Spatial Structure of Japanese Religion - Geography of Religion in Japan: Religious Space, Landscape, and Behavior - page 102

Fig. 3.37 Distribution of
believers in the Yoshikawa
district, 1931 (Kanamura
offi ce)
delegates travel by car and do not stay in the shrine village. However, the way
of visiting Kanamura has continued since then. It had 18 households by 1995.
Figure 3.37 shows the distribution of believers according to the content of
prayers in Yoshikawa in 1931. Of 21 believers, 12 (57.1 %) prayed torigo ,
which is a type of fi ctitious parent-children relationship in Japan, to use a
priest's power to get rid of children's troubles (Otsuka folklore association
1994 ). People expected this prayer to have a magical effect, and thus prayed to
a religious man who was believed to have magical powers. It seems that
Kanamura was worshipped because the shrine had a miraculous effi cacy. The
core area of believers was in the Kawafuji area, where the Kanamura associa-
tion had been in existence since the latter nineteenth century.
A record of private prayers offered to Kanamura from that time shows that
while most delegates prayed torigo , no one prayed for a soldier's safety. This
indicates that Kanamura was a favorite shrine for worship in the Yoshikawa area.
(2) The Spatial Characteristics of Kanamura Faith in 1995
In 1995, 12 Yoshikawa communities formed religious associations with
Kanamura (Table 3.9 ). Three had daidai-ko and kinen-ko organized; seven orga-
nized a daidai-ko ; one organized kinen-ko ; and one a dantai - ko. These associa-
tions consisted of territorial relation groups. Here, I examine the characteristics
of religious forms in Yoshikawa area and compare these with the Toyosato area.