Purity and danger: shamans, diviners and the control of danger in premodern Japan as evidenced by the healing rites of the Aogashima islanders

Abstract

In this article, we draw on data from fieldwork on the Izu islands and from historical sources to examine the role of shamans in identifying and managing danger and the ways in which surviving practices reflect of the symbolism of premodern Japanese rituals. In most of contemporary Japan, misfortunes, such as illness or maritime accidents, are accounted for, predicted and managed and through modern science-based risk systems such as medicine. However, premodern systems have survived in Aogashima, a small isolated island 222 miles southeast of Tokyo, which forms part of the Izu group of islands. In this article, we use data from ethnomusicological fieldwork on the Izu islands (Hachijō and Aogashima) conducted in the period 2003–2005 and 2010 to examine premodern rituals that address misfortune and uncertainty. We found that on Aogashima, islanders group together a range of dangers such as illness, childbirth and maritime safety and use the skills of shamans to identify the source of the danger, cursing demons, and undertake rituals to counter such dangers by exorcising the demons and their curses. It is clear from documentary sources that shamanistic divination was widely practiced in the Izu islands in the nineteenth century. It is also evident that it was being marginalised and driven underground by the actions of central authorities on the mainland. Given this radical break with the past, the premodern systems in Japan have to be reconstructed from historical documents plus evidence from surviving practices such as those on Aogashima. The shamanistic tradition on Aogashima has become disconnected from mainstream Japanese politics and religion, but it retains a local island-based rationale and functions to identify and deal with specific types of dangers.

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