A wide sleeved outer robe worn by Shinto priests for formal rites, taken over from the hunting dress of the Heian court and never modernised out of it. Its colour and the pattern woven into it mark a priest's rank in the national ranking system, so the garment reads as an office as much as a costume. It is worn over the underlayers with a lacquered cap and a flat wooden tablet held in the hands. Shinto vestment as a whole preserves court dress rather than developing a form of its own, which is unusual among the traditions whose vestments the atlas records.
History & Origin
Descends unchanged in cut from kariginu, ordinary hunting and outdoor wear of Heian period court nobles
Facts
Physical Form
MaterialSilk or cloth, cut with wide open sleeves in the style of Heian era hunting dress adapted for Shinto priestly use. 1 Use
Worn ByEveryday informal robe of the Heian period Japanese aristocracy, now worn by Shinto priests as ordinary dress. 1 Identity
Category of DressAn informal open sleeved robe. 1 Learn More
Hunting Wear at the Heian Court, Vestment at the Shrine
The kariginu began as informal outdoor wear among Heian period court nobles, its name literally meaning hunting robe, cut with wide open sleeves attached only at the shoulder so a wearer could move freely on horseback. As the elaborate multilayer court dress of the Heian aristocracy fell out of daily use, several of its garments were carried forward into Shinto priestly vestment rather than discarded, and the kariginu became one of the standard everyday vestments of Shinto priests for rites and festivals that fall short of the most formal state occasions. The transition preserved the cut essentially unchanged; what changed was the setting, from a nobleman riding to hunt to a priest presiding at a shrine.
Hardacre's history of Shinto traces this general pattern, in which the modern priesthood's wardrobe is substantially a fossilized slice of Heian secular fashion rather than a vestment tradition invented for religious use from the outset, a point that distinguishes Shinto vestment history from traditions where clergy dress was designed as such from the beginning. The garment survives today largely because Shinto formalised its priesthood in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by codifying existing shrine custom rather than by designing a wholly new wardrobe, so continuity with Heian dress was preserved almost by default.
The Colour That Tells a Visitor the Priest's Rank
A kariginu is made of silk, and its color is not a matter of taste but of rank within the Shinto priesthood, following a scheme descended from the Heian court's own color coded hierarchy of office. Higher grades of priest are entitled to specific colors reserved to them, so that a visitor familiar with the code can identify a priest's standing at the shrine at a glance, before any word is exchanged or any title given. The garment is worn over an underrobe and paired with wide trousers and the priest's headwear appropriate to the occasion, and it is one of several graded vestments a shrine priest owns, selected according to the formality of the rite being performed that day rather than worn identically at every service.
Ono's account of Shinto practice describes vestment choice at a shrine as itself a form of communication, telling worshippers something about the character of the rite in progress before the liturgy has said a word, which is part of why the kariginu, originally secular hunting dress, has proved durable as a working vestment across many centuries of continuous use. A senior priest may own several kariginu in different permitted colours, selecting among them according to the specific rite of the day, much as a Christian priest chooses among a set of liturgical colours keyed to the church calendar.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Worn together, robe and headwear, at Shinto rites of matching formality
Belongs to Tradition
Its own text: "worn by Shinto priests for formal rites."
Element Of
The hunting robe became the formal vestment of the higher grades of the shrine priesthood, its colour set by the rank the priest holds.
Sources
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