ABSTRACT
Children's bodies, which are often neglected in studies of bodily and material religion, do make their own contributions to sacred skinscapes. In the Tokugawa period, children's bodies, particularly the smallest of them, acted as production sites for a variety of discourses and practices that together created a sacred skinscape of children, set among the contours of the larger religious culture. As a general pattern, though, the sacred skinscape of children in the Tokugawa began with "presence". Embedded in the fleshiness of the child's body, lying under the skin as it were, was present an essence that was absolutely real, latent, and very good. In short, both men sought to answer the why, when, and how of practice to put their imprimatur, a seal of approval, on an effective repertoire of performative knowledge households could trust to grow their children's bodies toward and beyond the seven-year mark.
