Research and Study in Folklore Based upon Regional Differences in Roles and Reasons for

这项研究包括调查老年人在传统社区社会中的作用和生活原因的田野工作，这些社区社会是促进老龄的战略和措施。特别注意近基地区社区的村落退休(Mura-Inkyo)民俗。根据Mura-Inkyo的习俗，所有男性在60岁时都会从村级行政部门退休，于是他们在宫廷(代表与当地神社有关的家庭的长老理事会)中扮演核心角色，与涉及监护神灵的仪式有关。组成宫座的长老们为神社提供的服务给参与其中的个人带来了重大变化。我们亲眼目睹了老年人对神灵和自然的感恩之情，他们通过各种体验加深了对神和自然的感激之情，比如修身克赛，一种涉及禁食肉类、鱼类和酒精的净化仪式，以及亲身体验…更严重的疾病。我们能够察觉到从仅仅是一个老人到一个神圣的老年人的转变。即使是在东北地区的农村和京都的城市社区这样的社区，没有正式的传统社区将角色移交给下一代，或者因为村仁教而改变角色的时候，也有一天住在那里的人会意识到有一天他们会变老。正是在这一点上，我们采访了从战争中退伍军人，他们有面对死亡的亲身经历，死亡位于老年的另一端。从这些采访中得出了两个有趣的现象。一个是他们表达对战争死难者的感情的形式的多样性。第二种是个人的失落感，包括获得一种表达对死者的感觉的方式。这些人经历这种失落和获得的时候，是他们开始思考自己生命中剩下的东西的时候，在大多数情况下，这种情况发生在他们年满60岁之后。我们能够确认，他们认识到，在剩下的时间里，他们必须做他们还没有做的事情，这给了他们生存的理由，而且存在着个人内部变化带来的生存理由，这些理由与近木地区宫座系统为老年人提供的养老理由是分开的。这项研究使用具体的例子来比较宫座系统中发现的生活原因和个人生活中发现的生活原因。较少

This research comprises fieldwork that investigates the roles and reasons for living of the aged in traditional communal societies that serve as strategies and measures for enhancing old age. Particular attention was paid to the folk custom of mura-inkyo (village retirement) in communities in the Kinki region. According to the custom of mura-inkyo, all males 1 retire from village administration when they reach 60 years of age, whereupon they assume central roles in the miyaza (council of elders representing families associated with a local shrine) related to rituals involving tutelary deities. The service to the shrine performed by the elders who make up the miyaza produced substantial changes in the individuals involved. We witnessed at close hand elderly people whose feelings of gratitude toward deities and nature were being deepened through various experiences such as shojin kessai, a purification ritual involving abstinence from meat, fish and alcohol, and first-hand experience of … More serious illness. We were able to detect a transformation from being merely an old person to being a sanctified elder.Even in communities such as farming villages in the Tohoku region and urban neighborhoods in Kyoto City where there is no formal system of traditional communities for handing roles over to the next generation or changes in roles as a result of mura-inkyo, a time comes when the people living there realize that some day they will grow old. It was in this connection that we interviewed veterans from the war, who have personal experience in confronting death, which lies at the other end of old age. Two interesting phenomena came out of these interviews. One is the diversity of forms in which they expressed their feelings toward those who died in the war. The second is the individual sense of loss that encompasses the acquisition of a means of expressing those feelings toward the dead. The point at which these people experience this loss and acquisition is the point at which they begin to think about what remains of their lives, and in most cases the occurred after they had turned sixty. We were able to confirm that this realization that they must do the things they had yet to do during the time remaining gave them reasons for living and that there existed reasons for living that were brought about by internal changes within an individual that were separate from the reasons for living for the aged provided within the miyaza system for elders in the Kinki region. This research uses specific examples to make a comparison of the reasons for living found within the miyaza system and the reasons for living found within an individual's life. Less