Kami

Shinto tradition does not present a single, unified cosmogonic progenitor for all kami in the manner of a monotheistic creator; instead, many kami are presented across mythic texts (such as the Kojiki and related traditions) as arising with the world, as personifications of natural forces, ancestors, or as emergent agents tied to social events. Scholarly commentary (including Motoori Norinaga's Kojiki-den) defines kami as beings possessing an eminent, awe-inspiring quality. Historical development of kami roles is documented: as subsistence and society changed (for example, the rise of wet-rice agriculture), kami associated with rice, rain, and earth gained prominence; social and political violence could produce goryō (vengeful spirits) who were later pacified and incorporated as protective kami.

Kami are generally conceived as invisible rather than possessing a single fixed bodily form. They are associated with natural features (mountains, sea, wind, rain, rice fields), with places and objects (shrines, entryways, roads), and with ritual implements or sacred markers. In ritual contexts kami are understood to ‘visit’ or inhabit loci of worship and may temporarily manifest through possession of people or by dwelling in a yorishiro or shintai (objects or places prepared to receive them). Visual markers of kami presence at a site often include shimenawa (rice-straw ropes) and shide (zigzag paper strips) which delineate sacred space.

Kami function as guardians of the specific objects, places, or ideas with which they are associated; they can nurture, bless, and protect when properly honored, or cause misfortune and disorder when neglected or angered. Traditional soul-complexity language describes multiple aspects of a kami's spirit (for example nigi-mitama – the gentle spirit, ara-mitama – the assertive spirit; some traditions also recognize saki-mitama and kushi-mitama). Kami are mobile in belief: they may 'visit' multiple places of worship rather than remaining fixed, and human ritual devotion (offerings, shrine rites, seasonal festivals) is the culturally prescribed means by which people maintain favor, propitiate, or transform hostile manifestations (as with goryō turned protective kami).