Roots of Shintō

05.07.2012


Today i would like to speak of roots of Shintō/root Shintō. 
 First it is important to note that term Shintō should be revised because it is just an arctificial term invented in Heian period in order to distinguish local autochtonic beliefs from Buddhism and Taoism.

This term was invented according to Chinese samples: in Chinese culture there are many doctrines, each of which is called as "a way something".

As far as Chinese culture is culture of written signs, many doctrines and concepts can be pretty fully expressed in written signs and through them gradually can be pretty fully acquired.

Due to this gradually acquire appears the analogy of "way", i.e. gradually moving to a certain aim.

Actually Shintō is not a "way", it is  not a systematic religion but just a heap of  rather amorphous so called "atmospheric cults".

However, it is possible to single out some basic concepts which are common for all traditions belonging to Shintō.

These basic concepts are: tamashii/tama 魂 “vital energy”/”soul  energy” and kami 神 “a super human being”. 

Tamashii penetrates by the whole world and fills everything, fills all beings and all things. All beings and things are endowed tamashii in different degree: some have a lot of tamashii but some have little.

 It is good to have a lot of tama. More tamashii you have more mighty you are. Kami have a lot of tamashii and can endow tamashii 魂 or take it away.

Therefore the purpose of any rite of Shintō is to save present tamashii and get it more:  in order to save present tamashii and get more it is need to contact with kami.

Both of these concepts (tamashii and kami) are traced back to Ainu concepts ramat – “soul exists” and kamuy “super human being”.

Ainu are the most ancient population of Japanese archipelago, Kuril islands, Sakhalin and Kamchatka peninsula.

 

From the point of view of physical anthropology Ainu have no similarities with any population of Asia and Pasific Rim except people of Japanese Neolithic culture or so called "Jomon culture" (about 13000 BC till about 500 BC.)

Jomon is Japanese calque of English term 'cord mark', 'cord marked pottery' which describes a characteristic feature of the pottery of this archaeological culture and on which this culture or a group of cultures was named. 

Jomon pottery is the oldest pottery of the world and one of the most beautiful also:  

 Situation in historical linguistics is analogous of that of physical anthropology.

Ainu language is considered as an isolated by contemporary linguistics. Ainu language differ radically from neighboor languages: Japanese, Korean, Nivkh, Itelmen, Chinese, Tungusic languages and Austronesian languages.

It is not possible now to say where from exactly Ainu came to the Japanese erchipelago (But there are some obvious facts that tell us that Ainu came from South for example the fact that Jomon culture began its spread from the south of Japanese archipelago. But it is well known that they settled all over archipelago from southern Ryukyu till Hokkaido and also Kuril islands and southern half of Sakhalin and southern end of Kamchatka.

Toponyms of Ainu origin corroborate this fact, for example: Tsushima <- Ainu.: tuyma – "distant", Fuji <- Ainu: huci – "grandma", "kamuy of fireplace";  Tsukuba <- Ainu: tu ku pa – "head of two bows", Yamatai <- Ainu: ya ma ta i - «place where harbour deeply cuts the land".

Also many examples of Ainu toponyms can be found in Kindaichi Kyousuke works.

Later, when so called Old Korean came Ainu were one of the main component of forming Japanese ethnicity. Research of DNA of Japanese population showed that most widely spread Y-japlogroup is D2 which is main Ainu Y-haplogroup (about 86% of Ainu have it).

The most notable fact is that Japanese and Korean have similar mtDNA while Korean have practically no Y-DNA D2. (The Japanese are basically mix of ancient Ainu and ancient Korean) That means that Ainu took Korean women but not vice versa. This fact tells us that the rulers were Ainu. Most of Japanese nobility is of Ainu origin.

Also Ainu influenced seriously on forming Japanese creed, i.e. Shintō.

It is notable fact that Japanese terms tamashii/tama and kami sounds much alike Ainu terms ramat and kamuy and also expresses practically the same concepts:

Explaining the meaning of this concept of ramat Neil Gordon Munro quotes the explanations that he received from Ainu elders (ekasi):  "KotanPira said ramat was the backbone of Ainu religion.

Rennuikesh, eighty years old, very active and intelligent, who came from the north of Hokkaido, said: 'Whatever has no ramat has nothing'. Nisukrek and other elders agreed with this: 'ramat is all-pervading and indestructible'.

Word ramat consists of two morphemes: ram which means "soul"/"mind"/"heart" and at which is similar to such verbs as an/oka and oma which mean "to be"/"to exist". So it can be interpreted as "soul exists"/"vital energy exist".

 (It is notable fact that many verbs of Ainu language designating mental activity, are formed with ram root: ram – to "think", e-ram-an – to "understand", e-ram-iskar – "not to understand", e-ram-as – “to rejoice to something”)

Following to Neil Gordon Munro it is possible to state that ramat is very much alike to the Polynesian mana.

Every thing and every being has ramat. One thing has a lot of ramat another has little but nothing can exist without ramat. Ramat cannot be annihilated.

When beings die or when things are broken their ramat leaves them but doesn't disappear and goes to another place.

So we can see that features of ramat are very close to that of tama.

Also it is interesting to note that tamashii/tama originated from the word ramat by its sound:

In Ainu language [ ɾ ] can easily become [ tɾ ] [ tl ][ dl ] [ t ] [ d ] [ l ]. In Old Japanese initial r was prohibited and also there were no consonant claster and close syllables so Ainu word ramat could become only tama/tamatV/tamasV in Old Japanese.

(Here sign "V" means an unidentified vowel sound.)

As for kamuy here there are some versions of etymology but following to John Batchelor I think word kamuy consists of three morphemes:  ka + mu + i  and interpreted its meaning as 'something over us" or a "super human being".

It should be noted that concept kamuy differs seriously from European concepts deus / god / Gott / dios / deux because European god (God of christianity) is a transcendental being opposite to this world while kamuy exists in the neighborhood of people and people can easily get kamuy mosir (island of kamuy) and also people can become kamuy.

Because of it, the word kamuy should not be translated as dew /god / Gott / dios / deux into European languages. I think the best way is to leave the word kamuy without any translation at all and explain its meaning with a certain context.

And etymology of Japanese kami is the following: Old Ainu (Upper Jomon Ainu) ka-mu-'i  [kamuj] ->  Old Japanese kamɯ -> Modern Japanese kami. Meaning kami is completely the same as meaning of kamuy.

Kamuy has a lot of ramat and can endow or take away ramat to other beings. Kamuy which endow ramat are good, kamuy which take ramat away are bad.

Every event of Ainu traditional life can be described in terms of ramat and kamuy. Any act of Ainu tradition is intended to save and to magnify the existing ramat. Because of it a thing which has much ramat and which can magnify ramat is good thing; while thing which takes ramat away is bad.

Best way to get more ramat is to communicate with kamuy. To communicate with kamuy we need a special artifact – inaw – literary i-naw means "shaved", "curled". Inaw A baton with savings 

 It is considered as an universal pure thing for storage, getting or transfer ramat.

Having offered inaw we set a cahnnel between our island/world and island/world of kamuy. And by this channel ramat of kamuy flows to us.

 The origin of inaw is unclear, but there are ideas that it could origin from dogū - clay figurines of Jomon epoch of unknown means:

These figurines are considered as substitutes of human sacrifice by some anthropologists and inaw as they are development of dogū have the same function.

But more notable fact it that in shintō exist the same items as inaw. I mean gohei  御幣 and  and seminawa (締縄 or 標縄) or just nawa 縄 (word nawa itself seems to originate from Ainu word naw/i-naw).

Some researchers, for example W.Aston, J. B. Sansom incorrectly interpreted gohei and nawa as development of  sacrifice of phloem, hemp and dresses while under the influence of Ainu inaw which were substitutes even in Ainu culture, sacrifices got a form of gohei and nawa.

Japanese mechanically reproduced remotely an anthropomorphous form inaw, without understanding its real content. Only this can explain why substitutes of fabrics have the form, reminding substitutes of human sacrifices. 

Thus we have the following: tama/ramat is a clot of "living" a concentration of spiritual energy or even just general energy. Tama/ramat penetrates by the whole world and fills everything, fills all beings and all things.

All beings and things are endowed tama/ramat in different degree: some have a lot of tama/ramat but some have little. More tama you have more mighty you are. It is good to have a lot of tama.

Therefore the purpose of any rite of Shintō/Ainu traditional creed is to save present tama/ramat and get more.

Kami/kamuy is everything that has a lot of tama/ramat and can endow tama other beings.

 Kami/kamuy is all outstanding and unusual, somehow, for example: thousand-year cedar, stone of a freakish form, falls, mountain of Fuji, founder of the Panasonic company, emperor Meiji, master of a calligraphy or, for example, famous musician or writer. 

It is very important to understand that often kami /kamuy is not any personal/anthropomorphous being or a subject or a thing which can be presented, touched or, in general, be felt by means of five feelings.

Much more often kami /kamuy is certain amorphous force, for example, force of an attraction of Earth to the Sun also is a kami/kamuy, forces operating in an atomic nucleus between protons and neutrons also are kami/kamuy, and other similar phenomena also are kami/kamuy.

The purpose of any rite of Shintō is to save present tama/ramat and get it more:  in order to save present tama/ramat and get more it is need to contact with kami/kamuy.

Does anybody have any questions?

Early history of Japan

12.07.2012

Hello

Today I would like to speak of early history of Japan

Mainly of Jomon and Yayoi epoch

It’s possible that we have not enough time to talk of all points so it this talk probably gonna be continued

We can speak of Japan as archipelago only since the end of last glacial period (about 13000 BC) 

 While during glacial Japanese archipelago was connected with continent in the following way:

In the time of glacial first people of modern anthropology type came to this territory. These people were direct ancestors of modern/historical Ainu and they set the culture which later was named Jomon.

This archaeological culture or a group of cultures existed in Japanese archipelago since about 13000 BC till about 500 BC.)

Jomon is Japanese calque of English term 'cord mark', 'cord marked pottery' which describes a characteristic feature of the pottery of this archaeological culture and on which this culture or a group of cultures was named. 

Jomon pottery is the oldest pottery of the world and one of the most beautiful also:

There were different types of ceramics and the most interesting was made by the late of Jomon.

Among Jomon ceramic artifacts the most interesting are so called dogū - clay figurines of unknown means: 

 some anthropologists suppose that these dogu can be substitutes of human sacrifice and are somwhow realted to Ainu inaw http://tresi-nonno.blogspot.com/2012/06/basic-concepts-of-ainu-religion-and.html . Anyway it is possible to state that they could have some relation to creeds of Jomon people.

The proves of Ainu and Jomon people relationship are the following:

a reconstruction of Jomon man (proves of the fact that people of Jomon were of Ainu origin are the following: similarity of Ainu skulls and Jomon skulls:

 

then are founded many localities where sites of Jomon epoch are found  bearing names traceable to Ainu roots, we can only assume that persons using the same language as the Ainu were formerly established in such places. http://tresi-nonno.blogspot.com/2011/12/ainu-jomon-relationship-prooves-by-neil.html

 (we should use term Jomon with certain degree of awareness cause it is just a term invented to designate a complex of archaeological cultures but later it was used by some Japanese anthropologists in order to artificially distinguish Ainu culture from its roots)

People of Jomon epoch were seagatherers, forest gatherers, fishers, forest hunters and sea hunters and didn't practise agriculture so a vast space of wild nature was a matter of high importance  for existence of their culture.

(Basic economical articles of Neolithic Ainu were gathering of shells and gathering of chestnuts and nuts. Jomon archaeological culture is famous by its shellheaps. And so Neolithic Ainu were basically closely connected with forests of chestnuts and nuts which covered then most part of Japanese archipelago)

Thus people of Jomon never had any big settlements, the biggest social unit was local group.  To maintain balance in nature and in human population was matter of vital importance for such culture.

Because of it they settled all over archipelago from southern Ryukyu till Hokkaido and also Kuril islands and southern half of Sakhalin and southern end of Kamchatka:

 

Toponyms of Ainu origin corroborate this fact, for example: Tsushima <- Ainu.: tuyma – "distant", Fuji <- Ainu: huci – "grandma", "kamuy of fireplace";  Tsukuba <- Ainu: tu ku pa – "head of two bows", Yamatai <- Ainu: ya ma ta i – “place where harbour deeply cuts the land”, many examples of Ainu toponyms can be found in Kindaichi Kyousuke works.

About the mid of Jomon period some groups of Austronesian people from South-East Asia appeared in the southern part of Japanese archipelago.

(This group is named austronesian with a certain degree of conventionalism because there could be also some people of Yue and Hmong-Mien. And it is important to note that we have little information of this group.)

This new migration destroyed the balance of nature and some groups of Ainu were forced to move northward/ Ainu migration to the island of Sakhalin, the islands of Kuriles and Kamchatka began.

When Ainu moved northward they influenced strongly on the culture of Nivkh, Itelmen and Oroch. This fact had been reflected by language: for example: Ainu word kotan – "settlement", "inhabited area" exists in Old Mongolian as gotan, in the language of Gold – hoton, in Manchurian language – hotan, in Nivkh language – hoton. 

Or, for example, Ainu word inaw, designating little baton with shavings  – one of the most important objects of Ainu religion, exists in Nivkh language – nau, in Oroch language – ilau.

In Itelmen language exists word kamul designating spirits living in volcanoes and geysers, I believe that this word originated from Ainu word kamuy – “super human being”.

I think that it is possible to speak about Ainu colonization because in Ainu language exists original not borrowed word for expression of modality “should”, “must” – easirki- “do to do first of all”  while such a languages as Nivkh, Itelmen, Oroch use borrowed words to express this modality and originally have just two modalities: “want” and “cannot”.  Modality of “should” is a marker of high organized social system.

While some groups of Ainu were moving northward in the southern part of Japanese archipelago appeared some ethnic groups from Korea.

These migrants were of Mongoloid anthropological type and spoke an Altaic language. First groups of this migration appeared in Japanese archipelago in the end of Jomon and in the beginning of Yayoi epoch.

Comparison of anthropological type of Jomon/Ainu and newcomers of Yayoi:

left is Jomon/Ainu man and right is Yayoi

 (Yayoi is archaeological culture which came in the stead of Jomon.  It is also named after its ceramics which was named after teh place where it was found - Yayoi district in Tokyo. Yayoi culture lasted from 500 BC till about 300 AD).

And the last groups of these ancient Korean migrants appeared in the Japanese islands in the very end of Yayoi and even in the beginning of the next period – Kofun – “Burial mounds period”.

It is generally supposed that this last group was the root of emperor kin tenno and established Yamato state and that after the establish of Yamato began the epoch of permanent war between Wajin(Japanese) and Emishi(Ainu). But reality was a bit more difficult.

First, word Yamato obviously originated from word Yamatai. (Yamatai is the most ancient state placed in the Japanese archipelago. Yamatai state was described in Chinese chronicle "Wei Zhi".

Yamatai state was described in Chinese chronicle "Wei Zhi". We are to note that Wei Zhi is allocated against others Chinese text of this epoch: it has no fantasy and it's very realistic, for example distance between Korean peninsula and Yamatai is described very close to reality. "Wei Zhi" is jut a diary of a traveller. And there are a lot of Ainu toponyms and names in it, for example Pimiko queen of Yamatai is a name of Ainu origin, originally it was Pi mik kur - Person who solves problems and barks)

Word "Yamato" is written down by hieroglyfes as 大和 and according to the rules these kanji should be read as 'dai wa' - 'great wa'. ("Great Wa" is the name invented by Chinese to denote ancient Japan and it was used until term Nihon was invented.)

But they are not read so, they are read 'Yamato', so I am to note that reading of these kanji as "Yamato" isn't even ateji (meaningless kanji which express the phonetics) but is just a reading which is attached to these kanji. This fact tells us that word Yamato is of island origin. Moreover I state that Yamatai/Yamato is a word of Ainu origin.

 (Yamato is just a transformation of Yamatai cause in Old Japanese diphtongs were not allowed and they became a single soud.)

The word Yamatai definitely consists of clear Ainu roots and has clear meaning if it is read in Ainu (this toponym describing a characteristic feature of a certain local landscape as well as all Ainu toponyms): ya ma ta i - "place where hardour deeply cuts the land".   

(In Wei Zhi word Yamatai is written down as ateji i.e. using some meaningless hieroglyphes which express phonetics, here 邪馬台 so it is possible to restore phonetics)

The most probable place where Yamatai state could be is a harbour  in the mouth of Chikugo river near of the town with the same name (i.e. Yamato) in Fukuoka prefecture in the island of Kyushu.

All these facts are well described in book "Wei Zhi read via Ainu language" by Hashimoto Kiyoshi who though is an amateur and despite of he made some mistakes but his general ideas are definetily true and shoul be paid attention for.

Having analysed Wei Zhi Hashimoto defined the place of Yamatai as it's shown in the following schemes:

There was appropriate material base for appearing of a state, though agriculture which usually is the precondition for appear of statehood, was practised restrictedly by the Ainu of late Jomon, but rich sea hunting sea fishing and sea gathering definitely could be the base of material stratification and statehood.

“Jomon people occasionally diverted axes for cutting down trees and bows and arrows for hunting to the purpose of killing people, but the number of such victims was very small; among several thousand bodies of Jomon people so far discovered, less than ten bodies (!) were the victims of homicide.

On the other hand, the evidence of warfare during the Yayoi Period is quite clear. Defencive settlements appeared, which were surrounded by either moats of defensive walls or which were located on the hilltops characterized by poor productivity but by excellent command of  view.

An extensive defensive moat and a watch tower are exemplified by the recent discovery of the Yoshinogari settlement site (dated to the first to third century. A. D.) in Saga Prefecture, western Kyushu Island.
While no homicide tools per se in the Jomon Period, there were many kinds made of bronze, iron, and stones used in the Yayoi Period. Among these, the evolution of stone arrowheads in western Japan tends to illustrate this transformation from a peaceful Jomon community to an aggressive Yayoi village.

For ten thousand years since the beginning of Jomon Period, the form of arrowheads was triangular, and the arrowheads weighted less than two grams. The lighter an arrow was, the further and faster the arrow flew. On the other hand, the heavier an arrow, the deeper the arrow could penetrate into the prey's or victim's body.

...Archaeologistss have also discovered many Yayoi Period tombs for the victims against whom such homicide tools were used or those un which such homicide tools were buried with the bodies...”

Research of DNA of Japanese population showed that most widely spread Y-japlogroup is D2 which is main Ainu Y-haplogroup (about 86% of Ainu have it). The most notable fact is that Japanese and Korean have similar mtDNA while Korean have practically no Y-DNA D2. That means that Ainu took Korean women but not vice versa. This fact tells us that the rulers were Ainu.

But how it could be? From a common point of view Japanese culture has practically no similarities with Ainu culture. (Though as it will be shown in special text the roots of Japanese culture are of Ainu origin) Japanese speak Japanese language but not Ainu. Below I try to explain how it could be.

When in the beginning of Yayoi epoch in Japanese archipelago started to appear first groups of Korean newcomers the archipelago is completely occupied by Ainu and there are almost no free territories and no newcomers are desirable. There are some groups of Ainu, some principalities which wage war between each other and safety of Korean newcomers is quite questionable.

This because the first newcomers from Korea set themselves in those territories which are close to Korean peninsula: in North-West of Kyushu and in Izumo.

With the arrival of Korean newcomers social tension and opposition not only between islanders and newcomers but also between various groups of  Ainu and newly arrived Koreans and, it is probable somehow to strengthen the position of their clans Korean leaders decided to enter the relations with leaders of the most powerful Ainu clans.

Just  let's image the following situation: Korean chief has a daughter and he made her to marry the chief of most powerful Ainu clan which is Yamatai clan. The "Korean" leader counts that his son-in-law will battle for his clan against other Ainu group and other "Koreans".

The Ainu leader also has his interests: first, strangers with whom it is going to become related, brought such technologies, possessing which, he can subdue hostile Ainu groups almost without any efforts; besides, the fact of possession the foreign woman also will lift his prestige and prestige of his clan in eyes of another groups of Ainu. 

And thus the most brutal Ainu leader takes as wife the most beautiful and educated «Korean princess». They give birth to a boy who gets the "Korean" education, learns to be at war at the father and inherits to the grandfather – becomes head of the "Korean" clan, but he bears Ainu Y-haplogroup.
And one of such sons of the Ainu chief and "Korean princess" became the ancestor of a clan which later was called tenno.

In other words these people were Ainu by their blood but under the influnce of Koreans they actively boorowed/accepted continental cultures.

Thus Japanese ethnicity was formed, so Japanese are just mixture of Ainu and Austronesian and Korean. And Japanese language is just a creol formed on the base of Old Korean.

Anyway it is just the general outline of the story about how Yamatay became Yamato.

Moreover it should be noted that from the very beginning there were very different groups of Ainu: certain groups created state structures and certain didn't. It is highly probable that those Ainu who later fought with Yamato state were considered as savages even by the people of Yamatai.

Also it highly possible that there were several Ainu states and that kingdom/principality of Yamatai subdued those which were more weak.
Also it should be noted that even early Yamatai was very different in its ethnic aspect. From the very beginning there were not only Ainu but also Austronesian and possibly some Korean and Chinese (Korean and Chinese could be on service of prices of Yamatai as ambassadors of Yamatai to Han and Wei)