Shinto, Sumo and ‘True’ Japanese Spirit Richard Light and Louise Kinnaird
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8 Appeasing the gods Shinto, sumo and ‘true’ Japanese spirit Richard Light and Louise Kinnaird Introduction On the penultimate day of the 2001 spring bashyo (tournament) yokozuna Takanohana steps up onto the dohyou (the raised clay area in which bouts are contested), performs a perfunctory bow and moves to his corner with his back to his opponent to perform shiko. From a wide deep stance the rikishi raises his extended leg up to meet his outstretched hand, then thumps his foot down on the dohyou. With hands placed on his knees he sinks his hips below knee level before repeating the leg raising on the other side. He then moves closer to his corner where he squats down to take a mouthful of water and spits it out whilst holding a sheet of paper above his mouth. After wiping his mouth, he crumples the paper, discards it and grabs a handful of salt as the referee introduces the two rikishi. They rise and turn toward each other, toss the salt in the ring and move forward to the centre of the dohyou. There they repeat shiko before, again, returning to their corners as attendants carrying the banners of the bout’s sponsors circle inside the dohyou. Both rikishi return to the centre to squat on their heels and make eye contact with each other. Following a brief pause and maintaining eye contact, they bend forward, fists loosely clenched and lightly touching the ground, in prepara- tion for engagement (tachiai). At the last moment Takanohana withdraws, sits back on his heels with hands on his hips to fix his opponent, Musoyama, with a disdainful look. Musoyama then does the same. The crowd responds as both rikishi stand and exchange a further, momentary glare before returning to their respective corners. They take another handful of salt, throw it in the ring, slap their mawashi (belt) heavily and return to the centre of the dohyou. This procedure is repeated four times and each time the crowd responds with growing enthusiasm as tension and anticipation mount. Finally the two huge men clash violently at the tachiai and struggle to gain an advantageous grip on the opponent’s mawashi. Takanohana seems to establish a better grip on his opponent’s mawashi but Musoyama drives him backwards and quickly tosses him to the floor with the technique known as yorikiri. The huge crowd erupts in wild applause and showers the dohyou with the cushions they have been sitting on as a sign of appreciation. 140 Richard Light and Louise Kinnaird Six and a half minutes passed from the moment Takanohana stepped onto the dohyou to the beginning of the bout. The physical contest was over in five seconds. The unvaried ritual performed by rikishi is an indispensable and essential part of a sumo performance. The highly ritualised nature of sumo is saturated with cultural and religious subtexts that mark it as a uniquely Japanese practice. Its links with the national religion, Shinto, as well as with a mythological past have been central to both sumo’s popularity and its development as a symbol of what both Japanese and non-Japanese see as ‘authentic’ Japanese culture. Such ritualised practices, particularly those relying on historical legitimation, are particularly relevant at times of rapid social upheaval, when pressures from beyond the national borders threaten to disrupt national unity. There has been considerable attention paid to the ritualised nature of sport by social scientists who have recognised the similarity between the practice of modern sport and pre-modern religious practices.1 This has led to a body of work that conceives of sport as a secular religion or a secular ritual that functions much as pre-modern religious ceremony and ritual did. Within this body of work on ‘sport as religion’, researchers have identified the roles that sport can play in the development of regional, national, cultural and religious identity.2 As Emile Durkheim’s work shows, ritual operates to define in-group and out-of-group membership.3 Although much has been written on the role that sport can play in achieving social integra- tion,4 sport, with its highly ritualised practices, may also be a useful tool to ensure that distinctions between various communities can be preserved. Sumo is a highly complex cultural ritual that embodies specific and significant cultural and social meanings. The traditions and ceremonies that characterise contemporary sumo mark it as a uniquely Japanese cultural practice and act to confirm and reinforce a sense of distinct Japanese cultural identity. The constructed history that weds sumo with ancient court practice and Shinto is reinforced by the ritualised nature of its performance. A histor- ical examination of sumo’s development into its contemporary form reveals a changing yet important relationship with Japan’s indigenous religion, illus- trating that sumo’s affiliation with Shinto ritual has been central to the development of its cultural and social significance. Along with Western sports and restructured forms of martial arts known as budo introduced in the late nineteenth century, sumo has contributed significantly to the development of a homogenous culture and a sense of national identity in Japan. Its success has been largely the result of its ability to offer a means of defining a distinct Japanese cultural identity, particularly during times of cultural instability. Sumo’s links with the national religion and its deliberate political appropriation over the past two centuries have served to promote what most Japanese regard as the unique features of their culture. As such, sumo has played a significant part in political efforts to maintain social cohesion and encourage a sense of national identity during times of profound social, economic and political change during the eigh- Appeasing the gods 141 teenth and nineteenth centuries. This chapter examines the means by which sumo’s status as a symbol of national culture was strengthened by its adoption of Shinto ritual, and how during times of acute social, cultural and political flux, cultural practices, such as sumo, have served to sustain Japanese identity. Official accounts of sumo history lay claim to an unbroken 1,500 year history,5 yet most of the purported ancient traditions were only introduced during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They formed part of a deliberate strategy employed by promoters who sought to convince authorities that sumo originated in ancient Shinto and court tradition. To achieve these aims, early sporting entrepreneurs invented a ‘respectable’ history for a sport that had been little more than a popular form of street- fighting. The expedient association between sumo and Shinto meant the sport could operate as a non-threatening activity that could contribute to a growing sense of Japanese identity, without jeopardising the status of eigh- teenth and nineteenth century dynastic leaders. This rehistoricisation successfully obfuscated the ways in which, prior to the late eighteenth century, sumo had evolved along two mutually exclusive lines. One form of sumo was first practised as a native religious ritual deeply embedded in ancient agrarian religious tradition. The other form had its origins in brutal fight-to-the-death tests of strength staged for the entertainment of the common classes. Eighteenth-century promoters successfully linked sumo, as a commoner’s test of strength, to the history of sumo as a religious ritual and activity of the court. For a culture perceived as being under threat from external forces, the significance of cultural activities such as sumo meant that the population could share in a strengthened sense of cultural homogeneity. The continued success of these measures is evidenced in sumo’s current popularity and role as a marker of Japanese national culture and identity. The process of selecting appropriate elements of a history is not an uncommon practice and has been identified by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger in a political context, by Lynn Spillman in a nationalist context, and more recently by a range of authors within a sporting context.6 As Hobsbawm notes within Western societies, old and venerated traditions are often not only recent in origin but are also sometimes invented.7 Such invented traditions include ritualistic and symbolic practices that are used to inculcate particular values and behaviours by uniting current practice with a ‘suitable past’.8 As such, according to Raymond Williams, traditions are radically selective and operate as powerful political tools.9 What is remem- bered, marginalised or even forgotten can validate current actions and power arrangements by relating contemporary practice to a suitable past. Sporting traditions can prove to be powerful links to a suitable past. Within Japan, promoters of sumo during the late eighteenth century adopted selected prac- tices from ancient court sumo and, drawing on religious ritual, invented some completely new traditions designed to embed sumo within Shinto as a religion of rising influence. These modifications, and the fabrication of links with ancient practice, gave the sport the ‘suitable historic past’ it had lacked 142 Richard Light and Louise Kinnaird and ensured that sumo was acceptable to the political leaders of the time.10 The status that contemporary sumo enjoys in Japan as well as the cultural meanings attached to it are thus the direct result of the ‘Shintoisation’ of sumo over two centuries earlier. Whilst the ritualised practice of contempo- rary Sumo is deemed representative of an ‘immemorial’ Japanese past, most sumo rituals reveal more about the political ambitions of rulers during the Tokugawa era (1600–1867) than about any ancient culture. Shinto as a religious and cultural practice Shinto is the main indigenous religion of Japan, yet it is an elusive practice. It has long formed a central part of Japanese cultural life, yet was not conceived as separate from secular life until the sixth century AD following the intro- duction of Buddhism.