Male villagers cut down twigs and sticks from several trees and bushes. “The wakagi mukae is a ceremony on January 6 that ritually opens the mountain for woodcutting. We will see that yama cannot be reduced to a topographic feature, but as concept rather symbolizes a “turning point.”20 Another feature of yama as concept is femaleness that is woven into a complex system of beliefs and ceremonies.” In the following, yama-related aspects of beliefs and customs in a typical fishing village (Yoriiso, Miyagi Prefecture and surrounding areas) are described. In addition, reverential installation of male phallic symbols in the yama is a common custom that can be found in many regions. She is said to bring easier childbirth to women but is worshipped by male (foresters and rangers), too.18 At the same time, however, the yama no kami is regarded to be a very jealous deity and dislikes the presence of other women in her territory.19 At occasions such as pregnancy, when villagers have to “meet the goddess,” it often happens that exclusively men are allowed to perform the ceremonial duties to avoid angering her. For example, in many communities she is associated with the forest and thus to fire (wood). Generally, the yama no kami in fishing communities is believed to be a female deity affecting numerous aspects of everyday life. For instance, in many fishing villages a yama no kami is worshipped near an adjacent forest or inside a shrine, and often, these are located at boundaries of a settlement. “An essential factor in the beliefs of Japanese coastal fishing culture is the concept of yama. The salient parts of his paper touching on these themes are excerpted below: Encyclopedia of Shinto) but this paper shows how the mountain kami concept (the Ebisu deity is the most prominent of the fisherfolk deities) relates to fishing and maritime spheres as well. This is a rare paper because most writings on the yama-no-kami focus only on the mountain and rice-field aspects of the religion (cf. In particular, we draw attention to the keen insights the paper gives us on the all-important role of the yama-no-kami or mountain deity in the ceremonial life and fishing culture of the Sanriku northeastern coastal fishing villages as well as the related ideas of fertility and ritual impurity, their impact on gender division of labour, and upon the organization of social institutions. Wilheim, whose paper “ Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Beliefs of Japanese Fishing Villages: With Special Reference to Yoriiso (Miyagi) and the Sanriku Region”, on the folk beliefs of fishing village communities. In today’s post, we would like to highlight the research of Johannes H. Statue of Ebisu, Kessennuma, image: Wikipedia
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