ABSTRACT
When I saw the old farm woman praying in Tenshudo Chapel of Sakitsu, I renewed my inner vow to continue my research on karayuki-san. The sun of those short autumn days had already fallen behind the western hills as I walked to the one and only taxi dispatcher in Sakitsu. There I hired a car and proceeded to Osaki’s village. In the field of ethnology it is an unspoken rule that when doing research on common folk, one should always enter a village on foot. It’s not that I didn’t know this, but the thought of being challenged by the villagers as I walked down that narrow path filled me with dread.
