Japanese

"Japanese Shaman - Itako -"

A deceased individual in the past comes back from death and meets up again with his/her sweetheart... Such kind of story has gained a popular following these days. Necromancy has long been performed in the medieval western world especially among the nobles, but here in Japan, we also have a unique counterpart called "Itako (The Japanese shaman)". "Itako" is a blind shaman existing particularly in the northeast (Tohoku) district of Japan. (A few of them are not blind) They can contact the dead spirits and also convey a message to the living people in place of the dead. They do that as a business. But nowadays, the number of Itako has decreased drastically. 500 Itakos counted a hundred year ago numbers just around 10 now. They are seriously placed on the edge of extinction.

A key site of Itako is Osorezan mountain in Aomori prefecture. Each itako sits down in their own huts waiting for their clients. Clients visit the huts one by one after each summoning. While the population of Itako is decreasing rapidly as mentioned earlier, number of clients wishing to be consulted remains very high. Thus, it's not surprising to find many visitors gathering at Osorezan from the east and the west ends of Japan. Sometimes, more than a hundred people visit Itako at once, resulting in a long queue of consultation. But it is amazing that visitors never look exhausted after the summoning but look even more delighted meeting with their beloved dead.

When an Itako summons the dead, she will ask you the birthday and obituary of the person who wishes to be called. According to a person who had actually experienced meeting with the dead spirit, Itako told her some family secrets which has never been revealed to others and the way she spoke was an exact reanimation of the deceased individual. Interesting? A mother would visit there every year in order to meet her dead child and after making sure of her child's happy life in the afterworld, she always leaves there with a relief. Now I guess you are wondering about the charges. Nominally they would charge you about 3,000 yen per spirit. Some people meet 5 spirits at a time! Greedy that may be, it's not hard to understand their feelings.

It's true that blind people have particularly keen four senses but the major reason why most itakos are blind is that in the past it was very difficult for them to find and earn a bread-and-butter job, a difficulty that may have been beyond our present imagination. As a matter of fact, most blind women chose to become itako, as it was the only metier available to them.

We may all have second thoughts about visiting our ancestor's grave at every Bon festival and at every equinoctial week, as we are always constrained by time running errands in a modern society, but I do wish our feelings toward the dead remains much unchanged, a timeless gratitude well deserved by the ancestral spirit that oversees and protects our daily lives.