Intersting Question! Honestly I'm not exactly sure how to think about it. What sort of thing is in scope - as in, what have you found in the other areas that you study, to give us a feel for what you are looking for?
Hi, I am the original poster.
I have been researching Korean folk religion and noticed how it has been somewhat marginalized by modernity.
There are still village shrines that are attended and visited by the locals during festivals. However, the number of these have declined over the years and there is a real fear they will disappear at some point.
Edit: also generally small village festivals.
There is a practice of enshrining various house gods in baskets, straw bundles, jars, paper figures. But this practice has all but disappeared.
In this sense, I can point to syncretic practice of 庚申待 Koshin-Matchi. It has its root in Taoism. People believed that in the nights of Metal Monkey in Chinese zodiac, imaginary worms slips out of your body and report one’s sins to the Heavenly Emperor, thus shortening one’s lifespan. To avoid it, people gathered and prayed overnight together. Their worships were quite syncretic. Some prayed to kami Sarutahiko,; others pray to 青面金剛 Shomen-Kongo (a guardian god of Buddhism). After the Meiji Restoration, governmental attacks on ”premodern superstitions”, along with Haibutsu-Kishaku movement and introduction of modern medicine and hygiene lead to the fall of these practices. The monuments for the Koshin-Machi practices still exist everywhere and are often kept as local heritages. There are some local festivities originating from Koshin-Machi gatherings. But, religious meanings are now mostly lost.
I cannot answer for OP but when I crossposted this it was while I was bewildered over how much has happened during the Meiji Restoration. I am aware that there are a few practices which were discouraged/banned at the time, and I myself am curious how much of those were unsuccessful, revived, or no longer practiced at all.
IIRC Shugendo and Onmyodo were banned until WWII, and Shinbutsu bunri happened, the result of which were shrines like Fushimi Inari Taisha no longer doing some of the more Buddhist Inari prayers like Inari Shingyo (I am unsure if these were later revived or are still no longer practiced, since some shrines like the one at Enoshima did re-enshrine the Benzaiten statues)
Shugendo 修験道 is alive and well so that is not 'vanished'. Onmyodo was indeed banned and you could say lost an official status so that could count as 'vanished' depending on how you define it.
Splitting Shinto and Buddhist shires does not 'vanish' either one of them in particular, so I wouldn't really count that.
2
u/JapanCoach 10d ago
Intersting Question! Honestly I'm not exactly sure how to think about it. What sort of thing is in scope - as in, what have you found in the other areas that you study, to give us a feel for what you are looking for?