Bones of Contention

Ambros, Barbara R.

Published by University of Hawai'i Press

Ambros, Barbara R.

Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan.Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012.

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epilogue

Each year on April 8, the Maintenance Association of the Bronze Statue of Loyal Hachikō (Chūken Hachikō Dōzō Ijikai) sponsors the Hachikō Spirit Propitiation Festival (Hachikō Ireisai) to commemorate the spirit of Hachikō (1923–1935), a dog of the Akita breed. Hachikō had gained the admiration of the Japanese public by waiting daily for his deceased mas-ter, Dr. Ueno Eisaburō, outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo. Since the 1930s, Hachikō has been a symbol of unshakable loyalty. Hence he has been known as Chūken Hachikō (Loyal Hachikō) in Japanese. Hachikō’s life coincided with a time when Japanese dog breeds were gaining recognition and popularity. With the rising demand for ownership of Japanese dogs in the increasingly nationalist climate of the 1930s, Japanese breeds suddenly became emblems of the superior qualities that the fascist state hoped to inspire in its subjects. Hachikō was the perfect embodiment of loyalty.1 Such exceptional loyalty demanded special recognition. In 1934 — the year of the dog — the Society for the Preservation of the Japanese Dog (Nippon Inu Hozonkai) raised funds among schoolchildren throughout Japan for a Hachikō statue. The statue was erected outside the station and unveiled in a carefully staged ceremony on April 21, 1934. When Hachikō died on March 8, 1935, his wake was held in a small staff room on the second floor of the station and attended by, among others, Hachikō’s new owners, one of Hachikō’s offspring, and a Buddhist cleric from the Ueno family’s par-ish temple, Myōyūji. However, the public outpouring of mourning quickly focused on Hachikō’s statue. The following day the statue was surrounded by a black and white funeral curtain. Flower arrangements and other of-ferings nearly buried the statue. Crowds thronged the area hoping to offer incense in front of a photograph of the dog displayed at the foot of the statue. On the twelfth, a funeral presided over by clerics from Myōyūji was held at Aoyama Cemetery. A portion of Hachikō’s remains were interred in a small shrinelike tomb in the corner of Ueno Eisaburō’s plot (figure 23).

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The service was attended by the two families that had kept the dog for several years after his first owner’s death, as well as by local residents and station employees. The following year, the first memorial festival to com-memorate Hachikō was held. However, the statue was demolished, or rather “conscripted,” as it was called at the time, in 1944 to alleviate the metal shortage during the wartime era. After the war, a new statue by the original sculptor’s son was erected outside the station in 1948. This statue has become a well-known meeting place in the area and the focus of a yearly memorial ritual (figure 24).2

Nowadays area shops, department stores, and railway companies spon-sor the memorial ritual. Even officials from Shibuya Ward and from Ōdate City, Akita Prefecture (where Hachikō was born), attend the festival. In 2006, a grandson of Ueno’s was also in attendance.3 During the annual ritual, the area behind the statue is roped off with a festive red and white curtain. A banner displays the name of the festival and its sponsors. Area businesses usually donate decorative flower arrangements prominently dis-played behind the statue with signs identifying the donors. A short address

Fig. 23. Ueno Eisaburō’s grave with a small shrine dedicated to Hachikō, Aoyama Cem-etery, Tokyo.

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by the organizers is followed by a Shinto ceremony. Fruit, vegetables, rice cakes, and sacred rice wine (omiki) are offered on a temporary altar in front of the statue. A Shinto priest conducts a purification rite in front of the statue and reads a prayer (norito). Then functionaries offer votive evergreen branches (sakaki) and drape a wreath of flowers over the neck of the statue. In 2009, the occasion was also used to promote an American feature film starring Richard Gere, which was inspired by Hachikō’s story.4

Hachikō was a pet in his day, but his memorial rites are fundamentally different from those of ordinary pets. Contemporary pet memorial rites are usually commissioned by pet owners — individuals and nuclear fami-lies. They are closely linked to the death anniversaries or holidays associ-ated with death rites (such as the equinoxes or obon). Pet cremations, funer-als, and memorial rites usually involve the physical remains of the pet in some form. Because they involve physical bodies rather than just the spirits of the dead, pet funeral and memorial rites occur in a Buddhist rather than a Shinto setting. The presence of physical remains in pet memorial rites has

Fig. 24. Statue of “Loyal Hachikō” at Shibuya Station, Tokyo. (Shinoda Kazue)

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even become a key issue in recent legal cases to determine whether or not these rites qualify as religious rituals and should therefore be tax-exempt. If the spirits of deceased pets are harnessed in any way, it is usually for the benefit of the owners and their families, and perpetuating the bonds be-tween owners and their pets is one of the core objectives.

In contrast, the Hachikō Spirit Propitiation Festival is only loosely linked to the anniversary of Hachikō’s death. Hachikō died on March 8, 1935, but the festival is held on April 8 because the weather is warmer by then — and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. Even though the rite may involve descendants of Hachikō’s owners, it is a festival organized by local businesses to attract publicity: the festival serves as a means of advertise-ment for the sponsors. Shibuya’s stationmaster and representatives of the Statue Preservation Society may visit Hachikō’s grave in a smaller cere-mony on the actual death anniversary,5 but the public memorial festival centers on a bronze effigy of the dog rather than on the actual remains or a grave marker. Therefore, the ritual for Hachikō can take the form of a modern Shinto rite — unlike Hachikō’s funeral service in 1935, which was officiated by a Buddhist cleric. Similarly, Shinto shrine priests, who usually shun direct contact with death, may be as involved as Buddhist clerics in memorial rites for working animals and animals used by the food industry. In other words, although Hachikō was a pet, the Hachikō Spirit Propi-tiation Festival is not a personal pet memorial ritual but a memorial that elevates Hachikō to a national and community symbol by tapping into the cultural memory of the dog. Once an emblem of loyalty used to promote fervent patriotism, Hachikō has become a nostalgic symbol that promotes local commerce.

Similar to military animals, Hachikō is publicly memorialized as a hero who epitomizes the collective ideal of loyalty. In the past, Hachikō’s loyalty was useful in inspiring imperial subjects who were supposed to be loyal to the emperor. Today, local businesses might hope to inspire customer loyalty. As with a zoo animal, Hachikō’s physical remains are of little im-portance to public memorial rites, although they may be enlisted for edu-cational purposes. During Hachikō’s funeral in Aoyama Cemetery only a portion of his intestines were interred. The dog’s pelt was mounted on his skeleton, and his heart, spleen, and liver were preserved in formalde-hyde in the Agriculture Department of Tokyo University. The mounted

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Hachikō is now on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo — in form more perfect than the living Hachikō because its left ear does not droop.6

Even though most of Hachikō’s body is thus preserved elsewhere, Hachikō is said to rest at Aoyama Cemetery next to his master. A me-morial stele bearing the inscription “Loyal Hachikō’s Spirit” marks the site. However, I later stumbled across a pet cemetery that claims to have Hachikō’s remains from the burial site. I was visiting Sekai Dōbutsu Tomo no Kai, a pet cemetery on the grounds of Jindaiji in western Tokyo, for their yearly obon festival celebration of deceased pets. The cemetery owner, Watanabe Ken, and his wife gave me a tour of the premises. As we wound our way through the columbarium, Watanabe told me excitedly, “We have the remains of the dogs in Nankyoku monogatari! Do you want to see the urns?”7 As Watanabe showed me the urns hidden in a shelf unit in the back of the columbarium, he pointed casually at another urn next to the polar dogs (figure 25) and said, “Oh, and we have Hachikō’s remains too. As a matter of fact, Hachikō was buried, but they later transferred the remains into an urn and interred them here. We have not checked the contents to see if there are really any bones inside. Who knows, it might only be soil from the burial site.” Does this mean that at some point Hachikō’s remains were disinterred from Aoyama Cemetery and transferred to a pet cemetery? According to cemetery staff, Hachikō is not in reality buried at the cemetery. Does this reflect ignorance of the fact that at least part of Hachikō’s remains were apparently interred there? Or does it mean that Hachikō’s remains are no longer buried there?

In the end, it does not really matter to Shibuya area businesses whether the pet cemetery at Jindaiji, one of the oldest pet cemeteries in Tokyo, has the genuine remains or whether they are buried at Aoyama Cemetery. Whereas the physical remains are usually the focus of private memorial rites by the owners, Hachikō’s grave site is not the focus of large-scale public memorial rites. Part of his physical remains have become scientific objects to be studied and displayed for educational purposes. Hachikō ul-timately is not remembered as a family pet but as a national and local sym-bol. The well-known commemorative statue of Hachikō in busy Shibuya serves as the nostalgic focal point for commemoration that enhances local and national pride. Hachikō is a local icon for the Shibuya area and also embodies ethnic purity, perseverance, bravery, and heroism. After World

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War II, these qualities were harnessed for business success and corporate advertisement, which are now the focus of the ritual.

Pet memorial rites have a hybrid status between those for other animals and those for humans. Boundaries between human and pet burial spaces are being renegotiated as pets are becoming more common in the urban landscape of contemporary Japan. Pet spirits have been reconceptualized as benevolent companions rather than as potentially vengeful spirits — although the latter remains a persistent concept that competes with more benign notions. Because pets occupy a liminal place between humans and animals, pet mortuary rites have been highly contested. In contrast to non-pet animal memorial rites, they are rarely publicly idealized with nostalgia as embodiments of Japanese spirituality and tradition. On the contrary, pet memorial rites have been criticized as wasteful and extravagant and singled out for taxation by the Tax Agency and the courts.

Interestingly, similar trends can be observed in the case of mizuko kuyō, which have been widely criticized as exploitative for threatening grieving parents with retribution from the vengeful spirits of fetuses. Mizuko is often translated as “aborted fetus,” but the concept includes miscarriages, stillbirths, and infants lost to sudden infant death syndrome. In the lat-ter cases in particular, the introduction of Western grief literature in the

Fig. 25. Urn with Hachikō’s remains and Hachikō’s photograph in the columbarium at Sekai Dōbutsu Tomo no Kai, a pet cemetery on the grounds of Jindaiji, Tokyo.

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1990s and the formation of self-help groups have led to a more positive reconceptualization on support-group websites away from the image of a menacing fetus to the depiction of babies as cherubs.8 New Age reformula-tions of the idea of rebirth have also influenced the perception of mizuko spirits.9 Like pet memorial rites, memorial rites for mizuko became popular in an environment of profound demographic changes: a falling birthrate, an aging society, and a high degree of urbanization, all of which compelled temples to seek alternative means of income to cope with diminishing numbers of patrons. Both have also been strongly influenced by the emer-gence of the Internet. As Brenda Brasher observes, “cyberspace diminishes the relevance of location for religious identity.”10 While the memorializa-tion of pets and mizuko is often still linked to specific places, the Internet has allowed both greater ease in advertising for services and networking opportunities for the bereaved — sometimes to the detriment of more es-tablished religious institutions, because they now have to compete with virtual opportunities for memorialization.

However, unlike pet memorial rites, which rode the crest of the pet boom of the 1990s and the early millennium, memorial rites for mizuko were not propelled by an economic boom. In a post-Aum world with de-clining fertility rates, memorializing mizuko is losing some of its appeal, a phenomenon drastically visible at temples that offer both pet and mizuko memorial rites such as Jikei’in and Ekōin in Tokyo — to name two promi-nent examples. Whereas pet memorials are usually flourishing, memorial rites for mizuko are turning into a marginal occupation at these sites. It may be that memorial rites for mizuko have not become the subject of legal dispute challenging their legitimacy as religious rites because of this decline, as well as the facts that (1) mizuko are considered human, if only marginally so, and (2) memorialization of mizuko is not focused on physi-cal remains (burial and cremation). By contrast, pet memorial rites, with their focus on the nonhuman and their apparent commercialization, have become a prime target for legal challenges. They present a less-risky oppor-tunity to rein in religious corporations in the face of the increasing com-mercialization of funeral practices in Japan.

Ultimately, the outcomes of the Jimyōin and Ekōin cases reveal much about what the courts and tax agencies consider legitimate religion in con-temporary Japan. Legitimate religion is supposed to be focused on human subjects. It should not be in competition with commercial sectors. It should

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have a long-standing tradition that reaches back before World War II. It should be recognized as religious by public consensus. It should provide some benefit to society at large rather than be focused on the needs of the individual. Otherwise, religious corporations should at least rescind some of their privileges, such as tax exemptions, to give back to society. Pet me-morial rites appear to transgress these boundaries in several ways. Instead of humans, animals are central to the rites. Pet cemeteries at Buddhist temples have all the trappings of private-sector businesses. Pet memorial rites became popular in the late twentieth century and often seem novel, maybe even foreign (many memorial inscriptions are in English). Pet me-morial rites are closely linked to family observances; they are private and individualistic. Therefore, it is difficult to reach a public consensus on the religious nature of the rites.

The Japanese discourse about pet memorial rites is one of multiple voices and positions: pet owners, temple parishioners and cemetery clients who don’t own pets, funerary institutions, and the state. The discourse is complicated because, as a recently invented tradition, the observance of pet memorial rites is highly localized and still in the process of construc-tion and innovation. The boundaries between pets and humans in the nec-ral landscape are continually contested. Consequently, the large diversity of voices and opinions may at times prove frustrating and cacophonous. As Bakhtin has suggested, an imposed monologic unity is unrealistic, whereas heteroglossia more accurately reflects the discursive process, and it is through polyphonous dialogue that linguistic creativity occurs.11 Simi-larly, it is through contestation and negotiation that new ritual forms have been emerging in Japan’s necral landscape. As liminal, hybrid beings that straddle the boundaries between humanity and other animals, pets have been particularly powerful forces in stimulating polyphonous discourse and ritual innovation. It is the materiality and the high degree of physical-ity that have made pet memorial rites so contested. The extravagance and excessive affection lavished on pet bodies — dead or alive — is widely seen as wasteful. And indeed, pet bodies are quite literally waste — at least ac-cording to Japanese law — despite the fact that the owners may treasure the remains and the memory of their pets. Yet it is the status of pet bodies as waste that has made pet funeral practices so flexible. The lack of detailed regulation has allowed the blurring of the physical boundaries between pets and humans.