Have you ever watched a sumo match? On top of a square, packed-earth platform called a dohyo stand two giant wrestlers (called rikishi). They’re wearing nothing but a mawashi — a thirty-foot long, two foot wide thick silk loincloth and have their hair waxed with fragrant binzuke into a beautiful chonmage. Before they enter the ring proper, they perform some purification rituals, like clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and scooping up a handful of salt and tossing it into the center of the ring. This is called shiomaki. Back when I used to watch religiously there was a rikishi names Mitoizumi who was famous for throwing a huge amount of salt very dramatically. The crowd loved it, my mother-in-law called him show off. He was nickname the salt shaker.
Salt.
Intro
Hey hey, I’m Thersa Matsuura and you’re listening to Uncanny Japan, the podcast about mysterious yokai, fascinating folklore, endearing superstitions, and all the more obscure parts of Japanese culture.
Did you know there is a Shinto kami (god or spirit) of salt? Yeah, me neither. Then I started posting daily kami cards drawn from my Japanese god oracle deck over on Blue Sky. One day I chose shio tsuchi oji no kami (or shio tsuchi oji no kami chose me), and down the rabbit hole I went. I’ve always wanted to do an episode on salt and now here we are. I’ll talk about the Shinto kami and other interesting salt uses and rituals.
Importance of Salt
Salt. It’s called shio in Japanese.
It’s been a cornerstone of human civilization forever. It preserves food, enhances flavor, and was and is still used in rituals for purification and protection. Salt routes were extremely important to trade and political power all over the world. Just the other day I climbed this mountain to visit a 1300 year old shrine partly dedicated to a tengu and while walking along this narrow path I saw a small stone market indicating that trail used to be an ancient salt route. I didn’t take a photo because I wanted to get off the mountain before dark and the light was fading fast. But now I wish I had. Researching now, I see how that salt route was so important and I was standing right on it.
Salt in Japan
Salt’s never been easy in Japan. The country isn’t blessed with vast arid land suitable for sun-dried salt production, and it doesn’t have natural rock salt reserves or salt flats. So the Japanese people had to be creative in their procurement of this treasured mineral.
Shiotsuchi Oji no Kami – The Salt God
Be creative or ask a god. Let me introduce you to: Shiotsuchi oji no kami. Literally: salt ground honorable old man god. He’s the deity of salt and navigation. And it’s believed that he’s the one who taught early Japanese the art of extracting salt from seawater around two thousand years ago.
This very old technique is called moshio-yaki. It involves drying seaweed in the sun, scraping salt crystals off the seaweed, dissolving those back into seawater to get a very concentrated brine, then boiling that in earthenware pots until you get only salt. This ritual is still performed once a year at a shrine just below Shiogama Shrine, by the way.
At the Shiogama Shrine in Miyagi Prefecture. If you want to find Shiotsuchi oji no kami, that’s where he’s enshrined, a place that just coincidentally has deep historical ties to salt production in Japan. Shiogama by the way means salt cauldron.
A little more mythology. Around 2000 years ago Amaterasu (the sun goddess) gave orders to two sword wielding gods to go and establish the northern Tohoku region of Japan. There was a third deity though, Shiotsuchi oji no kami who shuffled off and went to make sure a certain area of Tohoku stayed safe and peaceful, not ransacked by the other two kami. This area was where the Shiogama Shrine stands today. How powerful is the salt spirit? Well, during the Tohoku Earthquake, the tsunami rose all the way up the very edge of the shrine before it retreated.
Other Uses for Salt – Getting Rid of Pesky Spirits
Salt holds profound significance in Japan and not just for preserving food and making it taste better either. It’s a sacred mineral and believed to purify spaces, objects and people, too. You’ll find it in some unexpected places.
I mentioned at the beginning, the sumo wrestlers throwing salt to purify the ring before the match, a symbolic gesture to also pray for no injuries.
Another is, have you ever been to a funeral in Japan? I hope you never have to go to one, but if you do, you’ll be given a small packet of salt. This is called kiyome-jio or cleansing salt. Don’t sprinkle it on the obento you’re served — if you’re given one, that is — at the funeral home. They have a room where friends and families wait while the dear departed is cremated. Where I live, you’re served lunch while you wait.
Anyway, you take the kiyome-jio home with you, and don’t forget before you enter your house to open it and sprinkle it on your shoulders, or all over your head. My area just does shoulders. This will prevent any hanger on spirits from entering your house. I remember having a serious discussion with my mother-in-law: what if great grandma Fumie wants to come home with us, why do we have to scare her away? She assured me the “good” relative spirits can do what they want, it’s the other creepy ghosts lurking in the crematorium that are looking for a ride into someone’s house.
Morishio – Piled Salt
Another use of salt you might have seen is called morishio. These are cool. Morishio means piled salt and that’s exactly what they are. Tiny bowls or saucers with small conical mounds of salt on them. If you’re paying attention you’ll see them on both sides of entrances to homes, businesses, and restaurants. They cleanse the area of negative energies and ward off bad spirits. They also attract prosperity and good spirits.
Back to my mother-in-law, for a period when my in-laws were having some health issues, she began placing morishio around the house. She was told by the person who advised her to do so — a Shinto priest, I’m pretty sure — to change the salt at the end of the day and to be sure never ever to touch it, that it was impure. She should use throwaway chopsticks to knock the old salt into the trash. So I imagined the salt sucking in all the bad energy and freaky ghosts in the house. She even said that salt was much firmer in certain areas of the house and that must mean there were more mischievous spirits there. I agreed and didn’t say anything about how the spot near an open window, or the bath, or kitchen might affect the state of the salt.
Salty Words
Here let me tell you a couple fun words and phrases. Shoppai means salty. Shoppai kao or salty face is the face you make if you bite into something very salty. Like a grimace or disagreeable face. Furrowed brown, tongue sticking out. So it’s used not just when licking an over salted rice ball, but if you hear some unfavorable news.
Phrase – Give Your Enemy Salt
Let me end by telling you a story about my favorite phrase using salt. The phrase is “teki ni shio wo okuru”. Sending your enemies salt.
Back during the Warring States Period, in the 15th and 16th centuries, there was something called the shio no michi or salt road. I mentioned it earlier. It’s was a very treacherous route that ran across Japan, up and down mountains, and was used to deliver salt to the middle provinces. It’s historically well known and ran from Itoigawa on the Sea of Japan to Shiojiri (Salt Butt) on the Pacific Ocean.
Anyway, during this Sengoku or Warring States Period there were battles everywhere. There was also a powerful warlord named Takeda Shingen who ruled in a landlocked area along this salt route. Only his enemy to the south cut him off from getting salt. Takeda’s other arch enemy on the other side, up north on the Sea of Japan was Uesugi Kenshin. Uesugi heard about this and offered to provide Takeda with salt. He said that battles should be fought with weapons, not by denying necessities like rice or salt to the people of a land. That he said was a truly cowardly way to fight.
And so came the proverb “teki ni shio okuru”. Give you enemies salt, meaning not to take advantage of an enemies weakness, or don’t fight dirty but battle honorably.
Okay, that’s enough for today. I probably won’t get to talk to you before New Year’s so have a warm and wonderful Oshogatsu New Year season and may this episode bring purification and godliness into your 2025. I’ve got a niggling feeling we’re going to need it.
Oh, and also remember that The Book of Japanese Folklore makes an excellent Christmas or, hey, New Year’s gift. You can also support the show on patreon where I talk a lot more about exciting news and behind the scenes local shrine and temple visits, recipes, stories, and more.
Everyone, have a safe, warm and delightful Christmas and end-of-the-year holidays. Thank you for listening. And I’ll talk to you in the Year of the Snake, in a couple weeks.
