McKay Natalie Louise. Shaman-Queens and Sacral Princesses: A Re-Examination of the Golden Age Narrative of Female Sacral Power in Ancient Japan

University of Melbourne, 2021. — 332 p.Among scholarship of ancient Japanese women’s history, a traditional narrative has formed in which the ancient period emerges as a “golden age” of female power, an age in which women – through magico-religious performance – occupied positions of authority that were later usurped by the coming of patriarchal value systems, surviving only in traces. Recent decades have seen revisions to this “golden age” narrative, proposing more complex models of how this ancient “power” may have been configured, and how it may have been eroded by changing gender norms. However, many core assumptions from the early “golden age” narrative persist throughout modern scholarship, such as the existence of contrapuntal male-female rule as a standard format of power across the archipelago, or the interpretation of later female positions of (sacral or monarchic) power as direct legacies of a more empowered age. This research thus performs a critical re-evaluation of the “golden age” narrative in its various incarnations, examining its arguments against images of women and female sacral performance from a variety of surviving contemporary texts. It also aims to bring to light new perspectives on the discourse, such as the overlooked consideration of regional diversity in ancient Japan, and the multiplicity encompassed within the concept of “power”. Through this work, it can be seen that, while modern scholarship has developed to encompass greater nuance and diversity, several threads of the “golden age” narrative persist into the modern day, contributing to the oversimplification and homogenisation of what in actuality appear as a complex range of relationships between women, religion, and power throughout ancient Japan. By identifying and challenging these points of homogenisation, we may come to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of women’s experiences in ancient Japan.