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Thesis Title: Shimenawa: Weaving Traditions with Modernity – Interdisciplinary Research

on the Cultural History of Japanese Sacred Rope

Shan Zeng, Class of 2019

I have not received or given unauthorized assistance.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my advisors Professor Morrison and

Professor Laursen, as well as Professor Sassin and Professor Garrison, without whose support

this project would not have come to fruition. I also want to thank my Japanese instructors

Hayasaka sensei, Takahashi sensei, and Cavanaugh sensei, whose exceptional language classes

gave me the courage and competence to conduct fieldwork in Japanese. My thanks go to

Professor Milutin for patiently sifting through emaki and ancient Japanese poems with me and to

Professor Ortegren for sharing her experiences on ethnographic fieldwork. I would also like to

thank my first-year advisor Professor Sheridan, and all the other faculty and staff from the

Middlebury Department of Religion and Department of History of Art and Architecture for their

valuable feedback and support.

I extend my special thanks to the following people, who not only graciously accepted my

interviews but showed me the incredible hospitality, kindness and patience of the Japanese

people: Orihashi san and her fellow colleagues at Nawawaseya, Shiga san and his family, Nagata

san of Izumo Oyashiro, Nasu san and his colleagues at Oshimenawa Sousakukan, Matsumoto

San, Yamagawa san and his father at Kyoto, Koimizu san, Takashi san, Kubishiro and his

workshop, and Oda san. My appreciation goes to all the other people who have helped me one

way or another during my stay in Japan, from providing me food and shelter to helping me find

my lost camera.

I am particularly grateful for the Kellogg Fellowship for providing me with the funding to

conduct my fieldwork in Japan. I would also like to thank the assistance given by Adam Lobel

san (who connected me to many wonderful people in Japan), Kristen Mullins and Sami Lamont.

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My special thanks are extended to the staff of the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo as well as

the staff at National Museum of Ethnology.

I offer my thanks to Abe sensei, Okaasan, and their cats, to whom I would like to

dedicate my thesis to. They are my biggest my inspiration in the process and have helped me find

a second home in Japan. My thanks also go to my family and my friends for their support and

encouragement throughout my study. They have shown their understanding when I needed to

take time off for fieldwork and occupy myself with the process of writing. Lastly, I thank my

partner Rui for accompanying me to Toyama and Tokyo during Japan’s one of the hottest

summers in recent history.

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List of Illustrations

Figure Page

1. Example of a shimenawa 6

2. An image of shimenawa and shide 6

3. Patterns found on Jomon potteries 6

4. Hand-woven straw ropes 6

5. Straw bales used to store and transport rice 6

6. Ropes samples for mundane and religious purposes 6

7. Ropes samples for mundane and religious purposes 6

8. Kinbaku or Shibari 6

9. A very simple shimenawa 6

10. Shimenawa are Z twist 6

11. A sake (Japanese rice alcohol) advertisement 12

12. Scene from My Neighbor Totoro 12

13. Poster of Hotarubi no Mori 12

14. Fan art of Kantai Collection 12

15. A very small shimenawa 13

16. The biggest shimenawa in Japan 13

17. The husband-and-wife rocks at Iwato, Mie prefecture 16

18. “Hiking to Nachi Taisha & Nachi-No-Taki Waterfall” 16

19. Michikiri rope at Taie village 17

20. A kanjo nawa rope 18

21. Shimenawa in Misomahajimesai 20

22. Incineration of shimenawa at Tondo Matsuri 22

23. 伊勢参宮略図并東都大伝馬街繁栄之 24

24. A meisho image depicting shimenawa being used at a festival 25

25. Shimenawa in front of a famous waterfall in meisho-e 25

26. Running Budai (Hotei) as a naked monk (Sutasuta bozu) 28

27. Yasukuni Shrine on Kudanzaka Hill 34, 35

28. Precinct map of Yasukuni Shrine 34

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29. Official Commemoration Card: The Ise Shrine and the Yasukuni Shrine 35

30. Shinto Temple Shokonsha 35

31. The front page from the Yasukuni emaki, 招魂の儀 37

32. War scene depicted in Yasukuni Emaki, レンネル島沖海戦 37

33. Historical photograph of the ritual for the war dead in Yasukuni Shrine 37

34. 佐野一雄, Making shimenawa 39

35. Golden shimenawa at Asama Shrine 39

36. A sceen from the promotional video made by the Western Japan Railway 39

37. A shrine maiden praying next to the “Uzu” pillars within the Izumo Grand Shrine 41

38. Advertising material for Shimane Prefecture featuring Izumo Grand Shrine 41

39. Advertising material for Shimane Prefecture 41

40. Museum-like “big shimenawa production gallery” 44

41. Inside of the “big shimenawa production gallery” 44

42. Shimenawa used in a high-end fashion store in Isetan, Shinjuku, Tokyo 46

43. Shimenawa used in a restaurant 46

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Introduction

The term shimenawa, or "enclosing rope”, (most commonly written asしめ縄 or 注連縄 in

Japanese), refers to sacred ropes used in the worship of kami or Shinto gods (Fig. 1). They are

boundary markers between the sacred space of the kami and the mundane space inhabited by

humans. Shimenawa are stretched before or around the residence or body of a kami, which can

be a shrine, but can also often a magnificent natural structure, such as a waterfall, a large tree, or

a monumental stone. Paper streamers known as shide 紙垂 are often attached to shimenawa (Fig.

2).

Rope has a long presence in the cultures and history of Japan. The fascination with rope

patterns found in potteries from the Jomon period (10 000 and 300 BC), which received its name

from this characteristic pottery, embodies this deep and intimate connection. Some patterns on

Jomon pottery can resemble shimenawa to a surprising degree, even though their connection

with shimenawa can only remain speculative (Fig. 3).

The mundane usage of Japanese ropes ranges from economic production to erotic

preoccupation (Fig. 4 to Fig. 8). Indeed, many shimenawa do not appear significantly different

from ropes used for non-religious purposes except for the direction of their twists (Fig. 9).

Shimenawa are generally S twist (known as “left-turn” in Japanese) whereas ordinary ropes are Z

twist (known as “right-turn” in Japanese) (Fig. 10). The humble appearance of shimenawa has

often belied their long history and religious significance, leaving them easily overlooked as

objects of study by outside observers.

The earliest written evidence of the use of shimenawa in Japanese can be found in the famous

story of Amano Iwato 天の岩戸 (“The Cave of the Sun Goddess”), which is described in the two

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earliest chronicles, Kojiki 古事記 (“Records of Ancient Matters”) (ca. 712 CE) and the Nihon

Shoki 日本書紀 (“The Chronicles of Japan”) (720 CE), written in differing hybrid writing

systems.1 These texts recount the creation myths of Japan, establish the supreme status of the sun

goddess, Amaterasu 天照大神, and document the divine descent of the Japanese imperial family

from her. The story of Amano Iwato centers around Amaterasu and is believed to contain the

"prototype" of shimenawa; this connection makes shimenawa both one of the oldest known

Japanese religious objects and a crucial part of Japan’s most important creation myth. In the

story, infuriated by the actions of her brother Susanoo 須佐之男 (god of the sea and storms),

Amaterasu concealed herself in a rock cave, leaving the world in endless darkness. When she

was finally enticed by a bawdy comic dance to come out of hiding, a rope was placed in front of

the cave’s entrance to keep her from returning, thereby preventing the world from returning to

darkness.2 It is believed that the shide paper often attached to shimenawa also have their origins

in this story; they represent the blue and green hemp cloth offerings that were hung on the sakaki

榊 tree set up to appease Amaterasu.3 In the Kojiki, the rope placed in front of the cave is known

as shirikume-nawa尻久米縄 whereas in Nihonshoki it is known as shirikuhe-nawa端出之縄.4

Given the closeness in their pronunciation, it is commonly accepted that the modern word

“shimenawa” is a corrupted or simplified form of these two terms.5

1 Sashichi Ikeda, Shimenawa (Hiratsuka, Japan: Kouhansya, 2000), 2. 2 Amaury Saint-Gilles, Mingei: Japan's Enduring Folk Arts (Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle, 1989), 197. 3 Robert Clarke, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013),

EBSCOhost, 347. 4 Ikeda, Shimenawa, 2; Saint-Gilles, Mingei, 197.

Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Translation of the “Ko-Ji-Ki” or Records of Ancient Matters (Lexington, KY: Forgotten

Books, 1919), 65. 5Ikeda, Shimenawa, 2. Saint-Gilles, Mingei, 197.

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For those familiar with shimenawa’s presence in the Kojiki, and its association with Shinto,

the omnipresence of shimenawa - as well as other Shinto symbols - within Japanese society, has

contributed to the romanticized image of Japan as a society that has uniquely preserved its

timeless ancient culture while at the same embracing all the novelties of modernity (as defined

by the West) effortlessly. 6 Many scholars and Shinto priests have claimed that the modern-day

use of shimenawa, like other contemporary Shinto practices, have been unchanged for thousands

of years. These ahistorical assumptions easily break down when we examine the various factors

that have reshaped kami worship and Shinto from the late nineteenth century. These include the

National Learning movement towards the end of the Edo period (1603-1868), the government’s

forceful separation of Buddhism from Shinto Meiji (Jan 25, 1868-Jul 30, 1912), the creation of

Jinja Honcho神社本庁(The Association of Shinto Shrines) and shrine mergers that destroyed

many local shrines and absorbed the rest into one centralized hierarchical system, the elevation

of Shinto to a de facto “state religion” and the transformation of every household into a shrine up

till World War II, the legal separation of Shinto from the state ordered by the Occupation

government, and continued globalization and urbanization.7

A close look at these events reveals how the functions, materials, and meanings of

shimenawa—far from being homogenous and timeless—have in fact adapted to changing social,

economic, and political conditions from the late nineteenth century to today. Specifically,

shimenawa have transformed from ritual objects used to create temporary sacred space for

6 For an example of scholarship that perpetuates the myth of an essential, unchanging Japanese culture, see:

Thomas P. Kasulis, Shinto: The way home (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), 40. The essential myth is

debunked by scholars such as Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Charlotte von Verschuer and Wendy Cobcroft. See: Emiko

Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time. Princeton (N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993),

eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 29, 2018). Charlotte von Verschuer, and

Wendy Cobcroft, Rice, Agriculture and the food supply in premodern Japan (London: Routledge, 2016). 7 Jonathan M. Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” The Art Bulletin. 83, no.

2 (June 2001): 324.

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specific occasions to quasi-architectural elements constituting a much more permanent presence

in religious and non-religious space. Their symbolism has expanded to include new meanings

under the paradigm of national and cultural identity, representing the sacredness of a militarist

ultranationalist regime during the wars and of a pure Japanese culture in the post war era. Even

their materials are also expanding to include synthetic imitations along the traditional organic

materials.

Through a careful analysis of textual and visual materials, as well as information gathered in

my own fieldwork in Japan, I hope to unravel these transformations in this paper. I will first

present shimenawa’s historical origins and their use in pre-modern Japanese religious life. Next,

I will look at how shimenawa became popularized as a visual symbol for Shinto and Japanese

national identity from the late Edo period to the second World War. Lastly, I will look at how

shimenawa’s form and materiality have changed between World War II and the present day.

Combining materialist and symbolic approaches with social analysis, my study of shimenawa

occupies the intersection between art history and the ethnographic study of material culture, as

well as religious studies.8By untwining the complex history of a seemingly simple and often

overlooked object, my paper will present a nuanced image of how Japanese people, with their

multifaceted identities, interact with the issues of identity, purification, and the relationship

between modernity and tradition.

Literature Review and Research Framework

Even though shimenawa are imbued with significant social functions and cultural meanings,

their functions as ancient boundary markers have left them occupying only the ethnographic

8 Michael Sheridan, “Boundary Plants, the Social Production of Space, and Vegetative Agency in Agrarian

Societies,” Environment and Society 7, no. 1 (2006), 2.

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background in most scholarship on Japanese religion and Japanese art. One reason for this

oversight is shimenawa’s association with popular kami worship—a congelation of extremely

decentralized practices that are hard to study and have been largely overlooked by scholars. The

immense regional variations found in shimenawa’s names, materials, and shapes pose further

challenges to systematically examining these objects’ cultural and material histories.9 In

addition, shimenawa were rarely featured in religious institutions’ official documentations,

although their presence is abundant in poetry, folklore and mythology. Even the visual depictions

of shimenawa are a relatively recent phenomenon only traceable to the late Edo period and then

mainly in works that were not for overtly religious use.10 It is not surprising then that scholars

studying the history of the relationship between kami worship and State Shinto at the

institutional level have tended to underestimate the significance of shimenawa and neglect these

objects.

The limited scope of current studies on shimenawa is further complicated by shimenawa's

own materiality. Not only were shimenawa made of organic materials that easily disintegrate, the

traditional method of decommissioning shimenawa through incineration has left almost no

physical trace for us to examine today. Unlike objects such as a golden Buddhist statue or an

exquisitely lacquered altar piece, the non-Japanese world’s inability to connect aesthetic or

monetary value to these objects adds to shimenawa’s neglected status.11 Last, but not least, when

9 The Japanese term “shimenawa” has more than 20 different renderings in Chinese characters. Some commonly

used terms include 注連縄、しめ縄、占縄、〆縄、標縄 、七五三縄, with the most commonly used one being

注連縄. Masamichi Ootomo, Shimenawa hyakka (Shimenawa Kenkyukai, 2007), 10. 10 The lack of depiction or evidence itself does not justify the absence of questioning, of course, especially because

textual evidence suggests that shimenawa were indeed widely used during this period of “visual absence”. The

conscious decision to include or omit shimenawa is thus an important theme which I shall return to latter in this

paper. 11 Within the Japanese language discourse, it is even more curious why shimenawa have not been treated as objects

of art consistently. Traditional handcrafts such as potteries and textiles have been recognized as artistically

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scholars do write about shimenawa, most merely use shimenawa as a rhetoric trope to confirm

the larger nativist narrative on Shinto and Japanese identity. They have assumed that shimenawa

are unchanging ancient symbols using textual and visual analysis to unfold the actual history of

these objects, especially the changes in shimenawa’s physical forms (e.g. shape, places of usage,

materials, and more).12

This lack of attention within English-language scholarship, coupled with traditional

peripheral role of shimenawa within written history of institutional kami worship, contrasts with

a persistent interest in shimenawa in contemporary Japan. Not only do shimenawa continue to be

used at rituals and religious sites, they also command significant interest in the popular

imagination and are frequently featured in online blog posts and popular publications.13

Shimenawa even find their way into mass media, from commercials that boast the purity of their

products (Fig. 11) to games and animations that reflect popular interpretations and reimagination

of Shinto (Fig. 12 to Fig. 14). Shimenawa’s omnipresence in contemporary Japanese society

embodies the blurry boundary between religious and secular life and demonstrates how their

significance have extended beyond the border of shrines, serving as symbols of Japanese national

identity, unchanged tradition and sacrality in general.

My thesis seeks to addresses the lack of current research on shimenawa in the West, as well

as the changing attitude towards shimenawa within Japan. By examining the changes in popular

important in Japan since the Mingei (Japanese folk art) Movement was established in 1925 by Japanese thinker

Yanagi Sōetsu. I have not been able to find shimenawa in any of the folk art/craft museums that I have visited, even

though objects made of weaving techniques similar to that of shimenawa were clearly included. One can only

wonder if shimenawa’s religious significance prevented them for being recognized as folk art. 12 To list a few examples: Ikeda, Sashichi. Shimenawa. Hiratsuka, Japan: Kouhansya, 2000. Kasulis, Thomas P..

Shinto: The Way Home. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004. 13See an example of such blog posts at: “縄文の神々と注連縄.” アートワークス 時間探偵, 28 July 2018,

artworks-inter.net/ebook/?p=3850. For an example on the fascination with shimenawa within popular fascinations,

see: Otani, Kōichi 大谷幸市. Shimenawa kodo kara umareta himiko no kagami: Jomon runessansu (しめ縄コードから生まれた卑弥呼の鏡: 縄文ルネッサンス). Tōkyō: Sairyusha, 2009.

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religious life through a specific material object, this paper reveals how the state's involvement

with kami worship has changed the character of religion in Japan and impacted popular religious

life through the lens of a specific material object. My research reveals that transformation in the

materiality and usage of shimenawa since the end of the nineteenth century corroborates

historians’ analysis on the rise and demise of State Shinto from 1868 to 2019. A historian of

Japanese religion, Hardacre has characterized this process as an “expanding influence of the

[political and religious] periphery over the center and the decreasing distance between the two

relative to the situation in pre-Meiji Japan.”14 In line with this development, shimenawa, objects

within the domain of popular or communal religions (the periphery), are drawn towards the

center of political actions and turned into symbols of Japanese national and cultural identity. The

increased connection between shimenawa and the state subject them to greater influences by

national institutions and state policies.

Tying up the Loose Ends: A Working Definition for Shimenawa

As mentioned earlier, shimenawa vary in their sizes, shapes, and materials. Small shimenawa

decorations can be only a few centimeters long, whereas the largest, found at the Grand Shrine of

Izumo, is 13.5 meters long (Fig. 15 and Fig. 16). Likewise, shimenawa’s shapes also display

great variations. Japanese scholar Ootomo Masamichi has identified nine common shapes for

shimenawa.15 The three most common shapes among them are: goboushime - which resemble the

great burdock root; daikonshime, which resemble Japanese radishes; and ichimojishime, which

resemble the Japanese character for: one (ichi 一). In addition, horizontal shimenawa, there are

also circular shimenawa known as wakazari 輪飾り. As for shimenawa’s materials, a variety of

14 Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 1868-1988 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 7. 15 Masamichi Ootomo, Shimenawa hyakka (Shimenawa Kenkyukai, 2007), 146.

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plants have been chosen for their purifying power. The most common choices are rice straw

(wara 藁) and hemp (asa麻) whereas the use of various other indigenous plant fibers in making

shimenawa has been documented by scholars and corroborated by my interviewees.16

The myriad shapes and usages of shimenawa are now being more documented than before,

thanks to the tireless survey of Japanese ethnographers, and avid interest of shimenawa

enthusiasts online. However, this wealth of information can also raise significant challenges for

anyone who attempts to systematically study shimenawa. Focusing on formal differences

between contemporary shimenawa without access to their history can easily lead one to think

that religious artifacts like shimenawa are no more than what art historian W.J.T. Mitchell

(quoted in Nelson) called “opaque, distorting, and sometimes arbitrary mechanisms of

representations” that lack any possibility of unity and coherence.17 Again, to use Mitchell’s

words, it is easy for a contemporary scholar of shimenawa to feel “language and images have

become enigmas, problems to be explained, prison houses which lock understanding away from

the world.”18

By studying all the objects classified in English as “shimenawa”, therefore, I am bypassing

the murky water of notations even though it may entail imposing on them a new form of unity.

Regardless of their various forms and names, the objects that I identify as shimenawa in this

16 Besides rice straw and hemp fibers, shimenawa can also be made from the straw of Zizania latifolia, Manchurian

wild rice (makomo真菰), Imperata cylindrica, cotton wool grass (chigaya茅), and Juncus effuses/soft rush (igusa

イグサ). Ootomo, Shimenawa hyakka, 146.

The debate on whether rice straw or hemp fiber is the most authentic and appropriate material for making

shimenawa is a topic that I have addressed in my previous research. 17 W. J. T. Mitchell, Iconology: Images, Texts, Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 2, quoted in

John K. Nelson, Enduring Identities: The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i

Press, 2000), 56. 18 W. J. T. Mitchell, “What Is an Image?” New Literary History 15, no. 3 (1984): 503.

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paper are united by their common function as sacred ropes marking the boundary between the

world of kami and the mundane human world.

Shimenawa in Early Japanese Religious Life: Purification, and Prohibition, Possession,

The Japanese word “shime” in shimenawa has three meanings in the verb-form: “Shimeru

(old Japanese shimaru) to bind, to close. Shimeru (old Japanese shimu): to occupy and Shimesu

(old Japanese same): to signify.”19 The use of shimenawa encompass these distinct but also

intimately connected meanings. The act of binding a rope signifies a kami’s presence, which has

occupied that object, area or land.

To better understand how shimenawa functioned, let us return to the concept of kami. The

belief in kami permeates almost all aspects of Japanese religion and is not confined to Shinto as

an organized religion; in fact, the belief in the power of kami is arguably one “of the most

important aspects of Japanese religious life.”20 The Japanese word “kami” is used to denote any

entity that evokes feelings and experiences beyond the mundane human world. An eighteenth-

century Japanese scholar, Motoori Norinaga, provides a classical definition of kami: “In ancient

usage, anything whatsoever which was outside the ordinary, which possessed superior power or

which was awe-inspiring was called kami.”21 Mysterious or awesome, marvelous or strange,

kami coinhabit the world with human beings as “mythological divinities, powers of nature,

revered human beings and even spirits of the dead.”22 Kami are believed to have always been

present in Japan and indeed they created the Japanese archipelago and the creatures (from lesser

19 Gunter Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan (London: Academy

Editions, 1993), 95. 20 D. C. Holtom, “The Centrality of Kami,” Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and Interpretations, ed.

H. Byron Earhart (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1997), 9. 21 Holtom, “The Centrality of Kami,” 10. 22 Holtom, “The Centrality of Kami,” 9.

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kami to humans to animals) on these islands themselves. Kami can come to contact with humans

by manifesting themselves temporarily through natural objects or human beings.23 Kami distain

pollutions (kegare穢れ) such as filth, blood, and death. As a result, the sanctified places where

the kami manifest themselves, as well as the people participating in the worship, undergo regular

and repeating ritual purification (kessai 潔斎).24 The idea of purification is so essential to kami

worship and is manifested through various renewal rituals, from the yearly replacement of

village shimenawa to the reconstruction of the Ise Grand Shrines every twenty years.

The use of ritual ropes to keep off pollution and evil spirits was a common practice observed

in Japan, as well as in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.25 For example, the Yanshi Jiayun

Yanshi Jiayun 严氏家训 (“Family instructions of Master Yan”) was composed by a famous

Confucian scholar, Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (531-591), as an educational handbook for his sons and

grandsons in the 6th century. In this text Master Yan cited the hanging of ropes known as zhulian

注連 in Chinese, along with other rituals used to purify the household and dispel family ghosts,

as examples inappropriate funerary practices for a civilized Confucian scholar.26 It is especially

noteworthy that the characters for the zhulian ropes are commonly used to denote shimenawa in

Japanese. Similarly, in Korea, people hang ropes at the gate of their houses when a child is born

to keep evil spirits from entering the house to harm the child and the mother.27

23Hani Zgheib, “Temporal Architecture and Urban Landscape – A search behind the Concepts of Contemporary

Japanese Architecture,” Bulletin of JSSD. 48, no. 3 (2001): 2. 24 Holtom, “The Centrality of Kami,” 9. 25 Ikeda, Shimenawa. 26 Ootomo, Shimenawa hyakka, 11. 27 Ikeda, Shimenawa.

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In Japan, shimenawa have been an integral part of kami worship since the very beginning

exactly because of their power to cordon off anything that may cause pollution, a property that

has also turned them into signifiers of what is pure and sacred. The earliest kami shrines

therefore consisted only of magnificent natural objects, such as trees and stones, and simple

shimenawa.28 The Meoto Iwa (the Wedded Rocks) and the Nachi Waterfall are two examples for

this kind of early shrines (Fig. 17 and Fig. 18).29 Later on, development in offering practices and

influences from Buddhism introduced permanent architecture into kami worship: the storehouse

(kura) and the deity hall (shinden).30 Today all three kinds of shrine architecture coexist and are

at times found side by side.31 Even in more elaborate shrine structures, shimenawa have

remained an important element to the sacred precinct, often found underneath the beam of the

deity halls or on a torii 鳥居 gate, the symbolic gateway marking the entrance to the sacred

precincts of a Shinto shrine.

Much Japanese folklore corroborates the fact that shimenawa were commonly used to keep

the pollution away. For instance, in a wide-known folktale, a person named Somin-shoorai 蘇民

将来 was able to keep his family safe from a plague by using shimenawa. Below is an English

translation by Mock Jōya based on a standardized version of the story.32

Susano-o-no-Mikoto once travelled to the Ninkai region. Fatigued and hungry, he went to the

house of Kyotan-sho who was wealthy and greedy. Kyotan refused to shelter him. So he went to

28 Shimenawa’s purifying power was probably related to their shapes as well as their materials because shimenawa

were generally made of plant fibers associated with purifying power. 29 While shimenawa in shrines are put up based on the decision of shrine priests, shimenawa in “the wild” can be

dedicated by anyone. A person can put up shimenawa anywhere they feel inspired by the presence of kami. 30 Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando, 67. 31 Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando, 67. 32 Mock Jōya, Japan And Things Japanese, (London, United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis, 2006), accessed on

January 26th, 2019,

https://books.google.com/books?id=tIUECwAAQBAJ&pg=PT9&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&

q=somin&f=false.

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the house of Somon-Shorai, Kyotan’s younger brother. Somin, being kind-hearted though poor,

welcomed Susano-o-Mikito and offered him a meal and a bed. In expressing thanks for the

kindness, Susano-o taught Somin to make a ring of reed leaves [shimenawa] and use it as a

charm against diseases. Soon there raged an epidemic throughout the district and many died.

But all the members of Somin’s family were saved, because they put the reed leaf ring at their

door as Susano-o had taught them.

A folktale recorded in 1986 in Tottori Prefecture is thematically very similar to the Somin-

shoorai story.33 This high degree of similarity suggests that they may be regional variations of

the same archetypical story centered around Susano-o-no Mikoto, a stingy wealthy family, and

the use of shimenawa to keep off disease. Even today, households in the Ise region will put up

special shimenawa in front of their households all year around, a custom attributed to beliefs in

the Somin-shoorai story. In contemporary rural Japan, variations of shimenawa known as

michikiri 道切り and kanjo nawa 勧請縄, still mark the border and entrance of a village and

prevent polluting entities from entering the village, usually at the beginning of a year (Fig. 19);

in the past ten to twenty years, ethnographers have observed that in some villages shimenawa

and kanjo nawa are becoming combined—both festooned onto torii or even used interchangeably

(Fig. 20).34 Given shimenawa’s ritual potency to keep pollutants away, the dedication of

33 “Susano-o-no Mikoto, the brother of the sun goddess, visits a wealthy family who treat him coldly. Enraged, he

orders the Smallpox Deity, who is under his command, to sneak into the house. When the Smallpox Deity tries to

enter the house, he finds it surrounded by a rope made of rice stalks [shimenawa]. Because a rope made of rice

stalks is sacred and the space marked by the rope thus becomes sacred, the Smallpox Deity is unable to enter. Upon

reporting back to Susano-o, the latter orders the Smallpox Deity to examine the rope closely because there should

be a spot in the rope that is made of millet stalks. Upon finding this spot, the Smallpox Deity enters the house and

decimates the family.” From Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time (Princeton

University Press, 1994), 53. 34 “港北区の歴史と文化（シリーズ わがまち港北）.” 公益財団法人 大倉精神文化研究所 :: 第２２回 道

切りの大蛇. Accessed December 10, 2018.

http://www.okuraken.or.jp/depo/chiikijyouhou/kouhoku_rekishi_bunka/kouhoku22/.

Yasuo Nishimura, Kanjonawa: kosei yutaka na murazakai no mayoke (Shiga, Japan: Sun Rise 2013), 45, 48, 75, 81.

18

shimenawa can be seen as a preparatory step that purifies a place in anticipation of the future

arrival of the kami.35

The concept of purification is closely related to the concept of prohibition and access. A

boundary is created as the ritually impure lose access to what is inside the boundary marked by

shimenawa. These ideas about purity and pollution, boundary and prohibition remain strong in

some circles of Japanese society even today and can become sources of contention on social

justice. In 2018, observing a long-standing custom of forbidding women in the sumo ring, a

referee shooed several women out of the ring—marked by a large shimenawa rope embedded in

pounded clay—even though they were rushing to provide first aid to a male politician who had

collapsed within the ring.36

Shimenawa’s power to define the right to access has parallel applications in non-religious

use, where access is granted based on ownership rather than ritual purity. The oldest way to

profess ownership and possession in Japan is the action of binding. Because the act of binding is

performed both during the weaving of ropes and when ropes are tied around objects and places,

it is not surprising that ropes are one of the most enduring methods of boundary marking in

Japan. Even now, a common word for “domain” or “territory” in contemporary Japanese is

nawabari 縄張り, which literally means stretching a rope around something.

35 For example, in this story from the Anthology of Tales from the Past, in order to welcome the manifestation of the

Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) to a bath house, various purifying rituals were carried out, including the hanging of

shimenawa in front of the building. See: Konjaku monogatari shu (Anthology of Tales from the Past), Vol.19.

No.11., accessed from Japan Knowledge Library, https://japanknowledge.com/lib/display/?lid=80110V00360492#s,

January 19, 2019. 36 “Why Women are Not Allowed in Sumo Rings-Even to Save a Life.” Economist (United Kingdom) 414, no. 9084

(2018).

19

The three meanings of the word “shime” in shimenawa, which I introduced above, reflect

how interconnected the concept of “binding”, “ownership”, “occupation” and “signifying” were

in ancient Japan. Indeed, the use of “shime” as a marker of ownership can be repeatedly found in

the Manyoshu 万葉集 (“Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”), the earliest existing anthology of

Japanese poetry compiled during the Nara period (AD 710 to 794). 37 People tied ropes and

bound grass so that they can connect to a place, a person or an event, and hence signify their

ownership of that subject. For both the religious use and the non-religious use, a boundary is thus

set, between the legitimate, the rightfully owned, the purified and sacred and what is not.

One aspect about shimenawa’s role as a boundary marker has remained rarely discussed,

that is, the prohibition enforced by shimenawa seems to go both ways. As shimenawa prevent the

impure from entering the sacred space, the kami within the boundary also seems to be prevented

from entering the world of the profane. We can see this reverse inhibition in how Amaterasu was

cordoned off from the stone cave —a symbol of darkness, lack of agricultural production and

infertility, death, and hence extremely impure.

The theme of inhibition and control is even more prominent in the following story from the

Konjaku monogatari shu 今昔物語集 (“Anthology of Tales from the Past”), an eleventh century

collection of over one thousand folktales during the late Heian period (794-1185). During the

reign of Empress Suiko (r. 592 - 628), an old zelkova tree was going to be felled in order to make

place for the construction of the Gangoji temple in Asuka. The kami residing at the old zelkova

tree killed several woodcutters to protect its dwelling. However, after monks encircled the tree’s

37See entry 1252, 1337, 1342, 1347, 1348 in Anonymous, “Manyoshu [Book 7].” UVa Library Etext Center:

Japanese Text Initiative. Accessed December 10, 2018. http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/Man7Yos.html.

20

root with a hemp (asa 麻) shimenawa and conducted purification rituals (oharai お祓い), the

tree cutters were able to put a black rope around it and safely cut it down with no casualty.38 This

use of shimenawa in the appeasement and confinement of tree kami was a common practice

among woodcutters.39 Today, the practice is on the decline but can still be observed in the

Misomahajimesai 御杣始祭, a ceremony conducted for the felling of the first two most

important trees that marks the beginning of the 20-year renewal of the Ise Jingu (Fig. 21).

As boundary markers, shimenawa embody the liminal space that ensures the separation of the

sacred and the profane and maintain the order of the religious cosmos. Shimenawa’s function of

boundary marking suggests a cosmology in which the physical and the spiritual world meet and

overlap. While we discuss the separation, prohibition and purification enacted by shimenawa, we

should also turn to shimenawa’s ability to connect. The theme of connection is integral to the

creation and the usage of shimenawa. As people weave the ropes, they are binding and

connecting fibers into one. According to the shimenawa makers that I interviewed in the summer

of 2018, this process connects one with the kami. In addition, the offering of shimenawa involves

tying them on a structure, an act that both symbolically and physically connect one to the body of

the kami. This ability to separate but also connect creates a nuanced duality in shimenawa’s

symbolism and religious functions.

38 “其の僧の申す如くに、麻の緒の注連を木の根元に引廻て、木の元に米を散じ、御幣を奉て、大祓の祝

詞を読ましめて、杣の者共を召て墨縄を懸て伐らしむるに、一人も死ぬる者無し. “

Mark Teeuwen, and Fabio Rambelli, Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku As a Combinatory Paradigm

(London: Routledge, 2015), 8-9. 39 “杣と日用.” ふるさと坂下. Accessed December 10, 2018.

http://www.takenet.or.jp/~ryuuji/saka/furusato/110.html.

21

Religion scholar Mircea Eliade has analyzed such duality in depth in his discussion on the

making of sacred space. According to Eliade, hierophany, or the act of manifestation of the

sacred, is the key element of the history of religion.40 In order for one to experience and become

connected with the sacred, one has to be first separated from it. The sacred has to be created from

the homogenous mundane. Shimenawa are able to create sacred spaces and signify the

manifestation of the kami because they physically and symbolically create the boundary between

the sacred and the profane. As the otherwise mundane and uniform world become punctured by

the presence of the sacred, the manifestation of the kami and in effect, the presence of

shimenawa (since they are the visual clues for the presence of kami) “project[s] a fixed point into

the formless fluidity of profane space", and thereby providing a sense of orientation and a center

of reference for the kami worshipers.41 In doing so, shimenawa become the effective signifier for

the sacred as they internalize the association between kami and shimenawa.

It is this signifying power of shimenawa that latter became widely used by the nation state in

order to create new centers of meaning and orientate the center of people’s lives towards the

state. As I will discuss later, the signifying power of shimenawa allowed the sacredness to of the

kami to be extended to the newly formed nation, to an idealized pure Japanese culture, and to

newly constructed sacred places such as the Yasukuni Shrine and national pilgrimage.

As mentioned above, ritual purification has to be carried out repeatedly in kami worship.

Therefore, traditionally, shimenawa were only used for specific rituals and occasions, such as

40 Mircea Eliade, The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1907-1986. 1961),

11. 41 Gunter Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan (London: Academy

Editions, 1993), 67. D. C. Holtom, “Shinto Shrines,” in Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and

Interpretations, ed. H. Byron Earhart (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1997): 19.

Eliade, The sacred and the profane, 63.

22

during Lunar New Year or during a funeral. After completing their functions, shimenawa were

disposed of, often burned in a ritual (Fig. 22).42 The temporary use of shimenawa during specific

occasions can still be observed in various aspects of contemporary Japanese life. For example,

shimenawa is an essential tool in creating a temporary sacred space in the Jichinsai land-claiming

ritual, commonly performed before the construction of a building in the house positioning

process.43 In agriculture, Obayashi Taryo documented recurring examples of rice-cultivation

related rituals in rural villages where during New Year, shimenawa will be tied to agricultural

tools, or used in divination that predict the harvest of the coming year by invoking mountain

kami through their messengers.44

The fact that shimenawa were only used temporarily may help to explain why visual

depiction of shimenawa have been rare until Edo period, even though architecture was a popular

theme in Japanese paintings such as the illustrated handscrolls of emaki. Because they were used

only during a short period of the year, artists depicting the overall architecture probably did not

feel the need to include such impermanent accessory structures. The next section will address

how, starting from the Edo period, shimenawa were given much more attention in visual images

as they began to assume new symbolisms related to national identity and nationalism.

42 For examples of how shimenawa was disposed, see: Eldred Leslie Jr Williams, Earth, Boundaries, and the

Foundations of Folk Shinto,110. [how to cite dissertation[

Ellen Schattschneider, Immortal Wishes: Labor and Transcendence on a Japanese Sacred Mountain (Durham, N.C.:

Duke University Press, 2003), 96. 43 John Nelson, “Land Calming and Claiming Rituals in Contemporary Japan”. Journal of Ritual Studies. 8, no. 2:

19-40 (1994), 37. 44Taryo Obayashi, Inasaku no shinwa (Kobundo, 2014), 213-214, 234-235, 228,234, 249.

Similar practices are also documented in other regions, see the folk customs documentation of Kameyama at

“New Year Preparation.” Kameyamarekihaku.jp. Accessed December 10, 2018.

http://kameyamarekihaku.jp/sisi/MinzokuHP/jirei/bunrui8/data8-1/index8_1_1_4.htm.

23

Shimenawa in the Proto-Nation and Nation State: from the Edo Period to the

Contemporary

Edo-Meiji Transition (1603 - 1868): New Meaning of an Ancient Symbol

The earliest clear visual depictions of shimenawa that survive date to the Edo period. They

are found in widely published books known as meisho zue 名所図会 (“illustrated guidebooks to

the famous places”) and individual woodblock prints known as meisho-e 名所絵 (“painting of

famous places”). 45 Meisho-e and illustrations in meisho zue feature temples and shrines, scenic

natural landscapes, as well as emerging commercial hotspots across much of the Japanese

archipelago. Thousands of meisho destinations were introduced to the public through realistic

illustrations and accessibly written historical commentaries full of quotations from historical and

literary works, especially poetry.46 Stabilized political conditions, improved infrastructure, and

increased economic power of the common people made travel much more common during the

Edo period. Coupled with state restrictions that only allowed travel for reasons of faith, these

guidebooks created a pilgrimage boom centered around the meisho.

Broad interest in the subject matter and the affordability of these mass-produced works made

them popular and widely circulated across social classes. The flourishing printing industry of the

Edo period mass-produced large volumes of meisho guidebooks, which were purchased by

pilgrims as guidebooks and souvenirs. The meisho genre was even more popular as a cheap

45 National Diet Library, Japan. “The Start of Meisho-e (pictures of Famous Places).” The Landmarks of Edo in

Color Woodblock Prints. Accessed December 10, 2018. http://www.ndl.go.jp/landmarks/e/column/1.html.

National Diet Library, Japan. “Edo guidebooks.” The Landmarks of Edo in Color Woodblock Prints. Accessed

December 10, 2018. http://www.ndl.go.jp/landmarks/e/column/4.html. 46 Robert Dale Goree Jr., “Fantasies of the Real: Meisho Zue in Early Modern Japan,” (PhD diss., Yale University,

2010), 2-3.

24

alternative to the actual travel. To give a sense of the influence and popularity of these images,

more than 10,000 prints were produced for Tokaido Gojusan-tsugi 東海道五十三次 (The Fifty-

Three Stations of the Tokaido) by popular contemporary artist Utagawa Hiroshige made when it

was published in 1833-1834.

According to Robert Dale Goree, Jr., religious festivals and religious spaces like temples and

shrines, constitute at least half of the illustrations and entries in meisho zue. If one were to

imagine Edo period Japan solely based on representations in meisho zue, one would think it as a

land brimming with religious and poetic activity (Fig. 23).47 While visual depictions of religious

places existed long before Edo period, it is only in these meisho images that we find earliest

existing depictions of shimenawa. This fact raises an important question: why did Edo period

artists decide to include shimenawa whereas earlier artists did not? On the one hand, this addition

of shimenawa is in line with the highly realistic style of meisho images. The inclusion of small

details like shimenawa in images featuring large scale depictions of architecture, landscape, or

crowded social scenes like religious festivals adds to the realism of these images. The more

realistic the depiction was, the more it could validate a pilgrim’s experiences and provide an

authentic immersive experience for those viewing these images at home. On the other hand, the

new interest in subject matter could also have come from an artist’s desire to use symbols like

shimenawa to highlight the “religiousness,” and hence the importance, of these sites against the

backdrop of a pilgrimage boom. Visual details like shimenawa awarded viewers of meisho image

with the idea that they had come to the right place (physically or virtually) and that the place was

47Goree, Fantasies of the Real: Meisho Zue in Early Modern Japan, 67-68.

25

important and thus worthy of the visitors’ time, attention, and indeed money (Fig. 24 and Fig.

25).48

The mass participation in both actual and imaginary pilgrimage facilitated by meisho images

allowed common Japanese people to connect with people and places beyond the boundary of

their local communities. In Goree’s words:

The readers of meisho zue not only shared knowledge about the broader environment they

were connected to and could theoretically travel to, but could also conceive of distant places as

synchronous with their own immediate surroundings through the imaginary journeys facilitated

by the books, thus contributing to a sense of shared time around the archipelago based on a

virtual experience of space.49

Despite the Edo government’s strict regulation of the print industry, including heavy

censorship for novels, the production of meisho zue and meisho-e were supported by the ruling

samurai class. By presenting a Japan that appeared realistic but in fact far from the reality—an

imagined land of shared prosperity, leisure, and peaceful natural beauty that provided readers

with “entertainment and reassurance during a period of economic swings, political anxiety, social

unrest, natural disaster, and foreign encroachment,” meisho images served as the government’s

tool to pacify its audience.50 The depiction of shimenawa in print meisho images therefore added

significant new meanings to shimenawa, bringing these otherwise local and temporary objects

into the symbolic network for an idealized and timeless Japan, a collective Japanese identity in a

proto-nation state. This newly ascribed meaning will be further developed in the Meiji period.

Meiji: Entering the Stage of State Shinto

48 Nelson, Enduring identities, 34. 49 Goree, “Fantasies of the Real: Meisho Zue in Early Modern Japan,” 105. 50 Goree, “Fantasies of the Real: Meisho Zue in Early Modern Japan,” 19.

26

The 1868 Meiji Restoration restored practical imperial rule and consolidated the political

system under the Emperor of Japan. It accomplished the political unification of the country,

rearranged the aristocratic class, and gave common people freedom of residence and occupation.

Unprecedented levels of trade and diplomatic relations with the West, along with other drastic

social reforms brought profound changes to the country.51 The reforms carried out by the Meiji

government reached all aspects of life with religious institutions as the target of many reforms.

The Meiji government firmly established the connection between what is called Shinto, the

imperial family and Japan’s new identity as a nation state, creating and elevating selective

practices of kami worship to an unprecedented status. The tradition of shimenawa, given their

intimate connection with kami worship, were at no exemption to these rapid reforms.

As discussed in the previous chapter, in the late Edo period, shimenawa started to acquire

symbolic importance beyond specific regional rituals through their connections with the meisho-

e and Ise pilgrimage. Starting from the Meiji period, the Japanese government increased its

regulation of religion and deepened its connections with kami-worship through the creation of

State Shinto. From the Meiji onward, shimenawa, having already been associated with the

loosely-defined collective Japanese consciousness of Edo, became subject to greater state

regulation and were further connected with nationalism.

One of the most significant Meiji reforms of religion was the attempt at complete separation

of Buddhism from Shinto through shinbutsu bunri rei神仏分離令; on March 28, 1868, the

newly established Meiji government issued an order demanding the separation of Shinto clergy,

objects of worship, and religious spaces and institutions from Buddhism.52 Before the separation,

51 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 27. 52 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 29.

27

kami were widely seen as emanations of universal Buddhist divinities— a notion known in

Japanese as honji suijaku 本地垂迹 (“original forms of deities and their local traces”). In this

highly syncretic system, liturgies for kami-worship were adopted by Buddhist communities,

while the pantheon of Japanese Buddhism emerged from a blending of kami and Buddhist

figures. Under this paradigm, shimenawa were used across various institutions because most pre-

Meiji religious spaces were shared venues of worship for both Buddhist deities and kami. Not

only were shimenawa used to denote the arrival or presence of Buddhist deities, they were also

used by Buddhist monks in rituals related to kami.53 We have seen how shimenawa were used by

Buddhist monks during the construction of the Gangoji temple in previous section. There are

many more stories that mention the use of shimenawa in veneration of Buddhist deities in the

Anthology of Ancient Tales.54

The extent of fusion between Buddhist and Shinto liturgies (and the evidence that proves

shimenawa were not exclusively used in either Buddhist or Shinto practices), did not only apply

to sacred architecture. For instance, let us turn to the Running Budai (Hotei) as a naked monk by

Hakuin Ekaku, one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism of the Edo period.

Hotei is a semi-historical monk and a member of the Japanese Zen pantheon. Hotei was a

popular subject for depictions in Japanese Zen art. In this painting, he is depicted as a naked

monk known as sutasuta bozu すたすた坊主 (“shuffling priests”), running around with a

53 Teeuwen and Rambelli, Buddhas and Kami in Japan, 8-9. 54 For example, in this story from the Anthology of Tales from the Past, shimenawa was hung in front of a bath

house to welcome the manifestation of the Kanon (Avalokiteśvara). See: Konjaku monogatari shu (Anthology of

Tales from the Past), Vol.19. No.11., Accessed from Japan Knowledge Library,

https://japanknowledge.com/lib/display/?lid=80110V00360492#s, January 19, 2019.

28

shimenawa on his waist (Fig. 26).55 Sutasuta bozu were itinerant exorcists commonly seen in

villages and cities until the mid-nineteenth century.56 They were “mendicant monk-like figures

who provided the populace with prayers, invocations, and talismans, as well as with dancing,

music, and recitation.”57 Note that the phrase “bozu” is less reverential compared to “obosan お

坊さん”, an alternative term commonly used to refer to monks. The coexistence of Buddhist and

kami worship elements in this painting is fascinating. The artist was an influential Buddhist and

the subject clearly a monk. Meanwhile, the figure has many clearly kami related paraphernalia,

including the shimenawa on his waist and the purifying staff in his hand.

Through its 1868 decree, the Meiji government forcefully created distinctive categories of

Buddhist institutions — otera お寺 (temples) and Shinto institutions —jinja 神社 (shrines) and

banned the practice of combinatory rituals.58 Buddhist kami traditions with longstanding history

had to make fundamental changes to their practice, even though kami had been an integral part to

their worship. For instance, the school of Hokke Shinto (Shinto doctrines promoted by the

Nichiren sect of Buddhism) had to remove shimenawa from all their rituals and sacred spaces

besides imbibing many other involuntary alterations.59 The reform was so thoroughly enforced

that by 1915 even Buddhist communities had internalized the idea that shimenawa did not belong

to temples; many protested the order to treat temples like households and refused to put up

55Matsunosuke Nishiyama, and Gerald Groemer, Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600-

1868 (University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 115-116. 56 Gerald Groemer, “The Arts of the Gannin,” Asian Folklore Studies 58, no. 2 (1999): 293. 57 Groemer, “The Arts of the Gannin,” 275. 58 Teeuwen and Rambelli, Buddhas and Kami in Japan, 252. 59 Teeuwen and Rambelli, Buddhas and Kami in Japan, 9, 252.

29

shimenawa in front of temples.60 Legacies of the separation remain strong today, and most

people associate the presence of shimenawa only with Shinto shrines.

In addition, the Meiji government intensified its control over Shinto shrines and priests

through various policies that centralized and regulated local shrines. From the late Edo period

onward, priests who supported the National Learning movement had already made attempts to

institutionalize and centralize ritual practices of kami worship61. Yet it was not until the Meiji

period that autonomous regional and local shrines became officially consolidated under one

hierarchical system centered around the Grand Shrine of Ise and the worship of Amaterasu.62 A

look at official documentation of rites and rituals by local shrines helps shed lights on policies of

this time and reveals how shimenawa’s use within the legitimate domain of Shinto also went

through greater regulation during the Meiji period.

The Tanso shrine 天祖神社 at Katsushika City in Tokyo has preserved yearly records on its

oshimenawa shinji大しめ縄神事 (“big shimenawa festival”) since 1848.63 In 1890 (Meiji 23),

the record included orders from the Meiji government demanding significant changes to this

local ritual. The Tanso shrine traditionally had two yearly rituals that involved the use of

shimenawa. One of them was a divination ritual known as busya 舞社/ 歩射, which was

60 D. C. Holtom, “Political Philosophy of Modern Shinto: A Study of the State Religion of Japan” (PhD diss.,

University of Chicago, 1922), 59-60. 61 “Kokugaku, (Japanese: “National Learning”), movement in late 17th- and 18th-century Japan that emphasized

Japanese classical studies … the Kokugaku movement attempted a purge of all foreign influences, including

Buddhism and Confucianism. The Shinto revival, Kokugaku movement, and royalist sentiments of the Mito school

all combined in the Meiji period (1868–1912) in the restoration of imperial rule and the establishment of Shinto as a

state cult.”

“Kokugaku,” The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, last modified July 30, 2010, accessed January 26, 2019,

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kokugaku. 62 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 28-29. 63 “天祖神社の大しめ縄神事（葛飾飾区登録無形民俗文化財）.” 葛飾区史 History of Katsushika City.

Accessed December 10, 2018. http://www.city.katsushika.lg.jp/history/history/hosoku_4.html.

30

conducted in February and predicted the coming year’s rice harvest. This ritual was most likely

carried out in the open rice fields by the parishioners themselves.64 The other ritual was

conducted in October as a shrine festival (jinja no matsuri 神社の祭り) in celebration of the

year’s harvest. The 1890 record, reflecting the ideology of the Meiji government, stated that the

coexistence of the two festivals was “an extremely bad thing” and the February festival was to be

subsequently banned. The October festival was now to be conducted on September 25. This date

was in close proximity to the Autumn rites for the imperial ancestors (Shuki Koreisai 秋季皇霊

祭); taking place on the Autumn Equinox, it was one of the 12 official rites implemented by the

Meiji government.65 Such forced changes to local rituals reflect the Meiji state’s intention to

centralize and control local religiosity by privileging shrine Shinto and the priesthood over other

forms of kami worship, and by absorbing decentralized local practices into a standardized

national ritual calendar.

Other state efforts to modernize and control local religiosity met with less success. For

example, the 1890 record at the Tanso shrine also forbade the touring of the shimenawa around

Katsushika city before the “big shimenawa festival” and the consumption of alcohol outside the

border of the shrine in general. To give some context, it was a local tradition for the completed

shimenawa to be carried to each household of the city overnight, with the crew and local

residents often involved in celebratory consumption of large amounts of alcohol. The mood was

casual and boisterous, like many other popular kami festivals. One could easily imagine that the

parade was accompanied by rowdy behaviors of the intoxicated crowd. In addition, the newly

64Similar divinations can still be observed today in some villages. See examples in Taryo Obayashi, Inasaku no

shinwa (Kobundo, 2014), 213-214, 234-235, 228,234, 249. Also see folk customs documentation of Kameyama at

“New Year Preparation.” Kameyamarekihaku.jp. Accessed December 10, 2018.

http://kameyamarekihaku.jp/sisi/MinzokuHP/jirei/bunrui8/data8-1/index8_1_1_4.htm. 65 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 101.

31

made shimenawa, having been carried around overnight by such a crowd, may have become

disheveled from its nightly errand. Presumably, local governmental officials banned these

traditions because they viewed them as vestiges of an unruly, backward past incompatible with

the Meiji government’s modernization ideal. However, this particular ban proved to have limited

effectiveness, as the nocturnal parade was practiced and observed well into the 1950s.66

The intensified regulation of religious symbols like shimenawa in the above cases can be

understood as the Meiji’s government’s attempt to utilize and control shimenawa’s long-standing

symbolic power. As a widely-recognizable boundary marker, shimenawa were used to stabilize

the volatile newly created boundary between Shinto and Buddhism. As a signifier of religious

importance, shimenawa were also used to elevate the status of shrines and newly created centers

of national importance, a development that would have even greater influence in the coming

decades, as I will explore further in the next sections.

Post Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905): Intensified Shinto-State Connection

We have seen how since the beginning of the Meiji period the Japanese government had been

harnessing shimenawa to further its nationalist goals. After the Russo-Japanese war, with its

increasing militarist agenda and stronger need to create a unified subjecthood, the Japanese

government further strengthened its control on religious practices and heightened its efforts at

integrating shrines into social and political life more thoroughly than before. The Boshin

Rescript of 1908 proclaimed that: "It is now desired … that the shrines will be utilized in

promoting the unification and administration of the country".67 National policies were

66 “天祖神社の大しめ縄神事（葛飾飾区登録無形民俗文化財）.” 葛飾区史 History of Katsushika City.

Accessed December 10, 2018. http://www.city.katsushika.lg.jp/history/history/hosoku_4.html. 67 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 38.

32

implemented to integrate the shrines with other types of newly formed social groups, including

bureaucratically inspired movements such as national youth groups, women's groups, and army

reserve units.68 Shrines and Shinto priests were expected to serve the nation in fostering

patriotism while stricter sanctions were applied to anyone who denied the idea of the imperial

family’s divine origins.69 These policies especially faced resistance from the Buddhist and

Christian communities, who felt the freedom to practice their own religions were undermined by

the new policies.70

In 1915, against the background of the Taisho emperor’s enthronement ceremonies,

government officials in various prefectures took the enthronement ceremonies at Kyoto as an

opportunity to connect local religious practices with a major political and religious event at the

national level.71 According to reports from the Japanese Buddhist press of the time, at the end of

the year 1915, government officials in Yamagata, Kagawa and Hiroshima, Shimane, Ishikawa,

and other prefectures, ordered citizens, regardless of their religious affiliations, to “erect

kamidana 神棚 (Shinto altars) in their homes, place kadomatsu 門松(ceremonial pine trees),

hang shimenawa under the eaves, and visit designated shrines to mark the occasion”; in some

villages, failure to do so was punishable with fines and the offender would be accused of being

unpatriotic.72 The policies were enforced by heads of the local government. In the Kosei temple

of Kagawa prefecture, for example, the local policeman visited a Buddhist priest who refused to

put up shimenawa at the entrance of the temple gates and purify temple like a common house.

68 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 37. 69 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 37. 70 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 37-39, 123. 71 Holtom, “The political philosophy of modern Shinto,” 59. 72 Cheryl M. Allam, “The Nichiren and Catholic Confrontation with Japanese Nationalism,” Buddhist-Christian

Studies 10 (1990): 46.

33

Even though Buddhists would not have problems with using shimenawa before the Meiji, this

resentment suggests that, by this time, shimenawa was a well-established Shinto-only symbol.73

These orders attracted great resentment from the Buddhist communities that they organized to

secure the resignation of these local governors.74 Despite outrage from the Buddhist and

Christian communities, such regional sanctions were endorsed by the national government.

Starting in March 1919, under the Minryoku Kanyou Undou民力涵養運動 (“The Campaign to

Foster National Strength”) promoted by the Home Ministry, the national government pushed

these regional measures and enforced them with the police force; using shimenawa decoration at

one’s household during Japanese New Year, paying visits to shrines, and setting up kami altars

in one’s home became mandatory throughout the country. 75

The shimenawa in front of individual households, as well as other Shinto objects that became

patriotic duties during this time (such as the altar and the Ise talisman), signified that every home

is a branch unit within the national hierarchy of shrines overseen by the Ise Grand Shrines.

Figuratively and symbolically, these ropes represent the government’s attempt to weave

individuals into the collective whole of a Japanese nationhood. As every household became a

shrine, shimenawa’s sacredness was used to sanctify this new narrative of national identity - a

myth built on the shared beliefs, rituals, and identities of an emerging nation state, rather than

beliefs about ancient supernatural gods.

73 Holtom, “The political philosophy of modern Shinto,” 59 -60. 74 Holtom, “The political philosophy of modern Shinto,” 60. 75天田, 邦子. 民力涵養運動の社会教化的特質 : 長野県下高井郡瑞穂村の事例を中心にして. 上田女子短期

大学, 2012. <http://jairo.nii.ac.jp/0223/00000103>.

Michiya Iwamoto岩本通弥, “The manners and customs that are made visible: the emergence of 'national rites' in

1920's Japan 可視化される習俗—民力涵養運動期における「国民儀礼」の創出（Kashika sareru shuzoku:

minryoku kanyō undō-ki ni okeru “kokumin girei” no sōshutsu)” Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese

History 国立歴史民俗博物館研究報告 Rekihaku kenkyu hokoku 141 (2008): 265-322, 297.

34

To further illustrate how shimenawa were used to promote nationalist agendas within Shinto

spaces and beyond—a connection that post WWII Japanese discussions on shimenawa clearly

avoid addressing—let us turn to the case of the Yasukuni shrine (Fig. 27).

Since the Meiji Restoration, new shrines had been constructed to enshrine the war dead and

historic loyalists as national deities. Particularly after the Russo-Japanese War, these shrines

began to perform large-scale rites of state, and these rites of empire were made known more

widely than ever before thanks to the increasing circulation of newspapers, dissemination of

commemorative postcards, and more. Among these newly built shrines, the Yasukuni Shrine in

Tokyo (established in 1869) became a great center of State Shinto and commanded a level of

respect only second to the Ise Grand Shrines.76 Dedicated originally to those who had died

during the fighting of the Restoration on the loyalist side, the Yasukuni shrine enshrined those

who had died in both the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the Russo-Japanese War. Later it

also included the dead from World War II.

Shimenawa played a central role in shaping the public image of the newly created Yasukuni

Shrine. Leading to the shrine’s Main Hall (Haiden) (built in 1901) and the Main Shrine (Honden)

(built in 1872), one had to follow a linear visiting path punctuated by three torii gates: the First

Shrine gate (Daiichi Torii or Ōtorii) (first erected in 1921), the Second Shrine Gate (Daini Torii

or Seido Ōtorii) (first erected in 1887) and the Third Shrine Gate (Chumon Torii). The Third

Shrine Gate is the oldest torii among the three, first erected together with the shrine in 1869.

Shimenawa often accompanied the second and the third torii, constituting an integral component

to the visitors’ experiences and memories of the Yasukuni Shrine (Fig. 28). By being placed at

76 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 90.

35

the central axis of the Yasukuni Shrine, shimenawa were effectively occupying the axis mundi of

State Shinto and the worship of the war dead.

It is not surprising then that shimenawa were heavily featured in the visual representations of

the shrine. To bolster the authority and influence of the Yasukuni shrine, post-Meiji publications

tapped into the popularity generated by the Edo meisho-e industry and produced large quantities

of meisho-e featuring the Yasukuni Shrine, many of which included obvious reference to the

shrine’s torii and shimenawa (Fig. 27). The same can be said of photographic representations of

the shrine, which were deployed in widely disseminated newspaper and commemorative

postcards (Fig. 29). Even foreign missionaries captured the central role shimenawa and torii

played in creating the visual presentation of the Yasukuni shrine (Fig. 30). One may wonder, if

the combination of shimenawa with torii, a phenomenon widely found in contemporary Japan

but almost non-existing in pre-modern visual representations, was inspired by the widely

disseminated images of the iconographic torii and its shimenawa at the Yasukuni Shrine.77

In 1898, following the Japanese victory in the Sino-Japanese war, a large festival was held at

the Yasukuni shrine featuring the visit of the Emperor and the Empress. The whole area was

adorned with national flags and shimenawa. A newspaper editorial commented on the occasion,

proclaiming that “whereas the shrine had previously been regarded as the preserve of military

people, now that ‘every subject is a soldier,’ everyone should regard the shrine with personal

concern and see in its rites a form of spiritual education.” 78

Unlike ancient shrines such as the Ise Grand Shrines, the Yasukuni Shrine was a newly

created sacred place. By consecrating the war dead, it promoted loyalty for the state and glorified

77 It is also possible though, that this new combination is the merging of two distinctive ritual ropes, that of

shimenawa and that of kanjo nawa, a trend that I have mentioned in earlier chapter. See more discussion of this

trend in Nishimura, Kanjonawa, 45, 48, 75, 81. 78 Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 91.

36

sacrifices for the nation. As we have seen, shimenawa’s symbolic power to signify the sacred

was heavily used by the government in this process, transferring reverence associated with

traditional kami worship to new subjects of importance. Shimenawa’s function to prohibit and

set boundary and their historical importance were equally important to this process. The

profusive use of shimenawa at the Yasukuni Shrine thus legitimized the newly sanctified place

and its rituals, symbolically protecting them from the attacks by people who would oppose the

government’s militarist agendas. It is clear then, that shimenawa were being used as a coercive

tool to enforce Shinto’s supposed superiority to underscore a universal allegiance to State Shinto

during this period. Standardized shimenawa rituals sanctioned or created by the state were

propagated, whereas decentralized, local rituals were modified or oppressed. The intimate

intertwining of Shinto, shimenawa, and the state during this period presaged what was to follow

during the two world wars —during which Shinto became synonymous with ultranationalist and

militarist ideology.

WWI and WWII: Remaining Mystery

The art during WWI and WWII in general showed much less interest on traditional religious

subjects. Overtly nationalist symbols such as the national flag, scenes of combat and civilian life,

and exotic cultures confronted in Japan’s overseas expansion had become artists’ primary

concerns.79 The Yasukuni shrine, however, was an exception to this general trend. Between 1939

and 1944, works compiled by famous contemporary artists known as Yasukuni no emaki 靖国の

79 Reiko Kokatsu, Satomi Suzuki, and Yasuhiro Shida, Sengo 70-nen: mo hitotsu no 1940-nendai bijutsu : senso

kara fukko, saisei e : bijutsukatachi wa nani o kangae, nani o egaita ka = 70th Anniversary of the end of WWII :

alternative stories in 1940's art : from the tragic war to reconstruction and rebirth : what did Japanese artists'

works during that period represent? Tochigi-ken Utsunomiya-shi (Tochigi, Japan: Tochigi Kenritsu Bijutsukan,

2015).

37

絵巻 (“The Picture Scrolls of Yasukuni”) were produced biannually by the Ministry of the Army

and the Ministry of the Navy of Japan.80 These scrolls always start with images depicting the

pacifying rituals for the spirits of the war dead at Yasukuni shrine, followed by dramatic

depictions of clashing fighter jets, sinking gunboats, and destroyed tanks that allude to the tragic

but also glorious deaths of the Japanese soldiers (Fig. 31 and Fig. 32). Despite shimenawa’s

absence in these images, their presence at the actual pacifying rituals was documented by

photographs meticulously taken by the shrine in order to record every detail of the rituals (Fig.

33). The reasons behind the discrepancy between the actual rituals and what was recorded, with

what was disseminated by the government, deserve future research.

Post WWII and Contemporary: Architecturalization and Aestheticization

Following Japan’s defeat in WWII in 1945, the Allied Occupation government instituted

sweeping reforms that affected every aspect of public life.81 Not unlike what the Meiji

government did almost a century ago, having determined that there were close ties between

Shinto and war time politics, especially ultra-nationalism, the Occupation government quickly

placed religions at the center of their reform programs for postwar Japan. The Shinto Directive of

December 1945 legally separated Shinto from the state; state funding for Shinto institutions,

including Ise, was stopped.82 Shinto was no longer allowed to be taught in the public schools and

on January 1st, 1946, Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) denied his divine status.83

Carmen Blacker has eloquently summarized the state of Shinto post World War II:

80 “『靖国の絵巻』概要,” 靖国の絵巻, accessed January 27, 2019,

https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kaihatsu/maa/yasukuni/description.html. 81 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 324. 82 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 324. 83 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 324.

38

“The years immediately after the war saw the collapse and disgrace of the system of State

Shinto, which for a generation had sought to persuade the Japanese people that they were

uniquely singled out for divine favours, and ineluctably destined to rule the world. This disgrace

was succeeded by the catastrophe, unprecedented in Japanese history, of defeat and occupation

by a foreign power."84

When the Occupation finally ended in 1952, many Japanese politicians and intellectuals

poured their energy into the issue of Japanese cultural identity after feeling the need to fill the

breach in Japan's cultural boundaries caused by military defeat and occupation.85 Such a need

particularly fell on Shinto priests and leaders, who were actively searching for a new

interpretation of their own religion after the humiliating US occupation damaged the image of

State Shinto and tainted Shinto in general, while also facing the challenges posed by increasingly

deepened globalization and secularization.

Ironically, and yet not surprisingly, the movement turned towards the communal and regional

aspects of traditional kami worship—exactly the same elements that State Shinto, at its most

powerful time, strived to oppress and control.86 Against this background, ritual objects like

shimenawa have become both a popular subject for the discourse and the use of religion leaders,

politicians and intellectuals, and a fascination of the general public. Unlike iconic institutions

like the Ise Grand Shrines and the Yasukuni Shrine, shimenawa have managed to maintain a

relatively apolitical status and were minimally impacted by State Shinto’s military past. Even

though, as I demonstrated in the previous chapter, there was indeed a clear connection between

shimenawa and nationalism, this connection has been largely kept silent, whether intentionally or

not.

84 Carmen Blacker, “Millenarian Aspects of New Religions in Japan,” in Tradition and Modernization in Japanese

Culture, ed. Donald H. Shively, and Carmen Blacker (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 571. 85 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 324. 86 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 324.

39

This apoliticization of shimenawa is achieved through a process of ahistorization and

aestheticization; post WWII shimenawa serve more like decorative additions to existing

architecture, made to appeal to gaze of the tourists and pilgrims and less regarded as ritual tools

that create sacred spaces themselves. To be more specific, the contemporary popularization of

shimenawa has turned them into symbols of a unique, traditional, uninterrupted Japaneseness.

This newly ascribed meaning has led to two main developments in shimenawa’s usage. First,

they became increasingly combined with torii and began to function as semi-permanent

architectural structures. Second, they became increasingly produced by specialized artisans and

workshops as opposed to being produced communally by local communities (Fig. 34). The

shimenawa at the North entrance of Mount Fuji, and at the Grand Shrine of Izumo are two telling

examples for how shimenawa were transformed during this period (Fig. 35 and Fig. 36).

Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan and one of Japan’s holiest mountains. The entire

mountain has been considered a sacred realm from prehistoric times to the present and had been

venerated by various religious groups.87 However, access to the mountain was tightly restricted

until the Edo period, during which time it became a highly popular pilgrimage site attracting

more than ten thousand pilgrims over a summer climbing season.88 Today, a bronze torii with a

large shiny golden shimenawa marks the north entrance of the sando 参道 (pilgrimage path) that

leads to the mountain’s Kitaguchi Hongou Fuji Sengenjinja 北口本宮冨士浅間神社 (“North

Entrance Main Sengen Shrine”).89 Also known as Fujiyoshida Sengen Shrine, it used to be the

87H. Byron Earhart, Mount Fuji : Icon of Japan (University of South Carolina Press, 2011), 2. 88 Miyazaki Fumiko, “Female Pilgrims and Mt. Fuji: Changing Perspectives on the Exclusion of Women,”

Monumenta Nipponica 60, no. 3 (2005): 339-91. 339-340. 89 浅間神社 (Sengen Shrine or Asama shrine) are shrines primarily dedicated to the worship of Mount Fuji. There

are several such shrines located at different entry points to Mount Fuji. They are also found in other parts of Japan.

40

common starting point for ascending Mount Fuji from the north.90 Previously a local shrine, this

Sengen shrine became part of Jinja Honcho 神社本庁 (the Association of Shinto Shrines) during

Meiji period. In 2013, the North Entrance Main Sengen Shrine, along with eight other Sengen

shrines around Mount Fuji, were recognized as a World Heritage site related to Fujisan.91

First established in 1788, the bronze torii leading to the North Entrance Main Sengen Shrine

is said to be the first torii built within the realm of Mount Fuji; it was built with bronze since its

initial constructions.92 Given that access to Mount Fuji remained forbidden to women until 1860,

twelve years before the Meiji government banned the long-held exclusion of women from sacred

places, the bronze torii must have been a forbidding sign to female pilgrims aspiring to ascend

the mountain.93 In May 1962, the first shimenawa was added to accompany the torii, seven years

after the torii’s post-war reconstruction in August 1955.94 The large shimenawa was replaced

every six years until 2001, when the replacement paused for seventeen years until it was finally

resumed again in 2018.95 The current shimenawa was produced by a workshop located in

Toyama Prefecture, that specializes in handweaving shimenawa using polysynthetic fibers.96

90 The trailhead is still located directly behind the right side of the shrine's main hall, and some traditionalist hikers

still begin their ascent with a prayer at the shrine before passing through the wooden torii gate in the back of the

shrine grounds.

“Fujiyoshida Sengen Shrine• Shrine in Fuji Five Lakes.” Osaka Travel: Shitennoji Temple. Accessed January 27,

2019. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6903.html. 91 “Fujisan, Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration,” UNESCO World Heritage, accessed January 24th,

2019, whc.unesco.org/en/list/1418. 92 “富士山の「一ノ鳥居」,” Fujisan-net.jp, accessed December 10, 2018, http://www.fujisan-

net.jp/data/article/127.html. 93 Fumiko, “Female Pilgrims,” 339-340. 94The pervious torii was donated and melted down to assist war efforts in 1944. 山梨日日新聞社, “富士山の「一

ノ鳥居」.” 95 It is very likely that this pause was a result of the shrine’s financial hardship. After becoming recognized as a

UNESCO site in 2013, the shrine finally gained enough resources to commission a new shimenawa. Even the new

shimenawa was a synthetic one to reduce the budget. 96 “都道府県別納品実績,” 縄合屋 Nawawaseya, Accessed December 10, 2018, https://nawawaseya.com/jisseki-

chiiki/#koshinetsu.

41

The delayed decision to incorporate shimenawa into a post-war reconstruction of Shinto

architecture can also be observed at the Izumo Grand Shrine, one of the oldest and most

important shrines in Japan (Fig. 37). The ancient history of the Izumo Grand Shrine, together

with popular belief in its power to help in the development of romantic relationships, is at the

heart of its touristic and pilgrimage appeal. Recently, the largest shimenawa in the whole of

Japan decorating the shrine’s Kagura den神乐殿 (dance palace), a 1981 reconstruction, has also

become a popular tourist attraction and is arguably the most effective visual symbol for the

shrine. Replaced every six years, this giant shimenawa is frequently featured in advertising

materials for the region’s tourism industry (Fig. 38 and Fig. 39). Unbeknownst to many people,

however, the shimenawa is a rather late incorporation to the ancient shrine that only started after

1955 (Showa 30).97

The monumental shimenawa at Mt.Fuji’s North Entrance Main Sengen Shrine and at the

Izumo Grand Shrine possess several commonalities that deserve our attention in this analysis.

First, both are important pilgrimage or tourist sites. Second, as mentioned above, both were

added to an existing shrine architecture much later on. Third, unlike small and rustic shimenawa

found in earlier visual depictions or at places not ascribed pilgrimage significance, they are

extremely large and beautifully made. Fourth, both of them are on display for a period of time

significantly longer than is traditional for shimenawa.98 Lastly, both were made by shimenawa

specialists who produce shimenawa for shrines across the nation rather than by volunteers from

97 “We Making Shimenawa,” Ohshimenawa.com, Accessed December 10, 2018,

https://ohshimenawa.com/?mode=f6. 98 The polysynthetic shimenawa at North Entrance Main Sengen Shrine is designed to be used for at least fifteen

years, while in theory, its material will not naturally break down even after thousands of years. Even though the

giant shimenawa at Grand Shrine of Izumo is made of an organic material - rice straw, it is still only replaced every

six years (the monumentality of the object makes it financially and logistically impossible to be replaced annually).

42

local communities. The preference for monumentality and permanence found in these

shimenawa deviate significantly from premodern shimenawa, for which temporality holds

foremost religious significance.

Klaus Antoni suggests that the construction of monumental torii out of steel during Meiji

period—an "imperishable" materiality claimed to last 1300 years and not an obvious choice

given Shinto's preference for organic matters)—made it an embodiment of the nationalist ideals

of a modern industrialized government rather than traditional kami-worship.99 If metallic torii

symbolized the ambitions of the Meiji government, what does the construction of large artisan-

made shimenawa since the 1950s tell us about post-war Japan?

First, as discussed above, the humiliation of defeat and occupation produced a desire for

nationalist circles to reinstate the integrity of Japanese national and cultural identity. The desire

to create a boundary between what is considered Japanese and foreign, to purify Japan from the

“contamination” of occupation, made shimenawa a particularly potent purifying boundary-

marking symbol. The mystery surrounding shimenawa’s history and symbolism (a result of

insufficient studies on objects of popular religion), combined with their omnipresence in

Japanese society keep them insulated from close examination but just visible enough to serve as

aan emblem of an uninterrupted Japanese identity.100 There is something in shimenawa’s formal

qualities, too. The image of rope, given its cultural association with the Jomon period, conjures

memories of the ancient past—“long before the conflicts of the twentieth century to an imagined

era when there was one unified Japanese society.”101 I propose that the sense of permanence and

99 Klaus Antoni, “The “Separation of Gods and Buddhas” at Omiwa Jinja in Meiji Japan.” Japanese Journal of

Religious Studies 22, no. 1/2 (1995): 139-59, 142. 100 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition”, 329. 101 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition”, 329.

43

monumentality embodied by these big, eye-catching, picture-perfect shimenawa allow them to

function as visual anchors for Japanese identity in a period of time of increased foreign

influences and rapid social changes.

In keeping with what scholars have said about the revived connection between Shinto and

nationalist circles, I have found subtle connections with the nationalist circles at most of the

shimenawa sites that I visited. At the Iinan-cho Ohshimenawa Sousaku-kan, the workshop that

produced the monumental shimenawa for Izumo shrines, I noticed a commemoration plaque

displayed close to the entrance of the museum-like workshop which features a photograph with

members of the shimenawa production group standing next to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo

Abe (2006-7, 2012-present) in a conference like setting. Even though the display of the plaque is

modest enough to easily go unnoticed, its location close to the entrance suggests its importance.

Members of the workshop may easily point the plaque out to visitors when needed. As for the

rope specialty shop I visited in Tokyo, the Yasukuni shrine is their top client and is featured

prominently on their website. Finally, the hemp shimenawa revivalist group I met with at Ise

Grand Shrines is also part of the larger national Shintoist movement, with a mildly essentialist

view on Japanese culture, they hope to reestablish hemp’s role as the orthodox “Japanese fiber.”

Meanwhile, people seeking new representations of Japanese identity are aware that their

choices need to differ enough from the regalia used by the ultranationlist war time government.

Shimenawa have assumed a very “folk” role in post war discourse on Shinto and Japanese

culture, successfully maintaining a clear distance from imageries of State Shinto. The collective

silence on shimenawa’s complicated history with State Shinto is very similar to what Jonathan

M. Reynolds has observed in the post-war treatment of the Ise Grand Shrines. After WWII, he

suggests, Ise’s long cultural and political heritage was rarely at the front of discussions; instead,

44

much of the discourse is centered around the idea of an essential Japanese aesthetics.102 In the

case of shimenawa, most discourse centers around their formal features. Online posts and

popular publications on shimenawa are filled with speculations about the symbolisms behind

their various shapes—and their relationship to fertility worship, agricultural rites and primitive

religions, etc. Shimenawa are treated like visual symbols that defy the crushing force of history

and change. Ironically, this formalizing and aetheticizing impulse may have in turn impacted

shimenawa’s form, changing the supposedly unchanged. As shimenawa have become

increasingly treated like aesthetic objects—either as folk art or as architectural components—we

have seen the emergence of artisanal professionals who specialize in the production of

shimenawa, a phenomenon unknown of before WWII. The high quality shimenawa produced by

these artisans are put up in “semi-permanent” displays and admired by domestic as well as

international visitors; as their aesthetic appeal grows, their ritual power become diluted. The

artisan group at Izumo has even set up a museum-like space to curate their own shimenawa (Fig.

40 and Fig. 41).

It is important yet to point out that the change in shimenawa post WWII should not be

understood only as a political move motivated by nationalist agendas. Many Shinto leaders I

spoke to were aware of the inconsistencies in their practice and were indeed reluctant to change,

though, economic constraints have made it very hard for them to continue the production of

shimenawa in their historical form. After the Occupation, as governmental funding for shrines

was stripped away, shrines began to source their own income entirely from private

contributions.103 With secularization on the rise, the donations that shrines receive from

102 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition.” 103 Reynolds, “Ise Shrine and a Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition,” 326.

45

parishioners have been in a constant decline. All of my interviewees have mentioned the

financial challenge that contemporary shrines are facing; the situation applies to both smaller

shrines and major shrines like the Izumo Grand Shrine and even the Ise Shrines.

While the budget is shrinking, the cost of producing shimenawa is on the rise. Take for

example hemp and rice straw, the two most common materials for making shimenawa before

WWII. Under the Cannabis Control Law passed by the Occupation government in 1948, the

cultivation of hemp requires permission from a prefectural government and this regulation has

been tightened over in the past decade.104 Together with competition from imported hemp,

domestic production of hemp in Japan has been declining since WWII. Today, Japan’s hemp

cultivation industry is facing near extinction.105As its supply declined, the price for Japanese

hemp has risen astronomically. At present, two pounds of Japan-produced hemp for rope-making

can cost about 40,000 yen (about 360 dollars), nearly 100 times more than the cost of rice straws

for rope making. Even the relatively affordable cost of rice straw shimenawa (an average of

15,000 yen per piece) can still be too much for small shrines. With rice straw also becoming

increasingly unavailable, the cost is expected to rise. Since shimenawa made of organic materials

are replaced yearly, the increasing price for raw materials is turning plant shimenawa into a

luxury item for many Shinto shrines.106

Despite being yet a huge investment, there are advantages towards commissioning a beautiful

monumental shimenawa as well. Not only can such shimenawa bolster local pride and elicit

greater support from local parishioners for the shrine, they also serve as great attractions for

104 “Domestic Hemp Industry Facing Extinction.” The Japan News, Mar 22, 2017. Accessed 15 Apr, 2018,

http://ezproxy.middlebury.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1879346162?accountid=12447. 105 The Japan News, “Domestic Hemp Industry Facing Extinction.” 106 The Japan News, “Domestic Hemp Industry Facing Extinction.”

46

tourists and bring in revenues for the shrines and local communities. This seems to apply to both

Izumo Grand Shrine and the Mount Fuji’s North Entrance Main Sengen Shrine, which are

popular tourist sites and have actively used their monumental shimenawa in advertising

materials. Ancient mysteries, reverence for the kami, national and ethnic pride—whatever these

shimenawa conjure in contemporary tourists’ mind, they seem to hold as much charm as the

shimenawa did for Edo pilgrims.

I have primarily focused on shimenawa used in public domains above, but the small

shimenawa used in households in many ways follow the development we have seen in larger

shimenawa. These small shimenawa have been referred to as “shimenawa decoration” in

contemporary Japan, a term that suggests the emphasis is on their visual qualities over their ritual

power. The use of shimenawa in settings like restaurants and stores demonstrates the extent of

aestheticization and secularization (Fig. 42 and Fig. 43). My interviewees at the Grand Shrine of

Izumo told me that the use of shimenawa developed according to shrine personnel’s different

interpretations of how to make people most respectful and aware of the kami. Against the

backdrop of all the changes brought about by the end of WWII—political, cultural and

economic—it seems to me that the monumental shimenawa at Mount Fuji and Grand Shrine of

Izumo perfectly represent the ideal image of a post-war Japan. Reborn from its militarist and

expansionist past, the new Japan is a well-mannered member of the international community.

Not only is it very modern: orderly, clean, and technologically advanced, it has maintained its

uniqueness (and hence exotic charm) by preserving its traditions, albeit in a highly curated

manner that prefer traditions that are aesthetically appealing to modern eyes.

Conclusion

47

According to historian and religion scholar Mircea Eliade, the identification of the sacred in

the mundane world creates reality and order for the religious: In his words: "the experience of

sacred space makes possible the 'founding of the world’ … The world becomes apprehensible as

world, as cosmos, in the measure in which it reveals itself as a sacred world."107 Shimenawa have

been important religious objects in kami worship due to their function as space markers and,

subsequently, space-makers. By signifying the presence of kami and dividing the sacred from the

profane, shimenawa is integral in creating experiences of the sacred space. Even as shimenawa’s

symbolic functions have expanded from the Edo period, they continue to evoke experiences of

higher meaning through new paradigms of mass culture, nationalism, modernization, and

heritage. Shimenawa not only physically and symbolically occupy the liminal space between the

sacred and the profane—they also straddle the conceptual boundaries between art and craft, local

and national, history and historicization. My fieldwork demonstrates that shimenawa embody

processes of economic, sociopolitical, and ideological negotiation and challenges the dominant

view that shimenawa are static in meaning.

I now return to the mystery that intrigued me when I began this study—namely,

understanding the baffling range of diverse locations and occasions in which shimenawa are used

which seem to defy any possible attempt at systemization. By not shying away from the

complicated and even problematic associations between shimenawa and nationalism, I have

come to conclude that the complexity seen in shimenawa’s forms and usage is not a random but

rather a telling testament to how kami worship and Shinto have been shaped by Japan’s modern

history. The coexistence of monumental shimenawa and their less elaborate counterparts in

contemporary Japanese society suggests that shimenawa today are multivalent symbols that have

107 Eliade, The sacred and the profane, 63-64.

48

both separated and tied together communities and identities on many different levels. On one end

of the spectrum, we have seen that the standardization and aestheticization resultant of the

modern state’s intervention and promotion of monumental shimenawa at important national

pilgrimage sites, as well as aided the popularization of household shimenawa decorations during

the New Year’s festivities. On the other end of the spectrum, there are still a plethora of

traditional regional interpretations of shimenawa, exemplified by the non-architectural

shimenawa used in various rituals.

The enduring attractiveness of shimenawa as symbols not only lies in their power to separate,

and hence create a world of higher experiences, but also in their power to connect. Even as

different symbolic meanings become condensed in shimenawa’s physical forms under the new

paradigm of secular nationalism, the traditional meaning remains at the back of Japanese

people’s consciousness. For example, artisans who use inorganic materials made available by

industrialization still insist on making the rope by hands; this I was told, is because the physical

act of weaving the rope with one’s hands is a ritual that connects one to the kami. The traditional

concept of boundary embodied by shimenawa, is therefore much more porous and dynamic than

the concept of boundary in English, which is fixated on limits and separations.108 The trend of

treating shimenawa merely as visual symbols that reinforced the impermeable boundaries

between identities since the end of the nineteenth century was in fact concurrent with Japan’s

adoption of Western political institutions and cultural concepts. With a global rise in rightwing

conservatism that aims to reinforce both physical boundaries - for example, fenced and patrolled

national borders- and conceptual boundaries - such as gender, race, and religions - the English

concept of boundary seems to be forcing a hegemony over how we could possibly conceive our

108 Sheridan, Boundary Plants, 33.

49

relationship with one another. The study of indigenous boundary symbols like shimenawa is

therefore particularly important in our current age and has greater repercussion outside of the

field of religion and art history.

50

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Illustrations

Fig. 1. Example of a shimenawa found under a torii gate, with shide attached. David Boggett,

Kamigamo Shrine,Torii gate draped with straw shimenawa rope and folded paper shide, 20th

century, documentary photograph, accessed January 20, 2019,

http://library.artstor.org/asset/ABOGGETTIG_10313357905.

Fig. 2. An image of shimenawa and shide. “Shimenawa (Rice Rope),” Green Shinto, last

modified February 13, 2012, accessed January 13, 2019,

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55

Fig. 3. Patterns found on Jomon potteries that resemble shimenawa. Irina Zhushchikhovskaya,

“Jomon pottery: cord-imitating decoration,” Documenta Praehistorica 34 (2007): 27.

Fig. 4(left). Hand-woven straw ropes used as fishing nets for firefly squids in Izumo, Japan.

Photographed by the author, August 2018.

Fig. 5(right). Straw bales used to store and transport rice. “Decorative and Functional Rice Bales

| Japan | Japan Travel | Nihon Sun,” Nihon Sun Temple or Shrine What’s the Difference,

accessed January 28, 2019, http://www.nihonsun.com/2009/02/17/decorative-and-functional-

rice-bales/.

56

Fig. 6 (left) and Fig. 7(right). Ropes samples for mundane and religious purposes displayed

inside a contemporary rope shop in Kyoto, Japan. Photographed by the author, August 2018.

Fig. 8. Kinbaku or Shibari is a Japanese style of bondage or BDSM said to originate in Edo

period. It involves tying a person up in simple yet visually intricate patterns, using natural-fibre

rope known as asanawa made of hemp or jute. “Garth Knight- Magic Creations without

Beginning or an End,” ART PLAY MAGAZINE, last modified July 22, 2018, accessed January

12, 2019, http://www.artplaymagazine.com/shibari-garth-knight/.

57

Fig. 9 A very simple shimenawa tied around a torii in Tokyo. Photographed by the author,

September 2018.

Fig. 10. Shimenawa are Z twist, or “left twist”. Masamichi Ootomo, Shimenawa hyakka

(Shimenawa Kenkyukai, 2007), 33.

58

Fig. 11. A sake (Japanese rice alcohol) advertisement using shimenawa to promote the purity of

its beverage. Gunter Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in

Japan (London: Academy Editions, 1993), 66.

59

Fig. 12 A father and his two daughters are bowing to an ancient tree circled with shimenawa in

this scene from My Neighbor Totoro. Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro, 1988, accessed

January 20, 2019,

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Fig. 13 Both shimenawa and torii are used in this poster for an animation movie on the romance

between a kami and a human girl. The cloth tying the two characters’ hands together reminds

60

one of the shimenawa connecting the married rocks. Takahiro Omori, Hotarubi no Mori e, 2011,

accessed January 20, 2019, https://www.gigcasa.com/articles/450552.

Fig. 14. Kantai Collection is a Japanese free-to-play web browser game, representation of World

War II warships personified as teenage girls and young adult women. In this fanart produced for

the game, we see shimenawa being worn adorned by characters who look like Shinto shrine

maiden (miko) but are also perfonification of major Japanese warships during WWII. “曉的水平

線上,” 艦娘點評：戰艦篇, accessed January 20, 2019,

https://dennisboy38.blogspot.com/2016/07/bb.html.

61

Fig. 15. A very small shimenawa decoration gifted to the author by shimenawa artisans.

Photographed by the author, January 2019.

Fig. 16. The biggest shimenawa in Japan is found at the Izumo-Taisha-Grand-Shrine. Shimane

Prefectural Government. Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine. Digital Photography. “Shimane Explore

Unfamiliar Japan,” accessed: Sep 19, 2018, http://www.kankou-shimane.com/en/wp-

content/uploads/2015/03/Izumo-Taisha-Grand-Shrine_11.jpg.

62

Fig. 17. Shimenawa are often tied around magnificent rocks, such as the husband-and-wife rocks

at Iwato, Mie prefecture, a popular pilgrimage site before people visit the Ise Jingu.

Photographed by the author, August 2018.

Fig. 18. “Hiking to Nachi Taisha & Nachi-No-Taki Waterfall, Southern Wakayama,” accessed:

Sep 19, 2018, https://travelwithnanob.com/2017/08/05/hiking-to-nachi-taisha-nachi-no-taki-

waterfall-wakayama/

63

Fig. 19. Michikiri rope at Taie village, Nara Prefecture. “桜井市高家（たいえ）の勧請縄.” 愛

しきものたち, Last modified February 17, 2008, accessed: Sep 19, 2018,

https://blog.goo.ne.jp/pzm4366/e/06cc836018fc6f866fd0792bbc44a8a4.

Fig. 20. A kanjo nawa used interchangeably as a shimenawa at Omihachiman city. Yasuo

Nishimura, Kanjonawa: kosei yutaka na murazakai no mayoke (Shiga, Japan: Sun Rise, 2013),

83.

64

Fig. 21. Shimenawa is used during Misomahajimesai festival in preparation for the renewal of

the Ise Grand Shrines. “御杣始祭,” Taka's World, last modified June 5, 2005, accessed: Sep 19,

2018, https://blog.goo.ne.jp/iccya_q-o-p/e/12498ed9cac2e805ab4b090a980d184a.

65

Fig. 22. At Tondo Matsuri, citizens bring traditional New Years decorations such as Kadomatsu

and Shimenawa and burn it praying for their health for the new year. “Tondo Matsuri,” Arches |

Explore Iwakuni, accessed January 28, 2019, https://www.archesjapan.com/events/tondomatsuri.

66

Fig. 23. 広重 Hiroshige, 伊勢参宮略図并東都大伝馬街繁栄之, ゑひ寿屋庄七, 1855, National

Diet Library Collection, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www.dl.ndl.go.jp/api/iiif/1302527/manifest.json.

67

Fig. 24. A meisho image depicting shimenawa being used at a festival. Saitō, Gesshin, Settan

Hasegawa, Settei Hasegawa, Natsuo Ichiko, and Ken'ichi Suzuki. Shintei Toto saijiki. Tōkyō:

Chikuma Shobō, 2001.

Fig. 25. Shimenawa in front of a famous waterfall. Edo meisho zue. v.11-15. Saitō, Chōshu,

1737-1799.

68

Fig. 26. Hakuin Ekaku (Japanese, 1685 - 1768), Running Budai (Hotei) as a naked monk

(Sutasuta bozu), 1740-1768, Edo period (1615-1868), Hanging scroll, Ink on paper, H. 33 3/4 in

x W. 11 1/4 in, H. 85.7 cm x W. 28.6 cm, The Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum

Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture.

69

Fig. 27. Utagawa Hiroshige III (Japanese, 1842–1894), Publisher Tsunemasa (Japanese), Famous

Places in Tokyo: Yasukuni Shrine on Kudanzaka Hill (Tôkyô meisho no uchi, Kudanzaka jô

Yasukuni jinja no zu) 「東京名所之内九段坂上靖國神社之圖」,Japanese, Meiji era, 1880

(Meiji 13), March 1. Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston

(Japanese), Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper, Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf

Collection,

70

Fig. 28. Precinct map of Yasukuni Shrine, from Yasukuni Jinja Pamphlet, Ysukuni Shrine,

accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www.yasukuni.or.jp/assets/pdf/english/map/yasukuni_shiori_en.pdf.

71

Fig. 29 Artist Unknown (Japanese), Official Commemoration Card: The Ise Shrine and the

Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese, Late Meiji era, 1906. Leonard A. Lauder Collection, Museum of

Fine Arts, Boston.

72

Fig. 30 Shinto Temple Shokonsha, Kudan, Tokio. From Pitman, Emma Raymond, Central

Africa, Japan, and Fiji: A Story of Missionary Enterprise, Trials and Triumphs (1882), 196.

73

Fig. 31. The front page from the Yasukuni emaki of 1942, depicting the ritual for the war dead at

Yasukuni Shrine. 北蓮蔵画伯, 招魂の儀, 1942, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kaihatsu/maa/yasukuni/yasukuni_s14_004.html.

74

Fig. 32. War scene depicted in Yasukuni Emaki. 三田康, レンネル島沖海戦, 1943, accessed

January 10, 2019, https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kaihatsu/maa/yasukuni/img/large/18b-019.jpg

75

Fig. 33. Historical photograph of the ritual for the war dead in Yasukuni Shrine. 招魂斎庭,

Kokugakuin University, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kaihatsu/maa/img/taisai/l/s1310-008-01.jpg.

76

Fig. 34. 佐野一雄,Making shimenawa, Showa 50s, Kyoto Photography Association(京都写真連

盟) , accessed January 10, 2019, https://meiji150.kyoto/photo/photo-2928/

Fig. 35. Golden shimenawa at Asama Shrine. 北口本宮冨士浅間神社 金鳥居 しめ縄 献納

/Mt.Fuji and Sacred Rice straw Ropes, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ESQfwLNPm0

77

Fig. 36. A scene from the promotional video made by the Western Japan Railway to encourage

tourism to Western Japan, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHgHDhpd2g&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2u-

V5C0uhq1c88ZSiqeGpY7IzDd9cR6mDHbCO5f0LlmwwIdSNbfU3AMcY

78

Fig. 37. A shrine maiden praying next to the “Uzu” pillars unearthed within the Izumo Grand

Shrine precincts. Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo, “Exhibition of “Uzu” pillars in the main

lobby unearthed within the Izumo Grand Shrine precincts,” accessed January 10, 2019,

https://www.izm.ed.jp/english/chuou.html

Fig. 38. Advertising material for Shimane Prefecture featuring Izumo Grand Shrine and its

shimenawa, accessed January 10, 2019, https://www.izm.ed.jp/english/chuou.html

https://www.kankou-shimane.com/

79

Fig. 39. This poster was frequently sighted by the author during her trip to Izumo area in the

summer of 2018, accessed January 10, 2019, https://www.izm.ed.jp/english/chuou.html from

http://www.ccrew.jp/works_2017.html

80

Fig. 40. Museum-like “big shimenawa production gallery” at Shimanwe prefecture， accessed

January 10, 2019, http://www.shimane19.net/column/2018/07/13-1658.html

Fig. 12. Inside of the “big shimenawa production gallery”, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://minkara.carview.co.jp/image.aspx?src=https%3a%2f%2fcdn.snsimg.carview.co.jp%2fmi

nkara%2fuserstorage%2f000%2f046%2f617%2f496%2fdac1067dcc.jpg?ct=9146d22d2444.

81

Fig. 42. Shimenawa used in a high-end fashion store in Isetan, Shinjuku, Tokyo, accessed

January 10, 2019, http://www.waranawa.com/tokutyu.html.

Fig. 43. Shimenawa used in a restaurant, accessed January 10, 2019,

https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1309/A130905/13056077/dtlphotolst/3/?sby=&smp=2.