Talk:Miko

Miko History That Needs To Get Incorporated Into Essay

Some previous editor, in attempting to explain the story of the Kagura, more or less simply retold the story of Amaterasu, which, while vital to Shinto belief, doesn't actually fit in this particular part of the essay:

The (ca. 712) Kojiki mytho-history contains what scholars interpret as the oldest reference to Miko trance dancing. Japanese mythology recounts a legend about the sky turning dark when the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami got angry with her brother Susanoo-no-Mikoto and sealed herself into the dark Amano-Iwato cave. In order to restore light to earth, the gods devised a plan to trick Amaterasu using a mirror hung on a bejeweled sakaki tree (which later became Shinto symbols). The goddess of revelry Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto performed a shamanistic dance to lure Amaterasu out of the cave.

Her Augustness Heavenly-Alarming Female [Uzume] hanging round her the heavenly clubmoss of the Heavenly Mount Kagu as a sash, and making the heavenly spindle-tree her head-dress, and binding the leaves of the bamboo-grass of the Heavenly Mount Kagu in a posy for her hands, and laying a soundingboard before the door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling, and stamping till she made it resound and doing as if possessed by a Deity, and pulling out the nipples of her breasts, pushing down her skirt-string usque ad privates partes [Latin for "all the way to her private parts"]. Chamberlain, Basil H., tr. The Kojiki, Records of Ancient Matters. Asiatic Society of Japan. (1919) pages 64-65.

When Amaterasu heard the roar of gods' laughter, she came out in fascination with her mirror image, and restored sunlight.

Other mythical and historical examples of Japanese women identified as shamanistic Miko include:

Yamatohime-no-Mikoto, daughter of Emperor Suinin, founder of the Ise Shrine

Yamato-totohi-momoso-hime-no-Mikoto, aunt of Emperor Sujin, lover of a dragon god

Empress Jingū, wife of Emperor Chūai, medium for voices of the gods

Queen HiMiko, 3rd-century ruler of Wa (Japan)

Izumo no Okuni, 16th-century founder of kabuki

For example, the Heian statesman Fujiwara no Kaneie consulted with a Kamo Shrine Miko before he made important decisions.

Duende-Poetry (talk) 03:08, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Second sentence

Are you sure about the second sentence?In The Tale of Genji I found no reference to martial arts skills,(but admittedly I didn`t manage to finish it)? User:andycjp20/4/04

Quite uncertain... Apparently mangaka and anime storyboarders seem to think that miko did tho. (Which I probably should have noted in the article ne? ^^; ) -- EmperorBMA|話す 02:22, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yep,I think it is a Manga myth to be honest.andy

Actually, I think there was a type of miko that did to that to some extent. They were called Betsushikime. I'm doing some research on it right now, so I'll have to see what I come up with. Mitsukai 02:20, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Miko as a last name

My family's last name is Miko and it is of Hungarian origin. Now I'm not too sure how to attempt this, but would someone else be able to make disambiguation or some such to incorporate this information?

Missing picture

[[Image:Miko_pic_1.jpg|thumb|Miko in Japanese shrine]] was removed because it was "missing". But I can still view it by linking directly to the file! Something subtle must be wrong here... Of course this image is due to be deleted anyway, so it might not matter. Shinobu 03:32, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Now the only image on the page is the manga drawing, though. That strikes me as a bit of a shame... it would be nice to lead with a drawing or picture of a real-world Miko first. Plus, the manga drawing has no copyright status and is likely to get deleted soon, too. Maybe we should file a request for another Miko picture and see if anyone can come up with one? Aquillion 07:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I've got one at home; I'll put it up later tonight.--Mitsukai 17:50, 21 September 2005 (UTC)Nevermind; looks like I had it embedded in a powerpoint on my USB key. I'll upload right now.--Mitsukai 18:04, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Different coloured hakama

I have removed the sentence about miko wearing different coloured hakama at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine. This is untrue. (I was just there and I asked a miko working there.) I also removed the part about miko wearing different coloured hakama at all. I'm currently working as a miko and have found no evidence to substantiate this.

Looser_Sugar 13:39, July 6 2006 (UTC)

When I was stationed in Japan back in 1996, there were miko dressed as described. When I asked one of them, they did state that it was the typical dress for the miko of the shrine. Additionally (and this one I'll have to look for), I've seen pictures of the World Miko Council meetings where some miko from other shrines do wear other colors. I'll admit it's not common, but it does exist.--み使い Mitsukai 05:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I was at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shine yesterday and I saw a miko wearing orange hakama and a miko wearing read hakama. A Japanese classmate told me that married miko wore the orange hakama. Her information was secondhand though, she has a friend who worked as a miko who told her this. The miko in the orange hakama was busy so we didn't stop her to ask.--Gaijin99 02:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yay! Miko wear red hakama and white kimono with a red layer inside? But sometimes I see the kimono torn on both arms so that the red layer would show, whereas the hakama reveal parts of the white kimono on the hips. Cool! =D Ok, at least in anime, but wonder why real-life robe of Miko is much more simple, and does not have those layers? Shrine Maiden 16:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually there are many colors; red, orange, blue (aqua anyway). And yes it has to do with their age or their job at the shrine. I was married at a Shinto shrine and I have many photos of the various outfits they were wearing. Now if you draw a distinction between a "shrine maiden" and a "priestess" then you might look at it differently, but as far as I understand they are both called "Miko-san" however the kanji is possibly (probably) different. I will look into getting a usable reference. Colincbn (talk) 10:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Pop Culture Miko: the bane of Wikipedia

While it might seem at first I am simply railing at the Pop Culture section here, I think the problems exhibited here with the Miko article are a good example of what I see going on with other Wiki pages, too, especially when it comes to Japanese culture as explained by Westerns. It seems that very few editors who work on these articles have any first-hand experience (let alone scholarly research) with what they are writing about and instead simply repeat whatever vague ideas they can glean from anime and manga. When you are a 13 year old boy it might seem vastly important to point out that there was a character in Inuyasha who vaguely resembles what a Miko might be (i.e., Wonder Woman in a kimono) because that's all your world view knows about the subject. Then I can understand why keeping these Pop Culture sections alive are so important to certain people and why listing every video game/anime/move/ song lyric reference on the subject seems far more important than, say, focusing on any academic sociology/anthropology/psychology research that's been done on actual Mikos. However, if you've actually worked with flesh and blood women who are trained as Mikos (or you happen to be one yourself) then comments like, "The character Rei Hino from Sailor Moon is a miko in her civilian form, and is shown to use shintoist shamanistic abilities such as dispelling evil forces with an ofuda and divining the future" holds about the same weight as someone making observations about Soviet culture by watching “Red Dawn.” Besides the fact that nothing in the Pop Culture section is cited, the decisions to focus in on Inuyasha, say, over Ghost Sweeper Mikami, comes off as totally arbitrary. Neither of them deal with actual Mikos, anymore than the X-Files deal with the day-to-day operations of the FBI. Unless it is dealing with actual Mikos and not some J-Pop witch running around in white and red robes, I say the Pop Culture section should go. Duende-Poetry (talk) 02:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

wtf are you talking about. sailor moon is where loads of people all over the world encountered a miko for the first time, so it should very well be mentioned in the article!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.86.132 (talk) 12:36, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I think a better solution would be to clean up the section, rather than removing it completely since pop-culture references seem to be pretty common. I'd suggest something similar to other articles pop-culture sections: an introductory paragraph combining and expanding on the notes about anime, manga and eastern RPGs to explain that miko are often featured in popular culture and give some general examples of reoccurring themes (like the ability to fight or banish demons) and then some specific examples, trimmed to just characters who actually are miko and where that's relevant to the plot, then expanding and where possible adding sources to these to show why they're good examples. For instance the entry on Okamiden could explain that Kagu (a miko in training) is frequently called away from the shrine to use the kagura dance and cleansing rituals to banish demonic influences. It's an exaggerated or idealised depiction, but that's in keeping with the rest o the Okami franchise which is essentially a re-telling of a variety of popular mythological stories. 82.68.159.246 (talk) 13:18, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Witch and Sorceress?

I've never heard those terms being used before being used as a translation of a Miko. In fact I've seen them being used as opposites. Should that be removed? - Hamster2.0 (talk) 21:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Traditional Training section seems not neutral

The text in the section has few references, and it was when I read "after a while the girl started to shiver" that it really felt to me more like whoever had written that section wrote it more like a story than an article (or possibly plagiarized the material from elsewhere). Regardless, the wording itself could be cleaned up and made less subjective.

Edit: Some paragraphs of that section are okay, but some parts are decidedly not encyclopedic in tone. DriftWrench2k (talk) 13:17, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm Japanese and I've never heard of such traditional training by shrine maidens. While it may be some local tradition, I would not put this on a Wikipedia article about the subject as a whole. It's like trying to explain how to become a druid. It depends (quite a bit). Atlasia (talk) 08:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)