Shinto is the ancient animist tradition that held together the various tribes (uji) of Japan. What beliefs are there in Shinto?
Shinto, it may be argued, is the force which has most unified Japanese throughout history and may do so still today. In distant Japanese history, it was the uji (or clan) which was the dominant social force. A person born in the islands would be fundamentally a member of the uji rather than anything else. With a low level of technology and cultural achievement, it would have been difficult to distinguish one uji from another and so it was necessary to reinforce any differences that might already exist or which might be manufactured. One difference was in the worship (or at least paying respect to) local spirits in the practice known as animism. In common with cultures across East and Southeast Asia, Japanese uji recognized spirits of rain, of streams and lakes, of mountains and numerous other physical manifestations of nature which might have influence over the vital issues of the harvest, of illness and childbirth and of those few days on which it was considered acceptable to relax from the daily struggle of coaxing a living from the land and instead celebrate with pork, rice wine, dance, song and all other good things.
As the years continued to unfold and habits solidified and became more firmly related to geographical places, Shinto became recognized as a cultural practice which united the Japanese people and, as it transpired, separated them from others. Contact between Japan and China, Korea and other parts of the mainland may have been sporadic and subject to numerous incidents of bad and treacherous weather, but there was enough to show that people were more or less the same whichever side of the water they might be found. Reinforcing the importance of religion as defining a set of people and separating them from others became an important way for members of the political elites to provide legitimacy for their positions and, even today, there are very many examples of the rich and privileged leading the less wealthy in religions ceremonies which are not only designed to show how favored by heaven are the rulers but how those who are ruled must be happy and content with the situation in which they find themselves.
Shinto developed over the centuries until it encompassed a wide range of customs and practices that drew together all classes of society in an intricate network. It permitted the entrance of Buddhism and other rival faiths by accommodating and adapting itself to them. The most severe task that it faced was to accept the defeat of the Japanese army by the British and Empire and Allied Forces (including the USA) during the Second World War. The emperor had become associated with the valency and truth of the Shinto form of religion. Reconciling defeat with continuance of religious belief led to some psychic and psychological damage to many Japanese people.
John Walsh, Shinawatra University, March 2007
