RITUAL PRACTICE IN MODERN JAPAN: Ordering Place, People, and Action, by Satsuki Kawano. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 152 pp., with b/w photos, $17.00 (paper).

"Ritual" has meanings other than the primary dictionary definition, which insists upon the prescribed order of a religious ceremony -- that body of ceremonies or rites used in a place of worship. Ritual also has its secular associations.

Anthropologist Satsuki Kawano in her study of various ritual practices in the city of Kamakura wishes to see religious rites as being both culturally constructed and socially generated. She must therefore make very clear distinctions.

Rituals are more than prescribed and repetitive behavior. Otherwise putting out the garbage (a local, troubled, secular ceremony that has caused many a neighborhood rift) could be seen as ritual since it happens regularly at fixed times and places, and involves rigid rules about how to put it together, how to pile it up.

Kawano prefers to treat "religious" rituals (those with some connection with the Shinto kami or the Buddhist hotoke and to demonstrate that partaking in these does not necessarily involve "belief" in its ordinary sense. Rather "ritual life is not so much about individual faith as it is about securing the well-being of families and communities."

To the observer of religious ritual it would then make a small difference whether the receiver is a kami or a hotoke. One thanks such a deity but what matters is not the nature of the deity but the quality of the gratitude. And this is because of "the Japanese view that a person is fundamentally a social being with numerous links to both other humans and nonhumans."

This quality has been and still is used by various Japanese governments as a means of control, but the emphasis remains nonetheless social. While this fact remains problematic for the foreign observer, it is not necessarily so for the Japanese.

This is because "not all cultures worship the idea of the autonomous individual and if the qualities of the perfect person vary from culture to culture, ideals of moral worth are also likely to differ." Japan's main concern is found to be a sociocentric notion, a person is one found in the company of others, one defined by the relations she or he maintains with the rest.

Here ritual plays a strong part. An example, examined by the author in great detail, is the annual seasonal matsuri (festival). Here various rituals are gathered together (all of them nominally Shinto) and their role in group bonding, mutual endeavor, etc., is apparent. Kawano, however, also insists upon an aspect not often noticed, or at least not often spoken about.

The great o-mikoshi (portable shrine) is carried down the narrow street on the shoulders of the striving, panting young men -- and nowadays young women as well. And every time, every year, when they turn a certain corner, a certain store gets badly bashed.

It is no one's fault, the sweaty bearers cannot control the precise path of the god's procession. It is just bad luck -- shikata ga nai. Yet it is annually the same shop on the same corner, the owner of which is stingy when it comes to supporting communal expectations. "The annual festival," says Kawano, "justifies collective violence as a means to punish bad neighbors."

This anecdote satisfies the collective social nature of the ritual involved, but it also raises an interesting question that the author does not follow. Just how much does fear influence ritual? If it is not a matter of faith then one motivation might be a dread of consequences if the ritual is not observed.

Religion, in this sense, creates a craven congregation. Such a cowardly and abject crowd is not a popular image, but the line between belief and superstition is invisible and so a palpable fear might be considered as one of the ingredients in the successful longevity of certain rituals.

But this is a question that does not often rise in pragmatic, common-sensical Japan. If a ritual is to be altered, it will be if there is a strong social reason. An anecdote, which the author provides, is an example of this.

Kawano's anecdote involves the negotiation of the Japanese first treaty at the end of the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868). There was a heated discussion over whether the Japanese representatives should sit on the tatami, as was ritually prescribed, while the foreigners were in higher position, seated on chairs. If so, the Japanese position would be inferior, yet using chairs was alien to the ritual.

After a long discussion, the local representatives ended up sitting in chairs, but (ritual observed) they sat with legs folded in the formal Japanese-style posture. A very human, and very Japanese, solution had been found for a difficult ritualistic problem.