Misomayamahajimesai

The Misomahajimesai (御杣始祭), an early ceremony of the Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮) of Isë Jingū (伊勢神宮), was held on June 3^rd, and reported in the 16^th June issue of Jinja Shinpō (神社新報). This event marks the beginning of the process of harvesting timber for the Sengū, and took place in Kisodani National Forest (木曽谷国有林) in Nagano Prefecture. I wrote about these forests a few weeks ago.

The matsuri was first held in its present form in 1902, in preparation for the 1909 Shikinen Sengū. (The 1953 Sengū was originally scheduled for 1949, but it was delayed. The schedule for the whole process appears to have been stretched somewhat in the last century.) Before that, it seems that the somafu (杣夫), the people who actually fell the trees, performed a similar ceremony without any formal involvement from Jingū.

Now, there is a lot of formal involvement. The ceremony was attended by the Saishu (祭主), the Tennō’s representative at Jingū, the Greater Chief Priest (大宮司), and about 350 other people, including local elementary and junior high school students. (Fifth grade and up, because it’s a long ceremony.) The ceremony is held up in the mountains, where the trees are, and so a wooden platform is built over the steep slopes for the audience and the ceremony itself. This time, the ceremony took place in heavy rain, so there were also tent roofs for people to sit under.

On the site were two hinoki trees (Japanese cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa), which would be the first trees, of around 10,000, felled for the Sengū. These trees will be used to make the inner containers for the goshintai (御神体) at the Inner and Outer Sanctuaries. These containers are called the Mihishiro (御樋代), and so the trees are called Mihishirogi (御樋代木), which means “Mihishiro trees”. Both of these trees were around 26 metres tall, and estimated at about three centuries old.

The Misomayamahajimesai for the Inner Sanctuary (Kōtaijingū, 皇大神宮) began at 10am, with the purification of the people who would officiate. They then took the offerings and purification items (imimono, 忌物) to the ceremonial area, which was then purified before the offerings and imimono were presented to the tree for the Inner Sanctuary. A norito was then read, announcing that the trees would be felled, and asking that the process would be safe and the Sengū successfully completed.

The offerings are standard offerings for Jingū, including rice and mochi rice cakes, as well as sakë and a lot of dried seafood, such as abalone and bream. The imimono are iron models of a person, mirror, spear, and sword.

After the norito, everyone present paid their respects, and the offerings and imimono were removed. Three celebrants then mimed chopping the tree down, before all bowing to it once.

The whole thing was then repeated for the tree for the Outer Sanctuary (Toyo’ukë Daijingū, 豊受大神宮).

And then the trees were felled. This was done using a traditional method called Mitsuogiri (三ツ緒伐り, among others — it is written in several ways). There are seven people per tree, who all bowed to the tree before getting started, and the process involves cutting into the tree with axes from three directions, leaving three “pillars” to support the trunk until the somafu are ready for it to fall. This method is said to minimise stress on the wood, and allows fine control of when and where the tree will fall.

When the trees were ready, the leader of the somafu called out (translated) “Kami of the great mountains, Left axe, One tree will sleep, At last it will sleep”. (Felling a tree is traditionally referred to as the tree sleeping — because it lies down, I guess).

At 1:26 pm, the Inner Sanctuary tree was felled, falling forwards and to the right. At 1:27 pm the Outer Sanctuary tree was felled, falling so as to cross over the Inner Sanctuary tree, so that the two form an X-shape. The somafu then bowed to the trees again, and performed a ceremony called “Tobusatatë (鳥総立て)”, in which one of the small branches of the tree is set up in the centre of the stump.

I believe that it takes some time to find the site for this ceremony, because you need two trees, both of which can be used to make a Mihishiro, and which can be felled to make a cross. This, I assume, is why it is done up in the mountains somewhere that needs a platform — you have to go where the trees are.

Two days later, on June 5^th, a very similar set of ceremonies was performed at the other forest, in Gifu Prefecture, but this is called the Urakiso Goyōzai Bassaishiki (裏木曽御用材伐採式), and it is not attended by such important people from Jingū. (This time, they had a nice sunny day.) My guess is that, symbolically, there should only be one ceremony marking the beginning of tree felling for each sanctuary, but that the two forests are far enough apart that they feel the need to perform a separate ceremony for each set of kami. Thus, the second set are the same in practice, but have a different position in the Sengū.

After this, the Mihishirogi are taken to Isë, and that is also a ceremony, but I will write about it after Jinja Shinpō publishes the article about it.