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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

Jinja in Taiwan

The February 16th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article by a priest from Chiba Prefecture, about a trip to Taiwan that the prefectural branch of the Shintō Seiji Renmei (神道政治連盟) organised last year to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war. The group visited a number of locations, most associated with the war dead, which is standard for these sort of visits. The first that he mentioned was a Taiwan-style memorial to the crew of a Japanese warship. A priest from Yasukuni Jinja performed an ireisai… Read More »Jinja in Taiwan

Two Sides of Shinto

　The 16th February issue of Jinja Shinpō had two full pages that showed very different sides of modern Shinto. The first was the front page, which was dominated by an account of a meeting held in Tokyo to call for the return of the Northern Territories. This is a group of islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaidō that were illegally occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War, and never handed back. Indeed, they are the main reason why Japan and the Soviet Union… Read More »Two Sides of Shinto

Foreigners Again

In connection to my two most recent posts, I want to loop back to the 23rd February issue of Jinja Shinpō, in which two articles caught my attention for their treatment of foreigners. One was the latest instalment of Revd Kanzaki’s regular column. He is a priest and “minzokugakusha” (民俗学者), which my dictionary translates as “folklorist”. That’s wrong, and I think “cultural anthropologist” would be closer — but also wrong, because the implication of the Japanese is a focus on one’s own culture. In any case, he studies Japanese culture… Read More »Foreigners Again