David Chart

The Tokyo Shinto Youth Association (Tokyo-to Shinto Seinenkai) has put some downloadable PDFs online for papercraft items for your kamidana. There is an ofuda-tatë, which is something to lean the ofuda against so that it stands up, a pair of koma-inu, and a pair of lanterns (which should not actually be lit because they are made of paper.) http://www.tokyo-shinsei.jp/papercraft.html The page and instructions are all in Japanese, but there are instructional videos, so they should be usable even if you cannot read Japanese. The download links are the things with… Read More »Papercraft Kamidana Items

Next month will see the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. There will, I am sure, be a number of events to mark it, and since it is a very solemn event to start with, the necessary pandemic countermeasures will not, I think, be a serious burden. (The largest issue that immediately comes to mind is that people who had to leave an area in the aftermath probably will not be able to go back for a memorial event.) Jinja Honchō is also asking jinja across Japan to… Read More »Earthquake Commemoration

One of the problems with continuing to research a topic that you have written about in the past is that sometimes you discover that you had misinterpreted something. For example, when I wrote about Miho Jinja, I noted that the jinja claims that Jinmu Tennō’s empress was a daughter of Kotoshironushi, the main kami at Miho Jinja. I also noted that the Kojiki says that she was a daughter of Ōmononushi, the main kami at Miwa Jinja, and I speculated on where Miho Jinja’s legend might have come from. However,… Read More »The Perils of Research

A few months ago I wrote about a series of columns in Jinja Shinpō being written by a female priest who did not grow up in a priestly family. The latest instalment was in the January 25th issue, and was about her service in the jinja of the Imperial Palace, the Three Sacred Halls. The priests for these jinja are divided into the male Shōten and the female Naishōten. The Naishōten are required to be unmarried, and today I believe that means that they are all fairly young, although in… Read More »The Tennō’s Priestesses

I visit my local jinja, Shirahata Hachiman Daijin, every day to pay my respects to the kami. Because of my work schedule, this normally happens in the morning. However, my favourite time to visit is in the evening, when it is just starting to get dark, but before the doors to the haiden (the prayer hall) are closed. The lights in the haiden are on, and it is dark enough outside that they give the room a warm glow. Normally, there are lights on behind the bamboo blinds at the… Read More »My Favourite Sanpai Time

Jinja Honchō runs an annual conference for priests, at which academics give presentations on topics relevant to the religious content of Shinto. Normally, the priests gather for this, but that was not possible last year. Instead, two presentations were recorded, and made available on the priests-only website. I haven’t seen them, because I’m not a priest, but quite a lot of priests apparently did. They may even have been accessible to more priests than usual, as there was no need to travel to a central site, but there was no… Read More »Epidemics and Matsuri