To someone alive today, the list of rituals once performed to decontaminate both the living and the dead might seem endless. A list of highlights: drink sake before and after any contact with the body; light incense and candles so that the fire can cast out contamination; stay awake with the body all night, so no malevolent spirits enter the corpse; scrub your hands with salt after a cremation. By the mid-twentieth century more people began to die in hospitals, away from the home. More professionals in charge meant the Japanese lost the sense that the dead body was impure. Cremation rose from
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