Research into traditional patterns of life in a machiya through ceremonies, celebrations and events

Abstract

This research is focused on the traditional machiya (buildings which were and in some cases still are both used as dwellings and places of work) in the Shimotsui district and the Odagun Yakage-Cho area of the City of Kurashiki, in Okayama Prefecture. Ceremonies, events and the various celebrations going along with the life of people living in the machiya have been taking place for many centuries. We tried to investigate where such (ceremonies were actually held so that we could learn how the spaces in the Machiya have functioned:) marriage ceremonies, funeral services, delivery of a baby, as well as annual events such as New Year celebrations, Bon (Festival of the Dead, or the Buddhist All Soul's Day) and neighborhood meetings. We surveyed a total of 76 buildings in the two areas mentioned, first by surveying the buildings in their present state. Then we tried to make graphic reconstructions of them in their original form, and finally we recorded exactly where the various ceremonies and events of the types mentioned above had taken place, by interviewing the elder members of the families living there. MAIN FINDINGS 1. The main ceremonies, celebrations and events of the types mentioned took place in at least one of the spaces (rooms) of the machiya, and the locations were fixed. 2. The various ceremonies, celebrations and events had a direct relationship with the locations in which they took place. That relationship was either with the same location or with a different location. 3. There was a distinction in the way that the different areas of the building were used for ceremonies, celebrations and events for the living and those for the dead. 4. If machiya has one or more of spaces with a tokonoma (either a fixed or temporary place of celebration or decoration), they were rather used specifically for different purposes. However, there was very little difference in that usage even when there were more than three such spaces. 5. In a “linear” type of machiya the okunoma (the space most distant from the street) had two uses: it was either used as a place for people to sit at Bon celebrations and at funeral ceremonies, or as a place to eat. In some cases the distinction was less well defined. 6. In those buildings with two stories, ceremonies for the dead were carried out on the lower level and a clear distinction of usage was made between ceremonies for the dead and those for the living. 7. Those buildings without a second storey were used in two ways. Various ceremonies, celebrations and events were either held in different spaces, or one space was put to several different usages.