Purification and Wolves

Princess Akiko (彬子女王) has just published a new book, The Shape of Prayer (Inori no Katachi, イノリノカタチ). It is only available in Japanese, and the link is an affiliate link because it might as well be.

This book is another collection of the essays that she has published in the magazine Waraku (和楽) which has a lot of interesting articles about traditional Japanese art and culture. I would read it if I had more free time. It is also the sort of publication that carries adverts for $50,000 watches, so I suspect I am not in the primary target audience. In any case, the essay I want to write about here concerns purification, haraë (祓え).

Princess Akiko starts by talking about when she heard the standard purification prayer at jinja while she was a young child, and explains that she thought the “great kami of the place of purification” (“haraëdo no ōkamitachi”) were wolves (also “ōkami”) from a place called Haraëdo. She thought the wolves must serve the kami, and maybe the kami rode the wolves — and wouldn’t it be fun if she could ride the wolves as well!

I have heard of similar, although less fun for the child, misunderstandings about the “Holy Ghost” among English-speaking children. There is a reason why most churches talk about the “Holy Spirit” these days.

The bulk of the essay, however, is about a theory of haraë that she heard from an (unnamed) priest at Kamigamo Jinja (上賀茂神社) in Kyoto. It is an interesting one that I have not heard before, which is why I want to write about it here.

The priest’s view was that the items used in haraë — the strips of paper on the ōnusa (大幣) wand, the small pieces of paper or hemp scattered in ceremonies, or the straw in the chinowa (茅の輪) — gather up the kegarë (穢れ), the impurity, and thus remove it from people or places. This explains why these items have to be thin and sharp, which I guess means that they sort of spear the kegarë to take it away.

Talking of spears, which also came up in Japanese, the Gion Matsuri (祇園祭) in Kyoto involves a parade of spears through the streets, and Princess Akiko says that she excitedly suggested that these spears grabbed the kegarë as well, which the priest confirmed to be the case.

The idea that kegarë is carried away in purification, rather than being destroyed on the spot, is a common one. Indeed, the idea that it sticks to some purification items, such as the paper dolls used at the twice-yearly purifications, is also common. However, I haven’t come across it as applied to chinowa or ōnusa before. That would suggest that chinowa at popular jinja (like Kamigamo Jinja) get absolutely loaded with kegarë at the summer purification. Mind you, I haven’t come across many theories for how the most common forms of haraë are supposed to work, so this is as good a place to start as any. Offered by a priest, endorsed by a princess. You don’t get much more orthodox than that!

Incidentally, one of the reasons I like Princess Akiko’s writing is that she is very open about her mistakes and misunderstandings, as with the wolves. Indeed, her essay about Noh in this book opens with a description of her sleeping through an entire performance, and only waking up because she had been drooling on her shoulder. Whether deliberate or not, it makes traditional culture less intimidating — after all, if an Imperial princess gets these things wrong, it must be fine for an ordinary person to not know what to do at first. I think this is probably one of the reasons why her book about her graduate studies at Oxford (she has a D.Phil) recently became a bestseller in Japan — she comes across as very relatable. At least until she gets invited to a one-on-one tea with the Queen. I don’t think her books have been translated, but I think they could do well if they were.