Healing communication between the dead and the living in Tsugaru-Shimokita regions : Narratives and Weddings of the dead (2)

This paper shows how female mediums such as itako and kamisama are taking a leading part in two religious practices, which have mainly spread through the Tsugaru and Shimokita regions of Aomori Prefecture. In hotoke-oroshi, the female mediums mediate the narratives of the dead and persuade local people of a shamanistic reality; for instance, the dead can interactively communicate with the living through the female mediums, often provide great influence on the lives of the living, and the dead get older year by year along with the living. As Japanese tradition shows in shinda ko no toshi wo kazoeru (counting the age of dead children), even fetuses, infants, and youths who die at an early age can often be kept growing, with the ability to attain marriageable age. Because the dead grow old in the minds of the living as the same pace as the living, it is no wonder the shamanistic messages sometimes convey the dead's strong psychological attachment to unfulfilled achievements in life, most of which are related to happy occasions in rites of passage, especially weddings. These shamanistic realities mediated by the narratives of the dead connect with local Buddhism to create another cultural device for the communication between the dead and the living-weddings of the dead. It is notable that Buddhist ritual in these religious events accepts the involvement of spiritual mediums such as itako and kamisama. Here we see a typical appositional synchronism of Japanese culture in the two different religious practices for the repose of the dead and the fulfillment of their lives in the world of the living. All ethnographic data were collected during fieldwork intermittently conducted by the author between 1991 and 2001.7KJ00000050705Pdepartmental bulletin pape