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The Catalpa Bow
This classic work describes shamanic figures surviving in Japan today, their initiatory dreams, ascetic practices, the supernatural beings with whom they communicate, and the geography of the other world in myth and legend.
400 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 20, 2021
Fine for Folklore Fans
Back in the 1960s and early `70s, Carmen Blacker conducted an intensive study of Japanese shamans and their practices. At that time, they had already grown scarce and were limited to remoter parts of Japan. No matter what the situation today is (I have no idea but I suspect a decline), the details of their beliefs, their world view, and their activities are preserved for us in THE CATALPA BOW. The sacred beings which contact or speak through the shamans, the spirit animals--especially foxes--, and the methods of `crossing over' to the sacred realm to contact various spirits are detailed here. The author spends considerable time describing the need for asceticism to get shamanistic power and what kind of ascetic practices are used---for example, fasting, pouring thousands of buckets of cold water over oneself or standing under waterfalls, going on pilgrimages or alternately, living the life of a hermit with extremely limited diet. Oracles and exorcism form the topics of other chapters. It is all in amazingly great detail with numbers of personal interviews with various shamans, men and women, and even with Blacker's personal experiences included. Certain sections are thus very readable and full of interest. The overall effect that Blacker achieves is also very worthy, that is, she leaves the common, but inaccurate division of Japanese religion into "Buddhist" and "Shinto" behind and even briefly places the new religions in her framework. Too bad she didn't do more of this. However, I don't think I can refer to this book as "anthropology", rather it is a `folklore' study because there is virtually no reference to the work of any other anthropologist, while she relied heavily on the work of Japanese folklorists. Shamanism or shamanistic practices are found throughout the world, but little reference is made to studies of such. Without anthropology and its wider gaze, this book becomes too detailed for anyone not intent on knowing the full panoply of Japanese shamanism. Nobody could possibly remember the huge wealth of names and terms that pepper the text, but for students of the subject I would guess that THE CATALPA BOW would be indispensable and certainly a five star book. Some fairly good black and white photographs are included.
Back in the 1960s and early `70s, Carmen Blacker conducted an intensive study of Japanese shamans and their practices. At that time, they had already grown scarce and were limited to remoter parts of Japan. No matter what the situation today is (I have no idea but I suspect a decline), the details of their beliefs, their world view, and their activities are preserved for us in THE CATALPA BOW. The sacred beings which contact or speak through the shamans, the spirit animals--especially foxes--, and the methods of `crossing over' to the sacred realm to contact various spirits are detailed here. The author spends considerable time describing the need for asceticism to get shamanistic power and what kind of ascetic practices are used---for example, fasting, pouring thousands of buckets of cold water over oneself or standing under waterfalls, going on pilgrimages or alternately, living the life of a hermit with extremely limited diet. Oracles and exorcism form the topics of other chapters. It is all in amazingly great detail with numbers of personal interviews with various shamans, men and women, and even with Blacker's personal experiences included. Certain sections are thus very readable and full of interest. The overall effect that Blacker achieves is also very worthy, that is, she leaves the common, but inaccurate division of Japanese religion into "Buddhist" and "Shinto" behind and even briefly places the new religions in her framework. Too bad she didn't do more of this. However, I don't think I can refer to this book as "anthropology", rather it is a `folklore' study because there is virtually no reference to the work of any other anthropologist, while she relied heavily on the work of Japanese folklorists. Shamanism or shamanistic practices are found throughout the world, but little reference is made to studies of such. Without anthropology and its wider gaze, this book becomes too detailed for anyone not intent on knowing the full panoply of Japanese shamanism. Nobody could possibly remember the huge wealth of names and terms that pepper the text, but for students of the subject I would guess that THE CATALPA BOW would be indispensable and certainly a five star book. Some fairly good black and white photographs are included.
March 29, 2016
An extremely Eliadean book, by which I mean that it's written by a foreign outsider in mourning for the loss of an enchanted world. As such it would come under attack by modern religionists for "romanticizing." I have not seen such an attack on this book but similar books, as well as Eliade's approach generally, have been severely attacked in such a way. But there are surely worse things in the world than romanticism. So, feel free to get sucked into this portrayal of a world disappearing in the author's time and now basically vanished; there is plenty of good material in it and many mystical anecdotes, including the hair-raising tale of "sword climbing".
January 5, 2026
I found it fascinating, heres an extract from the chapter on the Ascetic's Power, which describes some of the supernatural abilities of the ascetic .
‘The old manuals of Shugendo teaching certainly contain a number of rituals and spells for the accomplishment of such feats of invisibility, flying, walking on fire, stepping into cauldrons of boiling water and climbing barefoot up ladders of swords.
With the feat of climbing up the ladder of swords...the yamabushi [mountain ascetic] has acquired the again characteristic shamanic accomplishment of magically ascending to heaven. The ladder of swords... symbolises the ladder to heaven, up which the ordinary human cannot dream of climbing. Only one who has accomplished the yamabushi’s initiation and ascesis can mount this perilous scale.
...not only the yamabushi themselves but large numbers of ordinary lay people as well are able to traverse unscathed a twenty-foot path of red and smouldering embers. Likewise difficult to explain...is the yamabushi’s immersion in boiling water or his climbing unshod up a ladder of swords.
...The only example I have ever witnessed was performed not by the Shugendo but by the Shinto sect known as Shinshukyo, strongly influenced by Shugendo practices on 17 September 1963.
...the fire had been lit for some time and the water in the cauldron was steaming and bubbling... Finally seizing a long bunch of bamboo grass leaves, he plunged it into the boiling water swished it around so that a heavy spray of boiling water fell all over and around him, raising a cloud of steam... he repeated the performance eight times, swishing the leaves more vigorously in and out of the water so that his white clothes were quickly soaked and now and then he could hardly be seen for clouds of steam.
...the reason why the man was not scalded I was informed was entirely because the power of the kami, imparted to him through his ascetic training, had made him impervious to heat. It was the same with the firewalking rite which they performed every spring. Neither the fire nor the boiling water felt hot because the power of the man’s ascesis had abstracted the essence of the heat’.
The ascetic can also undergo experiences that ‘endow him with the supernatural and holy power by which he can vanquish malignant spiritual beings and transform them into powers for good’, with examples given of how the villages that were visited by ascetics ‘benefitted from the holy powers. Ghosts were brought to salvation, sick persons were healed, bridges and dykes were built, problems of disharmony of the spiritual world were solved.’
Powers of ‘clairvoyance, clairaudience and possession’ by a deity can be acquired by ascetics and shamans to ‘discern the causes of human misfortune when those lie in the spirit world’, such as a ‘malicious spirit causing...sickness’, ‘aches, pains hallucinations or compulsive actions... caused by some kind of possession’, to which the powers bestowed on the ascetic by the deity can be used to exorcise the malicious spirit.
For example, one such ascetic said ‘she would hear a voice clearly speaking in her ear and explaining the cause of patient’s malady. The voice she had always taken to be that of Fudo Myõõ her guardian deity,...but...she had a strong suspicion that dead ancestors might be speaking to her aswell.’
So there can be the possession of an ascetic by a deity to bring about healing, and there can be possession of someone troubled or possessed by a malicious spirit, that can be healed through an exorcism by the ascetic through the power of the deity.
There is also the example of Tenshō Kōtai Jingūkyō who had chosen the body of Ogamisama ‘to be the vehicle for the salvation of the world’, who in addition to healing the sick, raised people from the dead, diverted storms and arrested the spread of fires and claimed to be the successor of the Buddah and Jesus, with one of the central practices being muga no mai or ‘selfless dance’.
As well as divine possession, supernatural dreams are noted as ways of a deity summoning a person to acquire their special powers. Dreams are also a way in which directions and guidance are communicated to people and it is believed these dreams can also come from kami [spiritual beings] or ancestors.
‘Dreams which are accounted of divine of origin in Japan fall into several types. There are healing dreams... prophetic dreams...and ...initiatory dreams... The sleeper is completely passive. A single figure appears as he lies and speaks to him... the sleeper is convinced the apparition that confronts him is not the construct of his imagination but an objective fact.’
A really insightful book.
‘The old manuals of Shugendo teaching certainly contain a number of rituals and spells for the accomplishment of such feats of invisibility, flying, walking on fire, stepping into cauldrons of boiling water and climbing barefoot up ladders of swords.
With the feat of climbing up the ladder of swords...the yamabushi [mountain ascetic] has acquired the again characteristic shamanic accomplishment of magically ascending to heaven. The ladder of swords... symbolises the ladder to heaven, up which the ordinary human cannot dream of climbing. Only one who has accomplished the yamabushi’s initiation and ascesis can mount this perilous scale.
...not only the yamabushi themselves but large numbers of ordinary lay people as well are able to traverse unscathed a twenty-foot path of red and smouldering embers. Likewise difficult to explain...is the yamabushi’s immersion in boiling water or his climbing unshod up a ladder of swords.
...The only example I have ever witnessed was performed not by the Shugendo but by the Shinto sect known as Shinshukyo, strongly influenced by Shugendo practices on 17 September 1963.
...the fire had been lit for some time and the water in the cauldron was steaming and bubbling... Finally seizing a long bunch of bamboo grass leaves, he plunged it into the boiling water swished it around so that a heavy spray of boiling water fell all over and around him, raising a cloud of steam... he repeated the performance eight times, swishing the leaves more vigorously in and out of the water so that his white clothes were quickly soaked and now and then he could hardly be seen for clouds of steam.
...the reason why the man was not scalded I was informed was entirely because the power of the kami, imparted to him through his ascetic training, had made him impervious to heat. It was the same with the firewalking rite which they performed every spring. Neither the fire nor the boiling water felt hot because the power of the man’s ascesis had abstracted the essence of the heat’.
The ascetic can also undergo experiences that ‘endow him with the supernatural and holy power by which he can vanquish malignant spiritual beings and transform them into powers for good’, with examples given of how the villages that were visited by ascetics ‘benefitted from the holy powers. Ghosts were brought to salvation, sick persons were healed, bridges and dykes were built, problems of disharmony of the spiritual world were solved.’
Powers of ‘clairvoyance, clairaudience and possession’ by a deity can be acquired by ascetics and shamans to ‘discern the causes of human misfortune when those lie in the spirit world’, such as a ‘malicious spirit causing...sickness’, ‘aches, pains hallucinations or compulsive actions... caused by some kind of possession’, to which the powers bestowed on the ascetic by the deity can be used to exorcise the malicious spirit.
For example, one such ascetic said ‘she would hear a voice clearly speaking in her ear and explaining the cause of patient’s malady. The voice she had always taken to be that of Fudo Myõõ her guardian deity,...but...she had a strong suspicion that dead ancestors might be speaking to her aswell.’
So there can be the possession of an ascetic by a deity to bring about healing, and there can be possession of someone troubled or possessed by a malicious spirit, that can be healed through an exorcism by the ascetic through the power of the deity.
There is also the example of Tenshō Kōtai Jingūkyō who had chosen the body of Ogamisama ‘to be the vehicle for the salvation of the world’, who in addition to healing the sick, raised people from the dead, diverted storms and arrested the spread of fires and claimed to be the successor of the Buddah and Jesus, with one of the central practices being muga no mai or ‘selfless dance’.
As well as divine possession, supernatural dreams are noted as ways of a deity summoning a person to acquire their special powers. Dreams are also a way in which directions and guidance are communicated to people and it is believed these dreams can also come from kami [spiritual beings] or ancestors.
‘Dreams which are accounted of divine of origin in Japan fall into several types. There are healing dreams... prophetic dreams...and ...initiatory dreams... The sleeper is completely passive. A single figure appears as he lies and speaks to him... the sleeper is convinced the apparition that confronts him is not the construct of his imagination but an objective fact.’
A really insightful book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 1, 2021
Not an easy read the whole way through, but often very fascinating. It's a much longer book than it seems, and it's absolutely packed with information and end notes.
I read this because of my fascination with Shinto, and I will say, I was a bit disappointed in that regard. Fairly little of this book is about Shinto. There's a lot of folk religion, much of it Buddhism inspired to my eye. Had I read it only for Shinto, it would have been a waste of time mostly.
It goes in depth into Shamanistic and ascetic practices, which were my favorite parts of the book. It also talks a bit about the Tengu, and relates a great anecdote about Tengu.
For anyone interested in the weirder parts of Japanese religion, this book is really a must.
I read this because of my fascination with Shinto, and I will say, I was a bit disappointed in that regard. Fairly little of this book is about Shinto. There's a lot of folk religion, much of it Buddhism inspired to my eye. Had I read it only for Shinto, it would have been a waste of time mostly.
It goes in depth into Shamanistic and ascetic practices, which were my favorite parts of the book. It also talks a bit about the Tengu, and relates a great anecdote about Tengu.
For anyone interested in the weirder parts of Japanese religion, this book is really a must.
April 14, 2013
I expected some sort of history of the development of the shaman practices in Japan, but the book turns out to be more anthropology, which is just not my cup of tees.
July 2, 2016
If you have the slightest bit of interest in this topic, read this now. Read it anyway. You won't be sorry. It's sensational! <3 <3 <3 Research!! <3 <3 <3
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews