shusei日本庶民生活资料集成,.PDF

BOOK REVIEWS 221 epidemic-causing deities. On the methodological side, I had hoped for greater clarity on two points. First, Rotermund does not adequately situate the conceptualization of smallpox within the larger context of concepts of the body, and is thereby unable to indicate the epistemological boundaries within which people—from doctors to yama- bushi to ordinary folk—might have conceived of disease and thus come to accept as valid what we regard today as extraordinary or incredible treatments. Second, he should have further elucidated matters concerning the hayari-gami and their transfor­ mation from evil to compassionate beings. This is an old tradition one finds in med­ ieval poetry (which had a strong incantatory character), and which is also expressed in the historical transformation of Kitano, probably the greatest of all Japanese wrathful spirits. Perhaps Rotermund will, in future works, provide further explanation on this point based on comparative studies of the principal hayari-gami of the Edo period. On the level of method, my main criticism is simple: the book is hopelessly dis­ organized, with the discussion jumping without respite from one topic to another and from one historical period to another. The only part of the book free of this confusion is the discussion of prints and texts. A careful reshuffling of themes and ideas is all that would have been required to present this book as what it actually is beneath all the disorder: one of the better studies on folk traditions concerning epidemics. REFERENCE CITED H a s h im o t o H a k u ju 1810 Kokuji dandoku-ron 國字断毒論. Volume 7 of hihort shomin seinatsu sniryo sh u sei 日本庶民生活資料集成，30 vols. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo.