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David Chart

Kami Who Have Sex

Content warning: See the title… A book I have read recently is Maguwau Kamigami (まぐわう神々), by Kanzaki Noritakë (神崎宣武). The title can be translated as “Kami Who Have Sex”, and it is about explicitly sexual elements in Shinto practice. The first thing to note is that Kanzaki is a Shinto priest and ethnologist, and has a regular column in Jinja Shinpō. His new books invariably get a positive review in the newspaper. But not this one. This one was passed over in silence. The executive summary is that explicitly sexual… Read More »Kami Who Have Sex

Going Digital

The hatsumōdë survey published in the March 9th issue of Jinja Shinpō also covered several aspects of the digital transformation. Social media, AI, and cashless payments were picked out as major issues, and there seem to have been a lot of responses. The attitude to social media is broadly positive, and a lot of priests are seeing good results from putting photographs of their jinja on Facebook or Instagram. They also mentioned that if you put information about events and such online, people, particularly young people, find it there, and… Read More »Going Digital

Jingū Taima 2026

Both the results of the hatsumōdë survey published in Jinja Shinpō on March 9th and a couple of articles, including the front page lead, on March 16th deal with the distribution of Jingū Taima. Jingū Taima are ofuda from Isë Jingū, and the position of the Shinto establishment is that every household in Japan should have one on their kamidana. According to the articles published on the 16th, last season (that is, over the new year period coming into this year) 7,836,747 were distributed, a fall of 106,101 from the… Read More »Jingū Taima 2026

Hatsumōdë Survey 2026

Jinja Shinpō has once again conducted its annual survey of its correspondents, priests at jinja across Japan, to find out how hatsumōdë went, and to hear about other issues. The results were published in the March 9th issue. This survey was started during the pandemic, but it seems that I am not the only one to find its results very interesting and useful. This year, there is no mention of the pandemic or of changes related to it, and so it seems to have become a regular annual event. I… Read More »Hatsumōdë Survey 2026

A Child is Born

The 2nd March issue of Jinja Shinpō included the next (and, I think, final) installment of Revd Tagawa’s column, where she talked about giving birth. Her jinja is Fukumo Hachimangū (福母八幡宮), which means “Fortunate Mother Hachimangū”, and so it is famous for prayers for becoming pregnant, and then giving birth safely. Revd Tagawa opens the column by saying that, when she was officiating at prayers for safe birth, she noticed the petitioners’ due dates getting further and further away from hers, and before she knew it, hers was only a… Read More »A Child is Born

2026 Snake

As it does every year, my local jinja — Shirahata Hachiman Daijin (白幡八幡大神) — has put a rice-straw and vegetable snake up on the inner torii. This is part of a matsuri held on the first day of the rabbit in March, when an archery ritual is performed to predict the quality of the harvest for the coming year. The snake has a sword in its tail, which associates it with the snake/dragon killed by Susano’o in the myths in the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, but I do not believe that… Read More »2026 Snake