March 10, 2011
Amotsuki, the old word for Mochi-Tsuki or Rice Cake Making
In this Japanese dictionary (koujien 4th edition) it says that, "Amotsuki," an old but not defunct word for "mochi-tsuki" which means "beating rice to make rice cakes", was used as a metaphor for "boji," which means sex.
The rice beating ritual performed at New Year gave me that (sexual) impression, especially when, as is traditional, a woman turns the rice while her husband beats it. In the ritual that I saw performed, and took part in, a woman would kneel or crouch down beside the "usu" (bowl) and make noises indicating when the person holding the big hammer should beat the rice cake. Apparently quite a lot of males die each year of heart attack as they wield their hammer. The ritual is quite hard work. The men build up a sweat. The rice cake becomes more and more gooey. The thwack resounds. Finally everyone rejoices partaking of the gooey rice cake. It is quite a carbohydrate high after all that exertion. Bearing in mind the shape of the tools used, I made an interpretation which prompted my my Japanese friends to call me a pervert. Then one day I was reading my dictionary and came accross the entry above.
It may be quite irrelevant and coincidental but since the Shinto-Amaterasu myth is represented in Shinto New-Year's festivities, the fact that a ritual seen as a metaphor for sex (at least in times past) should take a central role in the festivities suggests that perhaps there is a similarly metaphorical episode in the Susano Amaterasu myth. At least one resarcher has suggested that the bit where Susano-O throws a backwards skinned horse into the clothing room of Amaterasu such that one of her weavers dies as a result of a shuttle entering her vagina, may be a metaphor for sex.