Omoto Kagura

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.

February harvest

This should really be "daily harvest", as we get eggs every day. We currently have 15 chickens, from a high of about 25 a few months ago. A few of the older ones passed away from old age, and a few made their way into my favorite recipe Noisy Chicken Soup. All you need for that is a noisy chicken and a cleaver.

We no longer have any cocks. The noise was simply too much, and chickens can be gotten for free anytime, so we dont need to produce our own chicks. I kept this one cock around for a while though simply because he was so ugly.

The eggs are free as we feed the chickens kitchen & table scraps, weeds they really like, we get sacks of last years rice at harvest time, and a good part of their diet is nuka (rice bran and germ). Sacks of nuka are free as the Japanese dont eat it, preferring the tasteless, barely nutritional white rice. We do feed the chickens a little store-bought mash, and this we buy from the money we get from selling our surplus eggs. We have a lot of people who will take all the eggs we can sell as they are said to be really tasty (must be the bran)

Of course the other product is chicken shit for the garden. Store-bought chicken shit is really cheap, but it comes from factory farms and is loaded with antibiotics and other drugs that end up in the soil.

Picking cabbages, lettuces, spinach, spring onions and carrots right now, and gearing up for planting as spring seems to be here....

Lonewolf & Cat

I was down in Hiroshima today, and when I saw this guy my spirits were really lifted. His sign says "nekkozureokami" which means "Lone wolf and cat", and is a take-off of a very famous character / manga / movie series / TV series called "kozureokami" which is translated into english as Lone Wolf & Cub, stories of a wandering samurai who wanders Japan dispatching bad guys with his sword while accompanied by his young son. There was a movie made in English called Shogun Assassin which apparently is a cult classic.

And here is the cat he travels with, all decked out punk style.

The gentleman himself had more safety pins than the cat, and an amazing collection of broken watches on his arm.

I was most impressed with his sheer eccentricity, not a common trait in Japan, and his creativity.

I had just seen an art exhibition of graduating art students, and while a few works were technicaly proficient, there was not one little spark of real creativity in any of the work. And here was this guy, bold as brass, exhibiting a creative life.

I have myself been homeless more than once, and can see the possibility of being so again, and I'm sure that those of you who have known me for years know that I could end up just like this guy.

I was tired and running late, and now regret that I didn't try and make contact with him. Next time I go down to Hiroshima I will keep my eyes open for him.......

Tada-Ji Kawaii

One aspect of Japanese culture that I find often overbearing is the kawaii culture. usually translated into english as "cute", it is everywhere. Usually another "k" word:- kitsch-, is more appropriate, but sometimes there is some genuine cuteness, like when I was at Tada-Ji. The buddhist statue above is made from fishing net bouys.

On the steps of the main hall, a buddhist Tanuki (racoon-dog). The usually visible huge testicles of the tanuki are here syutably covered.

The red caps and bibs on statues are seen to be cute by many foreigners. I'm not sure if these are mizuko Kannon, or mizuko Jizo.

In front of the temple was a small mizuko Jizo altar. childrens toys are commonly found at Jizo altars.

Tada-Ji Nio

Nio, sometimes called kongorikishi, are pairs of statues found guarding many temples. Often found in the entrance gates to temples (niomon), nio were originally Hindu deities that have been incorporated into buddhism and function as protectors.

The pair at Tada-Ji, a temple just outside Hamada, are particularly fine examples, with each statue being carved out of a single kusunoki (Cinnamon tree).

As with the komainu (pairs of guardian lions/dogs that guard shrines and temples) one of the 2 statues has its mouth closed, and the other its mouth open. This represents the sounds "ah" and "n", the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega.

I've been driving past the roadsign that points to Tada-ji for years, but this was the first time I'd actually been there, and I was very pleasantly surprised. It's a very old Shingon temple, founded in the 9th Century by one of kukai's pupils.

A freegan day in Japan

I've had a bit of correspondence recently concerning freeganism in Japan, so......

I'm not exactly sure what freeganism is, except it's a new word for living sensibly, for stepping back a little from the process of consumption and waste, and for finding different ways of relating to other humans other than through the medium of money.

I'm not the smartest cookie in the cookie jar, but it's obvious to me that much of what ails the planet, and those of us living on it, can be traced back to overconsumerism, and overproduction of waste, both things I can do something about in my daily life.

Japan is a wonderful place to practise freeganism as there is rampant over-consumption, and waste on a massive scale.

There are two factors that contribute to Japan being ideal for freeganism, first, that by and large the Japanese do not like to buy second-hand things. Obviously, there are exceptions, and the situation is changing in the current "economic downturn", but thrift stores/charity shops are a rarity. The second factor is that to throw away anything in Japan costs a lot of money. This is a good thing, but has negative consequences;.. I remember cycling north out of Kyoto and being stunned by the amount of junk and trash tipped over the side of the roads into the stream banks.

So, let's take a look at my day yesterday.

About a week ago I began to get worried. I was running out of firewood. I have plenty of firewood for next winter, but it is still green and shouldn't be used yet. So we drove up the river a little ways to a side valley where they are doing some forestry. Forestry in Japan mostly means one thing, clearcut! followed by monoculture planting of tree farms. After they have taken out all the logs that are usable there are huge piles of waste,.. trimmings, small trees etc.

We found the guy who was in charge of the 3 man crew and asked if we could take some of the scrap. "Please do" was his reply, as all that we took would be that much less for him to deal with!
A win-win situation, so we loaded up the van with some older stuff that could be burned right away.

On the way back home we stopped in at the village across the river as Yoko said there was a house being demolished and we could probably get some scrap wood there. Just as we got there a huge truck was about to pull away loaded with timber from the house. "Do you live far?" asked the driver. "nope" was the reply, so he followed us over to our parking lot and dumped the load there. We had saved him a 20k journey. 2 hours later he returned with a second load.

The house was not old, maybe 30 years or so, so most of the timber was in perfect condition, mostly 4 by 4's and 4 by 6's, so as well as a winters worth of firewood I now have enough lumber to build a new woodhed and workshop.

In the evening we got a phone call from Mrs. S., a farmer in nearby Oda village. She calls a couple of times a year to see if we will take some chickens off her hands. She has a big chickenshack and just lets the chickens do their thing, so she ends up with more cocks than she needs. Males are a waste of food and space (as I'm sure many japanese housewives would agree :)) For some reason quite a lot of people who keep chickens here don't like to kill them. Possibly a buddhist thing, but more likely related to the spiritual pollution connected with blood and death.

When I picked up the 10 chickens, Mrs. S. was so grateful for the favor I was doing her that she gave me a half-sack of chicken feed, a half-sack of last years rice....(for the chickens I hasten to add... no Mikasa business practises here), 2 kilos of leeks, and a huge chinese cabbage.

So, this morning me and my cleaver got up early..... The young hens end up in the freezer, the older hens and the cocks I used to eat, but nowadays just use them to make gallons of tasty chickenstock.

So, I sit in my cozy, warm house, belly full of leek and potato soup, the room filling with the aroma of chicken stock reducing on the stove, and ponder my investment portfolio. No matter what the vagaries of interest rates and economic climates, I won't be going hungry or getting cold.

Japan Photo Contest

This is the view up the valley from Tanijyugo. I live on the other side of the mountain on the left.

Which has nothing to do with this post except that it is a photo of Japan, and the good folks over at JapanVisitor are having a Japan Photo contest.

It's open to amateurs, free to enter, and cool prizes. Full details here

http://www.japanvisitor.com/index.php?cID=358&pID=1912

Otoshi Shrine, Hamada

The Otoshi Shrine in Hamada is built on a small rise overlooking the harbor. The shrine looks abandoned, but the usual stack of rakes and shovels used to keep the grounds clean can be found at the side of the main building, and a friend tells me he has been here to watch kagura in the kagura-den. Otoshi is one of Susano's sons, and is primarily associated with rice growing.

There is a secondary shrine to Inari, a very small Ebisu shrine, and a Sumiyoshi Shrine within the grounds. Behind the shrine is a small Benten shrine. The head Sumiyoshi Shrine is in Osaka and is associated with safety on sea journeys. Hamada was the provincial capital of Iwami, and as most travel in ancient Japan was by sea I suspect this was where officials from Yamato would arrive.

The shrine was built on the site of a much older shrine. In the 8th Century an Awashima Shrine was built here. Now a small Awashima shrine is located in the temple next door. Awashima shrine is in Mie, near Ise, and is associated with fishing and specifically pearl-diving.

The 2 Zuijin (shrine guardians) located inside the Sumiyoshi shrine indicate that it was a more important shrine in times gone by.

Just below the shrine is a monument to and the grave of Ohatsu no Kagamiyama, a local woman who is the main character in a well known Kabuki play, Kagamiyama. The story was written for Bunraku puppetry first and then later transferred to Kabuki, and concerns 2 of the most popular themes in Japanese stories, suicide, and revenge.

The area around the shrine is great for wandering and is composed mainly of alleys and very narrow streets, with a lot of funky old buildings and interesting small temples.

Selfridges, Bullring, Birmingham

Some more architecture pics not from Japan.

When I first saw this amazing building I was surprised to learn that it was in Birmingham, a fairly ugly city in the midlands of England.

A little later I had to change buses in Birmingham so took the opportunity to take a few shots, but then went back to Birmingham about a year ago specifically to shoot it again.

Designed by Future Systems, it opened in 2003 and houses a branch of Selfridges Department Store.

The inside is not particularly interesting.

My favorite shot is this one, shot through the window of the pedestrian tunnel that connects the store to the parking.

Iwaishima

There was a documentary on TV last night about Iwaishima, and it's prompted me to post this.

This is Mr. H, a resident of Iwaishima, a small island off the coast of Yamaguchi. Mr H is 90 years old. I met him last year at the Kannmai Matsuri.

In 1969, a mere 40 years ago, a little over 2,600 people lived on Iwaishima, now only 520 are left. Of those 520 a full 75% are aged over 65 years old.

I had walked around on the island's only road to the far side to watch a ceremony. Yoko, with her bad hip, stayed in the village. It was a hot day, and Mrs H came out of her house and invited Yoko in to the house for some shade and a cold tea. While chatting Yoko told them where I had gone and they suggested that she borrow their bicycle and cycle round to meet me, and so it was as I was walking back I bumped into Yoko riding a bike that while not as old as the Mr H, was probably as old as Yoko.

So, I sat in their cool house and sipped tea while Mr & Mrs H chatted about their activism in the fight against the nuclear power station planned for nearby. The majority of the remaining islanders are against it and big anti-nuclear signs are painted an a few walls around the village. The local shrine has been boycotted by the people because the priest is not against the power station.

When we left their house they gave us a plastic shopping bag. In it was a pack of the island's green tea and a couple of packs of dried seaweed, a local speciality.

The kindness of strangers!