Is Shinto animism plus ancestor worship? Or is it ancestor worship plus animism?
There’s a big drive these days to pass Shinto off as a nature religion, but wherever you turn you’ll find the ancestral aspect can’t be ignored. Look … Read the rest
Category: Ancestor worship (Page 7 of 8)
Driving around Okinawa, one can’t help noticing the many distinctively large tombs. They resemble small houses, with a porch and courtyard. Some are turtle shaped and nestle into the slope of the earth, as if wombs. The dead who … Read the rest
Today is Obon in Kyoto, when ancestral spirits are welcomed back home before being sent off with a grand fire ceremony called Daimonji, about which I’ve written previously. (See here.) The festival appeals to the syncretic sentiments of … Read the rest
Avebury stone circle
There are sacred rocks (iwakura) all over Japan, but I’ve never seen a date put on them. The supposition is that they date to the Yayoi Age (300 BC-300 AD), when waves of immigrants … Read the rest
Kego Shrine in the midst of Tenjin, Fukuoka, is a sorry-looking place, swamped as it is by concrete, consumerism and car parks. It’s like a vision of the degradation of spirituality in modern life. A religion whose roots lie … Read the rest
Early Shinto showed a marked shift from animism to ancestral deities, according to Mori Mizue in ‘Ancient and Classical Japan: The Dawn of Shinto’ (in Shinto – A Short History, 1998).
The background concerns the eighth century, following the … Read the rest
Animism versus ancestors
Is Shinto a nature religion? It’s often referred to that way, but the truth is that it’s much more complicated. Animism is married to ancestor worship and tribalism. If you look at the major shrines, nature spirits … Read the rest