- Suguo Shrine in Okayama - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugou-jinja
The Ryukyu Islands of southwestern Japan, today known as Okinawa, span 1000 km east to west and 400 km. north to south, in an arc from Kyushu Island to Taiwan. Okinawa is comprised of 160 islands, 48 of which are inhabited. The islands have a wet subtropical, oceanic climate. The older official name of the islands, the Ryukyu Kingdom, was changed to Okinawa (Prefecture) in 1879. At the halfway point in this chain is the largest island, Okinawa Island with Naha as its capital. The individual islands each have their own dialects, folklore, religious rituals and deities, but they are all connected by basic concepts and similar ceremonies.
Ancient Beliefs
The ancient beliefs of the Ryukyu Islanders predate influences from China such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. They also predate the somewhat similar beliefs of the Japanese Shinto religion which is also animistic and has some of the same roots as the ancient indigenous religion of Okinawa.
The Ainu of northern Japan and the people of the southern islands of Okinawa share many ancient religious beliefs and practices. Both peoples were descended from the ancient Jomon peoples, although the Ryukyu Islands were also populated by migrating people through an ancient land bridge to Asia and through Taiwan. Although distanced geographically, their distance from the main areas of Japan left them with older, longer-lasting traditions which permeated their folk beliefs prior to the advance of the Yayoi peoples in their lands.
The shared beliefs of the Ryukyu and the Ainu are often referred to as Koshinto, meaning "the way of the ancient gods." This refers to the religion or the Jomon and the Yayoi prior to the development of the Shinto religion of Japan, an early animistic system of beliefs.
Female Deities and Shamans
Both the Ainu and the Ryukyu cultures have many female deities and their shamans are also female. These shamans communicate with the spirits, being the bridge between the land of the gods and humans. The female deities and shamans leave clues about the higher ancient social status of the female in their respective cultures. Both cultures are animistic, having many deities. They reverence natural phenomena and animals as divine. In both cultures their daily lives are full of religious rituals showing their obedience to the ancient rules of piety as they give thanks to the deities in many ways for the blessings that they receive.
Both the Ainu and the Ryukyu peoples have a main female deity who is the goddess of the hearth-- the goddess of fire. In Okinawa, this hearth goddess is venerated by the oldest woman of the household. While the house may also have a Buddhist butsudan, or ancestral shrine, the hearth goddess is served and prayed to and attended to first, then the ancestors of the butsudan are served. The fire goddess is a much older tradition than ancestor worship in Okinawa and takes precedence.
Animal Deities
In the north, the Ainu have a tradition of worship of the brown bear, a practice that probably originated with the people of Siberia. This tradition does not appear in the south where there are no bears. Another tradition that appears in the south is the worship of the snake god, which represents rice agriculture. While the snake is both a Shinto and Buddhist deity, some have theorized that grain worship may have existed in Japan before Buddhism and prior to the development of Shinto Japan, from the Jomon or Yayoi periods. The bear, with meat and fur being of utmost importance to the Ainu, may have replaced the importance of the grain deity in the northern country, while the grain/rice deity held its importance in southern Japan..
More than 1/3 of Shinto shrines in Japan with full-time priests, over 32,000, are dedicated to the snake deity, Inari, which is the later embodiment of the grain deity also representing agriculture and fertility. Many, many more small shrines for the snake deity can be found by the road, in fields, in homes and in offices. In mythological symbolism, both the grain and the snake deities are gods of agriculture and fertility, representing rebirth, regeneration, and the throwing off of the old with the rebirth of the new.
Sources:
Ashkenazy, Michael. Handbook of Japanese Mythology ABC-Clio (2003)
Sered, Susan Women of the Sacred Groves: Divine Priestesses of Okinawa Oxford University Press (1999)
Paula I. Nielson - Paula I. Nielson, Ph.D., holds credentials and interests in anthropology, archaeology, religion, the Middle East and Asia.
