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David Chart

The 2024 Noto Earthquake 4

The February 19th issue of Jinja Shinpō devoted a whole page to a list of jinja damaged by the earthquake on January 1st. For most of them, there is also a summary of the damage. I did read it all, but I’m not going to go through it one jinja at a time. I think that might be a struggle even for this interested audience. There are a few points I want to pick up, however. First, the reports are grouped by chief priest, presumably because the chief priest provided… Read More »The 2024 Noto Earthquake 4

Shirahata-san Snake 2024

At the beginning of the month, on the day of the Hatsu-u Sai (“First Rabbit Festival”, held on the first day of the rabbit in March), Shirahata Hachiman Daijin, my local jinja, put up a new straw snake on the torii at the top of the steps to the jinja. This year, I arrived at the jinja while they were putting the snake on the torii, so I was able to take photographs. Fortunately, everyone was concentrating on the snake, and had their backs to me, so I can put… Read More »Shirahata-san Snake 2024

The Theology of Otaku Elf

A new anime recently arrived on Netflix: Otaku Elf (Edomae Elf, in Japanese). This is about a Pathfinder elf (Pathfinder is just like Dungeons & Dragons, except the elves have longer ears — oh, and it’s better) who is the kami of a jinja in Tokyo, under the name “Takamimihimë” — “Princess Big Ears”. She is a total otaku, and the main sanctuary of the jinja is her nerd nest, where she plays computer games, builds plastic models, watches anime, reads manga, and avoids going out to meet people. The… Read More »The Theology of Otaku Elf

Fire in Shinto

Every issue of Jinja Shinpō includes a short column from Jingū at Isë. In the January 29th issue, this column talked about the importance of fire at Jingū. It is used to provide light for the matsuri that are held at night, and to cook the food for the kami. In the latter case, the fire is started using a fire drill. It is also used to boil down the sea water from which the salt offered to the kami is extracted. That’s it. All the uses of fire are… Read More »Fire in Shinto

Shinkō

The “Mori ni Omofu” (“Thoughts in the Forest”) column in the January 15th issue of Jinja Shinpō was about the Noto earthquake, and had an interesting comment. “Unnecessarily looking for explanations of events that rely on things beyond human understanding, like a conspiracy theorist, cannot be said to be a healthy shinkō attitude.” One reason this is interesting is that an article in the Shinto newspaper is telling readers that the earthquake was caused by plate tectonics, which we understand pretty well, and not by the kami. As I have… Read More »Shinkō

Digital Okayama

The February 5th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article by a senior staff member of Okayama Prefectural Jinjachō, about their digital transition. This transition seems to have been driven by the head of the Jinjachō, which is probably how the first examples had to happen. There seem to be two main elements to this transition. First, they have stopped requiring inkan stamps (the name stamps that used to be needed on everything back when I first came to Japan, eeee, those were the good old days, where’re my glasses,… Read More »Digital Okayama