A mitamaya A is an

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

used in

Shinto , also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...

-style

ancestor worship The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...

, dedicated in the memory of deceased forebears. It generally has a mirror symbolizing the spirits of the deceased or a tablet bearing their names and is used not only to enshrine blood relatives, but also to honor respected non-family members. Since

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

funeral rites dominate in Japanese religious practice, ''mitamaya'' are found less often in Japanese houses than their Buddhist counterpart, the ''

butsudan A , sometimes spelled butudan, is a shrine commonly found in temples and homes in Japanese Buddhist cultures. A ''butsudan'' is either a defined, often ornate platform or simply a wooden cabinet sometimes crafted with doors that enclose and p ...

''. Their value are also below that of the more highly respected ''

kamidana are miniature household altars provided to enshrine a Shinto . They are most commonly found in Japan, the home of worship. The is typically placed high on a wall and contains a wide variety of items related to Shinto-style ceremonies, the mos ...

''.

Ritual

The ''mitamaya'' is placed in an inner chamber, on a shelf, the ''mitama-san-no-tana,'' attached to the wall about six feet high. It is placed lower than the ''kamidana''. Rites are performed for the ''mitamaya'' every tenth day up to the fiftieth, and thereafter on the one-hundredth day and one-year anniversary. The one-year ritual is followed by another which marks the spirit's joining of the ancestors at the family shrine.

History

In ancient times, people held domestic rites called

Kinen-sai is a harvest festival that was celebrated every year in ancient Japan on February 4. It was held to pray for a good harvest, as reflected in its name. It is sometimes contrasted with Niiname-no-Matsuri or the fall festival. It is now celebrated ...

in the February or April and Niinamesai in November. During these rites, people worshiped their ancestors, the god of food, and the hearth deity. They believed the spirits of their ancestors (

Oyagami is a term in Shinto that refers to an ancestor, deity, or soul (sorei) of an ancestor who was worshipped as a deity in a certain clan. When not used to express the idea of a tutelary deity, it is used to express a connotation of kami caring for h ...

) came to them through the rice. During the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

cults of

Goryō In a broad sense, is an honorific for a spirit, especially one that causes hauntings, and the term is used as a synonym for . In a narrower sense, it refers to a person who was a noble or accomplished person in his or her lifetime, but who lost ...

developed and people changed to honoring the dead in July for Urabon-e, and in January. During the medieval period, people started to enshrine the spirits of dead individuals, like Retired Emperor Gotoba (1180–1239) whose memory was kept through memorial tablets. In the early modern period, there was a rise in "Shinto funerals" (shinsōsai) where people were treated like kami. The Yoshida clan gave spirit ranks like Myōjin-gō, Reisha-gō, and Reijin-gō to the dead, who were sometimes worshipped at shrines. The spread of

Kokugaku was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Edo period. scholars worked to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts in favor of ...

led to an increased interest in Miyamaya, and more people enshrined their ancestors in their homes. The first modern ''mitamaya'' was built in 1599 in the Toyokuni Shrine in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

for

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

. Screen paintings and its ruins suggest that it was modeled after the

Kitano Tenman-gū , also known as in Japan, is a Japanese comedian, actor, and filmmaker. While he is known primarily as a comedian and TV host in his native Japan, he is better known abroad for his work as a filmmaker and actor as well as TV host. During hi ...

. It was later destroyed by the Tokugawa. Later the ''mitamaya'' was generally established for Japanese nobles, military heroes, and other people with high reputation. This practice spread in the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. During the ''

'' movement it became more common to erect ''mitamaya'' in ordinary homes. It formed a central part of the Shinto funeral rituals (神葬祭, shinsōsai).

References

External links

Kinensai explanation
{{Authority control Japanese architectural features Shinto religious objects Veneration of the dead