I just recently saw a beautiful japanese film called "おくりびと," or in english, "Departures." I strongly recommend it to people of all cinematic tastes as I was moved by this film. I won't ruin it for those who haven't seen it but I will give a general idea of what it is about. The film presents a man who accidentally takes on the job as an "encoffiner," someone who in Japanese culture has the important task of preparing the deceased to be taken onward. This preparation consists of a beautiful ceremony in which the encoffiner delicately washes, dresses, and applies makeup to the body to return its appearance to when it was most beautiful and alive. By doing this, the encoffiner can send them on their way in their most beautiful form to the beyond. After doing some research I found that this ancient ritual is rarely performed nowadays in the more and more secular society of Japan and only limited to rural areas where the tradition has been maintained.
As I attempted to research the origin of this practice I came up empty handed. The history in Japan of this practice is no where to be found! This has led me to hypothesize that the knowledge required to become an encoffiner in Japan is passed on orally and is considered to be a form of folk knowledge. A knowledge that is slowly being lost as Japanese no longer feel the need to perform the ceremony. This brings up an intriguing observation on how the society in Japan is changing in its placing priority on certain knowledges to retain over others. What are the motives behind what knowledge to keep and what to retain? Why has the demand for the beautiful and seemingly important ritual of encoffinment gone down? I have speculated that as Japan has become more integrated into Western culture after WWII with its political and social transformation to a parliamentary democracy, it has also adopted the western belief that religion is no longer an important part of modern life. The japanese have adopted what Hugh Nibley would call a "Sophic" view of the world. The supernatural and afterworld have become more and more superstitious and unbelievable causing a ceremony such as the one shown in おくりびとto become obsolete in their society. The basic foundational principles in the ritual of encoffinment is the belief of a life after death and the encoffiner acting as an intermediary force between this world and the next. But unfortunately Japan has forgotten its ancient roots and beliefs of otherworldly beings and life after death that Nibley would label as "Mantic." They have followed the path the world is following which is the secular and sophic view that everything has a natural order and encoffinment is not necessary as we need not worry of what happens after death.
The form of folk knowledge that is encoffinment in Japan is losing its purpose to a sophic society. This is an example of our perception of knowledge and how we choose to retain some and forget some depending on our world view. But regardless of whether we have a sophic or mantic view of our world, we cannot deny that someday an encoffinment of sorts is waiting for us. We also cannot deny that there is true beauty in how the japanese once viewed this as a sendoff to something greater, something eternal.
Here is a link to the trailer for Departures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13--XX-LmsU
Here is a link to the trailer for Departures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13--XX-LmsU
I would have never thought of this topic in a thousand years! I guess I need to be more in touch with my Japanese cinema. Interesting read Andrew. I have never made a connection between the preparation of a body that has passed on with our views of the afterlife, but it definitely makes sense. I would be interested in seeing if similar changes have occurred in the Egyptian culture. I don't know too much about them, but I know that their burial rituals, especially for royalty, were incredibly ornate and sacred. Like you mentioned, it can correlate to a belief in and an appreciation for the afterlife. As you were relating this to our study of sophics and mantics, I was wondering about how there might be a natural shift from one to the other as we progress through life. Playing off of your theme of passing on, I was wondering if as bison and eagles we might naturally become a bit more mantic because we realize that there are a lot of things we can't do. It seems natural that as "invinceable" bears we might lean a bit more towards the sophic side of things. What do you think about that, a natural shift of belief as we get older? Another interesting thing to consider that you mentioned in your post is the shift in a society's view as a whole. Isn't it interesting to see these shifts in a whole society even though there may be individual to may shift of sophic to mantic as they near the end of their lives. It was intersting for me to think about that comparison: individual vs. society in terms of the shift from sophic to mantic and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteThat was a very interesting topic, Andrew. I don't think I've ever actually seen any Japanese cinema, besides the movie Ponyo. I read an essay last year in my English class on how embalming used to be in our culture and how it is different from today. A relative used to oversee the whole embalming process, and now family members are, for the most part, kept away while cremating is also becoming more popular. That could correlate a little to the mantic vs. sophic idea, as well as the more ornate embalmings of different cultures. Since no one has proof that there is life beyond death, people that have a more sophic viewpoint might not think it's that important to stay with the dead for a while or send them off with many of their prized possessions. I really like Sam's spin on bears being more sophic and, as they progress, becoming more mantic. It seems very plausible, especially since as you get older you are coming closer to death and start to wonder if there is an afterlife.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually kind of curious about how much different the Japanese preparation for burial is from the normal preparations done in our culture. A couple years ago, my mom went to the mortuary and dressed and applied make-up to the body of a friend who had passed on. It sounds like the Japanese tradition is more of a ceremony, but other than that, I think the procedures sound highly similar. And it makes sense that this is something that would be passed on as folk knowledge - like birth, death is an absolute part of life that humans don't have to read a book about to know how to deal with.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insightful post, Andrew! However, hopefully I--nor anyone else in our class, including our teachers--will have to worry about burials soon. I think it's really interesting that in Japanese culture, when this ancient ritual was still being practiced, it was being performed for most every member of society. In ancient Egypt, only the bodies of the deceased pharoahs were buried with such reverance. Likewise, in China, only emperors like Qin Shi Huang--who was buried with a terracotta army of 8,000 around 200 B.C.--would have been honored in such a way after they passed on. Trying to catagorize the pharoahs of Egypt or the emperors of China and Rome as sophic or mantic is somewhat difficult, becuase although they believed in an afterlife, they viewed themselves as godlike in many ways. If they had any religious beliefs, their beliefs were oftentimes centered around themselves. However, after reading your post it is obvious to see that the Japanese respected the cleanliness of their deceased bodies because they were huble and only wanted to be prepared to meet the person, or force, in the universe that they understood to possess all power within the universe.
ReplyDeleteI think that most burial traditions, expecially those that have lasted till today, were originally thought of as a kind of coping mechanism for those still living, who mourn the loss of the deceased.
ReplyDelete(Of course, this doesn't include the ceremonies for people like the Pharoahs or Emperors, who were conducting elaborate rituals to ensure their immortality or such.)
Most of them involve making sure the body looks as clean, healthy, and well-dressed as possible - probably to help the living remember how they were instead of dwelling on the fact that they've passed on from them now.
I think it's interesting that cultures from so many varied places have such similar techniques or at least similar basic ideas behind burial ceremonies, even from very ancient times.
I'm very glad to see someone dealing with the topic of death, as so much folk knowledge surrounds this universal event. And it was good to hear about this from the point of view of the Japanese.
ReplyDeleteBe careful you commenters not to make those comments into essays! Make your point and be done.