Bulletin > Volume 37 Rituals of Silence: The Shaping of Memorial Services in Wartime and Postwar Japan

Awazu Kenta

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Paying “silent” tribute to the war dead is a modern invention with many forms. Historically its roots reach from Teddy Roosevelt’s funeral to the aftermath of the Great War in England. The word “mokutō” 黙祷 is itself Chinese in origin, but its usage in modern Japan spread after memorial services for victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Japanese today use the ritual of silent prayer for everything from major accidents to natural disasters to the funerals of pop stars. This paper investigates how memorial services to the war dead were formed and transformed during the war and the years immediately following, when debates linked to separation of religion and state, and then demonstrates their shape in contemporary Japan.