Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (31 page)

The great court is a surprise. It is almost as deep as the outer court
of the Kitzuki-no-oho-yashiro, though not nearly so wide; and a paved
cloister forms two sides of it. From the court gate a broad paved walk
leads to the haiden and shamusho at the opposite end of the court—
spacious and dignified structures above whose roofs appears the quaint
and massive gable of the main temple, with its fantastic cross-beams.
This temple, standing with its back to the sea, is the shrine of the
Goddess of the Sun. On the right side of the main court, as you enter,
another broad flight of steps leads up to a loftier court, where another
fine group of Shinto buildings stands—a haiden and a miya; but these
are much smaller, like miniatures of those below. Their woodwork also
appears to be quite new. The upper miya is the shrine of the god Susano-
o,
[77]
—brother of Amaterasu-oho-mi-Kami.

To me the great marvel of the Hinomisaki-jinja is that structures so
vast, and so costly to maintain, can exist in a mere fishing hamlet, in
an obscure nook of the most desolate coast of Japan. Assuredly the
contributions of peasant pilgrims alone could not suffice to pay the
salary of a single kannushi; for Hinomisaki, unlike Kitzuki, is not a
place possible to visit in all weathers. My friend confirms me in this
opinion; but I learn from him that the temples have three large sources
of revenue. They are partly supported by the Government; they receive
yearly large gifts of money from pious merchants; and the revenues from
lands attached to them also represent a considerable sum. Certainly a
great amount of money must have been very recently expended here; for
the smaller of the two miya seems to have just been wholly rebuilt; the
beautiful joinery is all white with freshness, and even the carpenters'
odorous chips have not yet been all removed.

At the shamusho we make the acquaintance of the Guji of Hinomisaki, a
noble-looking man in the prime of life, with one of those fine aquiline
faces rarely to be met with except among the high aristocracy of Japan.
He wears a heavy black moustache, which gives him, in spite of his
priestly robes, the look of a retired army officer. We are kindly
permitted by him to visit the sacred shrines; and a kannushi is detailed
to conduct us through the buildings.

Something resembling the severe simplicity of the Kitzuki-no-oho-yashiro
was what I expected to see. But this shrine of the Goddess of the Sun is
a spectacle of such splendour that for the first moment I almost doubt
whether I am really in a Shinto temple. In very truth there is nothing
of pure Shinto here. These shrines belong to the famous period of Ryobu-
Shinto, when the ancient faith, interpenetrated and allied with
Buddhism, adopted the ceremonial magnificence and the marvellous
decorative art of the alien creed. Since visiting the great Buddhist
shrines of the capital, I have seen no temple interior to be compared
with this. Daintily beautiful as a casket is the chamber of the shrine.
All its elaborated woodwork is lacquered in scarlet and gold; the altar-
piece is a delight of carving and colour; the ceiling swarms with dreams
of clouds and dragons. And yet the exquisite taste of the decorators—
buried, doubtless, five hundred years ago—has so justly proportioned
the decoration to the needs of surface, so admirably blended the
colours, that there is no gaudiness, no glare, only an opulent repose.

This shrine is surrounded by a light outer gallery which is not visible
from the lower court; and from this gallery one can study some
remarkable friezes occupying the spaces above the doorways and below the
eaves—friezes surrounding the walls of the miya. These, although
exposed for many centuries to the terrific weather of the western coast,
still remain masterpieces of quaint carving. There are apes and hares
peeping through wonderfully chiselled leaves, and doves and demons, and
dragons writhing in storms. And while looking up at these, my eye is
attracted by a peculiar velvety appearance of the woodwork forming the
immense projecting eaves of the roof. Under the tiling it is more than a
foot thick. By standing on tiptoe I can touch it; and I discover that it
is even more velvety to the touch than to the sight. Further examination
reveals the fact that this colossal roofing is not solid timber, only
the beams are solid. The enormous pieces they support are formed of
countless broad slices thin as the thinnest shingles, superimposed and
cemented together into one solid-seeming mass. I am told that this
composite woodwork is more enduring than any hewn timber could be. The
edges, where exposed to wind and sun, feel to the touch just like the
edges of the leaves of some huge thumb-worn volume; and their stained
velvety yellowish aspect so perfectly mocks the appearance of a book,
that while trying to separate them a little with my fingers, I find
myself involuntarily peering for a running-title and the number of a
folio!

We then visit the smaller temple. The interior of the sacred chamber is
equally rich in lacquered decoration and gilding; and below the miya
itself there are strange paintings of weird foxes—foxes wandering in
the foreground of a mountain landscape. But here the colours have been
damaged somewhat by time; the paintings have a faded look. Without the
shrine are other wonderful carvings, doubtless executed by the same
chisel which created the friezes of the larger temple.

I learn that only the shrine-chambers of both temples are very old; all
the rest has been more than once rebuilt. The entire structure of the
smaller temple and its haiden, with the exception of the shrine-room,
has just been rebuilt—in fact, the work is not yet quite done—so
that the emblem of the deity is not at present in the sanctuary. The
shrines proper are never repaired, but simply reinclosed in the new
buildings when reconstruction becomes a necessity. To repair them or
restore them to-day would be impossible: the art that created them is
dead. But so excellent their material and its lacquer envelope that they
have suffered little in the lapse of many centuries from the attacks of
time.

One more surprise awaits me—the homestead of the high pontiff, who
most kindly invites us to dine with him; which hospitality is all the
more acceptable from the fact that there is no hotel in Hinomisaki, but
only a kichinyado
[78]
for pilgrims. The ancestral residence of the high
pontiffs of Hinomisaki occupies, with the beautiful gardens about it, a
space fully equal to that of the great temple courts themselves. Like
most of the old-fashioned homes of the nobility and of the samurai, it
is but one story high—an immense elevated cottage, one might call it.
But the apartments are lofty, spacious, and very handsome—and there is
a room of one hundred mats.
[79]
A very nice little repast, with
abundance of good wine, is served up to us-and I shall always remember
one curious dish, which I at first mistake for spinach. It is seaweed,
deliciously prepared—not the common edible seaweed, but a rare sort,
fine like moss.

After bidding farewell to our generous host, we take an uphill stroll to
the farther end of the village. We leave the cuttlefish behind; but
before us the greater part of the road is covered with matting, upon
which indigo is drying in the sun. The village terminates abruptly at
the top of the hill, where there is another grand granite torii—a
structure so ponderous that it is almost as difficult to imagine how it
was ever brought up the hill as to understand the methods of the
builders of Stonehenge. From this torii the road descends to the pretty
little seaport of U-Ryo, on the other side of the cape; for Hinomisaki
is situated on one side of a great promontory, as its name implies—a
mountain-range projecting into the Japanese Sea.

The family of the Guji of Hinomisaki is one of the oldest of the Kwazoku
or noble families of Izumo; and the daughters are still addressed by the
antique title of Princess—O-Hime-San. The ancient official designation
of the pontiff himself was Kengyo, as that of the Kitzuki pontiff was
Kokuzo; and the families of the Hinomisaki and of the Kitzuki Guji are
closely related.

There is one touching and terrible tradition in the long history of the
Kengyos of Hinomisaki, which throws a strange light upon the social
condition of this province in feudal days.

Seven generations ago, a Matsudaira, Daimyo of Izumo, made with great
pomp his first official visit to the temples of Hinomisaki, and was
nobly entertained by the Kengyo—doubtless in the same chamber of a
hundred mats which we to-day were privileged to see. According to
custom, the young wife of the host waited upon the regal visitor, and
served him with dainties and with wine. She was singularly beautiful;
and her beauty, unfortunately, bewitched the Daimyo. With kingly
insolence he demanded that she should leave her husband and become his
concubine. Although astounded and terrified, she answered bravely, like
the true daughter of a samurai, that she was a loving wife and mother,
and that, sooner than desert her husband and her child, she would put an
end to her life with her own hand. The great Lord of Izumo sullenly
departed without further speech, leaving the little household plunged in
uttermost grief and anxiety; for it was too well known that the prince
would suffer no obstacle to remain in the way of his lust or his hate.

The anxiety, indeed, proved to be well founded. Scarcely had the Daimyo
returned to his domains when he began to devise means for the ruin of
the Kengyo. Soon afterward, the latter was suddenly and forcibly
separated from his family, hastily tried for some imaginary offence, and
banished to the islands of Oki. Some say the ship on which he sailed
went down at sea with all on board. Others say that he was conveyed to
Oki, but only to die there of misery and cold. At all events, the old
Izumo records state that, in the year corresponding to A.D. 1661 'the
Kengyo Takatoshi died in the land of Oki.'

On receiving news of the Kengyo's death, Matsudaira scarcely concealed
his exultation. The object of his passion was the daughter of his own
Karo, or minister, one of the noblest samurai of Matsue, by name Kamiya.
Kamiya was at once summoned before the Daimyo, who said to him: 'Thy
daughter's husband being dead, there exists no longer any reason that
she should not enter into my household. Do thou bring her hither.' The
Karo touched the floor with his forehead, and departed on his errand.

Upon the following day he re-entered the prince's apartment, and,
performing the customary prostration, announced that his lord's commands
had been obeyed-that the victim had arrived.

Smiling for pleasure, the Matsudaira ordered that she should be brought
at once into his presence. The Karo prostrated himself, retired and
presently returning, placed before his master a kubi-oke
[80]
upon which
lay the freshly-severed head of a beautiful woman—the head of the
young wife of the dead Kengyo—with the simple utterance:

'This is my daughter.'

Dead by her own brave will—but never dishonoured.

Seven generations have been buried since the Matsudaira strove to
appease his remorse by the building of temples and the erection of
monuments to the memory of his victim. His own race died with him: those
who now bear the illustrious name of that long line of daimyos are not
of the same blood; and the grim ruin of his castle, devoured by
vegetation, is tenanted only by lizards and bats. But the Kamiya family
endures; no longer wealthy, as in feudal times, but still highly
honoured in their native city. And each high pontiff of Hinomisakei
chooses always his bride from among the daughters of that valiant race.

NOTE.—The Kengyo of the above tradition was enshrined by Matsudaira in
the temple of Shiyekei-jinja, at Oyama, near Matsue. This miya was built
for an atonement; and the people still pray to the spirit of the Kengyo.
Near this temple formerly stood a very popular theatre, also erected by
the Daimyo in his earnest desire to appease the soul of his victim; for
he had heard that the Kengyo was very fond of theatrical performances.
The temple is still in excellent preservation; but the theatre has long
since disappeared; and its site is occupied by a farmer's vegetable
garden.

SOMETIMES they simply put their arms round each other, and lie down
together on the iron rails, just in front of an express train. (They
cannot do it in Izumo, however, because there are no railroads there
yet.) Sometimes they make a little banquet for themselves, write very
strange letters to parents and friends, mix something bitter with their
rice-wine, and go to sleep for ever. Sometimes they select a more
ancient and more honoured method: the lover first slays his beloved with
a single sword stroke, and then pierces his own throat. Sometimes with
the girl's long crape-silk under-girdle (koshi-obi) they bind themselves
fast together, face to face, and so embracing leap into some deep lake
or stream. Many are the modes by which they make their way to the Meido,
when tortured by that world-old sorrow about which Schopenhauer wrote so
marvellous a theory.

Their own theory is much simpler.

None love life more than the Japanese; none fear death less. Of a future
world they have no dread; they regret to leave this one only because it
seems to them a world of beauty and of happiness; but the mystery of the
future, so long oppressive to Western minds, causes them little concern.
As for the young lovers of whom I speak, they have a strange faith which
effaces mysteries for them. They turn to the darkness with infinite
trust. If they are too unhappy to endure existence, the fault is not
another's, nor yet the world's; it is their own; it is innen, the result
of errors in a previous life. If they can never hope to be united in
this world, it is only because in some former birth they broke their
promise to wed, or were otherwise cruel to each other. All this is not
heterodox. But they believe likewise that by dying together they will
find themselves at once united in another world, though Buddhism
proclaims that self-destruction is a deadly sin. Now this idea of
winning union through death is incalculably older than the faith of
Shaka; but it has somehow borrowed in modern time from Buddhism a
particular ecstatic colouring, a mystical glow. Hasu no hana no ue ni
oite matan. On the lotus-blossoms of paradise they shall rest together.
Buddhism teaches of transmigrations countless, prolonged through
millions of millions of years, before the soul can acquire the Infinite
Vision, the Infinite Memory, and melt into the bliss of Nehan, as a
white cloud melts into the summer 's blue. But these suffering ones
think never of Nehan; love's union, their supremest wish, may be
reached, they fancy, through the pang of a single death. The fancies of
all, indeed—as their poor letters show—are not the same. Some think
themselves about to enter Amida's paradise of light; some see in their
visional hope the saki-no-yo only, the future rebirth, when beloved
shall meet beloved again, in the all-joyous freshness of another youth;
while the idea of many, indeed of the majority, is vaguer far—only a
shadowy drifting together through vapoury silences, as in the faint
bliss of dreams.