Ways of knowing about auspiciousness and inauspiciousness

In this chapter I look at how ideas of pollution, good and bad fortune, and evil are an essential contribution to villagers’ views about what gifts are for and how they should be presented. Yanagita (1975) and other folklorists have shown the importance these themes have for the Japanese (see Svastos [1999] for a critique of the folklorist approach). My analysis considers what Raheja (1988) has outlined for the case of Indian gifts, the idea that inauspiciousness and pollution are terms that presuppose different ritual and political principles, the former being much more taken for granted and just as crucial as the latter (Raheja 1988: 35-36). In this chapter I begin by addressing the issue of how to theorise the notion of the presentation of gifts. I examine the theme of auspicious and inauspicious presentation as a key preoccupation for the villagers, and for theoretical works on Japanese society.