Animal Worship Emerging out of 'Enchanting Encounters': A Case Study of a Family in Okinoshima Town, Shimane, Japan

摘要

This paper is based on a case of the long-lasting relationship between a family in Okinoshima Town and snake spirits. I argue that sociological and cosmological approaches, which were widely employed in earlier studies, are not adequate to understand the reason why the family is able to maintain the relevance of their relationship with the snake spirit. Instead, I call for an eclectic approach which allows the researcher to see how social change affects the human-animal (spirit) relationship, while avoiding a pitfall of reducing human-animal relationship to human-human relationship. As a framework to analyze my data, I borrow Veronique Servaisu27 concept of "enchanting encounters," which suggests the existence of a positive feedback loop facilitating the extension of the network of human and animal. My conclusion is that the relationship between the family and the snake spirits has been continuously regenerated (1) when the snake spirit gave the family an opportunity to reflect their own situation and worked as a magico-religious mediator to change it and (2) when a contingent encounter in day-to-day settings led to the sudden (re)emergence of the potency of the snake spirit.