Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (27 page)

Well, I have been fourteen months in Izumo; and I have not yet heard
voices raised in anger, or witnessed a quarrel: never have I seen one
man strike another, or a woman bullied, or a child slapped. Indeed I
have never seen any real roughness anywhere that I have been in Japan,
except at the open ports, where the poorer classes seem, through contact
with Europeans, to lose their natural politeness, their native morals—
even their capacity for simple happiness.

Last night I saw the seamen of Old Japan: to-day I shall see those of
New Japan. An apparition in the offing has filled all this little port
with excitement—an Imperial man-of-war. Everybody is going out to look
at her; and all the long boats that were lying in the alleys are already
hastening, full of curious folk, to the steel colossus. A cruiser of the
first class, with a crew of five hundred.

I take passage in one of those astounding craft I mentioned before—a
sort of barge propelled by ten exceedingly strong naked men, wielding
enormous oars—or rather, sweeps—with cross-handles. But I do not go
alone: indeed I can scarcely find room to stand, so crowded the boat is
with passengers of all ages, especially women who are nervous about
going to sea in an ordinary sampan. And a dancing-girl jumps into the
crowd at the risk of her life, just as we push off—and burns her arm
against my cigar in the jump. I am very sorry for her; but she laughs
merrily at my solicitude. And the rowers begin their melancholy
somnolent song-

A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa,
Iya-ho-en-ya!
Ghi!
Ghi!

It is a long pull to reach her—the beautiful monster, towering
motionless there in the summer sea, with scarce a curling of thin smoke
from the mighty lungs of her slumbering engines; and that somnolent song
of our boatmen must surely have some ancient magic in it; for by the
time we glide alongside I feel as if I were looking at a dream. Strange
as a vision of sleep, indeed, this spectacle: the host of quaint craft
hovering and trembling around that tremendous bulk; and all the long-
robed, wide-sleeved multitude of the antique port—men, women, children
-the grey and the young together—crawling up those mighty flanks in
one ceaseless stream, like a swarming of ants. And all this with a great
humming like the humming of a hive,—a sound made up of low laughter,
and chattering in undertones, and subdued murmurs of amazement. For the
colossus overawes them—this ship of the Tenshi-Sama, the Son of
Heaven; and they wonder like babies at the walls and the turrets of
steel, and the giant guns and the mighty chains, and the stern bearing
of the white-uniformed hundreds looking down upon the scene without a
smile, over the iron bulwarks. Japanese those also—yet changed by some
mysterious process into the semblance of strangers. Only the experienced
eye could readily decide the nationality of those stalwart marines: but
for the sight of the Imperial arms in gold, and the glimmering
ideographs upon the stern, one might well suppose one's self gazing at
some Spanish or Italian ship-of-war manned by brown Latin men.

I cannot possibly get on board. The iron steps are occupied by an
endless chain of clinging bodies—blue-robed boys from school, and old
men with grey queues, and fearless young mothers holding fast to the
ropes with over-confident babies strapped to their backs, and peasants,
and fishers, and dancing-girls. They are now simply sticking there like
flies: somebody-has told them they must wait fifteen minutes. So they
wait with smiling patience, and behind them in the fleet of high-prowed
boats hundreds more wait and wonder. But they do not wait for fifteen
minutes! All hopes are suddenly shattered by a stentorian announcement
from the deck: 'Mo jikan ga naikara, miseru koto dekimasen!' The
monster is getting up steam—going away: nobody else will be allowed to
come on board. And from the patient swarm of clingers to the hand-ropes,
and the patient waiters in the fleet of boats, there goes up one
exceedingly plaintive and prolonged 'Aa!' of disappointment, followed by
artless reproaches in Izumo dialect: 'Gun-jin wa uso iwanuka to omoya!-
uso-tsuki dana!—aa! so dana!' ('War-people-as-for-lies-never-say-that-
we-thought!—Aa-aa-aa!') Apparently the gunjin are accustomed to such
scenes; for they do not even smile.

But we linger near the cruiser to watch the hurried descent of the
sightseers into their boats, and the slow ponderous motion of the chain-
cables ascending, and the swarming of sailors down over the bows to
fasten and unfasten mysterious things. One, bending head-downwards,
drops his white cap; and there is a race of boats for the honour of
picking it up. A marine leaning over the bulwarks audibly observes to a
comrade: 'Aa! gwaikojn dana!—nani ski ni kite iru daro?'—The other
vainly suggests: 'Yasu-no-senkyoshi daro.' My Japanese costume does not
disguise the fact that I am an alien; but it saves me from the
imputation of being a missionary. I remain an enigma. Then there are
loud cries of 'Abunail'—if the cruiser were to move now there would be
swamping and crushing and drowning unspeakable. All the little boats
scatter and flee away.

Our ten naked oarsmen once more bend to their cross-handled oars, and
recommence their ancient melancholy song. And as we glide back, there
comes to me the idea of the prodigious cost of that which we went forth
to see, the magnificent horror of steel and steam and all the multiple
enginery of death—paid for by those humble millions who toil for ever
knee-deep in the slime of rice-fields, yet can never afford to eat their
own rice! Far cheaper must be the food they live upon; and nevertheless,
merely to protect the little that they own, such nightmares must be
called into existence—monstrous creations of science mathematically
applied to the ends of destruction.

How delightful Mionoseki now seems, drowsing far off there under its
blue tiles at the feet of the holy hills!—immemorial Mionoseki, with
its lamps and lions of stone, and its god who hates eggs!—pretty
fantastic Mionoseki, where all things, save the schools, are medieval
still: the high-pooped junks, and the long-nosed boats, and the
plaintive chants of oarsmen!

A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa,
Iya-ho-en-ya!
Ghi!
Ghi!

And we touch the mossed and ancient wharves of stone again: over one
mile of lucent sea we have floated back a thousand years! I turn to look
at the place of that sinister vision—and lo!—there is nothing there!
Only the level blue of the flood under the hollow blue of the sky—and,
just beyond the promontory, one far, small white speck: the sail of a
junk. The horizon is naked. Gone!—but how soundlessly, how swiftly!
She makes nineteen knots. And, oh! Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, there
probably existed eggs on board!

KITZUKI, July 20, 1891.

AKIRA is no longer with me. He has gone to Kyoto, the holy Buddhist
city, to edit a Buddhist magazine; and I already feel without him like
one who has lost his way—despite his reiterated assurances that he
could never be of much service to me in Izumo, as he knew nothing about
Shinto.

But for the time being I am to have plenty of company at Kitzuki, where
I am spending the first part of the summer holidays; for the little city
is full of students and teachers who know me. Kitzuki is not only the
holiest place in the San-indo; it is also the most fashionable bathing
resort. The beach at Inasa bay is one of the best in all Japan; the
beach hotels are spacious, airy, and comfortable; and the bathing
houses, with hot and cold freshwater baths in which to wash off the
brine after a swim, are simply faultless. And in fair weather, the
scenery is delightful, as you look out over the summer space of sea.
Closing the bay on the right, there reaches out from the hills
overshadowing the town a mighty, rugged, pine-clad spur—the Kitzuki
promontory. On the left a low long range of mountains serrate the
horizon beyond the shore-sweep, with one huge vapoury shape towering
blue into the blue sky behind them—the truncated silhouette of
Sanbeyama. Before you the Japanese Sea touches the sky. And there, upon
still clear nights, there appears a horizon of fire—the torches of
hosts of fishing-boats riding at anchor three and four miles away—so
numerous that their lights seem to the naked eye a band of unbroken
flame.

The Guji has invited me and one of my friends to see a great harvest
dance at his residence on the evening of the festival of Tenjin. This
dance—Honen-odori—is peculiar to Izumo; and the opportunity to
witness it in this city is a rare one, as it is going to be performed
only by order of the Guji.

The robust pontiff himself loves the sea quite as much as anyone in
Kitzuki; yet he never enters a beach hotel, much less a public bathing
house. For his use alone a special bathing house has been built upon a
ledge of the cliff overhanging the little settlement of Inasa: it is
approached by a narrow pathway shadowed by pine-trees; and there is a
torii before it, and shimenawa. To this little house the Guji ascends
daily during the bathing season, accompanied by a single attendant, who
prepares his bathing dresses, and spreads the clean mats upon which he
rests after returning from the sea. The Guji always bathes robed. No one
but himself and his servant ever approaches the little house, which
commands a charming view of the bay: public reverence for the pontiff's
person has made even his resting-place holy ground. As for the country-
folk, they still worship him with hearts and bodies. They have ceased to
believe as they did in former times, that anyone upon whom the Kokuzo
fixes his eye at once becomes unable to speak or move; but when he
passes among them through the temple court they still prostrate
themselves along his way, as before the Ikigami.

KITZUKI, July 23rd

Always, through the memory of my first day at Kitzuki, there will pass
the beautiful white apparition of the Miko, with her perfect passionless
face, and strange, gracious, soundless tread, as of a ghost.

Her name signifies 'the Pet,' or 'The Darling of the Gods,'-Mi-ko.

The kind Guji, at my earnest request, procured me—or rather, had taken
for me—a photograph of the Miko, in the attitude of her dance,
upholding the mystic suzu, and wearing, over her crimson hakama, the
snowy priestess-robe descending to her feet.

And the learned priest Sasa told me these things concerning the Pet of
the Gods, and the Miko-kagura—which is the name of her sacred dance.

Contrary to the custom at the other great Shinto temples of Japan, such
as Ise, the office of miko at Kitzuki has always been hereditary.
Formerly there were in Kitzuki more than thirty families whose daughters
served the Oho-yashiro as miko: to-day there are but two, and the number
of virgin priestesses does not exceed six—the one whose portrait I
obtained being the chief. At Ise and elsewhere the daughter of any
Shinto priest may become a miko; but she cannot serve in that capacity
after becoming nubile; so that, except in Kitzuki, the miko of all the
greater temples are children from ten to twelve years of age. But at the
Kitzuki Oho-yashiro the maiden-priestesses are beautiful girls of
between sixteen and nineteen years of age; and sometimes a favourite
miko is allowed to continue to serve the gods even after having been
married. The sacred dance is not difficult to learn: the mother or
sister teaches it to the child destined to serve in the temple. The miko
lives at home, and visits the temple only upon festival days to perform
her duties. She is not placed under any severe discipline or
restrictions; she takes no special vows; she risks no dreadful penalties
for ceasing to remain a virgin. But her position being one of high
honour, and a source of revenue to her family, the ties which bind her
to duty are scarcely less cogent than those vows taken by the
priestesses of the antique Occident.

Like the priestesses of Delphi, the miko was in ancient times also a
divineress—a living oracle, uttering the secrets of the future when
possessed by the god whom she served. At no temple does the miko now act
as sibyl, oracular priestess, or divineress. But there still exists a
class of divining-women, who claim to hold communication with the dead,
and to foretell the future, and who call themselves miko—practising
their profession secretly; for it has been prohibited by law.

In the various great Shinto shrines of the Empire the Mikokagura is
differently danced. In Kitzuki, most ancient of all, the dance is the
most simple and the most primitive. Its purpose being to give pleasure
to the gods, religious conservatism has preserved its traditions and
steps unchanged since the period of the beginning of the faith. The
origin of this dance is to be found in the Kojiki legend of the dance of
Ame-nouzume-no-mikoto—she by whose mirth and song the Sun-goddess was
lured from the cavern into which she had retired, and brought back to
illuminate the world. And the suzu—the strange bronze instrument with
its cluster of bells which the miko uses in her dance—still preserves
the form of that bamboo-spray to which Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto fastened
small bells with grass, ere beginning her mirthful song.

Behind the library in the rear of the great shrine, there stands a more
ancient structure which is still called the Miko-yashiki, or dwelling-
place of the miko. Here in former times all the maiden-priestesses were
obliged to live, under a somewhat stricter discipline than now. By day
they could go out where they pleased; but they were under obligation to
return at night to the yashiki before the gates of the court were
closed. For it was feared that the Pets of the Gods might so far forget
themselves as to condescend to become the darlings of adventurous
mortals. Nor was the fear at all unreasonable; for it was the duty of a
miko to be singularly innocent as well as beautiful. And one of the most
beautiful miko who belonged to the service of the Oho-yashiro did
actually so fall from grace—giving to the Japanese world a romance
which you can buy in cheap printed form at any large bookstore in Japan.