Ise Jingu (known as Grand Shrine of Ise) is an ancient shrine in Japan, at Ise, described in the texts of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. The Kojiki is the older text, having been compiled and dated to around the early 8th century; the Nihon Shoki is also from the early 8th century, but is almost a decade younger. Even with the exaggerations of reigns and chronicles regarding the kami in these two records, the Jingu is certainly a prominent shrine in the minds of Japanese people and people outside of Japan also.
It is chronicled that throughout most of Japan’s history, imperial princesses became miko at Ise (if not rising to the chief miko of the shrine). The shrine at Ise is also venerated by the imperial family, as it is supposed to be the place where the sacred mirror which Amaterasu no Omikami gave to her grandson the Emperor Jinmu is kept and venerated. (Amaterasu no Omikami, the kami of the sun, is known as a gentle spirit who shines light upon all without discrimination; but she is not omnipotent or anything.)
Miko were originally shamans, vehicles for the messages of the spirits; over time their role became more responsible for preparing the shrine, helping at festivals, entertaining and serving the spirits. But miko are almost always depicted as female – there are female priests of shrines (kannushi) but the recurring image in popular culture is that of the female miko with a broom sweeping the grounds of the shrine for physical and spiritual cleanliness. For Westerners used to the monotheistic religions, concepts of miko or kami may be hard to get a good understanding of. Are miko shamanesses? Priestesses? What are miko – in terms someone unfamiliar with Japanese sacred culture can understand?
And that brings us to the problem of terminology. The shrine complex at Ise has come out with a handbook redefining – or not defining – certain terms used to describe the shrine and its activities. Even the word “Jingu” now is supposed to be left untranslated, even though for years, in articles and dictionaries, “Jingu” has been termed “Grand Shrine” in English. Words like omikushi have been translated as “portable shrine for festivals”. And while some of these terms do not have English equivalents in nuance, some do. “Jinja” – a word to describe constructed places of reverence in Shinto – has been translated as “shrine” for decades, if not hundreds of years. According to the Ise Jingu complex, “jinja” should be left untranslated. But if you think of a shrine as a place of worship, of where nature and spirits and humans can come together, then would not ‘shrine’ serve as a good, succinct, description for those who did not grow up in the Japanese cultural milieu, or who are trying to explain it to those unfamiliar?
Obviously these issues require more of an in-depth look than I can give here. But they play into my panel presentations when I talk about Japanese sacred culture; hundreds of years of civic, sacred, and linguistic history has informed the current atmosphere, but in no way is Shinto a holdover from ancient times, a fossilized relic of the past. It is a living array of traditions, of beliefs, of many ways of living and relating to the world of and around humans.