Japan’s sumo association turns 100 – but the sport’s rituals have a much older role shaping ideas about the country

By Jessamyn R. Abel, Professor of Asian Studies and History, Penn State

A visitor to Japan who wanders into a sumo tournament might be forgiven for thinking they had intruded upon a religious ceremony.

Tournaments begin with a line of burly men wearing little more than elaborately decorated aprons walking in a line onto a raised earthen stage. Their names are called as they circle around a ring made of partially buried bales of rice straw. Turning toward the center, they clap, lift their aprons, raise their arms upward, and then exit without a word.

Then two of those…

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