The Funeral Ceremony and Feast in the Pre-modern and Modern Sanuki Province —an Analysis of the Village Chief’s Documents—

Abstract

This paper studies the funeral feasts in the farming villages of the modern Sanuki Province in accordance with their ceremonial protocol, by considering (1) the characteristics of the funeral ceremonies, (2) the true nature of the feasts, and 3) the relationship between the previous two points, based on the hypothesis that the feast reflects the characteristics of the ceremony. As references for this article, I examined some of the village chief’s documents preserved in Kagawa Prefecture (The main reference was Watanabes’ document). This study revealed that the funeral feast mirrors (1) the courtesy of the community and (2) “zoutou” the culture of exchanging gifts within the community and the characteristic of emphasizing an even balance. It is evident that the funeral feast excludes the distinct characteristics of an individual household. Further, the contents of the various menus (a soup and three dishes), cooking methods, and ingredients used were stereotypical, common to the period (1784～1903) and the surrounding areas (the eastern, central, and western regions of Sanuki Province).