The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 38 | Number 1 | Article ID 4377 | Sep 21, 2015

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Mobilizing Death in Imperial Japan: War and the Origins ofthe Myth of Yasukuni

Akiko Takenaka

Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’sU n e n d i n g P o s t w a r(http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9456-9780824846787.aspx) (University of Hawaii Press andStudies of the Weatherhead East AsianInstitute, Columbia University, 2015) examineskey moments in the one-and-a-half-centuryhistory of Yasukuni Shrine, beginning with itsconceptualization in the late Tokugawa yearsand culminating in the political turmoil of thetwenty-first century. I decided to write a bookon the history of the Shrine for a seeminglycounter-intuitive reason: there is too muchattention on this monument—political attention,that is.

Yasukuni Shrine remains one of the focal pointsin the domestic and international debates onhow Japan remembers and acts on its wartimepast. In the ongoing debates, Yasukuni Shrinehas come to take on a singular presence—aninstitution that represents Japan’s unresolvedwar crimes. Critics of the shrine argue thatYasukuni Shrine signifies Japan’s desire toreturn to the military-driven expansionist statethat it was during the Asia-Pacific War.Supporters contend that it is a memorial forthose who died for the nation.

(http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9456-9780824846787.aspx)

Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’sUnending Postwar is an attempt to complicatethe history of the Shrine. It demonstrates thatYasukuni Shrine was a space with unstablemeaning that changed significantly over time.It highlights the various ways that Japanesepeople became actors—whether willingly orunwillingly, consciously or unconsciously—inJapan’s quest for empire.

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We may confront “Yasukuni” from threeperspectives: Yasukuni the belief (Yasukunishinkō), Yasukuni the site (Yasukuni Jinja), andYasukuni the issue (Yasukuni mondai).“Yasukuni the belief” is the myth thatdeveloped during imperial Japan: that wardeath and the resulting enshrinement atYasukuni Shrine was the highest honor a mancould achieve. “Yasukuni the site” refers to thephysical space that is both a Shinto shrine anda war memorial, as well as the spatial practiceswithin it. “Yasukuni the issue” includes thepostwar political problems currently associatedwith the shr ine. These e lements areintertwined. The shrine site and the associatedspatial practices are intertwined with thebeliefs and issues. The operators of “Yasukunithe site” promote “Yasukuni the belief” andtherefore play a major role in intensifying“Yasukuni the issue.”

Most discussions of Yasukuni Shrine, andparticularly those by its critics, reduce thecomplex history and memories of Japan’swartime past to one ambiguous “Yasukuni,”giving the impression that an intervention into(or severing state ties with) the physicalpresence of the shrine could resolve all of theissues associated with the Asia-Pacific War.This focus on the shrine—and by extension thewartime military and political leaders whocreated and supported it—ironically reinforcesthe narrative of victimhood prevalent in Japantoday. Namely, that during the Asia-PacificWar, ordinary Japanese were victims of thewartime state (embodied by Yasukuni Shrineand the Class-A war criminals enshrined there).This stark separation of victim and perpetratorroles in wartime Japan obstructs a necessaryeffort to reconcile with non-Japanese victims ofthe war. It also affects the ways thatcontemporary Japanese remember, assess, andpreserve memories of their war experiences,and act upon those memories.

The following examines the earliest phase inthe creation of “Yasukuni the belief,” the

process through which Yasukuni Shrine wasconceptualized in late Tokugawa Japan.

Today on the way to the villa Ipassed through the templegrounds of Ueno. The two-storygate and most of the buildingswere burned in the battle lastsummer; so now the grandeur ofthe past is but a dream. I want topurify this ground, and dedicate itas a memorial to the war dead.

Kido Takayoshi, The Diary of KidoTakayoshi

On January 15, 1869, statesman Kido Takayoshinoted in his diary that the Kan’eiji site in Ueno,which he walked through earlier that day,should be purified and transformed into amemorial for the war dead.1 He was, in fact,proposing that Ueno, once bustling withpatrons of the Kan’eiji temple but nowdevastated after the Battle of Ueno theprevious year, should house a memorial for theimperial loyalists who fell during theRestoration. In short, Kido was recommendingthat an institution akin to what would becomeYasukuni Shrine be built at Ueno. Kido’sproposal did not materialize, however. ŌmuraMasujirō, who soon would become the ViceMinister of the newly created Army Ministry,opposed Kido’s choice, arguing that the spiritsof the dead bakufu soldiers—enemy casualtiesof that battle—haunted the site. Furthermore,the land was unavailable, as the Meijigovernment announced shortly thereafter thatit had designated the Ueno site for a newuniversity hospital. Instead, Ōmura selected astretch of land atop Kudan Hill that had beencontrolled by the bakufu infantry—the site thatYasukuni Shrine currently occupies. Herecommended it as the most auspiciouslocation for the Imperial Palace: the site wassituated to the northwest of the palace, thedirection in need of protection.2

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Ōmura had grand plans. He predicted that theKudan site, with its proximity to the ImperialPalace and a commanding view of Tokyo, wouldbecome a strategic spot in case of armeddomestic conflict. Thus, it was—at leastsymbolically—to function as more than amemorial for the fallen. At the time, the roadthat traveled up the hill comprised nine slopedsteps (hence the name Kudan, or nine steps),and from the summit one could see as far asTokyo Bay. As the original pathway up Kudanwas narrow and steep, Ōmura planned to widenit and decrease the incline for easier travel bythe military. Although they did not yet exist inJapan, he imagined horse-drawn carriagestraveling along the street.3 In addition to thememorial itself, Ōmura proposed an expansiveplan for the site (Figure 2) that would include acommunal cemetery for those memorialized.

Figure 1. “Kudan-zaka” by Hasegawa Settan(undated)Figure 2. Original site plan for Yasukuni Shrine,dated June 1869.Figure 3. Site map of Yasukuni Shrine, dated January1880. The area of the shrine grounds is considerablysmaller than the original.

Ōmura’s vision became the foundation for theYasukuni Shrine that we know today. But theshrine grounds do not include a cemetery, andYasukuni Shrine houses only the spirits—notthe physical bodies—of the fallen.4 Nonetheless,the construction project for the memorial itselfcommenced in mid-June of 1869. Temporarystructures, which included the inner shrine, aworship hall, and two offering halls, werehurriedly completed in ten days. In the eveningof June 28, the first shōkon ritual (literally aritual to invite the spirits of the dead) tookplace, memorializing the spirits of 3,588imperialist men who had fallen during theBoshin War. For five days thereafter, from June29 to July 3, the shrine hosted festivities thatfeatured sumo matches and fireworks. Animperial messenger paid tribute on June 29.Units of the Imperial Army took turns firingcelebratory gun salutes. Visitors were treatedto sacred sake.5 Until the permanent innershrine was completed three years later, threefestivals per year took place at the site.

At the time, these structures were known asthe Tokyo Shōkonsha, or the “Tokyo shrine toinvite in spirits of the dead,” and together they

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comprised the immediate predecessor toYasukuni Shrine. Although the Kudan areaquickly became a popular location, the shrinewas genera l ly absent f rom cu l tura lrepresentations of Tokyo in general and of theKudan area in particular. The turning point wasthe 1872 spr ing fest iva l , conductedimmediately after the permanent structure wascompleted, during which numerous peoplevisited the shrine grounds. An article reportingthe festival in the Yūbin hōchi newspapersuggests one reason for the lack of attention inprevious years:

For the past couple of years, few people visitedthis shrine and many had no respect for thefacility, as the enshrined here were only thosefrom the Western domains…6

It was the new, permanent shrine thatattracted Tokyoites, not the memorial functionof the site. By this time, other novelties wereperched atop Kudan Hill, including a pair ofmonumental stone lanterns completed in 1871.Together with the spectacular view of the bay,the shrine grounds inspired artists andattracted nearby residents. Festivals and otherevents on the shrine grounds quickly becamepopular.

Figure 4. Inner shrine, c. 1872.Figure 5. Risshō II, Tokyo Kudan-zaka-ue Shōkonshano Zu, c. 1868.Figure 6. Hiroshige III, Tokyo Meisho Zue,Shōkonsha Taka-Tōrō no Zu, c.1871.

There was a simple reason that people livingwithin easy traveling distance of the shrineinitially had little knowledge of the men whowere memorialized: the antibakufu faction,which took political power away from theTokugawas, was led by men from Chōshū andSatsuma, the “Western domains.” Other major

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participants were the domains of Aki, Inshū,and Tosa, also located in the Western half ofJapan. While leaders quickly took over Tokyo toorganize the new government, residents werenot invested in the fate of the dead of theimperial forces. Not only did the men comefrom the faraway “Western domains,” butordinary Tokyoites at the time had little to dowith armed conflict. Armed participation in amilitary cause was for the most part limited tothe samurai class during the Tokugawa era.The significance of the shrine as a memorial todeaths that occurred at Ueno and other relatedbattles was not apparent to most Tokyoites inearly Meiji.

Of course, Tokyo Shōkonsha (and YasukuniShrine soon thereafter) did not remain anobscure institution for long, as can be observedby the prominent place it occupied in the lastyears of the Asia-Pacific War. The process thattransformed it into a central institution of warmemory, however, is not straightforward. Warsand the resulting loss of life in Japan’simperialist quest certainly played a key role inthis transformation: Death was presented in apositive light in order to sustain a level ofenthusiasm to support these wars.

Imperial Japan was certainly not alone in thiseffort. In analyzing the modern Europeane x p e r i e n c e o f w a r f a r e ( r o u g h l ycontemporaneous with my work here), GeorgeMosse discusses what he refers to as “the Mythof the War Experience,” with a particular focuson how the concept was mobilized in post-World War I Germany.7 In representations ofwar memory in prose, poetry, picture books,and film, Mosse identifies a strong urge toportray a higher meaning of the war experiencethat was shaped by encounters with mass deathand argues that this Myth of the WarExperience developed more significantly indefeated nations.8 Redefining the meaning ofthe lives that were lost was central to thismyth: War death was presented as sacrificeand resurrection rather than loss of life. Young

soldiers were remembered as having foughtcourageously and dying for the homelandsinging joyously (in striking parallel toanecdotal accounts of Japanese troops shouting“Long live the emperor!” in the face of death).Mosse contends that these narratives wereinfluential not so much for the soldiers in thetrenches but, significantly, more for thosewaiting at home.9

Yasukuni Shrine played an important role in thedevelopment of such myths and theirtransformation into a sort of national belief.Over time, and certainly by the 1940s,Yasukuni Shrine came to occupy center stagein the creation of a Japanese myth of warexperience.

What was the origin of the idea that dying inwar for the emperor’s sake is the greatesthonor one could achieve? And who realized thatthis idea could be used to mobilize men for acommon cause even in the face of death?“Yasukuni the belief,” of course, is an inventedtradition, just like national holidays, anthems,flags, and other conventions of nationhood.10 Iam interested in the origins of the myth and theways in which they were reinvented.

The Origins of Yasukuni Practice

To address these questions, I start in the yearsleading up to the Restoration, when thepractice of commemorating war death wasnormalized. Scholars such as Ōe Shinobu haveprovided the early history of Yasukuni Shrine.11

Yet the existing narrative does not explain theprocess through which the Japanese came toembrace the idea of dying for the emperor orthe idea of transforming the war dead into aprotector god for Japan—a process that closelyaligns with the development of the Myth of theWar Experience in modern Japan. Although theshōkon ritual conducted at Yasukuni wasintroduced during the last years of theTokugawa era, planners of this ritual drew onprecedents and customs to memorialize

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military deaths.

Shōkon rituals in general draw from traditionaldeath-related practices in Japan, whichdeveloped out of the belief in the closerelationship between the living and the dead. Itwas believed, for example, that the spirits ofthe dead lingered in the world of the livingafter death. It was commonly thought thatspirits were confused about or unaccepting oftheir death. Rituals were designed to call backthe wandering spirits to the world of the livingor to attempt to communicate with the spirits,typically to placate them.12 This kind of spirit,ara-mitama (spirit of the new dead) in Buddhistterminology, was deemed capable of harmingthe living. Especially feared were spirits ofthose who were believed to have had specialpowers (whether psychic or political) whilealive, those whose death rituals were notperformed properly, and those who died anuntimely death (including the military dead).Rituals were conducted in order to tame thesespirits, based on the belief that, when properlyappeased, the power of vengeful spirits istransformed and brings positive influence tothe living. The imperial court historicallyfollowed this tradition to commemorate andposthumously promote men who had died atragic death as a way to placate their spirits.Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) andKusunoki Masashige (c.1294-1336) both hadshrines dedicated to them.

In medieval times the fear of vengeful spirits(goryō shinkō) grew into a battlefield memorialpractice. According to this practice all deathswere memorialized, whether enemy or ally.13

Victors conducted a ritual called dai segaki e(the great rite to appease hungry ghosts) for allthe war dead, from both sides. Victors typicallyerected a memorial on the site for both enemyand ally (teki mikata kuyō-hi). This medievalpractice is distinct from Yasukuni ritual in thatboth enemy and ally were memorialized.14

Indeed, the dead from the defeated side werememorialized with particular attentiveness.15

Previous accounts conclude that the creators ofYasukuni Shrine appropriated and politicizedthis tradit ional r i tual by select ivelymemorializing and commemorating war deathfor the emperor.16

A close examination of the ways that deathrituals were conducted in the years leading upto and during the Restoration suggests,however, that there was not yet an establishedarrangement to discriminate against enemydead. In some of the Restoration-relatedbattles, all dead were memorialized regardlessof which side they had fought for. In othercases, concerted efforts were made to preventthe enemy from tending to their dead. Butwhen Tokyo Shōkonsha was created, the idea ofselective memorialization was not yetinstitutionalized. Instead, a move to politicizethe war dead for a larger cause emergedduring the last years of the Tokugawa era. Ioutline below the development of death ritualsin some of the antibakufu domains and theni n t r o d u c e i n s t a n c e s w h e r edeath—encompassing both the physical bodiesand the spirits of the dead—was mobilized forthe construction of a collective identity. Theidea of mobilizing death for a political cause ishardly unique to modern Japan, thus myanalysis is informed by scholars who havestudied the politics of memorial, burial,exhumation, and reburial elsewhere.17

Son’nō jōi and the Legend of KusunokiMasashige

Two domains in particular hold the key to themodern practice of shōkon, which developedinto the ideas behind Yasukuni Shrine: Chōshū,a key player of the Meiji Restoration andsituated at the Western end of mainland Japan,and Mito, the birthplace of the Mito School ofnativist thought, located much closer to Edo.During the final years of the Tokugawa era,men of samurai status in Chōshū began tocollectively and publicly memorialize thedeaths of samurai. Around the same time, some

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six hundred miles away, Mito ideologues werepromoting the idea of son’nō jōi (revere theemperor; expel the barbarian) as a way tostrengthen national consciousness by unitingunder the emperor. Both were responding tothe emerging sense of crisis precipitated by thedecline of bakufu influence, social unrestgenerally, and the appearance of foreign shipsin Japanese waters.

In the beginning the Chōshū practice wasexclusively domain based. In October 1851Chōshū leader Mōri Takachika orderedresearch on and the collection of the names ofall samurai who died for a cause that benefitedthe domain. Two years later, in 1853, Chōshūmen created a register of such domainaldeaths, deposited it at the local Tōshunjitemple, and performed a Buddhist-stylememorial service on June 14. This practice wasto be an annual ritual.18 While the religiousstyle differs, this ritual bears strikingresemblance to the Yasukuni practice.

The circumstances contributing to the reasonsfor these rituals, however, are open tointerpretation. For instance, these rites becamean annual event when foreign ships appearedin the waters surrounding Japan: CommodoreMatthew Perry, a catalyst for Japan’s dramaticshift in foreign policy, arrived at Uraga on June5, 1853. Domestic politics also contributed tothe situation. Chōshū leaders had held thebakufu in deep contempt throughout theTokugawa regime. According to some accounts,as an annual new year’s tradition, a retainerwould ask the daimyo, “should it be this year[that we attack the Tokugawas]?” to which thedaimyo would always respond, “not yet.”Retainers are said to have slept with their feetfacing Edo to demonstrate their resentment.19

With the political power of the bakufu waning,Chōshū leaders began to anticipate armedconflict, with an eye to opportunities tooverthrow the bakufu. At a time when moredeaths could be foreseen, ritualized treatmentof the dead could help promote a collective

identity.

Although there are similarities between theannual Chōshū memorials and Yasukunipractice, the Chōshū rituals were conducted inthe Buddhist style. How did the shift to theShinto style of Yasukuni enshrinement takeplace? Further, how was the concept of fightingfor the emperor incorporated into the rituals?The Mito domain produced thinkers who playeda central role in shaping the political ideasbehind the restoration, including son’nō jōi.The Shinron (The New Theses, 1825), by Mitoscholar Aizawa Seishisai, is a key text thatpromotes the concept of son’nō jōi andhighlights the emperor’s importance. Writtenas a response to the bakufu order of the sameyear to expel foreigners from Japanese waters,Shinron attempted to strengthen a collectivenational consciousness through unity under theemperor. The goal of Shinron was to secureJapanese independence by establishing astrong political structure that maintained thebakufu politically, while creating a renewedidentity around the authority of the emperor. Inshort, it emphasized national consciousness ofJapan as a whole (with both the bakufu and thecourt intact) over allegiance to individualdomains.20 However, once the bakufu signedtreaties to open Japanese ports, Son’nō jōiqu ick ly came to inc lude the idea o foverthrowing the bakufu.

To promote a new brand of son’nō jōi thatincluded restoring exclusive power to theemperor, Mito scholars used a fourteenth-century f igure Kusunoki Masashige(c.1294-1336). Significant here were bothKusunoki’s initial role in aiding EmperorGodaigo terminate the Kamakura bakufu(1185-1333) and establish his own regime(Kenmu Restoration, 1333-1336), as well as hisfailure in 1336 to protect the court’s politicalpower from Ashikaga Takauji, after which hetook his own life. The Kusunoki figure proveduseful for the Mito scholars’ attempts to fostera sense of nationalism focused on the emperor.

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Kusunoki quickly came to be revered as a heroin a historical “overthrowing of the bakufu,”and as the emperor’s loyal follower whosacrificed his life for the imperial cause.

Kusunoki also appears in Shinron, in whichAizawa Seishisai advocated the deification ofpeople who accomplished extraordinary deedsfor Japan. The connection with Shinto is alsointroduced here. Aizawa mentions Shintoshrines that are dedicated to people whosedeeds were significant and argues that revivingthe tradition of deifying loyal warriors wouldencourage commoners to revere the gods. Onesuch figure was Kusunoki. In an 1834 text,Aizawa proposed gathering comrades on theanniversary of Kusunoki’s death for trainingand morale building.21 Here we see a communalidentity beginning to develop via the deathrituals.

Aizawa’s follower Maki Izumi went one stepfurther in arguing for the deification of loyalwarriors in history and their posthumouspromotion. In addition, he suggests dedicatingshrines to these figures as a way of inspiringcontemporary warriors.22 On May 25, 1862,Maki conducted a ritual for Kusunoki duringwhich he also memorialized eight spirits ofantibakufu Satsuma warriors who died duringthe Teradaya Incident. Around this time,Kusunoki rituals began taking place in otherdomains as well. In 1865, residents of theYamaguchi domain, for example, beganregularly conducting a Kusunoki ritual andsoon incorporated the dead from their owndomain into the ceremony.23 Through thesecombined memorials, the Kusunoki legendshifted its emphasis from a narrative ofsuccessful imperial restoration to one of abrave hero who sacrificed his life for animperial cause. His death was thus mobilizedfor a larger political objective: to rally aroundthe emperor in order to unseat the Tokugawaregime from power.

Chōshū Memorial Practices

The idea of Kusunoki worship traveled to theChōshū domain early on. In the mid-1850s,Yoshida Shōin, a scholar and son of a Chōshūsamurai, preached on the heroic self-sacrificeof Kusunoki to pupils in his private school whilehe was under house arrest. A strong critic ofthe bakufu’s passive foreign policies, Shōinencouraged his students to emulate Kusunokiand defy the bakufu in order to restore powerto the court. His many followers, includingTakasugi Shinsaku and Kusaka Gensui, wouldplay central roles in the movement tooverthrow the bakufu.

By the early 1860s, clashes between theantibakufu and pro-bakufu factions had led tobloodshed such as the Ansei Purges(1858-1859) and the Sakurada Gate Incident(1860). Shōin was executed in October 1859 asa part of the Ansei Purges. By this time,antibakufu supporters were converging in theimperial capital to plan an overthrow of theTokugawa regime. Chōshū leaders conspired tohold a collective memorial rite in Kyoto tocommemorate their dead. But the bakufuforbade a proper memorial for these dead.From the bakufu’s viewpoint, the imperialloyalist dead were criminals who had beenexecuted or killed as rebels. The first mattersfor attention, therefore, entailed obtaining acourt mandate to remove their criminal status.The involvement of the emperor was also usefulfor the leaders of the antibakufu movementsince it would emphasize the idea that theantibakufu faction was now fighting for acommon cause: the restoration of imperialpolitical power. A memorial sanctioned by theemperor offered the perfect opportunity toinstill in the antibakufu supporters a sense ofson’nō—reverence for the emperor—as well asa collective identity.

In 1862 Chōshū leaders successfully solicitedEmperor Kōmei’s approval to posthumouslyexonerate men who died for antibakufu causes.On August 2 of that year, Kōmei sent thebakufu an imperial message about his plan to

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memorialize “deaths in state affairs (kokuji).”24

Fourteenth shogun Iemochi freed all imperialloyalist prisoners, exonerated all those who haddied, and granted permission to constructgraves for them. Among those exonerated wasYoshida Shōin. Chōshū men requested thisritual largely to revive the name of Shōin, theirrevered teacher. The event was the firstmemorial ritual initiated in the name of theemperor to involve multiple domains. It can beconsidered the key event in restoring politicalpower in the name of the emperor through theuse of death rituals.

Kōmei himself officiated at a shōkon ritual atthe Reimeisha shrine at Mt. Ryōzen inHigashiyama, Kyoto, on December 24, 1862.25

For the first time, men from multiple domainswere memorialized together in the name of theemperor for efforts to overthrow the bakufu.26

This transformed memorialization into a toolfor constructing a collective identity. The ritualnot only relieved the men of their criminalstatus, but made them heroes who hadsacrificed their lives for the imperial cause. Inthe following year, 1863, for the first time inKyoto a physical structure was built exclusivelyfor the shōkon ritual. Men from the Tsuwanodomain constructed a small shrine inside theYasaka Shrine grounds, situated at the foot ofRyōzen, where, on July 25, they memorializedforty-six men. Immediately after the ritual, theshrine was relocated to the residence ofTsuwano leader Fukuba Bisei to conceal theevent from pro-bakufu forces. In 1931 thestructure was transferred again to YasukuniShrine where it exists on the grounds as theMotomiya, or original shrine.27

Chōshū rituals took on a Shinto quality oncethe move toward Restoration began. On May25, 1864, members conducted a memorial atthe Shiraishi residence, where the kiheitai(volunteer army comprised primarily ofcommoners which played a significant role inthe Restoration) would soon be established.Loyalists from the Chōshū domain were in

attendance along with Maki Izumi, theKusunoki admirer and son’nō jōi advocate fromMito. For the first time for the Chōshū men, therituals were conducted in the Shinto style. Forthe first time the Chōshū idea of regularlymemorializing dead comrades merged with theMito idea of commemorating commendabledeaths as gods in the Shinto tradition—andoffering prayers for military success.

Back in their home domain, Chōshū also led thecreation of physical structures for the rituals.In August 1865 Chōshū constructed a shrine ata site in Sakurayama (Shimonoseki), wherememorial rituals continued to be held on aregular basis. A permanent structure for therituals would be useful not only for regularevents but also as a visible marker, a constantreminder for the men of the importance of theirpolitical cause. The previous month a law hadbeen passed that required each county to buildits own shōkonsha, or shrine for conductingmemorial rituals.28 Unlike Yasukuni Shrine,gravelike stones with the names of thedeceased now neatly stand behind the shrine.The bodies, however, were cremated and theashes buried at temples or battlefields. Thestones are markers to which the spirits of thedead were to return.

Figure 7. Memorial markers at Sakurayama Shrine.

The Chōshū shrines were also educational. At

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the time of the Restoration, many lower-rankedmembers of domains that were fighting onbehalf of the emperor knew little about him.Moreover, the unification of the nation underthe emperor’s name was still a new idea. Somelacked access to even a part of the educationthat a child of a samurai received. In fact, inAugust 1863, in the midst of attacks by foreignbattleships at Shimonoseki, Chōshū memberTakasugi Shinsaku created the kiheitai, whichenabled commoners to fight. To those fightingfor the emperor and risking their lives, just astheir deceased comrades had done, thememorial practice and physical presence of theshōkonsha buildings reinforced the message ofan imperial cause. An iteration of Aizawa’s1834 proposal to annually commemorateKusunoki’s death is evident here: Menconcluded their shōkon ceremonies by pledgingto follow in the footsteps of their slaincomrades.29 In this sense, a shōkonsha was notmerely a memorial site but also a place towhich men pledged to return as spirits.Commoners were conscripted to construct thelocal shōkonsha.

The regular rituals also normalized twoconditions that had recently been introducedalong with the shōkon rituals: first, the ideathat the domain, rather than the family memberof the deceased, had authority over thememorialization process, and second, theattenuated distinction between shrinesdedicated to gods and those dedicated tohuman spirits.30 The domain’s authority overmemorialization of the dead transferred theright to perform death rituals from the privateentity of the family to a public one of thedomain. This established the precedent for theJ a p a n e s e s t a t e ’ s c o n t r o l o v e r t h ememorialization of the war dead.

Architects of the new government, comprisedprimarily of Chōshū men, developed thisdomain-based practice into a national one. InMay 1868 the newly instituted governmentbuilt a shōkonsha on Ryōzen to collectively

commemorate imperial loyalists who had losttheir lives in political struggles since 1853, aswell as the soldiers of the Imperial Army killedat Toba-Fushimi, the first battle of the BoshinWar.31 The Kyoto facility housed the graves ofrepresentative loyalist dead as well as severaldomain-specific shrines and was considered acentral facility at the time. However, thepractice of collective memorial was not limitedto this site. For example, on June 2, 1868, lessthan two months after the bakufu relinquishedEdo Castle, to collectively commemorate alldeaths in the Imperial Army, the governorgeneral of the Eastern Expedition Group(Tōseigun) held a large-scaled shōkonceremony at Edo Castle rather than the newlyconstructed Higashiyama Shōkonsha. Theceremony was conducted in the very hall wherenegotiations to hand over the castle were heldby the last shogun, Yoshinobu, thushighlighting the redemptive symbolism of theevent: that the transfer of power occurred as aresult of the lives lost. The official chronicle ofYasukuni Shrine points to this ritual as thebeginning of the Tokyo Shōkonsha.32

On July 17, 1868, Tokyo was designated thenew capital. With the official relocation ofEmperor Meiji from Kyoto to Tokyo in March1869, the new government decided to constructa shōkonsha in Tokyo to replace the one inHigashiyama.

Who Can Be Enshrined?

Chronologically, we have arrived at themoment when Ōmura Masujirō selected the siteat Kudan. But there is one other importantissue surrounding a characteristic of theshōkon practice at Yasukuni Shrine that needsto be addressed: the problem of selectivememorialization. One major criticism ofYasukuni Shrine in recent decades is that itcommemorates only particular kinds of deaths:mostly Japanese military deaths that resultedfrom wars of imperialism and loyalist deathsthat occurred during the Restoration. This kind

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of selective memorialization has had furtherramifications in the post-Asia-Pacific Warperiod. Many bereaved family members havesubmitted requests to Yasukuni Shrine to havetheir loved ones enshrined, whereas othershave demanded the removal of names from theshrine’s register.33 The process of post-1945memorialization includes the compilation of thenames and other information about thedeceased, which was often provided by theJapanese state.34 Although the head priestalways makes the final decision in special orcontroversial cases, for example, the Class-Awar criminals, a set of guidelines also helpsdetermine the names for enshrinement. Theseguidelines have changed numerous times, evenaf ter 1945 , somet imes resu l t ing inenshrinement of those who had died decadesearlier.35

The popular theory that antibakufu men startedselective memorialization for political purposesduring the restoration-related battles, may notbe entirely accurate. Late Tokugawa memorialpractices did become increasingly political, butthere were no predetermined qualificationsthat the deceased had to meet in order to bememorialized in a particular ritual. In fact, attimes all of the deaths on both the imperial andthe bakufu sides were memorialized, as withthe memorial that was ordered by the court andperformed in October 1864 at Chion-in, a PureLand temple in Kyoto.36 Moreover, during theBoshin War, imperial loyalists often allowed theenemy dead to be memorialized. For example,imperial troops immediately consented to theburial and memorial of the pro-bakufu fighterswho died in the Battle of Echigo-Koide in April1868.

Political Use of Death: Dead Bodies andMemorial Practices

The idea to es tab l i sh e l ig ib i l i ty formemorialization and to use the practice ofmemorializing for political purposes developedgradually. At the outset, efforts were not

focused exclusively on the spirits of thedead—the practice of Yasukuni Shrine—but ondeath rites in general, including proper burialof the bodies. And in later years, during Japan’swars of imperialism, the military took fullcontrol of not only the spirits of the war dead(through Yasukuni Shrine) but also their bodiesas a way to exert power over those still alive.

Being under the jurisdiction of the military, it isnot surprising that Yasukuni Shrine became avenue through which the military organized itsdead. Particularly in the final years of the Asia-Pacific War, when retrieval of bodies from thefront was nearly impossible, mobilizing thespirits of the war dead became a usefulreplacement for rituals associated with bodiesand ashes. Memorial rituals at Yasukuni Shrinewere only one component of a variety ofpractices that utilized death to promotemilitaristic nationalism.

As we have seen in the discussion of the 1862process of rehabilitating the posthumous statusof men who were considered antibakufu,criminals and traitors (kokuzoku) were noteligible for typical death-related rites inTokugawa Japan. On October 27, 1859, YoshidaShōin was beheaded in an Edo prison andthrown into a hole in the ground along withother executed criminals. On January 1, 1863,upon receiving permission from the bakufu,Shōin’s remains were dug up and transportedfrom the mass burial ground to open land inTokyo that Chōshū owned. According to someaccounts, the procession barged onto a Uenobridge that was reserved exclusively for use bythe shogun, viciously attacked the guards, andcrossed the bridge. In 1882, followersconstructed a Shinto shrine by the gravestone,thus elevating Shōin to the status of a god.

Shōin’s spirit was memorialized in an officialritual carried out by the emperor in Kyoto, thussignifying that the death was for an imperialcause. The Kyoto ritual and the Tokyo spectacletogether signified the determination of the

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Chōshū men to pursue the process of jōi in thename of the emperor—an action that Shōinhimself had advocated. The rituals associatedwith Shōin’s death were not conductedexclusively for the dead, for example placatingthe potentially angry spirit of Shōin, but weretransformed into practices that created newmeanings for the living, both enemy and ally.

Other instances occurred during therestoration, when practices associated withdeath, burial, and memorial were highlypoliticized: the battle of Aizu. A number of masssuicides took place during the battle. Duringand after the battle, the imperial troops—led byChōshū—forbade the burial of Aizu dead. DeadAizu bodies were left to rot on open fields, andlocal residents subsequently struggled for theirproper burial. If Shōin’s example presents acase study in posthumous restoration of honorthrough rituals involving the body and thespirit, incidents that occurred during the battleof Aizu demonstrate the power to controlpeople by denying proper burial andmemorialization of their dead. The twoincidents provide a strong rationale forpoliticizing memorial practices, which tookplace alongside the development of criteria forenshrinement at Yasukuni Shrine.

On June 4, 1879, Grand Minister SanjōSanetomi issued a directive that announced therenaming of Tokyo Shōkonsha as YasukuniShrine and designating it as a SpecialGovernment Shrine (bekkaku kanpeisha).37 Thisdesignation of the memorial as a Shinto shrinecompletes the first period in the history ofYasukuni Shrine. With the designation, therituals and physical structures associated withthe use of the war dead for political purposeswere institutionalized. At the same time, thespirits of those enshrined became a permanentfixture in the shrine itself. In succeedingdecades, Yasukuni Shrine increased its officialcapacity as Japan’s national military memorial,its visibility reaching its zenith in the last yearsof the Asia-Pacific War.

This article was adapted from Chapter 1 ofYasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’sUnending Postwar. I thank the University ofHawaii Press for generous permission topublish this material here.

Akiko Takenaka is associate professor at theDepartment of History, University of Kentucky.She is the author of Yasukuni Shrine: History,Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar(http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9456-9780824846787.aspx) and a number of articles thatdeal with Japanese memories of the Asia-PacificWar. She is currently working on two bookprojects: Mothers Against War: Gender andGrassroots Peace Activism in Postwar Japanand The Persistence of Trauma in PostwarJapan.

Recommended citation: Akiko Takenaka,"Mobilizing Death in Imperial Japan: War andthe Origins of the Myth of Yasukuni", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 38, No. 1,September 21, 2015.

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Notes

1 Kido Takayoshi, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi,vol. 1. (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1983),184-5.

2 Ikeda Ryōhachi, “Yasukuni Jinja no sōsetsu.”Shintō shi kenkyū 15 (1967): 50–70. Archivaldocuments associated with the construction ofTokyo Shōkonsha are available in YasukuniJinja hyakunenshi. Vol 1. (Tokyo: YasukuniJinja, 1983).

3 Recollection of Kamo Mizuho, the secondhead priest of Yasukuni Shrine. Cited in Murata

Minejirō, Ōmura Masujirō sensei jiseki (Tokyo,1919).

4 Diary entry dated June 26, 1869. Kido,248-249.

5 Details of this first festival are included inIkeda, 56-58.

6 Yūbin hōchi shinbun (monthly), June 1872,italics added. The event that took place in Maywas reported in June since this was thenewspaper’s first edition.

7 George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshapingthe Memory of the World Wars (New York:Oxford University Press, 1990).

8 Ibid., 5-7.

9 Ibid., 70-73.

10 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds,The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1983); TakashiFujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power andPageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1998).

11 Representative scholarship on YasukuniShrine that includes a summary of its earlyhistory includes Murakami Shigeyoshi, Irei toshōkon: Yasukuni no shisō. (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1974), Ōe Shinobu, Yasukuni Jinja.Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1984), and AkazawaShirō, Yasukuni Jinja: Semegi au “senbotsushatsuitō” no yukue (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,2005). A summary in English is available inBreen, “Introduction,” in John Breen ed.Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle forJapan’s Past (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2008), 1-21. Most recent works drawupon Murakami and Ōe for the shrine’s earlyhistory.

12 Namihira Emiko, Nihonjin no shi no katachi:Dentō girei kara Yasukuni made (Tokyo: Asahishinbunsha, 2004), 77-9.

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13 Nishimura Akira, Sengo Nihon to sensōshisha irei: Shizume to furui no dainamizumu(Tokyo: Yūshisha, 2006), 56-7.

14 Tsuda Tsutomu, “Bakumatsu Chōshū han niokeru shōkonsha no hassei,” Jinja HonchōKyōgaku Kenkyūjo kiyō 7 (2002): 127–169.

15 Ōe, 120-122. See, also, Murakami.

16 Ōe references a work by ethnographerSakurai Tokutarō, Reikon kan no keifu to makethis point. Ōe, 119-21.

17 For studies on the political use of the deadoutside Japan, see for example, KatherineVerdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies:Reburial and Postsocialist Change (New York:Columbia University Press, 1999), István Rév,Retroactive Justice: Prehistory of Post-Communism (Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2005), and Pamela Ballinger, History inExile: Memory and Identity at the Border of theBalkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 2003). Heonik Kwon, “The Korean MassGraves,” The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,posted on August 1, 2008.

18 Nihon Shiseki Kyōkai, ed., Kōhon mori noshigeri. 2 vols. Reprint. (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigakushuppankai, 1916, 1981).

19 Ichisaka Tarō, Bakumatsu eiketsu tachi nohīrō: Yasukuni zenshi (Tokyo: AsahiShinbunsha, 2008), 59.

20 For a close analysis of the text, see BobTadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism andWestern Learning in Early Modern Japan: TheNew Theses of 1825 (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUnivers i ty Press , 1986) , and HarryHarootunian, Toward Restoration: The Growthof Political Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970).

21 Kobayashi Kenzō, and Terunuma Yoshifumi,Shōkonsha seiritsu no kenkyū. Tokyo:Kinseisha, 1969), 40-43.

22 Ibid., 45-47.

23 Ibid., 48.

24 An excerpt of the relevant section of thisimperial order is available in Kobayashi andTerunuma, 30-31.

25 Reimeisha was a shrine founded in 1823 forthe purpose of funerals (Kobayashi andTerunuma, 55-6). For a detailed account of thismemorial service, including names of attendeesand the prayer offered during the ritual, seeKatō Takahisa, “Shōkonsha no genryū,” Shintō-shi kenkyū 15 (1967), 9-27.

26 The men were later enshrined at Yasukuniaround 1889. Kobayashi and Terunuma, 31.

27 Tsuda.

28 Shūtei bōchō kaitenshi 7. Cited in Ichisaka,128-9.

29 Ōkawa Ichirō, “Yasukuni mondai no shindōkō,” Rekishi hyōron 358 (1980), 77-84.

30 Tsuda, 144.

31 Murakami, 19-22.

32 Hata Ikuhiko, Yasukuni Jinja no saishin tachi(Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2010), 25.

33 For example, family members of medicalstudents killed by the atomic bomb whilestudying at Nagasaki Medical Universityrequested the enshrinement of their sons.Nishimura Akira, “Shi shite nao dōinchū nogakuto tachi: Hibaku Nagasaki Ikadai-sei noirei to Yasukui gōshi,” Nishi Nihon shūkyōgakuzasshi 25 (2003), 1-12. In the book, I alsodiscuss the case of Okinawans, Koreans, andTaiwanese, who have demanded enshrinement.

34 I detail this process in chapter 5 of my book.

35 Hata.

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36 Kobayashi and Terunuma, 34.

37 The designation Special Government Shrinewas an early Meiji invention, elevating the

status of shrines dedicated to persons wholoyally served the emperor in one way oranother.