Report: International Shinto Foundation
Sixth Shinto Seminar
"The Significance of Rituals in Shinto" |
The Sixth Shinto Seminar
of the International Shinto Foundation was
held in Campus Plaza Kyoto (near the JR Kyoto
Station) on February 22, 2002. The subject
was the significance of rituals, in particular
matsuri, in the Shinto tradition. It is an important and multi-faceted
topic that, even though it has drawn the
attention of scholars for decades, it still
provides a rich reservoir of study and investigation.
The seminar was preceded
by a screening of a video documenting the
European tour of two distinguished kagura
troupes, one called Chichibu Kagura from
Saitama Prefecture affiliated with Chichibu
Shrine, the other called Buzen Kagura from
Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, affiliated with
Usofuki Hachiman Shrine, that took place
in September last year. The performers staged
their shows in Oslo, in London, and in Rome,
with enormous success.
Nakanishi Akira, Chairman
of the ISF, opened officially the seminar;
in his short speech, he pointed to the deadlock
in which modern civilization finds itself,
and the consequent need to reevaluate the
significance of Shinto matsuri in order to
find a new way of life.
Umeda Yoshimi, Director General
of ISF, as the presider of today's seminar
presented the program of the day and introduced
the speakers.
Miyake Yoshinobu, Chief
Minister of Konko Church of Kasugaoka and
member of the board of the ISF, who had the
role of moderator, made a few introductory
remarks.
The seminar started with
the screening of another video,titled "Japan,
the Land of Festivals". Its beautiful
images presented the stunning variety of
Shinto rituals and their settings, ranging
from crowded street in modern metropolis
to beaches, mountains, and remote villages
in the countryside. The narrator of the documentary
suggested some common concepts underlying
such diversity: the centrality of rice in
Japanese culture, the everyday nature of
worship at shrines, and the love for nature
that animates Shinto festivals.
Next, it was the turn
of Sonoda Minoru, head priest of Chichibu
Shrine, professor emeritus of Kyoto University,
and member of the board of the ISF, who delivered
the keynote lecture of the seminar, entitled
"The Significance of Matsuri in Shinto".
In his lecture, Sonoda proposed a comprehensive
definition, based on the etymology of the
word and the interpretation of rituals; he
also offered the audience a rich and complex
phenomenology of matsuri, which included
structure, categories, social functions,
and religious significance. Sonoda's definition
reads: "Matsuri is a ritual consisting
in summoning the spirit of a kami and entertaining
it with a banquet in order to enhance its
divine power". The ritual itself is
a display of a hierophany as defined by Mircea
Eliade: the officiants wait (matsu) for the
appearance of the invisible kami, and once the kami has arrived,
they worship (tatematsuru) it and submit
to it (matsurau). In this sense, matsuri
and kami are two inseparable entities. According
to Sonoda, the structure of matsuri follows
the ritual process indicated by Victor Turner,
with its three phases of separation from
the everyday dimension, liminality (a state
defined by Sonoda as chaos and un-everyday,
characterized by purity and taboos, in which
people commune with the kami), and reintegration
(the reestablishment of social order). There
are various kinds of matsuri, but in general
we can identify, for Sonoda, two main categories:
periodical rites based on the seasons and
the agricultural cycle, and special rites
performed in particular occasions (such as
natural disasters and epidemics). Sonoda
sees the function of matsuri in Durkheimian
terms: for him, matsuri serve to turn a group
into an organic community − on several levels
from the family to the nation. As for the
religious significance of matsuri, Sonoda
thinks that these rituals represent a "mythologic
and performative regeneration (eternal return)
of the community", in which by the "common
experience of a cosmos-like ethos and a chaos-like pathos"
the members of the community can express
their sense of awe and their gratitude to
the "vitalistic spirituality" (seimeiteki
reisei) that rules their world (nomos). In
other words, matsuri are essential factors
in the definition of a community, be it a
family, a village, or a nation-state, and
its order (authority), to which they provide
a cosmic and spiritual ground.
The afternoon was dedicated
to three lectures by Yoneyama Toshinao, Mogi
Sakae, and Scott Schnell.
Yoneyama Toshinao, anthropologist,
President of Otemae University, and an ISF
board member, delivered a lecture entitled
"The Importance of Shinto Rituals in
Large Cities". First, he showed a video
on Kyoto's Gion-matsuri of 1995 in which
17 famous festive floats from different cities
of the country gathered in Kyoto in commemoration
of 1,200 years anniversary of Kyoto as the
capital of Japan. Then, he indicated what
he considers the seven most important features
of this rite: (i) the city turns into a sacred
place (metamorphosis of the profane into the sacred);
(ii) the kami (a large number of them) appear
in the streets; (iii) people go through a
metamorphosis as well (not just religious
specialists, but especially ordinary people,
citizens and tourists alike); (iv) there
is a public display of the mechanisms of
the rituals, what he calls "furyu no
kufu" − in other words, the devices
employed to represent the sacred; (v) there
is a common and contagious experience of
excitement (not just among the performers,
but also and especially among the audience);
(vi) new meanings and representations are
constantly added to the original ones; (vii)
the protecting power of the deities is made
visible (there have been no major calamities
in the Kyoto area for many years). Yoneyama
concluded his lecture by emphasizing the
vitality of the tradition of the Kyoto Gion
− matsuri − a tradition which is, importantly,
one of religious tolerance.
Mogi Sakae, an enthnographer
teaching at Kokugakuin University, presented
a lecture entitled "Matsuri and Performing
Arts, with Special Emphasis on Rice Cultivation".
It was the result of an extensive research
on agricultural festivals throughout Japan.
Mogi argued that agricultural festivals in
Japan can be divided into two well distinct
categories: taasobi and kagura. Whereas taasobi
are performed in paddy field in the plains
in the spring before the harvest and carry
an augural meaning, kagura in contrast are
performed in dry fields in mountain areas
during the winter after the harvest and signify
primarily rebirth. Mogi accompanied his lecture
with numerous slides he took at festivals,
some of which are not well known. Mogi concluded
his lecture moving away from a phenomenology
of matsuri to suggest a hypothesis concerning
the origin of such festivals. He pointed
to some formal similarities between prehistoric Jomon statuettes
and dengaku masks as a basis for arguing
that present-day agricultural festivals in
Japan, and taasobi in particular, may have
originated in Jomon period rituals.
Finally, Scott Schnell,
an anthropologist teaching at Iowa State
University, USA, presented his lecture on
"The Rousing Drum: Tradition and Conflict
in Matsuri". This lecture was based
on his extensive research on Furukawa matsuri
in Furukawa, Gifu Prefecture. Schnell emphasized
that the "tradition" that matsuri
are believed to embody is often not very
old and at times recently invented − as
is the case of Furukawa matsuri, whose first
record of the form in which it is currently
performed dates back no farther than the
Meiji period. Furthermore, Schnell argued
that matsuri are not only based on collaboration
as the source of a hightened community feeling;
his research shows that conflict and struggle
are also important features of festivals.
He referred to two cases in which a mikoshi
was crashed into the local police station
as a clear indication of resistance against
established symbols of order. For Schnell,
people who at the time were not allowed to
participate in politics took advantage of
matsuri to express their political ideas.
The lecture concluded with a reminder of
the importance of studying rituals not as
a-historical formations, but within their
proper historical and social contexts.
After a brief break,
the seminar continued with a Q&A session.
First, the moderator, Miyake Yoshinobu, asked
several questions to each presenter. Then,
selected questions from the audience were
addressed. In general, the questions addressed
numerous fundamental issues: (i) the relationships
between matsuri and nature, spirituality,
and animism, with most presenters arguing
that animism and what Sonoda calls "vitalistic
spirituality" are the specificities
of Shinto; (ii) the role of Jomon culture:
most speakers insisted on the permanence
of Jomon aspects in contemporary Japan; (iii)
the fate of matsuri in contemporary Japan:
most speakers argued that, even though only
a tiny minority of Japanese people are involved
in some forms in matsuri (around 2% according
to Yoneyama), the tradition of matsuri is
alive and there is a strong hope in their
permanence due to their revitalizing function;
and (iv) the relation between matsuri and
political power: most speakers agreed in
reasserting the conservative function of
festivals in that they aim at strengthening
existing social and political order.
A brief comment by Miyake
Yoshinobu concluded the seminar. There were
about 250 attendees in the seminar including
scholars, shrine priests and ordinary people
interested in the seminar subject.
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| Reported by Prof. Fabio Rambelli, Sapporo
University |
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