Rituals of Akakura Mountain Shrine

immortal wishes:
labor and transcendence
on a Japanese sacred mountain

Ellen Schattschneider

Duke University Press (2003)

TEACHING RESOURCES

RITUALS AT AKAKURA MOUNTAIN SHRINE

(See Chapter Three. "Labor and Rebirth: Cosmological Kinship in the Annual Ritual Cycle.")

I. The Annual Ritual Cycle

New Year's (incl. setsubun)
Dragon Princess Ritual (February)
Mountain Opening Ceremony (Yamabiraki), May 1st.
The Cooking Pot Ceremony ( 3 times per year)
The 33 Kannon Tsugaru Pilgrimage in June
Pilgrimage to Mt. Taihei (Akita prefecture) in June
The Great Summer Festival (Tasai) (end of July)
Pilgrimage to Mount Hakkoda (August)
Ancestral Memorialization (Senzo Kuyo) Rite (October)
Mountain Closing Ceremony (November)

Note: The annual ritual cycle at Akakura Mountain Shrine is governed by a combination of the Japanese lunar and solar calendars. For a helpul introduction to the lunar calendar in Japan, see the website by Steve Renshaw and Saori Ihara :

http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/calendar.htm

II. Other Ritual Practices

SEE VIDEOS OF THE RITUALS

Related Internet Resources

RITUAL TRADITION AS VITAL HISTORY: Shinto Festivals as a Gateway to Japanese Cultural History (Nold Egenter)

http://home.worldcom.ch/~negenter/474aTxIntro_E.html

Shinto Purification Rituals: An Aesthetic Interpretation

http://www.ecai.org/shinto/project1.html (Includes Quicktime video clips)

Based on an article by James Boyd and Ron Williams, "Artful Means: An Aesthetic View of Shinto Purification Rituals," Journal of Ritual Studies, Volume 13, Number 1, Summer 1999, pp. 37-52.