A few weeks ago I posted on a small altar to Omoto in a neighbouring village and asked if anyone would be interested in seeing the shamanic kagura that is associated with Omoto. On person said yes, so this is for them. I apologize for the quality of the photos and videos. They are from twenty years ago.
Omoto is carried to the village shrine, a Hachimangu at the far end of the village. Omoto Kagura was introduced in to the area by yamabushi and they took the same form of shamanic rituals all across the country. I have found remnants of yamabushi kagura throughout western Japan and Kyushu, and am reliably informed it was also widespread in the north of Japan. When the yamabushi and their shamanism was outlawed in the late Meiji period it disappeared everywhere, except in this remote part of Shimane.
Omto is then placed on an altar in the shrine. The shelves with white cloth are for the offerings that will later be ceremonially offered to Omoto by the villagers and priests. I have seen the offering for normal annual matsuris, and for the Omoto rituals there are 3 to 4 times as many offerings.
Many shrines in the area do not have a full-time shinto priest, but for Omoto all the priests of the county take part. Omoto Kagura takes place either every 4, 5, 6, or sometimes 7 years, depending on the village tradition. A similar shamanic kagura takes place in Hiba, high in the mountains of Hiroshima near the Shimane border, but only every 33 years.
An altar is set up in the corner of the ceremonial space, under the tengai, the canopy over the dance area. I believe this altar is in the NW corner but I could be mistaken.
Masked, theatrical kagura is performed as an interlude while the priests retire and rest. This was the origin of the theatrical kagura now commonly performed. It was in between the shamanic dances performed by priests, ne shugenja.
More rituals, many involving a very large Onusa, a kind of purification wand, and then Omoto is taken dowm from tha altar and the priests perform Tsunanuki wherein Omoto is taken on a figure 8 route around the sacred area.
The video below is from a different performance at a nearby shrine on another occasion.
More theatrical dances and then my favorite, the Tengai dance.
The tengai is the canopy above the dance area and the streamers are what the kami descend through to animate the dancers in nornal kagura. For Omoto there are a series of boxes with scrolls attached within the tengai and the priests operate ropes that allow the boxes to descend and ascend.
As the dance progresses the boxes begin to swing more violently and by the end of the dnce ripped pieces of the tengai litter the floor. This is by far my favorite of the various Omoto dances and I am not aware of anything even remotely similar anywhere else in Japan.
Not all the kagura dances by the villagers are masked and theatrical. Some dances, called shinji, are ritualistic in origin and include several purification dances etc. Another is the sword dance pictured below.
As the night progresses there are several more masked dances and several more ritual Omoto dances like Yudate and the Mat Dance, my second favorite dance.
The final dance, just before dawn, is the Jyoju, and this is when possession is most likely to occur. Some villages have the tradition a villager is chosen, always a male, sometime before the festival and will undergo numerous purifications and preparation. many villages however just leave it up to the kami to choose who to possess.
Omoto is once again taken down from the altar and then suspended diagonally across the area from the Omoto altar to the opposite corner. The priests then start to swing the rope back and forth picking up speed and then slowing down. As with the tengai it gets quite violent and pieces from the tengai fall around. On one occasion I saw the tengai itself semi-collapse.
The next day Omoto, as represented by the new rope snake, will be taken to the altar behind the community centre and wrapped around the base of the tree. All across Izumo and the Oki Islands you will also find such rope serpents wrapped around trees.
This is just a very brief introduction. I have witnessed Omoto kagura numerous times and have an extensive collection of much better photos that I will get round to posting eventually....
I'm a big fan of kagura, the traditional performing art of japan that is the least well-known. In my area, Iwami in Shimane, kagura is hugely popular,but over the years I have been fortunate to see some different styles of kagura in Izumo, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Oita, and Miyazaki, and, as shown here, on the Oki Islands.
Nowadays normally only performed during the summer festivals, I was able to see a short performance of three dances put on for a group of tourists on Nishinoshima Island, and the style is Dozen Kagura as opposed to Dogo Kagura. One unusual feature of Dozen kagura that differed from all the others I have seen is the involvement of Miko, shrine maidens.
Miko Mai, or the dance of shrine maidens is probably the most common form of what was once kagura, though it is not usually called kagura nowadays.
The second dance was called Sakibarai or Sakiharai. The dancer represents Sarutahiko and the dance is a protective purification dance.
Traditionally Sarutahiko leads matsuri processions, purifying the path as he goes.
The instruments are the same as other types of kagura I have seen except there is no flute here.
The third dance was Kiribe, but unfortunately I know nothing about the character or meaning of the dance.
I don't know much about the technicalities of music, but a source says that here with dozen kagura it switches between 4/4 and 3/4 which is rare in traditional Japanese music but common in traditional Kprean music. Also worth noting is that the space the dancing is performed within is quite small compared to say Iwami Kagura.
It has been a very long time since I finished any masks, but the last few weeks I have been hard at it. Most of my older blog posts that featured my masks no longer have photos as they were stored on a site I no longer use, so overthe next weeks I will be posting photos of my new masks.
This one is one of the smallest and is the kami Uzume, the female whose dance in front of the cave was instrumental in luring Amaterasu out. The dance is credited with being the mythological origin of kagura.
Sada Shrine, located north of Matsue, was once the most important shrine in the Izumo region. Enshrined in the central honden are 5 kami, the main one being Sadano Okami, along with Izanagi and Izanami, and the pair Hayatamano and Kotosakano. Izanagi and Izanami are well known, and in Izumo, Hayatamano and Kotosakano, 2 kami associated with the "divorce" of Izanagi and Izanami are also fairly common. Little is known of the main kami though except he is known as the protector of the Shimane Peninsula. He was born in a nearby sea cave called kaganokukedo and some posts on that can be found here.
The right (north) honden enshrines the Imperial kami: Amaterasu, and her grandson Ninigi. The left honden enshrines Susano, and something called Hisetsu Yonchu, which I think means "hidden four poles", about which I can find no information.
Sada Shrine is one of the many shrines where the mass kami of Japan arrive in November during kamiarizuki, though it is widely reported that they all go to Izumo Taisha.
Sada Shrine is also home to the UNESCO registered Sada Shin Noh. a form of Noh-influenced kagura that is believed to have influenced satokagura nationwide.
When I first explored this area many years ago I found it interesting to klearn that the earliest known yayoi site in Izumo was found in this valley indicating perhaps that this is where the proto-Japanese first settled in the region which would explain Sada shrines importance.
Went to a charity kagura event today and saw a dance I had never seen before, Momiji-gari.
The dance opens with three maidens dressed in gorgeous kimonos carrying sprigs of maple.
The dance is based on a Noh drama which itself was based on an older story set among the autumn leaves in what is now Nagano.
The group dancing was from northern Hiroshima, and one feature of Hiroshima kagura is that "human" dancers do not wear masks, rather make-up.
The dance was graceful and at times frenetic, and the blur of golds, yellows, and reds against the backdrop of autumn leaves was quite spectacular.
Next up we are introduced to Taira Koremochi, the great Heike warrior, who along with an aide has come to Nagano to destroy a demon that has been harassing the local people.
The heroes accept the invitation of the maidens to join their party and are repeatedly given sake until they fall into a drunken stupor.
Now the maidens reveal their true identity as the demons the heroes have come to slay and begin a dance in celebration of the inevitable doom of the heroes.
The transformation from maiden to demon is truly instantaneous.... one second the women are spinning around and in the next they have on the demon masks....... I certainly did not see it happen, and the audience erupts with applause at the slickness of the transformation....
As you can see in the photo, the masks are not held to the head by strings but are gripped between the teeth
Today was the matsuri at Tsunozu. Last night was the all night kagura, but I was feeling a bit under the weather so didn't make it, but went there today to catch the mikoshi parade and the Miko mai.
Miko-mai is probably the most common and widely seen form of kagura in Japan, though its rare in my neighborhood. Most of the bigger shrines that have full-time staff and miko will perform it.
Here at Tsunozu the miko are 4 young elementary school girls. First the dance was performed inside the shrine at a ceremony for all the "leaders" of the village and matsuri. Later it was performed outside the shrine for all the assembled villagers.
Tsunozu really takes their matsuri seriously, with all the local kids getting the afternoon off school.
Unfortunately this year, just as the procession was beginning the heavens opened up and we were drenched in a downpour.
It is believed that the root of Japanese religion, AND the root of Japanese performing arts lie in shamanic trance. Shamanic kagura was once commonplace throughout Japan, but was suppressed by the Meiji government. Only one place in Japan still has traditional shamanic kagura and that happens to be the place I live. I will be posting a lot more on this subject as it is the focus of a lot of my research and there is almost nothing on it in English.
The focus of Omoto kagura is Omoto, or Omotojin, the local land-based kami. Up in Izumo it is called Kojin, and like Omoto is represented as a rope snake. There are about 60 sites in my area that are considered Omoto shrines, though only a few have shrine buildings. Omoto kagura is practised at a handful of shrines, each shrine working to a 5, 6, or 7 year cycle, so some years there is no Omoto kagura , some years several performances.
Omoto kagura is performed by priests, and in fact all the priests of the county take part. As in the old days, the villagers perform theatrical kagura during the intervals between the priests various dances.
The supreme importance of Omoto kagura to the area is indicated by the number of offerings on the altar. I counted more than 40 different things on the altar at this performance in Ichiyama, compared with less than a dozen at a normal ceremony.
The dance in the video is called Tsunanuki (rope-pulling) and is probably the most well known of the various dances. If an Omoto kagura is successful then someone will be possessed by Omotojin and will answer questions by the priests usually on such matters as the coming years agricultural cycle, upcoming dangers etc. The grandfather of a friend of mine became possessed by Omotojin on 5 different occasions in the last half of the 20th Century.
This short video is of a kagura performance on the small island of Iwaishima, or as some people say, Iwaijima, off the southern coast of Yamaguchi.
If you compare it to some of the other videos of Iwami Kagura, you will see some differences.
The music is different, and the costumes are much simpler.
This is the first dance of 33 that were performed over a 3 day period as part of Kannmai Matsuri held every 5 years.
The opening dance features Kojin, the local kami of the island, though the mask look a lot like a Tengu, or even Sarutahiko.
Kojin is equivalent to the kami Omoto in my area, and is known as an Aragami, "rough kami", though I prefer turbulent kami. In this dance the priest pacifies Kojin.
The kagura dances are performed in a temporary structure with grass roof and walls erected near the harbor
The priests come from northern Kyushu, which has its own kagura traditions, so I don't know whether these performances are from that tradition or the southern Yamaguchi kagura tradition.
The masks are wooden, and so are simpler than Iwami Kagura masks.
A couple of months ago we were driving along a backroad in SE Hiroshima on our way to Shikoku when we saw a small shrine at the side of the road with all the banners flying and the parking area full of cars, matsuri!!
We pulled in and were delighted to find kagura being performed.
The kagura in this area is related to Iwami kagura, but one noticeable difference is that the "heroes" don't wear masks but rather use makeup.
It was a very small shrine, but it had a kagura-den, which was in fact the largest building at the shrine. The audience was small, and mostly elderly people. The kagura group was from somewhere else in the region.
The steps down from the shrine to the kagura den were lined with shimenawa, creating a sacred space for the kami to descend to the performance. I asked the locals who were manning the stalls what the name of the kami was, but they didn't know so they suggested I ask the priest. He had been enjoying the O-miki (offering sake shared by the congregation and kami) and he admitted he had forgotten!
As is usual in the back country of Japan, the villagers were very friendly and we were treated as honored guests. They gave us a bunch of yakitori and a pack of the areas speciality, candied peanuts.
Visiting village matsuris is one of my favorite activities. There is no comparison to the crowded, tourist-filled events that are the famous city matsuris.
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