Sacred Places, Pilgrimage, and Tourism - Geography of Religion in Japan: Religious Space, Landscape, and Behavior - page 170

items create the universal value needed to satisfy designation criteria for a World
Cultural Heritage site (Table 4.1 ) (Nagasaki Prefecture 2006 ).
Criterion (ii ) is satisfi ed because the Nagasaki Church Group and Christian-
related cultural assets reveal a globally rare complicated exchange process of
Eastern and Western cultures. Christianity and Western culture were introduced to
Japan during the age of discovery, but Christianity was prohibited during the period
of national isolation, and the new interchange began after isolation ended.
Criterion (iii) is satisfi ed because the Nagasaki Church Group presents unparal-
leled material evidence that the Christian faith continued despite martyrdom and
persecution from the end of the sixteenth century.
Criterion (iv) is satisfi ed because the Nagasaki Church Group was built under the
guidance of foreign missionaries using the traditional techniques of Japanese master
carpenters. The buildings are examples of the development of ecclesiastical archi-
tecture in Japan, which blended Western and Eastern architecture and achieved
high-level molding and design.
Criterion (v) is satisfi ed because most of the churches of the Nagasaki Church
Group are located in remote areas of the prefecture where people lived in conceal-
ment. The church locations are closely related to the distinctive natural terrain of the
area, and are in harmony with the village landscape established by people who lived
by farming and fi shing, and where a superb landscape was established to support the
lives and spirits of local residents.
Criterion (vi) is satisfi ed because the Nagasaki Church Group and Christian-
Related Cultural Assets can be directly linked to persecution and martyrdom. These
events had a major impact and impression on the world, and illustrate a unique
dramatic revival after 250 years of concealment. These assets were also used as
themes in famous Japanese literary works. The assets play an important role in liter-
ary history. The original form of Oratio, which was sung by hidden Christians for
400 years, was a Gregorian chant. Christian ceremonial music was brought to Japan
by missionaries from Spain, and reveals the form of sixteenth century music.
Although some of this reasoning is duplicated, the parts represent the remarkable
and universal value of the Church Group. The source of universal value is insepara-
bly linked to the context of local regional histories, and the heritage buildings of the
Church Group and relevant ruins embody local historic endemism. This cultural
landscape, including faith-related assets, was maintained by the residents' voluntary
religious acts and regular vocational activities, and the World Heritage movement is
exactly what is needed to give more authority to those activities.
Two fi nal points can be given for registration of the cultural landscape and faith-
related assets on the World Heritage list. Ogawa ( 2002 ) indicated that anything
could be registered as being part of a cultural heritage in modern society; nothing
has a cultural heritage at the beginning, and things become part of a cultural heritage
when people fi nd meaning. According to Ogawa, the most important activities that
create cultural heritage are conservation and exhibition of items. Society's values
are refl ected in conservation activity, and conservation and exhibition separate a
thing from the original local context and regroup the thing into new abstract univer-
sal context. Under Ogawa's argument, the process of registering the Church Group