Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan: Part 4

 Part IV  The quest for vocational fulfilment

                               14   The ‘initiation rites’ and ‘pilgrimages’ of

              local civil servants in the age of

                     internationalization

                                   Hirochika Nakamaki

                     A man understands reason and sentiment

                     during the three glorious moments of his life:

                     when he celebrates his attainment of adulthood,

                     when he gets married, and

                     when he accepts a government post.

                     A man also understands reason and sentiment

                     when he is walking on the highway.

                                                     (Monokusa-tarō)

                                       Introduction

It is apparent that the wave of internationalization has touched not only the big cities such

as Tokyo Osaka and Kyoto, but also towns and villages throughout Japan. Even in so-

called rural areas, opportunities to contact, or associate with, foreigners have increased

considerably. These opportunities include: foreign workers getting jobs in Japan;

Japanese men marrying women from abroad and events held on an international scale,

not to mention encounters with incoming tourists. By the same token, the number of

Japanese going abroad as tourists, to do business, or on official visits has increased

dramatically. This has been a conspicuous phenomenon since around 1970, when a

symbolic event, EXPO ‘70, was held in Osaka. Since Japan has entered an era of

internationalization, the issue of how to keep up with the process has become an urgent

priority for municipal governments. From their specially designated ‘international’

sections, every municipality promotes exchanges with a sister city abroad. Some local

governments even have their own facilities to use for the promotion of international

exchanges.

    Likewise, on the national level, various efforts have been made to address

internationalization with the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is in charge of local

administration, taking the lead. An example of such efforts is the establishment of the

Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities (JIAM), which is also known as the

‘Intercultural Academy’. It was established in 1993 near Lake Biwa at Karasaki, an area

famous for its view of the Karasaki Pine Tree, in the old province of Ōmi (today Shiga

Prefecture). The Academy was intended to first give local administrative officials lessons

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     138

in foreign languages, as well as lectures on foreign cultures, a more cosmopolitan

outlook, and to provide them with opportunities for overseas study excursions.

   This chapter will analyse the training at JIAM, using the well-established

anthropological concepts of initiation and pilgrimage. The purpose is to indicate that

traditional ideas or customs are still preserved even in modern secular societies and

institutions, even though they may not be readily apparent.

              The establishment of the Japan Intercultural Academy of

                                   Municipalities

Japan’s local public entities are broken down into two categories, namely basic local

public entities such as cities, towns, and villages, and larger regional public entities

known as prefectures. JIAM was established to enhance the administrative capacity to

deal effectively with internationalization and to help improve the linguistic ability and

overall knowledge of municipal personnel. The initial plan emphasized the following

points:

1. International exchanges, including exchanges with sister cities and friendship cities.

    Such exchanges have increased enormously since 1985, and more and more local

    communities have turned to internationalization in order to ‘revitalize’ themselves.

2. The number of foreign residents, including students, working students, trainees

    acquiring special skills and workers, is dramatically increasing. At the same time,

    problems have emerged due, for instance, to the rapid increase of Japanese marrying

    spouses from abroad, or of Japanese children returning from abroad for higher

    education.

3. The number of grass-roots organizations engaging in international exchange or co-

    operative activities is increasing. How to co-operate with these organizations and

    facilitate their activities has become a major issue for the municipalities.

4. More and more cities, towns, and villages are becoming active in direct economic

    exchange with the rest of the world.

5. Since not only mayors and senior officials, but also municipal personnel directly

    concerned with specific tasks, have had more opportunities to go abroad on business

    and meet foreigners, negotiating skills are taking on a much greater importance than

    before.

6. In the current situation, most cities, towns, and villages cannot respond sufficiently to

    internationalization in terms of either policy or administrative practices. They have

    only a limited number of staff who speak foreign languages.

7. It is a big challenge to train administrative personnel and establish relevant policies in

    response to internationalization.

Training itself should include policy-related problems, administrative practices, area

studies, Japanese culture, and language.

   Based on the above plan, the preparatory committee and secretariat for the creation of

the facility were formed in 1990. In 1991, state-owned land at Karasaki was acquired and

a ground-breaking ceremony performed. JIAM opened in April 1993. It is notable that a

part of the construction costs was borne by local municipalities, namely Shiga Prefecture

            The 'initiation rites' and 'pilgrimages' of local civil servants   139

and Ōtsu City. A portion of the proceeds from the annual ‘Summer Jumbo’ lotteries

aimed at the promotion of cities, towns, and villages is being utilized as operational

funding for the facility. It has been emphasized that public lotteries, which are said ‘to

sell dreams’, are actually realizing the big dream of improving the capability of Japanese

municipalities to address internationalization (Saka 1993).

                                   Training as initiation

JIAM provides various programmes with the aim of preparing municipal administration

for internationalization and fostering the ability of local civil servants to deal with matters

related to it. The training course types and subjects for the first academic year from April

1993 to March 1994 were as follows:

                                      Main Course A:

1. Fundamentals of Internationalization

2. Administrative Practices

3. Area Studies

4. Japanese Culture

5. Language Training (including a 12-day overseas study trip to the USA)

6. Site Inspection

7. Other classes

                                      Main Course B:

1. Fundamentals of Internationalization

2. Administrative Practices

3. Area Studies

4. Japanese Culture

5. Language Training

6. Site Inspection

7. Other classes

                                    Short-term Courses:

a. Practical English Training

b. Fundamentals of International Exchange

c. Fundamentals of Other Cultures

d. Executive Seminar for City, Town, and Village Mayors (2 days)

When the training at JIAM is analysed as if it were a rite of initiation, the most significant

training course is Main Course A, whose training period of three months is the longest

among the three major courses. The Executive Seminar for City, Town and Village

Mayors lasts only two days because participants are older and busier, thus it cannot be

compared to the kind of initiation that should transform young people into respectable

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    140

members of society. Therefore, I will identify the characteristics of initiation in the

training at JIAM by focusing on Main Course A.

    In Main Course A, trainees are sent from municipalities all over Japan to attend 285

class-period lectures and activities. Lectures cover many subjects. The ‘Fundamentals of

Internationalization’, for example, includes nations and people, intercultural

communication and issues concerning foreign workers. ‘Administrative Practices’

includes international co-operation practices, international exchange practices and

homestay programmed practices. ‘Area Studies’ are based upon regions and cultural

areas. In ‘Japanese Culture’, a variety of lectures are given under titles such as ‘Japan in

relation to the history of civilization’, ‘The Japanese way of organizational management’,

and the ‘Uniqueness of Japanese food culture’. To gain an appreciation of traditional arts,

trainees practise the tea ceremony. ‘Site Inspections’ consists of field trips to the National

Museum of Ethnology. Working with a native speaker in the foreign language classes,

trainees improve their communication skills in English. To complete the course, trainees

go on an overseas study trip.

    These lessons and practices are comparable to the instruction and hardship endured

during initiation rites. What constitutes initiation, however, varies greatly between

hunter-gatherer or pastoral societies characterized by intertribal conflict, on the one hand,

and sedentary agricultural or fishing villages, on the other. The former places great

emphasis on making young men brave fighters, whereas the latter attaches importance to

co-operative work patterns and social solidarity. What, then, do Japanese municipalities

regard as most important in a society that strives for internationalization?

    As far as class periods are concerned, it is obvious that JIAM gives top priority to

English language training. One half of the total class time is designated for English

lessons. Trainees are accepted regardless of their ability in English. After taking a test

and being interviewed soon after entering JIAM, trainees are divided into small, ability-

based classes. Ironically, features of JIAM’s language training progamme (such as small

classes of approximately 10–20 trainees, teaching staff consisting of native speakers, and

the use of computers) seem to be making up for the inadequacy of Japan’s English

education in the schools. The programme is aimed not solely at further enhancing the

skills of specialists conducting business in English, but also at improving the ability of

officials who have little 3 nity to talk with foreigners in English.

    In the English class, promising local officials at first hang their heads to avoid eye

contact with the instructor, a native speaker of English. However, gradually they gain

confidence and can enjoy talking with instructors over a drink in the Japanese-style room

or in the lounge where alcohol is allowed. These occasions help bring student and teacher

closer. Full-time language instructors are paid for four extra hours a week in addition to

the courses so that they can spend time getting together with the trainees. By the time the

overseas study trip draws near, trainees have acquired new skills, but still feel uneasy

about the up-and-coming homestay. This is what the typical trainee at JIAM is like.

    To improve their English-language ability, trainees perform ascetic practices and

undergo an ordeal, both being steps typical for initiation rites. Successfully going through

the homestay period is, at the least, subjective evidence for the trainees that they have

achieved a sufficient level of English language ability. However, during the course,

trainees are not examined in subjects other than English, although they are required to

attend all the classes. Only the work performance of the instructors is evaluated at the end

            The 'initiation rites' and 'pilgrimages' of local civil servants   141

of the progamme.1 In this sense, the instructors, rather than the trainees, go through an

ordeal. The majority of instructors work part-time at JIAM. For this reason, mutual

interaction between these part-timers and trainees is limited to class time. These part-time

instructors, even if they are very skilled, have little influence on trainees, unlike elders or

seniors in traditional societies.

   One of the features of initiation rites is isolation. Novices live alone or with fellow

novices, separate from the opposite sex or from relatives, and obey taboos for a certain

period. Likewise, at JIAM trainees live in a dormitory with other trainees, and have little

communication with the outside world. Each single room in the dormitory has a

bathroom. Men and women live on separate floors. Trainees can only answer incoming

calls on their room telephone, and must use the dormitory pay phone to make outside

calls. They are instructed to refrain from receiving fax messages. Since televisions in the

single rooms have only two channels on which only independent progammes and CNN

are broadcast, trainees cannot watch ordinary TV progammes. They can receive visitors

only between 17.00 and 20.00 on weekdays and between 9.00 and 20.00 on Saturdays,

Sundays and holidays. Trainees must be back at the dormitory by 23.00, and must

register with the office beforehand when they plan to be away overnight.

   Drinking is not prohibited, but trainees can drink only in the dining room, lounge,

assembly room and social room. Drinking is not allowed in trainees’ private rooms.

Smoking is forbidden in the classroom. Trainees must be properly dressed, polite to

instructors, and always wear a name card on their lapel. Suitable clothes are required for

special events. Recording and photographing opening and closing ceremonies and

lectures, visiting the facility by car or motorcycle, having a car on campus, etc. are also

forbidden. A trainee may be expelled from JIAM if he or she severely violates dormitory

rules.

   In comparison with everyday life in the outside world, dormitory life has relatively

harsh aspects. Trainees are ordered to stand up and bow at the beginning of a class, quite

unlike the atmosphere at most universities where such orders are not given and students

even chat during classes. When an instructor has finished his or her last class, trainees are

encouraged to applaud.

   The lack of directional signs and information sheets is what most distinguishes the

JIAM premises from the secular world. There is one English sign located on the wall in

the front entrance, reading ‘Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities’. Moreover,

only one of the signboards in the front yard is written in English, but the Japanese name

‘Zenkoku Shichōson Kokusai Bunka Kenshūsho’ [Japan Intercultural Academy of

Municipalities] is carved in small lettering on the front gate. JIAM’s motto, LABORI

NIL IMPOSSIBILE (With hard work nothing is impossible) is posted on the wall beside

the reception area in the entrance hall.

   Inside the facility most of the signs are written in English, but newly added ones are

also written in tiny Japanese lettering. The purpose of the English signs is to create an

environment in which trainees can learn English naturally. Contrary to expectations, the

signs sometimes also create an inconvenience, for instance, when the Executive Seminar

for City, Town and Village Mayors is held and Japanese signs are written on a sheet of

paper and placed on top of the English signs. Besides English, Latin names are also used

to designate the bar lounge and common rooms,2 although the use of Latin does not seem

to have spread among the trainees.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     142

    Finally, just like young men who, having been initiated together, commonly form a

cohort of age-groups, trainees who have completed the course at JIAM have organized an

alumni association. This has its roots in the training courses held in the second year for

trainees who already have finished Main Courses A or B. Thereafter, with financial

support from JIAM, social gatherings of former trainees culminated in the formation of

the alumni association in 1995. This organization functions as an information network

based on relationships formed at JIAM and issues alumni bulletins and membership lists.

So far the sense of solidarity is stronger among the trainees who have finished the same

course, but it is expected that in the future alumni will be unified according to prefecture

or bloc.

    Employing the idiom of Turner (1969), the alumni association might be considered a

form of institutionalized communitas. Communitas is further strengthened through

overseas training.

                           Overseas study trips as pilgrimage

After training at JIAM in an atmosphere that resembles the liminal space of initiation, the

trainees leave Kansai International Airport for the United States. Their first destination is

Washington DC, the seat of US politics and administration. They visit the Capitol and the

White House, and also participate in English language discussions with local people.

After Washington, they are divided into groups, each consisting of about 10 people, and

head for regional cities to stay with their respective host families.

    Why was the United States chosen as the locale for overseas training? According to

Saka Kōji, the first president of JIAM, it was thought beneficial for trainees to visit

America because its multi-racial nature makes it an appropriate model for the future

Japan. It was likewise expected that the Institute of International Education (IIE) as well

as World Learning Inc. would extend support to JIAM’s overseas training in America.

The former, founded in 1919, has had experience with educational exchange students,

including Fulbright scholars. The latter was established in 1932 and offers many

programmes so that foreign students can experience different cultures through homestay

visits.

    However, regardless of the sponsors’ intentions, when we consider the overseas study

trip as pilgrimage it is possible to regard Washington DC, and the homestay, as a ‘sacred

pilgrimage centre’. Are not Washington and the United States the supreme sacred sites

for these pilgrims who happen to be local Japanese government officials, eagerly striving

for internationalization?

    Pilgrimage is defined as the religious act of visiting sacred places, holy lands, temples

and shrines in order to strengthen one’s faith. As we have seen in previous chapters, in

Japan famous pilgrimages include the pilgrimage to the Kumano Shrine, the 33 Kannon

temples of Western Japan (Saigoku), the 88 temples around Shikoku, and the Grand

Shrines of Ise; abroad, we may think of Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de

Compostela or Benares. In the field of anthropology, the Peyote pilgrimage by Mexico’s

Uichol people, or the pilgrimage to Kataragama in Sri Lanka, are well-known examples.

    The three-phase theory of pilgrimage (cf. Koike 1973), based on Van Gennep’s three-

phase theory concerning rites of passage, and the concept of communitas mentioned

            The 'initiation rites' and 'pilgrimages' of local civil servants   143

above, are important in anthropological analyses of pilgrimage. However, JIAM’s

overseas study trips to America are devoid of religious elements. How then, can they be

interpreted in light of anthropological pilgrimage theory?

    First of all, let us look at trainees’ reports in the bulletins issued by JIAM, Kokusai

Bunka Kenshū (Intercultural Study). The general impression is that Washington DC is ‘a

well-ordered beautiful city’, but some reports refer to the significance of the capital as the

seat of politics and administration. For instance, one trainee wrote: ‘I was surprised when

our bus tour guides enthusiastically explained that Americans are proud of the democracy

that they have achieved through their own efforts’. This trainee realized that each

American sees democracy as a steadfast political concept and attempts to understand it

from his or her own viewpoint.

    Another trainee wrote: ‘Whether it was the Smithsonian or the Capitol, it seemed to

me that there is a specific intention to make the history of the United States appeal to

everyone in a country where it is difficult to integrate all its citizens’. This trainee has

begun to pay attention to how the United States politically and culturally creates among

its citizens a sense of integration within a multi-racial nation. In any case, it is significant

that, because of their first-hand knowledge of the Americans’ political awareness and

political presentation (aspects of American culture that are different from Japanese

culture), these trainees have begun to see things from a relative point of view.

    On the other hand, a trainee who visited Washington’s ‘underside’ downtown area

reported: ‘I was impressed by a non-profit organization’s project to repair and refurbish

buildings for low income housing in a downtown residential area largely consisting of

African-Americans’. This trainee no longer voices the stereotyped image that the

Washington DC downtown area is a dangerous place full of crime.

    As with destinations of pilgrimages, sacred places are places of worship. Is it

sufficient, then, to describe Washington as the seat of US politics and the biggest centre

of contemporary world politics? Is it not also a place that demands religious devotion? If

the two aspects of Washington (e.g. the stage for actual political developments and the

site of monuments and symbolic buildings erected around the Mall area) are indivisible,

then Washington can be labelled ‘the holy land of democracy’. If so, it is natural that

Washington is associated with feelings of pride, attachment, and passion. Intercultural

Academy trainees seem to have begun to realize this.

    Even so, what is most noticeable about the trainees’ reports is that many wrote about

their personal experiences during their homestay, rather than giving impressions of

Washington or observations of the administration. One student, for instance, could not

become accustomed to American food. Staying with a black career woman, another

trainee was deeply impressed by the gospel music at her church. Some were impressed by

the spirit of voluntary work, from gathering rubbish to the activities of congress persons.

Others noted the strict discipline given to children, aspects of a ‘cashless’ society, and the

flexible life-style of families with divorced parents. It is virtually impossible to list all the

instances of culture shock reported by the trainees.

    One of the major characteristics of the reports is that they said overseas training in the

United States, centring on the homestay experience and the visit to Washington, had

given them a fresh view, or changed something inside them. As evident in comments

such as: ‘The media provide only part of the story’; or ‘I felt that the Japanese are still

company-oriented people’; they had come to see America from a new angle. Of course

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan       144

there is also the so-called model report: ‘I have recognized anew how important it is to

promote international exchanges with other countries in order for us to better understand

our own life-style and culture’. Another stated: ‘The phrase “Japan, an economic

superpower that can compare with the United States” sounds vain and hollow to me

now’.

    Most reports do not represent an accumulation of knowledge, but rather the trainees’

own irreplaceable personal experiences. At least to the trainees themselves, the overseas

study trips were nothing less than sacred experiences having subjective values. Those

reports clearly reflect the positions of the trainees as pilgrims seeking truth, even though

they are not written in religious terms. The reports are all that JIAM requires the trainees

to write, but some trainees have even published the records of their study trips at their

own expense, which indicates that the trips were truly precious sacred experiences to

them.

    These ‘sacred experiences’ are equivalent to the second phase of rituals and

pilgrimages. What, then, does homestay mean to the host families that accept the

trainees? According to World Learning, homestay provides trainees with opportunities to

have a look at American culture, whereas host families expect to spend time with the

trainees, learn about Japanese culture, and share their family lives with a temporary new

member.3 Through exchanges, homestay certainly creates the opportunity for Japanese

and Americans to understand each other’s culture. But homestay implies more.

    Homestay can be compared to ‘charity inns’ (free lodgings that supply rooms to

pilgrims or wandering travellers). A good example of such inns is ordinary homes that

receive henro, discussed in previous chapters. Accommodating pilgrims is a good deed in

the Buddhist sense, as it is done in expectation of compensation in the next world.

    Of course, homestay and staying at charity inns are different in many ways.

Nevertheless, they share several interesting features. The first common feature is that

they are both usually found in areas that are neither urban nor crowded, that is, areas

where residents have few opportunities to interact with other people. Secondly, both are

supported by gratuitous service and a sense of the importance of voluntary work or of

doing good deeds. Voluntary work and good deeds are highly valued in society as

unselfish and noble. Some hosts have stayed in Japan or have children studying there and

fervently wish to return the favour.

    It has been pointed out that in Japan to do good to religious wanderers (Yoshida in this

volume) was a means of expiation and could be associated with the feeling that one’s

own survival during times of famine meant neglecting weak neighbours, who

subsequently starved to death (see also Hoshino 1981). While it is highly unlikely that

host families in America are motivated by a need for expiation, they may still latently be

cherishing a desire to emotionally restore strained relations with other countries in this

age of internationalization.

                                              Notes

   1 Trainees evaluate the level of the classes and how well the classes were conducted by filling

      out a form. Statistical results are then sent to the instructors.

   2 The bar lounge is called sol (sun). The social room is spatium (space). Eight common rooms,

      respectively, have Latin names meaning spring, summer, autumn, winter, north, south, east

      and west.

             The 'initiation rites' and 'pilgrimages' of local civil servants    145

   3 One example is Hoshino Eiki’s (1981:62) definition of pilgrimage as ‘an act of leaving daily

      life for a while, heading for sacred places to have contact with sacred things, and then

      returning to everyday life’.

                                         Bibliography

Eiki, Hoshino (1981) Junrei—Set to zoku no genshōgaku [Pilgrimage—Phenomenology of the

   Sacred and the Profane], Tokyo: Kōdansha.

Koike, Nagayuki (1973) ‘Junrei’ [‘Pilgrimages’], Oguchi Iichi and Hori Ichirō (eds), Shūkyōgaku-

   jiten [Dictionary of Religions], Tokyo: Tōdai Diagaku Shuppankai, p. 384.

Koonce, Michael (1996) ‘Homusutei seikō no hiketsu’ [‘The Key to a Successful Homestay’] in

   Kokusai Bunka Kenshū [Intercultural Studies], Vol. 10, pp. 59–60. Otsu: Japan Intercultural

   Academy of Municipalities.

Saka, Kōji (1993) ‘The Establishment of Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities’, in

   Kokusai Bunka Kenshū [Intercultural Studies], Vol. 1, pp. 20–21. Otsu: Japan Intercultural

   Academy of Municipalities.

Takatori, Masao (1973) Bukkyō Dochaku [Buddhist Nativism], Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan

   Kyōkai.

Turner, Victor (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, New York: Aldine

   Publishing Company.

                                 15   Travel ethnography in Japan

                                     Jan van Bremen

                     Intense local study is a method of investigation,

                     not a definition of the anthropological problem

                                           (Sally Falk Moore 1993:4)

           Introduction: Travel ethnography as a method, travelogues as

          ethnographic records and travel as a field of ethnographic study

Travel and exploration deliberately undertaken for ethnographic purposes, within the

country of the observer, at its peripheries, and beyond, have been basic methods in the

disciplines of anthropology and folklore studies. For some scholars ethnographic travel

has been a way of life, or even a quest. Today, after a century-long, more-or-less

‘canonical’ ban in favour of long-term field-work, travel ethnography is re-emerging in

European and American cultural and social anthropology (Hannerz 1996; Clifford 1997).

In this essay I will argue that travel ethnography must not be regarded as a poor substitute

for field-work. Research done during long-term field-work varies widely in purpose,

duration, and occasion from that done during travel ethnography. Yet while travel and

field ethnographies are different, they are also supplemental genres, and in fact

intertwine. Even though I shall limit the exploration of travel ethnography to the

meanings defined below—and in this chapter to Japan—the contention can also be made

for anthropology in other countries.

    In this chapter, the label ‘travel ethnography’ is used as an umbrella term to cover the

many relations which can be found to exist between ethnography and travel. Here I

mainly focus on two domains. One is that of travel as an ethnographic method. Travel in

this sense implies that research sites are visited in order to make first-hand observations

and collect material and specimens that can only be had on the spot. The observer stays

for a relatively short period of time and compiles the findings into records. As a method,

travel ethnography has a wide range of uses. It may serve routine purposes, such as visits

made to record expected events, but it also is of use in incidental or unforeseen events.

Travel ethnography is well suited for recording transitory or ‘climaxical’ events such as

rites, festivals, games, battles, riots, famines and disasters.

    The second domain that may be covered by the term ‘travel ethnography’ is travel

itself. Here travellers and travels, as well as migratory peoples who lead a semi- or non-

sedentary way of life on land or water, are the ethnographic field of research. In the

widest extent of the term, nomadic, pastoral, and maritime societies, pilgrims and

tourists, itinerants and migrant workers, military operations, anomic groups, deportees,

and refugees are all included.

                             Travel ethnography in Japan      147

    As a result of regulatory constraints, long-term field-work by Japanese ethnographers

is relatively rare. It is easier for a scholar to pay one or more visits to a site than to spend

a long unbroken period in the field. Moreover, as travel ethnography has been a long-

standing research practice in Japan, there is comparatively little criticism for using this

method. For a small number of scholars, travel ethnography has even been a way of life.

From the Tokugawa era to the present day, such researchers, through their long working

lives, have enriched the ethnography of Japan. In every generation, it seems, persons

have appeared who have found in travel ethnography a lifetime vocation, or even a

lifelong quest. Their voluminous and detailed accounts, often richly illustrated

(sometimes partly in colour), place early modern (1600–1800) and in particular modern

and contemporary Japan high up on the list of the better described societies in the world.1

    Thus travel ethnography in the two meanings distinguished above is found in Japan in

institutional form. Famous examples of this are the monthly journal Tabi to densetsu

(Travel and Legends), that appeared between 1928 and 1944; or, in the post-war period,

the Institute for the Study of Tourism in Japan (Nihon Kankō Bunka Kenkyūjo)

established in 1965 in Tokyo; the Japanese Association for Migration Studies (Nihon

Imin Gakkai) organized in Kyoto in 1991 and the Tabi no Bunka Kenkyūjo (Institute for

the Study of Travel & Culture) founded in Tokyo in 1994.

    In contrast, in Europe and America travel as an instrument of ethnography was

belittled, although not ignored, by the founders and defenders of social and cultural

anthropology. However it was long-term field-work based on participant observation that

was exalted. The great social and cultural drifts and upheavals caused or furthered by the

end of colonization; global migration, increasing industrialization and urbanization; the

formation and break-up of nation-states; genocides; wars; deportations or tourism, now

present a challenge to anthropologists who must find new methodologies in order to do

their research.

    As mentioned, social anthropology has generally consigned travel ethnography to an

inferior position. In the United States, the status of travel ethnography has been low in

cultural anthropology as well. This was so despite the common practice of travelling back

and forth between a university campus and a field site, mostly located inside the country,

well until the mid-twentieth century. In orthodox thought, the highest value was

invariably attached to ethnographic records obtained during a long spell of unbroken field

work. However, although the status of travel ethnography was not high, ethnographers

did not and could not refrain from drawing upon travel ethnographic methods. Travel

ethnography is a viable tool, impossible to do without, and in certain circumstances a

method in its own right.

    Significantly, about a hundred years ago a school of folklore studies emerged in Japan

simultaneously along with the introduction of social and cultural anthropology. This

school, founded by Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962) and named after him, saw travel

ethnography on the one hand, and reports based on observations of long duration on the

other, each in a distinct light. Yanagita considered different spheres of ethnography as the

competence of different people. In his view, visiting outsiders can observe objectively a

number of tangible matters in the life and milieu of a community. However, they are not

privy to the mental and emotional forces which affect the actions, minds and emotions of

the local people.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   148

   To overcome this problem, Yanagita sought the collaboration of local ethnographers,

who took part in the physical, mental and emotional worlds of the people and the locality

they described. Under Yanagita’s supervision, detailed questionnaires were drawn up and

distributed to local scholars all over the country by his staff, which also received and

systematized the answers that were returned. Moreover, he dispatched research teams on

ethnographic missions to different parts of the country to gather data on fishing,

lumbering, farming and town communities. He made it a point to train local scholars and

encouraged them to form regional associations and branches. In this way a large amount

of ethnographic data was gathered, systematized and published. This work helped to rank

Japan among one of the better documented societies in the twentieth century.2

   In comparison, social and cultural anthropology in Europe and America devalued

travel ethnography, down to a point where its scientific value was nearly denied. Its

weaknesses were stressed in order to promote the idea that social and cultural

anthropology were disciplines distinct from what had come before, thus long-term field-

work and participant observation were made the bench-marks of good ethnography.

However, the first three editions of Notes and Queries on Anthropology, compiled

between 1874 and 1912, held nothing against travel ethnography; it was intended to help

colonial officials, missionaries and travellers in the collection of data that would be of

value to metropolitan ‘theoretical’ anthropologists. In the next three editions, however,

from the fourth edition of 1912 until the sixth and final edition of 1951, prolonged field-

work carried out by a trained ethnographer was presented as the true professional way.

Amateur travellers were advised to do little more than to make photographs or careful

drawings, ‘dealing with facts about which there can be no question, (…) the record thus

obtained (to be) elucidated by subsequent inquiries on the same spot by a trained

anthropologist’ (Stocking 1996:121).

   At first sight this instruction seems to echo the ideas of the Yanagita school. The

fundamental difference is that Yanagita did not place trained anthropologists above other

groups of outsiders. As noted, he believed that outsiders, trained or not, did not have

enough access to local mentalities. Another difference is that Yanagita rejected the a-

historic view of an ‘ethnographic present’ and studied the origins, transformations and

changes in Japanese life, society and culture.

   In actual practice social and cultural anthropologists have collected their data by a

combination of methods. They include documentary research, expeditions, interviews,

visits and field-work, made anywhere from the most peripheral to the most central

locations. Some ethnographers reflect upon their methodical cocktails when presenting

their work; one example is Dore (1958) in his monograph of a Tokyo city ward. Others

thought about it later, as did Geertz (1995) when recalling his field-work in Indonesia and

Morocco.

   Drawing up and distributing research guides has been a longstanding practice in

ethnography. The fact that academic anthropologists tend to use a combination of

methods increases the chance of a methodological breakthrough. E.B.Tylor (1832–1917),

who is credited with bequeathing the armchair method to anthropology, travelled to the

United States and Mexico to meet aboriginal people and visited séances in London, to

sharpen his anthropological understanding (Stocking 1996:15). In 1888, Tylor published

a study applying statistical methods to anthropological data, regarded as the first of its

kind to appear in anthropology in England.

                            Travel ethnography in Japan     149

    Two years earlier in 1886, Tsuboi Shōgorō (1863–1913), soon to become the first

incumbent of the first anthropology chair in Japan, had published his study based on

findings and analyses which he had obtained by statistical methods. With the help of

numerous assistants—a practice common in Japanese academic research—he collected a

large amount of data giving information about the clothes and items of attire that people

wore at different hours and on different days and occasions in the public spaces of

Japan’s three major cities. He found that Western clothing was most prominent in Osaka,

followed by Tokyo; in Kyoto, people went about mostly in traditional gear (Tsuboi

1990). The importance of this example lies in the correspondence and simultaneity of this

methodical breakthrough in anthropology.

    In the first half of the twentieth century in America, cultural anthropologists travelled

back and forth a great deal between their universities and field locations, visiting pueblos

in the south-west or commuting to Greenwich Village in New York City (Stocking 1992).

A small number also went abroad. W.Lloyd Warner (1898–1970) is a good example of an

ethnographer who did research overseas as well as in his own country: between 1926 and

1929, he studied the Murngin in north-east Arnhem Land in Australia, and in the 1930s

he also studied, with the help of a research staff of about thirty, the inhabitants of

Newburyport, a city in Massachusetts.3

    Warner regarded his efforts as a way ‘to obtain a better understanding of how men in

all groups, regardless of place and time, solve the problems which confront them’

(Warner and Lunt 1941:3). A familiarity with a range of societies, rural and urban, small

and large, non-literate and literate, simple and complex, sedentary and migratory, counts

as an advantage that anthropologists bring to the field in the study of an industrialized

society such as Japan (Hendry 1998:9–10).4

                              Travel ethnography in Japan

Even though ethnography developed as an academic discipline post-Meiji, it has a long

past in Japan. Provincial chronicles (fudoki), modelled on Chinese examples, are the

earliest endogenous records. The oldest extant species go back to the eighth century CE.

Compiled by government order, they describe local topography, customary law, legends

and myths. They are based on what we certainly may call ‘travel ethnography’. In the

modern period (1800-present), travel ethnography has blossomed in Japan. At first

largely confined to places within the boundaries of the Japanese realm, later expeditions

were dispatched to explore the peripheries and beyond. After travel restrictions fell away

in the nineteenth century, Japanese ethnographers travelled to sites in Asia and on other

continents.

   Social and cultural anthropology as disciplines were welcomed by ethnographers in

Japan, appreciated for the data and insights that they yielded. In the 1930s and 1940s, as a

result of the colonial expansion and the rapid growth of territories under the military

administration, their acceptance was greatly helped by the authorities’ growing demand

for local information (Shimizu and van Bremen 2003). This period of upsurge ended with

the loss of the Empire in 1945, but in the wake of the Asian and Pacific War, social and

cultural anthropology were integrated into the academic world in Japan as part of the

expansion of general education. During the Allied Occupation (1945–1951) they received

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan      150

American support and encouragement. Since the 1950s they have benefited from the

economic and financial prominence that the country gained during the Cold War (1946–

1989).

    Today some scholars hold to the opinion that in Japan travel ethnography came to an

end in the 1980s with the death of Tsuboi Hirofumi (1929–1988).5 Whether this is true or

not is open to question, but there have been previous hiatuses that seemed to signal the

end of the method. In the later years of the Pacific War, for example, Japanese travel

ethnography came to a halt. In 1943 it became difficult, in 1944–1945 nearly impossible,

to work as a travel ethnographer. The military declared most of the country off-limits,

while the police and public authorities everywhere were alerting the people to report on

note-taking and photography by strangers as acts of spying. Children hurled stones at the

travel ethnographer Miyamoto Tsune’ichi (to whom I shall return below), crying out ‘a

spy, a spy!’ (Sano 1996a: 165, 193).

    In my view, travel ethnography in Japan is still alive, and it still exists in the form of a

lifelong occupation or quest for some practitioners. The following two examples may

show this. Tanakamaru Katsuhiko (1945–2000) described with great dedication and

tenacity the requiem rites for, and worship of, the military war dead (eirei) as they are

being carried out by family members, nationally or on a communal level. Tanakamaru

received his training as a folklorist in Kokugakuin University, but in spite of being a

member of leading academic associations and research groups, he did not make his living

as an academic. He worked for a company in his native North Kyūshū while going about

his research privately. This restricted the output, but not the importance, of his work.

    The other example is Fujita Shōichi (b. 1947), a contemporary example of a truly

dedicated travel ethnographer. He is a graduate in philosophy and religious studies of

Taishō University. Over the past 30 years, working as a freelance photographer and

journalist, Fujita has sought out, interviewed, photographed and described hundreds of

ritual sites and practitioners in places all over Japan. Much of his work has been

published as travelogues, but it also appears in the academic press. The ethnographic

archive which he began, and is still building up, is the heart of a large and growing

database on religious institutions, persons, sites and events in Japan that is lodged in the

grounds of the Dentsū-in, a temple in Tokyo that houses various ethnographically

valuable collections.

    In fact, ethnographic data on practitioners of the kind sought out by Fujita—ascetics,

shamans, healers and their clients—go back for hundreds of years in Japan (Hori

1971:170–1; Ikegami 1992:6–7). Records remain from the early modern period (1600–

1800) that describe the pilgrims and visitors who travelled to Ise Shrine in large numbers.

In times of crises these even took the form of eschatological mass movements. In the

summers of 1650, 1705, 1771, 1830 and 1867 officials of the Ise Shrines counted

between two and six million visitors (Miyamoto 1975:163–5; Kyburz 1997:270). The

‘anthropology of disaster’ also features in the ethnographic travel reports of the early

modern period; Takayama Hikokuro (1747–1793), for instance, who toured the north-east

to report on the effects of the great famines of 1783 and 1784, gives an account in his

Hokkoku nikki (1790) of social anomie and cannibalism (Plutschow 1998:13).

    As previous chapters in this chapter have made clear, pilgrimages to temples and

shrines, as well as religious tourism in general, continue to be large-scale social

happenings in modern times. On particular occasions and for certain purposes, people

                           Travel ethnography in Japan      151

turn to religious establishments in their neighbourhoods, towns and cities, or further

away. Millions travel every year from the urban centres of Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto and Nara

to visit shrines and temples in the nearby Ikoma Mountains. Folklorists began to study

this human traffic in the 1930s,6 and in the 1980s and 1990s research projects were

carried out in these mountains. It was found that the largest centres attracted some

3,000,000 visitors per year, on an average some 8,000 persons per centre per day, reaping

donations ranging from a mere cent (sen) to several million dollars (several oku yen)

(Shūkyō Shakaigaku no Kai 1987).

   As well as being pioneers of new ethnographic territories and methods, travel

ethnographers have been active as the founders of new research and academic

institutions. In 1934, one year before the establishment of Yanagita’s Folklore Society of

Japan (Nihon Minzoku Gakkai) in Tokyo, Sakurada Katsunori (1903–1979), Iwakura

Ichirō (1904–1943) and Miyamoto Tsune’ichi (1907–1981) were among the founding

members of the Folklore Society of Osaka [Osaka Minzoku Danwa Kai, renamed in 1936

as Folklore Society of Kinki District (Kinki Minzoku Gakkai)]. The society continues to

meet, and its periodical Kinki Minzoku is published, to this day.

   Sakurada Katsunori went out to remote islands in West Japan. Iwakura Ichiro played a

leading role in research in the southern island chain of Amami Ōshima and compiled five

volumes on his native island of Kikaijima alone (Miyamoto 1973:200). Miyamoto

Tsune’ichi was a pioneer in maritime anthropology. All three scholars published in the

leading academic journals: Minzokugaku, Kyōdo Kenkyū, Shima, Rizoku to Minyō

(Miyamoto 1973:173).

   Yanagita Kunio, the founder and leader of the school of folklore studies named after

him, was well travelled too, and in a range of capacities: bureaucrat, government official,

newspaper reporter, diplomat and independent scholar. Between 1901 and 1919 he

travelled widely in Japan as a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce.

The Asahi Newspaper accredited him as a special writer in 1920, free to roam the

country. Yanagita came to Geneva by way of America as a diplomat in May 1921, went

back to Japan in October and returned to stay in Europe from May 1922 to November

1923 (Fukuta 1984:15).

   It was his domestic travel that stimulated in Yanagita the desire to collect ethnographic

information about the whole of Japan. Therefore, he organized the Research Group on

the Southern Islands (Nantō kenkyūkai) in 1922 and founded the Research Group on

Northern Civilizations (Hoppō bunmei kenkyūkai) in 1924 (Inokuchi 1992:158). He went

on to enlarge the field of his research and covered the rest of the country in the next

decades. Yanagita placed great emphasis on local observations as a necessary

complement to the study of documents and texts, and strongly encouraged his students to

go into the field.

   Lore has it that Yanagita travelled in white socks (tabi) in the manner of a feudal lord

(Yoneyama 1985:52).7 His travelogues appeared in newspapers, periodicals, and books.

Hunting Terminology (Nōchi no kari kotoba no ki), published in 1909, is considered to be

Yanagita’s first important work in folklore studies. It also is a travelogue and the product

of travel ethnography. This was followed by A Note on the South-Seas (Kainan shōki),

published in 1925; Spring in Snow Country (Yukiguni no haru) in 1928; and A Note on

Autumn Wind (Shūfūchō) in 1932. Because of his frequent use of the travelogue, a fellow

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     152

scholar likened Yanagita to ‘a traveller more than a researcher’ (Fukuta 1984:84).

Another savant saw in him the features of ‘a tourist’ (Yoneyama 1985:41).

   Yanagita’s emphasis on field-work was important. Between the 1920s and the end of

the war in 1945, anthropology in the universities was monopolized by physical

anthropology. Ethnographic research was largely restricted to laboratory, archive and

library work. Yanagita’s methodology was rooted in European ethnology (Edward Tylor

and James Frazer); the folklore studies (George Laurence Gomme) of the late nineteenth

century; early twentieth-century field research (Bronislaw Malinowski and Franz Boas)

and a variety of approaches taken by different schools in Japan. The Nitobe School of

Regional Studies and the Hirata School of National Studies, which present works on

Japanese folk religion, were particularly influential (Kawada 1993:109–10). Yet, all

along, Yanagita held the travel ethnographers of the early modern period in high esteem.

                         Great Japanese travel ethnographers

                Torii Ryūzō (1870–1953): A lifelong travel ethnographer

Over the past two centuries, political, military and economic interests, territorial

expansion and wars have produced a growing demand for up-to-date and local knowledge

in Japan. Much of this research involved travel ethnography. Torii Ryūzō (1870–1953)

was one of the most prominent Japanese travel ethnographers of the first half of the

twentieth century. Ethnographic pursuits filled his whole working life. His collected

works were published by the Asahi Newspaper Company between 1975 and 1977 in 12

volumes plus a supplement. Parts of his rich ethnographic collections and extensive

photographic archives have been carefully preserved in ethnographic collections, depots

and museums both in Japan and Korea. Torii collected his materials between 1895 and

1951 in different parts of Asia: the Kuriles, East Siberia, Sakhalin, north-east China,

Mongolia, the Korean peninsula, south-west China and Taiwan. He moved in the wake of

Japanese territorial expansion, but research also took him further afield. Between April

1937 and February 1938 he travelled to Brazil, Peru and Bolivia to study remains of the

Inca Empire (Nakazono 1995).

    Torii was appointed lecturer of anthropology in Tokyo Imperial University in 1924. In

1929 he was installed as the second incumbent of the chair for general anthropology in

that university. After ten years, and finding himself increasingly powerless as the study of

Japan anthropology was overtaken by physical anthropology, Torii accepted the

invitation to join the faculty of the American Mission Yenching University in Beijing in

August 1939, not resettling in Japan until December 1951.8

    Japanese colonial as well as post-war research has contributed to making Taiwan one

of the better studied places in the world; soon after the handover of the islands to Japan in

1895, anthropologists working with Torii Ryūzō and Inō Kanori (1867–1925) in the lead

were given the task of the ethnic classification of the so-called indigenous peoples in the

island. Their groupings, refined by the next generation of anthropologists, have become

the accepted standard. Torii made four lengthy expeditions to the indigenous peoples,

interspersed with periods of field-work in 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1900, leaving

voluminous records and collections of artefacts and photographs.

                            Travel ethnography in Japan     153

    Torii was in the field for more than 500 days in Taiwan. He travelled to areas where

people had lived free from the control of the former Chinese government. Government

officials defined those people as the ‘wild natives’, in contrast to those who had

submitted to Chinese control, who were classified as the ‘civilized natives’. The ‘wild

natives’ were branded ‘savages without sovereignty’, and the government strove to turn

them into ‘children of the Emperor’ (Yamaji 1991). This attitude spelled the end for

indigenous societies and cultures who were not allowed to remain as the first Japanese

ethnographers found them. The following generation of researchers, based in the Institute

of Ethnology in Taihoku Imperial University established in 1928 in Taipei, recorded what

was left of these indigenous societies while conducting their field-work among younger

informants using Japanese. Until the end of the twentieth century, Japanese

ethnographers still used this language with aged Taiwanese informants.

    It has been argued that in field-work physical and temporal co-existence will help

people overcome differences between them. The Japanese ethnographers of the first hour

in Taiwan, however, responded to the task of field-work in contrasting ways. Torii based

his understanding of the indigenous peoples primarily on travel ethnography and bouts of

field-work; Inō on the other hand relied on some travel ethnography, but mostly on

documentary research. Comparing the public statements of the two scholars, Torii’s are

found to be more ethnocentric and limited, while Inō’s are the more detached and

comprehensive (Barclay 2001).

           Miyamoto Tsune’ichi (1907–1981): A great yet unknown scholar9

Miyamoto Tsune’ichi was one of the finest Japanese travel ethnographers of the twentieth

century He was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the island of Ōshima in the Inland Sea,

whose inhabitants would leave for migrant work (dekasegi) and often did not return for

their whole working life.

    Miyamoto found a vocation as a travel ethnographer—walking, observing, listening

and asking questions.10 In this pursuit he spent a total of over 4,000 days visiting on foot

some of the most out-of-the-way places in the country (Sano 1996a: 366–7). He appeared

in about 3,000 hamlets and stayed in about 1,000 houses. He took down the accounts of

some 800 local scholars (korō) whom he located in even the remotest parts of the

country. Miyamoto compiled hundreds of reports on social organization, material culture,

and religious life. Besides his ethnographic work, he wrote on the history and method of

ethnography and folklore studies. Only late in his life, in April 1965, at 58, did he receive

an academic appointment, as a professor at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. Within

the year of his appointment he established the Institute for the Study of Tourism in Japan

(Nihon Kankō Bunka Kenkyūjo).

    Miyamoto kept his pioneering spirit and forward-looking vision until the end of his

life. The quantity and quality of his work are awe-inspiring, and as impressive as any

based on long-term field-work. His Collected Writings began to appear in 1968, and 44

volumes and two supplements have been published to date (2003), some as long as

15,000 printed pages. The complete set will come to 50 volumes plus a third

supplement,11 but there is still more. His History of the Common People of Japan

appeared in seven volumes between 1962 and 1993, while My Maps of Japan were

published in 15 volumes between 1967 and 1976. Unfortunately, a large part of

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     154

Miyamoto’s work will not appear at all, as over 100 notebooks, 12,000 hand-written

pages, drafts of articles, numerous negatives, prints, and other materials were lost when

his house in Sakai burnt down in July 1945 in the aftermath of an American air raid on

Osaka (Sano 1996b: 201).

   Already as a young man, even before his life as a travel ethnographer, Miyamoto

mixed in folklore circles. He answered that call in his mid-twenties, and it became his

vocation for the next 30 years of his life. From 1933 onwards, he was away on

ethnographic assignments about 200 days per year. In 1939 he joined the staff of the Attic

Museum, founded in 1925 by that staunch and lifelong patron of ethnology Shibusawa

Keizō, to house his ethnographic collections and to function as a research centre for

folklore, folk tools, and aquaculture.

   Miyamoto takes his place in the small but distinguished line of vocational travel

ethnographers that goes back to the early modern period. This fact did not escape a

learned villager who wittily remarked, when Miyamoto sought him out in November

1940 deep in the mountains of Northeast Japan: ‘The ethnographer who came here before

you was Sugae Masumi of the Edo period!’ (Sano 1996b: 145).12 Miyamoto learned what

he could from the local scholars, from what they told him and from the documents,

picture scrolls, objects and skills that they showed him. To record all this information, his

lamp burnt deep into the night.

   Miyamoto was 61 years old when he finished the Epilogue to the first volume of his

Collected Works with the inscription ‘Shōwa 43 (1968), the 19th of May, four a.m.’. He

had begun his Foreword 13 years earlier, in September 1955, with the statement, ‘To

give it a name, I shall call this volume The Way to Folklore Studies. However, it is not

just anyone’s way. It is the way that I have gone. And it is the way that I intend to go

from here’ (Miyamoto 1973:1).

   Miyamoto left a record of the 25 stages of his quest in this book. Number seventeen

bears the title Scholarly Work in Wartime. Scholars continued to travel for research and

to attend academic meetings in west Japan, where Miyamoto lived, almost up to the end

of the war, when air raids came to destroy the cities of Kobe and Osaka. His patron,

Shibusawa Keizō (1896–1977), who highly esteemed his work, besought Miyamoto to

live and do his best to survive the war; Shibusawa believed that his research would serve

as a link between the vanishing past and the approaching post-war days (Sano 1996b:

193–4).

   On a personal note, Miyamoto describes a home-coming after a long tour. Much of the

city was burnt down. On a street near his house he saw a little girl whom he took for his

daughter, but she gave no sign of recognition. Thinking it must be a child of another

family he went home, where he found his aged mother alone and his wife away on her

forced labour shift. Then the girl from the street came in. It was his daughter. She had not

recognized him on account of his long and frequent absences from home. Finding his

house in such a state, he felt bitter, little more than the slave of his calling (gakumon no

toriko) (Miyamoto 1973 [1968]: 242). Today Miyamoto is revered as a master

ethnographer. During his life, he went about his work as a great but unknown scholar.

                            Travel ethnography in Japan      155

                Japanese travel ethnography as a source of innovation

Inaccuracies still mar the historiography of social and cultural anthropology, and there

remain omissions in the ethnography of the twentieth century. Perhaps the largest

oversight is the anthropology of war. Taking the term in the sense of ‘travel

ethnography’, this refers to anthropology done during the time of war, on the one hand,

and to the ethnography of war on the other. The omission from both domains is

astonishing in view of the massive, frequent and long periods of war in the past century,

and also because social and cultural anthropology received far more support and grew

larger during eras of war than during colonial contexts.

    The relegation of travel ethnography as a method to a subaltern position is especially

relevant to the topic of research done during times of crisis. The almost exclusive

emphasis placed on long-term field-work has obscured the role played by travel

ethnography, and obscured the majestic and detailed ethnographic records which

generations of travel ethnographers have left behind. Moreover, the emphasis put on

field-work done in colonial and imperial fringes overseas hides the fact that

ethnographers also conducted research in their own countries and in metropolitan centres.

    In closing, I should like to focus attention on the continuingly innovative nature of

travel ethnography. Travel ethnographers have been quick to use new devises and apply

them to their craft, creating new methods and adding new areas to ethnography.

Miyamoto Tsune’ichi, who always travelled with a camera, left a database of over 80,000

frames. He experimented with new techniques; Aerial Folklore Studies is the analysis of

aerial and terrestrial photographs from ethnographic points of interest (Miyamoto 2001a).

New technologies have helped to create new formats for the collection, analysis

and conservation of ethnographic data; while present-day ethnographies produced in

digital format can be combined easily with texts, images and sounds (Moriya and

Nakamaki 1991).

    Travel ethnography has a wide range of uses. It serves to obtain first-hand data from

remote, hard-to-reach places, high in the mountains, out in the sea, or deep in urban

conglomerates. It may be used to supplement long-term field-work. It is useful for

recording transient events or to respond to unforeseen situations. Travel ethnography is a

typical method for the ‘anthropology of disaster’, the much neglected study of the

breakdown and regeneration of social order in conditions such as mass starvation, natural

disasters, industrial accidents, epidemics, genocide, or military and terrorist attacks.

    Kon Wajirō (1888–1973) was a pioneer in the anthropology of disaster. As a member

of Yanagita’s folklore circle, this trained architect travelled the length and breadth of the

country to document the construction of Japanese farm-houses in different regions. When

Tokyo was hit by a powerful earthquake just before noon on 1 September 1923, Kon

went into the stricken city to record the impact of the disaster on the inhabitants. After the

earthquake much of the town burnt down, while landslides and tidal waves added to the

toll. The loss of life was high, and more than 106,000 persons died. The injured

numbered 502,000, while some 694,000 houses were destroyed. In the aftermath of the

calamity, Kon continued to move about the battered city to chronicle the fragments, the

resurgence and the reconstruction of social life. In the process he created a new approach

                        Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan           156

to the ethnography of urban industrial society as it developed around him. He sought

techniques capable of recording the rapid changes and the emergence of new conditions

(cf. van Bremen 2002). He called his method Modernology (kōgengaku, the study of

modern things) as an antonym of Archaeology (kōkōgaku, the study of ancient things)

(Miyata 1996:48–9).

    About seven decades later, Kobe was struck by a violent earthquake just before dawn

on 17 January 1995. Large parts of the city became inaccessible or could only be reached

on foot. Ethnographers walked in to record the impact of the disaster. They continued to

visit the city in the aftermath of the catastrophe to observe the handling of the crisis and

the recovery of social life (Nakamaki and Tsushima 1996).13 Travel ethnographer Fujita

(1998) has incorporated the term ‘modernology’ into the subtitle of a work containing

descriptions and photographs of memorials built on disaster sites in Japan.

    Kon’s method entails the minute ethnography of daily life, and his approach has

inspired the makers of the exhibition 2002 Seoul Style, for which the complete interior of

an urban Korean middle class family’s home was collected on the spot, shipped,

reassembled and displayed between 21 March and 16 July 2002 at the National Museum

of Ethnology in Osaka.14

    People leading lives on the move have been one of the main topics of social history

and a subject of anthropological research. The displacements caused by wars,

persecutions, deportations, famines, flight, natural or industrial disasters have yet to fall

squarely within the scope of ethnography. Social and cultural anthropologists have given

pride of place to long-term field-work over travel ethnography, not because its

contributions were small but on partisan grounds. Today, travel ethnography is valued

anew, but with or without academic sanction, ethnographers will continue to travel to

sites, easy or difficult to reach, even for the briefest of surveys or at the risk of life.15 New

social worlds and transitory communities, created by electronic means, form new

ethnographic fields which call for new explorations and formats in ethnography.16 Lore

has it that a little travel may go a long way.

                                                 Notes

I should like to thank the convener of the conference, the participants and particularly the

editors of this volume. Anonymous readers and Herbert Plutschow made valuable

comments. The Netherlands Association for Japanese Studies generously provided the

travel grant to attend the conference.

   1 The work of foreign travel ethnographers in Japan deserves its own treatment, but space

      prevents this here.

   2 This fact is not reflected in American and European handbooks and ethnographic data bases.

      Japan is largely absent from the HRAF, as are most of the Japanese contributions to world

      ethnography.

   3 Newburyport, a place north of Boston, was incorporated as a city in 1851. In 1860 it had a

      population of 13,401. The population stood at 6,785 at the time of Warner’s Yankee City

      Project. The Yankee City research staff comprised 18 field-workers, 23 analysts, and four

      writers. Thirteen members were both field-workers and analysts. Three members were field-

      worker, analyst and writer in one (Warner and Lunt 1941: Table 8).

   4 The term ‘complex society’ is used for peasant and industrialized societies with large

      populations, state organization, cities, social stratification, literate, in contrast to smallscale

                              Travel ethnography in Japan          157

      societies, which lack most or all of these qualities (cf. Hannerz 1996:122–4). The term is

      also sued to refer to societies where civilizations mingle (Ouwehand 1965:137).

   5 Remarks made by Yoshida Teigo and Nakamaki Hirochika when this paper was delivered.

      Still, a work such as the Shinshūkyō Jiten (1990), of which Nakamaki is a compiler, is very

      much a product of travel ethnography.

   6 Akamatsu Keisuke (1909–) studied ascetic practices in the Ikoma mountains; Kurimoto

      Hideyo published his research between 1932 and 1934 in the periodical Minzokugaku, vol. 4,

      no. 10–11, 1932 and Tabi to Densetsu, vol. 6, no. 5, 1933, vol. 7, no. 10–11, 1934, and vol.

      8, no. 3, 1935.

   7 The word for white, split toe socks (tabi) is a homonym with the word tabi meaning ‘travel’.

   8 In the course of the Fifteen Years’ War (1931–1945) the need for personnel and facilities in

      Japan grew and more means were allocated. The ethnologists formed a professional

      association in 1934. This was reconstituted by the government in 1942, who founded a

      national institute in 1943, funding research and sponsoring field stations and research

      abroad. At the same time (1943), the first chair for social anthropology was established in

      Tokyo Imperial University. It was filled by Sugiura Ken’ichi (1905–1954), who for several

      months each year had engaged in applied research in Japanese Micronesia.

   9 The phrase Mumei no daigakusha (a great, unknown scholar) was used by the former

      headmaster of a middle school to describe Miyamoto who once came to visit his institution

      (Sano 1996b: 194).

   10 Aruku, miru, kiku in Japanese.

   11 The volumes appeared regularly until 1997. After a five-year gap, Volume 42 appeared in

      2002. Volume 44 was published in 2003.

   12 Sugae Masumi (1754–1829) was a highly esteemed, important and productive travel

      ethnographer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Japan.

   13 Popular culture in the form of tourism or films offers visits to virtual disaster and panic sites

      to its public (cf. Napier 1996).

   14 Kon Wajirō’s ideas were explicitly referred to in the opening speech delivered by Director-

      General Ishige Naomichi during the ceremony on 20 March 2002 (own observation).

   15 Richards (1996) describes a horrific expedition to the town of Pandebu on the Liberia-Sierra

      Leone border in 1989. Voyages of this kind are the rule in the anthropology of disaster

      (Benthall 1993).

   16 A collection of studies on the impact of screens (cinema, TV, computer, telephone etc.) on

      social and cultural life in the present was recently published in Etnofoor 15 (1/2) 2002.

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                                 16  A Japanese painter’s quest

                      Suda Kunitarō's journey to Spain

                                 Rosalia Medina Bermejo

                                      Introduction

On July 1, 1919, a Japanese art historian and artist, Suda Kunitarō, arrived in Spain from

the French border town of Hendaye; it was the end of a long journey from Kobe begun in

May of the same year. Since his time as a student of Kyoto University Suda had been

interested to know why the East and the West had followed two different paths in the

development of art. Had not art in the West changed to represent more and more

realistically man and nature, while in the East the idea of realism was not pursued very

far? Suda had focused his studies on German philosophy and thought—very common in

Japan at that time—and in 1916 graduated from the department of Aesthetics and History

of Art in the faculty of Philosophy with a thesis entitled Realism. In his thesis he reached

the conclusion that Japanese painting in Western style was lacking something, its

development and future therefore being in danger.

   Suda stayed in Spain for most of the four years of his visit to Europe, a choice that set

him apart from the majority of painters of his time. Why choose Spain, a country that—

although it had remained neutral in the First World War—was in a deep social, political

and economic crisis? Suda’s journey to Spain was based on his conviction that it was

essential to study oil painting. For this it would be necessary to seek a deeper

understanding of the important collection of oils in Madrid’s El Prado Museum that had

chosen the colour and style of the Venetian, and not of the northern European, masters.

                                  Suda’s Spanish diary

In the Municipal Museum of Art in Kyoto there are more than 17 notebooks, some of

them pocketsize, comprising the diaries of Suda’s Spanish period. It is doubtful that Suda

was exhaustive in his notes, and there were long periods where he did not write anything.

However, reading what he did register provides us with most interesting information

about his time in Spain.

   Suda’s visits to the Prado Museum were nearly a daily event while he was in Madrid.

On July 5, 1919, only a few days after he had arrived in Spain, he made his way to

museum for the first time, initially trying to get in through the wrong door. Suda notes, ‘I

was surprised by the extraordinary quality of the works I saw’.

   The visits to the Prado resulted in the 13 copies he painted of works by the Venetians:

Tiziano, Tintoretto and Palme el Viejo. His interest, however, was not limited to the

           A Japanese painter's quest: Suda Kunitaro's journey to Spain     161

Italians, and he also copied Goya, el Greco, Morales and the French artist Poussin. Why

he chose these artists and not others is difficult to say. The Venetians were an obvious

choice, being the reason for Suda’s journey to Spain, while also El Greco had interested

him for his personal style was not without Venetian influence. The genius of Goya does

not need justifying, and Suda’s diaries mention on different occasions that the object of

his visits to the museums was to see some of Goya’s work. Moreover, Luis de Morales,

20 years older than El Greco, is one of the best representatives of the meticulous detail

and that certain note of sadness associated with the Spanish—in contrast to the Italian—

style, and this aroused Suda’s interest with regard to mastery of technique and

expression. But why didn’t Suda pay attention to Velazquez, possibly the greatest

representative of the golden age of Spanish artists and at the same time an admirer of the

Venetians (as proved by the works of Tintoretto and others he brought for Felipe IV from

Italy in 1649)?

    For Suda the copies he made were a useful medium through which to study the

techniques of oil painting and of realism that were to guide him in his career as an artist.

His work, moreover, was not limited to copying the paintings in the Prado; he also

painted Spanish landscapes and some portraits.

    The visits to the Prado were possibly his main activity during the four years that Suda

lived in Spain, but he also visited numerous other places, mainly choosing sites with

historical monuments. These visits took him away from the typical tourist routes (if you

can talk of tourism in Spain in the early twentieth century). While studying medieval

architecture and art he searched for new themes for his own painting; it should not be

forgotten that at this time Suda was mainly an art historian, and that is how he thought of

himself still for many years to come.

    During the first year of his studies in Spain Suda visited Granada and Sevilla, but he

did not record anything about these cities. On the way back to Madrid he passed Toledo,

where he visited El Greco’s house, the cathedral, and St Bartolome’s church with its

impressive work ‘The funeral of Conde Orgaz’. Unfortunately, none of the works painted

during this journey have survived.

    In late 1919 Suda travelled to Castilla, Leon, Galicia and Asturias. The diary for this

journey starts on October 11 in Avila, where he stayed a few days. He notes visits to the

cathedrals of San Vicente, San Pedro, Santa Domingo, San Nicolas and Santo Tomas.

One of his paintings from Avila survives, and this was the first painting that Suda sold in

his first exhibition in Tokyo in 1932. ‘Avila’ is very interesting because it shows up

Suda’s own style, and, for the first time, the recurring theme of houses. Suda stood

outside the medieval city’s wall and represented the city as a waterfall of rocks crowned

by the church and its tower, which is exactly in the centre of the painting. A foreground

of dark tones contrasts with the reddish tones of the background, a characteristic probably

due to Suda’s contact with the Spanish baroque. These tones are found not only in his

Spanish period, but also in his later work.

    The journey continued from Avila to Galicia, passing through Zamora, Benavente and

Astorga. In Toro he spent a day exploring the village and the college. In Zamora he

visited the historic centre of the city and painted two works, ‘Zamora’ and ‘Outside of

Zamora’. In Astorga he tried to paint the cathedral and other Roman churches there but

without success, although he liked the sketches he made in Betanzos.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    162

    Reaching Galicia, he mentions going for walks after dark in Coruña and enjoying the

nighttime views of the city. He also went to the theatre to see a comedy, and to the

dentist. In Santiago de Compostela he obviously visited the cathedral, the San Francisco

convent, the Royal Hospital (now the Hostal of the Catholic kings) and the Santa Maria

de Sar church. From here he continued to Pontevedra, where he painted a port scene, and

to Vigo, where he walked around and visited the cafes.

    Although the typical red colour of the Castillian soil impressed him (in fact he adopted

it as one of the tones that he used most), he also admired the beauty of the green

landscapes in Spain, as we know from his diary. On October 10, 1920, he writes from

Vigo: ‘In the morning a walk, it is very good weather. At 12 o’clock I got onto the train

for Orense, along the river Mino the view is very beautiful, it reminds me of Japan’.

    At Orense Suda visited the cathedral, the museum and various cafes. Afterwards he

went to Celanova and Santa Combat de Bande and returned to Orense. The fruit of this

short but intense stay in Galicia is the work ‘Church of Galicia’, about which he noted in

his diary: ‘Santiago church, gained a certain success’.

    Now in Leon Suda visited the cathedral, the square, a museum and Santa Maria del

Camino. He took some photos and painted ‘The Cathedral of Leon’. Continuing to

Asturias he went to the cathedral of Oviedo, and afterwards to Santullano, Naranco, San

Miguel de Lillo, Gijon, Aviles and Lena. This journey is reflected in the painting ‘The

San Miguel church in Oviedo’. Afterwards he continued to Palencia, Valladollid and

Burgos. In Valladolid he painted a view of the buildings of the city and its supports. His

diary shows that he stayed at Burgos on December 3 and 4, 1920, and it is almost certain

that on these dates he painted his ‘Gothic church tower’.

    The next notes about his stay in Spain appear in Suda’s diary in November 1921. The

first place mentioned is Soria, where he stayed two days visiting many Roman churches

in areas like San Nicolas and San Juan de Rabanero. He also went to the Nemantino

Museum. The beautiful and sad atmosphere of the ruins, like those of San Juan of Duero,

left a particularly deep impression. Suda’s interest in medieval buildings is reflected in

the landscape ‘Mountain of Castilla’, which is probably the church of Nuestra Senora de

Miron in Soria, a small village situated where the river Duero divides.

    1922 was a particularly creative year. Suda not only travelled through a large part of

the country, but also completed a considerable number of paintings. In Caceres he did a

view of a typical row of houses crowned by a church. In March he travelled to Aragon,

the land of Goya, passing through Alhama and Calatayud, where he visited Santa Maria

and painted ‘Calatayud after a storm’. On his second visit to Zaragoza (about the first

visit there are no details, but at least it is known that he visited the museum because on

his second visit he notes that the guard remembered him), he visited the Church of Pilar

and was interested in the altar piece and the frescos of Goya on the ceiling; however, he

notes that he could not see them properly as the ceiling was too high. In the museum at

Zaragoza, which contained much of Goya’s work including various self-portraits, the

director let him copy some of the paintings.

    In June Suda resumed his travels with Toledo as destination. On this second visit to

the city he stayed five days visiting El Greco’s house and the museum, and also

completed the picture ‘Outskirts of Toledo’.

    In June he set out on a journey that would last nearly two months and take him to the

east of Spain, starting with Valencia. There, apart from visiting the cathedral and some

            A Japanese painter's quest: Suda Kunitaro's journey to Spain        163

churches, he went to the ‘splendid and surprising’ museums and also saw various works

by Sorolla. From Valencia he journeyed to Tarragona, passing through Encina,

Mogente—where he painted two landscapes—‘Higuera’ and ‘Sagunto’. In Tarragona

Suda notes that he did two paintings in a garden situated on the outskirts of the castle. In

Barcelona he stayed two days but did not make any notes. Afterwards he visited Vic and

Ripoll, then Terrasa and Lerida. From the train he writes: “The train is full, I can see the

Montserrat Mountain, (it) is very beautiful in the sunset”. Montserrat Mountain was

particularly attractive for Suda who frequently painted bare rocky mountains, for instance

in his ‘Pena Maura’.

    In Lerida Suda visited the museum and then continued to Monzon in Aragon, where

he painted the castle. He was interested in the typical white Aragonese houses with their

characteristic tiles, ‘like those of Goya’, as he writes. In Huesca he remarks about the

altar in San Pedro cathedral: ‘The light falls on the altar piece so that I can see it in detail,

it is a great work of art. The painter is the same one who did the altar piece in Zaragoza;

these are the only ones that he did. It is true that two are more than enough work. I am

envious’.

    In Jaca Suda painted a view of the mountain, then he went on to Biescas and

Panticosa. In Sabinanigo he visited and painted the lake. He arrived at Zaragoza on

August 9, visited the museum again and mentions the altar piece of Damian.

    Next day he was in Bilbao, did some further paintings, and continued to San

Sebastian, where he noted, ‘I do not really like what I have painted here; I want a

painting that is sad and dark with conflicting colours’.

    In Pamplona he visited the Sarasate and Archaeological museums, at the latter

contemplating the Roman and Gothic mosaics. From here he carried on to Sanguesa,

where he painted and took photos of the entrance door of San Salvador. Trips to Tafalla,

Estella, Olite and Caseta did not satisfy him from the point of view of his creativity, as

we can see from his note of August 26: “Tomorrow I am going to destroy all the

drawings done on this journey”. Guadalajara, Zaragoza and Huesca are the last

destinations of his travels in Spain, and three landscapes were completed, ‘Daroca’,

‘Daroca castle’ and ‘Monton’.

                          Suda’s work during his years in Spain

To explain the differences between East and West from the point of view of painting,

Suda used the example of a chestnut tree branch. Through the branch without any type of

ornamentation around it, as it is represented in oriental painting, you come to understand

that it builds its own universe and does not need anything else to justify its existence or to

complement it. In the West this would be unthinkable; elements like a source of light that

creates contrasts, perspective, distances or a scene that frames the branch: all tell a story.

This is directly related to the phenomenon of empty space which the oriental artist leaves

in his work; in the East, you can’t consider a work of art without its blank space. In the

West, however, this would have to be filled in so as not to create the impression that

something is missing. A work appearing unfinished would reduce its value and the genius

of its painter. This in turn leads to the excess of decoration which has its raison d’être in

horror vacui, the fear of empty space. Suda, both from his oriental point of view and

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan      164

through his knowledge of Western art, tried to join these to worlds together. He was an

intellectual type of artist rather than bohemian, and generally his works speak less of his

expressive than of his intellectual quest. His studies of the works of the Baroque style led

him to attempt in his own painting dramatic effects playing with light and shadow, and

later also of movement and stillness. The source of light is ignored in oriental painting,

but exalted in the Baroque. Suda used this tension to create the dramatic effects present in

his work, for instance in ‘Avila’, ‘Daroca’, ‘Monton’ or ‘Mogente’. In these pictures light

and dark colours are strongly contrasted, with hardly any graduation between the tones.

In Suda’s work the light source is not defined, nor does it emanate from a single source; it

is just a light that illuminates part of the painting and leaves other parts in the dark,

creating strong contrasts which quickly catch the eye of the spectator.

   Suda continued this style of painting after 1923, the year in which he returned to

Japan, in works such as ‘Excavation’ (1930), ‘Pena Maura, a Spanish village’ (1932) or

‘Study’ (1937). With regard to perspective, Suda presents the onlooker with close-ups in

dark tones and strongly lit scenes in the distance, again without any graduation of colour.

Suda’s intention presumably is to take away the middle ground in terms of perspective

and prevent the objects’ colour getting lost in the background as happens in Baroque

works.

   Suda’s predilection for a series of concrete motives that are frequently repeated can be

observed in the themes of his years in Spain. Above all, what happens with light, shade

and perspective remains of central interest in Suda’s personal style until his last works.

The houses that appear in ‘Avila’, ‘Mogente’ or ‘Caceres’ bear witness to this, as do the

reddish tones used in the mountains in ‘Daroca’ or ‘Monton’.

                                          Conclusion

Suda’s view of artistic development in East-West contrast was that in the East the idea of

realism had not been pursued very far. This problem had interested Suda since his student

days and motivated him to travel to Spain. But what did realism actually mean for Suda?

Does his work respond to objective realism; is it a true representation of the ‘outside’?

   I think his work easily answers this question: Suda’s realism represents his personal

vision of things, but we can say that it is not a reality that depends on ‘facts’; it is a reality

that is subjective and introspective in what it represents. It is not possible to elaborate this

point in detail only by looking at the work from his Spanish period, but there can be no

doubt that this period was the starting point that decisively shaped Suda’s career. Would

his painting have been the same if he had not gone to Spain? Almost certainly not. Suda’s

themes, the tonal variations he used, the treatment of light and shade and possibly his

entire vision of European art would have been different.

   When Suda returned to Japan, he was still more an art historian than an artist.

However, when he had his first personal exhibition in 1932—although it was not a

success—he began to be considered an artist and, importantly, also began to see himself

as such. From then on, he divided his time between teaching History of Art at Kyoto

University and painting. He mentioned on more than one occasion that he intended to

return to Spain, but sadly he died before he could fulfill his wish.

            A Japanese painter's quest: Suda Kunitaro's journey to Spain        165

   After returning to Japan in 1923 until his death in the University Hospital of Kyoto in

1961, Spain had been present in much of Suda’s writing. We can imagine that Spain was

like his second home, for which he felt a degree of nostalgia. We must acknowledge his

role in introducing to Japan to many aspects not only of Spanish art, but also of its culture

and history. This he did through books like ‘Goya’ (1937), ‘Spanish art from the XVIII

century, starting with Goya’ (1951), ‘Spanish art’ (1957), as well as a great number of

newspaper and magazine articles in which can be found many references to historians

and philosophers such as Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno and others. One of Suda’s last

works, ‘Portrait of an architect’ (1956), is a tribute to Antonio Gaudi.

   For Suda as an artist Spain served as the starting point of a quest to understand more

fully what before had been an abstract notion. Spain served to fine tune the role of this art

historian as an artist in his own right. At the same time, Suda’s studies in Spain were one

of the first attempts by a Japanese artist to analyse Western art and bring forth, at the end

of a long journey, a synthesis of East and West.

                                        Bibliography

Harada Heisaku (1985) Suda Kunitarō no tōyōteki suibokuga seishin to sono tenkai [The spirit of

   Suda Kunitarō's Eastern style ink drawings and their development], Yamaguchi: Yamaguchi

   Kenritsu Bijutsukan.

Kawakita Tomoaki (1991) Suda Kunitarō Ten [Exhibition of Suda Kunitarō], Kyoto: Kyōto-shi

   Bijutsukan.

Okabe Saburō (1979) Suda Kunitarō shiryō kenkyū [Research on materials left by Suda Kunitarō],

   Kyoto: Kyōto-shi Bijutsukan.

Suda Kunitarō isakuten [Exhibition of works left by Suda Kunitarō] (1965), Kyoto: Kyōto-shi

   Bijutsukan.

Tanaka Atsushi (1994) Realistic Representation—Master Paintings in the 1930s, Kyoto: The

   National Museum of Modern Art.

                       Pilgrimage and experience

                                     An afterword

                                    Dolores P.Martinez

                                        Introduction

The anthropology of tourism emerged as a separate sub-discipline in the 1980s, and it

was dominated above all by one question: is there a difference between a traveller and a

tourist? In addition, we could ask, into what category should the pilgrim be put? Various

typologies were created, all reliant on MacCannell’s (1976) notion that the modern tourist

is on a quest for the authentic, that is, that the modern tourist seeks, by travelling to other

places, what is missing from modern life. One of the more interesting of typologies was

proposed by Cohen (1979a, 1979b), refining an earlier typology he had created in 1972.

Cohen argued for two main divisions: between the mainly recreational tourist who cared

little for authentic experiences, and the experiential tourist, who was interested, as the

label suggests, in learning from the experience of travel itself. This typology opened the

way for a phenomenological approach to be taken in tourism studies, conceding that

tourists might be on some sort of quest, searching, almost as pilgrims do, for a

‘meaningful’ experience.

    It was not long before critiques were made of the very concept of authenticity itself-

was it at all useful for understanding tourists and travellers (Wang 2000)? While the

examples of commoditization in tourism focused on the concept of the authentic as part

of the way in which tourism was marketed and as part of the ways in which modern

tourists enacted difference in relation to social status (cf. Bourdieu 1984), was this really

the dominant discourse of post-modern tourism? Suggestions were made that tourists

were quite happy to, and moreover often did, indulge in non-authentic experiences for

their own sakes, that tourism was essentially ludic.

    Other scholars, such as Baumann (1996), saw the distinction as encapsulated in the

way that pilgrim identity had evolved into tourist identities: pilgrims had a specific goal

which was attained through the pilgrimage experience. Hardship, penance and prayer

were key elements of the pilgrimage experience, during which, ideally, social statuses

were erased. The pilgrimage goal—rather than material souvenirs or the this-worldly

benefits of modern tourism—was other-worldly, related to the development of the

person’s spirit. This goal has been reconfigured by Ackermann in the introduction to this

volume as part of a more general spiritual quest. This reconceptualization develops the

issue of identity which Baumann pinpoints as crucial to his discussion: however a person

who travels is defined, whatever categories might be created, in the end, all travellers are

enmeshed in processes of making identities.

    Why focus on the issue of identity, another theme of 1990s anthropology? One answer

to this question is that this collection of papers—on subjects as disparate as history, art,

music, film, anthropology, pilgrimage in Spain and/or Japan, theme parks, international

                     Pilgrimage and experience: an afterword       167

training courses, ritualized state building and some theory on strangers—all share a

concern with the creation and re-creation of identity. As Ackermann argues in the

Introduction, what is important to understand is that the authors of these chapters are

attempting to come to terms with how, both diachronically and synchronically, human

beings are able to supersede the everyday and mundane to learn new things, to discipline

minds, bodies and spirits; in short, to achieve insights and have experiences that accrue as

either spiritual or social merit. That is, to have experiences which can be profoundly

rewarding and, often, even life-changing. Such processes become the very means by

which human beings create their own identities and carve out a sense of self in society as

both Ackermann (Chapter X) and Guichard-Anguis (Chapter III) point out. The very

large general category of spiritual quests, then, serves well to encompass the variety of

work included in this volume.

    The link to travel in these different sorts of spiritual quests is an important one to

understand. For MacCannell (1976), the experience of the tourist shared many features

with that of the pilgrim understood in terms of Van Gennep’s (1960) theorizing on rites

of passage: by leaving their own society, both pilgrims and tourists become liminal,

enjoying or suffering a variety of experiences in other places which require their

reintegration upon the return home. This is a generalization, of course, one that has been

added to by scholars who have used Turner’s notion of communitas (1974) as another

way of linking the experiences of modern mass tourism and pilgrimage. While Eade and

Sallnow (1991) have questioned whether the experience of group solidarity was as

pervasive as Turner argued, other writers, such as Moore (1980)—neatly critiqued by

Hendry (Chapter IX) in this collection—have used Van Gennep as the point of

connection. The tourist’s and the pilgrim’s experiences share commonalities because they

take place elsewhere; both feel as if they are out of time and, perhaps, out of place.

    Thus the difference between the two modes of travel lies not necessarily in the

contrast of pre-modern religious societies to modern secular societies, as we might

expect, but in terms of emphasis. Modern travel is dominated by the culture of

consumption that is a key feature of late capitalism, and while earlier travellers also

‘consumed’, they did so in less commercialized ways. It is also true that premodern

travellers took longer on their journeys, and the possibility of never returning from a long

trip or pilgrimage was much higher before the advent of mass air travel in the twentieth

century; nonetheless, many of the objectives were similar. That is to say that travellers in

the past travelled for different reasons, as do the tourists of today. Some people travel for

business reasons; others need a break from the routine of work or time to recover from

the strains and illnesses of life; others go for educational purposes and because it is an

accepted and expected part of the life cycle within their class; many go just for ‘fun’ and

treat such travel very much as part of a hedonistic time out; others go as part of a regular

routine—the same place every year—and others want to change their lives. As has

already been argued, it is this last category of traveller that enables us to link modern

movement with pre-modern pilgrimage in a way that allows for cross-cultural and

diachronic analyses.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    168

                                    Spain and Japan

One of the important features of this volume is that it compares—and comparison is, as

Evans-Pritchard (1965) noted, the anthropological tool, impossible to discard, much as a

post-modern anthropology has questioned its viability—pilgrimage in two societies not

often thought of as similar: Spain, mostly in the pre-modern era, and Japan both past and

present. There are obvious differences in the two societies, especially in the pre-modern

era: the pilgrimage to Santiago was part of a pan-European pilgrimage route, while Japan,

particularly during the Tokugawa era, was closed to outside travellers. The movement of

various classes of Europeans, as González Valles notes in Chapter II, meant that

pilgrimage was in some ways an experience that exposed the people along the pilgrimage

route to all sorts of different languages, influences and ideas. This might appear to be a

huge difference from the Japanese pre-modern experience, yet the regional differences

before the Meiji Restoration in Japan were large enough that the experience of locals

must have been rather similar to that of pre-modern Spain. Yoshida (Chapter VI) points

to this when he argues that the stranger and the pilgrim are analogous, potentially

dangerous beings who need both to be looked after and yet sent promptly on their way,

and this notion of hospitality is also wellknown within the European context where

various aphorisms such as ‘guests and fish are alike, they both stink after three days’

encapsulate some of the host experience. Pilgrims, travellers, guests and strangers all

brought the possibility of the new and different with them. In both societies guides with

experience of the route, local customs and food came into their own, as did various

services such as hostels and inns; and it can be argued that guides became important

gatekeepers, while specialist hostels and inns acted to ‘contain’ the strangers.

    More important than these structural similarities, obviously, were the larger religious

contexts in which these pre-modern pilgrimages took place. There are many ways in

which Buddhism and Catholicism are dissimilar; in the main their theologies are very

different, yet, again, structurally, there are many similarities. The hierarchy of monks and

priests, the very existence of monasteries and the practices of penance and prayer as well

as that of going on pilgrimage are very alike. Moreover, both religions were deeply

embedded within the political construction of their particular medieval realities, and

politics effected pilgrimage. As Guichard-Anguis (Chapter III) and González Valles

(Chapter II) in this volume note, the Santiago pilgrimage rose to prominence when the

trip to the Holy Land became more hazardous, while the very regulated nature of the

Japanese journey arose out of Tokugawa government legislation (cf. Kouamé, Chapter

V). What both types of journey share, however, is the sense that, while on the road,

various unexpected freedoms also arise; as Graburn (1983) has so neatly argued in his

long piece on Japanese pilgrimage, the aims of such journeys could be summed up as: to

pray, pay and play. Thus, along ancient pilgrimage routes there were not only places to

eat and rest, but also shops to buy souvenirs to take home: in modern Santiago this can

range from amulets, to conch shells (the symbol of St James), to the famous queso de

tetilla (breast-shaped cheese); while in the Japanese case there are o-mamori (protective

amulets), and the food o-miyage (gifts) that represent regional specialities—maple-leafed

shaped an (red bean curd) buns being just one example. Inns, brothels and an idea of

                     Pilgrimage and experience: an afterword       169

entertainment are all present along pilgrimage routes in both societies, secular as these

services may be.

   These, however, are just structural similarities and, to the anthropologist, not

necessarily as interesting as another question: what does travel offer the traveller in terms

of experience?

                                    Travel experience

As Clifford notes in the prologue to his book Routes:

       Virtually everywhere one looks, the processes of human movement and

       encounter are long-established and complex. Cultural centers, discrete

       regions and territories, do not exist prior to contacts, but are sustained

       through them, appropriating and disciplining the restless movements of

       people and things.

                                                                         (1997:3)

Such a broad definition of travel or movement would appear, once more, to place under

the same umbrella tourism and pilgrimage. Yet is this the case? The examples in this

book of individuals who travel for very personal reasons to do with the arts, who hope for

encounters and experiences that are profoundly life-changing, we might say, appear to

have very different expectations than do many tourists. Then again, we have del Alisal’s

example (Chapter VIII) of how tourism and pilgrimage continue to be combined in

Japan; while Hoshino describes (Chapter VII) modern Japanese pilgrims who claim no

religious beliefs or affiliation, but just appear to enjoy the journey. How are we to

combine all these under the category of spiritual quest?

    What we need to consider, perhaps, is a continuum of travel in which the spiritual, or

religious (however this is defined), dominates at one end and the secular at the other.

That is to say, that a few pilgrims might neatly fall into either end of the spectrum, while

their pilgrimage experience occurs somewhere in-between. In short, pilgrims know they

have to pay for their journey and services along the way, hope to pray and gain merit or

comfort at the other end, and want a bit of relaxation and fun too. Learning something

new is not a bad bonus either and some pilgrims might actually do a little business also.

The contrast, and other end of the spectrum to this, might appear to be those individuals

who want an experience that is profound, creative, moving, and, possibly complete but

not religious. Some pilgrims definitely belong in this category, but, interestingly enough,

it is the artists who travel in search of inspiration and/or knowledge who seem to best fit

into this part of the spectrum. Anthropologists, whether we travel occasionally or

frequently to our field-work sites (van Bremen, Chapter XV), are somewhere at the

knowledge end of things, but frown on any typecasting of the process as ‘fun’.

    The experience, then, of the very journey itself becomes important as we see in the

case of Hoshino’s (Chapter VII) modern Japanese pilgrims who deny any religious

dimension to their journeys. What is important to note, however, is that the journey as a

long arduous process has long been seen to be as important as the arrival at the other end

(or the circumambulation made at the pilgrimage centre). The shift of focus to being

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     170

solely on the journey itself is not such a radical shift after all. Thus the typology that

focuses on the liminal aspect of the journey, that is, of the traveller’s sense of separation

from the norm which is as applicable to serious religious travellers as it might be to

modern tourists heading into Disneyland (Moore 1980), could be said to be crucial to our

understanding of the essays in this volume.

   Some would critique this similarity as too facile and perhaps falling back on some

notion of the authentic experience as opposed to a completely recreational or diversionary

experience (Cohen 1979a). However, what many of the chapters in this book demonstrate

is that we cannot make such neat categories: the recreational seeps into the serious

authentic spiritual quest as much as a sense of discovery creeps into the purely selfish

individual quest as depicted in Santos’ (Chapter XIII) discussion of the film Hiroshima

mon amour. As many of the authors in this collection point out, spiritual quests are not

self-contained. In fact it is the engagement with the other during travel that might well be

the key to the spiritual, creative and individual growth they describe.

   This experience, as Clifford—among others—argues, is not new nor necessarily

modern or post-modern. The world today and its various societies, and the people within

those societies, have long had experience of what their movement and the movement of

others through time and space can bring: danger as well as adventure, new ideas as well

as encounters with older traditions, new forms of art, as well as an emphasis on what we

do at home. However, the dynamism of such encounters, so well documented in the first

part of this book, appears to have given way, in the twenty-first century, to uncertainty.

Movement, change, permanent migration as opposed to temporary visits all inspire larger

political concerns to do with identity, national belonging and issues of security. Travel

may broaden the mind and expand the soul, but it is also fraught with danger, thus

Yoshida’s use of Simmel’s (1950) ideas about the stranger, is important as a corollary to

the excitement generated by such spiritual quests. Not everyone is happy to see things

change and, ironically, some ritual travel, as Beillevaire (Chapter XI) describes, is used to

uphold the status quo, or to refer nostalgically to the past, rather than to explore new and

other possibilities. In short, Clifford’s point that travel, movement, and that which

Ackermann labels spiritual quests, all expand and reify our local identities is an

extremely important one. To journey involves an interaction of people at various points

along the way: travellers with each other, or locals with the travellers (Nakamaki,

Chapter XIV). Such interactions can be used as part of the learning experience, as van

Bremen (Chapter XV) argues for travel anthropologists.

                                        Conclusion

The artist Miró, the subject of Cabañas’ Chapter XII, is quoted on the walls of the

Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca as saying that ‘it is the experience of art which is

more important than the work of art itself’ (my translation). I have been arguing, in this

short afterword, that the same is true of pilgrimage, travel and tourism. It is the

experience that is more important than the label we might put on the journey. All the

chapters in this book, as Ackermann notes, are precisely undermining facile distinctions:

what the pilgrims/travellers/students/anthropologists/ artists hope to gain is something

spiritual, not necessarily always defined as religious, but they aim for a change in

                      Pilgrimage and experience: an afterword         171

themselves. What is striking is that it is through the encounter with the other while

travelling, as well as the focus on the self as distinct, and through the interactions with

locals, that the journey becomes valuable for an individual. To put it another way: both

the experience of communitas with one’s fellow travellers along the way, as well as the

distinct experience of the individual self, are a kind of encounter during the journey that

allow for quest to unfold and, perhaps, be judged as successful. The pilgrim, however

defined, lives and learns while away. It is no surprise then that this book, a collaboration

between journeying others and local selves, journeying selves and local others, has

produced such a diverse and yet mutual enriching set of essays.

                                          References

Baumann, Z. (1996) ‘From pilgrim to tourist: or a short history of identity’, S.Hall and P.Du Gay

   (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity, London: Sage, pp. 18–36.

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Richard Nice,

   transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Clifford, J. (1997) Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge:

   Harvard UP.

Cohen, E. (1972) ‘Towards a sociology of international tourism’, Social Research 39, 164–82.

Cohen, E. (1979a) ‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences’, Sociology 13, 179–201.

Cohen, E. (1979b) ‘Rethinking the sociology of tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research 6,18–35.

Eade, J. and M.Sallnow (eds) (1991) Contesting the Sacred, London: Routledge.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1965) ‘The comparative method in social anthropology’, The Position of

   Women in Primitive Societies and Other Essays in Social Anthropology, London: Faber,

   pp 13–26.

Graburn, N. (1983) To Pray, Pay, and Play: The Cultural Structure of Japanese Domestic Tourism,

   Aix-En-Provence Cedex: Centre Des Hautes Etudes Touristique.

MacCannell, D. (1976) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, New York: Schocken

   Books.

Moore, A. (1980) ‘Walt Disney World: bounded ritual space and the playful pilgrimage center’,

   Anthropological Quarterly 53(4), 207–18.

Simmel, G. (1950) ‘The stranger’, in K.H.Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel Glencoe,

   Ill.,: Free Press, pp. 402–8.

Turner, V.W. (1974) ‘Pilgrimage and communitas’, Studia Missionalia 23, 305–27.

Van Gennep, A. (1960) The Rites of Passage, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Wang, Ning (2000) ‘Modernity as tourism of authenticity’, in her edited Tourism and Modernity,

   London: Pergamon.

                                           Index

anthropology xv, xxi, 89, 147, 150–5, 157, 159–60, 172–4

architecture 12, 23, 46, 166

art xx, 6, 8, 11–12, 14, 120–8, 158, 165–70, 173, 175

    inspiration i, 11, 130

    techniques 14, 98, 120, 127

    traditions xxi, 5, 14, 23, 120, 124, 144, 165, 170, 176

    treasures 11–12, 32

artist xx, 34, 120–8, 165–70, 176–7

ascetics 7, 38, 47, 50, 54, 79, 155

    see also yamabushi

belief xvi, 3, 13, 25, 33, 46–7, 49–52, 55, 67–9, 71, 82, 89, 107, 119, 175

   folk 100, 111–12, 117, 163

bikuni (nuns) see Buddhism, nuns

Bodhisattvas (Buddhist saints) 9, 14, 28, 31, 32, 33–6, 40, 45–6, 90, 97, 107

   Fugen (Samantabhadra) 34, 35

   Jizō 31, 54

   Manjusri 30, 34

   Miroku 34

   Monju 29–30, 34–5, 36

   see also Kannon

Buddha, the (Sakyamuni) 5–7, 14–15, 27, 28, 31–4, 36, 38, 51, 68, 70–1, 97, 112, 136, 162

Buddhism (bukkyō) xiii, xvi–xvii, xxii, 27, 29, 32, 37–8, 50, 61, 62, 67, 104–6, 111, 149

   almsgiving (fuse) 47, 56, 59, 149

   ascetic practices 5, 7, 14–15, 43, 45–6, 51, 61, 66, 145, 155, 161

   belief in xii, 28, 33, 67–9, 72

   books 8, 70, 123

   and Christianity 31, 35, 81–2, 174

   concepts xvii, xx, 3, 7, 9, 20, 100, 104–5

   devotees 28, 34–5

   Enlightenment xx, 4–7, 9, 14–15, 32–6, 71

   see also pilgrimage, aims

   esoteric 7, 14, 31, 33, 37, 54, 78

   images xvii, 27–9, 31, 33, 36, 51, 78

   institutions xiii, 4, 32, 33, 81, 106

   Japanese 3, 14, 16, 29–38, 66

   journey 4–5, 7, 9, 13, 28–9, 30, 32–4, 36, 40–2, 47

   Kegon sect 33–5

           Sutra, 28–30, 32–6

   law (truth) xvi, xxi, 4–5, 31, 35, 98, 105

   merit 56, 175

   monasteries 79, 174

                                           Index     173

   monks 5–6, 19, 28–32, 34–6, 47, 68, 81, 174

   Nichiren (Pure Land) sect 13, 28

   nuns (bikuni) 7, 28, 32–4, 52, 59, 79

   paradise 7, 28, 31–6, 77–8, 90, 108–9, 111–12

   priests 5–7, 19, 33, 50–3, 72, 75–6, 108, 174

   rebirth 5, 28–30, 71

   rituals 35, 52–3, 58–9, 154

   sacred places of 29, 34–5, 51, 66, 79, 154

   scriptures xviii, 27–9, 32, 35, 53

   Shingon sect 14, 27, 33, 50, 61, 112

   Shinto, relationship with xxii, 3, 9, 16, 33, 45, 68, 82, 106

   as State religion 33, 79, 106

   sutras 13–15, 35, 37–8, 123

   teachings xiii, 4–5, 7, 9, 28, 30–5, 54, 66–7, 75

   temples xiii, xvii, xix, 6–7, 13–15, 19, 27–8, 30, 32–3, 36, 39, 43–5, 48, 51–2, 58, 65–6, 75–6,

   78, 85, 90, 99, 104–6, 147, 155

   Tendai sect 28, 33, 35–6, 51

   training (shugyō) 5, 9, 34, 51, 59, 61, 68, 71, 105

   see also pilgrimage, Buddhist;

   power, Buddhist

card 13, 86, 145

   fuda 46, 48, 58

ceremony xiii, xx, 17, 33, 81, 110, 143–4, 162

   see also ritual

children 32, 50, 53, 55, 57–9, 89, 109, 142, 148–9, 154, 157

China 14, 28–30, 33, 35, 61, 109, 111–13, 117, 157

   civilization 30, 157

   institutions 33, 35, 111, 157

   language and literature xviii, 14, 28, 32, 35, 61, 153

chokusenkei (linear pilgrimage) see pilgrimages, types of

Christianity xiii, xv–xvii, xxi, 3, 10, 13, 17–20, 22, 31, 35, 81, 89, 174

   Buddhist associations with 31, 35, 81–2

   in Japan 31, 38

   Jesus Christ 10, 15, 31

   monasteries 11–12, 21, 174

   pilgrimage xv–xix, xxii, 10–11, 15, 16–22, 31, 82, 174

   relics xvii, 17–19, 88

   saints xvii, xxii, 10–12, 17–19, 86–8

   see also Santiago de Compostela

Confucianism 9, 107, 111–13

culture xiv–xvi, xxi, 3–4, 6–7, 12, 47, 72, 74, 84, 104, 108, 117, 120, 125, 135–6, 142, 144, 146,

148, 152, 157–8, 162, 170, 173

   see also Japan, culture;

   pilgrimage, and culture;

   Spain, culture

Dainichi-nyorai (Vairocana) see Buddhism:

   Shingon Sect

                                            Index      174

Daoism see Taoism

dead, the 52–4, 58, 117, 132–3, 154, 163

   memorial service for (kuyō) 53, 58

   see also life-cycle, death

deities see kami

Edo, period, (1603–1867) xviii, 8–9, 14, 17, 19–20, 22–4, 39–48, 50–1, 53, 57, 60, 74–6, 99, 105–

6, 159

    city (Tokyo) 82, 98

education xiii, 39, 85, 142, 144, 146, 154, 174

ethnography xxi, 51, 86, 128, 150–62

Europe xi–xii, xv–xvi, xxi, 10–13, 20–4, 31, 51, 76, 82, 89, 91, 121, 125, 130, 136, 150–2, 156,

161, 165, 170, 174

film i, xx, 132–7, 162, 173, 176

food 11, 16, 20, 22–3, 32, 45, 50, 52, 56, 59, 86, 91, 114, 144, 148, 174–5

gense riyaku (this-worldly favours) see this-worldly

gods see kami

Heian Era (794–1192) 8, 16, 19, 24, 51, 79–80

henro (pilgrim to the 88 Holy Places of Shikoku) see pilgrims, terms for

Hiroshima xx, 58, 130–7, 176

hoito (begger) see pilgrims, terms for

identity xvi, xviii, 3, 5, 16–26, 80–1, 122–3, 130, 148, 172–3, 176

income xiii, 16, 45, 47, 147

India 27–35, 60, 69, 72, 87

    gods 28–31, 33, 90

initiation xi, xx–xxi, 141–9

international xv, xix, xx, 18, 20, 89, 121, 141, 173

Ise Shrine xvi, xviii, 5, 8–9, 16, 18–22, 24–5, 39, 48, 51, 57, 76, 84, 98, 147, 155

    see also kami, Amaterasu Ōmikami;

    Shinto, shrines

Japan xiii, xiv, xvi–xvii, xxi, 3, 14, 20, 34–5, 43, 56, 76, 85, 112, 117, 121–6, 141, 144, 146, 149,

152, 155–8, 167, 169–70

   architecture 23, 144, 160

   art 5, 34, 165–71

   artists xxi, 14, 20, 120–9, 165–71

   chronicles of (Nihon Shoki) 16, 24, 27, 33, 38

   colonialism 151–2, 154, 157, 159, 162

   culture xiv, 3–7, 23, 26, 47, 61, 66, 74, 104, 108, 122, 124–5, 135, 142–4, 147–8, 152, 157–8

   dance 6, 33, 50, 99, 105

   emperors xvi, 7, 8, 16, 33, 79–80, 157

   folklore 62, 151, 155–6, 158–60

   government xvi, 17, 19, 23, 30, 34, 40, 42, 75, 80, 111, 120, 141–4, 147, 153, 156–7, 162, 175

   history xvi, xviii, 3, 8, 13–14, 36, 77, 79–80, 134, 144, 153, 158, 170, 174

   identity 3, 80–1, 122–3, 130, 148

   interpretations of xv–xvi, xx–xxi, 9, 45

                                           Index     175

   language 107, 110, 112, 122–4, 142, 145–6, 157

   literature 6, 33, 82, 87, 120–9

   marriage xiii, 55, 88, 141, 142

   music 5, 6, 33, 50, 99, 106, 173

   people xiii, xvi, 3, 5–8, 31, 36, 39, 43–8, 51, 66–7, 74–6, 104, 124, 136, 148, 158

   rural xix, 39–40, 49–62, 80–1, 97, 141–4, 146

   society xiv, xviii–xx, 3, 9, 19, 36, 39–47, 60, 65, 72, 74–83, 90–1, 152–3

   and Spain xx, 10, 120–9, 130–7, 165–71, 173–5

   theatre 5, 6, 9, 98, 105

   tradition xvi, xviii, 5–6, 23, 32, 39–41, 43, 46–9, 51, 56, 60, 65–7, 72, 74–5, 77, 79–81, 98, 120,

   122–5, 127, 135, 144

   travel in 3–6, 8–9, 21, 34–6, 43, 52, 65, 74, 76, 150–64, 174–5

   and the west 130–7, 142–8, 165

   western concepts of xiv–xvi, 37, 40, 42

   youths xiii, 50, 56, 78, 90, 101, 112

   see also pilgrimage, Japanese

journeys i, xi, xvii, 4–6, 9, 11–13, 19, 44, 79, 85–6, 88, 97–8, 108–10, 165–71, 173–7

   pilgrimage as xvii–xviii, 13, 16, 19, 27–38, 40–2, 47, 59, 66, 69, 76, 79–80, 108

   spiritual i, xvii, 3, 7–9, 13, 104, 133, 135–6

   Zenzai’s 30, 32–4, 36

   see also pilgrimage;

   tourism

junrei (circular pilgrimage) see Buddhism, journey;

   pilgrimage, terms for

Kamakura 76

   Era (1192–1333) 7, 13, 79

kami (gods) xvi, xviii, 9, 16, 19–20, 31, 34–5, 45, 49–51, 60, 68, 77–9, 88, 97, 99, 103, 106, 107–9,

110–14, 116–17, 127, 162

   Amaterasu Ōmikami (sun goddess) 8, 16–19, 135

   see also Ise Shrine

   Four Guardian Gods of Heaven 77–8

   Seven Gods of Good Luck (Shichifukujin) 50, 57, 77–8

   stranger-god 58, 60, 77, 84

   see also India, gods

Kannon xvi, 7, 27–31, 33–6, 78

   33 Holy Places of xvi, 7, 13, 27–30, 36, 79, 147

   see also Bodhisattvas

Kō (associations) see pilgrimage, associations for

Kobe 155, 159–60, 165

Kōbō-daishi (774–835 CE) 14, 27, 39, 40, 43, 46–8, 50–2, 68–71, 90

   88 Holy Places of xviii–xix, 7, 13–5, 27, 32, 39–48, 51–5, 57–60, 65–72, 75, 77–9, 90, 147

   see also Shikoku Island

   see also Buddhism, Shingon Sect;

   pilgrimage

Korea 30, 33, 35, 87, 157, 161

Kūkai see Kōbō-daishi

Kumano xix, 6–7, 31, 39, 74, 76, 79–82, 147

   see also pilgrimage

kyokusenkei (circuit pilgrimage) see pilgrimage, types of

Kyoto 13, 33, 61, 79, 98, 141, 151, 153, 155, 165, 170

                                            Index     176

life xx–xxi, 3, 5, 8–9, 14, 21, 28, 32, 34, 56, 59, 61, 68, 70–1, 74, 85, 87, 99, 103–5, 107, 111–13,

121, 127, 131, 133–6, 141, 148, 151–2, 156–61, 172–3, 175

    everyday xiii–xiv, 13, 19, 42, 46–7, 91, 104, 145, 149

    normal 89, 91, 100

    pilgrim’s xviii, 40, 42, 47

life-cycle 5, 99, 105, 136, 174

    birth xiii, 14, 28, 53

    death 5, 20, 32, 45, 47, 49, 52–3, 57–8, 79, 90, 133, 136–7, 149, 154, 170

    marriage xiii, 55, 89

    rebirth 5, 28, 30, 71, 134–7

Lotus Sutra 27–8, 30, 52

    see also Buddhism, Nichiren sect

mairi (humble approach to a palace or temple) see pilgrimage, types of

marebito (divine visitors) see kami, stranger-god

Meiji Era (1868–1912) xxi, 17–20, 34, 76, 104, 153

  Restoration (1868) xvi, 33, 174

mōde (going to pray at a temple or shrine) see pilgrimage, types of

Muromachi Era (1336–1573) 8–9, 51, 79

Nara 7, 22, 33, 61, 98, 155

   Era (710–794) 13, 16

nature xvi, xx, 4–7, 14–15, 16, 22, 70, 80–1, 83, 99, 101, 103, 105, 108, 165

   and Buddhism 4–5, 33

   human 104–5,

   natural disasters xiii, 12, 150, 160–1

nuke-mairi see pilgrimage, clandestine

o-rai tegata (circulating ticket) see pilgrimage, laws associated with

Osaka 7, 20, 74, 78, 126, 128, 141, 153, 155, 158–9, 161

pilgrimage xi–xii, xiii–xxi, 7, 10, 13, 16, 22, 30, 39, 43, 45–6, 52–3, 55, 59, 62, 83, 85, 89–93, 107,

147, 155, 175

    accommodation 11, 39, 43–5, 47

    aims 7, 15, 97, 147, 175–6

    associations for 8–9, 19, 56

    begging 51, 56

    Buddhist xvi–xvii, 7, 13–16, 28–32, 36, 39–48, 51, 55, 57–8, 65–7, 75, 82, 97–100, 155

    centres 88–9, 97

    in China 35

    Christian xv–xviii, 13, 15–21, 174

    clandestine 8, 24, 41, 48

    clothing and paraphernalia 11, 13, 58, 80

    communitas 49, 59–61, 88, 146–7, 173, 177

    concepts of xv, xviii, 3, 27–38, 75, 85, 89–91, 97–106, 107–8, 142

    and culture xv–xvi, 6, 12, 74, 120, 146

    and experience 148–9, 172–7

    Indian roots of 28–31

    Ise xvi, xviii, 8–9, 16, 18–24, 39, 48, 57, 61, 76, 84, 98, 147, 155

                                            Index     177

    Japanese xi, xvi–xx, 3, 7, 13–15, 18–20, 27–38, 39–48, 49–62, 65–83, 90, 97–106, 147, 173

    laws associated with 11, 40–1, 20, 59, 62, 40

    liminality i, xiv, xx, 6, 58, 85–6, 147

    modernity 74–81, 130–7, 141–9

    motivations for 57–9, 67–72, 85, 97

    routes 10–15, 17, 27, 41, 43, 102, 175

    Ryūkyūan 107–19

    Shintō 8, 13, 16, 18–21, 82, 98–9, 155

    terms for 3, 8, 13, 29, 51, 57, 86, 107

    tradition 74, 76–81, 98

    travel as 3, 146–7, 175

    types of xvi–xvii, 16, 28–9, 51, 65–6, 74–83, 87

    see also Kannon, 33 Holy Places of;

    Kobo-daishi, 88 Holy Places of;

    Kumano;

    pilgrims;

    quest

pilgrims xvi–xix, 7–8, 10–14, 17, 19–23, 27, 29, 35–6, 39–48, 49, 51–60, 65–73, 76, 80–1, 86–7,

108, 114, 126, 147–9, 155, 175–6

    experience 65, 72, 172

    hospitality 44–5, 47–8, 50, 60, 71, 174

    inns 11, 21, 39, 42–5, 47, 50, 55–6, 59

    motives 22, 59, 67, 69

    records xviii, 23, 40–1, 43–7

    sacred nature of 47, 58

    terms for xviii, 13, 27, 39–48, 51–2, 55, 58–9, 65–72, 75, 78, 149

    and tourists 76, 89, 91, 150, 172–3, 175–6

power xiii, xvi, 6–8 14, 53, 88, 90, 110, 112, 117, 123

    Buddhist xx, 79

    magic 5, 54, 85,

    religious 72, 100

    state 17, 18, 79, 148

    supernatural 54, 58, 60, 89, 105

prayer 13–15, 52, 80, 88, 90, 110, 116, 172

quests i, xi–xvi, xviii–xxi, 3–4, 20, 33, 89, 98, 150–1, 154, 159, 165–170, 172–3, 175–7

Religion i, xi, xiii, xiv, xvi, xxi, xxii, 35, 72, 80, 88, 91

   and Buddhism 3, 31, 67, 79, 82, 174

   concept of xiv, xxiii, 37, 69, 72

   definition of xiii–xiv, xxi–xxii

   folk 49, 82, 83, 156

   in Japan xiii, xv, 3, 31, 43, 49, 91

   Judeo-Christian xiii, 82, 108, 174

   organization of xiii, 79

   and the State xxi–xxii, 17, 33, 41

Religious xiii–xiv, xvi, xix, 3, 8, 10–17, 21, 45, 52, 66–7, 72, 76, 78, 80–1, 112, 115, 117, 127,

147–9, 158, 173–7

   activity xi, xiii, xx–xxi, 16, 45, 47, 74, 90, 147

   belief xiii, xvi, xix, 13, 11, 22, 67–72, 89, 111, 148, 174–5

   ceremony 17, 22, 66, 125

                                            Index     178

    images xix, 14, 54

    institutions xiii, xxi, 4, 8, 16, 33, 48, 60, 74, 76, 79, 81, 90, 104, 106, 107, 111, 155

    purpose 11, 22, 51, 67, 74, 77

    tradition xxi, 5, 7, 24, 43, 46, 82, 154

    worship 74–5, 79–80, 111

    see also Buddhism, priests;

    pilgrimage;

    pilgrims, ritual;

    Shinto, priests

rites of passage 58, 86, 88, 90–1, 141–9, 173

ritual xiv, xx, 18, 22, 35, 49, 85, 87–8, 91, 107–8, 110–15, 117, 125, 149, 150, 154, 176

    see also ceremony

    rokubu (pilgrim travelling with the 66 volumes of the Lotus Sutra) see pilgrims, terms for

sacred xiii, xviii, xix, xxi–xxii, 13, 23, 90, 147

    concept of xv, xix, 13, 90, 112

    experience of xviii, xxi, 85, 107, 148

    objects 13, 16, 20, 51, 90, 110, 114, 123, 149

    pilgrims as 46–7, 51, 58–60

    places xiv, xviii–xix, 6, 13, 16, 21–3, 29, 33–5, 51, 61, 65–6, 76, 79–80, 85, 90, 98, 104–5, 107–

    8, 110–11, 113, 115–16, 147, 149

    and profane xiv, xix, xxi, 45, 85, 88, 91

    strangers as xix, 49, 60

    tourism as 85, 90, 147

    see also Buddhism, sacred places, of;

    pilgrimage, religious,

sankei (visit to a sanctuary) see pilgrimage, terms for

sanpai (paying respects to a sanctuary) see pilgrimage, terms for

Santiago de Compostela xi, xv–xx, xxii, 10–13, 16–18, 20–4, 51, 81–2, 88, 147, 167, 174

    see also pilgrimage;

    Spain

Second World War 17, 18, 65, 120–1, 123, 125, 131, 135–6, 151, 154, 156–7, 159, 161

self xiv, 15, 32, 51, 68–9, 85, 87, 89, 173, 177

Shikoku Island xviii-xix, 5, 13–14, 27, 32, 39–48, 51, 55–60, 65–72, 75, 77–9, 90, 147

    see also Kōbō-daishi, 88 Holy Places of

Shintō xiii, xvi, 16, 24, 68, 108, 111

    belief in xiii, 25, 68

    Buddhism, relationship with xiii, 3, 9, 16, 33, 45, 68, 82, 106

    and nature xvi

    priests 19, 50

    rituals 18, 49, 112–13, 154

    shrines xiii, xvi, xviii, 5, 8–9, 16, 18–22, 24–5, 39, 48, 51, 57, 76, 79, 84, 88, 90, 98, 106, 147

    as State religion 9, 17, 106

    see also Ise Shrine;

    kami;

    pilgrimage

shugyō (ascetic training) see Budhism, training

shūkyō see religion, defintion of

society xiv, xvii–xix, 3, 19, 32, 36, 39–40, 43, 47, 60–1, 65, 72, 76, 90–1, 109, 142, 144, 148–9,

152–3, 155, 160–1, 164, 173

    see also Japan, society

                                            Index    179

souvenirs 8, 23, 77, 87, 92, 172, 175

    see also card, fuda

space i, xviii, xx, 4–5, 7–9, 16–26, 91–2, 97–8, 100, 104–5, 108, 130, 132–4, 146, 149, 161, 169,

176

    see also sacred, places

Spain xv, 18, 21–3, 120–9, 165–71,

    Christianity 10, 17

    culture xv–xvi, xxi, 12, 170

    identity 18

    and Japan xi, xviii, 10–24, 173–5

    pilgrimage in xviii, 10, 173

    tradition xxi

    see also pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela

spirits 28, 49, 107, 114, 173

    see also kami

State, the xiii, xxii, 9, 112, 142, 151, 161

    Japan as xvi, xxi

    rituals 107, 111–12, 173

strangers xix, 49–62

    images of 49–50

    nature of 47

    as sacred 49, 58–60

Taoism (Daoism) 28, 77, 104, 111

temples xiii, xvii, xix, 6–7, 13–15, 19, 27–8, 30, 32–3, 36, 39, 43–5, 48, 51–2, 58, 65–6, 75–6, 78,

85, 99, 104–6, 147, 155

    see also Budhism, temples;

    Kannon, 33 Holy Places, of;

    Kōbō-daishi, 88 Holy Places

this-worldly, xiii, xiv, xx, 5, 35, 77, 105

    see also Buddhism

Tokugawa see Edo

Tokyo 8, 40, 50, 58, 84, 121, 124, 128, 141, 151, 153, 155, 157–8, 160, 162, 166

tourism i, xi, xvii, xix–xx, 13, 21, 24, 46, 74–6, 80–1, 84–91, 151, 155, 158, 162, 166, 172–3, 175,

177

tourists 47, 76, 80, 86, 88–9, 91, 141, 151, 172–3, 175–6

    see also pilgrims, tourists

uchi (inside) 86, 117

United States xxi, 84, 88–9, 125, 143, 146–9, 150–4, 156–8, 161,

yamabushi (mountain ascetics) 7, 50, 54, 79–81

   see also Buddhism, priests

zatō (blind priests) see Budhism, priests