Musical toys offered to gods at Miho Shrine: Instruments for renewing ritual communication

Abstract

This article investigates the socioreligious roles that musical toys and miniatures have performed in the modern development of the Miho cult. Miho Shrine in Shimane Prefecture developed a distinctive practice of accepting donations of musical instruments to the deities enshrined there, which was supported by a local tradition that the deities are extremely fond of music. Along with sophisticated instruments, miniatures and simple musical toys also began to be brought into the shrine from the Meiji period onward. This article takes a comprehensive look at sociohistorical, ethnographical, sound-cultural, and other aspects to identify new networks formed through the toys’ circulation. These networks helped to create modern conceptions of the ritual power imparted to small musical objects, giving new explanations to secular music, new ritual roles to miniature and toy musical instruments, and even new features to the Miho deities. In particular, the essential features of the toys—small musical objects that are physically manipulated—were a basis for the modern evolution of the cult.