User:HelloAnnyong/Translated/Ujigami

In the Shinto religion, an ujigami (氏神) is a god that is enshrined by the people living in a particular region or village. The people who live in the area and believe in the god are called ujiko (氏子). These days, the term is roughly similar to chinju (鎮守) (a local Shinto deity) and ubusunagami (産土神), the guardian deity of one's birthplace.

Ujigami/氏神

Originally, the term ujigami referred to a god that was worshipped: either a guardian deity, or a family god that was organized from olden times by powerful families that lived in a given area.

After the Heian period, it became not just for blood relatives, but also for people who came together by doing similar activities, and these people were referred to as ujiko. In the Middle Ages of Japan, Japanese regional communities and the common people started to organize clans on these pretenses.

After the Middle Ages, the people who lived in the area of the ujigami and who participated in the festival for it referred to themselves as ujiko, and there was no difference with the other types of deities. The people The same people who believed in the god were also referred to as ujikochū and 'ujikodō, and of them an ujiko representative carried the burden of divine works and rituals. Although they did not live in the areas around the shrine where the ujigami was enshrined, people who believed in the deity were referred to as sūkeisha (崇敬者), with the collective body being referred to as ujiko sūkeisha.

To give a representative example of clans and ujigami, the Fujiwara clan's oyagami, Ame-no-Koyane, is at Kasuga-taisha, and the oyagami is classified based on the old system. Similarly, the Tachibana clan is represented at the Umenomiya Shrine. In these examples, after the Middle Ages there was no difference between the ujigami and other deities, and other families were elevated, such as the Minamoto family had Hachiman and its shrines; the Taira clan has Munakata and its shrines, including Itsukushima. A special case is the Imperial household, whose oyagami is at the Grand Shrine at Ise, and until recent times it was only their god, though now it is placed at the top of all the other ujigami.

Chinju/鎮守

A chinju (鎮守) is a guardian deity that protects the land and the people. After the Heian period, the Japanese manorial system was established and nobles, warriors and temples had their own private land, the family-based society fell out of use, and belief in ujigami diminished. As a result, the lords of the manors began to pray to the deities to protect their land. In the Muromachi period the manorial system declined, and so the guardian deities were enshrined along with the ujigami.

Ubusunagami/産土神

An ubusunagami (産土神) is a god of the land of one's birth, and it is believed that the deity protects the person for their whole life. Formerly it was that there were many gods who lived in the lands from, and for the majority of people the chinju and ubusunagami were the same deity. As explained above, the ujigami and chinju came to be seen as one and the same.

This belief in the ujigami can be seen through Shichi-Go-San, and is one type of ceremony that came to be recognized by shrine visits by children.

Ujiko/氏子

Generally, the relationship between ujigami and ujiko is that the ujigami is the deity of one's parents or hometown, and the ujiko becomes a parishioner (referred to as ujiko-iri (氏子入り). As for the visit to the shrine and the ubusunagami, as compared to the deity of the land where one grew up and is done, in many places there are many ubusunagami and ujigami. The rites of visiting a shrine and becoming a parishioner are not necessarily one and the same, and as mentioned above, after the distinction between ujigami and ubusunagami disappeared, the visiting rite and becoming a parishioner also became more similar. Therefore, for the ritual shrine visit, as proof of being an ujiko, it has become standard for visitors to be given a charm. On the other hand, for the people who do not come from families that revere ujigami or participate in festivals for generations, a shrine visit has become quite customary, though the idea of being an 'ujiko' is not in their minds.

Still, with marriage or entering into another family, there are many cases where a person goes through the rituals of becoming an ujiko for that family. Recently, as the people who participate in festivals have become older, the number of ujiko involved in them has decreased, the service of an ujiko in these rituals has become less formal, and in many cases making offerings to the family household Shinto shrine has more or less stopped.

References

『日本のしきたり』（主婦と生活社） ISBN 978-4-391-135268
『氏神事典あなたの神さま・あなたの神社』戸矢学（河出書房新社、2009年 ISBN 978-4-309-22508-1）