imomus | The way of the Kami

'The roots of Japanese religion originate in several places. First we have the indigenous religion. This seems to follow the basic patterns of other primitive cultures in that it was (and still is) centered around nature worship, “Kami” (gods, spirits, forces or powers) and a divine agricultural cycle. It's quite similar to Native American traditions, the most important thing being, of course, keeping people fed and safe with the help of supernatural powers. So, for example, the Rice Kami, the Goddess Inari, was and is one of the most important gods. Other foreign kami, festivals and customs were introduced into Japan through the Korean Peninsula. This first wave of people and ideas overwhelmed the indigenous people and their customs and, mixing with it, created something new and unique, but still basically animistic and pagan. Much later Buddhism was introduced into Japan from India via Tibet, China and Korea. This came in several waves, along with art, writing and technological innovations, was contested at first, and eventually merged with the local religion which had by then come to be called Shinto.

'The word Shinto breaks down as follows; SHIN is the Kanji character for kami. TO means way. Thus SHINTO is the Way of the kami, their rituals and worship.

'A short explanation of “kami” is in order here in that it is quite unique to Japan. Most people translate kami as god, sometimes as spirit. Strictly speaking, this is incorrect. In the words of a venerable Shinto scholar, a kami is “any specific power that causes awe.” As in Native American or other shamanic traditions, doctrine, dogma and intellectual concepts are not important. Kami can be either heavenly or earthly. They can dwell in stars, mountains, trees, lakes and people. They can be malignant or helpful or neutral. They can be eternal or they can be the powerful ghosts of deceased people. If this seems confusing, read on.

'All through the long cultural history of Japan, one thing remained constant: Nature was seen as the supreme force in life. As indicated, some trees had great and powerful kami that could help or hinder. Lakes had Serpent kami that could drown you or give you children, mountains were (and still are) gods and goddesses. The most famous of these is, of course, the Goddess who is Mt. Fuji. Village life centered around Shinto shrines, which were the spiritual and social cores of the culture. Later, Buddhist temples were built on shrine sites or, as is often the case, shrines and temples were combined in one area. Buddhism eventually became concerned almost solely with death, funerals and afterlife, while Shinto continues to be woven into the daily life of the Japanese people, celebrating such events as birth, renewal and purification. Yet it is often hard to strictly separate temples from shrines and the lines between their functions and divine histories often blur.'

From Shinto and Its Festivals by Denny Sargent.

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You make a reasonable facsimile for Wotan, the One-Eyed, stading next to Yggdrasil, the World Tree.

My Choctaw grandmother told me of Sint Holo, an invisible, giant horned serpent which appeared to young men who displayed exceptional intelligence or wisdom, offering them his ancient tutelage. Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was said to have seen Sint Holo. Sint Holo lived deep in a cave below the water. He brought on heavy rains and could make a noise like thunder but unlike its enemy the Thunder spirit, it could not make true thunder. He was venerated in various forms by the Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Catawba. Some think this legend is evidence that these tribes may have derived from the Maya or Aztec, where such snake myths are prevalent.

Ug.

if sint holo is invisible, how do they know he's a giant horned serpent? do you mean invisible to all but the enigma's in question?

is the serpent considered evil in all cultures? what sort of a culture would venerate the serpent? do the aztecs or the mayas do such a thing? why reasons could you find (personally) to consider worshipping such an awful ankle-biter as the serpent?

have you read THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND?

why do you say "ug"? is it a symbol of your disgust with bicameral thought-processes such as this one? Is "Ug" your nick-name? are you referencing the popular pre-history moniker of "Ug" to imply that such thinking is best left to the cavemen?

who is the person in your user icon picture?
how old are you?
why do you speak in the style of the past?

-tomas

What a strange coincidence! This morning I was thinking about Julian Jaynes' book for the first time in years and then I read Tomas' comments here the very same day!

one-point serpent "lived deep in a cave below the water" and thrid eye are probably similar here...just find the PINEAL GLAND in a map of the brain...I had an ethereally relaxed 5-day experience with this and can say that it was probably the closest thing to a 'heaven on earth'...now only a way to sustain it is what gets me.... below the water of the right brain in spatial and figurative reference to the rock of the more concrete left brain...the 'cave' the path from between the eyes that follows back/inward about 2-3 inches with a slight dip mid-travel and wedged between and below the two hemispheres of the brain. kind of like Christ going to Golgotha(place of the skull? any more obvious?) ascending to hill/Calvary with
two criminals at either side...right/left...now, that makes teh right brain the one to ascend with 'jesus' while the left brain is damned to dabble and scuffle....I see this as a sign of the end times...Norway, Sweden, and Finland...Sweden will be untouched while only part of Norway(taking the brunt of most of the tidal waves) while Finland joins the land of red porridge to the east...

Always informative and interesting. Thank you. :)

It reminds me so much of the lovely, precious kodamas in Miyazaki's Mononoke-Hime!

when i lived in hot springs, arkansas, when i was a teenage lad,
well there are too many stories though
we would play capture the flag in hill wheatley plaza and the
park that was near the rehab building and all the hot bath houses
i found parking fines in an unlocked box in the plaza and would
frequent it
anyway
check out the music of elton and betty white
and JOHNNY O. if you feel low on inspiration.
gabriel sanchez, esquire
basqueballs@hotmail.com
probly only an eighth basque, but a strong one!!

Mmm, it's hard to resist adding my tuppence to the above. It's an early Saturday morning, drinking espresso and smoking a fag sort of tuppence.

There's a few noticeable lapses in Sargent's outline:

"This first wave of people and ideas overwhelmed the indigenous people and their customs..."

Eh? Since he doesn't indicate when this settlement occurs, it's hard to place it within any historical or archaeological timeline (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/04/eaj/ht04eaj.htm). Only the most ardent of Nihonjinron (http://homepage.mac.com/brucecaron/CDP/Output/GLOSSARY18.html) types would deny the influence of the Korean peninsula upon early Japan. However, the "Japan" of this time is not a single society, but a whole number of societies stretched along the various islands. It's not monolithic or monocultural. What happens in the central area isn't necessarily what happens elsewhere, e.g present-day Tohoku. "Japan", or Yamato, the political entity, does begin in the the general Kinki (Osaka, Nara, Kyoto) area, but there's plenty of other people elsewhere. And who are these "indigenous" people? They all came from somewhere else at some point. Take your pick-and-mix of theories as to whether it's the Korean peninsula, Siberia, Micronesia, Babylon (http://www.rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~michel/serv/ek/) or that the Japanese are really a lost tribe of Israel (http://www.haruth.com/JewsJapan.html). Err....?

I'm unconvinced that the Goddess Inari is part of this untouched ur-Japan. Rice did not become an important part of the diet until the introduction of wet-rice cultivation in around 500 BCE from the mainland. Now, the Goddess Shellfish or Takenoko perhaps!

"Much later Buddhism was introduced into Japan from India via Tibet, China and Korea"
Not that much later! Buddhism trickled (and then flowed) in, as did Confucian and Daoist teachings. The term "Shinto" is very problematic. For a start, it's meaning is quite unclear at this point in the literature. Secondly, the same characters are used in the China of the time to describe Daoism. What "Shinto" refers to slips and slides over the next two millennia in Japan. Kuroda Toshio (http://www.stthomasu.ca/~parkhill/cj01/irepjb.htm) is worth reading in this regard.

Sargent is right to suggest that the division between Shinto and Buddhism is hard to distinguish. I'd suggest that it was barely there at all for most of the time. With rise of nativist teachings (http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/shinto/koku.html) during the generally secluded Tokugawa period, and the establishment of the Meiji period, Japan became ever more conscious of needing to separate itself from the East Asian sphere. The formal division of (native) Shinto from (foreign) Buddhism (shinbutsu bunri (http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/shinto/shin.html)) and the attempted establishment of a centralised religious orthodoxy under state control savaged a wondrous fabric of differing local traditions and customs that stretched all along the archipelago. Think of what Cecil Sharpe did to English folk music. It's never been the same since. It's like those supposed "Druids" you see at Stonehenge...

Well, I could go on about this all day (it's my job!), but that first espresso is beginning to fade. The crucial things to remember about the early history of Japan is that we are reliant upon few sources. Unlike China, there's no written record of this period, except the later Nihon Shoki and Kokjiki and a few other texts. Like all other (myth-)histories, these were composed with an agenda - to legitimate centralised imperial control, as opposed to the previous uji/clan (http://www3.la.psu.edu/textbooks/480/ch1_main.htm) system - and were written by Korean scribes from Paekche (http://gias.snu.ac.kr/wthong/publication/paekche/eng/paekch_e.html) and, as a fair few think, upon the instructions of one ascendant group keen to emphasise their "Japaneseness" rather than their peninsular origins. Everyone in Japan "knows" that the Imperial family are Korean in origin...

Anyway, the coffee is fading, sorry for taking up so much room!

i usually translate "kami" as "hair". but that's just me. :P

The way of the Kami

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kami on the mind