The Akha spirit gate

Posted on by September 17, 2018
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Thanks to Green Shinto reader, Daniel Oshima, for bringing to our attention the religion of the Akha people who originated from the western part of China (probably Yunnan) but have migrated to Thailand and Burma in recent times. According to Wikipedia, their religion called zahv “is often described as a mixture of animism and ancestor worship that emphasizes the Akha connection with the land and their place in the natural world and cycles.”

Akhas believe that spirits and people were born of the same mother and lived together until a quarrel led to their separation, upon which spirits went into the forest and people remained in the villages. Since then, Akha believe that the evil spirits have caused illness and other unwelcome disruptions. They use spirit gates to keep them out.

The Akha spirit-gates are the equivalent of Japanese torii. Carved birds enable flight to the gods so that messages can be delivered (presumably in times of emergency, or in thanks for being spared disaster). This recalls the origin of torii as ‘bird’s roosts’ (tori-i). Human figures are carved on the gate, which signify vitality and fertility. (Coupling and sex are indicators of the life-force, which overcome decay and the destructive.)

Other similarities have to do with the renewal of the gates each year, for refreshing is such an important part of Shinto also. (Rebirth is built into the annual cycle, and as a nature religion the lesson is taken to heart.) Moreover, purity of the spirit world and the pollution inherent in the material world are a vital part of animist thinking, and in Akha terms the gates represent purity in defiance of the evil spirits outside. Human touch despoils the gates, which can only be restored to purity by proper ritual and sacrifice.

The small Akha hilltribe thus provide a great example of how similar ideas pervade the shamanic religions across south-east Asia. Particular practices differ of course from place to place as they become embedded in distinctive cultures. This makes each of them ‘unique’ though what they share in common is of far greater substance than what separates them. In this sense one could say that the gate that protects the Akha village is in a deep Jungian sense much the same as the torii that stands before Shinto shrines.

The torii reexamined

Posted on by September 15, 2018
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The famous torii tunnel at Fushimi beckons the visitor ever further into the other world

There’s nothing so evocative of Japan as the torii. The stylised gateway is a thing of beauty in itself, but it’s also a symbolic opening that suggests entrance into a different realm. It’s not intended to keep anyone out, and it’s not intended to prevent ingress. Typical of Japanese aesthetics, it frames emptiness – an invisible gate for invisible spirits. The marker divides the sacred from the profane, beckoning the visitor to enter into a special realm. It’s impossible to resist the feeling of being drawn into a different dimension, for it marks the point where this world and the spirit world abut one another. Some say that passing between the pillars is a form of purification in itself, as if there’s a spiritual charge running between them.

Passing between posts is reminiscent of our first entry into the world, and calls us back home as it were by inviting us to seek re-entry into the womb. In casting off the cares of our material world, we return to that garden of Eden before we attained consciousness and self-awareness. We become children – children of the kami.

If you took an aerial photograph of a typical shrine and looked at the layout, you’d see the distinct shape of a uterus. From the vulvic entrance represented by the torii runs a pathway through the woods to a womb-like opening in which stand the shrine buildings. Within that womb is a vertical dimension from which the kami descend as agents of the life-force. Yin and yang are symbolised in the open and closed mouths of the pair of guardian creatures, and the five elements conspire to produce a harmonious whole – wood in the shrine buildings; air in the freshness of the woods; earth in the ground below; fire in the flame that lights the lanterns; running water in the temizuya, and metal in the dragon that feeds it.

Here in the creation of a sacred realm is where spiritual and material worlds come together. The visitors proceed along a horizontal plane, the kami descends unseen on a vertical axis. Refreshed by the encounter, the visitor returns to the world ostensibly the same but reborn in spirit. What better way to mark this magical encounter than with a torii. There is pure nothingness, yet the outer form marks an inner transformation.

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For a piece about the origins of the torii, please see here. There’s more on the subject, with reference to a Kansai Scene article, on this page.

Imperial tombs

Posted on by September 11, 2018
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Ancient burial mounds are found all around Kansai, though like this one near Sakurai known as Hashihaka it’s often unclear as to who exactly is buried there.

The scholar Takagi Hiroshi writes that: “After the Meiji Restoration, an idea of the everlasting and unbroken single line of emperors was created, and at the same time, closely related to that idea, imperial mausoleums were invented anew. The latter functioned as a mythical device to enable the continuation of the modern imperial system, by visualizing the single line from the myth of Amaterasu’s grandson’s descending from heaven to earth, through all the emperors in history to the current one.” (Kindai tennō-sei to koto, p.177)

Kagura theatre featuring Ninigi no mikoto

Already before the Meiji Restoration, a grave for legendary Emperor Jimmu had been located in 1863, though historians doubt any such person existed. After the Restoration in 1874, even more astonishingly the burial sites of the three semi-divine generations prior to Jimmu were said to have been identified – that of Ninigi, who according to myth descended from heaven, together with his son and grandson.

Subsequently mounds were specified for many other emperors, such as the thirty-second emperor Sushun (in 1876), for the thirty-ninth emperor Kōbun (1877), the second emperor Suizei (1878), and the fiftieth emperor Kanmu  (1880). In 1878, the administration of the burial mounds was transferred from the Home Ministry to the Imperial Household Ministry.

When the latter issued the list of the imperial mausoleums in 1880, the list stated that tombs of thirteen emperors were not identified, but nine years later before the promulgation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan in 1889 the whole long list of imperial ancestors had been identified except for one, that of the ninety-eighth emperor Chōkei. Because of the lack of historical sources, it was difficult to specify his tomb, though there were many candidates. Finally in 1944 during the midst of the war, it was decided to clear up the issue by settling on a site in Kyoto.

Kammu’s tomb was ‘discovered’ in 1880 and is now part of Kyoto’s kami presence

Post World War Two
After World War II, the Imperial Household Ministry was restructured as the Imperial Household Agency, which now has management and control of imperial mausoleums. On the basis of ‘preservation of sacred sites’, free scholarly investigation of burial mounds is banned, for as ancestral tombs they are held to be inviolable. Remarkably, the Agency has designated no fewer than 895 sites from Yamagata to Kagoshima  as imperial mausoleums and tombs, meaning that they are all off-limits to archaeologists. (188 burial mounds are designated as senior members of the Imperial family.) It has given rise to the often voiced suspicion that the authorities are frightened of finding the graves reveal Korean ties, which would confirm the provenance of the imperial family. (Scroll down to the bottom of this page for more about this.)

Recently a World Heritage nomination was made for the “Ancient Tumulus Cluster in Mozu-Furuichi”, which may shed an interesting light on the problem, for a number of imperial mausoleums are included in the application. Which side of the argument will Unesco favour?

Daisen mound, also known as Nintoku’s tomb, at Sakai near Osaka. It’s the largest burial mound in Japan, and the largest in terms of ground size in the world. (Photo courtesy Japan Times)

Previously the organisation has shown great sympathy with Shinto traditions in accepting the men-only rule for the Ōmine Shugendo site, allowing Shimogamo Shrine to cut down part of its ancient woodland, and agreeing to a ban on entry to the sacred island of Okinoshima (part of Munakata Taisha).

A major item in the World Heritage application is the so-called Nintoku’s tomb, one of the three largest in the world together with the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in China (Nintoku’s is the largest if measured by surface area alone).

Nintoku was the 16th emperor in the official line of succession, thought to have died in the early fifth century. According to Wikipedia, “Built in the middle of the 5th century by an estimated 2,000 men working daily for almost 16 years, the Nintoku tumulus, at 486 meters long and with a mound 35 meters high, is twice as long as the base of the famous Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) in Giza.”

Archaeologists however disagree with the attribution to Nintoku from the evidence that is available and refer to it instead as the Daisen Mound (c.400). In fact, the Boston Museum of Arts holds artifacts excavated from the site after a storm. It’s certainly one of the wonders of the world, and walking around its immense perimeter makes one aware of the size, though sadly part of the route is swallowed up by urban sprawl.

When imperial myth comes up against archaeological research, I wonder which side Unesco will choose. Will the Imperial Household Agency still be allowed to put up signs advertising the mound as Nintoku’s tomb? Or will it get the more correct and objective appellation of Daisen Mound?

It is difficult to know what pressure will be applied behind the scenes by Japan, whose financial contributions have been well rewarded in recent years by a steady stream of new World Heritage Sites. Like the issue of whaling, there is often more at stake than what is evident on the surface. At the core of both these contentious matters is a deep concern about Japan’s heritage and its sense of identity.

Entrance to the ‘Nintoku burial mound’ in Sakai, Osaka, considered the third biggest burial site in the world after the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the tomb of Emperor Qin in China.

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For the official World Heritage application, see here.

For an article about the possible controversy that may arise in the World Heritage application, see this piece by Eric Johnston in the Japan Times.

Thanks to Green Shinto reader John Hallam for pointing out this interesting comment from the Japanese Archaeology website, on the Kofun Culture page:

“There is a myth around that this refusal is because the Imperial Household Agency, and thus the emperor and his family, will discover that the Japanese imperial line is Korean in origin. But the fact that some of the Great Clans around the imperial line and providing wives and mothers for the emperors were descendents from Korean immigrants is clear in the Nihon Shoki and has never been censored from the history books. And there are a lot of people in Japan and in the world who would refuse to let archaeologists or anyone else dig up the graves of their ancestors, especially in a country where none of the archaeological organizations has a code of ethics.

However, the facts are much more complicated that this. The Imperial Household Agency has been doing some excavation work on the designated tombs, in conjunction with maintenance work, and recently they have let a select few archaeologists join in the work. And some tombs designated as imperial tombs have been excavated in the past. Nintoku’s tomb is one of these.

There also are major problems with the designation of kofun mound tombs as imperial tombs. During the period of mound tomb building, no one kept records of who was buried in which tombs. When the first histories of Japan were compiled in the early 8th century, the memory of these tombs was already lost and the writers had to guess. Then nothing more was done for over 1,000 years, until efforts were made in the late Edo and early Meiji periods to determine which mounds were imperial tombs. Some of these designations are now known to be wrong and a large portion of the others are suspect.

If archaeologists have not already accidently excavated an imperial tomb, sooner or later they will, unless all kofun mound tombs are investigated and far more reliable designations of the imperial tombs are made. In fact, only 2 of the mound tombs are generally agreed to be designated correctly, the tombs of Emperor Temmu and Tenji.”

Baikal and Back 7: Shamanic world

Posted on by September 3, 2018

Sea and sacred mountain (courtesy Cultural Affairs Agency/Kyodo)

The shaman is a figure of authority who is not only guardian of the clan history but a master of ritual, healing and divination. This derives from the ability to communicate with ancestral spirits, which preside over descendants, sometimes acting in a protective manner but if dissatisfied causing havoc, illness and unrest. Seeking harmony in place of disorder is the task of the shaman, achieved through such techniques as trance, ritual and dream interpretation.

Thanks to their privileged access to the spirit world, the shamans are able to pronounce on matters of physical and mental well-being, as well as see into the past and future. In Siberia vodka facilitates the process, opening up channels of communication and facilitating bonding with the other world. More than a means of intoxication, it is an agent of purification that clears away impurities that obscure clarity of vision. The ‘little water’ is vital to a healthy life.

Model of an ancient Korean shaman

In some shamanic cultures, drugs are used to induce altered consciousness, opening up the ‘doors of perception’. In Shinto though rice wine is the preferred option, and at Japan’s wilder festivals huge quantities of omiki [sacred saké] are consumed by participants as they ‘break on through to the other side’. Becoming one with the spirits and with fellow participants is the name of the game. The sipping of saké at shrine rituals is the formal legacy of such Bacchanalian rites.

In shamanic cultures, the spirits of the dead often became identified with local mountains. Since bodies were left on mountainsides or behind rocks, their spirits were absorbed into the landscape. A similar notion underlies the practice of visiting graves to pay respects to the dead, as if the essence of a person remains with their physical remains. One can see how easily this would have prompted in ancient people the idea of ancestral spirits becoming spirits of place. And if rocks and mountains could contain spirits, then so could trees, streams and waterfalls.

As in China, Japanese emperors and other high figures were traditionally placed in burial mounds, accompanied by all the goods and precious objects that they might possess. Clans living nearby looked on the spirit in the mound as a guardian deity, and in this way the clan had a real sense of belonging to the land. In death members of the clan too would literally become part of the same territory, unified with the rest of the clan. Even now, when modernity has led to mobility, there is a strong tie among Japanese to their ujigami, or clan shrine. Most of these shrines lie within the protective shadow of a mountain, whose deity looks after those in the valley below. Mountains are our guardians. Mountains are the shaman’s friend.

Caitlin Stronell serving ‘omiki’ (sacred saké) at Asakawa Konpira

Baikal and Back 6: Rocks

Posted on by August 29, 2018

Hawk rock

My guide in Busan, Ryu Dong-il, was warm and sensitive to a tourist’s viewpoint. By the end of the day I’d got to know about his family, hobbies and a whole lot about Korean culture. The son of an illiterate dock worker, he had got his first job at twelve, paid for his own schooling and left to become an engine driver.

For years he’d combined driving trains with his pastime of rock-climbing, and the pictures he showed me was the stuff of nightmares. What on earth would move a human to even want to do such a thing? ‘It makes me feel alive,‘ he told me. ‘It makes me comfortable.’ Comfortable?! Short of being tortured, clinging to a cliff was as far from comfort as I could imagine.

Ryu told me of a close friend with whom he used to go climbing. Halfway up a rock face, his friend had suddenly frozen motionless. Asked what was wrong, he did not reply but started to descend. His eyes were ablaze, and the very next day he applied to be a monk. It had been twenty years ago, and though Ryu had often visited the small temple where his friend lived, he had never learnt what exactly happened that day. Clearly it had something to do with the power of the rocks. ‘Now he lives a simple life. He’s poor, but he has a purity in his eyes. You feel that he has a detachment from life,’ said Ryu. ‘He’s free.’

‘And how about you?’ I asked. It turned out Ryu too had had an unusual experience. ‘It was very special,‘ he said. ‘I was lying on a giant rock, taking a rest after a difficult climb, when I felt as if I was floating. I lost control of my body, couldn’t move, yet there was something pleasant about it as if I’d entered a realm of weightlessness. Since then I never had a feeling like that again. Even though I tried sometimes lying down on rocks, but never that same feeling. I think it was something to do with that particular rock. Each rock is different.’

Rocks are known to have different physical properties. Some have a powerful magnetic field, granite gives off radiation, and the blue stones of Stonehenge may well have been dragged all the way from Wales because they had special healing properties. There are rocks of worship, rocks of transcendence, rocks that convey authority and rocks conducive to contemplation. They were seen by the ancients as manifestations of a living Earth, and they served as vessels for otherworldly spirits. With their rockhard solidity, they represented the eternal and the permanent. This stood in contrast to the temporary world of vegetative matter to which humans belong.

Rocks and roots. As a land of mountains, I couldn’t help feeling Korea had a lot to teach.

Hawaii’s Hiroshima Ceremony

Posted on by August 10, 2018

Thanks to Ray Tsuchiyama for this visual report of a true multifaith ceremony at the Izumi Taishakyo shrine in Hawaii to commemorate the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb 77 years ago. Ray writes: ‘Rarely do you see a Buddhist (Nichiren) priest singing “Ave Maria” and a Hawaiian song (to a Hula accompaniment). We had a Jewish speaker, Native Hawaiian, and a young people’s group (we all sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” — including the Shinto priest).’

Further details on this poster below…

The Jewish representative giving an address, with Hiroshima bell replica behind

Ray Tsuchiyama giving the closing address

 

 

Baikal and Back 5: Korean connection

Posted on by August 6, 2018

Seonbawi rock at Seoul, ghostly guardian over the city below

‘Actually not many Koreans know much about the shamanic tradition. It’s strange,’ scholar David Mason told me. ‘It’s as if they were ashamed of it. Few Koreans could face their past until the 1980s because it was all too painful. All that devastation. All the heritage wiped out. All the shame. It’s only recently that they want to look back and claim their past. But if you look around, there really isn’t that much. In Seoul there are the Royal Palaces, the City Gates, the Insadong craft street. That’s about it. So it’s strange they don’t embrace the shamanist heritage more fully. Until recently they were ashamed of it as primitive, and after the war they even tried to stamp it out as superstition. But you’re going to see how much a part it is of a living tradition.’

We were on our way to Mt Inwang, a shamanic hill with sixteen brightly-coloured Buddhist temples, garish by Japanese standards, which had once stood astride the old road to China. Inside were paintings of Sanshin, an old man with a beard, invariably accompanied by a tiger, who acted as protective deity to Buddhist temples.

On the hill stood the national shaman shrine, Guksadang. The main feature was an old Spirit Tree, spanning the three worlds, in front of which were offerings of alcohol. It was decorated in cloth strips of symbolic colours, the dominant being blue to signify the source of the cosmic order. (It is why the Korean president occupies a Blue House rather than a White House.)

For a national shrine it was unprepossessing, but Korean shamanism had never been institutionalised like Shinto and its structures were makeshift and homemade. There was no official form of worship, no set liturgy, and shaman practices were conducted in homes or outdoors. The closest it had come to organised religion was in its alliance with Buddhism.

Beyond the temples lay the rocky crag of Seon-bawi, one of the most worshipped rocks in the world. From the side of the slope above us its weathered features stood up tall and proud, looking like a giant old man. Dubbed the Benevolent King, he casts a protective eye over Seoul in the valley below. From a certain angle it was possible to see too a companion resting his head against him. ‘They’re known as Zen rocks because they resemble praying monks,’ said David, ‘but to me they look like Sanshin and his tiger.’

Rock worship Korean-style, not so different from rock worship in Japan

Ancient tradition holds that rocks like this are spirits rising out of the ground, and there was indeed a palpable sense of presence. Before them offerings of food and soju (rice alcohol) had been laid out, while entreaties and prayers were given voice by earnest worshippers.

Interestingly, the positioning of the sacred rocks were similar to those I’d seen on the Inland Sea in Japan, along which migrants from Korea passed in ancient times. I’d often wondered what made a particular hill sacred. One thing I’d noticed was that the hills were often steep on one side with a long extended slope on the other. The shape was mirrored in that of shrine roofs, surely no coincidence. The position of the sacred rock was not, as might be expected, at the peak but a third of the way up. Seen from below, it serves as focal point for the mountain as a whole. Indeed the background of the rising mountain could be seen as a kind of aureole. Sacred rock, holy hill.

While we were at Seon-bawi, David told me about hyeoul, or energy point. Shamans were sensitive to these in much the same way as the ‘wise folk’ of Western witchcraft responded to the power of place. In hyeoul it was important to balance the forcefield of heaven with that of earth, resulting in the locating of sacred rocks at a keypoint on the lower part of the mountain where magnetic forces accumulated. It was a vital ki point, as it were. Very interesting! Surely Yayoi-era emigrants had taken notions of hyeoul with them as they made inroads into Japan along the coastland of Kyushu and the Inland Sea.

‘What you find in Korea is mountain-worship at particular cliffs and boulders,’ remarked David. ‘The rocks act as a focus for prayer, much like the crucifix in a church acts as a focus for Jesus and God. There’s a tradition of worshipping particular rocks, such as these with special shapes or rocks that seem somehow special.’
‘Yes, it’s the same in Japan,’
‘Well, don’t forget that the ancestors of modern Japan came from hereabouts, so it’s all linked.’

Meditation at a shaman’s rock in Korea

Baikal and Back 4: Korean links

Posted on by August 6, 2018

Udu-san in Korea, which legend claims to be where the gods descended (courtesy Douch)

Shamanism in Korea tends to be overshadowed by Buddhism, Confucianism and even Christianity. Though it flourished in ancient times, its influence waned after 1392 when the Joseon Dynasty promoted Confucianism. This was primarily concerned with ethical behaviour and promoting harmony in a top-down social order, which was at odds with the individualistic, spontaneous and unpredictable nature of shamanism. Moreover, it was male-oriented in contrast to the female world of shamanism.

Spirit clothes, used in Korean shaman ceremonies

During the colonial period after 1910 all folk religions had been forbidden, and after liberation the forces of modernisation and secularisation had proved further impediments. Yet remarkably shamanism still continues to play a part in the life of the people, like a stream that has been diverted underground but continues to water the fields.

‘You see, it’s basically like this,‘ Sanshin expert David Mason told me. ‘There was a kind of village shamanism all over East Asia. Regional variations, sure, but basically the same. There was a shaman-chief or shamanness in control or supporting the leader. In China it went philosophical with the emergence of Taoism. In Siberia it retained its village form but got wiped out by the communists. In Korea it merged with Buddhism and sort of got sidelined. And in Japan it was used to legitimise the ruling dynasty. That’s the way I see it, anyway. That’s why you have these differences all over East Asia, even though they all share the same basis.

Korean shaman dance in Jeju (unknown source)

For me Korea’s the most interesting because shamanism remained strong in folk culture but didn’t become institutionalised. It managed to co-exist with Buddhism but was suppressed by Confucianism under the Joseon Dynasty. During Japanese control it suffered even more as it was regarded as a potential source of nationalism. In the postwar period Christianity and Westernisation have contributed to the view that it was somehow evil or backward, and even as recently as the regime of Park Chung-Lee in the 1970s it was portrayed as an enemy of modernity. Throughout it’s been primarily a woman’s religion, and though it managed to remain vibrant it has always been marginalised or driven underground. That’s what makes it so interesting.’

‘Koreans are still Confucian on the inside with a shamanistic center,‘ writes Woo-Young Choi, professor of sociology at Chonbuk National University. His book ascribes Korea’s rapid economic growth to its Confucian heritage and brings up the concept of sinbaram, which has to do with inhalation in the sense of drawing in the breath. It’s the sort of breathing that takes a shaman into trance, and some say it’s the very basis of Korean culture. It’s where the energy and vitality of the country come from. You can sense it in the poetry, and it’s how the country survived being crushed between its mighty neighbours, China and Japan. It’s how it manages to keep breathing so heartily, even now.

Model of an ancient Korean shaman – did immigrants long ago bring their religion with them to Japan?

Baikal and Back 3: Similarities

Posted on by August 2, 2018

Shaman flags of the Buryat Mongols near Irkutsk

As elsewhere, Buryat shamans not only have a strong connection to the land, but they serve as guardians of the cultural identity. Under Communism, however, the ethnic distinctiveness was seen as threatening to the party’s official line of universalism. In the interests of uniformity they tried to stamp out shamanism altogther.

The Saio-dai’s headdress in Kyoto’s Aoi Matsuri is suggestive of the shamanic miko of early history

The motivation was reminiscent of the way seventh-century Japan had clamped down on shamanic activities in the name of centralisation. Women in trances uttering messages from an unseen world did not meet the needs of the expanding Yamato state, and a network was established of imperial shrines with male functionaries. Miko (female shamans) were suppressed or incorporated into the new institutions in subordinate roles, with formal ceremony replacing spontaneity. As ritual became a matter of correctness, shamanism was replaced by Shinto.

The ‘fossilised remains’ of shamanism remain evident in today’s Shinto. The ethereal noise uttered by priests to mark the descent and departure of the kami, for example. It’s a nod towards shamanic possession, but it’s pure form.

If one can presume that ancient Japanese had close links with Korean shamanism, and that Korean shamanism derived from that of Siberia through southern migration, then it would be surprising if there were not close affinities between Shinto and Mongolian shamanism. My journey to Siberia seemed to bear that out.

Shaman masks, now treasures of Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri

Shamanism in general is animistic, polytheistic, and aims to establish balance between humans and spirits. There are countless deities, including ancestral spirits of place and beings that live in the upper world. There’s no fixed doctrine and no holy books. Ancestor worship blends into a sense of sacred nature. All of that applies to shamanic cultures – and to Shinto too.

Many if not most religions make a fetish of threesomes. Three in one; the Buddhist triad; the three Wise Men. Even atheistic communism came up with Marx, Engles and Lenin. Personally I’ve always attributed this to the father-mother-child template of human life, but psychologists ascribe it to the workings of the mind along past-present-future lines. In shamanism too there is a threefold reality in terms of an upper, middle and lower world, and this is reflected in the Buryat tradition. The human self is divided into body, breath and soul; blessings are done in threes; there are three parts to the soul; and the sick are given life extensions of three or nine years. Worship involves walking three times round an ovoo shrine. There are nine disciples for a shaman, and there are 99 heavenly spirits, triply divided and subdivided. So how about Shinto?

Unsurprisingly, three also lies at the very core of the religion. The triple tomoe mark is the tripartite symbol of Shinto, borrowed from Taoism where it represents Earth, Human and Heaven. There are three imperial regalia that show descent from the sun-goddess (mirror, sword and jewel). Purification is done by waving a stick with paper streamers three times. There are three cosmic children born of the first ever misogi (cleansing), Amaterasu, Susanoo and Tsukinomikami, and you walk three times through the chinowa circle of purification. But perhaps most striking of all is the wedding ceremony of san-san-kudo (3-3-9), by which couples exchange three times three cups of saké to signify eternal union.

Jingu Kogo, shaman leader in Japanese mythology, here part of Gion Matsuri

Mythologically there are close parallels too. In Mongolian folklore the sun goddess Naran Goohon becomes sick and makes the world dim but is restored after a meeting of the gods. In Shinto, Amaterasu retreats into a cave and throws the world into darkness, but light is restored after a meeting of the gods.

In Mongolian mythology a rainbow connects the upper world and this world. In Shinto the two worlds are joined by Ama no Ukihashi, the floating bridge of heaven (ie a rainbow). Both Shinto and shamanism privilege intuition as a means of knowledge, typically in the form of dreams which are interpreted as messages from the spirits. They may disclose sacred sites or events of special significance; indeed, the location for many Shinto shrines are revealed in this way (most famously Ise Jingu when Amaterasu appears in a vision to say that she is ready to stop her wanderings).

In both traditions the pollution of the material world contrasts with the purity of the spirit world. Spirits are offended by disrespect, lack of hygiene, the violation of taboos, or contact with blood and death. Consequently purification is carried out before rituals with such means as smoke, salt, fasting and washing. A ‘spiritual cleaner’ is used to sweep away impurities, known as minaa in Mongolian and haraigushi or onusa in Japanese. The minaa can be used like a whip to clear negative energy; applied to the body it acts as a means of healing.

Mongolian ‘minaa’ used to whip away impurities (courtesy 3worlds website)

For Buryats trees are a manifestation of earth’s power, and remarkable trees represent a special mark of the life-force. Ribbons or silk scarves are tied to their branches, whereas in Japan sacred trees are marked with a shimenawa rice rope. In both Mongolian and Shinto traditions, human spirits are thought to remain behind after death as protector and helper of the household. After several generations they no longer remain as individual entities but merge into an anonymous whole. Those who exhibit exceptional power, such as Chingis Khan and Nobunaga, are worshipped as deities regardless of any moral considerations. In both traditions, people who die too young or unjustly may plague descendants and need placating. Those who are too strongly attached to things in this world may linger on unrequited.

In both traditions a ‘spirit-body’ is constructed out of objects such as wood and rock, or simply a doll or paper drawing. The spirit is drawn into the object in a special rite conducted by the shaman or priest. In shamanism the rhythmic repetition of the drum, quickening in tempo, leads to an altered state of consciousness. In Shinto the drum is used in shrines at the beginning of rituals with a quickening beat, as if to alert worshippers to the arrival of an unseen presence.

In Mongolia bells and rattles attract the attention of spirits; in Shinto a bell is rung to call the kami. While dancing miko use a kind of rattle (suzu) to catch the kami’s attention, another legacy from shamanism. In both religions the mirror plays a central role in terms of using divine light to disspell  evil spirits. Mirrors on the shaman’s costume provide protection as well as facilitating possession by ancestral spirits by providing portals. In Shinto the mirror in the shrine symbolises the supreme source of life, the spirit of the sun-goddess herself.

Mirrors can be hung on costumes as in shamanism or as part of the misakaki in Shinto

Baikal and Back 2: Throat-singing

Posted on by July 28, 2018

(Pics from google)

The traditional ger (Mongolian tent), aligned to the south, is more than a portable tent for it also serves as spiritual sanctuary. In the north stands an altar with mirror, so that any evil spirit entering the tent is frightened off by its own reflection. The central pole serves as a domestic axis mundi, allowing access to both upper and lower worlds. Men are seated on the left and women on the right to facilitate a yin-yang flow of energy, and in the middle of the tent is a fire above which an opening enables the smoke to escape. It is through that opening that the shaman’s soul soars when taking flight.

The group ate to the accompaniment of Buryat folksongs, the first of which was about the falling snow, another about the beauty of the mountains, and a third about the greatness of Chingis Khan. One of the instruments comprised two strings of horse-hair along a piece of wood carved to resemble a horse, and if you shut your eyes the sound sent you galloping away across the plains.

All of a sudden I was startled from my thoughts by the strangest of noises, as if an otherworldly voice had spoken from the space above us. For a moment my heart beat anxiously as I looked around for an explanation of the source, and slowly it became apparent that someone was doing traditional throat singing. Even then the effect was unnerving, for the reverberations were deep, guttural and quite unhuman.

Afterwards one of the musicians, a teacher at the Ulan Ude’s music academy, explained that throat-singing may have originated from the wind whistling round the side of the ger and reverberating through the openings. People wanted to mimic the noises, which vibrated simultaneously in different pitches, and as they strained ever harder to capture the sounds they developed their vocal chords and created new effects.

Eventually the noises took on otherworldy qualities, with shaman-singers using the techniques to project the voice of the spirits with which they communicated. It was the shamanic way of speaking in tongues. Most of his students took a year or so to acquire the skill, he told us, though some were incapable. When done properly, it didn’t hurt at all and was known to be good exercise for underused muscles.

The Siberian shaman’s costume has a fringe covering the face, which acts as a protective veil. The official reason is to shield viewers from the unnerving sight of a spirit taking possession of the shaman. From one of the musicians we learnt that even for those versed in such matters, the phenomenon cold be perplexing. ‘I was at a shaman’s session once,’ he said, ‘and the spirit’s voice was so deep and bass that when the fringe was raised afterwards and I saw it was a woman, I got a weird feeling and gooseflesh all over.’

 

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