Pilgrims Until We Die

Abstract

Abstract The Shikoku pilgrimage, a 1400-kilometre, eighty-eight-temple circuit around Japan’s fourth largest island, takes around forty days by foot and a week by car. Historically Buddhist ascetics walked it incessantly, creating a tradition of unending pilgrimage that continues in the present era, both by pilgrims on foot and by those in cars. Some spend decades walking the pilgrimage, while others drive repeatedly and do hundreds of pilgrimage circuits. Most are retired and make the pilgrimage the centre of their post-work lives, while others work full-time but spend their free time and weekends as pilgrims. Some have only done the pilgrimage a few times but already imagine themselves as unending pilgrims and intend to do it ‘until we die’. They talk, happily, of being addicted and having Shikokubyō, ‘Shikoku illness’, while portraying such ‘illness’ and addiction as blessings. This book, based in extensive fieldwork, shows that unending pilgrimage is the dominant theme of the Shikoku pilgrimage and argues that this is not specific to Shikoku but found widely in global contexts, although it has barely been examined in studies of pilgrimage. It counteracts normative portrayals of pilgrimage as a transient activity involving temporarily leaving home to visit sacred places outside the everyday parameters of life; rather, pilgrimage for many participants means creating a sense of home and permanence on the road. As such this book presents new theoretical perspectives on pilgrimage in general, along with rich ethnographic examples of pilgrimage practices in contemporary Japan.