Kami Comeback

In thousands of Shinto shrines across Japan last week, sober-faced girls in white robes and vermilion skirts practiced the stately postures of the ritualistic Kagura dance. Musicians wearing eboshi (ceremonial headgear) thumped out an accompaniment on wooden drums, played the ancient ceremonial songs on reedy bamboo flutes. At Tokyo's huge Meiji shrine, the 190 fulltime staff members and 100 temporary helpers put in twelve-hour days cleaning up the building and consecrating tiny religious symbols for sale to worshipers. The week-long New Year's festival--Japan's most important religious event--was coming, and Shinto was gearing for a busy and lucrative time.

This New Year an estimated 45 million Japanese will flock to Shinto shrines to watch the Kagura dancing. As they approach the altars, worshipers will clap their hands (a sign of rejoicing), silently pray for divine protection, and drop some coins into the waiting coffers as they leave. Meiji shrine alone expects a minimum of 2.000,000 visitors--which is also "the physical maximum we can accommodate." says Hiroshi Taniguchi. the shrine's leading ritualist.

Way of the Gods. The hordes of New-Year worshipers will accurately measure the striking comeback made by one of the world's oldest--and at one time most ominous--religions. Vaguely animistic. Shinto (which means "the way of the gods") is based on a belief in the divine efficacy of Kami (deities). By worshiping the Kami --which include everything from a believer's ancestors to the wind and the trees

the faithful Shintoist gets spiritual guidance and protection in his own way of life. Shinto has no known founder, no Bible, no dogma, no regular churchgoing. Japan's only major home-grown religion, it tolerates and even welcomes joint membership by Buddhists (who number 47,275,000 in Japan) and Christians (605,000), counts its own numbers vaguely a's 13,600,000 "parishioner households."

Because Shinto taught that the Emperor was the descendant of the gods who had created Japan, the religion was made a patriotic duty for all Japanese by the country's prewar nationalistic leaders. Shrines received state support, and priests became government officials. The ancient Shinto slogan, Hakko ichiu, meaning "the world under one roof." became the doctrinal justification for Japan's aggressive expansion.

The roof fell in on Shinto after the war. On Dec. 15. 1945, General Douglas MacArthur's occupation government cut all ties between Shinto and the state, forbade teaching of its doctrines in public schools. On New Year's Day 1946. Emperor Hirohito publicly told his people that the story of his descent from the gods was only "myth and legend." In the shock that followed disestablishment, priests cast off their symbolic white robes to become black marketeers; shrines rented out space to small businesses, or served as places of assignation for prostitutes.

Weddings & Nurseries. Shinto today has recovered all but a fraction of its prewar strength, thanks largely to a missionary use of Western sales techniques. To keep the faith alive. Shinto leaders formed an Association of Shinto Shrines, which now includes 79,000 of Japan's 90,000 shrines. Since nearly all non-Christian weddings in Japan were traditionally Shinto ceremonies, shrines added wedding halls to their facilities; Meiji shrine, which has supervised 4,300 weddings this year, even added a marriage counseling office. Like the U.S. suburban church, the well-equipped Shinto shrine offers a variety of family services; members of the association now run 97 kindergartens and 89 nurseries.

In its postwar comeback, Shinto has apparently been careful to divest itself of the old militaristic overtones. The old slogan Hakko ichiu is now interpreted to mean the spirit of peaceful world government. "And who," asks one priest, "could object to that?"

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