Shinto: A History by Helen Hardacre

Author:Helen Hardacre [Hardacre, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-10-31T22:00:00+00:00

“Anything Goes!”

In the final months of the Edo period, an outbreak of carnival and revelry occurred, in which people danced through the streets singing, “Anything goes! Anything goes!” (ee ja nai ka). “Anything Goes!” erupted just before the shogunate’s fall became official, and as the orders for the establishment of a new government were being issued. On 10.14.1867, the order returning all governing power to the imperial court was issued, and on 12.9.1867, the “restoration” of direct imperial rule was proclaimed. By the seventh or eighth month, people could sense that the shogunal order was passing away, and that a new order was being created. While “Anything Goes!” was not directly related to Shinto, except that rumors of shrine talismans falling from the sky had sparked the outbreaks, it reflected the mood of millenarian expectation surrounding the downfall of the shogunate. Like preceding episodes of mass pilgrimage to Ise, it evoked a mixture of hope and dread.77

Beginning in the seventh month of 1867 in Kyoto, Osaka, Mikawa, and Shikoku, rumors of falling talismans stimulated people to visit local temples and shrines. Because some of the revelers lived near the Ise Shrines and went there, the movement was originally mistaken for another outbreak of okage mairi. The majority involved in “Anything Goes!” went not to Ise but to shrines and temples near their homes. But, whereas in okage mairi the rumors of falling talismans only began after the pilgrimage was in full swing, in “Anything Goes!,” the rumor of falling talismans was the trigger.78

A contemporary account from Notes on Mysterious Happenings of Ise: Thanks Pilgrimage of the Keiō Era described the scene:

Wherever something was rumored to have fallen from the sky, the owners of the house would brew sake, as much as they could. The nearby people would take a holiday from work for four or five days, and the homeowner would have to treat them to sake, including his servants and apprentices, as well as anyone who was passing by. Everyone beat drums and gongs day and night, and everyone—male, female, young and old—caroused through the town. They would sing, “Stick paper over your privates, and if it falls off, just stick it on again. Who cares? Anything goes! This is the greatest!” Others would paint their faces so that men turned into women and women turned into men. Old granny would become a young girl. They played at all sorts of disguises and costumes in a huge dance, where the bad and the good were turned upside down, all the time singing, “Anything goes!” Some went on pilgrimage to the Ise shrines in a huge commotion.79

The following account describes how “Anything Goes!” unfolded in Kyoto:

The dancers were strangely dressed, frantically dancing and singing, “Anything goes!” People didn’t hesitate to push their way into the headman’s house with their shoes on and dance around, going like this from house to house, beckoning to all and sundry to dance with them, so that a huge crowd of dancers would gather. If

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.