ABSTRACT
It was in the latter half of the seventeenth century that Edo society acquired its enduring character. In terms of local society, the period saw the transformation of the lowest stratum in such a way that families universally came to operate the principle of individual inheritance by the eldest son. Accompanying this change in family inheritance, ancestral rites came to infiltrate local family religious practice. In farming villages of the medieval period, it was normal for individual families to be organised together as extended family units under a male head; it would be the unique responsibility of the head and his family to oversee ancestral rites. From the end of the medieval period through to the initial stage of the early modern, however, these extended units began to fragment. Families splintered off from the head family in proportion as the economy developed in the locality concerned. In economically advanced areas around the Home Provinces, this process appeared to begin at an early stage. Families would splinter, asserting their independence from the head family and rapidly establish a strong sense of their own distinct identity. This sense was sustained by an awareness of continuity, stretching back to the ancestors on the one hand and forward through to future generations on the other. It was as a reflection of this new awareness that ancestral rites came to be performed on an individual family basis. Protection of the family was not a matter uniquely of caring for the living; it was also a question of giving rest to the souls of the departed.15 Ancestral rites took their place within the annual ritual cycle, and were linked intimately to the agricultural calendar. For example, the kosho¯gatsu (‘little new year’) celebrations, performed around the time of the full moon in the first month of the new year, were designed to secure from the kami an abundant harvest in the coming year, but it was customary, too, on such occasions to summon the ancestral spirits. Again, the bon festival, known today for its welcoming of the ancestral spirits, was at the same time a celebration of a rich harvest.
