Subject
Miko 巫女
The shrine maiden, and before that the medium: the woman who lends her mouth to gods and to the dead. Nothing glows and nothing floats. The unsettling part is a voice coming out of a person that should not be coming out of her, in a room where everyone can hear that it is.
Notes
- The Miko: Shrine Maiden and Medium What the word miko means and what a shrine maiden actually does, from the New Year shrine to the far older role standing behind it.
- Amenouzume and the Return of the Sun The sun has shut herself in a cave. A goddess turns over a tub, climbs on, and dances until the other gods laugh.
- Himiko in the Third-Century Record Everything an ancient text actually says about the queen of Wa — the embassy, the guarded house, the mound — and the questions the record leaves open.
- The Itako and the Three Kinds of Mouth A survey of 1930 sets out their work as three kinds of calling: the dead, the living, the gods. What it cannot date is the mountain they are photographed on.
Volumes
Mystics of Old Japan
HIMIKO
The Queen of Wa in History and Legend
The queen of Wa, as the third-century record gives her — and as seventeen centuries of readers have rebuilt her since.
Included with Kindle Unlimited
Japanese Horror Folktales Collection
MIKO
Tales of Dance, Divination, and the Divine
Fourteen Japanese tales of the miko — the woman who lends her mouth to gods and the dead.
Included with Kindle Unlimited