1. Shinto

2. Background
The earliest religion of Japan was Shintoism, which literally means the “way of the gods.”
Shintoism is based on the traditional Japanese teaching that everything in nature contains kami, or the spirit of a god.
Shinto teaches important ethical principles but has no commandments, no founder, and no God.

3. Purity
Purity is at the heart of Shinto's understanding of good and evil.
Impurity in Shinto refers to anything which separates us from kami, and from musubi, the creative and harmonizing power.
Shinto states that humans are born pure, and sharing in the divine soul.
The things which make us impure are tsumi - pollution or sin.

4. Impurity Pollution - tsumi - can be physical, moral or spiritual.
Sin includes things which are beyond the control of individual human beings and are thought of as being caused by evil spirits.
In ancient Shinto, tsumi also included disease, disaster and error. Anything connected with death or the dead is considered particularly polluting.

5. Festivals
Matsuri: any occasion for offering thanks and praise to a deity at a shrine. 
Seijin Shiki (Adults' Day): On this day those Japanese who have had their 20th birthday in the previous year attend a shrine to give thanks. 20 is the legal age for adulthood. Held on the 15th of January.
Aki Matsuri (Autumn festivals): celebration of a good harvest, 23rd of November.

6. Shinto fire festival
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7. Is it a religion?
Yes…
Japanese people don't usually think of Shinto specifically as a religion - it's simply an aspect of Japanese life. This has enabled Shinto to coexist happily with Buddhism for centuries.
Because Shinto is focused on the land of Japan it is clearly an ethnic religion. Therefore Shinto is little interested in missionary work, and rarely practiced outside its country of origin.

8. More than religion
Shinto is involved in every aspect of Japanese culture: It touches ethics, politics, family life and social structures, artistic life (particularly drama and poetry) and sporting life (Sumo wrestling), as well as spiritual life.

9. Video on sumo wrestling
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