 Despite the importance of death rituals , in traditional Japanese culture the subject is considered unclean as everything related to death is thought to be a source of <unk> ( defilement ) . After coming into contact with the dead , individuals must cleanse themselves through purifying rituals . People who work closely with the dead , such as morticians , are thus considered unclean , and during the feudal era those whose work was related to death became burakumin ( untouchables ) , forced to live in their own hamlets and discriminated against by wider society . Despite a cultural shift since the Meiji Restoration of 1868 , the stigma of death still has considerable force within Japanese society , and discrimination against the untouchables has continued . 
