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Ancestor, Emperor, and Immigrant: Religion and Group Identification of the Japanese in Rural Brazil (1908-1950)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
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“The oldest,” said the ancient Aryas, “was begotten for the accomplishment of the duty due the ancestors: the others are the fruit of love.”
-Fustel de Coulanges (1901:108)The early 1950s mark a turning-point in the history of religious movements among the Japanese minority in Brazil. Various religious groups, particularly certain Buddhist sects and the so-called “new religions” of Japan for the first time undertook active proselytization through organized propaganda and missionary activities. The following are representative types of these religious groups:
(1) those which had been transplanted from Japan to Brazil by Japanese immigrants in the period before World War II and immediately after: Honmon Butsuryü Shü (a Buddhist sect), Tenri-kyō, Ōmoto, and ō-no-Ie (all three new religions), and the like;
(2) Buddhist sects which began to try to organize their “potential adherents” among the Japanese on the basis of household religious affiliation, regardless of how tenuous or how thoroughly lapsed;
(3) those which had grown rapidly in postwar Japan and extended their propagation activities overseas: new religions like Sekai Kyūsei Kyō, P.L. Kyōdan, and so on;
(4) those which originated with the Japanese minority in Brazil on the basis of traditional Japanese folk beliefs: Nossa Senhora de Kannon (Our Lady of Kannon, or Sei Kannon Shū HakkokuKannon Dō), Kaminoya Yaoyorozu-kyō, Fudō Myōō, Shinreikyō, and the like;
(5) Umbanda, a syncretic fusion of African cults, Catholicism, and ‘ spiritism.
Throughout the 1960s, all these religious movements became increasingly active and gained more and more followers.
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