Location (Omiwa Shrine): Sakurai (near JR Line Miwa Stn.), Nara; about 1 hour from Osaka + 7 minutes walking time
Location (Hashihaka): Sakurai (near JR Line Makimuku Stn., one station north of Miwa Stn.), Nara; about 1 hour from Osaka + 20 minutes walking time; it's also possible to walk from the northern end of Omiwa Shrine in about 25 minutes
Associated with: Snakes (蛇、巳); and the Shinto rain god Omononushi (大物主)
Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), the founder of Japanese folklore studies or
minzokugaku (民俗学), has part of his intuitive approach to the study of yokai the "theory of degradation." This idea suggests that yokai were once deities of greater prominence, but in making way for new beliefs their status fell. While there is more to Yanagita's concept, the opposite is also the case where we encounter supernatural beings still a part of or closer to practiced religion. These beings, who continue to maintain their status over the ages, are no less fascinating.
One creature that features in many legends is the snake, with white snakes in particular being revered more than any other. Legends about snakes are not the go-to for most Westerners interested in yokai, but many Japanese bloggers happily include them in their lists of tales. Possibly the reason that non-Japanese tend to avoid them is because they don't come across as being uniquely Japanese; often they are associated with stories of dragons, and the image of the Asian dragon as something Chinese is perhaps strong in Western minds. Yet in Japan there are widespread myths of dragons living in ponds and lakes near temples, and temple names frequently contain the word "dragon." Sometimes it's the case that snakes are seen as a minor type of dragon, and some of their mythical traits are the same.
Dragons, snakes and other serpentine creatures are often conflated due to their relationship with water. There is Watatsumi (海神, lit. "sea god"), a Japanese dragon who is also known as Ryujin (龍神, lit. Dragon God), a name you may come across in tales such as
Tawara Toda (My Lord Bag of Rice). The ruler of the seas and the ocean, Ryujin has the ability to take human form. In the aforementioned tale, he disguises himself as an
Orochi (大蛇, can also be read as
Daija), which translates as something like "serpent dragon" (orochi) or "giant snake" (daija), depending on the reading.
The characters for orochi/daija are again 大蛇 (lit. "big snake"). When read as orochi, it suggests a legendary creature, such as the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇). An orochi is more like a dragon and is often able to fly. It may also appear as a protective deity, having the ability to put out fires. The term daija on the other hand tends to straightforwardly refer to a "giant snake," and as a deity is related to agriculture and is water-bound. The distinction sometimes blurs though. There is a character in a certain children's anime (one involving a supernatural timepiece) called Orochi ("Venoct" in the English version). Appearing in more or less human form, Orochi has a scarf of dragons around his neck, but the same dragons are also depicted springing from a snake charmer's basket.
Another creature is the
mizuchi (蛟), which is a fierce river-dwelling creature recorded in the Nihon Shoki. (The suffix "-chi" is thought to be like the -chi in "Orochi.") There is also the
wani (鰐) or
wanizame (鰐鮫), which is a dragon or sea monster that is often translated as "shark," or sometimes the unexpected "crocodile."
In this post, however, we're just interested in snakes, and snake in Japanese is
hebi (蛇). The same character can also be read as
ja, like the "ja" in daija (大蛇). Another word for snake,
mi (巳), refers to the sign of the snake in the Chinese zodiac. In Japanese,
midoshi (巳年) means year of the snake, but this same combination of characters is sometimes read as
hebidoshi and means the same thing. The former character
hebi
蛇 can also have the meaning of "hard drinker." Though it's not apparent why this is so, we might connect it back to Yamata no Orochi: the serpent creature was subdued by enticing each of its eight heads
with a vat of strong liquor (simultaneously putting them all to
sleep and facilitating the beast's slaughter by kami bad boy
Susanoo).
In Shinto, the image of the snake is primal. Though what we may be looking at is a local interpretation or corruption of the dragon, the Shinto accounts involving snakes have a markedly different flavor about them. The decorative enclosing
shimenawa ropes are very evocative of a serpent, and the old name for snakes was in fact
kuchinawa ("ropes with mouths"). Thatched roofs, incidentally, provide a cozy environment for snakes to live in. Snakes in this case are not necessarily seen as outright pests, and this form of wary cohabitation has likely existed for centuries. (This is contrary to what my American friend told me. She once lived in an old thatched house in the Kyoto countryside and described "snakes falling from the ceiling" as positively terrifying.)
These creatures, with their combination of earthly and out-worldly qualities, make perfect candidates for yokai. On page 87 of Michael Dylan Foster's
The Book of Yokai, he discusses Japanese writer Abe Kobo's take on why people find snakes so unnerving. Foster writes:
[Abe] explains that snakes are beyond just "scary." There is something deeply unnerving about them; they provoke a loathing that is qualitatively different from the fear we have of other wild beasts. This is not, [Abe] says, because they were dangerous to our tree-dwelling ancestors... Rather our fear stems from the fact that snakes have no legs, and when we look at one slithering out of a small hole in the ground, we have an experience very different from the experience of watching an animal like a dog or cat. Somehow we can imagine ourselves in the place of a dog or cat (we know what it's like to walk on our hands and knees). But a snake is too alien for us to "personify" in this way; it is simply "close to impossible to imagine its everyday life from the inside." The same problem occurs when a creature has too many legs-- as in the case of a mukade (centipede) --because it, too, moves so differently from us. We cannot identify with it; we can't empathize.
-From "The Book of Yokai," Michael Dylan Foster
We simply cannot ignore snakes and their part in Japanese lore. Though there are many temples and shrines that have tales involving "big snakes," the snake legend that we're about to delve into takes place at one of the country's oldest shrines.
Omiwa Shrine
Not coming to yokaiology as much of an expert on history, I first read about Omiwa Shrine in Nara at the bottom of Zack Davisson's article on Moidon (森殿, lit. "forest lord"): giant old trees that are worshipped as gods. Davisson had spoken fondly of his time in Nara and how he'd remembered the enormous tree at this particular shrine. Though I needn't have traveled all the way to Sakurai in Nara to see a big tree with a rope around it, the more I read about Omiwa Shrine, the more I thought I would like to pay it a visit. I wasn't disappointed.
Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus
Omiwa Shrine is old. It's not so much part of the landscape as it is the landscape. Though the shrine complex encompasses several structures, Omiwa Shrine is unique in that it contains no structure to house its deity. The vessel for this is instead Mount Miwa itself-- the entire mountain is the deity. It's very likely not the case that somebody thought to build a Shinto shrine here, but more the case that Mount Miwa was first worshipped in whatever way it was that predated the religion before its modern form took shape.
Dating Omiwa Shrine and its Place in Early Shinto
In dating Omiwa Shrine, we need to examine the series of events that led to its establishment. It's here that our yokai first appear.
Five years into the reign of Emperor Sujin, the populace was struck by a terrible epidemic. By the sixth year, half the population had died and the remaining peasants had begun to abandon their fields and rebel. Emperor Sujin, being most pious when it came to serving the kami of the imperial clan, could not understand why such events were unfolding. He traveled to a great plain, and via his aunt Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime, a shamanic diviner for the imperial family, he connected to the spirit world and found himself making contact with a great being.
This being identified himself as Omononushi (大物主), a deity residing in Mount Miwa on the border of Yamato. Omononushi revealed that he was the one causing the great epidemic crushing the land. He conveyed that should Sujin properly worship him, order would be restored.
Sujin wasted no time going about venerating Omononushi, but things stayed much as they had been. Vexed, Sujin began preparations to make contact again by cleansing himself and practising abstinence, and prayed for a new oracle. He then received another divine visitation from Omononushi in a dream, who revealed again that he needed to be worshipped properly: "Properly" being the operative word, Sujin. In order to do that, someone by the name of Otataneko (大直禰子) had to be sought, Otataneko being the one to venerate him. Doing this would facilitate Omononushi's proper worship, and his divine wrath would be averted.
Sujin awoke from his dream, and it was soon reported by three others that they had also been told in a dream that Otataneko should lead the worship of Omononushi. Therefore, Otataneko was the one they needed to bring peace to the land. Otataneko was the only one who could restore order. Otataneko was their guy.
But who on earth was Otataneko? Sujin wasted no time in sending out courtiers to comb the land to find this apparently random person called Otataneko. Incredibly, he was found residing in the village of Mino in Kawachi and was brought before the emperor. Sujin asked Otataneko of his lineage, and Otataneko replied that he was descended from the deity Omononushi and a human spirit medium (usually Otataneko is depicted as Omononushi's son). Realizing that Omononushi would be pacified in his veneration by a direct descendant, Sujin was overjoyed with relief.
Otataneko as head priest began worshipping Omononushi at Mount Miwa. Emperor Sujin also went into overdrive and made offerings left and right to every other kami imaginable. The epidemic abated, and peace was returned to the land.
Fantastic. Now the takeaway from this is that it effectively dates the establishment of Omiwa Shrine (or broadly speaking, the worship of and on Mount Miwa). Assuming Emperor Sujin was a real historical person, then Omiwa Shrine is more than 2,000 years old. Sujin's legendary reign was 97 BC to 30 BC. The great pestilence that decimated the country began in the fifth year of Sujin's reign, 93 BC, and by the following year, 92 BC, things had gotten
really bad. The divination that led to Otataneko coming on the scene occurred in the year after that, so we can deduce that in 91 BC, Omononushi made known his presence, location, and demands, leading to his "proper worship" on Mount Miwa by that same year. In 90 BC, Sujin appointed someone called Ikuhi from the village of Takahashi as his divine sake brewer, and arranged for Otataneko to venerate him. (Don't ask me how that works.) Ikuhi Shrine is one of the auxiliary shrines on the grounds of Omiwa Shrine, so it would seem that Ikuhi received a corresponding place of worship at a site already established by Sujin. That means we can tentatively trace Omiwa Shrine back to around 91 BC. Boy, that's old!
However, Emperor Sujin's reign, like many of Japan's early emperors, is thought to be largely fictional. He may have in fact lived in the first, third, or even fourth century. Let's not get too bummed out by that though. We just need to see how the archaeological evidence may support the legendary account.
By archaeological evidence, we're hoping for something that may indicate that Mount Miwa's role in history was as significant as the texts suggest. Well thankfully at the base of the mountain we have half a dozen man-made dirt lumps. On closer inspection they are in fact ancient burial mounds, known as
kofun (古墳). Some of them are quite big, like this one...
Image courtesy of Google Maps
...big in a way that might make you think people of importance were buried there... literally at the feet of their god. While I wish I could write endlessly on kofun, I find myself writing endlessly on everything else, so to summarize, the kofun indicate the importance of the mountain, and if we can date them we can extrapolate an approximate date on the mountain's religious significance in the area. When we're talking kofun, we of course need to talk about the Kofun period, and that was 250-538 AD (at least nearly 400 years after the legendary account). As it happens, the mounds at the base of the mountain date to the early Kofun period, having been built from 250 AD to 350 AD. So reining things in a bit, the place of worship that became Omiwa Shrine is probably about 1800 years old. That's still pretty damn old!
The White Snake is Omononushi
In front of Omiwa Shrine's worship hall is an enormous sacred cedar tree; I'm assuming the same one that caught Zack Davisson's attention when he lived in Nara. At the bottom of the tree is a hollow in which a white snake is said to reside. In front of the tree is a wide wooden shelf that visitors can place offerings. On the shelf one can see offerings for the snake that could potentially please anybody: eggs and sake.
Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus
The tree is called
Mi-no-Kamisugi (巳の神杉), or the Sacred Cedar of the Snake, and the snake that lives in it is affectionately known as Mi-san (巳さん). It's tied to several legends surrounding the mountain, and as per the spoiler in the heading above, the snake is none other than the embodiment of Omononushi. Putting to one side the tale of Omononushi introducing himself to a fair maiden who would become his wife by poking her in the genitals while she was squatting on the toilet, there are three stories that connect Omononushi to the shrine.
The first one is how Otataneko came to be born. His mother Ikutama-yori-bime, a real looker, was suddenly visited by a young man (no name provided) in the middle of the night. They fell in love and came to "live together as husband and wife." Before you know it, she became pregnant. Her parents were puzzled how their husband-less daughter could become pregnant. Explaining the arrangement she had with her gentleman caller, her parents proved they weren't stupid by devising a cunning plan that would allow them to follow the man after he left. This involved having their daughter sow a roll of yarn to the hem of the man's clothing. By morning, the yarn had almost unwound completely, leaving only three loops
(mi-wa). They followed the yarn as it passed through the keyhole and led them to Mount Miwa, ending at the shrine of the deity being housed there.
Okay, sorry, there was no snake in that one, but the imagery of the yarn is very snake-like.
The second tale involves Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime. Remember her? She was Emperor Sujin's aunt who channeled Omononushi when Sujin needed to know why everything was going to hell. She must have made quite an impression on Omononushi, because she became his consort. Similar to the previous tale, he would only appear to her at night. After a time, she pleaded with him to show her his true form. He agreed, but warned her to keep her cool when she saw him. The next day, he appeared in her cosmetics box as a small snake, "whose length was like the thread from a piece of clothing." Instead of remaining calm, Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime freaked out. Angry that he had been shamed so, Omononushi returned to Mount Miwa. Distraught at what had transpired, Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime made the rather harsh decision to commit suicide, and did so by the even harsher method of stabbing herself in the genitals with a chopstick by sitting on it. She's actually buried in one of the kofun at the base of Mount Miwa, in the very appropriately (or very inappropriately) named
Hashihaka (箸墓, or "Chopstick Grave").
Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus
The last tale takes place many emperors later during the reign of Emperor Yuryaku (r. 456-479), who got it into his mind that he wanted to get a look at the deity of Mount Miwa, and ordered a strong man by the name of Chiisakobe Sugaru to go and get it. (Why not? Omononushi had only caused a plague that killed half the population... not dangerous at all.) Sugaru climbed Mount Miwa and managed to catch the giant snake and bring it back to the emperor. Yuryaku was not in a frame of being to view the deity in the raw, and Omononushi, much like a snake-nut-can, startled the emperor with a loud noise and uncanny appearance. The emperor retreated away and ordered the snake released back on the mountain.
Comments: Omiwa Shrine is not as easy to get to as some other sites, but it's well worth the trip if you have a second day to spend in Nara. When it's so easy to visit one shrine after the other and quickly get "shrined out," Omiwa Shrine will give you a sense of what the old religion can be like. It's a beautiful area; fun to walk around and explore.
Also, for the frivolous and eccentric out there, I recommend taking the opportunity to stop by the Hashihaka, the grave of Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime. Recent dating has made the site a likely candidate for the resting place of Queen Himiko, the shaman ruler who appears in early historical records of the Chinese visiting the Kingdom of Wa (Japan). The designation of the Hashihaka as Himiko's tomb is still controversial, and there is very little to actually see, but it's an exciting opportunity for those interested in Japan's earliest recorded history.
Be sure to read Part 2 for directions to each site:
http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.jp/2016/06/xix-omiwa-shrine-and-hashihaka-part-2.html
Driver Gragma (yokaitourbus "at" mail "dot" com)
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/yokaitourbus/
The Master List (Nara)
http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.jp/2015/08/6-e-master-list-nara.html
(Shinto) Snakes (蛇、巳); and the Shinto rain god Omononushi (大物主)
Site: Omiwa Shrine (大神神社)
Nearest Station: (JR Line) Miwa Stn. (三輪駅)
Google Map Search: "Omiwa Shrine Sakurai" <-- The English on the map for some reason just comes up as "Shinto Shrine." To make sure you have the right location, look for Miwa Stn. just to the west of the shrine.
(Shinto/historical) Snakes (蛇、巳); and the Shinto rain god Omononushi (大物主)
Site: Hashihaka Tumulus (箸墓古墳)
Nearest Station: (JR Line) Makimuku Stn. (巻向駅)
Google Map Search: "Hashihaka" <-- Be mindful that the pin appears at a place on the mound that is inaccessible. You can only walk the perimeter of a kofun. You cannot enter one (it's the same as treading on a grave).
