Journée doctorale du Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie Orientale

Marianna Zanetta PhD Candidate [email protected]

Introduction to the work.

The main focus of my research is the female shamanism of the Tohoku, north-estern Japan; in specific itako practices and their role in the local community. I would like to start by talking about the first draft of the project, moving then to the more practical aspects of the work I have done since now, in order to proceed later on to the possible analysis and theoretical developments. PROBLEMATICS

One of the first elements to point out is the in the Tohoku, the blind shamans are widespread through all the area, and they receive different names, of which itako is just one of them. Similar traditions are visible not only in Aomori, but also in Akita, Yamagata, Iwate, ecc., where they are called, Gomiso, Ichigo, ect. The itako in Aomori prefecture are dramatically decreased in the last years, and today they barely reach the dozen, probably less. Many of these women have serious health problems or mobility problems, due to their old age, and as a consequence they are starting to quit the business. As we will see below, this problem is not limited to the itako, but it is common for all the blind female shamanism.

The itako can be considered as the last heiresses of a shamanism which has its own roots in the myth. We have to consider Edwards' researches (who links the image of the shamaness to the prototype of Himiko, the legendary emperess of Yamatai); or Miller's works on the analysis of chinise-originated rites connected to itako initiation rites; or Yanagita Kunio and his analysis of shamanic experience. In all these works, there is a clear tendency to draw the japanese shamanism physiognomy as essentially feminine.

The Itakos have often been the target of different controversies and debates among anthropologist and religious specialists, who questioned the authenticity of their shamanic experience, and even the possibility to include it in the field of Shamanism. Nevertheless, taking a wider look at the phenomenon, not only the itako follows (reflects) the traditional image suggested by Eliade, but, more precisely, her role, her path, her whole experience allow us to put them in the shamanistic phenomenon.

The itakos face a long period of physical and spiritual training that culminates in the initiation ceremony, where the apprentice symbolically dies in order to gain a new life as a religious specialist.


Refusing to give their experience, and their symbolic activity, the qualification of “shamanic” (on the only basis of the lack of some elements), could be considered therefore unjustified.

What is exactly the activity of these japanese blind shamans? Shamanism, in the traditional definition, is a technique of the ecstasies, aiming to create a link between our world and the other, and the shaman is the only person who is capable of travel between the two places in order to ensure communication. But the shamanism, above all usually it is a vocation, a very complex contract established with the supernatural. The itakos perfectly fit this general pattern, but their activities have a particular functional focus: their specialty resides in the preferential communication with the dead, and in particular with the ones I will call “angry ghosts”; these are the exiled souls who can't find peace, barred from the ancestors' society, and who represent a threat for the living. The main important duty for the itako is to allow the angry ghosts to communicate with their living relatives in order to have their needs satisfied, and their anguish eased.

This liminal role, peculiar to the itakos, inevitably raises one first question: why the task to enter this dangerous border region is assigned almost exclusively to the itako? And why their activity can not be accomplished by other experts of the symbolic pratices, or by the priests of the official and institutional cults? The notion of impurity

The project originally started to focus on this link between shaman and the dead, and I tried answering this question by using the notion of impurity: kegare is an archaic category of the Japanese religious thought, which is usually translated with “impurity”. As Mary Douglas pointed out in her work “Purity and Danger”, the idea of pollution is central in almost all the religious systems, and it goes beyond the ritual interdicts about health precautions and hygiene.

In the Shinto tradition, the boundary between purity and impurity is extremely important, and it provides the ground for the delimitation of space, places, moments devoted to the Sacred, and other related to the Profane. The ritual impurity is what really impedes the communications with the Gods, because it offends and repels them; it is what makes the earth dirty and polluted in turn. Death is the source of an extremely powerful pollution, which requires particular attentions, and purification rituals of a certain importance. Also the Buddhism, in particular in its Japanese declinations, puts a strong accent on the dangers of the pollutions from different sources


of impurity; it often results in very strict training periods to purify the body and the spirit. The impurity of death and the dead

Here we come to the first of the two elements of the problem. Death is polluted and impure for its own nature, and the dead, in particular the angry dead, are dangerous not only as the climax of impurity, but mainly because they threat to bring about new deaths and new pollutions in the society of the living. Violating all the organized classifications between the two worlds, the angry dead lives open the boundary between worlds that should never come into contact, because if the delimitations vanish, the chaos reappear. The dead must be kept apart from the living society, in order to preserve the boundaries between the two realities. The impurity of women

The second element is the following: not only death is impure but, in the same way, the woman too is an extremely strong source of pollution. In the Japanese religious context, woman is impure: she represent the nature in its savage condition, dangerous, defined by the absolute chaos and the absence of control. Menstruations, pregnancy, childbearing and birth are all strongly polluted, and the woman, which is biologically related to procreation, is naturally doomed to impurity. This vision is encouraged by the Buddhism, for which the women won't never be able to rich enlightenment, and are condemned, after death, to suffer the torments of the Hells as a punishment to have polluted the earth with menstrual and delivery blood.

The ideal of woman as a symbol of fertility and life itself, usual for European and American people, is here overturned; women are the breaking violence of negative forces in the ordained masculine world, and fertility comes exclusively from the control that man exercises on her. It is not an accident if the deity of the mountains (Yama no kami) is usually feminine, while the deity of rice fields and organized spaces (Ta no kami) is a male deity.

When the Buddhism grew his power on the places of worship, the monks established the nyonin kekkai, sort of sacred perimeter inside which women, and shamanesses in particular, were not allow the walk. This brings to a particular situation in which the buddhist monks, inside the mountain temples, represent the institutional religious powers (the only one actually recognized), and the female shamans of the ancient cults (representing a


second source of power) are “external”, outside the sacred circle, and extremely dangerous. Impurity and social structure: order and chaos

Now we can offer a better answer to the initial question: only the itako can come to contact with the angry ghosts because she share their same impurity. If a man ventures in that world, he will invariably get polluted. Moreover, the itakos live on the fringes of society: their activity is accepted by tacit agree, also sought for, but at one condition: they have to stay in this gray zone, outside the official practices and cults. Placed outcast from the birth (because of their physical disability), they maintain this status as a consequence of the path they chose. They are necessary to the society because they take charge of an activity that no one else would practice; nevertheless they are condemned to the social and ontological fringes. We can give the same status to the angry ghost; it is an errand being, precariously in balance between two places, the world of the living and the world of the deads, without belonging to either of them. It can not come back, refused from the living society, nor move on, in the ancestors society.

We can say, hence, that the itakos represent a different source of power, alterative to the institutional and prevailing cults. But their status is extremely ambiguous: rejected from the society in order to avoid the breaking of the order, the itakos receive, from this same society, the request to manage a violent power such as that of the angry ghosts, which otherwise could mine the existing order and bring chaos to the livings.

FIELDWORK

I did my field work during a period of two years; I started in 2012, with a first one-month trip in Aomori-ken (Osorezan, Mutsu and Hachinohe) to gather the main informations about the area, and to prepare myself for the second trip, from novembre 2012 to may 2013. During this period I travelled between Tokyo and Aomori ken (specifically Mutsu, Hachinohe, Hirosaku and Aomori), dividing my stay between research in the city and fieldwork in the north. I finally got back one last time this summer, to wrap up the major part of the field work. I stayed in Tohoku, Misawa, and I travelled all over the prefecture (again Mutsu, Hachinohe, Aomori, Hirosaki, Iwaki, and other areas in the Tsugaru-region)

During my fieldwork, I could gather an interesting amount of written materials (mainly of local origins), and a good variety of interviews with Itako


practitioners, Kamisama, some of their clients, different Shinto priest in Hachinohe and Hirosaki, and Buddhist monks, at the Osorezan, in Hachinohe, Aomori and Hirosaki. I also obtained different interviews with academics and researchers, from Tokyo, Sendai, Iwate, USA and Canada. Finally I could gather a lot of visual materials (mainly videos).

As a consequence of this fieldwork, the topic and the aim of the

project shifted a little; while still focusing on the itako, I considered widening the analysis to the other local religious practitioners such as kamisama, in order to offer a confrontation between different practices and to show the changing in the shamanic activities. HISTORICAL TOPICS

Historical evaluation Clearly, the blind female shamanism as we know it now is the result

of a long historical process, which involves influences from very different religious and philosophical trends, from Buddhism, to Onmyoudō and Shugendō practices, with a strong components of local traditions; until the mid XIX century, shamans and Shugendō folklore, with the emergence of some New Religions, symbolize important cultural elements that permeated

the whole country, representing a sort of popular knowledge (民間の知). With the Meiji restoration, the political and cultural pressure fought

harshly against these local traditions. We have indeed to consider the governmental “civilization” policies, involving the religious area, which formally prohibited the shamanic practices in general and the miko and female shamans practices in particular. Even if state repression never turned into violent persecution, its strength resided in the tacit and implied contempt, and in the constant and clear condemnation. The new cultural “enlightenment” started to stigmatize this practices as obsolete and

outdated, labeling them as superstitions (迷信) and heresy (因子邪教). This approach is clearly an actualization of the State politics that pushed Japan toward a new cultural paradigm.

Starting from the postwar period, and then the 50s, these practices gained new consideration. The itako in particular start to appear in the newspaper and in the books or magazines, in particular in connection with the rediscovery of the Osorezan and the beliefs connected, bringing in the area to an increase of tourism looking for the Kuchiyose miko.


It is indeed from this moment on that the word “Itako” enter the collective popular imagination. It is to be linked to the trend called “Discover

Japan” ディスカバージャパン, that leads to the revival, in the media and the advertising, of all the hidden and secret area of the country.

All this trend of “Discover Japan” is the answer to the huge popular demand in the postwar period to get in touch with the Japan’s own tradition, to revalue it, probably as a response to the scientific culture of western origin. The rediscover of Osorezan practices has been, therefore, the key factor which led to the revival of the blind shamans practices, until now put aside. The itako became the image of the tradition in opposition to the present, the preference for antique values in contrast with the surfacing of modernity.

This contrast with the modern era is emphasized in the 60s, when the popularity of the itako reach a peak, (we can speak of a real Itako boom), and they are now stable in the popular culture. In particular, we can see a shift of the focus from the sacred place (here the Osorezan) to the shaman herself, which become the undisputed protagonist in the print media; the opposition to the present is thus stressed, and the itako, far from being just some heritage from an ancient past, symbolize a resistance against modernity. There are, of course, different viewpoints which fight this revival, and that interpret it as the celebration of suspicious and weird personalities. In particular this is quite evident in the articles written by psychologists and hypnosis scholars, which deal with Itako practices with extreme suspect and skepticism, due to the inability to verity the state of trance and possession. They often end up proposing again the comparison (typical in the Meiji era) between itako and beggars.

Contemporary situation The Tohoku area is still renowned today for the presence of these

blind shamans, along with some other seeing practitioners; the latters are probably going to grow in number, in the future, while the blind shamans seem doomed to disappear. Due to the very old age of the remaining itako and blind shamans, and the lack of blind apprentices, it’s highly possible that this kind of shamanism, and the culture related to it, will disappear in the next years. There can be found different reason for this: first of all, the access to education, for blind children, is considerably changed, and there are no more examples of young girls dropping out of school to enter the apprenticeship. Moreover, the state greatly improved the welfare system all


over the country, which support the access to the work, and the availability of state supports for people with seeing disabilities. Finally, of course, the whole health system and care changed and has been highly improved, leading to the treatment of various diseases since the early childhood, with an extraordinary reduction (when not disappearance) of the problem.

In the reaserches and studies conducted to date, there is a quite a

sharp distinction in the activity and practices of the two categories; in particular the blind shamans are specialized in the communication with the

dead through the kuchiyose 口寄せ ritual, also called Hotoke-oroshi ホトケ

おろし or Hotoke-gotoホトケ事. The other shamans, called kamisamaカ

ミサマ or hayarigamisamaハヤリガミサマ, are specialized in other ritual

such as oracles and Kami-goto (神事). Kawamura identifies different name for the blind shamans, on the

basis of regional variation. In Aomori 青森, North Iwate 岩手, and North

Akita 秋田 they are commonly called itako イタコ; in South Akita they are

the ichigo イチゴ; in Yamagata 山形 it is used the name miko ミコ or ōkama

オオカマ (depending from the different areas), while in Fukushima 福島,

Tochigi 栃木 and Ibaraki 茨城 are called guka ク゚か. Finally, in Miyagi 宮城

and South Iwate they are called Ogamisama おガミサマ. While the blind shamans also perform various rituals, oracles and

kamigoto, on the contrary the seeing shamans almost never perform the kuchiyose.

ITAKO AND OGAMISAMA EXPERIENCES

From fieldwork interviews and the general material gathered since now, we can give a quick draft of the main particularities of these blind shamans. First of all, the choice to become itako or ogamisama is the consequence of a health problem or a disease that often caused the complete blindness of the girl. Moreover, the decision to enter in contact with the itako world, and to enter the apprenticeship, is always taken by the parents, or the closest relatives. Since the apprenticeship is quite expensive (in particular due to the kamitsuke ritual) the family is not always capable to support this expense; in such situation, there can be different solution such as a loan from relatives, or a longer free service after the kamitsuke. Anyhow,


the most interesting option is represented by the zarumawashi 笊回し, where the whole community contributes collectively to the expenses for the training and the initiation ceremony of the young girl. This is a way to create strong and deep social bond, without the obligation to return the money, but with the social demand to be successful in the profession, to offer the local community a professonial reward.

Then, the apprenticeship entails the cohabitation between master and apprentice, and a very hierarchic relationship between the two. After a certain amount of time, the apprentice is considered ready for the initiation, and undergoes the ritual called Kamitsuke, which determines the birth of the new shaman. Lastly, after the kamitsuke, the young itako or ogamisama will have to go through a period of free service, to repay the teacher.

Kamitsuke, womanhood and childhood There are few important considerations that I would like to

introduce here. First of all, we must notice the relevance given to the age of the

apprentice, and the distinction between childhood (子供 , わらし) and

womanhood (女). Usually, it is strongly suggested that the girl undertakes the kamitsuke before she becomes physically a woman, therefore before the first menstruation appears. It is believed indeed that possession from the kami would be much harder in the case of a physically developed woman; here we can see the influence of the Buddhist tradition, according to which the woman is far from salvation because she suffers for the obstacle of

impurity 女の障り , that keep her away from the holiness. The blood

impurity (in particular the menstrual blood)赤不浄 is one of these, from which kami and gods run away in horror and contempt. This is also a recurring element in other matsuri or celebrations, where only young girls are employed as yorishiro, since they are pure.

In the kamitsuke also, it is necessary to avoid the blood impurity;

there is therefore a strong connection to the terms 子供 e わらし (as

opposed to 女 e 大人). The first menstruation, and physical maturation of the woman body,

represented especially in the past the moment of the social maturation, and the ability to start a new family. It represented the transition between the

conditions of child (子供, わらし) to the status of adult woman; here the

independence 一人前 is reached. Hence, the kamitsuke acquires meaning


when it is placed as a further moment of symbolic passage between childhood and maturity and independence.

There are exception in which the apprentice was already older, or she got the first menstruation during the apprenticeship; in these cases, much bigger purification rituals took place in order to reach the kamitsuke in the proper shape (for example a longer fasting.)

From this point of view, a great importance is acknowledged to the preliminary phase of komori and mizugori purification. The element that surfaces with greater strength, in the recounts of the shamans themselves, is the komori itself; this is considered as a retreat from the secular world, in a small dark place, usually avoiding the direct contact with the sun, in order to exclude the impurities from the apprentice’s body. The mizugori is a procedure that strengthen the purification through komori, along with diet and fasting; it all prepares the body to receive the kami and be possessed by it (mainly by weaken the apprentice’s body). There is, moreover, the clear symbolic value of separating the shaman-to-be from the everyday world, and introduce her in the territory of the sacred. Different shamans stressed out the fact that body weakening was a further means to realize this separation.

During the kamitsuke, the moment of the possession is charged with huge symbolic meanings. This symbolism starts from the outfit of the apprentice, a with robe with the headgear called tarabashi, which is usually connected with the image of the death in the popular culture; they are used in funerals, as travelling cloths for the dead, and in different memorial services, where various dancers and artist interpret the souls of the dead returning to visiting their families.

In the case of these blind shamans, it may refers to the strong connection that they will maintain with the dead, but it can also symbolize the transition of the apprentice from this world to the other. The apprentice herself becomes the dead who must undertake the journey in the world of the death; in this case, the place of the ceremony becomes the other world.

Next to this symbolism, Kawamura identified another meaning (which is not reported by the ogamisama). When the apprentice is possessed by the kami, she faints in the arms of her master who rocks her as a baby; in this moment she is in a very ambivalent situation, since she is no longer a living person, but she is nether just a dead. According to Kawamura, we can see here a fetal symbol, and a new birth; the master’s embrace becomes a sort of maternal womb, and the room itself is now a uterus from which a new human being will rise after the previous death. The apprentice becomes indeed a complete shaman, an independent adult, symbolically greeted by


the handling of the profession tools. The conclusion of the kamitsuke is

symbolised by the 知恵広め, the moment in which the shaman receives her new name, her wisdom name, which completely states that a new woman is born.

The kamitsuke is important not only inside the shamans’ world, but also for the secular world and the entire community; the rebirth of the shaman is in fact a second birth in the social world, where the blind girl is therefore no longer a burden, but she turned into an accomplished and independent adult woman

The shaman is now a一人前 according to the social standards that historically exclude blind people. The physical maturity of the girl is therefore compared to the social maturity, and she is recognized as a complete human being only when she moves from the status of apprentice, and child, to the status of shaman, and adult woman; only after the kamitsuke, the blind woman is approved in her social completeness as a human being and as an independent working professional. The blind girl had to symbolically die, in order to make space to the new image of a mature woman with her place within society.

Blindness and the social power. It is extremely important to evaluate the cultural context in which

this blind shamans live and work; in particular, it is very important to analyze

the central concept of Blindness 盲目性, and Womanhood 女性, 女 as they are interpreted by the local community.

We have to consider that there is a political discourse that interpret the blind shamanism not only as consequence of the lack of medical care and of poverty, but also as the result of ignorance, and the spread of superstitions and folk beliefs. These are labeled as a wrong belief system, from the standpoint of a scientific-rational thought, which therefore rules them out from the area of knowledge.

Although the existence of this religious specialist is obviously due to poor medical care and low diffusion of the health system, this situation is similar to those of other various areas of the country, where however not such cultural phenomenon was developed. In the Tohoku, evidently, the choice of the shamanic profession is the more proper answer to precise codes and social norms, implicitly shared and spread at a local level. Here, blind women have to go through a socially regulate process in order to reach


the social recognition as ogamisama (or similar); the dignity of this

profession (いかい) depends indeed directly on the social approval. This is clear from the fact that the very decision to become shaman is often a collective choice made by parents and local neighbor.

In Tohoku region, there were different profession that blind women could undertake, such as koto or shamisen teachers, masseuses and various artistic activities. The urban areas were often more prosperous, and offered a relatively wider choice, while countryside and rural villages saw in the shamanic practices almost the only solution possible for blind girls and children (artists and masseuses were here considered as dissolute and subordinate, servant worker)

Since the welfare system reached these areas quite lately, the options for blind women were represented by few housekeeping activities for their own families, and some small work in the neighborhood, with the result that they could not afford to live by their own. They were therefore

considered a burden, 家のバサマ, or 重荷 for the family, which pushed for the self-sustenance, and fueled the need for independence from the family. Moreover, the decision to become shaman is implicitly not only a demand from the family, but also from the entire local community, which, if the young girl fails to achieve this goal, will immediately label her as

troublemaker (やかい). Kawamura suggests that, in the past and in some strata of the society,

existed a negative judgment about blind people, in part as a consequence of a popular interpretation of the concept of retribution. He recounts some examples in which this blindness is considered as the result of a bad conduct in the past life, and as the result of terrible actions which now influence the karma in the present existence. Since in Japan the idea of transmigration didn’t acquire such huge popularity, this bad karma is no longer considered as an individual element but as a genealogical one, connected with the other member of the same family, mirroring thus the power structure of the society.

This interpretation is however considered as a popular distortion of buddhist texts, and it is not adopted by the shamans themselves as an explanation of their blindness, and in general it is not so successful. Nevertheless in the past it has been the basis for various sermons of Buddhist monks against the itako’s activities, who used this discourse as a political measure, giving a basis for the discrimination of the blind people, and trying thus to reinforce the bond between local community and Buddhist clergy.


The most important element that Kawamura underlines is the

dichotomy between “independent adults” 一人前 e “burden” 場所ふさぎ. As any other member of the community, blind women are pushed

towards economic, professional and personal independence, which for them means facing various problems and discrimination starting from the other members of the family (especially with regards to other brothers or sisters). Unable to reach independence as the normal people, they risk to be labeled as “burden”, “trouble” and subject that will never reach economic

independence (かせぐ人). Since we are mainly talking about agricultural or fishing communities,

where women aren’t in any way inferior to men in their ability to gain and work, blind girls seem not to be able to fulfill this social completeness.

Kawamura quotes some very interesting example, from ogamisama experience, as an example of this social pressure, and introduces few important terms and concept that can help us better picture the situation.

Recur often, in the recounts of the shamans, terms such asあそんで, ノラ

(のらくら) or ぶらぶら; these words refer to people without a purpose, a profession, and mainly extremely lazy. In Miyagi prefecture are more

common words as ドウボネヒキズリ(dobone – hikizuri) or カバネヤミ

(kabane-yami), both referring to a body (ドウボネ, カバネ) which is sick,

weak, (ヒキズリ, ヤミ), and therefore can’t work properly. They mainly

refer to the lack of a health and able body (五体満足な体). The local societies, normally composed by workers and laborers, all

those people who can’t be independent and thus participate to the community activities (mainly farmers and agricultural activities) are excluded and judged negatively. The range of activities in which blind people can be involved is evidently quite small, and they risk to be excluded from the very

important category of 一人前 (as it is the case of elderly and under age

people). The label場所ふさぎ denies to the person the social and cultural existence as man or woman; in order to regain this position, society itself offers same strategies to follow, and shamanism is one of such strategies.

Further elements At date I am examining in depth different element relevant to the

study. First of all, I am examine the concept and the study of shamanism in a wider sense, as exemplified from the texts Shamans in Asia (by Clark Chilson and Peter Knecht), Shamans, Spirituality, and Cultural Revitalization:


Explorations in Siberia and Beyond (by Marjorie Mandelstam) and The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine (Barbara Tedlock). I studied R. Hamayon articles about shamanism and its relations with trance and ecstatic events, in particular « Pour en finir avec la "transe" et l'"extase" dans l'étude du chamanisme » (Études mongoles et sibériennes, 26, 1995) and « Are "Trance," "Ecstasy" and Similar Concepts Appropriate in the Study of Shamanism? » (Shaman, Vol. 1 n.2, 1993) and I am know trying to go further on this path, to introduce new element about shamanism. Together with this field of study, I am analyzing some further elements about purity in general and kegare in particular (as indicated in the bibliography below).

There are two main elements that require deeper examination; the first is the historical development of female shaman prior to Meiji Restoriations, in particular through the analysis of antique pre-buddhist traditions, and the interaction between these and Buddhist institutionalized power.

This will lead to the second important point, which could be the interpretation of the contemporary blind shamanism as a “survival”, as a social strategy to counterforce the structure of power, and as a mean to regain social consideration; in particular it could be interesting to analyze by what means this is carried out, what kind of needs they answer to, and what changes they represent in respect to the past

Without assuming to revolutionize these issues, I therefore intended

to introduce some shifting in the problematics:

Historicize the female shaman issue, considering corollary problematics: how does the itako activities is rebuilt in the confrontation with the weakening of great institutionalized religions? How to piece together the transformations of the feminine shamanism? How these transformations effect the shamanic activity itself?

Come out from the canonic theories about impurity and pollution (Shintani, ecc.) in order to show that kegare cover different realities and meanings.

Study in deep the complex interactions between the different techniques used by the different specialists of spirits, underlying the contaminations and the modifications; the complex of premature


death, and of unfulfilled desires are involved in different symbolic universes.

Journée doctorale du Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie Orientale

Documents

Transcript of Journée doctorale du Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie Orientale