Hawaii (117 page)

Kamejiro listened carefully, for in these matters his mother was wise. She always collected gossip and in the last three weeks had walked fifteen miles to tallf with people who had heard various bits of news about Hawaii. "Never marry a Chinese," she said firmly. "They are clever people and there are many of them in Hawaii, I am told, but they don't wash themselves as often as we do and no matter how rich they get, they remain Chinese. Under no circumstances can you return to this village if you have a

Chinese wife.

"Kamejiro, many men from Hiroshima-ken are tempted to marry girls from the north. You've seen some of those pitiful women down here. They can't talk decently, and say zu-ru all the time, until you feel ashamed for them. I have no respect at all for girls from the north, and I have never seen one who made a good wife. I will admit that they're a little better than Chinese, but not much. If you are ever tempted to marry a northern girl, think of Masaru's wife. Zu-zu, zu-zu! Do you want a girl like that?" she asked contemptuously.

Using chopsticks to flick the rice grains into her wrinkled but vigorous mouth she proceeded. "A good many men try wives from the south, too, but what respectable man really wants a Yamaguchi-no-anta? Do you, in your heart, really respect Takeshi-san's wife? Do you want a woman like that in your home? Would you want to present such a girl to me some day and say, 'Mother, here is my wife.' And when I asked where she was from, would you feel satisfied if you had to confess, 'She's a Yamaguchi-no-anta'?"

Now the wise old woman came to the most difficult part of her sermon, so once more she fortified herself with a little rice, filling up the bowl with tea and a garnish of dried seaweed. "I would be heartbroken," she began, "5 you married a northern girl or a

FROM THE INLAND SEA

587

southern girl, but to tell you the truth I would try to be a very good mother to them, and you would not curse me for my actions. But there are two marriages you may not make, Kamejiro. If you do, don't bother to come home. You will not be welcome either in the village or in this house or in any part of Hiroshima-ken." Solemnly she paused, looked out the door to be sure no one was listening, and proceeded.

"If you marry when I am not at hand, Kamejiro, ask your two closest friends to seek out the girl's history. You know the obvious problems. No disease, no insanity, nobody in jail, all ancestors good, strong Japanese. But then ask your advisers this: 'Are you sure she is not an Okinawan?'" Dramatically she stopped. Putting down her rice bowl she pointed at her son and said, "Don't bring an Okinawa girl to this house. If you marry such a girl, you are dead."

She waited for this ominous statement to wind its way through her son's mind, then added, "The danger is this, Kamejiro. In Hiroshima-ken we can spot an Okinawan instantly. I can tell when a girl comes from Okinawa if I see even two inches of her wrist. But in Hawaii I am told people forget how to do this. There are many Okinawans there, and their women set traps to catch decent Japanese. I wish I could go with you to Hawaii, for I can uncover these sly Okinawans. I am afraid you won't be able to, Kamejiro, and you will bring disgrace upon us."

She started to cry again, but rice stanched the tears, and she came to the climax of her warning: "There is of course one problem that every devoted son looks into before he marries, because he owes it not only to his parents but also to his brothers and sisters. Kamejiro, I said that if you married an Okinawa girl you were dead. But if you marry an Eta, you are worse than dead."

The wave of disgust that swept over Kamejiro's face proved that he despised the Eta as much as his mother did, for they were the untouchables of Japan, the unthinkables. In past ages they had dealt in the bodies of dead animals, serving as butchers and leather tanners. Completely outside the scope of Japanese civilization, they scratched out horrible lives in misery and wherever possible fled to distant refuges like Hawaii. A single trace of Eta blood could contaminate an entire family, even to remote unattached cousins, and Kamejiro shuddered.

His mother continued dolefully: "I said I could spot an Okinawan, and I could protect you there. But with an Eta ... I don't know. They're cleverl Crawling with evil, they try to make you think they're normal people. They hide under different names. They take new occupations. I am sure that some of them must have slipped into Hawaii, and how will you know, Kamejiro? What would you do if word sneaked back to Hiroshima-ken that you had been captured by an Eta?"

Mother and son contemplated this horror for some minutes and she concluded: "So when it comes time to marry, Kamejiro, I think it best if you marry a Hiroshima girl. Now I don't like girls from Hiro-

shima City, itself, for they are too fancy. They cost a man money and want their photographs taken all the time. I've seen a lot of girls from Hiroshima City, and although I'm ashamed to say so, some of them don't seem much better than an ordinary Yamaguchi-no-anta. And from what I have seen, a lot of the girls from the other end of Hiroshima-ken aren't too reliable, either. So don't be taken in just because a strange girl tells you she's a Hiroshima-gansu. It may mean nothing.

"And be careful not to marry into any family that has ever had an undertaker. Avoid city families if you can. To tell you the truth, Kamejiro, it would be best if you married a girl from right around here. Of course, I don't think much of the families in Atazuki Village, for they are spendthrift, but I can say there are no finer girls in all Japan than those in our village. So when the time comes to marry, go to a letter-writer and have him send me a message and when it is read to me, I'll find you a good local girl, and trust me, Kamejiro, that will be best." She paused dramatically, then added in an offhand manner, "Say, a fine strong girl like Yoko-chan." Kamejiro looked at his mother and said nothing, so she finished her rice.

When it came time for him to bid his parents farewell he assured them that he would never do anything to bring disgrace upon them, or upon Japan. His gruff father warned, "Don't bring home an Okinawan or an Eta." His mother summarized a larger body of Hiroshima morality by reminding him, "No matter where you go, Kamejiro, remember that you are Japanese. Put strength in your stomach and be a good Japanese. Never forget that some day you will return to Hiroshima-ken, the proudest and greatest in all Japan. Come home with honor, or don't come home."

Then his father led him to one side and said quietly, "Be proud. Be Japanese. Put power in your stomach."

As he set forth from the village he saw by the shrine the flowering girl Yoko-san and he wanted to leave his weeping parents and rush over to her, shouting, "Yoko-chan! ,When I have made money I will send for you!" But his stocky legs were powerless to move him in that direction, and had he gone his voice would have been unable to speak, for officially they did not know each other, and all the exciting things that had transpired behind the darkened shoji had not really happened, for he had never removed his mask.

So he departed, a tough, stalwart little man with arms hanging down like loaded buckets, yet as he passed the shrine, looking straight ahead, he somehow received Yoke's assurance that if he cared to write for her, she would come; and a considerable happiness accompanied him on his journey.

For the first two miles his path lay along the Inland Sea, and he saw before him the shifting panorama of that wonderland of islands. Green and blue and rocky brown they rose from the cool waters, lifting their pine trees to the heavens. On one a bold crimson torii rose like a bird of god, marking some ancient Shinto shrine. On others

FROM THE INLAND SEA 589

Kamejiro saw the stained stone outlines of Buddhist temples, perched above the sea. How marvelous that footpath was! How the earth sang, while the rice fields swept their ripening grain back and forth in the winds creeping inland from the sea.

With every step Kamejiro encountered some unexpected beauty, for he was traversing one of the most glorious paths in the world, and the singing of that day would never leave his ears. Once he stopped to stare in wonder at the multitude of islands and at the magnificence of their position within the sea, and he swore, "A little time will pass and I will return to the Inland Sea."

When the Kyoto-maru landed him in Honolulu he advised the immigration interpreter: "Stamp my paper for five years." Fortunately, he could not understand the official when the latter muttered to his assistant, ''I wish I believed these little yellow bastards were gonna stay only five years."

There were others in Hawaii, however, who welcomed the Japanese ungrudgingly, for that day the Honolulu MaiJ editorialized: "Janders & Whipple are to be congratulated on having completed plans for the importation of 1,850 strong and healthy Japanese peasant farmers to work our sugar fields, with prospects for as many more at later intervals as may be required. We journeyed to the Kyoto-maru yesterday to inspect the new arrivals and can report that they seemed a sturdy lot. Lunas who have worked earlier crews of Japanese state unanimously that they are much superior to the unfortunate Chinese whom they are replacing. They are obedient, extraordinarily clean, law-abiding, not given to gambling and eager to accomplish at least eighty per cent more honest labor than the lazy Chinese ever did.

"Japanese avoid the Chinaman's tendency to combine into small and vicious groups. Themselves an agrarian people, they love plantation work and will stay in the fields, so that the trickery whereby in recent years crafty Orientals fled from honest work in the cane fields, so as to monopolize our city shops, can be expected to end. Japanese are notoriously averse to running stores, but J & W have taken the added precaution of importing only strong young men from rural areas. There are no wily Tokyo dwellers lurking ominously in their gangs. Plantation owners can expect a rapid improvement in the appearance of their camps, too, for Japanese love to garden and will soon have their buildings looking attractive.

"In two respects we are particularly fortunate in getting these Japanese. First, we have been assured that their men do not contract alliances with women of any other race but their own, and we can look forward confidently to a cessation of the disgraceful scenes of aging Oriental men marrying the best young Hawaiian girls of our islands. Secondly, because of the feudal structure of Japanese society, in which every Japanese is loyal unto the death to his master, firms like J & W are going to find that their new laborers will probably be the most loyal available on earth. Lunas who have worked them

590

HAWAII

say they love authority, expect to be told what to do, respond promptly to crisp if not abusive treatment, and are accustomed to smart blows from time to time when their work is not-up to par. Unlike their Chinese cousins, they neither resent honest correction nor combine secretly against those who administer it.

"All in all, we think that future history will show that the true prosperity of Hawaii began with the importation of these sturdy workmen, and when, at the end of their employment, they return to Japan, each with his pocketful of honestly earned gold, they will go with our warm aloha. Today we welcome them as fortunate replacements for the Chinese who have turned out so badly. Aloha nui nuil"

OF THE 1,850 Japanese laborers who debarked that September day in 1902, most were assigned to plantations on Oahu, the island that contained Honolulu, and they were depressed by the barren ugliness of the inland areas. They had not seen cactus before, but as farmers they could guess that it spoke ill of the land upon which it grew, and the dull red dust appalled them. They judged that no water came to these parts, and although they had not themselves grown cattle, they could see that the spavined beasts which roamed these desolate acres suffered from both thirst and hunger. They were disappointed in the parched land which showed so little promise, and one farmer whispered to his friends, "America is much different from what they said."

But Kamejiro Sakagawa was not to be disappointed, for he was among a batch of workers dispatched to another area, and when he reached it he saw immediately that his new land was among the fairest on earth. Even the glorious fields along the Inland Sea of Japan were no finer than the area which he was expected to till. To reach this veritable paradise young Kamejiro was not marched along the dusty roads of Oahu; he was led onto a small inter-island boat which at other times was used for the 'transport of lepers, and after a long, seasick night, he was marched ashore on the island of Kauai. At the pier a tall, scar-faced man waited impatiently on a horse, and when the captain of the boat was inept at docking, he shouted orders of his own, as if he were in command. At his side ran a little Japanese, and as his countrymen finally climbed down out of the boat, this interpreter told them, "The man on the horse is called Wild Whip Hoxworth. If you work good, he is good. If not, he will beat you over the head. So work good."

As he spoke Wild Whip wheeled his horse among the men, reached down with his riding crop and tilted upward the face of Kamejiro Sakagawa. "You understand?" he growled. The little interpreter asked, "Ano hito ga yutta koto wakari mashita ka?" When stocky Kamejiro nodded, Whip lowered the riding crop, reached down and patted the new laborer on the shoulder.

Now he wheeled his horse about and moved into position at the

FROM THE INLAND SEA

591

head of the line. "We march!" he shouted, leading them off the pier onto a red-baked road where a group of sugar-cane wagons, hitched to horses, waited. "Climb in!" he yelled, and as the Japanese crawled into the low wagons whose sides were formed of high stakes bound together by lengths of rope, he moved to the head of the train and shouted, "On to Hanakai!" And the procession left the port town and moved slowly northward along the eastern coast of the island.

As the men rode they saw for the first time the full grandeur of Hawaii, for they were to work on one of the fairest islands in the Pacific. To the left rose jagged and soaring mountains, clothed in perpetual green. Born millions of years before the other mountains of Hawaii, these had eroded first and now possessed unique forms that pleased the eye. At one point the wind had cut a complete tunnel through the highest mountain; at others the erosion of softer rock had left isolated spires of basalt standing like monitors. To the right unfolded a majestic shore, out by deep bays and highlighted by a rolling surf that broke endlessly upon dark rocks and brilliant white sand. Each mile disclosed to Kamejiro and his companions some striking new scene.