Reader and Shultz - Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku

rituals, japan

[1] I. Reader and J. Shultz, Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku, 1st ed. Oxford University Press, 2021. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780197573587.001.0001.

Notes

• Focuses on how eternal pilgrimage is understudied

  • Linkages to karbala and people there, performing mowkebs as a ritual

  • Uses the idea of “permanent pilgrims”

    “We argue that Shikoku should be seen not as a unique outlier but as a manifestation of a potentially recurrent phenomenon, but one that has been rather overlooked in pilgrimage studies—namely repetition, long-term, temporally unbound, and unending pilgrimage engagement.” (Reader and Shultz, 2021, p. 231) (pdf)

• Saint making is a central part of the way, the myth of Kobo Daishi and hagiography

  • reinteration, recurrence, unending engagement, and permanance
  • rather than treating rituals as a “ritualized break” from routine (Victor and Edith Turner and Alan Morinis)

    • Look at and write against Victor Turner

      “Often as a result pilgrimage is seen as a journey away from home, something set apart from ordinary life, and an escape from or alternative to ideas of the everyday and of routines. Such emphases also project an image of pilgrimage as extraordinary and singular, a one-off rather than a repeated or repetitive activity.” (Reader and Shultz, 2021, p. 14) (pdf)

• “addictive” nature of pilgrimage, and how it ties into idea of trance

  • should we seriously consider addiction? Does it relate to the idea of posession?
  • what about the idea of salafists who do “neurotic” things at first glance but don’t actually upon deeper dive in Gauvain - Salafi Ritual Purity: In the Presence of God

• Static pilgrims, pilgrims who end up staying in holy cities

  Examples of pilgrims who become so involved in specific sites that they take up residence there—static pilgrims, as it were, continually on pilgrimage to the places of their new residence—can be found in the academic literature, such as the Hindu pilgrims cited by Diane Eck, who travel to the sacred pilgrimage city of Varanasi and then stay there until they die, and devotees of the Catholic priest Padre Pio, who journey to San Giovanni Rotondo, stay in the town, attend the shrine all the time, and become resident devotees.” (Reader and Shultz, 2021, p. 18)

  • Also think about Can - Spiritual Subjects, and how the ottomans attempted to craft policies which prevented people from staying in mecca and medina
    • do people try to stay in najaf and karbala?

• crafting of local images, such as in the case of anastasia in Johnson - Automatic Religion

• colors of robes: white used to symbolize dead for the world, while black in arbaeen

• faith is questionable, some older japanese men paid little attention to it

• issue of settai (begging)

  • some pilgrims are seen as overusing of services
  • notably this is largely situated as part of a singular country

• pilgrimage temple’s assocation as the establishment of a sendatsu system

• tour groups as a social foundation, similar to walking for arbaeen

• culture of “encouragement” - same as the mowkebs