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Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
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2008. 11. 24. 21:04
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1986 13/4
Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory David C. LEWIS
Religious rites in Japanese factories have been mentioned in passing by several writers (e.g. Rohlen 1974, p. 41; Abegglen 1973, p. 140), but there has been no systematic investigation of this potentially very fruitful area of research. The present paper focuses on rites in a large synthetic fibers fac¬tory in a provincial city with a population of over 230,000 in the Kansai region of Japan. The factory was built in 1926 to 1927 and originally employed about 10,000 people, a figure which has been reduced to about 4,000 nowadays through increased mechanization. It is the largest and oldest plant among the thirteen factories in Japan belonging to a firm which I shall call by the pseudonym Nissen. This company derives about 70% of its revenue from the production of synthetic fibers such as nylon but in recent years has expanded into other spheres of industry including the production of video tapes, optical products, plastics, pharmaceuticals and even the con¬struction of lightweight durable panelling for the American space shuttle. My research on this firm was conducted during two periods of anthropologi¬cal fieldwork from 1981 to 1982 and 1983 to 1984, during the second of which I was able to observe and conduct interviews about the religious rites conducted in the plant.1
Virtually all the religious rites at this factory revolve around the theme of safety. A few also include aspects such as the removal of pollution or prayers for the firm's continuing prosperity. However, this emphasis on safety is by no means confined to the religious sphere: it would appear from the few references to safety in Dore's comparisons between two British and two Jap¬anese factories (1973, pp. 23-4, 189, 244-5) that safety is generally more emphasized in Japanese than in British factory life. It might be that this reflects a greater degree of danger in the Japanese workplace, as suggested by Kamata's account of conditions in a Toyota factory (1982), but in the in¬troduction to Kamata's book Ronald Dore suggests that Toyota may be
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quite exceptional. Kamata's account, dating from the pre-oil shock days, may also reflect an extreme situation at Toyota, since overall statistics for deaths from industrial accidents show relatively little difference between Japan, Western Europe and the U.S.A. Nevertheless at an ideological level there appears to be a consistently greater emphasis on safety in Japanese firms, as evidenced by practices such as the conspicuous use of "Safety First" slogans in Japanese factories generally, and by the conspicuous place¬ment of large notice boards around the plant in the Nissen factory, each consisting of graphs showing how many days had elapsed since a major acci¬dent had last occurred in the factory. In the same firm there is a motto which at present says "Safety First, Quality Second, Production Third." Before the 1972 oil crisis the last two items were reversed but the motto has always included the phrase "Safety First." Similarly, each morning the workers in each department look up to a notice on the wall of their work¬place on which is written a "Safety Eulogy" or "Safety Chant" (anzen shō 安 全 颂.), and all recite the words in unison. The text differs a little from one department to another, but the following example from a department in the research unit is probably fairly typical:
In praise of safety
May today be happy all day through
Just as yesterday was too.
Happiness and safety go hand in hand.
So may safety always pervade our orderly work
In the workplace to which we devote ourselves.
Safety. Safety. Safety.2
one other example comes from the "General Affairs" administrative department, where each morning all the workers recite together:
Not forgetting to smile the whole day long Today also, by keeping the rules, let there be no disaster.3
Other aspects of this concern with safety could be cited, ranging from spe¬cial safety days in the factory twice a month when all workers wear "Green Cross" safety armbands to the awarding of trophies to departments having an unbroken safety record for five or seven years, but the general pattern is clear and sets the context in which religious rites for safety are performed.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
263
General Religious Rites
The religious rites in this Nissen factory fall into two principal categories, namely those which occur at traditionally fixed occasions in the ritual year and those which are more specific to this company or factory. Rites in the first category include those performed at the New Year or on the first Day of the Horse after setsubun, the hatsu-uma sai, both of which appear to have equivalents or parallels in a number of other firms. My information is based on conversations with, and questionnaire replies from, employees in other firms, but there is scope for more extensive research on this topic in the future in order to examine variations by industry, size of firm, and so on. It also appears that other firms have specific rites which are not performed at Nissen. An example is the practice reported to me by a section manager in a pharmaceuticals firm. Twice a year at higan, when Buddhist ancestral rites are performed, some employees in that firm participate in a ceremony to give thanks or pray for the spirits of the dead animals used in vivisection for experimental purposes.
The following rites at Nissen are among those in the more general category which have parallels or variants elsewhere:
1.on New Year's Day the top three managers in this factory go together, unaccompanied by their wives because it is company business, to three dif¬ferent shrines in the city where they pray for the safety of the employees in their factory and give substantial financial donations from the company. (They also have lunch together in a prestigious hotel at company expense and are provided with a company car and chauffeur for the occasion.) They then pray together at each of the five shrines on the hillside behind the fac¬tory for which the company has responsibility. These small shrines do not have any permanent priesthood but are used at certain times of the year by the firm for religious rites, for most of which a Shinto priest from a local shrine near the factory comes to officiate at the rites.
2.on the first working day of the new year all the department managers (buchō) and higher executives in the factory, plus members of the factory's safety committee, assemble at the principal Nissen shrine for the "New Year Safety prayers." It is a brief ceremony, at the beginning of which the General Affairs section manager announces, "Now we are going to pray for the safety and prosperity of our factory this year" and then all in unison bow twice towards the altar area, clap their hands once and then bow once more. The ceremony is then declared over and all the men gradually disperse.
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3.on the first Day of the Horse after setsubun, in early February, is the
hatsu-uma sai, a rite which has continued in this industrial setting from the
agricultural background of traditional Japan. on this day the god of the
mountain (yama no kami) is said to descend from the hills to become the
god of the rice paddy (ta no kami). Thus this rite has its origins in invoking
the deity's protection and blessings in order to ensure material prosperity
through an abundant crop. However, the general attitude to this and virtual¬
ly all the other rites at Nissen among those who take part is that the relig¬
ious rites are to pray for safety at work, a few also mentioning prosperity as
another, apparently subsidiary, purpose in their prayers. This hatsu-uma rite
also has a parallel in the autumn when the god of the rice field returns to
become the god of the mountain; this shu-uma sai has at Nissen become
amalgamated with another autumnal rite held at Inari shrines, the o-hitaki
sai, which at Nissen is a parallel and identical rite to the hatsu-uma sai.
For these rites at Nissen a Shinto priest from a local shrine is hired to per¬form the ceremony, which consists of a ritual purification (o-harai) followed by prayers and the offering of sacred sakaki leaves on the offering dais (which had been specially prepared with offerings of fruits, vegetables, tai fish, rice wine, rice cakes and other items) by representatives of different sections in the factory. Those who present their offerings, accompanied by the usual bows and claps, are first the Shinto priest, then the plant manager, then the leader of the company union, followed by a representative for the male bachelor's dormitory, the Nissen "women's division" representative, the male and female representatives of the company housing for married employees and finally the Nissen "catering manager." Technically he is not a Nissen employee but rather the head of a catering firm which has a perma¬nent contract for running the firm's canteens. However, his family also owns the Shinto shrine just behind the main Nissen shrine. After the ceremony all the participants go to this shrine owned by the catering manager to perform a brief rite. They then go on to a third little shrine at the top of the hill be¬hind these other two, an old shrine dedicated to a god of silk production, for which Nissen has taken over de facto responsibility, and there perform an even briefer ceremony before all disperse back to their offices.
4. Around the time of the Bon ceremony in August, when the ancestors are
said to return to this world for a short time, Nissen hires a Buddhist priest
to perform a segaki rite for feeding the souls of the "hungry ghosts" on the
mountainside where the company shrines are located just behind the fac¬
tory. The area was the site of a battle in the year 672 A.D., and later was
used as a samurai training ground. Also on the hillside are a few kofun,
burial mounds dating from the preliterate period which remain unidentified
in terms of who was buried there. The whole area therefore contains the
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
265
spirits of many potentially harmful or vindictive spirits. These are thought to be either embodied in or guarded by the wild animals in the area. Therefore at the segaki rite the Buddhist priest prays for the spirits of the dead and then he and a man who represents the Nissen company for the event distrib¬ute around the hillside the various offerings of fruit, rice wine, and rice cakes for the wild animals to eat.
5. At the end of the working year a "Major Purification" (ō-harai shiki) for the top management in the factory is performed. This is also officiated over by the local Shinto priest and the climax of the rite consists of the priest taking out two strips of cotton cloth each about twelve to eighteen inches long which he had previously folded into two lengthways. Taking a pair of scissors he makes small incisions along the folded edges of the cloth, enough to represent each of the participants in the ceremony with perhaps a few extra incisions to ensure there would be a sufficient number. The strips of cloth are then laid over two wooden offering stands which are carried around the participants by two assistants from the General Affairs section who offer them in turn to each participant. As each manager takes the cloth he blows onto it and then rips it from the incision to about halfway down the width of the cloth. The symbolism of this act is that the sin and pollution of the previous year are transferred onto the cloth, which is then taken away by the priest and later burnt at the shrine. Although animal sacrifice is not practised among the Japanese, it is interesting that this rite contains very similar imagery of sin and pollution removed by a scapegoat-type substitute, which is subsequently ritually destroyed.
6. Another practice at Nissen which is probably common to many firms is the purchase each year of safety charms (mamori) at company expense for all the firm's vehicles. Similarly, protective charms (fuda) are placed in all the buildings and most offices around the factory.
7. Whenever new plants are installed or buildings set up at the factory, a jichinsai "ground-breaking" ceremony is performed to appease the local deity.4
Rites Specific to Nissen
While the rites discussed above are at fixed occasions in the ritual year and have parallels elsewhere, it is likely that the details of the segaki rite and of the end of year purification are more specific to Nissen, just as the details of the additional shrines visited during the hatsu-uma rite are specific to this factory too. Other rites are much more specific to this particular company,
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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13/4
but some, such as the ceremony on the anniversary of the founding of the firm, are likely to have parallels elsewhere in which the details are considerably different. The Nissen rites specific to this firm can be further subdivided into those which are local versions of common types of rites elsewhere (such as the ceremonies connected with the anniversary of the founding of the firm) and those which have been initiated at Nissen sub¬sequent to the occurrence of specific disasters in the factory. Three rites falling into the first subdivision are:
1. The festival for the god of the mountain (yama no kami reisai) which honors the tutelary deity of the hillside behind the factory. This is said to be a female deity whose traditional speciality was bestowing children on childless couples—but she is said to listen only to the prayers of men and not of women. Therefore at this rite all the participants are male, including a specifically male representative of the neighborhood council for the Nissen company housing, in contrast to the male and female representatives for that area at the hatsu-uma rite. Representatives from other local neighbor¬hood associations also take part, each of them male, each of whom offers sakaki and performs the normal Shinto prayer of bowing twice, clapping his hands twice and then bowing once more. Other parts of the rite consist of purification rituals performed by the priest, prayers recited by the priest and bows towards the offering dais at various intervals when the General Affairs section manager tells them to do so by his command of "Rei!" Each dele¬gate is given a gift afterwards from the company, Nissen employees receiving a bag of satsumas and the visitors receiving in addition a specially wrapped box of bean curd cakes.
2. In January of each year a Shinto priest comes to perform the ritual opening of the company's martial arts hall for the coming year. Members of the Nissen jūdō, kendō and kyūdō teams all participate, as well as some employees' children who are learning these martial arts. The company boat team is also represented. The ceremony consists of prayers, bows, and the offering of sakaki branches by representatives of the different teams. The highlight consists of cutting a rice cake made in the traditional "mirror" style resembling the curved mirrors of the Heian era. This is said to symbol¬ize the splitting of the so-called "observing self described by Ruth Benedict (1946, pp. 288-9) whereby the aim of the martial arts is to achieve such per¬fect unison between thought and deed that one no longer reflects on what one is doing. All participants are also given a gift of two rice cakes as they leave after the end of the ceremony.
3.on 16 April of each year, the anniversary of the founding of Nissen, all
the former and present directors of the firm assemble at the main company
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
267
shrine behind this factory, the company president and some other top executives coming from the head office in Tokyo. They all have a party the previous night at a prestigious hotel in Kyoto where the senior executives stay overnight. The following morning they attend the ceremony at the company's oldest factory, where the shrine is located. The shrine is dedi¬cated to the fox god Inari, the patron of merchants and traders, though originally an agricultural god. It is to this deity that the Nissen officials address their prayers for safety and prosperity. A convoy of company cars conveys the visitors from the factory to the shrine on the hillside, where in a specially erected pavilion they receive their name badges and await the others. Two Shinto priests perform this ceremony, the usual one and another senior priest from an important local shrine. As far as I could tell the rite followed essentially the same kind of pattern as the other Nissen rites. After ritual purifications of the priests (performed only at this rite with two priests), the offering stand and the participants, the rite consisted of prayers and perhaps offerings by delegates. I was permitted only to observe the beginning of the ceremony and after that was requested to wait in the pavilion. It seemed that my presence was too irregular for the junior officials responsible for the rites to take the risk of jeopardizing their promotion prospects if the top management from Tokyo were to disapprove of a foreigner observing this company ritual. After the rite they all were conveyed back to the plant by a convoy of company cars, where after refreshments they attended a nonreligious ceremony for honoring those department managers with good production figures or other outstanding achievements.
The three rites described already as specific to Nissen are all Shinto. Other rites specific to this firm, which were initiated following disasters in the factory, are largely Buddhist. They are viewed in the same way by the participants, however, because they are seen as prayers for safety. Whereas the Shinto rites are performed on traditional occasions as precautionary rituals to invoke the gods' blessings, the Buddhist rites are directed to specific known departed spirits who are potentially vindictive if not ap¬peased. The segaki rite described already is another Buddhist rite of a similar type. These rites are as follows:
1. on 13 January 1955, fire broke out in one of the dormitories for single men and destroyed the building. Although there were no casualties from the fire, the plant manager at the time decided to initiate an annual pilgrimage to a temple of the fire god Fudo which is about an hour's journey from the factory at the top of a nearby mountain. on the first day in the year designated for the worship of Fudō, the hatsu-Fudō, the top management of
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this factory, of an associated factory which was built on the site of the burnt-down dormitory, and of another nearby Nissen factory, accompanied by union representatives, go in company cars to this temple to pray. Afterwards they have lunch together, provided by the temple but paid for by the firm, and return to their work in the factory by mid-afternoon. Each year new safety plaques (fuda) to protect buildings from fire are bought from this temple and installed in all buildings in the factory where there are ovens or other uses for fire.
2.on April 1, 1973, another large fire broke out in the factory. This one was attributed to the company's neglect of the spirits of the warriors who had died in the battle in that area in 672 A.D. and who had not received a proper burial, since they had perished in the swamps. That battle had taken place on 22 July, so on that date all the department managers and other senior management in the factory assemble for a rite conducted by a Buddhist priest, during which all line up to burn incense in the same way as is done at a Buddhist funeral. Every other month on the 15th of that month, simply because it is a convenient date in the middle of the month, the Buddhist priest also performs the prayers by chanting sutras and lighting incense. For those other eleven months in the year one man from the General Affairs department is the only one who represents the company. He is the one in charge of the practical arrangements for the rites and is the same person who represents the firm at the segaki rite. The whole rite lasts for about twenty minutes after which the priest leaves straight away in his car, having already been given his fee at the beginning.
3. When the factory was built in 1926 to 1927, several British, German and Italian engineers were seconded from firms such as Courtaulds in order to help build the plant. one of these, an Italian engineer named Minelli, committed suicide in the factory on 17 February 1927 and was buried in a public graveyard in Kyoto. He left behind a wife in Italy but no children, though he was 44 years old at the time of his death. By Japanese Buddhist standards he had no one to perform his ancestral rites for him. They are aware that Minelli was a Roman Catholic, but they continue to this day to visit his grave at Bon and on the anniversary of his death each year. The grave is cleaned on the previous day by the man responsible for the "donkey work" in these rites, but on the official day for the grave visit the three top managers of the factory (or their deputies if they are otherwise engaged) travel in a chauffeur-driven company car into Kyoto, light incense, pour water over the gravestone and bow towards it with their hands together in the same way as for a Buddhist grave rite. Those in the top management positions today never knew Minelli and they perform the ritual as part of
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
269
their jobs and as a token of respect to one who was a kind of "ancestor" in their company and had helped to found it. However, it is not unlikely that one of the original motivations behind the firm's instituting this annual ritual is the idea that a man who committed suicide in their factory and had no descendants might become a vindictive muenbotoke or unattached spirit. As such the principle of safety would require the firm to assume responsi¬bility for his grave rites because there was no one else to do so.
4. At least one office in the factory contains a Shinto god-shelf which is dedicated to the god of fire (hi no kamisama) because there was a fire in that building in 1967. They bow to it, change the water and offer fresh sakaki leaves there twice a month (on the 1st and 15th). This was one exam¬ple which I happened to notice but there are many other offices I never visited, and it is likely that other offices would have similar practices.
5. When the film department in the factory began to experience a serious accident rate the department manager decided that he and his section managers should go to the company's Inari shrine on the first workday of each month in order to pray for safety. Nevertheless the accident rate in their department continued to be high and an inconsistency between their prayers and their experiences became obvious one day when they returned from the shrine to find that one of their men had cut off his finger on a machine. It might be that this experience influenced the film buchō two years later when I asked him about his attitudes to the rites in the factory, because he at first replied that the prayers are "half efficacious" but then added that they have "no technical effect," only affecting one's state of mind and feelings (kimochi) rather than having any technical effect.
Observations
It is apparent that professed belief in the effectiveness of these rites has nothing to do with participation in them. Most participants say that they take part only out of obligation to the company because it is part of their job. However, when their attitudes are correlated with their positions in the firm these men seem more willing to express doubt or scepticism about the rites the higher they are in the company. The plant manager, for example, says that although his public image is that he believes, in so far as he has to take part in the rites, privately he denies any belief in the efficacy of the rites at all. His General Affairs department manager says that he thinks the rites have no effect, that there are too many of them and that some of them ought to be abandoned as a waste of time. However, a little lower in the hierarchy of that same department the personnel section manager says that
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if any of the rites were to be neglected "something bad might happen to the fortunes of the company" so it is "safer" to continue the rites. Generally, as shown by Table 1, those lower down are more likely to express in some way more belief in the rites, as compared to those higher up, even though I tried to interview people on their own away from pressures or influences from colleagues which might lead them to give an "official" reply. It may be that even in such circumstances they were unwilling to express doubts, whereas those higher up had less to lose by doing so. Another factor accounting for this tendency may be that the senior executives had been involved with the rites longer and had experienced times when their prayers seemed not to have worked. The film department manager is a prime example of such a process.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the participants are largely man¬agers, especially department managers or the factory manager, so that most of those lower down the company hierarchy do not even know of the exist¬ence of most of these rites. This is indicated by Tables 2 and 3, based on a questionnaire among residents of the company housing estate, which show how the higher management were more likely to reply to a question about religious rites at work, whereas many of those further down either left the question unanswered or else "scraped the barrel" by mentioning the fact
:Table 1
ATTITUDES TO COMPANY RITES
Position in Company
"Rites have no effect"
High Middle Low
5 1
"Spiritual but not
technological effect" 2
"Effect only on one's
feelings" 2 2
"Gods do protect and the
rite has some effect" 4 2
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory 271
Table 2
RELIGIOUS RITES REPORTED ACCORDING TO STATUS IN THE COMPANY
Multiple answers are included
Department
Manager
(buchō) Section
Manager
(kachō) Chief Fore- Blue-
Clerk man collar (kakarichō) (shunin) worker
Personal shrine
visit at New Year 1
Christmas Party 1 3
Jizō Bon 2 1 1
Jichinsai for
new installation
or building 2 4 2 3 1
"Anniversary of Company" prayers * 2
Sakurano Inari worship 2 6
Prayers for safety * 1 1 2 2 1
New Year prayers for safety 1 1 2
hatsu-uma 1 2
O-hitaki 1
End of Year "Major Purification" 1
2
1
Yama no kami
reisai 1
* For each of these the following category is more specific and is most likely referring to the same event, but those lower down the hierarchy tend not to know the official names of the rites or of the company shrine.
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Table 3
RESPONSE BY HOUSEHOLDS
TO QUESTIONS on RELIGIOUS RITES IN THE COMPANY,
COMPARED WITH REPRESENTATION
IN SAMPLE AS A WHOLE
Wives' replies are included in where the husband did not fill
two households
in a questionnaire
Number of %of Number of %of
households total households households
in each number of responding responding
group households
Department
Managers 5 2.0% 2 40.0%
Section
Managers 22 8.7% 9 40.9%
Chief Clerks 94 37.1% 12 12.8%
Foremen 101 39.9% 13 12.9%
Blue-collar
Workers
Totals 31 12.3% 3 9.7%
253
39
that some residents go to the company shrine at New Year (because they can walk and thereby avoid drinking and driving) or by referring to the firm's relatively nonreligious Christmas party or the local Jizō festival in the summer, which is regarded mainly as a form of entertainment for the child¬ren. A few had participated in jichinsai rites for the installation of a new plant in their department or the erection of a new building in the factory, but it is only the higher management and a few others such as safety committee members, union representatives, or neighborhood association representatives who know about or participate in the more "serious" kinds of religious rites associated with their place of work.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory 273
The other exceptional participant in the rites is the "catering manager" who is involved in the hatsu-uma and o-hitaki rites because he inherited responsibility for one of the shrines on the hillside. His grandfather had become responsible for the shrine, which also became their family property, when a nearby castle was destroyed at the time of the Meiji Restoration. The shrine had been in the direction of the "devil door" (kimon) of the castle and protected it from supernatural attacks. After the castle fell to more natural attackers, the catering manager's grandfather took over the shrine for reasons unknown to the grandson. However, this man, whom I shall call Yoshioka-san, also claims to be an amateur medium and says that it is hereditary. He describes his revelations from the spirit world as "mental flashes" and describes how he believes the spirits revealed to him in a dream what he should name his eldest son. on another occasion he went on a holiday to Guam where he visited some wartime trenches in which Japanese soldiers had been killed. There, as was his habit, he began to recite Buddhist sutras. on his return to Japan the spirits revealed to him that by his action he had enabled the spirits of twelve dead soldiers to return to Japan with him. His influence on the religious life of this company is important to note because his reputation as a medium has led his colleagues in the factory and in other Nissen plants to consult him about various matters. one went to Yoshioka-san about a stomach problem and was told to go and pray to a particular Buddhist idol in the vicinity. The factory managers of the Nissen plants in Ishikawa and Ibaraki prefectures both consulted Yoshioka-san at different times about the proposed installation of Shinto shrines (yorishiro or yashiro) in their factories, and if a tree is blown over or tilted in the company shrine's precincts it is Yoshioka-san who is consulted in order to ascertain the will of the gods about whether to cut it down or straighten it again. In such ways it is likely that the occult influences of this man have made Nissen exceptional in certain ways to initiate more rites than might have been the case otherwise. The representativeness or otherwise of this case study can only be determined by further empirical studies.
Conclusions
In conclusion, three theoretical comments may be made on the basis of the above data:
1. Safety as a theme is conspicuous in both religious and nonreligious con¬texts in Japanese factory life, permeating both aspects so that they become mutually complementary rather than contradictory.
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2. Secularization hypotheses predicated on an assumption that the non-religious aspects of industrial society are essentially antagonistic or contradictory to religiosity break down in the light of this kind of data from Japan. Rather than declining in an urban industrial context, it is clear that in Japan religious rites have not only survived but may have even increased in both number and variety through factors such as fires and other disasters in the industrial context.
3. Scepticism about the efficacy of the rites is nevertheless present, at least privately among some participants. They perform the rites out of a sense of obligation or duty, as part of their work, and they perform the roles of 'vicars' as vicarious representatives of their department, union or neighbor¬hood association in relation to the deity. However, when most of those sup¬posed to be represented before the gods know nothing or next to nothing about even the existence of most of these rites, and those who represent are often sceptical about the efficacy of the rites themselves, it would seem to be difficult or impossible to apply a Durkheimian type of sociological analysis to such a situation.
Notes
1. I am extremely grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting the first period of my fieldwork, and to the Japan Foundation for a Dissertation Fellowship which made possible the sec¬ond period of the fieldwork.
2. Anzen shō
Kinō ga sō de atta yō ni
Kyō mo kōfuku na ichinichi de are,
Kōfuku wa anzen to tomo ni
Soshite anzen wa itsumo kokoro uchikomu
Shokuba no naka no kiritsutadashii sagyō no ue ni
Anzen, Anzen, Anzen.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
275
3. Anzen shō
Kyō mo ichinichi egao o wasurezu Kiritsu mamotte musaigai.
4. Nissen officials made no mention at all of any "roof-raising" ceremony
(mune-age shiki) of the type for traditional farmhouses, and so forth,
and it is likely that such a rite has been greatly attenuated or even
neglected for modern ferroconcrete buildings.
References
ABEGGLEN, James C. 1975 Management and Worker: The Japanese Solution. Tokyo: Sophia University, in co-operation with Kodansha International Ltd. (An expanded and updated edition of The Japanese Factory, 1973).
BENEDICT, Ruth 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
DORE, Ronald P. 1973 British Factory, Japanese Factory. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
KAMATA, Satoshi 1982 Japan in the Passing Lane. New York: Pantheon Books.
ROHLEN, Thomas P.
1974 For Harmony and Strength. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California Press.
Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory David C. LEWIS
Religious rites in Japanese factories have been mentioned in passing by several writers (e.g. Rohlen 1974, p. 41; Abegglen 1973, p. 140), but there has been no systematic investigation of this potentially very fruitful area of research. The present paper focuses on rites in a large synthetic fibers fac¬tory in a provincial city with a population of over 230,000 in the Kansai region of Japan. The factory was built in 1926 to 1927 and originally employed about 10,000 people, a figure which has been reduced to about 4,000 nowadays through increased mechanization. It is the largest and oldest plant among the thirteen factories in Japan belonging to a firm which I shall call by the pseudonym Nissen. This company derives about 70% of its revenue from the production of synthetic fibers such as nylon but in recent years has expanded into other spheres of industry including the production of video tapes, optical products, plastics, pharmaceuticals and even the con¬struction of lightweight durable panelling for the American space shuttle. My research on this firm was conducted during two periods of anthropologi¬cal fieldwork from 1981 to 1982 and 1983 to 1984, during the second of which I was able to observe and conduct interviews about the religious rites conducted in the plant.1
Virtually all the religious rites at this factory revolve around the theme of safety. A few also include aspects such as the removal of pollution or prayers for the firm's continuing prosperity. However, this emphasis on safety is by no means confined to the religious sphere: it would appear from the few references to safety in Dore's comparisons between two British and two Jap¬anese factories (1973, pp. 23-4, 189, 244-5) that safety is generally more emphasized in Japanese than in British factory life. It might be that this reflects a greater degree of danger in the Japanese workplace, as suggested by Kamata's account of conditions in a Toyota factory (1982), but in the in¬troduction to Kamata's book Ronald Dore suggests that Toyota may be
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quite exceptional. Kamata's account, dating from the pre-oil shock days, may also reflect an extreme situation at Toyota, since overall statistics for deaths from industrial accidents show relatively little difference between Japan, Western Europe and the U.S.A. Nevertheless at an ideological level there appears to be a consistently greater emphasis on safety in Japanese firms, as evidenced by practices such as the conspicuous use of "Safety First" slogans in Japanese factories generally, and by the conspicuous place¬ment of large notice boards around the plant in the Nissen factory, each consisting of graphs showing how many days had elapsed since a major acci¬dent had last occurred in the factory. In the same firm there is a motto which at present says "Safety First, Quality Second, Production Third." Before the 1972 oil crisis the last two items were reversed but the motto has always included the phrase "Safety First." Similarly, each morning the workers in each department look up to a notice on the wall of their work¬place on which is written a "Safety Eulogy" or "Safety Chant" (anzen shō 安 全 颂.), and all recite the words in unison. The text differs a little from one department to another, but the following example from a department in the research unit is probably fairly typical:
In praise of safety
May today be happy all day through
Just as yesterday was too.
Happiness and safety go hand in hand.
So may safety always pervade our orderly work
In the workplace to which we devote ourselves.
Safety. Safety. Safety.2
one other example comes from the "General Affairs" administrative department, where each morning all the workers recite together:
Not forgetting to smile the whole day long Today also, by keeping the rules, let there be no disaster.3
Other aspects of this concern with safety could be cited, ranging from spe¬cial safety days in the factory twice a month when all workers wear "Green Cross" safety armbands to the awarding of trophies to departments having an unbroken safety record for five or seven years, but the general pattern is clear and sets the context in which religious rites for safety are performed.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
263
General Religious Rites
The religious rites in this Nissen factory fall into two principal categories, namely those which occur at traditionally fixed occasions in the ritual year and those which are more specific to this company or factory. Rites in the first category include those performed at the New Year or on the first Day of the Horse after setsubun, the hatsu-uma sai, both of which appear to have equivalents or parallels in a number of other firms. My information is based on conversations with, and questionnaire replies from, employees in other firms, but there is scope for more extensive research on this topic in the future in order to examine variations by industry, size of firm, and so on. It also appears that other firms have specific rites which are not performed at Nissen. An example is the practice reported to me by a section manager in a pharmaceuticals firm. Twice a year at higan, when Buddhist ancestral rites are performed, some employees in that firm participate in a ceremony to give thanks or pray for the spirits of the dead animals used in vivisection for experimental purposes.
The following rites at Nissen are among those in the more general category which have parallels or variants elsewhere:
1.on New Year's Day the top three managers in this factory go together, unaccompanied by their wives because it is company business, to three dif¬ferent shrines in the city where they pray for the safety of the employees in their factory and give substantial financial donations from the company. (They also have lunch together in a prestigious hotel at company expense and are provided with a company car and chauffeur for the occasion.) They then pray together at each of the five shrines on the hillside behind the fac¬tory for which the company has responsibility. These small shrines do not have any permanent priesthood but are used at certain times of the year by the firm for religious rites, for most of which a Shinto priest from a local shrine near the factory comes to officiate at the rites.
2.on the first working day of the new year all the department managers (buchō) and higher executives in the factory, plus members of the factory's safety committee, assemble at the principal Nissen shrine for the "New Year Safety prayers." It is a brief ceremony, at the beginning of which the General Affairs section manager announces, "Now we are going to pray for the safety and prosperity of our factory this year" and then all in unison bow twice towards the altar area, clap their hands once and then bow once more. The ceremony is then declared over and all the men gradually disperse.
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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13/4
3.on the first Day of the Horse after setsubun, in early February, is the
hatsu-uma sai, a rite which has continued in this industrial setting from the
agricultural background of traditional Japan. on this day the god of the
mountain (yama no kami) is said to descend from the hills to become the
god of the rice paddy (ta no kami). Thus this rite has its origins in invoking
the deity's protection and blessings in order to ensure material prosperity
through an abundant crop. However, the general attitude to this and virtual¬
ly all the other rites at Nissen among those who take part is that the relig¬
ious rites are to pray for safety at work, a few also mentioning prosperity as
another, apparently subsidiary, purpose in their prayers. This hatsu-uma rite
also has a parallel in the autumn when the god of the rice field returns to
become the god of the mountain; this shu-uma sai has at Nissen become
amalgamated with another autumnal rite held at Inari shrines, the o-hitaki
sai, which at Nissen is a parallel and identical rite to the hatsu-uma sai.
For these rites at Nissen a Shinto priest from a local shrine is hired to per¬form the ceremony, which consists of a ritual purification (o-harai) followed by prayers and the offering of sacred sakaki leaves on the offering dais (which had been specially prepared with offerings of fruits, vegetables, tai fish, rice wine, rice cakes and other items) by representatives of different sections in the factory. Those who present their offerings, accompanied by the usual bows and claps, are first the Shinto priest, then the plant manager, then the leader of the company union, followed by a representative for the male bachelor's dormitory, the Nissen "women's division" representative, the male and female representatives of the company housing for married employees and finally the Nissen "catering manager." Technically he is not a Nissen employee but rather the head of a catering firm which has a perma¬nent contract for running the firm's canteens. However, his family also owns the Shinto shrine just behind the main Nissen shrine. After the ceremony all the participants go to this shrine owned by the catering manager to perform a brief rite. They then go on to a third little shrine at the top of the hill be¬hind these other two, an old shrine dedicated to a god of silk production, for which Nissen has taken over de facto responsibility, and there perform an even briefer ceremony before all disperse back to their offices.
4. Around the time of the Bon ceremony in August, when the ancestors are
said to return to this world for a short time, Nissen hires a Buddhist priest
to perform a segaki rite for feeding the souls of the "hungry ghosts" on the
mountainside where the company shrines are located just behind the fac¬
tory. The area was the site of a battle in the year 672 A.D., and later was
used as a samurai training ground. Also on the hillside are a few kofun,
burial mounds dating from the preliterate period which remain unidentified
in terms of who was buried there. The whole area therefore contains the
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
265
spirits of many potentially harmful or vindictive spirits. These are thought to be either embodied in or guarded by the wild animals in the area. Therefore at the segaki rite the Buddhist priest prays for the spirits of the dead and then he and a man who represents the Nissen company for the event distrib¬ute around the hillside the various offerings of fruit, rice wine, and rice cakes for the wild animals to eat.
5. At the end of the working year a "Major Purification" (ō-harai shiki) for the top management in the factory is performed. This is also officiated over by the local Shinto priest and the climax of the rite consists of the priest taking out two strips of cotton cloth each about twelve to eighteen inches long which he had previously folded into two lengthways. Taking a pair of scissors he makes small incisions along the folded edges of the cloth, enough to represent each of the participants in the ceremony with perhaps a few extra incisions to ensure there would be a sufficient number. The strips of cloth are then laid over two wooden offering stands which are carried around the participants by two assistants from the General Affairs section who offer them in turn to each participant. As each manager takes the cloth he blows onto it and then rips it from the incision to about halfway down the width of the cloth. The symbolism of this act is that the sin and pollution of the previous year are transferred onto the cloth, which is then taken away by the priest and later burnt at the shrine. Although animal sacrifice is not practised among the Japanese, it is interesting that this rite contains very similar imagery of sin and pollution removed by a scapegoat-type substitute, which is subsequently ritually destroyed.
6. Another practice at Nissen which is probably common to many firms is the purchase each year of safety charms (mamori) at company expense for all the firm's vehicles. Similarly, protective charms (fuda) are placed in all the buildings and most offices around the factory.
7. Whenever new plants are installed or buildings set up at the factory, a jichinsai "ground-breaking" ceremony is performed to appease the local deity.4
Rites Specific to Nissen
While the rites discussed above are at fixed occasions in the ritual year and have parallels elsewhere, it is likely that the details of the segaki rite and of the end of year purification are more specific to Nissen, just as the details of the additional shrines visited during the hatsu-uma rite are specific to this factory too. Other rites are much more specific to this particular company,
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but some, such as the ceremony on the anniversary of the founding of the firm, are likely to have parallels elsewhere in which the details are considerably different. The Nissen rites specific to this firm can be further subdivided into those which are local versions of common types of rites elsewhere (such as the ceremonies connected with the anniversary of the founding of the firm) and those which have been initiated at Nissen sub¬sequent to the occurrence of specific disasters in the factory. Three rites falling into the first subdivision are:
1. The festival for the god of the mountain (yama no kami reisai) which honors the tutelary deity of the hillside behind the factory. This is said to be a female deity whose traditional speciality was bestowing children on childless couples—but she is said to listen only to the prayers of men and not of women. Therefore at this rite all the participants are male, including a specifically male representative of the neighborhood council for the Nissen company housing, in contrast to the male and female representatives for that area at the hatsu-uma rite. Representatives from other local neighbor¬hood associations also take part, each of them male, each of whom offers sakaki and performs the normal Shinto prayer of bowing twice, clapping his hands twice and then bowing once more. Other parts of the rite consist of purification rituals performed by the priest, prayers recited by the priest and bows towards the offering dais at various intervals when the General Affairs section manager tells them to do so by his command of "Rei!" Each dele¬gate is given a gift afterwards from the company, Nissen employees receiving a bag of satsumas and the visitors receiving in addition a specially wrapped box of bean curd cakes.
2. In January of each year a Shinto priest comes to perform the ritual opening of the company's martial arts hall for the coming year. Members of the Nissen jūdō, kendō and kyūdō teams all participate, as well as some employees' children who are learning these martial arts. The company boat team is also represented. The ceremony consists of prayers, bows, and the offering of sakaki branches by representatives of the different teams. The highlight consists of cutting a rice cake made in the traditional "mirror" style resembling the curved mirrors of the Heian era. This is said to symbol¬ize the splitting of the so-called "observing self described by Ruth Benedict (1946, pp. 288-9) whereby the aim of the martial arts is to achieve such per¬fect unison between thought and deed that one no longer reflects on what one is doing. All participants are also given a gift of two rice cakes as they leave after the end of the ceremony.
3.on 16 April of each year, the anniversary of the founding of Nissen, all
the former and present directors of the firm assemble at the main company
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
267
shrine behind this factory, the company president and some other top executives coming from the head office in Tokyo. They all have a party the previous night at a prestigious hotel in Kyoto where the senior executives stay overnight. The following morning they attend the ceremony at the company's oldest factory, where the shrine is located. The shrine is dedi¬cated to the fox god Inari, the patron of merchants and traders, though originally an agricultural god. It is to this deity that the Nissen officials address their prayers for safety and prosperity. A convoy of company cars conveys the visitors from the factory to the shrine on the hillside, where in a specially erected pavilion they receive their name badges and await the others. Two Shinto priests perform this ceremony, the usual one and another senior priest from an important local shrine. As far as I could tell the rite followed essentially the same kind of pattern as the other Nissen rites. After ritual purifications of the priests (performed only at this rite with two priests), the offering stand and the participants, the rite consisted of prayers and perhaps offerings by delegates. I was permitted only to observe the beginning of the ceremony and after that was requested to wait in the pavilion. It seemed that my presence was too irregular for the junior officials responsible for the rites to take the risk of jeopardizing their promotion prospects if the top management from Tokyo were to disapprove of a foreigner observing this company ritual. After the rite they all were conveyed back to the plant by a convoy of company cars, where after refreshments they attended a nonreligious ceremony for honoring those department managers with good production figures or other outstanding achievements.
The three rites described already as specific to Nissen are all Shinto. Other rites specific to this firm, which were initiated following disasters in the factory, are largely Buddhist. They are viewed in the same way by the participants, however, because they are seen as prayers for safety. Whereas the Shinto rites are performed on traditional occasions as precautionary rituals to invoke the gods' blessings, the Buddhist rites are directed to specific known departed spirits who are potentially vindictive if not ap¬peased. The segaki rite described already is another Buddhist rite of a similar type. These rites are as follows:
1. on 13 January 1955, fire broke out in one of the dormitories for single men and destroyed the building. Although there were no casualties from the fire, the plant manager at the time decided to initiate an annual pilgrimage to a temple of the fire god Fudo which is about an hour's journey from the factory at the top of a nearby mountain. on the first day in the year designated for the worship of Fudō, the hatsu-Fudō, the top management of
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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13/4
this factory, of an associated factory which was built on the site of the burnt-down dormitory, and of another nearby Nissen factory, accompanied by union representatives, go in company cars to this temple to pray. Afterwards they have lunch together, provided by the temple but paid for by the firm, and return to their work in the factory by mid-afternoon. Each year new safety plaques (fuda) to protect buildings from fire are bought from this temple and installed in all buildings in the factory where there are ovens or other uses for fire.
2.on April 1, 1973, another large fire broke out in the factory. This one was attributed to the company's neglect of the spirits of the warriors who had died in the battle in that area in 672 A.D. and who had not received a proper burial, since they had perished in the swamps. That battle had taken place on 22 July, so on that date all the department managers and other senior management in the factory assemble for a rite conducted by a Buddhist priest, during which all line up to burn incense in the same way as is done at a Buddhist funeral. Every other month on the 15th of that month, simply because it is a convenient date in the middle of the month, the Buddhist priest also performs the prayers by chanting sutras and lighting incense. For those other eleven months in the year one man from the General Affairs department is the only one who represents the company. He is the one in charge of the practical arrangements for the rites and is the same person who represents the firm at the segaki rite. The whole rite lasts for about twenty minutes after which the priest leaves straight away in his car, having already been given his fee at the beginning.
3. When the factory was built in 1926 to 1927, several British, German and Italian engineers were seconded from firms such as Courtaulds in order to help build the plant. one of these, an Italian engineer named Minelli, committed suicide in the factory on 17 February 1927 and was buried in a public graveyard in Kyoto. He left behind a wife in Italy but no children, though he was 44 years old at the time of his death. By Japanese Buddhist standards he had no one to perform his ancestral rites for him. They are aware that Minelli was a Roman Catholic, but they continue to this day to visit his grave at Bon and on the anniversary of his death each year. The grave is cleaned on the previous day by the man responsible for the "donkey work" in these rites, but on the official day for the grave visit the three top managers of the factory (or their deputies if they are otherwise engaged) travel in a chauffeur-driven company car into Kyoto, light incense, pour water over the gravestone and bow towards it with their hands together in the same way as for a Buddhist grave rite. Those in the top management positions today never knew Minelli and they perform the ritual as part of
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
269
their jobs and as a token of respect to one who was a kind of "ancestor" in their company and had helped to found it. However, it is not unlikely that one of the original motivations behind the firm's instituting this annual ritual is the idea that a man who committed suicide in their factory and had no descendants might become a vindictive muenbotoke or unattached spirit. As such the principle of safety would require the firm to assume responsi¬bility for his grave rites because there was no one else to do so.
4. At least one office in the factory contains a Shinto god-shelf which is dedicated to the god of fire (hi no kamisama) because there was a fire in that building in 1967. They bow to it, change the water and offer fresh sakaki leaves there twice a month (on the 1st and 15th). This was one exam¬ple which I happened to notice but there are many other offices I never visited, and it is likely that other offices would have similar practices.
5. When the film department in the factory began to experience a serious accident rate the department manager decided that he and his section managers should go to the company's Inari shrine on the first workday of each month in order to pray for safety. Nevertheless the accident rate in their department continued to be high and an inconsistency between their prayers and their experiences became obvious one day when they returned from the shrine to find that one of their men had cut off his finger on a machine. It might be that this experience influenced the film buchō two years later when I asked him about his attitudes to the rites in the factory, because he at first replied that the prayers are "half efficacious" but then added that they have "no technical effect," only affecting one's state of mind and feelings (kimochi) rather than having any technical effect.
Observations
It is apparent that professed belief in the effectiveness of these rites has nothing to do with participation in them. Most participants say that they take part only out of obligation to the company because it is part of their job. However, when their attitudes are correlated with their positions in the firm these men seem more willing to express doubt or scepticism about the rites the higher they are in the company. The plant manager, for example, says that although his public image is that he believes, in so far as he has to take part in the rites, privately he denies any belief in the efficacy of the rites at all. His General Affairs department manager says that he thinks the rites have no effect, that there are too many of them and that some of them ought to be abandoned as a waste of time. However, a little lower in the hierarchy of that same department the personnel section manager says that
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Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13/4
if any of the rites were to be neglected "something bad might happen to the fortunes of the company" so it is "safer" to continue the rites. Generally, as shown by Table 1, those lower down are more likely to express in some way more belief in the rites, as compared to those higher up, even though I tried to interview people on their own away from pressures or influences from colleagues which might lead them to give an "official" reply. It may be that even in such circumstances they were unwilling to express doubts, whereas those higher up had less to lose by doing so. Another factor accounting for this tendency may be that the senior executives had been involved with the rites longer and had experienced times when their prayers seemed not to have worked. The film department manager is a prime example of such a process.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the participants are largely man¬agers, especially department managers or the factory manager, so that most of those lower down the company hierarchy do not even know of the exist¬ence of most of these rites. This is indicated by Tables 2 and 3, based on a questionnaire among residents of the company housing estate, which show how the higher management were more likely to reply to a question about religious rites at work, whereas many of those further down either left the question unanswered or else "scraped the barrel" by mentioning the fact
:Table 1
ATTITUDES TO COMPANY RITES
Position in Company
"Rites have no effect"
High Middle Low
5 1
"Spiritual but not
technological effect" 2
"Effect only on one's
feelings" 2 2
"Gods do protect and the
rite has some effect" 4 2
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory 271
Table 2
RELIGIOUS RITES REPORTED ACCORDING TO STATUS IN THE COMPANY
Multiple answers are included
Department
Manager
(buchō) Section
Manager
(kachō) Chief Fore- Blue-
Clerk man collar (kakarichō) (shunin) worker
Personal shrine
visit at New Year 1
Christmas Party 1 3
Jizō Bon 2 1 1
Jichinsai for
new installation
or building 2 4 2 3 1
"Anniversary of Company" prayers * 2
Sakurano Inari worship 2 6
Prayers for safety * 1 1 2 2 1
New Year prayers for safety 1 1 2
hatsu-uma 1 2
O-hitaki 1
End of Year "Major Purification" 1
2
1
Yama no kami
reisai 1
* For each of these the following category is more specific and is most likely referring to the same event, but those lower down the hierarchy tend not to know the official names of the rites or of the company shrine.
272 Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13/4
Table 3
RESPONSE BY HOUSEHOLDS
TO QUESTIONS on RELIGIOUS RITES IN THE COMPANY,
COMPARED WITH REPRESENTATION
IN SAMPLE AS A WHOLE
Wives' replies are included in where the husband did not fill
two households
in a questionnaire
Number of %of Number of %of
households total households households
in each number of responding responding
group households
Department
Managers 5 2.0% 2 40.0%
Section
Managers 22 8.7% 9 40.9%
Chief Clerks 94 37.1% 12 12.8%
Foremen 101 39.9% 13 12.9%
Blue-collar
Workers
Totals 31 12.3% 3 9.7%
253
39
that some residents go to the company shrine at New Year (because they can walk and thereby avoid drinking and driving) or by referring to the firm's relatively nonreligious Christmas party or the local Jizō festival in the summer, which is regarded mainly as a form of entertainment for the child¬ren. A few had participated in jichinsai rites for the installation of a new plant in their department or the erection of a new building in the factory, but it is only the higher management and a few others such as safety committee members, union representatives, or neighborhood association representatives who know about or participate in the more "serious" kinds of religious rites associated with their place of work.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory 273
The other exceptional participant in the rites is the "catering manager" who is involved in the hatsu-uma and o-hitaki rites because he inherited responsibility for one of the shrines on the hillside. His grandfather had become responsible for the shrine, which also became their family property, when a nearby castle was destroyed at the time of the Meiji Restoration. The shrine had been in the direction of the "devil door" (kimon) of the castle and protected it from supernatural attacks. After the castle fell to more natural attackers, the catering manager's grandfather took over the shrine for reasons unknown to the grandson. However, this man, whom I shall call Yoshioka-san, also claims to be an amateur medium and says that it is hereditary. He describes his revelations from the spirit world as "mental flashes" and describes how he believes the spirits revealed to him in a dream what he should name his eldest son. on another occasion he went on a holiday to Guam where he visited some wartime trenches in which Japanese soldiers had been killed. There, as was his habit, he began to recite Buddhist sutras. on his return to Japan the spirits revealed to him that by his action he had enabled the spirits of twelve dead soldiers to return to Japan with him. His influence on the religious life of this company is important to note because his reputation as a medium has led his colleagues in the factory and in other Nissen plants to consult him about various matters. one went to Yoshioka-san about a stomach problem and was told to go and pray to a particular Buddhist idol in the vicinity. The factory managers of the Nissen plants in Ishikawa and Ibaraki prefectures both consulted Yoshioka-san at different times about the proposed installation of Shinto shrines (yorishiro or yashiro) in their factories, and if a tree is blown over or tilted in the company shrine's precincts it is Yoshioka-san who is consulted in order to ascertain the will of the gods about whether to cut it down or straighten it again. In such ways it is likely that the occult influences of this man have made Nissen exceptional in certain ways to initiate more rites than might have been the case otherwise. The representativeness or otherwise of this case study can only be determined by further empirical studies.
Conclusions
In conclusion, three theoretical comments may be made on the basis of the above data:
1. Safety as a theme is conspicuous in both religious and nonreligious con¬texts in Japanese factory life, permeating both aspects so that they become mutually complementary rather than contradictory.
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2. Secularization hypotheses predicated on an assumption that the non-religious aspects of industrial society are essentially antagonistic or contradictory to religiosity break down in the light of this kind of data from Japan. Rather than declining in an urban industrial context, it is clear that in Japan religious rites have not only survived but may have even increased in both number and variety through factors such as fires and other disasters in the industrial context.
3. Scepticism about the efficacy of the rites is nevertheless present, at least privately among some participants. They perform the rites out of a sense of obligation or duty, as part of their work, and they perform the roles of 'vicars' as vicarious representatives of their department, union or neighbor¬hood association in relation to the deity. However, when most of those sup¬posed to be represented before the gods know nothing or next to nothing about even the existence of most of these rites, and those who represent are often sceptical about the efficacy of the rites themselves, it would seem to be difficult or impossible to apply a Durkheimian type of sociological analysis to such a situation.
Notes
1. I am extremely grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting the first period of my fieldwork, and to the Japan Foundation for a Dissertation Fellowship which made possible the sec¬ond period of the fieldwork.
2. Anzen shō
Kinō ga sō de atta yō ni
Kyō mo kōfuku na ichinichi de are,
Kōfuku wa anzen to tomo ni
Soshite anzen wa itsumo kokoro uchikomu
Shokuba no naka no kiritsutadashii sagyō no ue ni
Anzen, Anzen, Anzen.
LEWIS: Religious Rites in a Japanese Factory
275
3. Anzen shō
Kyō mo ichinichi egao o wasurezu Kiritsu mamotte musaigai.
4. Nissen officials made no mention at all of any "roof-raising" ceremony
(mune-age shiki) of the type for traditional farmhouses, and so forth,
and it is likely that such a rite has been greatly attenuated or even
neglected for modern ferroconcrete buildings.
References
ABEGGLEN, James C. 1975 Management and Worker: The Japanese Solution. Tokyo: Sophia University, in co-operation with Kodansha International Ltd. (An expanded and updated edition of The Japanese Factory, 1973).
BENEDICT, Ruth 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
DORE, Ronald P. 1973 British Factory, Japanese Factory. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
KAMATA, Satoshi 1982 Japan in the Passing Lane. New York: Pantheon Books.
ROHLEN, Thomas P.
1974 For Harmony and Strength. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California Press.