The Annual Cycle of Events
Mrs Iwaii’s hallway display consists of a sequence of images and objects that constitute the yearly cycle of seasonal change. The more ubiquitous displays of representations of zodiac animals, on the other hand, form part of a sequence of twelve years embedded within a larger sixty-year cycle of growth and decay. Both examples as well as the intricate series of seasonal motifs and changing natural patterns used in the production of Japanese sweets and kimono textiles, introduced earlier, are closely associated with cosmic principles of change and transformation at the base of East Asian thought, whereby specific phenomena are considered to be ‘part of a sequence, these sequences in turn constituting the “backbone” of a traditional canon of images’ (Ackermann 1997: 44). All these examples also reveal that the Japanese notion of seasonal change is far more complex than a simple awareness of the four seasons. In Japanese language literature the yearly cycle of change and transformation is commonly referred to as ‘annual events’ (nenjû gyôji).
In his seminal Dictionary of Folklore, Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese Folklore Studies, defines nenjû gyôji as ‘festive days that annul pollution’ through ‘offerings made to the deities that are afterwards consumed among the community (Yanagita 1951: 449). In other words, on specific days of the year a group of people, whether the household, the local community or the whole nation, would hold purification rituals to increase spiritual energy. Key Japanese folklorists such as Yanagita and Wakamori have equated these cycles of regeneration or reproduction, at the base of Japanese traditional cosmology, with the Durkheimian sacred (hare) versus profane (ke) model. However, more recently, Japanese anthropologists have questioned this approach by pointing out that hare and ke, and also the third concept of kegare (pollution), often left out of the discussion altogether, are ‘inter-relative and supplementary’ (Ito 1995: 126).
Ishikawa (2000) distinguishes between five different types of celebrations that constitute the yearly ritual cycle. These are: (1) events linked with the cycle of rice cultivation; (2) festivals to celebrate spirits and ancestors (New Year and Obon);
Seasonal and Commercial Rhythms
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