Water drops are shining on some gravestones as water purification rituals were performed by bereaved families. Next to them, however, other gravestones are tilted and blanketed by withered grass.

During this year’s equinoctial week in September, many people must have visited ancestral grave sites, their hearts heavy with remembrances of loved ones and personal reflections on mortality.

Against this background, a worrying trend has emerged: the growing number of “muenbaka” neglected grave sites. A survey on the issue, the first by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, determined that nearly 60 percent of the 765 municipalities that operate public cemeteries or repositories for the remains of the dead are facing this problem.

Leaving the sites unattended could be dangerous due to the risk of tombstones or walls collapsing on their own or toppling during natural disasters.

Although municipalities have the legal authority to remove abandoned graves after verifying the absence of kin and relocate the remains to shared graves, only 6 percent embarked on this task over the five years through fiscal 2020.

Local governments wondering what to do are hampered by a lack of clear rules in the law or regulations on the storage of tombstones and how to dispose of them once the period has expired. The challenge is further compounded by the time-consuming, painstaking search for potential relatives.

The process is also costly. In the city of Takamatsu, there are cemeteries where more than 40 percent of the graves are abandoned. The municipal government spent several years relocating remains from neglected graves but was forced to shelve the project due to budgetary constraints.

The problem of muenbaka in public cemeteries is merely the tip of the iceberg, however. Public cemeteries and repositories for the remains of the dead account for only 3.5 percent of the total. The vast majority, around 90 percent of such facilities, are operated by local communities or individuals, making it immensely challenging to grasp the true dimensions of the problem. The aging population has exacerbated the situation as elderly individuals are often unable to attend to family graves.

Nobody wants to see their family graves abandoned.

The tradition requiring families to manage and pass down the family graves is believed to have taken root under the familial system defined by the civil code during the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

During and after Japan’s rapid postwar economic growth, hordes of Japanese living in rural areas migrated to urban centers. This trend, coupled with a declining birthrate and the rise in single-person households, changed the very fabric of society, undermining the functions of local communities. The era where everyone, as part of a larger family unit, could play a role in ensuring the upkeep of ancestral graves seems to be gone forever.

Given societal changes that were unforeseeable in 1948, when the cemetery and burial law was enacted, practical policy actions to deal with the problem are urgently required.

The central government should raise the issue with local administrations to grasp the full extent of the situation. It also needs to streamline guidelines concerning reburials and the treatment of tombstones and provide appropriate support measures. Discussions on the future of burial practices are equally urgent.

Public opinion on the issue of burial and entombment has diversified. Many people are opting for “hakajimai,” which can be translated as “grave ending” or “closing a grave.” It refers to the practice of exhuming remains from a family grave, often after a certain number of years, and moving them to a shared grave, thus ending the family’s responsibility for the individual grave’s maintenance.

A growing number of local administrations are encouraging this practice through incentives such as subsidies for removing graves or fees for using shared graves. Tree burials and scattering of ashes are also attracting growing public interest.

Some people choose graves with predetermined usage periods or even share graves with friends, pivoting away from the convention of graves maintained by descendants.

In a nation where 1.56 million people die in a year, it is vital to establish a social foundation to allow individuals to choose how they are entombed and commemorated, not out of necessity but out of their genuine desires.

Despite these shifts, however, we all must take to heart that the sacred spaces where the living remember the departed are invaluable.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 5