{"title":"Gion Matsuri in Kyoto","authors":"E. Porcu","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00901006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00901006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, I analyze Gion Matsuri in Kyoto as a multilayered phenomenon, and explore its religious aspects in context, with particular attention to interactions between actors, such as its organizing bodies, residents of the neighborhoods that sponsor the yama and hoko floats, the local government, and Yasaka Shrine (Yasaka Jinja 八坂神社). Based on my extended fieldwork, I focus on the festival’s most recent transformations (esp. the reinstatement of ato matsuri in 2014) and the negotiation of religious and secular boundaries, both within and without the festival’s physical spaces. I also reflect on Gion Matsuri as a “contested zone,” an idea that contributes to opening up new perspectives for the study of this and other festivals. More broadly, my analysis aims to shed light not only on the multidimensional character of Gion Matsuri, but also on the interplay of religion with different arenas of contemporary society, including local communities and government, tourism, the economy, and cultural policies.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00901006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43726266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eloquent Plasticity","authors":"M. Foster","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00901004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00901004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper explores Namahage of Akita Prefecture as it assumes three different instantiations: 1) enactment as a private ritual within individual households on New Year’s Eve; 2) performance as a public festival at a shrine in mid-February; and 3) celebration as an “element” inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. I argue that in the first instance, Namahage is part of a vernacular religious “structure of feeling” in which religious elements are inseparable from community life; in the second instantiation, religion is more explicit and codified; and in the third iteration, religion is only vaguely articulated. Tracing the “same” tradition through different forms provides insight into the changing needs of communities and into the dynamics of change itself. With this in mind, I propose a model called hrönirism through which to broadly conceptualize notions of change and difference within traditions such as matsuri.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00901004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49042431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Encounters with the Past","authors":"Andrea Giolai","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00901002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00901002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri is an important local festival celebrated every winter in Nara. While the festival has been analyzed from the point of view of its relations with religious institutions such as Kasuga Taisha and Kōfukuji, to date less attention has been paid to its historical transformations. Countering linear narratives that tend to portray it as largely unchanged since its inception, this article combines ethnography, historiography, and religious studies to provide a more multivocal analysis of the Onmatsuri. After an overview of its main celebrations, the article revisits the origins of the festival, describes the ontological multiplicity of its deities, and analyzes material elements that concur to its “fractal” features. Showing how these heterogeneous elements generate a diffuse “atmosphere of the past,” this study discusses practitioners’ accounts of ritual participation, as well as the relationship between ideological reconstructions of the past and material embodiments of religious symbols.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00901002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46383080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Ee ja nai ka and the Meiji Restoration","authors":"T. Miura","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703001","url":null,"abstract":"Hosono Yōsai 細 野 要 斎 (1811–1878), an Owari domain official, left a voluminous diary titled Kankyō manpitsu 感興漫筆 (Random Jottings Composed at Leisure), containing accounts from 1836 to 1878. Entries addressing the late months of 1867 describe the ee ja nai ka ええじゃないか phenomenon that developed in Nagoya. Yōsai’s portrayals of the ee ja nai ka contradict its received image as a rowdy pandemonium in which the populace expressed their resentment against the Tokugawa regime. Rather, what we see is a series of localized religious activities commemorating talismans (ofuda お札) that reportedly fell from the sky, many of them representing deities particularly popular in Nagoya. Based on an examination of Kankyō manpitsu, this article argues that the relationship between the ee ja nai ka and the Meiji Restoration must be evaluated on a region-specific basis and that the narrative of the Meiji Restoration is not directly relevant to understanding the nature of the ee ja nai ka in Nagoya.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42573036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Honda Chikaatsu’s Spiritual Learning as a Means of Bringing Blessings and Guiding the Nation","authors":"Eiko Namiki","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703004","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the purpose, content and reception of the healing and spirit-possession methods of Honda Chikaatsu 本田親徳 (1822–1890) and his followers. It investigates what the methods were intended for, how they were practiced, and how they were received by the government, the common people and the elite. These methods were for all intents and purposes meant to benefit and glorify the new Imperial Japan under the Meiji government that Honda venerated and adored. Although the modernizing Meiji government outlawed such magico-religious practices, spirit-possession methods—and healing methods in particular—were in high demand among the faithful at shrines such as those where Honda’s disciples served as priests. At the same time, some very prominent individuals were intrigued by Honda’s spirit-possession methods and the strategic benefits they promised.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42916397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Social History of the Ise Shrines: Divine Capital, by Mark Teeuwen and John Breen","authors":"T. M. Loo","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46088897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Kiyozawa Manshi and the Spirit of the Meiji","authors":"M. Curley","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703003","url":null,"abstract":"Seishinshugi 精神主義, a term associated with the work of Meiji Buddhist reformer Kiyozawa Manshi 清沢満之 (1863–1903), is often read as exemplifying a spiritual turn in mid-Meiji Japan, centering an inner realm of private experience in a reaction against the rationalization of the early Meiji period. This paper considers the use of the term seishin in Kiyozawa’s early work. It finds him treating seishin in two distinct but connected contexts: as a psychological term, influenced particularly by his reading of English physician William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–1885), and as a philosophical term, in conversation with Hegel’s philosophy of spirit. It suggests that an understanding of seishin as developing progressively toward more and more complex forms of consciousness or self-awareness found in both Kiyozawa’s psychological and philosophical writing sheds new light on other aspects of Kiyozawa’s early career.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47519095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ryōjutsu kara shūkyō e: Sekai kyūseikyō no kyōdan soshikironteki kenkyū 療術から宗教へ: 世界救世教の教団組織論的研究, by Kumamoto Masaki 隈元正樹","authors":"Franziska Steffen","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49386442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fusha no iru nichijō: Tsugaru no kamisama kara toshin no supirichuaru serapisuto made 巫者のいる日常 津軽のカミサマから都心のスピリチュアルセラピストまで, by Murakami Aki 村上晶","authors":"Marianna Zanetta","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42815382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meiji Prison Religion","authors":"Adam J. Lyons","doi":"10.1163/22118349-00703002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118349-00703002","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the origins of prison proselytization in Japan in the 1870s and 1880s by exploring the relationship between the Great Promulgation Campaign (daikyō senpu undō 大教宣布運動) and the development of a modern carceral system. It argues that prison chaplaincy (kyōkai 教誨) developed as the “spiritual successor” to the Great Promulgation Campaign’s national instructor (kyōdōshoku 教導職) system. The article concludes that local activism on the part of Buddhists was the driving force behind the introduction of Buddhist teachings to prisons and that Buddhists mobilized in this way because they found it politically advantageous to position themselves as guardians of the public good.","PeriodicalId":41418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22118349-00703002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44317598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}