Japan's History is divided into periods, and this link will take you to a page I found about women in Japan's earliest periods.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCJAPAN/WOMEN.HTM
It's somewhat long, but if you have any interest it's worth it. I was surprised by the pages remarks on religion in ancient Japan (which was almost complete Shinto), "Shinto is one of the few religions in a patriarchal culture that did not abandon the overall form of a matriarchal religion. This suggests that female shamanism was highly likely in Japan before the advent of Buddhism, although there is no physical evidence for it." Even today in Japan there are upkept Shinto shrines and a percentage of the population still identify as Shinto, in which there are still recognised Priestesses. (Whereas Buddism is known only for male monks)
I was also surprised about the haniwa figurines. (terra cotta figures) "One can conclude little or nothing about the status of women in early Japan from the haniwa figurines from the tumuli period. The only distinguishing feature between most figurines labelled as male and those labelled as female are that the male figurines represent some economic function while the "female" figurines are more abstract. These are more likely modern impositions; figurines representing hunters or other economic functions could very well be female figurines, though we naturally assume, from our own modern perspective, that they're male." I thought this was interesting because I had seen haniwa before, but had never thought about never seeing one I could definitely call "female" even though many of the figures have soft features and many have no facial hair.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCJAPAN/WOMEN.HTM
It's somewhat long, but if you have any interest it's worth it. I was surprised by the pages remarks on religion in ancient Japan (which was almost complete Shinto), "Shinto is one of the few religions in a patriarchal culture that did not abandon the overall form of a matriarchal religion. This suggests that female shamanism was highly likely in Japan before the advent of Buddhism, although there is no physical evidence for it." Even today in Japan there are upkept Shinto shrines and a percentage of the population still identify as Shinto, in which there are still recognised Priestesses. (Whereas Buddism is known only for male monks)
I was also surprised about the haniwa figurines. (terra cotta figures) "One can conclude little or nothing about the status of women in early Japan from the haniwa figurines from the tumuli period. The only distinguishing feature between most figurines labelled as male and those labelled as female are that the male figurines represent some economic function while the "female" figurines are more abstract. These are more likely modern impositions; figurines representing hunters or other economic functions could very well be female figurines, though we naturally assume, from our own modern perspective, that they're male." I thought this was interesting because I had seen haniwa before, but had never thought about never seeing one I could definitely call "female" even though many of the figures have soft features and many have no facial hair.
No comments:
Post a Comment