農民兵士の生と死 : 北上市の二人の手紙より（2. 銃後の村）

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  • 農民兵士の生と死--北上市の二人の手紙より
  • ノウミン ヘイシ ノ セイ ト シ キタカミシ ノ フタリ ノ テガミ ヨリ

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兵士の手紙については、書き手の兵士本人の声を聞くことが重視され、一方の受取り手の声についてはあまり注目されてこなかった傾向がある。本稿では民俗学の立場から、戦死、戦病死という異常なる兵士の大量の死をそれぞれの家族がどのように受けとめ受け入れていったのかについて考えていく一つの試みとして、岩手県北上市の二人の農民兵士の手紙を手がかりに、記録（手紙）、記憶と語り（聞き取り情報）、物（位牌や墓石などの死者の表象物）という三つの資料的側面から整理を行った。そして以下の四点を指摘することができた。第一に、二人の農民兵士の家族への手紙の特徴は、戦闘状況にはあまりふれずに家のことばかり心配して書いており、身体は戦地にいても心は常に故郷の家族の元にあったと考えられる。兵士にとっては手紙を出すことが、家族にとっては手紙がくることが、生存の知らせに他ならなかった。第二に、戦死、戦病死は伝統的な日本の農村社会においてはかつて経験したことのない死に方であった。公報による死の知らせ、村葬、家の葬儀などが慌だしく流れても家族は死をすぐには受け入れられず、妻は夫の死を自分で何とか確めようとする衝動に突き動かされていた。第三に、戦死、戦病死した夫の墓を作ることが夫の死の受容の方法の一つであり、老境においても墓とは生者と死者との関係性の「切断と接合の装置」に他ならぬと解読できた。第四に、戦死、戦病死者の位置づけの具体相において死者の表象物および「供養・慰霊・追悼」という宗教儀礼の重層性、重複性が注目された。死者に対する民俗儀礼としては、普通死の場合には伝統的に「供養」であり、異常死の場合には「慰霊」である。そして宗教色を排しながらその人物の死を悼む場合には「追悼」である。これら三種類は当然その意味も異なり、「供養」の場合には成仏を、「慰霊」の場合には神格化へ、と人格の喪失と異化が現象化するのに対して、「追悼」の場合には人格が維持され、悼まれつづける死として定位する、というそれぞれの死者の位置づけの方向力が作用する。戦死、戦病死の表象物および儀礼は、空間的重層性とともに宗教儀礼的重層性をも有している点にその特徴がある。

With regard to letters written by soldiers, until recently the emphasis was on listening to the voice of the soldier, or author of the letter, and little attention was paid to the voices of those receiving the letter. This paper attempts to show, from the point of view of folklore research, how the families of soldiers understood and accepted the mass abnormal deaths of the soldiers dying in battle or from disease contacted at the front, as the war situation expanded from the Chinese-Japanese War to the Asia-Pacific War. To this end, the paper looks at the letters of two farmer-soldiers from Waga Town in Waga County, Iwate Prefecture (present-day Kitakami City), classifying and analyzing from the three separate aspects of documentation: records (letters) , memories and oral accounts (interviews) , objects (mortuaries and gravestones and other objects representing the dead). As a result, four issues are discussed. First, one notable feature of the letters sent by the two farmer-soldiers to their families was the fact that they did not discuss the actual situation at the battle front but rather kept referring to the soldiers' homes, revealing how, even though the soldiers' physical bodies were at the battle front, their minds were with their families at home. The act of sending letters was, for the soldiers, a way of signaling that they were still alive, just as the act of receiving the letters conveyed this information to the families. Second, such deaths from fighting and from disease contacted at the front were, for the traditional Japanese farming society, a first-time experience. Although death announcements were published in the bulletins and although village and family funerals hastily carried out, the families could not immediately accept the fact that their loved ones were dead and wives felt compelled to make investigations on their own to confirm their husbands' death. Third, special attention was given to the motivation behind the construction of graves for soldiers killed in battle or by disease at the front. Analysis indicates that building a grave was one way of accepting a husband's death, and that the grave served as the mechanism for severing and joining together the living and the dead. The fourth issue concerns the importance of objects representing the dead and of memorial services such as “kuyo,” “irei,” and “tsuito.” The traditional ceremony to mourn the dead is “kuyo” in the case of a normal death and “irei” in the case of an abnormal death. When mourning for a dead person without bringing religious aspects into the picture, “tsuito” would be the appropriate the ceremony. Naturally, these three types of ceremonies have different meanings and functions and each follows its own vector in its placement of the deceased: the “kuyo” lead the deceased to attain of Buddhahood (enter Nirvana) , the “irei” leads to deification of the deceased, and the “tsuito” demonstrates that the deceased retains his dignity in death. It is characteristic of objects representing those killed in battle and dead from diseases contracted at the front as well as the appropriate ceremonies to be multi-layered both in terms of space and religion.

source:https://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/outline/publication/ronbun/ronbun5/index.html#no101

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