先祖へと収束する力

――喜界島における墓制とその語りを貫くもの――

抄録

  The utterance of a dead person is universal fact. It has great influence in every human cultures. However, only a few studies tried to construct general models on how dead person utters. The utterance of a dead person regulates human world and at the same time, is managed by people. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the rule of how a dead person utters.

  Kikai is one of the islands in southern Japan. The folk culture of graves in Kikai is unique and traditional, and it changed radically on the other hand. So it is much various today. This paper treats 4 informants from 4 villages. They told about folk cultures in their own home, and the stories included their private senses, interpretations, memories, and so on. From this perspective, I examine 4 questions which arise from their stories: (1) where do they choose burial land in their villages? (2) how does the geology relate to their way in which they choose a site to bury dead bodies? (3) why and how do they decide to re-make ancestors’ grave stones? Or why do they leave them unchanged? (4) why did they accept cremation in the 1960’s?

  These cases show that the informants and the utterance of dead persons are integrated. Informants represent dead persons not only from the will of the deceased but also by their own interpretations. Thus the rule of representation is based on everyday experience and emotion of those who are alive. In other words, the utterance of dead person is represented in such relations toward live person and dead person. But if there is such a structure, then how does it work? This question is equal to “How does dead person utter?”

  In order to understand it, I refer to two important concepts. Firstly, it is “the power of managing” defined by Motoji Matsuda. Secondly, it is “pattern” in folk traditions described by Kazuhiko Hirayama. Their insights have taught us that the domain of “Ideas” is important in representation of the utterance of a dead person. In the case of such social changing like modernization, people could not follow a dead person’s will. Instead, they convince themselves that they do understand ancestors, so do they believe “Ideas” of the deceased are able to know. Thus and in this way, they understand that they do not betray their ancestors. In other word, such a structure creates various actions of those who are alive. At the same time, it becomes the core of the discourse about grave.

  From this regard, I suggest to call a structure intrinsic to Kikai as “the power that converges to the ancestors”.