JJRS > Volume 33 Issue 1 To Ise at All Costs: Religious and Economic Implications of Early Modern Nukemairi

Nenzi, Laura

Download PDF

If pilgrimages are ideal platforms for contention, nowhere more than in early modern nukemairi did tensions come to the fore so prominently, and contrasting interests clash so stridently. This article looks at Edo-period (1600–1868) unauthorized pilgrimages to highlight the inherent disjunctions between the interests of the individual and those of the community, and between the priorities of faith and the practical necessities of the economy. It also follows the evolution of nukemairi over time by looking at the repercussions that the fiscal reforms of the late eighteenth century had on the identification of travelers as “runaways.”