Page 219 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

21 8 cat. 130
Enkù, Tiuo Kongôshin/igures,
cedar, 220 (86 Vs) high,
lisanji, Gifu

and a variety of local cults, it was proscribed by the Meiji government in their attempt to eradicate
religious syncretism, to regulate and persecute Buddhist institutions, and to construct Shinto as a reli-
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gion of the state. One of the effects of this late nineteenth-century policy was the obscuring of the
central role of Shugendó in the religious life of Edo village society. Shugendó practitioners performed
rituals for safe pregnancy and childbirth, rites of passage for children and adolescents, agricultural
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ceremonies, exorcisms of malevolent spirits, divination, funerals, and memorial services. In this
period more than ninety percent of the villages of northern Japan, a part of the country in which Enkú
was active for a number of years, relied on Shugendó priests for the majority of their religious needs. 21

As can be seen by the following account, written in the early eighteenth century by Hasegawa Tada-
mune, governor of Hida province, Enkü was revered more as a holy man than as an artist:

People in the mountains first saw him during the Empo Era, although it is not known exactly when he came to live
in the deep mountains of this country. He carried a wood-cutting knife and was always carving Buddha images and
dedicating them to the places where he stayed. Someone asked him where he was from, but he would not answer.
He only said "I have been living in the mountains and carving Buddha images for many years to venerate the gods