| Hanagasa |
Bamboo or rush festival hat, with flowers, used in hanagasa odori |
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| Hanawa, Hoki'ichi |
A scholar of the middle Edo period who lost his sight at the age of six and studied acupuncture in Edo. An ardent and eclectic scholar, he became in 1769 a student of no Mabuchi and began to study the Rikkoku-shi, the "six histories of Japan" written in Chinese. He changed his family name from Ogino to Hanawa in 1775 when he was awarded the rank of koto, the second highest official rank open to a blind person, subsequently raised to the highest, kengyo. His literary name was Suiboshi. Moving to the Mito domain in 1785 he gained permission from the to start a school for Japanese Studies (Wa-gaku) called the Wagaku Kodansho, attracting a number of distinguished students. His scholarly projects over forty years included a military encyclopaedia and, most significantly, compendia of over two thousand early texts which have remained down to the present day an invaluable source for the study of early Japan |
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| Happi |
Originally a workman's livery coat. A short wrap-around coat worn at festivals. The happi or hanten ('festival short-coat') is often paired with a hachi-maki headband. In Tokyo hanten are often decorated on the back with the crest or symbol (daimon) of the local group (-gumi, -ryu, -ren or -kai) The mikoshi-bearer's outfit is modelled on the dress of Edo period firemen |
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| Hara-obi |
The four-metre cloth sash (also called iwata-obi) usually obtained from a shrine or Buddhist temple with a reputation for help with childbirth, and traditionally worn around the waist by pregnant women (today about 90%) It is worn from the fifth month of pregnancy starting from the day of the dog, who is associated with easy delivery. Often the doctor will inscribe the character for "happiness" on the sash |
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| Harae |
Purification, purity, the converse of pollution. Harae is a general term for ceremonies of purification designed to counter misfortune and pollution and restore ritual purity. Sprinkling water on face and hands (temizu) when entering a shrine is a simple form of harae which helps render the shrine visitor fit to approach the kami. Types of harae are performed at the beginning of all Shinto ceremonies and in situations where there is a special need for purification, e.g. to avert disasters, before starting a new enterprise, after death, at new year (shogatsu) at etc.. Water, salt and the waving of a are commonly used as purifying agents in harae rites. The concept is central to Shinto thought, with many local and lineage interpretations. Harae may mean an extended process of shugyō or ascetic training including physical purification of the body inside and out (cleansing with salt or water; fasting or eating special foods; sexual abstinence) or purification of the soul (mitama) by forms of meditation, ritual or shugyō, traditionally secret and often derived from Buddhism or neo-Confucianism. See Chinkon-sai, |
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| Harae-do |
A simple shrine building or marked-out open space used for the purification (harae) of participants before a ceremony |
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| Haraigushi |
Purification wand. A wooden stick up to a metre long with streamers of white paper and/or flax attached to the end. It is normally kept in a stand. In a movement known as sa-yu-sa (left-right-left) the priest waves and flourishes the haraigushi horizontally over the object, place or people to be purified. An alternative is a branch of evergreen (e.g. sakaki) with strips of paper attached (o-nusa) the smaller version for personal use is called ko-nusa |
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| Hare-no-hi |
"Clear" days. The four days in each month on which festivals could be held according to the lunar calendar. These are the days of the new, full and half-moons, i.e. the 1st, 7th or 8th, 15th, and 22nd or 23rd. Other days are known as ke-no-hi and were seldom used for festivals. After the solar calendar was adopted in 1872 many festivals were re-scheduled, regardless of the hare/ke distinction, though local festivals often still keep to the lunar calendar. See gyoji |
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| Harmony In Christ |
HIC |
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| Haru-matsuri |
Spring festivals. A collective term for held in the spring (from January to May) and which includes some new year festivals (see Shogatsu) They are held to pray for a good harvest and may include ceremonial rice-planting (see Ta-asobi) Several now feature parades of festival floats (yatai) with performances of kabuki etc. by children or puppets. Examples are the dekayama ('huge mountain') floats of Otoko-nushi jinja, Ishikawa which weigh twenty tons and display scenes from kabuki played by mechanical dolls in a festival held from May 13-15th, and the kodomo-kabuki hikiyama-matsuri ('children's kabuki pulled-mountain-float festival') of the Demachi-shin-myosha jinja, Toyama which takes place on April 16-17th. Other festivals feature interesting or unusual At the saka-orishi ('down the slope') matsuri of the Ohama, Boko, Kinumine jinja, Shiga prefecture on the first Sunday in May, the mikoshi is lowered down a steep hill with straw ropes. At the Ichinomiya kenka matsuri (kenka means fracas, ruction, brawl) at the Matsu jinja, Niigata on April 10th, two mikoshi teams struggle to have their mikoshi consecrated first at the shrine. At the Sagicho matsuri of Himure Hachiman jinja, in Shiga in April or March, young men dressed as women carry mikoshi-style floats decorated with the Chinese zodiacal animal (horse, monkey etc.) while at night huge torches are lit to purify the grounds. Cf. |
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| Hasegawa, Kakugyo |
A sixteenth-century ascetic devoted to the religious ascent of Mt. Fuji (see Fuji-ko) He is claimed as the original founder or inspiration of both and The name Kakugyo means "block-ascesis'—i.e. the ascetic discipline of standing for long periods on a block of wood in order to build up a store of power to enable communion with the kami. Hasegawa practised this discipline in the crater of Mt. Fuji and was credited with healing powers. According to legend he once gave Tokugawa, Ieyasu shelter on the mountain. He taught devotion to Sengen Dainichi, the kami-buddha deity of Mt. Fuji of the type "separated" in the restoration. Two main lineages developed after his death, one an austere ascetic tradition and the other (Mirokuha) teaching that lay people could combine spiritual practice with daily life |
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| Hassokuan |
A wide eight-legged table normally made of It is used in a shrine to support ritual items such as heihaku, tamagushi and food offerings |
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| Hatsu-miya-mairi |
The "first shrine visit" of a newborn baby who is brought to the shrine traditionally by the grandmother or another female relative since the mother is impure from childbirth, but in modern times often by the mother. The child thereby becomes a parishioner of the shrine and of its tutelary kami, and may receive its name from the shrine. Hatsu-miya-mairi is supposed to take place on the thirty-second day after birth for a boy, and on the thirty-third day for a girl |
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| Hatsuho |
First fruits; the first ripened shoots of rice (niinamesai, kannamesai) offered to the kami to protect the harvest or as a harvest thanksgiving. By extension any offering made to the kami |
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| Hatsumode |
The "first visit" (also hatsu-mairi) to a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple at New Year, typically January 1-3. It derives from the medieval custom of eho mairi ; visiting a shrine located in an auspicious direction. Hatsumode has grown in popularity in the postwar period and is currently undertaken by up to 80% of Japanese people. The trend is to visit the largest and most famous Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. Some people travel through the night in order to be at the shrine as new year begins or perhaps to view the sunrise from a mountain-top shrine. As well as enjoying the trip with friends and family, trying out seasonal foods and buying souvenirs, visitors may participate in rituals and receive branches and consecrated sake (mi-ki) They also return old amulets (o-fuda, o-mamori, hamaya) for ritual burning and buy new ones for the coming year, purchase divination slips and inscribe |
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| Hattori, Nakatsune (or Chuyo) |
A late Edo scholar and disciple of Motoori, Norinaga. His 1791 work Sandaikyo (treatise on the three great things) strongly influenced Hirata, Atsutane's cosmological work Tamano mihashira (pillar of the power of the spirit) of 1812 |
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| Hayashi, Razan |
A Confucian government adviser, one of the Hayashi line who became in effect hereditary philosophers to the shogunate with the result that remained overwhelmingly influential in Japanese intellectual thought, officially up to the nineteenth century and under the guise of state Shinto beyond the restoration. He was the tutor in shushi thought to Yamaga, Soko and engaged in a debate on the nature of the world with the Japanese Jesuit (and subsequent appstate) Fabian in 1606. He was the first Tokugawa Confucian to write on Shinto. His first major Shinto work (ca.1640) was a historical survey of major shrines and figures. In a later theoretical work, the Shinto denju of 1644-48 he developed the idea of "Shinto where principle (ri) corresponds to mind', assimilating Shinto to shushi philosophy by equating the central Confucian notion of "principle" with the divine power of the Japanese kami, in particular equating Kuni-toko-tachi with the Confucian 'great ultimate', taikyoku. Like Yamazaki, Ansai he sought to develop Shinto thought within a Neo-confucian political structure, emphasising the role of worship of the deities in supporting human society |
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| Hco Area Secretary |
HAS |
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| He Is Mine |
HIM |
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| Healing Earth Loving People |
HELP |
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