There was a scorching September sun when I arrived, but volunteer guide Tsukakoshi Takayuki whisked me into his air-conditioned truck and away we sped. Raised in Tokyo, his Sado-born mother had taken him to the island for summer holidays. After graduating in mechanical engineering, he was seconded to work in Kentucky at a time when American car companies were eager to hook up with Japan. Fate intervened in the form of 9/11, after which the Homeland Act came in and foreigners were out. Instead of an American Dreamer he became a Sado Dreamer, working as a freelance translator and guide. Had it been a good move? ‘Yes, yes!’ he said emphatically.

With little work because of Covid, Takayuki had set aside time to show me around. His time in America had made him easy-going, friendly and flexible. When he asked what I wanted to see, I mentioned four things for which Sado is famous: exile, gold mine, Noh and taiko. If I could fit them all in, I would be more than happy. ‘No problem,’ he said.

We had not been driving long before we passed a copse-encircled Shinto shrine. The torii gateway was in the syncretic Ryobu style, indicating Buddhist connection, and the rundown condition of the buildings spoke of a former grandeur. Spiders’ webs covered the doors, and the faded glory exuded a melancholy air. It felt almost as if a good friend had succumbed to old age. I asked about depopulation. ’When I came here twenty years ago, there were 70,000 people,’ he said. ‘Now there are only 50,000. If we continue like this, there will be no one left in fifty years. It is very, very sad. People have been living here since Jomon times.’

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One of Sado’s famous exiles was Zeami (1363-1443), founder of Noh. Despite his status, he fell out with a shogun and in 1434 was sent into exile, where he is thought to have remained until the shogun died seven years later. His legacy, remarkably, is some fifty plays and treatises that spell out the aesthetics. The slow and dreamlike atmosphere is so far removed from the busy life of modern Japan that it is a wonder it still survives. In Sado it is deeply enrolled in community life. Or was. There used to be well over a hundred stages; now there are ‘only’ thirty, which given the small population is extraordinary.

Takayuki explained that the popularity had little to do with Zeami as such, but originated centuries later when the country was in Edo-era lockdown. The plays were introduced by samurai officials running the gold mine, and the isolated islanders took to the upper-class entertainment. And so it was that uneducated farmers sat entranced as ghostly figures moved with eerie slowness to the otherworldly sound of musicians. Performances became a measure of a village’s worth, and the stage a measure of its standing.

All that is now left of Zeami’s stay on the island is a small rock on which he stopped to rest. Not so much a case of Zeami lived here, but Zeami sat here. Since there was no one around, I started to imagine the scene as the setting for a Noh play. A local farmer planting rice is approached by a robed figure who asks the way, and the farmer tells him of a famous man who was exiled here. He sits on the rock, and discloses to the stranger that he is in fact the spirit of Zeami, unable to rest because of the injustice done to him. In the second part of the play the stranger takes a nap, and in his dream Zeami appears and does a stately dance reenacting his wrongful exile. The play then ends with the stranger awakening and the ‘hungry ghost’ pacified.

I tried to tell Takayuki the story, but he had little enthusiasm and said he did not care for Noh. His tastes were all American, he confessed. Cowboys and Disney and pop music. It was a case of mirror images: the Japanised Westerner face to face with the Westernised Japanese.

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For more about Noh and the links with Shinto, see this posting.

Yesterday I had lunch with Danish Shinto expert Esben Andreasan. He kindly gave me his book on “Japansk Religion” which contains s a compilation of 18 significant texts on Shinto divided into sections on Mythology, Ritual, Nationalism and Modernity. Some of the pieces look intriguing and I’d dearly love to read them. Trouble is I can’t read Danish!

One of the topics that came up during our discussions was the matter of rural depopulation and the problems facing Shinto in the near future. Both Shinto and Buddhism are facing a crisis as society ages and young people migrate to the cities. Shrines and temples are beginning to find it increasingly difficult to survive along traditional lines. Indeed, many rural practices are being abandoned for good.

In her Japan Times column this month Green Shinto friend Amy Chavez gives a great example of what is happening by drawing on her own experience on the Inland Sea island of Shiraishi. (The following is an extract; for the original article please see this link.)

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The death of a Japanese countryside festival

by Amy Chavez, Japan Times Oct 31, 2018

The residents, 60 percent of them over 60 years old, are garbed in festival gear: strips of cotton hachimaki cloth tied around their heads, colorful happi coats belted around their waists and their black tabi shoes gripping the pavement. They’re pulling a large wooden mikoshi festival float down the narrow street past rows of houses, just as their ancestors did over 300 years ago.

This is my neighborhood, on an island of just under 500 people in the Seto Inland Sea. I’m pulling this mikoshi too. We’re celebrating the autumn festival, which used to ring in the seasonal harvest, but which now serves as the one day of the year when people let their guards down, let bygones be bygones and just have fun together. The sake is brought out and the locals dance in the street. Some have grown-up children who return with grandkids to take part in the annual festival. But most do not come.

Nowadays non-traditional vehicles are used

We’re tugging the float, a wooden mikoshi on wheels, along the street to the main Shinto shrine. We pull it past houses, some of which are occupied, some not. Of those unoccupied, some are collapsing, some not.

Though the residences have changed in appearance, losing their luster over the years, the mikoshi still retains its dignity, albeit with a few adjustments. The heavy structure of Japanese cedar used to be carried on mens’ shoulders, but years ago it was given wheels to make up for the declining pool of strong young people who had moved to the cities to take office jobs.

Each neighborhood (previously eight but now reduced to five) pulls its own mikoshi through the streets and up to the main Shinto shrine, where the island’s guardian deities reside. There, more sake drinking and dancing takes place. Then, finally, we treat the gods to a symbolic tour of sacred spots around the island.

The junior high school students have their own dedicated mikoshi that they still carry on their shoulders. Although it used to be only the boys who shouldered it, now all the students do: five boys and three girls.

The lion and maiden dances performed in honor of the gods at the main shrine by appropriately costumed elementary school children were discontinued three years ago. Next year, the elementary school will close due to a complete absence of students.

As the years draw on, the residents do too, and the neighborhoods shrink further, so they must find more ways to compensate for the diminishing manpower. One has scaled down its mikoshi to the size of a baby buggy, while another sits the structure on the back of a pick-up truck, leaving the residents to saunter along behind it.

Carrying mikoshi up steep flights of stairs requires enormous strength

As for my neighborhood, this year we abandoned our mikoshi halfway through the day. After the visit to the main shrine, we dropped it off at its home parking spot, then piled into the back of a pick-up truck to finish the route. It wasn’t the pulling of the wheeled shrine that was proving difficult, it was the kilometers of walking required to accompany it to the different sacred sites scattered around the island. The younger individuals had no problem, but no one wanted to leave the elderly behind, so the ad hoc decision was made to park the mikoshi.

This, however, did not go down well with the local policeman, who, after the festival, reprimanded us for violating traffic regulations — namely, riding in the back of a pick-up truck and drinking and driving. On this festival day, most policemen would have looked the other way, but this guy was new. And the law, after all, is the law. People began to feel ashamed of our infraction, even though they thought the policeman silly.

When 300-year-old traditions clash with modern governance, traditions become even more of a challenge to maintain. And the policeman’s admonition only reinforced that times aren’t as good as they used to be.

People are starting to wonder why we’re trying to continue these traditions. It used to be done for posterity, back when posterity was taken for granted. And how would we pull the mikoshi next year?

Back when houses stood pristine, well-maintained and proud, those who couldn’t participate would stand outside their homes along the road leaning on their canes, or waving from their wheelchairs as each precinct paraded past with their festival float. But they no longer do this. Perhaps it’s because there’s no one to stand alongside.

Or maybe it’s because if they did wave, they know they’d be waving farewell to a 300-year-old festival.

Amy Chavez is author of “Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan: Do it Right and Be Polite!” (Stone Bridge Press). Japan Lite usually appears in print on the last Monday Community page of the month.