# Everyone Has a Throat Buddha / What is it and Why? -- Nodohotoke & Story Time: "The Buddha Bone" (Ep. 189)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/uncanny-japan-53805/everyone-has-a-throat-buddha-what-is-it-and-why-nodohotoke-story-time-the-buddha-bone-ep-189
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/uncanny-japan-53805/everyone-has-a-throat-buddha-what-is-it-and-why-nodohotoke-story-time-the-buddha-bone-ep-189.md
Podcast: [Uncanny Japan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/uncanny-japan-53805)
Published: 2026-05-04T22:20:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/PHTE3182716633.mp3?updated=1777933677
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/PHTE3182716633.mp3?updated=1777933677
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Duration seconds: 1971

## Resource

Have you ever heard of the nodo-hotoke, or “throat Buddha”? In everyday Japanese, it usually refers to the Adam’s apple. But after death, especially in the context of cremation, the nodo-hotoke becomes something else entirely, the actual seat of your soul. In this episode of Uncanny Japan, I talk about the fascinating and beautiful funeral custom of gathering bones after cremation, using long chopsticks to place them into the urn from feet to head, with the nodo-hotoke placed last. I’ll also touch on the taboo against passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks, the role of the crematorium attendant, and the belief that this Buddha-shaped bone can be connected to the soul, the life lived, or rebirth into the Pure Land. After that, I read my dark story “The Buddha Bone,” originally published in Weird Horror Issue 7 by Undertow Publications. I also explain a couple of story-context words: hifuki-take, a bamboo tube used to blow into and stoke a fire, and hyottoko, the puckered-mouth comic figure associated with fire-blowing imagery. Content warning: this episode discusses death, cremation, funerary ritual, and contains a dark fictional story on those themes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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