Shinto is the native religion of Japan, and was once its state religion. It involves the worship of kami, or spirits. Some kami are local – the spirit of a particular place – but others represent major natural phemonena like Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji.
The religion has no fixed dogma or book, no holiest place, no person or kami regarded as the holiest, and no defined set of prayers. Instead, Shinto is a collection of rituals and methods meant to regulate the relations between living people and the spirits.