Chapter Four
Religious Revanche

Shinmei-gu: Kodaira's Premier Shrine

Religious activity is perhaps the most explicit means Kodaira's natives have for reclaiming their place within the suburban city. Shrine and temple events provide natives with a focus for communal activities and newcomers with a display of "living history." This chapter continues the project of chapter 3 by providing an account of the making of Kodaira, focusing in particular on religious institutions in the former Ogawa-mura. The past and present conditions of these shrines, temples, and yard shrines underscore the differences between natives and newcomers.

Shinmei-gu, the largest and most prosperous shrine in Kodaira today, was one of the first two shrines established in Ogawa-mura along Oume Road, the other being the modest and relatively inactive Hie-jinja. The Shinmei-gu office distributes free of charge a leaflet printed on glittery handmade paper in which is outlined the shrine's origins, the names of the various kami enshrined there, and the festivals, events, and sundry activities organized by the shrine. The numerous large signboards placed here and there throughout the compound provide the same information and more. In one entitled "Myself and exquisite Japan, where divine virtues are revered," the chief priest, Miyazaki H., expounds at length on the central position and function of kami in Japanese culture and society. On a small table set in front of the main

hall are stacked copies of Shinmeisama,^[1] the shrine's monthly newsletter, and a flier, issued monthly by the Tokyo Bureau of Shrines, featuring a moralistic proverb. While the other Kodaira shrines and temples post a brief history, their precincts are not studded with the large numbers of signs found here. This penchant for explanation and instruction reflects the personality and temperament of the current chief priest, who is the eleventh-generation descendant of Shinmei-gu' s first priest, Miyazaki Shume. Because of his important role in the religious revanche of the native sector, I dwell on the chief priest at some length; later, for the same reason, I discuss in detail his Buddhist counterpart, the incumbent priest of Shosen-ji.

I arranged to interview Miyazaki one morning. While waiting for him in the Shinmei-gu office, I was given the leaflet by his two sons, both of whom are lower-ranking priests. Their mother, a slight, stooped woman, appeared with a cup of green tea, and I, in turn, presented my gift of Japanese confections. We struck up a conversation. I asked about the large expanse of farmland behind the shrine, and, suddenly pensive, she replied that "before the Pacific War" (i.e., prior to the postwar land reforms), all that land belonged to her natal household, the Miyazakis. Her family? Yes, her husband is an adopted son-in-law, for the Shinmei-gu Miyazaki line historically had few sons and many daughters. Shortly, the chief priest himself bustled in, a slight, wiry man with a raspy voice, clad in slacks and a polo shirt. He suggested that we talk in the sitting room of his house, a spacious two-story building tucked between the office and the nursery school managed by the shrine. His wife disappeared.

The small, parquet-floored sitting room was jammed with furniture and a hodgepodge of objects set on every available surface: a garish porcelain horse, a sea-green ceramic "fish couple" set on a pseudomarble pillar, an outdated globe, knobby glass ashtrays with felt bottoms, and a meter-long wooden crocodile. The sliding glass doors at one end of the room looked out on the giant zelkova trees lining the stone path to the shrine. We sat across from each other on upholstered couches separated by a long, low table.

I had come prepared with specific questions, but Miyazaki right away plunged into the history of Kodaira, beginning with a paleogeography lesson, for which he brought out a long rectangular box filled with vials of soil samples. He pointed out the sandy clay found at 120 meters, the conglomerate at 10 meters, and the dusty topsoil that is sent swirling with every breeze. There were vials of fossils,

too, since much of the Kanto Plain was under seawater an estimated 240,000–400,000 years ago (KC 1959, 1101–2). Miyazaki quickly worked up to Ogawa-mura' s reclamation, at which juncture I steered him toward a discussion of Shinmei-gu' s role in the newly founded village, since there is a dearth of information on this subject.

He obliged me in part by proceeding to recount a questionable genealogy of the Miyazaki ie, which includes such illustrious antecedents as the fourteenth-century moralist Yoshida Kaneyoshi (Kenko) and the fiftieth emperor, Kanmu. He then added that of course there was no recorded genealogy or definitive documentation of the Miyazaki line. The "main-main household" (honhonke ) is still in Kyoto, from where branch households eventually migrated east to settle in the Musashino area. In a later interview, he remarked that the main household of the Shinmei-gu Miyazaki line was based in West Tama. Within Kodaira his is the main household to the branch that administers Kumano-miya, a shrine established in Ogawa-shinden by Shume's son in the early 1700s. From the turn of the century to the present time, the Miyazakis have carefully maintained the "purity" of their line through marriages with near relatives. This is a somewhat typical strategy favored by elites for several reasons. Such marriages are safer and more economical, since they do not bring in an additional set of kin; existing kindred relations are thereby reinforced, and familiarity simplifies the process of finding and selecting suitable spouses (Nakane 1967, 164-66). How far back this particular marriage strategy was practiced could not be ascertained.

The background of the Miyazaki ie in Kodaira since the time of Ogawa-mura' s reclamation is less obscure. According to the shrine's leaflet, Shume assisted Kurobei in his shinden project and, in 1661, moved Shinmei-gu from Kishi-mura to a nearly one-hectare site granted by the bakufu for this purpose. The so-called Kishi-mura Shinmei-gu is described as one of the prestigious Engishikinai-sha, or shrines listed in the Engishiki (Procedures of the Engi period, published in 927), and is said to have a history dating from before the seventh century. Another account notes, more specifically, that Shume was the younger brother of the chief priest of a shrine in a village near Kishi-mura. Upon Kurobei's petition to the elder brother, Shume was provided with a "share" (bunrei, also wakemitama ) of the shrine's kami to enshrine in Ogawa-mura (KCH, 20 July 1962; KK 1983,102-3). The process of petitioning for and receiving a share of a given shrine's kami was referred to as kanjo, originally a Buddhist term. The majority of

shinden -village shrines apparently were established in this way (Chiba 1970, 61–63).

The enshrinement of a kami -share is somewhat analogous to the establishment of a branch household, and in the present case this process coincided with the founding of a Miyazaki branch household (i.e., Shume's) in Ogawa-mura. The kami -share in question was an ubusunagami, which, however, was enshrined in Ogawa-mura as a chinjugami (KK 1983, 102; Ashida 1977, 265). Although the distinctions between these two types of kami —in addition to a third, ujigami (also known as shizokugami )—have since been conflated, they are significant in the shinden context.

Briefly, ujigami (also shizokugami ) refers to the tutelary kami of a single ie —its ancestors, descendants, and fictive kin. An ubusunagami also is recognized as a tutelary kami, but one to which no kinship ("blood" and/or fictive) is claimed. Instead, the object of protection is farmland and the cooperative labor group that works it. An ubusunagami, then, is recognized as a kami of production and productivity. Finally, chinjugami denotes the guardian kami of a given territory or place without any overt connection to either kinship or (agricultural) production. It is best conceptualized as the guardian of both a given social order and those who are members of that society (Chiba 1970, 294).

Most Japanese scholars of religion recognize a linear progression from ujigami through ubusunagami to chinjugami. The actual kami do not change; rather, it is the purposeful function of a given kami that evolves over time. Paralleling this transformation was a gradual change from kinship ties to place ties, the latter generally predominating in a shinden context. Since the reclamation period, however, there has been a reverse trend among native households from place ties to kinship ties, as I discuss later. The establishment of Shinmei-gu traces a progression from an ubusunagami to the enshrinement of its kami -share as a chinjugami. A formerly more exclusive tutelary kami thereby was made available for worship by persons of diverse and humble backgrounds, although the priesthood of Shinmei-gu was assumed as the hereditary prerogative of the Miyazakis, a position they continue to occupy.

This transformation is further illustrated, albeit indirectly, by a legend recounted in the shrine's leaflet (but nowhere else). According to it, Shinmei-gu was established by Shume in 1657 under bakufu orders on a site between the Tamagawa and Nobidome canals (in present-day Nakashima-cho ). At that stage in its development, the shrine was referred to as a yama-no-kami, or, literally, "mountain kami."

"Mountain" (yama ) in this context signifies any uninhabited, forested area. Since it also refers to an ie' s private cemetery, yama-no-kami also signifies an ancestral spirit (Chiba 1970, 296). The Shinmei-gu legend, then, portrays the shrine as initially an ujigami (qua yama-no-kami ) that was later installed as the village's chinjugami. The leaflet goes on to remark that this mountain/ancestral kami presently is Shinmei-gu' s outer shrine, Ichino-miya, a somewhat grandiose designation belied by the unkempt condition of the tiny building. The Nakashima-cho woman who directed me to the shrine, hidden in the middle of a low-income housing tract, mentioned that nobody worships there. The only ornamentation was a weather-beaten poster urging residents to make their New Year's pilgrimage to Shinmei-gu. It was here, the legend continues, that Shume beseeched the kami for rain to fill the dry canals. On the fifteenth evening, a cloudburst so filled the canals that they flowed all the way to the Arakawa, a river that empties into Tokyo Bay. The Miyazakis use this fable, which glorifies their ancestors' role in reclaiming Ogawa-mura, to help secure a prominent role for Shinmei-gu in the making of Furusato Kodaira today.

In 1681, twenty years after its initial establishment, Shinmei-gu was rebuilt on its present, more central site, for which purpose a little over 1.5 hectares were officially granted. According to the leaflet, the main reason for the move was to make commuting to the shrine more convenient for the settlers. It is equally likely that relocating Shinmei-gu was one of several steps taken by the village head to further unify the growing village, which, by the time of the 1664 cadastral survey, consisted of over 104 households (KC 1959, 53, 68). The move coincided with a protracted period of antagonism between Kurobei and the villagers, who resented his autocratic measures. Therefore, Kurobei probably sought the assistance of the shrine in tempering dissent.

By the same token, the move may have been prompted by bakufu efforts to control religious activities and observances. From around the mid-seventeenth century onward, the bakufu began issuing edicts forbidding arbitrarily scheduled festivals, and it called for the dismantling of "shrines of evil kami. "^[2] These measures, however, were moderated by concern that a crackdown would precipitate popular dissent (Miyata 1976, 300–303). Festivals had to be cleared with a government official before they could be staged, as outlined in an 1827 edict circulated in the Kanto region (Ito 1981, 350). Given the heavy hand wielded by the bakufu in shinden affairs, together with the fact that a special land grant

facilitated Shinmei-gu' s relocation, the move may be interpreted as part of a design to regulate villager activities through the offices of a sanctioned shrine. It is also telling that the shrine's new site was directly across from Shosen-ji, the village's premier temple. Buddhist temples, as extensions of bakufu authority, maintained close surveillance over village life, including shrine activities, through a strictly organized and compulsory danka, or parishioner, system, as I discuss later.

The Meiji Restoration effectively reversed the political fortunes of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Shinmei-gu was designated a sonsha, or village shrine, in 1873; and in 1884 it was promoted to the status of gosha, or district shrine, the only such shrine in Kodaira. Then in 1907 it was awarded the status of heihaku gushin jinja, which denotes a shrine—usually one per village—selected by the regional governor to receive ritual offerings of heihaku (cloth or paper strips) and shinsen (the term for the rice, sake, fish, fowl, fruit, vegetables, salt, and water offered up to the kami ). The criteria for selection included the requirement that the compound and buildings be in good order and that the shrine fall into one of several categories, which for Shinmei-gu was probably that a shrine be related to one listed in the Engishiki (Fridell 1973, 13).

The offerings were made on the occasion of several "new" festivals scheduled by the Meiji government. These festivals, which continue to be observed at Shinmei-gu, include the "ordinary grand festivals" of kinensai, niinamesai, and reisai, and also such "extraordinary grand festivals" as honden senzasai. The kinensai —also known as haru matsuri, or spring festival—is conducted during the planting season to ensure a bumper harvest and general prosperity. The niinamesai also is referred to by the generic aki matsuri, or fall festival, an occasion for celebrating the annual fall harvest. During the festival of reisai, generally held on days deemed auspicious by a shrine, the celebrants offer thanks to the kami for their protection. Honden senzasai are held to celebrate the reconstruction or relocation of a shrine. Participation in these festive rites was legally required of the mayor or village head, who, dressed in priestly garments, served as the government's representative on such occasions (Chiba 1970, 244-45; KK 1983, 102-3). As Fridell has noted, this "fusion of governmental and priestly roles is a striking instance, at the grass roots level of Japanese society, of the ancient Japanese principle of…the 'unity of (Shinto) rites and government'" (1973, 14).

These conferred shrine statuses reflect the Meiji government's preferential treatment of shrines over temples, particularly after the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. In 1906 the government inaugurated its national shrine-merger program. The plan was to have a single, central shrine serve as the exclusive focus of communal consciousness and solidarity—a plan that Miyazaki is keen on reviving today. Accordingly, three ungraded shrines in east Ogawa were merged with Shinmei-gu in 1909.

Preceding the shrine-merger program by almost two decades was a village-merger campaign, activated in full between 1888 and 1889, to broaden centralized control prior to the promulgation of the new constitution. In 1889 the seven shinden villages were amalgamated to form Kodaira-mura. But Shinmei-gu did not automatically become the new village's representative shrine; rather, the appellation Kodaira Shinmei-gu is a relatively recent invention, reflecting Miyazaki's aspirations for the shrine to be recognized as the affective core of Furusato Kodaira. According to the Shinmei-gu leaflet, the name Kodaira Shinmei-gu was bestowed in 1975 by the Grand Shrine, Ise jingu, which donated the sacred lumber used in the Kodaira shrine's 1976 renovation. Each of the amalgamated shinden villages maintained its own tutelary shrine, although the administration of those shrines eventually was assumed by Shinmei-gu and Kumano-miya (KC 1959, 1285).

Kumano-miya: Fraternal Differences

The Shinmei-gu priest was born into the Kumano-miya Miyazaki household and later adopted as a son-in-law by the main household, the Shinmei-gu Miyazakis. His account of his relations with Kumano-miya offers some insights into the relationship between the two shrines and between the Shinmei-gu priest and his older brother. The brother is the eighth chief priest of Kumano-miya and occupies the awkward—for an elder brother—subordinate position of head of the branch household. The Shinmei-gu Miyazaki confided to me that, although he would rather fraternize as equals, his older brother insists on the strict maintenance of the main household—branch household relationship. As the main household, he complained, Shinmei-gu must assume two to three times the financial burden of ceremonies and other ritual functions: "three gifts to Kumano-miya' s one," as he put it. Given

the historical tenacity of kin relations punctiliously maintained by Shinmei-gu, the chief priest's professed desire for liberation from main household—branch household ties is ironic and unlikely to be realized.

As a result of a city library's (Naka-machi branch) recent project to index the historical documents stored for generations by certain native households, the circumstances for the establishment of Kumano-miya in Ogawa-shinden have become clearer. Whereas the usual accounts indicate that Kumano-miya was founded at its present site in 1704 (KK 1983, 109-10), new findings suggest a more likely date of around 1727, when formal permission to establish the shrine was granted by the magistrate in charge of temple and shrine affairs. The 1704 date is now thought to correspond to Shume's founding of a small "nature shrine" in a hackberry (enoki ) orchard, the eventual site of Kumano-miya (Kodaira-shi kyoiku iinkai 1981, 97–110).

It seems that Kumano-miya was brought to Ogawa-mura from Kishi-mura along with Shinmei-gu. But whereas Shinmei-gu was erected soon thereafter, Kumano-miya temporarily was installed within Kurobei's homestead until the reclamation of Ogawa-shinden in 1724. At that time, the village head arranged with Shume to establish the shrine as the junior village's guardian deity (chinjugami ). The collusion between the village head and the priest reflects, in retrospect, the special stature of Shinmei-gu within Ogawa-mura (KC 1959, 853). Shume's second son—his eldest succeeded him at Shinmei-gu —was among the group of farmers that set about reclaiming the new shinden. Like him, many of the settlers were the second and third sons of Ogawa-mura households. The Miyazakis went on to distinguish themselves as skillful agriculturists and were later successful in sericulture and in tea and indigo production.

Kumano-miya was promoted to the rank of "village shrine" in 1873 and in 1907 was selected to receive ceremonial offerings from the Meiji government. A smaller and, visually at least, less prosperous shrine than Shinmei-gu, it presently sits tucked behind a housing tract. Both shrines, however, outdistance the other Kodaira shrines in prestige, patronage, size, and financial solvency; and both signify the historicity of Furusato Kodaira.

They also represent Kodaira's outward-facing creed by virtue of their public, official character. Their unofficial counterparts are the private yard shrines maintained by native households. Yard shrines are the focus of a variety of coteries and communal activities among natives; collectively, they represent the native sector exclusively. In view of their

private, unofficial, and exclusive character, they constitute an inward-facing creed.

Yard Shrines

There are well over one hundred small, private shrines maintained by native Ogawa-cho households, most of whom are in some way involved with farming and husbandry. The shrines are known as teinaisha, or "yard shrines," and more popularly as yashikigami, or "homestead kami. " Since shrines and kami tend to be conflated (with the exception of the "adult" shrines in the citizens' festival), yashikigami refers to both the shrine building itself and the enshrined kami.

Without trespassing, one can get a fairly good idea of the prevalence of yard shrines among native householders, since their red torii peek above the dense hedge or stone wall around most natives' homes. Sometimes the shrines themselves are visible. Most are the size of a large dollhouse, although a few are as big as a large toolshed. Not all yard shrines have torii; some, having rotted away, remain unreplaced, even though prayers and oblations continue to be performed at the shrine itself. The casual looker will conclude that the Kato ie maintains the best-preserved, and some of the most elaborate, yard shrines. Most are outfitted with a shiny red torii, crisp paper decorations, and polished offering vessels set out on the tiny porches alongside a pair of sparkling white ceramic foxes (fig. 13).

According to Miyazaki of Shinmei-gu, about one hundred of these Ogawa-cho household shrines are registered with his shrine. Every year he provides the owners with gohei, the white or red zigzag paper strips embodying the kami. One yard shrine owner and Shinmei-gu parishioner, Koyama K., mentioned that he purchased the strips from Miyazaki when the latter made his priestly rounds several days prior to the hatsuuma festival in February (described below). Koyama offers between 400 and 1,000 yen in return for the ritual papers.

As the following anecdote shows, the overwhelming majority of the yard shrines are dedicated to Inari—a kami of agricultural productivity and material wealth whose messenger is a fox. I asked Ogawa Z., a descendant of Kurobei and chair of the Gakuen Nishi-chokai (neighborhood association), whether he knew anything about yashikigami. He promptly replied that there were extremely few in Kodaira, which is

Fig. 13.
A yard shrine owned by an Ogawa Eight farm household. (Photo by author)

simply not true. Thinking that he might have misunderstood me, I described a typical yard shrine, adding that there were over a hundred in Ogawa-cho alone. He brightened and exclaimed, "Oh! You mean Inari-san! " Other yashikigami include Benten, Suijin, Konpira, Kojin, and Hosojin, who are known, respectively, as the kami of culture and protector of women; water kami; ocean kami and protector of sailors and fishers; kitchen kami; and smallpox kami.

These various household kami have the attributes of chijin, or earth-place kami. Inari, for example, is said to have territorial rights to and spiritual authority over a given place. The territorial aspect of Inari has been explained in reference to the homonym inari, which means "to become settled in a place." Symbolically, Inari/inari represents the contingencies of the reclamation and settlement of shinden and the ensuing process of village-making (Namiki and Tachikawa 1964, 31).^[3] Should a

family move, its yard shrine is often left behind and can fall into disrepair if the new residents do not worship or care for it. The departing family may hand over the shrine's gohei —the paper strips that embody the kami —to a neighbor who agrees to worship on their behalf. The assumption is that, left unattended, the kami (Inari) will be thrown into confusion and start a fire or bring ill fortune (HMSS 1971, 984-85).

Yoshino notes that, according to the theory of gogyo (the five agents: wood, fire, earth, metal, water), Inari is endowed with an "earth" nature, which means that it is activated or animated by fire (1981, 97–98). Uegaki, a sericulturist and farm manual writer active in the late 1700s, explains that batsuuma, the lunar calendrical day on which Inari is paid special homage, marks a period during which yang forces, such as sunlight, are at their peak ([1803] 1981, 69).^[4] Since the earth is made productive by sunlight, Inari thus is associated with agricultural productivity. For Inari to start a fire implies a topsy-turvy state of affairs; and since Inari is a kami of wealth and fortune, the further implication is that a confused and unattended yard shrine will bring poverty and bad luck.

Many native Ogawa-cho households have legends to relate about their yard shrines. Collectively, these stories illustrate the place-kami aspect of Inari and also describe the circumstances that lead to the installation of yard shrines in general. For example, the story told by the Tachikawa household is part of a repertoire of Kodaira folktales. Their property formerly belonged to the Arai household, also Kodaira natives. One year, "a long time ago," an elderly member of the Tachikawa household fell ill, and a fortune-teller advised the family members to pay homage to their yashikigami. They were surprised, for they were unaware that an Inari inhabited their property. A deep hole dug at the base of a zelkova tree yielded a stone fox, which they began to worship on that spot. Needless to say, the ailing family member subsequently recovered (Namiki and Tachikawa 1964, 33).

My Kodaira landlord, Oto S., told a similar story. About twenty years ago, he and his family had "found" and thus "inherited," as he put it, a stone shrine on their property near the outhouse. The Shinmei-gu priest—the Otos are parishioners—advised them to move the shrine to a more auspicious site and, since the old one had crumbled, to buy a new one as well. The roof of the found shrine, which now lies behind the new shrine, is supposed to have a name and date carved on it, but we could find no inscriptions. Like its predecessor, the new shrine is made of stone. Oto mentioned that he had bought it at a "bargain price"

(150,000 yen) from Ogawa Y., a stonemason and descendant of Kurobei. (Stone shrines require less upkeep and are generally crude versions of the more intricate wooden structures.) The elevated base of my landlord's shrine was incised to resemble a castle wall, and a bamboo leaf design was carved on both sides of the miniature shrine proper. Its makeshift plywood door was jammed shut. As Oto fiddled with it, his wife wondered aloud if there was really an image inside. "Nah, the kids probably took it out," but he never did manage to get the door open for us to see for sure. My impression was that the Otos, unlike the Katos, were neither knowledgeable about nor assiduous in their treatment of the household Inari.

The installation and upkeep of yard shrines are related to the establishment of branch households and the tenor of their relations with main households. Collective oblations at a yard shrine may help to cement relations between main and branch households (cf. Nakane 1967; Sekiguchi 1972). By the same token, close relations between main and branch households may facilitate the initial installation of a share of the main household's yashikigami in the yard of a branch household. However, not all native households who claim to maintain tenacious intra-ie ties possess yard shrines, and not all native households withyashikigami maintain close main household—branch household relations.

A study of yard shrines in neighboring Higashikurume City revealed that old branch households tended to possess a yard shrine when the main household did; if the main household had never possessed or no longer possessed a shrine, then, usually, neither did the branches (HKSS 1979, 1048). This tendency seems to hold for Kodaira's native households as well, although the situation is complicated by a branch household's dependence or nondependence on the main household, as I discuss below. In the Oto family, the main household had gone bankrupt and moved to Tachikawa "some years ago." It was at that time, it seems, that the Oto yard shrine fell into disrepair. To give another example, neither the Asami main household nor any of its branches possess yard shrines. The househead of one rather recently established branch explained to me that the Asamis were not wealthy landowners on a scale large enough to warrant a household shrine. He also admitted that relations between main and branch households have been loose and informal.

Since Asami is a native ie of means, we might wonder how large is "large" While exact landholding figures are not publicly avail-

able, it is clear that Kodaira households with yard shrines, such as Kato, Koyama, Kobayashi, Ogawa, Hosoda, and Miyadera, were and are still—despite the postwar land reform—affluent and influential land-owners who are well respected, particularly within the native sector. However, the extent of a household's landholdings alone does not constitute a necessary condition for having a yard shrine. Nor does an agricultural livelihood, although most yashikigami owners presently pursue or at one time pursued farming as a full-time or part-time occupation. It was also common in the Edo period, when the majority of yard shrines were established, for merchant and artisan households to have yard shrines (Miyamoto 1981, 282).

In Kodaira, among the main-branch relationships that affect and are affected by yard shrines, two of the most typical are (1) main house-holds with dependent branches and (2) main households with nondependent branches. When the branches were, at the time of fission, economically dependent on the main household, they made their oblations at the main household's yard shrine. Since the majority of dependent branches were established within the main household's residence compound, it was a virtually foregone conclusion that they would share the same shrine. The same is true of branch households today that occupy the upstairs in a two-story house—I learned of two such situations in the Ogawa Eight. Whether or not these branch households will install a yard shrine of their own when and if they move somewhere else seemed to be a wholly subjective and negotiable matter.

Old branch households that were not economically dependent on the main household tended to have their own yard shrines. In the Ogawa Eight, dependent branches usually were established within the main household's homestead and were not incorporated within the system of neighborhood divisions described in chapter 3. Moreover, during the Edo period, they were entered in the religious sect and population registers under the main household. Nondependent branch households were the overall norm among those formed in Ogawa-mura, probably because of the possibilities for independence in a shinden situation (KC 1959, 913-14), where land was available for acquisition in the following ways: (1) a branch could establish itself in another shinden village; (2) in the same village, a branch could take over the land of a settler who could not perform the rigorous labor of reclamation; or (3) a branch could start a commercial operation, such as milling or oil pressing.

In Kodaira the greatest amount of household fissioning occurred

after the Meiji Restoration (KC 1959, 852-53, 868), although a number of native branch households were established on shinden in and around the Kodaira Seven before that time. Between 1680 and 1804, the Shimizus, who were among the original settlers in Ogawa-mura, established eight branch households in that village and also in Nonaka-shinden and Tokura-shinden (Kokubunji City). Similarly, the Katos established branch households in Tokura-shinden in the 1750s (Ito 1961, 87; Katayama 1959, 267-68). In Ogawa-mura the decision to establish a branch household was made by the househead in consultation with the eldest son, and the majority of branches were established at the time of a younger son's marriage.

The explanation given for the comparatively low rate of fissioning during the Edo period is that the infertile shinden were not productive enough to warrant partitioning (KC 1959, 912-14). In the Meiji period, on the other hand, the burgeoning of sericulture and tea and indigo production, which individual households could manage sufficiently, facilitated the emergence of nondependent branch households. Sericulture especially predominated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1874 nearly 52 percent of all Ogawa-mura farm households were engaged in sericulture, rising to 74 percent in 1886. Corresponding percentages for Ogawa-shinden are 55 percent and 83 percent. When the worldwide demand for silk plummeted in the 1930s, many of these farm households collapsed and turned instead to shopkeeping (KC 1959, 376-77, 576-78).

Although precise data for Kodaira are not available, a 1983–84 survey of yard shrines in neighboring Higashiyamato City offers comparable supporting evidence for the second pattern of branch household formation in conjunction with yashikigami possession. The survey revealed that, of the twenty-eight yard shrines whose origins could be substantiated, nine were established during the Edo period and the rest between 1868 and 1940. Moreover, only two of the fifty-nine shrines surveyed were "found objects," while about seventeen were said by the present owners to have been "brought along" by the household in question when it was set up as a branch (Higashiyamato-shi jishu gurupu 1984).

That a main household and its nondependent branch or branches have their own yard shrines does not preclude a close relationship between them. In the first place, a branch's shrine was usually installed as a share of the main household's shrine, signifying the extension of a transcendent, affective bond between the households. Moreover, given

the place-kami aspect of Inari, this "sharing" of a yashikigami may have, at one time, signified the consolidation of an ie' s spatial domain, both in the sense of actual landholdings and in the sense of affective enclosure. And although each branch household still celebrates its own yashikigami, every year onhatsuuma, it also offers up to the main household's shrine rice steamed with red beans (sekihan ), sake, fried tofu (aburage ), dried sardines (mezashi ), and tapers (tomyo ). On this date, the branches also assist in cleaning the shrine and help erect colored banners, usually inscribed with the phrase "shoichi-i Inari daimyojin" and their names.^[5] These joint activities demonstrate symbolically the relative tenacity of intra-ie ties, although, as some natives have remarked, the fact that their main and branch households no longer feast together on that day indicates the gradual thinning of those ties.

A given household's shrine may also serve as the focal point for a voluntary but exclusive consociation (ko ) based on faith (shinko ) and heartfulness (kokoro ). The yard shrine of Koyama K. offers an exemplary case in point. It also illustrates the manner in which a yard shrine may become a place of public worship. Popularly known as Kasamori Inari, or "pox-warding Inari,"^[6] the shrine was installed about 135 years ago. Although no one quite knows why, Kasamori Inari was the focus of rowdy pilgrimages at the turn of this century. Tea shops, snack stalls, and bonsai vendors lined the path to the shrine, where Shinto dances (kagura ) were performed and young couples danced until midnight. The shrine's prosperity sparked quarrels among its custodians over the disposition of donations and offerings. In the ensuing squabble, Kasamori Inari was forgotten—at least until 1961, when the Koyamas and their neighbors in the same bangumi formed an Inari-ko and rebuilt the shrine on a smaller scale. The shrine's revival was prompted by a spate of traffic accidents and other misfortunes in the neighborhood, which the native residents interpreted as signs of Inari's anger at having been neglected for so long (Namiki and Tachikawa 1964, 32). The inauguration in 1960 of the native-run Kodaira Local History Study Society, which campaigned for the renovation of historical structures, also may have influenced the decision to rebuild the shrine.

There are about thirty wooden slats nailed to the outside walls of Kasamori Inari shrine, and on each one an Inari-ko member's name and donation are recorded in descending order of the amount given. Koyama's recently deceased father leads the list with a donation of 40,000 yen. Six tall torii, offered upon the fulfillment of a prayer, straddle a short stone path in front of the shrine. Inside the toolshed-sized

structure are hundreds of locally produced terra cotta and ceramic foxes stacked from floor to ceiling on either side of the altar, which is decorated with two red and one white heisoku, or sacred zigzag papers mounted on sticks. And on shelves fitted to an outer wall are stacked hundreds of dusty votive tablets (ema ). Koyama's mother and several Inari-ko members offer daily prayers at the shrine, and on hatsuuma both the Inari-ko and members of the Koyama ie (including the main household) congregate to perform oblations.

Kasamori Inari also demonstrates how a yard shrine can provide a focus for intra-ie relations of a nonhierarchical nature, insofar as the shrine belongs to a branch household and is also worshiped by the Koyama main household. Although this branch, established in the 1850s by Koyama Umazo, prospered in the sesame oil trade, its economic rise did not correspond to a decline in the main household's fortunes, in which case a branch often assumes the role of a main household (Nakane 1967, 115). The intra-ie worship of Kasamori Inari represents not a change in the internal hierarchy between the main and branch households but, rather, an affirmation of the affective aspect of their relationship.

The Inari-ko is one of the consociations linking neighboring native households—nonnatives are not welcome—in a voluntary and horizontal manner, irrespective of other fixed or fluid forms of neighborhood divisions within a given bangumi. The Inari-ko, in short, is based on and revolves around faith and camaraderie—subjective qualities which, as the Kasamori Inari legend suggests, may yield to avarice should a shrine lose its exclusivity and become popular among the public at large. (This potential for avarice, in fact, is the rationale given for excluding newcomers from native consociations.) The Inari-ko, intersects with Shinmei-gu:ko members are also parishioners, and Kasamori Inari is registered with the premier shrine, from which it receives ceremonial paraphernalia. There is, then, a degree of spatial articulation between the Koyama yard shrine and its Inari-ko and between Shinmei-gu and its parish; and this articulation further integrates the Ogawa Eight.

The Kasamori Inari-ko is one of several such consociations in the Ogawa Eight. There are also pilgrimage ko, organized on a bangumi basis, such as the Mitake-ko and the Mitsumine-ko, named after mountains in Saitama prefecture. Each year the members designate several representatives to make a mountain pilgrimage on their behalf. When the pilgrims return, a party is given for them. At this party, the pilgrims

recount their adventures and distribute talismans, which are then plastered on the fences, mailboxes, and doors of native homes, distinguishing them from newcomer households. The talismans feature a wood-block print of a terrifying dog, seated and teeth barred, above which appears the name of the mountain shrine (KC 1959, 1210; KK 1983, 134-35; Asahi shinbun, 25 April 1984).

Yard shrines not only symbolize a household's (or ie' s) nativeness, but the mere obeisance to yashikigami indicates a recognition on the part of native households of their collective role as the custodians of "tradition." Apart from the actual exclusion of newcomers from membership in coteries such as the Inari-ko, the yard shrines visually distinguish native from newcomer homes, as do the "wolf-dog" talismans. Yard shrines and their owners also are the subject of legends and folktales that help to mystify the nativeness of native households. The Koyamas, who own Kasamori Inari, are perhaps the most notorious in this respect.

Even among natives, the Koyamas are referred to, without a trace of malice, as "kind of different" (chotto kawatta ). The household is popularly known as oni no yado, or "house of demons." The name stems from their practice of entertaining demons during the end-of-winter (setsubun ) festival in February, when all other households seek to purge evil from the premises by throwing beans and shouting, "Demons outside, fortune inside!" It is thought that this unusual practice was started by Umazo, who established the branch household to which Kasamori Inari belongs. Sekihan, or rice steamed with red beans, is prepared and heaped onto a square of paper that has been placed upon a round straw mat, the cover of a cylindrical straw bag used to store grains. (The paper has been creased twice to symbolize a crossroad.) Sake is sprinkled liberally over the festive rice; tapers are then lit, and the demons who have been expelled from neighboring households are invited to the feast. At midnight the househead escorts them to a crossroad, ostensibly to confuse the demons and keep them from returning to cause mischief; deposits there the straw round heaped with rice; and returns home, taking special care neither to look back nor to be discovered by anyone (Namiki and Tachikawa 1964, 31). According to the present househead, the demons are now escorted to an isolated corner of the homestead, since the increase in late-hour traffic on Oume Road precludes conducting the ritual along this historic thoroughfare.

The standard explanation for the Koyamas' demon-feasting ritual is that Umazo felt sorry for the expelled demons and hit upon the idea of

feasting them in order to forestall any revengeful notions on their part. He was also keen on cajoling them into working their magic on behalf of his household, which was making a start in the oil-pressing business. It was cautiously volunteered by several natives that the "differentness" of the Koyamas extends to their being fox-spirit holders. Accompanying the belief in possession by human and animal spirits is the belief that certain households "hold" animal spirits, which usually work to enrich their owners, although the spirits may also abandon or turn against their holders. The Katos, who maintain the most elaborate yard shrines, have also been implicated, albeit through innuendo, as fox-spirit holders. It is significant that both households are among the largest landowners in Kodaira; Koyama and Kato also are the most numerous names in the Ogawa Eight.

Yoshida has noted that animal-spirit holding is most common and that spirit possession occurs most frequently among unrelated neighbors and among families whose farmlands are in close proximity. He cites the relative autonomy of such neighboring households and the relative weakness of kinship ties as predictors of conflict, manifested in the form of spirit possession and accusations of animal-spirit holding. Unstable economic activities such as sericulture also facilitate these phenomena (Yoshida 1984, 86, 96, 102-3). The conditions for spirit holding and spirit possession enumerated by Yoshida fit the shinden context described in chapter 3, particularly the predominance of place (over "blood" and/or fictive kinship) ties and the striated arrangement of homesteads. Although one local historian, Oda T., mentioned to me that pilgrims to Kasamori Inari during its heyday were sometimes possessed by the resident spirit, it is not clear whether these incidents were attributed to the Koyama household as a fox-spirit holder. Although animal-spirit holding is a sensitive issue not easily broached by outsiders such as myself, an in-depth study of the Musashino shinden villages should yield much insight into this practice in the Kanto region.

It is no secret that the Koyamas are "different," for the story of Umazo feasting the demons is included among the folktales and research reports published by the Kodaira Local History Study Society. The unusual custom of the Koyamas is even mentioned in publications such as the Kodaira Women's Association newsletter (Fujin no tsudoi nyuzu, March 1984). Like the despotic antics of Ogawa Kurobei, the "kind of different" practices of the Koyamas add a dash of spice to Kodaira local history. Moreover, the fact that the Koyamas still feast the demons every February makes their custom a "living history."

Customs such as this one not only distinguish the native sector in Kodaira but imbue the city with an "authenticity" that vitalizes the image of Furusato Kodaira. In this connection, Koyama K.'s wife remarked half seriously and half facetiously that since their demonfeasting custom is so well known in Kodaira—"and your work will make us famous in the United States, too"—perhaps they should stop the practice. She claimed to be uninterested in the household's lore, since she does not view their lifestyle as "marvelously strange" (fushigi ). However, she continued, her daughter does find it strange and has made researching the Koyama ie' s history her hobby. Perhaps other members of the new generation of tochikko will also be self-conscious enough about their household's nativeness to make it an object of research, quite apart from the question of whether they will actively perpetuate these customs on their own.

Shinmei-gu: Native Parishioners, New Worshipers

A discussion of the Shinmei-gu parish (ujiko ) and related consociations will complement my review of the more exclusive neighborhood coteries associated with yard shrines. The Shinmei-gu ritual and ceremonial agenda is divided into two broad social categories—native and newcomer—each with activities specific to its residential status. The division exists for practical as well as ideological reasons, despite furusato rhetoric to the effect that Shinmei-gu is Kodaira's premier shrine and serves each sector of the city equally.

Ogawa S., a onetime sericulturist who now manages a grocery store in the Ogawa Eight, mentioned, with a touch of condescension, that neighborhood relations were "dry" outside the Ogawa Eight because "they" (the outsiders) did not have a parish shrine (omiya-san ).^[7] On the occasion of my unannounced visit, he and his fellow Shinmei-gu parishioners were busy assembling and decorating their bangumi' s lantern-float (mando ), ^[8] which the younger men would shoulder and bear boisterously in the evening's festive procession—the Yagumo shinkosai — along Oume Road. Yagumo-jinja, one of the eight small shrines incorporated into the Shinmei-gu complex, is dedicated to Susanoo, the tempestuous younger brother of the sun kami, Amaterasu. Shinkosai denotes a procession in which the kami -body, temporarily en-

shrined for the occasion within an elaborate portable shrine, is paraded through the parish, purging it of noxious influences. This festival is but one of the Shinmei-gu parishioner-centered events in which the integrity of Ogawa Eight natives in particular stands out in high relief against the "dry" land inhabited by the newcomers.

A prior word about the significance of ujiko, both the parish and the parishioners, is in order. The term literally means "children or subordinates of the uji, " which originally referred to a clan chieftain who, as an ancestral spirit, evidently was worshiped as an ujigami (or shizokugami ). As explained earlier, when the ujigami gradually lost its lineal exclusivity, the ujiko came to comprise patron households of diverse backgrounds located within a specifically demarcated area. In 1871, soon after the Meiji Restoration, the government decreed that parishes (particularly of a district shrine, such as Shinmei-gu ) were to double as census tracts and that the possession of a shrine's talisman was evidence of a household's parish registration. Although this system—which recalls the Edo-period temple parish system discussed below—was discontinued two years later, shrine parishes continue to retain their place-centeredness (Chiba 1970, 241-42). The Shinmeigu parish encompasses the native households of Ogawa-cho and secures the boundaries of the natives' society.

The Shinmei-gu parish is subdivided into ten constituencies: the Ogawa Eight plus the peripheral Ogawa Hon-cho and Ogawa Sakakita. The last two formerly were autonomous extensions (aza, or small [village] sections), which in 1962 were incorporated into Ogawa Nishi-machi and Ogawa Higashi-cho respectively. Only the parish constituency representing the Ogawa Eight, however, entered lantern-floats in the Yagumo procession. As one woman watching the procession with me remarked: native households (like hers) farther back from Oume Road formed a less integrated alliance, even though, nominally at least, they were equally represented in the parish (refer to map 6).

According to Miyazaki of Shinmei-gu, there were about six hundred registered parish households as of 1984. He also noted that there are many others who call themselves ujiko but who are not registered. That these unregistered households regard themselves as parishioners is not entirely unwarranted; after all, the shrine advertises itself—in posters for the New Year's pilgrimage, for instance—as the city's tutelary kami (i.e., ujigami ), implying that all Ogawa-cho residents, native and newcomer alike, are ujiko. Similarly, one of the set of local playing cards (kyodo karuta ) distributed by city hall to newcomers, as a means of in-

troducing them to historical institutions and customs in Kodaira, defines an ujiko as, simply, a group of residents ("villagers") who worship at the same shrine. There is, in short, a glaring discrepancy between the popular (furusato ) rhetoric dealing with the Shinmei-gu parish and the actual constituency of the ujiko, which is limited to Ogawa natives.

Each parish household has a membership card, filed in one of Miyazaki's several folders, on which is printed an address, the name of the househead, and the name of the head's successor if one already has been selected. The predictability of the succession and continuity of a household within the same setting continues to ensure the integrity of the Ogawa Eight. As Miyazaki paged through the folders, I could see that the vast majority of names belonged to native households, and in fact the ujiko essentially is limited to select native households.^[9] The criteria for membership, apart from house ownership, include permanent residence within Kodaira, local seniority and stature, and the guarantee of a successor to assume responsibility for the household's religious (i.e., parish) obligations.

Historically, the parish was a less exclusive organization in that a pilgrimage to the shrine and the payment of certain fees, in addition to house ownership and financial solvency, were sufficient grounds for membership. Presently, at Shinmei-gu, there is a token membership fee of 100 yen, which is separate from the donations for festival-related and other expenses throughout the year. In addition, the wealthier parishioners foot the cost of shrine repairs (Shinmeisama, 1 June 1984).

Miyazaki also pointed out that there is no longer an ujiko handbook; the parishioners prefer a less formal, word-of-mouth style of administration. This practice alone reveals the select clientele that parishioners now represent, for the disregard of a standardized protocol suggests that they are familiar enough with one another to make informal agreements and tacit understanding feasible modes of administration. Actually, it was not until our second interview that Miyazaki acknowledged the exclusivity of the Shinmei-gu parish. At our initial meeting, he had casually remarked that it was relatively easy for a household to join. The househead merely had to ask the ujiko delegate of his area; "it was as simple as that." I interpreted this implausible statement as a sign of his initial desire to cater to what he presumed to be my "democratic American" sensibility; his long digressions on Shinto as a universalistic, peace-loving religion may have been delivered for the same reason. Only later did he admit to the existence of strict criteria for parish membership noted earlier.

In addition to those criteria, Miyazaki has added neighborhood stability, regardless of a given household's native status. Thus, native households in Sakae-cho, despite their eagerness to do so, have not been permitted to join the Shinmei-gu parish. The area, says Miyazaki, is simply not stable enough to guarantee a succession of ujiko custodians, of whom there must be three for each constituency: the parish subdivision delegate, the neighborhood association chair, and the chair of the agricultural association. As a rule, the ujiko custodians are elected to serve a three-year term, although some have served for over thirty years. Two or even all three of the posts are sometimes held concurrently by the same individual, and, moreover, the nepotism often characterizing these posts recalls their hereditary nature during the Edo period.

The Sakae-cho area remained mostly forested and unpopulated through the 1950s. Between 1963 and 1970, however, it experienced the largest percentage of population growth of all the city's districts: from 50 to 898 persons (14 to 248 households). By 1983 more newcomers had moved to Sakae-cho, bringing the population of this higgledy-piggledy sector to 1,394 persons (469 households) (Kodaira-shi shiminbu shiminka 1983b, 22; KSH, 20 May 1959, 1 October 1970). Although parish membership is not available to them, natives from Sakae-cho have been recruited instead for the Shinmei-gu worshipers' association (sukeikai ). This group, as a rule, is composed not of households but of individuals recruited by a shrine to participate in certain activities (see Chiba 1970, 36–37).^[10] New branches of Ogawa Eight households are also considered prime worshipers' association candidates and often graduate to parishioner status after they have established themselves—a state that, according to Miyazaki, takes about ten years to achieve. The shrine's sukeikai recruitment campaign, which includes advertisements in its newsletter, is conducted each year in June. Presently there are about ninety worshipers from Nakashima-cho and a dozen or more each from Sakae-cho, Tsuda-machi, and Gakuen Nishi-machi. All these areas lie within the domain of the former Ogawa-mura and—again according to Miyazaki—are unable to maintain a stable parish (refer to map 6). In short, the constituency of the Shinmei-gu ujiko and sukeikai is contingent upon both the original settlement pattern of Ogawa-mura and the subsequent (and projected) population growth and development of Kodaira as a whole.

In contrast to the general trend, Shinmei-gu parishioners far exceed the number of worshipers' association members, largely because of the strict membership criteria demanded by Miyazaki. He is able to be so

selective because Shinmei-gu can rely on the steadfast support of Ogawa Eight natives. Native households in turn provide this support as a means of controlling the circumstances of their existence, in the wake of rapid population growth and internal transformations, and to demonstrate, increasingly self-consciously, their enduring local stature and influence.

Generally speaking, the only condition for membership in worshipers' associations is said to be the "subjective will" or "faith" of individuals.^[11] As a group, however, they may be bound by similar occupations or common interests, which in turn may presuppose regional or residential factors (Chiba 1970, 51–53). Thus, although the sukeikai domain is not explicitly limited to a particular region, residence and, by extension, place identity can serve to regulate membership. Also, although individuals generally are recruited, households are often the actual units of membership.

Miyazaki explained that, although they are segregated by membership criteria, Shinmei-gu parishioners and worshipers participate as equals in most of the shrine's festivals and ceremonies. Still, the Yagumo lantern-float procession largely is the undertaking of Ogawa Eight parishioners, although some members of the worshipers' association join in shouldering the floats. The status disparity between the two organizations may be summarized as follows: whereas parishioners support ceremonial activities as a duty (gimu ), worshipers do so as a privilege or a right (kenri ).

The chief priest rationalized his shrine's prominence and integrity by noting that, unlike Kumano-miya, Shinmei-gu enjoys a stable and supportive parish. That is, whereas the Ogawa Eight have retained much of their historical texture and composition, dramatic social and topographical changes, such as high-rise projects and tract homes, have disturbed the contiguity of the Kumano-miya parish, which is spread out over most of the area of the former Ogawa-shinden (namely, Naka-machi, Kihei-cho, and Gakuen Higashi-cho ) (refer to map 6). Nor does Kumano-miya enjoy the luxury of clear-cut, aligned, and coinciding parish, neighborhood association, and bangumi territories. Its parish region is peppered with manifold autonomous neighborhood associations reflecting the diversity of the area, which is popularly regarded as the domain of sarariiman. The Ogawa Eight, on the other hand, is recognized as the domain of native (farm) households.

A somewhat different fate has befallen the 220 (as of 1962) parishioners of the modest Hie-jinja. Its parish covers the first to fourth bangumi in Ogawa-cho, apparently a vestige of an earlier division of

parishioners between it and another small shrine on the east side that later merged with Shinmei-gu. The premier shrine, however, has all but monopolized the membership of these 220 households. Hie-jinja is now looked after by a sukeikai -like parish that lacks the strength of commitment and obligation accorded Shinmei-gu. Nevertheless, its priesthood has remained the hereditary prerogative of the Yamaguchi household.

The influence- and territory-consolidating tendency of Shinmei-gu is further demonstrated by Miyazaki's relatively recent appointment as priest of Musashino-jinja in Tenjin-cho. (Miyazaki is also the priest of Kumano-jinja in Higashiyamato City.) Since the position of priest of this and all other smaller Kodaira shrines (with the exception of Hie-jinja ) formerly was held concurrently by the Kumano-miya Miyazaki, this situation indicates a recent redistribution of power between the two brothers who represent Kodaira's two largest shrines.

As another means of increasing Shinmei-gu' s affective reach, Miyazaki has inaugurated several innovative "small festivals," such as the children's festival immediately following the rather perfunctory annual thanksgiving ceremony in September. Miyazaki pointed out that small festivals, although they are nominally less significant than grand festivals, can be staged on a grand scale, whereas a grand festival might actually amount to no more than a truncated, mechanical ritual attended by key parish officials. The children who participate in the children's festival are pupils of the kindergarten opened in 1963 with the parishioners' permission within the shrine compound. Not all of the 150 or so pupils are from native households, and quite a few are bused to and from their homes in neighboring cities.

One attraction of this kindergarten, as Miyazaki's wife, the viceprincipal, noted, is that it offers a "comprehensive religious education." By the same token, these small festivals also guarantee a steady "outsider" clientele, since parents (mostly mothers) invariably come to watch their daughters and sons shoulder miniature portable shrines, several of which are made during art class. The children often end up partaking in other school cum shrine events as well, such as the annual outdoor exorcism (obarai ) held at the end of June. By linking the school's curriculum with the shrine's ritual and ceremonial calendar, Miyazaki has expanded both the "outsider" clientele and, by association, the affective reach of the shrine. Other festivals at which outsiders are welcome include setsubun in February, shichigosan in November, and the New Year's pilgrimage. Setsubun has already been described in connection with the Koyamas' yard shrine. Shichigosan, literally "seven-

five-three," is a ritual performed to ensure the healthy development of three-, five-, and seven-year-old children. All these events are openly acknowledged as fund-raising events. The basic fee for the shichigosan ritual at Shinmei-gu was 10,000 yen in 1984. As with the "child" shrines paraded in the citizens' festival, reference to shrine ceremonials as "children's festivals" implies that the event is intended not only for children but also for nonnatives and outsiders, for whom the prefix "child(ren)" is a euphemism.

Attendance at Shinmei-gu functions is treated as a form of obligatory and privileged participation, and the "upcoming events" column in the shrine's newsletter indicates as much. In the 1 July 1983 edition, parishioners and worshipers were urged to attend the ancestors' festival (obon ) and associated summer exorcisms.^[12] Festival and other events explicitly open to outsiders are announced as such, and the fact that outsiders are welcome to participate is emphasized. Both the Yagumo lantern-float procession and the New Year's pilgrimage are widely advertised by posters and ads placed in the local edition of the major newspapers.

The territory within which the Shinmei-gu parish and worshipers' association are organized lies within the former Ogawa-mura, and membership in the parish especially has remained more or less limited to native Ogawa-mura households. A hard-and-fast distinction is drawn between "us" and "them," despite the numerical predominance of newcomers. A major factor facilitating this distinction is the coincidence of the bangumi, neighborhood association, and parish boundaries, a factor in turn facilitated by the continuity and contiguity of native households over the course of centuries, in some cases. At least 600 (90 percent) of the 668 households who are members of neighborhood associations (jichikai ) in the Ogawa Eight are also Shinmei-gu parishioners (table 4).

Parish households typically are also members of their bangumi' s neighborhood association. Not only do association chairs serve concurrently as parish custodians, but neighborhood association meeting places double as sites for late-night festivities following Shinmei-gu festivals. Directly after the Yagumo lantern-float procession, for example, each of the eight ujiko groups retired to its bangumi' s meeting place to drink (and drink and drink), dance, and gossip the night away. Unlike most neighborhood associations, none of the Ogawa Eight interdict religious activity. As I discuss in the next chapter, the tenacious integrity of the natives' society (among other factors) has prompted certain

newcomer households to form their own neighborhood associations as enclaves within the Ogawa Eight. That the Ogawa Eight parish and neighborhood associations overlap to a singularly high degree is illustrated, in contrast, by similar figures for the Megurita-chokai. The Megurita neighborhood association, like its Ogawa Eight counterparts, forms an integral domain and is considered a native enclave. But of the 729 member households, only 26 (3.5 percent) are parishioners of Hikawa-jinja.^[13]

Shinmei-gu is a public institution, although it also maintains a private aspect manifest in the form of an exclusive parish and a selectively recruited worshipers' association. Visitors who are not parishioners or members of the worshipers' association are not denied entry to the shrine, but they may participate only in those festivals to which they have been invited, such as the summer exorcism, various children's festivals, and the New Year's pilgrimage. Distinctions between natives and newcomers, insiders and outsiders, are also maintained by Kodaira's historical temples.

Original Temples and Temple Origins

During the Edo period, temples were far more enmeshed in politics than shrines were, and they intervened more overtly in community affairs than shrines did. Temples were an instrument and extension of the bakufu, which (in accordance with its anti-Christian policy) required all Japanese to register as members of a Buddhist parish to "prove" their orthodoxy. Shrine patronage, in contrast, generally was not as systematized and was informed by custom, as opposed to law—although these distinctions tended to coalesce over time, as the term customary law suggests (Maruyama 1975, 629).

Shosen-ji presently is the sole temple in the area formerly known as Ogawa-mura, although two temples were established there in 1656 at the outset of the village's reclamation. The other was Myoho-ji, which was transferred to Enoto-shinden (Kokubunji City) in 1909. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, its parish—which consisted of all but a section of Enoto-shinden —had already been subsumed by Shosen-ji. Shosen-ji was established in Ogawa-mura as a branch of Gekkei-ji in Edo, which was affiliated with Enkaku-ji, the famous Rinzai Zen temple in Kamakura.^[14] Shosen-ji' s principal image is Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of medicine and healing. Kurobei probably commissioned a Rinzai temple for the shinden village because his parent village's parish temple was of that sect. The eventually relocated Myoho-ji, however, belonged to the Soto Zen sect,^[15] and its principal image is Shaka Nyorai, the historical Buddha (Ashida 1977, 265; Harada 1964, 42; KK 1983, 111-12).

Both Shosen-ji and Myoho-ji were established by "special petition" (kanjo ) as hikidera, or "commissioned temples." A commissioned temple symbolized the relative autonomy of a shinden village and its independence from the parent village, for its establishment meant that a given shinden' s residential population was sufficiently stable to form and support a temple parish. The stability of such temples was directly contingent upon the number of parishioner households (danka ) in their charge. Because the loss of even one parishioner household could presage collapse, temples were sometimes ferociously competitive in their efforts to secure a parish.

The emergence of the hikidera system accompanied the widespread reclamation of shinden in the 1720s and reflected the bakufu' s "one village, one temple" policy, implemented at the outset of the Tokugawa

regime. In tandem with this measure was a measure aimed at restoring and preserving "historical temples" (koseki-ji ). The criterion for "historical" and thus tax-exempt status was included in a 1688 edict: temples constructed prior to 1631 were classified as "historical temples," and those after that date were classified as "new site temples" (shinchi-ji ). Not a few temples fabricated an illustrious history and a sectarian genealogy in order to qualify for the tax exemption. Priests were forbidden from holding concurrent posts, and temples lacking a resident clergy were categorized as foundered temples. The policy forbade both the construction of temples representing new sects and the establishment of "private" temples (Ando 1977, 111; Sakamoto 1966, 81, 86, 91). A similar policy to abolish temples with neither a parish nor a resident clergy was implemented in the Meiji period, and in the 1870s the number of temples countrywide was reduced from 94,000 to 72,600 (Ando 1977, 150, 164).

Commissioned temples were not considered "new," since they were mainly foundering or foundered temples transferred (in name) to another locale and thereby revitalized. These insolvent temples often were branches of "historical temples," a main-branch relationship that was resumed and perpetuated through the hikidera system (Sakamoto 1966, 83, 97). Tax-exempt land (jochi ) was especially designated by the bakufu for temple or shrine use only.^[16] This official land grant occasionally was augmented by a gift of land from the head of a shinden village, in an attempt to induce a "historical temple" to reestablish an impoverished branch in that shinden. Since the bakufu effectively had limited the number of viable temples, branches available for revitalization were sometimes in short supply, making for competition among shinden villages in quest of commissioned temples. The annual tax levied on the donated land, which was not tax exempt, was borne by village officials (Sakamoto 1966, 100).

The choice of one sect's temple over another usually was based on demographic factors. If the majority of a shinden' s initial settlers hailed from the same village and parish, then they had the right to choose a commissioned temple of the same sect as the parent village's (Sakamoto 1966, 98–100).^[17]

Once a commissioned temple was established, the village head, in the capacity of kaiki (the term for a temple's pioneer founder—the founding priest was called kaizan ), was responsible for ensuring the stability of the parish and often wielded authority over the temple itself (Kimura and Ito 1972, 201). Ogawa Kurobei was among the more autocratic

shinden heads in this respect. One of his preconditions for settlement was that all settlers convert to the Rinzai sect (Harada 1964). Authoritarian measures such as this made establishing branch temples in shinden villages an attractive proposition for the Buddhist sects. The Obaku Zen sect,^[18] founded in 1659, made rapid inroads mainly because its priests were encouraged by the bakufu to establish temples in shinden villages. The single Obaku temple in Kodaira is Enjo-in, whose founding priest was also a shinden financier.

Although Kurobei's control over Buddhism surely aroused the indignation of the shinden settlers, no records survive of any disputes between them and the head on the matter of sect conversion and parish registration. However, temple-related disputes that erupted in the other "Kodaira" shinden are better documented and serve to illustrate what may have transpired in Ogawa-mura as well. Prospective settlers in Nonaka-shinden for instance, were forced to pledge allegiance to Enjo-in. It was not long before the immigrant farmers reneged on their initial agreement; they belong to different Buddhist sects and in the end were unwilling to convert to the Obaku sect. Instead, in 1728 a group of eight farmers registered with a temple in Fuchu, a village several kilometers to the south. Just as there were settlers who were reluctant to convert, there were also those who wished to but were restrained from doing so by their parish temples, as demonstrated by disputes involving Onumata-shinden settlers. The immigrant farmers, who at first had remained parishioners of their respective parent-village temples, petitioned for a commissioned temple in 1743, about seventeen years after their arrival. The reason given was that the parent-village temples were too far away to serve the parishioners' immediate needs. The Onumata-shinden head thereupon negotiated with a certain priest, who suggested revitalizing Senzo-in, a foundered Tendai temple in a neighboring village.^[19] The priest of the main temple readily agreed to the scheme, and permission for the transfer was granted in 1744 by the magistrate of temples and shrines. The settlers then appealed to their respective parent-village temples for permission to switch parishes. Not surprisingly, the temples refused, for the loss of parishioners would adversely affect them; and in 1745 the temples appealed to bakufu officials. The officials ruled in the settlers' favor, ordering each parent-village temple to surrender part of its parish to Senzo-in (Kimura 1964, 226-27; KC 1959, 134-36).

Although records are unavailable, the prevalence of parish-related disputes in the Kodaira shinden villages suggests that Ogawa-mura

was similarly affected to some degree. Ogawa-mura, however, was unusual in that Kurobei established two temples from the start. One, Shosen-ji, he named after himself (shosen is the Chinese-style reading for ogawa ). He established this temple as his household's bodai-ji, the term for a temple, dependent upon parishioners, that is primarily concerned with funerals and memorial services (Ashida 1977, 265; Kimura and Ito 1972,200–201). Shosen-ji was the larger and more prestigious of the two temples, as demonstrated by the three hectares of tax-exempt land (jochi ) reserved for its construction. The second temple, Myoho-ji, was built on a two-hectare site (jochi ) a little over one kilometer east of the other temple.

In a blatant demonstration of autocracy, Kurobei designated his residence as the boundary dividing the two parishes, and until Myoho-ji, s eventual displacement, efforts were made to equalize the number of parishioners belonging to each. In 1665, for example, two households from the Shosen-ji parish were transferred to that of Myoho-ji, whose parish had decreased by that number. The two households were to be transferred back to their original parish once the smaller temple's parish increased in number. By the time the village divisions (kumi ) were formed, Shosen-ji' s was the sole parish in the village (Kimura and Ito 1972, 203). It appears, then, that the two parishes initially functioned in the capacity of kumi to organize the growing village; but once the actual kumi system was inaugurated, one parish evidently was not only sufficient but also desirable from an administrative point of view. By initially dividing the village into two equal parishes, Kurobei was able to mediate both the authority of each temple and the loyalty of its parishioners. Similarly, the relocation of Shinmei-gu across from Shosen-ji, in 1680, effectively unified and made spatially isomorphic the temple and shrine parish territories, a situation that has contributed to the integrity of the Ogawa Eight (cf. Kimura and Ito 1972, 183-84).

"Commissioned temple" is the generic term for two fundamental types of Buddhist institutions: bodai-ji and kito-ji.Bodai-ji, among which the Zen and Jodo^[20] sects are most common, are temples "specializing" in funerals and memorial services; they do not, in principle (as opposed to practice), earn additional income through supplicant-centered services, such as exorcisms and devotionals. Generally speaking, those activities are the prerogative of temples classified as Kito-ji (Kito means "devotions"), among which the Shingon, Tendai, and Nichiren^[21] sects predominate (Miyata 1972, 123; Tarumi 1983, 43-

44). Kodaira's seven temples are roughly divided between these two types of institutions, although the Zen sect temples, as bodai-ji, monopolize the vast majority of parishioner households (table 5).

It was not long before Kodaira's bodai-ji, began selling or bartering posthumous names in addition to installing and managing, either within their compounds or at locations throughout the village, small shrines housing a particular Buddhist deity or Shinto kami. During the Edo period, thirteen such shrines were established in Ogawa-mura alone, seven of them within Shosen-ji. Competition among temples was not limited to securing a parish but involved attracting supplicants and clients (shinja ) with an interest in devotionals as well. Presently, in this connection, an annual daruma fair, at which images of the Zen patriarch, Bodhidharma, are sold, is held at Shosen-ji in March. Just as funeral temples adopted devotional rites, devotional temples undertook funeral services, although the former have maintained a larger number of parishioners.

Before I proceed to a discussion of Buddhist consociations, a brief

word on Heian-in is in order. The relationship between Shosen-ji and Heian-in is analogous to that between Shinmei-gu and Kumano-miya. Heian-in, a branch of Shosen-ji, was established in 1739 as the parish temple of Ogawa-shinden settlers, who represented branches of Ogawa-mura households (KC 1959, 121). Its name formerly belonged to the pagoda at Gekkeiji, from where the Ogawa-mura head summoned a priest to reside at the new shinden temple. Its main image is Shaka Nyorai, and its parish coincides with that of Kumano-miya (KK 1983, 114-15).

Heian-in is much smaller (.63 hectare) and lower in rank than Shosen-ji, but it has never been destroyed by fire. (Unfortunately, however, the temple's historical records have yet to be indexed and analyzed.) In addition to funeral services, the small temple, like Shosen-ji and several others in Kodaira, continues to stage an annual segaki ceremony in August and a star festival in December. The former is a memorial service to placate restless spirits. Parishioners buy toba —the tall, thin, wooden grave markers that are the objects of the service—from the temple. A marker is sometimes taken home and utilized in a household's ancestor festival rites; afterward it is returned to the gravesite (see Smith 1974, 41–43). The star festival is a predominantly Shingon festival that other Buddhist sects (and Shinto shrines too) have incorporated into their ceremonial repertoire. It is essentially an occasion for celestial augury.

Memorials and auguries aside, both ceremonies continue to serve as fund-raising events. Miura H., the incumbent priest of Shosenji, criticizes his colleagues for being businessmen first and priests a distant second, although he himself is an astute entrepreneur. Several years ago, his temple began selling mizuko Jizo, small statues of the Bodhisattva of children, offered up to the souls of aborted fetuses (mizuko ). The high rate of induced abortion among Japanese women, coupled with their desire to mollify the allegedly agitated soul of the fetus, has made this sideline a most profitable one for temples.^[22]

Buddhist Consociations

Apart from small shrines, markets, and mizuko Jizo, another primary way in which temples have augmented their income is by organizing ko (consociations). Temple-centered consociations

emerged early in the Edo period as "money-collecting instruments" and soon met with the bakufu' s disapproval (Miyata 1976, 280-81). From the early 1700s on, edicts were promulgated forbidding the assembly of the consociations, some of which boasted as many as one hundred members; but the practice continued. It was not only their size that was alarming; the fact that some consociations admitted both men and women disturbed the officials' sense of Confucian sexual propriety (ibid., 280).

One of the seven small shrines established within Shosen-ji consists of a Jizo statue given jointly in 1718 by a certain Ogawa and the custodians of the local nenbutsu-ko (KC 1959, 1315). Judging from the inscriptions on other donated statuary, the nenbutsu-ko appears to have been the only Buddhist consociation of its kind in the Kodaira Seven (see ibid., 1301-14). It remains active today, if greatly reduced in scale, primarily as a friendship coterie organized within each bangumi by the women of certain native, parishioner households. The association of nenbutsu-ko with Shosen-ji, a Zen temple, is of interest here.

Historically, the nenbutsu-ko is a Jodo sect consociation, its Zen sect counterpart being the Kannon-ko.^[23] In Kodaira, only nenbutsu-ko were active, with the exception of a mysterious Kannon-nenbutsu-ko based in Ogawa 8-bangumi, as inscribed on a memorial stele gifted to Shosen-ji in 1817 (Kodaira kyodo kenkyukai 1983, 20). The name suggests a conflation of the two different consociations.^[24] Generally speaking, both types of consociation are explicitly territorial in terms of membership and activities, and both groups assemble at their parish temple for sessions of sutra chanting.

The nenbutsu-ko, and Kannon-ko, with their emphasis on temple-centered functions, effectively helped to unite shinden villages comprising people of diverse backgrounds. These consociations assisted in delineating a village's social and geographic boundaries by installing landmarks, in the form of statues, which in turn provided a focus for the collective enactment of ritual activities (Kodama 1976, 235-38). The siting of these statues continues to demarcate and reinforce the boundaries of the natives' society. Miura, Shosen-ji's incumbent priest, told me that the nenbutsu-ko today is organized within each bangumi and meets at private homes. He noted that each group has its own peculiar style of sutra chanting. Whereas the members of one bangumi's consociation sit in a circle and rotate a giant rosary among themselves, the members of another finger their own small rosaries. Style, then, also distinguishes the affective and instrumental boundaries of each bangumi, which, collectively, delineate the boundaries of the natives' society.

Another consociation, one more peripherally related to temples, is the zenwan-ko, or "tray-and-bowl" consociation, which was in existence in Kodaira by the early 1800s. The only extant records dealing with the zenwan-ko, however, concern a group in Suzuki- and Nonaka-shinden In the Wan-ko renmeicho ([Tray-and-] bowl consociation rollbook, 1821), it is noted that sixteen farmers from Suzuki-shinden and five from Nonaka-shinden belonged to the consociation, which had two custodians. The membership distribution suggests that it was organized within the Enjo-in parish. The purpose of the tray-and-bowl consociation was to rent out banquet paraphernalia for Buddhist memorial services, weddings, and other large-scale events KC 1959, 294-95). This function recently has been assumed by neighborhood associations and commercial wedding halls. The Gakuen Nishi-chokai, for example, lends out gratis to members not only trays and bowls but also cushions, tents, radio-cassette players, tables and chairs, cordless microphones, and even a transceiver. Unlike the paraphernalia rented out by the zenwan-ko, these items are mostly hand-me-downs. Although the consociation is now defunct in Kodaira, it remains active in neighboring Higashiyamato City (Musashino bijutsu daigaku seikatsu bunka kenkyukai 1983, 427-70).

In its time, the zenwan-ko, like the nenbutsu-ko, was instrumental in forging and maintaining interhousehold ties between place-linked groups. The existence of this consociation seemed to signify the thinness of "blood" and/or fictive kinship ties, along with the relative absence of interhousehold relations based on economic dependency. Zenwan-ko in general are not established in villages or within parishes where wealthy main households provide their subordinate branches with the necessary banquet paraphernalia. In other words, the virtual absence, in the Kodaira Seven, of tenacious main-branch or other interhousehold relations structured around economic dependency, together with the prevalence of place ties over kinship ties, occasioned the viability of the tray-and-bowl consociation. Recently, however, wedding halls and neighborhood associations have absorbed the function of zenwan-ko in the native sector as well.

Shosen-ji: Parishioners and Supplicants

In comparison to Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples have been mobile, extraterritorial institutions. These aspects were man-

ifested in shinden villages in the form of commissioned temples and temporary parishes. More generally, despite the bakufu's "one village, one temple" policy, the parish of a given temple often included a portion of the population of a neighboring or even distant village. Nevertheless, the majority of parish-dependent commissioned temples did serve to consolidate new villages, both in the sense that they were usually established by collective demand and because their stability was contingent upon securing an entire village's population as parishioners. Perhaps for these reasons, Kodaira's temples have proved very durable since their founding. Temple parish membership today involves a somewhat more formal procedure than shrine parish registration. A seal-impressed contract, in which the applicant pledges never to deviate from the Buddhist law and the sect's doctrine, is de rigueur. Membership, furthermore, is contingent upon securing a burial site in the temple's—in this case Shosen-ji's —cemetery, whereupon the names of a household's deceased members are duly recorded in the temple's death register.

Referring specifically to burial sites, Miura claims that Shosen-ji, of which he is the seventeenth-generation incumbent, is patently concerned with fostering place identity. The following quotation is a synthesis of his remarks on this subject during our conversation in the temple's unpretentiously elegant reception room. The tatami room, filled with Zen ink paintings and Chinese antiques, contrasted sharply with the eclectic, Western decor of the Shinmei-gu sitting room. The robust, kimono-clad Miura affected an uncultivated manner, professing his belief that the preservation-through-use of an earthy local dialect—which I do not attempt to anglicize here—is the key to both social morality and communal integrity. In further contrast to Miyazaki, Miura did not volunteer any genealogical information or distribute any public relations literature.

I oversee [as chief priest] four temples: Shosen-ji, Heian-in, Gekkei-ji,^[25] and another in Hakonegasaki, northwest of Kodaira. In my experience, the parishes of inner-city temples, such as Gekkei-ji, are rapidly decreasing, while those of suburban temples, like Shosen-ji, are increasing. More people are moving to the suburbs, and inner-city land available for cemeteries is shrinking fast. Just this year alone, the Shosen-ji parish increased by over one hundred households.

But not just anyone can join the parish. Just the other day. I turned down a request from a rich Tokyo businessman. He was interested in buying a rural, but nearby, gravesite and was willing to pay an enormous amount of money for it. But I'm not—that is, Shosen-ji is not—interested in money only. The temple's main responsibility and obligation is toward Kodaira natives. People feel

at ease when their household's gravesite is nearby. Since there's only so much cemetery space at Shosen-ji, I'm obliged to reserve parishioner status for Kodaira people over outsiders.^[26]

For example, some newcomers from Kyushu wanted to become parishioners now that they live in Kodaira. But I was only willing to recognize them as shinja [supplicants, clients]. "Look," I told them, "your ancestors are in Kyushu. It's your responsibility to make pilgrimages to Kyushu, not move your ancestors to Kodaira!"

Selecting parishioners isn't my personal choice, mind you, but the temple's.^[27] The relationship between a household and the temple is what counts. That's why parishioners are and should remain Kodaira folk. I've even allowed about one hundred branches [of native households] located outside of Kodaira to join, because their main households can handle all the necessary parish obligations. Most newcomers, on the other hand, aren't interested in maintaining the temple or contributing to the local community; they're only interested in services that benefit them alone. That's called the "shinja mentality": shinja are like those who join a shrine's worshipers' association—only interested in their own needs. They're not concerned about Buddhist teachings at all. That's why the stonemasons [described below] are getting so rich!

A temple depends on its parish just as parishioners depend on the temple; and local people with deep roots in Kodaira and a strong sense of commitment to this place are the most responsible parishioners.

Miura, the private citizen, further contributes toward the integrity of the Ogawa Eight as a member of the Shinmei-gu parish. Miyazaki, contrarily, does not belong to the Shosenji parish, since from the Meiji period onward his ancestors were given Shinto funerals (KC 1959, 369-70). Jokingly, Miura noted that, whereas he donates money to the shrine, Miyazaki does not have to make a similar contribution in return. Miura also indicated that the Shinmei-gu and Shosen-ji parishes more or less comprise the same households, and thus there is a good deal of cooperation between the two, especially when it comes to participating in seasonal events and footing the cost of renovations. Moreover, a bangumi' s temple and shrine delegates are often one and the same person. This probably is precisely the sort of interdependency Ogawa Kurobei had in mind when he located the two institutions across Oume Road from each other three centuries ago.

Conclusion: Religious Revanche

Regardless of the exclusivity today of the Shinmei-gu parish and worshipers' association, certain festivals take place beyond

the borders of the shrine compound. Such festivals have the effect of retracing the boundaries of the natives' society. The Yagumo lantern-float procession aptly illustrates my point. The procession, on 28 April 1984, set off from the parking lot of the agricultural cooperative, which marks the boundary between the former Ogawa-mura and Ogawa-shinden, and proceeded up Oume Road to Shinmei-gu. One of the bolder (or drunker) young men shouldering a lantern-float was clad only in a skimpy red loincloth. A woman standing next to me on the sidewalk gleefully shouted to her in-laws, "Look, [Ken]-chan is doing it naked!"

It is this sort of repartee between the performers and their audience that creates local heroes and memories to be laughed over, elaborated, and incorporated into the stock of native legends and gossip. The lantern-float bearers and the appreciative natives in the audience collectively were performers and their repartee another order of performance. The Yagumo procession not only retraced the geographic boundaries but also reinforced the affective alignment of the Ogawa Eight by generating enough "Did you see so and so do such and such?" material to fuel conversations and camaraderie among native householders for a long time. I was struck, in this respect, by the palpable difference in atmosphere between the Yagumo procession and the citizens' festival. The difference was symptomatic of the relationship between the performers and their respective audience: in the lantern-float procession, natives on their own turf; in the citizens' festival, myriad strangers sharing a public space.

Rivalry on the funeral front has prompted native temples to assert their central position in Kodaira history and social life. The rivals in question are the recently constructed "cemetery temples," as I call them, and stonemasons. The cemetery temples, some of which constitute little more than a prefabricated office building, cater almost exclusively to new residents and/or out-of-town clients who own household plots in the twenty-five-hectare municipal cemetery converted from Kodaira farmland in 1948. Most of these temples are located in the vicinity of the cemetery, along with the many stonemasons and Buddhist paraphernalia shops.

Stonemasons (ishiya ) deal in gravestones and religious statuary and have assumed such templelike services as providing flowers, water buckets, and incense for pilgrims. Stonemasons invariably are located in the vicinity of temples or cemeteries, and the majority in Kodaira are clustered around the entrance to the municipal cemetery. The manager

of one such shop informed me that they provide relatively inexpensive services regardless of a client's religious affiliation. Shops like hers, the manager continued, are less financially demanding on their clients than are temples. It is noteworthy that native stonemasons, such as Ogawa Y., do not compete with native temples in this way; rather, the stonemasons and the temples enjoy a reciprocal relationship.

One of the largest Buddhist paraphernalia shops is the Memorial Art Onoy, a virtual supermarket of household altars (butsudan ) and assorted ritual items. Its distinctive sphinx emblem stands out among the many "memorial art" store advertisements posted in the area. Onoya not only publishes a newsletter but boasts a counseling service dedicated to introducing needy clients to temples, none of which are among the native Kodaira temples. The store also sponsors, in collaboration with an out-of-town temple, a crematory memorial service for old Buddhist altars.

In the face of increasing competition from the cemetery temples, stonemasons, and religious supply stores, who blitz the newspapers with glossy inserts, especially around the equinox (higan ) and ancestors' festival seasons, Kodaira's native temples have increased their efforts to secure and maintain stable parishes. This is a situation somewhat like the competition, during the Edo period, between commissioned temples and parent-village temples over parishioners. Their message is simply that "native is best," and virtually all native and many senior local householders have burial plots within one of the seven Kodaira temple cemeteries. Their posted histories emphasize that the temples were established by and for the shinden pioneers in order to enhance the quality of pioneer life. Natives today add that, because their ancestors reclaimed the barren Musashino plain and established temples and shrines as civilizing agents, the legacy of these institutions should remain in their keep, as Shosen-ji' s incumbent priest has argued.

This revanchist stance, however, was not necessarily fostered by a longstanding respect for customs and concrete historical artifacts per se but, rather, was provoked by the tremendous influx of newcomers during the 1950s and 1960s, together with the "salary man-ization" (sarariimanka ) of farm households. It is as though natives were recommissioning the temples and shrines to service the needs of the native sector within the newly reclaimed Furusato Kodaira. Moreover, various monuments dedicated by native parishioners to temples and shrines effectively demarcate both the affective and the instrumental boundaries of that sector.

The numerous explanatory signs posted throughout the Shinmei-gu compound not only reflect Miyazaki's didactic temperament but also remind natives, and inform newcomers and outside clientele, of the shrine's prestigious ancestry, its leading role in the reclamation of Ogawa-mura, and its present importance as Kodaira's tutelary shrine. The posted histories of other Kodaira landmarks likewise demarcate the boundaries of the natives' society.

Since 1980 both city hall—as part of its long-term social education and furusato-zukuri strategy—and the Kodaira Local History Study Society—whose members include the priests of local temples and shrines—have encouraged efforts to renovate and preserve historical objects, architecture, and customs, especially Kodaira's native temples and shrines. Temple and shrine renovations are mostly financed by donations in money or kind from parishioners. The city assembly allocated forty million yen toward historical restorations over the period 1981–1985. Most of the funds were spent on the restoration of privately owned structures, such as the entranceway to Ogawa Kurobei's residence. One may speculate that the election in 1983 of Mayor Senuma E., the incumbent priest of Enmei-ji, influenced the surge in temple and shrine renovations since 1984.

Kodaira's new, postwar residents appreciate the historical temples and shrines not only as social forums but also as "green spaces" or gardens. The preservation of the city's diminishing trees and stretches of open fields apparently was, in 1983, the foremost concern of Kodaira residents at large (C 1983, 61, 63). Although newcomers cannot join certain shrine and temple consociations, they nevertheless can enjoy the historical buildings and gardens of Furusato Kodaira. By the same token, shrine festivals, such as the Yagumo lantern-float procession, are similarly effective displays of Kodaira's "living history."

As the percentage of newcomers who regard themselves as locals continues to grow, the "really real" natives incline increasingly toward a revanchist stance in their efforts to reclaim a special status within Kodaira. This tendency is evident in the exclusivity of religious consociations and temple and shrine parishes, as well as in the recent publication of Komyunitei Kodaira, a newsletter by and for natives. Regardless of whether newcomers actually seek to join these groups, they are not even given the opportunity to decline membership. There is a contradiction here. That is, while Shinmei-gu posters urge Kodaira residents at large to make their New Year's pilgrimage to "Kodaira's tutelary shrine," Miyazaki strictly limits membership in the parish and

worshipers' association to select native households. The exclusivity of temple and shrine parishes makes membership in these consociations all the more meaningful for natives, whose collective identity and claims to Furusato Kodaira are thereby reinforced. The integrity of the native sector today stems in part from an almost adversarial reaction to newcomers, from whom the minority natives seek to differentiate themselves. It is a reaction that has become more pronounced as the majority newcomers are urged to accept and think of Kodaira as their native place. Some of the implications and ramifications of this development are examined in the next chapter.