ABSTRACT
Ancestors seem far from the epicentres of economic – and even sociocultural – attention on contemporary Japan. But as the primary religious focus for the vast majority of Japanese (Smith 1974; Hamabata 1990), the ancestors – and the rituals given them by the living – are undeniably important. One clue to the relative lack of attention paid to this topic by researchers may be in the kind of communication the subject of ancestors seems to evoke. A disconcerting gap is often evident in researchers’ questions about the meaning of ancestors, and the householders’ professed lack of knowledge about that same meaning. Householders very commonly claim to know nothing about the ancestors (Ooms 1967; Smith 1974; Plath 1964; Hamabata 1983; 1990). As a householder remarked to Ooms
We are deeply bound by custom; the meaning escapes us and neither good nor bad results follow from the veneration or neglect of the ancestors.
