The argument for the rehabilitation from the Hanshin-Awaji Great Earthquake is mainly based on city planning, regional economy, and community revival. It is indispensable to place an emphasis on local culture and folk customs such as local festivals and community activities for investigating the revival of daily life in these areas. Therefore, this paper focuses on the Jizo festival in the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake stricken area. Investigating the Jizo festival is one of the most suitable means to understand the relationship between place and memory in stricken areas.
The Jizo festival is a familiar folk custom in Japan. Jizo is a guardian of children and the stone statue of Jizo made is embodied in a small shrine. People pray to the Jizo statue for children's health and safety, and one's health, safety, and so on. Jizo was enshrined in the stricken area after the earthquake disaster. In 2002 and 2003, the author researched Jizo and the Jizo festival in Nagata-ku, Kobe City, which was greatly damaged by the earthquake.
The results of the analysis are summarized as follows. The Jizo festival has been greatly influenced by urbanization and the disaster. Jizo has been sometimes moved, and the Jizo festival has been suspended. However, it is easy to enshrine Jizo in the niche of a city space because the statue is small. In addition, Jizo is enshrined by a very flexible group of inhabitants. The meaning of Jizo is very flexible for the inhabitants, and they are able to freely participate in the Jizo festival. The greater the inhabitants who participate in the Jizo festival, the more the memory of Jizo is shared among them. Enshrining Jizo is important for the sharing of the memory of Jizo by the inhabitants.
