Mountain Kami Part 1

Sketches of Japanese Folk Religion and Fairy Tales

Read our collection of Japanese Fairy Tales

Tall forest covered mountains rise from the ocean above the Japan’s villages and towns and into the sky where they bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between pure and impure. For it is from the mountains, from this avenue between heaven and earth which water springs. It is the pure water from these mountains which brings life to the world.

In Japan’s oldest folk religion’s the mountains are typically considered to be the most important and sacred of all objects.  In ancient times the fishermen believed that the deity who controlled navigation and weather lived upon the mountains. Further there are a number of folktales in Japan in which the Thunder Kami which brings rain lives within the mountains.

Life giving water comes down from the mountains in the form of springs, and glacial streams to water peoples crops and create the forests. So the source of all life in Japan came from the mountains, the source of agriculture. The mountain kami were also the agricultural kami, the terms Yama-no-kami (kami of the mountain) and Ta-No-Kami (Kami of the rice paddy) were interchangeable. So in order to insure an abundant crop the farmers had to entice the kami down from the mountains in the spring time.

Each mountain kami was unique. Some were bright red and easily angered, like the ones in Tono. Others. were the spirits of bears or stages. Many, others, however were women who had lots of children and so needed the village to provide them with food to feed these children.



Learn More About Japanese Kami


Japanese Fairy Tales With Kami


The Bear Kami

How a bear's spirit became the guardian of a village. This fairy tale shows one way animals could become guardian kami. There was also a white deer enshrined in one region, a cat which became the guardian spirit of a samurai's home, a dog, and even a cow.


The Witch of the Mountain
A mountain witch's child is starving so she demands that the village bring her food.


The Mountain Kami and the Ugly Fish
The village uses humor to bring a mountain kami back to them.


The Priest and the Kami's cave
Those who are boastful are punished by the mountain kami.

 

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Kami and the Religions of Japan

It has been argued that the Shintoism of Japan is made up of a big tradition and many little traditions. It might be more accurate however to state that Shintoism, or at least the major Shinto tradition which involves the imperial line is a construct which has been used to supersede the original religions of Japan. Japan is after all a fairly large place with many traditions which while similar can also be as drastically different from one region to the next as the Irish are to the Welsh, or the Cornish, or the people of Brittney. In other words Japan has or at least had a different religious tradition for each of its localities. Then during the Seventh through the Eighth Centuries the Imperial Court wrote a new text which introduced the idea of heavenly Kami to Japan, Kami who's goal it was to bring order to the Japan's existing kami and belief system.
In "A New History of Shinto," Teeuwen and Breen discuss extensively how what is now considered to be the primary tradition of Shintoism was constructed from Buddhism and Chinese belief systems in order to provide more power and support to the imperial Court. Even today the largest Shinto organization seems to be focused on this goal. This is not to say that the original faiths of Japan don't exist within Shintoism. These belief systems are very resilient and have adapted to this larger system with varying degrees of effectiveness. Rather this is to say that it is Japan's small traditions which make up its original faith. These small traditions are what exist within the folktales and folklore of Japan. In the tales of Bears which become the guardian kami of a village (http://zeluna.net/japanese-fairy-tales-bearspirit.html).
There are two sets of belief systems which merged in Pre-Shinto Japan, those of the Ainu and Emishi peoples who lived in Japan for thousands of years before the coming of the Altaic peoples from Korea who make up about 60% of Japan's Genetic makeup and who's language dominates the country. It seems likely, especially in studying the fairy tales of the Ainu that there was some amount of similarity between these two peoples. There are some Ainu fairy tales which can be used to better understand the original faith of these peoples. In addition I would recommend studying the works of Kunio Yanagita, the founder of Japanese folklore studies.
Many of these tales paint a very different picture of Kami then that depicted by the big tradition of Shintoism. It is interesting to note however that while the primary political movements of Europe attempted to demonify the traditions of the people Shintoism attempted to purify them, to remove their rough edges. To me though these rough edges are what makes folkloric research so interesting so worthwhile. Because Court religions, the belief systems of nobles were so sterile, they didn't deal with the scary realities of the ordinary person the way they needed to be dealt with. This is why small traditions persisted all over the world and especially in Japan for so long.

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