I could met Matsuda san a second time in the summer 2014, the 31stJuly after the Osorezan Taisai…
Itako are symbols of the popular, folk-religion; they have loose ties with…
We said many times that itako are popular for the kuchiyose, the calling of the dead. However, the locals are still familiar…
We are back to something very dear to my study, religions and shamanism in Japan. Shamanism in contemporary Japan is a topic of interesting researches expecially among anthropologists and sociologists, and it is now widely connected to the developments of the so-called New Religions…
The second kamisama I could meet was an older woman who lives with her daughters in the…
Tōhoku area witnessed the development of a different form of shamanism, characterized mainly…
I’ve been talking about itako for quite a lot, now… I would like to share with you the experience I had with Matsuda Hiroko, the youngest itako still working today. She is very popular in Aomori, and I have to say she is…
Summer is the time for vacation, late nights and joyous festivals, and Aomori-ken is no…
It was around this time of the year, maybe some week later, when we opened our guide and we read about Shingo. We had a day off from the shooting of the documentary, and we decided to explore the area around Misawa and the Towada-ko (the big lake of the region); when we…
