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    Running Head: Japanese Death Ritual 1

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    migire kennedy
    The document discusses Japanese death rituals from an insider perspective. It describes how rituals begin at age 60 with kanreki celebrations and continue throughout old age with additional celebrations marking ages 70, 77, 80, 88, 90, 99, 100, 108, and 111. When death occurs, rituals are held every 7 days for 49 days, and additional ceremonies are held on the 100th day and anniversaries of 1st, 3rd, 7th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd, and 50th years. These rituals are meant to escort the soul of the deceased to ancestral status. However, traditional rituals are declining as Western culture influences more Japanese people to depart from these

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    Running Head: Japanese Death Ritual 1

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    migire kennedy
    817 views6 pages
    The document discusses Japanese death rituals from an insider perspective. It describes how rituals begin at age 60 with kanreki celebrations and continue throughout old age with additional celebrations marking ages 70, 77, 80, 88, 90, 99, 100, 108, and 111. When death occurs, rituals are held every 7 days for 49 days, and additional ceremonies are held on the 100th day and anniversaries of 1st, 3rd, 7th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd, and 50th years. These rituals are meant to escort the soul of the deceased to ancestral status. However, traditional rituals are declining as Western culture influences more Japanese people to depart from these

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    Anthropology

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    The document discusses Japanese death rituals from an insider perspective. It describes how rituals begin at age 60 with kanreki celebrations and continue throughout old age with additional celebrations marking ages 70, 77, 80, 88, 90, 99, 100, 108, and 111. When death occurs, rituals are held every 7 days for 49 days, and additional ceremonies are held on the 100th day and anniversaries of 1st, 3rd, 7th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd, and 50th years. These rituals are meant to escort the soul of the deceased to ancestral status. However, traditional rituals are declining as Western culture influences more Japanese people to depart from these

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    817 views6 pages

    Running Head: Japanese Death Ritual 1

    Uploaded by

    migire kennedy
    The document discusses Japanese death rituals from an insider perspective. It describes how rituals begin at age 60 with kanreki celebrations and continue throughout old age with additional celebrations marking ages 70, 77, 80, 88, 90, 99, 100, 108, and 111. When death occurs, rituals are held every 7 days for 49 days, and additional ceremonies are held on the 100th day and anniversaries of 1st, 3rd, 7th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd, and 50th years. These rituals are meant to escort the soul of the deceased to ancestral status. However, traditional rituals are declining as Western culture influences more Japanese people to depart from these

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    Running head: JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 1

    Japanese Death Ritual

    Student Name

    Course Title

    Date
    JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 2

    Japanese Death Ritual

    Anthropology in its wider sense demands an open-mindedness required for one to listen,

    record and look in astonishment and wonder that is nearly impossible to guess. Therefore, this is

    an account of an insider perspective of Japanese death ritual. An emic approach to a particular

    culture is an account of an insider participant in the same event. The narrator seemly presents

    themselves as a member of the culture under close scrutiny. Again inconsistencies within emic

    accounts are more or less valid as long as a narrator in their right conscious is equally surprised

    by the findings according to Kim (2015).

    Japanese possess a whole package of rituals surrounding life beyond the working age. In

    Japan, after retirement people are still exposed to a number of cultural practices even unto death.

    For Japanese, life at Social Security age is considered a major achievement as one is

    accompanied by hearing aid and other life support equipment. Therefore aging and death rituals

    commence at the age of 60 years in Japan which remains a cultural milestone since life

    expectancy in Japan is far much below 60 years. A celebration commonly known as kanreki

    begins where one recalls his life as an alignment of second-time life. The elderly, over 60 years

    of age are decorated in their body attire as a symbol of rebirth. Equally, this entails a celebration

    of one’s achievements and life accomplishments (Kim, 2015).

    Some of the pre-death celebrations as expanded by Johnson (2018) after kanreki include

    koki (at seventieth), kiju (at seventy- seventh), Sanju (at eightieth), beiju (at eighty-eighth),

    sotsuju (at ninetieth), Hak-Ju (at ninety-ninth), jôju (at one hundredth), chaju (at one-hundred-

    eighth), and kôju (at one-hundred-eleventh). All these celebrations are used as a show of life and

    an entry point to another different level of old-age. When death finally occurs, people approach

    to celebrations and recognition definitely changes but a number of events, fortunately, remain
    JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 3

    constant. The dead in Japan are believed to have a greater chunk of influence on the life cycle of

    the living. The celebrations, therefore, continue through many stages until on gets to the

    ancestral position. These cultural practices beyond the burial feast clearly define the Japanese

    beliefs with regards to the afterlife (Johnson, 2018).

    According to Japanese, once a person dies, the spirit leaves the body and remains in

    limbo for a period of forty-nine days. Rituals are held after every seven days for the whole forty-

    nine days till the soul enters the real of the death. Renfrew, Boyd & Morley (Eds.). (2015)

    explains that immediately after the forty-nine days, a feast is held to mark the occasion. On the

    hundredth day after death, another ceremony is held marked by a feast after which more

    ceremonies are held on period timelines of first, third, seventh, seventeenth, twenty-third,

    twenty-seventh, thirty-third, and fiftieth years after death. These are rituals serve to escort the

    dead as they enter the ancestral status. After forty-nine days, the soul is believed to transform

    into New Buddha. Immediately after the first summer celebration, the spirit is considered to have

    moved from New Buddha to Buddha and therefore accepted as making good progress. In the

    same manner, a spirit moves until they become an ancestor.

    The family too plays an important role to ensure that the spirit of the deceased attains

    ancestral status. The elderly on the other hand plays crucial roles during daily, weekly and yearly

    ritualistic ceremonies. It is the role of elders to enforce traditional practices during the rituals as

    they tell tales of ancestors’ lives. This indeed is a sure way to perpetuate these cultural practices

    upholding family identity (Renfrew, Boyd & Morley, 2015). Elders who participate actively in

    these events are considered more prepared for death and hence eagerly wait for that particular

    time they will be joining the ancestors. Continuous and repeated after-death rituals serve as a

    way to comfort the deceased family and keep in touch with mourners and kin. The deceased
    JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 4

    actually believe that due to the hope provided by these services, they will actually join together

    with their beloved ones sooner or later.

    Japanese funeral ceremonies provide hope and closure for the loved ones with a linking

    cord between religious beliefs and cultural practices. This presents a smooth transition for the

    family members who have to cope with life in the absence of one of their own. Life at times

    becomes challenging especially when breadwinner passes away. Those left behind though under

    the care of extended family finds it unbearable to fend for themselves. Some young one retreats

    to street life while others end up joining gangsters. Notwithstanding the demands, of daily life,

    some young ladies after the death of their parents resolves into early marriages or prostitution as

    a way to earn a living. Though these rituals are still being practiced, there exists a gap between

    the old generation and the civilized generation of today (Takenaka, 2016).

    Unfortunately, there is a strong current of revolution in Japan triggering people to depart

    from traditional lifestyles and practices and adopt the western culture. Some of these rituals

    surrounding death are progressively being chased away at an alarming rate. Some are considered

    awkward while most people give in to influence from European countries.

    Anthropology requires more depth and discipline above mere observance and response to

    the environment with an ethnocentric filter. Therefore a cultural relativism towards a particular

    people’s practices presents a more recorded and understood epic without ethnocentrism. When

    one undertakes an etic approach towards culture, an account is presented beforehand without bias

    and enables one to foresee their own culture as invalid and odd (Takenaka, 2016). An epic

    account on the other side forces a person to view finer details of the participant and present a

    vivid description more authentic and reasonable. It is through the insider story that immersion

    and a better understanding of every particular detail of rites, history, and reasons behind the
    JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 5

    practices. Japanese rituals thus present prolonged ceremonies to facilitate the healing process of

    the deceased family. They also served to allow for the acceptance of the loss and prepare for a

    life without one of their own.


    JAPANESE DEATH RITUAL 6

    References

    Johnson, C. (2018). Early Japanese Ceramics: Life, Death, and the Earth.

    Kim, H. (2015). Making relations, managing grief: The expression and control of emotions in

    Japanese death rituals. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 16(1), 17-35.

    Renfrew, C., Boyd, M. J., & Morley, I. (Eds.). (2015). Death Rituals and Social Order in the

    Ancient World: Death Shall Have No Dominion. Cambridge University Press.

    Takenaka, A. (2016). Mobilizing Death: Bodies and Spirits of the Modern Japanese Military

    Dead. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship (pp. 351-363). Palgrave

    Macmillan, London.

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