-:- little vision tricksters -:-
-:- sacred essences - the kami of japan -:-
home one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen notes
Despite the appearance of an almost futuristic, high-technological society, in many ways, the Japanese are a traditional, conservative people with a great fondness for ancient things. This attitude has long persisted in Japan , and as such, has allowed them to hold their heads against many of the transformations and fundamental changes that have occurred in their history.
It has also enabled them to conserve in an almost pristine form one of the oldest religious symbols that mankind has ever recruited in his attempts to understand the world – the sacred essence or kami (
).
Kami is often translated – incorrectly in my opinion (*5) – as ‘god’ since it refers to apparently God-like entities such as Ama-Terasu, the Sun ‘goddess’ and Izanagi, one of the Creators. However, these beings are not ‘gods’ in the Western Christian or Greco-Roman sense of the word. More properly they are sacred essences who are able to take on a pseudo-human form, but largely remain as an essence of the phenomenon they are held to represent.
However, these ‘supreme deities’ were not the only things addressed as kami. Ancestors, aspects of the weather, prominent landscape features, aristocrats and members of the Imperial Family, and even famous swords were at one time or another addressed as such. The kami then were prominent natural and sociological forces worthy of being thought of as ‘greater’ than merely themselves, larger than life and more ‘real’ than other beings.
Additionally, kami were held to live in huge numbers in remote mountains and forests, but it is this concept of sacred essence, divine natural force or of emphasised reality that is the deeper sense of the kami. Traditionally, these beings possessed two souls, a gentle and benevolent one and a malevolent and aggressive one. The behaviour of the kami (and thus the outcome of any entreaty or worship) was dependent on which soul was in control of the essence at any given time.
Many of these beliefs – particularly those relating to sacred essences and emphasised realities – are still current in Japan today. Before any major business or educational undertaking, such as the signing of a contract or the taking of an exam, a trip to a shrine to pray for good fortune, or to offer up a service to the enshrined kami is an essential part of the preparation. (*6) Thus, the kami was not only the essence of a phenomenon, but had the power to bring prosperity or cause calamity.
As animistic and antiquated (some might say primitive) as these Japanese ideas might seem, an even more ancient substrate of belief existed among the Japanese’s northern neighbours, a predominantly hunting and gathering people called the Ainu.
It is even likely that the Japanese may have borrowed the whole principle of the kami from the more archaic Ainu, since the Ainu word for precisely the same concept is kamui.
These sacred essences were the subject of many myths among the Ainu, told in the form of long epic poems which were at one and the same time, retellings of stories and prayers of praise to the kamui essences. Like the Japanese, the Ainu believed that the kamui had two souls, but unlike the Japanese, they believed that the choice of which soul should be in overall control of the kamui at any given time could be more directly controlled.
This was an evidently shamanic phenomenon, and shamans were regularly employed to gather the spirits to them and speak on their behalf, or to actively seek to ‘swap’ the soul of a malevolently-behaving kamui. But this level of control was not the exclusive territory of the shamans. For it was predominantly by prayer, praise songs and offerings that the Ainu sought to control the kamui and ensure the benevolent soul remained in control of the essence. However, the Ainu believed that the relationship between themselves and the kamui was not one of servant and master, but of two interconnected – and equal – beings, who both had needs and desires: mankind, for food and shelter, the kamui for prayers and ceremonies.
A bargain was thus struck between Ainu and kamui – in exchange for food and shelter, the Ainu would provide prayer and ceremony.
Therefore if a kamui persisted in being malevolent, by scaring away prey animals or causing a child to become ill, an Ainu would react by asking a shaman which kamui had caused the calamity and then publicly and openly dismantling that kamui’s shrine to the sound of loud, berating songs which mocked and admonished the spirit for failing to keep to its side of the bargain. (*7)
In the spirits and spooks common among both the Japanese and the Ainu, we have seen the glimpse of something much older than mere ancestor spirits. Granted, ancestor worship was in both cases included in the kami religions, but the deeper underlying sense of these phenomena was of sacred essences. Among the Ainu, these essences could be directly appealed to and even modified, and as we go further into the past, we begin to see these spooks truly come alive.
(c) Bruce Rimell, June 2005
| Previous Chapter |
Copyright (c) 2002-2008 Bruce Rimell : All images, artwork, writings, texts and other information on this site
are copyrighted to Bruce Rimell and may not be reproduced in any form unless stated otherwise.