Q 01/05

At Shinto festivals, what is the mikoshi that crowds carry shoulder-high through the streets?

A) A drum tower

B) A dancers' float

C) A giant lantern

D) A portable shrine

Answer · why

D) A portable shrine

A portable shrine. On festival day the kami rides in it out of the main shrine and around the neighbourhood it protects, carried on the shoulders of l...

Q 02/05

The term Shinto is usually translated into English as what?

A) The way of the kami

B) The path of purity

C) The teaching of the sun

D) The land of the gods

Answer · why

A) The way of the kami

The way of the kami. Unlike most major religions, Shinto has no founder and no official scripture to set beside the Bible or the Buddhist sutras.

Q 03/05

A traditional Japanese saying puts the number of kami at what figure?

A) Eighty-eight

B) Eight thousand

C) Eight million

D) Eight billion

Answer · why

C) Eight million

Eight million. The figure is not a head count: in old Japanese it was a way of saying beyond number, since kami are held to dwell in every mountain, r...

Q 04/05

Roughly how many public Shinto shrines are there in Japan?

A) About 1,000

B) About 10,000

C) About 100,000

D) About 1,000,000

Answer · why

C) About 100,000

About 100,000. Some 80,000 of them belong to the Association of Shinto Shrines, which shrines set up in 1946 after the state cut its ties with Shinto ...

Q 05/05

Kami worship has been traced back to which prehistoric era, when wet-rice farming took hold in Japan?

A) Jōmon

B) Kofun

C) Yayoi

D) Asuka

Answer · why

C) Yayoi

Yayoi. Its farming villages left the first traces of kami rites, with bronze bells among the ritual objects, while the far older Jōmon culture is thou...