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....
Wednesday April 30th, 2014, and I start day 7 of my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage from my home and head south across the river and through Kawado.
Fot this first section of the day I am following the Yato River and after Kawado the next village is Oda. One of the very common place names in Japan, it means either Big Paddy or Little Paddy, depending on the kanji used. This one is Little Paddy.
I follow the old road through the village rather than the new road that bypasses it by following the river. About the middle of the village a grove of tall trees are noticeable behind what is a small community centre.
As is often the case with a grove of old trees, this is a sacred grove, marked by a shimenawa and a small altar in front.
This is a shrine to Omoto, a local "land" kami that gets no mention in any of the so-called "shinto" holy books, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, no connection whatsoever to any of the imperial kami, and is not officially recognized as a shrine, and yet is the most popular kami in the region. In Izumo and on the Oki Islands she is known as Kojin, and is also represented as a rope serpent.
The rope serpent is made and used in a form of shamanic kagura that was once widespread in western japan but was outlawed, along with Shugendo from which it derived, in 1868. It continues in this small part of japan however. If anyone is interested in seeing some of this shamanic kagura, leave a message or comment.
The previous post in this series on the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on Mishima Shrine in Kawakudari that I visited at the end of the previous days walk.
This is the third post on the yokai sculptures on the Mizuki Shigeru Road. Details in Yokai Gallery 1
Salaryman Yamada is not, as far as I can tell, a yokai, but he is a character in Mizuki Shigeru's work, and is based on a friend of his.
Omotogami is another name for Omotojin, also known as Kojin in neighboring Izumo. I was surprised to see it classified as a yokai as it is in fact a common kami in this part of the world. It is often known as an aragami, which is usuually translated as "rough deity", but I prefer the translation "turbulent deity", as it is a force of nature and quite capable of causing damage. More posts on Omoto here
These are Shigeru's creation, Daruma and guts, and are based on the well-known Daruma, who was the Bodhidharma who brought Zen (Chan in Chinese) from India to China. In his common form he has no arms or legs as they have atrophied from years of sitting in meditation. In Shigeru's daruma, the little creatures are daruma's "guts", and if they are killed Daruma becomes weaker.
Uwan is an invisible Yokai that inhabits old houses and temples. His shouts can only be heard inside the building. In the Edo period artists began painting images of various "invisible" yokai.
Medama Oyaji is the father of Kitaro, Shigeru's most famous character. A ghost reborn as just an eyeball, the character is known as Daddy Eyeball in the english version. He loves to stay clean and is often found bathing in a bowl.
Keukegen is completely covered in hair and is known to cause disease in humans. It inhabits damp, airless spaces, so the solution is to open windows and doors and allow some air circulation.
Yamabiko is a tree spirit living in the mountains that creates the echoes you hear in the mountains.
Syunobon is a yokai originally from Fukushima. When following you he appears human, but will startle you by reverting to his original form.
Aonyoubou (Blue Wife) is a form of Goryu, an "angry ghost". The most famous Goryu is Michizane Sugawara, commonly known as Tennjin. Humans killed for political reasons are particularly prone to be angry ghosts.
Shakechi Hachiman Shrine is tucked away in a quiet neighborhood just off Route 186, the main road south out of Hamada towards Hiroshima.
Like most shrine it is unmanned, but I was surprised to see a display case with ofuda and Omamori for sale, until I learnt that amulets from this shrine are known specificly for traffic safety, so when you get a new car this is the place to come for protection while driving.
There are quite a few secondary shrines within the grounds including this Inari Shrine.
There is an Ebisu shrine, and Omoto Shrine, and a Jyunisha, which I believe is a shrine to the 12. animals of the Chinese zodiac.
Tucked away up a little lane about 200 metres from the Otoshi shrine near the harbour in Hamada is a small Omoto Shrine.
I have been unable to find any information on the shrine. Omoto probably refers to the kami Omotojin, or it may refer to the fact that this shrine is built on the earliest shrine in the area before the Yamato Awashima Shrine. Or it may mean both things.
There is a small kagura-den and a small secondary shrine in the grounds, and I found these paper flowers which may have come from a Hana Mikoshi.
I love wandering around the alleys and narrow lanes of the old parts of Japanese towns. Without traffic it is easy to imagine how things were in earlier times.
Some people put plastic bottles of water around their doorways and houses in the belief that it will stop neighborhood cats from peeing there. I have no idea if there is any truth to this old-wives tale, but several houses in the area had put plastic flowers in the bottles which added a nice touch.
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.
Tsunozu's Otoshi shrine is in the old part of the village where a maze of alleys and narrow roads and traditional houses are still maintained. Most villages have old sections like this.
It's matsuri day, so the streets are lined with shimenawa, fresh bamboo, and shrine banners. The shimenawa lining the streets are to protect from evil as the kami will be passing by later in the matsuri procession.
At the shrine the flags are out in celebration of the matsuri, which occurs after the harvest in early November. As well as the main kami, Otoshi, there are secondary shrines to Inari (Otoshi's brother), Omoto, the local land kami, and konpira.
The mikoshi stand ready to be carried through the village later. While I was visiting the shrine the ceremonies were underway to transfer the kami into the mikoshi.
One of the 2 komainu (Korean Lions) flanking the steps up to the shrine. These are a fairly standard modern design.
Mr Kono is the priest of the shrine. He is also responsible for 9 other shrines in the area, but even so his duties do not pay enough to make a living. Buddhist priests have the VERY lucrative funeral business to pay their wages, but other than at major shrines, most Shinto priests must work at a regular job.
The village of Ichiki lies on the upper reaches of the Yato River at the base of a mountain that has a small ski resort on it. The Hachiman shrine lies in the centre of the village.
There are a lot of smaller, secondary shrines within the grounds of the main shrine. There is a shrine to Konpira, a very popular kami that originally came from India, a Kannayago Shrine, the kami of metal-workers, the ever popular Inari, the god of harvests (and geisha!), and an Omoto Shrine, the local land-kami. Every 6 years Omoto Kagura is performed here.
100 years ago most, if not all, of these secondary shrines would have been scattered about in small local communities. That was the essence of the traditional religion, local, mostly nature-based gods. The government began a program that closed half of the shrines in the country. They didn't close any Hachiman shrines, as the God of War was an important national kami, and that was the point. The small local shrines were all moved into a central "national" shrine, where national rituals and national kami would become the focus of peoples attention.
On my walks around the backcountry of Japan I have been pleasantly surprised to see a few local shrines being re-established.
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