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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Smyers, Karen A. The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
Main Argument: "Contradictory notions are held, not just by believers at different sacred centers, but by priests at the same shrine or temple. No central authority has managed to standardize the mythology or traditions; no scriptures provide guidance for orthodox belief and practices. Most people are not aware that their understanding of Inari is different (sometimes radically so) from that of other people. […] Inari practices and beliefs work as a 'nonmonologic unity:' they do form some kind of unity, but they are not systematized or free of contradiction." (10-11) Inari beliefs symbolize and instantiate change amidst the continuity presumed in most Japanese religious traditions.
Historiographical Engagement: Smyers' primary engagement is theoretical, with Mikhail Bakhtin's celebration of polysemy and multiple, indirect, nonauthoritarian perspectives that necessarily retain a degree of indeterminacy. She takes a diagonal but usually nonconfrontational approach to the majority of previous Inari scholarship, which has erroneously tried to fix something that is inherently protean and has thus offered a distorted picture of a highly complex reality.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari worship has survived, thrived, and multiplied over the ages since its beginnings in the Asuka period or earlier, at times with state support and at others despite the efforts of the state to exert a high degree of control over it; that Inari worship has become the most prevalent form of religious practice in Japan (comprising at least a third of all recognized religious centers) with its 'rich eclecticism' intact is a testament to "the efforts of Buddhist priests at temples like the two described here, but it is also due to the deep roots of Japanese popular religion and its resistance to manipulation and centralization" (28).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari worship encompasses intense factionalism between and within centers, between worshippers and priests, and between worshippers themselves, tensions which are usually masked quite effectively by the outwardly similar forms of worship practiced at centers of Inari worship both Buddhist and Shinto. Another source of tension lies between priests, shamans, and other religious specialists, all of whom have widely varying ideas about the symbols, forms, and meaning of Inari and worship of the same.
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples The fox has a long and rich popular association with Inari (although, as priests of both stripes insist, Inari is not a fox); although the origins of the association are unclear, down through today it draw on agricultural associations, natural fox behaviours, traditions of "foxes' gifts," and stories of foxes as the original gods of Fushimi Inari mountain, of Buddhist representations of the fox as (messenger of) Dakiniten, and foxes as assistants to Inari.
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples The jewel is the single most omnipresent symbol of Inari; it is rare to see Inari's foxes without jewels, and the meanings of the word for jewel, "tama," "cluster around the concepts of roundness, precious stone, and value. Written with a different character, [it] also means soul or spirit. The meanings interpentrate, and the soul is conceptualized as a ball of light or shining sphere. … No matter who holds it, the jewel signifies or grants great treasure, spiritual or material" (112-14).
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples "Most studies on Japanese religion to date have emphasized shared forms--the level of meaning that everyone agrees on to some extent--and it has been important to document these forms. … In this chapter we will see that one of the most important features of Inari worship is its high degree of diversification and even individualization of the deity. Devotees do not simply worship "Inari," but a separate form of Inari with its own name. Inari shrines worship entirely different kami as Inari; traditions and symbols have a multiplicity of meanings. … devotees are not mreely interpreting the traditions in subjective ways but, are quite actively changing them. Because of the considerable shamanic component within Inari worship, new traditions easily come into being as direct commands of Inari. This fact alone undercuts much of the authority the priests try to claim." (150-51)
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples "The multiplicity that we now see as a defining characteristic of Inari beliefs is not, however, readily apparent. In fact, it is unknown to most Japanese, even those involved with the tradition: uniformity is assumed, diversity is unsuspected" (185) Smyers astutely connects this unknown manifold diversity with the ideology of "group spirit," harmony, and homogeneity that has been consciously promoted particularly since the Meiji era, when the government adopted it to minimize the potential for factionalism and to diminish local allegiances. Although anthropologists have come to recognize that group harmony is not static or dominant, but that in fact it is dynamically contested and by individualistic ways of thinking and behaviours; as Smyers demonstrates, a variety of nonconfrontational communicative strategies (screeing, refraining, wrestling, othering, and layering) are used to maintain a surface (tatemae) of harmony that masks or indirectly express a deeper reality (honne) of conflict. She also reflects on boundary crossing as a status as well as a research strategy, which will, I think, be familiar in outline to any foreigner who has spent time doing research in Japan. Furthermore, conceptualizing honne and tatemae as centralizing and decentralizing forces allows for analysis of their effects in a value-neutral, and more perceptive, fashion.
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari symbolizes fertility in its broadest sense, and the wealth of meanings it includes has enabled it to adapt its central symbols to modern times with relative ease. Inari also symbolizes transformation, and its power therein comes from the fact that in embraces and includes rather than rejects and divides itself from its opposites, thus evading simple characterizations--its primary meaning is growth and change.
Critical assessment: This is an excellent, beautifully written book that lays out in clear and engaging prose a wealth of polysemic meanings, traditions and practices relating to contemporary Inari worship in Japan, most of which is unknown even to Japanese people, and nearly all of which was mostly new to me, despite the fact that I lived in the same city as Fushimi Inari and made multiple visits to the shrine and the mountain (which I climbed several times) in the year that I lived there. In particular, Smyers' emphasis on the need not to take ideologies of culture at face value is hugely salutary, and her discussions with shamans, priests, and religious specialists are fascinating, as is her conceptualization of honne, tatemae, and diversity within harmony. All in all, a wonderful book.
Meta notes: In research, imitate the fox.
Main Argument: "Contradictory notions are held, not just by believers at different sacred centers, but by priests at the same shrine or temple. No central authority has managed to standardize the mythology or traditions; no scriptures provide guidance for orthodox belief and practices. Most people are not aware that their understanding of Inari is different (sometimes radically so) from that of other people. […] Inari practices and beliefs work as a 'nonmonologic unity:' they do form some kind of unity, but they are not systematized or free of contradiction." (10-11) Inari beliefs symbolize and instantiate change amidst the continuity presumed in most Japanese religious traditions.
Historiographical Engagement: Smyers' primary engagement is theoretical, with Mikhail Bakhtin's celebration of polysemy and multiple, indirect, nonauthoritarian perspectives that necessarily retain a degree of indeterminacy. She takes a diagonal but usually nonconfrontational approach to the majority of previous Inari scholarship, which has erroneously tried to fix something that is inherently protean and has thus offered a distorted picture of a highly complex reality.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari worship has survived, thrived, and multiplied over the ages since its beginnings in the Asuka period or earlier, at times with state support and at others despite the efforts of the state to exert a high degree of control over it; that Inari worship has become the most prevalent form of religious practice in Japan (comprising at least a third of all recognized religious centers) with its 'rich eclecticism' intact is a testament to "the efforts of Buddhist priests at temples like the two described here, but it is also due to the deep roots of Japanese popular religion and its resistance to manipulation and centralization" (28).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari worship encompasses intense factionalism between and within centers, between worshippers and priests, and between worshippers themselves, tensions which are usually masked quite effectively by the outwardly similar forms of worship practiced at centers of Inari worship both Buddhist and Shinto. Another source of tension lies between priests, shamans, and other religious specialists, all of whom have widely varying ideas about the symbols, forms, and meaning of Inari and worship of the same.
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples The fox has a long and rich popular association with Inari (although, as priests of both stripes insist, Inari is not a fox); although the origins of the association are unclear, down through today it draw on agricultural associations, natural fox behaviours, traditions of "foxes' gifts," and stories of foxes as the original gods of Fushimi Inari mountain, of Buddhist representations of the fox as (messenger of) Dakiniten, and foxes as assistants to Inari.
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples The jewel is the single most omnipresent symbol of Inari; it is rare to see Inari's foxes without jewels, and the meanings of the word for jewel, "tama," "cluster around the concepts of roundness, precious stone, and value. Written with a different character, [it] also means soul or spirit. The meanings interpentrate, and the soul is conceptualized as a ball of light or shining sphere. … No matter who holds it, the jewel signifies or grants great treasure, spiritual or material" (112-14).
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples "Most studies on Japanese religion to date have emphasized shared forms--the level of meaning that everyone agrees on to some extent--and it has been important to document these forms. … In this chapter we will see that one of the most important features of Inari worship is its high degree of diversification and even individualization of the deity. Devotees do not simply worship "Inari," but a separate form of Inari with its own name. Inari shrines worship entirely different kami as Inari; traditions and symbols have a multiplicity of meanings. … devotees are not mreely interpreting the traditions in subjective ways but, are quite actively changing them. Because of the considerable shamanic component within Inari worship, new traditions easily come into being as direct commands of Inari. This fact alone undercuts much of the authority the priests try to claim." (150-51)
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples "The multiplicity that we now see as a defining characteristic of Inari beliefs is not, however, readily apparent. In fact, it is unknown to most Japanese, even those involved with the tradition: uniformity is assumed, diversity is unsuspected" (185) Smyers astutely connects this unknown manifold diversity with the ideology of "group spirit," harmony, and homogeneity that has been consciously promoted particularly since the Meiji era, when the government adopted it to minimize the potential for factionalism and to diminish local allegiances. Although anthropologists have come to recognize that group harmony is not static or dominant, but that in fact it is dynamically contested and by individualistic ways of thinking and behaviours; as Smyers demonstrates, a variety of nonconfrontational communicative strategies (screeing, refraining, wrestling, othering, and layering) are used to maintain a surface (tatemae) of harmony that masks or indirectly express a deeper reality (honne) of conflict. She also reflects on boundary crossing as a status as well as a research strategy, which will, I think, be familiar in outline to any foreigner who has spent time doing research in Japan. Furthermore, conceptualizing honne and tatemae as centralizing and decentralizing forces allows for analysis of their effects in a value-neutral, and more perceptive, fashion.
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples Inari symbolizes fertility in its broadest sense, and the wealth of meanings it includes has enabled it to adapt its central symbols to modern times with relative ease. Inari also symbolizes transformation, and its power therein comes from the fact that in embraces and includes rather than rejects and divides itself from its opposites, thus evading simple characterizations--its primary meaning is growth and change.
Critical assessment: This is an excellent, beautifully written book that lays out in clear and engaging prose a wealth of polysemic meanings, traditions and practices relating to contemporary Inari worship in Japan, most of which is unknown even to Japanese people, and nearly all of which was mostly new to me, despite the fact that I lived in the same city as Fushimi Inari and made multiple visits to the shrine and the mountain (which I climbed several times) in the year that I lived there. In particular, Smyers' emphasis on the need not to take ideologies of culture at face value is hugely salutary, and her discussions with shamans, priests, and religious specialists are fascinating, as is her conceptualization of honne, tatemae, and diversity within harmony. All in all, a wonderful book.
Meta notes: In research, imitate the fox.