Note (return) — Chapter I · - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

Yet, besides the Ainos,14 there are millions of Japanese who are Shamanists, even though they know not the name or organized cult. And if we make use of the term Shamanism instead of the more exact one of Animism, it is for the very purpose of illustrating our contention that the underlying paganisms of the Japanese archipelago, unwritten and unformulated, are older than the religions founded on books; and that these paganisms, still vital and persistent, constantly modify and corrupt the recognized religious. The term Shaman, a Pali word, was originally a pure Buddhist term meaning one who has separated from his family and his passions. One of the designations of the Buddha was Shamana-Gautama. The same word, Shamon, in Japanese still means a bonze, or Buddhist priest. Its appropriation by the sorcerers, medicine-men, and lords of the misrule of superstition in Mongolia and Manchuria shows decisively how indigenous paganism has corrupted the Buddhism of northern Asia even as it has caused its decay in Japan.