Talk:Kami

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May someone explain me exactly Tanuki Z changed in this article and why? Seems to me that it would be advantageous to keep the previous version, but I guess I am failing to notice something important. Thanks! Luis Dantas 15:21, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've rolled it back, that's only if you're linking from the meta, quote, or textbook Wikipedias to Wikipedia English version itself. Otherwise the w: is useless. -- user:zanimum

Is "god" really a good translation for "Kami"? It is my understanding that many are, but nature spirits and very ancient and/or revered ancestors are also considered Kami. For that matter so is the Buddha, who made it a point of stating that he was not a god. Luis Dantas 03:15, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, but it's certainly the most common usage of the word. No language's words can be translated into another without losing shades of meaning. A translator must determine what word to use. "Divine spirit" might be preferred in many uses of the word 神. -- Myria 17:24, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No, "god" is definitely not a good translation of the word, because it implies a "higher" power. "Divine spirit" would fall under the same thing. Someone reading this page in its current version would take away a mistaken view of Shinto, because it implies that the kami are worshipped as gods, which they are not. They are revered, which is a subtle but important difference. Kami can be good or bad, they can be wise or foolish, they can basically have all the virtues and all the shortcomings of human beings. I'm trying to find an excellent book I have on Shinto, and when I do I will work on this page a bit. MikeDockery 12:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Kami-sama (ie: with honorific addition of sama) is the word for "god" in Japanese that I most often hear associated with speaking of a "god" specifically (in the western sense of the term), or monotheistic religions and their gods. Phresno 02:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I hear that too, mainly from Japanese Christians. It's not ever used formally in Shinto, I don't think. It uses the same kanji (神) and pronounciation as "Kami" in the Shinto sense, but I think that's a Christian construction... MikeDockery 03:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm native Japanese. In modern, corroquial Japanese language, the words "Kami" and "Kami-sama" both can mean Japanese idea of Kami and Western ideas of a deity/the god. The word simply refers to "something important, something governs, and something to be worshipped or believed". Japanese often think Christian God as one of Kami, high entity, while Buddha and Amaterasu are Kami too at the same time.

Japanese does have a plural form of 神: 神々 (kamigami). Japanese doesn't have plurals in the normal sense, but for some words, it does; in this case, 神々 is to "god" what "people" is to "person". In fact, Japanese has this same pattern for "people": 人 (person) -> 人々 (people). The symbol 々 means "repeat last kanji"; 神々 can also be written 神神, though it is rarely done. -- Myria 17:24, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, but it is much less common, and a fact like that would probably be better noted on a page detailing complexities in the language itself. -- Clevomon
Kami-gami is an expression that is used especially in case it is necessary to show respect to all respective entities referred. Whether using plural form or not, for Japanese people, Kami is definitely plural idea. A Japanese man live in Sugamo, Tokyo, can worship Jesus, Ksitigarbha, and Amaterasu respectively as a Kami.

Could we get a list of kami on this page? There really needs to be one.

  • All 8,000,000 of them?  ;-) Nik42 22:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
    • No, the first 1M should suffice. XD Seriously, as much as I would think that a list would be nice, that's for another article and digging up names is going to be rather complex Nevermind, notice one's already in progress.--Mitsukai 21:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] documentation of theophany by kami

Does anyone know if there is documentation of visitations upon the living by kami? Chris 23:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Ever seen a tree? ;-) Seriously, the line between gods and humans is sort of blurred in the ancient Shinto myths, but I think the gods were just sort of around, interacting with normal people all the time. There may also be stories where someone's ancestors appeared to them or something like that. If I come across anything specific I'll let you know. MikeDockery 23:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, you wanted an example, so: The Yata-no-Kagami, Amaterasu's sacred mirror, was said to be initially kept in the palace in Nara until 100BC, when the daughter of Emperor Sunin, Princess Toyosuki'iri had it moved to Kasanui-no-mura because of supposed jealousy over the beauty of her ancestress. It was said that immediately thereafter, Amaterasu appeared before Emperor Sunin, demanding a more suitable location for the mirror. A long search was undertaken, with Amaterasu reappearing on occasion to harrass the people in charge of the search, and in 4BC, Princess Mikoto discovered a site near Isuzugawa where the mirror would be enshrined peacefully. That place is now the Ise Shrine.--み使い Mitsukai 03:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two suggestions...

1. Include an etymology section: This would be useful, as the Ainu kamui and a word meaning "above" (as referred to in this article's second paragraph) are both suggested roots of the word according to various sources. Some (such as the venerable Yahoo!) support the latter, in spite of apparent general consensus being that originally they were not viewed as being inherently superior or being "above" us in some heavenly kingdom, and that the complex mythology of Izanagi, Izanami and Amaterasu is a later (Chinese-influenced) development, with others, such as Louis Fréderic (do other encyclopedias count as valid references?) give due emphasis to the former.

2. Remove the statement about the word's translation: Both of these words ("god" and "deity") have been used throughout their histories to refer to nature spirits that are basically deified ancestors: Greek nymphs and Roman house deities, Hindu local deities, Norse elves and so on... It is therefore inappropriate to say these translations are inappropriate.

elvenscout742 00:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Kami" as a Shinto honorific

I've removed the following for the time being:

In its usage within Shinto, the word is an honorific (See: Japanese titles and Japanese honorifics) for noble, sacred spirits, which implies a sense of respect or adoration for their virtues and authority. Since all beings have such spirits, human beings (and indeed all beings) could be considered kami or potential kami. However, because the Japanese almost never use an honorific to refer to themselves or to a member of a group to which they belong, it is uncommon for a normal human being to be referred to as a kami (Ono, 1962).

Although it appears to be sourced, it still seem pretty dodgy to me. I have no doubt that kami is probably considered a honorific term in Shinto, nowever the rest of it I can't really agree as readily with.

For one, honorifics are used almost always when refering to other people. An honorific doesn't necesarily imply a higher status of the person addressed. In fact, -kun, -chan and even -tan are all honorifics. Addressing somebody without an honorific (nasute) is rare and considered rude.

And second, all human (and all other) beings are considered potential kami in Shinto. When they die, they pass on to kami-hood, unless something goes terribly wrong. Simple as that. TomorrowTime 23:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving pop culture Kami to another page

Would it be possible to move all the pop-culture kami references to another page entirely, with disambiguation links? I am tempted to suggest the deletion of all the references to kami within nerdporn as being inauthentic to the subject, but realizing that there are people who insist on wasting their time playing a game that was designed for 12-year-olds, maybe a separate page would be better. It would certainly make the article look more professional.Happydog 21:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a number of longer articles went through a similar change lately. Kitsune, Kappa, Tanuki, Tengu all have their separate "In Popular Culture" articles, and it's working out great - people that are serious about the state of these articles can keep up a good effort at a serious article (kitsune was just recently FA), and people that feel the inexplicable urge to mention that the hairdresser from page 372, volume 43 of their favorite manga resembles a kappa have an article where they can proclaim this. I'd support this; the article at hand seems to be long enough to merit a split like that. TomorrowTime 23:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Done. Kami in popular culture. The article is long enough without the list, and a split is acceptable, IMO. TomorrowTime 14:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging pop culture Kami back

Please don't shoot me, but I merged Kami in popular culture back into this article. I have merged back less than 10% of the "pop culture" article's content (3-4 sentences). A number of "popular culture" articles have been deleted recently (although an almost equal number have been kept) and the consensus at WP:AFD seems to be this (please note, this is just my interpretation, which others may not agree with): popular culture sections that become long and lack prose should either be prosified or trimmed; sections that contain prose or are limited only to significant pop culture references may be worthy of their own articles or worthy or remaining in the main article.

I have added a hidden message to the bottom of the "Kami in popular culture" section discouraging trivial additions. Moreover, I have added this page to my watchlist and will monitor the section. However, given my lack of knowledge about the subject and my limited involvement with the article, I will ultimately defer to the consensus of those editors who most actively work on this article: if you firmly believe the content has no place here, I will not oppose its removal; conversely, if you feel that the short version can stay, I will regularly trim and/or clean up the section as necessary. Cheers, Black Falcon 05:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I certainly ain't shooting you - you did what I didn't have balls to do. I suppose I should have outright deleted 90% of the original list in the first place. And it's good to hear you're willing to chaperone this article's pop culture section - I'm almost out of the wiki thing lately (no time, no time), and I only peep into some of the articles I used to keep an eye on now and then. Good hunting! TomorrowTime 00:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The recent edit by a Japanese IP

A user with a Japanese IP has recently made this [1] edit. Since this is apparently an edit by a Japanese user, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but I would still like some explanations.

1: 神達 (kamitachi). Does this word really exist? I never heard of this use, and it has a strong anime ring to it. I checked google ([2]), and the first one hundred pages are all in Chinese. As I find, there is plenty of interference because of the Chinese name for the company MiTAC, but this doesn't change the fact that the expression kamitachi seems to be virtually nonexistent on Japanese web-pages, else at least one Japanese language page would show up in the first one hundred.
2: re:female kami. As I understand it, it's not that the female kami were that commonplace, it's more the fact that the word kami itself automatically includes both sexes (as do many other Japanese words). The megami blurb that was removed by the edit is originally mine, and was put there to set straight the former version, that made it appear that all female kami were called megami. Regarding this part of the edit, how about we reword the additional info? It does seem like some information on the above said male-female ambiguity of the word kami could be useful. TomorrowTime 19:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It's been a while, and no comment has been made, so I went ahead and readjusted the female kami issue. TomorrowTime 22:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)