Ordinary Religion,
Extraordinary Anthropology
The Contributions of Peter Knecht
Asian Folklore Studies, Volume 66, 2007: 201–212
===
For many years, Peter Knecht diligently worked in Nagoya, Japan, as a
professor of anthropology for Nanzan University, as the editor of Asian
Folklore Studies, and as a researcher for the Nanzan Anthropological
Institute, where he served as director from 1996 to 2004. His effort and dedication as a professor led to more than a few of his students becoming professional
anthropologists, and his editorial work brought to the world numerous groundbreaking studies.
Because of his background, Knecht is often seen as a successor of Wilhelm
Schmidt, who was the first to propose the establishment of the Nanzan
Anthropological Institute and who belonged to the Society of the Divine Word
(svd), with which Knecht is also affiliated. In fact, many students who have
studied anthropological theories will know Knecht’s name from his articles on
cultural diffusionism for introductory books on anthropological theory (e.g.,
Knecht 1984, 1985a, 2006b). However, Knecht is not a cultural diffusionist but
an anthropologist who is always keen on new anthropological theories. Through
such theoretical interests, his own scholarship has made significant contributions to anthropology and is worthy of an in-depth examination.
In this short survey, however, I will only be able to briefly introduce some
of his many publications over a thirty-five-year period. The survey is intended
to introduce the wide range of his work on topics such as society and religion in
Hanayama Village, Ise pilgrimage, Christianity and the Church, new religions in
Japan, and shamanism in northeastern Japan and China. Some of his research,
such as discussions on the ambivalent power of women in religion (Knecht
1975b) and of goddesses in myths (1975a), and some of his recent research, such
as that on insects in Japanese culture (Knecht et al., 2000, 2001), and on an
examination of the concept gaijin seen from the perspective of an anthropologist (2006a), can only be mentioned in the bibliography. It is important to note
that this survey is not meant to commemorate his entire career. Indeed, such
a survey would be premature as he continues to vigorously engage in research
and writing projects
===
Chie Saito
Suzuka International University
For many years, Peter Knecht diligently worked in Nagoya, Japan, as a
professor of anthropology for Nanzan University, as the editor of Asian
Folklore Studies, and as a researcher for the Nanzan Anthropological
Institute, where he served as director from 1996 to 2004. His effort and dedication as a professor led to more than a few of his students becoming professional
anthropologists, and his editorial work brought to the world numerous groundbreaking studies.
Because of his background, Knecht is often seen as a successor of Wilhelm
Schmidt, who was the first to propose the establishment of the Nanzan
Anthropological Institute and who belonged to the Society of the Divine Word
(svd), with which Knecht is also affiliated. In fact, many students who have
studied anthropological theories will know Knecht’s name from his articles on
cultural diffusionism for introductory books on anthropological theory (e.g.,
Knecht 1984, 1985a, 2006b). However, Knecht is not a cultural diffusionist but
an anthropologist who is always keen on new anthropological theories. Through
such theoretical interests, his own scholarship has made significant contributions to anthropology and is worthy of an in-depth examination.
In this short survey, however, I will only be able to briefly introduce some
of his many publications over a thirty-five-year period. The survey is intended
to introduce the wide range of his work on topics such as society and religion in
Hanayama Village, Ise pilgrimage, Christianity and the Church, new religions in
Japan, and shamanism in northeastern Japan and China. Some of his research,
such as discussions on the ambivalent power of women in religion (Knecht
1975b) and of goddesses in myths (1975a), and some of his recent research, such
as that on insects in Japanese culture (Knecht et al., 2000, 2001), and on an
examination of the concept gaijin seen from the perspective of an anthropologist (2006a), can only be mentioned in the bibliography. It is important to note
that this survey is not meant to commemorate his entire career. Indeed, such
a survey would be premature as he continues to vigorously engage in research
and writing projects.
[ 202 ]
contributions of peter knecht 203
HANAYAMA VILLAGE
Rather than engage in lofty theoretical debates, Knecht has tended to focus
his work on concrete data related to Japan, particularly religion. He has had, for
example, a long-term interest in festivals (matsuri) spanning from an early article on the Tenjin Festival in changing Japanese society (1971) to a recent article
on the Hanamatsuri Festival, which is legally protected as an Intangible Cultural
Property (2006d). Evidence of Knecht’s commitment to understanding Japan
in specific detail is his studies of Hanayama Village, in the mountains of Miyagi
prefecture. Knecht began his fieldwork in Hanayama in 1972 when he was a
graduate student at the University of Tokyo. Like other villages as well as towns
in Japan, Hanayama experienced rapid sociocultural change in the high-growth
era, often called the Japanese postwar economic miracle. According to Knecht
(2003a), over a thirty-year period the village changed rapidly as machines, such
as tractors and telephones, became part of village life. The older customs, including rituals, were simplified and some disappeared (1989). His articles record and
examine such change. When older types of houses with thatched roofs came
to be replaced by new house designs, the organization of thatchers came to an
end. The last master thatcher showed Knecht a scroll containing esoteric knowledge of thatching rituals and mythology, which Knecht then wrote about in his
“Mythology and the Thatching of Roofs” (1993a).
While older organizations disappeared, new organizations, such as a nenbutsu (recitation of homage to Amida Buddha) confraternity, appeared in
Hanayama Village. Discussing population change in a hamlet of the village over
a fifty-year period, Knecht (1987) analyzes the relationship between the hamlet
formation/reformation and the establishment of a nenbutsu confraternity. He
claims that the nenbutsu confraternity was established as a result of villagers’
experiences of population change; it supports villagers who are no longer able
to depend on receiving help from many relatives living nearby at the time of a
family member’s death. The confraternity is not necessarily a religious organization but a mutual assistance one for funerals that functions to unite the hamlet,
which is based on regional relationships (1987).
In another article, in addition to describing how a nenbutsu confraternity functions at a funeral, Knecht (1992) argues that death gradually comes
to have a public meaning in a funeral. He also points out how funerary ritual
spaces move from the most formal room with tatami mats and tokonoma at
the deceased’s home to a graveyard, and how the bereaved family members get
over their relative’s death as the spaces move. He states that during a funeral,
the deceased symbolizes his or her household (ie) and the living successor of
the household is finally shown publicly. The funeral symbolizes the continuity of both the deceased and the living. He concludes that, although Shinto is
204 chie saito
commonly perceived as related to life while Buddhism is associated with death
in Japan, the Buddhist funeral symbolizes the continuity of life and death.
ISE PILGRIMAGE
Pilgrimage is also a theme Knecht has been interested in during his studies of
Japan. On the basis of his deep understanding of pilgrimage in Christianity, he
has examined pilgrimages to Ise. Through an analysis of Christian pilgrimage,
Knecht (1986a) argues that pilgrimage is a type of salvation on earth: in order
to realize this salvation, a pilgrimage’s sacred destination must be located far
from the pilgrims’ daily world. The pilgrims take time to reach the sanctuary
remote from the pilgrims’ everyday living space by walking, and in doing so
engage in a form of prayer for salvation.
While studying the Ise pilgrimage, Knecht took the important step of analyzing in detail the mandala associated with it. This led to a new finding, namely
that the Ise pilgrimage mandala enables people to have a quasi-experience of
the pilgrimage (2000; 2006c). Mandalas are often seen as geometrical patterns
with arrangements of buddhas and gods that represent a Buddhist worldview.
In contrast, the Ise pilgrimage mandala is a guide for pilgrims depicting natural
environments, special buildings, and people performing religious activities in
the sanctuary. Through the mandala, people learn where they should go and
what they have to do, including how to pray, in the sanctuary. Through a processual analysis, Knecht concludes that even if people cannot visit the sanctuary,
they can have a quasi-experience of the pilgrimage through learning the mandala, which brings them merit just as the real experience of the pilgrimage does
(2000; 2006c).
The Ise pilgrimage mandala includes Mt. Asama, where the Buddhist
temple Kongō Shōji is located. Although the priests of Ise Shrine claim that Mt.
Asama is excluded from the sanctuary, it is often said by pilgrims that a complete Ise pilgrimage must include a visit to Mt. Asama. Knecht’s article, “Ise
sankei mandara and the Image of the Pure Land” (2006c), grapples with this
contradiction. He argues that the mandala represents people’s syncretic beliefs, a
mix of Buddhism and Shinto that suggests the Great God Amaterasu resides on
Mt. Asama. The mandala, which depicts Mt. Fuji at the top, also satisfies people’s
longing to visit the Pure Land. In fact, from the top of Mt. Asama people sometimes actually can view Mt. Fuji, an important sanctuary of another pilgrimage.
Besides these discussions about the mandala, through an analysis of the
historical data of the Ise pilgrimage Knecht (2006f) shows that, inside the Ise
sanctuary, space becomes more sacred the closer it is to the center. Even the two
main shrines at the center, the Inner Shrine and the Outer Shrine, have a hierarchical relationship with each other that reflects this.
contributions of peter knecht 205
ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY
Parallel with the above-mentioned analyses of so-called traditional religion
and folk religion in Japan, Knecht discusses the religious practices of Japanese
Christians and then explains how the Church has dealt with Japanese concepts
of death, particularly as they relate to ancestor worship. While his background
as a Catholic priest no doubt gave him insight into these issues, it was primarily
his training as an anthropologist that guided his studies.
For many years, anthropology, which developed in the West, had not
regarded Christianity and the Church as objects of study. Consequently, there
were few anthropological studies on Christianity published before the 1970s
(Schneider and Lindenbaum 1987a, 1). It was only in the 1980s, when postmodernist theories attracted the attention of scholars in the social sciences, that
a sizable number of anthropologists started to study the Church as an agent of
sociocultural change. In this context, Knecht’s articles on ancestor worship and
the Church’s reaction to it are noteworthy.
In 1988, the year after American Ethnologist published a special issue on
Christian evangelism (Schneider and Lindenbaum 1987b), the SVD, which is
closely allied with well-known anthropological institutes, published the book
Anthropology and Mission (Piepke 1988). Knecht (1988) contributed a chapter in which he shows, on the basis of an analysis of the relationship between
anthropology and the SVD, that anthropology had not necessarily cooperated
with evangelism.
Knecht (1985b, 1986b) also examines the issue of Japanese ancestor worship as it relates to the Catholic Church. He claims that, although ancestor worship is closely connected with ie organizations, it is by no means limited to them.
The worship of ancestors, he points out, is based on an idea that there is a reciprocal relationship between the living and the deceased (the living worship their
ancestors and in turn the ancestors protect them), which is deeply rooted among
the Japanese. Thus, even if the kinship organization changes (or ie declines),
it will not result in the decline of ancestor worship (Knecht 1985b, 1986b).
Additionally, in his article “Can a Christian die as a Japanese?” (1994), Knecht
shows the result of his research on the attitudes of Japanese Christians towards
death and the deceased in three parishes of different scales, each of which has a
different ratio of Christian families and single believers. He states that in a parish
where Christians are cut off from other Christians, non-Christian ideas are more
influential.
Recently Knecht participated in a project titled “Christianity and Civilization,” led by Yoshio Sugimoto, a former fellow at the Nanzan Anthropological Institute and currently a professor at the National Museum of Ethnology.
The project examined how Christianity brought European cultures and a sense
206 chie saito
of modernity into non-Christian societies. Knecht’s contribution (2006e)
examines the discussions of both Protestant and Catholic missionaries with
the Japanese government in the transitional era between the Tokugawa period
and the Meiji Era. For the Catholics, an important issue was how to incorporate the Christianity among hidden Christians isolated in Nagasaki for several
generations into the Christianity that missionaries advocated. The Protestant
missionaries attempted to bring European civilizations, including its forms of
Christianity, into Japan through education. The Japanese government manipulated its own concept of the freedom of religion to restrict missionary activities, while it simultaneously reevaluated religion as a means of unifying the
state. Knecht discusses strategic negotiations between the missionaries and the
Japanese government, as well as between missionaries and Japanese, including
Christians and non-Christians.
NEW RELIGION
For Japanese, Christianity is a new but at the same time an old religion in so far
as it entered Japan more than four hundred years ago; and, in spite of the ban on
it during the Tokugawa Period (1600–1867), hidden Christians had continued
their worship practices. Some of the new religions in Japan have adopted elements of Christianity as well as those of more traditional Japanese religions. The
journal Academia published a volume edited by Knecht (1993e) in which five
authors discuss Mahikari from a variety of perspectives. Mahikari is a new religion that is said to attract especially those engaged in occupations that emphasize rational thought, such as those closely connected with science (1993b). In
the volume, as well as in another article (1995), Knecht (1993c) interprets major
symbols in Mahikari doctrine that are adopted from a variety of religions and
cultures. He claims that symbols help explain the doctrines: they are a model
of and for the new world that Mahikari believers aim to realize in the future. In
another article, Knecht (2001) discusses Mahikari’s Japanese identity. In it, he
considers the historical context in which Mahikari was established and developed and points out how central doctrines were influenced by older Japanese
religions such as Shinto.
SHAMANISM
The topic that has been most prominent among Knecht’s lifelong research interests may be shamanism. His extensive knowledge of both shamanism and studies of it is exhibited in his introductory chapter to Shamans in Asia (Knecht
2003b). This chapter examines a variety of earlier studies from different perspectives and indicates problems in studies on shamanism, such as the relationship between analytical and folk concepts of a shaman.
contributions of peter knecht 207
On the basis of his knowledge of folk religion in Asia, Knecht has explored
shamanism in northeastern Japan, including Hanayama Village, and northeastern China. With regard to shamanism in Japan, Knecht discusses the rich symbolism of kuchiyose, which is a ritual for summoning spirits of the dead. In a
kuchiyose ritual, a female medium or shaman called itako or ogamisama plays an
important role by becoming possessed by the deceased and speaking for them
(1990, 1993d, 1997, 2004a). For these itako, mountains are particularly important.
Mountains, which are seen as inhabited by spiritual entities and are representations of either paradise or hell in Japan, are for itako a source of spiritual power
where they establish and reconfirm their relationships with their guiding spirits
(Knecht 2002). In a kuchiyose ritual, the mountain symbol is associated with
the story of Mokuren in the Urabon Sutra. The symbolic mountain here represents a source of spiritual potency and the place where Mokuren collected what
the Buddha told him he needed to save his mother in hell. According to Knecht
(1993d), the kuchiyose rituals he observed were based on this story of Mokuren.
Although it is usually interpreted as a story of a good child or offspring in a filial
relationship, for itako/shaman groups, the Mokuren story is a kind of ancestral tale: itakos interpret the story as a teaching method for contacting the dead.
Similarly, Knecht (1997) discusses the creativity of individual itakos at kuchiyose rituals. While itakos become independent practitioners by being trained by
an instructor on how to perform rituals, they can also create unique modes of
expression within the ritual.
Knecht observed a kuchiyose ritual in Hanayama Village at a time when the
ritual had already become rare there. In Hanayama, as in other regions of Japan,
Peter Knecht with a shaman before
an altar, Hailar, Mongolia, 2002.
208 chie saito
ie-organizations have changed and declined. Through interpretations of the rich
symbolism of the ritual, Knecht claims that the ritual represents continuity of
patrilineal relationships among kin and between the living and the deceased in
one ie household (1990, 2004a).
In addition to research on shamanism in Japan, Knecht conducted research
with a project team on shamanism in northeastern China, funded by the
Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Although China is a new field for
Knecht, his study of shamanism in Siberia among the Evenki, who had traded
with both Russians and Chinese (Knecht 2005a), helped him with this research.
In the project, Knecht pays close attention to China’s political history, the Great
Proletariat Cultural Revolution and thereafter, in which shamans were persecuted as those who spread superstitions (2004b, 2005b). It is said that during politically difficult times, no shaman was active in China; however, recently some
have returned to practicing shamanism, albeit without the instruments used and
clothing worn in shamanic rituals (2004b). New shamans also have appeared
despite restrictions and the absence of senior shamans to instruct them (2005b).
With regard to these new shamans, the report and article Knecht published in
2004 include many interesting points. For instance, through his research on
individual life-histories of shamans and stories about their experiences, Knecht
finds two types of shamans: one is a shaman who experienced shamanic illness
or a shamanistic initiatory crisis in the process of becoming a shaman; the other
is a shaman who did not experience such a crisis but was instead elected by his
clan. In spite of these completely different types, what both types of shamans do
in rituals is similar to each other (Knecht 2004c). Knecht claims that whether
a shaman is recognized as powerful and authentic depends on how much confidence believers have in him or her. In addition, Knecht reports that, because of
the discontinuity of shamanistic traditions due to the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, some shamans started reading books about shamanism and attending academic meetings on it in order to learn about its history and how it has
existed in other regions. This might eventually result in producing an “international” type of shamanism (Knecht 2004b).
Knecht (2005b) also describes a process whereby an individual became a
shaman: his shamanic initiatory crisis lasted for around thirty years, and during that time a variety of people helped him in many different ways. Thus, he
concludes that a society in which shamans lived can hand on knowledge about
shamanism in fragments, and this can result in the revival of shamanism.
By seizing the best research opportunity in China, Knecht provides new
findings on shamanism. When he and his project team started conducting
research in China in 2000, shamanism was in a period of revival. It was also a
time when significant changes were occurring in Chinese culture and society
and when it was still not easy for anthropologists to conduct fieldwork there.
contributions of peter knecht 209
Thus, by focusing on individual shamans and collecting their life-histories during this time, Knecht has made an important contribution to anthropological
studies of China.
In summary, it can be said that the strength of his studies, as illustrated
above, lies in detailed descriptions and analyses of cultural dynamics on the
basis of acute observations. His tenacious research and sharp anthropological
sense have led to important new findings and enabled him to make significant
contributions to anthropological studies on sociocultural change. We anticipate
that his further research and publications will continue to exhibit such anthropological acumen and sensitivity.
Editors’ note: The front photograph shows Professor Knecht in Hailar, Mongolia, with the
leaders of two local families (summer 2003).
===
