Editors Note: In the first article we published on Tama no Michi (https://app.t2.world/article/cm30rq2qc57518720mc3mwy4943) , we discussed the ancient origins of the philosophy. We also introduced the central figure of Tama no Michi, Baba Oobu along with what little historical information exists about him. In this second article we will delve into the oral histories and some of the non-documented events and people that exist within the practice. Due to the paucity of detailed scholoarly information on Tama no Michi (we are, as far as we know, the first to write so pointedly about it) we are unable to give sources or references for the reader to dig deeper. As scholars, we feel dreadful about this, but we hope that by introducing this series of articles, a robust scholarly communtiy will emerge and engage over these topics.
One of the intriguing facets of Tama no Michi is that there are no firm facts or recorded histories that the world can look to for confirmation. While we have done interviews with practitioners who in the strictest confidence told us that there are written histories of names, places, and dates - such books do not seem to exist in any of the world’s research libraries. Our informants would not go so far as to provide us with the names or locations of these books of invaluable history, but while insisting on the strictest anonymity, they were willing to fact check what we were able to put together.
Unfortunately, when we had something wrong, they wouldn’t clarify what specifically was wrong only giving us answers such as ‘... that section is not quite right. It has some truth, but it’s not quite the entire truth.’ We completely understand the reader’s frustration at our inability to give you the complete and full story of where Tama no Michi comes from because we as the writers of this history have suffered from the same frustration.
The Ainu people of Hokkaido have a long history of both oral history being passed from storyteller to storyteller and of shamanistic practices that similarly are passed from master to apprentice. Through a combination of informants that were willing to share pieces of their tradition, we were able to piece together the following narrative which our Tama no Michi informants were then willing to tell us: “The overall narrative here is mostly right, but there are some pretty big omissions and a couple of glaring errors.” When we pressed them for more information so that we could correct these mistakes, they refused to give us any further information. We hope that readers and scholars will step forward to correct our mistakes.
Leroy Montaigne and Kit Yamada –The Editors
The Meeting of Spiritual Design and Shadows
Baba Oobu made it to the wilds of Hokkaido and was found by a wandering group of Ainu hunters, who, struck by the stranger’s unusual looks, inability to speak even a word of their language, and faint aura of otherworldly power, brought him back to their village high in the mountains of Southern Hokkaido. Here, Baba Oobu apparently found a home. We can only imagine his wonder at finding a people who were so receptive to his message of humans connecting with the natural world - especially after his near death experience on Honshu. Over time, he learned their language and built many bonds with his adopted tribe as they found common ground in their reverence for spirits and the invisible forces that shape the world.
In the oral traditions, he is often referred to as Uwepeker—the storyteller from far away. It’s clear that the Ainu made him one of their own and that he certainly paid respect and homage to their belief system and the nature spirits that composed so much of their existence. Uwepeker is referred to as a shadow person in almost all of the Ainu legends and histories. Shadow people are those who move through the world, hidden and yet watchful, ready to take on a new apprentice or pupil, but only becoming visible to such candidates when the time was exactly right. There are many cultures who have such a belief which is often summed up as ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Shadow people often act as intermediaries between the spirit world and the everyday world that most humans inhabit. Several of the Ainu stories speak of Uwepeker being apprenticed to the powerful Ainu shaman, Ikisama. We also find multiple references to "Batoobu" being the master apprentice of Ikisama. This circumstantial evidence is all we have to connect Baba Oobu to Ikisama, but our informants among both the Ainu and Tama no Michi practitioners seemed to have no issue with this particular conclusion.
Ikisama is revered among the Ainu as the master of mountains. It is said that he was able to utilize the full range of light and dark energies that reside within mountains and that he introduced his students to having conversations and interactions with kamuy, the nature spirits that live within forests, mountains, rivers, and clouds. Kamuy sometimes embody in totality, the energy of the mountains. It was this combined with the teachings he had brought from his distant native land that allowed Baba Oobu to begin the true development of Tama no Michi as a gray magic that balances natural energy forces with both shadow and light. Just as the dark needs the light to create shadows, Tama no Michi needed the teachings of Ikisama to become rooted in its own system of balance.
Upon the death of Ikisama, there was a power struggle and after some tribal strife, "Batoobu" took his master’s place. Moving forward we are going to refer to him solely as Baba Oobu despite the many names he seems to have been known by (Baba Oobu, Batoobu, Uwepeker, and several others that we feel confident all describe the same person.) It is at this time that we start to see the formalized structure of Tama no Michi begin to emerge. A school of unique magic that blends the power of nature, shadow, light, and words and rituals that seem to have appeared in ancient Japan spontaneously from out of nowhere, which to our minds can only be explained by the origin story of Baba Oobu having traveling from the far off Sultanate of Baboob. The geometric seisho which are so important to Tama no Michi are unique to only two places prior to the modern era, the mountains of North Africa and the mountains of Hokkaido. That these sacred geometric designs should have the same meanings in such distant locations is beyond the realm of coincidence.
Stories of Baba Oobu and his ability to heal the wounded, ward off droughts, and turn away armies spread far in Japan and even as far as Korea and China. For centuries, seekers combed the mountains of Hokkaido looking for the hidden village he was said to have cloaked there with a sacred geometric pattern and the help of mountain spirits. Some claimed to have found him and went on to found mystical schools of their own in different regions. This is the topic that we shall next touch on.
