Structure, event and historical metaphor: rice and identities in Japane history.
Date: 6/1/1995; Publication: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Author: Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko
In historical anthropology, 'structure' is often assigned analytical and historical priority over event/practice which is en to disrupt a solid structure. This article prents an alternative vision - structure is in constant motion even from the beginning, and events and practice by actors with their circumscribed power sometimes articulate an inchoate structure and other times help to facilitate changes already in motion in the structure itlf. Historical changes are en as a result of complementary forces of structure and event. The article also identifies some 'synchronic traps' in historical anthropology, such as an equation of myth and history and the u of 'historical metaphor' to synchronize history. This is done through a methodological comparison of a long-term study of the Japane concepts of lf and others - expresd through the twin metaphors of rice and rice paddies - with an analysis of the recent opening of the Japane rice market in which historical metaphors played a significant role.
Anthropologists, once the specialists of the spatial other, have recently made a rious effort to study t
he temporal other that ud to be the exclusive province of historians,(1) and have made significant strides in their effort to get out of 'the zero-time fiction' (Vansina 1970: 165) - the notorious
'ethnographic prent' (Evans-Pritchard 1962: 146-54).
In historical anthropology, for which historical changes and stabilities are of central concern, the perennial anthropological concern of 'structure and practice' has received a renewed interest. I have chon to focus on this theoretical question by comparing a very long-term study and a short-term
'event' analysis. For illustration, a long-term study of the Japane concepts of lves and others as they are expresd through the twin metaphors of rice and rice paddies is contrasted with an analysis of the recent opening of the Japane rice market, demonstrating how a combination of the two approaches enables us to understand historical process.
Theoretically, the article is a critique of an influential approach in historical anthropology, reprented by Sahlins. His model in my view has a number of built-in 'synchronic traps', including an equation of the structure of myth with history, and the misu of historical metaphor as a mechanism to collap two historical periods, thereby synchronizing history. Above all, his model prents a view of historical change as a process whereby a pre-existing solid structure is shaken by the politically pow
云冈石窟旅游攻略erful at the time of a sudden arrival of a major event. Sahlins assigns both analytical and historical priority to structure, which subquently is disrupted by an event - a claim which cannot be supported either theoretically or by historical evidence.生活的苦
带有四的成语旺旺图标As an alternative vision, I propo a view of structure as always in flux structure that is becoming, reproducing itlf at the same time as it is
disintegrating, in a constant ebb and flow as it interacts both with internal and external forces cum events.
RICE AS SELF: A LONG-TERM HISTORY(2)
Rice in Japane culture and history
Wet-rice agriculture was introduced into Japan around 400 B.C., and gradually supplanted the previous hunting-gathering subsistence economy which began with the first occupation of the archipelago around 200,000 B.C. Wet-rice agriculture provided the economic foundation for the Yamato state and what later became the imperial family Post-war scholarship revealed that rice was primarily the food for the upper class throughout most of history, and was not a 'staple food' for most
Japane until recently. However, it has always been the most important food for ritual occasions for most Japane. The first written accounts of the meaning of rice in Japane culture are found in two myth-histories of the eighth century. They were commissioned by the Tenmu Emperor who sought to establish a Japane identity distinct from that of Tang China (Kawasoe 1980: 253-4) who influence was engulfing Japan. The myth-histories of the Kojiki and the Nihongi, dated A.D. 712 and 720 respectively, are replete with references to rice as deities. In one version in the Kojiki, Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess) is the mother of a grain soul who name bears reference to rice stalks. The legendary Jinmu Emperor, the so-called 'first' emperor, is the son of the grain soul or the grandson of Amaterasu, who nds him to rule the earth. At the time of his descent, Amaterasu gives her grandson the original rice grains which she has grown in two fields in Heaven (Takamagahara) from the eds of various types of grains given to her by Ukemochi no Kami, the deity in charge of food (Kurano & Takeda 1958; Murakami 1977: 13). Amaterasu's grandson transforms a wilderness into a land of succulent ears of rice (mizuho) and other grains, grown from the original eds given to him by Amaterasu, who rays nurture rice and other plants.
Unlike the creation myths of other peoples in which the univer is created, this version of the myth is not about the creation of a univer. Rather, it is about the transformation of a wilderness into a la
nd of abundant rice at the command of Amaterasu, who descendants, the emperors, rule the country by officiating at rice harvest rituals (Kawasoe 1980: 86; Saigo 1984: 15-29). The myth-history is an attempt to appropriate rice, introduced from outside Japan, as the Japane rice, grown by Japane deities. The myth establishes a symbolic equation between rice and deities, and rice paddies and Japane land.
In the Japane view human lives wane unless the positive principle replenishes their energy; individuals and their communities must rejuvenate themlves by harnessing the positive power (nigimitama) of the deities, who live outside of the ttlement; the prototypes of Japane deities were
'stranger deities'.(3) People rejuvenate themlves in two ways: by harnessing the divine purity from outside through a ritual, or alternatively, by
internalizing the divine power through the consumption of rice-cum-deities, which become part of the human body and its growth.
板栗Rice and rice products are the single most important food for commensality between humans and deities, on the one hand, and among humans, on the other (Yanagita 1982). Agricultural rituals for fa
rmers are the occasions for commensality even today, although in a much attenuated manner. The New Year's celebration in contemporary Japan(4) is a nationwide ritual during which rice cakes (kagamimochi)(5) are offered to the deities and then shared among humans. Embodying the souls of deities, rice cakes give power to tho who consume them (Yanagita 1951: 94-5). Not only during ritual occasions, but also in the day-to-day lives of the Japane, rice and rice products play a crucial role in commensal activities. Cooked white rice is offered daily to the family ancestral alcove. Also, rice is the only food shared at meals, rved by the female head of the houhold, while other dishes are placed in individual containers. Rice stands for 'we', i.e., whatever social group one belongs to, as in a common expression, 'to eat from the same rice-cooking pan', which connotes a strong n of fellowship arising from sharing meals. By contrast, such expressions as 'to eat cold rice' (rice is usually rved hot) and 'to eat someone el's rice' refer to the opposite situation.
户口管理Sake (rice wine) is the most important item of commensality, especially among men. The basic rule of social sake drinking is that one never pours sake for onelf. People take turns in pouring sake into each other's cup in a never-ending ries. The phra 'drinking alone' (hitorizake) express that there is nothing lonelier than having to pour one's own sake. Unlike the ideal model in some Western cultures of personhood as an independent and autonomous individual, in Japane culture
the social lf does not exist without the social other, and the lf is always dialogically defined in relation to the other in a given social context. A lone individual who must pour his or her own sake is on the verge of becoming a non-person.
During the Edo period (1603-1868), igniorial power was expresd through the image of golden ears of rice stretching across the lord's domain, and his people identified themlves with his rice paddies. In rural Japan today, the 'ancestral land' is a spatial symbol of family If rice is a symbol of 'we' through the act of commensality, rice paddies are its spatial equivalent, symbolizing the social group, be it a family, the local community or the nation at large.
Rice and rice paddies as nature, past, and primordial lf
Although the valorization of the countryside by intellectuals and artists, as epitomized in rice paddies, began earlier, we e its systematic development during the late Edo period when Edo (Tokyo) became the urban centre (Harootunian 1988: 23). Nowhere is the construction of the countryside more vividly depicted than in the woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) of the time.(6) A most common motif in prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige relates to rice and rice agriculture, such as rice farmers at work, sheaves of harvested rice, and flooded rice paddies.(7) In the nineteenth century, rice fields against the
background of Mt Fuji became a common motif in visual art to reprent
'agrarian Japan', that is, 'Japan'. Travellers, often depicted in the woodblocks, symbolize the transient and changing Japan epitomized by Edo (Tokyo), where they are headed, while rice and rice agriculture stand for Japan in its pristine unchanging form.
From the perspective of temporal reprentation, the recurrent motifs in the woodblock prints reprent something far beyond rice and rice agriculture per . At the most obvious level, they signal the four asons of the year. Flooded rice fields, like rice-planting songs, are the most familiar sign of spring or early summer, the time of birth and growth, whereas rice harvesting signals autumn and the end of the growing ason. The cycles of rice growth became markers of the asons for all Japane; the lives of fishermen, urbanites and all other non-agrarian people were marked by rice and its growth. Furthermore, agriculture symbolizes the past. The pristine past, reprenting the primordial Japane identity, uncontaminated by foreign influences and modernity as reprented by the city, is symbolized by the reconstituted agriculture and the rural.(8)
Intellectuals gave heightened expression to the valorization of the primordial Japane lf as symbolized by agriculture during the late Edo period (Harootunian 1988: 23), and through the Meiji p
eriod (Gluck 1985: 175, 181). The symbolic association remains even today when the Japane arch for nature in the countryside, now nostalgically referred to as furusato ('one's home region'; old homestead) (Kelly 1986). Far from the 'reality' of mud, sweat and fertilizer, rice agriculture was valorized into aesthetics, in much the same way that rural France and peasants were idealized by Millet and French impressionists such as Monet (cf. Brettell & Brettell 1983), and just as English urbanites today construct their 'English countryside', often on the cover of chocolate boxes (Newby 1979; R. Williams 1973). With the advent of modernity, intellectuals in the societies began assigning a dual nature to both the urban and the rural. Thus, while Toulou-Lautrec celebrated the decadence of Paris, others decried the decay of urban life and exalted the beauty of rural France. Likewi, the masters of the woodblock prints celebrated the urbane but decadent world of the geisha, while others sought refuge in the 'uncontaminated' rice paddies. Here we e a striking cross-cultural parallel - urbanization created a need for 'the rural' (Berque 1990).(9) The lves and others in historical conjunctures
'Rice as lf' and 'rice paddies as our land' were intimately involved in Japan's interaction and discour with other peoples. Intensive interaction with foreigners through trade, warfare, religion, and so on is a familiar historical picture in any part of the world. An encounter with another people, di
rectly or indirectly, often prompts people to think about who they are in relation to and as distinct from the 'others'.
In this process of the dialectic differentiation between lf and other, important foods, such as a staple food, often play a powerful role - French v. German v. Italian bread; or the sorghum of the Pende contrasted with the maize of the
Mbuun in nineteenth-century central Africa (Vansina 1978: 177). For the Japane, rice or rices have played a major role in their deliberations upon their own identity in relation to other peoples.
Japan's history is a ries of conjunctures during which internal developments responded to a large degree to flows in world history The conjunctureswps替换
各银行定期存款利率have been interpreted through the lens of the Japane structure of lf and other, and they in turn forced the Japane repeatedly to reconceptualize
their notion of lf. The 'stranger deities' provided the model for interpreting foreigners and outside forces; foreigners with highly developed civilizations embodied beneficial power as well as destructive force. Of all the conjunctures, the two that nt the most profound and lasting shock wav
es throughout the country were Japan's encounter with the high civilization of Tang China between the fifth and venth centuries, and the encounter with Western civilization at the end of the nineteenth century At both times, the Japane avidly adopted the civilization of 'the other' and in them they sought their own image (Pollack 1986: 53).
Chine rice, Japane rice. As long as the Chine remained a well-defined other, the Japane task of defining themlves vis-a-vis the Chine was relatively easy When the West became the most important other, the Japane not only adopted Western science and technology, but also the
day-to-day Western lifestyle, as epitomized by the Meiji emperor with his Western style hair, clothing, and the famous Kair moustache (Bolitho 1977: 23-41; Taki 1990). At this time they were forced to face the fact that, for the West, the Japane were indiscriminately grouped as 'Orientals', just as, ironically, the Japane lumped all Westerners together. This more complex international scene required the Japane both to extricate themlves from other Asians or Orientals - especially Chine and Koreans - on the one hand, and to distinguish themlves from the West on the other (e Tanaka 1993). While the distinction between Japane and Westerners can be easily made and expresd as rice v. meat (or bread), making the distinction between the Japane, for whom rice had been an important symbol of lf-identity for centuries, and other Asians was more difficult;
all are rice consumers. The distinction therefore took the form of rice grown on Japane soil v. foreign rice. Towards the end of the Early Modern period, domestic rice (naichimai) emerged as a metaphor for the Japane as contrasted with foreign rice (gaimai) as a metaphor for other Asians, although foreign rice had been ud in Japan for centuries. Championed by the nativist scholars at the time, the Japane cho to emphasize their identity by degrading Chine rice as
'inferior', and the Chine who eat it as 'weak and enervated' (Harootunian 1988: 211-12). The Japane continued to distinguish themlves from other Asians through the u of rice symbolism during the Meiji period. For example, in his novel Kofu ('The miners'), Natsume Soki summarizes life at the coal mine - the lowest type of existence - as 'eating Chine rice and being eaten by Chine bugs [bed bugs]'.(10) Chine rice is depicted as tasting like mud and being too slippery to hold with chopsticks, unlike Japane rice, which is called 'the silver rice' (ginmai) (Natsume Soki 1984). Thus, the symbolic opposition of domestic rice: Chine rice :: silver: mud reprents the basic
