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257 NOTES CHAPTER 1: OPENING ORIENTATIONS 1. The literature I will be citing throughout this study has served to inform and direct much of my thinking. Although I often mention a work in passing without delving into its specific content, this practice is not to be construed as a slight to its importance. Rather I often cite specific works as a springboard into topical areas of relevance for the issue under discussion. 2. I base this number on 82,000 questionnaires prepared for distribution by the Central Association of Shinto Shrines in late 1993 and on registered shrines listed in the Religious Juridical Persons Law (Shūkyō hōjinhō). The number does not include the small roadside or unattended shrines one frequently sees in the countryside (see Bunkachō 1988:58–59.) I have heard complaints against the semantic slippage of the English word “shrine” by a number of priests, most of whom would prefer the Japanese “jinja” to be used for a large institution to distinguish it from its Catholic, Sikh, or Islamic counterparts. 3. Only in a contemporary context is it accurate to think of Shinto ritual as separate from Buddhism and (to use a loaded word when talking about any Japanese institution) “unique” in itself. Although this separation began early in the Meiji period , it was finally realized at an institutional level after the end of World War II (see Fridell 1973; Sakurai 1992; Grapard 1984). In focusing on contemporary Shinto and the selected use of a wide repertoire of its practices specific to one shrine, I will not attempt to account systematically for rituals or symbols with Buddhist overtones and those within “the way of the kami”; nor will I reduce shrine Shinto to only its political guise. Instead this study will present a sociocultural framework for understanding ritual events as they attempt to discipline and orient individuals to an operational ideology of continuity whereby priests and lay constituents select, invent , and maintain a highly reflexive sense of tradition, amenable to one’s own sense of cultural identity. 4. Meiji Shrine in Tokyo was the most popular destination, with 3.44 million visitors. After that were two temples, Naritasan Shinshō-ji in Chiba (3.04 million) and Kawasaki Daishi in Kanagawa (3.01 million), followed by Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka (2.82 million) and Atsuta Jingū in Aichi (2.27 million visitors). These numbers come not from the institutions themselves but from metropolitan police departments in each area (Yomiuri shinbun, January 5, 1998). Not everyone who participates in these shrine visitations at New Year’s is looking for a meaningful experience within a religious context. Nonetheless, these visitations remain significant enough that individuals are willing to endure crowds, cold, and financial expense in order to begin the new year in a manner that is socially sanctioned as efficacious. As one spike-haired, leather-jacketed motorcycle rider replied to my question of why he turned out at 2:00 a.m. on a freezing New Year’s morning at Kamigamo Shrine, “Well, I did this as a kid with my parents and so it just feels right.” The figure for New Year (or hatsumōde) visitations for the first five days of 1999 is 88,110,000, up 1.5 million from 1998 (Yomiuri shinbun, January 5, 1999). 5. The head priest of Kamigamo during the time of this study, Rev. Abe Makoto, recounted for me on several occasions an encounter he had in the 1930s with the dreaded military police (kenpeitai). He was in charge of a shrine in Fukushima prefecture on the day the police came to examine the shrine’s innermost sanctuary and catalog its goshintai, or sacred essence. Abe adamantly refused to allow them access and was willing to accept any punishment. Slapping his sword across the priest’s desk, the head officer told him that he would pay dearly for his insubordination. However, when word got out of Abe’s brave stance, even the senior military commander of the area commended him on his devotion to duty. No charges were brought nor was the goshintai ever subjected to cataloging. I will have more to say about these issues in the Conclusion. 6. Lebra’s convincing article attributes this popularity to several factors (T. Lebra 1997). Among the most important was a policy instigated shortly after Akihito ascended the throne to “open the court.” The new emperor and empress as well as their family were to become...