thumb|right|250px|An itako at the autumn Inako Taisai festival at [[Mount Osore, Aomori Prefecture, Japan.]]
, also known as or , are blind women who train to become spiritual mediums in Japan.
Scholars suggest that blindness has long been associated with spiritual powers in Japan. This led many families to send young blind women to itako apprenticeships
Today, itako are most commonly associated with Mt. Osore in Aomori prefecture. There, itako gather for an annual festival to channel the dead for thousands of tourists. including those of aborted and stillborn children. Newspaper accounts of these arrests indicate that itako were commonly attributing illnesses to possession of the ill by cats or foxes.
Description
Itako typically carry several artifacts. These include a kind of box called a , which contains secret items that may be representative of a protective spirit, or kami. In this ritual, a dog is buried up to its neck and starved, while staring at food too far for it to reach. The itako place the animal's skull into a box and offer its spirit a daily offering of food. In return, the spirit enters homes of her patrons and provides detailed information about the dead. One theory suggests the term derived from "eta no ko", or "child of the eta", referring to the Japanese burakumin social class who were once associated with death. Anthropologist Wilhelm Schiffer describes a local legend about the practice of recruiting blind women into shamanism. According to this legend, the practice began in an undetermined era when blind children were killed every 5 years. A local official, impressed with a blind woman's ability to describe her environment despite her lack of vision, determined that the blind must have special powers. Rather than being killed, he pressed for the blind to study necromancy. The ceremony had traditionally taken place in the ancestral home of the dead. Some chants of the itako are similar to secret practices of Yoshida Shinto, and may be tied to practices at Ise shrine. The ritual has been documented as early as 1024 AD in the .
The ritual is held during a funeral or anniversary of a death, The spirit of the dead arrives and shares memories of its life and the afterlife, answering questions for patrons. More recent observers note that itako sang in their own voices, without any visual performance of entering a trance-state. The ritual songs are typically repeated to many patrons, suggesting that the itako are understood, even by their patrons, to be theatrical performers.
New Year Ebisu
Itako must learn a chant known as the , a celebration of the New Year delivered in travels at the start of Spring. The biwa hoshi, itinerant blind priests, have a similar history with the instrument. The lead-up to the ceremony had been described as incorporating "sleeplessness, semi-starvation and intense cold."
This process usually leads to a loss of consciousness, which is described as the moment in which Fudo Myoo, or Nittensama, or some other deity, has taken possession of the itakos body. In other cases, the names of various deities are written and scattered, while the itako sweeps over them with a brush until one of them is caught, which denotes the name of the possessing spirit. is performed as an initiation. Itako are increasingly viewed with skepticism and disdain, and contemporary education standards have all but eradicated the need for specialized training for the blind. They also attend the summer festival at Kawakura Sainokawara.