![]() Contests or displays of strength, acrobatics, fortune telling and magic displays, dances, farces, and pantomimes – all were certainly sometimes performed with puppets. The dance and mask procession gigaku, the bugaku dance with its gagaku music thought to come from the Tang (618-907) court, and the sangaku (later saragaku or “monkey music” which involved circus acrobatics and other fairground acts), are in part originating from Central Asia. In effect, many of the performance genres that had arrived in the meantime came from China, usually via Korea. Toward the end of the Heian period, written and iconographical documents become more numerous. In fact, the miko uses the puppet at the end of the incantation to consult the spirits and does not really tell the story. ![]() The miko (female mediums) manipulate three figures that are characters in a legend narrating the origin of the silkworm, the fruit of love between a young girl and a divine horse. Notable is the case of ceremonies consecrated to Oshira-sama, divine protector of silkworms in North Japan. These primitive puppets, derived from the stick held by priests and mediums, remind us that traditional celebrations still are found at certain temples and sanctuaries. One also encounters puppet heads carved of wood and mounted on a rod and held at chest level they seem to be regarded as precious objects and presumably these were used in religious ceremonies. ![]() After many vicissitudes, when the “wicked” seem to win, the god Sumiyoshi intervenes to assure victory of the “good” and reverses vigorously the assembled line up of adversaries. Fights of sumo wrestlers figure in worship of two clashing camps of divinities. These puppets are still used in festivals of sanctuaries and presented before dances inspired by bugaku, Chinese and continentally- inspired court dance introduced to Japan at the beginning of the Heian period (784-1185). They are made of wood, with dangling arms and legs twine at the shoulders allows the two arms to rise, and the rod by which the puppet is held extends from one leg. Similar puppets are conserved at the sanctuaries of Kohyō and Koyō, near the city of Nakatsu on the north-east coast of Kyūshū. ![]() One puppet is about 15 centimetres tall, is of cedar and shows a bearded man wearing a cap the piece forming the body is pierced at the shoulders and the legs, allowing the arms and legs to be attached. The oldest puppets in Japan are from the excavations of the palace of Nara, the nation’s capital in the epoch of the same name (710-784). The term appears with other words in the Sino-Japanese dictionary: Wamyō Ruiju Shō (Collection of Japanese Names, c.930 CE), where kugutsu is given as the Japanese pronunciation for the Chinese kairaishi (puppet). This word was, over time, adopted in Japan for puppet, and the manipulators were called kugutsu mawashi (itinerant puppeteers). A Japanese document from the end of the 8th century glosses a Chinese Buddhist text, using the word kukutsu, later kugutsu, to designate a type of object. We know, for example, that at the time of the invasion of the Korean kingdom of Koguryo (Kogoryo, Goguryeo) by the Chinese troops of Gaozu (566-635 CE), the first emperor and founder of the Tang Dynasty of China (618-909), precious puppets were part of the booty sent to the Chinese ruler. In Japan, as in other countries of North East Asia, one finds traces of puppetry in shamanic religious services. But still we can form a hypothesis about their existence. In the absence of documents before the 7th century when writing was introduced from China, archaeological vestiges may attest to the presence of puppets, but one cannot really be sure they were used in ancient cultural practices and rituals. In this manner, it is thought that puppetry began with the priests and mediums manipulating the sacred stick, and are thus the “ancestors” of the puppeteers. The priests invited the descent of the gods, queried them, and interpreted their messages. ![]() The sakaki ( cleyera japonica) tree in particular was venerated: officiants used it in celebrations, waving its branches over their heads in ceremonies, but often sticks decorated with strips of white paper served as a substitute. Trees with finer, smaller branches were thought to better hold the divine spirit. In ancient times in Japan, people believed the deities resided in the mountains, so for village festivals they set up trees, cut from mountain forests, to be temporary abodes for the gods honoured in the ceremonies. The archipelago of Japan includes 6,852 islands the four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Neighbouring countries are China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia. An island nation in East Asia, Japan (Japanese: 日本, Nippon or Nihon, “sun origin”) is located in the Pacific Ocean and lies east of the Sea of Japan. ![]()
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