I have long admired Japan's attitude toward death, its acceptance, its no-nonsense attitude toward disposal and entombment, its brisk dispatch of ceremony and ritual, its relative lack of hypocrisy. Consequently it comes as a surprise to learn, upon reading this book, that Japanese funerals are modern inventions.
Though last rites can be as pretentious in Japan as elsewhere, they were historically much more ostentatious. Funeral processions, for example, were long, costly, theatrical and a social nuisance. They were done in eventually by the automobile and the traffic jams caused by jostlings for the right of way.
A few elements remain, those palanquin-type hearses are still to be seen, but here, as in many other ways, the modern funeral was shaped by the needs of modernity. These needs were not restricted to the stipulations of the motorcar but included those posed by the economic, political and social changes made necessary by the Meiji Restoration (1868) and the creation of a modern state.