A Study of Contemporary Folk Customs Regarding Death, Funerals, Graves, and Ancestor Worship

这项研究从1994年至1996年进行了三年，从在全国不同地区进行的调查中得出了许多新的发现，涉及死亡和葬礼仪式、家庭和对祖先的态度、佛坛（家庭佛教祭坛）和伊海碑、墓地和墓碑、葬礼上的任务分工等等。这里总结了一些研究结果。对丧葬习俗的研究分为以丧葬仪式为中心的研究和以社会关系为中心的研究。对两者的分析往往是片面的。本研究为这个课题提供了一个新的视角，最值得注意的是发现了地区之间的显著差异及其意义，在葬礼上，三方之间的任务分工，“亲属”（“血缘相关”的家庭和亲属以及其他婚姻相关的亲属），“志恩”（“地方相关”的当地社区的人）和“穆恩”（“非相关”的人，包括殡仪业者和佛教僧侣或其他cl…更多能源）。例如，在广岛县山形县千代田町，一群邻居在葬礼上扮演着核心角色，死者的家人和其他亲属什么也不做，只是坐在死者身边守夜。在山口县东有郡北北町，葬礼的准备工作在第一天由家人和亲戚完成，从第二天开始，一群邻居将葬礼的中心职能划分在他们之间。在几乎所有邻居都有血缘和婚姻关系的村庄里——比如福井县鹤贺和三滨的村庄——某些亲戚被选中扮演“非亲属”的角色，搬运棺材并执行其他葬礼程序。另一个例子是在岩手县下平郡的岩井町，葬礼的主要部分是由家人和亲戚完成的，邻居只是辅助或支持的角色。这最后一个例子，家庭和亲属在葬礼中起主导作用，在古代和中世纪的记录中都有描述。可以认为，随着近代早期社会邻里组织的发展和互助实践的传播，在全国范围内，举办葬礼的主体逐渐从“血缘关系”转向“地缘关系”。从一个地区到另一个地区，葬礼和其他民间习俗的差异可能是当地特定历史的反映。基于最近的发现，我正在通过进一步的文献阅读和民俗研究来验证这些差异。少

study, carried out for three years from 1994 to 1996, yielded many new findings from surveys conducted in various areas of the nation concerning death and funeral rituals, the ie (family) and attitudes toward the ancestors, butsudan (family Buddhist altar) and ihai tablets, graveyards and tombstones, division of tasks at funerals, and so forth. Some of the findings are summarized here.Research on funeral folkways has been divided between that centering around funeral rituals and that revolving around social relations. The analyzes of both tended to be one-sided.This study offers a new perspective to the subject, most notably the discovery of marked differences by region and their significance with regard to the division of tasks at funerals among three parties, ketsu-en ("blood-related" family and relatives and other kin related by marriage), chi-en ("locale-related" persons of the local commukity), and mu-en ("non-related" persons including undertakers and Buddhist priests or other cl … More ergy).In Chiyoda-cho, Yamagata-gun, Hiroshima prefecture, for example, a group of neighbors perform the central functions at funerals, with the family members and other relatives of the deceased doing nothing but sitting vigil by the deceased. In Hohoku-cho, Toyoura-gun, Yamaguchi prefecture, funeral preparations are done by family and relatives on the first day, and from the second day onward a group of neighbors divide the central functions of the funeral among themselves.In villages where almost all residents in the neighborhood are related by blood and marriage -such as villages in Tsuruga and Mihama, Fukui prefecture -certain relatives are chosen to play the parts of "non-kin" who carry the coffin and perform other funeral procedures. Another instance is from Iwaizumi-cho, Shimohei-gun, Iwate prefecture, in which the main parts of the funeral are performed by the family and relatives, with neighbors playing only a supplementary or support role.This last instance, of family and relatives taking the leading role in funerals, is described in records dating from ancient and medieval times. It can be assumed that with the development of neighborhood organizations and the spread of mutual assistance practices in the early modern society, the main actors in performing funerals gradually shifted throughout the country from "blood-related" to "locale-related" people. Differences in funeral and other folkways fromnone region to another may be reflections of specific local history. Based on the recent findings, I am now in the process of verifying these differents through further perusal of documents and study of folk customs. Less