Female shamans in eastern Japan during the Edo Period.(Report)

THANKS largely to the efforts of many anthropologists and folklorists, including of course Peter Knecht, the longtime editor of this journal, the ghostly outlines of contemporary Japanese shamanism have begun to be transmitted to a non-Japanese readership. A rough picture had already emerged from publications of the 1960s and 70s (HORI 1968, 181-215; BLACKER 1975; HORI 1975) and in succeeding years more narrowly focused studies have filled in many gaps. RUCH (1990), for example, has presented a short description of medieval shamans, while BOUCHY (1992), MILLER (1993), KAWAMURA (1994), SASAMORI (1995), FRITSCH (1996, 232-47), and KNECHT (1997) have provided detailed accounts of the customs and arts of shamans in the Japanese northeast. In addition, female shamans in the Miyako islands on southern islands have been surveyed by TAKIGUCHI (1984; 2003a and 2003b).

Most studies of Japanese shamanism, particularly those in Western languages, tend to approach the subject from a phenomenological, psychologistic, or folkloristic angle. Historical features are thus usually relegated to the sidelines. Even when historical issues have been thematized, they have usually been framed in broad and vague terms, or limited to changes accompanying post-1868 forces of modernization and Westernization. (1) BLACKER (1975), for instance, offers a discussion of ancient shamanism only to leap almost directly into the twentieth century. IKEGAMI (1994), on the other hand, supplies meticulous historical data regarding shamans in the northeast of Japan, but his dependence on newspaper reports requires him to focus entirely on twentieth-century conditions. Although twentieth-century studies based on fieldwork differ significantly in details, most authors present the view that Japanese female shamans were visually impaired, largely independent agents whose practices varied little over time.

In this short study I shall not seek to provide a general historical overview of Japanese shamanism. Instead, I wish to consider only a small segment of miko ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) history: the rise and fall of Kanto-based female shamans known as kuchiyose miko, azusa miko, ichiko, and the like (below, I shall refer to them simply as miko). These miko made important contributions to the popular religious culture during the Edo period (1600-1868). Their history indicates that what emerges from twentieth-century fieldwork is only a geographically and historically limited picture of a far broader phenomenon.

TAMURA HACHIDAYU AND THE SANJA GONGEN

One well-known nineteenth-century description of miko reads as follows:

 
   Agata miko [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], literally "rural 
   shamans"] or azusa miko [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 
   literally "catalpa-bow (in fact cherry-birch) shamans"], also known 
   as ichiko [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ... come under the 
   control of the "Master of sacred dance" of "integrated Shinto" 
   [shugo shinto [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a certain Tamura 
   who lives at Tawara-cho in Asakusa in Edo. He is the Shinto priest 
   of the Sanja Gongen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and not under 
   the control of either the Yoshida or Shirakawa houses [of Shinto]. 
   The husbands of miko are all Shintoists [shindoja] of "integrated 
   Shinto" These miko often travel throughout the land to make a 
   living, but at the end of the year they always come back to their 
   home province. Those who control them strictly forbid them to spend 
   the turn of the year in another province. 

(Masaki no kazura, p. 373)