Buddhist Temple Death Resister in Innoshima Island, West Japan:A case study for a better understanding of the late Edo Period demographic evolution

This paper presents the information recorded in the kakochō or death register of Mukunoura, a village in Innoshima Island, in Hiroshima prefecture. A kakochō is a temple's register of deceased people in which the Buddhist names, dates of death, ages at death, sex, and place of death are recorded. The author tries to examine the number of deaths by year and sex, the places of death, and the likely causes of death. In recent years, the reconstruction of household structure in the Tokugawa period has been greatly improved through intensive analysis of registries of religious affiliation (shūmon aratamechō). However, the number of dead has not been revealed because of the lack of the data in shūmon aratamechō. Therefore, this paper analysing a kakochō representing a quite long period can have an impact on the field of historical demography and modern history in Japan. Japan, Tokugawa period, Demography, Temple registers