The Renewal Concept and Miroku Belief : On the Folkloric Significance of "Yonaoshi" in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse several types of renewal concepts of the Japanese folk. (1) In the harvest festivals on Yaeyama island, Okinawa, we can discern orgy elements. At these festivals which may be called rituals for yearly renewal, people enthusiastically enter into fertility dances for the coming new year, expressed as "the year of the Miroku", that is, the year in which the utopian world begins with the appearance of the Miroku (a visiting deity). We can find the same elements in the scenes of "the Okageodori" and "Eejanaika" which were recorded in documents of the Edo period. This is one type of renewal concept which was based on agrarian rites. (2) The rites which ward off the world full of evil spirits and welcome the new world, are found in the practices of "Torikoshisyogatsu" in various parts of Japan. These practices have functional force in facilitating the coming of the new year by repeating the new year festivals within the course of the year. In the middle of the Edo period there occurred several Miroku years and in the turbulent Middle Ages "the year of the Miroku" occurred quite frequently, especially in the Kanto district. In this district people warded off evil spirits at the Kashima shrine (Ibaragi prefecture), and hoped or believed that the fertile world of Mioku came from Kashima. In the Kashimaodori and Mirokuodori dances which are still held as divine services, these ideas are expressed ritually. This is another type of renewal concept, by which evil spirits are warded off and the world is purified and cleansed. (3) In Japan renewal through fanatic eschatological concepts did not exist. But the lower classes thought that earthquakes or floods signified renewal because in such disasters people could expect assistance from the authorities People thought that the causes of earthquakes were as follows: the occasion on which the Kashima deity ordinarily presses down upon the sheatfish with a secret stone (Kanameishi), thus causing the earthquake (i. e, reform), sometimes, however, the sheatfish appears as a servant of the gods who revolts against the god of Kashima, changing the earth's axis and bringing catastrophe upon the world.