Observations placeholder
Shinto
Identifier
002239
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Shinto used drums and drumming to invoke a spiritual experience.
The evidence can be seen in their paintings which superficially appear to simply represent street musicians, or entertainment in geisha houses, but all these were interconnected. A geisha house was a house for spiritual experience and geisha girls the equivalent of the ‘transporters’ of their male clients.
In the picture below by Utagawa Toyokuni showing one of his ‘12 views by Toyohiro and Toyokuni’ done in 1801 the print shows dai-kagura dancers – a kagura was a trance dance. Thus drums were used to induce trance.
A description of the experience
