Word: shinto
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...bring in more than 1,350,000 tons of water a day from nearby rivers, expects the first to be finished next week. Meantime, Japanese Self-Defense Force planes carrying dry ice and water have pounced on every passing cloud, and on the shores of the Ogochi reservoir, a Shinto priest in the mask of a scarlet lion writhed through a ceremonial rain dance. Townsmen were warned not to expect miracles. "It will take two days for the message to get through to the dragon god," the priest explained...
...highest duty, which is shakubuku (literally, break and subdue), or gaining converts. Until some years ago shakubuku was accomplished by relays of devotees chanting sutras round the clock in a prospective recruit's home and literally wearing him down. In other cases, members burned a family's Shinto altar, or prevented a doctor from treating a sick devotee on grounds that faith alone would cure him. Because of public protest, Soka Gakkai eased off on such tactics, but even today it stresses obedience, and members must vote for the sect's political candidates as a religious duty...
Legend has it that the Japanese won their homeland in a sumo match between a Shinto god named Takemikazuchi and a local aborigine. In the good old days, 2,000 years ago, wrestlers fought to the death, cracking skulls and stomping ribs with ferocious abandon. Today's sumo heroes have a more limited objective-only to knock an opponent off his feet or force him outside a 15-ft. ring...
...received some historic papal guests: the first Greek Orthodox sovereign to visit the Pope since the days of the last Byzantine emperor, the first Archbishop of Canterbury since the 14th century, the first chief prelate of the U.S. Episcopal Church, the first Moderator of the Scottish Kirk, the first Shinto high priest. When Jacqueline Kennedy came to visit, John asked his secretary how to address her. Replied the secretary: ' 'Mrs. Kennedy,' or just 'Madame.' since she is of French origin and has lived in France." Waiting in his private library, the Pope mumbled: "Mrs. Kennedy, Madame; Madame, Mrs. Kennedy." Then...
...Chew More Gum Association opened offices this month in Tokyo. The opening, attended by politicians, baseball stars and showfolk, went as smoothly as a cathedral service-which, in a way, it was. Highlight of the première was a special prayer intoned by a Shinto priest standing before a kind of altar to gamu. Excerpts...