Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan

Epilogue

epilogue Each year on April 8, the Maintenance Association of the Bronze Statue of Loyal Hachikō (Chūken Hachikō Dōzō Ijikai) sponsors the Hachikō Spirit Propitiation Festival (Hachikō Ireisai) to commemorate the spirit of Hachikō (1923–1935), a dog of the Akita breed. Hachikō had gained the admiration of the Japanese public by waiting daily for his deceased master , Dr. Ueno Eisaburō, outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo. Since the 1930s, Hachikō has been a symbol of unshakable loyalty. Hence he has been known as Chūken Hachikō (Loyal Hachikō) in Japanese. Hachikō’s life coincided with a time when Japanese dog breeds were gaining recognition and popularity. With the rising demand for ownership of Japanese dogs in the increasingly nationalist climate of the 1930s, Japanese breeds suddenly became emblems of the superior qualities that the fascist state hoped to inspire in its subjects. Hachikō was the perfect embodiment of loyalty.1 Such exceptional loyalty demanded special recognition. In 1934—the year of the dog—the Society for the Preservation of the Japanese Dog (Nippon Inu Hozonkai) raised funds among schoolchildren throughout Japan for a Hachikō statue. The statue was erected outside the station and unveiled in a carefully staged ceremony on April 21, 1934. When Hachikō died on March 8, 1935, his wake was held in a small staff room on the second floor of the station and attended by, among others, Hachikō’s new owners, one of Hachikō’s offspring, and a Buddhist cleric from the Ueno family’s parish temple, Myōyūji. However, the public outpouring of mourning quickly focused on Hachikō’s statue. The following day the statue was surrounded by a black and white funeral curtain. Flower arrangements and other offerings nearly buried the statue. Crowds thronged the area hoping to offer incense in front of a photograph of the dog displayed at the foot of the statue. On the twelfth, a funeral presided over by clerics from Myōyūji was held at Aoyama Cemetery. A portion of Hachikō’s remains were interred in a small shrinelike tomb in the corner of Ueno Eisaburō’s plot (figure 23). 188 | Epilogue The service was attended by the two families that had kept the dog for several years after his first owner’s death, as well as by local residents and station employees. The following year, the first memorial festival to commemorate Hachikō was held. However, the statue was demolished, or rather “conscripted,” as it was called at the time, in 1944 to alleviate the metal shortage during the wartime era. After the war, a new statue by the original sculptor’s son was erected outside the station in 1948. This statue has become a well-known meeting place in the area and the focus of a yearly memorial ritual (figure 24).2 Nowadays area shops, department stores, and railway companies sponsor the memorial ritual. Even officials from Shibuya Ward and from Ōdate City, Akita Prefecture (where Hachikō was born), attend the festival. In 2006, a grandson of Ueno’s was also in attendance.3 During the annual ritual, the area behind the statue is roped off with a festive red and white curtain. A banner displays the name of the festival and its sponsors. Area businesses usually donate decorative flower arrangements prominently displayed behind the statue with signs identifying the donors. A short address Fig. 23. Ueno Eisaburō’s grave with a small shrine dedicated to Hachikō, Aoyama Cemetery , Tokyo. Epilogue | 189 by the organizers is followed by a Shinto ceremony. Fruit, vegetables, rice cakes, and sacred rice wine (omiki) are offered on a temporary altar in front of the statue. A Shinto priest conducts a purification rite in front of the statue and reads a prayer (norito). Then functionaries offer votive evergreen branches (sakaki) and drape a wreath of flowers over the neck of the statue. In 2009, the occasion was also used to promote an American feature film starring Richard Gere, which was inspired by Hachikō’s story.4 Hachikō was a pet in his day, but his memorial rites are fundamentally different from those of ordinary pets. Contemporary pet memorial rites are usually commissioned by pet owners—individuals and nuclear families . They are closely linked to the death anniversaries or holidays associated with death rites (such as the equinoxes or obon). Pet cremations, funerals , and memorial rites usually involve the physical remains of the pet in some form. Because...