The 15th December issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article about the reisai (例祭) — annual grand matsuri — of Saipan Katori Jinja (彩帆香取神社). This jinja is, as the name suggests, on Saipan island, and thus outside Japan — at least now.
According to the article, the jinja was founded in 1914, when Japan took over the administration of Saipan from Germany, without bloodshed. (This was clearly connected to World War I, in which it is important to remember that Japan was allied with the British.) The warship Katori, which had an onboard jinja enshrining the kami of Katori Jingū, in Chiba Prefecture, was present, and the kami was split from that jinja to be enshrined on a hill that had a German watchtower. (When the kami is split off in this way, it remains in the original jinja as well.)
This jinja was destroyed in World War II, but in 1985 the head of the Mariana Government Tourist Office and the head of the local Japanese residents’ association visited Katori Jingū and asked them to rebuild the jinja. With the help of the Katori Jinja League (which, assuming I am remembering correctly, is an association of jinja that enshrine the same kami, most of which are called “Katori Jinja”) the jinja was rebuilt that year, and named Saipan Katori Jinja.
As this year marked 111 years since the jinja was founded, 40 years since it was rebuilt, and 80 years since the end of the war, Katori Jingū decided to send a group led by the chief priest, Revd Katori (no, that is not a coincidence), to celebrate the reisai, and also perform a memorial matsuri for the war dead in the central Pacific.
These matsuri were held on October 25th. The preparations for the reisai began early in the morning, but a tropical squall meant that it had to be held inside, in the prayer hall, rather than outside — presumably in front of the main sanctuary. After purification, the offerings were presented, and the chief priest read a norito. Miko from Katori Jingū then danced Urayasu-no-mai, before the chief priest and attendees offered tamagushi.
After the reisai, they held a Shichigosan matsuri for the children of Japanese residents, and purified a stone that had been set up to mark the anniversary, inscribed with the name of the jinja and details of the kami, Futsunushi-no-Ōkami (経津主大神), and his role in the myths. They then went to the memorial for the war dead in the central Pacific to perform the memorial matsuri, at which the miko danced Mitamanagusamë-no-mai.
This is an interesting jinja. I had heard it mentioned before, but I did not know anything about it. Wikipedia says that priests from Katori Jingū “preside over it”, so they may well send someone to do the reisai every year — just not normally the chief priest. It is also a good example of how random the choice of kami for a jinja can be — if the Imperial Japanese Navy had sent a different warship, the jinja would have enshrined someone else.
The warship had an onboard shrine, did it also have an onboard priest? (It seems to me that the ceremony to split and rehouse the kami isn’t something that could have been done by a layman.) That Katori was a battleship, would lesser warships have had an onboard shrine complete with goshintai?
A lot of ships had an onboard shrine, and there are often memorials for the ones that were sunk at the jinja they split from. This gets mentioned in Jinja Shinpō quite a lot.
I don’t know how the veneration was handled. Remember, this is the period when Shinto was absolutely not a religion, but rather “national rites”, and the captain of a ship may well have been regarded as ex officio capable of doing this sort of thing. Prefectural governors played an important role for jinja on land.
I have not looked into all the details of the Meiji Constitution period yet, but I do know it was a lot more complicated than it is often portrayed.