Why are Japanese primitive beliefs so deeply rooted?

Teachers of Yin and Yang who combine witchcraft such as divination, offering sacrifices and summoning gods occasionally appear scary cartoons of Junji Ito, and you can see a series of Natsume cartoons of monsters, as well as horror movies such as Curse, Midnight Bell and Ghost Doll Flower. There are always many elements of primitive beliefs such as sacrifice, witchcraft and incantation in Japanese pop culture.

Movie "Silver" poster

Stills of the movie Dream

Various festivals (sacrifices) are held all over Japan all year round, from "praying for the New Year" to "appreciating the harvest in autumn".

Famous figures, such as Kanda Festival in Tokyo, Gion Festival in Kyoto, Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka, etc. Dressed in ancient costumes, they marched in the streets and held ceremonies in the sacred music.

Even when the foundation stone was laid for the building of the Institute of Atomic Energy, a ceremony of "offering sacrifices to towns" was held. When we modern people witness witchcraft-like ceremonies even in the most advanced cultural facilities of modern science, we have to marvel at the vitality of primitive ideas deeply rooted in Japanese history.

Sacrifice in local towns of Japanese Shintoism

There is a popular proverb in Japan: "Sacrifice is the purpose of human life-the purpose of life is sacrifice". The form of sacrifice is carnival. Therefore, sacrifice actually expresses people's inner truth and is the ultimate expression of life: "Life is carnival."

So, where did the original beliefs reflected in these popular cultures and memorial ceremonies come from? What about the early appearance? Why are Japanese primitive beliefs so deeply rooted? Ienaga saburo, a famous Japanese historian, has this expression in the book "History of Japanese Culture":

In primitive times, witchcraft penetrated into all aspects of human life.

Today, it is difficult for us to understand the spiritual life of people in the Stone Age. There seem to be huge stone pillars showing the shape of male genitals and female pottery figurines protruding breasts. From these historical relics, we can imagine that they should be used for witchcraft, which penetrated into all aspects of human life at that time.

Japanese Stone Age Female Pottery Figurines (Illustration)

In addition, the example of the teeth on the stone age skull being serrated or pulled out also shows the fact that the human body was processed under the background of witchcraft, which makes people think that irrational witchcraft belief has an extraordinary dominant position in people's lives. If we understand the situation of burying the body's limbs in the ground, it may reflect the original thought of fearing the return of the dead.

Recently, there has also been a view that the shells piled up by the bones and shells of animals used as food at that time are not only garbage dumps, but also some kind of altar. People send the souls of various animals to the sky for food and pray that they will appear on the ground again, thus enriching their food life.

Sexual Sacrifice: Sex and Witchcraft

Early Japanese in ancient times were extremely open to sex. This can also be seen from the relationship between sex and witchcraft. As I mentioned earlier, in primitive society, people thought that genitalia was a symbol of spell power. They use stone pillars and pottery figurines to show the shape of genitals. Farming etiquette has also inherited this tradition, and genitalia is regarded as a symbol of agricultural productivity and an object of belief.

An example of genital worship, the activity of offering sacrifices to the gods at the Imperial Ship Shrine (illustration)

This ancient custom has a history of more than 2000 years and has been passed down continuously. Even today, it still retains the genitals regarded as the ancestors of Taoism and the idols that display genitals all over the country. In addition, for example, the sex sacrifice at the Cosmic Shrine in Fangxing County, Ibaraki Prefecture is made of straw after transplantation, hung in the shape of a man's root and a woman's vagina, and combined together under the blowing of (above).

In a rural area of Akita Prefecture, there is still a very realistic activity, that is, letting hired men and women have sexual intercourse after transplanting rice seedlings. It is said that the custom of praying for a bumper harvest through sexual organs or sexual intercourse is very common. This custom, together with other witchcraft activities, reflects the side of ancient minority religions that survived in later generations.

Tang Exploration: Witchcraft and Trial

In the early days of ancient times, judges also used witchcraft means called "probing soup" in the trial, that is, witnesses put their hands in boiling water to prove the authenticity of their testimony. "Hao" is not only a witchcraft to remove filth in the religious sense, but also a criminal law to confiscate criminals' property.

The person in charge of this residence said that "sin" not only refers to people's evil deeds, but also includes disasters such as patients and dirty and ugly things. Everything people hate is "sin" This understanding and the explanation of God mentioned above are an example of Xuanchang's accurate grasp of the characteristics of ancient thought.

Witchcraft once became a political ruling force.

Lu Duyu of Tianjin Sacrifice

Among the unique cultural relics in the Yayoi period, bronze swords and daggers were found all over western Japan with Kitakyushu as the center, and bronze priests were found all over central Japan with Munei as the center. These are large bronzes of no practical value, such as weapons and musical instruments. It should be props used by the same people in the village when they hold witchcraft ceremonies. They also symbolize the political authority of the "king".

Japan's ethnic religions have also absorbed elements of primitive beliefs.

Whether it's the song and dance music in the funeral, the relocation, the "Tai Zhan" burning deer bones and the witch's spiritual possession, all the contents have been passed down as religious customs for a long time in real life, which makes us clearly see the true colors of Japanese national religion.

We must note that up to now, the main body of national religion still takes witchcraft ceremony as the only content. Obviously, the witchcraft activities recorded in the Biography of Wei Zhengren are the primitive form of national religion. We can infer that a large number of elements should be inherited from the witchcraft of primitive society in the gathering economy era, but the national religion after the Yayoi era is based on farming rituals, and the ultimate goal of all witchcraft activities is undoubtedly to pray for the smooth progress of farming.

Traditional culture is rooted in real life,

It has great vitality.

Japanese culture has such a remarkable feature that the traditional ancient culture has not died out with the development of foreign or domestic new cultures. In most cases, they have merged with each other and survived. As mentioned earlier, Japan, an island country facing the mainland across the sea, has a very limited depth of accepting the influence of overseas culture.

Japanese traditional wedding

Japanese people are always keen to absorb advanced overseas cultures and show their super ability to assimilate highly developed foreign cultures. Usually, the influence of foreign culture has not reached a profound and extensive level, which fundamentally changes the real life of Japanese people. It must be noted that traditional culture is deeply rooted in real life from beginning to end.

Due to the natural barrier of the sea, the Japanese only accept overseas culture through a small number of people who travel at sea, and have no extensive contact with overseas nationalities (unlike in the second half of the 20th century). Moreover, as a basic industry, agricultural production technology has not completely got rid of the backward situation in the Yayoi culture era, and the rural lifestyle of the same body has survived without fundamental changes. Can we say that these conditions are the basis for the extensive and sustainable inheritance of Japanese cultural traditions?

To understand Japanese culture, we can start with the little book "History of Japanese Culture". As a cultural textbook for the history teacher of the Emperor, Japan's Yanbo Bookstore is a treasure of the town. After years of out-of-print, Yilin Publishing House invited scholars to translate it completely, and famous artists took the lead in binding and design, which is a model reading for everyone's little books.

Author: (Japan) ienaga saburo

Translator: Zhao

Pricing: 48.00.

Release date: 20 18. 1

Ienaga saburo (19 13—2002) was born in Nagoya and graduated from Tokyo University with a major in Japanese history. Professor, Department of History, Tokyo University of Education. In A.D. 1950, the then Crown Prince Akihito devoted himself to studying Japanese history under the guidance of ienaga saburo. Ienaga saburo, who opposed militarism and fought for historical facts all his life, was praised as "the conscience of Japanese historians" and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice.

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Next, Japanese cultural history will answer more questions for you, so stay tuned.