Shinto

Actually a very interesting system of belief. Shinto is very ancient and presents that Shamanic systems of belief are far from extinct. In Japan Shinto has a membership exceeding 57 million. The Shinto religion accepts the existence of ghost who walk the earth, they are also the origin of a form of martial arts know as Ninjitsu, which is the origin of the term Ninja.

I spent six months in Japan and can tell you this much there are forms of Ninjitsu which are taught in what are called Dojo's, those who teach there are referred to as Masters. But there is another form of the art, which is taught in what are called Lairs, those who teach the techniques of this form are known as Sages.

If ones gains access to a Lair one learns the way of the Shadow Warrior.



See linksÖ..

An Introduction to Shinto


Rituals


Shinto Belief

It is a fascinating topic, cyber-chums, if only for the light it sheds upon the Japanese.
It is sort of frowned upon officially nowadays because it is intrinsically connected to Emperor-worship ( indeed there was no small fuss when the current Jap P.M. -he of the hair -went to a Shinto shrine quite publicly); but it is still very popular there.
As I say -fascinating on the Japanese who have always intrigued me by their ability to have two religions at the same time: Shinto and Zen Buddhism are in many ways mutually exclusive.

What I don't understand, is how important to them the Emperor is, when his effective reign as an actual executive body was for only about what...60 some years? 1890s to 1945ish. Before that it was feudalism and mostly the Shogun states wasn't it? All the way back to about 1185 AD, and I don't know of much before that, but the Emperor of Japan didn't really come about until about 600AD though stories say 600 BC which is thought in accurate.

This is pretty cool though still, making the Imperial family of Japan the oldest imperial family in the world .

Hmm I thought Ninjitsu sprung out of the diatobo's (or whatever the hell they were called, the 2 dudes that helped the shogun) need for protection and assassination of eachother

Shoguns may have had power of large fiefdoms but it was those Diawhoevers that really ran the show (no pun intended )

Sincerely,
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Essentially, F-M, it's because of the centrality of the mother goddess, of whom the Emperor is/was reckoned to be a direct descendant and hence, divine.
Not, to be sure, an "avatar" in any Hindu sense; but a direct descendant and hence divine.
As a peace-condition the then Emperor, Hirohito, had to "renounce" his divinity (a condition that surely shows the level of political thinking at that time!) hence the "official" attitude towards Shintoism.

As for the "history": not much of the early stuff would pass the criteria of Western scholars, but the 7th Century is about right for the start.
Interestingly, for most of Japanese history the Emperors (while still ritually important as descendants of Amaterasu, mother goddess) were impotent puppets of warlords and ministers: most famously the shoguns -and you may be thinking of "daimyo", F-M -which is roughly "baron" who were the great feudal lords with whom shoguns alternately co-operated or fought.
The great status of the 20th century emprors was also largely the work of modern "warlords" who used the emperor as a symbol for national growth and aggressiveness.

Yeah daimyo that's it!

Sincerely,
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Actually as I understand it some of the stories of the Goddess as very similar to American Indian legends of founders.

I know of a Legend of one Emperor who was assigned no name at birth. He was allegedly respected and revered as much as any prophet and was often called "That One." It is said that he was trained in both the ways of the Samurai and the Shadow Warrior.

Its implication was to be what brought Japan together under one leader. Emperor worship I agree but really no different than any other culture in which Kings who claimed divine heritage ruled (which is mostly all of them).

Keep in mind that the Goddess is no different an Icon than say the Mother Mary is in Christianity. As far as being an orientation for fighting wars. Consider that in the day's of Expansionism with relation to the Vatican Assembly they ran into a problem when they tried to deal with Japan. So yes from a certain standpoint this system of faith has been treated no differently than any other culture, which fought back and succeeded.


What are your thoughts?

Heavens knows how one would begin to go about proving any connection, Toltec.
But if we assume that American Indians came from what is now Russia across a (frozen?) Berings Sea and that the ancestors of the Japanese, or perhaps the earlier Ainu people, also came South from the Arctic regions of modern Russia, then there may well be a common heritage that is reflected in old mythology.
Something similar can be seen in the pantheons and mythologies of the Indo-European peoples where there are clear similarities between Greek and, say, Sanskrit.

Agreed Estragon but keep in mind the cities which are deep underwater in respect to both cultures.