Hope that sustains: revisiting New Year’s divination at Suwa Taisha

S. Robertson

DOI:10.1515/cj-2016-0006

Corpus ID: 131527379

Hope that sustains: revisiting New Year’s divination at Suwa Taisha

@article{Robertson2016HopeTS,
  title={Hope that sustains: revisiting New Year’s divination at Suwa Taisha},
  author={S. Robertson},
  journal={Contemporary Japan},
  year={2016},
  volume={28},
  pages={101 - 122}
}

S. Robertson

Published 2016

Geography

Contemporary Japan

Abstract This paper details the “cylinder-gruel rite” (tsutsugayu shinji) observed annually on 15 January at Suwa Taisha, a Shintō shrine complex in Nagano Prefecture. The oracular ritual is an instance of the Japanese tradition of New Year’s divination (toshiura), and involves the boiling of hollow reeds or bamboo in rice gruel to augur crop yields and economic prospects for the coming year. Whereas Japan’s modernization and shift away from an agricultural economy has rendered such observances… CONTINUE READING

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