Nature's Embrace: Japan's Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites

J A PA N E S E A N T H R O P O L O G Y [ continued from front flap ] Of related interest winner of the francis l. k...

Author: Satsuki Kawano

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J A PA N E S E A N T H R O P O L O G Y

[ continued

from front flap

]

Of related interest winner of the francis l. k. hsu book prize from the east asia section of the american anthropological association

FINAL DAYS Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life Susan Orpett Long

“Very interesting . . . deeply sympathetic . . . well-considered. —Japan Times “A superb look into end-of-life decision-making in Japan . . . rich in ethnographic detail and very well written. . . . In short, this is one of the best books on Japan to come along in several years. I would recommend it to anyone interested in conceptualizations of the dying process, bioethics, or Japanese culture. The book would be a particularly good addition to the reading list of any course in medical ethics.” —Pacific Affairs

jacket art: photo by gilbert c. walker

Satsuki Kawano is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

jacket design: julie matsuo-chun

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

Kawano

UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS

ISBN 978-0-8248-3372-5

JA PA N ’ S A GI N G U R B A N I TES A N D N EW DEATH R IT ES

2006, 304 pages paper: isbn 978-0-8248-2964-3

NATURE’S EMBRACE :

younger generations to care for them, this new mortuary practice has given its proponents an increased sense of control over their posthumous existence. By choosing ash scattering, older adults contest their dependent status in Japanese society, which increasingly views the aged as passive care recipients. As such, this study explores not only new developments in mortuary practices, but also voices for increased self-sufficiency in late adulthood and the elderly’s reshaping of ties with younger generations. Nature’s Embrace offers insightful discussion on the rise of new death rites and ideologies, older adults’ views of their death rites, and Japan’s changing society through the eyes of aging urbanites. This book will engage a wide range of readers interested in death and culture, mortuary ritual, and changes in age relations in postindustrial societies.

NATURE’S EMBRACE J A PA N ’ S A G I N G U RBA N I T E S A N D N E W DE AT H RITES

90000

9 780824 833725 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Satsuki Kawano

Based on extensive fieldwork, Nature’s Embrace reveals the emerging pluralization of death rites in postindustrial Japan. Low birth rates and high numbers of people remaining permanently single have led to a shortage of ceremonial caregivers (most commonly married sons and their wives) to ensure the transformation of the dead into ancestors resting in peace. Consequently, older adults are increasingly uncertain about who will perform memorial rites for them and maintain their graves. In this study, anthropologist Satsuki Kawano examines Japan’s changing death rites from the perspective of those who elect to have their cremated remains scattered and celebrate their return to nature. For those without children, ash scattering is an effective strategy, as it demands neither a grave nor a caretaker. However, the adoption of ash scattering is not limited to the childless. By forgoing graves and lightening the burden on [ continued

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Nature’s Embrace

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Nature’s Embrace Japan’s Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites

Satsuki Kawano

University of Hawai‘i Press honolulu

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© 2010 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 15â•‡ 14â•‡ 13â•‡ 12â•‡ 11â•‡ 10â•…â•‡ 6â•‡ 5â•‡ 4â•‡ 3â•‡ 2â•‡ 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kawano, Satsuki. Nature’s embrace : Japan’s aging urbanites and new death rites / Satsuki Kawano. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-3372-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-3413-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8248-3372-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8248-3413-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cremation—Japan.â•‡ 2. Funeral rites and ceremonies—Japan.â•‡ 3. Death—Social aspects—Japan.â•‡ 4. Urban elderly—Japan—Attitudes.â•‡ I. Title. GT3331.J3 K38 393'.20952—dc22 2009046052

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Designed by Santos Barbasa Jr. Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

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Contents

Preface

vii

Introduction

1

1

The Actors

25

2

Historical Perspectives

53

3

The Grave-Free Promotion Society

88

4

Scattering Ceremonies

112

5

Ash Scattering and Family Relations

140

Conclusion

167

Notes

181

Bibliography

193

Index

211

v

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Preface

My first encounter with an anthropological study of Japanese mortuary practices was Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan (1974) by Robert J. Smith. I was exploring Japanese religiosity as a graduate student, and I remember finding the book most fascinating and writing a term paper on funerals. My mentor rightfully encouraged me to explore Japanese religious practices that had not been examined extensively in previous studies (such as ancestor worship), and death rites did not seem to be the best direction of my research in the early 1990s. It was not until 1998 that I thought about focusing my postdoctoral research on a mortuary practice. A professional acquaintance I met during my fieldwork in Japan in the mid-1990s told me that she would rather have her ashes scattered than establish a family grave and have her remains interred there. Although the practice of ash scattering was gaining social recognition through media coverage, it was still a rather unusual practice at the time. My acquaintance’s comment gave me a chance to connect the new, unusual mortuary practice to a real human being dealing with real-life issues. Her case also intrigued me because I saw her as a Buddhist (she is an archivist and routinely reads religious documents); the tie between Buddhism and the interment of cremated remains in a family grave seemed natural and inseverable. I was also struck by her discussion of her post-death destination, as I mainly considered a grave as a place for my grandparents, rather than as my future destination. During my tenure at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University as a senior fellow (1998–1999), I worked on a book chapter on new mortuary trends in Japan. Misty Bastian, whom I met there, commented on my draft and encouraged me to pursue this study further. A few years later I had a book-length project funded. I would like to gratefully vii

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acknowledge the Social Science Research Council–Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellowship (2002–2004), which made it possible for me to conduct extended fieldwork in Japan for this project. The University of Notre Dame in the United States, where I was teaching at the time, generously granted me a research leave to engage in this project. I would like to thank Glenda Roberts of Waseda University for her kindly serving as a host researcher during my fellowship and allowing me to discuss my project both informally and in her seminars. While I was conducting fieldwork, I was fortunate to have a quiet and convenient office at the Asia–Pacific Studies at Waseda University, and the gracious support of their staff. I did most of the writing up of the manuscript at the University of Guelph in Canada, where I have taught since the fall of 2004. Portions of this study were presented at the Association for Asian Studies (2002) and American Anthropological Association (2003) annual meetings, an InterCongress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences meeting (2003), and at a symposium held in honor of L.â•›Keith Brown upon his retirement, entitled “Japanese Families in a Global Age: Change and Conflict,” at the University of Pittsburgh (2004). I am grateful for critical comments on my presentations and the suggestions of a number of colleagues—in particular, Susan Blum, Susan Long, John Nelson, Scott Schnell, John Traphagan, and Leslie Williams. I also would like to thank my mentors, Keith Brown and Akiko Hashimoto, for their encouragement and support. Keith Brown generously allowed me to visit his field site during my fieldwork, which afforded me an invaluable opportunity to work in communities with long-standing networks of reciprocity and reevaluate the data I had gathered in Tokyo. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions and criticisms, which, I believe, have helped strengthen my argument. The University of Guelph granted me a research leave in 2008 that allowed me to complete this manuscript. Patricia Crosby at the University of Hawai‘i Press enthusiastically encouraged me to move forward in the review process, helping to get the manuscript accepted by the press. I am grateful as well to Barbara Folsom and Jackie Doyle for their skilled editorial work. Finally, I would like to thank all the study participants. In particular, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to President Yasuda Mutsuhiko of the Grave-Free Promotion Society of Japan (GFPS), volunteers at their Tokyo office, and other GFPS members who allowed me to participate in their activities and tolerated my presence and inquiries. Without their generosity and kindness, this study would have been impossible. In conducting

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Preface

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fieldwork and writing up this study, as a nonmember who is deeply interested in the movement and its development, I have tried my best not to inconvenience the GFPS and to accurately convey the local context and understanding of their mortuary practice. All the names of GFPS members, except for the president’s name, are pseudonyms.

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Introduction

This book is a story of people producing a new mortuary rite, the scatter-

ing of ashes, in a society where a growing number of people find themselves unable to peacefully anticipate their eternal rest. In his study of maturity in Japan, Long Engagements, the anthropologist David Plath observed the transformation of the social framework of the life course in the era of mass longevity: “In post-industrial nations a new pattern of constraints and opportunities is shaping the entire course of life for persons as they go along enacting their allotted span of years” (1980, 3). Mass longevity has transformed not only people’s late adulthood but also their expectations of an afterlife, or post-death trajectory. Japan scholars have long noted that, in the Japanese social universe, death was not viewed as ending the course of a person’s development. After achieving the status of honorable elders, ideally the deceased in Japan were gradually transformed from the polluting dead into benevolent ancestors. Rather than seeing a death as the termination of a person’s social existence, it has long been seen as a transitional point, beyond which the deceased enters a new state of existence through the ritual efforts of those left behind. Despite adopting the biological perspective on death as the termination of an individual human being as a living organism, this perspective did not necessarily eliminate the cultural construction of death as a pathway to the next state of existence. This cultural definition of death as an entrance into ancestorhood persisted in postwar Japan, shaping the material and social realities of the living and the continued interdependence between the living and the dead. Yet in Japan’s postindustrial society, patterns of social relations within families and communities, on which the deceased’s security rests, have changed greatly. The central questions asked in this study, therefore, are: What new constraints and opportunities have emerged to shape post-death 1

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trajectories in Japan’s postindustrial society, and what innovations have been made to the end-of-life rites to accommodate them? How have such innovations created a new death and a new beyond? Who are the main actors making these changes? Why are they making these changes? What are the implications of these changes for the society and for the actors and their loved ones? Highlighting the perspectives of aging persons who have adopted the practice of scattering ashes to ritualize their own deaths, this study explores the creation of this new memorial strategy in Japan, one that has developed since 1991 as a citizens’ movement based at the Grave-Free Promotion Society (GFPS) (Sōsō No Jiyū O Susumeru Kai).

Incorporating Age in a Study of Death Rites and Social Change Anthropological studies on death have moved from those emphasizing the ways in which death reflects or reproduces existing cultural values and social structures to those stressing the increasing ambiguities surrounding the boundaries of life and death, and the making of a new kind of death in a changing world.1 A classic study of death rites by Robert Hertz (1960 [1907]) examines death as a transformative process and identifies the functions of death rites. Death rites provide ways of dealing with the material remains of the dead, for example, through cremation or (re)burial (48). Death rites provide a way of socially dealing with the loss of a community member by reallocating the social role and rights. These rites often act to symbolically transform and reincorporate the dead into society with a new identity, for example, as an ancestor (48, 61). When considering the impact of death rites as rites of passage on individuals in a society, such rites are often thought to collectively inscribe on people the new identities allotted to them by society as they proceed along their life courses and to reincorporate them into society with newly assigned roles and identities (e.g., Turner 1966; Van Gennep 1960 [1909]). If so, the end-of-life rites are performed to give the deceased the identities imagined by society. Death rites in this context can be considered as opportunities for socializing society’s members, instilling in them relevant age norms, and (re)allocating age-specific roles, thereby leading to the reproduction of these norms and age structures, as people move from gendered age-statuses over their life courses (i.e., the unborn, infant, child, adult, elder, the deceased). In other words, rites of passage can be seen as opportunities for people to engage in both the collective construction of age norms and the reproduction of age relations among people of various ages in a given society.

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More recent anthropological studies of death, however, consider the ways in which actors re-create death in times of change rather than view death as reflecting unchanging values and structures. In particular, the burgeoning anthropological literature on life and death examines blurred boundaries between the “beginnings and ends” of a human life course (see Kaufman and Morgan 2005). The adoption of life-prolonging devices and brain death at the end of life (e.g., Cassell et al. 2003; Kaufman 2000; Lock 2002; Namihira 1988; Nudeshima 1991; Ohnuki-Tierney et al. 1994; Papagaroufali 1999), in addition to the use of new reproductive technologies and the biomedicalization of birth (e.g., Ram and Jolly 1998; Rapp 1998; Van Hollen 2003), have all led to the reconfiguration of life and death. The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen an explosion of studies focusing on the new end-of-life options and attitudes, such as a hospice death and “death with dignity,” in a world where life-prolonging practices are routinized (e.g., Cassell 2005; Good et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2000; Kaufman 2005; Long 2005; Russ 2005; Seymour 2001). While the dying in Japan are facing an increased number of end-oflife options and new definitions of life and death at the end of their lives, the deceased-to-be in Japan have also witnessed a dramatic increase in post-death ritual options to memorialize themselves. In particular, there are now many alternatives to the typical Buddhist funeral and veneration of ancestors at a family grave. The scattering of ashes is one such option. GFPS members have their ashes scattered, rather than having them interred and, ideally, venerated in perpetuity at a family grave. Anthropologists have noted that death rites are used to transform the relationship between the living and the dead (e.g., Battaglia 1990; Conklin 2001, xxi; Heilman 2001, 120). Since death rites as rites of passage involve collective representations of age norms and relations, the modification or the creation of a death rite involves changes not only in people’s perceptions of death and the dead but also in the age relations between the dead and the living.2 Considering this, one might ask, in what ways are GFPS members attempting to change their own deaths and their future relations with their survivors by adopting the scattering of ashes? In other words, in what ways are the relationships between the living and the dead being modified by the deceased-to-be when they choose a new mortuary practice? Rather than seeing new memorial rites as the static reflections of existing cultural norms and structures, this study explores ash scatterers’ memorial choice as a creative reshaping of their death and post-death trajectory and a restructuring of their relations with younger generations in Japan’s postindustrial society.

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Although a number of studies describing general trends regarding death ideologies and practices over time or the major characteristics of mortuary practices in a modern society have deepened our understanding of death and social change (e.g., Ariès 1974, 1981; Elias 1985; Gorer 1955; Kellehear 2007; Walter 1994), there is ample room for further investigation into the ways in which people of various ages experience such changes and why certain groups of people participate in the new practices. Focusing on society as a unit of analysis is a limiting factor in studies focusing on trends in death practices. As a result, these studies do not necessarily explain why some people but not others are choosing new mortuary practices (see Walter 1994, 49, for “ideal types” of death and their purpose in analysis), though some scholars attribute the uneven penetration of new death practices to differences in class and gender (e.g., Seale 1998; Walter 1994). Furthermore, the rise of new mortuary practices, even if practiced by only a minority, is sometimes taken as evidence of the future direction of change. To further refine the analysis of change in death practices and examine the nature of change experienced by individuals positioned differently in their social universe, this ethnographic study employs cohort analysis, or the examination of particular cohorts associated with the rise and spread of new death practices in contemporary Japan. Cohort is often used as an objective analytical concept defined by the analyst (Keith and Kertzer 1984, 31), but it can also be used as an emic (insider’s) concept referring to a culturally meaningful group of people born during a certain period and sharing a certain historical incident in their lifetime or a particular condition in a society.3 In this study, following Itō (1994) and Ochiai (2000a, 87–91), I lump together multiple cohorts born between 1925 and 1950 and label people belonging to this group as the transitional cohorts. Thus, I use cohort in an objective sense, in order to highlight the impact of demographic transition on people’s lifestyles.4 The transitional cohorts were born when Japan was transforming from a high-mortality-rate and high-birthrate to a low-mortality-rate and low-birthrate society. As a result, members of these cohorts tend to have many adult siblings. A cohort’s collective exposure to changing social structures, access to resources, and experiences of certain historical events over time contextualize the elimination, modification, or preservation of existing norms and structures. Members of a cohort may “define new patterns of behavior, reshape social institutions, and alter attitudes and values” (Foner 1984, 208; also see Riley, Foner, and Riley 1999, 339–341). Such changes initiated by a cohort may lead to culture change or to the rise

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of a new subculture as members of a cohort respond to the new patterns of constraints and opportunities in the changing world. As members of the transitional cohorts, the majority of my informants, despite the variations among them, faced a dramatic reduction of memorial-care resources to continue conventional ancestor veneration at a family grave. In this context, the rise of new mortuary practices can be seen as a new mortuary subculture created by the cohorts who experienced this reduction of resources. To understand the mortuary practice of ash scattering from the actor’s perspective, a cohort-specific understanding of the available options and their implications helps us refine our analysis (cf. Ahern 1973; Fortes 1961; Freedman 1979; Goody 1962; Metcalf and Huntington 1991; J.â•›Watson 1988; R.â•›Watson 1988). Understanding choice by using cohort analysis thus differs from analyzing a new choice by focusing solely on the larger social trend (e.g., old vs. new practice) or individual differences (e.g., conservative vs. progressive). Nonetheless, a cohort should not be assumed to be homogeneous (e.g., Dannefer and Uhlenberg 1999, 311; Keith and Kertzer 1984, 33). Class, race, and gender all shape the experiences of a cohort and produce diversity within it. For example, not all Japanese people who belong to the zenkyōtō sedai (i.e., the generation when student uprisings were widespread) participated in the uprisings or adopted the same values and lifestyles as those who took an active part in the protests. Shared generational experiences eliminate neither individual differences nor gender-, class-, or ethnicity-based distinctions. That a person belongs to a transitional cohort does not mean that he or she chooses ash scattering. (See chapter 1 for a detailed description of memorial-care allocation and variations within the transitional cohorts.) The scattering of ashes is much more common in urban areas and among people who are not eldest sons (i.e., people who are expected to set up their own family graves—as opposed to eldest sons, who are expected to inherit existing graves). The choice to have one’s ashes scattered is mediated and patterned by the cultural framework of the generational contract (I will return to this framework later in this introduction). Despite the existence of variations within a cohort, however, cohort analysis is useful not only in providing a picture of the changing patterns of constraints and opportunities that people experience over time from the perspectives of a cohort’s members, but also in allowing us to examine a choice at a particular point in the larger context of the whole life. What new subculture are the transitional cohorts creating with their participation in new memorial practices? Is this subculture consistent with or a departure

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from the subcultures in which the cohorts previously engaged? Cohort analysis can be used to see if what is happening in the field of death rites is aligned with the long-term patterning of lifestyle options and choices. I will thus examine ritual as a lens through which a changing society is seen and acted upon by the transitional cohorts during their lifetimes (cf. OhnukiTierney 1987; Schnell 1999). Furthermore, because rites of passage such as death rites involve representations of the dead and their relationship to the living, this study will also explore aging urbanites’ re-casting their place in their imagined futures and their post-death relations with the younger generations. Conventionally speaking, as the younger generations are morally obliged to transform their family dead into benevolent ancestors through many years of material and social investment, the choice of a new mortuary practice that reduces the ceremonial caregiver’s burden transforms the balance of interdependence between generations. Seen in this light, this study of changes in mortuary practices is an exploration into the rise of a new subculture that is transforming generational relations. Considering that the main actors driving this change are aging urbanites in contemporary Japan, this study has implications for broadening our understanding of the development of what Morioka Kiyoshi calls a “new urban elder culture” (1994, 183–184). These urban elders, mostly retired salaried employees, are reported to be significantly different from the stereotypical elder, who values coresidence with children and participates in the community through an old-age club. They are seeking alternative lifestyles and new options in their late adulthood, for example, by exploring private retirement housing. Originally appearing in the 1970s, private retirement communities developed as a new option for those elders who did not have children or did not want to depend on them for live-in care in old age (Kinoshita and Kiefer 1992). The rapid growth of retirement and elder-care facilities in the last decade increased semi-independent seniors’ options, which were previously limited to living with children or in institutions. It is in the context of this new urban elder culture that the scattering of ashes gains significance as a new “lifestyle” choice (after death) among aging persons in today’s Japan. This study’s focus on actors’ perspectives, and on their age and place in society, thus makes a unique contribution to the study of changing death rites in Japan in the postwar period (cf. Fujii 1993; H.â•›Inoue 2003; Iwata 2006; Kawano 2003; Kobayashi 1992; Kōmoto 2001; Makimura 1996; Mori 1993b, 2000; Morioka 1984; Nakamaki 1995, 1999; Nakasuji 2006; Rowe 2003, 2006; Shimane 2001; Smith 1974, 1999; Suzuki 1998, 2000; Taguchi 2003; Tsuji 2006; Uesugi 2001; van Bremen 1998; S.â•›Yamada 2007) and beyond (e.g.,

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cf. Bernstein 2006; Glassman 2005; Gorai 1992; S.â•›Inoue 1990; Iwata 2003a, 2003b; Murakami 1991a, 1991b; Yanagita 2001[1929]).

Understanding Older Adults’ Engagement in Their Death Rites Breaking with the conventional analytical treatment of death as the end of a person’s existence, in analyzing the activities of the aged this study aims to integrate death as a culturally constructed transitional point in an aging person’s “life” course and reshapes the course of development as a culturally constructed pathway rather than one based mainly on biological understanding (i.e., beginning at conception or birth and ending at death). An aging person’s conceptualization of late adulthood is a matter for empirical investigation rather than something that should be assumed by the researcher (Kaufman 1986); a similar point can be made about an older person’s conceptualization of death.5 If death is not seen as simply an individual’s extinction, and aging as the road to that terminal point, the meanings of an older person’s engaging in his or her own death rite can vary.6 Cross-cultural studies of aging have shown that the view of aging as an inevitable decline toward individual extinction is culturally constructed; narratives of aging and its experiences differ from culture to culture. The autonomous individual as the locus of decision-making, moral judgment, and rationality is highly valued in the United States, and there is a tendency to equate the essence of the self with one’s cognitive ability; in such a context, the loss of “selfâ†œ” due to Alzheimer’s disease is “seen as catastrophic” (Deal and Whitehouse 2000, 323). The independence of an autonomous individual is assumed to be normal in such narratives of the disease. Behind the stigmatization caused by Alzheimer’s disease is “the British and North American belief that the ideal, healthy self is an independent self that does not, and should not, require institutionalization, medical care, or other external support” (320). Among elderly Yolmo Buddhists, however, the “dissolution of selfâ†œ” ideally occurs before the biological death, as one prepares for death (Desjarlais 2003, 181). In India, too, late adulthood is culturally constructed; it is seen as a life phase in which older persons leave the center of household life and give up their economic and political power but achieve an elevated status, being served by the younger generation (Lamb 2000). The elderly strive to “loosen” their ties to others and to the world, for example, by freely moving about, going on pilgrimages, giving away possessions, and arguing or cursing (124–129). All of these acts are employed

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to “shrink those personal extensions that were known as maya” (128), in preparation for death, often understood as a transitional point on the way to rebirth. The life course “may or may not be commonly viewed, evaluated, and planned for as a unit” (Keith 1980, 354; also see Obeyesekere 2002); its cultural specificity shapes the contents of people’s life experiences. Furthermore, in contrast to the Western perception of Alzheimer’s disease as the loss of self, in India aging is understood as part of a wider social change— the decline of a joint family (Cohen 1998). Like Cohen’s study of aging in India, both Lock’s study of menopause (1993) and Traphagan’s account of senility (2000) in Japan illustrate the moral element involved in aging as a process. Lock points out that Japanese women with moral fiber are thought to have an “easy ride” with their menopause. Rather than individual extinction, in Japan overdependence on children is much more dreaded by the aged (Traphagan 2000, 153–154; Deal and Whitehouse 2000, 330). An uncritical acceptance of death as a person’s end can lead to the consideration of afterlife, death, and aging in fragmented ways, even though, from the perspective of an aging social actor, late adulthood, death, and what lies beyond are all connected. Yet, the biological view of death as the end of a human being as a living organism predominates in research on aging and the life course. For example, Matilda Riley (1979, 4) states, “Aging is a life-long process of growing up and growing old. It starts with birth (or with conception) and ends with death.” Aging as a natural, biologically determined process has been assumed in many developmental studies of age, whether aging is considered a period when “development” ends and a decline begins or one where “development” continues in some ways.7 In cohort analysis such an assumption remains in the context of each cohort, even though cohort analysis is seen to challenge the assumption by emphasizing differences in age trajectories across cohorts (Dannefer and Uhlenberg 1999, 312). The tendency to compartmentalize various developmental stages into narrow periods of specialization and to exclude post-death stages have resulted in theoretical discontinuities among various disciplinary approaches to the course and experiences of human life and beyond.8 Because a life-course approach proposes the analysis of the whole person rather than a narrow focusing on a fragmented part of a person (Levy and the Pavie Team 2005, 4), attention to the culturally specific “life” course, which may include a post-death stage, further contributes to the “wholeness” of our analysis. By examining a certain life phase in relation to other phases, which may or may not be conceptualized as linear, we can further enrich our analysis of people’s life course. Though focused on earlier phases of life, Gottlieb’s

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ethnographic study of Beng infants (2004) explores the interrelatedness of multiple “life” stages, or the impact of a pre-birth stage on early life phases. As reincarnated ancestors, infants are treated and thought to develop as such. Like Gottlieb’s study, the present study is an attempt to consider the interrelatedness of the two “life” phases—in this case, late adulthood and the phase beyond death. To understand the meanings of death rites for older persons in Japan, the analysis of culturally specific ideas concerning the dead must go beyond individual beliefs—the presence of such beliefs and their impact on the well-being of older individuals. In daily life, the dead continue to exist socially and ritually. The family dead are commonly enshrined at a family altar and the dead receive regular offerings (e.g., Kawano 2005; Smith 1974). They are told the latest family news and thanked for ensuring survivors’ well-being. It is not unusual for survivors to offer a cigarette or the deceased’s favorite food on special ritual occasions. This social treatment of the dead in daily and ritual life may or may not reflect the survivors’ personal belief in supernatural beings or religion. The post-death stage in postindustrial Japan is often enacted regardless of the deceased’s or the survivors’ personal belief in religion or the afterlife, though post-death rites may turn into occasions for the religiously uncommitted to experience religiously significant thoughts and feelings (see Kawano 2005; Reader 1991). The practice of venerating the family dead encompasses a wide range of attitudes and feelings, from paying respect to the deceased and memorializing them to engaging in religious acts to ensure the deceased’s peaceful rest. Caring for the family dead in Japan, therefore, involves much more than an individual’s expression of his or her belief in religion or the afterlife. The dead in Japan require many years of care, typically for thirty-three or fifty years, through a series of post-death stages, and the establishment and/or maintenance of a permanent memorial site. The realities of ancestor veneration, which are not dependent upon the presence of personal religious belief in Japan, make a person’s post-death stages a social and economic concern for both the deceased-to-be and survivors. Because the transformation of the deceased into ancestors cannot occur without the efforts of the living (usually the married adult children of the deceased), a person’s biological and social death ends neither his or her existence nor the interdependence of the living and the dead.9 The impact of the deceased’s transformation through a series of post-death stages on their survivors in Japan has been acknowledged when examining the survivors’ process of “forgetting” the deceased and coming to terms with their kin’s deaths (e.g., Klass 1996; Plath 1964; cf. Francis, Kellaher, and Neophytou,

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2005; Kübler-Ross 2003 [1969]). Yet, the fact that the dead continue to exist socially and ritually in Japan and require their descendants’ long-term material and social investment cannot be ignored when examining the experiences of the aged who are thinking about their personal deaths and what lies beyond. By choosing their memorial rites, the aged are influencing their present and future social relations, particularly those with their children. There is thus an advantage to examining the cultural specificity of a “life” course and the interrelatedness of its various phases when examining older persons’ engagement in their death rites.

Ceremonial Change and Generational Reciprocity in Japan’s Postindustrial Society I contend that ash scattering with the GFPS is an attempt on the part of older persons to cope with postindustrial society, which is characterized by high-tech communication, a dominant service sector, increased mobility, and smaller families. With structural changes in society, patterns of dying and dealing with death change as well. Japan and other postindustrial societies share similarities across a number of changes in patterns of death and dying (Long 2005). For example, the causes of death in today’s Japan clearly reflect the postindustrial pattern of longer life expectancy, lower infant-mortality rates, and higher incidences of chronic degenerative rather than infectious diseases. Scholars have also pointed out that postindustrial societies have seen the development of new death ideologies: in particular, the ideology of choice encourages a person to construct his or her self-identity through choosing a way of dying (e.g., Long 2005). The Japan Society for Dying with Dignity (Nihon Songenshi Kyōkai), originally established in 1976, had some 120,000 members as of 2009 and encourages people to die a humane, “natural” death (songenshi) when terminally ill, though “death with dignity” in contemporary Japan often refers to “the withholding of aggressive therapies,” and should be distinguished from euthanasia (anrakushi) (Long 2005, 63). Structural transformations, however, do not occur in a cultural vacuum but rather are mediated by culturally and historically specific frameworks for constructing meaning and action. Furthermore, the ideology of choice, its implications, and its consequences in Japan are also culturally constructed.10 Thus, it is critical to consider changing death ideologies and practices by exploring the cultural and social contexts. To examine actors’ understanding of their memorial choice, it is useful to examine their culturally constructed generational contract, which


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11

is embedded in the social, political, and economic changes of the larger society (see chapter 1). The social contract stipulating generational interdependence and reciprocity is the basis not only for the family-based eldercare system (Hashimoto 1996) but also for the ritual care of the family dead in postwar Japan, which requires that living family members nourish the dead daily at a domestic altar and perform seasonal rites at a family grave to gradually transform them into benevolent ancestors. In exchange for this ritual labor, the living receive protection from their ancestors, and the elderly count on this system for their own future transformation into ancestors. Just as the elderly claim their dependence on younger generations by making elder care an obligation (Hashimoto 1996), the family dead demand ritual care by making it a moral obligation of descendants. Those who receive no veneration are fated to become pitiable homeless spirits, bereft of the taken-for-granted human and posthumous conditions of connections and reciprocity in Japanese society (Kawano 2003). That a person will be able to rest peacefully after death depends heavily upon this system of reciprocal ritual care. Yet, postindustrial society has been creating contradictions in the contract. Intergenerational reciprocity is not easily maintained, and an investment made by one generation may be seen as one that cannot be fully reciprocated later. Ash scattering is one response to such inconsistencies in the contract. Societal change in the postindustrial era has had a serious impact upon the sense of security of both older persons and the dead. Central to a person’s posthumous security in postwar Japan has been the veneration of the family dead at a domestic altar and the establishment of a family grave. The latter has been the norm in many regions in postwar Japan. A family grave is an important place for “contact between the living and their ancestors, a receptacle for the spirits of the ancestors, a site for ritual offerings to the dead and a symbol of family continuity and belonging” (Reader 1991, 96). In a family grave, generations of the family dead’s remains are interred, and only one child in each generation, often the eldest son, is expected to inherit the right to use the grave. The succession of a family grave in Japan often presupposes the continuity of a family line, which easily evokes the rule of succession in the prewar stem-family system. The common practice is that each stem family establishes its own family grave. The maintenance of a family grave by generations of descendants is critical to the security of the family dead. The story of Yamamori-san, a seventy-two-year-old woman with two children, illustrates how a person’s posthumous security is becoming increasingly uncertain. Her daughter is divorced, while her son is married;


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Introduction

however, neither has children. Yamamori-san’s husband is a third son and thus not in the position to inherit his parents’ grave in his hometown. He and his wife are expected to establish a new family grave for themselves and their descendants. Once established, the grave can be passed on to Yamamori-san’s son, yet there is no grandchild to care for the grave in the future. The declining birthrate, postponed marriages, and childlessness have diminished the pool of future family-grave caretakers. Many people in their late sixties and early seventies today, like Yamamori-san, have many siblings but few children since, by the late 1950s, the total fertility rate had decreased to an average of two children per woman (A.â•›Katō 2006, 15). Their children have a higher chance of remaining permanently single or of having only one child, if any. Many members of the transitional cohorts, including my informants, are facing the culturally constructed necessity to invest in their memorial place even though they recognize the difficulty of maintaining it in the future and thus ensuring their peaceful afterlife. Increased mobility makes caring for a family grave more difficult because, in addition to the annual fees to maintain a grave, depending on the regional and family customs “proper” care might require offerings at a grave and donations to the priest performing ancestral veneration rites on a monthly or seasonal basis (e.g., the New Year, the equinoxes, and the Festival of the Dead in summer). The maintenance of a grave also involves regular cleaning and weeding. Fewer descendants means an increased chance that both husband and wife will be expected to care for their natalfamily grave because the eldest and only son married to the eldest and only daughter might inherit two family graves, increasing their ceremonial burden and creating a problem in a generational contract. In addition to such strains between generations in a family, postindustrial society has caused ever-greater stress on the reciprocal relations among family, community, and religious institutions. In early postwar Japan, communities venerated the dead collectively, ritually sending their spirits to the otherworld (Suzuki 2000). Community members helped each other organize and perform death rites. It was not uncommon for community members to maintain religious federations (nenbutsu kō) whose purpose was to perform community rites and ensure the peaceful rest of the community dead in the otherworld. However, in postwar Japan, with increased mobility and the commercialization of death, communal rites were replaced by commercialized funeral ceremonies (see Suzuki 2000), weakening the reciprocal-care system for the community’s dead. Similar changes have occurred in the family parishioner system, according to which individual families maintain long-term ties with religious insti-


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13

tutions, most commonly Buddhist temples, to care for their ancestors by making financial contributions to the temple at funerals and ancestral rites. Because urbanization has seen some families relocate, while other families have no descendants, Buddhist temples have been pressured to seek more parishioners and perhaps even to seek one-time clients. People who have moved to urban areas and established their families do not always find new Buddhist temples with which they can affiliate. It is not uncommon for them to remain unconnected to religious institutions until a death occurs in their immediate family (Nelson 2008, 308). Funeral professionals take advantage of these opportunities by including Buddhist priests in their business network and introducing them to clients who lack local religious affiliations. In a tight-knit, residentially stable community, Buddhist priests at one temple perform rites for a family that has maintained its parishioner status for generations. In this system of mutuality, it is assumed that the temple will exist forever as a religious institution and that it takes charge of ancestors in a stem family that should also continue forever. The temple depends upon their parishioners financially when the need arises—for example, for renovating the temple or holding a special ritual. Absent a long-term reciprocal tie with parishioners, a priest will charge more for his regular ceremonial services, such as funerals and memorial rites. Weaker reciprocal ties between families and Buddhist institutions have led to the increasing commercialization of ritual services (Suzuki 2000, 172–174). This commercialization of ritual services invites criticism from users, who accuse the death industry and Buddhist priests of getting rich by overcharging for their services. In fact, informants often told me that they chose to have their ashes scattered partly because they did not want to make Buddhist priests richer by buying the right to use a grave at a temple.11 In this context, a Buddhist priest is not seen as someone who will ritually ensure the transformation of the family dead into benevolent ancestors but as someone who takes advantage of the family dead for financial gain. In short, Japan’s postindustrial society has strained the generational contract, and reciprocal interdependence is now harder to maintain. Ash scattering is a way of modifying mortuary practices and reconstituting reciprocal relations between the living and the dead in symbolic, social, and material terms. Those who adopt new mortuary strategies reconfigure memorial rights and obligations and reformulate generational contracts by addressing the upset balance of “symbolic equity” (Hashimoto 1996) between generations from the perspectives of aging persons. This study will thus focus on older persons who rewrite generational contracts in one way or another. In other words, this book is not about whether younger people


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14

Introduction

are no longer filial and abandon family graves to lighten their obligation to care for the family dead.

The Rise of New Ceremonial Strategies and Death Ideologies How do users of new alternatives to family graves modify the social contract of reciprocity between generations, and reciprocity among families, communities, and Buddhist institutions? Some alternatives modify the resource base that ensures a person’s posthumous security. In the case of graves with “permanent” ritual care (eitai kuyōbo), for example, often it is Buddhist institutions rather than families that ensure the provision of that care to the dead. In some systems, a user pays a one-time membership fee, and the head priest of the Buddhist institution performs the necessary memorial rites for the dead, usually until the thirty-third or fiftieth memorial anniversary. Though still rare, Shinto versions of these graves with permanent ritual care have also been established (Rowe 2006, 67–69). With the scattering of ashes, the dead return to nature. Though the scattering leaves room for descendants to continue their memorial activities to ensure the peaceful rest of the family dead (Kawano 2004), nature also plays its role in transforming the dead into a larger, benevolent force. Another major way of rewriting the memorial contract between generations is to make no or limited investment in fixed ceremonial assets that demand descendants’ care. With the scattering of ashes, no one acquires a fixed memorial site. Graves that come with permanent ritual care give people an option of buying an individual membership to a grave shared with non-kin (e.g., H.â•›Inoue 2003; Kawano 2003; Rowe 2003). Furthermore, in some graves with permanent ritual care, family members obtain the right to use a separate space to inter the remains of an individual or couple for a limited period of time, whereas a family grave presupposes its existence as long as the family line continues. New ideologies of death have emerged as well. The concepts of “dying in his or her own way” and choice have become more important in today’s Japan among the terminally ill (e.g., Long 2005). Similarly, the idea of deceased-centeredness is now evident in death ceremonies and the disposal of bodies. Today both funeral professionals and ordinary people talk about having mortuary ceremonies that recall the dead person’s individual characteristics, making these ceremonies occasions of central importance for the deceased (e.g., Suzuki 1998; S.â•›Yamada 2007). The importance of deceased-centeredness, however, is stressed not only among survivors but also among the living who conceive and plan


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Introduction

15

their death rites. In the reciprocal system of ritual care, people were not required to think about what to do with their remains when they died. Disposal and care of the dead were the society’s and the survivors’ responsibility. One characteristic of postindustrial mortuary practices is a shift of perspective from the viewpoint of survivors to that of the deceased-to-be. With prolonged life expectancies and the decline of infectious diseases, death is now strongly associated with old age rather than with an event that might capriciously snatch a person’s life in his or her early years or middle age. A person, therefore, can make plans for his or her death because it is anticipated to occur after late adulthood. This reconfiguration of the life course is critical to understanding my informants, who routinely discuss their choice of an end-of-life ceremony and make a concrete plan. Celebrating “deceased-centeredness” is an attempt to seize control over the last phase of life (“life” after death), which is increasingly incorporated into “life”-course planning in postindustrial society. Do Japanese patterns of developing new mortuary trends resemble those reported in other postindustrial societies? The major trends highlighted in previous studies of modern Western societies revolve around the loss of a community to collectively organize a death rite, the privatization of death, the social isolation of the bereaved, the state’s increased involvement in defining death, the adoption of a medical discourse, and the decline of religious forces defining and ritualizing death (e.g., Ariès 1974; Elias 1985; Gorer 1955, 1965; Hockey 1990; Howarth 1996; Kellehear 2007; Walter 1994). The rise of revivalism (see Walter 1994) has been noted in Anglophone societies as a response to the above developments that make death a taboo and leave the bereaved increasingly isolated. Revivalism encourages people to die in their own way, honoring the individualities of the dying and highlighting the importance of their personal choice. While the uneven diffusion of such revivalist scripts in a society has been acknowledged (Seale 1998; Walter 1994),12 the extent to which culture plays a role in the spread of such scripts in the disposal of the dead has not attracted as much attention until recently, though some scholars have considered issues of terminal care and organ transplantation (e.g., Lock 2002; Long 2005; Ohnuki-Tierney et al. 1994; also see Becker 1993). According to Walter (1994, 185), revivalism is the logical conclusion of Western individualism, which enshrines the autonomous individual and the ideology of individual choice. Is this scheme applicable to Japan, a postindustrial society from which the tradition of celebrating the autonomous individual is absent? Rather than being conceptualized as an isolated, autonomous individual, the Japanese person is conceptualized as a human being in the


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16

Introduction

company of others. Although larger economic and political forces present in Anglophone societies also exist in Japan, the effects of personhood on revivalist scripts, both on their forms and on their consequences, cannot be underestimated. I intend to examine the Grave-Free Promotion Society’s mortuary practice and ideology as a culturally specific version of revivalism in a society where the relational concepts of a person predominate.13 Before moving away from the above questions, it is useful to consider some key conceptions relevant to them and their relations with each other. These ideas, such as individual, family, and society, and autonomy, choice, and independence, are aligned differently with each other, depending on the cultural setting, and this makes a cross-cultural discussion of such terms difficult. To deal with this difficulty, let me first distinguish between the anthropological concept of agency and folk or scholarly theories about the individual and the group, as these theories are used when people act and interpret their own or others’ actions in a given cultural setting. Although “agency” is variously defined in anthropological theorizing (e.g., Ortner 1984), I define it here as an individual’s or group’s engagement in action, which is thought to accumulate over time and either reproduce or change the existing structures, rules, and norms. I see agency as a theoretical concept rooted in dualistic thinking about social continuity and change, though the importance given to the concept in the process of social reproduction and change varies according to the researcher’s theoretical orientation. Theories about the individual and the group constitute a different level of analysis. In all societies both individual and group are recognized and have some importance in various contexts. Each society also has its own theories about the nature of the relationship between them. In some socieÂ� ties, an individual is seen as fragile and the group as easily threatening the individual’s healthy functioning (see Benjamin 1997), whether the group is conceptualized as society in general or as a specific group of people. An individual’s independence from the group must be carefully cultivated to produce a good, well-functioning human being. An individual human being must achieve independence and establish the core of himself or herself to stand up to the pressure of the group. Such an egocentric perspective on personhood contrasts with another view, in which an individual human being must be trained to recognize his or her interconnectedness to others. Japan is one society in which the latter theory of sociocentric personhood prevails (e.g., Bachnik 1994; Edwards 1989; Kondo 1990; Lebra 2004; Plath 1980; Rosenberger 1992; Smith 1983). Agency on a theoretical level, therefore, exists regardless of a society’s theory about the individual and the group, and, as in all societies, there


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Introduction

17

are norms, rules, and structures in which people, as individuals or groups, participate in their daily lives. Yet the theories about the individual and the group produce differences in the meanings of an individual’s or a group’s action and its expected consequences in a local context of social interaction because theories of personhood are used when people act and interpret their own and others’ actions. A common misunderstanding regarding a sociocentric theory of the individual and the group is that this theory presumes a lack of self or a weak self without individuality or autonomy. In the egocentric theory of the individual, encouraging interdependence and recognizing the ways in which others define an individual may seem to threaten the very core of what makes the individual himself or herself. Yet, in Japan, individual and society are considered mutually constitutive (Kawano 2005). Just as others define the person, so does the person define others. It is the mutual constitution of an individual and others that makes an individual a person in this cultural setting. The above point brings me to reconsider the importance of “dependence,” which has been discussed by a number of Japan scholars (e.g., Borovoy 2005; DeVos 1973; Doi 1973; Kumagai 1981). In some contexts, “interdependence” rather than “dependence” is more useful in characterizing the sociocentric personhood pervasive in Japan (see Smith 1985). Interdependence presupposes reciprocity between an individual and others, and what is important in a Japanese theory of personhood is to achieve a good balance in the relationship between oneself and others. Conflicting demands from the two sides must be managed, and an individual must constantly reflect on and work to achieve the right balance.14 The theory of sociocentric personhood encourages a social actor to acknowledge contributions from others and to keep this two-way reciprocity and mutual constitution intact. Whatever action an individual pursues, he or she should consider others’ engagement in the current balance he or she is achieving. Both self-centeredness and overdependence constitute a violation of the equitable balance an individual must achieve. Self-centeredness, often seen as the tendency to consider only one’s own needs while neglecting those of others, is criticized because it denies the mutuality involved in interdependence. Meanwhile, overdependence also denies the reciprocity involved in interdependence. Despite the existence of the widely recognized cultural acceptance of dependence in late adulthood, older individuals are often reported to fear becoming bedridden or boke (senile), commonly seen as conditions that overburden their family with care that cannot be reciprocated (e.g.,


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18

Introduction

Traphagan 2000, 133–134, 153–154). Older persons’ visits to and prayers at pokkuri temples, where they pray for quick deaths without prolonged suffering, testify to their desire not to overburden caregivers (Wöss 1993, 194–195). Rather than expressions of despair, older persons’ visits to pokkuri temples should be seen as expressions of self-control and attempts to avoid overdependence. Even among frail older persons who are institutionalized, certain levels of self-reliance are valued and expressed by their active contribution to and participation in the life of the institution (Wu 2004, 86–87). Wu notes that “[Institutionalized persons’] fear of senility and hope of dying quickly without suffering chronic illnesses indicate that they want to be in control of themselves and not to be dependent on others” (2004, 87; also see Smith 1985, 45). Furthermore, residents of one retirement community embraced the ideal of not causing nuisance to others (Kinoshita and Kiefer 1992), thereby further illustrating that older adults value selfsufficiency. Therefore, older persons strive to counterbalance their dependence to some extent and to actively participate in achieving better levels of dependence. Such attitudes among older adults make us realize that the cultural acceptance of dependence in late adulthood should not be equated with the rejection of an individual’s self-reliance, self-sufficiency, or self-control.15 These values of self-reliance and self-sufficiency do not necessarily constitute the antithesis of culturally valued interdependence. More important, valuing self-reliance does not imply adopting a self-centered approach to life or abandoning the sociocentric theory of the individual and the group. The ideology of individualism is further distinguished from individuality in this study (see Hendry 1992; Moeran 1984; cf. Rosenberger 2001). In the Western conception of individualism, an ideology sacralizing the autonomous individual and individualistic orientations toward life, autonomy, and choice are strongly linked to the individual’s rights and healthy functioning.16 In a society largely lacking such an ideology, people still recognize their individualities. Despite the fact that the idea of interdependence is important in Japan, an individual is seen as possessing various idiosyncratic characteristics, and his or her own sense of individuality is distinguishable from that of others (Smith 1983, 92). Therefore, there is a difference between emphasizing a person’s individuality and taking an individualistic approach to life by adopting a Western or other ideology of individualism.17 Being “selfish” (jibun katte) is yet another matter. Postindustrial society has often been characterized by an increased emphasis on the reflexive fashioning of oneself through personal choices in the “contexts of action and the diversity of ‘authorities’” (Giddens 1991, 5).


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19

For example, in Japan and other postindustrial societies, one can see the desire to express personal identity through the consumption of particular goods and services and the choice of a certain lifestyle. However, it is possible to express one’s personal identity without sacralizing the individual as the only locus of autonomy and choice. As Tsuji contends (2002, 191), the growing emphasis upon the individual in Japan does not necessarily indicate the waning significance of the collectivity. Yet, the expression of individualities is interpreted according to the society’s theory of the individual and the group. Ash scattering as a way of “dying in his or her own way” is an attempt to express the individuality of the deceased-to-be, which is in line with trends in other postindustrial societies. However, as readers will see, the act of “dying in his or her own way” is critiqued and interpreted differently in the Japanese context, where a sociocentric theory of the individual and the group applies. In sum, the scattering of ashes with the GFPS highlights the growing importance of individuality, rather than individualism, and the deceased-tobe’s increased control in relation to, but not independent of, younger generations. The new mortuary choice is made by a person who is still primarily defined in terms of his or her social relations rather than by an “autonomous” individual.

Fieldwork My initial plan was to study the impact of childlessness on ancestor-veneration rites and to explore the solutions created to cope with the declining fertility rate. Interment was the norm in postwar Japan, and ash scattering was still rare when I made plans for my fieldwork in 2001. Many organizations, both religious and secular, had started collective-interment systems for those without family, and ash scattering seemed to be monopolized by the Grave-Free Promotion Society. Because a visit to the family grave evokes the notion of the family values of good old Japan, it was not unusual for ash scatterers to face criticism. As I conducted my preliminary research on the GFPS, I discovered from their home page that it is a citizens’ movement run by volunteers only—including the president. This discovery intrigued me even more, since it gave me a very different picture of death and endof-life ceremonies. Born in Tokyo, I was familiar with Japanese mortuary customs, and, in my experience, interment occurred more or less automatically, following the family “tradition.” Why do the GFPS members choose a mortuary practice so vastly different from interment? Why don’t people just leave everything to their families? What do they think about having no


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Introduction

monument or gravestone indicating the location of their remains? What do families do to memorialize the deceased? What does it mean to serve as a volunteer in an organization promoting ash scattering? And, above all, why do they have to promote ash scattering as a social movement? I conducted fieldwork to answer these questions. My entry into the GFPS was painless. I met President Yasuda and told him that I was interested in observing and participating in the society’s activities while working as a volunteer and scholar. He was generous, allowing me to freely observe people and the society’s activities. Once President Yasuda and the executive board members had given me permission to study their organization, my association with the GFPS became official. Right after I received permission to study the society, I was introduced in their newsletter. This introduction was useful to me when I had to introduce myself to members of the GFPS whom I had never met. Whenever people visited the GFPS office, President Yasuda introduced me to them. While my close association with the person in power opened doors in some situations, it probably limited my interaction in others. This is not an uncommon dilemma for anthropologists doing fieldwork, and there is no easy way out of it. A fieldworker never remains a neutral observer, whether he or she likes it or not. The researcher must be aware of the power relations in which he or she is placed during fieldwork. Initially, my status as a professor at a university in the United States distanced me from my informants. The situation was different from my previous fieldwork, during which I was a graduate student. Students do not qualify as full-fledged adults in Japan, instead falling into the category of dependents. In contrast, a teacher is a person of authority, even though many scandals have somewhat damaged the image of teachers in recent years. My youth also gave me a lower status in relation to senior informants. However, professionally I held a high status in Japanese society, and people tended to use polite language when speaking to me. Because the Japanese language “places” a speaker in the social universe, one cannot utter a word without knowing who that speaker is in relation to his or her age and rank. Initially, some informants called me sensei, an honorific term reserved for schoolteachers, doctors, lawyers, and politicians. I insisted on being called Kawano-san, taking the generic, genderless ending used for most other staff members and volunteers. People quickly adopted Kawano-san. After all, for many informants, I was as young as their youngest children. Only a few long-term staff and volunteers used nicknames ending with -chan, a suffix signaling emotional proximity and informality. In Japanese companies, employees sometimes call a person by his or her title, such as manager or


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Introduction

21

president, rather than by the family name with the generic suffix -san. At the GFPS, however, the president was the only person referred to by title. President Yasuda was a journalist working for Japan’s major national newspaper, Asahi shimbun, and the occasional media coverage the organization had received since its formation in 1991 contributed to ash scattering’s growing social recognition. The majority of the members I interviewed told me that they first learned about the GFPS through an article in a national newspaper. Members of the GFPS, therefore, were used to seeing journalists at the society’s events and ceremonies. Members’ familiarity with the media partly contextualized my presence. In addition, the GFPS is a citizens’ movement that emphasizes the importance of spreading the society’s ideals, and this fact also shaped the ways in which people reacted to me. Members were usually willing to talk to me about ash-scattering ceremonies for their kin or about their ceremonial plans. On a number of occasions, I took notes with other journalists at a society’s event or ceremony, and several times I was mistaken for a journalist by GFPS members. During my fieldwork, I volunteered at the GFPS’s Tokyo office, participating in the society’s special events (the annual business meeting, symposia, movie screenings, consultation sessions) and ash-scattering ceremonies held in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Along with other volunteers, I labeled and shipped the society’s newsletters, published four times a year. At the end of the year, I participated in the year-end cleaning at the Tokyo office. I was invited to the society’s midyear and year-end banquets for executive board members and volunteers. In addition, I visited the homes of some informants whom I came to know well and went out with some informants to see cherry blossoms and walk in Tokyo’s municipal parks. Occasionally, I accompanied staff members and volunteers for drinks after work. I participated in the society’s annual trip as well. In 2003 some members visited Sugadaira in central Japan, the site of the society’s forest for ash scattering. Originally, the society had planned to visit the Silk Road in 2003, but they postponed the trip because of the SARS epidemic and visited Sugadaira instead. I conducted semistructured interviews with twenty members, and open-ended, casual interviews with seventy members. My semistructured interviews lasted between one and three hours. I asked interviewees to choose a place to meet, and some invited me to their homes, while others preferred to see me at a coffee shop. I did not use my tape recorder during participant observation, since it is intrusive. However, I took notes, reminding my informants that I was at the society to learn about their views and activities. I talked to a set of individuals (volunteers, staff members, and


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Introduction

ceremonial directors) on a number of occasions at the main office in Tokyo, during special events, and during and after ash-scattering ceremonies. Although the bulk of my data was obtained using qualitative methods, I also mailed questionnaires to persons whose kin’s ashes had been scattered by the GFPS. The 120 people were chosen, using systematic random sampling, from GFPS records of all the past ash-scattering ceremonies. I received 71 responses from the deceased’s kin regarding 76 deceased persons. In order to get the perspectives of both genders, and of persons ranging in age, having varied positions in the GFPS, and living in various places, I talked to office staff and also to ceremonial directors, executive board members, and general members, both those living in Tokyo and those in other regions of Japan. I participated in ash-scattering ceremonies and regional events hosted by the Sapporo, Sendai, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka offices, five of the society’s twelve branch offices.

 An outline of this book will help further orient readers. By emphasizing the perspectives of the transitional cohorts, persons born between 1925 and 1950, chapter 1 briefly describes the patterns of social change in postwar Japan in which ceremonial change is embedded. Most participants in this study belong to these cohorts, which played major roles in the spread of new urban middle-class lifestyles and ideologies. In the realm of mortuary practices, the members of the transitional cohorts are the principal movers of new memorial strategies. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the “new patterns of constraints and opportunities” available to the transitional cohorts to contextualize my informants’ memorial strategy of ash scattering. Chapter 2 locates the GFPS movement in the Japanese history of mortuary practices and reviews the diverse mortuary practices available in today’s Japan in order to further contextualize the practice of ash scattering. Chapters 3 and 4 provide ethnographic descriptions of the GFPS and its ash-scattering ceremonies. These chapters examine how GFPS volunteers and members produce these ceremonies, as these details of their practice are largely missing from the existing literature on the development of new mortuary practices. Using mainly the publications produced by the GFPS, the majority of the existing analyses are concerned with the GFPS’s ideology in an abstract sense, rather than its operation and adoption in a local context of ceremonial production. Chapter 3 examines the GFPS as a social organization, describing its day-to-day routines, history, people, and work.


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23

Chapter 4 examines the usual sequence of ash-scattering ceremonies, their variations, and their meanings to their practitioners. This chapter illustrates how GFPS volunteers and members partially reconcile ash scattering with conventional mortuary practices and variously make sense of ash scattering, a seemingly radical departure from the normative practice of interment. Chapter 5 shifts from the GFPS and its activities to consider the relationship between ash scattering and family relations. This chapter critically examines the historical-transition thesis, which is sometimes employed to argue that new mortuary practices emerged because the nuclear-family system has replaced the stem-family system and fostered mortuary practices more consistent with the new family system. The adoption of ash scattering by GFPS members suggests some reconstitution of stem-family formation rules in Japan’s postindustrial society. The final chapter considers ash scattering in contemporary Japan as a culturally specific revivalist practice. This chapter illustrates that, although ash scatterers promote self-reliance and more control over their own mortuary practices, they do not always proclaim the rights of an isolated individual or adopt an egocentric theory of personhood.


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Chapter One

The Actors

Conventional interment distributes memorial-care rights and resources

across generations in the framework of generational interdependence, and this framework is also relevant to people who choose ash scattering. The new option of ash scattering as a way of reconstituting the generational contract is better understood in the wider context of social actors’ access to lifestyle options that shape their generational relations in their life courses. In the generational contract in a stem-family framework, social actors, particularly siblings, have unequal access to available lifestyle options, for example, taking certain jobs or marrying certain partners. These lifestyle choices, in turn, shape the allocation of care rights and resources in the next generation. Similarly, ash scattering constitutes a lifestyle option that shapes the actors’ generational relations in their late adulthood and after death. It is thus important to review the ways in which the generational contract filters the available options and shapes generational relations. The available options are structured by a variety of factors, such as global and local economic conditions, policies, and institutions (Long 2005, 29). A changing economy, for example, may increase or decrease the available number and types of jobs in rural or urban areas. National and local policies distribute benefits and resources to people of various statuses. In this chapter, special attention will be paid to age as it structures people’s options by allocating wealth, prestige, and power. The significance of age structuring people’s options has changed over time as Japan has experienced postwar recovery and affluence, a long-term recession, and economic restructuring. This chapter, therefore, attempts to explore the 25


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actors’ changing access to lifestyle options in a world in which the role that age plays in structuring their options is also shifting.

Generational Interdependence and the Security of Older Generations Rather than religious institutions, non-kin, or the state, it was the family that long ensured a person’s security in late adulthood and in the afterlife. In postwar Japan, the generational contract within a stem-family framework socially and conventionally allocated the care of the elderly and the family dead to their descendants, as a moral obligation. The care given to the elderly in the above generational contract was not based upon altruism (Hashimoto 1996); younger generations accumulated credit by participating in this system of elder care so that they could eventually depend on others for care when they grew old. Similarly, generational interdependence was presupposed in the system of ancestor veneration. Younger generations were obliged to care for the family dead and knew that upon their death their descendants would then take charge of ancestral rites. In both systems of care provision, the duties to provide care and the rights to receive care were not given equally to all siblings. The giving and receiving of care was defined in the stem-family framework. A stem family, consisting of succeeding generations of married couples, was ideally a selfsustaining, self-perpetuating unit for allocating and transmitting care rights and duties. In this framework, one child, frequently the eldest son, and his spouse were given the primary responsibility to provide care. Within a stem-family framework, typically only one couple in each generation is responsible for the older generation in the original stem family and for the family dead (there are some regional variations in the veneration of the family dead; e.g., see Mori 1993b, 201–206; 2000, 271; Ueno 1982, 2002 [1985]; Uesugi 2001). By marrying into a stem family, an affine (bride or groom) was officially freed from the obligation to be the primary caregiver to his or her parents and natal family’s ancestors. So, if there were five adult married siblings and only one child was taking primary responsibility to provide care in the original stem family, the rest were either free of such responsibilities or gained new responsibilities in their conjugal family. Though a non-succeeding son or a married-out daughter could still contribute to the care of his or her parents and natal family’s ancestors, he or she was not a primary caregiver. Because a son tended to be preferred as a successor in his natal family, it was more likely for a daughter to join her husband’s family and become obliged to care for her in-laws.


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The stem family was often the core unit for production in early postwar Japan, when family farming was common, though the household may have contained coresident non-kin members such as servants, who were part of the household or residential unit in charge of production. It was common for the stem family to operate a family business or hold property such as land, and for its members to work together in the same task unit. The stem-family system provided security, not simply for members in their old age, but also for the family itself, to ensure its own continuity. The priority was to make sure that the stem family continued as a self-sustaining unit into the future by transmitting the bulk of its property (if any) and care responsibilities to the designated successor. A non-succeeding sibling’s security was not as certain, though it was fairly common for the stem family to give some financial or other forms of support, if possible, to help set up his or her branch family, or to arrange for a non-succeeding child to marry into another stem family. Succeeding children, therefore, had greater security and responsibilities, while the non-succeeding children had little security and comparatively lighter responsibilities. The rights were unequally allocated among siblings, but this was not necessarily considered “unfair” as greater rights and security meant greater responsibilities. For this system to function smoothly, certain demographic conditions had to be met. The average couple had to have at least one married child, and there had to be enough “extra” children (non-successors) to marry into other families as adopted husbands or in-marrying brides and relinquish membership in their natal families. Every family’s heir would have to secure a spouse, and the spouse would have to be an extra child in his or her natal family because the natal family could not afford to lose its heir. The adoption of children and adults was widely practiced in prewar Japan by childless couples and families without sons. If most non-successors left their natal families and married successors, an average man or woman would be responsible for only one set of parents and family ancestors. If the system functioned properly, it would prevent one married couple from being responsible for the two sets of parents and two families’ ancestors. No one would face the unfairness of doubled care responsibilities, or expect two families to play a major role in providing him or her with security at the same time. An in-marrying bride often had to go through a series of rites meant to sever her ties with her natal family, and these rites reflected and supported the above framework that officially prevented a person from having doubled care duties or enjoying two sources of security.


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The Transitional Cohorts and the Distribution of Care Responsibilities To understand the choice to have one’s ashes scattered from the actor’s perspective, it is useful to consider the available options and their implications for a specific cohort group. For example, although getting married was the norm, many Japanese women who reached their marriageable age during World War II remained single or were widowed, as a large number of marriageable and newly married men in their generations were killed in the war. These women’s opportunities to get married and to remain married were seriously affected by this historical event, which shaped their common life experiences at a particular life phase. Compared with other cohorts, these women faced cohort-specific constraints and opportunities in realizing and maintaining family life. In other words, a cohort is exposed to historically specific patterns of constraints and opportunities, which structure the options in various phases of its members’ lives as they move through them (see Riley 1979; Rosow 1978; Ryder 1965). Furthermore, the same behavior exhibited by individuals belonging to different cohorts may have very different meanings. The choice of a twenty-year-old woman living with a common-law partner today in North America makes a different kind of choice than her mother would have made had she chosen to live with a common-law partner. The participants in this study have certain characteristics that impede the smooth operation of the intergenerational care-allocation system: They were born during the demographic transition (1925–1950), when Japan was developing from a high-mortality and high-birthrate to a low-mortality and low-birthrate nation (Itō 1994; Ochiai 2000a, 87–91). These study participants, therefore, have many adult siblings; those born in the 1930s have an average of 5.7 siblings, and those born in the 1940s have 4.5 siblings (A.â•›Katō 2006, 5). Compared with the pre-transitional and post-transitional cohorts, then, the transitional cohorts saw a population explosion, with fewer infant deaths and more people growing up and marrying. What are the implications of the transitional period for care allocation in a stem-family framework? Because there were many siblings in a stem family, the transitional cohorts’ parents had a large pool of potential caregivers. Many families had at least one son to care for them in their old age and take care of the family’s ancestors. A woman who married such a son was expected to live with her in-laws and had the responsibility to care for them in their old age and after their death. Even when a family had no son, which was relatively rare compared with pre-transitional cohorts’ experiences, a daughter could take an adopted husband (i.e., her family


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could adopt a son from another family as the daughter’s husband). Because there were many “extra” siblings in a family, it was relatively easy to find a son who did not have to take care of his parents. Since the transitional cohorts had many siblings, the chance of being the succeeding child or marrying one was smaller in relation to the chance of being a non-succeeding child or marrying one. Sons who were not supposed to care for their parents established new branch families by taking in-marrying spouses, who were also “extra” siblings. Such “extra” siblings legitimately left the care of their parents and natal-family ancestors to their married siblings and their siblings’ spouses, while gaining no primary responsibilities to live with and care for their in-laws. “Extra” sons and their spouses were free to set up their separate nuclear-family households. Yet, compared with their natal stem families, new branch families were less secure both in life and after death. Although “extra” sons were “freer,” they had greater responsibilities for taking care of themselves. They were not in a position to inherit their parents’ house or to use the family’s grave. They had to find their own housing and a memorial place after death. Luckily, due to the unprecedented economic growth that occurred when these “extra” sons were starting their families, they tended to find reasonable wage employment. Despite the fact that their differences in education often led to stratification among them (see Kase 1997), their lack of security as non-succeeding children was more than fully compensated by the booming economy. Many members of the transitional cohorts, therefore, could achieve both freedom and security, or even prosperity, on their own—a rare combination in an earlier, predominantly agricultural economy. Due to the unique characteristics of the transnational cohorts, the uneven distribution of duties among siblings was more noticeable, even though equity was to be established in each stem-family unit, whether it was a continuing stem family or a newly established one. The unevenness of care distribution among siblings was probably less noticeable among pre-transitional cohorts because a larger proportion of siblings had responsibilities as successors or successors’ spouses; additionally, there were a smaller number of marriages between “extra” siblings and fewer economic opportunities for them to establish a middle-class lifestyle.

The Impact of Population Aging on Generational Interdependence The graying of Japan does not naturally become a problem (Long 2000, 1–2). Problems are often “discovered,” “defined,” and made “measurable”


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by specific social actors—frequently by “professionals who have been motivated to a certain extent by self-interest” (Goodman 2002, 7). The official “measuring” of population aging usually involves the ups and downs of the total fertility rates and the projection of future population structures, particularly the relative size of the older, retired population in relation to that of the younger, working population. Meanwhile, less often emphasized in the debate on population aging is the generational contract implicitly employed to allocate care resources and thus mediate the consequences of objective changes in demography. Considering this, what are the effects of population aging on the distribution of care responsibilities as defined in the generational contract? Signs of population increase were seen in the early 1900s in the West, but the average life expectancy in Japan did not begin to increase markedly until after World War II (O’Leary 1993, 2). In 2007 a male newborn was estimated to live to age seventy-nine, while a female newborn was expected to reach almost eighty-six (Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare 2009). The state’s policy during the 1920s and the 1930s to increase Japan’s population contributed to the higher birthrates in the prewar years. The total fertility rate in 1925 was 5.11 (Cabinet Office of Japan 2005). (The total fertility rate is employed as the estimated number of births per woman in her reproductive years; see Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare 2006.) After World War II, total fertility rates were high during the baby-boom years (4.54 in 1947, 4.40 in 1948, and 4.32 in 1949; Cabinet Office of Japan 2005.) As a result, Japan saw its population grow rapidly from some 56 million in 1920 to more than 121 million by 1985 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2008). Japan is the first country to have experienced the demographic transition from a high-mortality-rate, high-birthrate society to a low-mortalityrate, low-birthrate society within three generations (Ochiai 2000a, 4). In 1955 the total fertility rate declined to 2.37, and to 1.69 in 1987 (Cabinet Office of Japan 2005). Fertility rates have been hovering around 1.3 for the past several years. As a result, Japan has seen its population age at an exceptional pace. Compared with most European countries, where the same change took forty to fifty years, in Japan the percentage of the elderly population doubled from 7 percent to 14 percent between 1970 and 1994 (Goodman 2002, 13). The trends toward marrying later or remaining single have further contributed to the declines in the total fertility rate and in the population, leading to an overall older population (Coulmas 2007, 9). The 2005 census indicates that 20.2 percent of the population is sixtyfive years old or older. Japan is soon expected to transition from an “aged


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society” (14–21 percent seniors) to a “hyper-aged society” (more than 21 percent seniors) (Coulmas 2007, 5). According to the government’s estimates (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2008), 22.1 percent of the population in 2008 was “aged” (with an estimated total fertility rate of 1.26), implying that Japan may have already become a “hyper-aged” society. With the population aging at this rate, the aged population should exceed 40 percent by 2055. This trend is considered a major problem by policymakers, scholars, and the media (Bass 1996; Coulmas 2007; Knight and Traphagan 2003; MacKellar et al. 2004; Noguchi and Wise 1994; Ogawa et al. 2007; Ogawa and Retherford 1997; Wise 2001). Who will pay for the increasing cost of pensions and health care? What is the fair generational distribution of care responsibilities and resources? Labor shortages, shrinking savings, rising pension contributions, and health care for the elderly frequently figure in discussions about economic concerns (MacKellar et al. 2004). Contradictions are visible in the operation of the generational contract distributing elder-care rights and duties within the stem-family framework. One major issue concerns the reduction of care resources in families with daughters but no sons. As the number of “extra” children has decreased and the number of unmarried children has grown, it has become harder to officially spare married daughters from care responsibilities when there is no married son in the natal family. If a couple has two daughters who both married eldest sons, the generational contract provides the couple with no one in their stem family to take care of them. The growing number of permanently unmarried people and increased mobility mean fewer care resources even in a family with a son or sons. People are not passively accepting their insecurity but instead are using both conventional and unconventional means to cope with reduced care resources. Though, demographically, the pool of “extra” children available for adoption is shrinking, the practice of adoption persists. In the rural village of Shinjō in northern Japan, the rate of adoption of husbands by their wives’ families increased from 9 percent in 1962 to 16 percent in 1995 (L.â•›Brown 1997). Some couples also choose to live with a married-out daughter and her family. According to the Mainichi newspaper’s surveys, the percentage of married couples living with the wife’s parents doubled, while that of married couples living with either the husband’s or the wife’s parents remained stable between 1981 and 1990 (cited in Ochiai 2000a, 211). Furthermore, according to a major producer of three-generation prefabricated housing (nisetai jūtaku), such homes first developed during the 1980s, and approximately half of such housing in 1994 was chosen


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by parents living with their daughter’s family (N.â•›Brown 2003, 61). While it is not clear whether these daughters’ husbands were adopted or not, a couple’s choosing to live with their daughter’s family can be seen as an informal strategy to increase their security by going beyond the stemfamily framework. An older couple sometimes has a house built for their married-out daughter’s family nearby to keep her close to them (Ochiai 2000a, 211). As resource-poor families attempt to recruit their formerly unavailable married-out daughters as caregivers, these women’s care responsibilities potentially double, violating the generational contract. Having a married son does not mean that a couple is free from worries. Their daughter-in-law may be pulled by her natal family to help, which may affect her contributions to her conjugal family. With a growing number of unmarried adults remaining “liminal” (Turner 1966), that is, not getting married and having children, older couples are also faced with prolonged liminality. They cannot achieve the status of retirees with a married, well-established successor and the feeling that “there is nothing more to worry about.” It is in this context of growing ambiguity and insecurity that today’s aging parents must reconsider on whom they can depend in their old age and beyond.

The Rise and the Decline of the 1955 Social System The generational contract within a stem-family framework has implications beyond the allocation of care for the elderly and for ancestors. Here I will review the ways in which the generational contract has mediated changing constraints and opportunities for transitional cohorts in their life course. Under the rule of the Liberal Democratic Party between the mid-1950s and 1973, Japan experienced a period of double-digit economic growth known as the “economic miracle,” which facilitated the further development of the 1955 social system characterized by the coexistence of “traditional” rural culture and the new urban middle-class culture (Ochiai 2000a; also see Shinohara 1976). The principal actors facilitating the development of this dual structure were the transitional cohorts. Following the customary pattern of succession, a son, preferably the eldest, was expected to live with his aging parents in his hometown and would inherit the family business, if there was one (Ochiai 2000a, 83). Leaving their natal family, the other sons and daughters were expected to establish new branch families or marry into their spouses’ stem families. The expanding cities absorbed these young, non-succeeding sons and daughters (see Kase 1997), who found jobs in urban areas, married in their twenties, and had an average of two


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children, away from the brother who lived with their aging parents in a rural hometown. This migration pattern accelerated the population increase in three major Japanese cities by 50 percent (A.â•›Katō 2006, 4). As a result, the number of newly formed nuclear-family households increased dramatically in urban areas, becoming the normative units for production and reproduction in the minds of many policymakers (6). These households ideally maintained gendered division of labor, with a full-time female homemaker and a male salaried employee. The new urban, middle-class lifestyle in a neolocal household, set up by a newly married couple away from their parents, became a symbol of Japan’s postwar success (Vogel 1963). It was every man’s dream to be employed by a major company. A woman wanted to marry such a man and become a full-time homemaker and mother, rather than live with her husband’s parents in a rural area and play the role of a bride–worker in a primary industry. Without the primary responsibilities of caring for the elderly and ancestors, the new nuclear-family households in urban areas often had greater levels of independence than did their “traditional” counterparts. This, however, does not mean that rural communities were untouched by social change (e.g., Dore 1987; Smith 1978). Despite the prevalence of nuclear households, three-generational households did not disappear. The postwar system after 1955 led to the dual structure, or the coexistence of urban nuclear households and three-generational households (Ochiai 2000a), rather than the replacement of the latter by the former. From the perspectives of these urban dwellers’ parents, one of their children continued the family line in their original stem family, while other children migrated to urban areas and established or joined new branch families.1 The establishment of new branch families in preindustrial Japan was difficult because there were limited opportunities in an economy primarily based on agriculture (A.â•›Katō 2006, 9). In such a context, the large number of “extra” children heavily burdened the stem family. Yet, the nation’s thriving economy greatly contributed to the increase and security of those new branch families in postwar Japan. Though some scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as a structural transition in the family system from the stem family to the nuclear family (Morioka 1972; 1993, 22–23), many nuclear households in postwar Japan were formed as a result of people’s following certain principles of stem-family formation and branching (A.â•›Katō 2006). Therefore, we need to see the growth of new nuclear-family households as a result of both the persistence and the transformation of such principles rather than as the complete demise of those principles and their replacement by a new family system (this issue will be discussed further in chapter 5). In some ways, three-generational households and new nuclear-family house-


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holds are like siblings who share the same parents; the former, involving the oldest son, was the “traditional” type. But just as a younger sibling might turn out to be more traditional as time goes on, so might a nuclear-family household develop into a three-generational one. Because people born between 1925 and 1950 have many siblings, the fact that many of their younger siblings established nuclear-family households when they married gives us the impression of a “takeover.” Yet, we need to remember that only one married child in a stem family can establish a three-generational household by living with the older generation. If the eldest son had already done so, his younger brother did not have this option unless he married into his spouse’s family as an adopted son. Considering the probability of each family having many children, the opportunity for such adopted sons was quite limited among people born between 1925 and 1950. Therefore, the generational contract of interdependence within a stem-family framework facilitated the migration of “extra” siblings to growing cities (Kase 1997), while leaving aging parents and a married sibling in their hometown. As a result, most older adults continued to live in their homes in rural areas (O’Leary 1993, 4), while there was a relatively small number of urban elderly during the postwar migration period and they tended to be integrated into their communities as long-term residents (Kaneko 1987). In the postwar 1955 system, age served as an important principle for allocating resources and power. The term “gerontocracy” is often used to convey the importance of seniority in Japan (Coulmas 2007, 94), though one must remember that in such societies not all seniors achieve positions of power; seniority is, however, a prerequisite for achieving power (Keith 1980, 351; Keith and Kertzer 1984, 23). Many postwar urban migrants secured wage employment and worked in a world where age was seen as a “natural” principle guiding promotion. In particular, for career-track salaried employees, age and experience were directly tied to promotion in the seniority-based employment system in those boom times. The ideal of “lifetime” employment in major companies also defined a loyal worker, who was expected to work for a long time for the same company. In this system, growing older meant earning more and being promoted, at least until one neared retirement. Though the preceding most commonly applied to male career-track employees with university degrees, and working conditions varied according to the company size and the employee’s career track, the thriving economy between 1955 and 1973 reduced the salary gap between the “elite” employees of major companies and workers of minor, smaller companies with less favorable working conditions.


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Age structured the allocation of duties and leadership positions in community organizations as well. The existence of age grades and agebased groups (e.g., young men’s associations, old persons’ associations) was noted in a variety of community studies (e.g., Beardsley et al. 1959; Norbeck 1953; for more recent examples, see Martinez 2004; Traphagan 2000). The practice of passing the status of head of household to the successor at the age of sixty was common (Sekizawa 2000b, 189–190). Older men were also given ritual authority (Bestor 1990, 167–168) and served as leaders in a community’s religious organizations, such as the miyaza, or shrine group (e.g., Miyata 2000; Sekizawa 2000a). The ritual roles given to seniors involved in miyaza organizations must be understood in the context of their community’s well-being, rather than in older persons’ personal religious beliefs. Sekizawa (2000b, 89) reports that the members of a miyaza organization in Nara were vested with the power to give life force to the newborn males in the community through the ceremonial giving of rice cakes. A younger substitute could not perform the senior’s ritual duty, because people considered a senior person to embody an auspicious life force, not to be someone shadowed by approaching death.2 The 1990s saw the clear decline of the 1955 system, and this development came to seriously limit the opportunities of the transitional cohorts’ children. Politically, the Liberal Democratic Party’s power waned. The burst of the “bubble” economy and the long recession, globalization, and an increasing shift to a service-oriented economy challenged “Japanesestyle” capitalism. Formerly, strong government leadership was considered to ensure the nation’s economic stability. Economic strategies aimed at ensuring reciprocity between competitors were preferred. Yet, as news of reputable companies’ bankruptcies were splashed across front pages, and bad loans and the economic recovery remained high on the government’s reform agenda, the nation saw the adoption of new economic strategies focusing on competition and less government control. The “merit-based” promotion system replaced the seniority-based, “uniquely Japanese” system in workplaces. High-salary employees in the mid- or late stages of their career were purged. People no longer assumed that seniority automatically ensured economic security and power (see Mathews 2004). The image of older employees being laid off and unable to find new jobs loomed large in the public consciousness. These changes supported some younger employees’ belief that older employees being paid higher salaries were less than competent. Thus, merit-based promotion and the visible erosion of “lifetime” employment publicly challenged age-based principles ordering the social universe in the workplace. Meanwhile, companies began hiring


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a small number of new graduates. Full-time, career-track employees were replaced by part-time, temporary, and contractually restricted employees with limited opportunities for promotion, no guarantee of higher salaries, and certainly no sense that they would remain in the company for life. In short, it has become harder to realize the dream of becoming a career-track salaryman and establishing a self-sufficient single-income nuclear-family household. The decline of the 1955 system affected family life greatly. With incomes low, and secure, career-track jobs hard to find, more and more younger men were unable to marry and establish new conjugal households (A.â•›Katō 2006, 15–16). The rising number of unmarried adults led to a larger number of households consisting of aging parents and their single adult children. Adult singles continuing to live with their parents and remaining semiindependent were criticized as “parasite singles,” a term coined and popularized by the sociologist Yamada Masahiro (1999). Higher divorce rates led to the formation of binuclear families and blended families. Households consisting only of an elderly couple or an elderly person living alone increased.3 As life trajectories and households diversified, ambiguities concerning care allocation grew, and the idea that the “natural” order of society was based on age waned. It was in this context that the transitional cohorts began joining the ranks of the aged after 1990, with those born in 1925 reaching sixty-five years of age in 1990. During my fieldwork (2002–2004), those born in the 1940s were beginning to reach their retirement age. Most of them had established their neolocal households away from their parents when young, found jobs in the growing economy, and led relatively independent lives away from their parents or in-laws. Compared with people of their parents’ generation, many of them are healthier (Kaneda and Raymo 2003, 168) and more educated. But what is their situation in late adulthood and after death?

Family-Based Support for the Elderly Before examining the current levels of family-based support for the elderly, let us briefly review the changing practices of elder-care provision since the establishment of the 1955 social system. In that system, elder care was in the private realm of family. Public-support systems developed steadily in postwar Japan but did not mature until the late 1980s. Family-based caregiving is a culturally specific concept in that what constitutes “family” and “care” are defined in a particular cultural context (R.â•›Campbell and Ingersoll-Dayton


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2000). In the earlier phase of the postwar period, the generational contract in a stem-family framework defined the cultural ideal of elder care in Japan, in which a child (often a son) and his spouse would live with his aging parents and provide day-to-day care for them. Contrast this with practices in the United States, where caregiving by a spouse counts as family caregiving (R.â•›Campbell and Ingersoll-Dayton 2000). Hashimoto (1996) calls the Japanese approach to elder care a protective one, as it assumes that everyone will need care in the future and that it is most important to maximize security in old age. Decline in old age is taken for granted, and the protection of the elderly is considered a priority, even though it might limit the elderly in other ways. In other words, late adulthood is considered a time “naturally” associated with dependence, and older persons are thought to deserve help because of their age.4 In this way of thinking, different life-course phases are associated with different strengths and weaknesses; these differences are thought to be “irrevocable” (2004, 25). As many members of these transitional cohorts were founders of new urban households and had many married siblings, they had no major responsibilities to care for their aging parents. According to the rules of stem-family formation, these new urbanites would be cared for by one of their children and the child’s spouse, if they were to keep this stem-familybased system of elder care. Yet, many of them had two children, while some had three. Assuming that 25 percent of couples in the transitional cohorts have married-out daughters but no sons, the married-out daughters will be responsible for caring for their parents-in-law rather than their own parents in the generational contract. Since daughters-in-law are expected to care for their parents-in-law and caregiving is often defined as a woman’s job (Harris and Long 1993; Jenike 1997; Lock 1993, 2002; Long 1996; Rosenberger 2001; Traphagan 2003), the rising number of unmarried persons also contributes to a shrinking pool of family caregivers for those who have unmarried sons but no daughters. Four out of ten men and three out of ten women born between 1966 and 1970 remain unmarried today (A.â•›Katō 2006, 13). As the pool of family caregivers has shrunk, the burden of elder care has grown heavier (Jenike 2003, 180). People tend not to die young now, spending a much longer period dependent on a caregiver. Moreover, a daughter-in-law does not receive the culturally expected rewards of status and power as a matron of the family until much later in her life, thereby prolonging her subordination and intensifying her sense of frustration (180). A growing number of older persons express a preference that their daughters be their primary caregivers (Long 1987), and this trend further


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complicates the generational contract. Some informants of mine told me that their daughters care more about them than their daughters-in-law do. Married women are also reported to prefer to care for their own parents rather than their in-laws (Traphagan 2003, 223). Younger people who have yet to be caregivers are reported to cite their indebtedness to and affection for their parents as reasons to provide care in the future (Elliot and Campbell 1993, 130). Whether these younger people will cite affection as their reason when their parents actually need care remains to be seen. Nevertheless, daughters are increasingly seen as potential caregivers in a world short of family caregivers. With the reduced availability of daughters-in-law, the diversity of caregivers is increasing. Though still representing a minority, even sons and husbands have been recruited as caregivers in recent years (Harris and Long 1999; Harris, Long, and Fujii 1998). Prolonged life expectancies have facilitated co-survivorship in a couple (see Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 75, Table 2), and thus caregiving by a spouse is fairly common. Moreover, as people live longer, both the caregiver and the care recipient may be senior citizens, with a sixty-nine-year-old woman caring for her ninety-year-old mother. Before Japan’s New Civil Code (1947) equalized inheritance among siblings, the successor had received the major share of an inheritance, including the house and other assets, while also inheriting the responsibility of continuing the family line. But the postwar equal-inheritance law did not immediately eliminate conventional sole inheritance, and it was not unusual for non-inheriting siblings to legally give up their claims to property to facilitate sole inheritance within a family (Izuhara 2002, 70). Even the 1988 survey indicates a clear preference for an eldest son rather than a younger son, and a son rather than a daughter, to inherit property (69). The persistence of sole inheritance as a social custom and the more frequent inheritance by a son rather than by a daughter contradicts the trend of preferring a (married-out) daughter over a daughter-in-law as the primary caregiver. Equal inheritance contradicts the cultural definition of equity that results from the allocation of greater rewards matching greater care responsibilities. A married-out daughter might play the role of major caregiver for her parents, yet, following social convention, her oldest brother might still receive the bulk of inheritance. The spread of the equal-inheritance law has further strained the system of family-based elder care within a stem-family framework; even though the eldest son and his wife take care of the aging parents, they may receive the same share of inheritance as the other sibling(s).


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Stories of conflicts concerning elder care and inheritance are not uncommon. In their multigenerational study of attitudes toward elder care, Elliot and Campbell (1993) noticed that older respondents spoke of the “unfairness” resulting from elder care not being rewarded with inheritance. Rewards are important in themselves because of their financial benefit, but what is equally significant is the official recognition in the eyes of kin, and possibly community, given to the caregiver’s hard work and fulfillment of moral obligation. The sense of unfairness felt by caregivers receiving no or inadequate rewards, therefore, should not be seen simply as an expression of their desire to acquire wealth. Similar to the “dangerously naturalized burden of [caring for] older parents” assumed in the literature on caregiving, the population-aging discourse often reduces seniors to a “nameless pressure,” to use Cohen’s phrase, on societal resources (Cohen 1994, 141). Older persons, in this context, are seen as burdens to be shouldered not only by caregivers but also by policymakers and future generations. In contrast to the gloomy image of a heavy burden, examples of docile, easygoing, manageable elders are celebrated in the media. The centenarian twins Kin-san and Gin-san, “tiny, giggly, and charming” sisters (Nakano 2005, 136), for instance, became national stars embodying idealized images of advanced old age. Yet, older persons are also agents negotiating the contract in their own ways in society, whether they are seen as a “nameless” burden or as “docile” recipients of care. Just as caregivers are seeking a “fairer” allotment of rewards matching their efforts, seniors are deploying their wealth to negotiate their security in old age. Attitudes toward inheritance are said to be becoming pragmatic, and property is increasingly used to obtain elder care in exchange (Tsuya and Martin 1992, s46; also see Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 89). If we see older adults as agents of change in the changing world, it makes sense to conclude that they are attempting to ensure their security by using their resources as the generational contract is challenged by ambiguities and inconsistencies. Just as inheritance practices are reported to be more transactional, practices of coresidence are changing from an institutionalized obligation to a situation-based strategy based on costs and benefits (Koyano 2003, 276–277; Morioka 1996, 520). Such a shift can also be explained by the stress placed upon the operation of the generational contract. The violation of the contract is more likely when inheritance and care obligations are not allocated together or when unconventional caregivers, such as married-out daughters, are recruited. The smooth operation of the contract is no longer taken for granted, and individual coresidents must assess


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the fairness of their arrangement. As a result, the practice of institutionalized, obligatory coresidence, often culturally understood as a way of providing elder care, has become just one option to consider. In assessing it, seniors must evaluate their needs and situations, and consider the costs and benefits arising from coresidence. A small group of the aged are even cashing in their property to finance their care and moving into supported housing (Izuhara 2002, 72). Such a move can be understood as an alternative to coresidence after the latter was found to be an unsatisfactory option. The emergence of pragmatic, situational coresidence is sometimes explained by blaming younger people for losing their moral strength, becoming more self-centered, and failing to live up to the “traditional” values of filial piety. Such statements by informants are important, and these narratives of “moral decline” are by no means infrequently used across cultures to describe social change. Yet, an analysis that blames individuals is problematic because it fails to consider the demographic and other structural limitations impeding the smooth fulfillment of the generational contract. In 2001 only 58 percent of persons sixty years old or older lived with an adult child (Takagi, Silverstein, and Crimmins 2007, s330). However, the percentage of older persons living with children in Japan remains much higher than the coresidence rates observed in Western societies (17 percent in the United States, 15 percent in Germany, and 5 percent in Sweden, cited in Takagi, Silverstein, and Crimmins 2007, s330), and thus both its persistence and the trend of decline must be examined locally. Many factors are considered to promote the decline, including the weakening of the Confucian value of filial piety, the declining birthrate, and mobility. The declining number of family businesses (e.g., family farming) and selfemployed people is also relevant (Ogawa and Retherford 1993) because family businesses are seen to promote filial coresidence by requiring the recruitment and training of the younger generation. While studies often highlight the decreasing percentage of older persons living with children, the shrinking pool of married children who can live with aging parents is not emphasized as often when citing factors impeding coresidence. The larger the number of children (three or more), the more likely that an older person will live with a child (see Raymo and Kaneda 2003, 42). The migration of younger generations and the postponement of marriage are also seen to reduce the number of locally available married children who can live with their parents (31). While some scholars see weakening Confucian values or the rise of a new family system (i.e., a nuclear-family system emphasizing the husband–


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wife bond) as primarily underlying the trend of declining filial coresidence, the issue is quite complex, as we have already seen. Rather than considering weakening Confucian values, it is more useful to examine the ways in which people’s perceptions of generational relations and the values of filial piety are reshaped in their struggle to make ends meet in the context of strained care resources. The notion of filial piety is strategically mobilized and redefined by the state, policymakers, family and non-family caregivers, and care recipients as they engage in the giving and receiving of elder care. Morioka (1996, 522) points out that, despite declining coresidence, the practice continues to provide people with a functional option for handling elder care in a society where alternatives are still limited. Rather than sensationalizing the decline itself and debating if the trend is ultimately leading to the disappearance of coresidence, we must account for its persistence and transformation by examining both quantitative and qualitative data. A quantitative study that used the 2001 data consisting of a nationally representative sample of adults who were eighteen years old and older indicates that it is far more common for older parents (sixty years old and older, with at least one living adult child) to live with their married sons than to live with their married daughters (Takagi and Silverstein 2006, 479–480). Fifty-three percent of the older parents lived with an adult child, 20 percent with a married son, and only 4 percent with a married daughter. Those living with unmarried children did not exhibit a pronounced preference for sons. These observations support the enduring preference for living with a married son, although the study illustrates an alternative pattern of living with unmarried children and spouses in late adulthood. The majority of the older parents who were not living with children were living with only their spouse (80 percent). Therefore, the majority of older persons were not living alone. Although the percentage of older persons living with children has been declining (e.g., Coulmas 2007; Morioka 1996; O’Leary 1993; Raymo and Kaneda 2003), elder care by a live-in family member persists. In 2005 three-quarters of primary caregivers were family members (Maruyama 2006, 52–53). Among the primary caregivers, 66 percent were live-in family caregivers; fewer than 10 percent were not. Some 40 percent of the primary caregivers were either a child or a child’s spouse, while some 25 percent were a spouse. The pattern of delayed coresidence more common today also contributes to an enduring pattern of caregiving by a live-in family member.5 People born during the 1960s, for example, have much lower coresidence


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rates—some 20 percent at the time of marriage (A.â•›Katō 2006, 12–13). Yet, by the time they have been married for ten years, they maintain coresidence rates of more than 30 percent, similar to those born between the 1930s and the 1950s. Ethnographic studies indicate the enduring pattern of allocating elder care to one person in the younger generation. Individual middle-aged caregivers in Tokyo are still committed to the ideals of moral responsibility and femininity defining elder care as a woman’s job (Jenike 2003, 189). The older generations in one rural area are reported to have quite a bit of power to make their married child come home to live with them (Traphagan 2003). However, the child’s wife negotiates her migration to her husband’s hometown by, for example, demanding the building of a separate house for her immediate family rather than simply moving in with her in-laws (Traphagan 2003). In both studies discussed above, birth order was cited as a legitimate reason for coresiding or for allocating care responsibilities, even though it did not automatically determine the caregiver. Being the wife of an eldest son was still recognized as a reason for having the duty to care for his parents (see Jenike 2003, 190). The “traditional” idea of birth order, therefore, does not automatically allocate care duties but is mobilized by social actors to make sense of their caregiving role. Although caregivers were often frustrated that they had sole responsibility to care for the elderly and that sisters-in-law did not help at all (189), such frustration did not lead to the creation of a new system, for example, one that would divide responsibilities equally among all the siblings, or among all the daughters, or a team of daughters and daughters-in-law. Access to non-family caregiving is also restricted by common assumptions regarding vulnerability in a family setting. The most needy elderly are those living alone, followed by those cared for by working unmarried children, and those cared for by a daughter or a daughter-in-law (Jenike 2003, 182). The individual conditions of older adults, medical or otherwise, are not consistently considered when distributing outside care resources; rather, resources are allocated to compensate for the lack or reduced availability of live-in female family caregivers. It is common practice to disclose a diagnosis of dementia to the patient’s family rather than to the patient (Saitō 2000) and for families to make an end-of-life decision (Long 2005); these practices illustrate the assumed vulnerability and dependence of older adults on their family members and the importance of the family to ensure the well-being of its vulnerable members. In short, though elder-care duties are often assigned to one primary live-in female family member, Japan sees a persistent preference for living


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with a married son. Although people are exploring alternatives by seeking unconventional caregivers or combining family-based caregiving and outside help, in spite of its predicaments the generational contract in a stemfamily framework continues to be relevant in determining who will care for the elderly. The meanings and actual generational relations associated with coresidence, however, are reconstituted as social actors cope with strained care resources. The contract’s reconstitution and transformation, rather than its total disappearance and replacement by a new care system, shape a present in which new and old practices coexist.

Alternatives to Family-Based Support While the weight of family-based caregiving for the elderly has been growing heavier in postwar Japan, levels of non-family support have risen dramatically, too. How have levels of public support changed over time? In the early postwar period (the 1960s), younger people were concerned mostly with their own old age rather than with that of people who were already old (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 7). The elderly in those days were assumed to be in the hands of family. Notable developments of this period include the state’s extension of the pension system to the entire population in 1961 and the establishment of a universal medical-insurance system in 1959 (15). The “universal” pension system consisted of occupation-based subsystems. Among them was the Employee Pension System (EPS), which was established before 1961 and covered private-sector employees. Though public pensions for Japan’s government employees were established in the 1880s, the National Pension System (NPS) was developed in 1961 to cover nonemployees, such as the self-employed and farmers (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 11). In addition to these two major programs, there were several Mutual Assistance Associations (MAAs) covering a smaller group of public employees. Both the EPS and the NPS were partly funded by the national government at the beginning because it takes a long time for contributions to build up a financial base (14). When established, the NPS was supported by flatrate contributions and by government subsidies amounting to one-third of contributions (later, one-third of benefits) (63). The benefit was initially set very low, at 2,000 yen per month. As Japan became more affluent (in the 1970s), the government came to realize that the elderly as a group had special needs, such as pensions, medical benefits, and caregiving (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 7–8). Reflecting this shift of consciousness, pension benefits were raised substantially in 1972 (172), and a free medical-care program for the elderly came into effect in


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1973. Policymakers were able to create such a program because the overall percentage of elderly was still small. Once Japan’s rapid growth period had ended, after 1975, the problem of an aging society emerged, leading to a number of reforms in pension and health-care systems (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 7–8). The increasing demands of the growing elderly population were seen as a threat to society’s well-being. In the postwar period, social security spending rose steadily, constituting 5.3 percent of national income in 1955, 9.4 percent in 1975, and 12.3 percent in 1980; the benefit level was raised dramatically, and by 1985 pensions constituted about half of social security spending (8–9). A major reform of 1986 integrated the NPS, the EPS, and MAAs to create a two-tiered system. Because of the rapidly aging population, private- and public-sector employees were required to contribute to the NPS in addition to their occupationally based pension systems. This reform aimed to make the foundation of the NPS stronger (Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 65). The financial conditions of seniors had clearly improved overall by the 1990s. No convenient national data of individual pension benefits exist because the qualifications of enrollees differ by program, and some people participate in multiple programs (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 13). Nevertheless, the percentage of pensions that constitutes the average income of old-age households, in which the head of household is sixty-five or older, rose from 34 percent in 1977 to approximately 50 percent by 1986 (also see Preston and Kōno 1988; Takayama 1992). Conversely, an analysis of income sources for people aged sixty and older in Japan between 1981 and 1996 indicates that the elderly became financially less dependent on their children (Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 73). The elderly should not be considered a homogeneous group: current support levels for individuals vary greatly according to gender and occupation. Because former employees usually receive pensions from the current two-tiered system, male former employees receive more than do homemakers and the self-employed. In 2007 the “full” NPS annual pension was 792,100 yen (Majima 2007, 33), so long as the pensioner had made monthly contributions for the past forty years (some exceptions apply). Though the NPS requires everyone to make fixed contributions and receive fixed amounts, not everyone receives the full amount because individual contribution periods vary. The standard age for receiving benefits is sixty-five. Although there are exceptions, in principle one must contribute for at least twenty-five years to be eligible for NPS benefits. Private-sector salaried employees receive larger benefits than do the self-employed, since


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the former are eligible for benefits from both the NPS and the EPS at age sixty-five.6 In addition, the EPS support level is more generous than that of the NPS. Because the EPS requires workers to contribute according to their incomes, the benefits former employees in the private sector receive vary according to their past incomes. Despite these disparities among the aged, the overall level of public support for the elderly has risen over time. Furthermore, elder-care services and facilities greatly expanded as time went on. Social welfare reforms during the 1980s promoted the deregulation of social welfare services; consequently, services were provided not only by the government but also by nonprofit organizations and welfare corporations (Adachi 2000, 197). The government responded to society’s changing structural and institutional frameworks with the “Gold Plan” in 1989, intended to dramatically expand elder-care programs and facilities (J.â•›C.â•›Campbell and Ikegami 2003, 23). The plan aimed to increase the number of beds at nursing homes or intermediate care facilities to 520,000, the number of “helpers” (care assistants) to 100,000, and the number of community day-care centers to 10,000 over the next ten years (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 246). But, more important, in Japan only 2 percent of older persons were institutionalized, and though the plan promised to expand nursinghome capacity by 80 percent (from 160,000 to 290,000 persons), its main objective was to expand services that would allow older persons to live at home (Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 70). This emphasis upon home care has led some scholars to critique the plan for “shifting the costs of caring for the elderly back to families” (Ogawa and Retherford 1997). The “New Gold Plan” of 1994 sought to expand services further (J.â•›C.â•›Campbell and Ikegami 2003, 23): the number of geriatric-care facilities had increased dramatically by 1999 (Long 2005, 43), and community-based home-care services for the elderly had grown nationwide by the year 2000 (Jenike 2003, 181). In 2000 Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) was started, separating longterm care from general health care (J.â•›C.â•›Campbell and Ikegami 2003, 22). People who are forty or older must contribute to this program; those who are sixty-five years old or older are eligible for benefits (some exceptions apply). Under the new LTCI, there are more services and providers, both institutional and community-based, to choose among (J.â•›C.â•›Campbell and Ikegami 2003). This new system redefined the elderly as choosers of publicor private-sector care services (Fujisaki 1997). With this shift, caregiving no longer meant “services assigned by the government” but rather “services contracted” (Tsukada and Saitō 2006, 122). The establishment of the insurance program also shifted the narrative of elder care from centering on the


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moral obligation of family to having a more neutral image, and caregiving was increasingly professionalized (Jenike 2003, 183–184).7 The new insurance system, therefore, amplified the trend of further expanding elder-care services during the 1990s, while also qualitatively changing the definition of elder care. Policies concerning housing for seniors were identified as an area that deserved strengthening (R.â•›Campbell and Ingersoll-Dayton 2000, 245); past government policies tended to encourage coresidence and home care. The aforementioned “Gold Plan” (1989) focused on providing services for the elderly who lived at home rather than dramatically increasing the number of costly long-term-care institutions (Izuhara 2000, 127). The government views Japan’s tradition of coresidence as a unique strength (Ogawa and Retherford 1997, 76; also see Goodman and Peng 1996), and the trend of assisting older persons without younger, live-in family caregivers has been particularly pronounced in the state’s housing policy for the aged. In 1984, families living with their parents, those buying homes for coresidence, and those renovating their homes for coresidence were given special tax benefits (Peng 2000). The introduction of the “two-generational housing loan,” in which a housing loan can be inherited over generations, was a measure to encourage generational coresidence (Izuhara 2000, 129). In their study of well-off, upper-middle-class residents of a retirement community in the 1980s, Kinoshita and Kiefer (1992, 8, 74) reported that the housing options for middle-class seniors were limited to staying home or living with one’s child, and that private retirement communities—there were only thirtyone of them at the time of their study—were still in their infancy. The first retirement communities appeared in the 1970s (72). By 1992 various types of retirement housing were becoming available as the “silver businesses” (those targeting older consumers) proliferated (74). In 1992 there were 178 facilities in which the aged could purchase a unit, but vacancy rates were high (Izuhara 2000, 131). Currently, there are more options for middle-class seniors at private nursing homes, even though waiting lists at the less expensive public ones are long. Most recently, the LTCI has stimulated experiments to increase the number and the range of long-term care facilities for people suffering from dementia (Traphagan and Nagasawa 2008). Such facilities have been in short supply for many years. One of the new types of facility being built is called a “group home,” which endeavors to create a home-like atmosphere for residents (Traphagan and Nagasawa 2008). With the arrival of the LTCI, not only the number and types of care facilities, but also their quality, is continually reassessed to address the changing needs of their users.


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In short, then, the levels of non-family support resources grew dramatically as family-based elder care faced a number of challenges. Though family-based elder care is still a significant presence, it is increasingly combined with professionalized care since the introduction of Long-Term Care Insurance.

Elders as Users and Choosers The challenges facing Japan’s aging society are thought to discourage younger generations, with the sustainability of the pension systems being a major concern. Financially, the social security system is being continuously reformed by reducing pensions and raising the age for eligibility to cope with the increasing demographic stress. As a result of many scandals, including the mismanagement of pension funds, there is a growing sense that young people today will probably receive small pensions when they retire. Although the “aged society problem” described in the media often presents a negative picture of the burden of elder care on family caregivers and younger generations, it should not be mistaken to represent seniors’ overall state in today’s Japan. The young-olds can enjoy their late adulthood, particularly those who are former salaried employees, who have full pension benefits, and who have no major medical problems. Oldolds, those not eligible for full benefits, and divorced women tend to be less fortunate. Overall, public support levels rose dramatically in postwar Japan and offer the new option of living alone to a larger number of older persons—at least, until the need to live with their children arises. Previously, coresidence was often the only viable option for many older persons (Hashimoto 1996).8 Older adults are now seen as consumers and users of services, which has redefined their status. With the baby boomers retiring, optimists see older persons as a powerful group of consumers who will rejuvenate the economy (Coulmas 2007, 73–74). It is worth noting that the newly acquired consumer status is used to redefine an older person’s dependent status. Murata-san, a retired insurance company employee, had decided not to depend on his son and daughter-in-law for care for the time being, though they were willing to care for him (Nakano 2005, 154–156, 163). He actively defined himself as a user of services and thus contested the unappealing image of a dependent care recipient. Defining himself as a service user was important to his maintaining a sense of dignity as a middle-class consumer. Similarly, Nitta-san, a well-off sixty-six-year-old GFPS member, decided to sell her house and move to a “care house” run by a religious organization.


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She told me, “I am on good terms with my only child and his wife, but I did not want to live with them. I decided to move into the facility entirely on my own, without discussing the issue with my son.” Nitta-san told me that her son was at first very upset and asked his mother why she had made the choice on her own. He told her that he was planning to live with her to be filial (oyakōkō suru). Both of these cases illustrate how older persons use non-family support to maintain their self-sufficiency and forgo dependence on their family caregivers, at least for a time. While Nitta-san is planning to use professional caregivers in the future, it is not clear if Murata-san will do without his family’s support when he is no longer healthy (Nakano 2005, 155). Yet, these moves are still significant when considering the generational contract, in which older adults “claim their dependence” when their turn comes (Hashimoto 1996). Some older adults may be postponing their claim. Some may feel that their turn is never coming. Others may feel that it is too unfair to take their turn. A longitudinal study of those who move into care facilities is required to monitor the changing content of the generational contract. The maturing of the pension system, the redefinition of elders as LTCI service users, and the development of alternatives to coresidence all increased opportunities for the elderly to choose their preferred lifestyle and gain more control over their late adulthood. Of course, whether they make their choice according to their own wishes, rather than those of their family caretaker, is another issue. By deploying the notion of self-help among the elderly, the state is able to reduce its own role in supporting the expanding elderly population (Nakano 2005, 134). In other words, the idea of self-sufficiency may be manipulated by the state to reduce levels of public support for the elderly. Yet, older adults may also value self-reliance and use non-family government-subsidized support resources to reduce their dependence on family caregivers, who may nevertheless be willing to take on the responsibilities (163). A wider range of choices in late adulthood is certainly transforming the lives of the urban elderly, and as we shall see, so does the emergence of choice in death and beyond.

Memorial Practices Although the levels of public support for elder care rose in postwar Japan, the situation of ritual care for the dead has been different. Responsibility for the family dead has consistently rested in the hands of the family. No new major public systems were developed to care for the family dead. Instead, during and after the 1990s new options were developed by reli-


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gious, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations to deal with the reduction of ritual-care resources for them. Before detailing the new practices, we must examine the culturally constructed notion of a need for a new memorial space. As with familybased elder care, the successor, often the eldest son, conventionally inherits the right to use a family grave and the obligation to care for it. Other sons and married-out daughters participate in the veneration of their deceased parents but do not have the right to use the family grave where their deceased parents’ remains are interred. A son who has established a new neolocal household is expected to build a new memorial space for himself and his wife, which will be passed on to one of their children. In a family of multiple sons, then, only one will inherit the family grave. A woman who marries a succeeding son gains the right to be buried in his family grave. A married-out daughter who marries a non-succeeding son must find a new grave where her and her husband’s remains will be interred. Though ash scatterers do not choose interment, they still share, with people in the larger society, the culturally constructed need for a new memorial place. Ash scatterers belong to the transitional cohorts, and many of them, as postwar urban migrants, were not in the position to inherit a family grave or plot, if there was one. Such a grave is likely to go to the urban migrant’s married sibling, who lives with his aging parents in his hometown. According to my survey of the deceased whose ashes had been scattered through the GFPS, approximately half had a grave that they could use (Kawano 2004, 239). Compared with the figure from the 1998 national survey (81.4 percent; see Mori 1998), the deceased whose ashes had been scattered were more likely to have had the need to find a new interment space. The scattering of ashes was chosen in this context as an alternative to establishing a new family grave. Ash scatterers are people who left their hometowns in the postwar migration period and established their new homes as urbanites. Instead of finding a new family grave in their city of residence, however, they chose to return to nature by having their ashes scattered and building a new sense of community with other new urbanites (Taguchi 2003). Like family-based elder care, the maintenance of a family grave depends upon the availability of human resources in a family and the reliability of the intergenerational contract. Before the 1990s, those without children to inherit a family grave and ensure ceremonial care for ancestors had limited options. It was possible to give a sizable donation to the family temple and ask the temple priest to care for the grave permanently. Alternatively, if


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there was a strong network of kin in the local community, people might expect their clan members to care for their graves. But new urbanites often lacked these memorial options, having no long-standing, enduring ties with a religious institution or a residentially stable community of kin (see chapter 5). While a variety of alternatives to family-based support developed over time to provide the elderly with financial support and health-care services, no public support systems were created to provide more than minimal care for the dead. Those who die without family are cremated and buried in a grave for homeless souls (muenbaka) in a municipal cemetery. Some Buddhist temple priests volunteer to conduct death rituals for such homeless souls (see Gill 2000, 108, for the cases of day laborers in Yokohama). But no ceremonies to ensure their transformation into benevolent ancestors are performed for such persons. Occasionally, religious institutions, communities, and families may hold ceremonies to console these spirits so that they will not harm the living. As the pool of future family caregivers has shrunk, since the 1990s religious organizations (mainly Buddhist institutions), forprofit cemeteries, and citizens’ groups have developed alternative disposal systems. The scattering of ashes is just such a new option, requiring no maintenance, annual fees, or descendants. The development of new alternatives to family graves since the 1990s took place in conjunction with a number of social, economic, and political shifts in the larger society. Just as the new nuclear-family households that developed in urban areas in postwar Japan did not replace three-generational households, so the rise of new mortuary practices did not eliminate the family-grave system. Reflecting the postindustrial trend focused upon service industries, alternatives to family graves illustrate the blossoming of diverse, flexible forms of disposition and memorial options by partly relegating memorial care to non-kin.

 This chapter has examined the demographic, historical, economic, and social contexts in which ash scatterers have chosen their mortuary strategy. These members of the transitional cohorts sent a massive number of young people from rural to urban areas to participate in the booming economy and middle-class urban lifestyles. Many of them established new nuclear households in urban areas and commonly had two children, shaping a new family ideal in which a husband is a salaried employee and his wife a full-time homemaker living away from their parents. Most of these


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people witnessed the normative patterns of age-based allocation of power and prestige in a seniority-based promotion system. Most of my informants who chose ash scattering were born between 1927 and 1942, roughly corresponding to the older age groups of people (born between 1926 and 1941) who became eligible for full pension benefits without making forty years of contributions.9 So, the majority of my informants are the first generations of beneficiaries to receive full pension benefits as the public pension systems matured. Between the 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century, they became eligible for pension benefits and began receiving their independent source of income in late adulthood. In contrast, their children are facing increased uncertainty in a world with fewer stable jobs, the waning importance of seniority, and prolonged coresidence with parents as singles. Though individual situations vary, compared with their parents’ generations ash scatterers as a group have a wider range of options to avoid or delay dependence on their children and maintain their own households in late adulthood. With regard to their posthumous security, it is not unusual for ash scatterers to have no family grave to inherit. The future availability of memorial caregivers is increasingly uncertain. Given these situations, GFPS members have chosen an alternative to a family grave by investing less in a fixed memorial site and thus making the burden of memorial care lighter for younger generations. Their emphasis on the deceased-centered memorial and the preselection of ash scattering is backed by their cohort-specific experiences of expanding non-family support resources in late adulthood and beyond. Considering the rise of a new memorial choice in the wider context of the transitional cohorts’ life courses, we find an increased number of choices that define generational relations in new ways. Leaving property to the married eldest son and his wife in exchange for elder care is a choice that emphasizes the transactional nature of the exchange reshaping an older couple’s relation with their younger generation. Cashing in property and moving to a care facility is another choice that reconstitutes their relations with their children. Similarly, ash scattering is a choice that reduces the investment of a family’s wealth in memorial assets and a caregiver’s burden in the future because the choice requires no maintenance, unlike a conventional family grave. Reviewing the emergence of the new lifestyle choices encountered by the transitional cohorts in their life courses, it is clear that the new choices allow older adults to increase their self-sufficiency by adjusting, rather than eliminating, the levels of their dependence on their younger generations. Such new choices developed as strategies to cope with reduced care resources in the generational contract and the perception of


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its decreased reliability in a rapidly changing society. These new alternatives allow their choosers to increase security now that following the generational contract in a stem-family framework no longer automatically guarantees their security in late adulthood and beyond. How unconventional is the practice of scattering ashes, then? The next chapter will attempt to answer this question by considering ash scattering in a historical context.


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Chapter Two


“F

reedom from a grave,” most commonly a family grave, is a slogan of the Grave-Free Promotion Society (GFPS), which has been scattering its members’ ashes since 1991. At a cemetery in Japan, a visitor is likely to find a forest of family graves (see Figure 1). A family grave accommodates the remains of a stem family’s members, marked by a single gravestone, often bearing the family’s name. The issue here is not simply a preference for

Figure 1. â•‡ A public cemetery (Satsuki Kawano)

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scattering ashes over interring them in a family grave. GFPS members feel that they would like to choose their own mortuary practices rather than follow the social convention. They are also critical of for-profit cemetery providers and Buddhist temples that demand high ceremonial costs. When did the interment of cremated remains in a family grave become a normative practice? Although it is often seen as a “traditional” grave in today’s Japan, it is largely a product of modernity (Mori 1993b, 113; Yanagita 1957, 198). By briefly reviewing the history of Japanese mortuary practices, I will contextualize the binaries that often characterize ash scattering and the family grave: the individual versus the collective, fluidity versus fixity, and a new practice versus a persisting custom. After situating the scattering of ashes in historical contexts, I will explore to what extent and in what ways the scattering of ashes through the GFPS is similar to, or different from, earlier mortuary practices in Japan. By reincorporating fluidity and flexibility, the scattering of ashes belongs to a series of new mortuary practices expanded since the 1990s to cope with the effects of postindustrial shifts on Japanese society. I will illustrate the diversification of mortuary scripts and the uneven penetration of the new death ideologies rather than an elimination of conventional memorial practices.

Burial and Cremation No single traditional “Japanese” way of disposing of deceased persons’ remains existed until quite recently. In the history of mortuary practices in Japan, earth burial, cremation, and air burial were all practiced (Doi and Satō 1979, 11).1 Archaeological evidence indicates the existence of early burial practices during the Jōmon period (ca. 10,000–300 BCâ†œ2), when hunting and gathering were the means of livelihood (Shintani 1986, 148–149). During the Yayoi period (ca. 300 BC–AD 300), as society transitioned to an agricultural economy, some of the remains were placed in coffins made of wood, stone, or pottery (154). The Tomb period (ca. AD 300–552) corresponds to the expansion of the ancient Yamato court, and the distribution of tombs in many parts of Japan is thought to mirror the rise of powerful religio-political leaders (162). During this period, a number of massive tombs were constructed. By the middle of the seventh century, the practice of building large-scale tombs had declined (172). Double burial was the practice for deceased emperors, empresses, and princes in Japan until the early eighth century and involved building a temporary interment facility (mogari no miya) before the deceased’s remains were finally buried (Ebersole 1989, 155–156). The corpse in


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a temporary interment structure may have been buried or left aboveÂ� ground (127). The period between the death of an emperor and his final burial varied, ranging from several months to several years (123); during this period survivors had to do their best to win in “the redistribution of power, position, and prestige” following the death of the sovereign (4). Furthermore, during Emperor Kōtoku’s reign, in the mid-seventh century, building temporary interment facilities was prohibited, and detailed regulations regarding the size of the final tombs and the number of laborers used to build them were promulgated (155). The prohibition was directed not only to “princes” but also to commoners, indicating that the building of a temporary interment facility was not unknown among commoners. The promulgation of rules regarding death and burial also indicates that even in early Japan mortuary customs were subject to political control and change, and did not merely reflect some “primitive” mentality rooted in human nature. Cremation was another major mortuary practice in early Japan. While some scholars often cite the cremation of the monk Dōshō in 700 as the first cremation in Japan and contend that cremation is tied to Buddhist influences, other scholars maintain that cremation was being practiced earlier (Shintani 1986, 184). Evidence of cremations exists as early as the Jōmon period (Koizumi 2004, 8). Due to Buddhist influences, by the Heian period (794–1185) many emperors and aristocrats had adopted cremation (Asaka and Yagisawa 1990, 48). There is some indirect evidence suggesting that cremation was practiced among commoners as well. For example, poems by Kakinomoto Hitomaro in Man’yōshū, the oldest anthology of poems in Japan, are said to describe the smoke coming from a funeral pyre (Shintani 1986, 184). At least until the Meiji period (1868–1912), there was no simple relationship between earth burial and cremation that would suggest the replacement of one by the other over time (Inokuchi 1979, 43; Koizumi 2004, 8). In a single community, cremation may have been the dominant practice during the Middle Ages (from the Kamakura to the Muromachi periods), with earth burial being adopted later (Katsuda 2006, 132). But it is not unusual for archaeological surveys to reveal that cremation and earth burial coexisted during the same historical period or even in a single Buddhist temple’s graveyard (Koizumi 2004). Though it is beyond the scope of this chapter to review the vast history of cremation and burial, it is worth emphasizing the following points. First, cremation was common in the areas where Shin Buddhism predominated (Asaka and Yagisawa 1990, 46; Inokuchi 1979, 39) because Shinran, its founder, urged his followers


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to adopt cremation, and it spread among them (Asaka and Yagisawa 1990, 45–46).3 Second, political and religious ideologies heavily influenced the practice among the ruling class. Though cremation was popular among the ruling elites in early Japan, during the Edo period it was banned in some regions dominated by Shinto, Confucian, and national studies scholars, who condemned cremation as a barbaric foreign practice and encouraged people to choose burial (Asaka and Yagisawa 1990, 46; Bernstein 2006).4 Since the modern period, Meiji state policies have played a significant role in regulating and spreading cremation. Interestingly, the Meiji government, strongly influenced by Shinto leaders, banned the practice between 1873 and 1875 (Asaka and Yagisawa 1990, 58). When establishing its authority in its early phase, the Meiji state vigorously campaigned to weaken Buddhist influences and promote new national ideologies based on a reinterpretation of Shinto. Before the Meiji period, the blending of Buddhist and Shinto traditions had continued for centuries, with Buddhism given a more dominant position in society. Meiji state leaders took a number of measures to separate the two traditions and tried to recover the pure, indigenous tradition of Shinto before it became “contaminated” by Buddhism; in this process of recovery Shinto was re-created. One such effort to influence the public was the development of Shinto funerals based upon ancient Shinto and Confucian texts (Bernstein 2006, 41). To the state leaders who promoted Shinto funerals over “foreign” Buddhist mortuary practices, the latter were considered barbaric because cremation destroys a deceased person’s body. The early Meiji state’s policy to force people to bury the dead met with great resistance not only from cremation specialists but also from the public (74, 76–82). Though the majority of the population practiced burial rather than cremation, cremation was an established practice in a number of urban centers and in regions strongly influenced by Shin Buddhism. Furthermore, practically speaking, there were not enough cemeteries to bury the dead in urban areas. Amid much confusion and debate, opponents of burial attacked the government for allowing people to be exposed to the danger of rotting corpses. The opponents eventually prevailed, and the two-year ban on cremation was lifted. After that, the state passed a series of laws that promoted cremation and standardized the disposition of dead bodies. For example, the Contagious Disease Prevention Law, established in 1897, obliged people to cremate the bodies of those who died of contagious diseases (Mori 1993b, 149–150). Cremation was promoted as a sanitary practice preventing the spread of epidemics and was therefore seen as more “advanced” and mod-


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ern than burial. The spread of cremation, then, can be seen as a triumph of a modern discourse of the dead based upon public health. Despite the redefinition of cremation as modern, the practice did not replace burial overnight. In 1930 slightly more than half of the dead were still being buried (Seikatsueiseihōki Kenkyūkai 2002, 230–233). It was not until 1940 that cremation became slightly more common than burial. In fact, national cremation rates started to climb rapidly in the latter half of the Shōwa period (1926–1989). Today, in most areas of Japan, earth burial is prohibited and more than 99 percent of human remains are cremated. Interment is customary but not legally required. And this is where the GFPS comes in by promoting an alternative to interment.

Stone Structures and the Dead The scattering of ashes through the GFPS involves the building of no stone structures, except when a portion of the ashes is interred in a grave. To many contemporary Japanese, the interment of remains and the establishment of a stone memorial structure are inseparable acts. Hearing about the scattering of ashes, many outsiders ask, “Where does one go to venerate the deceased if there is no grave?” Although it is now normative to inter the remains of the dead under a gravestone, a stone structure was not commonly built at burial or interment sites for ordinary people until at least the late Edo period. And in many parts of Japan, temporary wooden grave markers were used rather than gravestones. There are early (mid-ninth-century) examples of stone stupas at burial sites (Shintani 1986, 233), though these were not gravestones to mark the interment or burial sites. The building of stupas had become more common by the mid-Heian period, and sutras were often placed inside the stupa to express the builder’s wish to obtain a range of benefits—a long life, the restoration of health, the elimination of sin, and rebirth into a Buddhist paradise (234–235). During the first half of the Middle Ages, commoners did not always bury the dead; the upper class was having grand funerals performed and having the deceased cremated or buried (Katsuda 2006, 29). Commoners sometimes left a corpse on the street, at the riverbank, or at places designated for doing so. There were still no clear signs of a community-based network to handle the corpse and send the dead to the otherworld. While leaving the deceased body on a riverbank or in designated places was not in itself a violation of social and ritual order, it was considered an inferior method of handling a body, generally appropriate only for the poor, the executed,


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infants, and those without family (40–41). It is critical not to equate the act of leaving the deceased’s body unburied in the above context with the utilitarian, secular act of “throwing away” an unwanted object as garbage in today’s Japan. Only coresident kin seemed to have been allowed to handle the deceased’s body, whereas non-kin avoided handling the body for fear of ritual pollution (29–31). Although the concept of pollution functioned to prevent non-kin from handling a body, burying the family dead in the residential compound, which was practiced during the first half of the Middle Ages, was not seen as ritually unclean (88). Archaeological surveys reveal that the roots of community cemeteries date back to the Middle Ages (Katsuda 2006, 2). Between the latter half of the twelfth century and the thirteenth century, community cemeteries, used by multiple communities or villages, began to appear across the nation (132). Stone stupas were uncommon, and burial coexisted with the practice of leaving the deceased’s body unburied in the cemetery. Until at least the fourteenth century, burying a deceased’s remains and building a pagoda were two separate acts. After the fourteenth century, these acts, which are inseparable today, became intimately tied together to form a unified mortuary process (Suitō 1991, 180). Nevertheless, even after they became intimately connected, building a stone pagoda was a religious act rather than one marking the location of the deceased’s remains. It was considered a way of doing a good deed to form a connection to the Buddha (61–62). Furthermore, stone pagodas were built not only to venerate the deceased but also to protect people from disasters and illnesses, to pray for the well-being of the nation, or to pacify evil spirits (69–70). Therefore, it makes sense that in some cases multiple stone structures were built for one deceased person (156); such structures were not grave markers. Between the latter half of the Middle Ages and the Edo period, village-specific cemeteries began to develop (Katsuda 2006, 132), along with a community-based network to handle funerals (311). During the Edo period, the public also began adopting the practice of building stone structures at cemeteries (Katsuda 2006, 18; Shintani 1986, 241), though the shapes of these structures varied greatly. Rather than being placed as grave markers, these stone structures were built to venerate the deceased or to enable the builder to be reborn into a Buddhist paradise. In the latter case, the builder had the structure built while he or she was alive. Another major development during this period was that people began to have the deceased’s posthumous names, Buddhist names commonly given to the deceased, inscribed on these monuments, thereby linking the structures to specific individuals (Shintani 1986, 243).


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Despite the widespread use of these stone structures by the Edo period, the processes of disposing of the deceased’s remains were far from uniform. For example, class made a difference. For instance, in Edo (later Tokyo), postwar archaeological surveys revealed that shoguns’ remains were interred at Zōjōji Temple in an underground stone structure that had an elaborate aboveground pagoda (Nishiki 1999, 9–10). Meanwhile, commoners’ remains were placed in simple wooden coffins, earthenware, or ceramic urns, or were buried without coffining (7–8). The city of Edo had multiple burial sites; some had elaborate stone structures maintained by the shogunÂ� ate and high-class families, while others remained unmarked. Unmarried wage laborers were likely to receive simple burials, and their remains were sometimes soon dug up to accommodate newcomers (129). Although the dead may have initially been buried under a stone monument, the grave might be abandoned later and the gravestone recycled once the family could no longer pay for the veneration of the dead. Some temples even placed a notice at their cemetery that a grave would be demolished without notification if no donations were made for three years (Nishiki 2004, 186). Of course, Edo was a unique urban center, yet it is important not to idealize the past. We should not assume that, in those days, people led “traditional” lives and thus no graves were abandoned. Today, though the media reports that the nuclear-family system and increased mobility in Japan’s urban society lead to more graves being deserted, the abandonment of graves is not an entirely new phenomenon.

Graves and Cemeteries during the Meiji Period The Meiji period saw the imposition of new, national-level policies that greatly increased the state’s control over deceased persons’ bodies and encouraged the standardization of their treatment. In particular, the state encouraged people to honor the remains of the dead forever, favoring their permanent preservation and monumentalization. Such attitudes toward the dead undermined the existing practices of temporary veneration and the recycling of a burial or interment space and monuments to accommodate newcomers. In 1884 the state established a series of laws concerning burial and graves, setting national standards for the definition of a grave and regulating disposal. These laws reflect the state’s practical and ideological concerns. People were required to obtain government permission in order to build a cemetery or expand it (Mori 1993a, 213), and only in a cemetery could remains be buried or interred (1993b, 171). The state excluded


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cemeteries from taxable lands and defined a grave as a pure place for the deceased’s remains. It also defined graves as loci of veneration and encouraged people to treat them with respect, which explains the policy of discouraging reburial (158–160). The state’s emphasis on the importance of permanently preserving and honoring the deceased’s remains was backed by ideals of filial piety. And this emphasis on the reverent preservation of remains was in part an assault on Buddhist cremation (Bernstein 2006, 71). Meiji state policies collided with the diverse burial customs practiced across the nation. For example, due to public health and taxation concerns, people were prohibited from burying the deceased on the land they owned, in their fields, or in their residential compounds. Such practices were not uncommon at the time the Meiji burial and cremation laws were established (Mori 1993a, 205; 1993b, 79–84; Takatori 1979, 121). The state also rejected the double-grave system, in which people maintained two graves, one for burying the remains of the dead, the other for ceremonial purposes (e.g., see Mogami 1963). According to the state’s definition, the latter was not legally a grave, and the state encouraged people to treat burial sites as ceremonial sites (Mori 1993a, 208). In some areas where the Ōtani school of Shin Buddhism predominated, people maintained no graves or cemeteries in their communities, as they brought the family remains to their family temple and the head temple (Higashi Honganji Temple) (1993b, 125). As Meiji state policies spread, people began building graves in these areas (125–128). The Meiji laws concerning burial and graves, therefore, officially standardized the meaning of the deceased’s remains (something to be honored and preserved) and the definition of a grave (the place where the deceased’s remains are located). The Meiji Civil Code (1898) also nurtured the idea that a grave is a place where the remains of the dead are eternally preserved. The code stipulated that graves were indivisible ceremonial assets inherited by the successor of a stem family. A stem family, as defined by the Meiji Civil Code, was a legal unit that should continue eternally, and graves became symbols of these continuing stem families. However, having a family grave housing the remains of multiple generations belonging to the same stem family was uncommon among the public during the Meiji period. More commonly, people maintained multiple graves for individual stem-family members. Not only ordinary people, but also some of the leaders drafting the Meiji Civil Code, wondered if a grave should always be a stem family’s corporate property. According to Mori (1993a, 223–225), there were disagreements regarding whether it was appropriate to make the succession of all graves


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the privilege of the successor (Article 973 in the draft, later enforced as Article 987). One opponent, for example, contended that it was against convention for the head of the household to inherit all the graves within the stem family, and he believed it was commonsensical for (multiple) children to inherit parents’ assets. In fact, in some regions of Japan, it was not unusual to divide ceremonial duties between the successor and a nonsucceeding child and to hold the father’s memorial rites at the home of the main stem family and the mother’s at the home of a branch family (227; 1993b, 201). Article 987 thus redefined a grave as embodying the essence of a stem family’s continuity. Meiji policies thus established a national-level discourse about what a grave is, stressing its eternity over temporality, fixity over fluidity, and the primacy of the stem family over the individual. These state policies are more fully understandable when we place them in the context of broader national priorities to build a modern, centralized state as the nation faced the threat of Western colonial power. Statistically speaking, nuclear-family households, rather than three-generational ones, were the more common household configuration in the prewar period. Some 55 percent of the households were reported to be nuclear-family households in 1920 (see Atō 2002, 271, Table 8–2). In the rapidly industrializing nation, the population was increasing, and urbanization saw many new conjugal families set up in cities. As a number of scholars have pointed out (Kondo 1990, 160–170; White 2002, 45–48), the legal family system known as ie seido was a state’s strategic creation. Yet it was not made completely from scratch but rather by selectively normalizing certain preexisting ideas of descent and succession associated with some segments of the society and then adding new elements. In this process, the state revived the archaic notion of a samurai family, which did not straightforwardly mirror the existing idea of family among the public. The stem-family system was established partly to allow the state to take control of enduring institutions, or stem families, rather than individual subjects who come and go. In light of Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined community, the Meiji Civil Code, and in particular Article 987, can be seen as central in the state’s imagining of a nation consisting of eternal families.5 A grave as an inheritable, indivisible ceremonial asset was made the symbol of an eternal family, something to be inherited by the successor for generations. In this sense, the legal ie system and Article 987 were the state’s apparatus for reifying and sanctifying the nation’s eternity.6 The grave became the symbol of this modern desire for eternity in times of dramatic change.


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The Birth and Development of a Modern Family Grave The practice of inscribing a family name on a gravestone, referring to it as a grave of that family, and interring in it the remains of people bearing the same family name is relatively new in the history of mortuary structures in Japan (Makimura 1996, 111). Though no systematic empirical national studies are available, scholars estimate that the earliest family graves appeared sometime in the late Edo period (1600–1867), and that it was after the middle of the Taishō period (1912–1926) that the family grave gradually penetrated various areas of Japan (Fujii 1993, 17–18; Iwata 2006, 70, 81–82), becoming the norm in the Shōwa period (1926–1989) (Fujii 1993, 18; Makimura 1996, 112).7 There are great variations in the dates when this modern family grave appeared in individual communities, though it became more common as time went by. Makimura (1996, 57–60) reports that in a long-standing village cemetery in Nara prefecture the earliest family grave dates to 1914. At her research site, gravestones from earlier periods often bear the deceased’s posthumous names or mantras, with most of the gravestones being for individuals or couples. Mori (1993b, 103) reports that in an old village community in Nara the oldest family grave was built in 1923, while such graves became common in the Shōwa period. These observations are consistent with the overall pattern of adopting the family grave that I observed during my fieldwork (2002–2004) at sixteen research sites across Japan, where I examined both urban and rural sites in the eight major regions. Though I did not find any gravestones bearing family names from the Edo period, gravestones bearing family names did become more popular later, particularly during the Shōwa and the Heisei (1989–) periods. Meanwhile, gravestones bearing individuals’ or couples’ posthumous names were comparatively more common during the Meiji period.8 What factors encouraged the spread of family graves? It is not easy to give a single reason that modern family graves gained popularity and proliferated among the public, partly because the adoption of family graves did not occur at the same time in every community in Japan. Nevertheless, scholars emphasize that a shortage of land for building cemeteries in urban areas and the diffusion of the practice of cremation facilitated the spread of family graves (Fujii 1993, 17; Iwata 2006, 121–122; Kōmoto 2001, 61–62; Mori 1993b, 113). Rarely examined empirically, however, is the relationship between people’s stem-family consciousness and the spread of family graves. Did the graves become popular because people felt a growing sense


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of stem-family consciousness after the legalization of the stem-family system during the Meiji period? My short answer is that in some, but not all, cases, it was a factor. In Makimura’s aforementioned study (1996, 60), the idea of family rank played a role in the development of family-based grave plots, at least at her research site. At that site, wooden grave markers were commonly used rather than gravestones, and the oldest gravestone (made of natural stone) dated to 1803. The deceased, as individuals, were forgotten as the markers rotted after about fifty years or so. The burial spaces were not tied permanently to the individuals buried there, and the use of biodegradable wooden markers is consistent with the practice of burying the dead in the empty areas of their communal cemetery, where a fixed site for each family was not established. In the late Meiji and the Taishō periods, it was mainly powerful families who expressed their interest in building grand, elaborate graves and began to claim their family’s grave plot in the expanded region of the cemetery. One of these families now maintains a family grave and multiple wooden grave markers on their family grave plot. Therefore, a family’s rank played a role in the development of family-based grave plots, though it is still not clear if this element was central to the adoption of the family grave. The diffusion of the ie ideology alone could not have facilitated the adoption of family graves in all communities. In fact, in some cases, the transition to family graves occurred much later; for example, in the postwar period, after the ie system had been abolished. Tanaka Masako (1993, 192) reports that in a small island community in Mie prefecture most family gravestones were established after the 1950s, while the majority of gravestones in this community were established for individuals or couples.9 In his study of a community in Okayama prefecture, Kōmoto states that the transformation in his site occurred after 1960 (2001, 61–62). In 2003 I observed the process of conversion to family graves on the outskirts of Tokyo. People were tidying up the older cemeteries by collecting the individual- and couple-based gravestones scattered around the cemetery and establishing family-based grave plots. Families that had been around for generations established new family graves in the middle of their plots, surrounding them with gravestones for individuals. At this field site, an informant explained to me that the older gravestones were erected when people practiced burial, and in those days people buried the dead in an empty area of the cemetery rather than maintaining family-based plots (see Figure 2). A family grave equipped with a stone interment space is a contemporary product, and it must be examined as such (Iwata 2006, 82).


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Figure 2. â•‡ A new family grave (center), surrounded by older gravestones bearing the posthumous names of the deceased (Satsuki Kawano)

Although the adoption of cremation usually precedes the establishment of a family grave, cremation does not require a family grave. In some cases, a family grave may be established to cope with the waning sense of ie consciousness or to instill such consciousness in younger generations. In his study of a small town consisting of some six hundred households near the Mizushima Industrial District between 1975 and 1976, Kōmoto Mitsugi (2001, 64–65) found that family graves were established to facilitate ritual care in areas of high mobility. Cremation was introduced here in 1953. During the 1960s some people began switching from individual- and couple-based graves to family graves (62). With limited cemetery space and economic resources (it is less expensive to have one grave for many family members), people saw a family grave as a way of lessening the burden of maintenance on descendants. Since the transition to family graves did not occur in neighboring communities with similarly tight cemetery space, Kōmoto suggests that a shortage of cemetery space was not the key factor determining establishment of a family grave. Instead, high mobility at his research site led older generations to simplify the maintenance of graves so that the younger generations, living away from the community or planning to move out of the area, would be able to continue to care for the graves


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without difficulty. In this case, the family grave was an adaptation facilitating continued ritual care by linking migrants and their ancestral graves (66; cf. Bloch 1971). Considering that in some areas family graves did not gain popularity until after World War II, it is unlikely that the transition to family graves was everywhere caused by the state-imposed stem-family ideology. Rather than seeing Article 987 in the Meiji Civil Code as causing the transition from individual and couple-based graves to family graves, Mori (1993b, 185) contends that once a family grave was established, it concretized the stemfamily ideology embodied in the article.10 Legally, it became an inheritable, indivisible ceremonial asset.11 The spread of the modern family grave was accompanied by several other changes. As the grave increasingly grew to be a place where generations of family members were buried together, gravestones lost their Buddhist iconographies, stupas, and mantras, which were replaced by family crests (Fujii 1993, 18). Without religious iconographies, graves were no longÂ�er religious sites expressing the bereaved’s wish for the deceased’s rest in a Buddhist paradise. Rather, people increasingly came to conceptualize the grave as a house of the dead, or a place where the deceased “sleep,” which must be preserved as long as possible. At the same time, gravestones with inscriptions replaced natural stones and perishable wooden grave markers. For example, Takeda Chōshū reports that in a village community in a mountainous region near Kyoto, gravestones became popular during and after the Meiji period (1979, 352–353; see also Uwai 1979, 278–279). The development of a modern family grave, therefore, was a process of turning religious spaces into permanent homes for the family dead.

Urbanization and the Shortage of Cemeteries The Meiji ideology of eternally preserving the deceased’s remains was fundamentally incompatible with the ongoing structural changes in Japanese society during and after the Meiji period: population growth, urbanization, and increased mobility in an industrializing nation. If people do not recycle cemetery spaces, they will sooner or later face a shortage in expanding urban centers. The contradiction between the state’s intention to preserve graves and the need to redevelop urban areas to advance industrialization was already evident by the late nineteenth century. In fact, to use urban spaces efficiently in Tokyo, graveyards were moved away from city centers to make room for roads and railways in the 1880s (Bernstein 2006, 121). Subsequent years saw continuous population pressure on limited urban


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cemetery spaces and the construction of new cemeteries on the outskirts of cities, pushing new cemetery spaces farther and farther from city centers. By 1919, for example, there was no more space in the Tokyo cemeteries and a large landscaped cemetery was established in Tama in 1923 (Makimura 1996, 120–123). The cemetery included trees, flower gardens, and pathways to create a beautiful park-like setting, distinguishing it significantly from the dark, crowded urban cemeteries typically found within city limits. After the Tama cemetery was built, more park-like public cemeteries were constructed on the outskirts of Tokyo and other major cities, such as Yokohama and Osaka. A shortage of cemeteries in urban areas became a more serious problem in postwar Japan by the 1970s, leading to the intensified commercialization of cemetery spaces (Makimura 1996, 133). In the middle of the 1950s, approximately 30 percent of the population lived in cities, but by the early 1960s city dwellers represented approximately 70 percent of the population (Fujii 1993, 8). To meet the needs of expanding urban centers, private companies and Buddhist institutions developed a number of large-scale, for-profit cemeteries (Makimura 1996, 136–137). By the 1970s cemeteries were increasingly built away from residential areas, often on hillsides outside large cities. The development of large-scale, suburban cemeteries severed people’s territorial ties with cemeteries (139). As high rises developed in urban areas, families who maintained no territorial, religious, or kinship ties among themselves came to use these cemeteries that were filled with rows of mass-produced, uniform family graves.

Postwar Development Rapid postwar recovery and economic prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s brought many people from rural areas to cities. The majority of these newcomers found jobs and established conjugal families in urban areas, leaving their siblings and their aging parents, in addition to their family’s grave, in the countryside. With the expansion of urban centers, postwar Japan saw the spread of new urban middle-class ideals such as earning a university degree, becoming a salaryman (or marrying one), having two children, and buying a new home in a suburb. During this period, most people had many siblings, and only one had to live with the aging parents and care for the ancestral or the parents’ grave. Meanwhile, those who established conjugal families in urban areas had to establish graves for their own remains. It was the expanding suburban cemeteries that provided these new urbanites with homes after death. Like buying a house, obtaining a grave was a middle-


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class achievement in this context.12 A GFPS member in his early seventies recalled: “One day, my senior colleague, who was about to retire, told me that he worked hard, bought a house, and built a grave. He asked me if I had done the same. I had not acquired a grave, and I felt ashamed.” Along with getting a good salaried job and a house, establishing a grave defined this man’s sense of success. Why did a family grave become more popular in postwar Japan, even though the stem-family system had been abolished after World War II? It is because new urbanites found new meanings in a family grave as a place where they would be buried with their spouse and child. These grave buyers, therefore, held a future-oriented perspective on family (Makimura 1996, 42–44; Mori 1993b, 226–227). Individual grave buyers might or might not have purchased their grave because they imagined generations of their descendants being buried there someday. Depending on their family composition and history, it is quite possible that they had different levels of stem-family consciousness. Some people may have thought about future continuity in their stem family, while others may have thought about future generations in a more general sense. Considering that the norm in those days was to marry and have children, it makes sense that these new urbanites would imagine their children caring for their future place of rest. It was thus important to choose a place convenient for survivors to visit. Beyond seeing their future in a grave, new grave owners felt a sense of relief and security, rather than sadness about being close to the end of life. I have heard people who have acquired graves say that now they can die without worries. In a way, obtaining a grave is like making a reservation at a good hotel before taking a trip or buying a house in the new town to which you will be transferred. By buying a grave ahead of time and knowing where one will be buried, a person gains not only a sense of pride but also of certainty. The establishment of a family grave gave people a sense of settling down in the urban areas to which these postwar migrants had moved. A family grave might thus symbolize putting down roots in a new place, thereby contributing to the increase of family graves in postwar Japan, where the state no longer presupposed eternity in families.

The 1990s and Beyond: Reintroducing Diversity The 1990s saw currents shifting against the standardization of mortuary practices and the spread of family graves after the Meiji period. The structural shifts that led to diversifying mortuary practices coincided with changes in employment and consumption patterns associated with the


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decade-long recession, which made it harder for people to follow a path to middle-class success. Severe economic conditions also led to the reevaluation of a middle-class lifestyle that was costly in many ways. To be successful, a salaryman had to totally devote himself to work, which took away from his personal time and weakened his marital and family ties. As the number of temporary workers increased and replaced full-time career-track employees, an alternative consciousness developed in some workers, who came to value freedom, choice, flexibility, and self-expression more than a middle-class lifestyle (e.g., Mathews 2003). And these new values of choice, flexibility, and self-expression also emerged in the world of mortuary practices. Along with the extensive recession, increased mobility and demographic shifts threatened the continuity of a family grave. For a long time, a shortage of graves had been one of the biggest problems with cemeteries. As the 1998 national survey indicates, however, people are increasingly concerned with not being able to secure a dependable caretaker for their grave (Mori 1998). Some people have no descendants to tend family graves, while others do not want to depend on their children, especially children unsuited to be caretakers (see chapters 1 and 5). As people coped with changing demographic contexts characterized by declining birthrates, rising divorce rates, and postponed marriages, alternatives to family graves flourished during the 1990s. For a family grave to last, it requires that a family have a married descendant in every generation, preferably a son who marries and lives relatively close to the grave to facilitate its maintenance. In other words, the family-grave system presupposes the permanent upkeep of a fixed memorial site by kin. In contrast, the new practices that have spread rapidly during and after the 1990s involve sites that are maintained for only a limited period, enable the provision of care by non-kin, or allow more flexible inheritance among kin. Some of these sites require no maintenance. In other words, alternative ways of managing continuity have been developed in a world still dominated by family graves. Graves with permanent ritual care (eitai kuyōbo), for example, provide memorial spaces for a limited time and ceremonial care by non-kin. They were first developed in the late 1980s and spread to many parts of Japan during the 1990s (H.â•›Inoue 2003; Kawano 2003; Kōmoto 2001, 66–67; Rowe 2003). In this system, people unrelated by kinship or territorial ties are buried in the same structure or the same section of a cemetery, and individual gravestones identify their graves in the latter case. Unlike family graves, which presuppose the eternal continuity of the family line, require annual fees, and necessitate ceremonial care for generations, eitai kuyōbo typically involve only individual membership and a one-time fee. They may also receive veneration


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and care, often from religious institutions, for a limited period of time. Eitai kuyōbo, therefore, help people cope with a shrinking pool of successors by reducing the duration of memorial care and by relegating care provision to non-kin, such as religious organizations. Having double-family graves and gravestones without family names inscribed on them are also strategies to deal with a dearth of grave successors in contemporary Japan. Double-family graves bear two family names, that of the husband’s family and that of his wife’s natal family, on a single gravestone with a single interment structure. This grave can therefore accommodate both of the couple’s natal families (see H.â•›Inoue 2003). Such a grave is a possible solution for an only child who marries an only child. Not inscribing family names on gravestones is another strategy for accommodating kin bearing different family names. Fujii (1993, 20) reports the increasing popularity of new-style gravestones inscribed with ideographs instead of family names. These gravestones, for example, exhibit such ideographs as those representing silence, purity, love, emptiness, dream, sleep, heart, light, truth, and peace. Using double-family graves and gravestones without family names are strategies for maintaining the kin-based succession of a grave by relaxing common rules favoring the interment of kin bearing the same family name. The scattering of ashes is another new alternative to interment. Unlike other alternatives, ash scattering was promoted and practiced mainly by the Grave-Free Promotion Society as a citizens’ movement. In 1990 Yasuda Mutsuhiko, the founder of the GFPS, conceived the idea of a natural mortuary practice (shizensō). At the time, Yasuda-san was working as a freelance journalist specializing in water-conservation issues (Yasuda 2000, 215–217). One day, he received a letter from his friend living in Yamanashi prefecture warning Yasuda-san about a development project in its forest region, a source of drinking water for Tokyo. The letter described a plan to build a resort facility to revitalize depopulated communities in the area. Yasuda-san visited the region and discovered that these people still buried the dead without cremating them. The rain ran down the Tama River, was collected, and was then processed and turned into drinking water for Tokyo. The fact that burials were still occurring in this region made a strong impression on Yasuda-san. During an interview, I asked him how he came up with the idea of shizensō. When he was investigating the development project in Yamanashi, Yasuda-san was thinking about death because a friend of his had recently passed away. He said, “This friend wanted to have his ashes scattered, rather than having them interred in a grave.” Yasuda-san saw his friend’s ashes collected at a crematorium and learned that, in the western


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region of Japan, only a small portion of remains was collected in an urn and that the remainder was thrown away as waste (219–220). Yasuda-san thought, “Why not scatter ashes of the deceased in forests?” His reasoning was that, if the water Tokyoites drink comes from the region where burial is common, and if there is no concern about that drinking water being sanitary, it must also be accepted as sanitary to have cremated remains scattered in the same region. Yasuda-san also wondered why the interment of ashes was the standard mortuary practice in Japan, whereas in other nations people could scatter them (220). He realized that there was no freedom of choice in mortuary practices in Japan. Yasuda-san cofounded the GFPS in 1991 with several other people, not only to perform scattering ceremonies for its members but also to promote people’s freedom to choose an alternative to interment in a family grave. The scattering of ashes is a strategy characterized by fluidity, since ash scatterers maintain no specific scattering places as memorial sites—they can be located at sea or on a mountain. Thus this system neither presupposes nor necessitates kin-based succession and the care of a memorial place. However, ash scatterers do not abandon ceremonial care for the deceased (Kawano 2004). At first glance, because of the absence of a fixed memorial site outside the home, the scattering of ashes seems vastly different from other interment strategies. Yet ash scatterers do maintain diverse memorial practices characterized by flexible memorial care for the deceased. For example, some survivors conduct conventional Buddhist memorial rites for the deceased and enshrine the deceased’s ancestral tablets at domestic altars. Others informally memorialize the deceased at home by displaying their photographs without ancestral tablets or Buddhist altars. Still others hold gatherings with kin at restaurants to remember the deceased on the anniversary of their death. Though ash scatterers often continue kin-based ceremonial care when possible, they also relegate part of the care to nature, thereby decreasing the ceremonial and financial responsibilities imposed upon survivors. Embraced by Mother Nature, the deceased whose ashes were scattered are thought to rest in peace, sometimes turning into new forms of life, such as trees, plants, and fish. Rather than establish a permanent memorial site or imagine ritual care provided by generations of descendants, ash scatterers express their sense of continuity after death through the idea of returning to nature. Interment in graves with permanent ritual care (eitai kuyōbo) and scattering ashes do not presuppose the continuity of the stem family; the latter does not even involve the maintenance of a fixed, permanent memorial site. Although these new practices have certainly departed from family graves,


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they do not assume that the deceased will disappear completely. In the case of eitai kuyōbo, people see a sense of continuity in the network of non-kin and expect continued veneration in the hands of religious specialists for perhaps thirty-three or fifty years after their deaths. With the scattering of ashes, on the other hand, people consider nature as the eternal, benevolent force that nurtures the dead. With scattering, the dead will become one with nature, rather than completely vanishing from the universe. Graves without family names allow their users to preserve the memorial site and widen the scope of potential grave successors bearing different family names. All these new practices that blossomed during the 1990s are thus ways of managing the continued presence of the deceased in new ways, with or without trying to preserve the memorial site eternally. The establishment of a family grave as an inheritable, indivisible ceremonial asset was the state’s way of imagining the eternity of families and the nation; now people themselves are seeking new ways of managing their continuities. In doing so, they have reincorporated temporality, fluidity, and flexibility into mortuary practices, thereby encouraging diversity. The trend since the 1990s thus challenges the homogenization of mortuary practices promoted by the Meiji state and strengthened in postwar Japan. Choosers of new burial practices often express their desire to “take care of their endings” or to “clean up after” themselves (jibun no ato shimatsu). Some of these people are childless or permanently single, yet, interestingly, others have children, even sons (this is also the case with some users of graves with permanent ritual care; see H.â•›Inoue 2003, 231–232; Rowe 2006, 146). But, in some cases, they feel that these sons have no prospect of marrying, lead transient lives, or are undependable as future caretakers of graves. Therefore, the trend of “taking care of one’s own mortuary practice” should not be considered as limited to people without sons. Although the practical issue of determining one’s own death rite is important, the desire for expressing the deceased-to-be’s individual characteristics also shapes one’s mortuary strategy (Mori 2000, 190–193; Rowe 2003). Though expressing one’s preferred mortuary practice in a will is not a new phenomenon, the context in which it is occurring is new. “Dying in one’s own way” (sono hito rashii saigo) is a phrase frequently used to describe the trend of dramatizing individualities through mortuary practices. Reflecting this emphasis on deceased-centeredness, funerals today are conducted as occasions for celebrating the deceased’s individual lives (Suzuki 1998). Altar decorations at funerals have changed accordingly (S.â•›Yamada 2007); rather than using conventional wooden funeral altars with religious iconographies evoking a Buddhist paradise, contemporary fresh-flower altars are


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employed and the deceased’s accomplishments in this world are emphasized, so that the funeral altar no longer defines the ritual occasion as the deceased’s departure to the otherworld (307–308). Before the 1990s, there had already developed a trend to pre-purchase a grave and build a space for monumentalizing oneself and one’s own life (see Fujii 1993, 21). Prepurchasing a grave before death is even more common today. Furthermore, people express personal feelings of closeness and distance by choosing with whom they want to be buried. More people are reportedly requesting to be buried with a spouse, or separately from their spouse, and some wives who are unhappy with their spouses reject their husbands’ family graves as their homes after death and wish to get “divorced after death” (H.â•›Inoue 2003, 119–201, 221). Some women, therefore, express their sense of individuality and self-sufficiency after death by choosing to have their remains interred in eitai kuyōbo. The scattering of ashes is also considered an expression of the deceased’s individuality, partly because it is thought to differ vastly from conventional interment and partly because it is an aesthetic choice made by the deceased-to-be. Often, survivors say that the deceased wanted to “return to nature” because they liked some aspect of nature. For example, informants told me how the deceased had loved hiking or fishing. In these cases, nature suits the deceased as a final destination because of his or her personal attachment to it. Furthermore, the idea of returning to nature is sometimes valued over interment, or “entering a dark, small grave,” as if the deceased would enjoy the beauty of nature by having his or her ashes scattered. By choosing a mortuary practice, a person becomes a planner, producer, and consumer of his or her own imagined death, even though, necessarily, the actual consumption does not occur until the person passes away. The emphasis on consumerism and aesthetics has also been visible in the wider context of memorializing or venerating the dead in contemporary Japan. John Nelson (2008) reports that there is a move to create and market stylish, contemporary domestic altars made in Denmark and Italy by emphasizing customers’ individual preferences and spirituality, rather than by following the guidelines of mainstream Buddhist denominations and producing traditional altars. Some of today’s alternatives to family graves may partly challenge the commercialization of burial space that had intensified in the postwar period. Annonbyō in Niigata prefecture, and Moyai No Hi in Tokyo, for example, are eitai kuyōbo that attempt to foster a sense of solidarity among those who will be buried together. By encouraging their members to particiÂ� pate in a range of events, these alternative interment systems aim to create


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ties beyond family, which contests what Makimura (1996, 139) calls the “urbanization” of cemeteries—a phenomenon in which people without territorial, religious, or social ties are buried together in a remote, suburban cemetery. The GFPS was also developed partly to challenge a trend toward commercialization. The president repeatedly told me that, as members of a citizens’ movement, the bereaved should perform the scattering ceremony without depending on a mortuary specialist. Although some alternatives to family graves oppose commercialization, others are clearly established for profit, thereby promoting the commercial appropriation of new mortuary practices. From the perspective of the cemetery industry, eitai kuyōbo opened up a new market, with these new graves being sold to people who were previously considered second-rate customers and were often unable to buy family graves. Childless couples, the permanently single, and divorced women belong to this category, since family graves were usually sold to married men with descendants who would continue to pay annual fees.13 When a grave is abandoned without succession, it takes time and money for a cemetery provider to rebury the deceased, demolish the stone structure, and resell the plot, though recently this process has been made shorter and less expensive so that cemetery providers can quickly turn over the increasing number of deserted graves (see Seikatsueiseihōki Kenkyūkai 2002, 7, 163–165). Thus, cemetery providers were not eager to sell grave plots to people without successors. However, with the arrival of eitai kuyōbo, childless couples, permanent singles, and divorced women are now potential customers. Furthermore, since the establishment of the GFPS, a number of funeral homes have begun to offer commercialized scattering ceremonies, often closely imitating the ceremony developed by the GFPS. Eitai kuyōbo and ash scattering are much less expensive than a family grave. For example, it costs approximately 100,000 yen (US$1,000) to have a person’s ashes scattered in a collective scattering ceremony conducted by the GFPS. Now, the for-profit industry offers more diverse options to meet the needs of heterogeneous consumers. Therefore, these new alternatives to family graves developed contradictory trends— trends both contesting and further promoting the commercialization of death practices by adding lower-end, practical options that were unavailable in the past. In addition to the for-profit appropriation of new mortuary practices, there has also been a notable Buddhist response to a “natural” mortuary practice promoted by the GFPS (see Rowe 2003, 106–107). The priest Chisaka Genpō of Shōunji Temple in Iwate prefecture initiated a form of burial called jumokusō, or burial in the woods (Chisaka 2003). This type


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of burial, however, involves interring cremated remains in an area legally designated as a cemetery, which differentiates it legally from the ash scattering practiced by the GFPS. In short, the development of new mortuary practices during and after the 1990s has further diversified existing mortuary practices as both religious and non-religious groups have appropriated and modified the new practices.

The Scattering of Ashes Today The scattering of ashes with the GFPS involves cremation of the deceased’s body, which is not an unusual practice in the history of mortuary practices in Japan, as discussed earlier. What is unusual, though not entirely unknown, about the GFPS practice is the secondary mortuary practice: the scattering of pulverized remains. There is some direct and indirect evidence suggesting that ash scattering was practiced in ancient Japan. Man’yōshū, the oldest anthology of poems in Japan, compiled in the mid-eighth century (Varley 2000, 42), contains poems that seem to indicate that ashes were sometimes scattered in a field or on a mountain at the time (Shintani 1986, 184–185). Tanaka Hisao (1979a, 195) reports a case from the Heian period, in which a man had the cremated ashes of the deceased scattered over the Kamo River. Emperor Junna’s case is famous: according to Zoku nihon shoki, in 840 he gave instructions to simplify his mortuary ceremonies and to have his cremated remains pulverized and scattered on a mountain (Shintani 1986, 206) because he believed that if one built a grave, demons might possess it, creating the site of evil influences (Doi and Satō 1979, 24; Shintani 1986, 206). In Emperor Junna’s time it was customary to establish a grave on a mountain for a deceased emperor. Though there was opposition, Emperor Junna’s wish was fulfilled. As these ancient examples of ash scattering differ markedly from the modern practice of preserving and venerating human remains, scholars have debated whether and when Japanese attitudes toward the deceased’s remains changed (see Yamaori 2002). Some scholars note that the scattering of ashes was historically unusual (e.g., see Fujii, Hanayama, and Nakano 1990, 47), though Tanaka Hisao (1979b, 139) suggests that it was common in the past to reverently dispose of the deceased’s remains (iki suru) in remote places. Given our limited archaeological records, it is not easy to estimate how common scattering was. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the idea behind the scattering of ashes for Emperor Junna differs from that of the GFPS, and the argument that the GFPS ideology has directly descended from it is untenable. Though individual members’ beliefs vary, the concept of retribution and


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explicit discussions of spirits and souls are missing from the GFPS ideology. Its rationale is instead partly rooted in the modern discourse of public health: cremated remains are hygienically clean, consisting mostly of calcium. Furthermore, the scattering of ashes practiced by the GFPS is defined as an environmentally friendly mortuary practice. The idea of environmental preservation was certainly not operative when Emperor Junna’s ashes were scattered. It is yet another matter whether the placement of the deceased’s remains in remote locations can be considered the social and symbolic equivalent of present-day ash scattering. Nevertheless, the GFPS’s memorial strategy does share certain similarities with the mortuary traditions that existed before stone grave markers came to predominate. The practices of gradually forgetting the exact burial locations and of venerating the dead by erecting permanent stone structures coexisted in the history of mortuary practices in Japan for a long time, although the standardization and permanent preservation of the burial or interment sites have been encouraged by the state since the Meiji period.14 As we saw earlier in this chapter, stone pagodas were not always built at a burial or interment site until the fourteenth century (Suitō 1991, 180). Archaeological surveys of Edo illustrate that members of the urban underclass were buried without gravestones (Nishiki 1999, 128–129). There is also evidence that people recycled grave plots and gravestones during the Edo period (96–102). Even after that period, when the use of stone grave markers had spread to the public, the practice of using perishable grave markers and the process of gradually forgetting the exact location of burial coexisted. Furthermore, double-grave systems, which were disapproved of by the Meiji state, indicate that the burial site was not always a ceremonial site bearing a permanent grave marker. Bearing this in mind, building no permanent monuments marking the location of remains indicates that the scattering of ashes belongs to a mortuary tradition emphasizing temporality and fluidity rather than one seeking fixity and permanence. The scattering of ashes has been controversial in contemporary Japan partly because those who are not members of the GFPS often assume that ash scatterers conduct no memorial activity for the deceased. This is not the case (Kawano 2004). How common, then, was the separation of a ritual site and an interment or burial site in Japan’s mortuary history? Whether or not burial sites in ancient Japan were, historically, ritual sites for venerating the deceased is still debated. Shintani (1986, 193–195, 198, 201–202) points out that by the late seventh century there are records of placing site keepers at imperial tombs; ancestral tombs, not only of the imperial family but also of other powerful families, were protected and sometimes received


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ritual attention. By the early eleventh century, some aristocrats had begun building structures at their family cemeteries to express their wish that their descendants reach a Buddhist paradise and to pray for their deceased kin (214–216). Meanwhile, the cremated remains of emperors were placed in a small pagoda at a Buddhist temple.15 During the Kamakura (1185–1333), Kenmu Restoration (1333–1336), and Muromachi periods (1336–1573), aristocrats and samurai warriors visited their kin’s graves and performed veneration rites for the deceased (Shintani 1986, 243, 246; Suitō 1991, 22). Warriors built a veneration hall at their cemeteries, some of which later developed into Buddhist temples. While some scholars, like Shintani, trace the historical development of ritual practices at burial sites in ancient Japan, others emphasize a lack of such practices. Tanaka Hisao (1979a), for example, argues that in ancient Japan the corpses were simply placed in remote locations and there was no tradition of venerating the deceased there. Without new historical or archaeological evidence, it is certainly difficult to resolve this controversy. But here we can at least conclude that the custom of visiting an interment or burial site is only one mortuary practice among many in the history of Japan. Compared with the modern tradition of erecting a stone marker at a burial or interment site and preserving that place as a ritual site, the GFPS practice of scattering does seem rather unusual. As we have seen, however, the family grave itself is historically a fairly recent product. The standardization of mortuary practices that we see today also owes much to the Meiji national standards for burial and graves (Mori 1993b, 172). Considering the diversity of mortuary practices in Japan’s long history, it is apparent that the scattering of ashes with the GFPS reincorporates the fluidity, diversity, and temporality of memorial care that had been rejected by the Meiji state and discouraged in postwar society. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the GFPS’s primary intent is to revive an ancient mortuary practice, although it has developed a mortuary practice that partly challenges things modern— in particular, mortuary standards set by the state. By referring to the case of Emperor Junna, who had his ashes scattered, President Yasuda strategically uses the notion of ancient Japanese tradition to legitimize the current GFPS practice and to contest the commonly accepted notion that having a family grave is an old tradition. In a sense, then, the ancient practice of scattering ashes is used to desacralize the Japanese “tradition” of maintaining a family grave. Meanwhile, addressing contemporary issues of environmental preservation, urbanization and mobility, and shrinking families, the GFPS practice arose in and to cope with Japan’s postindustrial society, and qualitatively differs from ancient examples of ash scattering.


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Today’s Diverse Mortuary Scripts In her study of the dying in Japan, Long contends that there are multiple frameworks of meaning and for action in today’s Japan and that there is no single “Japanese” way to die well (Long 2005). The same is true for how to dispose of the deceased’s remains. New alternatives to interment, and the ideologies of deceased-centeredness and increased control, diversified mortuary scripts in Japan rather than replacing and eliminating older ones. Adopting the concept of “cultural script,” used by the British sociologist Clive Seale (1998) and the American anthropologist Susan Long (2005, 64–71), I will examine the multiplicity of narratives concerning disposition and memorial practices. The multiple death scripts in today’s Japan that Long (2005) identified include modern medical dying, revivalist scripts, religious scripts, and anti-revivalist scripts. In the script of modern medical dying, medical specialists, taking a scientific, “objective” approach to the patient’s body, treat the ill, give them professional care, and provide a source of knowledge and authority. The patient is physically dependent on professionals in the process of treatment. In scripts based on Tony Walter’s concept of revivalism (1994), however, it is the patient who ultimately chooses how to die, rather than passively accepting experts’ decisions. Religious scripts in Japan are complex, partly because, in many cases, multiple religious traditions— Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism—blend with “folk” religion in daily life. Buddhist ideas of karma and salvation are part of the religious scripts to some extent, though diverse forms of Buddhism in Japan maintain diverse scripts of dying. The anti-revivalist script in Japan differs from its counterpart in Anglophone societies, discussed in Seale (1998), since people in Japan employ religious scripts to challenge revivalist scripts (Long 2005, 71). The resistance to the revivalist scripts can be seen as the construction of “Japaneseness” and as a strategic challenge to the individualist ideology of the “West.” In the mortuary scripts outlined below, instead of medical authority I consider the involvement of funeral professionals as a source of professional authority over the dead. Beyond the deceased-to-be (instead of “patient”) and family, the community that will be involved in caring for the dead must also be considered. Religious specialists (usually Buddhist, but sometimes Shinto) are central figures in venerating the dead. State policy and public health concerns are also relevant here, as burial, cremation, and interment are regulated at both national and municipal levels.


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The Community Scripts The community, following the custom of the region, takes charge of mortuary ceremonies for the dead and sends the dead to the otherworld. The funeral rites conducted by community members as described in Hikaru Suzuki’s study of the funeral industry in Japan (2000) capture the essence of community scripts. Community members maintain reciprocal relations in preparing corpses, funerals, and food (for ethnographic descriptions, see, e.g., Dore 1987, 197). There are communally shared notions of pollution and taboos concerning the dead. Religious specialists may play roles in the communal rites; thus the community and religious scripts partly overlap. Yet, the central concern of the community scripts is to ensure the well-being of community members by ritually producing a benevolent ancestor and properly handling unusual deaths (so that the dead will not harm the living). Community members handle the deceased’s body and might dig the grave, make funeral decorations, cook ceremonial meals, and prepare offerings. In the ritual process, attempts to resuscitate the dead are first made. Then the ties between the living and the dead are ritually severed. After the funeral and burial (or interment), numerous ancestral rites are conducted, with the help of religious specialists, to transform the dangerous, newly dead into benevolent ancestors. Both families and the community observe the Festival of the Dead. Families within a community may share the same cemetery space and may or may not have family-based grave plots. Territorial ties and ritual ties obligating care of the dead often overlap. The Modern Scripts The commercialization and professionalization of death are characteristic of modern scripts. Rather than community members, it is funeral specialists who have the primary responsibility to arrange funeral ceremonies, providing the bereaved with a specialized knowledge of death that today’s urbanites do not possess (Suzuki 2000). Funeral professionals plan funeral ceremonies appropriate to their clients’ social standing and guide the bereaved through the ritual process. Like hospital patients depending on doctors in the modern script of dying, the bereaved are dependent upon funeral professionals. The Buddhist priest from the deceased’s family temple is usually called upon to perform funerals, but in some cases, funeral specialists introduce a Buddhist priest to the bereaved. The dead are usually cremated, and then the remains are interred in a family grave in a cemetery. The state and municipalities regulate cremation, burial, interment, and cemeteries. Public health regulations define the safe operation of crematoria and the proper disposal of the dead. Bureaucratic


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procedures must be followed to register a death at municipal or community offices. In the case of unusual deaths, medical authorities are called upon to examine the corpse, and the police are notified. The focus of the state and municipalities is on the maintenance of order and people’s health, rather than on the well-being of the deceased. Although it is not a legal requirement, it is common to establish a family grave to inter the remains of multiple family members; the spread of such a modern family grave owes partly to the promotion of cremation. With the commercialization of death, it is not uncommon for people to build their family graves in for-profit cemeteries. Interment is taken for granted, and there is usually little chance for the deceased-to-be to choose an alternate mortuary practice. People buy the right to use a grave plot in a cemetery, often one in a suburban area, which accommodates unrelated families coming from various residential areas. They might also use the services of a Buddhist specialist introduced to them by cemeteries and have him perform an ancestral rite. Enduring reciprocal relations among families, community, and Buddhist institutions cannot be taken for granted. The Religious Scripts There are diverse religious scripts in Japan, though Buddhist ones predominate.16 Shinto is a religious tradition native to Japan that developed over time through its interaction with Confucianism and Buddhism. Conversely, Buddhism, originally introduced to Japan in the sixth century, had already been transformed in China and then further indigenized in Japan. For many centuries political leaders attempted to blend Buddhism and Shinto, leading to the creation of Shinto-Buddhist combinatory paradigms (see Smith 1974). Thus, it is important to keep in mind that religious scripts surrounding the dead in Japan were shaped in a long-standing combinatory tradition until the Meiji state attempted to separate the traditions and restore “pure” Shinto. The state’s attempt to separate the two traditions, however, was not totally successful, and combinatory thinking persists today among many ordinary Japanese. As a result, Shinto and Buddhism remain major ritual traditions in contemporary Japan, with people commonly maintaining both Shinto and Buddhist altars at home and participating in both Shinto and Buddhist rites during their life course (Kawano 2005).17 In this combinatory scheme, Buddhism is often associated with matters of death and the dead, and Shinto with life-cycle rites for the living, though this is not always the case (see van Bremen 1998, 141).


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Although there are variations, in many Buddhist scripts in Japan the newly dead are given posthumous names and guided by a Buddhist priest to reach a Buddhist paradise or other superior realms. The ultimate goals for Buddhists are often said to be the achievement of enlightenment and a release from the cycle of rebirth that is at the core of human suffering. Yet, in Japan, rebirth into a superior realm (ōjō), a step away from enlightenment, is also highly valued. Among a range of superior realms into which a person can be reborn, the pure land, presided over by the Buddha Amida, is one of the most commonly desired destinations for the dead in Japanese Buddhist scripts. Regardless of people’s level of individual belief in Buddhism, the dead are conventionally referred to as buddhas (hotoke), and survivors wish for the deceased’s peaceful rest by stating that they hope the deceased will be reborn in a superior realm. Thus, the dead are usually dressed in traveling clothes and are placed in caskets, indicating that they will journey far to reach a Buddhist paradise (Fujii, Hanayama, and Nakano 1990, 48). Although cremation is often associated with Buddhism, in practice not all Buddhist traditions strictly require people to cremate the dead. In contemporary Japan the dead are cremated, not necessarily because of Buddhist influences but because of the modernist embrace of cremation since the Meiji period (see Bernstein 2006). Among various Buddhist traditions, Shin Buddhism has encouraged cremation for a long time, even before the modernist discourse became widespread, and some Shin Buddhists are known to inter the deceased’s remains at their head temple. Despite some variations, Buddhist rituals are customarily performed every seven days after the person’s death up to the forty-ninth-day (often this is the day of interment); additional memorial rites are carried out to mark the hundredth day after the person’s death, and his or her first, third, seventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, and thirtythird anniversaries of death. In some cases, people conduct rites on the thirty-seventh, forty-third, forty-seventh, and fiftieth anniversaries as well, though forty-third- and forty-seventh-anniversary rites are rare. All these rites are described in manuals, though most people do not perform all of them (Fujii, Hanayama, and Nakano 1990, 128–130, 138). Though it is often said that in Buddhism there are no souls, in many Buddhist scripts parishioners do perform death rituals to accumulate merits; through the ritual act of ekō, the merits are transferred to the family dead (though this is not a tenet of Shin Buddhism) (see Fujii, Hanayama, and Nakano 1990, 57–58). By accumulating merits, parishioners advance their religious careers. Whereas community scripts are more concerned with transform-


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ing the dangerous dead into benevolent ancestors and with protecting the living from potential harm by the dead, Buddhist priests emphasize that ancestral rites are opportunities for people to practice Buddhism rather than to worship ancestors. Buddhist scripts not only define posthumous ritual frameworks but also provide the built structures to house the deceased’s remains. Many Buddhist temples have cemeteries in their compounds for parishioners to establish family graves for their dead. Gravestones often bear inscriptions of Buddhist symbols or concretize Buddhist ideas. For example, tōba (stupas made of wood, commonly placed on grave lots) and gorintō (stupas used as gravestones) express a Buddhist worldview, symbolizing both a person’s body and the Buddha (Fujii, Hanayama, and Nakano 1990, 53–54). Buddhist posthumous names are sometimes inscribed on gravestones’ fronts or sides. Buddhist religious scripts are found not only at cemeteries but also in the home. The deceased’s posthumous Buddhist names are commonly inscribed on ancestral tablets, which are placed on a domestic altar. While community scripts stress that the altar is a place to worship and care for ancestors, Buddhist religious scripts emphasize that the altar is where the Buddha is enshrined. A traditional altar, as opposed to the modern, contemporary altar gaining popularity in recent years, is a repository of Buddhist symbols. “Every single item on the altar—from its main and subordinate images, to its use of color and form to evoke the paradises of the Pure Land or Nirvana, to its array of candles, flowers, incense burners, and iconsâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹is encoded with specific religious or symbolic meanings as well as charged with ritual significance” (Nelson 2008, 313). The altar receives ritual attention regularly and seasonally, during the New Year celebrations, equinoxes, and Festival of the Dead in summer (Smith 1974, 99). In short, despite the fact that ordinary Japanese persons today are seldom well versed in Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist scripts still dominate the rituals and cosmologies concerning the dead and the afterlife. Shinto scripts of the dead are not as visible as Buddhist ones in people’s everyday lives. Rather than being based on unchanged ancient practices, today’s Shinto death rituals owe much to a series of reconfigurations and reinterpretations of ancient texts that occurred much later, and the development of such Shinto scripts was intimately intertwined with the rise of the modern nation–state. In the process of building a modern nation–state, and as part of an early political campaign to weaken Buddhist influence, some Meiji leaders attacked cremation as a “foreign,” barbarous practice tied to Buddhism, and celebrated Shinto scripts as a “native” practice (Bernstein 2006).


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When looking at the sources from which the state’s Shinto scripts were developed, one realizes that ancient texts such as Kojiki and Nihon shoki fail to provide a unified system of guidelines for performing death ceremonies (Bernstein 2006, 42). Shinto funerals that developed during the Meiji period depended heavily on Shinto–Confucian scholars of the seventeenth century and nativist scholars of the eighteenth century who strategically used death practices developed in the Yoshida lineage of Shinto and reinterpreted ancient Shinto and Confucian texts. The Yoshida lineage of Shinto (Yūitsu Shinto) maintained a Shinto version of funerals and the afterlife (as opposed to a Buddhist version), which, however, contained Confucian elements centering on the teachings of filial piety. As a result, despite Meiji leaders’ efforts to lessen foreign influences, the Shinto scripts they promoted remained, ironically, intimately interconnected with Confucian scripts of foreign origin. For example, the Confucian scholar Kumazawa Banzan (1619–1691) saw cremation as a violation of filial piety and urged people to treat their parents’ bodies as if they were alive and to honor their ancestors (Bernstein 2006, 44–45). Rather than abandoning or cremating the bodies of the dead, children should allow them to rest in peace in their coffins. Kumazawa Banzan’s view of cremation resonates with the Meiji state’s initial condemnation of cremation and its endorsement of a reverent attitude toward the remains of the dead. The Meiji state’s early anti-cremation stance led to the development of the first public cemeteries in Tokyo, originally established to promote Shinto funerals and burial and to link public cemeteries and burial. These developments did not catch on, however. Today, cremation is the norm and burial is prohibited in most communities in Japan. Unlike Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines usually lack graveyards for their parishioners in their compounds, which indicates the greater influence that Buddhist scripts continue to maintain over matters of death. I present a summary of death rites described in a Shinto manual (1995, 158–161) published by Jinja Honchō (The Association of Shinto Shrines) for ordinary people; my main concern here is the use of religious scripts by nonspecialists. The manual describes these rites as original, traditional mortuary practices of Japan that disappeared after the spread of Buddhism and were revived during the Meiji period (1995, 156–157). The manual states: “Originally, we Japanese attributed life and death to the work of kami [deities].â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹People seem to have believed that the world of the dead is located somewhere close to where people live, the two worlds were always in contact with each other, and the dead were watching over the living.” There is no mention of a heaven and a hell, rebirth, or a Buddhist paradise.18


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Both Shinto funerals and Shinto death-anniversary rites described in the manual structurally resemble Buddhist ones in many ways, though there are differences as well. When a death occurs, the domestic Shinto altar is covered with a piece of white paper (because death is polluting), the deceased’s body is coffined, and a Shinto priest is called upon. A wake is then held to console the spirit of the deceased. During the senrei sai rite, the deceased’s spirit is transferred onto a tablet (mitamashiro), which will be placed on a temporary altar later. The casket is carried to the funeral site, and a parting ceremony is held. Then the body is cremated and the remains are interred in a grave. The survivors are supposed to make offerings twice a day to the tablet embodying the deceased’s spirit. Additionally, in contrast to the rites held every seven days in Buddhism, rites are supposed to be performed every ten days up to the fiftieth day and are followed by the hundredth-day ritual (Jinja Honchō 1995, 152–153). Upon the first-anniversary rite (or, in some cases, after the fiftieth-day rite), the mitamashiro is transferred from the temporary to the permanent domestic altar for the deceased to become the protector deity of the house, indicating that the deceased has now acquired a stable identity. This shift also signals the end of mourning. A Shinto priest should be called on to conduct a purification rite, and the white paper covering the Shinto altar should be removed. The Shinto manual (Jinja Honchō 1995, 152–153) notes that survivors should conduct the first-, third-, fifth-, tenth-, twentieth-, thirtieth-, fortieth-, fiftieth-, and hundredth-year memorials (thereafter, a rite should be held every hundred years). Ancestors should be honored during the summer Festival of the Dead. The Shinto manual states: “In general the Festival of the Dead is considered a Buddhist ritual for ancestors. However, the Festival of the Dead can also be considered a Japanese traditional ritual for ancestors” (Jinja Honchō 1995, 174). Therefore, although Shinto and Buddhist scripts differ in the practice of bestowing posthumous names, in their beliefs about the location of the otherworld, in the timing of numerous ancestral rites, and in their beliefs about the significance of death pollution, they share a similar structure for transforming the dead into a stable entity: in Buddhist scripts, the deceased often reach a Buddhist paradise; in Shinto scripts, they become the protector deity of the house. The Script of Resistance There are diverse scripts of resistance, and many of them can be considered antimodern scripts. In antimodern scripts, people seek alternatives to conventional commercialized Buddhist funerals and uniform family graves. In the anticommercialization scripts, people seek inexpensive alternatives,


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forgoing or simplifying funerals, and/or establishing no graves. In the anti-professionalization script, the bereaved are expected to take the family dead back into their hands. The deceased-to-be may invent do-it-yourself ceremonies, whether religious or not. In wise-consumer scripts, individuals and/or families make financial choices and spend what they want on funerals and memorials. These scripts overlap with anticommercialization and anti-professionalization scripts, since wise-consumer scripts discourage people from naively accepting the recommendations of professionals in the death industry. Sometimes antimodern scripts are combined with antireligious scripts. People may eschew religious funerals and Buddhist ancestor rites because they are not religious and reject the commercialized Buddhist ceremonial services offered by priests today. In the anti-community script, individuals and/or families resist their community’s control of death practices and strive to shape endings free from social conventions. Anti-community scripts may involve both antimodern scripts and antireligious scripts. Despite the diversity of scripts of resistance, the new mortuary ideologies of deceased-to-be-centeredness and choice are central to them, and GFPS members often combine multiple scripts when explaining their support for scattering ashes. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that autonomy is not always associated with the idea of an independent, isolated individual. As Long (2005) illustrates in her study of end-of-life choices, the family can be seen as an autonomous unit in decision-making processes in Japan. The tendency to consider autonomies beyond the individual in Japan contrasts with the common assumptions in revivalist scripts employed in Anglophone societies, where the association between choice and individual is taken for granted. Though it is easy to tie new mortuary practices to the autonomous individual, the simple individualist–collectivist opposition does not adequately describe the relationship between the scattering of ashes with the GFPS and interment in a “traditional” family grave. In the process of making memorial choices by employing these scripts of resistance, couples, immediate families, or extended families can be units of resistance. Nevertheless, this tendency to consider the autonomy of units consisting of more than just an isolated individual in Japan does not rule out the possibility of individual autonomy in choosing a memorial strategy. This potential led some GFPS members to choose the scattering of ashes, thereby creating antifamily scripts that contest the widely accepted notion that the family is the basic unit of participation in mortuary rites. People in nonnormative family situations may choose the scattering of ashes as an alternative to a family grave. Also, those who are unsatisfied with their fam-


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ily situations may choose the scattering of ashes as a way of escaping oppressive family situations. Singles, divorced women, and wives who are unhappy in their marriages sometimes choose scattering as an act of independence rather than have their remains interred in their natal-family grave or their husband’s family grave. In some cases, an adopted son or daughter chooses scattering to be “free” from their adoptive family in their afterlife. Antifamily scripts are often used by a person who occupies a weak position in a family, having gained the right to interment in a family grave through marriage or adoption, or having lost the right to be interred in a conjugal family grave through divorce and having rejoined the natal family as a returnee. Because more women than men take their spouses’ family names when they marry, a woman is more likely to employ antifamily scripts when choosing to have her ashes scattered. Along with employing the above scripts of resistance, many GFPS members maintain aesthetic scripts and the wish to return to the beauty of nature rather than to descend into small, dark graves. These aesthetic scripts might be combined with environmentalist ones and used to challenge modern scripts. In this context, the scattering of ashes is an environmentally sound method of disposal that contests the development of large-scale, for-profit cemeteries that destroy forests and hills. In short, scripts of resistance celebrate the deceased-to-be’s centrality, but not necessarily the autonomy of an individual, by allowing people to take control of the method of their disposal and memorial. Still, other people resist such scripts of resistance. Resistance to Scripts of Resistance Opponents of new death ideologies sometimes maintain that by giving the deceased-to-be the central role in shaping mortuary practices the wishes and needs of the survivors are undermined. They maintain that the “selfish” choice of an unconventional mortuary practice forces survivors to deal with its practical and social consequences. In fact, survivors sometimes reject the deceased’s wishes on the grounds that such wishes are too disruptive to maintaining social relations for those left behind. Death rites are opportunities to maintain or negotiate a family’s social standing and ties with others, and the exchange of gifts on such occasions is obligatory if a family wishes to maintain its reputation in the Japanese social universe. Gifts given at death rites embody the continuing relationships, whether egalitarian or hierarchical, in the past and present (Rupp 2003, 30), and rejecting the gifts associated with death inevitably comments on and influences the continuity of such relationships (see S.â•›Yamada 2007, 148–149). Therefore,


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if survivors feel that they cannot do without gift-giving, they may decide that the deceased’s demand is unreasonable. One informant told me: “My husband did not want to have a funeral and receive incense money (kōden). Yet, it was not easy to do without it. My sons have obligatory social relations (tsukiai) with their colleagues. Relatives were against the idea of having no funeral. People also gave us incense money, which was hard to refuse.” Death rites are occasions for building and maintaining social ties. Doing away with a funeral could easily imply the rejection of such ties, and it is the survivors who will face criticism from others. Opponents of new death ideologies might employ the “Japanese” conception of morality, which often carries a Confucian flavor, and criticize survivors for their lack of filial piety. Or opponents might simply regret the decline of the “Japanese tradition” of caring for ancestors. In some cases of resistance to scripts of resistance, opponents of new death ideologies say that people today are too individualistic and that the family is “broken,” and they deplore this development. Sometimes the social ills that these opponents perceive are attributed to the influence of Westernization, thereby contrasting the present with an idealized, timeless, purely Japanese past. The Deployment of Diverse Scripts GFPS members often use scripts of resistance, though their deployment is rarely a straightforward rebellion. As was the case in Long’s study (2005) on end-of-life choices in Japan, my informants did not choose one of these scripts and follow it consistently. Instead, they used multiple scripts to make sense of their view of mortuary practices. Rather than being fixed templates, these scripts are resources to be drawn upon and modified. For example, Tanaka-san, a seventy-five-year-old member, told me that he joined the GFPS because he did not want to make a Buddhist priest richer by buying a new grave. His only son is unmarried and in his forties, and Tanakasan does not see any hope of having grandchildren. Pointing to the fact that he could afford a grave, Tanaka-san said, “I could have bought a grave. But I thought about the future of this grave, and it will eventually be returned to the temple.” His family line is likely to end in the next generation. He added, “I am not very religious.” Therefore, in explaining his choice to have his ashes scattered, he drew from both the anticommercialization scripts and antireligious scripts. Meanwhile, Iijima-san, a seventy-three-year-old member, told me, “I chose scattering because I want to return to nature.” When another member asked Iijima-san about what he did with his membership at a Buddhist temple, he replied, “The head priest of my former family temple did not like the idea of scattering.” Eventually he had to leave


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the temple. However, this has not changed his commitment to Buddhism. He thinks that he does not need to belong to a Buddhist temple to be a true Buddhist.

 The introduction of alternatives to family graves, such as ash scattering and graves with permanent ritual care, has not eliminated older scripts but rather has further diversified mortuary scripts. How are such diverse scripts produced in a citizens’ movement, then? The next chapter will examine processes of producing diversity in mortuary practices by exploring the dayto-day operation of the GFPS as a social organization.


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Chapter Three


Ring, ring, ringâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹Hamada-san, a sixty-year-old full-time staff member,

reaches for a phone on her desk: “The Grave-Free Promotion Society.” A moment of silence follows, as the caller peppers Hamada-san with questions. She skillfully cuts in before it turns into an hour-long consultation: “Well, it would be best if you could take a look at our brochure first, and call us back with further questions. Could I give you our address? Do you have a pen?” What follows is an almost musical recitation of the society’s office address in Tokyo. The new mortuary practice of ash scattering is produced in somewhat awkward interactions between people seeking mortuary services and those promoting the new death ideology of “freedom to choose mortuary practices” in a social movement. With the accelerated commercialization of mortuary practices (see Suzuki 2000; S.â•›Yamada 2007), by the 1990s urbanites were increasingly accustomed to purchasing a mass-produced funeral package. The trend of redefining seniors as consumers also contributes to people’s attitudes toward their own funerals and memorial places (see chapter 1). Older persons who have considered having their ashes scattered often approach the GFPS with the above consumer’s attitude, expecting to pay for the service they receive. Their assumption is that the GFPS serves and takes care of them in exchange for money, thereby assuming that the hierarchical relation between service providers and service users applies here. GFPS volunteers, however, contribute to their movement primarily to spread the new ideal of returning the deceased’s remains to nature and to gain personal and social recognition in late adulthood. They attempt to redefine the bureaucratic task of handling applications and membership dues 88


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as personally and socially meaningful activities to promote a new value in society. In this way, the volunteers see themselves as the social equals of their potential new members and routinely resist being defined as service providers. The development of the GFPS also depends on converting services users into movement supporters. It is in these uneasy, sometimes tense dealings between service seekers and volunteers that individual scattering ceremonies and new deaths allowing a “return to nature” are processed and produced.

The GFPS Office in Tokyo The GFPS Tokyo headquarters is housed in a two-story building near a major intersection and a station where multiple subway lines meet. Taller buildings and shopping areas line the streets radiating from the intersection. People walk fast and avoid eye contact, acting as if nobody else is around. Smokers linger and pace, and noisy cars and trucks pass by. In a dark, narrow river by a major road, red carp shine. As in other major Japanese cities, the station area bustles with commuters in the morning and evening: salarymen in gray suits, young “office ladies” in colorful attire, and students in navy blue uniforms. On Sundays, the area is quiet. A pedestrian overpass bounces rhythmically as people cross it. Climbing the stairs of the overpass, a visitor gains a better view of the concrete buildings dotted with brightly colored ads. One sees the businesses typical of urban districts: instant-cash loan stations, a one-hour photo shop, and a small shack selling the latest cellular phones. Coffee shops of various sorts, ranging from an old-fashioned family business to a major national franchise reminiscent of Starbucks, stand alongside restaurants, bookstores, banks, and convenience stores. Bars frequented by male office workers remain closed until the early evening. Only a few mom-and-pop stores selling daily necessities remain; most were driven out when land prices soared in central Tokyo during the 1980s. The GFPS Tokyo office is located on a relatively quiet street, a block from a major road accommodating a restaurant, a convenience store, a dental office, and a noodle shop. There are many small businesses nearby in tall narrow buildings—a typical Tokyo scene. Next to the office is a publishing company; there are old-fashioned two-story houses on the other side of the street. People personalize spaces along the street by displaying potted plants as if to offset the gray surroundings. Concrete roads, pavements, and structures dominate, except for a few parks and Shinto shrine compounds that provide much-needed oases. Rarely does Tokyo see a day below freezing, even in midwinter. An aloe plant thrives on the roadside in February.


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Outside the GFPS office is a plaque bearing the organization’s name. For those who have never heard of the society, it is not clear what kind of organization it is. The English translation used is “Grave-Free Promotion Society” but a literal translation is “the society that promotes freedom of choosing mortuary practices.” Sometimes people mistake the society for a funeral home and are puzzled to find they cannot buy a packaged funeral there. Inside, the office looks just like any other small business office in Tokyo except for the pictures of ash-scattering scenes and the schedule of scattering ceremonies on the wall. The office accommodates eight steel desks and larger, rectangular tables. No dividers separate the desks; lack of privacy is a common feature of Japanese offices. The rectangular office is divided into three sections, according to the principles of space allocation common in Japanese social life. The areas away from the doorway are reserved for people of higher social status, while the areas close to the entrance are often associated with people of lower status. In the GFPS office, the area by the windows—farthest away from the entrance—is reserved for the president’s desk and chairs for guests. Three full-time staff use gray steel desks in the middle section of the room. Part-time specialists, such as a typist and the newsletter editor, also use desks in the middle section. The “low-status” area near the entrance accommodates two large tables, where part-time volunteers work. The space is also allotted partly according to the number of hours one spends in the office and partly by the centrality of one’s duties. Although the president does not regularly work in the morning, he represents the society and thus occupies the “head” area of the office. A person visiting the GFPS office would first see the coat tree and umbrella rack to the right. Behind the coat tree is the table for volunteers. Below and behind the table, large and small boxes of newsletters and publications are piled up. In the right-hand corner, a steel cabinet holds stationery and a radio. Bookshelves, here and there against walls, hold reference books and the society’s publications. There are computers and printers on some of the desks. There are also a small fridge and cabinets. Female staff members make tea and stock snacks and sweets in this area. To the left of the fridge is a small, enclosed bathroom area.

The Development of the GFPS The GFPS was founded in 1991 to promote people’s freedom to choose a mortuary practice. The first GFPS meeting was held in Tokyo and attracted some two hundred participants (Saisei 1991, 1:3). That same year, the first issue of their newsletter, Saisei (Rebirth), was published and the first scatter-


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ing ceremony conducted. Shortly after the ceremony, the GFPS announced to the media that they had conduced the first shizensō ceremony. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare did not problematize the event, which, to the GFPS, indicated the state’s recognition of their practice. Yasuda-san’s wife played an important role in handling clerical work in the early years of the GFPS movement. She told me that the head office was first established in their home, and she occasionally received harassing calls criticizing the GFPS. The movement was controversial, attracting both supporters and opponents. As the movement grew, the head office was moved to a section of a member’s business office. In the early years of the movement, the primary task of the GFPS was to emphasize that the scattering of ashes was not illegal, as many people believed that scattering was a violation of the law prohibiting the abandonment of human remains. The GFPS emphasized that the ceremonial return of remains to nature did not constitute the abandonment of human remains, because abandonment means to throw them away. On the contrary, shizensō is a method of reverently returning human remains to nature. Later, an independent office was established, and social recognition of the GFPS grew. Once the office and the supporting system were established, Yasuda-san recalls, it became much easier to maintain the GFPS activities. The number of supporters grew, totaling more than two thousand members in 1993 and seven thousand in 1998. In 1998 the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Committee for Considering the Future of Cemeteries, which consisted of scholars and professionals, attempted to legally regulate the scattering of ashes. Though the main purpose of the committee was to deal with a shortage of cemeteries, the scattering of ashes was also relevant, since alternatives to conventional interment were being discussed as possible solutions. The GFPS called for an urgent meeting, which attracted some five hundred people, and held a discussion session entitled “Let’s protect our right to choose death practices: We are against legally restricting shizensō.” Soon after the meeting, the GFPS submitted a letter of protest to the government committee and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, challenging their authority to regulate the scattering of ashes. Though the committee submitted a report in favor of legally regulating scattering at a local level, it did not lead to legislation. The GFPS developed steadily into the twenty-first century. In 2000 there were more than nine thousand members. Although in a 1990 national survey, only 22 percent of the respondents accepted the scattering of ashes as a possible mortuary practice (Cabinet Office of Japan 1990),


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the percentage increased to some 75 percent in a 1998 national survey (Mori 1998). The expanding recognition of scattering ceremonies by the end of the twentieth century, however, did not necessarily translate into a dramatic growth in GFPS membership. On the contrary, since 2002 the number of GFPS members has been hovering around eleven thousand. A member told me that she believes some people now go to funeral homes to have scattering ceremonies, whereas, in the past, people had to come to the GFPS to conduct them. By the end of the twentieth century, some funeral homes had begun to offer commercialized scattering services, closely following the ceremonial style developed by the GFPS but being careful not to call their scattering ceremonies shizensō. The commercialization of scattering ceremonies went against the intention of Yasuda-san, who envisioned shizensō as a way for individuals and their families to regain control over mortuary practices. Some Buddhist temples, too, developed scattering services, allowing people to scatter ashes on temple land. In response to the commercialization of scattering ceremonies, the GFPS stressed the difference between their practice and commercialized scattering. During my fieldwork (2002–2004), Yasuda-san, in his speeches at GFPS gatherings, meetings, and scattering ceremonies, highlighted the society’s environmental focus as a distinguishing characteristic. For example, some funeral homes throw offerings and bouquets wrapped in plastic into the sea; these acts of environmental destruction are against the spirit of shizensō. “In our ceremonies,” Yasuda-san emphasized, “only flower petals are released during scattering ceremonies.” Following funeral homes’ initial imitation of shizensō ceremonies, the GFPS movement further influenced the priest Chisaka Genpō of Shōunji Temple in Iwate prefecture, who started a new form of burial called jumokusō (burial in the woods) (Chisaka 2003, 166). Rather than scattering ashes, the temple maintains a cemetery without gravestones. Families bury their loved ones’ cremated remains and plant a tree instead of building a stone monument and a structure to inter a ceramic urn. The first burial in the woods was conducted in 1999. Unlike in the case of a conventional family grave, no successor is required in this system, though the burial plot can be passed on to the next generation if the user wishes (Chisaka 2003). Although this system differs from ash scattering in both legal and practical terms, its emphasis on incorporating nature into a mortuary practice resembles ash scattering through the GFPS. Chisaka’s “burial in the woods” can be seen as a Buddhist response to the GFPS movement, which has challenged Buddhist temples’ authority regarding mortuary rites (Rowe 2003, 106–107). Following Chisaka, many other


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people began practicing burials in the woods, hoping to turn “wasteland” into gold mines. Because individual users buy the right to use their plots (technically cemetery plots), this system is much more expensive. More recently, the GFPS has faced opposition to its practice in the town of Naganuma in Hokkaido, which in 2005 banned the scattering of ashes within their town limits except within cemeteries. The ban was developed to stop a group unrelated to the GFPS from establishing a scattering site. President Mukai of Nijūniseiki Hokkikō Kenkyūkai (a nonprofit organization) and the Hokkikō company first proposed building a cemetery for burial in the woods but was unable to obtain permission from the town of Naganuma. The president then changed his plans and established a scattering site, which does not require permission from the town or state; yet the opposition of Naganuma residents resulted in a ban on scattering ashes. Why were they against the practice? A sense of “otherness” associated with cremated remains seems to have been the issue. Some people were worried about ashes contaminating their drinking water and affecting humans and domesticated animals. They also explained that ash scattering might give the town a negative image, preventing it from attracting new residents to their depopulated community. Furthermore, some people were worried that scattering might give dairy products produced in the region a negative image, which might discourage consumers from buying them. The ban on scattering is included in the Naganuma Town’s Regulations for Making a Refreshing Environment (Naganuma-chō Sawayaka Machizukuri Jōrei). Article 8 prohibits scattering in areas other than cemeteries, and Article 13 prohibits people from maintaining a scattering site. These articles are included with those regarding litter and pet feces (Naganuma-chō 2005). However, because the GFPS grounds its ideology in environmental preservation, warning that large-scale for-profit cemeteries on hillsides are destroying nature, it is ironic that the Naganuma ban categorizes cremated remains as environmental pollutants along with litter and pet feces. In his letter of protest, Yasuda-san wrote that, by doing so, the ban on scattering violates people’s dignity and denigrates the GFPS movement (Saisei 2005, 57:3). Naganuma’s ban has created a sense of crisis for the GFPS by publicly and legally challenging the movement. President Yasuda believes that the regulation violates people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Article 13), freedom of thought (Article 19), and religious freedom (Article 20). He contends that the right to choose a mortuary practice derives from Article 13. The society submitted questions to the town of Naganuma, clarifying the implications of their ban and stating that


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it might violate people’s constitutional right to choose a mortuary practice. In addition to the town of Naganuma, between 2006 and 2009 four towns and cities in Hokkaido, Nagano, and Saitama legislated a ban on ash scattering (Saisei 2009, 72:9). Anti-scattering regulations might spread to other regions. The worst scenario for the GFPS would be a national ban. It seems that the recent crisis has energized Yasuda-san even more. Since the ban on scattering in Naganuma, the GFPS has been taking various steps. Yasuda-san has a new attitude toward scattering ceremonies outside the GFPS movement. Previously, by emphasizing the GFPS’s environmentalist focus, he distanced his movement from other groups and enterprises exploring alternatives to family graves. However, he now seems to find it beneficial to cooperate with other parties pursuing alternatives to conventional interment and resisting moves to legally restrict or ban scattering ceremonies (Saisei 2006, 61:31). Moreover, Yasuda-san now encourages the state to promote shizensō and to recognize people’s constitutional right to conduct it (2005, 59:8), a shift from his previous attitude of rejecting potential state interference. Consequently, the GFPS has formed a committee to promote a law, entitled “Sōsō Kihon Hō,” to secure people’s freedom to choose mortuary practices (2008, 71:2–9).

The Routine The president, three full-time staff, and three part-time staff work regularly at the GFPS main office in Tokyo. As in many other small offices in Japan, work in the society’s main office includes taking phone calls, sending and receiving mail, preparing and processing documents, receiving and requesting payments, and maintaining databases. The office processes membership applications, annual dues, and members’ applications for ashscattering ceremonies. The major tasks of the society involve public relations, contracting, membership services, finance, and publishing. The three people with full-time positions begin their work at the main office every morning at 10:30, though some of them voluntarily arrive at the office earlier. The society’s official work hours, therefore, are much shorter than those of a regular workplace for salaried employees, who arrive by 9 a.m. There is a lunch break between noon and 1 p.m., though some staff members work during the break. The president and volunteers arrive at the office by 1 p.m. At 3 p.m., there is a tea break. At 4 p.m., volunteers leave. The private courier service people drop by at the end of the day to pick up mail and packages. Full-timers go home between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. The president sometimes stays longer.


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Telephones ring all day long. In the morning, staff members take the calls. In the afternoon, volunteers take them. Some of the calls are transferred to full-timers or to the president. A prospective member might want to find out more about a scattering ceremony and, in particular, how much it costs. A current member might call to inquire into the application procedure for a scattering ceremony. Another member might call to explain that her family is opposed to her plan of having her ashes scattered and to ask for advice. The office is more lively and busier before major events, such as the June business meeting, a symposium, or a consultation session. Call volume increases dramatically right after a story on scattering appears or after a society event is announced in major newspapers or on the news. A phone call from a prospective member can sometimes turn into a full-scale consultation session, touching on the caller’s place of origin, family composition, personal history, marital turmoil, or religion. The discussion usually involves whether the caller is in a position to inherit a family grave. Since only one child, usually the eldest son, is expected to inherit the right to use the grave, the discussion will include whether the caller is the eldest son. A family grave, which accommodates the ashes of multiple persons, is often located in the caller’s hometown. Thus the caller will give the grave’s location and say who is planning to take care of it. Family members’ opinions also matter when determining whether to have one’s ashes scattered or not. If the caller’s siblings or spouse are against scattering, the caller might be concerned about whether his or her wishes will be respected and the ashes be returned to nature. Furthermore, the family’s Buddhist priest ritually tends a family grave, and he, too, might oppose the caller’s choice of scattering. The discussion concerning one’s ceremonial choice, therefore, often reveals the most private family matters. Volunteers enjoy chatting with each other while folding flyers and placing them into the appropriate boxes. Topics of conversations might include the latest news, favorite actors and singers, dramas and movies, best-sellers, hobbies, leisure plans, volunteer activities at other organizations, and stories about family, friends, and fellow volunteers. Far from being a taboo subject, death is a common topic of conversation. People discuss death, ash scattering, funerals, Buddhist temples, and the funeral industry along with other ordinary topics of conversation without much change in mood. Stories of their or their family’s ceremonial plans come up frequently. People even smile when they are asked about their plans for scattering, discussing why they have chosen a particular site. It is not unusual for


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members to discuss almost cheerfully whether a ceremony at sea or on a mountain is better. “When I die” or “after my death” are phrases routinely used in casual conversation, often lightheartedly. One day, Suga-san, a sixtyyear-old volunteer, told me about his plan to have a simple funeral attended only by close family members, followed by a scattering ceremony. He said, “I tell my colleagues that I would not invite them over to my funeral. They think it’s a joke, but it’s not! I then ask them to give me incense money [a significant monetary gift visitors give to the survivors at a funeral] right away, and they all laugh.” In fact, everyone laughed when Suga-san told me this story. As these conversations illustrate, avoidance is not these people’s attitude toward death. People assume that everyone will die eventually, and they discuss their deaths without becoming too serious or depressed. More important, however, there is a sense that people in the GFPS share the same plan—to have their ashes scattered—which provides a social context facilitating relaxed discussion of death and the beyond. The office receives a range of visitors, both members and outsiders. Ceremonial directors, who are GFPS members and volunteers, come to the office to receive reimbursements and documents regarding the scheduled ceremonies assigned to them. Unlike those who regularly volunteer at the main office, ceremonial directors volunteer only when ceremonies are scheduled. Occasionally, the society’s photographer, another member, comes to the office with pictures of the most recent scattering ceremony. Once in a while a prospective member drops by to receive a pamphlet or talk with a staff member. A non-volunteering member might also show up to talk with a staff member to finalize his or her plans for a scattering ceremony. The president meets with journalists, prospective volunteers, and scholars. When a visitor stays long enough, a female staff member serves green tea. Once a month, a board meeting is held in the late evening, after regular office hours. Most board members are senior men, though in recent years the number of senior female board members has increased. During my fieldwork, only six out of twenty-nine board members were women. All the decisions regarding the society’s activities and directions are made official in board meetings. Hamada-san buys rice balls at a nearby takeout place and prepares tea for the board members before she leaves for the day. I witnessed the tail end of a meeting when I came to attend the society’s year-end banquet for staff members and volunteers. The president was presenting a new plan as other board members listened quietly. The atmosphere was formal, strikingly different from the tone during the day, when I volunteered. Several directors told me that it was a typical meeting.


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The Three-Month Cycle The publication of the GFPS newsletter, Rebirth, divides the year into four segments, and within each segment there are slow and busy periods. For a few weeks after the newsletter is sent out, it is slow. Yonei-san, a seventy-yearold volunteer, described the slow period as one of “unemployment.” During the slow period, volunteers chat with each other while they sip tea and answer phone calls. Dues notices are sent out along with the newsletter, and volunteers who help with bookkeeping are soon busy recording payments in the membership database and double-checking entries. The editor starts to collect stories and articles for the next issue. A volunteer assisting the editor types letters. Commentaries from the bereaved who held scattering ceremonies for their close kin are also edited and typed up for publication. A few weeks before the newsletter is mailed, Hamada-san prints out the member list and address labels. Thousands of brown envelopes with the society’s address are ordered and delivered, then addressed by volunteers. Some families have multiple GFPS members; to avoid sending two issues of the same newsletter to the same address, the name of a coresident member’s label is cut off and placed with the other member’s label. When Hamada-san finds a crooked label, she carefully removes it and repositions it on the envelope. She says, “Sometimes a deposit slip is missing, or the label is attached improperly. We receive phone calls from people who complain about these smallest details!” Great attention is paid to details so that the society maintains a good reputation. The newsletter is sent out on a Friday. The day before the mailing, a group of occasional volunteers—women over sixty-five years old—helps with packaging and shipping. They place newsletters in their envelopes, seal them, and pack them in boxes numbered with postal codes. When the boxes are full, they are stored against the wall and between desks, making it difficult to walk through the office. The ordinary division of labor tends to be ignored during this final stage of mailing. Staff members, the editor, and the computer specialist— everyone but the president—participate in the activity. Age and gender determine the kinds of tasks people assume, though no explicit instructions are given. For example, younger men are expected to move heavy boxes. Suga-san, a sixty-year-old male staff member, opens packaged newsletters and stacks them on the large table where volunteers work. When all the issues are packaged, people count the envelopes in each box and bundle them according to postal code. They work silently and seriously because talking would interfere with the counting. Hamada-san


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checks all the boxes and the number of envelopes in each bundle to complete the paperwork. This last step usually occurs on the day of mailing. A postal worker arrives in a wagon to pick up the envelopes in the late afternoon. Male staff and volunteers carry the bundles to the wagon, while female volunteers flatten the empty boxes and clean the office floor, which is covered with the pieces of paper peeled off when the envelopes were sealed. When the work is done, female staff members serve green tea and sweets, and everyone gathers at the large worktable near the entrance. The president’s wife serves a fruit platter. The president also takes tea at the table and thanks everyone for their efforts. The teatime mood contrasts with the tenseness of the final packaging stage. People are relaxed and cheerful now, and one feels their sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. This is also a period for communitas (Turner 1966), characterized by interactions emphasizing equality and commonalities among those involved, temporarily suspending the hierarchy of the office space. As far as I know, the only other time the president sits at the “low” table area is during board meetings; there is no other large meeting space in the office. In the late afternoon, Hamadasan thanks people as they leave in twos and threes. The new mailing cycle begins the following Monday, with only a few people experiencing temporary “unemployment.” This three-month cycle gives the GFPS a special rhythm.

A Year at the GFPS Like that of other organizations in Japan, the society’s year ends with a banquet. The president, his wife, the board members, and the staff and volunteers all go out to a restaurant together. The New Year holidays are a festive period similar to the Christmas holidays in North America; families get together, relax, and enjoy each other’s company. Children receive cash gifts from adults and everyone enjoys food and drink. At the GFPS office, as in other workplaces in Japan, when people report to the office for the first time in the New Year, they greet each other with “Happy New Year” and ask others to do the favor of giving them continuous support during the year. The New Year is a time for renewal. The special collective scattering ceremonies held in spring (March), summer (July), fall (September), and winter (December) create a sense of seasons in the GFPS’s yearly cycle. Unlike individual ceremonies, these special ceremonies are open to the media, and the spring and fall ceremonies, held on the equinoxes, attract many journalists. On these occasions ancestor-veneration rites are performed in many parts of Japan, and the number


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of cemetery advertisements and articles about death rites increases dramatically. However, the GFPS does not hold a special collective ceremony during the Festival of the Dead, which typically falls in August, when people across Japan visit their family graves. Thus, the GFPS calendar and the conventional memorial calendar in Japan only partly overlap. Individual scattering ceremonies and regular collective ceremonies are scheduled throughout the year, though winter is a slow period because weather conditions render the majority of scattering sites on mountains inaccessible. The number of scattering ceremonies increases in March, and ceremonial directors are kept busy throughout the spring and summer months. Fall is typhoon season, but ceremonies are held continually until the beginning of December. The GFPS hosts several major events each calendar year, including the annual business meeting in June, a symposium, and an annual trip for members. Symposia are organized around certain themes associated with death, and scholars and intellectuals are invited to be panelists. For example, a 2003 symposium concerned shizensō and dying with dignity. Other events are not held annually but organized only as needed. During my fieldwork, the GFPS had consultation sessions and a movie viewing; the latter was launched as a new, experimental project. Consultation sessions aim to attract potential members and give them a chance to learn from members who have conducted scattering ceremonies for their kin. A 2003 session, for example, consisted of a lecture, a presentation about members’ experiences, and a question-and-answer session. First, Takeyama-san, a GFPS board member, gave a lecture on inheritance. Being a lawyer and a Buddhist priest, he has an unusual combination of credentials. Because many Buddhist temples have parishioners’ family graves in their temple compounds, and priests at these temples often support themselves by performing funerals and memorial rites for their temple parishioners, it is not unusual for people to regard a Buddhist priest as the guardian of graves (see Rowe 2003 for Buddhist priests’ positive and negative reactions to the GFPS). This popular image is mistaken, according to Takeyama-san, who plans to have his ashes scattered. He encourages his parishioners without children to do the same, emphasizing that graves belonging to childless couples are eventually demolished and the plots allocated to other families. After Takeyama-san’s lecture, a sixty-six-year-old member talked about the scattering ceremony for her late husband. The audience listened to her story with intense interest. A question-and-answer session followed, and the audience asked questions ranging from the practical to the complex. A woman in her early sixties, a nonmember who knew little about scattering,


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asked just what the responsibility of the GFPS is. She wanted to know if she could buy a scattering package and leave everything to the GFPS. The answer was no, the GFPS is not a funeral home but a citizens’ movement. It will only help survivors with a scattering ceremony; the family must take charge of the cremation, the funeral, and the pulverization and transportation of the ashes to the scattering site. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the idea of a citizens’ movement is foreign to many nonmembers interested in scattering ceremonies. This woman did not understand why the GFPS would not process the remains for her. New events are created as the president and board members come up with new ideas. The movie viewing was just such a special project. The president and others were impressed by a movie entitled Warabinokō, which was based on a folk legend about abandoning older persons on a mountain and letting them die.1 (The title can be roughly translated as “Passage in the Field of Fern Heads.”) According to the movie, the custom of leaving the elderly to die on a mountain was established in order to conserve food for younger generations in the village. Core members told me why they organized the showing of this film. They explained that the film celebrates the lives of older persons who honorably accept their fate and return to nature to become “fern heads in the field.”2 The GFPS arranged the screening of this movie also in the hope that it would attract nonmembers uninterested in the society’s formal lectures and symposia. The showing, therefore, was organized to broaden the support base of the GFPS and to encourage members to reflect upon their final days.

The Annual Meeting The annual meeting, consisting of a public lecture and a business meeting, is held during the gloomy, rainy season at a municipal center for senior workers. Though the details of each gathering differ, the sequence of events at this meeting is similar to that of other formal events organized by the GFPS. On the day of the meeting, staff and volunteers gather in the basement conference hall, carry out tables, and reorganize chairs into rows. A reception area is set up outside the entrance to the hall by placing three rectangular tables there, on which staff members stack the society’s publications, pamphlets, and annual reports. When the hall is ready for the meeting, volunteers gather for a quick lunch at a cafeteria in the building. Udon noodles, ramen noodles, and curry and rice are common fare. A few hundred people, the majority of whom are over fifty years old, participate in the event. Occasionally, younger persons come to the meeting, accompanied


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by a parent. People in attendance dress casually, though some women wear dresses or suits. The staff and volunteers are more dressed up than usual. Women wear longer skirts or suits, while men wear jackets but no ties. The formal program begins at 1 p.m. After an emcee opens the meeting and the president makes a brief welcome speech, a guest speaker delivers a talk on some aspect of death or dying. In 2003 a professor of German literature, also a member of the GFPS, gave a lecture on his pilgrimage to Shikoku.3 The lecture partly aims to attract nonmembers and increase membership. Right before 3 p.m., the lecture ends. During a short break, volunteers busily sell publications on scattering authored by the president and other members. Unlike merchants and retailers, most volunteers are clumsy in processing change and frequently fail to bow to the purchaser. Because the GFPS is a nonprofit organization, purchasers do not hear “Welcome” or “Many thanks,” as they would at a store. Once in a while a nonmember approaches the reception area and inquires about membership. A staff member gives the prospective member a package consisting of the GFPS statement of purpose and an application form. After the break, the business meeting begins with a brief greeting by the president. The chairperson then explains the voting rules and reports on the past year’s and the new fiscal year’s activities and budget. Members are thanked for their support and encouraged to find more supporters. There are reports on innovative new programs, scheduled symposia, and newly acquired scattering sites. In 2003 a new, free scattering plan was announced: people who maintain their membership for thirty years will qualify for a collective scattering ceremony for free. The selection of board members follows the presentation of these reports. When all issues have been presented, the question-and-answer period begins. Questions concerning the budget are the most common. Once all questions have been addressed, members vote to approve the budget and plans for the new fiscal year by raising their hands. Only one hundred members out of some eleven thousand members have the power to vote; those who cannot attend the business meeting vote by proxy. The business meeting closes with the emcee’s brief remarks. The staff and volunteers open the doors and begin removing chairs and bringing in tables and arranging them as they were before. The most arduous job after the meeting is stacking the chairs onto movable carts so they can be taken to a storage room. Younger men vigorously stack chairs in threes and fours, while older women carry them one by one. In the reception area, staff members pack up the publications and remove the tables. Nobody is the clear leader, but the clean-up is efficient. Newcomers imitate what old-timers are doing.


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It is fairly common for elementary school students to clean their classrooms in groups; in workplaces, employees may have to clean their offices as well. Cleaning together after the business meeting is consistent with pervasive patterns of collective cleaning in Japanese social life. After all the chairs and tables are rearranged, the staff and volunteers leave in small groups to gather at a restaurant for a banquet. Similar banquets occur after other GFPS formal events, such as consultation sessions and symposia. Following Japanese custom, people remove their shoes to enter the tatami-matted banquet room. Low rectangular tables are connected to form a long, narrow table area in the middle of the room, and people sit on flat cushions placed on the floor around the tables. The banquet begins with the president’s brief speech thanking everyone for his or her efforts. When there are newcomers or visitors, they are introduced to everyone. An eighty-six-year-old man, the oldest volunteer and a founding member of the GFPS, gives a toast. The banquet usually consists of five to eight courses. Dishes arrive on large platters, and people take small portions and place them on their individual plates. Occasionally, a course requiring simple cooking at the table arrives. Women do the cooking and serve the others. People drink beer at first, and then switch to drinks with higher alcohol contents, such as rice wine, whiskey, or shōchū, an alcohol distilled from various grains. A few people drink wine. The drinks are gendered: whiskey and shōchū are more masculine, while wine and sweet cocktails are considered more feminine. Those who do not drink have the choice of orange juice or cold oolong tea. At a banquet, it is considered rude to refill one’s own glass, and people pay close attention to others’ glasses. Due to their experiences at workplaces, men are used to banquets and are quick to spot empty glasses. Interestingly, men pour for both men and women, while not all women pour drinks for others. While dining, people chat with each other about the day’s meeting, their plans for scattering, and the latest news about other members. The banquet normally lasts for two or three hours. After the banquet, the president, his wife, and some volunteers go to a coffee shop. There is the feeling of a job well done. In addition to feeling a sense of relief, some people feel more eloquent than usual after consuming alcohol at the banquet. Alcohol is considered an excuse for certain misconduct that would otherwise be unacceptable. Things said and done under the influence of alcohol are not supposed to be taken seriously but should instead be forgotten, though whether people actually forget such incidents or forgive the offender is a separate issue (see Moeran 1998). Abe-san, a quiet man, becomes surprisingly vocal during and after a GFPS banquet.


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Normally, volunteers and staff rarely confront the president. He is the head and founder of the organization, and he is older than the others, which demands that younger members show respect. Yet, one evening when we were walking toward a coffee shop, Abe-san said he thought there was something wrong with the process of drawing up contracts for scattering ceremonies, disagreeing with the president’s opinion. The president smiled and did not argue with Abe-san. The road was very noisy, and it is possible that the president did not hear exactly what Abe-san was saying. Or perhaps the president did not take the comment seriously because Abe-san had had quite a few drinks. In either case, it is significant that the banquet provided an occasion for people to share some of their “true feelings” (honne) and the private thoughts and reactions that they usually suppress. While we were drinking coffee, a female volunteer teased the president a lot, with a dry sense of humor. Another volunteer commented, “She is so aggressive tonight!”

Age In many ways the GFPS differs from the work organizations studied by Japan scholars. Major companies have a number of practices, such as teaching employees the company song and motto, to instill the company’s ideology in newly recruited full-time employees (Dore 1973; Rohlen 1974; Vogel 1963). New recruits usually go through an official training period together, building their identity as loyal workers. Some of the activities that new workers must endure during this period might involve activities seemingly unrelated to work. For example, new workers are reported to participate in exercises, meditation, and marathons (Rohlen 1974). As Creighton (1995) observes, like neophytes in initiation ceremonies studied by anthropologists (e.g., Turner 1966), new recruits must prove themselves in the eyes of the corporate community by undergoing physical hardships. The idea behind this physical molding of new workers in a collective setting is that they “must encounter and overcome certain experiences together, usually including feats of physical endurance, in order to prove their loyalty to their new company, and in order for the company to accept them as fully incorporated members” (Creighton 1995, 57). Even after new workers complete the initial training period to become full-time members of the community, certain collective practices, such as singing the company song and doing the morning exercises, might become part of their day-to-day routines, repeatedly instilling in them the organizational ideology. The GFPS, however, lacks an intensive formal training period to transform newcomers into full-fledged members and has no other notable day-


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to-day collective practices intended to shape members’ identities. During my fieldwork, a member wrote a song for the GFPS, but it was not regularly used as a way of teaching new members their values. Also, there were no uniforms or pins bearing the organization’s logo. Staff, volunteers, and board members receive business cards, but unlike businesspeople at major companies, many volunteers reported that they seldom use their cards. The exception is the president, who regularly has meetings with outsiders. Ordinary members learn GFPS values mainly from its publications. Members’ opinions and their experiences of scattering ceremonies are published in the GFPS newsletter. Rather than learning to be part of the movement through face-to-face interactions, by reading the newsletter new members develop a sense of solidarity. The GFPS is, therefore, a kind of imagined community (Anderson 1991 [1983]). Although symposia, annual meetings, and group trips provide new and prospective members with opportunities for learning, many members who never attend these events might still cultivate loyalty to the organization by reading the society’s publications. At major firms in Japan, a new recruit learns to identify with his or her cohort, those who started working the same year and underwent initial training with him or her (Creighton 1995; Ogasawara 1998; Rohlen 1974). Companies encourage new recruits to form strong ties among themselves. For example, entering cohort groups at departments are given opportunities to participate in company-hosted parties and events that nurture ties within the group. Identifying with one’s cohort is important because it is thought to provide new workers with an enduring network extending across the various divisions within a company (Creighton 1995). Unlike at many corporate communities, however, at GFPS there is no concept of a cohort group, since there is no fixed time for recruiting new members. Therefore, there is no formal collective training period for new members and there are no official programs encouraging new recruits to build strong ties among themselves. At major firms, new recruits learn to place themselves in hierarchical senior–junior relationships (Ogasawara 1998). Seniority based on age and seniority based on experience often overlap for full-time male employees, since these firms customarily hire a group of new graduates all together, and they are promoted as they age and gain more experience. Although there has been a move to adopt a merit-based promotion system in recent years, seniority still matters in many workplaces. In senior–junior relationships, people are organized by seniority, and the initial training period plays an important role in introducing new recruits to those relationships. New recruits are expected to learn from senior employees how to perform various tasks. At department stores, for example, senior employees teach


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their juniors how to greet customers and wrap gifts properly (Creighton 1995, 59–60). At the GFPS, however, no formal senior–junior relationships are maintained. Seniority is not based on the duration of service, nor is age systematically used to allocate rights, duties, and rewards; that is, no seniority-based promotion system exists there.4 People do not refer to each other as seniors (senpai) or juniors (kōhai) according to date of membership or duration of service. At companies seniority based on experience roughly corresponds to that based on age, but at the GFPS no such clear association exists. This, however, does not imply that no seniority is recognized. Rather than being formally instituted for purposes of training and for organizing relationships, seniority is based on experience and recognized informally. For example, new volunteers ask more experienced volunteers about office procedures. New ceremonial directors usually observe experienced ones before conducting scattering ceremonies. People who have been members for a long time are socially recognized as well, but this does not give them more power or a higher status in the organization. Unlike at companies, experienced volunteers know more than new ones and thus possess social capital (Bourdieu 1977), which, however, does not translate into a higher rank or monetary reward. Rather than being an official criterion for ranking individuals, agebased seniority subtly shades relations among volunteers. Older persons are occasionally given tasks of symbolic importance. For example, the oldest volunteer is always asked to make the toast at banquets held after annual meetings and special events. Volunteers also tend to use polite language when speaking to older persons, showing respect. These practices are hardly surprising because showing respect to older persons is a mainstream Japanese value. It is worth emphasizing that at the GFPS volunteers tend not to express another core value in Japanese society, which is to show caring attitudes toward older persons (otoshiyori o itawaru). Such attitudes are valued in the larger society because old age is associated with vulnerability. But at the GFPS, people emphasize the importance of maintaining an active lifestyle in late adulthood, and it is implied that one is not really old as long as he or she remains energetic and engaged. Therefore, expressing protective feelings for older persons by, for example, offering to help or to lighten their workload, can imply that they are no longer young and able. This understanding shapes day-to-day interactions among volunteers. Older persons regularly discuss how old they are or how young others are. In such a conversation, a younger person observes how active and energetic the older person is or how young he or she looks. In fact, it is not easy to tell who is older just by looking at a person’s face or observing their behavior,


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and I was often surprised to discover an informant’s age. Curiosity about another’s age is common in other social contexts in Japan because to use the Japanese language appropriately a speaker needs to know whether his or her interlocutor is older or younger. However, the conversation about age at the GFPS has an additional dimension, that of contesting old age. Because a strong emphasis is placed on being youthful and active despite one’s age, younger people’s caring attitudes toward older persons can potentially hurt their feelings. Therefore, people are careful not to suggest how long a person might continue volunteering. There is no retirement age for a volunteer, and it is difficult to predict how long a core staff member or volunteer will be able to stay. If, with the best intentions, a younger person were to suggest to an older person that it must be hard for that person to continue volunteering because of age, it might injure his or her pride. Whether an older volunteer is planning to leave in the near future and whether a younger volunteer should be recruited in case the older one leaves are delicate issues, involving the older person’s consideration of his or her performance, health conditions, and sense of self-worth. Egalitarian principles are often observed at age-homogeneous institutions for seniors or in retirement communities, in which the recognition that “we are all older people here” contributes to more equal social relations among residents (Keith 1982). Unlike a retirement community, the GFPS has no official age marker defining the GFPS as a group exclusively for older or retired adults, yet egalitarian relations are highly valued by members. Moreover, GFPS volunteers’ tendency to respect fellow volunteers as decision-makers is a predisposition also seen among the residents of a retirement community (Kinoshita and Kiefer 1992), who valued privacy and held the strong ideology of not causing a nuisance (meiwaku) to others (177–178). Nonetheless, the emphasis on egalitarianism at the GFPS cannot be attributed solely to the age statuses of the volunteers or to the predominance of older persons in the organization. The nature of the organization—in the case of the GFPS, it is a citizens’ movement—must first be considered in the maintenance of egalitarianism. Furthermore, though the GFPS is characterized by egalitarianism, a closer look at its operation reveals that some age distinctions are still maintained.

Socioeconomic Statuses The majority of GFPS volunteers I encountered were middle-class urbanites, who were former salaried employees or public servants, or their wives, though non-volunteering GFPS members were more diverse. Many male


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volunteers were university graduates. Fewer female volunteers had university or junior college degrees, it having been less common for women of their generation to pursue university or college degrees. GFPS volunteers sometimes expressed their middle-class status by discussing the social significance of their volunteering. The majority of the tasks assigned to volunteers were simple manual or clerical chores, such as packaging, handling mail, answering phone calls, and setting up chairs for the annual meeting or special events, which required no specific qualifications. Particularly for former white-collar professionals, most of these tasks did not reflect their levels of professional achievement. What mattered to the GFPS volunteers was the ideology. The new social ideal of “freedom to choose mortuary practices” seemed to have elevated their activity to a higher level more suitable to persons with middle-class, professional backgrounds. A ceremonial director in her mid-sixties told me that she performs scattering ceremonies because she believes in the ideology of freedom to choose mortuary practices. Without that ideology, she said, the task would be no different from that of a funeral specialist.5 Furthermore, the titles that some volunteers gained through their volunteering—for example, ceremonial director, computer specialist, or editor—signified their social recognition, particularly after the GFPS membership grew and the society became increasingly well known. Japan’s aging-society policies have been encouraging the retired to remain engaged in society and to lead meaningful and healthier lives. The government has been increasing retirement ages and encouraging the young-olds to stay in the workforce (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 18). The establishment of the Silver Human Resource Center (SHRC), “something like a part-time employment agency and something like a club” (268), is another notable move to engage the young-olds in society. A number of these centers have been established since the 1980s “to build vital local communities, to reconnect the retirees to their locales and tap their expertise, and to promote health and well-beingâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹by providing senior citizens with opportunities for paid work on a part-time, temporary basis in their locales” (Roberts 1996, 116). Despite the development of the SHRC, retired middleclass professionals have limited opportunities for maintaining their statuses when they attempt to reengage in society. The SHRCs tend to provide lowpaying, manual jobs or skilled blue-collar jobs, with a very small percentage of office work and service jobs (117). The range of jobs available through the SHRCs does not match members’ backgrounds in urban and suburban areas, where retirees with white-collar experience predominate (123). Roberts (124–125) reports that former white-collar employees felt that jobs


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offered through the SHRCs, such as cleaning, were “below” their status, and the mismatch between members’ backgrounds and the available jobs was seen as a problem. The GFPS seems to attract the kinds of former whitecollar employees who would not want to join the SHRCs but are looking for post-retirement activities more consistent with their middle-class status. It is worth pointing out that there are striking similarities in the attitudes of seniors introduced to jobs at the SHRC and GFPS volunteers: they do not want to be ordered around. They also want to be active, which they believe keeps them healthy. Similar to the SHRC, nonprofit organizations such as the GFPS make the best use of retirees’ expertise for significantly less than the market value of their skills while keeping them engaged in society. The GFPS is driven not only by members’ wish to “return to nature” after their deaths but also by volunteers’ desire to find a new, meaningful place in society in late adulthood.

Gender In Japanese workplaces, it is common to assign career tracks to people according to their gender. Men are usually hired as full-time employees on a “permanent” track and are expected to stay at a company for a long time. Women, on the other hand, are often hired as clerical workers who are expected to assist men. They are often expected to quit when they marry or have children. Though there are more opportunities for women to be hired as permanent full-timers today, there are fewer opportunities than there are for men. It is not likely that a clerical worker can switch to a permanent job. The gendered structure shapes male and female workers’ rights, duties, and rewards differently. According to Yūko Ogasawara (1998), a sociologist who studied office workers at a major Japanese bank, female clerical workers have lighter, simpler duties but are given smaller salaries and limited opportunities for advancement. They routinely serve tea to guests and male workers, send facsimile transmissions, and copy documents. Women are not expected to work longer hours even when male workers must work overtime. Female clerical workers are expected to quit work when they marry or have children and thus are excluded from promotion (136). Though office women have dead-end jobs, they have a significant influence on men’s careers. Men are assigned various jobs, while women only help men get them done. Only when both the men and the women assisting them play their roles can men complete their work. Men are regularly transferred to new divisions and depend on the office’s women, who handle all the paperwork at any particular division. Without


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the help of women in the office, men cannot work efficiently and thus will not be promoted as quickly (159–160). There is an understanding that men benefit from female office workers’ labor. Women thus feel entitled to compensate for the lost fruits of their labor and accept gifts and treats from men (153–154). Also, men are expected to care about the feelings of their clerical assistants, rather than vice versa. Because female office workers are structurally excluded from opportunities for promotion, they are not afraid to complain to their bosses or to the personnel department (159–160). When there is discord between male full-timers and female clerical workers, the personnel department may get the impression that the men are not capable of handling their clerical workers and thus lack managerial skills. This gives female office workers the opportunity to manipulate and subvert the unequal, gendered power structure in their workplace. Unlike at major firms, at the GFPS gender is not an explicit, structural principle in distributing rights and duties among men and women. Women are not discriminated against because of their gender by set gendered tracks of engagement, nor are they prevented from taking certain positions. Both men and women serve as ceremonial directors, staff members, and board members. Both men and women participate in the GFPS as its supporters and volunteers. Nonetheless, gender still shapes social relations at the GFPS. Although gender is not used to determine job tracks, certain tasks are still considered to be feminine or masculine. For example, female staff members regularly serve tea to others, wash the dishes and cups, take out the trash, and clean the floor. Some female volunteers help serve the tea and distribute plates of sweets. When newsletters are mailed, men participate in cleaning as well; yet I have never seen a male member serve tea. Female staff members always receive souvenirs from volunteers and visitors, and control when, how much, and to whom certain foods and sweets are given. Female staff members also assist the president by sending facsimile transmissions and making copies. Meanwhile, moving heavy boxes is considered a (younger) man’s job. Furthermore, unlike at major firms, women at the GFPS are not structurally excluded from reaching the higher status of board members, the people representing the GFPS and making all the official decisions. Yet, gender still matters. Since it makes sense to have board members who have had successful careers in the eyes of society, many board members are men, reflecting male dominance in the world of professionals. And both the president and the vice-president are men.6 Ogasawara (1998) reports that, because they have limited opportunities for promotion at major firms, female office workers are not afraid to communicate their dissatisfaction with their boss or male coworkers


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to superiors, while men act more submissively toward superiors to ensure their career advancement. At the GFPS, female members and volunteers are also willing to express their opinions, in some cases more openly than male members. A female board member made the interesting comment that male board members maintain more hierarchical relationships among themselves. She observed that whereas she shares her candid opinions with others, men are more likely to support what the president says. She said, “All these men were salaried employees and they are used to operating in a hierarchical social situation. They have a salaryman’s spirit (sararīman konjō).” Another female board member said, “Men do not say much at board meetings. It is frustrating. I say what I feel like saying, and I feel that some men look at me and encourage me to express my opinions when they agree with me.” Since gender was not the major research focus of my project, however, I did not investigate whether others shared this view.7 In retrospect, I wonder if male board members at the GFPS, like men at major firms, were not as expressive as their female counterparts because they were interested in “promotion,” or assuming a leadership position as president or vice-president in the future.

Inside–Outside Distinctions Japan scholars have repeatedly noted that the uchi–soto (inside–outside) distinction orients people in the Japanese social universe (Bachnik 1994), and at many work organizations the company is referred to as uchi—meaning “home,” or “inside.” People are expected to have closer relations among those belonging to uchi and to change their attitudes, language, and behavior accordingly. The ideology that compares company to family has been fairly common in many corporate communities studied by Japan scholars.8 The GFPS, however, lacks the ideology of organization as family. Volunteers do not regularly refer to the GFPS as uchi, perhaps because they also volunteer at other organizations and thus do not have the sense that the GFPS is their home organization providing an anchored point of reference in their social universe. Most people simply call the GFPS “the society” (kai). Despite the fact that the GFPS is not routinely conceived of as one’s home base, certain practices maintaining inside–outside distinctions are apparent. For example, it is not unusual for members to change their attitudes when they speak to outsiders, or nonmembers. Many informants told me that they do not discuss issues of death as freely when they talk to outsiders. To my surprise, the majority of my informants said they do not routinely encourage their friends and acquaintances to join the GFPS, nor do they


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casually talk about their volunteering experiences there. I wondered why this was so, since the GFPS is a social movement promoting the freedom to choose a mortuary practice and it would make sense for members to try to propagate their ideology. Their reluctance to share their experience with outsiders does not necessarily arise because death is generally considered a taboo subject but instead often comes from a sense that outsiders might not respect their personal preference for ash scattering over interment. A male member told me that he talked about his involvement in the GFPS only to “those who are open-minded.” Considering the dominance of interment in today’s Japan, their reluctance is not surprising. Some outsiders have never heard of scattering ceremonies, while others might have the misperception that ash scattering is illegal in Japan. This realization that outsiders might not be supportive of ash scattering shapes insider–outsider distinctions at the GFPS.

 In sum, interactions at the GFPS are interesting because the institutionalization of seniority and gender in allocating rights, duties, and rewards is de-emphasized. Also, there is no strong ideology comparing the GFPS to family. In addition, some of the common values of Japanese society as a whole are not emphasized among volunteers. For example, although respect toward elders is recognized, people tend not to openly express protective attitudes toward them. As a people’s movement, the GFPS supports a strong sense of egalitarianism among its volunteers, and, along with an emphasis on continued activity in late adulthood, this egalitarianism contrasts with the age-based hierarchy that predominates in the larger Japanese society. This chapter explored the local contexts of ceremonial production in the GFPS as a social movement, which have rarely been discussed in the literature on new mortuary practices in contemporary Japan. The next chapter examines ash scattering in ceremonial contexts. The chapter thus further illuminates the ways in which scattering ceremonies operate in practice and how ash scatterers make sense of their new mortuary practice, which cannot be easily inferred by examining the GFPS ideology alone.


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Chapter Four


“B

ye-bye, I’ll see you again!” After scattering her late husband’s ashes at sea, a sixty-nine-year-old woman called out this farewell as she watched bright-yellow pansies dedicated to the deceased float away in procession. At scattering ceremonies the bereaved celebrate the deceased’s return to nature and mourn their final parting with the deceased. Although the GFPS provides a basic ceremonial framework, it is the volunteers and the bereaved working together who produce an ash-scattering ceremony. In this chapter, I will examine the making of a ceremony at the GFPS: the role played by ceremonial directors, the usual sequence of events involved in a ceremony, and how variations are created. Participants and producers of a scattering ceremony often make sense of it by partially reconciling the new practice with conventional mortuary practices.

Ceremonial Directors GFPS volunteers act as ceremonial directors, helping the bereaved perform scattering ceremonies. During my fieldwork, there were both male and female directors regularly serving in the Kantō region, of which Tokyo is part. The oldest director was in his eighties, three were in their seventies, and the rest were in their sixties. The youngest director was sixty years old. A director’s job begins before arrival at a scattering site. The bereaved do not always closely follow the instructions given by the contract specialist, who assigns individual ceremonies to directors, so some directors themselves prepare the bereaved for ceremonies, making sure that they follow the GFPS guidelines. 112


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One afternoon, Murai-san, a ceremonial director in her mid-sixties, was telephoning families who were to participate in a collective scattering ceremony in a few days. After a long conversation with one member, the director turned to us and said, “She has not touched the remains! I told her to crush them finely. She said she is afraid of the remains, so I told her they are nothing to be feared. I hope she will take care of the remains—if not, I won’t be able to have her do the ceremony.” As this episode illustrates, one of the most important pre-ceremonial procedures involves the pulverization of cremated remains. Crematoriums in Japan reduce the body to bones and ash rather than to ashes alone because, after cremation, it is customary for the bereaved to collect the remains in an urn, using ceremonial chopsticks. Crematoriums do not pulverize cremated remains. Although doing so is not legally required, the GFPS stipulates that cremated remains must be pulverized as finely as rice grains for a scattering ceremony because the scattering of bone pieces is considered aesthetically unpleasant. In the instructions they enclose with the application form for scattering ashes, the GFPS urges people to pulverize cremated remains so that they will “not offend others and [so that they may] swiftly return to nature.” An illustration beside this note portrays a person looking shocked and surprised to see bones left by a tree. The note continues, “Please avoid such a situation, which would damage our movement. It would ruin all our efforts to be considerate to others.” Murai-san was a little nervous about the upcoming ceremony because at a previous ceremony a participant had accidentally dropped some ashes on a ship’s deck. The ship is rented for the ceremony, and the ship’s crew complained bitterly that it is hard to clean up ashes. Thus the crew strongly encourages the GFPS to ask the bereaved to use a metal tube to pour the ashes into the sea or to wrap the ashes in paper that will dissolve in seawater. For this reason, Murai-san was calling the bereaved and urging them to wrap the remains in special paper. These are some of the ways ceremonial directors guide the bereaved so that their scattering ceremonies will be conducted according to the GFPS guidelines. The task of a director involves not only quality control but also serving as a GFPS spokesperson and mediator between its members and outsiders. No formal training or previous experience is required for one to serve as a ceremonial director at the GFPS. Ceremonial directors are neither certified professionals nor funeral specialists employed by funeral homes, and scattering ceremonies conducted by the GFPS are neither “funerals” (sōgi) nor “farewell ceremonies” (kokubetsushiki).1 Unlike funeral specialists, ceremonial directors are not required to have any specialized knowledge


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about death in general, though as laypersons they tend to be familiar with mortuary practices from personal experiences in their own lives. They do not handle the corpse, set up ceremonial altars, or explain ceremonial manners according to various religious traditions to the bereaved (see Suzuki 2000; S.â•›Yamada 2007). Yet ceremonial directors need to be familiar with the GFPS ideals and procedures for scattering. They also need interpersonal skills. Ceremonial directors tend to be confident, responsible, and good with people. The basic ceremonial framework is short and simple, and, as discussed later in this chapter, a new director quickly learns how to assist the bereaved. A director’s lack of formal training does not imply a lack of commitment or an irresponsible attitude, however. New ceremonial directors acquire knowledge and experience by observing scattering ceremonies conducted by others and assisting at them before they can serve as independent directors. They also learn from the GFPS publications and the bereaved’s commentaries on their ceremonies, published in the newsletter. Thus, new ceremonial directors’ knowledge derives from both on-the-job training and independent learning. They also have a chance to ask questions when they get together with experienced directors. Unlike the bereaved and funeral specialists, the bereaved and ceremonial directors do not reproduce the kind of relationship that exists between a customer and a service provider. Directors help the bereaved but do not serve them. Yet this is not always obvious in practice. Numata-san, a female director in her early seventies, told me, “Directors have to act like messengers or butlers in many ways. They have to find and greet people they have never met before, take them to the scattering site, explain the procedure, and talk to the ship’s crew or the owners of scattering sites. Some people do not like to serve as ceremonial directors, because they do not want to serve others.” Other ceremonial directors, however, seem to enjoy the leadership role they play during ceremonies and take pride in their mission of spreading GFPS ideals. Thus, not all directors believe they have a lower status. When a senior director, Shiga-san, conducted a scattering ceremony, he gave several short, seamless speeches to the bereaved. Having conducted hundreds of ceremonies, he has perfected his technique. It seemed that he was enjoying his time on stage, performing his part. He used to be captain of a ship in his previous career, and he enthusiastically explains how to read a chart, indicating the scattering point, and how the currents are flowing near the site. Interestingly, his father was a Buddhist priest, but Shiga-san did not succeed to his father’s position at the temple, though as the eldest


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son he was expected to do so. Instead, his eldest sister married a priest so that the temple could continue to operate. Shiga-san told me, “The other day, I had a chance to visit my parents’ grave in their hometown. I saw my relatives there. They all know what I am doing at the GFPS. I told them that I am doing much better work [by sending people away with scattering ceremonies rather than having their remains buried in graves]. The relatives were silent.” Shiga-san firmly believes that the GFPS ideal of returning the deceased to nature is superior to interment and thus is proud of being a GFPS member and ceremonial director. Whether they consider the status of a ceremonial director high or low, all directors agree that they are performing their duties because of the GFPS ideal: advancing people’s freedom to choose a mortuary practice. They are offended when people think they scatter ashes to make money. For example, Miyata-san said, “I would quit if the GFPS became an organization that simply scattered people’s ashes in exchange for money. Without the ideology of our freedom to choose a mortuary practice, the GFPS would be no different from a funeral business.”

The Bereaved Unlike the funeral and cremation, which immediately follow a person’s death, scattering ceremonies can be conducted long after a person has passed away. People sometimes scatter their kin’s ashes on or about the fortyninth day (when remains are often interred in a grave) or even a year after the death of their family member. Yet, there is no requirement to scatter ashes at a particular time. In some cases, people give up a family grave and scatter all the remains of multiple generations during a single ceremony. In these cases, the relationship between the deceased and the survivors varies, and different lengths of time have elapsed since the deaths of each of their kin. This makes it difficult to clearly define the performers of scattering; here I call them “the bereaved” in a loose sense. Because some ceremonies are conducted long after the death of a deceased person, an acute sense of loss, sorrow, and pain does not always dominate the ceremony. The majority of ceremonies are attended by the immediate family and close kin, though they sometimes involve the deceased’s friends and neighbors as well. It is important to remember that not all participants are supporters of the GFPS and most have never attended scattering ceremonies. The bereaved today tend to lack detailed knowledge of death rites, and funeral specialists help guide them through commercialized funeral ceremonies (Suzuki 2000). Nevertheless, at a wake or a funeral, people


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know the basic routines; older persons are more experienced, as they have attended many mortuary ceremonies. Ordinarily, the knowledge of death ceremonies is unevenly distributed among people of different ages. However, this is not the case at scattering ceremonies. Except for GFPS members, most nonmembers know little about the details of scattering ceremonies beyond the fact that the deceased’s remains will be scattered. This reduces the authority of older nonmembers and increases that of GFPS members, regardless of their age.

Planning a Ceremony If the deceased’s choice of scattering was accepted by the family when he or she was alive, the planning of a ceremony goes more smoothly. The situation can be complex when survivors are opposed to the idea or are unable to agree. In some cases, the bereaved have never heard of scattering ceremonies until they open the will after the death of their kin. If survivors decide to reject the deceased person’s choice, scattering ceremonies will not be conducted. Those left behind have control over these matters, and the deceased’s will alone cannot make a scattering ceremony happen. If there is no consensus among the bereaved, a few supportive survivors might persuade the others or might conduct the ceremony anyway, ignoring the others’ wishes. The latter was the case for Morita-san. Her two children were not very happy with scattering, but Morita-san told them that it was their father’s choice. In some cases, months or years may pass before the ceremony is conducted. In one case, a wife discovered after her husband’s death that he had contracted with the GFPS to have a scattering ceremony. She could not accept his choice, but she did not want to reject it either. Because she cared about him, she was torn between his will and her own wishes. Her daughter said she would be willing to perform the ceremony for her father, but the mother could not make up her mind. A member commented, “It’s been two years since her husband’s death, and she cannot let her husband go.” Once survivors make up their minds, they either conduct a ceremony according to the contract created at the deceased’s request or, if the deceased passed away without making a contract, they create one, according to the deceased’s wish. In the latter case, if no family members belong to the GFPS, a survivor must join the organization; the GFPS performs the ceremony only at a member’s request. Interestingly, some of the most committed members fail to have contracts made before they pass away. A male member in his seventies told me,


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“I do not have a contract with the GFPS, and I have no intention of making one. My children will take care of it when the time comes. My deceased wife did not have a contract, either.” Another member in his early seventies told me, “It is a serious decision to make a contract. I have been thinking about it, but I have not had the guts to do it.” Sometimes the realization that one’s life is limited results in the preparation of a contract. A male member in his mid-seventies told me that he had had a contract drawn up right after he had major surgery: “I did not have a contract for a long time, and then I got seriously ill and had surgery. I realized that life is unpredictable and I took care of my contract right after the surgery.” In one case, celebrations of longevity stimulated a person to reevaluate the future and prepare a contract with the GFPS. A healthy, energetic volunteer had a contract made on his seventy-seventh birthday, a culturally significant age connoting longevity and marked by a celebration. Opposition from family members may influence whether or not to have a contract. A sixty-four-year-old member, Yamanishi-san, told me, “My eldest son has not accepted my choice of scattering. I realized that I could not leave the matter to my family, and I took care of my contract on my own. I want to make sure that my ceremony will be conducted.” Yamanishi-san is divorced, and his unmarried son is the only family member upon whom he feels he can depend. Though there is no legal obligation for survivors to conduct a ceremony, the contract is considered to formalize the deceased’s choice and makes it more difficult, both socially and psychologically, for survivors to reject the ceremony without careful consideration. Some couples prepare a contract to have their ashes scattered in a single ceremony. In such a case, one’s ashes will be held until the other one passes away. When a surviving spouse conducts an independent scattering ceremony for the deceased spouse, it is not unusual to set aside a small amount of the deceased’s ashes to be scattered later, along with those of the survivor. Most people keep the saved ashes at home, but I met one woman who carries them around in a small ceramic case so that she can be with her husband all the time. The ceramic case used to be her husband’s toothpick case. Both the ashes and this personal article of her deceased husband provide her with a sense of his presence in her daily life. The contract specialist at the GFPS plans scattering ceremonies in close consultation with a representative of the bereaved to determine the location, the scale, and the date of the ceremony. The majority of scattering ceremonies are conducted at sea (approximately 80 percent), while the rest take place on land. Most scattering ceremonies held on land occur at scattering sites maintained by the GFPS; it owns some of the sites, while


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others are members’ properties. The scale of a ceremony varies; some are grand ceremonies involving more than a hundred people, while others are ceremonies attended only by the deceased’s immediate family. The GFPS divides ceremonies into three types: a single-family ceremony, a multifamily ceremony, and a special collective ceremony. A special ceremony costs 100,000 yen per family (US$1,000), and up to ten families scatter their kin’s ashes on the same occasion.2 A single-family ceremony is roughly three times more expensive than a special collective ceremony, though the cost depends on the number of participants and the method of scattering. Scattering from an airplane or a large boat is more expensive. When all the plans have been made, the bereaved are asked to put down an advance deposit for the ceremony. After the ceremony, the difference between the deposit and the actual cost of the ceremony is returned to the bereaved. Moreover, in cases of cancellation, the entire deposit, less the 2,000-yen (US$20) fee charged to prepare the contract, will be returned. The GFPS is a nonprofit organization, and its people take pride in not profiting from their activity: it is one way that they distinguish themselves from the forprofit funeral industry.

Pulverizing Cremated Remains Once all the ceremonial plans are made, the bereaved must pulverize the remains or have them pulverized by a specialist. Miyata-san, an experienced ceremonial director, estimates that one in two families pulverize the remains themselves. According to a funeral specialist, Katano-san, the amount of time required for pulverization depends on several factors. It is easier to process the remains of people who were older and had been ill for many years. A man’s remains are larger in volume than a woman’s and thus take longer to process. In addition, it takes much longer to prepare the remains of a resident in eastern Japan because all the remains are collected after the cremation, whereas, in western Japan, crematorium workers place only a small portion of the remains in an urn. The rest are taken by ash collectors and buried behind the crematorium, for example. Suzuki (1990, 165) reports a case in which the remaining ashes were buried in a hole on the land owned by the ash-collecting company. The GFPS advises the bereaved to put the remains in a cloth bag, place it on a firm surface, such as a stone, and pound it with a personal article of the deceased, such as a paperweight, a golf club, or a bat. A hammer is added to the list at the end, indicating that it is not as good as the items listed before it. Using a generic tool such as a hammer makes pulveriza-


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tion into an act of processing for utility and function. Depending on the perspective of the social actor, it might also be seen as an act of destruction. However, employing a personal article of the deceased turns the process of pulverization into a ceremonial act of caring because a golf club or a paperweight is not meant to be a tool of destruction. Thus, the use of a personal article can be seen as a way of personalizing the pulverization process. However, in practice, it is not entirely clear how successful the personalization of pulverization is. I met one person who used a golf club, but many others said they used hammers, both metal and wooden. Some people told me that they made a special cloth bag for the pulverization, which also personalizes the process. Yet, it is not unusual to place remains in a plastic bag when pulverizing them. Katano-san, a GFPS member and funeral specialist who works exclusively for GFPS members, told me that some of the tools suggested by the GFPS do not work very well unless only a small portion of remains is processed. He said, “It would take years to complete the job with a paperweight!” A number of people I met relegated the task of pulverization to Katano-san, who uses a machine. In shape, it resembles a microscope. When he first began his work as a funeral specialist, he used an electric mixer to pulverize remains, but the mixer started to smoke. After hearing this story, the vice-president of the GFPS found a machine for him. Approximately one meter high, it is designed to crush agricultural products to produce livestock feed. It is equipped with a heavy metal container, into which portions of the remains are placed so that the metal mallet can pound them. One afternoon, I observed the process of pulverization. Katano-san removed a white, round ceramic urn from a white, square wooden box covered with ornate cloth. The majority of bone fragments were small and flaky. Most of them were the size of a thumb. A few pieces had colored spots— some light pink and others light blue. Katano-san told me, “People at crematoriums say the colors of flowers in the casket transfer to the remains.” The floor shook when the machine started. Occasionally, Katano-san stirred the remains with a long stick so that they were evenly pulverized. When the remains were fine enough, Katano-san removed them from the metal container, poured them onto a piece of paper, and wrapped them up. The ashes were slightly gray, resembling sand at a beach. This procedure was repeated six times. Powdered ash made the room slightly cloudy. Katanosan’s bare hands became white with ash, and he wiped them occasionally with a wet towel. By the end, he had wrapped six packages of remains in white paper. Each square package was approximately thirty centimeters by thirty centimeters and was much heavier than it looked, weighing perhaps


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one kilogram or more. It took forty-five minutes to complete the job, after which Katano-san put away the machine and carefully washed his hands.

The Meanings of Pulverization The GFPS encourages its members to pulverize the remains of their kin on their own. Why? The instruction in the GFPS application package for a scattering ceremony indicates that people who initially found it difficult to pulverize the remains themselves later reported that they were glad to have done so: “They say that they pulverized the remains while quietly thinking of the deceased, and the experience was deeply moving.” The act of pulverization is supposed to be a chance for survivors to gather and to revive their fond memories of the deceased. President Yasuda adds another layer of meaning to the process of pulverization. He regrets that people today have become passive recipients of commercialized death ceremonies. For the president, the preparation of the remains by the family is a way of regaining control over a death practice, thereby contesting its commercialization. Not all members who pulverized the remains clearly express such concerns, but some echo the president’s view. Whether to oppose the commercialization of death or not, the GFPS frames pulverization as a way of bringing mortuary practices back into the bereaved’s hands and uniting the bereaved with the deceased. Despite these GFPS ideals, nobody I interviewed was thrilled about the actual pulverization, though families find it important to fulfill the deceased’s wishes. Miyata-san told me about a woman in her seventies: “She had to use a hammer to pulverize the remains of her deceased husband. At first, the task was difficult and she thought it was a heartless thing to do. Yet, in his will, her husband had asked the family to pulverize the remains. So the wife and children did it together.” Many said that pulverization is cruel, and some apologized to the deceased while using the hammers. Miyata-san told me that there are some members who think pulverization might incur retribution (bachi ga ataru). On the other hand, pulverization by the family can also be seen as a sign of their affection for the deceased. The sister-inlaw of one deceased person commented, “Since the deceased’s remains were pulverized by his beloved wife, the deceased must be satisfied [with his scattering ceremony]” (Saisei 1996, 21:7). We can identify two recurrent themes by examining people’s reactions to performing pulverization. Remains are treated as if they embody the deceased person, whether pulverization is thought to be cruel or to be a sign of affection for the deceased. At the same time, the remains evoke a


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feeling of otherness in survivors. Their loved ones are gone, and the remains represent their irreversible transformation. Unconventional contact with the remains, such as pulverization, is potentially dangerous. The living and the dead belong to different worlds and thus must be kept separate. In the bereaved’s attitudes toward the remains, we find a tension between closeness and otherness. Such a tension exists among those choosing other mortuary practices as well, though the sense of otherness seems to be stronger for them. When the bereaved collect the remains at a crematorium, they do not touch or process them; the remains are placed in an urn. The urn is usually placed in a white wooden box and covered with a decorative cloth wrapping. Though customs vary by region, it is common to keep the remains at an altar at home until they are interred. After the interment, which typically occurs around forty-nine days after the death, the urn remains in the underground structure of a grave. It is important that the remains be reverently treated and protected in a grave. In fact, people do not want to keep them at home; it seems as if they need to maintain a safe distance between the remains and their domestic space. The remains must be separated from the living to enable the deceased to go to an appropriate place and rest peacefully. Instead of keeping the remains at home, it is customary to enshrine an ancestral tablet representing the deceased at a domestic altar for veneration. The practice of maintaining a distance between the remains and the domestic space can be seen as a way of dealing with the sense of otherness associated with the remains. GFPS members, however, often expressed their affection toward the deceased when discussing their physical contact with the remains. A number of GFPS members told me that they were asked why they kept their kin’s remains at home when they held them for more than a few months. A woman in her sixties told me, “At first, I did not want to scatter my husband’s ashes right away. So I kept the remains on a shelf designed to hold a Buddhist altar. Whenever visitors saw the urn, they asked why I kept the remains at home. One person said it is not a good idea to keep the remains since the deceased cannot depart for the otherworld and rest in peace.”

The Ceremonies Ceremonies tend to take place on weekends, and, of course, many tourists are found at the places where the directors and the bereaved meet, such as at train stations or ports. Although the bereaved are often dressed like tourists, wearing hats and walking shoes, it is easy to spot them. Looking


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slightly nervous, they carry larger bags, which contain the remains, flowers, and other offerings. They are advised not to wear formal black suits and dresses at scattering ceremonies, for both practical and ideological reasons. The scattering sites are in remote areas, on mountains or at sea, and it is easier for the bereaved to travel there if dressed casually for the journey. When scattering ashes at sea, one must consider that the ship may rock or the deck may be slippery. Therefore, the GFPS recommends that people wear walking shoes. Furthermore, it emphasizes that scattering ceremonies are not funerals and therefore encourages people to avoid the black suits and dresses associated with death rites. Today’s busy lifestyle makes it difficult to reschedule scattering ceremonies. Siblings and relatives live far away from each other, and ceremonies occur in remote areas. Thus, scattering ceremonies are conducted even when the weather is less than perfect. A volunteer told me that he had once conducted a ceremony at sea in a small boat with a grandmother, her daughter, and her three-year-old grandchild. The sea was so rough that they could not go very far from shore. The weather was bad, and the woman got seasick and dropped the ashes on the deck. Then her mother got seasick, too. The director said to me, “I had to collect the ashes scattered on the deck. The child was the only one without seasickness. That was a tough ceremony!” Since the first scattering ceremony conducted by the GFPS on October 5, 1991, ceremonies have followed a fairly uniform pattern, as the following descriptions illustrate.3 Once the party arrives at the scattering site, the ceremonial director announces, “Now we begin the Xth scattering ceremony for so-and-so.” Participants then scatter the ashes. When the bereaved families have completed scattering and post-scattering activities, such as the offering of liquor, the director announces that it is time to dedicate a moment of silence to the deceased. The director then announces how many GFPS members have returned to nature. At the end of the ceremony, he or she hands the certificate of the shizensō ceremony to the representative of the deceased’s family. Details of ceremonies vary according to the location of the scattering site (at sea or on land), the scale of the ceremony, and whether the ceremony involves a single family or multiple, unrelated families. The First Ceremony, October 5, 1991 Below is the description of the first scattering ceremony, which was published in President Yasuda’s first book on shizensō (1997, 2–6). Though it is a brief summary of events, the description illustrates the basic stages involved


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in many scattering ceremonies: the audio aid dividing the ceremony into multiple segments (in this case, a foghorn), the opening announcement, the dedication of flowers, and the observation of silence. There are a few exceptions, however. For example, the first ceremony involved many speeches given by the president, GFPS members, and a representative of the bereaved. A yacht, The Wavy Dream, traveled for about two hours and brought the members of our group to the vast ocean, off of the Sagami Coast. The sun was shining in the blue sky. A foghorn was blown. A member of the GFPS declared, “Now we begin our first scattering ceremony.” Members gave a series of short speeches. Small cloth bags containing finely crushed ashes were tied to flower rings. Another foghorn. Flower rings with ashes and rice wine were released into the ocean. At the sound of a bell, everybody observed one minute’s silence. The third foghorn indicated the end of the ceremony. By the time the yacht returned to the Misaki port, it was getting dark. A Collective Ceremony at Sea in 2003 Special collective ceremonies, held four times a year, provide an inexpensive ceremonial choice, costing 100,000 yen (US$1,000). As I observed several collective ceremonies, I came to realize that they often serve as occasions for nonmembers, including the media, to witness the GFPS scattering practice. The presence of the president and the media makes a special collective ceremony more formal. The president greets everyone and gives brief speeches at the special collective ceremony, whereas at other ceremonies only ceremonial directors are present. Because a special collective ceremony involves multiple, unrelated families, before the ceremony the bereaved are asked to stand up and formally introduce themselves to some thirty participants. The presence of journalists imbues the event with a different tone because it adds spectators who are related neither to the deceased nor to the GFPS. During the opening speech, the president introduces the journalists to the others and explains that the bereaved are free to choose whether or not to talk to them. The idea that one might be videotaped, photographed, or interviewed may make participants nervous, curious, or slightly excited. A special collective ceremony accommodates up to ten groups. Because space on a ship is limited, only two family members per group are allowed on board. The rest of the survivors must wait at the port. Families are polite


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to each other but tend not to mingle very much during the ceremony. Thus, the ceremony as a whole is not really a collective family event, where people related to each other through the deceased gather and engage in a common activity. Furthermore, families have to wait in line for their turn to scatter, and ceremonial directors make sure that all groups conduct the scattering within their allotted time. Special collective ceremonies are therefore often busier and less customized than single-family or multifamily ceremonies, offering little time to spare or privacy to engage in elaborate post-scattering activities, such as singing, playing music, and reading poems. Six families gathered at Misaki port, approximately an hour and a half from Tokyo. It was a windy day. As people came in, a ceremonial director asked them to sign the passenger list. The president, two ceremonial directors, and a photographer participated in the ceremony. Of the ceremonial directors, the senior one took charge. Participants were quietly talking among themselves. Nobody was obviously emotional; they were neither cheerful nor distressed. When everyone had gathered, the senior ceremonial director got up and offered greetings. The president then gave a brief speech: “It is unusual to have such a sunny day for the ceremony. The deceased must have been virtuous. Today, many shizensō ceremonies are taking place across Japan. As of today, we have conducted a total of 723 shizensō ceremonies, returning the ashes of 1,281 people to nature. Thirteen years have passed since the society was established, and it has recently gained nonprofit-organization status. Please continue to support our movement.” After the president’s speech, the bereaved were asked to introduce themselves. They stated where they lived and whose ashes they were scattering. A woman from Tokyo said, “My father hated graves and I am pleased to be here today to realize his wish of scattering.” Some shared what the deceased used to say, such as their desire to return to the sea, while others talked about the deceased’s occupation or a hobby associated with the sea. Fishing and sailing were mentioned. These introductions illuminated why the scattering of ashes had been chosen over conventional interment. After the introductions, the senior ceremonial director announced that they were about to board an elegant ship pre-


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viously owned by a famous British politician. The captain of the ship, a short but well-built man with a deeply tanned face, gave safety instructions, made weather reports, and showed the day’s route on a chart. He spoke no words of condolence. The sea was calm and the ride was smooth. Most people sat in folding chairs scattered on the deck and stared at the bow. It was a forty-minute ride to the scattering site. The ceremony began with the sound of a bell rung by a ship’s crewmember. The ceremonial director called the first bereaved family’s name, and they gathered at the right side of the deck, next to a railing. An older woman in her eighties, Saga-san, took out a plastic bag containing cremated ashes. She opened the bag, and the remains glittered in the wind. People sitting close to her turned their faces away because a portion of the ashes was blowing toward them. The ashes formed a white stream and fell into the sea. Some ashes fell on the deck, and the crew hastily brought a broom and a metal funnel. Saga-san threw flower petals into the water, and then poured beer. The ceremonial director announced, “Please observe a moment of silence.” The family members joined their hands together for the deceased. The same procedure was repeated for the rest of the families. Most of them quietly poured their ashes into the metal funnel, and the ashes, looking like white smoke, spilled into the sea. People close to the funnel either let out a small cry of surprise and laughter, or turned away in order not to breathe the ashes. A few families had their ashes wrapped in sheets of paper and dropped them into the sea. When all the families had finished scattering, the bell was rung again and the boat circled the scattering area three times. Colorful petals decorated the blue ocean. The families stared at the surface of the sea, trying to identify or pointing at the petals they had scattered. A person who could identify the family’s flowers would let the other family member know. Some took pictures of each other with the sea as a backdrop. Waving her hand as the boat circled the scattering area, one middle-aged woman shouted at the sea, addressing her late husband: “I’ll see you again. Thank you!” The senior ceremonial director announced: “This is the end of the scattering ceremony. This is your final parting [with the deceased].”


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On our way back to the port, families were more talkative and relaxed than they had been on their way to the scattering site. Smiles were seen on some faces. The ship docked and the families came back to the waiting room. The president gave each family a copy of the certificate commemorating the ceremony. Family representatives took the certificates with both hands and bowed deeply as if they were receiving diplomas. The ceremonial director said, “Congratulations, now the deceased have achieved their desired returns to nature.” He then distributed copies of charts indicating the scattering point. People thanked the president and directors and left. A Multifamily Ceremony Held on a Mountain in 2003 Whether a ceremony is held at sea or on land makes a difference. Common methods of scattering at sea include scattering ashes with or without the use of a metal funnel, into which the bereaved pour the ashes, or tossing ashes wrapped in sheets of paper. At scattering ceremonies held on land, however, no funnel or paper is used. Flowers and liquor are commonly dedicated to the deceased at scattering ceremonies held both at sea and on land. Interestingly, more people pour water on ashes in ceremonies held on land. Considering that many people scatter the ashes of the deceased around trees at ceremonies held on land, there seems to be an association between scattering and the growth of the tree. Some people even noted that their ashes would be nutritious to flowers and plants. Water, in this context, can be seen as aiding the regeneration of the deceased in nature. At a ceremony held on land, some people also bring flowers and trees and plant them at the scattering site. The path to the scattering site was narrow and steep. The site was located in a mountainous region about an hour and a half away from Tokyo. Spruce trees soared into the sky, and the path was laced with delicate ferns. Some senior persons were using their walking sticks. A twenty-minute walk brought us to a slope where the ceremony was performed for two groups. The first group, the Kayamas, consisted of a couple in their fifties. The second, the Tanakas, was composed of the deceased’s wife, brother, three sons and their spouses, and grandchildren. The youngest son of the deceased occasionally picked up trash found on the mountain path as


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he walked toward the scattering site. Birds were singing in the background. An eighty-year-old woman, who had come to scatter the ashes of her late husband, poked at the ground with her walking stick: “I wonder if there are any matsutake mushrooms.” Matsutake mushrooms are a prized delicacy. Her casual remark made other family members smile. The bereaved were relaxed, and the atmosphere more closely resembled that of a family outing than of an occasion for mourning. The bereaved seemed to be content with the idea that they were carrying out the deceased person’s wish. The ceremonial director, in his mid-sixties, announced that they would begin the scattering ceremony. Everybody gathered around him. The director then instructed people not to go beyond the land owned by the GFPS. Paying attention to the marked boundaries, the two groups spread themselves into different areas, so that each family had privacy and a distinct area for scattering its ashes. The Tanaka family had brought a package of the pulverized remains of Grandfather, wrapped in many clear plastic bags. White ashes floated in the air as his eldest took out the inner bag filled with the ashes. One family member asked, “Where are the gloves?” Another one replied, “They are somewhere in the luggage.” They glanced at the contents of the luggage, looking for gloves, but did not find them. They started scattering ashes with their bare hands. Each family member took a handful of the ashes and spread them around trees of his or her choice. A daughter-in-law was gracefully scattering ashes with a smile on her face as if she were dancing. Then, mineral water from a one-liter plastic bottle was poured over the ashes. A family member cheerfully said, “Grandfather has already become good fertilizer.” The deceased’s younger brother told the others: “My brother’s comrades-in-arms all died in the mountains in the Philippines. My brother is lucky to have returned to his country and now is resting in peace on the soil of Japan.” The other group, the Kayamas, were scattering the ashes of the wife’s mother. They poured rice wine over the ashes. The ceremonial director announced that it was time to offer a brief moment of silence for the deceased. People lowered their heads and closed their eyes. Several people joined


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hands, just as they would have done to pray for the deceased at a Buddhist altar. The president made a brief speech: “It is wonderful that the deceased will listen to the birds’ songs and sleep here eternally.” The president then handed each family a copy of the certificate commemorating the ceremony. The families thanked the director and the president. A Quiet Ceremony in 2004 In contrast to the Tanakas’ ceremony described above, ceremonies involving a small number of family members tend to be less interactive. Only one family member attended the ceremony below. Although at other ceremonies families tended to talk among themselves, in this ceremony the bereaved interacted with the ceremonial directors more casually. Furthermore, unlike in a multifamily ceremony in which many groups conduct scattering independently and concurrently, in a ceremony involving one group it is easier to form a single ceremonial community by having everyone focus on the same sequence of events. On a rainy day, Morita-san, a man in his forties, came by himself to hold a scattering ceremony for his deceased father. The ceremonial directors and Morita-san met and introduced themselves at a souvenir shop in a mountainous area in western Japan. The area boasts many hot-spring resorts. While we were in the car on our way to the scattering site, Moritasan told us a little about himself and his father. He was the only son and came from a major city in the region. His wife could not make it. Three years before, Morita-san’s father had conducted his wife’s scattering ceremony at the same site. He told us, “Today happens to be my mother’s memorial anniversary.” The senior ceremonial director asked Morita-san if he had planned his father’s ceremony to take place on his mother’s memorial anniversary. Morita-san replied, “No, it’s a coincidence.” Morita-san’s father had passed away about ten months before the ceremony. Morita-san said, “I had a dream about my father last night for the first time since he passed away. In my dream, I thought, ‘Wow, Father is alive! I told everyone that he had passed away; what should I do now?’” Morita-san stated that since his father was busily working in the dream, he must have become a buddha (jōbutsu shite iru). In this


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region, the deceased person is thought to become a new buddha forty-nine days after death and to gradually achieve full-fledged ancestorhood over a thirty-three- or fifty-year period. Rather than getting lost and wandering around, his father had left the world of the living and achieved buddhahood. There was a look of relief on Morita-san’s face when he told us that his father must have achieved his buddhahood. By the time we arrived at the scattering site, the rain was gone and the sun had come out. Clouds were moving fast. We got out of the car and walked for a kilometer. The path to the scattering site was overgrown. The junior ceremonial director took out a sickle and cut the tall grass as we advanced. The scattering site was open, and there the grass was kept shorter. Several cherry trees that GFPS members had planted some years ago were growing on the site. Morita-san took out a plastic bag containing the ashes for the senior ceremonial director to check to make sure they were finely pulverized. The junior ceremonial director cut the grass around a cherry tree to the right, and Morita-san scattered the ashes around it. He then placed large, exotic orange and yellow flowers near the ashes. The ceremonial director asked everyone to observe a moment of silence. Handing a certificate of scattering to Morita-san, the director then told him that his mother’s scattering ceremony had been conducted at the same tree. He had chosen this particular tree so that the couple could rest together. On our way back to the car, Morita-san told us about his father’s beliefs. He thought that the body is a soul’s vessel, and that once a person dies the body is a meaningless, cast-off skin. Morita-san said, “My father did not find it important to have his ashes interred in a grave and have them venerated. It was the soul that he thought was important.” Whereas the conventional interment does not require an explanation, the bereaved who perform a scattering ceremony tend to explain their kin’s choice.

Common Practices and Variations The bereaved add their own personal touches to scattering ceremonies in a variety of ways, while ceremonial directors’ performance styles also give a


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distinctive flavor to the ceremonies. It is common for the bereaved to make offerings that they feel suit the deceased’s taste. One family brought dried herbs that the deceased used to grow in the yard (Saisei 1994, 14:7). Many offer liquors the deceased favored. Rice wine, whiskey, wine, and beer are common choices. At one ceremony, I saw a couple in their fifties pour out an entire bottle of Napoleon! Some people light and offer cigarettes to the deceased at ceremonies held on land. At one ceremony held at sea, the bereaved poured the perfume the deceased used to wear (1996, 21:7). By making these customized offerings, the bereaved highlight the individualities of the deceased and ritually create their presence during ceremonies. The bereaved personalize scattering ceremonies not only by making particular offerings but also by playing music or reading poems that the deceased loved. Some people played the flute or ocarina on the spot, while others played music tapes. The kinds of music played during ceremonies include classical music, hymns, and popular music performed by both domestic and foreign musicians. Some pieces have death, rebirth, or departure as their main themes, while others are personally significant to the bereaved or to the deceased. In previous ceremonies, Mahler’s “Resurrection,” the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” were all played. During one ceremony, a group of the deceased’s high school classmates sang their school song (Saisei 1994, 14:7), thus sending their message of friendship to the deceased and uniting themselves with the deceased. A ceremonial director reported that during one ceremony held on a mountain, “Survivors and the deceased’s three young children sang children’s songs about mountains.” Through these songs, the bereaved celebrated the deceased’s return to the mountain. Sometimes survivors play the songs requested by the deceased in their wills, thereby making the dead coproducers of their own scattering ceremony. To some people, aesthetics matter, and they come up with creative ways of scattering ashes: placing ashes in cloth bags and attaching them to flowers, pouring ashes over flowers and scattering them at sea, or depositing paper balloons containing ashes at sea. Sometimes people take special care of ashes when storing and transporting them. Several people told me that they had made cloth bags particularly for carrying and storing the ashes. Although it is not unusual for people to transport ashes in plastic bags or to place wrapped ashes in an urn or a wooden box, some containers of ashes are wrapped in beautiful pieces of cloth. One woman told me, “Today is a special day, and I wrapped the [box containing the] ashes with my scarf.” This was a scarf made by a prestigious French company. It is worth noting that this woman was wearing a red dress


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that matched the scarf, thereby color coordinating herself with the cloth wrapping her husband’s ashes. She said, “Today is the auspicious day of my husband’s return to nature. So I am wearing an auspicious color, red.” Her choice of red makes sense when we consider the fact that red is associated with celebrations and is tied to rebirth. People who had reached age sixtyone used to mark the year of renewal with a celebration. According to the Chinese calendar, sixty zodiacal combinations are used to identify the years. In this system, a sixty-one-year-old is thought to have completed the entire zodiacal cycle of sixty unique combinations, after which a new cycle begins. In other words, a person returns to the original starting point at the age of sixty-one. In some areas of Japan, sixty-one-year-olds are ceremonially dressed in red or other clothing associated with newborns (Watanabe 1979, 330). Whether or not the informant in the red dress used it strategically to imply the deceased’s rebirth in nature, when we consider these cultural meanings of the color, her red dress seems well suited to the occasion of shizensō, celebrating her late husband’s return to nature. The deceased’s presence is evoked not only by personal offerings but also by people’s addresses to their loved ones. During scattering ceremonies, I heard various people say, “I’ll see you in heaven,” “I’ll come here in the future; [addressing the speaker’s deceased wife] please wait for me,” and “Good-bye! I’ll see you again. Thank you!” In funerals, too, people make speeches addressing the deceased (see Suzuki 2000, 99–100; Tsuji 2006, 394), but they are much more formal.4 At scattering ceremonies, survivors part with the deceased by sending them farewell greetings and promising to reunite with them in the future. They talk about and to the ashes as if they were talking about and to the deceased person. An older woman in her seventies, who poured multiple bottles of rice wine at her husband’s ceremony, told me with a smile, “My deceased husband loved wine and he would haunt me as a ghost if I gave him no wine.” People who have died with strong attachments to this world are said to hover around, unable to reach the otherworld. By offering her deceased husband the wine, the woman thereby satisfied his cravings and facilitated his departure to the otherworld. Another informant referred to the ashes wrapped in paper as his father when he described his experience of scattering his ashes: “My father was floating close to the surface of the sea while I was pouring the wine. He vanished as soon as the wine was gone.” Unlike funerals and memorial rites, most scattering ceremonies lack an overt religious tone, though they do involve symbols and practices derived from certain religious traditions. For example, it is not uncommon to see people engage in gestures associated with Buddhist veneration. When they


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are asked to observe a moment of silence, some simply close their eyes, while others put their hands together just as they would when venerating the deceased at a Buddhist domestic altar or a family grave. A few people wear Buddhist rosaries around their wrists during the ceremonies. It is rare for people to chant sutras associated with Buddhism, or to recite norito (ritual prayers) associated with Shinto. People tend not to bring religious specialists to scattering ceremonies, though some people actively incorporated religious symbols and practices without involving religious specialists. A ceremonial director told me that some participants sang hymns at several scattering ceremonies. That shizensō lack distinctive religious overtones, however, does not mean that the deceased and their families have no interest in religion. While I met some members who said they do not believe in religion, I also met people who said they are Buddhists, Christians, Shintoists, or members of the so-called New Religions.5 I also met a member of the Raëlian movement. Some of these “religious” people are active in specific religious organizations, while others follow their family’s religious conventions for funerals and ancestor veneration without regularly participating in institutional activities. One GFPS member in his early seventies, a committed member of Sōka Gakkai, regularly attends its meetings and chants sutras at home every day. Meanwhile, a GFPS member I met in northern Japan said he left a Buddhist organization to which he used to belong but still regards himself as a serious Buddhist. In his view, institutional affiliation is unnecessary for Buddhist faith. I also met a son of a deceased GFPS member who used to study the occult. The GFPS thus accommodates people with diverse religious backgrounds and levels of personal commitment, which may or may not be translated into their own or their kin’s scattering ceremonies. Conventional funerals and memorial rites automatically incorporate religious specialists without considering the deceased’s and the bereaved’s choice or personal religious commitment. In contrast, at scattering ceremonies, except for the common act of venerating the deceased by joining hands, religious elements are added to the basic structure of the ceremony only if the deceased or the bereaved choose them. Not only the bereaved but also ceremonial directors diversify scattering ceremonies by employing various performing styles. In particular, some directors prepare their own speeches to the bereaved, while others take a minimalist approach, saying little during ceremonies. A senior male director, Kinoshita-san, is known for his dramatic speeches. When delivering the opening announcement at a collective ceremony at sea, he stated, “The


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current here is moving toward the United States of America. Today, from here, nine persons are returning to the sea—great nature.” Every time a family scattered ashes, the director suggested that they pray (inoru). Right before the ship circled the area of scattering, Kinoshita-san stated: “Now everyone. This is your final parting [with the deceased]. Please cherish your last moment [with the deceased].” When we returned to the waiting room at the Misaki port, the director began his final remarks: “Congratulations! The deceased has now returned to nature.” Not only this director but other directors also celebrate the deceased’s return to nature at scattering ceremonies, in contrast with funerals and interments, which are usually lacking in such celebratory remarks. President Yasuda also gives speeches whenever he attends ceremonies. He comments on the weather, the beauty of nature, and the deceased’s life, and how he or she loved nature or engaged in works associated with the sea or the forests. Yasuda-san’s speeches often highlight the aesthetics of scattering, describing the rolling waves, soaring gulls, and cooling breeze. On one occasion, he told the bereaved, “Now the deceased will sleep peacefully listening to the birds’ songs.” In his addresses and publications discussing shizensō, the president carefully avoids phrases of religious significance, for Yasuda-san strongly believes that the GFPS is a secular, citizens’ movement, and he is reluctant to discuss the issues of the soul or its passage to heaven or a Buddhist paradise. He talks about “mourning” (itamu) and “thinking ofâ†œ” (shinobu) the deceased, but not “comforting the soul” (irei) or “calming the soul” (chinkon). On the other hand, some ceremonial directors use the terms “soul” and “spirit,” because they are often employed in conventional memorial addresses. A senior director, Maeda-san, adds the conventional phrase of condolence during scattering ceremonies: “May the deceased’s soul rest in peace in the otherworld” (gomeifuku o oinori shimasu). By using this phrase, the director ties the occasion of ash scattering to conventional death rites. Another older director compared a scattering site to a grave when explaining the location of the site on a chart. He said, “This chart indicates a gravestone at sea (umi no bohyō). If you would like to come back to this point in three or five years for a grave visit, you can take this chart to a ship’s captain, and he’ll take you to the place.” Some members are uncomfortable with “the gravestone at sea” because the GFPS strives toward building no graves. Yet, my interview with the director indicated that he does not believe the scattering site is a grave. During the interview, the director told me that his task is to prevent people from constructing more graves that destroy forests and hills. Thus, rather


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than taking its literal meaning, we should consider the phrase “a gravestone at sea” as a romantic metaphor dramatizing the director’s speech. Nevertheless, given that one of the major objections of nonmembers is that ash scattering leaves survivors no place to memorialize the deceased, the metaphor bridges the gap between the GFPS ideal of building no graves and the conventional concept of interment. Therefore, by comparing the scattering site to a grave and comparing possible visits to scattering sites to grave visits, the director allows nonmembers to see continuities between the GFPS practices and mortuary conventions in the larger society.

Scattering as a Secondary Rite of Incorporation The Japanese community funerals common during the first half of the Shōwa period were “unique in that [they] attempted to incorporate the deceased’s spirit once again into the world of the living before sending it away” (Suzuki 2000, 48). First, rites of resurrection attempted to revive the dead. Then, the rites of breaking bonds separated the dead from the living. Carrying the coffined corpse away from the house and burying it involved many rites of breaking bonds and sending the deceased’s spirit to the otherworld. Next, rites were performed to help the dead achieve buddhahood, and on the forty-ninth day after death (or the thirty-fifth day, for women), it was determined whether they had done so (Smith 1974, 92). During the forty-nine-day period, people visited the grave every seventh day to venerate the dead, though the cycle was increasingly simplified. The mourning period ended on the forty-ninth day (92; for regional variations, see Ooms 1967; S.â•›Yamada 2007, 109). On that day, the paper tablet representing the deceased was replaced by a permanent one bearing the deceased’s posthumous name (Smith 1974, 72). Even after the deceased became a new buddha, his or her status remained unstable, and the bereaved gave the dead special ritual attention to ensure the new buddha’s transformation into an ancestor. At the first bon, or Festival of the Dead, in which all ancestors are thought to come home, a special altar was set up for new buddhas separately from the one for more established ancestors (Smith 1974, 72). It was at the end of the first bon that “the spirit is thought to have begun the long process of becoming an ancestral spirit” (72). Typically, memorial services were held on the first, third, seventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, thirty-third, fiftieth, and hundredth anniversaries (95). The timing of the final memorial rite varied but was usually the thirty-third or fiftieth anniversary of death.


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Although many of the practices discussed here persist in contemporary mortuary ceremonies, they are characterized by a dramatically shorter mourning period; as Suzuki (2000, 91) reports, “Rites of separation, transition, and incorporation take place in a single day.” She adds, “Cremation and the seventh-day memorial servicesâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹correspond respectively to the rites of transition and the rites of incorporation” (93–94). At cremation, the deceased is separated from the bereaved and their bonds are broken. The deceased go through the transitional phase during cremation, and the remains are collected in an urn. The bereaved hold the seventh-day memorial service right after returning from the crematorium (118). A Buddhist priest chants sutras, participants offer incense to the deceased, and people share a meal that includes meat, indicating that the mourning period is over. Similarly, Yamada Shinya (2007, 109) reports that in a rural community in Wakayama prefecture the ceremonial cycle from the funeral to the forty-ninth-day rite has been shortened, with the rite being conducted during the fourth or fifth week. Although Suzuki (2000) does not highlight the significance of interment, it can serve as another rite of incorporation. An unsettled feeling persists until the deceased’s remains are interred in a grave (see Figure 3). As mentioned earlier, GFPS members who kept their kin’s remains at home

Figure 3. â•‡ A man burning incense at an altar for a newly deceased family member (Satsuki Kawano)


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reported that people wondered why they did so for longer than a few months. Therefore, interment can be seen as a secondary incorporation ritual, in which the deceased’s remains are separated from the living by being placed in a grave, after which the deceased acquires a more stable identity. Interment often occurs around the forty-ninth day after death, though the exact timing of interment varies according to regional customs and whether the family owns a grave. In the case of an unexpected death, the bereaved might spend a year or longer looking for an appropriate grave plot. Until a permanent space is found and a grave constructed, the remains may be kept at a temporary storage space at a municipal cemetery or at a Buddhist temple. How does a scattering ceremony fit into this framework? In many cases, a scattering ceremony replaces interment; in this case, it can be a secondary reincorporation rite. During a scattering ceremony, the deceased are separated from the living and sent off to the sea or a mountain. The dead become one with nature and rest in peace. In some cases, they are thought to nurture other forms of life or to turn into new forms of life. For example, according to a sixty-seven-year-old informant, her deceased husband loved tuna and used to say that he was planning to become food for tuna by having his ashes scattered at sea. Thus, scattering ceremonies reincorporate the deceased by giving them a new existence, which is not surprising, given the emphasis on fertility and regeneration that mortuary practices in various cultures share (Bloch and Parry 1982). Conceiving a scattering ceremony as a secondary incorporation rite can, to some extent, be reconciled with the notion of ancestorhood by focusing on the deceased’s rest in peace. However, there is no explicit, detailed coordination between the framework of returning to nature and that of achieving ancestorhood. This is partly because scattering ceremonies do not occur at a fixed point in time, and the GFPS ideology lets the deceased deal with the second framework. In some cases, a scattering ceremony may be held soon after cremation, while in others, it may occur many years after the deceased’s death. Furthermore, rites facilitating buddhahood and memorial rites may or may not be conducted for deceased who were returned to nature in a scattering ceremony (Kawano 2004). Sometimes the bereaved disinter the remains of their kin from their family grave and have them scattered. In such cases, the deceased may already be full-fledged ancestors. Then the scattering of ashes creates a new layer of reincorporation, possibly coexisting with the conventional process of achieving ancestorhood. GFPS members tend not to emphasize the contradictions that arise when incorporating a scattering ceremony into the framework of ancestorhood


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by partly reconciling the new practice with that framework. Whether the deceased is conceptualized as an ancestor or as a new form of existence, the aim is to assure that he or she rests in peace; thus, the adoption of a scattering ceremony is partially reconciled with the framework of ancestorhood by emphasizing the deceased’s well-being, without necessarily working out the details. The emphasis on the deceased’s returning to nature resonates with a “journey” motif that claimed a central place in the repertoire of mortuary practices in Japan’s recent past, and the mobilization of the motif in the discussion of scattering ceremonies realigns the new practice with past practices. President Yasuda often refers to the deceased’s return to nature as a “journey to the sea, a mountain, or the sky.” Furthermore, though the actual ceremony is quite short and simple, its very focus is the physical movement of the bereaved, carrying the deceased’s remains from a mundane, residential space to the sea or a mountain, where they physically part. Until hearses became common, the procession transferring the deceased constituted a critical component of a funeral ritual (S.â•›Inoue 1990; Murakami 1990). Before the adoption of a ceremonial altar displaying the images of the Buddhist pure land, the palanquin, on which a coffin was placed, was the central ceremonial piece at the funeral (S.â•›Yamada 2007, 287). Although the palanquin was essentially just a vehicle for transporting the dead to a Buddhist temple, where he or she was ritually sent to a Buddhist paradise, the replacement of the palanquin with a hearse and the abandonment of the procession made it difficult to focus on the journey motif at funerals. Yamada Shinya (288–289) presumes that a ceremonial altar with images of the otherworld was developed to create an “instant” parting with the deceased at these funeral ceremonies that no longer involved the physical movement of the coffin in a procession. Although moving remains to the scattering site is not formally ritualized, the journey motif, which has lost its centrality in contemporary funeral ceremonies, is emphasized at scattering ceremonies. Nevertheless, the GFPS use of the journey motif differs from its historical use in ritual processions. With the GFPS, the journey lacks the clear religious overtone that indicates the deceased’s rebirth in a Buddhist paradise. Moreover, the journey motif found in contemporary ash scattering must be interpreted by considering the postwar perception of the family grave as the deceased’s house (see chapter 2). GFPS members have chosen to rest peacefully in nature rather than to stay in a small, dark grave. Rather than thinking of their destination as an otherworld, many GFPS members discuss scattering sites as if they were pleasurable destinations and imagine that their present


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state of consciousness will remain when they “go back” to nature. A male GFPS member described his desire to become one with nature: “I really like the ocean in Okinawa; it’s so beautiful and I feel like just going into the ocean.” Therefore, GFPS members mobilize a culturally available journey motif to create a new, aesthetically pleasing image of comfort.

Creating a Ceremonial Return to Nature The deceased’s desire to return to nature and the survivors’ final parting with the deceased are the two central themes that characterize scattering ceremonies. Rather than an unchanging concept, “nature” imagined in this ceremonial context is a culturally and historically constructed one (see Kalland and Asquith 1997). Both the bereaved and ceremonial directors collaborate in creating the deceased’s presence and their departure to nature during scattering ceremonies. Though the bereaved mourn the loss of the deceased, celebratory remarks distinguish scattering ceremonies from ordinary death rites. Scattering ceremonies also differ from ordinary death and memorial rites in that they tend to lack religious overtones, which entail incorporating religious specialists and deferring to their authority and their institutional worldviews. By eliminating certain memorial conventions, people introduce new practices and meanings when shaping their scattering ceremonies (Kawano 2004). Despite these differences, however, there are a number of continuities as well. In his study of ancestor worship in Japan published more than three decades ago, Robert Smith (1974, 133–134) had already noted that it was common to personalize offerings when venerating the family dead. Using music is less common at ordinary funerals, but some of today’s nonreligious funerals include music that the deceased enjoyed. In daily life, both GFPS members and nonmembers talk about the family dead as if they were still alive, and the deceased often receive regular offerings (see Kawano 2004). Furthermore, though it may not always be their intention, some directors use certain phrases and metaphors employed in conventional death rites, creating a bridge between the GFPS practice of scattering ashes and the mortuary conventions of the larger society. Thus, the initial, apparently vast, discrepancy between interment and ash scattering may be diminished in practice. The basic ceremonial framework of scattering is simple, allowing customization and elaboration as needed. The ceremony’s participants and its producers sometimes partly reconcile nature’s embrace with conventional mortuary practices by mobilizing culturally available images of


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death and emphasizing the significance of the deceased’s well-being while avoiding the construction of a new philosophical or religious paradigm of reconciliation. Furthermore, a scattering ceremony has importance beyond the deceased’s reincorporation into nature. Survivors often directly address the deceased, assuring them that they will someday join them, thus making the separation of the living and the dead only a temporary one. A scattering ceremony, then, is also an occasion to assure the bereaved that they will be reunited with the deceased. This sense of continuity—the idea that the bereaved and the deceased will be together again—powerfully shapes ash scattering as a ceremonial act rather than as the mere disposal of material remains.


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Chapter Five


What family conditions prompt ash scattering? And what consequences

does the choice to scatter ashes have for patterns of allocating memorial assets and duties? Do the mortuary trends that have developed since the 1990s reflect a shift in the family system from stem family to nuclear family to individualization? I contend that new mortuary strategies, particularly the scattering of ashes, developed partly because stem-family-based patterns of inheriting ceremonial assets persist in urban settings. However, this contention certainly does not imply that the stem-family system established as a legal system in the Meiji period is operating in exactly the same way today. Rather than analyzing family relations by focusing on whether we still have the stem family or not, it is more useful to examine whether and which principles of its formation and of the allocation of rights and duties within a stem-family framework persist.1 It is not unusual for those born during the 1960s to live with their parents as married adults, although they may not have continuously coresided with the parents and may have maintained independent households for a certain period after their marriage. Considering such a pattern of delayed coresidence, the patterns of branching and the formation of threegenerational households associated with the stem-family system continue, not as meaningless survivals of the past, but as outcomes of actors’ accommodating social change. Coresidence may be a strategy for actors to manage their lives in a postindustrial society, which may consequently maintain and partly modify the existing stem-family system as a social rather than a legal system. The change in the stem-family system does not have to mean its demise or the transition to a new family system (i.e., the nuclear-family 140


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system) but can simply be the continuation of the stem-family system in a modified form. The dual family structure, or the coexistence of three-generational and nuclear-family households, characterized the 1955 social system (see chapter 1). Although some scholars explained this postwar phenomenon as a historical transition from the stem-family to the nuclear-family system (e.g., Morioka 1973), alternative explanations have more recently been offered that incorporate demographic change and cohort analyses (A.â•›Katō 2006; Ochiai 2000a; also see chapter 1). The dual family structure is better understood as resulting not from the replacement of an old family system by a new one, or from the emergence of a completely new family system, but from the expression of the stem-family system in the face of a demographic transition to a low-birthrate society and changing socioeconomic conditions. Many nuclear-family households were established in generations that produced many adult siblings as Japan changed from a highinfant-mortality and high-birthrate society to a low-infant-mortality and low-birthrate society. Before the birthrate goes down significantly, a society with a decreasing infant-mortality rate keeps producing many children who tend to reach adulthood. Since only one child is needed to continue the family line in the stem-family system, his or her siblings are expected to establish their own households, which are nuclear at the beginning. In this context, it is impossible to have a high proportion of three-generational households, as only one set of parents is available for many children to live with. What seemed to be the dissolution of the stem-family system, then, is now reinterpreted as the consequence of this demographic shift rather than as the replacement of an old family system by a new one. The members of the GFPS were among those born in this transitional period. The mortuary practices that flourished in the 1990s are best understood as new strategies developed by these generations to address the generationally specific life issues arising for them in the larger, changing society. Therefore, the new mortuary practices and “traditional” family graves are two sides of the same coin, resulting from the persistent but modified stemfamily framework of succession and branching underlying the allocation of memorial assets and duties. Seen in this light, ash scattering is not necessarily replacing the “traditional” family-grave system. Nonetheless, just as the prevalence of nuclear-family households in postwar Japan produced new family ideals, so did the development of new mortuary practices give rise to mortuary ideas emphasizing the self-sufficiency of older generations—ideas that contrast with the “traditional” ones associated with the family-grave system. By developing this line of thought, this chapter will examine the family


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conditions in which the scattering of ashes is adopted and the implications of scattering for family relations. I will first briefly define key terms used in this chapter and review the historical-transition thesis and its alternative. Then I will examine the persisting stem-family-based framework of memorial-care allocation among ash scatterers and explore the reconstruction of generational relations from the perspectives of ash scatterers and their descendants. Ash scattering’s implications for community relations will also be analyzed. Finally, the ways in which ash scatterers challenge and reproduce the stem-family principles of allocating memorial assets and obligations will be examined. Ash scatterers express new ideologies of self-sufficiency and increased control over their memorial strategies and reformulate generational relations. Yet their adoption of new ideologies does not necessarily result in the complete denial of reciprocity between generations or of the stem-family-based principles of allocating to one child the ceremonial assets and the obligation to care for the family dead. Rather than extending my discussion on family to include elder care, inheritance of non-ceremonial assets, or coresidence, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the persistent but modified patterns among ash scatterers of allocating memorial duties and ceremonial assets within a stem-family framework.

Understanding Families and Memorial Strategies Before examining the historical-transition thesis and GFPS members’ cases, I must clarify a few key analytical terms. First, the analysis requires distinguishing between “family” and “household.” The former is a culturally constructed kinship unit, whereas the latter is a residential unit, often considered to be a domestic unit (however, in reality, people living in the same house may not share the same budget, and those living in multiple households may form a domestic group; e.g., Stack 1975). The two are interrelated, of course, as people often form residential units with a particular family organization in mind. Strangers, such as servants, can live together with a family in a house and share certain resources by taking part in the household’s joint activities, such as production (e.g., working on the family’s farm) or domestic activities (e.g., taking part in cooking, cleaning, or caring for the young or the old), but this household does not represent a new family as a kinship unit. The servants, however, may be treated like family members in many ways and the ideology centering on household unity may develop, yet their lack of a kinship tie will not be erased by these developments. In another example, a husband


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may be temporarily or permanently working in a foreign country, leaving his wife and children behind; in the minds of the wife and children, the absent man is still a member of their family as a kinship unit. The examination of residential arrangements alone, therefore, cannot tell the full story. The distinction between family and household is important when considering the inheritance of memorial duties and assets. In postwar Japan, the stem-family system has allocated rights and duties regarding memorial care for the dead. During the prewar period, the legal stem-family system (ie seido) governed matters of succession and inheritance.2 Surely, the legal family system in the postwar period is different from the prewar system (e.g., in determining whether and how non-ceremonial assets should be divided among siblings).3 However, the allocation of ceremonial duties and assets in a stem-family framework has been common in postwar Japan. Only one married child acquires the family’s ceremonial assets and primary-care duties. In this framework, ceremonial assets are passed down within each stem-family organization, ideally consisting of generations of married couples, with only one married couple in each generation. Yet, due to increased mobility, members belonging to the same stem family, as defined above, may or may not share the same residence or budget. Older and younger generations may delay coresidence. Therefore, ascertaining the most common household type through a national census does not tell us very much about how the stem-family framework still operates when the family’s ceremonial assets are passed down. In addition to noting the distinction between “family” and “household,” it is important to pay attention to people’s perception(s) of the family ideal; it is ethnocentric to automatically consider extended families as an aggregate of nuclear-family units. Even though, according to a national census, a small number of nuclear-family households, a large number of single-parent households, and single-person households coexist, the nuclear family remains the family ideology of the people so long as it is the normative conceptual framework for interpreting their family situations. In a society where the nuclear family is the norm, for example, a divorced person is seen to be lacking the necessary members defined by the societal ideal. According to this ideal, single adults are “on their way” to getting married and having children.4 In the case of Japan, an important question is whether a nuclear-family household consisting of a married couple and their unmarried children can be seen as an independent unit complete in itself, or as a part of the larger family (the stem family). If the couple’s aging parents live in


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the countryside and the couple lives in Tokyo, social actors might see this situation either as that of a stem family temporarily split into two households, or as two separate nuclear families. Similarly, a multigenerational household consisting of grandparents, parents, and their unmarried children might be seen as a stem family or as a nuclear family with “extra” temporary members. The issue is complex, as older and younger generations may not share the same view in a rapidly changing society. Nonetheless, when allocating ceremonial assets and duties in today’s Japan, the stemfamily framework is still relevant, even for those who emphasize the relative autonomy of their immediate household. After all, a family grave lacking a successor will be lost. In short, the ideal (and its variations) in a society, its statistical prevalence, and whether the ideal is presupposed in social systems all matter.5 With these points in mind, let me briefly examine the historical-transition thesis, which has been influential in explaining the changes in family relations in postwar Japan.

The Historical-Transition Thesis Numerous studies have been conducted on the nature of Japanese kinship or Japanese families (e.g., Ariga 1965; Bachnik 1983; Befu 1963; L.â•›Brown 1966; Hamabata 1990; Kitano 1966 [1962]; Kitaōji 1971; Kondo 1990; Meguro 1987; Morioka 1972, 1993; Nakane 1967; Y.â•›Nishikawa 2000; Ochiai 2000a [1994]; Suenari 1972; Ueno 1994; for more recent works, see White 2002; Hashimoto and Traphagan 2008). While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to adequately review the literature on Japanese kinship and family, I would like to point out that there is a growing trend to study Japanese families by emphasizing their diversity and the ways in which individual families are shaped by changing political, economic, and social forces (see Long 1987 for her review of previous key studies concerning Japanese families by both Japanese and non-Japanese scholars). Among the various theories of Japanese families and how they have changed over time, the historicaltransition thesis, as it has been employed to explain the development of new mortuary practices, must be critically examined. Studies concerning changes in the veneration of the dead can be roughly divided into two categories. One focuses on a homogeneous system of veneration that has taken various forms as it has evolved, thereby producing a distribution of veneration forms across Japan at specific historical points. The second category presupposes heterogeneous types of veneration in various regions of Japan, which are embedded in regionally specific


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social structures and undergo regionally specific historical developments and changes. The existing variations or the rise of new forms are sometimes explained in terms of linear change in ancestor veneration, which is thought to reflect the linear change in the family system (e.g., H.â•›Inoue 2003; Morioka 1984). Scholars assuming the heterogeneity of family forms tend to emphasize the regionally specific expressions of ancestor veneration (e.g., Ueno 1982, 2002 [1985]; also see Mori 1993b, 201–206; 2000, 271n–207n) and their regionally specific courses of development and change (Uesugi 2001).6 The historical-transition thesis examined here belongs to the first category. The historical-transition thesis explains the emergence of new mortuary practices since the 1990s by citing the decline of the stem-family system and its associated mortuary practices, and its replacement by the nuclear-family system and the rise of new mortuary practices. The family grave found in today’s Japan is inherited by only one child, most frequently the eldest son. Despite the fact that the New Civil Code endorsed an equal-inheritance policy among siblings, ceremonial assets such as the family grave and Buddhist altar remained indivisible, nontaxable, and not sellable (Article 897). Although the New Civil Code, unlike the Meiji Civil Code, does not stipulate how one must choose a successor, succession rules resembling those in the prewar stem-family system persist at municipal cemeteries and Buddhist temples (Kawano 2003; Makimura 1996; Takeuchi 1993, 110–111). Often, the eldest son inherits the right to use the grave, while the other siblings do not. A married-out daughter taking her husband’s name is frequently prevented from inheriting her natal-family grave because she is considered a member of her conjugal family. When no successor is available to inherit a family grave, the right to use the plot is canceled and it must be “returned” to the cemetery provider. The 1990s saw the rise of alternative burial systems requiring no succession, namely, graves with permanent ritual care, and ash scattering. In these systems, individuals rather than families are the basic units of participation. Burial systems requiring no succession are often understood as reflecting Japan’s postwar shift from the stem-family system (chokkei kazoku sei) to a nuclear-family system centering on the husband–wife bond (fūfu kazoku sei). According to the historical-transition thesis, the stem-family system, characterized by the presence of a corporate unit perpetuating the family line and property, is assumed to have collapsed and been replaced by the nuclear-family system, which became the norm during the 1960s and 1970s as the nation experienced rapid urbanization and economic growth (H.â•›Inoue 2003, 13). Unlike nuclear families, the stem family is ideally


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eternal, extending endlessly through generations of successors and their spouses. Because the family grave, symbolizing the continuity of the stem family, does not fit the reality of Japanese people today, new burial systems that reflect the discontinuity of individual families and the primacy of the husband–wife bond have been developed (222). Thus, many people wish to be buried with their spouses rather than with their ancestors, illustrating the absorption of the new family ideology (259). Citing Kiyomi Morioka’s work (1992, 6), Inoue Haruyo (2003, 27, 199) further argues that the change in family structure and ideology that occurred between the 1960s and 1970s was followed by a trend toward individualization. Divorce rates went up, and young people began postponing marriages. People began to pursue more diverse life courses, in which individuals may or may not get married or have children. When they formed families, individuals began to increasingly emphasize self-realization within and beyond the family unit. As a result, the individualization of the family has now found expression in burial practices: some couples find it acceptable not to be buried together in the same grave (H.â•›Inoue 2003, 259; see also Makimura 1996). Since the late 1980s, these structural and ideological changes have manifested themselves in burial practices, leading to the rise of new practices designed for couples and individuals rather than sustaining a system presupposing succession within the stem family. The above framework is quite logical and, at first glance, seems to explain the overall shift in burial practices. However, a number of questions remain. The first one is concerned with the time lag between the family system’s transformation, which had occurred by the 1970s, and the spread of alternative memorial practices, which did not begin to occur until the 1990s. If the first postwar shift in the family changed people’s interpretation of “nuclear-family household” from a unit constituting a larger generational continuity to a completely self-contained unit, we are left to wonder why, for the most part, alternative burial practices have increased only since the 1990s rather than much earlier. Inoue Haruyo (2003, 6, 28, 29n) offers no theoretical explanation for change beyond the notion of “cultural lag” originally proposed by the sociologist William F. Ogburn (1964 [1922]). Relying on this perspective, Inoue argues (2003, 29n) that in a modern industrial society, changes in cultural beliefs, such as religious beliefs, occur much more slowly than changes in material culture, which are driven by rapid scientific and technological developments. However, the driving force behind the rise of new mortuary practices in Inoue’s thesis is the change in the family system, which, according to Ogburn, belongs to nonmaterial culture (1964, 203):


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The family makes some adjustments to fit changed material conditions, while some of its functions remain constant. The family, therefore, under the terminology used here, is a part of the non-material culture that is only partly adaptive. When the material conditions change, changes are occasioned in the adaptive culture. But these changes in the adaptive culture do not synchronize exactly with the change in the material culture. There is a lag which may last for varying lengths of time, sometimes indeed, for many years. Inoue does not clarify the relationship between burial systems and the family as part of nonmaterial culture. According to Inoue Haruyo (2003, 25), because the stem family and the nuclear family interpenetrate, with Japanese nuclear families still containing the shadow of the stem family, burial practices also exhibit this interweaving of the new and old—they are in a transitional state. In historical terms, however, nuclear-family households were already common before World War II (55.3 percent in 1920), and the percentage (not the number) of nuclear-family households remained fairly stable in postwar Japan between 1955 and 2000, ranging between 59.6 percent and 63.9 percent (Atō 2002, 271, Table 8–2). Therefore, though the number of nuclearfamily households increased because there were many siblings born in the transitional period, the percentage of such households did not necessarily grow (Ochiai 2000a, 81–82). The implication of these observations is that this shift does not necessarily demonstrate a change to the nuclear-family system. Furthermore, family graves, supposedly reflecting people’s ie consciousness, are still being built well into the twenty-first century in Japan. In fact, they dominate the majority of cemeteries; people living in nuclearfamily households continue to participate in memorializing the deceased at family graves. To say that these graves represent the persistence of an old custom explains little. A new framework is necessary to accommodate the continuance of family graves on the one hand and the development of alternative systems on the other. Rather than explaining the phenomenon by referencing a persistent old custom, “cultural lag,” the interpenetration of two family systems, or the transitional state, I will use cohort analyses to examine the scattering of ashes as a coping strategy that developed exactly because certain principles allocating memorial care in the stem-family framework have survived and are being reconstituted, to some extent, in Japan’s postindustrial society.


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Ash Scatterers and Demographic Change Using demographic and cohort analysis, scholars have challenged the historical-transitional thesis (A.â•›Katō 2006; Ochiai 2000a). Following Itō (1994), Ochiai (2000a, 87–91) usefully analyzes postwar changes in household composition in Japan by dividing people into age groups by demographic characteristics: (1) the first generational cohort, characterized by high birthrates and high mortality rates (people born before 1925); (2) the second generational cohort, characterized by high birthrates and low mortality rates (people born between 1925 and 1950); and (3) the third generational cohort, characterized by low birthrates and low mortality rates (people born after 1950). Compared with the first cohort, the second contained many adult siblings, allowing one of the children, often but not always the eldest son, to live with his aging parents and inherit or establish a family grave to venerate them. Meanwhile, the other siblings were supposed to be married out or to set up nuclear-family households elsewhere (83). These “spare” children had the opportunity to move to urban areas and work, aiding the nation’s postwar economic recovery and rapid growth. It is these “spare” children and their spouses in urban areas who are the main supporters of the GFPS. Using the above cohort analysis, Ochiai (2000a, 82–83) points out that in postwar Japan, the so-called nuclearization (kaku kazokuka) of the Japanese family is often misrepresented as the complete breakdown of the three-generational household and its replacement by the nuclear-family household. Though the overall number of both nuclear-family households (kaku kazoku setai) and non-kin households (hishinzoku setai) increased between 1955 and 1990, the number of other kin-based households (sonota no shinzoku setai)—multigenerational households—remained stable (82). The percentage of multigenerational households among all households is smaller because the total number of households grew with the increase of nuclear-family and other households. However, the percentage of nuclearfamily households increased by only slightly less than 5 percent between 1955 and 1975. After 1975, moreover, the percentage of nuclear-family households stopped increasing (200). Instead, the number and percentage of single-person households has risen, the reason being that, beginning in the late 1970s, the third generational cohort (born after 1950) reached maturity. This generation is characterized by a small number of siblings, reducing the number of children available to live with their parents or to increase the percentage of new nuclear-family households. Mobility or jobs prevent some children from living with their parents, thereby contributing


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to the declining coresidence rates. Nevertheless, from the perspective of a child, the pressure to live with parents has risen because there are fewer “spare” children; this pressure is evidenced by the slight increase, between 1975 and 1985, in married adult sons in their twenties and thirties living with their parents (Hiroshima 1993). During and after the late 1970s, an eldest son’s not living with his parent(s) or an eldest daughter’s marrying into the husband’s family was more likely to lead to a nuclear-family household for the elderly parents, and then to a single-person household. Unlike in the second cohort group, the pool of “spare” sons in their children’s generation was limited. As a result, by 1990, we saw a significant increase in the number of single-person households and a slight decrease in the number of multigenerational households, but a slightly smaller percentage of nuclear-family households (Ochiai 2000a, 81). Sequentially, one might characterize this historical shift as the breakdown of the stem family (or three-generational coresidence), the establishment of the nuclear-family system, and individualization. Yet, if we examine the coresidence rates among younger generations, we find that the percentage of children living with older generations has remained stable—around 30 percent for people born in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s (A.â•›Katō 2006, 12–13). Among those born in the 1960s, delayed coresidence is common, and they are likely to maintain separate households right after marriage, living with older generations only later. Immediately after marrying, only 20 percent of those born in the 1960s live with older generations, but ten years after marriage more than 30 percent do so. And in the majority of these cases, married couples live with the husband’s kin. Older persons are five times more likely to live with their married son than to live with their married daughter (Takagi and Silverstein 2006, 479–480). Therefore, household composition is likely to change over time, and nuclear households formed right after marriage later develop into threegenerational ones, indicating that the principle of the stem-family formation that requires one of the married children to live with his aging parents still persists in a modified form.7 This brief overview of demographic change and family reveals two points. First, between 1955 and 1990, nuclear-family households and multigenerational households coexisted, though recently an increasing number of older persons live alone. Second, despite the fact that the number of adult children in a family who can live with their aging parents is declining, the coresidence rates among adult married children are stable. Therefore, rather than suggesting that the “traditional” stem family has been replaced by the nuclear-family system, this historical analysis reveals a remarkable


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persistence of intergenerational coresidence despite demographic shifts that severely limit the maintenance of three-generational coresidence. The above cohort analysis is useful in explaining patterns of memorial-care resource allocation among ash scatterers, who belong primarily to the second cohort. It is worth noting that the period when scattering emerged and developed (1991 on) coincides with the period when the second cohort group began to join the ranks of the elderly (sixty-five years old and older) and to start considering their end-of-life ceremonial options. President Yasuda of the GFPS, for example, was born in 1927, and the majority of the society’s current members are in their late fifties or older. Compared with women in the first cohort, many women in the second cohort have two children. After the first major decline in the birthrate in postwar Japan, women born between 1928 and 1947 exhibited fertility rates ranging from 2.33 to 2.18 (see Ochiai 2000a, 55). A simple calculation reveals that only one in four couples has two sons and thus some flexibility in naming a successor, while one in two couples has only one culturally favored successor in their family. Currently, children of the second generational cohort face even more intense pressure to cope with elder and ceremonial care, having one or no “spare” sibling. The number of elder-care institutions has grown to cope with this demographic pressure, and non-family support levels for the elderly have increased. Yet, in the realm of ceremonial care for the dead, no new public support systems have emerged. New memorial strategies provide alternatives for those who suffer from a lack of memorial-care resources. Therefore, ash scattering can be understood as one memorial strategy developed by the transitional cohorts to address their need to do something about the disposition of their remains, given the diminished or uncertain availability of younger generations to maintain a fixed memorial site that requires inheritance to ensure the care of the dead. While the method of disposition that GFPS members choose is unusual, their patterns of acquiring memorial assets and allocating care are largely consistent with the rules of stem-family formation and succession operating in the larger society. Though reasons for joining the GFPS are diverse (for reasons for purchasing membership to be buried in graves with permanent ritual care, see Rowe 2006, 95, 146), one of the common reasons given is that one is “a second [third, fourth, etc.] son.” In other words, the member is not in a position to inherit the family grave according to typical succession rules. Another common reason is that one has “only [married] daughters”; in other words, there is no culturally favored successor of a grave in the next generation. Of seventy-six deceased persons studied in my survey,


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the majority (sixty) had (1) at least one son but no grave, (2) a grave but no sons, or (3) neither a son nor a grave.8 Only fifteen deceased persons had both a son and a grave where the deceased’s remains could have been interred. In two cases, though the bereaved indicated that the deceased had a son, they reported that there were no successors to the grave. Of the thirteen people, the bereaved of seven said that the deceased had expressed a strong preference for the scattering of ashes, indicating that the deceased’s choice was an important factor in implementing the scattering ceremony. In one case, all the relatives, including the children and grandchildren, thought that the scattering ceremony was best for the deceased because he had been in an occupation associated with the sea; thus, the ceremony exemplified “dying in his own way.” In one case, the bereaved reported that the grave in which the deceased’s remains could have been interred was far from the bereaved’s residence. What is clear from my ethnographic study and a supplementary survey is that the majority of ash scatterers follow common rules of careresource allocation that often expect only one married son to inherit a ceremonial asset. In other words, those who have the ceremonial asset (grave) and care resources (successor) tend not to switch to ash scattering. Therefore, the scattering of ashes is often used as a backup strategy when a lack of memorial-care resources makes the normative choice difficult. Nevertheless, at least some of the above fifteen deceased could have followed the normative practice of interment at a family grave without investing in a new memorial site, but they still chose to have their ashes scattered. Their kin’s account often highlighted the value placed on deceased-centeredness. Those who are not in a position to inherit the family grave, such as second and third sons, can choose the scattering of ashes without facing the elimination of a family grave. Meanwhile, families who have graves but no appropriate successors sometimes give up their family graves. In these cases, married-out daughters scatter their natal kin’s ashes. An informant who has married-out daughters but no sons told me, “There is no one left in the [stem] family to care for the grave.” Nevertheless, people do not give up their family graves easily, even when they have chosen the scattering of ashes as their personal memorial strategy. In one case, an eldest son who had converted to Christianity and had no children decided to have his ashes scattered; yet he passed his family grave on to his brother (a second son). He was happy that he could dispose of his remains separately because his religion was different from his family’s, but he was also relieved that his brother would properly maintain the family grave. In another case, the


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eldest son decided to have his ashes scattered but to have his son inherit his family’s grave.

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of the Dead The prevalence of nuclear-family households in urban areas in postwar Japan led to the formation of new urban middle-class ideologies that often sharply contrasted with “traditional” rural culture, involving as they did the independence of the nuclear-family household and access to modern amenities. Many women’s postwar dream was to marry a salaryman, become a full-time homemaker, own a house and a car, and live in an urban area away from their mother-in-law (A.â•›Katō 2006, 8). New mortuary practices are also associated with new death ideologies celebrating deceased-centeredness, which also sometimes contrast with “traditional” ideologies. These new mortuary ideologies make sense when considering the maturation of the new urban, middle-class culture formed in postwar Japan. Some postwar urban migrants who took part in the rise of this culture have developed similar new ideals in mortuary practices in their late adulthood. Many GFPS members have embraced the ideology of deceased-centeredness and chosen ash scattering for themselves as a sign of being in charge of their own lives and beyond. Occasionally, the GFPS Tokyo office receives a phone call from a member whose kin object to his or her plan. Volunteers and staff members, mostly middle-class men and women over sixty years old, take these calls. During a phone conversation, they patiently listen to the caller and make occasional suggestions. One afternoon, a sixtyyear-old staff member answered a call. When it had ended, she remarked, “Another person who cannot make decisions!” She believes that people should take charge of arranging their own end-of-life ceremonies rather than trying to please others or keeping up appearances. When opposed by kin, the choice of ash scattering emerges more clearly as a personal choice of the deceased-to-be rather than as the concern of survivors and the community. On many occasions volunteers expressed their belief in the value of self-reliance and increased control over their posthumous well-being. However, this tendency does not imply that an individual is the natural, autonomous decision-making unit; in some cases an older couple as a unit may make a memorial choice, or a deceased-to-be’s immediate family unit may do the same. People’s celebration of their engagement in their deaths and beyond is tied to their perception of memorial-care resources in the future. The living, particularly the succeeding son and his spouse, contribute to maintain-


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ing the family grave with the understanding that ceremonial care will be given to them by their descendants. Therefore, ceremonial care is both their duty and an investment. This framework is similar to the social contract to care for the elderly in a three-generational household (see Hashimoto 1996). Ceremonial care given to ancestors is a matter of social and moral duty and investment that will be redeemed later, when the person giving it passes away. Ash scatterers, however, stress uncertainties surrounding the continuity of the social contract between generations, thereby questioning whether it is worth investing in a fixed memorial site. A family grave requires inheritance and maintenance by a descendant, and thus its proximity to his or her residence matters greatly. Descendants are expected to pay regular visits to their family grave, keep it clean, and make offerings there. Annual maintenance fees must be paid as well. Whether the elderly or their children pay for a grave plot, if no successors are available, the grave will be “returned” to its provider, whether a Buddhist temple or a municipality. So the lack of a fixed memorial site suits people with urban, mobile lifestyles, who assume the limited availability of kin to care for their family grave. If inheritance of the family grave were bilateral and not stem-familybased, a child, regardless of gender, marital status, or family name, could be the successor. However, this is not the case. Grave succession rules disfavor married-out children as successors; they are often expected to care for their spouse’s family grave, so their parents are reluctant to ask them to care for their natal-family grave in addition to their conjugal grave (Kawano 2004). Daughters are more commonly married out than sons, and thus sons tend to be successors. And if a married-out daughter does take care of the natalfamily grave, the grave’s fate in the next generation is even more uncertain. If a daughter bears many sons, perhaps one might inherit the mother’s natal-family grave. Yet this grandson will have a different family name, making him an “unnatural” successor to his mother’s natal-family grave. He might also marry an only daughter expected to care for her natal-family grave. People with sons also foresee problems. If their sons remain permanently single, the parents cannot expect to have grandchildren. Some people who say they chose scattering because they do not want to be a nuisance to their children see no point in acquiring a grave when they anticipate their family line in their stem-family unit will end. Sometimes they assume their children would perform ceremonial duties for them with no clear prospect of exercising their right to receive ceremonial care in turn. In one instance, an informant told me that her sons are not reliable caretakers; they remained unmarried and were too busy pursuing their own dreams to settle down and undertake care duties.


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Rather than seeing ceremonial care as a moral duty shaping reciprocal generational relations, these GFPS members redefine conventional memorial care as a burden on descendants and celebrate their increased control over it by choosing ash scattering. Alternative burial practices requiring no succession, such as scattering, and establishing graves with permanent ritual care partly relegate the burden of care to entities and groups other than descendants. In the cases of graves with permanent ritual care, Buddhist temples often act as substitutes for descendants to some extent, ensuring the completion of a thirty-three or fifty-year ritual cycle (Kawano 2003). With ash scattering, people’s remains become one with nature, which ensures the deceased’s peaceful rest (2004). By highlighting the transformative power of nature, ash scatterers reduce their dependence on their survivors and avoid depending on religious specialists or non-kin. Through the practice of ash scattering, then, the social contract of ceremonial care is modified partly by eliminating the maintenance of a fixed memorial site, though survivors do not eliminate memorial care for the deceased altogether. Contrary to some opponents’ assumption that scattering implies a rejection of ceremonial care for the deceased, survivors often memorialize the dead by making offerings and praying at domestic memorial sites and before the deceased’s photographs, whether these take the form of a formal altar or not (Kawano 2004). In addition, they memorialize the deceased at scattering sites, nearby sites, or substitute sites. Survivors tend to move away from the influence of religious specialists, not always following the common memorial cycle of thirty-three years or fifty years. Scattering results in more flexible memorial styles among survivors (Kawano 2004). Rather than fulfilling an obligation imposed upon them and providing ceremonial care that they themselves might not receive, survivors are instructed by the deceased to reduce the scale of their care by respecting the will of the deceased. Questioning the necessity of graves, President Yasuda contends that “a grave should be built in one’s heart”; ceremonial care should not be a burden. Scattering transforms the duty of descendants into an expression of what is in their hearts and rewrites the generational contract that obligates the caregiver. It is exactly because aging persons conceptualize the interconnectedness of generations that they have reweighed and lightened the obligations they might impose on younger generations. Their reasons are not that they assume the discontinuity of generations or take their individual autonomy for granted. Rather, ash scatterers aspire to a more reasonable contract of memorial care between generations.


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Furthermore, while ash scatterers might not see the eternal persistence of their family line, they do retain a sense of familial continuity. They say, “Nature is where we all came from, and we will return to nature.” Nature is conceived of as a benevolent force nurturing other forms of life, such as trees, flowers, and fish. Whereas individual persons come and go, there is a sense that nature prevails and continues. Thus, ash scatterers perceive themselves as part of a continuity much larger than a stem family; in scattering ceremonies survivors send the deceased away, anticipating their future reunion in nature.

A Ritual of Moral Concern How do younger generations whose parents chose the scattering of ashes react? For those opposed to scattering, it can be perceived as a threat to the ideal of filial piety in Japan, which morally obliges children to maintain a family grave. Because, in many cases, the scattering of ashes is performed in lieu of interment, a Shingon priest criticized scattering: “Just throwing away the ashes like unwanted objects is disrespectful” (Japan Times, 2004). However, the children who have supported and conducted their parent’s scattering ceremony often reject this view, redefining their filial obligations. Before getting into the children’s views, it is important to distinguish between people who plan their own ceremonies and those who conduct them for their kin. It is the caregivers who are to be judged by the ideal of filial piety rather than those who chose scattering as a way of depositing their remains. Thus, although GFPS members do not reject the notions of filial piety and respect for ancestors, the issue of morality is less important for those planning their own end-of-life ceremonies. Many of them hold practical attitudes toward their own remains and intend to enhance their sense of control over memorial matters by choosing ash scattering. Nevertheless, GFPS members planning to have their ashes scattered are not unconcerned about their moral worth being evaluated by nonmembers. Matsubara-san, a sixty-year-old GFPS member, told me: “I do not want people to misunderstand and think that I lack filial piety.” Far from wanting to “discard” remains, GFPS members intend to return them to nature reverently, as an expression of their affection for the deceased (Kawano 2004). For many GFPS members who plan to have their ashes scattered, the choice of scattering does not indicate a lack of filial piety toward their parents; a married sibling has often been taking care of the family grave where their parents and ancestors rest.


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Survivors, however, are expected to ensure that the family dead rest in peace, and they thus face moral questions more directly. Presumably because of this, some survivors told me that doing what the deceased wished is the best form of kuyō, or reverent veneration. In the context of mortuary customs, kuyō is the term normally used to refer to conventional Buddhist veneration of the deceased. Although their method is unconventional, survivors conveyed that their spirit is just like that of those who inter their parents’ remains. Furthermore, several adult children who had scattered their parent’s ashes reported that scattering represents the best possible example of their filial piety (ichiban no oyakōkō). Survivors, therefore, considered what ultimately constitutes an act of filial piety toward and reverent veneration of the deceased. In their view, the most important act is to honor the deceased’s will. The children’s moral personhood is achieved not by their acting as guardians of their family’s ritual tradition but by their respecting the deceased’s desire to return to nature. And after scattering ceremonies, survivors repeatedly comment on how the deceased must now be satisfied and resting in peace, having had his or her plan carried out. Here, the new death ideology of deceased-centeredness is elevated to a moral level. Besides redefining filial piety and reverent veneration of the deceased, ash scatterers also address the wider moral issue of environmental preservation. President Yasuda, originally a journalist specializing in water-conservation issues, founded the organization in 1991 to promote shizensō (natural mortuary practices). In his project of saisei no mori (forests of rebirth), the seed of the GFPS movement, he proposed using forests that provide drinking water to Tokyoites as scattering sites. The project aimed to protect the environment and to offer scattering spaces for Tokyoites facing high graveplot prices. Although most GFPS members I met were not radical environmental activists, they found the society’s environmental focus important. Some people tied environmental preservation to generational continuity when they explained why they had chosen ash scattering. For example, one informant said, “Scattering is good. We can protect forests and hills from the development of large cemeteries. Rather than establishing graves, we should pass the natural environment on to the future generation.” In saying this, she conveyed a sense of continuity among people sharing the same environment. In fact, a picture of the earth appears on the cover of Yasudasan’s book promoting shizensō published in 1991. By encouraging its members to pay attention to environmental consequences, the GFPS places mortuary practices in a larger, global community forced to share limited resources. The society’s focus on environmentalism can be seen to provide an alternative discourse of moral responsibility


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in a postindustrial society. As such, the environmental focus of the GFPS resonates with other mortuary movements today, such as green burials in the United Kingdom—burials in biodegradable caskets or, sometimes, no caskets, without embalming. Unlike “traditional” burials, which use nonbiodegradable caskets and embalming fluids, green burials are considered purer and more environmentally friendly because the deceased is “naturally” returned to nature without “contamination” by chemicals. When facing opponents of their scattering practice, GFPS members can cite the movement’s environmental focus to support their practice in moral terms by changing the plane of debate from the familial to the global level.

Death, Family, and Community The choice to scatter ashes reveals a person’s tendency to see mortuary details as private rather than community matters. For families living in a tight-knit community in a small town or rural area, mortuary practices are thought to represent the family’s financial and social standing in the community. The case of Sano-san, a man living in a rural community in Iwate prefecture, speaks to the link between memorial care for ancestors and the family’s rank in his neighbors’ eyes. The man told me that the Buddhist temple to which his family belongs has prolonged the memorial cycle for ancestors, which used to end at the deceased’s thirty-third memorial anniversary. Now he is required to hold a hundredth and even a two-hundredth memorial anniversary for the family dead. He feels that the memorial cycle never ends, and his obligation will only expand. I asked Sano-san if he could avoid conducting additional ceremonies. Many GFPS members told me that they did not buy a grave plot in a Buddhist temple compound because it would require them to become temple parishioners and hold costly ceremonies. Sano-san said, “I cannot stop having these memorial rites at the temple, as long as our family is doing fine just like others in the community.” In other words, if one does not give the appropriate ceremonial care to the family dead as defined by the Buddhist temple and the community standards, it will be assumed that the family cannot afford it. The family’s reputation will be tainted. In a tight-knit community, many neighbors and relatives belong to the same Buddhist temple and maintain their family graves in the same cemetery. A cemetery is a public, shared community space, and the family’s “face” inevitably finds a public expression there. In his study of one rural community, Ronald Dore (1978, 288) wrote of a family stealing an old gravestone with unintelligible engraving in a dispute over the family status.


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His informant told him that her “rival” claimed the higher, main-family status by taking the old gravestone from her family’s plot, thereby assigning her family a lower, branch-family status. The dispute did not involve direct personal confrontation, but the graveyard was the public stage on which the claim was made (cf. Hamabata 1990, 112–116). A family’s mortuary practices and ceremonial assets in a community therefore must be examined as a strategic presentation of its status in front of, and in competition with, other families (see Uesugi 2001 for a more recent case study from central Japan). In a tight-knit community, its members monitor the ritual spending of others. When a Buddhist temple is rebuilt or repaired, parishioners are asked to make donations. The names of donors and the donation amounts are often permanently displayed in the temple structure. Showing me his family’s contribution at a Buddhist temple in a rural community outside the Tokyo metropolis, a male informant in his eighties told me, “You might not have a lot of money, but you must make your donation with the thought that your descendants will have to live with it.” In this framework, the family’s generational continuity is presupposed, and a member’s investment shapes the family’s present and future public standing. People do not die individual deaths as unrelated persons but as members constituting the family’s generational continuity, and survivors are expected to act as members and trustees of the family’s face and ritual tradition. In contrast, new urban migrants tend to maintain much weaker ties with religious institutions that provide death rites and grave plots. A story I heard from one informant gives a glimpse into the fragile nature of the ritual ties between new urban residents and Buddhist priests. My informant, a man in his sixties, called his temple priest in Tokyo and asked him to conduct a funeral ceremony for his mother-in-law. His deceased father-inlaw was the fifth son and thus was not in the position to inherit his natal family’s grave in western Japan. He bought a grave near his residence and established a tie with Honkaku-ji Temple when he and his wife moved into the newly constructed three-generation home for themselves and their daughter’s family. The temple’s former priest, who was in his nineties, had conducted a funeral for the informant’s father-in-law many years ago. Since then, the former priest’s son had taken over the temple. When my informant called the temple, the current head priest said he would not be able to perform the ceremony for my informant’s mother-in-law. The priest called his brother, also a priest, and told my informant that the brother would conduct the ceremony. However, on the day of the funeral, the informant received a call from the head priest’s brother’s temple saying that the priest


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was ill and would not be able to come to the funeral; yet another priest would be sent. The informant was disturbed by this news but said nothing. When the substitute priest came to perform the ceremony, he introduced himself by saying that he was still receiving training (benkyō chū) at the head priest’s brother’s temple, a strange remark. He was from Akita prefecture in northern Japan, and his natal family runs a Buddhist temple. So a priest whom the deceased and her close kin had never seen before had come to conduct the end-of-life ceremony. The chief mourner did not tell distant relatives or community members about the substitution. Unlike in a small, tight-knit community, they were not parishioners of the same Buddhist temple and so had no way of knowing that the performing priest was a substitute. Yet, the ceremony went smoothly and was in some ways more satisfying than the memorial rites for the father-in-law that had been performed by the head priest. Funeral participants, including my informant, praised the substitute priest’s beautiful voice and remarked on how well he preached. My informant later commented that the substitute priest’s performance was better than that of the head priest at Honkaku-ji Temple, who used to work as a university professor and reluctantly became a priest later in his career. Most guests at the funeral never knew that the priest in charge was a substitute for the initial substitute. It turned out that this substitute priest often serves as a substitute and had developed the skill of listening to people and adjusting his ritual style to suit each family. The donation was not made to this substitute priest, however; the head priest instructed my informant to bring it to Honkaku-ji Temple later. The informant inferred that the temple would give only a portion of the donation to the substitute priest. The informant commented that the ties between priests in this system of substitution resemble those between a company and its subcontractors. Weaker ties between new urban migrants and religious institutions, however, do not suggest that mortuary practices in urban areas completely fail to signify the family’s wealth and prestige. According to Suzuki (2000), funeral specialists in Kita-Kyushu city carefully evaluate the social standing of the deceased’s family and guide the survivors to choose a funeral ceremony of the right scale for their social standing. A funeral specialist said he examines “the hospital in which a deceased has stayed, the size and the location of the house, the modernity and cleanliness of the bathroom and kitchen, and the deceased or the chief mourner’s occupation” (75) to determine the deceased’s family’s social status. Unlike funerals, however, interment and subsequent gravesite memorial rites in urban settings are more likely to be private affairs among close kin. The scale of a family grave


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is discussed but less likely to be displayed openly in the social network of the deceased. Nonetheless, maintaining a family grave continues to reflect a family’s socioeconomic standing in a residentially stable urban community. During my fieldwork (1995–1996) in Kamakura, a medium-sized city of some 170,000 residents near Tokyo, informants proudly told me where their family graves are located, often naming prominent Zen temples in the area. The prestige of the temple at which the grave is located is regarded as an indication of the family’s own prestige. Since a family grave demonstrates a family’s socioeconomic standing, it is understandable that some people are against scattering. A female GFPS member in Saga City, for example, lamented the fact that her eldest son refused to respect her wish to have her ashes scattered; her daughter-in-law said people would think the family was poor (Saisei 1992, 7:10). Do GFPS members lack the financial means to establish new family graves? The prices of grave plots and gravestones vary greatly, though it is not unusual for a family to spend three million yen (US$1 = 100 yen) for a centrally located grave in Tokyo. Like house prices, grave prices are lower in the suburbs. Municipal-cemetery plots are less expensive; yet, in major cities, the plots are allotted by lottery as the number of buyers exceeds that of municipal grave plots. As a result, only a small number of lucky winners can obtain a plot. In contrast, the cost of scattering starts at around US$1,000. The GFPS maintains a special program for people on welfare, who can have a ceremony free of charge. Thus, the GFPS includes at least some economically disadvantaged members. Yet, based on the occupations of the members I interviewed, it would be a mistake to assume that ash scatterers are persons lacking the financial means to acquire graves. During my fieldwork, I met former and current professionals, salaried employees, civil servants, lawyers, teachers, medical doctors, artists, small-business owners, Buddhist priests, and homemakers. I also met retired executives of major corporations and well-off landowners. If their choice is not motivated by a lack of economic resources, what is their motivation? For many GFPS members, ash scattering is “their own” business. Scattering is still a family matter to them, but they tend not to stress the public significance of mortuary practices for the family in the local community in which it has daily interactions. They do not try to show off their wealth or maintain the family’s reputation by having a large, elaborate grave. In this sense, ash scatterers do not want to see their own mortuary ceremonies as part of the local social hierarchy.9 Most ash scatterers left their rural hometowns and established conjugal families in urban areas. Therefore, they are less likely to be tied to the family politics of a tight-knit, local community,


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where generations of ancestors have resided and where families are ranked by wealth, influence, and prestige. This makes it easier for ash scatterers to see their end-of-life ceremony as a private affair, conducted for themselves and those close to them. The age status of an urbanite in late adulthood further intensifies this tendency to see his or her own death and beyond as a private affair. As Murakami Kōkyō (1999, 50–51) observes, the nature of one’s interest in mortuary practices takes age- and life-phase-specific expressions. People between their forties and sixties often experience mortuary practices through the reciprocal social networks of their workplaces. Under the watchful eyes of their work communities, they are often concerned about having a respectable funeral performed for their parents and properly reciprocating at colleagues’ parents’ funerals. But, for the retired, their personal preferences and a concern for their significant others are more important than the social network in their former workplaces. An informant told me, “It makes no sense for my children’s coworkers, whom I have never met before, to come to my funeral. It is my funeral, and I will choose the people who will be invited to my funeral.” Not only new urban migrants but also rural residents are strategically changing mortuary practices. Urbanization also influences mortuary practices in the rural communities that send out migrants (S.â•›Yamada 2007; Uesugi 2001). In a community presupposing the continuities of families and the cooperative network among them, mobility poses a threat to stability and is a potential drain on community resources. In his study of one rural community, Yamada Shinya (2007) illustrates that families maintain their rights and obligations to give and receive ceremonial-care resources by participating in daily communal interactions (tsukiai). When a death occurs in the community, a family is expected to provide incense money (kōden), which covers the bulk of the funeral expenses. Incense money is similar to “debt” (141–142); thus, receiving it requires repaying it in the future. When an urban migrant’s mother, who lived in the community by herself after the death of her husband, passed away, her son was advised by his relatives to decline the incense money from community members (148–149) and officially sever his family’s tie with the network because no succeeding generations of his family were left in the community to participate in the reciprocal network. The chief mourner, however, did accept incense money from a small number of his resident kin, thereby dramatically downscaling and redefining his family’s reciprocal network. The community and family ties maintained in a rural area, therefore, do not constitute an unchanging tradition, but are re-created by accommodating forces of ongoing change.


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The Notions of Stem Family Critiqued and Reproduced It is important to keep in mind that neither adoption nor rejection of the scattering of ashes automatically represents acceptance or rejection of stemfamily ideals. Some members of the GFPS did offer a structural critique of the family-grave system, which presupposes succession rules resembling those in the prewar ie system. In the GFPS newsletter, a seventy-eight-yearold male member wrote: “My life will last for only one generation” (Saisei 1993, 10:11). In other words, no person has a life longer than one generation. Thus, he assumes the discontinuity between generations and implicitly criticizes the family-grave system, which is designed to make people believe in eternal generational continuity. A female member more openly challenged people who choose scattering as a “second-best” solution (e.g., because they have no sons). She advocated putting an end to the ie system by advancing the freedom to choose death practices in the GFPS (1992, 6: 13). Thus, for her, freedom to choose ash scattering implies her rejection of the shadow of the Meiji stem-family system (ie seido). I occasionally heard my informants question the stem-family-based principle defining a person’s access to a grave. One day, a woman said that her husband is a second son and cannot use the main family’s grave. She asked, “Why can’t the brothers go into the same grave?” Another female informant told me that, these days, multiple male siblings can be buried together in the same grave (though this was not allowed in the past). These perspectives could indicate that the ideals suggested by the equal-inheritance policy governing non-ceremonial assets implemented in postwar Japan are being absorbed by society, though married-out women are still excluded and the family name remains an important factor in distinguishing insiders from outsiders.10 Thus, the choice of scattering can be a way of challenging stem-family ideals, although that is not always the case. As we have seen, many people choose the scattering of ashes because they are not in the position to inherit a family grave or have no married male successor. Thus they follow the stemfamily framework of memorial-resources allocation. Although there are individuals who choose ash scattering because they reject the stem-family ideals associated with the family-grave system, overall the GFPS movement does not destabilize the family-grave system itself but rather supports a dual structure in mortuary practices: the coexistence of the family-grave system and ash scattering. In some cases, choosing ash scattering potentially creates a new family tradition in a stem family. In Sada-san’s family, for example, his father’s ashes


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were scattered on a mountain, and he and his mother, who is in her eighties, are planning to have their ashes scattered on the same mountain. The expression of such wishes by survivors was not uncommon during my interviews with GFPS members. Sada-san’s father was a third son from Gunma prefecture and established his nuclear-family household in Tokyo. Later, the household grew to a three-generational one. Sada-san’s father passed away in 2002, and currently the household consists of his wife, his eldest son and his wife, his grandson, and his granddaughter. Sada-san’s grandparents’ remains are interred in the main family grave in the countryside. The main family (honke) is responsible for maintaining it. Sada-san told me, “My father always said he wanted to have his ashes scattered, but nobody knew how [to do this]. I thought it was a good idea, and inquired into it. I read a newspaper article and found the GFPS. We became members.” During our interview, Sada-san said to his twenty-year-old son, “Normally, people have their remains interred in a grave, but in our family (uchi), Grandfather’s ashes were scattered, and mine will be scattered as well.” Thus, in contrasting his father’s choice of scattering with the common family tradition of interment, Sada-san declared a new family tradition, to be passed on from father to son. Like Christianity or the New Religions, therefore, scattering can create tensions and conflicts within the family when there is an isolated convert, but it can also turn into the tradition of a newly formed stem family. Opponents of scattering, in both younger and older generations, deploy the ideas of traditional family values when criticizing ash scatterers and invoke the image of the ie. A sixty-four-year-old divorced man reported that his unmarried son, who was in his early thirties, criticized him for choosing scattering: “Dad, you are a third son, but I am an eldest son. And eldest sons think about what we call the stem family more seriously.” Despite the fact that the son and father live separately, and never lived in a three-generational household before the divorce, the idea of the ie is alive not as a legal but as a cultural framework; the family grave conjures a traditional image of memorial care as a stem family’s matter and the eldest son’s concern. Therefore, both supporters and opponents of the GFPS employ stem-family principles and ideals in a variety of ways, which reconstitutes the stem family as a framework for interpreting the present situation and justifying one’s actions. It is not clear how often or how seriously GFPS members who lacked a culturally preferred successor pursued the option of adopting one (see H.â•›Inoue 2003, 183–184, for cases of husband adoptions among her informants). The adoption of a daughter’s husband could have been a strategy


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for these ash scatterers with daughters but no sons to continue the normative practice of interment. Demographically speaking, adopted husbands (muko yōshi) are harder to find, given that families are small and there are not many “spare” sons, but it is not unusual to take in an adopted husband, particularly in rural areas. The GFPS movement was established to promote neither stem-family ideals nor an alternative to them, and not pursuing adoption does not necessarily make GFPS members particularly unusual in urban Japan. According to a 2003 national survey conducted by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (Section 4, Question 10: “Should a childless person adopt someone unrelated by blood as the childless person’s successor?”) (2007), only 18 percent of respondents reported that childless people should adopt an heir unrelated by blood to continue the family line. My childless informants do not strongly believe that they must adopt a successor for the sake of continuing the family line, though they would not reject the adoption of their daughter’s husband if he happened to be available and willing to be adopted. Their attitudes are consistent with those held in the larger society toward adoption for the purpose of succession, which is a characteristic of the reconstituted stem-family framework.11 The adoption system was the core practice enabling the perpetuation of each stem-family unit; the percentage of adopted successors among farmers at the end of the Edo period is estimated to have been as high as 20 percent (Ochiai 2000a, 205). Whether they pursued adoption or not, ash scatterers with marriedout daughters but no sons might or might not challenge stem-family ideals. In some cases, people find no need to perpetuate the family line because they reject stem-family ideals. In other cases, they accept that their family line is ending and that not all family lines continue, which does not imply a rejection of the stem-family system that allocates ceremonial assets and duties to a married child rather than to a married-out one. Some of these people told me that one has to accept having no successors (shikata ga nai), while others de-emphasized the importance of continuing their particular family line, pointing out that theirs is a branch family of a branch family. In other cases, people designated their married-out daughters as ceremonial caretakers, thereby allocating ceremonial duties more flexibly, disregarding the caretaker’s family name and stem-family affiliation. Yet, rather than requiring a married daughter to be in charge of a full-fledged family grave and the associated ritual duties, ash scattering reduces her ceremonial load for her natal kin, thereby saving her from doubled care duties. In this case, the stem-family principles of allocating memorial duties are both reproduced and changed.


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In sum, the fact that ash scattering does not require the succession of a fixed memorial site does not mean that its supporters consistently reject the system that presupposes succession, succession rules in general, and the ideals of generational continuity on which such rules are based. Rather than imposing a particular image of the family or generational continuity upon its supporters, the practice of scattering ashes offers opportunities for people to redefine, contest, and reproduce familial continuities in a variety of ways.

 Although people can choose scattering as a way of challenging the stemfamily ideology, it more often offers a way of skirting the issue of succession when the deceased-to-be is uncertain about the availability of culturally favored ceremonial caretakers. Scattering, then, tells the story of a generation that cannot assume that their descendants will care for them posthumously. Rather than crying over that realization or worrying about what might happen as a result, they have decided to take charge of their own memorials, both financially and socially. Ash scattering allows the deceasedto-be to lighten the weight of ceremonial obligation on their descendants while facilitating the continuity of ceremonial care in a more flexible form (Kawano 2004), thereby increasing their posthumous self-sufficiency. The emergence of ash scattering cannot be fully explained by the historical transition from the stem-family system to the nuclear-family system. The stem-family principles of allocating memorial assets and obligations are followed and used to some extent by GFPS members to explain their choice of scattering, which indicates a reconstitution of certain stem-family principles rather than a rejection of them. The reconstituted principles allocating memorial-care duties, however, certainly do not mirror those in the official stem family defined by the Meiji Civil Code, which is also one version of ideological family strategically crafted, rather than newly invented, through negotiation (cf. White 2002). The Meiji state produced the official version of the ie by emphasizing certain elements of stem-family principles found in Japan in practice (e.g., succession by only one child, primogeniture, the practice of taking in an adopted husband) while suppressing others (e.g., first-child inheritance, or ane katoku). The principles of memorial-resource and assets allocation were also strategically crafted by the Meiji Civil Code, and the interment or burial site became an indivisible asset to be passed down through generations of successors in a stem family. So, which elements of stem-family formation and branching do GFPS


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members reproduce? They often retain the ideas that only one child, often the eldest son, will inherit a fixed memorial site and that, once acquired, the memorial site must be cared for as long as the family line in a stem family continues. Yet they tend not to believe strongly that the family line, no matter what the family members’ situation, must be perpetuated in a given stem family. As a result, people with a married son or sons are less likely to adopt ash scattering, thereby preserving gendered practices of succession in the larger society, though this is not GFPS members’ intended goal. To continue the conventional form of memorialization, people need both the inheritable, indivisible ceremonial asset (grave) and the successor. People without descendants can purchase the right to use a conventional grave and have it cared for by a spouse, knowing it will eventually be lost. Or, with a sizable donation, they can preserve a grave in a Buddhist temple compound and have it ritually attended by the temple’s head priest for generations. Yet, ash scatterers avoid making an investment in an inheritable ceremonial asset. People without descendants can also adopt adults (sometimes a married couple) to continue the family line. Ash scatterers tend not to try to overcome these difficulties to continue the conventional veneration practices. Rather, their strategy is to reduce their dependence on descendants after death by maintaining no fixed memorial site and instead adopting a more flexible method of veneration. The implication of this strategy is that ash scatterers emphasize managing ritual care with the human resources they already possess (their spouse and linear kin, regardless of their marital status), while they tend to avoid depending on nonlinear kin (e.g., in long-standing communities where kinsfolk maintain reciprocal relations, a brother or nephew is likely to care for a married but childless man’s grave); adopted kin; or religious specialists (as in the case of graves with permanent memorial care or those at Buddhist temples). Increasing their sense of control over their fate after death, ash scatterers promote the management of ritual care by themselves and possibly by their children (regardless of marital status and gender), with significant help from nature.


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hile I was conducting fieldwork at the Grave-Free Promotion Society of Japan, a telephone fraud was spreading quickly, with billions of yen reportedly stolen from “poor” older persons. In this type of fraud, a swindler, frequently a young man pretending to be a grandson, phones an older woman and says, “Grandma, it’s me, it’s me.” The woman often responds with her grandchild’s name. Then, claiming that he has been abducted by the Mafia and needs ransom money, needs to pay off loan sharks, or wants to settle a traffic accident out of court, the swindler urges the victim to make a sizable cash deposit in a designated bank account. The National Police Agency reported that such swindlers siphoned off 7.72 billion yen between January 2004 and July 2004 (Asahi shimbun, September 9, 2004). By the beginning of 2004, the media had launched a public discourse describing older persons as potential victims of this fraud. Reporters condemned swindlers who take advantage of the socially weak, or older persons, and regretted that respect for the elderly no longer reigns in Japan today. However, Tanaka-san, a sixty-seven-year-old GFPS member, criticized this public discourse, saying, “These elderly people were stupid and it’s their own fault that they became victims.” Her comments left me speechless for a moment, for it was obvious to me that the swindlers had broken the law and taken advantage of the victims. Even more surprisingly, other older women present nodded in agreement. The fraud became a topic of conversation among members of the GFPS on many occasions. During discussions regarding the fraud, I was the only one who opposed the “blaming the victim” attitude, pointing out that it is morally and legally wrong to deceive the socially weak. Tanaka-san sighed while shaking her head, “Such are today’s young people.” This puzzled me, and it was not until much later that I came to understand what Tanaka-san had meant. 167


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It happened when I was packing the latest issue of the society’s newsletter, Rebirth, with the help of nine volunteers in their sixties and seventies at the GFPS’s Tokyo Headquarters. As they discussed the fraud, they wondered why the victims could not tell the difference between their grandchild’s voice and that of the swindler. Listening to their conversation, I finally realized that they were placing themselves in the position of potential victims. The majority of the victims are women over seventy. Because of my age, it had never occurred to me that I might become a victim of this fraud. My informants, however, took the media’s descriptions of these “poor” victims differently. By blaming the victims of the fraud, Tanaka-san implied that she, and the elderly in general, are more alert than these victims were. What had troubled her was the discourse of disempowerment that portrayed the elderly as vulnerable prey. Tanaka-san was telling me that swindlers will not easily take advantage of her and that she can take care of herself. In fact, this sense of self-sufficiency and control lies at the heart of the practice of scattering ashes, which, as we have seen, is adopted by the deceased-to-be in order to increase control over their anticipated afterlives, so that they will not become mere receivers of memorial care, overburdening their surviving descendants. Japan’s postindustrial society saw the supporting pillars of death and ancestral rites shaken. Reciprocal relations within the family, and those among family, community, and religious institutions, can no longer be taken for granted. Many children marry and move away from their hometowns, where their parents and ancestral graves may remain, with no plan to return. Families are smaller, and adult children may remain unmarried, never producing a new generation, diminishing the availability of resources to continue the family-based system of ceremonial care for the dead. Their ancestorhood is at risk. During and after the 1990s, ceremonial alternatives spread to many parts of Japan as coping strategies. Rather than hanging on to conventional memorialization that depends upon the continuity of the family line, members of the GFPS have chosen an alternative to a family grave. Instead of continuing the normative practice of buying expensive grave plots in massive suburban cemeteries and obtaining costly services from funeral professionals and religious specialists to venerate the dead, ash scatterers maintain a mortuary strategy that emphasizes temporality and flexibility, characteristics that were discouraged by the Meiji state and suppressed in postwar Japan. GFPS members are not only users of the new mortuary practice but also the producers of it. The scattering of ashes is a ceremony of sending the dead back to nature, where they unite with a benevolent force and protect


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forests that provide drinking water to generations of urbanites. Not only do GFPS members redefine their identities in late adulthood and beyond, they also reconfigure their generational relations. Given the importance of mutuality and interconnectedness between generations sustained in the form of ancestor veneration, the adoption of ash scattering redefines relations among the elderly, the dead, and those in the prime of life. In other words, ash scatterers re-create relations both between the dead and the living and between older and younger generations. In doing so, GFPS members celebrate their self-sufficiency, not only by taking charge of their own mortuary strategy, but also by promoting social change. The scattering of ashes cannot be easily explained by the shift of a family system from stem family to nuclear family, or to individualization. The relations between the family and the ritual of scattering ashes are too complex to be characterized as merely a reflection of one in the other. People do contest conventional family relations by choosing an alternative to the family grave (see H.â•›Inoue 2003; Kawano 2003; Rowe 2003). Some people choose the scattering of ashes as a way of symbolizing their rejection of stem-family ideologies or their independence from family, while others adopt it as a new family tradition within a nuclear-family household, or even a three-generational household. Still others choose the new mortuary strategy to lessen the burden of memorial care on their descendants, which still presupposes the mutuality and connectedness between generations rather than rejecting such cultural assumptions. Regardless of ash scatterings’ varied implications for family relations, ash scatterers have rewritten a generational contract of memorial care by investing much less, both materially and socially, in a fixed memorial site. This strategy of downscaling memorial assets allows more flexibility in creating memorial forms and thus, paradoxically, could facilitate the continuance of kin-based memorial care. In other words, scattering ashes is a strategy for managing uncertainty when faced with a present or future lack of memorialcare resources. By choosing scattering, ash scatterers increase their posthumous security in a postindustrial society where it is increasingly precarious. The new ideals of deceased-to-be-centeredness and self-sufficiency emerged as GFPS members attempted to increase a sense of control over their mortal lives and their deaths. They have transformed themselves from future recipients of care in a strained system of reciprocity into rewriters of the generational contract by lightening the weight of memorial care. In other words, they contest their overdependence on the living after their deaths. The decision to have their ashes scattered does not often suggest its choosers deny the significance of the generational contract or ignore the


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roles of future generations in memorializing them. As the generational contract is increasingly difficult to maintain in a world short of care resources, ash scattering presents an alternative for coping with this dilemma. Considering the “traditional” practice of interment based on the generational contract, ash scatterers assess the availability of their care resources. Those who have care resources tend not to turn to ash scattering. Thus the contract remains relevant both to ash scatterers and to those who continue to inter remains. On a legal level, the state stipulates one-person, kin-based succession of ceremonial assets and thus supports the generational contract indirectly. The New Civil Code simply states that the person who is supposed to succeed “by convention” should take over the family’s ceremonial assets but does not provide detailed methods for determining the successor, and, in case of disputes, the decision is made in the courts (Ishikawa 1988; also see Mori 1993b, 214–216). Though previous court verdicts have attempted to interpret the phrase “by convention” as referring to the new convention in the context of the postwar Civil Code and to weaken the influence of the ie ideologies (Mori 199b, 216–217), the legal stipulation of sole succession regarding ceremonial responsibilities and assets conflicts with the New Civil Code’s stipulation that siblings divide their share of nonceremonial assets equally among them. Thus, the current Civil Code does not challenge sole succession of ceremonial assets and, in this sense, it does not contradict memorial-care allocation based on the generational contract in a stem-family framework. The fact that the family grave is still the most common grave built in twenty-first-century Japan further speaks to the contract’s persistent relevance. Ash scatterers are aware that their memorial choice inevitably shapes their relations with survivors. With ash scattering, the reciprocity between generations is often maintained, yet the relative weights carried by generations have shifted. The emergence of adjusted patterns of generational reciprocity, therefore, is central to ash scattering as a way of reconstituting generational relations in today’s Japan. The above situation in memorial care contrasts with new developments in elder care. Susan Long (2008) has recently noted a case of sharing elder-care responsibilities among siblings (daughters), illustrating the ways in which people are experimenting with new strategies of care in the context of strained care resources and heavier care duties. Lacking the legal restriction on sharing elder-care duties, this type of shared caregiving may gain more support and lead to a new system of elder care in the future. I contend that it is not analytically accurate to describe the change in memorial strategies examined in this study simply by citing the waning significance of the generational contract, although the contract’s smooth


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fulfillment is no longer taken for granted. The consequences of choosing alternatives sometimes go beyond and contest the contract, for example, by expecting a married-out daughter to care for her natal family’s dead on a reduced scale, while allowing her to fulfill her conjugal memorial responsibilities and care for her husband’s family grave. Nevertheless, while ash scattering provides an alternative to those without sufficient care resources, normative interment continues among those with care resources. The adoption of ash scattering, therefore, partly reproduces the normative care-allocation patterns defined in the generational contract in the larger society. In other words, as long as those facing the shortage of care resources adopt ash scattering as a solution to their problem, the new mortuary strategy does not dismantle the persistent pattern of allocating care resources and responsibilities to a married son and his spouse. The above situation must be distinguished from that characterized by the overall weakening of the generational contract, where, regardless of their available care resources, people find the generational contract unimportant and adopt ash scattering to create a new care-allocation system, for example, one presupposing no generational interdependence. A longitudinal study will be required to monitor whether the new pattern of care allocation is continued by ash scatterers’ children, to see if a new system of care allocation emerges.1 This line of thinking prompts me to consider the impact of reduced care resources on other facets of the veneration of the dead in today’s Japan. In 1963 Robert J. Smith (1974, 152) conducted a “census” of ancestral tablets, the most remarkable, large-scale empirical study of ancestral tablets covering multiple regions of rural and urban Japan to date. What developments would we see if we were to conduct a follow-up study today? As ancestral tablets are more easily movable and duplicatable than family graves, we should not assume that the practices of venerating the dead at a grave and at a domestic altar mirror each other completely. However, I am particularly curious to see what memorial strategies some children of the urban young couples described in Smith’s study have developed to deal with the natal family ancestors’ tablets in a family with married-out daughters but no sons. Would we find an urban couple keeping tablets for all of the husband’s and the wife’s grandparents? There is ample room for further research.

Revivalism, Culture, and Personhood The sense of self-sufficiency and control expressed by ash scatterers should not be confused with adoption of the idea of the autonomous individual or Western-style individualism. Whether we use the ideology of individualism


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found in contemporary Western societies or the Western-derived version in Japan (kojinshugi), the ideal of individualism is analytically distinct from the anthropological concept of agency as a theoretical construct, the theory of an individual human being and a group, and the idea of individuality (kosei) as a unique attribute of an individual human being. As a construct explaining continuity and change in social structure, agency is considered structure’s necessary pair in anthropological theorizing. Agency as a theoretical construct is thus useful and usable to understand any society, regardless of its dominant theory of the individual human being and the group. Meanwhile, some societies maintain an egocentric theory of personhood and encourage the crystallization of the self in opposition to society. Others, such as contemporary Japan, subscribe to a sociocentric theory of personhood, which expects an individual to recognize the mutual constitution of individual and group. Regardless of the nature of the theory of personhood, individuality can still be recognized in any society, though its importance and meaning may vary. A theory that considers the role of an individual in society is used to understand the significance of individuality. Bearing in mind the above understandings of individualism, personhood, and individuality, the ideal of deceased-centeredness can be primarily defined as a tendency to celebrate the individualities of the deceased. Thus, it can be found not only in new mortuary practices but also in “traditional” ones. In this sense, ash scattering as a way of expressing deceased-centeredness is in line with the revivalist development found in Anglophone societies (see Walter 1994). However, the theory of the individual and the group used to interpret the practice of ash scattering in contemporary Japan differs from the egocentric theory of personhood used to grasp deceased-centered death practices in Anglophone societies. In some cases, GFPS members sought deceased-centeredness and self-sufficiency in the afterlife precisely because they presupposed certain levels of generational reciprocity and their own posthumous dependence upon their descendants. In particular, some ash scatterers with successors downscaled their memorial care because they wanted to lighten their descendants’ burden. The ideals of increased selfreliance and deceased-centeredness, therefore, do not necessarily violate the long-cherished notions of connectedness and mutuality between generations. In other words, ash scatterers conceptualize their practice by employing the dominant theory of the individual in society, or that of sociocentric personhood, rather than denying or replacing it with an egocentric theory of personhood or adopting the Western-derived ideology of individualism. Although ash scatterers often emphasize their increased control over their


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memorial choice, they do not present their choice as based solely on their “natural” rights as autonomous individuals, cut off from other persons. Furthermore, their reason for increasing control over their memorial strategy arises from their very concern for generational reciprocity, or the overdependence of one party on the other through an unfair, unbalanced memorial-care contract. I am thus reluctant to describe the increased emphasis on self-sufficiency among ash scatterers as mainly demonstrating the rise of Western-style individualism, which is defined in this study as the ideology enshrining the individual as the autonomous unit of decision-making, isolated from or independent of others.2 Nevertheless, my analysis does not prevent critics of ash scattering from employing Western-derived individualism (kojinshugi) at the native representational level when characterizing ash scatterers (I will return to this point later). The idea of self-reliance or selfsufficiency (jiritsu) does not have to be examined as a new element adopted by Japan due only to postindustrialization or its contact with the West. The ideas of deceased-centeredness and increased control of the deceased-to-be over memorial care, characteristics of revivalist scripts, operate differently in the Japanese social universe, where the concept of a person in the company of others still predominates. These new mortuary ideologies of choice and the centrality of the deceased are also aligned differently with other key concepts in that society, such as generations, choice, and self-expression, by emphasizing the mutual constitution of the individual and the group. Most important, the adoption of revivalist scripts in Japan amplifies the tension between the deceased-to-be’s personal desire and the consequences of the person’s choice for those around him or her. GFPS members are aware that, paradoxically, the ideal of deceased-centeredness makes people realize their lack of control over what happens to their remains in a world that still presupposes reciprocal interdependence. Scholars have noted that death in Japan remains in the hands of family more than in those of the dying person (Lock 2002). Family may make decisions on behalf of the dying patient, assuming it will make the best decisions for him or her (Long 2005). In some cases, only the family, and not the patient, has learned the diagnosis, which makes it difficult for the dying person to make an individual decision about end-of-life issues. This, however, does not imply a lack of choice in contemporary Japan. Nevertheless, the dying person does not always act as an autonomous, independent decision-maker cut off from his or her web of social relations (Long 2005). She or he makes that choice in the company of others, thereby reflecting the significance of the person’s social embeddedness. Similarly, despite the development of new death ideologies, the idea that mortuary ceremonies


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should be left to survivors persists. Given the emphasis upon family consensus, the choice of one’s mortuary practice will be actualized only so long as a survivor carries out the deceased’s plan. If both husband and wife agree to scattering, the wife will likely handle the ceremony because wives tend to outlive their husbands.3 However, if one did not know about one’s spouse’s membership in the GFPS, or is strongly against the scattering of ashes, the ceremony may never occur. The situation becomes complex when the surviving spouse agrees to carry out the scattering ceremony but the children or relatives strongly disagree. Murayama-san, for example, told me that she did not even tell her inlaws in the husband’s remote hometown about the scattering ceremony until it was over. By excluding the in-laws from the decision-making process, she maintained the autonomy of her nuclear-family household. Another GFPS member, on the other hand, said that her children were not very happy with the idea of scattering their father’s ashes, but she told them to honor their father’s wishes. Those who are all alone most keenly recognize the inevitable dependence of the dead upon the living. A permanently single, childless man observed, “Ultimately, the GFPS cannot conduct the scattering ceremony unless somebody brings the pulverized ashes to the scattering site.”4 A person certainly cannot conduct his or her own scattering ceremony. The sociologist Tony Walter (1994, 185) contends that revivalism in the West is the ultimate conclusion to its individualism: Traditional death was based in community and discussed in the language of religion, but in the West this was progressively undermined by increasing individualism. This resulted in a more modern way of death—communal rituals were replaced by privacy for the dying or bereaved person, and the authority of the church was replaced by the authority of the doctor.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹The consequent impersonality of dying and the loneliness of bereavement have, however, come under increasing criticism: those who would revive death observe that death is a natural part of life.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹This revival of death takes individualism to its logical conclusion and asserts the authority of the individual over not only religion but also over medicine: only individuals can determine how they want to die or grieve. Yet, in Japan, the concept of a person in the company of others produces a twist in revivalist scripts, not by automatically rejecting such scripts, but by


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stressing the tension between the new ideology of deceased-centeredness and the deceased’s ultimate dependence on the living. As in revivalist scripts in Anglophone societies, it is not difficult to see the increased emphasis upon the individualities (kosei) of the dead in Japanese revivalist scripts. Yet my informants are keenly aware that their fundamental dependence on the living after death undermines their individual autonomy concerning mortuary practices. Death as a transitional point and the deceased’s inability to care for himself or herself are raised as legitimate “evidence” for rejecting the ideology of individualism, which naturalizes the autonomous individual as a taken-for-granted decision-making unit. When considering death and beyond, people emphasize the inevitability of their dependence on others, thereby supporting the sociocentric personhood that prevails in today’s Japan. Both supporters and opponents of ash scattering are aware of the vulnerability of the deceased-to-be in realizing his or her choice of a mortuary practice. A search for increased self-sufficiency and control has not led to the triumph of individualism, leaving ample room for resistance to revivalist scripts. Opponents, for example, sometimes attack ash scatterers by labeling them as selfish individualists inconsiderate of survivors, who are forced to deal with the unusual mortuary practice and its social consequences. By invoking the idea of Western-derived individualism, they may judge ash scatterers as “individualistic,” making decisions based solely upon their own personal desires and satisfactions. Furthermore, the notion of deceasedcenteredness may be interpreted to indicate the self-centeredness (jibun katte) of the deceased-to-be by contrasting the new idea of deceased-centeredness with the “traditional” idea of respecting ancestors and honoring generational continuity, of which the deceased-to-be should be part. In this context, the scattering of ashes may be criticized as a violation of Japan’s “traditional” ethos. Although the implications of ash scattering vary, both its supporters and its opponents use the idea of reciprocal interdependence to support their positions. The former group tries to lighten survivors’ burden by choosing ash scattering, while the latter group believes scattering creates a nuisance for survivors and violates the idea of the interdependence of the living and the dead. The person in the company of others, therefore, finds himself or herself in both revivalist scripts and in the resistance to them.

The Implications of the New Mortuary Practice The development of revivalist thinking has not led to the replacement of “traditional” death rites by new ones; rather, the result has been diversity.


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This diversity, however, is not a random collection of various practices invented with the death of each person. Furthermore, I do not mean to state that diversity in mortuary practices is new in Japan; on the contrary, it is clear from the historical analysis that diverse mortuary practices existed in the past. The difference is the legitimacy of such diversity. In postwar Japan, there were normative memorial practices on the one hand, and exceptions or failures to live up to the normative standard on the other. Since the 1990s there has been a growing trend to publicly legitimize diversity. Scattering ashes has not replaced interment, but it has added a socially recognized new option, particularly for those who lack the memorial-care resources to continue the normative practice of disposal. While core members of the GFPS celebrate ash scattering as a new practice superior to interment, in the larger society it is not celebrated as a choice for all. Rather, it is more often recognized as a coping strategy for people who cannot easily practice interment and maintain family graves. Despite the new developments diversifying mortuary practices, in today’s Japan the need to deal with the disposal of the dead is still culturally constructed, being partly defined by certain principles of stem-family formation and branching. The scattering of ashes arose in part because such stem-family principles do persist, albeit in modified forms, leading to the coexistence of the family-grave system and its new alternatives. The transitional cohorts produced not only the 1955 system consisting of “traditional” rural households and new urban middle-class nuclear ones but also the dual memorial structure. If we accept the dual family structure based upon certain stem-family principles, then the historical-transition thesis—which holds that the stem-family system has been replaced by the nuclear-family system and the family-grave system is being replaced by its alternatives—can be seen as a cultural product that expresses fear of Japan’s losing its own essence, or perhaps joy over its “advancement,” depending on one’s perspective. Likewise, those who see the scattering of ashes as an ultimate violation of Japanese “traditional” values, a way of “throwing away” the dead’s remains, are also weaving a tapestry of culture. To their surprise, however, some people examined in this study have chosen the scattering of ashes exactly because they presuppose certain levels of generational mutuality and interdependence in Japan’s postindustrial society. Ash scattering indicates neither the loss of “Japaneseness” in the inevitable process of “Westernization” nor an unchanging traditional ethos maintained since the ancient period. What we find in mortuary strategies now is a move toward culturally patterned and socially recognized diversity. The GFPS has been helping legitimize


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diversity by supporting alternatives to the normative practices; however, this diversification has not been wholeheartedly accepted by all. What are the implications of ash scattering beyond its contribution to diversifying mortuary practices and providing a new option to people who cannot or are not willing to invest in the system of interment? The redefinition of death as a return to nature has simultaneously redefined the “life” course for the aging urbanites who have chosen ash scattering. It is an act of redesigning their course in late adulthood to increase their sense of selfsufficiency and control. To see ash scatterers as “victims” of social change, where younger generations are no longer taking on the moral responsibility of caring for the family dead, does not do justice to their assertion of selfsufficiency and their adoption of a memorial choice to contest their (over)dependent status.5 To dismiss older persons’ assertions of self-reliance is to deny their active engagement and construction of themselves in their social universe. Like the denial of older persons’ strategic choice, however, a simple celebration of their empowerment and the self-assertion associated with their increased sense of self-sufficiency is also problematic. Their assertions of self-control and self-reliance are produced in a world in which older persons are seen as a “nameless pressure” (Cohen 1994, 141) on societal resources in a rapidly aging society, where “cheerful but docile” care recipients are idealized in public representations of advanced age (Nakano 2005, 136). While ash scatterers’ message that “we can take care of ourselves without becoming too dependent” conveys an aging person’s pride and trust in himself or herself, it may seem dangerously close to the state’s ideology of promoting self-reliance. As society’s care resources decrease, the state has been deploying the notion of self-reliance (jiritsu) to encourage older persons to be self-sufficient and to encourage “traditional” families to help shoulder the growing burden of elder care (Campbell 1992, 220; Nakano 2005, 133–134; also see chapter 1). The state gains by emphasizing the older persons’ responsibility for taking care of themselves, which lightens the state’s responsibility to care for them. By asserting their self-sufficiency, ash scatterers thus seem to conform to the state ideology of self-responsibility by not demanding public support after death and preventing themselves from becoming a burden to the state. Although the state’s emphasis on the self-sufficiency of older persons and ash scatterers’ own claims of self-sufficiency seem to converge, we must remember that the consequences of ash scattering go far beyond the mere reproduction of the state-endorsed ideology of self-responsibility and the definition of older adults’ roles in society. The state does encourage older


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persons to remain engaged in society, to use their skills as volunteers or community participants, and to maintain ikigai, or personally meaningful lives. Staying active, both mentally and physically, is encouraged to promote well-being, and ultimately to keep down the state’s costs. Yet promoting social change or producing a new value is not something the state expects of older adults. The state’s focus is more on keeping older people from becoming (over)dependent on public resources. Seen in this light, then, the GFPS’s creation of a new value and practice stands outside the state’s definition of “good” old age. Furthermore, ash scattering as a mortuary practice is situated beyond the state’s policies concerning graves and burial as set and maintained by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Ash scattering is a nonnormative practice that the state had not considered or anticipated.6 By creating and adopting the new value of choosing a mortuary practice, the GFPS thus surpasses the state’s definition of appropriate or inappropriate death practices. Contrary to the common view of the 1990s as the “lost” decade ending “Pax Nipponica,” Jeff Kingston (2004, 1) characterizes this period as a “quiet” transformation leading to the reinvention of Japan and a more robust civil society. In this process of transformation, Kingston (35) finds volunteerism “the most encouraging development” of the decade. Established in 1991, the GFPS movement can certainly be seen to contribute to this transformative process. The movement’s members created the new value and practice by going beyond their expected social roles as older persons, though the significance of the GFPS movement beyond the realm of mortuary practices may not be obvious when one examines the movement as simply adding a new option to the existing mortuary strategies. Kelly and White (2006, 65) highlight the ideologically marginal categories of actors whose actions challenge social formations in contemporary Japan and create alternative arrangements: “students, slackers, singles, seniors, and strangers: five social types whose actions, though certainly constrained, rarely collective, and seldom animated by political objectives, nonetheless are harbingers.” Older adult members of the GFPS are thus rare among the above five types, as they are organized collectively. Yet, the above description of “harbingers” still holds true to some extent when one examines the ordinary members. In other words, the movement’s ideological challenge to the state should not be treated as average members’ primary or initial concern. People with limited or no care resources in the normative system of interment found ash scattering to be a solution to their personal problem and joined the organization to manage their


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posthumous security. In turn, the GFPS has provided them a way of reframing their post-death existence by highlighting deceased-centeredness and reconceptualizing their continuity after death while allowing them to make sense of ash scattering in their own way. While many members’ initial reason for joining was to address individual memorial problems, such as the lack of a grave or future caretaker, the aggregate of their individual actions has been the public questioning of taken-for-granted authorities over death: the state on the one hand, and religious institutions on the other. The GFPS’s most recent attempt to influence the state’s policies on death and burial by promoting a law concerning the freedom to choose mortuary practices (Sōsō Kihon Hō) (see chapter 3) can lead to a more obvious “regime shift” legitimizing pluralism (Pempel 2006, discussed in Kelly and White 2006, 81), at least in the realm of mortuary practices. Although the new death ideology of “freedom to choose mortuary practices” can be seen as a call for a new paradigm highlighting pluralism, it is a mistake to assume that all but the GFPS’s core supporters came together initially for the purpose of making ideological claims and challenging the state and religious institutions.7 Among postwar mortuary practices, ash scattering may seem a radical departure from the norm. Yet, the creation of this “nontraditional” memorial practice is not surprising when we consider the new lifestyle choices made by the transitional cohorts in their life courses. As the main movers of new mortuary practices, they were also the creators of a new urban culture in the 1955 social system. Ash scattering is also consistent with the patterns of resource use for urban postwar migrants, who found wage employment in urban areas and achieved relative self-sufficiency in newly formed conjugal households away from their rural hometowns. Less deeply embedded in their local main-branch family or in the network and politics of their new residential community, postwar urban migrants have invested little in establishing a grand family grave and displaying their family rank for generations to witness. No residentially stable, tight-knit network of kin and neighbors will keep track of the creation and endurance of such a grand grave for them. The mainstream option is to build a family grave as a house after death for a small, urban family in a suburban cemetery. Where this option has proven unappealing or inconvenient, ash scatterers have constructed a new destination after death through their return to nature, seeking oneness with a more abstract benevolent force. Ash scattering thus allows aging urbanites to manage their posthumous security within the small family they had established when young and had known into their late adulthood. Rather than being the logical “conclusion” to individualism


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(Walter 1994, 185), as a culturally specific version of revivalism, ash scattering through the GFPS and its new definition of death in today’s Japan represent only one possible development of the new middle-class urban culture. It is a mistake, therefore, to characterize ash scattering as a strategy of the marginalized. Nature’s embrace was born out of, rather than apart from, postwar Japan’s mainstream trends.


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Notes

Introduction 1.â•‡ Van Hollen (2003) points out this shift in the anthropology of reproduction, which is reviewed and extended by Sharon Kaufman and Lynn Morgan in “The Anthropology of the Beginnings and Ends of Life” (2005). 2.â•‡ When rapid social change brings shifts in people’s life courses, the society may not have rites of passage to ritualize a new life-course transition and people may feel the need to create a new rite. Ronald Grimes’s work (2000) includes cases in which new rites were created, which has inspired me to examine the creativity of GFPS members in this study. 3.â•‡ National surveys, for example, employ cohort in an etic sense and employ age categories that sort people into multiple cohorts. 4.â•‡ The cohorts born between 1925 and 1950 contain multiple, culturally meaningful cohort units (e.g., shōwa hitoketa, or those born between 1926 and 1934, and dankai no sedai, or “baby boomers,” born between 1947 and 1949) and thus are far from homogeneous. In this study I use this larger framework of classifying cohorts into pre-transitional, transitional, and post-transitional groups. The above division makes it easier to examine people’s access to postdeath ritual-care resources for continuing conventional ancestor veneration at a family grave (see chapter 1), though the majority of my informants were born between 1927 and 1942, and thus are not baby boomers. The differences among these culturally defined cohort units in their adoption of ash scattering are subjects for further research. 5.â•‡ Fry (1999, 284) has warned us that the “cost of relying on implicit theory is to potentially perpetuate ‘home-grown’ cultural models as scientific generalizations.” 6.â•‡ Even in Anglophone societies, whether older persons share similar ideas about aging and death with younger adults, and what alternative perspectives older persons may develop in later life, are matters of empirical inquiry. A number of psychologists working in Anglophone societies discovered that, compared with younger adults, older adults in Western societies tend not to be

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Notes to Pages 8–18

afraid of death (Cicirelli 2002, 128; Fortner, Neimeyer, and Rybarczyk 2000, 99; Thorson and Powell 2000, 130), which contradicts the assumption that because older persons are closer to their individual extinction they more acutely feel the fear of death than do younger adults. 7.â•‡ Many studies of development focused on earlier stages of the life span (Keith and Kertzer 1984, 26), though some scholars later began to see development as an ongoing process (e.g., Baltes and Schaie 1973, 369). 8.â•‡ This seems to be one of the reasons that aging and death literatures are not well integrated. Although scholars are accumulating more studies on death and older adults, Giordano (2000, x) points out that death is still not well integrated into the aging theories. 9.â•‡ Here, social death refers to a living person’s death as a social being rather than as a biological being, though in some cultures a person is transformed after his or her death and continues to exist socially by acquiring a new state of existence (e.g., ancestor). 10.â•‡ Culture does matter, but not because Japan is “unique.” Historical and structural factors contribute to shaping certain similarities in various cultures. In Japan, the new death ideology of choice has not replaced all other ideologies of death; it is only one of many ways of dying (Long 2005). While this ideology of choice is unevenly distributed among people of various classes and ethnicities even in Anglophone societies (Seale 1998), in Japan the distribution is yet more uneven. 11.â•‡ If a family has no successor to inherit the family grave, the right to use a grave will be returned to the temple, and no refund will be issued. 12.â•‡ It has been admitted that just because revivalist scripts arose does not mean that everyone in postindustrial societies (Anglophone societies) is taking up this practice (Walter 1994, 15). 13.â•‡ In his Revival of Death, published in 1994 (p. 177), Tony Walter pointed out that “revivalists” have not touched upon the disposal of the dead. More than a decade later, people in the United Kingdom are reportedly creating more diverse, personalized dispositions of their kin’s ashes (Prendergast, Hockey, and Kellaher 2006), indicating the development of revivalism in the realm of disposal. 14.â•‡ There is no universal “right balance” for all relationships because a person’s appropriate level of (inter)dependence varies according to his or her life phase and relationship to the involved parties; childhood, for example, is expected to be a life phase associated with dependence. Social distance, kinship ties, and power relations all influence the deservedness of a person’s dependent status. One’s ability and obligation to support others are expected to change over the life course. 15.â•‡ Such values are mobilized in multiple contexts in late adulthood, and the parties subscribing to these values are not only seniors themselves. The ideal of self-reliance (jiritsu) is also deployed by the state in the context of the


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expanding aged population to mitigate the elderly population’s pressure on public resources and to increase the elderly’s responsibilities to take care of themselves (J.â•›Campbell 1992, 220). Although older adults in this study are not simply internalizing the state’s rhetoric of self-reliance, their version of the ideal is produced in the structural changes the state is addressing. What exactly constitutes self-reliance, however, must be examined in a local context. Older adults may challenge and redefine the government’s notion of self-reliance in late adulthood (e.g., Nakano 2005). This issue will be discussed further in chapter 1 and in the conclusion. 16.â•‡ Yet, theoretically speaking, autonomy and choice do not necessarily have to be tied to an individual human being but can be awarded to a group of people, such as a family (see Long 2005). With an egocentric theory of individual and group, the autonomy given to a family unit may be seen as a collectivism that infringes upon the rights and freedom of the individual. As we have seen, however, not all cultures maintain the opposition between individual and society. An individual belongs to a family, while the family consists of family members. Autonomy, therefore, does not need to be the sacred property of the individual; the mutual constitution of a family member and family makes it possible to grant autonomy to a group without denying the individual’s autonomy. 17.â•‡ The ideology of individualism can be found in non-Western societies. For example, the Western-derived notion of “individualism” (kojinshugi) exists in Japan.

Chapter One: The Actors 1.â•‡ While the branching of these families did follow the rules of stem-family formation and succession, some scholars maintain that new family ideologies, or the nuclear-family ideologies, were formed in these conjugal families. In order to evaluate whether these new conjugal families indicated the shift from the stem-family system as a social system (but not as a legal system) to the nuclearfamily system, we need to observe the generational relationships, patterns of coresidence, adoption of successors, allocation of elder care, and inheritance patterns in these conjugal families over time. See chapter 5 for a more detailed discussion of this issue. 2.â•‡ While senior men are more frequently described as taking on the ritual responsibilities for a community’s well-being, in the diving village of Kuzaki during the 1980s, grandmothers are reported to have been initiated as nenbutsu basān and to serve the role of chanting sutras and venerating the community’s dead (Martinez 2004, 183–184). A woman’s age alone does not automatically qualify her to take on the ritual role; her lived life as bride, wife, and mother is assessed. Martinez (183) points out that “the invitation to join was a seal of approval for a life properly lived.”


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3.â•‡ Yet, the situation is more complex than the disappearance of threegenerational households, the “breakdown” of the nuclear-family system, or individualization suggest. In fact, the shift that has been evident since the 1990s is characterized by more diversity in household composition (see chapter 5). 4.â•‡ The cultural value placed on seniority and the Confucian notion of filial piety were often used to support a view that the Japanese elderly as a group enjoy a high status in advanced age (e.g., Palmore 1975). Yet, others have questioned whether the Japanese elderly were being respected and viewed positively in practice (e.g., Koyano 1989; Soeda 1978). Examining only cultural values and images, such as the Confucian values of filial piety and respect for the elderly, cannot fully reveal the complexity of the changing position of the elderly in Japan (O’Leary 1993, 17). 5.â•‡ While some scholars see delayed coresidence as an expression of a new approach to elder care—that is, from a protective approach to a contingent one (Takagi, Silverstein, and Crimmins 2007, s330)—more qualitative data are necessary to examine this claim. Today’s elderly stay healthier and live longer; therefore, people in their late fifties or early sixties today are not seen as “vulnerable,” as they once were. Raymo and Kaneda (2003, 42) found that “respondents with functional limitations are not significantly more likely than their healthier counterparts to be coresiding” and that “divorced or separated elderly were 38 percent more likely to be living with a child while widowed elderly were twice as likely to be coresiding.” Therefore, it is worth investigating how the redefinition of “vulnerability” is tied to the practice of delayed coresidence. For example, being widowed or living alone, rather than an older person’s functional status, can be a more important sign of vulnerability. It is equally important to obtain the local definitions of various functional statuses. What constitutes a sign of vulnerability must not be simply assumed by the researcher. 6.â•‡ Until 2001 the standard age for receiving the EPS pension was sixty; depending on a person’s birth date, he or she is eligible to receive some benefits between the ages of sixty and sixty-five (Majima 2007, 146–147). 7.â•‡ Long-term-care institutions studied before the arrival of the LTCI were often associated with social stigma, and their residents were reported to consider living with children as superior to living in an institution (e.g., Bethel 1992; Thang 2001, 38). However, we should not assume that coresidence consistently results in happy lives for older persons living with children (e.g., Jenike 2004; Traphagan 2004, 42). 8.â•‡ The trend of delayed coresidence can be an expression of older persons’ self-sufficiency, supported by the maturing of public pensions in 1986. While many scholars see delayed coresidence as resulting from younger generations’ reluctance to live with parents, others see the practice as a way for older generations to maintain their privacy and relative autonomy (Izuhara 2000, 103; also see Koyano 2003, 280) as long as no immediate need, such as financial difficulties, child care, or elder care, exists. Considering that the costs of coresi-


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dence are often high (because of high mobility among younger generations, more complex family relations, potential conflicts, and reduced generational autonomy), delayed coresidence can be viewed as a way of reducing the cost by shortening the period of coresidence. 9.â•‡ Given that the pension system was extended to the entire population in 1961, people born between 1926 and 1941 were already older than twenty by that time. They received special treatment because it was impossible for them to meet the requirement to receive full benefits (Majima 2007, 19–20).

Chapter Two: Historical Perspectives 1.â•‡ Along with earth burial and cremation, air burial (fūsō) is said to have existed in Japan in the past, though it is a matter of debate whether it was widely practiced (Doi and Satō 1979, 19–20). With air burial, a corpse left out in the air, on land, or in trees was allowed to decompose. Various scholars define air burial differently: some say it involves leaving a body on a mountain (ikisō), whereas others contend it involves coffining or collecting the remains later (19–20, 22). Interestingly, Doi and Satō (11) state that burial at sea or in rivers was not conducted in Japan, noting that depositing corpses into the sea occurred as a coping strategy (e.g., in the case of natural disaster) when other socially accepted forms of disposal were impossible. However, one could see that burial at sea or in rivers was an accepted practice under certain circumstances and include it in the past variations of disposal in Japan. 2.â•‡ Major periods and cultural epochs of Japanese history were adopted from Paul Varley’s Japanese Culture (2000). 3.â•‡ Yet, many commoners tended to stick with burial, since other Buddhist traditions did not make cremation mandatory. 4.â•‡ As a result, many shoguns and feudal lords chose burial. 5.â•‡ In this context, it makes sense that the state was quite enthusiastic about rediscovering, cataloging, and caring for the imperial family’s ancient tombs. 6.â•‡ Kōmoto’s study (2001) has given me this insight into the adoption of a family grave during the Meiji period. 7.â•‡ Here we have to make a distinction between expressions of stem-family consciousness and the development of a family grave. Tanigawa (1992, 293) reports that at the beginning of the eighteenth century shapes of gravestones began reflecting the social status and class of the deceased, and gravestones bearing inscriptions of posthumous names, expressing the social ranking of the deceased in the eyes of the living, became popular. Takeda Chōshū (1966, 1968, in Tanigawa 1992, 287) suggests that the growing number of posthumous names inscribed on gravestones indicates the rising levels of people’s stem-family consciousness, since these names ranked the dead, presumably according to their family’s rank. Thus, a powerful family was more likely to give its members higher-ranking posthumous names. Because posthumous names were chosen


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in the light of family rank, their inscriptions on gravestones were thought to be expressions of people’s stem-family consciousness. Nevertheless, I do not call these graves with posthumous names “family graves.” I find it important to draw a distinction between the adoption of a modern family grave having the family name on the gravestone and having an underground interment structure (iebaka) and other diverse expressions of people’s stem-family consciousness found on gravestones or in the patterns of allocating grave plots. 8.â•‡ For a historical overview of gravestones during the Edo period, see Shintani (1986) and Tanigawa (1992). 9.â•‡ The family gravestones are for ceremonial graves; the community residents maintain the double-grave system and no family or individual names are inscribed upon gravestones at burial sites. It is not clear what impact regional variations might have had upon the timing of the introduction of family graves. 10.â•‡ People’s stem-family consciousness can be expressed in diverse ways. For example, a family plot in a cemetery can be developed to accommodate the individual or couple-based graves of multiple family members. It is also possible to inscribe the family’s crest on a gravestone. The inscription of posthumous names on gravestones was seen to represent the rise of stem-family consciousness among people during the late Edo period (Tanigawa 1992). 11.â•‡ Of course, it is possible to inherit individual and couple-based graves. Yet, unlike a family grave, they will not easily accommodate descendants’ remains. 12.â•‡ These families were unlikely to inherit family graves in their hometowns if they had siblings living with their parents there. In these cases, the idea of expressing one’s family rank (kaku) through a family grave was not unusual. In contrast, the founder of a household in an urban area was more likely to see the building of a new grave as his personal accomplishment and an expression of his new family’s status. 13.â•‡ Divorced women are often considered to have unstable family identities since, if they remarry, their family names will change and they will usually be buried with their new husbands. 14.â•‡ When I visited a cemetery in Kyoto used by a clan of Shinto priests at a famous shrine, I saw a gravestone built for this clan’s ancient founder. The gravestone was relatively new, having been built during the Meiji period after the founder’s remains were located by using an ancient map passed down through the family. A clan member also showed me the oldest grave marker in this cemetery; it consisted of several flat, natural stones placed on the ground. He told me that outsiders do not know that it is a grave. The oldest living member of his clan, an eighty-two-year-old woman in the main family, still makes offerings here and at other graves marked by stone monuments. 15.â•‡ Cremation was common among aristocratic families as well (Shintani 1986, 221).


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16.â•‡ They also interact with “folk” religious traditions and ancestor worship. Here I focus on religious scripts seen from the viewpoints of religious specialists rather than those of laypersons. 17.â•‡ Christian scripts are limited in Japan. In many cases, Christian scripts of death adapted to the cultural environment of ancestor veneration in Japan (see Mullins 1998), incorporating rituals to honor ancestors. Christians can build family graves as well, like people of other faiths, but these are often in public or private cemeteries rather than in those associated with Buddhist temples. 18.â•‡ The exact place and nature of the world of the dead were matters of debate among Shinto–Confucianists and nativists. Yoshida Kanemi (1535– 1610), for example, produced a Shinto funeral protocol and came up with an alternative vision of the afterlife based upon reinterpretations of the origin myth. The dead, according to Kanemi, go to heaven, where Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess and the ancestress of the Japanese imperial family, resides (Bernstein 2006, 48). Death rituals were conducted in this scheme to transform the dead into “family-protecting kami rather than propel them into a faraway Buddhist paradise” (47). Meanwhile, Motoori Norinaga, a well-known nativist, rejected the notion of heaven and insisted that the dead all go to the otherworld of Yomi (Matsumoto 1970, 172). Other nativist scholars, such as Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), have posited alternative destinations for the dead. For example, according to Hirata, the body belongs to the world of Yomi, but the soul remains in a “deeper, concealed dimension” (Bernstein 2006, 51) of the profane world. Though nativists were trying to extract what is purely Japanese by rejecting Buddhism as a foreign influence and devaluing Shinto–Buddhist combinatory practices developed after the spread of Buddhism, they still maintained Confucian ideals of filial piety and considered death practices to be opportunities to reinforce child–parent bonds and the ideology of perpetuating the family line.

Chapter Three: The Grave-Free Promotion Society 1.â•‡ The classic film Narayamabushikō (The legend of Narayama) is based on the same legend and has been distributed internationally. 2.â•‡ Later I found that individual members interpreted this film in various ways, not always agreeing with the interpretation given here. 3.â•‡ Shikoku is one of the four major islands in Japan and is famous for its pilgrimage route. An act of religious and social significance, pilgrimage is particularly popular among older persons. Some informants participated in pilgrimages to venerate their close kin. 4.â•‡ Because the GFPS is a social movement rather than a company, it is difficult to define what it means to be promoted, although certain positions, such as those of the president and the vice-president, are considered to rank above staff positions. No clear coordination between status and benefits exists, since everyone is a volunteer, including the president. In fact, the president


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receives no salary or monetary compensation from the organization, whereas full-time staff members receive some. Though certain positions are associated with more prestige and influence than others, they do not produce an economic hierarchy. 5.â•‡ A funeral specialist is not considered a middle-class, white-collar worker, though his or her business may be quite profitable. 6.â•‡ This is not a rule. There are a number of nonprofit organizations headed by women, some of which are influential. 7.â•‡ Female leadership in voluntary organizations would be an interesting topic for further research, since few studies investigate gender relations among senior persons in social organizations. 8.â•‡ For example, see Creighton (1995) and Kondo (1990).

Chapter Four: Scattering Ceremonies 1.â•‡ No license is necessary for one to serve as a funeral specialist in Japan. In 1995 a certification program, recognized by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, was established to encourage the professionalization of funeral specialists to ensure higher standards of service in the funeral industry. There are two levels of certification for funeral directors (Sōsai Direkutā Ginō Shinsa Kyōkai 2007). 2.â•‡ Though rare, non-kin may conduct a scattering ceremony for a partner or friend. 3.â•‡ In addition to analyzing the scattering ceremonies I personally observed between 2002 and 2004, I examined all the reports on scattering ceremonies published in Rebirth and in other GFPS publications. Of the four ceremonies examined in detail in this chapter, three are based upon my fieldwork (the collective ceremony in 2003, the multifamily ceremony held on a mountain in 2003, and the quiet ceremony held in 2004). 4.â•‡ Sometimes the bereaved or their representative give speeches at a scattering ceremony, but unlike at a funeral, they are not required to do so. At a special collective ceremony, the bereaved do not usually have the time to give individual speeches. In some single-family ceremonies, not only the bereaved’s representative, but also friends of the deceased may give speeches, making the ceremony more closely resemble funeral ceremonies. 5.â•‡ Some non-believers may still follow their family’s religious traditions on culturally significant occasions, such as those for life-cycle rites and death rites (see Kawano 2005).

Chapter Five: Ash Scattering and Family Relations 1.â•‡ Definitions of the stem family vary. For example, some scholars use the concept of stem family in a cross-cultural perspective, whereas some use the


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term to refer to the ie as a historically specific family system that was defined by the Meiji Civil Code. When studying the persistence or decline of the stem family in Japan, some scholars focus on the ideologies associated with the prewar ie, while others examine the nature of generational relations and patterns of coresidence. 2.â•‡ It is not surprising that there is a discrepancy, in practice, between the legal family system (the official family ideology expressed in policies) and individual families (White 2002). For example, in prewar Japan, the ie was established as a legal system by reviving a number of characteristics associated with an archaic samurai family far removed from the reality of ordinary persons (Kondo 1990; White 2002). In postwar Japan, though the nuclear-family household was assumed in a number of policies as the model household (A.â•›Katō 2006, 5–6), stem families did not disappear, and the ie persisted as a social system in certain domains of life. Following the principles of stem-family formation, many “extra” sons left their rural hometowns and established new households in urban areas (Kase 1997). 3.â•‡ There is a tendency for some scholars to overemphasize the discontinuity between the prewar and the postwar periods, as the ideology of the postwar period is democratization. 4.â•‡ In addition, the ideal does not always materialize for demographic and other reasons. If, in a society where the stem-family organization is the norm, most families have three or four married adult children, it is demographically impossible for everyone to form a three-generational household. Therefore, just because the percentage of multigenerational households is smaller than that of nuclear-family households, one cannot say that the society has a nuclearfamily system. 5.â•‡ In practice, people’s perceptions of their individual families interact with family systems that are ideologically and legally defined by the state as well as with the folk versions (e.g., regional variations) of family systems. White (2002) usefully distinguishes the ideological family (the official concept of family imposed upon people by the state) from actual individual families and observes that people strategically accommodate the official version as they create their own. Thus, an individual family should not be considered a simple projection of the idealized “family.” Here I would like to further pluralize the official “family,” since multiple interpretations and versions of the official family can be produced and used by multiple parties with diverse interests—not only by the state and bureaucrats but also by intellectuals and scholars (e.g., Yanagita Kunio 1975). Ochiai (2000b; 2001, 46) points out that the Meiji Civil Code strategically produced the ideological “family” in relation to families in Western societies. Japanese scholars do not agree regarding the nature of the family in Japan, and their theories of Japanese families can also be considered as representing their efforts to define the ideological “family.” So, there are not only individual families but multiple ideological “families” as well.


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6.â•‡ Whether scholars see fundamental homogeneity or heterogeneity when examining Japanese families makes a difference in their understanding of ancestor veneration. Some scholars strive to capture the essence of the Japanese family while de-emphasizing its variations (e.g., Yanagita 1975), while others stress its regional variants (e.g., Kumagai 2008; Naitō 1978; Ōmachi 1950, 1958; Shimizu 1984; Takei 1971; Ueno 1975). When a scholar conceptualizes the ie as a homogeneous system, the resulting theory of ancestor veneration tends to assume the existence of the shared core that sacralizes the unique Japanese family. 7.â•‡ Some scholars see this family as a modified stem family (e.g., K.â•›Katō 1988) by focusing on its residential composition and evaluating its members’ relations, while others classify it as a nuclear family by focusing mainly on the ideology shared by its members (e.g., Morioka 1996). It is my contention that both form and ideology matter, and a seemingly old form may be employed for a new purpose by embodying a new ideology (see chapter 2 on the adoption of the modern family grave in postwar Japan). 8.â•‡ In one of the seventy-six cases, no details are known. 9.â•‡ We have to be careful not to assume that ash scatterers lack interest in family rank altogether. They may build a large house in a prestigious neighborhood or buy an expensive foreign car to display their family’s wealth or prestige. Furthermore, their survivors may still find it important to hold funerals for them in order to maintain face in the community. 10.â•‡ Though the equal-inheritance policy among siblings was implemented in the New Civil Code, the inheritance of ceremonial assets is governed by a different rule (see chapter 2). Only one person is allowed to inherit a grave; it cannot be divided among children or collectively inherited by them, for example. 11.â•‡ Analytically, it is important to make a distinction between the belief that the family line must be perpetuated in a stem family and the use of a stem family as a unit in understanding family relations at present.

Conclusion 1.â•‡ If a family that had adopted scattering in the past finds increased care resources in subsequent generations, descendants may build a permanent memorial place. The possibility of interring the dead whose ashes were scattered should not be precluded without empirical investigation. It is not unusual for survivors to keep a small amount of their loved ones’ remains. Taking a small amount of soil from the scattering site on land may also permit one to inter the dead in another location. The latter custom is, in fact, commonly practiced by a family moving a grave to a new location: when no remains are found in a grave, they simply take a small amount of soil from the grave to move the “ancestors” to the new location.


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2.â•‡ I am aware that some scholars may describe the increased emphasis on self-sufficiency as evidence of the rise of Japanese-style individualism, which does not take the autonomous individual for granted. I have used different terminologies in this study, however (see introduction for details). I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on this issue, which made me think more deeply about the nature of change described in this study. 3.â•‡ In the case of the husband’s ceremony, one can see the increased selfsufficiency of older couples (vis-à-vis younger couples), as the wife typically handles her husband’s ceremony. However, a woman’s death will usually be handled by her children, forcing her to depend on them to carry out her wishes, thereby decreasing older women’s self-sufficiency. 4.â•‡ Some of the graves receiving permanent ritual care rely on a system to care for people who have no kin. For example, some members of Moyai No Kai in Tokyo have contracted with the Living Support Service System, which will take care of bureaucratic and ceremonial matters after their deaths. The GFPS does not offer such a service; when asked, it recommends that people who are alone have the scattering contract posted in a visible place so that those who discover the member’s death will promptly contact the GFPS. 5.â•‡ Whether the GFPS people are “victims” must be examined empirically by investigating the distribution of power between generations in more detail, for example, by focusing on both older and younger generations, examining their living arrangements, elder-care plans and practices, inheritance, and mortuary strategies. 6.â•‡ The fact that ash scattering was a practice set “outside” of the laws regarding graves and burial was taken by the GFPS as the basis of scattering’s public recognition (see chapter 3). 7.â•‡ For this reason, the GFPS movement cannot be treated simply as a seniors’ rights movement, though GFPS members’ assertions of increased control and self-sufficiency examined in this study may resonate with those expressed in such a movement (e.g., the American Association for Retired Persons).


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Index

Numbers in boldface type refer to figures. adoption, 28–29, 85, 163–164 aesthetic concerns, 72, 85, 130, 133–134, 138 afterlife, 8, 9, 187n18; otherworld, 133 age-based norms, 34, 51; and death rites, 2–7; at GFPS, 103–106; the seniority system, 34–35, 111, 184n4 agency, 16–17, 172 aging, cross-cultural studies of, 7–8 aging society, 44, 107, 177; “aged society,” 31, 47; impact on generational interdependence, 29–32, 39 aging urbanites, 6, 177, 179. See also older persons air burial, 185n1. See also burial altar(s). See domestic altars; funeral altars alternatives to conventional mortuary practices, 3, 14, 49, 50–52, 57, 77, 83, 87, 91, 94, 154, 169, 176; ash scattering (see also ash scattering), 69, 72–73, 85; graves with permanent ritual care (eitai kuyōbo), 13, 68, 70, 145, 150, 154, 191n4 Alzheimer’s disease, 7, 8 American Association for Retired Persons, 191n7 ancestorhood, 1, 129, 134, 136–137, 168

ancestor veneration (kuyō), 3, 5, 9, 19, 26, 98, 132, 145, 169, 187n17, 190n6 ancestral graves, 65, 168. See also family grave(s) and grave plot(s) ancestral tablet, 70, 81, 83, 121, 134, 171 Annonbyō, 72 anti-community positions, 84 anti-cremation positions, 56, 60, 81, 82 antimodern scripts, 83, 84, 86 anti-professionalization scripts, 84 ash scatterers: attaining posthumous security, 51, 169, 178–179; avoiding dependency, 48, 51, 154, 166, 175; lightening the burden of descendants, 154, 168, 169, 172, 175, 177; whether to be viewed as victims, 177, 191 ash scattering, 3, 6, 162, 169–171; aesthetics of, 72, 85, 130, 133, 138; an alternative to burial, 69, 72–73, 85, 154; ancient practice of (possible), 74–76; ban on, 93–94; commercial services, 73, 92; forest sites, 21, 70, 156; opponents of, 163; as a return to nature, 89, 91, 95, 100, 108, 112, 131, 133, 137, 138–139, 168–169; as a secondary rite of incorporation, 134–138.

211


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212

Index

socioeconomic shifts and, 50–52; and stem-family principles, 163–164, 165; transitional cohort(s) practicing, 49, 150, 176; uncertainties of the generational contract and, 150, 153, 165, 169. See also cremation ash-scattering ceremonies, 121–129, 136–137, 139; ceremonial directors, 112–115; collective ceremonies, 73, 98–99, 101, 113, 118, 123–126; common practices and variations, 129–134; mountain ceremonies, 126, 127–129, 137, 163; multifamily ceremonies, 118, 124, 126–128, 188n3; music or songs in, 124, 130; personalized, 130, 138, 182; planning a ceremony, 116–118; pulverizing cremated remains, 118–120; religious tone lacking or muted in, 132; at sea, 123–126 autonomy: respect for in Japan, 84–85, 152, 171, 173, 175, 183, 184n8; Western notions of, 15–16, 18–19 baby boomers (dankai no sedai), 47, 181n4 bereaved, bereavement, 115–116, 120–121, 128–129, 155; expressing feelings, 72, 125, 131 Bernstein, Andrew, 56, 60, 65, 80, 81, 82, 187 Bestor, Theodore, 35 biological view of death, 1, 8 biomedicalization of birth, 3. See also reproductive technologies birthrate, 4, 12, 19, 28, 30, 40, 68, 148, 150 brain death, 3 Buddha, 58 Buddha Amida, 80 buddhahood, 128–129, 134, 136; buddhas (hotoke), 80 Buddhism, 72, 81, 82, 131–132; beliefs about death, 55, 58, 71, 76, 133, 187n18; burial resembling GFPS


practices, 73–74; concept of rebirth, 8, 57, 80, 82, 130, 131, 137; institutions, 13, 14, 50, 66, 79; mortuary rites and practices, 5, 56, 60, 65, 70, 79–81, 137; the palanquin, 137; religious scripts, 80–81, 82, 83 Buddhist priests, 13, 50, 78, 95, 135 Buddhist temples, 13, 50, 54, 55, 76, 92, 99, 154, 158 burial, interment, 25, 49, 57, 69, 70; cremation coexisting with, 54, 56–57; diverse customs, 63; double, 54–55; earth, 55, 57, 185n1; green, 157; new practices, 71, 145–147, 154; regulation of, 59–60; at sea, 133–134, 185n1; with spouse(s), 67, 72, 146; temporary interment, 54–55; in the woods (jumokusō), 73–74, 92–93. See also alternatives to conventional mortuary practices; cemeteries; graves care allocation, 5, 28, 36, 38, 142, 170, 171; stem-family system of, 25, 26, 37, 52. See also inheritance cemeteries, 66, 73, 81, 91, 145, 147, 156, 168; community or public, 53, 58, 82; for-profit, 50, 54, 79, 85, 93; during the Meiji period, 59–61; municipal, 145, 160; nontraditional, 92; shortage of, 56, 65–66, 78; suburban, 168, 179 ceremonial care, 12, 142, 153–154, 168, 170, 171; as a burden on descendants, 6, 12, 51, 64, 154, 168, 169, 172, 175, 177; offerings, 9, 11, 12, 78, 85, 92, 122, 130–131, 138; rejection of, 72, 117, 154; uncertainty over availability of, 51 ceremonial director(s), 96, 99, 105, 107, 109, 112, 115 childless couples, 27, 73, 99 Chisaka Genpō, 73, 92 choice. See lifestyle choice(s) Christianity, Christians, 132, 151, 163, 187n17

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Index

civil code, current. See New Civil Code Cohen, Lawrence, 8, 39, 177 cohort analysis, 4–6, 8, 150; culturally meaningful cohort units, 181n4; first generational cohort, 51, 148; second generational cohort, 148, 150; third generational cohort, 148; variation within cohorts, 5–6. See also transitional cohort(s) commercialization of death, 12, 78–79, 88; of ash scattering, 73, 92; of burial space(s), 66, 72; of ceremonies and ritual services, 12, 13, 115, 120; resistance to, 73, 83–84, 86 community, 78, 80–81, 157; communal interactions, 161; communal rites, 12; and lack of, 157–161 Confucianism, Confucian values, 40, 77, 82, 184n4 Contagious Disease Prevention Law, 56–57 coresidence: with aging parents, 32, 33, 36, 37, 49, 66, 142–143, 148, 149; decline in or delayed, 41–42, 140, 149, 184n5, 184n8. See also threegenerational households Coulmas, Florian, 31, 34, 47 couple-based graves, 63, 64, 65, 186n10 cremation, 2, 6, 54, 64, 74, 79, 100; as an alternative to burial, 56–57; ban on, 56; the family grave and, 64; the “first,” 55; normative practice today, 57, 80, 82; predominant in Shin Buddhism, 56–57, 80, 185n3; pulverizing cremated remains, 74, 100, 113, 118–121; resistance to, 56, 60, 81, 82; ritual aspects, 135, 136; spread of, 56. See also ash scattering crematorium(s), 113, 115, 118 cross-cultural studies of aging, 7–8 cultural lag, 146, 147 cultural values, 2; collective representations, 3. See also urban culture daughter(s), 12, 26, 43, 145, 149; adoption of daughter’s husband,


213

28–29, 85, 163–164; as caregivers, 37–38, 42, 164, 170–171; inheritance issues, 153; marriedout, 31–32, 37, 38, 145, 151, 153, 162, 164 daughter(s)-in-law, 26, 32, 37, 38, 127 day-care centers, 45 death and dying: biological view of, 1, 8; concerns over, 7–10, 95–96; “death with dignity,” 3, 10; “dying in one’s own way” (sono hito rashii saigo), 14, 19, 71, 151; ideal ways of, 4; social death, 9, 182 death ideologies and representations, 4, 6; death as the return to nature, 14, 49, 70, 72, 85, 86, 177; death as transformation to ancestorhood, 1, 129, 134, 136–137, 168; death as a transitional point, 1, 7–8, 175; deceased-centeredness, 14–15, 71, 77, 151, 152, 156, 172–173, 175, 179; emergence of new, 10–19; opponents of new, 85–86; as “scripts,” 77 death rites, 82–83, 115–116, 122, 133, 138; community or social participation in, 12, 86; engagement of self in, 10, 14–15, 71; meanings of, 2, 9; resistance to conventional, 83–85; rite of resurrection, 134. See also mortuary practices deceased: attitudes toward the remains, 74; expressing feelings for, 72, 103, 125, 131 deceased-centeredness, 14–15, 71, 77, 152–153, 156, 172–173, 175, 179 demographic factors: birthrate, 4, 12, 19, 28, 30, 40, 68, 141, 148, 150; mortality rate, 4, 50, 148; population increase, 30 demographic factors and family form, 26, 27 demographic transition, 4, 28, 30, 141 dependence: ash scattering as a means of reducing, 154, 166; of the deceased, 174–175; of the

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214

Index

elderly, 11, 17–18, 37, 42, 48, 172; overdependence, 8, 17–18, 169, 173 domestic altar(s), 9, 11, 70, 81, 83, 121, 132 Dore, Ronald, 157–158 double burial, 54 double-family graves, 60, 69, 75, 186n9 Dōshō, monk, cremation of, 55 dual family structure. See threegenerational households “dying in one’s own way” (sono hito rashii saigo), 14, 19, 71, 151 economic conditions, 31, 35, 68 “economic miracle,” 32 Edo period, 56, 57, 58–59, 62, 75, 186n8, 186n10 egalitarianism, 106 egocentric personhood, 16, 17, 23, 172, 183 elder care, 17–18, 37, 39, 47; changing practices, 36–37, 170; diverse arrangements, 38; facilities for, 6, 45, 46; 1955 system, 36–37; public support for, 47–48; traditional, 11, 26. See also family-based elder-care system elders. See older persons Emperor Junna, 74–75, 76 Emperor Kōtoku, 55 Employee Pension System (EPS), 43, 184 end-of-life rites. See death rites environmentally sound mortuary practices (shizensō), 85, 93, 137–138, 156–157, 169 equal-inheritance policy, 38, 145, 162, 190n10. See also inheritance euthanasia (anrakushi), 10 exposure of corpse(s), 57–58, 76, 185n1 familial continuity, 11, 27, 61, 67, 68, 70–71, 139, 146, 153, 155, 158, 168, 172; and discontinuities, 146, 154, 162. See also inheritance family altar, 9; as the domestic altar, 81, 83, 121, 132


family-based elder-care system, 28, 31, 36–43; alternatives to, 43–47, 50; inheritance and, 39, 143, 183n1. See also generational contract family forms: and demographic conditions, 26, 27; diversity of, 144, 176; heterogeneity of, 145. See also nuclear-family system; stem-family system family grave(s) and grave plot(s), 78, 145, 153, 176, 185n6, 186n7; appearance of modern, 61–65; inheritance of, 12, 60–61; in the Meiji period, 60–61; popularity in postwar period, 67, 137, 143; spread of, 62–65, 67, 79, 186n10; and the stem-family system, 62–65. See also grave(s) family parishioner system, 12–13 family rank, 63, 75–76, 179, 186n12. See also social hierarchy family: vs. household, 142–143; resistance to, 85. See also household(s) fertility rate. See birthrate Festival of the Dead, 12, 78, 81, 83, 99, 134 fieldwork, 19–22, 167, 188n3. See also research methodology filial piety (oyakōkō), 40–41, 60, 82, 184n4, 187n18; as a moral concern, 155–157 funeral altar(s), 71–72 funeral, 15, 73, 83, 91, 95, 115, 158, 159 funeral professionals, 13, 14, 77, 78, 168 Future of Cemeteries Committee, 91 gendered roles and practices, 2, 4, 33, 44, 108, 166; divorced women, 47, 73, 85, 186n13; female leadership, 109, 188n7; and the GFPS, 96, 97, 108–110, 111; older men, 35, 96; younger men, 36. See also daughter(s) generational continuity, 146, 156, 158, 162, 165, 175

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Index

generational contract, 5, 10–11, 26, 49; demographic factors and, 30, 34; reconstituting, 25, 51–52, 142, 154, 169–171; stem-family system as a, 25, 26, 37, 52; strains and contradictions in, 11, 12–14, 31–32, 38–39; uncertainties around, 11, 51, 150, 153, 165, 169. See also generations; inheritance generational interdependence, 6, 13, 25, 26–27, 29–32, 34, 173, 175, 176. See also family-based eldercare system; three-generational households generations: older generation, 6, 25, 26–27, 41, 42, 43, 51, 100, 144, 182n14, 183n1, 189n1; younger generation, 26, 40, 47, 64–65, 150, 155, 185. See also generational contract gerontocracy, 34 GFPS. See Grave-Free Promotion Society (Sōsō No Jiyū O Susumeru Kai) “Gold Plan,” 45, 46 Gottlieb, Alma, 8–9 government mortuary regulations, 77, 178, 179; 1884 laws, 59–60; New Civil Code, 170. See also Meiji government Grave-Free Promotion Society (Sōsō No Jiyū O Susumeru Kai), 16, 98–100; age-based norms at, 103–106; annual meeting, 20, 21, 100–103; ash scattering promoted by, 3, 10, 23, 49, 51, 57, 73, 76; board members, 20, 96, 98, 100, 101, 109, 110; a citizens’ movement and service, 2, 19, 20, 21–22, 69–70, 77, 88–89; employing stemfamily principles, 163–164, 165; freedom from the grave promoted by, 53–54; gendered roles and practices at, 96, 97, 108–110, 111; history of, 90–94; members’ motivations, 47–48, 67, 84–87, 163; newsletter, 20, 90–91, 97, 104, 114, 162; Tokyo office, 21, 89, 94–96,


215

152, 168. See also Rebirth (GFPS newsletter) grave markers 57, 63, 65, 75, 186n14 graves: abandoned, 14, 59; definition of, 61; lacking family names, 69, 71, 75, 91; meaning of, 65; during the Meiji period, 59–61; pre-purchasing of, 72; recycling of plots, 59, 63, 75; shortage of, 65–66, 68. See also burial; family grave(s) and grave plot(s) graves with permanent ritual care (eitai kuyōbo), 14, 68, 70–71, 145, 150, 154, 191n4 gravestones, 53, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 69, 81, 185n7, 186n8; prices of, 160 green burials, 157 Hashimoto, Akiko, 11, 26, 37, 47, 48, 153 head of household, 35, 44, 61 health care, 31; public health concerns, 57, 60, 75, 77, 78–79 Heian period, 55, 57, 74 Heisei period, 62 historical-transition thesis, 23, 144–147, 176 history of mortuary practices, 22, 54–58, 62, 67, 74, 75–76. See also mortuary practices homeless spirits, graves for (muenbaka), 11, 50 hospice care, 3 household(s), 143, 148; composition of, 148, 149, 184n3; multigenerational households, 33–34, 50, 141, 149–150, 153, 184n3, 189n4; non-kin households, 148; nuclear households (kaku kazoku setai), 143–144, 146; other kin-based households, 148 identity, 2, 10, 19, 83, 136 ie system and ideology, 61, 63, 65, 143, 147, 162, 163, 165, 170, 188n1, 189n2, 190n6. See also stem-family system

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216

Index

incense, 81, 135 incense money (kōden), 86, 96, 161 independence, 7, 16, 169 individualism: distinguished from individuality, 18–19; Japanese expression of, 185; Westernderived (kojinshugi), 15, 18, 172, 175, 183n17 individuality (kosei), 17, 18, 19, 72, 172. See also theories of the individual and the group inheritance, 99, 183n1; of ceremonial assets and duties, 5, 12, 60–61, 65, 68, 71, 140, 143, 150, 153; changing and more diverse patterns of, 39; and daughter, 12; and the elder son, 11, 32, 38, 49, 51, 95, 145, 165–166; equalinheritance policy, 38, 39, 145, 162, 190n10; first-child (ane katoku), 165; practices as problematic, 39. See also care allocation; familial continuity Inoue Haruyo, 69, 72, 145–146, 147, 163 inside-outside (uchi-soto), 110–111 interdependence, 17, 18; generational, 6, 13, 25, 26–27, 29–32, 34, 173, 175, 176; between the living and the dead, 1, 9 intergenerational care-allocation system. See family-based elder-care system intergenerational reciprocity, 11. See also generational contract interment. See burial, interment Izuhara, Misa, 38, 40, 46 Japan Society for Dying with Dignity (Nihon Songenshi Kyōkai), 10 Jinja Honchō, 82, 83 Jōmon period, 54, 55 Kamakura period, 55, 76 Kase Kazutoshi, 29, 32, 34, 189 Katō Akihiko, 149, 152, 189 Katsuda Itaru, 57, 58


Kawano, Satsuki, 11, 14, 17, 49, 53, 64, 70, 75, 79, 135, 136, 138, 145, 153, 154, 155, 165 Kenmu Restoration, 76 Kōmoto Mitsugi, 63, 64 language use, 20, 105, 106 Liberal Democratic Party, 32, 35 life course, 7, 8, 28, 79, 161, 182n14, 188n5 life-course approach, 8, 37 life-prolonging practices and devices, 3 lifestyle choice(s): elders as choosers, 47–48; ideology of, 5–6, 10–11, 14, 15, 16, 18–19, 22, 25–26, 48; of transitional cohorts, 51–52 Long, Susan O., 10, 14, 25, 29, 37, 42, 45, 77, 84, 86, 144, 170, 173 longevity, 29, 184n5 long-term care facilities, 46, 184n7 Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI), 45, 46, 47, 48, 184n7 Makimura Hisako, 62, 66, 73 Man’yōshū anthology, 55, 74 Mathews, Gordon, 35, 68 media, 21, 39, 47, 98, 123, 167 Meiji government: Civil Code of 1898, 60, 165; Contagious Disease Prevention Law, 56; setting national mortuary standards, 56, 59–61, 165 Meiji period, 56, 65, 76, 188n1; graves and cemeteries in, 59–61 memorial care. See ceremonial care memorial practices, 5, 48–50, 49, 54, 70, 77, 146, 176, 179 memorial rites. See death rites Middle Ages, 55, 57, 58 middle-class: as GFPS volunteers, 106–108; ideologies, 22, 152; lifestyle, 4–8, 22, 29, 32, 46–48, 50, 66; upper-middle-class, 46; urbanized, 22, 32, 33, 66, 152, 176 migration: family patterns and, 33, 34, 40, 42; postwar, 34, 49, 152, 179;

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Index

urban migration, 34, 49, 152, 158, 159, 179 Ministry of Health and Welfare, 91 mobility, 10, 31, 40, 64–65, 161, 185n8; affecting ceremonial care, 12, 59; separating stem family members, 143 Mori Kenji, 49, 56, 59, 60, 62, 65, 68, 76, 92, 170 Morioka Kiyomi, 33, 41, 141, 145, 146, 190 Morioka Kiyoshi, 6 mortality rate, 4, 50, 148; infantmortality rate, 10, 141 mortuary practice(s): conventional memorial practices, 5, 23, 25, 31, 48–50, 54, 77, 92, 112, 129, 132, 133, 138–139, 146, 154, 179; diversity of, 22, 50, 63, 67–74, 76, 144, 175–177; exposure of corpse(s), 57–58, 76, 185n1; farewell ceremonies, 112, 113, 131; funeral, 15, 73, 83, 91, 95, 113, 116–118, 158, 159, 161; new practices, 146, 175–180; unconventional, 31, 39, 43, 52, 85, 121, 156. See also burial; death rites; history of mortuary practices mortuary scripts, 54, 77; aesthetic, 85; anti-commercialization, 83–84, 86; anti-community, 84; antifamily, 85; anti-professionalization, 84; antireligious, 84; anti-revivalist, 77; Buddhist, 80–81, 82, 83; Christian, 187n17; community, 78, 80–81; modern, 78–79; religious, 187n16; of resistance, 83–84, 85, 87; resistance to resistance scripts, 85–86; revivalist, 15–16, 175, 182n12; Shinto, 83 mortuary standards, 78–79; of Meiji government, 56, 59–61, 165 mortuary strategies, 13, 71, 140, 150, 168, 169, 171, 176, 178 mountain ash-scattering ceremonies, 126, 126–128, 130, 137, 163


217

mourning, 133; mourning period, 83, 134–135 Moyai No Hi/Moyai No Kai, 72, 191n4 multigenerational households, 33–34, 50, 141, 149–150, 153, 184n3, 189n4 Murakami Kōkyō, 76, 161 Muromachi period, 55 Nakano, Lynn Y., 39, 47, 48, 177, 183 National Pension System (NPS), 43 National Police Agency, 167 nature, 71, 92, 155; death as the return to, 14, 49, 70, 72, 85, 86, 177; mortuary practices protecting, 37–38, 85, 93, 156–157, 169; natural mortuary practices (shizensō), 85, 93, 137–138, 156– 157, 169; scattering of ashes as a return to, 89, 91, 95, 100, 108, 112, 131, 133, 137, 138–139, 168–169; transforming the dead, 14, 154 Nelson, John K., 13, 72, 81 New Civil Code, 38, 170 “New Gold Plan,” 45 “New Religions,” 132, 163 1990s to present, 67–74 non-believers, 188n5 non-family caregivers, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 51, 150 non-kin, 71, 166; non-kin households, 148 nuclear-family system, 40–41, 59, 145, 184n3, 190n7; nuclearization (kaku kazokuka), 148–150; a shift from the stem-family system, 23, 32, 33, 140–141, 145–146, 176, 183n1. See also spouse(s) nuclear households (kaku kazoku setai), 29, 32–33, 50–51, 61, 141, 143–144, 146, 148–152, 189n2 Naganuma, town ban on cremation, 93–94 nursing homes, 45, 46 Ochiai, Emiko, 4, 32, 33, 47, 148–150, 164, 189n5

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218

Index

offerings, 9, 11, 12, 78, 85, 92, 122, 130–131, 138. See also ceremonial care Ogasawara, Yūko, 104, 108, 109 old age, security in, 27, 37, 39 older persons, 2, 13, 34, 42, 48, 154, 177–178; aging urbanites, 6, 177, 179; as change agents, 39; concerns over death and dying, 7–10, 17–18, 95–96; as consumers, 47–48; engagement in death rites, 7–10; financial conditions, 44, 184n8; housing for, 46; legend of abandonment of, 100; the “new urban elder culture,” 6; as the older generation (see also generations), 26–27, 42; older men, 35, 96; valuing selfsufficiency, 18, 183n15; as “young-olds,” 47, 107 O’Leary, James S., 30, 34, 184 options. See lifestyle choice(s) overdependence, 8, 17–18, 169, 173. See also dependence pension system(s), 31, 43–44, 47, 48, 51, 184n6, 184n8, 185n9 personhood, theories of: egocentric theory, 16, 17, 23, 172, 183; sociocentric theory, 16, 17, 18, 19, 172, 175 pokkuri temples, 18 pollution, notions of, 1, 58, 78, 83 population aging, 44, 47, 107, 177; impact on generational interdependence, 29–32, 39 post-death relations, 6. See also ancestorhood; ceremonial care post-death rites. See ceremonial care; death rites posthumous security, 11–12, 14, 51, 169, 178–179; ash scattering and, 51, 169, 179–180 postindustrial society, 1–2, 10–14, 34, 37–38, 51; environmental concerns in, 93, 156–157; rise of new death ideologies, 10–19, 168; shift in


ceremonial strategies, 14–19, 169, 176–177; stem-family system and, 35–36, 140, 144–147 postwar period, 1, 7, 11, 12, 19, 22, 25, 143–147, 176, 180; demographic shifts in, 44, 47, 150, 179; economic growth in, 66–67, 148; generational contract as a moral obligation in, 26–27; nuclear-family system emerging, 141, 152; urbanization, 33–34, 49, 50, 66. See also historical-transition thesis power or status, family, 65, 75–76, 139, 186n12 preindustrial period, 33 prewar period, 143 priests, 6–7, 12, 84; Buddhist, 13, 14, 49, 50, 78, 80, 81, 86, 95, 99, 155, 158–159; Shingon, 155; Shinto, 83, 186n14; temple, 49, 50, 86–87, 99, 158–159, 166 public health concerns, 57, 60, 75, 77, 78–79 pulverizing cremated remains, 74, 100, 113, 118–121. See also cremation Raëlian movement, 132 rebirth, 8, 57, 80, 82, 130, 131, 137 Rebirth (Saisei), GFPS newsletter, 20, 90–91, 97–98, 104, 114, 162 reincarnation, 9 religions, religious institutions, 12, 15, 77, 179, 187n16; federations, 12; organizations, 35, 47, 50, 69. See also Buddhism; Confucianism; Shintoism religious beliefs, 9, 35, 80, 83, 146; lack of certain, 74–75 reproductive technologies, 5. See also biomedicalization of birth research methodology, 21–22. See also fieldwork resistance ideologies, 83–84, 85, 87; to commercialization of death, 73, 83–84, 86; to cremation, 56, 60, 81, 82

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Index

resurrection, rites of, 134 retirement, retirees, 6, 32, 107–108 retirement communities, 6, 18, 46, 106 retribution (bachi ga ataru), 120 revivalism, 77, 171–175, 180, 182n12; revivalist scripts, 15–16, 175, 182n12 rites of passage, 2, 3 ritual care. See ceremonial care Rowe, Mark, 14, 73, 92, 99, 150 Saisai. See Rebirth (Saisai) scripts related to mortuary practice. See mortuary scripts sea burial, 133–134, 185n1; gravestone at sea (umi no bohyō), 133. See also burial security: in old age, 27, 37, 39; posthumous, 51, 169, 178–179 self, 7, 8, 10, 15–16 self-centeredness, 17, 175 selfishness, 18, 85, 175 self-sufficiency, 18, 48, 51, 72, 141–142, 168, 173, 184n8; and individualism, 175, 191n2; posthumous, 152–155, 165, 169, 172; as self-reliance, 18, 23, 48, 152, 172, 173, 177, 182n15; state ideology of, 177–178 senility, 8, 18 seniority system, 34, 35, 51, 111, 184n4; senior-junior relationships, 104–105 seniors. See older persons seniors’ rights movement, 191n7 Shin Buddhism, 60; cremation and, 56–57, 80, 185n3 Shinran, 55–56 Shintani Takanori, 55, 57, 58, 74, 75–76 Shinto-Buddhist blended practices, 79 Shintoism, 14, 56, 77, 79, 132; ancient texts, 82; death rites, 81–83; senrei sai rite, 83 Shinto priests, 83, 186n14 Shōwa period, 57, 62, 134 Silver Human Resource Center (SHRC), 107


219

single adults, 31, 32, 36, 37, 41, 59, 143, 144, 168 Smith, Robert J., 18, 79, 81, 134, 138 social death, 9, 182 social hierarchy, 85, 88, 110, 111, 160; family rank, 63, 75–76, 179, 186n12. See also age-based norms; gendered roles and practices social relations, 1–2, 19 social security system. See pension system(s) social structures, 2, 4, 145, 172 sociocentric personhood, 16, 17, 18, 19, 172, 175 son(s): adopted, 28–29, 85, 163–164; eldest, 11, 26, 34, 38, 42, 49, 51, 95, 145, 148, 149; preference for and mortuary choices, 32, 49, 50, 150–152 soul, spirit, 83, 92, 129, 133, 134, 187n18; graves for homeless (muenbaka), 11, 50 “Sōsō Kihon Hō” law (proposed), 94, 179 spouse(s): burial with, 67, 72, 146; as caregivers or memorial caretakers, 26, 38, 166, 171, 174 stem-family system (chokkei kazoku sei), 23, 25, 26–29, 31, 140–142; decline of (or asserted), 143–147; formation principles, 33, 140, 142, 176, 189n2, as a generational contract, 25, 26, 37, 45, 52; during the Meiji period, 61, 162; nuclear family system replacing, 32–36, 143–147; principles employed by GFPS, 163–164, 165; reconstitution or continuity of, 23, 163–164, 165, 190n7; and rejection of ideal, 162, 164–165, 169; and the spread of family graves, 62–65, 186n10. See also ie system and ideology; nuclear-family system stone structures, 57–59, 75; during the Edo period, 56, 57, 58, 59; family gravestones, 186n9; pagodas, 58, 59, 75, 76; stupas, 57, 58, 65, 81

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220

succession, 32, 51; lack of a successor, 49, 71, 73, 166, 182n11; non-succeeding offspring, 32–33, 150 Suitō, 58, 75 Suzuki, Hikaru, 13, 71, 78, 115, 118, 134, 135, 159 symbolic equity, 13 tablet, ancestral, 70, 81, 83, 121, 134, 171 Taishō period, 62, 63 Takeda Chōshū, 65, 185n7 Tama cemetery, 66 Tanaka Hisao, 74, 76 temple priests, 49, 50, 86–87, 99, 158–159, 166 temples, Buddhist, 13, 50, 54, 55 temporary interment (mogari no miya), 54–55 theories of the individual and the group, 16–17, 18–19, 172, 173. See also personhood three-generational households, 33–34, 50, 141, 149–150, 153, 184n3, 189n4; prefabricated housing (nisetai jutaku), 31. See also coresidence Tokyo, 21, 42, 63, 65–66, 82, 112, 160; GFPS office in, 21, 89, 94–96, 152, 168 Tomb period, 54 transferring the deceased, 119, 137 transforming the dead, 14, 80–81, 83 transitional cohort(s), 4, 6, 12, 22, 28–29, 32; aging of, 36; and ash scattering, 49, 150, 176; and distribution of care, 28–29, 37; facilitating new urban culture, 32. See also cohort analysis; lifestyle choices; middle-class; urban culture Traphagan, John, 8, 38 Turner, Victor, 32, 98, 103 two-generational housing loans, 46


Index

unmarried persons, 31, 32, 36, 37, 41, 59, 143, 144, 168 urban culture: the “new urban elder culture,” 6; new urban ideologies, 152, 180; and postwar Japan, 33–34, 49, 50, 66 urban middle-class, 22, 32, 33, 66, 152, 176 urban migration, 34, 49, 152, 158, 159, 179 veneration of the dead. See ancestor veneration Walter, Tony, 4, 15, 77, 172, 174, 180 Western individualism, 171–173, 174, 179–180; and notions of autonomy, 15–16, 18–19 widows, 28, 184n5 World War II, as a transitional point, 28, 30, 65, 147 Yamada Shinya, 135, 137, 161 Yasuda Mutsuhiko: founder and president of GFPS, 20, 69, 70; personal background and motivations, 21, 69–70, 92, 150, 156; promoted natural mortuary practices, 69, 122–123, 156; promoting ash scattering, 76, 93–94, 120, 133, 137, 154 Yayoi period, 54 Yolmo Buddhism, 7 younger generation, 26, 40, 47, 64–65, 150, 155, 185; elder care as a burden on, 17–18, 37, 39, 47; memorial care as a burden on, 6, 12, 51, 64; new mortuary strategies lighten burden on, 154, 168, 169, 172, 175, 177. See also generations young-olds, 47, 107 Zōjōji Temple, 59 Zoku Nihon shoki, 74, 82

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About the Author

S atsuki K awano is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Her publications focus on the topics of ritual, family, death, and aging in modern Japan. She is the author of Ritual Practice in Modern Japan: Ordering Place, People, and Action (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005).


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Production Notes for Kawano / Nature’s Embrace Jacket design by Julie Matsuo-Chun Text design by University of Hawai‘i Press Production Staff with text in NewBaskerville and display in Lucida Calligraphy Italic Composition by Lucille C. Aono Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group


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J A PA N E S E A N T H R O P O L O G Y

[ continued

from front flap

]

Of related interest winner of the francis l. k. hsu book prize from the east asia section of the american anthropological association

FINAL DAYS Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life Susan Orpett Long

“Very interesting . . . deeply sympathetic . . . well-considered. —Japan Times “A superb look into end-of-life decision-making in Japan . . . rich in ethnographic detail and very well written. . . . In short, this is one of the best books on Japan to come along in several years. I would recommend it to anyone interested in conceptualizations of the dying process, bioethics, or Japanese culture. The book would be a particularly good addition to the reading list of any course in medical ethics.” —Pacific Affairs

jacket art: photo by gilbert c. walker

Satsuki Kawano is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

jacket design: julie matsuo-chun

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

Kawano

UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS

ISBN 978-0-8248-3372-5

JA PA N ’ S A GI N G U R B A N I TES A N D N EW DEATH R IT ES

2006, 304 pages paper: isbn 978-0-8248-2964-3

NATURE’S EMBRACE :

younger generations to care for them, this new mortuary practice has given its proponents an increased sense of control over their posthumous existence. By choosing ash scattering, older adults contest their dependent status in Japanese society, which increasingly views the aged as passive care recipients. As such, this study explores not only new developments in mortuary practices, but also voices for increased self-sufficiency in late adulthood and the elderly’s reshaping of ties with younger generations. Nature’s Embrace offers insightful discussion on the rise of new death rites and ideologies, older adults’ views of their death rites, and Japan’s changing society through the eyes of aging urbanites. This book will engage a wide range of readers interested in death and culture, mortuary ritual, and changes in age relations in postindustrial societies.

NATURE’S EMBRACE J A PA N ’ S A G I N G U RBA N I T E S A N D N E W DE AT H RITES

90000

9 780824 833725 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Satsuki Kawano

Based on extensive fieldwork, Nature’s Embrace reveals the emerging pluralization of death rites in postindustrial Japan. Low birth rates and high numbers of people remaining permanently single have led to a shortage of ceremonial caregivers (most commonly married sons and their wives) to ensure the transformation of the dead into ancestors resting in peace. Consequently, older adults are increasingly uncertain about who will perform memorial rites for them and maintain their graves. In this study, anthropologist Satsuki Kawano examines Japan’s changing death rites from the perspective of those who elect to have their cremated remains scattered and celebrate their return to nature. For those without children, ash scattering is an effective strategy, as it demands neither a grave nor a caretaker. However, the adoption of ash scattering is not limited to the childless. By forgoing graves and lightening the burden on [ continued

on back flap

]

Nature's Embrace: Japan's Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites

Death Rites

Death Rites

Death Rites and Rights

Death Rites

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Tanya Huff - Death Rites

Tanya Huff - Death Rites

Geschichte Japans

The Embrace of Life and Death

Natures IQ

Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites: New Interpretive Approaches

Geschichte Japans (Beck Wissen)

Real Natures and Familiar Objects

Embrace

Aging: Modern Theories and Therapies (New Biology)

Embrace

New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

Natures Beauty in Redwork

Hybrid Geographies: Natures Cultures Spaces

Fisk on Capacities and Natures

Aging and Mental Health (Understanding Aging)

Rites and Rank

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Death Rites: Law and Ethics at the End of Life

Zen und die Kultur Japans

Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Inquiry

Genes and Aging

Nature's Embrace: Japan's Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites

Death Rites

Death Rites

Death Rites and Rights

Death Rites

Death Rites

Death Rites

Tanya Huff - Death Rites

Tanya Huff - Death Rites

Geschichte Japans

The Embrace of Life and Death

Natures IQ

Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites: New Interpretive Approaches

Geschichte Japans (Beck Wissen)

Real Natures and Familiar Objects

Embrace

Aging: Modern Theories and Therapies (New Biology)

Embrace

New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

Natures Beauty in Redwork

Hybrid Geographies: Natures Cultures Spaces

Fisk on Capacities and Natures

Aging and Mental Health (Understanding Aging)

Rites and Rank

Rites and Rank

Death Rites: Law and Ethics at the End of Life

Zen und die Kultur Japans

Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Inquiry

Genes and Aging

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