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Religion in archaic Japan
William E. Deal
Issues in the interpretation of religion in archaic Japan
The study of religion in archaic Japan—c.14,000 bce to c.700 ce—is predominately based on the
archaeological record. It is only toward the end of this period that textual evidence becomes
significant, and even then the textual record is sparse and of dubious historical accuracy. Although
texts like Kojiki (“Record of Ancient Matters,” 712 ce) and Nihon shoki (“Chronicles of Japan,”
720 ce) purport to narrate Japan’s early history, it might be argued that, given the compilation
dates for these two texts, the entire period we are dealing with in this chapter is essentially pre-
historic. This is underscored by the fact that many historical details described in these texts have
been challenged or outright contradicted by both archaeological and textual research. Japanese
mytho- historical narratives that purport to describe earlier times are more trustworthy as evid-
ence for political aspirations couched in sacred terms.
Although there are disagreements about exact dating, for our purposes here “archaic Japan”
utilizes the following periods and dates:^1
—Jōmon (14,000 bce–500 bce)
—Yayoi (500 bce–300 ce)
—Kofun (c.300–600)
—Asuka (c.600–710)
This study is necessarily selective, focusing on some of the key areas of debate in scholarship on
religion in archaic Japan, such as continuities between Jōmon, Yayoi, and Kofun period religion
and later developments termed “Shintō”; the significance of the shaman- ruler Himiko and her
kingdom of Yamatai to the formation of the Japanese nation and its religious underpinnings; and
the introduction of Buddhism to the Japanese archipelago. These issues have often been the
objects of ardent disagreements on both historical and nationalistic grounds. While detailed dis-
cussion of these matters is beyond the scope of this chapter, we can sketch the larger contours of
these controversies.
There are also a number of contested interpretive issues any exploration of ancient Japanese
religion must take into account. These issues range over matters of nomenclature, the kinds of