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.
On Sunday 21st October we went to the Omoto Matsuri up in the small settlement of Yudani. It is a small settlement, getting smaller. Only 34 households remain and they are mostly old folks...... there are no kids. The Omoto Matsuris only occur every 7 years and are expensive affairs and only 34 families are left to fund it. It ended up being a fantastic night with all the hallmarks of a true matsuri.... friendliness, generosity, inebriation, humor etc.... I shot over a thousand photos but choose just a handful.....
After the initial rituals and ceremonies the first kagura was Shihogatame, a dance unique to Omoto Kagura but which is similar to Kamimukae in regular Iwami kagura.
At a usual ceremony there may be half a dozen to a dozen offerings placed on the altar, but given the importance of Omoto rituals there will be anything from 30 to 50 different items....
Possibly my favorite Omoto kagura "dance" is Tengai, unique to Omoto. I have seen it performed by priests and also by kagura dancers, but in my experience it is the priests who put on a more dynamic dance.....
The Ebisu dance was unique, for me at least, in several respects. usually Ebisu dances alone, or sometimes with Daikoku, and its usually just a pantomime with him throwing candy to the crowd and then catching a Sea Bream. This was the "complete" Ebisu dance with the first part danced by a dancer as a priest, then with Ebisu, and then finally the "usual" Ebisu dance. usually the fish caught by Ebisu is made out of paper, but here they used the actual fish that had been on the altar as offering to Omoto.
At 6am the final ritual/dance took place and this is where possession, kamigakari, will take place, if it take place. The rope snake representing Omoto is swung violently backwards and forwards by the priests. To the rear you can see the villager who had been designated to be the recipient of possession. kamigakari did not occur.
After the round of ceremonies at Nakano Omoto Matsuri it was time for more dancing and first up was some very young kids dancing Hachiman.....
Bothe the 2 heroes and the 2 demons were very young kids and they did a really great job...
Next up a couple of older kids danced Shoki...
Then to the other end of the age scale.... an elderly gentleman danced the first part of Yachimata. This was the first time I have seen this dance and the only reference I can find to it says it is danced by Uzume and Sarutahiko. Yachimata is the crossroads between the High Plain of Heaven and Japan and it is here that Ninigi, Amaterasu's grandson, and his entourage meet Sarutahiko on their derscent from heaven to begin their rule of Japan. This old gentleman is obviously not Uzumne, so maybe he is Ninigi.....
The second part of the dance belongs to Sarutahiko....
A break from the theatrical kagura brings us to the Four Swords dance. I have read that originally this dance and Kenmai were once the same dance but then split into 2 separate parts.
The dance increases in tempo and excitement and the audience is well aware when difficult, acrobatic sections have been performed well.....
It was around 2am and there was lots more to come but I was suffering from a bad cold so took my leave early.....
Wednesday night was Omoto Matsuri up in Nakano. Honoring the local kami Omotojin, these matsuris only take place, in the villages that still have them, every six or 7 years and are therefore more important than the annual matsuri. The event took place in the shrines kaguraden, but the villagers had built a huge temporary shelter out of bamboo and blue tarps to keep everyone protected from the weather....
As we arrived the Iwato dance was underway....
After that first dance it was time for rituals and ceremony to begin and first the representation of Omoto, a coiled rope snake with red tongue was brought in and set on the temporary altar. Later the snake will be uncoiled and used in some shamanic rituals, and next day he will be taken to a sacred tree and wrapped around its base.
Next three priests conducted a purification of the space that culminated with the scattering of rice grains over the space and the audience/congregation.....
The other priests now entered, 7 in total, and they were all purified with the Onusa. The priests had come from all over the district. Most shrines do not have a resident priest, and the few priests that do live in the countryside are responsible for a large number of shrines. For Omoto rituals there may be as many as ten priests who take part.
next came the lengthy ritual of placing the offerings on the altar. Mostly shinsen, food offerings, but also other types known as heihaku. Compared to a more usual shrine ceremony, the number of offerings was quite large as befitting the importance of Omoto.
Next a series of norito were read to Omoto, after which the offerings were removed, rather more quickly than they were placed, and then Omoto was placed above the tengai to "observe" the nights dances and the altar dismantled so the dancing could continue.....
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.
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