New practices and products dealing with death are emerging in Japan, as older traditions of families maintaining cemeteries are disappearing due to population loss, lack of family ties, and a subsequent disintegration of the temple system for the deceased. In an article published in Anthropology Today (June), Anne Allison and Hannah Gould write that as Japan has entered what has been called an era of the “family-less dead,” the country has seen an “explosion of innovative products, services and community programs centered on ‘endingness.’” They note that the elderly now fear becoming a “stranded soul,” abandoned both in this life and the next. Not only is there a lack of care for the elderly and for their death, but there is now a surplus of unwanted religious goods, such as household altars, abandoned headstones, and even cremated remains which are seen as too costly to inter.
Source: https://connectingdirectors.com/47446-japans-death-specialists-converge-at-inaugural-life-endingindustry-expo
To fill in for these losses and play the role that temples traditionally have, entrepreneurs have created companies, services, and products—from humanoid robots that perform death rituals to the practice of “encoffining.” The latter practice was inspired by the 2008 Oscar Award-winning film Departures and seeks to provide intricate care for the dead person in a way similar to hospice care for the dying, which is also now spreading across Japan. In a demonstration at the popular ENDEX convention attended by these deathcare entrepreneurs, the dead body’s clothing is deftly removed and it is fitted with a silk white kimono, with the hands molded with Buddhist prayer beads. There are now “butsudan” services that seek to dislodge spirits from unwanted altars, alternative burial societies, and “clean up” companies that fill in for the role that families and religious organizations once provided, Allison and Gould report.
(Anthropology Today, https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14678322)
