Geographical Themes in the Study of Worship Catchment Area:
A Review of Religious Space of Japan by Keisuke Matsui
Masayasu ODA
This paper aims to review critically Religious Space of Japan by Keisuke Matsui published in 2003.
The book is focused on geographical study of Japanese religion, above all, the catchment areas of two folk worship in addition to the survey of Japanese study in the geography of religion.
The reviewer points out the following problems of the work:
1. Matsui's view on the nature of the geography of religion stresses environmentalism too much.
2. Interpretation of the devotees' distribution maps and division of the worship catchment area are questionable.
3. The classification of the pilgrimage groups should be reconsidered.
4. Many key words are not defined exactly.
5. Analysis of the pilgrimage behavior of some inhabitants is interesting. However, the ranking of the gods through the analysis is meaningless.
6. The classification of the gods into three categories have problems.
7. The intensive research in only two case study areas is not sufficient to demonstrate the difference of the character in the two zones of the worship catchment area.
8. Quite a few parts are unnecessary to the conclusions.