Shinto priest prays for Mr Muldoon

Press, 3 December 1982, Page 4

Shinto priest prays for Mr Muldoon

By

BRUCE ROSCOE

in Tokyo

The chief priest of the famous Toshogu shrine of Nikko, near Tokyo, is saying prayers for the soul of the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, before he leads a good-will mission of 90 Shinto worshippers to New Zealand this week. The mission is expected to arrive at Auckland on Sunday. The mission, led by the Rev. Hirooki Nukaga, aged 76, who was one of Japan’s 200 pre-war Cabinet-ap-pointed priests when Shinto was the official State religion, is visiting as a gesture of thanks for the New Zealand horse, Koha, which Mr Muldoon presented to the shrine during his visit to Japan last year. Koha serves as one of the shrine’s two sacred horses, in a tradition that dates back to Emperor Genwa’s reign (1615-1623) when the shrine began consecrating pure white thoroughbreds, housing them in a sacred stable within the shrine precinct. Mr Nukaga, however, said he was so impressed with a

New Zealand thoroughbred he saw perform at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, that he decided to ask Mr Muldoon whether he could have one for his shrine when Mr Muldoon and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Maclntyre, visited Toshogu in 1976. Mr Muldoon responded with the gift of a horse that the shrine authorities named Marutai after Mr Muldoon

(maru for “Mui”) and Mr Maclntyre (tai for “tyre). The Rev. Okitsugu Okuda, a Toshogu priest, says Koha, Marutai’s successor, is not overworked at the shrine. Each day Koha puts in a three-hour stint at the stable in rotation with a sacred Japanese horse for viewing by shrine visitors, who on a ■busy day number about 15,000.