Goddess Politics: Analytical Psychology and Japanese Myth

Abstract

Myth always plays an important role in establishing people's core identities; and the interpretation of myths is central in Jungian studies, which focus on archetypal images. In this context, this paper examines Hayao Kawai's 1976 work on the Japanese goddess Amaterasu-oh-kami (Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity), who has been referred to as the main deity in Shintoism. Kawai argued that Japan is a maternal society, and that, in general, Japanese have a more feminine psyche than Westerners. The purpose of this paper is critically to rethink Kawai's argument and ideas. In doing so, first, I examine the concept of kami in relation to shamanism and animism in Shintoism. Second, I focus on the formulation of state Shintoism, and on how those who edited Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) and Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan reconstructed Japanese myths for political reasons in the fifth and eighth centuries (Common Era), and how, in the process, the image of Amaterasu-oh-kami was distorted by patriarchal codes. More recently, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the idea of Amaterasu-oh-kami as the highest deity in Kojiki was widespread, a view promulgated by the Japanese government. I identify certain problems in Kawai's interpretations of the myth – his choice of texts, his characterization of Amaterasu-oh-kami, his projection of men's needs onto the goddess – and offer a rethinking of his interpretation in terms of recent Jungian, historical, mythological, and feminist viewpoints. I argue that Kawai's discourse about the goddess's image is a kind of conservative renewal of the myth – for covert political reasons. Finally, I advocate the importance of careful examination of the patriarchal codes in the myth, with the hope that this might bring a new potency to the Jungian approach more suited to a new century.