Manjares para los KamiAlimentos rituales en el Japón protohistórico. Épocas Yayoi (1000/900 a.n.e. - 250/300 a.n.e.) y Kofun (250/300 - 710 d.n.e.)

Abstract

Food is an essential issue within cultural research. Way of life, religion, taboos, and beliefs are reflected in the different dietary habits, together with some aspects of the physical environment and relationships with other food-exchanging groups of the human communities. Within the regular consumption foodstuff, a reduced group of foods are part, not only of the daily diet, but as well of the sacred realm. These foods began to be consumed in ritual contexts for different reasons: their physical/chemical traits, their socio-economic production implications, their association with different mythological passages or religious beliefs, or the physical effect that its consumption produces in the organism. Sometimes, these foods also reach the status of “foodstuff worthy of being consumed by the gods”, either in the form of an offering, either through the act of commensality. This work’s aim is to analyze the characteristics of ritual use foodstuff during Japanese Protohistory, specifically during Yayoi (1000/900 BC- 250/300 CE) and Kofun (250/300 - 710 CE) eras, although it will be essential to carry out an exhaustive review of consumption habits of such foods during other different periods, with the purpose of elucidating whether the ritual consumption of the studied food has a long tradition in the Japanese archipelago and, that being the case, determining the context of the origin of the ritual consumption