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The Japanese Culture of Mourning Whales pp 11–31Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Historical Background

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the history of Japanese whaling and clarifies the differences between classical whaling and modern whaling. Then, the chapter examines the spiritual roots and cultural background of Japanese classical whaling. In so doing, it analyzes how and why Japanese religious beliefs, such as Shintoism and Buddhism, have affected Japanese views of whales and whaling, which are marked by reverence for life and benevolence for life and death.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, ed., Small-Type Coastal Whaling in Japan: Report of an International Workshop, Edmonton, Alberta: Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, the University of Alberta, 1988, 10–11.

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 11–12; Yoshihara Tomokichi, “Kujira no haka” (Graves of Whales), in Tanigawa Ken’ichi, ed., Nihon minzoku bunka shiryō shūsei (Collection of Documents on Japanese Folk Culture), Vol. 18, Tokyo: San’ichi-shobō, 1997, 433, 469.

  4. 4.

    Ibid. (both).

  5. 5.

    Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, ed., Kumano no Taiji: Kujira ni idomu machi (Taiji, Kumano: Town That Challenged Whales), Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1965, 5–15.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., 7–15; Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 10–11.

  7. 7.

    Ibid. (both).

  8. 8.

    Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 24–25, 88–90.

  9. 9.

    Ibid.

  10. 10.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 79–84; Nobuhiro Kishigami, “Hogei ni kansuru bunka-jinruigaku teki kenkyū ni okeru saikin no dōkō ni tsuite” (Recent Trends in Cultural Anthropological Studies on Whaling), Kokuritsu minzoku hakubutsukan kenkyū-hōkoku, 2001, Vol. 35 No. 3, 399–470, http://ir.minpaku.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10502/4475/1/KH_035_3_001.pdf, downloaded February 28, 2016.

  11. 11.

    Ibid. (both).

  12. 12.

    Ibid. (both); Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 91–96.

  13. 13.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 53–59; Yoshihara, 411–421, 436–440, 449–450.

  14. 14.

    Ibid. (both).

  15. 15.

    Ibid. (both).

  16. 16.

    Ibid. (both).

  17. 17.

    Ibid. (both).

  18. 18.

    Wang Min, Nitchū 2000-nen no furikai: Kotonaru bunka “kisō” o saguru (Two Thousands Years of Misunderstanding Between China and Japan: To Grope for “Fundamental Stratum” of Cultural Difference), Tokyo: Asahi Shinsho, 2006, 82–84, 179–184. For detail, see Nakamura Ikuo, Saishi to kugi: Nihonjin no shizenkan ⋅ dōbutsu-kan (Religious Dedications and Sacrifices: Japanese Views of Nature and Animals), Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2001 and Nihonjin no shūkyō to dōbutsu-kan: Sessho to nikujiki (Religion and Views of Animals of the Japanese: Killing and Meat-eating), Tokyo: Yoshikawa-Kōbunkan, 2010; Pamela J. Asquith and Arne Kalland, eds., Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1997.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Harada Shin’ichi, “Hirugo [sic] shinwa ronkō” (Analysis of Hirugo Mythology), March 1994, http://repo.komazawa-u.ac.jp/opac/repository/all/16167/KJ00005086929.pdf, 147–157 and 179–180.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 149; Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 17–18.

  23. 23.

    Ibid. (both).

  24. 24.

    Harada, 149; Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 59–64; Yoshihara, 411–420.

  25. 25.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 59–64; Yoshihara, 411–420.

  26. 26.

    Harada, 149–151; “Zenkoku Ebisu-ōkami hōsai-sha ichiran” (List of Shrines in Japan that Worship Ebisu Grand God), http://nishinomiyaebisu.web.fc2.com/todouhuken/menu/table/43table.html, accessed January 18, 2016.

  27. 27.

    Ibid. (both).

  28. 28.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 52–53; Wang, 59–65. For detail, see Nakamura Hajime, Daijō Bukkyō no shisō (Philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism), Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1995 and Nakamura Hajime, Jihi (Benevolence), Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2010; Tan’no Akira, Kurashi ni ikiru Nihon no shikitari (Customs in Japanese Daily Life), Tokyo: Kōdanshia, 2000.

  29. 29.

    Angelika Kretschmer, “Mortuary Rites for Inanimate Objects: The Case for Hari Kuyō,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3/4, Fall 2000, 379–404.

  30. 30.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 52–53. For detail, see A. G. Rud, Albert Schweitzer’s Legacy for Education: Reverence for Life, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

  31. 31.

    Ibid. For detail, see Nakamura Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India, China, Tibet, Japan, trans., Philip P. Wiener, Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1964; Nakamura Ikuo, Kami to hito no seishin-shi: Nihon Bukkyō no shinsō-kōzō (Spiritual History of Gods and People: Deep Core Structure of Japanese Buddhism), Kyoto: Jinbun-shoin, 1988.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.; Harada, 149–151.

  33. 33.

    Barbara R. Ambros, Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012, 76–80; “Itsukushima Shinto Shrine,” http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/776, accessed March 6, 2016. For background, see Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli, eds., Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as Combinatory Paradigm, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

  34. 34.

    Harada, 149–151; Yoshihara, 473.

  35. 35.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 59–61. For background, see Teeuwen and Rambelli.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., 52–53. For background, see John Breen and Mark Teeuwen, eds., Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000 and A New History of Shinto, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 53–64; Yoshihara, 410–421. Due to the sheer number of Ebisu Shrines in Japan—thirty-five hundred in total—this book examines only those shrines that house whale graves and/or monuments.

  40. 40.

    Ibid. (both).

  41. 41.

    Yoshihara, 410–411; Wang, 63–66, 82–84.

  42. 42.

    Ibid. (both).

  43. 43.

    Wang, 64–66; Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 83–84.

  44. 44.

    Yoshihara, 410–411.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    Ambros, 76–79; “Tsukiji Namiyoke Jinja,” http://www.namiyoke.or.jp, accessed March 12, 2016.

  47. 47.

    “Toyosu no giron ‘Hayaku saikai o’” (“Resume Quickly” the Debate on Toyosu), May 19, 2017.

  48. 48.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 66–70. For detail, see Nakamura Ikuo (2010).

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., 52–62; Hosokawa Takao, “Kujira ni ‘kansha to ikei’ no nen” (Feelings of “Appreciation and Respect” for Whales), Mainichi Shimbun, October 26, 2010.

  51. 51.

    Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 52–65.

  52. 52.

    “American Whaling,” http://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/overview-of-north-american-whaling/american-whaling, accessed January 14, 2016; Herman Melville, Moby Dick or, THE WHALE, New York: Harper & Row, 1966 (originally published in 1851), 56.

  53. 53.

    “American Whaling”; D. Graham Burnett, Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007.

  54. 54.

    Yoshihara, 425–426; Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 25. For detail, see Donald R. Bernard, The Life and Times of John Manjiro, New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1992.

  55. 55.

    Ibid. (both).

  56. 56.

    Yoshihara, 425–427.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 426; Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 144–145; Komatsu Masayuki, Yutakana Tokyo-wan: Yomigaere Edo-mae no umi to shoku-bunka (Rich Tokyo Bay: Restore the Sea and Food Culture of Edo), Tokyo: Yūzankaku, 2007, 91–95.

  59. 59.

    Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 160–164.

  60. 60.

    Takasaki Tatsunosuke, “Watashi no rirekisho” (My Autobiography), in Nihon keizai shimbunsha, ed., Watashi no rirekisho (My Autobiography), Vol. 1., Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1980, 436–437.

  61. 61.

    Kumano Taiji-ura hogei-shi hensan-iinkai, 145–146.

  62. 62.

    Kaneko Misuzu, Kaneko Misuzu zenshū (Complete Works of Kaneko Misuzu). Vol. 3. Tokyo: JULA shuppan-kyoku, 1984, 201–202.

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    Mayumi Itoh

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Itoh, M. (2018). Historical Background. In: The Japanese Culture of Mourning Whales. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6671-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6671-9_2

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