A Shinto Shrine Turned Local: the Case of Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu and Its Acculturation on O'ahu

A SHINTO SHRINE TURNED LOCAL: THE CASE OF KOTOHIRA JINSHA DAZAIFU TENMANGU AND ITS ACCULTURATION ON O'AHU A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN RELIGION MAY 2018 By Richard Malcolm Crum Thesis Committee: Helen Baroni, Chairperson Michel Mohr Mark McNally ABSTRACT This project examines the institution of Hawai’i Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu in Honolulu as an example of a New Religious Movement. Founded in Hawaiì, the shrine incorporated ritual practices from Sect Shinto customs brought to the islands by Japanese immigrants. Building on the few available scholarly studies, I hypothesize that while Hawaiì Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu takes the ritual conduct, priestly training, and the festival calendar from a Japanese mainland style of Shinto, the development of the shrine since its foundation in 1920 to the present reflects characteristics of a New Religious Movement. Elements such as the location of the shrine outside of Japan, attendee demographics, non-traditional American and Hawaiian gods included in the pantheon, the inclusion of English as the lingua-franca during festivals and rituals, and the internal hierarchy and structure (both political and physical) lend to the idea of Hawaiian Shinto being something unique and outside of the realm of Sect, Shrine, or State Shinto in Japan. i Table of Contents Introduction Local Scholarship Review, the Hawaiian Islands, and Claims…………………………………….1 How do we define Hawaiian Shinto? Key Concepts and Approaches…..………………………..6 Purpose, and Chapter Outline…………………………………………………………………….12 Chapter 1 What is Shinto? Definitions and Literature Review ……………………………………………..15 Chapter 2 Formation and Construction of Hawaiian Shinto Communities…………………………………22 Importance of Kenjinkai……………………………………………………………………..…..27 Origins of Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu and Other Major Hawaiian Shrines……………31 Tensions Mounting and Growth in the Religious Economy…………………………………..…38 Chapter 3 War, Tension, and the War’s Impact………………………………………………………………43 Expansion and Internal Struggles: 1952 - 1993………………………………………………….50 Masa Takizawa and Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu since 1994………………..………….60 Chapter 4 Defining a Space for Hawaiian Shinto: NRM, Sect, Cult, or Import?………………………….71 The Purpose of Definitions and their Application in Religious Scholarship…………………….82 Concluding Thoughts Comments on New Religions, and KJDT……………………………………………………….86 Avenues for Further Research, and Closing Thoughts…………………………………………..87 Personal Statement, and Connection to KJDT………………………………………..………….89 ii INTRODUCTION Local Scholarship Review, the Hawaiian Islands, and Claims From time immemorial, the people of Japan have worshipped kami. It is difficult to pin down specific dates for the genesis of early Japanese rituals and beliefs about Kami, but the history of Shinto practice by Japanese immigrants in Hawaiì is a path of scholarship even less traveled. Two twenty-first century academic studies in the field of religion have zeroed in on the provocative and peculiar niche that local Shinto shrines have carved out for themselves in the Hawaiian Islands, and the more important of these, “For the Protection and Benefit of the People: A History of Shinto in Hawaiì” by Paul G. Gomes III, which was submitted as a Masters thesis in Religion at the University of Hawaiì at Manoa in 2007. Most of the sources in Gomes’s project consist of newspaper articles, undocumented University records based on undergraduate research, and publications by members of the Hawaiì Shinto League or the priests themselves. Because of the dearth of published academic histories of Shinto in Hawaiì, Gomes’s research is incredibly valuable for providing context for Shinto groups with respect to Hawaiian and international affairs in the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. In his work, Gomes coins the expression ‘Kama’aina Shinto,’ meaning the Shinto practices of the people of Hawaiì.1 The thesis encompasses the narrative of immigrants 1 Gomes III, Paul G. For the Protection and Benefit of the People: A History of Shinto in Hawai’i. Master’s Thesis. University of Hawaiì. 2007. (9-10) The word Kama’aina literally translates to ‘people of the land’ (i.e. Hawaiì) and is central to Gomes’ discussion of the development of Shinto in Hawaiì. Discussing Shinto in terms of the relationship between the aina and the cultural practices of Japanese people in Hawai’i binds the land and religious practitioners together. "1 as early as 1885, and finishes reporting on modern cultural assimilation-oriented newsletters as recent as 2005, just two years prior to the project’s submission. Wilburn Hansen submitted the second major work, an academic publication titled, “Examining Prewar Tôgô Worship in Hawaii: Toward Rethinking Hawaiian Shinto as a New Religion in America,” in Nova Religio; The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions in 2010. Hansen’s work argues that a kokutai ritual in honor of Japanese Naval Admiral T#g# conducted at Hawaiì Daijing$ Temple was not a nationalist cult-practice. Instead, Hawaiì Daijing$ Temple was simply appealing to the religious market in Hawaiì, which was largely made up of Isei and Nisei.2 In the 1930s, groups like Hawaiì Daijing$ focused on appealing to the sense of Japanese identity that attendees, both immigrant and visiting Japanese national alike, desired to connect with when attending local shrines.3 There are a few other contributions ancillary to this research that explore other facets of Hawaiian Shinto. In 2012, “The Japanese and Okinawan American Communities and Shintoism in Hawaii: Through the Case of Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii” was submitted as a Masters Thesis by Kinjo Sawako in the department of American Studies. While this addition to Hawaiian Shinto scholarship was quite thorough and well articulated, it deals primarily with issues of Okinawan-American heritage and descriptive history of the shrine, and neither addresses nor argues the religious elements of the shrine beyond its description. As will follow in the first chapter of this thesis 2 Isei and Nisei refer to the first wave immigrants and their offspring from Japan to Hawaiì in the late 19th thru the early 20th century. 3 Hansen, Wilburn. Examining Prewar Tôgô Worship in Hawaii Toward Rethinking Hawaiian Shinto as a New Religion in America. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 14, no. 1 2010. (67-92) "2 project relating to KJDT, Kinjo too outlines the history of the Japanese presence in Hawaiì as it relates to Izumo Taisha. The religious function of Izumo Taisha is, according to Kinjo, in large part a kind of cultural preservation that is consistently influenced and overseen by priests and functionaries who are constantly either traveling to or in contact with Izumo Taisha representatives in Japan. Kinjo further notes the highly populous Okinawan patronage of Honolulu’s Izumo Taisha, and that the priests have made a concerted effort to travel to Okinawa, and even enshrine Okinawan kami. Kinjo’s study is quite useful as a model study of a specific Hawaiian shrine, but is more focused on the evolution of an American immigrant community than it is on the characteristics of the religion itself. Lastly, Maeda Takakazu published Hawaii no Jinjashi in 1999, and this project is cited in all three of the aforementioned pieces of scholarship. Maeda’s book describes in great detail the historical developments of Hawaiian Shinto shrines, but does so in Japanese. The majority of people in Hawaiì, including those who attend local shrines, do not have an academic level of mastery of Japanese sufficient to read Maeda, and Gomes’s research is one of the few, if not the only available comprehensive history of Hawaiian Shinto in English. The reasons for this are simple: Shrines in Hawaiì weathered storms of public scrutiny, government repossession of land, and internment and deportation of priests in the years immediately preceding and following the Pacific War. Some shrines disbanded completely or closed temporarily as a result of government pressure. It follows logically that benefactors and priests would want to avoid subjecting their institutions to further persecution, by opening dialogues with government officials, or even journalists. While "3 academics are not necessarily connected to government bodies or journalistic institutions, Shinto communities and leaders have similar reasons to keep scholars at an arm’s length, since, before and after the Pacific War, community outsiders potentially posed a threat. Additionally, shrines are not typically active in the area of proselytization. Taking all of this into account, it becomes clear exactly why there is little scholarship or public records of Hawaiian shrine activities from the immediate postwar period; members of the Hawaiì Shinto communities have little incentive or motivation to broadcast their cultural practices. Luckily, some communities have more recently opened themselves up to the idea of research projects featuring their tradition, and the following research is in part the product of this newfound openness. Other than Gomes and Hansen, Nakajima Michio describes shrines beyond the reach of the former Japanese territories as important areas for further research, and as sites that were outside the jurisdiction of the Imperial Shinto project.4 Nakajima, along with Hansen, focuses on the elements that drove the development of State Shinto (kokka Shintō 国家神道）to project itself beyond Japan’s borders, and describe the influence the state had on shrines and their attendees. Overseas shrines (kaigai jinja 海外神社）are anomalies in both lines of research, since Hansen devotes the bulk of his discussion to the religious economy as it pertains to State Shinto rites rather than to Hawaiian Shinto in 4 Michio, Nakajima, Shinto Deities That Crossed the Sea: Japan's Overseas Shrines, 1868 to 1945. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37, no. 1 (2010): 21-46. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/27822898. Nakajima’s article focuses on Tawain, Korea, and China and the construction of shrines during the war period.

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