JJRS > Volume 41 Issue 2 Who Benefits? Religious Practice, Blind Women (Goze), Harugoma, and Manzai

Groemer, Gerald

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It is often pointed out that Japanese religion centers on “worldly benefits” (genze riyaku) and on practices allowing a petitioner to attain divine boons. Since high and low, rich and poor, young and old have always pined for such benefits, religious practice is easily viewed as a force unifying all social classes and strata. This article questions such a notion by examining the religious activities and performances of blind women (goze) of Echigo province (present-day Niigata prefecture). Like other itinerant performers, goze often performed songs linked to the procurement of this-worldly or practical benefits. One favorite was called harugoma, and was intimately linked to silk production; another was manzai, which ushered in good luck, health, and wealth during the New Year’s season. This article presents annotated translations of these two goze songs and analyzes the social meanings of performances, both for performers and listeners. It demonstrates that the pursuit of this-worldly benefits through religious practice contributed just as much to the identification, maintenance, and reproduction of social differences as to social harmony and unification.