Ujigami

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Ujigami ( Japanese 氏 神 ) are local kami in the Shinto faith who watch over the place where they are worshiped.

Originally, Ujigami were mostly the spirits of ancestors who descended from a certain clan ( uji ), whose leaders ( uji no kami ) and members ( ujibito ) were worshiped, and who protected the respective clan. In the course of the history of Japan, however, this notion changed to the one used today by the geographically defined protective kami. Particularly significant for this were the one hand, the settling of the clans and their increased influence on Shoen and secondly the state "Temple-confirmation system" ( 寺受制度 , terauke seido ), one after the Shimabara Rebellion by the Tokugawa - shogunate introduced registration system and monitoring the believers of the country which u. a. led to the fact that the many Shinto shrines had to be registered at the nearest Buddhist temples , which usually led to the upgrading of the shrines to protective shrines of the respective temple.

Ujigami in this sense also encompass various subgroups of kami, which were also understood separately from the Ujigami before the above-mentioned shift in meaning, such as the Ubusunagami ( 産 土 神 , also ubusuna ), protective deities of certain places of birth, or the Chinjugami , purely geographically determined Deities who initially did not necessarily exercise protective power in the imagination.

At present, the Ujigami can be broadly classified into three general types:

  • Village Ujigami - in this system, every local resident near the shrine is understood as a clan or community member ( 氏 子 , ujiko ) and as such takes part in the worship of the respective deity.
  • yashiki-ujigami or ie-ujigami - these are kami, which are worshiped in smaller shrines ( hokora ) on the property of individual families.
  • ikke-ujigami or maki-ujigami - a kind of mixed form of the other two types, since the number of believers of a certain deity is also formed from distant relatives ( ikke ) or broader neighborhood groups ( maki ).

literature

  • Jean Herbert: Shintô. At The Fountain-Head of Japan . George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1967.
  • Wilhelmus HM Creemers: Shrine Shinto after World War II . EJ Brill, 1968.

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