Ryukyuan religion
[citation needed] One of its most ancient features is the belief in onarigami (おなり神), the spiritual superiority of women derived from Amamikyu, which allowed for the development of a noro (priestess) system and a significant following for yuta (female mediums or shamans).
The oldest female relative acts as a primary celebrant, officiating rituals concerning ancestors, household gods and those family members who live both in and outside the home.
Daily incense offerings are made and prayer "reports" are delivered aloud, in which each family member is described for the benefit of the incorporeal being addressed.
The Ultimate Ancestors, those from whom all life springs, are Utin ("Heaven", the father), Jiichi ("Earth", the mother), and Ryūgū ("Sea", the place from which we were born).
The pig toilet, lacking this benevolent god, could become a place of evil influence and potential haunting (such as by an akaname,[2] or other negative spirits, welcomed by the accumulation of waste matter, rejected and abandoned by the human body).
Because he is considered a primary household god, the fuuru nu kami's habitat (the bathroom) is kept clean and is perceived to warrant deferential behavior.
[7] Other especially sacred places in and around Okinawa include the area around Nakijin Castle and Gusukuyama (or Tacchu), a high, steep peak on Ie-shima.
As World War II fighting in Okinawa was particularly protracted and heavy, there are many tales of ghosts and haunted places with military-related origin stories.
Thus even today, haunted places are especially sacrosanct, to the point that many people refuse to develop otherwise suited properties or live next to beautiful areas because they have been judged to be inhabited by a negative spirit.
Though the spirit can almost always be pacified, it many times cannot accept the disturbance of its space, and thus the area is marked by the community as forbidden territory for development or travel.
In a case of sudden death, an especially complicated ritual takes place in order to separate the mabui from where it is clinging (as though it still lived) and move it to where it can find rest.
In the film, a young girl named Meiko loses her mabui after a fight with her father and a peaceful encounter with the ghost of her dead aunt.
Mabui can be lost as the result of fright, stress, loneliness, or helplessness, any circumstances in which a person suffers from a sudden shock or a lack of psychological/physical resources.
Their social roles correspond to those of a shaman in that, depending upon their classification, they serve as mediums, especially influential prayer and offering performers, healers/guardians, precognosticators/fortune-tellers/diviners, and sources of mediation both within the living community and between material and immaterial beings.
[11] Although men may display some of these abilities and often assist in rituals, women are the primary interlocutors between humans and spirits or gods in the Ryukyuan religion, therefore are highly respected.
The noro also would perform divination to determine the best days for sacred ceremonies, for social functions such as marriage or funeral, and for agricultural pursuits (Kerr 33).
According to George Kerr in his Okinawa: the History of an Island People, the noro was at one time a priestess-queen, wielding both political and spiritual power within her community.
The noro became more priestess than queen, though they still possessed some measure of political influence, as they eventually came to wield royally sanctioned religious authority through appointments first begun by the Ryūkyū king Shō Shin (Kerr 110).
Yuta (sanjinsou, "tremblers"; Yonaguni munuchi, "one who knows"; Miyako kamigakaryaa, "one who acts as a home for the gods") are individuals who claim to possess an especially strong ability to communicate with the dead.
The name "yuta" was originally pejorative, derived from tokiyuta, or "one who deceived";[citation needed] indeed, since the establishment of a united Ryūkyū Kingdom, their practices have been discouraged and repressed.
Because of this ability to interact with ancestors and solve daily problems, the yuta is probably the most influential of the kaminchu today, someone to be respected and somewhat feared.
They often act as counselor, solving intra-family problems that may be generations old by talking with family members both living and dead to find the roots of issues.
These issues can range from a child's poor school performance due to lack of parental attention, to an individual's alcoholism being the psychological result of the neglect of certain ancestors.
If she does not seek priestesshood and perform her ritual duties, it is thought that she will never be freed from her sufferings caused by kami-daari, become insane, as well as call misfortunes to her family and self.
(Teruya 255–256; quoted after Bollinger) Other classes of people wielding spiritual power in the Ryukyu Islands include the ukuri, or family priest/priestess; the usagiyaa, a prayer specialist aiding in the disorders of kami-daari[15] (though lacking the power of the yuta or noro); and "book people" (shimuchi), various kinds of fortune-tellers that usually refer to charts and published interpretations of signs.
Somewhat less important are Buddhist and Shinto clergy, who are generally only consulted for weddings, funerals, or on certain holidays associated with those religions (such as solar New Year activities).
The Ijun religion has established churches on the islands of Okinawa, Miyako, Honshu, Taiwan, and Hawaii with an estimated ten thousand followers.
The psychological world initially rejected shamanism, but the increase in pro-Okinawan mentality among the people prompted a coexistence between the practices in society.
Although shamans and doctors work to separate their practices from each other, Okinawan citizens utilize both services to find a central ground between spiritual and scientific realms.
The origins of this custom are not clearly pinpointed in history however; ishiganto dating back to the year 770 in China have been discovered during the reign of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
