Yoshitoshi - 100 Aspects of the Moon - 97

is a mythical practice of

senicide Senicide, or geronticide, is the killing of the elderly, or their abandonment to death. Philosophical views Pythagorean doctrine held that all creatures were being punished by the gods who imprisoned the creatures' souls in a body. Thus, any ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, whereby an infirm or

elderly Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage ...

relative was carried to a mountain, or some other remote, desolate place, and left there to die. Kunio Yanagita concluded that the ubasute folklore comes from India’s Buddhist mythology. According to the Kodansha Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japan, ''ubasute'' "is the subject of legend, but…does not seem ever to have been a common custom.".

Folklore

In one Buddhist allegory, a son carries his mother up a mountain on his back. During the journey, she stretches out her arms, catching the twigs and scattering them in their wake, so that her son will be able to find the way home. A poem commemorates the story:

In popular culture

* The practice is discussed in some detail in Radiolab episode #305 Mortality. Ubasute sometimes appears as a metaphor for contemporary Japan's treatment of the elderly, who are noted for above-average suicide rates. * The practice of ubasute is explored at length in the Japanese novel ''The Ballad of Narayama'' (1956) by Shichirō Fukazawa. The novel was the basis for three films:

Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasu ...

's '' The Ballad of Narayama'' (1958), Korean director

Kim Ki-young Kim Ki-young (October 10, 1919According to official documents, Kim was born in 1919. However, Kim insisted he was actually born in 1922. – February 5, 1998) was a South Korean film director, known for his intensely psychosexual and melodr ...

's '' Goryeojang'' (1963), and Shohei Imamura's '' The Ballad of Narayama'', which won the Palme d'Or in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

. * '' The Old Law'', a 17th-century tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, and Philip Massinger, as well as

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...

's 1882

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n novel ''

The Fixed Period ''The Fixed Period'' (1882) is a satirical dystopian novel by Anthony Trollope. Introduction It was first published in six instalments in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' in 1881–82 and in book form in 1882. In the same year there also appeared US ...

'' both explore the concept of ubasute in a Western context. * The characters of Christopher Buckley's 2007 novel ''

Boomsday Boomsday was an annual fireworks celebration that took place on Labor Day weekend in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was the largest Labor Day firework show in the United States, and was considered a top attraction in the region. The event was held on ...

'' introduce the concept of ubasute as a political ploy to stave off the insolvency of social security as more and more of the aging US population reaches retirement age, angering the Religious Right and Baby Boomers. * The concept of ubasute forms the basis of the storyline for the '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' episode " Half a Life". * In episode 103 of ''

Dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

'' they describe a ubasute-like dinosaur custom where elders are hurled off a cliff into a tar pit at the age of 72. * The musical '' Pacific Overtures'' contains a reference to ubasute. During the song 'Four Black Dragons', as a city is being evacuated for fear of an American naval force, a panicked merchant is willing to abandon his aged mother during the evacuation, but the merchant is reminded that his son could do the same when the merchant is just as old. The merchant reluctantly picks up his mother and carries her on his back. * Episode 19 of ''

Folktales from Japan is a 258-episode long Japanese anime television series that adapts various traditional stories from Japan. Each episode of this anime comprises three approximately seven-minute tales. Produced by the Tokyo-based animation company Tomason, it wa ...

'' depicts this tale. * The

Decemberists The Decemberists are an American indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band consists of Colin Meloy ( lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), Chris Funk (guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (piano, keyboards, accordion), Na ...

song "I Don't Mind" has a depiction of ubasute – "So here's you with your mom on your back, going into the woods..."

Places

* is the common name of , a mountain () in Chikuma, Nagano, Japan.Hoffman *

Obasute Station is a railway station on the Shinonoi Line in the city of Chikuma, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It is operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Obasute Station, which is served by trains on the Shinonoi Line, is located 54.2 ...

, Chikuma,

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

, Japan * According to folklore, the

Aokigahara forest Aokigahara (), also known as the , is a forest on the northwestern flank of Mount Fuji on the island of Honshu in Japan, thriving on of hardened lava laid down by the last major eruption of Mount Fuji in 864 CE. The western edge of Aokigaha ...

at the base of Mount Fuji was once one of such sites, where its reputation as a

suicide site Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and subs ...

might have originated.

Similar practice in other cultures

Senicide Senicide, or geronticide, is the killing of the elderly, or their abandonment to death. Philosophical views Pythagorean doctrine held that all creatures were being punished by the gods who imprisoned the creatures' souls in a body. Thus, any ...

Granny dumping Granny dumping (informal) is a form of modern senicide. The term was introduced in the early 1980s by professionals in the medical and social work fields. Granny dumping is defined by the '' Oxford English Dictionary'' as "the abandonment of an elde ...

Lapot Lapot (, ) is the legendary practice of senicide in Serbia: killing one's parents, or other elderly family members, once they become a financial burden on the family. According to T. R. Georgevitch (Đorđević), writing in 1918 about the easter ...

* %C3%84ttestupa

References

External links