Kami in Shinto Kami play a central role in Shinto belief, but due to the different nature of animistic Shinto and modern Shinto is unclear as to what can be defined as a kami. While ancient animistic beliefs described kami as divine forces of nature who were worshipped in trees, boulders, waterfalls, mountains and fields, the written chronicles of the 8th century, the Kojiki (古事記) and the Nihon shoki (日本書紀), depicted more structured mythology and a complex pantheon of deities.īoth chronicles described the creation of the world through Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊邪那岐) and Izanami-no-Mikoto (伊弉冉尊), the conflict between Amaterasu-ōmikami (天照大御神) and her brother Susanoo (須佐之男), the earthly rule of Susanoo’s descendants and the eventual conquest of the world by Amaterasu’s descendants, the dynasty of the Japanese tennō (天皇). Amatsu-kami and kunitsu-kamiShinto belief distinguished between celestial or heavenly deities (天津神 【あまつかみ】 amatsu-kami) and earthly deities (国津神 【くにつかみ ちぎ(地祇)】 kunitsu-kami). Likewise, kami may refer to male and female deities, although Megami (女神) is sometimes used for female spirits. In the Japanese language, they are usually referred to by the suffix “-kami” (神) or “-kamisama” (神様). It is commonly said that there are eight million Shinto deities (八百万の神 【やおよろずのかみ】 yaoyorozu no kami), but “eight million” should not be taken too literal and rather be interpreted as “countless” or as a very large quantity.
The Japanese scholar Motoori Norinaga (本居 宣長 1730-1801) defined them as “ anything or phenomenon that produces the emotions of fear and awe, with no distinction between good and evil.“ Kami encompass natural spirits, thus displaying animistic aspects, as well as human-like deities resembling the gods of ancient Greece or Rome.
The Chinese 神 ( shin or jin) refers to traditional Chinese nature spirits and may have entered the Japanese language through the Ainu loanword “kamuy” (Ainu: カムイ, Japanese: 神威 or 神居, kamui), describing spiritual or divine being in Ainu mythology. In Shintoism, kami 神 describes all spirits of divine nature, of essence or natural forces.
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