Chapter 8 Japan 311junctures the dynasty itself was threatened with destruction, including most
recently after the defeat of Japan in World War II. The Allied powers were
determined to punish Japan not only by outlawing military forces but by abol-
ishing the imperial line. It was General Douglas MacArthur who successfully
argued for maintaining Hirohito as the symbol of the Japanese nation around
whom Japanese society could be reconstructed. The new constitution created
under General MacArthur’s guidance severely redefined relations between the
Japanese state and the throne, making the emperor a constitutional monarch
much like Elizabeth II, and prohibited any support, control, or dissemination
of Shinto by the government. According to Article I, “the Emperor shall be the
symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, deriving his position from
the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.” Sovereignty is now
invested in the people, not in the divine descendant of the Sun Goddess.
Yet, the death of an old emperor and the accession of a new one could be
accomplished only by the known and ancient patterns of Shinto, which were
simply declared to be a private matter of the imperial household, not acts of
state, even though they were extensively covered by television and attended by
heads of state from all over the world, including President George H. W. Bush.
In rites followed since ancient times, the initiation of an emperor goes
through three stages:
1.Senso, the rites of accession. Immediately after the death of an emperor,
the new emperor is announced, not to the people but to the Sun God-
dess. In the precincts of the imperial palace there are three shrines, one
to the ancestors, one to the kami, and one, a shrine that is portable for
reasons we shall see, containing a replica of the very bronze mirror said
to have been given to Ninigi by Amaterasu herself when she sent him to
earth to found the Japanese royal line. The original is perpetually
housed in the inner shrine at Ise. The new emperor is announced at this
portable shrine, and then he receives the sacred sword and the jewel,
also given by Amaterasu, which have been passed down from one
emperor to another since the time of Jimmu, according to the Nihon
Shoki, in 660 B.C.E. Prior to the 1947 constitution the emperor also
received the State seal and the Imperial seal, signifying his position as
head of state. Senso concludes with the first official audience with mem-
bers of court and government. Meanwhile, the body of the dead
emperor still lies in state.
The mortuary rites for a dead emperor usually went on for two years, and
sometimes longer, although in the case of Hirohito, he was buried a mere 48
days later near the final resting place of his four immediate ancestors. In
ancient Japan, secondary burial was practiced; the emperor’s body reposed in a
specially built mortuary house (the mogari no miya) where the empress and all
consorts and concubines, all surviving sexual partners, were secluded with him
for an unspecified period. It was their role to sing laments and attempt to hold
the soul (tama) of the emperor, for death was not seen as immediately perma-