my every waking moment, and is now 42 pages long, SO.  That is where I have been.

Other stuff I've been up to!

Calligraphy!

(The black characters are mine.  The orange characters are Nakano-san's corrections.  At least...not the entire sheet is orange?)

This is a non-corrected sheet.  As long as you don't look at the first character, it's probably okay!

...and here's what Nakano-san gave me right before class ended.  Oh noooooooo.
I really like brush pens, though!  I feel like I should get one before I leave...

In other news, on Friday, in my religious history class, I got to use my crazy awesome English skills to help my group read a section of the US constitution.  I basically had to translate almost every word, because "grievances" and "redress" aren't exactly common English vocabulary.  Oh well, in the end everyone had a pretty okay grasp of what was being said.

Today was Independence Day, also known in Japan as Wednesday, July 4.  My day was not completely devoid of excitement, however, as Kawahara Shrine is having their summer festival today and tomorrow.

The festival is called Akamaru no Shinji, which means "Red Circle Festival."  You'll see why in a second!

Anyway, I headed over mid-afternoon, to find a million food stands already set up:

This ring is the main part of the festival!

So, basically, you're supposed to walk through the ring, first around the left side counterclockwise, then around the right side clockwise, and then around the left side clockwise again.  Then you go inside the honden, leave a monetary offering, pray, and then get your forehead stamped with a little red circle.  This is supposed to protect you from the "summer shadow," which is a polite way of saying the plague!  (Historically, plague outbreaks tended to occur in summer in Japan, so summer is seen as a season of illness.)

One of the stories behind this practice is that one time Susanoo was traveling and he came to a town to stop for the night.  Nobody in the town would give him lodging, even though they had space, except for the poorest family in town, who had the world's worst futon.  Susanoo stayed with them and slept on the world's worst futon.
A couple of years later, Susanoo showed up again!  And he said, "Hey, guys, remember how you let me sleep on your really lousy futon?  Well, you should go take some grass and knot it into a loop around your waist.  Trust me on this."
So the family did as Susanoo said.  And the next day...EVERYONE ELSE IN THE TOWN DIED.
The end!
(Well, actually there's a little extra bit where that family and their descendants can protect themselves from the plague by knotting grass loops around their waists and announcing that they belong to that family.  But the important bit here is that if you refuse to let Susanoo sleep over, you will suddenly drop dead.)

Anyway, as I was taking pictures, I was hailed incredibly energetically by Itou-san and then kidnapped into the shrine office where I was fed delicious onigiri and given tea and had a bunch of really interesting conversations with various people who were helping out at the festival!  I love it when people give me great quotes that just prove the points I'm trying to make.  (One of today's great quotes was, "We come to the shrine because we like the guuji [the head priest, which is to say Itou-san].  If the guuji was terrible, nobody would come!"  Adding to essay now.)  Also, I met the most energetic 80-year-old woman EVER.  She was really cool and gave me a bunch more onigiri because I am too skinny and nobody else was eating them.

Also, Itou-san gave me a massively cool book.  It's bilingual (Japanese and English) and explains and defines a bunch of terms/ideas in a variety of Japanese religions.  I already know most of the terms in the Shinto section, but it has a huge section on Buddhism and a huge section on folk religion, which is pretty darn awesome.  Also, since it's bilingual, it's a good way for me to practice my Japanese.  So, yes, that was awesome.  And I was very happy and thanked her profusely.  (Also, one of the women from the shrine office saw the book and has now determined that she wants to get her hands on a copy.  It is THAT COOL.)

Meanwhile, there was still a festival going on!

Here are some of the food stands...

(The stand to the far right is actually a shooting arcade game sort of.  You shoot at piled up stuff with an air gun and then get to keep whatever you knock down.)

The miko were doing short purification ceremonies for anyone who came up.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but they're holding fans in one hand and their bell-sticks in the other.

(That's Itou-san waaaay in the background in the green pants.)

Anyway, then Itou-san stole my camera so she could sneakily take pictures of me completing the Akamaru no Shinji.  FOR SCIENCE.

Walking round in circles...  (You can probably tell how incredibly focused I was on this.)

And inside the honden...

And praying...

And getting a forehead stamp!

Forehead stamped, LIKE A PRO.
(It should be noted that I walked home like that and kept seeing other people with forehead stamps.   Hurrah!)

So now I won't get plague!  YUS.

It had kind of started raining by this point, which wasn't particularly cool!  Everyone was rushing to put plastic bags over the non-waterproof lanterns.

Some of the soudai lit all the lanterns...with actual lighters!  No electric lanterns here!

One of the great things about summer festivals is SO MANY KIDS IN ADORABLE YUKATA.  There was a little boy in a Pokemon yukata.

So, yeah!  I hung around a little bit longer, talked to some more people, saw some more adorable children in yukata, and then proceeded to get rained on a bunch, at which point I decided that it would probably be a good idea for me to start heading home.  So I did.

And now I am back.

And staring at my essay.

HMMMMMM.

Anyway, happy Independence Day to all of you in the States, and happy Wednesday to everyone else!

Kojiki (part four)

Kojiki (part four): Susanoo actually does something kind of useful for once

Previously on the Kojiki, Susanoo got thrown out for being a poop-flinging jerk.

There's then a chapter which probably was just randomly thrown into the Kojiki.  It's the killing-the-food-kami story I wrote about here, except instead of Tsukiyomi doing the killing, it's Susanoo.  Basically, Susanoo showed up at Ukemochinokami's house, asked for food, and Ukemochinokami started pulling food out of her nose, mouth, and rectum.  Yum.  Susanoo was pretty understandably grossed out and stabbed her.  Her corpse then turned into various kinds of food, which one of the kami took and used as seeds.
The Tsukiyomi version of the story, by the way, is the one which appears in the Nihon Shoki.  Some scholars believe that Susanoo wasn't actually involved in the original story, but the author decided to make him the one to kill Ukemochinokami in order to reinforce his violent and dangerous nature.  There's actually a version of the story where nobody gets killed, and the food-producing kami just dies of old age!  But dying quietly of old age is so BORING compared to STABBING, and also doesn't involve pulling food out of one's rectum.

So, anyway, once Susanoo was done senselessly killing people, he descended to Izumo.  Yes, that Izumo.  He saw a chopstick floating down the river, and figured that there must be people upstream, so he went to look for them.  Sure enough, he found an old woman and an old man with a young woman.  All of them were crying.
Susanoo asked what was wrong, and the old guy replied that he used to have eight daughters, but the eight-tailed* dragon, whose name was Yamato no Orochi,**  had come every year to eat one of them, and now he was down to the last one.
Susanoo then asked what the dragon looked like, because apparently "eight-tailed" wasn't sufficiently descriptive.
The old man then gave a description, which involved a lot of renditions of "eight" (the dragon has eight tails and eight heads and spans eight valleys AND eight mountain peaks).
Then Susanoo asked, "Will you give me your daughter?"
The old man answered, "Awed as I am, I do not know your name."
And Susanoo replied that he was Amaterasu's brother, conveniently leaving out the whole part where she threw him out and kind of disowned him.
And apparently this was good enough for the old man, 'cause he gave Susanoo his daughter...who Susanoo then turned into a hair comb and inserted into his hair bunch.
UH.  Right-o.
So then Susanoo told the old man and old woman to distill "thick wine of eight-fold brewings," which is apparently a special kind of wine that is used in religious ceremonies.  He then told them to build a fence with eight openings in it, and place a barrel of the wine at each of the doors and wait.
You probably already know where this is going.
So they did as Susanoo said, and the dragon showed up and drank from the barrels and got drunk and passed out.  And then Susanoo hacked the dragon into pieces with his sword, and the river flowed red with the dragon's blood!  But when he cut the dragon's middle tail, his sword broke.  He inspected the tail and discovered that there was a sword inside the tail.  He took the sword and presented it to Amaterasu, which, if you think about it, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since he just got thrown out for flinging poop around her house.  Some scholars think the whole bit with him presenting the sword to Amaterasu is just tacked on to the regular story, but nobody really knows!  Anyway, the sword was Kusanagi, which doesn't mean anything to most of you, but will become important later!

In the children's version of the Kojiki I'm reading, Susanoo then pulls out all his body hair and throws it into the wind, where it turns into a bunch of different kinds of trees!
If you were wondering, his butt hair turns into maki, which my dictionary informs me means "yew plum pines."
He then announces what each of the trees will be used for!  The butt-hair trees are supposed to be used for making things for living in this world, which I guess means implements for daily use?
Then Susanoo pulls out his hair comb and announces that it will be his wife, and the hair comb turns back into a lady.  And apparently the lady is so calm and nice that she stops Susanoo from being such a hot-headed poop-flinger, which I guess is a good thing!

Note that none of this section is actually in the original Kojiki, which continues the story this way:
Susanoo picked a place in Izumo to build his wedding palace, and apparently was so thrilled with building his palace that he decided to sing.
I bet you didn't think this was a musical, huh?
Anyway, his song is about how he's going to have a many-fenced palace and live in it with his wife.  That is literally the entire song.
So then he called over the old man and asked him to be his headman, and then commenced procreation with his wife...who, by the way, in this text, is still a comb.  Oops.
And then there's a full page listing all his descendants and that's the end of the chapter!

On a final semi-related note, Jason, who was my classmate at Brown AND on CLS and is now working as a CIR in Shimane Prefecture, went to see a kagura performance of the tale of Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi.  You can click here for a picture.

Next time: Ookuninushi discovers that if you tick off your bros, they may kill you...a lot.

*It's worth noting, once again, that "eight" may actually mean "a lot" in this context.

**If you've ever seen or read Naruto, Orochimaru is based off of Yamato no Orochi.

Kojiki (part three)

Academic post #9

Kojiki (part three): No matter how bad your brother is, he could actually be worse

So where we left off last time, Izanagi got sick of Susanoo's temper tantrums and told him to get lost.  Susanoo was going to visit his sister, Amaterasu, to say bye.

Susanoo, however, couldn't just go visit his sister normally, so instead, when he ascended to heaven, he made a huge amount of noise and shook the entire Earth.
Amaterasu heard him coming and said, "Oh, great, now my brother is coming to usurp my lands!"  She then tied her hair up and put on her gear to get ready to go to war with her brother the usurper.
When Susanoo finally showed up, he swore that he had only come to say goodbye to his sister, but Amaterasu didn't believe him.  Finally, Susanoo said he would show his pure intentions...by bearing children.
Yup.
So they stood on opposite sides of a river,* and Amaterasu took Susanoo's sword, broke it into pieces, washed the pieces in the heavenly well,** and then chewed them up and spat them out.  They turned into a bunch of female kami.  Then Susanoo took the beads wrapping up Amaterasu's hair and arms and did the same. They turned into a bunch of male kami.  Then Amaterasu said, "The kami born from my possessions are my children and the kami born from your possessions are your children," and then there's a long section no one cares about where they talk about where each of the kami is now enshrined.
Then Susanoo said, "Clearly I had girls because my intentions were pure so HA."  And then he "raged with victory," beginning the section I like to call "Oh Geez, And You Thought Your Little Brother Was a Pain."
First Susanoo destroyed Amaterasu's rice paddies.
Amaterasu, apparently afraid to misjudge her brother again, made all kinds of excuses for him.  "He probably doesn't understand agriculture!" she said.  "He probably thought we were using the land wastefully and was trying to help!"
Then Susanoo pooped in her festival hall and threw the poop around.
"He's probably drunk!" Amaterasu argued.  "We probably just think he's flinging around poop.  He's probably actually projectile vomiting everywhere."***
But then Susanoo skinned the heavenly dappled pony backward**** and dropped it through Amaterasu's weaving hall roof.  The weaving maiden inside was so surprised that she struck her shuttle against her genitals and died.
Amaterasu suddenly realized that Susanoo actually was being a horrible brother and ran away and hid in a cave, which was a problem, because she was the sun goddess.
DUN DUN DUN.

Suddenly, it was night all the time!  Calamities were happening all over the place!  All the kami had a meeting to figure out what they should do.  Then there's a long section where they talk about all the preparations they went through, which include divination with the shoulder bone of a male deer, gathering a bunch of roosters, and making a mirror and some beads.
Then Ame-no-uzume did a dance, stamped on a bucket, and then "became divinely possessed, exposed her breasts, and pushed her skirt-band down to her genitals" (page 84).
And all the kami laughed.

Just to break some of the weirdness of this whole scene, there is a good pretty explanation for everything going on!  Ame-no-uzume's dance is a kind of spirit possession, and in spirit possession, exposing the genitals is a way to ward off evil spirits.  It's also a way to show that you're actually possessed, since you wouldn't normally flash everyone if you weren't.*****  Also, laughter was used in ceremonies to increase the power of the kami.  So it's not just Ame-no-uzume flashing everyone!  It's Ame-no-uzume flashing everyone FOR A REASON.

Anyway, Amaterasu was (understandably) very confused.  She thought that everyone would be miserable with her gone, but instead Ame-no-uzume was dancing around and everyone was having fun!  Geez, the nerve of them!  So she said, "Geez, I thought you guys would be miserable!  What is your deal?"
Ame-no-uzume replied, "We're having a party because we found someone better than you!"
Amaterasu peeked out of the cave and saw herself reflected in the mirror.  She edged out of the cave to get a better look at her reflection (which she believed to be the other sun-deity) and one of the kami, who was hidden just outside of the cave, grabbed her and dragged her away from the door while the other kami put a rope over the cave door so she couldn't go back inside.
And thus light was restored to the world!
Susanoo was then fined for being a jerk and his beard was cut off and his fingernails and toenails were cut off****** and he was thrown out because nobody liked him any more.
In the Nihon Shoki, and in the children's version of the Kojiki that I've been reading, the story then continues that because it was pouring rain, Susanoo made himself a straw hat and straw coat and went around begging shelter from the various kami, who refused to let him in because he had been thrown out for being a jerk.
Anyway, the chapter ends there!  There's a lot more of Susanoo's story, but we'll get to that next time!

*When Confucianists were horrified by this story and said that Amaterasu and Susanoo were committing incest, the Shintoists pointed out that they were on opposite sides of the river and so obviously they weren't committing incest.  Obviously.

**What well?  Weren't they at a river???

***From page 78:

"That which appears to be faeces must be what my brother has vomited and strewn about while drunk."

How is this preferable???

****Skinning animals alive and skinning them backward are both super taboo, so Susanoo is being ULTRA TABOO.

*****If you think that seems crazy and dangerous, some forms of Taiwanese spirit possession involve self-mutilation.  For an interesting book on the subject, I recommend David Jordan's Gods, Ghosts, & Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village, which is available for free (and legally!) online in its entirety.

******Some manuscripts say his fingernails and toenails were actually yanked out.  Yay.

Kojiki (part two)

Academic post #8

Kojiki (part two): This is basically why you should always keep peaches on hand

Previously on the Kojiki, Izanami died after giving birth to the fire kami.

Izanagi decided to follow his wife to the land of the dead, which was called Yomi.  Izanami came out to greet him, whereupon he said to her, and I quote, "O, my beloved spouse, the lands which you and I were making have not yet been completed; you must come back!"
...well, so much for love.
Unfortunately, Izanami had already eaten food from Yomi so she could not return to the land of the living.*  However, moved by her husband's bravery, she decided to go plead with the gods of Yomi,** but before she left she told her husband not to look at her.
You know how this is going to end.
Anyway, Izanagi waited and waited and waited and eventually he couldn't wait any more so he broke off the tooth of the comb in his hair bunch and lit it on fire and turned around to look at Izanami.  What did he see?  Well, the maggot-infested corpse*** of his beloved, of course.  Izanagi, being somewhat understandably super grossed out, turned and fled.
Unfortunately, fleeing from your spouse's grossness after she explicitly told you NOT to look at her is not the greatest idea, and Izanami was royally ticked.  She sent the hags of Yomi after her husband, beginning perhaps the greatest chase scene ever written.
(You might want to put on some exciting music at this point.)
Izanagi ran from the hags!  He undid his hair tie and threw it on the ground and it turned into grapes!  The hags stopped to eat the grapes!  He fled!  But the hags finished eating the grapes and started chasing him again!  So Izanagi grabbed a comb from his hair and threw it on the ground!  It turned into bamboo!  The hags stopped to eat the bamboo!  Izanagi got away!
But he wasn't safe yet!  Izanami sent the hordes of Yomi after him!  (She was really, really ticked.)  Izanagi unsheathed his sword and fled while waving it behind him!  It...did absolutely nothing, actually, as far as I can tell.
Suddenly, Izanagi arrived at the pass back to the world of the living!  He grabbed three peaches and lay in wait for his pursuers!  THEN
(dramatic pause)
HE ATTACKED THEM WITH THE PEACHES AND THEY ALL TURNED AND FLED!

...man, all that excitement wore me out.
Have I mentioned that I love reading this book?
To be fair, the peach thing isn't as totally random as it seems, because peaches were believed to ward off demons and evil spirits in China, so presumably the idea was imported and integrated into the story.
Still, it gives you a new appreciation for peaches--they can save you from the hordes of Yomi AND make a tasty snack!

So anyway, then Izanagi grabbed a giant boulder and rolled it in front of the entrance to Yomi.
Izanami was ticked and said, "If you don't move this boulder I will strangle a thousand people to death every day."
And Izanagi said, "Fine, then every day I will build one thousand FIVE HUNDRED birthing huts."
(This scene was used to explain the rapid population growth which occurred with the beginning of agricultural practices in Japan)
And then Izanami became the main kami of Yomi.

Izanagi decided that because he had visited Yomi, which was full of decay and death and roaring maggots, he had to purify himself.  So he went to the river and stripped off his clothes (thereby creating a whole slew of kami) and waded into the water to purify himself.  As he bathed, a whole bunch more kami were born, but the important ones were born when he washed his face.  When he washed his left eye, Amaterasu (the sun kami) was born; when he washed his right eye, Tsukiyomi (the moon kami) was born; and when he washed his nose, Susanoo (most commonly identified as the kami of storms or wind) was born.
Izanagi rejoiced to see these three children, because apparently the other eleven he had just given birth to weren't as interesting.  He proceeded to command Amaterasu to rule the high heavens, Tsukiyomi to rule the realms of night, and Susanoo to rule the ocean.
Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi, being fairly obedient children, went to rule their realms, but Susanoo wept and cried and howled.  Susanoo's tantrum was so bad that it caused all the rivers and seas to dry up and the plants to wither and natural disasters to occur all over the place.
Finally, Izanagi asked his son, "What is your deal?"****
Susanoo said that he missed his mom and wanted to go visit her in Yomi.
Izanagi was so disgusted that he said, "Fine, go visit her!  You're not allowed to live here any more!" and threw him out.

Before Susanoo left, he decided to say goodbye to his sister...but that is a story for next time.

*YES, the same as the Persephone myth.  NO, there is no connection between them.  The same sort of myth also exists among the Maori, Chinese, and Ryukyu Islanders, among others.

**Who are they?  Dunno.  And neither did whoever was writing the Kojiki apparently, because later Izanami is referred to as the head kami of Yomi.

***From page 62:

At this time, maggots were squirming and roaring [in the corpse of Izanami-no-mikoto].

I'm trying to figure out what a roaring maggot would sound like.  Ideas?

****Okay, so he actually said, "Why is it you do not rule the land entrusted to you, but [instead] weep and howl?"  But he was probably thinking, What is your deal?