Ko-Shintō

Ko-Shinto (or "Ko-Shintō" (古神道)), is the name given to the original Shinto tradition of the Jomon-jin still practiced today in some Ainu families and communities as well as in some Ryukyu-jin areas.

Ten thousand years ago, the Jomon-jin inhabited the Japanese Archipelago. About 2,500 years ago, the Yayoi-jin came from the Chinese continent. The two cultures mixed in the archipelago and the amalgamation of local Ko-Shinto (ancient Shinto) and the imported traditions, strongly influenced by Chinese Taoism and Korean animism, resulted in the earliest Japanese Shinto sometimes called Pure Shinto. The Ezo people (who were pure Jomon-jin) were displaced to the North (Hokkaidō) and the South (Ryukyu). Ko-Shinto kept an own identity as a belief system not only in the North where the Ainu kept a race identity but also in the South as it was detailed in the 1605 anthropological work "Ryukyu shinto-ki" (Account of Local Religion [Shinto] in Ryukyu). Pure Shinto, received later the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism which over time gave place to today's Shinto. Some kokugakushu ("nativists") have tried to recover the Shinto religion as practiced originally, from fragmentary texts and isolated popular religious practices.

Ko-Shinto has much in common with Shinto. Nature and mankind are closely interlaced and God is a function or the totality of Nature which expresses in the spiritual entities called "Kamuy" or "Kamui" ("Shiji" in the Ryukyu) by Ko-Shinto and "Kami" by Shinto. As in Shinto, there is not total homogeneity of belief, ritual and tradition, existing diverse interpretations of the basical belief.

Modern Ainu belief is not always Ko-shinto, some modern conceptions are not original with the Ainu. Some rituals and traditions in use by today's Ainu have a foreign tinge to the old Ko-shinto traditions. An example is the sometimes mentioned Ainu prohibition of women to pray which doesn't exist in the original Ko-shinto or in "Uepeker", the tales with experiences of those who lived in olden times. In original Ko-shinto women are given preponderant place as shamanesses.

Etymology

The Japanese word "ko" (古) means "ancient or old"; "shin" (神) from Chinese "Shen" , means "spiritual force or spirit" often loosely translated as "deity" or "god"; and "tō" (道) from Chinese "Tao" , means "The Way". Thus "Koshinto" literally means the "Ancient Way of the Gods" or "Way of the Ancient Gods".

Belief

Ko-Shinto believes that Nature's expressions and things, like trees, mountains, rivers and animals or even stones are themselves or are inhabited by spiritual beings. Shinto inherited this view but combined it with Buddhism and while in Ko-shinto there is no representation of Kamui (spirits) because are intangible, in Shinto some Kami are represented by Buddhist-like figures. Some Shinto practices as those of the Yamabushi (Shugendo) are very similar to some Ko-Shinto rituals.

In Ko-Shinto everything has a soul, nature itself has it. One must respect the spirit of the universe and worship nature itself in all its expressions. One should also worship Life in oneself as the expression of Nature. One of the main ways of life in Ko-Shinto is to live in harmony with Nature and all its beings and manifestations which include also the spiritual beings that we cannot see and who inhabite trees, mountains , rivers and other. Death is simply to become a spirit, to just change form. Unusual characteristics in a tree, a rock, a waterfall, certain animals, and outstanding people are taken as an indication of a powerful Kamui (or Shiji in the Ryukyu).

Kagura also called kamukura or kamikura (神座) are dances adopted by Ko-Shinto for representing fables or for interacting with some Kamui deeds. The shishi kagura or Lion Dance is the most often performed.

Musubi, (the mystical power of becoming or of creation) has fundamental importance in the Kamui concept and in the Ko-shinto view of the world.

There is also a belief in utopian places as the Ryukyuan's Nirai Kanai or the Ainu's Kamuy Moshiri.

Ascetic discipline (shugyo or shugyō) has been undertaken in the mountains for centuries. It usually includes cold water ablutions at the base of a waterfall. It is considered profoundly transformative for the soul but the practicioner is warned of the danger of becoming possessed by one of the spirits believed to inhabit the mountains. This practice and kotodama (words with a magical effect on the world), as well as the purification rites of misogi have been transmitted also to some Shinto sects as the Yamabushi and were practiced by some martial arts founders as Morihei Ueshiba of Aikido and Ryushin Yakushimaru of Kukishin Ryu.

Ko-shinto places importance on purifying soul and body. One can purify the body by bathing under a waterfall or pouring water on oneself or through "kokyu-ho" (breathing power practice) and "kotodama-ho" or "magic chanting practice".

Symbols

There are not shrines in Ko-Shinto more than simple stones, stone circles or wodden small housings and altars for the worship of the Kamui of the dead ancestors. Nature's Kamui can be worshipped where they live, in forests, rivers and mountains. Ritual is a personal and sometimes community activity, usually carried on in open spaces. Temples are reserved only for the tgransmission of traditions or some more reserved practices as purification, some kinds of meditation, offers and sometimes body training. Festivals and ceremonies are mostly connected with the seasons, harvest and special ages when rituals of passage can be done.

Pottery for the exclusive use of ritual is a normal practice and way of expression. There is a traditional prominence of shamanesses over shamans, with the divination and spirit possession abilities most often considered capacities of the female gender.

Stone representations of Shishi (Shiisaa in the Ryukyu) called by some komainu ("Korean dogs") or karajishi ("Chinese lions") are traditional guardians in Ko-shinto.

References

• Ashkenazy, Michael. Handbook of Japanese Mythology. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio, 2003. ISBN 978-1576074671
• Batchelor, John. The Ainu and Their Folklore. London, Religious Tract Society, 1901, OCLC 8394931901 ("On the Ainu Term `Kamui")
• Carl Etter, Ainu Folklore: Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan (1949), Kessinger Publishing Co (2004), ISBN 978-1417976973 (2004)
• C.Scott Littleton, Understanding Shinto: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Festivals, Spirits, Sacred Places, Duncan Baird Publishers (2002), ISBN 978-1903296752
• Honda Katsuichi, Ainu Minzoku, Asahi Shimbun Publishing Co. Ltd., 1993 (in japanese) ISBN 978-4022565778
• Ichiro Hori, Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change, University of Chicago Press, (1974), ISBN 978-0226353340
• James Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion & Ethics (1908), Kessinger Publishing Co (2003), ISBN 978-0766136663
• John Breen , Mark Teeuwen, Shinto in Historical Perspective, Routledge Curzon (2000), ISBN 978-0700711727
• Junko Habu, Ancient Jomon of Japan, Cambridge University Press, (2004), ISBN 978-0521776707
• Lebra William P, Okinawan Religion: Belief, Ritual and Social Structure, University of Hawaii Press, 1966, ISBN 0-87022-450-6
• MacKenzie, Donald A, Myth of China and Japan, Kessinger Publishing, (2005), ISBN 978-1417964291
• P.F. Kornicki, I.J. McMullen (Ed), Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth , Cambridge University Press, (1996), ISBN 978-0521550284
• Yves Bonnefoy, Wendy Doniger, Asian Mythologies, University of Chicago Press, (1993), ISBN 978-0226064567

See also

• Shinto
• Ainu people