Journal of Religion in Japan最新文献

The amabiko アマビコ is a chimerical aquatic hybrid similar to an oceanic ape with oracular and thaumaturgic powers, which inspired ludic and religious micro-practices in the late Edo (1603–1868) and early Meiji periods (1868–1912). The present study investigates the genealogy of the amabiko and the pivotal role played by itinerant sellers known as news criers (yomiuri) in the diffusion of images and stories concerning the amabiko, its worshiping protocols, and talismanic effects. Beyond the philological analysis of written documents, I also examine hitherto understudied prints and local gazetteers’ illustrations to understand the salvific value and “ocular luck” (ganpuku) associated with the amabiko. Moreover, this article shows how the socio-religious milieu concerning the amabiko had a trans-social nature, spanning both elite and subaltern classes. The amabiko’s physicality also provides a unique opportunity to explore the uncanny and polysemic contact areas between human and nonhuman bodies.

Although the legend of Empress Jingū and her divinely mandated conquest of the Korean peninsula first appeared in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, narratives of Empress Jingū proliferated in the fourteenth century. Following the Mongol Invasions, shifts in worldview, particularly regarding Japan’s relationship with the Asian continent, contributed to changes in how kami were conceptualized. In late medieval Jingū narratives, the kami who assist Empress Jingū take corporeal forms and become active agents in the human world. Drawing on Ernst Jentsch, Motoori Norinaga, and Rudolph Otto, I argue that these kami inhabit uncanny bodies: their physical forms appear human, but contain uncanny attributes that reveal their divinity to observant humans within the narrative. From Jingū in suprahuman form, Sumiyoshi as an old yet incredibly strong man, and Azumi no Isora’s barnacle-encrusted face, I illustrate how uncanny aspects of the physical bodies of kami signify their divine nature.

Men who roamed Japan’s mountains, conducting austerities for the benefit of themselves and others, have been historically viewed along an opposing set of extremes, ranging from wonderworkers, immortals, and other Buddhist ideal types to charlatans, social deviants, and subhumans. The ascetic’s ritual space—the mountains—functioned as a geographical other that could either arouse Buddhist awakening or strange, demonic forces. Against this extreme ambivalence toward mountains and mountain ascetics, organized religion offered a means to transcend the margins and find a secure place within society. After examining opposing depictions of medieval ascetics, this article explores an attempt within Shugendō to thoroughly remake their image. While the institutionalization of Shugendō has often been equated with spiritual decline, actors within Shugendō in fact sought to transform the body of the ascetic from an uncanny spectacle into a manifestation of the divine, thereby constructing a new identity for its practitioners.

This paper investigates the changes in the uncanny expressed in historical examples of sumo wrestling. Various pre-modern instances show sumo as a wild and relentless combat, often resulting in the injury or death of one of the wrestlers. However, due to sociopolitical changes in the early Edo period (1600–1868), a new mode of conduct emerged at shrines and temples that complied with regulations in the urban space and forced wrestling to adapt and curtail the uncanny. Eventually, a further drastic image shift occurred when popular culture picked up sumo wrestling. Finally, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, sumo wrestling turned into a “sport” while still retaining uncanny elements in its conduct. Thus, this paper concludes that religious institutions tamed sumo wrestling’s classical uncanniness; at the same time, new conduct secured the integration of uncanny elements within modern sumo wrestling.