The Shikoku pilgrimage

This chapter describes the Shikoku pilgrimage and shows how itinerant ascetics and legends helped shape its development. It shows that the idea of unending itinerancy was embedded in the pilgrimage from the outset, articulated in foundation legends and the asceticism of early pilgrims, and facilitated by the circuit-like structure of the route, in which pilgrims on completing the route return to their point of departure and thus simultaneously are at the end and start of the pilgrimage. It provides case studies of famed historical pilgrims who walked multiple times and shows how faith in the holy Buddhist figure Kōbō Daishi, depicted as a perennially wandering pilgrim in Shikoku, played a part in encouraging repetition. It further indicates how local customs, including almsgiving and themes of competition among pilgrims, have further encouraged the culture of multiple performance in Shikoku.

Walkers on the way

This chapter looks at those who walk the pilgrimage many times. These are most commonly older retired male Japanese, and the chapter explores their various accounts of why they do this. It shows that faith is rarely an overtly stated or primary factor and that health and the wish to learn about themselves while keeping fit and meeting others remain dominant forces among such contemporary pilgrims. It also discusses a theme that runs through every chapter: how people who do the pilgrimage find themselves drawn back again and again to it, sometimes seeking new ways to do it in order to enhance their pilgrimage experiences. It demonstrates how pilgrims generally, and particularly walkers, devote immense energy and time between pilgrimages to preparing the ‘next journey’ and making records of their previous ones so that they are never really away from the pilgrimage. Instead they are mentally always on pilgrimage.

Modern stimulations

This chapter looks at how modern developments have made the pilgrimage more accessible and given rise to a new cohort of ‘pensioner pilgrims’ who make numerous circuits, often sleeping in customised cars and supported by their pensions. The chapter also looks at other developments that encourage repeated performance, from status symbols that indicate one has done 100 pilgrimages, to a ranking system among pilgrims. It explores themes of status and examines how every pilgrim can determine their own ways of performance and thereby create a sense of personalised autonomy and authority. The chapter also indicates how issues of competition also play a part in this process. It introduces various pilgrims met during fieldwork, showing why and how they perform numerous pilgrimages in Shikoku and how they talk about addiction, ‘Shikoku illness’, and faith.

Concluding comments and new challenges

This chapter emphasises that the Shikoku pilgrimage is not a singular transient event but a recurrent thread in the lives of pilgrims, many of whom plan to continue doing it until they die or are physically unable. They often also do other pilgrimages and have a primary identity as pilgrims. Pilgrimage is unending while the image of life itself as pilgrimage permeates popular understandings of the Shikoku pilgrimage. We introduce a Shikoku pilgrimage T-shirt that symbolically reflects this view of pilgrimage as infinite and unending, arguing that such themes are not unique to Shikoku, although they have rarely been discussed in studies of pilgrimage. Researchers need to look more closely at the issues discussed in this book, for Shikoku pilgrimage shows that pilgrimage is not a transient activity but a life course that pilgrims view as unending.

Pilgrims and their cars

This chapter focuses on the most common way to do multiple pilgrimages: by vehicle. It also examines the social dimensions of such performance, initially by examining pilgrimage confraternities, usually centred around a leader revered as a spiritual authority, and how they create a culture of encouraging repeat pilgrimages. The chapter then looks at the most common social grouping doing multiple Shikoku pilgrimages by vehicle: husband and wife couples. These examples also draw attention to enjoyment as a prominent factor in pilgrimage. The chapter then looks at individuals who drive multiple times around the pilgrimage, particularly those who sleep in their cars to do speedier and more frequent pilgrimages. The chapter outlines the motivations and practices of such pilgrims and indicates that hybrid pilgrimage performance—trying out various ways of doing it—also plays a part in the culture of repetition.

Living on the pilgrimage

There are some pilgrims who live permanently as homeless itinerants on the route. They are often viewed negatively as beggars who are only doing the pilgrimage to solicit alms and avoid work. However, this chapter presents a more nuanced picture, showing that while some itinerant pilgrims beg and succumb to drink and theft, others lead disciplined ascetic lives. It presents case studies of homeless itinerants who have lived for many years on the pilgrimage, from one who turned to drinking and theft, to an ascetic Buddhist practitioner who eschewed alcohol, to a famous fugitive from the law who had a devoted group of supporters and a colourful history of crime, and whose dualistic nature as a revered pilgrim and infamous felon encapsulates the contradictory dimensions of itinerant pilgrims in Shikoku.

Introduction

An itinerant Shikoku pilgrim who said that he would continue doing the Shikoku pilgrimage ‘until I die’ and examples of pilgrims who do hundreds of circuits, often by cars adapted so they can sleep in them, serve to show that repetition and unending practice are common aspects of the Shikoku pilgrimage. The Introduction examines theoretical studies of pilgrimage to show that such issues have barely been examined in the field. Arguing that attention needs to be paid to the idea of pilgrimage as recurrent and permanent rather than temporary and transient, it posits a rethinking of studies of pilgrimage, using the Shikoku pilgrimage as its prime mode of analysis. It also shows how ideas of ‘addiction’ and Shikokubyō, ‘Shikoku illness’, are warmly embraced by pilgrims in Shikoku, thereby enhancing their readiness to become unending pilgrims.

Attitudes, practices, schedules, and triggers

This chapter discusses a detailed questionnaire study we carried out. The average number of circuits for respondents was over 120 times. Some have been doing the pilgrimage for sixty years and claim several hundred circuits. It discusses their motives, faith, and practices, and examines their economic circumstances, their attitudes towards other pilgrims, and issues of competition. They also commonly do other pilgrimages, often many times, and this suggests that pilgrimage in general (not just Shikoku) is their core life practice. The chapter also discusses schedules, speed, and how these relate to multiple performance, provides examples of people (commonly older men who have lost their spouses) who spend 300 days or more a year on the road as pilgrims, even into their eighties and nineties, and explores the idea of ‘triggers’ that lead people to become incessant pilgrims.