A meizanologist's diary (59)

17 January: in the supermarket, we spot a stall setting out red beans for Setsubun, the day before spring arrives in the old calendar (this year it’ll fall on 3 February). The “lucky beans” have been endorsed, perhaps even blessed, by the yamabushi up on Haguroyama, one of the three sacred mountains of Dewa. 

The mountain mystics are irrepressible. According to Carmen Blacker in The Catalpa Bow, a study of shamanistic practices in Japan, the Meiji government proscribed the Shugendō order in 1873 under legislation designed to suppress all cults in which Shinto and Buddhism were mixed. But the yamabushi held out until more liberal times by associating themselves more closely with Buddhist sects. 

After the war, Blacker adds, “several new groups made their appearance under the title of Shugendō”. And now, apparently, the Haguro sect is promoting demon-deterring legumes in a supermarket near you. They're full of beans again, these yamabushi ...