Fertility Rites
As you may recall, a major emphasis of Shinto is fertility. In villages throughout Japan, one can still find phallic symbols and representations of the female sex organ on display and worshiped.
To this day the Shinto ritual calendar gives prominence to ceremonies revolving around fertility and productivity. In early spring, the kinensai (“festival for praying for good harvest”) is celebrated when the fertility-dispensing kami are believed to be physically present in their shrines. Processions of worshipers greet these deities, carry them into the fields in portable shrines, and dance to celebrate their divine powers while rice seedlings are being planted or transplanted. In the fall, the niiname matsuri (“harvest festival”), the largest event of the ritual year, is observed, when the kami are honored and thanked with joyous and boisterous celebrations.The harvest festival is also closely linked with the Shinto belief in divine kingship. Until 1945, the Japanese emperor, the tenno (“august heavenly ruler”), had both religious and political responsibilities, as he was regarded as a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and was thereby entrusted to rule over the land. One such religious responsibility was the guarantee of fertility of the soil and bountiful harvest. This is consummated ritually each fall at the niiname festival, presided over by the emperor as high priest. The most spectacular expression of this divine power of the Japanese ruler is the daijosai (“the great food festival”), which is performed by a new emperor the year after his ascension to the throne. In an elaborate and ancient ritual, rice and wine from specially cultivated fields are presented by the new ruler to the deities in the middle of the night, a gesture that consecrates the emperor’s religious power and political legitimacy. This rite, still performed as the climax of a royal accession in modern Japan, marks the distinctive religious foundation of the Japanese imperial institution.