Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (32 page)

They always pray to be buried together. Often this prayer is refused by
the parents or the guardians, and the people deem this refusal a cruel
thing, for 'tis believed that those who die for love of each other will
find no rest, if denied the same tomb. But when the prayer is granted
the ceremony of burial is beautiful and touching. From the two homes the
two funeral processions issue to meet in the temple court, by light of
lanterns. There, after the recitation of the kyo and the accustomed
impressive ceremonies, the chief priest utters an address to the souls
of the dead. Compassionately he speaks of the error and the sin; of the
youth of the victims, brief and comely as the flowers that blossom and
fall in the first burst of spring. He speaks of the Illusion—Mayoi—
which so wrought upon them; he recites the warning of the Teacher.. But
sometimes he will even predict the future reunion of the lovers in some
happier and higher life, re-echoing the popular heart-thought with a
simple eloquence that makes his hearers weep. Then the two processions
form into one, which takes its way to the cemetery where the grave has
already been prepared. The two coffins are lowered together, so that
their sides touch as they rest at the bottom of the excavation. Then the
yama-no-mono
[81]
folk remove the planks which separate the pair—making
the two coffins into one; above the reunited dead the earth is heaped;
and a haka, bearing in chiselled letters the story of their fate, and
perhaps a little poem, is placed above the mingling of their dust.

These suicides of lovers are termed 'joshi' or 'shinju'—(both words
being written with the same Chinese characters)-signifying 'heart-
death,' 'passion-death,' or 'love-death.' They most commonly occur, in
the case of women, among the joro
[82]
class; but occasionally also among
young girls of a more respectable class. There is a fatalistic belief
that if one shinju occurs among the inmates of a joroya, two more are
sure to follow. Doubtless the belief itself is the cause that cases of
shinju do commonly occur in series of three.

The poor girls who voluntarily sell themselves to a life of shame for
the sake of their families in time of uttermost distress do not, in
Japan (except, perhaps, in those open ports where European vice and
brutality have become demoralising influences), ever reach that depth of
degradation to which their Western sisters descend. Many indeed retain,
through all the period of their terrible servitude, a refinement of
manner, a delicacy of sentiment, and a natural modesty that seem, under
such conditions, as extraordinary as they are touching.

Only yesterday a case of shinju startled this quiet city. The servant of
a physician in the street called Nadamachi, entering the chamber of his
master's son a little after sunrise, found the young man lying dead with
a dead girl in his arms. The son had been disinherited. The girl was a
joro. Last night they were buried, but not together; for the father was
not less angered than grieved that such a thing should have been.

Her name was Kane. She was remarkably pretty and very gentle; and from
all accounts it would seem that her master had treated her with a
kindness unusual in men of his infamous class. She had sold herself for
the sake of her mother and a child-sister. The father was dead, and they
had lost everything. She was then seventeen. She had been in the house
scarcely a year when she met the youth. They fell seriously in love with
each other at once. Nothing more terrible could have befallen them; for
they could never hope to become man and wife. The young man, though
still allowed the privileges of a son, had been disinherited in favour
of an adopted brother of steadier habits. The unhappy pair spent all
they had for the privilege of seeing each other: she sold even her
dresses to pay for it. Then for the last time they met by stealth, late
at night, in the physician's house, drank death, and laid down to sleep
for ever.

I saw the funeral procession of the girl winding its way by the light of
paper lanterns—the wan dead glow that is like a shimmer of
phosphorescence—to the Street of the Temples, followed by a long train
of women, white-hooded, white-robed, white-girdled, passing all
soundlessly—a troop of ghosts.

So through blackness to the Meido the white Shapes flit-the eternal
procession of Souls—in painted Buddhist dreams of the Underworld.

My friend who writes for the San-in Shimbun, which to-morrow will print
the whole sad story, tells me that compassionate folk have already
decked the new-made graves with flowers and with sprays of shikimi.
[83]
Then drawing from a long native envelope a long, light, thin roll of
paper covered with beautiful Japanese writing, and unfolding it before
me, he adds:—'She left this letter to the keeper of the house in which
she lived: it has been given to us for publication. It is very prettily
written. But I cannot translate it well; for it is written in woman's
language. The language of letters written by women is not the same as
that of letters written by men. Women use particular words and
expressions. For instance, in men's language "I" is watakushi, or ware,
or yo, or boku, according to rank or circumstance, but in the language
of woman, it is warawa. And women's language is very soft and gentle;
and I do not think it is possible to translate such softness and
amiability of words into any other language. So I can only give you an
imperfect idea of the letter.'

And he interprets, slowly, thus:

'I leave this letter:

'As you know, from last spring I began to love Tashiro-San; and he also
fell in love with me. And now, alas!—the influence of our relation in
some previous birth having come upon us-and the promise we made each
other in that former life to become wife and husband having been broken
-even to-day I must travel to the Meido.

'You not only treated me very kindly, though you found me so stupid and
without influence,
[84]
but you likewise aided in many ways for my
worthless sake my mother and sister. And now, since I have not been able
to repay you even the one myriadth part of that kindness and pity in
which you enveloped me—pity great as the mountains and the sea
[85]
—
it would not be without just reason that you should hate me as a great
criminal.

'But though I doubt not this which I am about to do will seem a wicked
folly, I am forced to it by conditions and by my own heart. Wherefore I
still may pray you to pardon my past faults. And though I go to the
Meido, never shall I forget your mercy to me—great as the mountains
and the sea. From under the shadow of the grasses
[86]
I shall still try
to recompense you—to send back my gratitude to you and to your house.
Again, with all my heart I pray you: do not be angry with me.

'Many more things I would like to write. But now my heart is not a
heart; and I must quickly go. And so I shall lay down my writing-brush.

'It is written so clumsily, this.

'Kane thrice prostrates herself before you.

'From KANE.

'To—SAMA.'

'Well, it is a characteristic shinju letter,' my friend comments, after
a moment's silence, replacing the frail white paper in its envelope. 'So
I thought it would interest you. And now, although it is growing dark, I
am going to the cemetery to see what has been done at the grave. Would
you like to come with me?'

We take our way over the long white bridge, up the shadowy Street of the
Temples, toward the ancient hakaba of Miokoji—and the darkness grows
as we walk. A thin moon hangs just above the roofs of the great temples.

Suddenly a far voice, sonorous and sweet—a man's voice-breaks into
song under the starred night: a song full of strange charm and tones
like warblings—those Japanese tones of popular emotion which seem to
have been learned from the songs of birds. Some happy workman returning
home. So clear the thin frosty air that each syllable quivers to us; but
I cannot understand the words:-

Saite yuke toya, ano ya wo saite; Yuke ba chikayoru nushi no soba.

'What is that?' I ask my friend.

He answers: 'A love-song. "Go forward, straight forward that way, to the
house that thou seest before thee;—the nearer thou goest thereto, the
nearer to her
[87]
shalt thou be."'

UNTO Yaegaki-jinja, which is in the village of Sakusa in Iu, in the Land
of Izumo, all youths and maidens go who are in love, and who can make
the pilgrimage. For in the temple of Yaegaki at Sakusa, Take-haya-susa-
no-wo-no-mikoto and his wife Inada-hime and their son Sa-ku-sa-no-mikoto
are enshrined. And these are the Deities of Wedlock and of Love—and
they set the solitary in families—and by their doing are destinies
coupled even from the hour of birth. Wherefore one should suppose that
to make pilgrimage to their temple to pray about things long since
irrevocably settled were simple waste of time. But in what land did ever
religious practice and theology agree? Scholiasts and priests create or
promulgate doctrine and dogma; but the good people always insist upon
making the gods according to their own heart—and these are by far the
better class of gods. Moreover, the history of Susano-o the Impetuous
Male Deity, does not indicate that destiny had anything to do with his
particular case: he fell in love with the Wondrous Inada Princess at
first sight—as it is written in the Kojiki:

'Then Take-haya-susa-no-wo-no-mikoto descended to a place called Tori-
kami at the headwaters of the River Hi in the land of Idzumo. At this
time a chopstick came floating down the stream. So Take-haya-susa-no-wo-
no-mikoto, thinking that there must be people at the headwaters of the
river, went up it in quest of them. And he came upon an old man and an
old woman who had a young girl between them, and were weeping. Then he
deigned to ask: "Who are ye?" So the old man replied, saying: "I am an
Earthly Deity, son of the Deity Oho-yama-tsu-mi-no-Kami. I am called by
the name of Ashi-nadzu-chi; my wife is called by the name of Te-nadzu-
chi; and my daughter is called by the name of Kushi-Inada-hime." Again
he asked: "What is the cause of your crying?" The old man answered,
saying: "I had originally eight young daughters. But the eight-forked
serpent of Koshi has come every year, and devoured one; and it is now
its time to come, wherefore we weep." Then he asked him: "What is its
form like?" The old man answered, saying: "Its eyes are like akaka-
gachi; it has one body with eight heads and eight tails. Moreover, upon
its body grow moss and sugi and hinoki trees. Its length extends over
eight valleys and eight hills; and if one look at its belly, it is all
constantly bloody and inflamed." Then Take-haya-susa-no-wo-no-mikoto
said to the old man: "If this be thy daughter, wilt thou offer her to
me?" He replied: "With reverence; but I know not thine august name."
Then he replied, saying: "I am elder brother to Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami.
So now I have descended from heaven." Then the Deities Ashi-nadzu-chi
and Te-nadzu-chi said: "If that be so, with reverence will we offer her
to thee." So Take-haya-susa-no-wo-no-mikoto, at once taking and changing
the young girl into a close-toothed comb, which he stuck into his august
hair-bunch, said to the Deities Ashi-nadzu-chi and Te-nadzu-chi: "Do you
distil some eightfold refined liquor. Also make a fence round about; in
that fence make eight gates; at each gate tie a platform; on each
platform put a liquor-vat; and into each vat pour the eightfold refined
liquor, and wait." So as they waited after having prepared everything in
accordance with his bidding, the eight-forked serpent came and put a
head into each vat and drank the liquor. Thereupon it was intoxicated,
and all the heads lay down and slept. Then Take-haya-susa-no-wo-nomikoto
drew the ten-grasp sabre that was augustly girded upon him, and cut the
serpent in pieces, so that the River Hi flowed on changed into a river
of blood.

'Then Take-haya-susa-no-wo-no-mikoto sought in the Land of Idzumo where
he might build a palace.

'When this great Deity built the palace, clouds rose up thence. Then he
made an august song:

'Ya-kumo tatsu:
Idzumo ya-he-gaki;
Tsuma-gomi ni
Ya-he-gaki-tsukuru:
Sono ya-he-gaki wo!'
[88]

Now the temple of Yaegaki takes its name from the words of the august
song Ya-he-gaki, and therefore signifies The Temple of the Eightfold
Fence. And ancient commentators upon the sacred books have said that the
name of Idzumo (which is now Izumo), as signifying the Land of the
Issuing of Clouds, was also taken from that song of the god.
[89]

Sakusa, the hamlet where the Yaegaki-jinja stands, is scarcely more than
one ri south from Matsue. But to go there one must follow tortuous paths
too rough and steep for a kuruma; and of three ways, the longest and
roughest happens to be the most interesting. It slopes up and down
through bamboo groves and primitive woods, and again serpentines through
fields of rice and barley, and plantations of indigo and of ginseng,
where the scenery is always beautiful or odd. And there are many famed
Shinto temples to be visited on the road, such as Take-uchi-jinja,
dedicated to the venerable minister of the Empress Jingo, Take-uchi, to
whom men now pray for health and for length of years; and Okusa-no-miya,
or Rokusho-jinja, of the five greatest shrines in Izumo; and Manaijinja,
sacred to Izanagi, the Mother of Gods, where strange pictures may be
obtained of the Parents of the World; and Obano-miya, where Izanami is
enshrined, also called Kamoshijinja, which means, 'The Soul of the God.'

At the Temple of the Soul of the God, where the sacred fire-drill used
to be delivered each year with solemn rites to the great Kokuzo of
Kitzuki, there are curious things to be seen—a colossal grain of rice,
more than an inch long, preserved from that period of the Kamiyo when
the rice grew tall as the tallest tree and bore grains worthy of the
gods; and a cauldron of iron in which the peasants say that the first
Kokuzo came down from heaven; and a cyclopean toro formed of rocks so
huge that one cannot imagine how they were ever balanced upon each
other; and the Musical Stones of Oba, which chime like bells when
smitten. There is a tradition that these cannot be carried away beyond a
certain distance; for 'tis recorded that when a daimyo named Matsudaira
ordered one of them to be conveyed to his castle at Matsue, the stone
made itself so heavy that a thousand men could not move it farther than
the Ohashi bridge. So it was abandoned before the bridge; and it lies
there imbedded in the soil even unto this day.