Monologue 6 - Shamanism in Okinawa 1

In the sixth Woven Energy monologue, Damon talks about Shamanism on the island of Okinawa, drawing parallels with the worldwide Shamanic phenomenon and looking at the details of how the mostly female Okinawan shamans, called Yuta, provide a supportive and nurturing aspect of Okinawan life.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello, and welcome to Monologue six of the Woven Einjine podcast.
My name is Damon Smith. One of our patrons recently
has visited Okinawa. That's Tamo Hi Tamo, and I thought
it'd be quite interesting to do a kind of one
off on Shamnism in an hour. It gives him insight

(00:32):
on the shaman tradition in that particular area of the world.
I think, and a lot of people know a whole
lot about. It's not anything that I have any personal
experience of, but I've done a lot of reading around
the subject. So this episode may be a little bit
more anthropological than most, but I'll give it the best

(00:57):
go that I can. And first of all, shout out
to all of our patrons. Thanks for the amazing support
you guys give us through thick and thin recent years
at Cambridge. For me have I think I don't know
which is worst thick go thin, but whichever one is
the worst, that's the one I've kind of been going

(01:19):
through in terms of my availability, in terms of my
time to do these things. But I want to get
this thing out, so I'm finding falling asleep. So apologies
if the episode is not up to the usual standard,
I will do my best, So just before we get started,
I'll shout out to a few people who are well,

(01:39):
you know why, I'm shouting out a number of our patrons.
Anybody is interested in signing up to become a patron,
head over at the patreon dot com slash Wolven engine.
You'll find us there. So in a particular order, I
want to thank and A WSM and Gavin and Dev

(01:59):
Ja Hi Dev and MoG's and r mc fresh Tiger
Tracks in the Mud, Tristan, Chris and Alex and Emma

(02:22):
and CM, John Blagden, Athena and another John. I could
go back further. Probably we haven't been getting a lot
of men's podcast episodes out recently, so I've probably thanked
most of you on the Heretics podcast that we seem

(02:44):
to do a little better and getting episodes out. But
all of the patrons, every single one of you, are hugely,
hugely appreciated. My heavy duty engagement on a big, fairly
big project at Cambridge comes to an end at the
end of July. So I'm not saying I'm not going

(03:07):
to get my episodes out before then. But what I'm
saying is that following on from that, I will make
sure that there are that the remainder of the year
is and we call it festooned with woven enji and
heretechs episodes. That's my that's my commitment once I get
free of this project at Cambridge. So thank you guys

(03:28):
for your patience. Okay Okinawa it's a small island to
the southwest of Japan. It never was fully part of
Japan for most of its history. For most of its existence.
It's it actually goes back an awful long way. They've
found evidence of human habitation in Okinawa as far back

(03:50):
as twenty thousand BCE, and they've found discoveries of human
fossils known as Minato Gawa man and those fossils are
of that is that they're what twenty two thousand years old,
so we know that human habitation had reached Oknauer at

(04:16):
that early time. The famous German culture, which also was
in mainland Japan, reached that island group island in between
ten thousand and three hundred BCE. And that's as you

(04:37):
may well know as a as a Neolithic culture characterized
by very distinctive, very incredibly artistic pottery. But they were
mostly under gatherer societies. I shouldn't say, but I should say,
and they were mostly under gatherer society's very shamanic society.
We can see that from the pottery. The pottery is
absolutely incredible. In fact, looking at it from our artistic

(05:00):
point of view, looking at the pottery of the German
period and then the pottery of the later Yayoi period,
actually that in many ways the German period pottery was
superior artistically to the later Yayoi period. Between three hundred
BC and the twelfth century of the Sea Christian Era,

(05:21):
there's a period in Okinawa known as the shell mound period.
There was a lot of development of agriculture and fishing,
and they had more sedentary communities. Obviously, the seas around
Okinawa are very productive, and these huge shell mounds that
they back to that period kind of show how much

(05:43):
shellfish these guys were pulling out. We won't say a
shell mound, you're talking about something often the size of
a small hill, which is just the leftover us the
shells of the of the shellfish that they'd been eating,
and the fish as well, fish bones and that type
of stuff. So they were able to have more sedentary
communities and iron tools and early rice cultivation also reached

(06:09):
Okinawa of what became Okinawa at this time. From the
twelfth century onwards, there was a move towards a unification
of Okinawa as was known as the yuq Kingdom. There
was a gradual formation of initially three major chieftaincies. These

(06:32):
were based around particular castles called Gusuku, and there was Hokkasan,
which is known as the North Mountain, chu Zan which
is known as the Middle Mountain, and Nanzan the South Mountain.
These are the three rival chieftaincies, and the period is
known as the Gusuku period because of these castles that

(06:54):
were constructed at that time. In thirteen seventy two, King
Satto of Chousa formally established tributary relations with the Ming
dynasty in China. We've talked about this on some of
our Heretics episodes, so I won't go back over the
history there. But Okinawa gradually became an important center for

(07:19):
trade and an important stepping off point for trade, and
it imported a lot of culture from China, some culture
from Japan, and from culture from elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Because of the trade relations and the trading system became
very lucrative over time. Buddhism arrived in mainland Japan around

(07:41):
the sixth century, and it then gradually spread and became
established through Japan. Okinawa was not Japan at this time,
but it had strong trading relations with Japan. So given
its position as a strategic location as a trading h
and its historical interactions with both China and mainland Japan,

(08:04):
Buddhist ideas probably started seeping into the what became the
Kingdom of Okinawa in around the fifth sixth seventh century.
That's sort of time period, and so a lot of
these Buddhist ideas have been influential, and we can see
that in modern day and some of the martial arts

(08:25):
that came out of Okinawa what people now called karate,
which was never called karate in Okinawa, but it was
called that when it went to Japan, but it definitely
did originate in Okinawa's form of Okinawan Keempo has a
lot of Buddhist leaning cultures. So from this kind of

(08:45):
early date, any Shamanism that was in Okinawa was obviously
influenced by like everywhere else in the world, influenced by
and so somewhat embedded within the extra time religion of
the region, which in this case with Buddhism. But there's
a large caveat on this is that Buddhism never became

(09:06):
as strongly established in Okinawa as it was in mainland Japan,
for instance, and the coinciding rise of the Ruku Kingdom
and its flourishing trade relations led to these very extensive

(09:29):
trade ties with nin Dency China from around thirteen seventy two,
and with Korea and later with Japan, and this facilitated
you know, spiritual ideas, but which would include shamanism, shamanistic
types of ideas from other regions in Southeast Asia. So
the key point is from the fourteenth century onwards, Okinawa

(09:53):
was not an isolated place. It's been heavily engaged with
other countries and culture of Southeast Asia through his trading
relationships for a very long time. In fourteen oh four, Shahanshi,
who was a powerful chieftain of Okinawa, he overthrew the
king of Chusan the Middle Mountain, and then in fourteen

(10:16):
sixteen he conquered hok Xan and in fourteen twenty nine
he conquered Nanzan and with this fourteen twenty nine. This
unified the whole of the Okinawan island under his rule,
and this is where the kingdom of the Riuqi was established.
And this is basically wasn't known as the Show dynasty

(10:37):
the first Short dynasty and Shuri Castle became the capital,
Shue Castle being a very famous cattle castle, again strongly
associated in reality and in mythology with the development of karate.
Of what became karate, it was called various things like
toade in Okinawa, and this Linkashiry Castle still extends to

(11:04):
the present day. In fourteen sixty nine, the First Short
Dynasty ended and shaw N established the Second Short Dynasty,
which goes on to rule for the next four hundred years.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ruku Kingdom flourishes
are flourished as a major maritime training help in East Asia,

(11:26):
acting as an intermediary between China and Japan, Korea and
Southeast Asian nations. And this is not just in terms
of trade now that starts to be political as well,
and this is kind of the golden age of the
Ryukian trade and culture. This is the golden age of Okinawa.
I feel like between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Unfortunately,
there were victims of their own success, the Satsuma clan,

(11:51):
so she might that would be the Shimatsu clan of
the Satsuma Domain in the south of Japan, a very
famous clan who ultimately precipitated the Mejor restoration. Many years later.
They looked at the UK and thought, hmmm, this place
is quite desirable. They've got a lot of stuff going

(12:11):
on there that's making some money. We were also a
maritime trading block, if you like, and we basically they
became interested in in gaining control of the Luq Kingdom.
And so there's a Buddhist piece called Taichu whose dates

(12:34):
are fifteen fifty two to sixteen thirty nine. Headed over
to the Ruq Archipelago in sixteen oh three and he
wrote something about shamanism and other religious and traditional practices.
So we do know a little bit about it even
at that early date, and there was also an established

(12:57):
Buddhist presidence by that time. He was himself a but
as priest. In sixteen or nine, the Shimazo clan from
the Satsuma Domain invaded du Karu and the Rikiuns get defeated,
and this is very famous. You know, there's all those
old myths about the karate practitioners hardening their hands so

(13:18):
they can break samurai armor with their fists and this
sort of stuff. And they started they weren't allowed to
carry weapons, so they started to use oars and you know,
rice flails and various other agricultural and fishing equipment as
weapons as martial arts weapons. And I think there's probably
some truth to that, but whatever, they certainly didn't repel

(13:41):
the Japanese. They had no chance to be honest, the
the Satsuma domain and most powerful domains in Japan, and
the Okanams had literally no chance against them, so they
ended up becoming a vassal state of Satsuma. And some
sources suggest that Buddhism, along with Confucianism and Japanese style shamanism.

(14:07):
Don't know whether we collection or not this point, influenced
the Rikyuan religious practice over time. And there wasn't really
a singular moment of introduction of any of these things.
They all sort of because of the nature of the
activities of the kingdom, they all sort of filtered in.
So what we have in Japan today, which now Okinawa

(14:30):
is seen as part of we have this kind of
melting part of religious culture that's given rise to for
people who are interested in shamanism, to the rise of
the very shamanistic Sinshiku in Japan in modern times. This
same sort of thing happened in Okinawa, but the mix
the balance was rather different, a more direct and documented

(14:55):
period of Buddhist establishment. Remember the Buddhists of the guys
who write stuff down. So this is why we're interested
in Buddhism in Okinawa is because nobody else is going
to write about any of this stuff that began after
the Satsuma invasion and the Tatuma domain was itself a
Buddhist region, and it did introduce Zen Buddhism, which is

(15:18):
many people as Chan in Chinese Chinese Chan Buddhism in China,
so everybody knows it's heavily associated with Karate in the
modern age. Even then, its spread was a bit limited
and often restricted by the elite or Satsuma officials. It
didn't really deeply populate permeate the general populace in the

(15:38):
same way that the indigenous uk and religion did. From
sixteen one on nine onwards, the Ruku Kingdom maintained its
tributing relation ship with China. So this is going on
at the same time as it's supposed. You know, it's
control by Tatsuma. And that's also how the Tatsu the

(16:00):
guys operated. They tend to do a lot of stuff
behind the scenes, so it wouldn't have been hugely obvious
that they were pulling the strings of Okinawa. That's how
those guys operated. And on the face of it, the
Riku kingdom was still a vassal tributary kingdom to China,
as was everybody in those days, and you could say
that around the same sort of time period, Japan was

(16:22):
a tributary kingdom to China with the recognition of Vashkaga
Yoshimitsu in particular Oshi also Yoshi Akira as the kings
of Japan by the Chinese emperor, and Satsuma was indirectly
benefiting from the trade with China, so they didn't want
to stamp in out or anything like that. Between the

(16:44):
seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, despite t Satsuma's control, the
Rikyu and culture remained quite unique and continue to develop
its own spiritual or religious shape. In eighteen seventy two,
the Japanese Mejor government. So remember this is after the
Meiji Restoration of eighteen sixty eight. So the Samurai gone
now and now it's this western leaning Meji government that's

(17:08):
up for modernization. It. You laterally declared the Ruku Kingdom
to be a Japanese domain rather than a domain of
the satsumas it was. And remember these guys, the Satsuma
guys were those were the guys who overthrew the previous
regime among others. So they were they were involved in

(17:32):
this new Meiji government. That's probably the best way to
put it. So it will got dot called the Ruku
and the Ruku Kingdom as a Japanese domain. And then
in eighteen seventy nine, Japan formerly an lax as the
kingdom and abolished the kingdom entirely, establishing the Okinawa perfection.
Now don't quote me on this, but I do recall

(17:53):
that the Okinawan royal family were given quite high like
the king, they were given quite high ranking positions in
the Japanese aristocracy. I don't like a marquis or something
like that. So they weren't overthrown in a in a
let's just remove them where it was it was they

(18:15):
were incorporated into the aristocracy of Japan. That's that's what
my memory tells me, and this is known as the
Uq disposition or the Uq Shubun. Late in the nineteenth
and the early twentieth century, Okinawa underwent forced assimilation policies
by the Japanese government. And we've covered those same policies

(18:40):
that were applied against the Ainu in the north of
Japan in our Iqdo episode on I think that's on
Heretics on the Heretics podcast. This is about Japan's forced modernization.
You can say it was a bad thing, and it
destroyed a lot of local cultures and stuff like that,
and it certainly did a lot of harm to shamanism Japan,
not just that. I don't just mean in the out

(19:03):
outstretched regions, I mean in the heartland of Japan as well.
But on the other hand, you could say it was
necessary because imagine if Japan hadn't gone through that modernization,
and then they had they were so Japanese war, the
outcome would probably be in the exact polar opposite of
what the outcome actually was, and history would have been
very different, and maybe Japan would have followed the same

(19:24):
fit as China in being carved up between the Western powers.
But as it happened, that didn't happen, and that probably
indirectly benefited the Ruku Kingdom or the Riuku Islands by
allowing them to maintain their culture to a certain extent,
at least behind the scenes. This transition of secrecy that

(19:46):
we see in Karate, you can see there were good
reasons for the secrecy. It wasn't just for the sake
of it. And they suppressed the Riukuan language and a
lot of the culture, and they promoted the Japanese education system,
the modern Japanese education system, and land reform and things
like that. In nineteen oh three, the first railway line

(20:06):
was opened in Okinawa. Between the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties,
economic hardship and emigration to other parts of Japan and
overseas started to increase, especially to places like Hawaii and Brazil.
And you can see that James Mitosse, for instance, who
took Kempo to Hawaii, he was from not from Okinawa,

(20:30):
but he was from the domain that had controlled Okinawa,
the Satsuma Domain in southern Kshu. He was from that
domain in nineteen fort was Scipe over World War two
because there's an awful lot of information about Okinawa. During
World War two, it was an absolutely pivotal strategic point.

(20:52):
What happened to the people in Okinaw was absolutely awful,
and it was something they had no control over because
it was you know, basically Japan versus the USA, and
the people of Okinaw was wishes and ideas and life
were Although they were brainwashed by the Japanese government, they

(21:15):
were still not asked whether they wanted any of this
war brought to their little island. So nineteen forty five
April first June twenty second, the Battle of Okinawa was
one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in
the Pacific and it results in huge devastation of its
estimate that one third of the civilian population of Okinawa

(21:38):
was killed in the battle, and much of Okinawa's cultural
heritage was what basically exploded. In nineteen seventh September nineteen
forty five, the US forces established the US Military Government
of the Ruku Islands, and so basically Okinaw in many

(21:59):
ways were the has to suffer anywhere outside of Japan
before the before the atomic bombs were used. In nineteen
fifty two, the Treaty of San Francisco came into effect
and Japan regained its sovereignty, but Okinawo importantly did not,

(22:24):
and the rest of the Uruka Islands remained on the
US administration. So at this point in time, in the
nineteen fifties, you can see that okinawos actually a kingdom
under military occupation by a kingdom that was under military occupation.
If does that make sense. There were two levels of
occupation going on in Okinawa. They had been occupied by
the Japanese and now they were occupied by the Americans.

(22:48):
And in the nineteen fifties to sixties, the US air
bases expanded significantly, and this had both positive and negative effects.
These the US military bases, not just air bases, naval
bases in Okinaware. It's a very strategic location. It gives
access to the South China Sea, and it's an area

(23:13):
from which it near to which it's very hard to
establish large, for instance, air bases. So that was and
that the US soldiers being in Okinawa benefit at the
Okinawan economy big time. But on the other hand, the
expansion of the Okinawa is a place where land is

(23:36):
at a premium, and the expansion of the military bases
was often done through fast land appropriation. Was led to
kind of widespread protests and a strong reversion movement in
nineteen which which was kind of semi successful. In nineteen
seventy two, fifteenth of May, Okinawer got returned to Japanese sovereign.

(24:00):
He was reverted after twenty seven years of US administration.
But you might say that it wasn't folly reverted and
that it wasn't reverted to Okinawan administrations. But there remained
and remains a strong US military presence in Okinawa and
continues to be a source of tension and debate. Okinawer,

(24:24):
on the other hand, became something of an international destination
through a thing called the Okinawa International Ocean Exposition Exposed
seventy five, which was held in okinaur to promote economic development,
and then Okinawa, I guess suffered the same fortunes as
mainland Japan economically through to nineteen ninety five, when the

(24:49):
stability of the US presence in Japan was threatened by
the rape of a twelve year old Okinawan girl by
US serviceman, which massive protests and renewed calls for base reduction,
and this was successful to US. So incidentally, the servicemen
were successfully prosecuted in nineteen ninety six the i'd got

(25:18):
dishonorable discharges when they were freedom person In nineteen ninety six,
the US and Japan agreed to return thuten Air Station
to Japan, but the relocation of its functions went to
a place called Henoko, which is also within ok An Hour,
and this remains highly controversial to this day. In two

(25:41):
thousand there was a G eight summer Tilda knock an
Hour Shiry Castle, which was largely destroyed in World War
Two was reconstructed shore we say to were extremely high
standard and registered as a UNESCO World out its State,
along with some of the riqu and Cusuku sites. And

(26:01):
from the twenty tents the present ongoing protests against the
relocation of Futenma Station to Henoko, which include in modern
times stuff around environmental concerns as well as the you know,
this is okernaw, it's not USA kind of thing. But

(26:22):
the concerns related to the military presence continue. But you
can also say that the economic benefit of the military
presence is still there. So I think the best way
to say is that the population somewhat divided over that
situation to the present day. So, as we've said, Buddhism

(26:42):
has a presence there, and this is what Buddhist writings are.
One of the ways we know what happened with religion
in Okinawa. We we know that the what exists in
Okinawa today in terms of the religious spirituality is somewhat

(27:05):
different from how it exists in Japan, and that includes Buddhism,
and Buddhism doesn't really dominate the spiritual landscape in Okinawa
in the same way that it does in mainland Japan.
So Okinawa's religious landscape today and in the last few

(27:28):
hundred years, you can say it's kind of a rich tapestry
woven from indigenous beliefs and a lot of external spiritual influences.
Before becoming part of Japan, the Riuku Kingdom fostered the
unique spiritual tradition characterized by ancestor worship and a deep
respect for the interconnectedness of the living, the dead, and

(27:52):
the natural world. So it's very much a shamanistic interconnectedness
type of spiritual tradition with slightly more emphasis on rights
for the dead and stuff like that. Then you might
get in a typical undergatherous society, but it's still very
very shamanistic. In this indigenous belief system. The spiritual power

(28:18):
of women, which is a concept known as narigami, is
also very marked. And I think, as we said before
in other episodes, women seem to have been dominant in
the shamanism as shamans in the shamanism of many different
parts of the world, Japan included when you go back

(28:40):
in time, and it tends to be that a more
male dominant traditions come in later in the history of
these areas. This is also true in Mongolia. Incidentally, a
key feature of the Okinawan religion was this central rule
of women processors, who are known as noro, ded community

(29:00):
rituals and at sacred sites, which called attaki. You can
think of them as groves. Well, they are groves, if
you'll find if you do a search on attaki Okinawa
and Google images, you'll see their groves. They're you know,
usually surrounded by trees, and they have a lot of
shrine and you know, all that kind of stuff. These sites,
often grows on natural clearings, were considered places where kami

(29:23):
descended to community. The spirits concerned descended to commune with humans.
The kikoe or gimi, often alet of the king, headed
a hierarchy of these nauro and held significant religious authority
within Okinawa, sometimes considered equal to the king's political power.

(29:44):
Certainly back in time, this this is the Okinawan king.
Over time, this religion absorbed influencers from the other belief systems.
Confucianism was introduced from China, and this impacted these kind
of ancestral ceremonies and social structures from semi century onwards.
But as a later Japanese forms of Shinto found their

(30:05):
way into Okinawan regis life, particularly among the elite. The
core of Okinawan regis practice remained rooted in the indigenous traditions.
So let's talk about utah. Utah are shamans. They are
not the neuro, so noro is a priestess and the
noturo may do things that are slightly shamanistic. But the

(30:27):
notauro is a separate role in Okinawan's spirituality from a
utah who's effectively a shaman. And within this sort of
dualistic religious framework, the utah emerged as very important figures,
unlike the noturo, who held official positions within a structured
system of social organization. The Utah were individual shamans, primarily women,

(30:52):
who claimed to have a kind of direct communication with
the spirit world in the way that shamans do the
world over. They acted as intermediaries between the living and
the dead. They offered guidance, divination, and healing. Remember this
is no longer a hander gatherers society, So all of
the stuff we've talked about in previous podcast episodes about

(31:13):
you know, different degrees of degeneration of shamanism as it
moves into settled, civilized cultures would have been going on
in an hour as well. But the Utah were forming
playing the role of shaman's in right to the present day.
The people consulted utah to understand the causes of misfortune,

(31:34):
of illness, or the problems than to seek solutions through
communication with the spirit world and ancestors. Utah often called
upon were often called upon to perform exorcisms, conduct rituals,
and interpret ormans. The Utah operated independently, often from their homes,
and their role was distinct from that of the novel.

(31:56):
The Nauto officiated community wide rituals, while the Utah provided
personalized consultations, despite their importance, have faced a lot of
periods of suppression. Again, you know, as soon as you're
shaman and you're not controlled by central government, you're going
to face periods of suppression. It goes with the territory.
In the early twentieth century, the major government attempted to

(32:18):
outlaw their practices, viewing them as a threat to modernization.
During and after the Battle of Okinawa, when many Okinawan's
experience profound spiritual dislocation due to the loss of life
and disruption of traditional rituals, the muta performed a really
crucial role in helping people cope with grief and reconnect

(32:38):
with the spiritual realm. So they were very active after
the war, suppressed up until the end of the war.
Of course, there were changes in religious major changes in
religious legislation in Japan after the war that freed up things,
that freed up a new wave of spiritual reality to

(33:01):
bubble up in Japan's case of resurgence of the shinshuku
and in Okinawa's case, although a lot of these people
had died in the war, those utah who were left,
those uta who carried on the tradition were able to
come to the far again at this time. The belief
in onnari gami the spiritual power of women continues to

(33:24):
influence Ocanawan society and the role of the Utah. While
some people view the Utah with skepticism, Menyucinowans still seek
their council, recognizing their connection to traditional beliefs, traditional spiritual practices,
and their ability to dress spiritual problems concerns. Today, the

(33:45):
Uta continue to be an important part of Okinawan culture,
representing the kind of enduring strength of indigenous traditions in
the face and modernization and external influencers. When discussing the
Okinawan priestesses, the nauro in the historical context and broader
term is kaminchu for female ritual specialists, which also includes

(34:08):
the You know, it's kind of important to differentiate between
them and typical Western understandings of shamanism. But you know,
Western understandings of shamanism aren't that great anyway, So that
doesn't mean that that the society is not shamanistic. It
just doesn't necessarily fit into the picture of what a
Westerner who has only a superficial, you know, kind of
general media influence view of what shamanism is would see

(34:31):
as shamanism, and there are many overlapping features within society,
which is true of all shamans that work inside several
civilized settle societies. And at this point I want to
just shout out to a book, a really really good study.
I mean it's an it's not a practical study, it's

(34:53):
a intellectual, academic study. A book called Women of Sacred
Growth by Susan sarahd. Great read, nice chunky book. If
you're interested in this kind of stuff, then it's just
a fantastic, fantastic thing to go through. And that book
is a great source for figuring out the roles of

(35:17):
these utah, the women, the female shamans, how they fit
into society doing things like healing and divination, divine calling election.
They have the idea that they are coming to a
godly person. They feel this call in some ways. There

(35:38):
might be some examples of what's known as the shaman
sickness that we've talked about before they go through a
kind of spiritual illness before becoming a shaman or before
realizing that they are destined to become a shaman, and
they have a connection to nature through these sacred sites
the attacking the groves, and interestingly, researching this, I didn't

(36:01):
realize how much forestation there is in Okinawa. There are
a lot of trees there, and so this is why
when you see these pictures that groves with the trees around, Yeah,
there's a lot of forest in Okinawa. And this reflects
a deep connection with the natural world, which is obviously
a common feature in many short stick traditions. So the

(36:24):
sacred groves Okinawa has a sick significant amount of force cover.
According to the Global Forest Watch, in twenty twenty, natural
forests covered up approximately forty two percent of Okinawa's land area,
so it's doing a lot better than the UK. The
northern part of Okinawa Island, known as Yanbaru, contains some

(36:44):
of the largest surviving tracts of subtropical rainforest in Asia.
So there's a here a review of a few elements
that differentiate them from some kind of classic shamanic models.
There's an emphasis on presence over ecstatic power. The noro's

(37:06):
power is less about so this is the priestess is
less about ecstatic or individual spirit procession and more about
embodying a benevolent presence that makes the kami tangible, so
you can see that this is a lead by example
in terms of a spiritual leading a spiritual lifestyle, and

(37:28):
their rituals are often communal, focused on prayers and offerings
and maintaining communal well being rather than individuals. Displays a
power through trans as a regular shaman might do what
people call trans anyway, you know, jealistic and jealousity based technique.
While communication with deities is central, the how differs from

(37:52):
the active journeying spirit journeys often associated with with other
films of shamanis and for instance, are not seen too
much among the Noturo notro is a publicly an official,
publicly funded role, especially historically within the Rukuan Kingdom, so
the not held a special institutionalized not in the hereditary

(38:16):
position within the state religion. This can again contrasts with
how shaman's operating around the world. But remember we're talking
about the not not the utah here, and there's a
lack of hierarchy. The Okinawan religious system kind of lacks
the hierarchies of fairly rigid hierarchies found in many religions,

(38:38):
including shaman Shamanistic systems where a powerful shama dominate the
Okinawan system at the village level is more diffuse and
more egalitarian in its religious leadership. So you could say
that's more shamanistic because it's more like the shamanism of
under gatherer societies than it is. And there's a spectrum,
isn't there the shamanism of these settled prominent societies. You

(39:01):
can see the Mongol Empire as a shamanistic empire, but
it certainly wasn't a liberal, ga galitarian hud the gatherer
style shamanic empire. So so that's the note. So coming
on to the Utah, what what are these more shamanistic figures,

(39:24):
less prominent but more shamanistic figures within Okana would do well.
One is spirit communication and mediumship. This is the core
practice of the Utah. They're believed to have the ability
to enter altered states of consciousness, sometimes described as possession.
Some people call it heightened receptivity in Japanese terms of

(39:46):
becoming a carry and practicing techniques like maiza if you
want to think about it in esoteric Japanese shamanic language.
And they communicate directly with the Khami. The dea is
the spirits. But this is the prominence on the spirits
of the dead because of the Buddhist influence, particularly ancestors

(40:07):
were not necessarily because of the Bitist influence. So a
lot of shamanic societies that emphasize this kind of thing
as well. And the actors channels for these spirits, relaying
messages and guidance to their clients if you want to
call them clients to the people they are trying to help.
They also engage in divination paksen and book sen types

(40:28):
of divination. The clients consult utah to understand the spiritual
causes of their problems, misfortunes, illnesses, or other mysterious events.
The uta use their spirit communication to offer oracles and auguries,
divinatory diagnoses. You know, it's like the shaman trying to
get to the bottom of what it is in this
person's life that is causing them trouble and trying to

(40:50):
help them work through that to applying shamanic technique, and
they explain the situation and suggest solutions, and a significant
aspect of their diagnoses is based on how the person's
ancestral spirits are being venerated. Whereas you know, probably say

(41:11):
a quote unquote real shaman would do it a raundther
different way and get to the root cause of what
their issues actually are. Irrespective of what that is, they
wouldn't make the leap to the conclusion that's something to
do with their ancestors and apply a much broader range
of technique in helping them to resolve that. The UTA
perform rituals aimed at curing illnesses that are believed to

(41:32):
have spiritual origins. This often involves identifying the offended spirit
or ancestor who's and performing rights to appease them, remove
the negative spiritual influences, you know. And again among the UTA,
there's probably a spectrum between people who really believe this
stuff exoteric camp, and the people who use this cultural

(41:53):
miasma as leverage to help the person really understand what
they can do to improve their life. They involved in
exorcisms again, same thing, the same spectrum exoteric to esoteric,
where individuals who are affected by a bad miasma called

(42:16):
shiki if you like. In terms of Mickey's terminology, the
U term may perform these kind of shamanic rituals to
drive the spirits away, so it's like purification rituals. They
give prayers and offerings that could conduct Pacific priers and
recommend offerings to date these ancestors to ensure well being.
Offerings is another thing we need to look at at

(42:38):
some point on the podcast. I've just realized we haven't
really covered it, which probably take a whole episode. But again,
there's a duality in how offerings are. In some ways
offerings like giving thanks for what's being given, and then
offerings are like a bribe for what you might get anyway. Well,
I'll not go into it now, but generally they're trying
to help people to ensure well being one of misfortune,

(43:00):
encourage good fortune. They advise people on how to properly
honor ancestors at home shrines, at gravesites and this type
of thing. They also do a discernment of past events.
They some other shamans have the ability to discern past
events through their spiritual connection, which can be crucial in

(43:23):
understanding current problems. This is something that shaamans do the
world over. Again, we need to do an episode on this.
It's not very well understood how it actually works. But
there are things in the past that affect people in
the present and are going to continue to affect in
the future and shaman's one of their roles is to
get to the bottom of this stuff. Again, not enough

(43:44):
time to go into it tire. They have a strong
role as counselors. Most shamans do. You could say this
is one of the main things that I do as
a shaman. They provide guidance and advice to individuals facing
personal problems. They draw on techniques that help them to

(44:07):
interact with the spirit world, and they help people navigate
lives challenges by integrating spiritual insights into their lives. Pilgrimages
and rituals at sacred sites that are often operating from
their own homes the Utah, but they make use of
the attacking the sacred growths and other local sacred sites

(44:29):
for performing certain rituals techniques communing with spirits, particularly when
addressing communal, large scale spiritual issues, and we talked about
this a lot on the podcast as well. You can
do shamanack technique and you're on home and I do
a lot of that here, but I can go up
to the top of the hill and I can do
it at the stone circle, and somehow it just seems
like that when I do at the Stun Circle, it's

(44:51):
all together it's all everything. Things go all together more smoothly.
So we'll talk about that. I think we have talked
about that a lot of times, but we'll talk about
at it again. And then we do this sort of
service where they purify, purify homes and the states and
this sort of stuff. Shinto priests do that in Japan
as well. When they're laying down a new building, they

(45:11):
perform rituals to purify accounts, house and property, especially if
it's believed to be affected by negative spiritual influencers, for instance, hauntings,
ident which are obviously identified by the Utah themselves. Yes,
and again, you know we've said before Shamans who are
a little bit savvy to the miasma, they can use
aspects of the mayasma to manipulate people and make a

(45:33):
living because they're always poor, these people, So I mean,
the Utah and the Chamans are world so a little
bit of money doesn't come in a mess to keep
them going in their valuable social role, you know, soul
calling and reinstallations, my boy Gummy. In cases in Japanese,
in cases of shock or accident where person's soul is

(45:55):
felt to have been scattered or lost, you can think
of like shell shock and that type of stuff. You
can see this after World War two, right. The Utah
have special techniques like Mabui Gumi, which are intended to
gather and reinstall the soul to restore health and well being,
and they guide the newly deceased the nujifar. They conduct

(46:18):
rituals to inform the soul of a newly deceased person
of its new status and help it guide it to
the ancestral realm. The intervention for kami dai or divine
calling you to often play a crucial role in diagnosing
kami dari, a period of physical and mental disorder experienced
by individuals, usually women and shaman sickness. We talked about this,

(46:42):
I think we did this in deed little about miki.
I'm not sure if we did or not, but we've
talked about the sham sickness, about somebody or the for sure,
who have been called by the spirits to become coming
to spiritual practitioners. They guide these individuals through the difficult
initiation process. It's you know, the apprenticeship sham in the
world over no different. So overall, the uterus practices are

(47:03):
highly individualized. They are small scale, person focused, unlike the
Nauro who have more community type of focus. They're deeply
rooted in Okinawan's spiritualities emphasis on spirit communication, ancestral veneration,
and the perface of presence of spirits and in the

(47:26):
natural world and human world. So I mentioned tax sen
versus box sen in terms of divination, and they both
refer to forms of divination or augury. The differences lies
in the method or source of the divine mess message,
and it's important to note that the terminology sometimes can

(47:46):
be used loosely within Okinawan context and precise definitions can
vary depending on the region, or the scholar or the
sham or whoever is you're talking to, but a general
understanding goes like this. Tax sen the term generally refers
to a divine revelation or oracle. It implies a direct
verbal message or instruction received from a kami or spirit

(48:10):
through the utah acting as a medium that when doing this,
for an example technique, the uta typically enders a state
of jellicity deep state of jealasity and allows the spirit
to speak through them. So this is very similar to
myza that we've mentioned from Japanese's terrorism multiple times. The
message is usually explicit and delivered in words, often addressing

(48:34):
of specific problem or a question posed by the client
or the person that they're trying to help. So this
would for instance, be similar to things like osashi zu
in Miki's tradition. The emphasis is on the direct spoken

(48:55):
word of the spirits. It's about receiving a clear pronouncement
instruction from the spiritual realm okay, so that's tax. Then
box Sen refers to difnation or augury through specific methods
or interpretations of signs. It's about reading or interpreting patterns
to understand divine will of future events. So you can

(49:16):
think of you know that when you put the back
in the shangdans in China and the Shamans put the
sheep's shoulder bard in the fire and it cracks, of
the turtles shell in the fire and it cracks, they
would read the cracks and help them to influence the
Shumanic state and come up with some divination. The US

(49:37):
are still in a state of heightened cellisity, but box
Sen often involves the use of specific tools for interpretation.
This includes things like interpreting ormonds, reading signs in nature, dreams,
or unusual occurrences. Casting lots or using specific objects through
less common than chellisity based methods, so this is less

(49:59):
common than sualistic its methods for the Utah. Traditional forms
of box sen in other cultures often involve this kind
of manipulation of objects, casting lots that the yawara stocks
and this type of stuff, and the uta might not
enter a full state of tulicity, but rather intuitively grasp
the meaning of a situation or answer through their spiritual sensitivity,

(50:22):
often by observing the person or the surrounding environment in
a spiritually informed way. The emphasis in box sen is
on interpreting divine will or the intent inherent within nature,
and it's information that's not necessarily delivered as a direct
spoken message, but rather through signs and patterns and intuitive insights.

(50:46):
So you can think of the rule of the uta.
The primary method often blends both of them together, so
they have a sweeter techniques like all shammans, but you can,
like any form of shamanism, you can you can categorize
them in different ways, and this is one way to
categorize the divinatory techniques that they apply. Tax sen versus

(51:08):
boxen now mabui gumi is a vital and deeply significant
ritual in Ocinowan spiritual practice. It's primarily performed by yuto. Again.
The term itself combines my bui meaning soul or spirit,
and gumi meaning to put into to kind of stuff in,

(51:29):
or to invite or to retrieve. Essentially, it's a sole
retrieval or sol reinstallation ritual. It's rooted in the Okinowan
belief that a person's mabui, either soul or life spirit,
is not always securely contained within the body. It can
become dislarge, scattered, or even lost due to various shocks, freights,

(51:52):
traumatic experiences, accidents, or even intense emotions. When this happens,
the individual might exhibit symptoms. For instance, this field the
press listless or spiritless. They lack energy or vitality. They
might be feeling generally weak on well, be disoriented or confused.
In some cases, specific physical ailments that have no obvious

(52:13):
medical calls arise, and children are particularly believed to be
susceptible to soul loss after a fall of sudden fright.
The purpose of mabuigumi is to recall, gather riyanka, the
lost or scattered ma buy back into the individual's body,
therefore restoring the health of vitality, their mental clarity, their

(52:34):
overwhelm well being. It's believed that without a complete mabuya,
person cannot truly be healthy or whole. So let me
tell you it's taken a bit of time. But let
me tell you the process of how this is carried out.

(52:54):
This is an example process. It will vary for me
to to use that as al Shamang technique does. The
utah first diagnoses the mabui loss is indeed the cause
of the problem the person's problem, often through defnation either
taxan or box and or combination of both, or on
schewed a spiritual perception. They then identify the location. If known,

(53:16):
the utah may go to the exact location whether mabui
is believed to have been lost, for instance, the site
of an accident, the place of a shock. If the
location isn't known, the ritual can be performed at the
UTA's home or the person's home, sometimes using the person's
clothes as a proxy for their body. Offerings and prayers

(53:38):
are made. Sacred offerings such as rite, salt and sake,
rice wine are typically prepared and offered to spirit or deities,
along with specific prayers or incantations. These are often placed
at the location of soul loss or a household altar,
and then we get the ritual of calling back the soul.
The uta performs a series of gestures and chants and

(54:01):
other shamanic techniques, using specific items to call back or
scoop up the mabui. Some common tools that they use
in this are sad three stalks of Japanese pampas grass.
They place small stones on the client's close or body.
They've beurn incense or shake it around to purify and

(54:24):
attract the spurts, and they use gentle patting. They might
pat the client's back or head while using chanting, or
you know, things like how we look that type of
stuff symbolically, that's a that's a Mongolian terminstantly, but those
who listen to the podcasts regularly know what I'm talking
about when I say, helme me look symbolically and m

(54:47):
embedding the soul, and then the final stages reintegration. Once
the mabui is believed to have returned, the ritual concludes
and the individual is expected to feel a restoration of
their mentality and health. So this kind of mabui gumi
highlights the Okinawan understanding of health as not just physical

(55:09):
but deeply intertwined with the spiritual and emotional wellbeing, and
through that being deeply interchined with nature. In the aftermath
of significant traumatic events such as the Battle of Okinawa,
mabui gumi played a crucial role in as I've said,
in helping individuals and communities cope with event's loss and
spiritual dislocation. And also the continued practice of mabuigumi demonstrates

(55:34):
a kind of enduring strength and adaptability of Okinawan religious
beliefs in the face of endless efforts to exterminate them.
And it's it's also yet another example. We've talked about
lots of different places in the world where shamanism occurs.
It's a lot an yet another example of a place

(55:57):
where we get huge monality in the shamanic practices, or
a particular area of the world thousands and thousands of
ways miles away from the place, other places in the
world where these shamanic practices also exist and are carried out.
And there's two possible ways that that could occur. One

(56:18):
is through some sort of ancient worldwide tradition where shamanism
has spread all over the world, which I really don't believe,
or the other one is that it can. Shamanism reoccurs
in isolation because it's a fundamental part of nature, and
we see it among other species, other animals, not just ourselves.
So I like to see this as yet another example

(56:39):
of the validity of the shamanic lifestyle, the shamanic approach
to life, that unlike any religion that's taught through books
or belief systems or anything like that, the spiritual practice
of shamanism is innate to human beings and we find

(57:00):
it everywhere in the world in small portions, because there's
large ways of the world where it's been stamped out,
but it is scattered everywhere, and here in Okin hour
as yet another example of that. So just to finish
with there's an maybe I should do Okay, maybe we're

(57:24):
going to do this. There's actually quite a lot more.
So what I'm going to do is draw a line
under that and for the not for the first time,
very far from the first time, on the Wolf and
Emty podcast, We're going to start a series on the
shamanism of UK because I've just realized I've easily got
enough for another episode. There is at the end of

(57:45):
this there is okin now and shamanistic new religion that
I would like to talk about at the end of
this process, a modern one, a very contemporary one, and
I would like at the end of this to look
into that with a contrast and a parallel with what
happened in Japan with the shamanistic new religions in Japan,

(58:09):
and this this particular if you want to read a
bit about it beforehand, this particular new religion is called Jijon,
very very fascinating spiritual shamanistic spiritual group founded in nineteen
seventy two. So we'll we'll talk about the next time.
But there's a lot, actually quite a lot for me
to still talk about for Canawan shamanism, So look forward

(58:31):
to that in the next monologue. And thank you for listening, guys,