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A miko (), or shrine maiden, [1] [2] is a young priestess [3] who works at a Shinto shrine. Miko were once likely seen as shamans, [4] but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized [5] role in daily life, trained to perform tasks, ranging from sacred cleansing [4] to performing the sacred Kagura dance.
Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch". Wu is used in compounds like wugu 巫蠱 "sorcery; cast harmful spells", wushen 巫神 or shenwu 神巫 (with shen "spirit; god") "wizard; sorcerer ...
Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch". The word tongji 童乩 (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym of wu.
Women occupy a unique role in the indigenous Japanese traditions of Shinto, including a unique form of participation as temple stewards and shamans, or miko.Though a ban on female Shinto priests was lifted during World War II, the number of women priests in Shinto is a small fraction of contemporary clergy.
The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits; The shaman can employ trances inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests; The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers; The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers
The word wu (巫, "spirit medium; shaman; sorcerer; doctor") was first recorded during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 BCE) when a wu could be either male or female. During the late Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE) wu specifically meant "female shaman; sorceress" as opposed to xi (覡, "male shaman; sorcerer").
All these are related to the Mongolian name of Etügen, the hearth goddess, and Etügen Eke 'Mother Earth'. Maria Czaplicka points out that Siberian languages use words for male shamans from diverse roots, but the words for female shaman are almost all from the same root. She connects this with the theory that women's practice of shamanism was ...
To different interpreters, this early Japanese shaman queen can appear as evidence of communalism (Marxists), Jōmon priestess rulers (Feminist history), the Japanese conquest of Korea, [51] the Mongolian conquest of Japan (Namio Egami's "horserider theory" ), the imperial system originating with tandem rule by a female shaman and male monarch ...