The Monkey as Mirror

Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780691028460, 9780691094342
• eBook ISBN: 9780691222103
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This tripartite study of the monkey metaphor, the monkey performance, and the 'special status' people traces changes in Japanese culture from the eighth century to the present. During early periods of Japanese history the monkey's nearness to the human-animal boundary made it a revered mediator or an animal deity closest to humans. Later it became a scapegoat mocked for its vain efforts to behave in a human fashion. Modern Japanese have begun to see a new meaning in the monkey--a clown who turns itself into an object of laughter while challenging the basic assumptions of Japanese culture and society.

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

1

Theoretical Setting

IN THESE YEARS of post-colonialism and post-scientism, we have seen major turns of direction in anthropology. We have finally emerged from an ahistorical period during whose long reign we largely ignored historical dimensions of culture and concentrated only on the notoriously artificial “ethnograpahic present.” We have begun to examine seriously how culture changes or does not change over time—sometimes over periods as long as centuries or millennia.

As we have begun to confront historical processes, somewhat ironically we have also become aware that history “in the raw” was an erroneously held ideal in the past; we do not simply “reconstruct” history from “objective facts” recorded in archives. We are fully aware that both ethnographic and historical representations are incomplete, partial, and over-determined by forces such as the inequalities of power—the forces that are beyond the control or consciousness of the individuals who are involved in the complex process of representing and interpreting the “other,” be it historical or ethnographic.¹

These epistemological questions about knowledge and the process of its production are at least in part responsible for forcing us to confront the multiple voices in every culture. We no longer assume that there is a single thought or behavioral structure common to all the members of a given society at all times. We are faced with profound differences between men and women, young and old, and dominant and minority groups—let alone individual variations—within the same society. The multiple voices in almost all societies are constrained by inequalities in power. Such is the case in Japan, as discussed in this book. There has never been a homogeneous culture, and there are a number of ways to represent a culture.

These developments in the way we view societies have forced anthropologists also to realize that there has never been a simple or primitive culture. This realization coincides with another—that anthropologists will become extinct if they continue to specialize only in relatively isolated or small societies that are virtually gone from the twentieth-century world. As a corollary, anthropologists have started to pay more serious attention to the erroneously labeled “complex” societies—industrialized sectors of the world, often with long traditions of written record.² Our task, then, is to study these societies that have long had writing systems, but to be aware of the complexities and constraints involved in ethnographic and historical representations.

At this critical moment in the conceptual development of anthropology, I join the optimists who nevertheless try their best to understand the ethnographic and historical other. Thus, while the research embodied here represents my own struggle with these epistemological and theoretical problems, I attempt in this book to make sense of ethnographic and historical information, rather than to make epistemological questions the focus of my research. It is an anthropology of Japan, a post-industrial society with a high degree of intra-cultural variation, contrary to the stereotypical image of “homogeneity.” Futhermore, its oldest documents date to the beginning of the eighth century, making Japan a fertile ground for historical anthropology.

Using Japanese culture as an example, I examine multiple structures of meaning—that is, culture—and how they are transformed through history, on the one hand, and expressed in myth and ritual, on the other. In this book, I use the term history to refer to interpretations of the past based on its records as best one can represent it on its own terms.³ Specifically, I am interested in the relationship between history and culture, and in the relationship between the structures of meaning involved in historical processes and those expressed in myth and ritual. In examining the structures of meaning as expressed in ritual, I am particularly concerned with the construction of multiple structures of meaning as engendered by different readings of ritual performance by different social groups.

To examine these relationships, I have chosen a study that consists of three interrelated parts: the monkey metaphor, the special status people, and the monkey performance. The special status people, as I refer to them in this book, are a heterogeneous group of people who are often referred to as the outcastes in Japan. The monkey performance has been one of the traditional occupations of this social group. Both the monkey and the special status people have long been intrinsically involved in Japanese deliberations of the self and other; they have been reflexive symbols.

My task in combing through historical data on the monkey metaphor, the special status people, and the monkey performance was to determine the “dominant” meaning of each in a given historical period. While all three have been and remain multivocal symbols, certain of their meanings received greater emphasis in different historical contexts, as indicated by the relative frequency of appearance in an assortment of media—folktales, icons, folk religions, paintings, and the like.⁴

Throughout history, the monkey has been an important and complex metaphor in Japanese culture (Chapter 3). It is the animal considered to be most similar and therefore closest to humans. Its very proximity as perceived by the Japanese has made it in turn a revered mediator during early periods in history and a threat to the human-animal boundary in later periods, fostering ambivalence that is expressed by mocking the animal. As a mediator, it harnessed the positive power of deities to rejuvenate and purify the self of humans. However, seeing a disconcerting likeness between themselves and the monkey, the Japanese also attempt to create distance by projecting their negative side onto the monkey and turning it into a scapegoat, a laughable animal who in vain imitates humans. The monkey as scapegoat is best expressed in the contemporary Japanese “definition” of the monkey as “a human minus three pieces of hair.” By shouldering their negative side, the monkey cleanses the self of the Japanese. As a scapegoat, it marks the boundary between humans and animals. Both as a mediator and a scapegoat, the monkey therefore has played a crucial role in the reflexive structure of the Japanese.

The monkey as a reflexive symbol is not simply a historial relic. On the contrary, it continues to be a dominant symbol of reflexivity in contemporary Japan. As if to reaffirm the centrality of the monkey in the Japanese structure of reflexivity, we observe that while its characterization in contemporary Japan as “a human minus three pieces of hair” continues to remain strong in people’s minds, a new meaning is emerging—the monkey as a clown who turns itself into an object of laughter while challenging the basic assumptions of Japanese culture and society (Chapter 8). A clown is a truly reflexive figure who can distance himself from the self, rather than simply act as an agent for the reflexive structure, as mediator and scapegoat do.

In sum, because the monkey’s depiction in art, literature, and other historical sources has sensitively reflected Japanese delibration about the self and other throughout history, we can tap a significant part of the Japanese structure of meaning by examining the transformations of the meaning of the monkey—as a metaphor for humans in relation to animals and as a metaphor for the Japanese in relation to foreigners.

One major form of the monkey’s participation in Japanese culture is the monkey performance, during which a trained monkey performs tricks and dances at the trainer’s command. The history of the monkey performance is similar to the history of monkey symbolism itself. It started as a religious ritual at horse stables, during which a monkey danced to heal ill horses. Gradually, it was replaced by a monkey performance in the street, becoming a form of secular entertainment with abivalent values and meanings.

Historical study of the monkey performance (Chapter 5) necessarily involves historical study of the special status people (Chapter 4). Contrary to the stereotypical image held by people both in and out of Japan, historical sources testify that traditional Japanese arts, especially the performing arts, owe a great deal to individuals from this group, and that their lowly status with its intensely negative meaning has a relatively short history. Above all, their ancestors are so heterogeneous, including artistic and religious specialists as well as craftsmen, that it is impossible to lump them into a single category. These artistic and religious specialists were, in early history, mediators between humans and deities, but in later history, they too, like the monkey, were turned into scapegoats, marked by impurity. The history of the special status people and that of the monkey performance together reveal a process whereby play, music, dance, other entertainments, and various forms of art and performance gradually lost their religious significance.

When I first began this study, I had no idea whether there were different meanings earlier in history or when changes in meaning took place. As my research progressed, it became clear that the meanings of the monkey, the special status people, and the monkey performance all went through a similar transformation twice in history, and that these two transformations in meaning coincided with two periods of great change in Japanese culture and society at large: the latter part of the Medieval period and contemporary Japan. (Both periods will be discussed in more detail in the next section.)

It should be noted that a shift in dominant meaning takes place gradually during a long period. In fact, during the latter part of the Medieval period and the beginning of the Early Modern period, two meanings of the monkey and the special status people—mediator and scapegoat—existed side by side, and only after the beginning of the Early Modern period did the scapegoat become the dominant meaning. Similarly, in contemporary Japan, the meaning of the monkey as clown has just emerged and is now competing with the meaning as scapegoat.

While the historical transformations of the multivocal symbols constitute one half of this book, the other half is devoted to the analyses of monkey performances. As noted above, the monkey performance began as a religious ritual conducted at stables, during which a trained monkey danced to music in order to cure horses. It was a healing ritual with a monkey as a shaman who harnessed the power of the Mountain Deity for healing purposes. The monkey was assigned this role since it was believed to be a messenger from the powerful Mountain Deity. While the stable ritual continued to be practiced well into the twentieth century, since the Medieval period the monkey performance has also been a street entertainment. Its repertoire has included not only dances but other acts, often sensitively reflecting society and the events of the time. For example, a monkey performance during wartime Japan included a scene in which a monkey carries a toy cannon and dashes into presumed enemy territory, only to drop the cannon on the way—a most extreme and sacrilegious act incurring hearty laughter from spectators. In contemporary Japan, one group of trainers is attempting to revive the traditional form of monkey performance, emphasizing only dances. The other group of trainers has adapted the performance to the contemporary culture of Japan, jabbing at the hierarchy in Japanese society and the line between humans and animals. Thus, the highlight of this group’s performance is the staging of “ordered disobedience,” during which the monkey voluntarily refuses to take orders from the trainer.

The monkey performance is full of important polysemes. The monkey may be interpreted as a beast, as a messenger from the Mountain Deity, or as an animal who outsmarts humans. And the monkey performance itself may be either a superb artistic performance or an act falling short of human behavior. There are many other symbols yielding many readings.

My concern is how these polysemes of symbolic objects and behaviors are read by the different individuals and social groups that constitute the spectators. To this end, I will examine monkey performances in different contexts, that is, in different historical periods and in different performative contexts, both as sacred ritual and as street entertainment. I will also examine how polysemic symbols are read by ritual participants—at times uniformly and at other times with different meanings—and what factors determine the structure of meaning during a performance. In particular, I will argue that during certain perform...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• A Note to the Reader
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Meanings through History
• Part Three: Basic Structure, Processual-Contextual Structure, and Multiple Structures of Meaning
• References
• Index