Shinto

Hair in the Kojiki

The Kojiki is famous for having themes that repeat over the course of its many episodes making it particularly tractable to structural analysis. As an illustration of this I will look at the way in which hair recurs as a repeating theme, with a similar function at several places in the Kojiki myth (here in the original Japanese)

In the first episode featuring Izanagi (male inviter) and Izanami (female inviter), Izanami dies and goes down into the underworld. Stricken with grief Izanagi visits his dead bride in the underworld and asks her to come back to the word of the living with him. She tells him to wait, and not to look at her. But Izanagi tires of waiting and in order to see Izanami in the darkness of underworld he breaks off a “manly” (i.e. end) tooth of the comb in his hair and sets fire to it.

When Izanagi is fleeing from Izanami he takes combs from his hair and throws them down, letting them turn to food, bamboo-sprouts, that his pursuers devour. There are similar myths were pursued people throw things down to turn into food to slow their pursuers all over the world. Why I know not, but as we see below, it will not be the last time that hair, or a head dress is used to trick someone in the Kojiki myth.

When Amaterasu waits for Susano-o, thinking that he may have come to steal her country, she dresses up as a warrior puts her hair in braids “like a man.”

When Amaterasu hides in the cave and throws the world into darkness, Amenouzume wears a fancy head dress in her hair when she dances before the cave in order to try and get Amaterasu to come out. The fancy golden head dress worn by shrine nuns (miko) when they perform Kagura (dance) today is based on the head dress worn by Amenouzume.

When Susano-o is banished from the high plain of heaven for upsetting Amaterasu, and thus sending the world into eternal darkness, his hair is shaved and his nails are removed possibly as punishment, possibly as purification. Incidentally, the ancient Jews used to do this to captive women of other religions before marrying them apparently, since it was believed that this robbed them of their magic power.

When Susano-o wants to kill the multi-headed snake Yamata-no-Orochi at a place called “bird hair” in Izumo, at he turns his bride to be into a comb and puts it in his hair. He then gets the serpent drunk and kills it in its sleep. That is the standard explanation. It is not clear why he turns his bride into a comb, nor is there any mention of how or when he turns her back into a person, except we learn in the next scene that he marries her. However, there is one rare reading, that I prefer, which has it that Susano turns *himself* into a likeness of his bride by putting a comb in his hair. The kanji in this sequence are

This is usually read as

Sunawachi, yutsutsu tsumakushi ni sono musume wo tori nashite mimidzura ni sashite
(Then, many toothed comb into that young womb took and turned {and} hairstyle into stuck)

But it might also be read as

Sunawachi, yutsutsu tsumakushi wo tori, sono musume ni natte, mimidzura ni sashite
(Then, many toothed comb took, that young woman into turned, {and} hairstyle into stuck)

This is the more natural reading since, there is no other place in the myth where a spirit is given the power of turning others into something else, and if he had that amount of power he would not have had to resort to getting the serpent drunk in order to subdue it. I also prefer this rare interpretation since it matches the story of Yamatotakeru, below. Later in the myth the soldiers of emperor Jinmu pretend to be party servers, possibly by pretending to be women. It seems to be a common way of killing ones foes in the Kojiki: pretend to be a woman, get them drunk, and then stab 'em!

The white rabbit of Inaba tricks some crocodiles into providing a bridge for him to get across some water by saying “Why don’t you all get in a line, and I will count which of your tribes is the greatest in number.” Just as he reaches the last crocodile he says, “Ha, I tricked you,” thinking that his plan had worked, but the last crocodile bit him and tore his hair off. To add insult to injury some passing baddies tell him to go and bathe in salt water, which makes his skin crack and painful.

In the Hohoderi myth (in the Nihonshoki this is the myth of Yamasachiko and his brother Umisachihiko), sea creatures are defined as being those things that have fins, and land creatures are defined as those things that have hair.

The Great-Name-Possessor ties his host and father's hair to the rafters of a house to slow him down when he awakes.

When Yamatotakeru wants to kill some baddies he lets down his hair to pretend to be a woman and then kills the enemies in the midst of a party.

In the myth of emperor Jinmu his soldiers pretend to have cut their bowstrings under the pretence that they have given up the fight and then pull their bowstrings from their hair (again hair figures in a pretence).

As we can see, hair figures a quite a lot in the Kojiki and it is often associated with trickery and cross-dressing. Having long hair makes you strong in so far as it makes people look femininely attractive and thus able to trick and subdue their enemies.

Finally of all, it is worth mentioning that the Japanese for hair and the Japanese the deities in Shinto are homonyms - both "kami" (or "kami-no-ke" for more specifically hairs on your head). Kami is also the word for paper, the boss, government bureaucrats, and ones wife.

In real life the Japanese are very keen on their hair and very critical of baldness. Admittedly fewer Japanese go bald. Only about 10 or 20 percent, or perhaps half of the total in the West (I am guessing) but every day on television there is a range of adverts for wigs and hair lotions. To be a hage (a baldy) is second only to being dirty in terms of unpopularity with women. And alas, this author is quickly becoming bald.

Posted by timtak at January 12, 2004 07:06 PM