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The Dance Goes On

In 1950, Jinja Honchō (which was very new at that point) commissioned the creation of two sacred dances: Asahi-no-mai (Dance of the Rising Sun), for chief priests, and Toyosaka-no-mai (Dance of, er, the Rising Sun), for “young women”. The idea seems to have been to create dances that could be taught to all priests, miko, and local young women, so that sacred dance could be offered as a standard part of matsuri. Toyosaka-no-mai is widely offered, and is one of the two standard pieces of miko kagura — the other… Read More »The Dance Goes On

Merging Jinja

I found one of the articles in Issue 280/281 of the Journal of Shintō Studies particularly interesting. It is “The Significance and Challenges of Research on the Modern and Contemporary History of Individual Shrines: The Case of Atsuta Shrine in Haruno-chō, Hamamatsu City”, by Kawamura Tadanobu (河村忠伸). One of the reasons it is so interesting is that Kawamura is the chief priest of the jinja in question. He addresses that in the paper, and acknowledges that it means he is not entirely neutral. On the other hand, he has access… Read More »Merging Jinja

The Sacred Experience

Professor Ōmichi’s second Komorebi column was in the August 31st issue of Jinja Shinpō, and she continued her discussion of the relationship between media and the sacred, specifically Shinto. She started by talking about a certain Buddhist temple in Kamakura (that is what she said — she didn’t say which one it was) that has forbidden photography throughout the precincts, unless you have specific permission. She said that she put her camera and smartphone away, and felt that the release from the obligation to, or at least expectation that one… Read More »The Sacred Experience

Kagura in Nagasaki

The August 31st issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article reporting on a gathering on 20th June in Nagasaki Prefecture of the groups responsible for preserving and passing on Iki Kagura and Hirado Kagura. Iki is an island off the coast of Kyushu that was one of the ancient provinces of Japan and is now part of Nagasaki Prefecture, while Hirado is another island, much closer to the coast of Kyushu. In the Edo period, they were part of the same domain, and the kagura (神楽, sacred dance) of Iki… Read More »Kagura in Nagasaki

Katagaki

At the weekend I watched a television programme, on NHK, that featured Princess Akiko of Mikasa. However, they did not refer to her as a princess, or address her as “your highness” — they simply called her “Akiko-sama”. This is because she was not on the programme as a princess. She was there as an expert. The programme was about an exhibition of Japanese art in the collection of the British Museum that is happening in Tokyo at the moment. Akiko-sama’s D.Phil  (PhD, but from Oxford) was on the reception… Read More »Katagaki

Matsuri Preservation

Recently, the dissolution of the “Folk Cultural Properties Research Council” (民俗文化財研究協議会), an organisation that was managed from within Jinja Honchō, was announced, and the August 10th issue of Jinja Shinpō had an article explaining what it was, and why it had been dissolved. It was founded, in 1971, to get legal recognition and support for matsuri as folk cultural properties. It is being dissolved because it has succeeded. Japanese culture has always placed importance on preserving traditional practices, and that was codified in law early on. Arguably, the law governing… Read More »Matsuri Preservation