Mortuary Feasts at the Tomb with the Dead, Performed by Young Friends of the Dead in Okinawa, Japan

Abstract

In the 1920s and before in Okinawa, mortuary feasts used to be held at the tomb by the young friends of the dead, when the dead was a young person. The feast was called wakari-ashibi, which means a farewell play and was performed at nights for about a week with dance and music and other entertainments by the friends gathering in the graveyard. Sometimes the coffin was taken out from the tomb, and the dead in the coffin was sat up. In one case, a temporary hut was built for the rite in front of the tomb and decorated with cloth. The custom terminated in the 1930s. In analyzing the nineteen rites described in ethnographic reports, it is clear that the rite was held by the young friends in order to communicate and play directly with the soul of the dead. The soul of the dead was believed to come out from the tomb to the graveyard where the friends gathered, or come to reside in the pieces of cloth hanging in the hut. The young played with the soul as if the dead were alive, when they took out the coffin from the tomb and made the dead sit up in it. Although they knew the decaying process of the dead body was advancing, they wished to communicate and play with the soul during the time the dead body reminded them of the dead person's living image. The rite was ended in a week for the soul to devote itself to the process of bodily decay.