ABSTRACT
M Ost of the residents of Shitayama-cho are uncommitted to any particular religious doctrine. The majority of them, it is true, are regular performers of rites which have an important social function in the context of the family, and which, indeed, many of them explicitly conceive in that light. The majority would, it is true, bow respectfully at a temple or shrine if they had occasion to pass directly in front of it. Some of them performed rites by which they express a sense of their own personal dependence on supernatural beings of whom they regularly request favour and protection. But few subscribe to any coherent religious doctrine and few are members of any religious association.
