  Proto-Shintō lacked philosophical reflection and even self-conscious articulation but is so named because today’s Shintō has often claimed (sometimes disingenuously) a resonance with its main values, ritual forms, and world view. Dating back to preliterate times, proto-Shintō was more an amalgam of beliefs and practices lending cohesion to early Japanese communities. As such it largely resembled religions in ancient animistic and shamanistic cultures found elsewhere in the world. Specifically, the material and spiritual were internally related so as to form a continuous field wherein the human and the natural, both animate and inanimate, were in an interactional, even communicative relation. Kami (often too restrictively translated into English as “gods”) manifested the power (tama) to inspire awe and could refer to anything ranging from a celestial deity to a ghost to a possessed human being to a spirit within a natural object to a wondrous natural object itself (such as Mt Fuji) to even a special manufactured object such as a sword. Although human interactions with kami might be either beneficial or harmful, there was no duality or conflict between good and evil forces. Even within human affairs wrongdoing was generally a violation or transgression of a taboo, regardless of whether the acts were accidental or intentional. Since criminality or sin was not a major consideration, the proper response was not so much guilt, repentance, or rehabilitation, but instead ritual purification. Spiritual and political leadership shared a common charisma allowing the political leader to serve sacerdotal roles in rituals that brought the community benefits and warded off danger. The rituals, often shamanistic in character, mediated the fluid boundaries between the heavens, this world, and the underworld as well as the realms of the animate, inanimate, human, and natural.