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The structure of Shinto ceremonies and etiquette.

The main purpose of religious ceremonies is to worship a deity. They are the focal point where one meets the deities and receives vitality from them. In order to receive this vitality the deities must be entertained in the most delightful way. Therefore the time and place, the priest and the food offered can not be ordinary, but must secretly be different. The ceremony should be carried out with the best of untensils and complete abstinence.

Japanese deities have two different characters which are both sacred, a wild spirit and a peaceful spirit. When they are not worshipped the wild spirit takes control and the outcome is dreadful to behold, there is disease, pestilence and a poor harvest. But if man worships them with all his heart their outlook changes radically and they will become peaceful spirits bringing about unlimited happiness. Religious ceremonies are the holy scene where it is possible to change the wild spirit into a peaceful one.

1. The Spring and Autumn Festivals.

The Japanese, who are an agricultural people, sow in spring and harvest in winter, and the seasons for religious festivals are based on this agricultural cycle, ceremonies being held in particular by the Imperial household at the Grand Shrine at Ise. At the planting of the rice seedlings, the main food of the Japanese and their deities, they pray in spring for steady growth and in autumn they give thanks for the harvest. Beside these ceremonies there are ceremonies at New Year when one worships the deity and prays for life for the coming year. These are performed not only at shrines but in the household, where the head of the family acts as priest. The New Year ceremony performed on New Year's Day is called "Big" New Year (dai shogatsu), and that held on the 15th January is called sho "Little" New Year (sho shogatsu). People pray that their life should be long and that the harvest should be abundant.

2. The Summer Festival.

The humid heat of a Japanese summer is very hard to bear, and in summer diseases often rage unabated. Before the advent of modern medicine it was thought that the summer epidemics were caused by the evil spirits of people who had been killed although they were innocent, or by the spirits of those who had lost out in the battle for the throne or in political wars. Too much sun in summer kills rice plants and other cereals. At the end of the summer there are many typhons which cause damage to crops. It was also believed that these kinds of natural disasters were caused by evil spirits. The religious ceremonies carried out in summer are performed with the idea of pacifying wild spirits and consoling the hearts of the deities, thereby getting rid of the sources of disease, natural disaster and other such phenomena. A representative summer festival is the Gion festival, held all over Japan but mainly in Kyoto where it centres on the Yasaka Shrine. The ceremony dates back to the Heian Period and the Deity feted is Susanoo no Mikoto, who by his magic spell absorbs all the filth of the city thereby purifying it. This is done by collecting the dirt in a highly ornamented wagon from which he also sprays a rich spirit.

3. Winter Festivals.

After the thanksgiving ceremonies (Autumn Festivals) are over it is believed that the deities return from the villages to the mountains, the equivalent of death from old age, and by this the existing order is destroyed, the chaos of darkness overtakes everything and everywhere is cold. This period is the "hiding" or waiting for the spring to appear, a waiting period also for the completion of the spirit. In this period the spring is encouraged to appear if one makes fires. There are also many religious ceremonies connected with plays in which stamping on the floor is an important element. Thus the annual cycle of religious ceremonies corresponds to the seasons and cycles of agriculture.

4. Main Festivals.

Almost every shrine has one main fesival a year. This festival differs from shrine to shrine and is celebrated on the anniversary of the day when the shrine began to celebrate in that area. For a shrine the day of the festival is the most important day in the year. On this day its mythology is reproduced.

Festival sites.

In general it can be said that the main places that deities are worshipped is at shrines. One can also say that shrines are the most perfect sites for festivals, and also express the most perfect shape. The main buildings of a shrine are the "Honden" (main hall) where the deity is enshrined, and the "Haiden" (prayer hal), where prayers are addressed to the deity. However, when we trace this style of architecture back to ancient times it does not appear to be that old. Even now there are many shrines which have a prayer hall but no main hall, or where the deity worshipped is merely a mountain, a large rock or a huge tree. In the strictest sense Shinto isn't a religion which worships natural objects. Nature is another form of the divine spirit that cannot be seen. Mountains and rocks which are believed to be an embodiment of deities are only considered to be sacred at the time of the particular religious ceremony, when they are thought of as being different from other mountains, rocks or trees. Originally it was believed that the deities of Japan did not reside permanently in shrines but at a chosen time they descended from heaven or emerged from the oceans to which they returned after having been worshipped. At the time when religious ceremonies were held in this way nature was given a special character and became the ceremonial place and the form of the spirit. This is the ceremonial place with the "yashiro" (shrine) form. Parallel to this was the belief that rice, the main food of the Japanese, was a deity, too, and this decided one other form of the shrine. The storehouse became such a ceremonial place, in the "miya" (honourable house) style. Later on Buddhism was introduced into Japan and a ceremonial style with a statue of the Buddha in a Buddha hall became influential and the miya-style became the main trend (?).

Persons in charge of worship.

Being sacred, persons in charge of shrines are different from ordinary people. Nowadays these people act as go-betweens for the deities, and mainly purify the people who visit the shrines to pray. But in ancient times there were cases where such people acted as deities themselves and said or translated the words of the deities to the people. There were a few professionals in charge of worshipping, and at festival times the heads of the clans worshipped their ancestor deities. There are still places where the people in charge of worshipping change in a kind of rotation system and everyone in the village has his turn. However when it was someone's turn they suffered mentally and economiclly, their real profession was neglected and their everyday life was affected in various ways. So it became common for mostvillages to employ a professional as a Shinto priest, even inancient times. This situation exists today.

Style of ceremonies.

The main elements of the ceremonies are as follows:-

Shubatsu (purification). The site of the festival or ceremony, the accoutrements and all those officiating or attending the ceremony are purified.

Kaihi (opening the gate of the main hall). It is believed that this allows the deity to descend to the site of the ceremony.

Kosin ( ). When there is no main hall a tree or piece of wood (himorogi) is used as a medium to welcome the deity.

Kensen (offering food to the deity). This is the entertaining of the deity with food from the sea and the mountains. Deities with an empty stomach are believed to become wild sprits. Therefore feeding the deity and filling his stomach pacifies him. This is the most important element of the ceremony. The word for ceremony is said to come from the offering of food.

Keihaku (clothing). The offering of cloth for the clothing of the deities. After the deity is fed he is given beautiful clothes to keep him happy.

Norito (prayers). After the deity has been entertained with food, clothing and entertainment the person in charge of the ceremony says prayers and words of thanks to the deity. The form of the language is classical Japanese and must sound sweet and musical.

Naorai (taking communion). After the solemn ceremony has been completed the people leave the site of the ceremony and have a meal given them by the deity at a completely different place. In this way the spirit of the deity enters the people and becomes one with them. The deities who awake in early spring are supposed to be extremely hungry and to leave them as they are would be to court disaster, since their wild spirit would be enraged and order would never reign. Therefore the people choose an appropriate place and entertain them with sake (rice wine) and plenty of food. In autumn the people thank the deities for a bountiful harvest, entertain them and send them back to the mountains completely satisfied. Religious ceremonies are the only way that wild spirits can be made into peaceful ones.