David Chart

The 27th January issue of Jinja Shinpō included a long article by a Revd Saitō, a priest in Akita Prefecture who played an important role in a large project to record unique matsuri in the prefecture. The immediate trigger for this project was the Great East Japan Earthquake. It inspired Revd Saitō to think again about the importance of preserving jinja and their traditions for the future, and within that he felt that the preservation and restoration of matsuri and other rites was a particularly difficult problem. This was not… Read More »Records of Matsuri

The 27th January issue of Jinja Shinpō reported on a meeting between the chief priests of three important jinja: Shirayama Himë Jinja in Ishikawa Prefecture, Oyama Jinja in Toyama Prefecture, and Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha in Shizuoka Prefecture. Each of these jinja is central to the veneration of a particular mountain: Mt Shirayama in Ishikawa, Mt Tateyama in Toyama, and Mt Fuji in Shizuoka. The reason for this meeting was that, from 2023, the three prefectural governments have been cooperating to attract tourists on the basis that they are the… Read More »Three Sacred Mountains

One of my patrons recently asked me whether there had been changes in jinja architecture over time, particularly after disasters, and whether there had been controversies of the sort there were in Europe. (If I mention “Viollet-le-Duc”, anyone with knowledge of medieval French architecture will shudder in horror.) As with everything in Shinto, the answer is complex, and depends on the jinja. The first point to bear in mind is that traditional jinja architecture is wooden, and while wooden buildings can last for over a millennium (the oldest one in… Read More »Architectural Changes

The 20th January issue of Jinja Shinpō included two articles about Shishimai, concerning closely connected events. “Shishimai” seems to be generally translated as “lion dance”. “Mai” is certainly “dance”, and they are indeed dances, but “shishi” do not generally look that much like lions. The Japanese name is for a large group of dances, with examples found all over Japan. They can be very different from one another, but in the basic form the “shishi” is danced by one or two people under a sheet, holding and operating a lacquered… Read More »Shishimai