Miko

What a miko is

The word miko is written 巫女 in Japanese, joining a character for shaman with one for woman. Older spellings used different characters, and the term has shifted meaning many times. Under the ritsuryō legal code, women who served as shrine priests were officially called mikannagi; a later dictionary used mikanko for those who recited norito prayers. One theory traces miko to a shortened form of kamiko, the vessel through which a kami shows itself. English has no settled word: translations include shrine maiden, female shaman and, in Lafcadio Hearn's version, Divineress. Note that miko is also spelled in ways meaning prince or princess, as in the names of old nobles such as Prince Kusakabe.

Dress and tools

A miko wears a red hakama, the divided trousers, over a white kosode, an ancestor of the kimono, with ribbons in her hair. The ribbons may be white or red. In Shinto white stands for purity, which is why the kosode is white. For kagura dances she puts a chihaya over the kosode. Her older tools include the azusa yumi, a bow made of catalpa wood, and tamagushi, branches of sakaki offered at the shrine. A gehōbako, described in the sources as a supernatural box, belongs to older ritual use. Ceremonies also call for bells, drums, candles, gohei wands and bowls of rice.

Training and initiation

Training often stayed inside a family, though a girl with the right aptitude might be chosen by village leaders. An older shaman taught the kuchiyose miko, the spirit-calling kind, how to hold her trance. Lessons included cold water washings, repeated purification, abstinence and taboos touching death, illness and blood. She learned songs, prayers and magic formulas with drum and rattles, the names of her village's kami, and a secret language used for fortune telling. Training could take three to seven years. At the end she put on a white shroud while elders chanted. Her teacher asked which kami had possessed her; after her answer, a rice cake was thrown at her face and she fainted. She woke in a warm bed as a bride of that kami.

A long history

Miko practice is traced to the prehistoric Jōmon period, when women entered trance and passed on what the kami said, something writers have compared with the oracle at Delphi in Greece. The first record resembling the word comes from a Chinese account of Himiko, Japan's earliest firmly attested historical figure; whether she was a miko is unknown. Early miko were important, close to the ruling class, and one school claimed descent from the goddess Uzume. Officials of the Nara and Heian periods tried to bring ecstatic practice under control, with edicts in 780 and 807. In the Kamakura years, when shrines and temples struggled, travelling miko, called aruki miko, appeared, and some were linked with prostitution. Male ritual specialists gradually took over the oracles.

Miko today

After 1867 the Meiji government wanted Shinto separated from Buddhism and folk belief, and official voices turned against miko. In 1873 an edict known as the Miko Kindanrei banned their spiritual practices. The old shrine kagura, once a way of voicing divine oracles, became in the 20th century a ceremonial dance called miko-mai or miko-kagura. Today miko help with shrine functions, dance, hand out omikuji fortune slips, sell souvenirs and assist the kannushi at rites. One scholar calls the modern miko a distant relative of her shamanic forebear, most likely a university student earning a modest wage part time. Kunio Yanagita grouped them as jinja miko, kuchiyose miko and kami uba. Researchers also list regional kinds: blind itako, okamin, waka, moriko, nono and others.

How Miko is kept

At a shrine, miko take part in the daily round rather than leading it. They help the kannushi during rites, perform the ceremonial dances, hand out omikuji fortune slips and look after the sale of charms and souvenirs. Their work also includes cleansing, and the old texts describe bells, drums, candles, gohei and bowls of rice used in ceremonies. In earlier centuries the pattern was different: a girl trained for years under an older shaman, learned trance, chant and divination, then went through an initiation that ended with her waking as the bride of a kami. Some later worked alone, travelling between villages.

When and where

Miko service has no single date. Shrines keep miko through the year, and their dances are most often seen at shrine festivals. Historically the training and initiation belonged to a girl's youth, usually beginning after her first menstruation, and it could run from three to seven years.

Japan is the home of the miko. Shrines the length of the country have them, which is why most visitors meet one at a local shrine rather than a famous one. Fairchild places the wider world of women ritual specialists across Manchuria, China, Korea, Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, and calls the complex Mikoism for want of a better English word.

What Miko means

White cloth, the bow, the branches offered to the kami: each item carries meaning rather than decoration. In Shinto white stands for purity, and a miko's work begins with cleansing. Her dance is a way of reaching the kami, and her older role as a medium made her a channel for their words. The initiation rite borrowed the shape of a wedding because she became the bride of the kami she served. Even the modest modern version, a young woman helping at rites, still recalls that closeness.

Questions people ask about Miko

See also

OmikujiPaper fortunes drawn at Japanese shrines and temples to consult divine guidanceHatsumōdeThe first shrine or temple visit of the Japanese New Year to pray for good fortuneHadaka MatsuriJapanese festivals where participants clad in loincloths seek luck and purificationWater lanternSmall lamps floated on water to honour the dead and ask for good fortune

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Miko on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.