This year marks the 75th anniversary of the creation and introduction of two sacred dances, called “Saishimai (祭祀舞)”, for performance at jinja. These dances, Asahi-no-mai (朝日舞) and Toyosaka-no-mai (豊栄舞), were designed for priests rather than miko, and are designed to be performed by a single dancer, although Toyosaka-no-mai can also be performed in a pair or a group of four. Asahi-no-mai is known as “the chief priest’s dance” (Gūji-no-mai (宮司舞)), so I think that may be specifically designed for one person.
The 13th October issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article by the teacher of sacred dance at Chiba Prefectural Jinjachō, Revd Takanashi. She opens the article by saying that, even though Asahi-no-mai is known as Gūji-no-mai, there is a surprisingly common perception among priests that sacred dance is performed by women and children. She holds three classes a year for priests in Chiba, and although about 25 people attend, they are almost all women.
The article was about her efforts to get more male priests to study sacred dance. She started actively contacting male priests and encouraging them to attend the classes, and numbers slowly rose, even getting close to half male at some sessions. (In this context, we should remember that men still make up over 80% of the priesthood, although the proportion of women is higher among younger priests.)
To try to push things further, she held separate classes for men and women. At least one of the men who participated said that he was able to participate without stress because the class was all men. Her most recent strategy, implemented for the first time this year, was to make a class in sacred dance a compulsory part of the mandatory training for new priests. This year there were seven, four men and three women, and they appear to have enjoyed it. One of the new priests (gender unspecified in the article, but contextually, probably male) wrote a contribution for the Jinjachō newsletter, saying that the sacred dance course had been a completely new experience.
Revd Takanashi hopes that these strategies will continue to spread sacred dance, and lead to more priests performing it at their jinja.
It is amusing to see that there is an area even within the Shinto priesthood that is female dominated. Historically, most Shinto sacred dance was performed exclusively by men, and this is still true of some of the most important traditions, although population declines have led to women being accepted to keep many dances alive. It would be interesting to see when this shift in perception came in — it may well be post-war, as women were excluded from a lot of Shinto ritual in the pre-war period.
I have heard that some female priests like the fact that there are women-only training sessions for priests, because they feel more comfortable there. This is, however, the first time I have heard exactly the same thing in reverse.
I read, somewhere, a story about a Shinto priest at an international conference of religions who was asked “But what is your theology?”. He is said to have paused, and then replied, “We have no theology. We dance”. I have no idea whether the story is true, but it captures the reality well.
— _Explaining Shinto_, . . . . by . . . . some guy named . . Chart something . . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Shinto-Mimusubi-Essays-Book-ebook/dp/B08S2YVT3M
Hello David,
I am reading your book An Introduction to Shinto and find it and our site immensely valuable for English-speaking people who are interested in practicing Shinto, and I thank you for writing it and maintaining your blog. I am someone who has a keen interest in Japanese traditional arts, especially dance and music, and art history, so I find it very interesting that Shinto dance was only performed by men until recently. The reason I say “interesting” is because of Ame no Uzume no Mikoto (my favorite kami!) and the legend where she is the one to draw Amaterasu from her cave. From this legend I guess I wrongly supposed that miko as dancers were older than, or as old as Shinto priests, as well as mikomai. Though, re-reading the kagura section of William P. Malm’s book, Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments, which is another invaluable book to my collection, it seems he mentions mikomai was originally a boy’s dance, a statement I forgot. I also understand shirabyoushi were most popular during the Heian period as court dancers, but the book seems unclear about when they came about–yet it does state they did perform dance at shrines, too. If you have further insight about the history of miko and shirabyoushi as dancers of Shinto pieces, I would love to read it.
Thanks for the comment. The “most” in my sentence was quite important in keeping the reference to the background short, because there is definitely evidence of women performing sacred dance — not least Amë no Uzumë, of course. However, the kagura traditions I know anything about all seem to be have been restricted to men, and, as you say, there are some dances that are often performed by women today, but were traditionally performed by boys. I have not come across any close association between shirabyōshi and jinja, although I would not be at all surprised if they performed at matsuri. That, however, is not necessarily sacred dance — it is possible to perform dances for the kami without them being sacred dance. As for miko, the standard mikomai today, Urayasu-no-mai, was written for female miko in 1940, so that part of the tradition is much younger than most people think.
Shinto being what it is, there are doubtless examples of women performing sacred dance throughout history, but I hardly ever come across them, and it seems that a majority of kagura traditions were restricted to men by the Edo period at the latest. Thus, “most”, and the surprise at the contemporary attitude.
Thank you so much for the reply. My next question was indeed going to be, “If it was restricted to men, was it during the Edo period?” That seems to be the era when the government locked women out of many performing arts. I wonder if this had an effect on the profession of geisha, new to the Edo period, overtaking men–because it was one of the few places where they could dance professionally.
My understanding of shirabyoushi is that they mainly performed to imayo, a type of folk music, and thanks to the power of the internet and YouTube more specifically, I’ve gotten to listen to imayou and really love it as a genre!
Actually, since I mentioned geisha and you mentioned “it is possible to perform dances for the kami without them being sacred dance” — I’m very glad you confirmed this. I have been studying the geisha culture, mostly with a focus on the Kyoto kagai and geiko there, since 2004. I always did wonder why they could perform dances at shrines and I wonder how far back that goes (such as performing during Setsubun, for example–and of course Yasaka Jinja has them come as part of Gion Matsuri). While they tend to perform iwamai celebratory dance pieces, I have noticed them performing what is more effectively just ozashiki-mai, and I thought to myself, “Isn’t that too casual to be dancing at a shrine?” But I think there are a few reasons behind this, and maybe if ozashiki-mai is proper to dance is a theological question or cultural question beyond my knowledge. I’m so curious to learn more about it!
I am glad miko today have such a visible role in Shinto and I also enjoyed the tidbit in your entry about filming for Jinja Honcho that a priestess was pretending to be a miko for the filming. I guess she was “miko henshin”! Very interesting! 🙂
The rule of thumb seems to be “if it is a traditional Japanese performing art, you can do it for the kami”, even if it is originally casual. This does not mean that you cannot offer other performing arts, but if it is not traditionally Japanese, it might be regarded with a bit more suspicion.
This whole area is made really complex by the fact that you can have performances for people at a jinja, performances for kami, and sacred dance, and they are different in principle, but not always clearly distinguished in practice. Indeed, it is not completely clear what the differences are in principle, and different jinja probably look at it in different ways — if the priests pay any serious attention to the distinctions in the first place.
A lot of Shinto practice is like this.
Thank you for the response. I will say I have seen the priests bless the maiko or geiko who are dancing before the performance, at least the ones during Setsubun in February, and at the performance in November (not sure about Gion Matsuri).
The insights are very much appreciated!