the cause of okori (ague, or intermittent fever), mild forms of which
prevail in certain districts at certain seasons; but I have since
learned that this quaint belief is an old one in Izumo and in many parts
of the San-indo. It is a curious example of the manner in which Buddhism
has been used to explain all mysteries.
Okori is said to be caused by the Gaki-botoke, or hungry ghosts.
Strictly speaking, the Gaki-botoke are the Pretas of Indian Buddhism,
spirits condemned to sojourn in the Gakido, the sphere of the penance of
perpetual hunger and thirst. But in Japanese Buddhism, the name Gaki is
given also to those souls who have none among the living to remember
them, and to prepare for them the customary offerings of food and tea.
These suffer, and seek to obtain warmth and nutriment by entering into
the bodies of the living. The person into whom a gaki enters at first
feels intensely cold and shivers, because the gaki is cold. But the
chill is followed by a feeling of intense heat, as the gaki becomes
warm. Having warmed itself and absorbed some nourishment at the expense
of its unwilling host, the gaki goes away, and the fever ceases for a
time. But at exactly the same hour upon another day the gaki will
return, and the victim must shiver and burn until the haunter has become
warm and has satisfied its hunger. Some gaki visit their patients every
day; others every alternate day, or even less often. In brief: the
paroxysms of any form of intermittent fever are explained by the
presence of the gaki, and the intervals between the paroxysms by its
absence.
25
Of the word hotoke (which becomes botoke in such com-pounds as nure-
botoke, [12] gaki-botoke) there is something curious to say.
Hotoke signifies a Buddha.
Hotoke signifies also the Souls of the Dead - since faith holds that
these, after worthy life, either enter upon the way to Buddhahood, or
become Buddhas.
Hotoke, by euphemism, has likewise come to mean a corpse: hence the verb
hotoke-zukuri, 'to look ghastly,' to have the semblance of one long
dead.
And Hotoke-San is the name of the Image of a Face seen in the pupil of
the eye - Hotoke-San, 'the Lord Buddha.' Not the Supreme of the Hokkekyo,
but that lesser Buddha who dwelleth in each one of us, - the Spirit. [13]
Sang Rossetti: 'I looked and saw your heart in the shadow of your eyes.'
Exactly converse is the Oriental thought. A Japanese lover would have
said: 'I looked and saw my own Buddha in the shadow of your eyes.
What is the psychical theory connected with so singular a belief? [14] I
think it might be this: The Soul, within its own body, always remains
viewless, yet may reflect itself in the eyes of another, as in the
mirror of a necromancer. Vainly you gaze into the eyes of the beloved to
discern her soul: you see there only your own soul's shadow, diaphanous;
and beyond is mystery alone - reaching to the Infinite.
But is not this true? The Ego, as Schopenhauer wonderfully said, is the
dark spot in consciousness, even as the point whereat the nerve of sight
enters the eye is blind. We see ourselves in others only; only through
others do we dimly guess that which we are. And in the deepest love of
another being do we not indeed love ourselves? What are the
personalities, the individualities of us but countless vibrations in
the Universal Being? Are we not all One in the unknowable Ultimate? One
with the inconceivable past? One with the everlasting future?
26
In Oki, as in Izumo, the public school is slowly but surely destroying
many of the old superstitions. Even the fishermen of the new generation
laugh at things in which their fathers believed. I was rather surprised
to receive from an intelligent young sailor, whom I had questioned
through an interpreter about the ghostly fire of Takuhizan, this
scornful answer: 'Oh, we used to believe those things when we were
savages; but we are civilised now!'
Nevertheless, he was somewhat in advance of his time. In the village to
which he belonged I discovered that the Fox-.superstition prevails to a
degree scarcely paralleled in any part of Izumo. The history of the
village was quite curious. From time immemorial it had been reputed a
settlement of Kitsune-mochi: in other words, all its inhabitants were
commonly believed, and perhaps believed themselves, to be the owners of
goblin-foxes. And being all alike kitsune-mochi, they could eat and
drink together, and marry and give in marriage among themselves without
affliction. They were feared with a ghostly fear by the neighbouring
peasantry, who obeyed their demands both in matters reasonable and
unreasonable. They prospered exceedingly. But some twenty years ago an
Izumo stranger settled among them. He was energetic, intelligent, and
possessed of some capital. He bought land, made various shrewd
investments, and in a surprisingly short time became the wealthiest
citizen in the place. He built a very pretty Shinto temple and presented
it to the community. There was only one obstacle in the way of his
becoming a really popular person: he was not a kitsune-mochi, and he had
even said that he hated foxes. This singularity threatened to beget
discords in the mura, especially as he married his children to
strangers, and thus began in the midst of the kitsune-mochi to establish
a sort of anti-Fox-holding colony.
Wherefore, for a long time past, the Fox-holders have been trying to
force their superfluous goblins upon him. Shadows glide about the gate
of his dwelling on moonless nights, muttering: 'Kaere! kyo kara kokoye:
kuruda!' [Be off now! from now hereafter it is here that ye must dwell:
go!] Then are the upper shoji violently pushed apart; and the voice of
the enraged house owner is heard: 'Koko Wa kiraida! modori!' [Detestable
is that which ye do! get ye gone!] And the Shadows flee away.[15]
27
Because there were no cuttlefish at Hishi-ura, and no horrid smells, I
enjoyed myself there more than I did anywhere else in Oki. But, in any
event, Hishi-ura would have interested me more than Saigo. The life of
the pretty little town is peculiarly old-fashioned; and the ancient
domestic industries, which the introduction of machinery has almost
destroyed in Izumo and elsewhere, still exist in Hishi-ura. It was
pleasant to watch the rosy girls weaving robes of cotton and robes of
silk, relieving each other whenever the work became fatiguing. All this
quaint gentle life is open to inspection, and I loved to watch it. I had
other pleasures also: the bay is a delightful place for swimming, and
there were always boats ready to take me to any place of interest along
the coast. At night the sea breeze made the rooms which I occupied
deliciously cool; and from the balcony I could watch the bay-swell
breaking in slow, cold fire on the steps of the wharves - a beautiful
phosphorescence; and I could hear Oki mothers singing their babes to
sleep with one of the oldest lullabys in the world:
Nenneko,
O-yama no
Usagi. no ko,
Naze mata
O-mimi ga
Nagai e yara?
Okkasan no
O-nak ni
Oru toku ni,
BiWa no ha,
Sasa no ha,
Tabeta sona;
Sore de
O-mimi ga
Nagai e sona. [16]
The air was singularly sweet and plaintive, quite different from that to
which the same words are sung in Izumo, and in other parts of Japan.
One morning I had hired a boat to take me to Beppu, and was on the point
of leaving the hotel for the day, when the old landlady, touching my
arm, exclaimed: 'Wait a little while; it is not good to cross a
funeral.' I looked round the corner, and saw the procession coming along
the shore. It was a Shinto funeral - a child's funeral. Young lads came
first, carrying Shinto emblems - little white flags, and branches of the
sacred sakaki; and after the coffin the mother walked, a young peasant,
crying very loud, and wiping her eyes with the long sleeves of her
coarse blue dress. Then the old woman at my side murmured: 'She sorrows;
but she is very young: perhaps It will come back to her.' For she was a
pious Buddhist, my good old landlady, and doubtless supposed the
mother's belief like her own, although the funeral was conducted
according to the Shinto rite.
28
There are in Buddhism certain weirdly beautiful consolations unknown to
Western faith.
The young mother who loses her first child may at least pray that it
will come back to her out of the night of death - not in dreams only, but
through reincarnation. And so praying, she writes within the hand of the
little corpse the first ideograph of her lost darling's name.
Months pass; she again becomes a mother. Eagerly she examines the
flower-soft hand of the infant. And lo! the self-same ideograph is
there - a rosy birth-mark on the tender palm; and the Soul returned looks
out upon her through the eyes of the newly-born with the gaze of other
days.
29
While on the subject of death I may speak of a primitive but touching
custom which exists both in Oki and Izumo - that of calling the name of
the dead immediately after death. For it is thought that the call may be
heard by the fleeting soul, which might sometimes be thus induced to
return. Therefore, when a mother dies, the children should first call
her, and of all the children first the youngest (for she loved that one
most); and then the husband and all those who loved the dead cry to her
in turn.
And it is also the custom to call loudly the name of one who faints, or
becomes insensible from any cause; and there are curious beliefs
underlying this custom.
It is said that of those who swoon from pain or grief especially, many
approach very nearly to death, and these always have the same
experience. 'You feel,' said one to me in answer to my question about
the belief, 'as if you were suddenly somewhere else, and quite happy -
only tired. And you know that you want to go to a Buddhist temple which
is quite far away. At last you reach the gate of the temple court, and
you see the temple inside, and it is wonderfully large and beautiful.
And you pass the gate and enter the court to go to the temple. But
suddenly you hear voices of friends far behind you calling your name -
very, very earnestly. So you turn back, and all at once you come to
yourself again. At least it is so if your heart cares to live. But one
who is really tired of living will not listen to the voices, and walks
on to the temple. And what there happens no man knows, for they who
enter that temple never return to their friends.
'That is why people call loudly into the ear of one who swoons.
'Now, it is said that all who die, before going to the Meido, make one
pilgrimage to the great temple of Zenkoji, which is in the country of
Shinano, in Nagano-Ken. And they say that whenever the priest of that
temple preaches, he sees the Souls gather there in the hondo to hear
him, all with white wrappings about their heads. So Zenkoji might be the
temple which is seen by those who swoon. But I do not know.'
30
I went by boat from Hishi-ura to Amamura, in Nakanoshima, to visit the
tomb of the exiled Emperor Go-Toba. The scenery along the way was
beautiful, and of softer outline than I had seen on my first passage
through the archipelago. Small rocks rising from the water were covered
with sea-gulls and cormorants, which scarcely took any notice of the
boat, even when we came almost within an oar's length. This fearlessness
of wild creatures is one of the most charming impressions of travel in
these remoter parts of Japan, yet unvisited by tourists with shotguns.
The early European and American hunters in Japan seem to have found no
difficulty and felt no compunction in exterminating what they considered
'game' over whole districts, destroying life merely for the wanton
pleasure of destruction. Their example is being imitated now by 'Young
Japan,' and the destruction of bird life is only imperfectly checked by
game laws. Happily, the Government does interfere sometimes to check
particular forms of the hunting vice. Some brutes who had observed the
habits of swallows to make their nests in Japanese houses, last year
offered to purchase some thousands of swallow-skins at a tempting price.
The effect of the advertisement was cruel enough; but the police were
promptly notified to stop the murdering, which they did. About the same
time, in one of the Yokohama papers, there appeared a letter from some
holy person announcing, as a triumph of Christian sentiment, that a
'converted' fisherman had been persuaded by foreign proselytisers to
kill a turtle, which his Buddhist comrades had vainly begged him to
spare.
Amarnura, a very small village, lies in a narrow plain of rice-fields
extending from the sea to a range of low hills. From the landing-place
to the village is about a quarter of a mile. The narrow path leading to
it passes round the base of a small hill, covered with pines, on the
outskirts of the village. There is quite a handsome Shinto temple on the
hill, small, but admirably constructed, approached by stone steps and a
paved walk.
There are the usual lions and lamps of stone, and the ordinary simple
offerings of paper and women's hair before the shrine. But I saw among
the ex-voto a number of curious things which I had never seen in Izumo -
tiny miniature buckets, well-buckets, with rope and pole complete,
neatly fashioned out of bamboo. The boatman said that farmers bring
these to the shrine when praying for rain. The deity was called Suwa-
Dai-Myojin.
It was at the neighbouring village, of which Suwa-Dai-Myojin seems to be
the ujigami, that the Emperor Go-Toba is said to have dwelt, in the
house of the Choja Shikekuro. The Shikekuro homestead remains, and still
belongs to the Choja'sa descendants, but they have become very poor. I
asked permission to see the cups from which the exiled emperor drank,
and other relics of his stay said to be preserved by the family; but in
consequence of illness in the house I could not be received. So I had
only a glimpse of the garden, where there is a celebrated pond - a
kembutsu.
The pond is called Shikekuro's Pond, - Shikekuro-no-ike. And for seven
hundred years, 'tis said, the frogs of that pond have never been heard
to croak.
For the Emperor Go-Toba, having one night been kept awake by the
croaking of the frogs in that pond, arose and went out and commanded
them, saying: 'Be silent!' Wherefore they have remained silent through
all the centuries even unto this day.
Near the pond there was in that time a great pine-tree, of which the
rustling upon windy nights disturbed the emperor's rest. And he spoke to
the pine-tree, and said to it: 'Be still!' And never thereafter was that
tree heard to rustle, even in time of storms.
But that tree has ceased to be. Nothing remains of it but a few
fragments of its wood and hark, which are carefully preserved as relics
by the ancients of Oki. Such a fragment was shown to me in the toko of
the guest chamber of the dwelling of a physician of Saigo - the same
gentleman whose kindness I have related elsewhere.
The tomb of the emperor lies on the slope of a low hill, at a distance
of about ten minutes' walk from the village. It is far less imposing
than the least of the tombs of the Matsudaira at Matsue, in the grand
old courts of Gesshoji; but it was perhaps the best which the poor
little country of Oki could furnish. This is not, however, the original
place of the tomb, which was moved by imperial order in the sixth year
of Meiji to its present site. A lofty fence, or rather stockade of heavy
wooden posts, painted black, incloses a piece of ground perhaps one
hundred and fifty feet long, by about fifty broad, and graded into three
levels, or low terraces. All the space within is shaded by pines. In the
centre of the last and highest of the little terraces the tomb is
placed: a single large slab of grey rock laid horizontally. A narrow
paved walk leads from the gate to the tomb; ascending each terrace by
three or four stone steps. A little within this gateway, which is opened
to visitors only once a year, there is a torii facing the sepulchre; and
before the highest terrace there are a pair of stone lamps. All this is
severely simple, but effective in a certain touching way. The country
stillness is broken only by the shrilling of the semi and the
tintinnabulation of that strange little insect, the suzumushi, whose
calling sounds just like the tinkling of the tiny bells which are shaken
by the miko in her sacred dance.
31
I remained nearly eight days at Hishi-ura on the occasion of my second
visit there, but only three at Urago. Urago proved a less pleasant place
to stay in - not because its smells were any stronger than those of
Saigo, but for other reasons which shall presently appear.
More than one foreign man-of-war has touched at Saigo, and English and
Russian officers of the navy have been seen in the streets. They were
tall, fair-haired, stalwart men; and the people of Oki still imagine
that all foreigners from the West have the same stature and complexion.
I was the first foreigner who ever remained even a night in the town,
and I stayed there two weeks; but being small and dark, and dressed like
a Japanese, I excited little attention among the common people: it
seemed to them that I was only a curious-looking Japanese from some
remote part of the empire. At Hishi-ura the same impression prevailed
for a time; and even after the fact of my being a foreigner had become
generally known, the population caused me no annoyance whatever: they
had already become accustomed to see me walking about the streets or
swimming across the bay. But it was quite otherwise at Urago. The first
time I landed there I had managed to escape notice, being in Japanese
costume, and wearing a very large Izumo hat, which partly concealed my
face. After I left for Saigo, the people must have found out that a
foreigner - the very first ever seen in Dozen - had actually been in Urago
without their knowledge; for my second visit made a sensation such as I
had never been the cause of anywhere else, except at Kaka-ura.
I had barely time to enter the hotel, before the street became entirely
blockaded by an amazing crowd desirous to see. The hotel was
unfortunately situated on a corner, so that it was soon besieged on two
sides. I was shown to a large back room on the second floor; and I had
no sooner squatted down on my mat, than the people began to come
upstairs quite noiselessly, all leaving their sandals at the foot of the
steps. They were too polite to enter the room; but four or five would
put their heads through the doorway at once, and bow, and smile, and
look, and retire to make way for those who filled the stairway behind
them. It was no easy matter for the servant to bring me my dinner.
Meanwhile, not only had the upper rooms of the houses across the way
become packed with gazers, but all the roofs - north, east, and south -
which commanded a view of my apartment had been occupied by men and boys
in multitude. Numbers of lads had also climbed (I never could imagine
how) upon the narrow eaves over the galleries below my windows; and all
the openings of my room, on three sides, were full of faces. Then tiles
gave way, and boys fell, but nobody appeared to be hurt. And the
queerest fact was that during the performance of these extraordinary
gymnastics there was a silence of death: had I not seen the throng, I
might have supposed there was not a soul in the street.
The landlord began to scold; but, finding scolding of no avail, he
summoned a policeman. The policeman begged me to excuse the people, who
had never seen a foreigner before; and asked me if I wished him to clear
the street. He could have done that by merely lifting his little finger;
but as the scene amused me, I begged him not to order the people away,
but only to tell the boys not to climb upon the awnings, some of which
they had already damaged. He told them most effectually, speaking in a
very low voice. During all the rest of the time I was in Urago, no one
dared to go near the awnings. A Japanese policeman never speaks more
than once about anything new, and always speaks to the purpose.
The public curiosity, however, lasted without abate for three days, and
would have lasted longer if I had not fled from Urago. Whenever I went
out I drew the population after me with a pattering of geta like the
sound of surf moving shingle. Yet, except for that particular sound,
there was silence. No word was spoken. Whether this was because the
whole mental faculty was so strained by the intensity of the desire to
see that speech became impossible, I am not able to decide. But there
was no roughness in all that curiosity; there was never anything
approaching rudeness, except in the matter of ascending to my room
without leave; and that was done so gently that I could not wish the
intruders rebuked. Nevertheless, three days of such experience proved
trying. Despite the heat, I had to close the doors and windows at night
to prevent myself being watched while asleep. About my effects I had no
anxiety at all: thefts are never committed in the island. But that
perpetual silent crowding about me became at last more than
embarrassing. It was innocent, but it was weird. It made me feel like a
ghost - a new arrival in the Meido, surrounded by shapes without voice.
32
There is very little privacy of any sort in Japanese life. Among the
people, indeed, what we term privacy in the Occident does not exist.
There are only walls of paper dividing the lives of men; there are only
sliding screens instead of doors; there are neither locks nor bolts to
be used by day; and whenever weather permits, the fronts, and perhaps
even the sides of the house are literally removed, and its interior
widely opened to the air, the light, and the public gaze. Not even the
rich man closes his front gate by day. Within a hotel or even a common
dwelling-house, nobody knocks before entering your room: there is
nothing to knock at except a shoji or fusuma, which cannot be knocked
upon without being broken. And in this world of paper walls and
sunshine, nobody is afraid or ashamed of fellow-men or fellow-women.
Whatever is done, is done, after a fashion, in public. Your personal
habits, your idiosyncrasies (if you have any), your foibles, your likes
and dislikes, your loves or your hates, must be known to everybody.
Neither vices nor virtues can be hidden: there is absolutely nowhere to
hide them. And this condition has lasted from the most ancient time.
There has never been, for the common millions at least, even the idea of
living unobserved. Life can be comfortably and happily lived in Japan
only upon the condition that all matters relating to it are open to the
inspection of the community. Which implies exceptional moral conditions,
such as have no being in the West. It is perfectly comprehensible only
to those who know by experience the extraordinary charm of Japanese
character, the infinite goodness of the common people, their instinctive
politeness, and the absence among them of any tendencies to indulge in
criticism, ridicule, irony, or sarcasm. No one endeavours to expand his
own individuality by belittling his fellow; no one tries to make himself
appear a superior being: any such attempt would be vain in a community
where the weaknesses of each are known to all, where nothing can be
concealed or disguised, and where affectation could only be regarded as
a mild form of insanity.
33
Some of the old samurai of Matsue are living in the Oki Islands. When
the great military caste was disestablished, a few shrewd men decided to
try their fortunes in the little archipelago, where customs remained
old-fashioned and lands were cheap. Several succeeded - probably because
of the whole-souled honesty and simplicity of manners in the islands;
for samurai have seldom elsewhere been able to succeed in business of
any sort when obliged to compete with experienced traders, Others
failed, but were able to adopt various humble occupations which gave
them the means to live.
Besides these aged survivors of the feudal period, I learned there were
in Oki several children of once noble families - youths and maidens of
illustrious extraction - bravely facing the new conditions of life in
this remotest and poorest region of the empire. Daughters of men to whom
the population of a town once bowed down were learning the bitter toil
of the rice-fields. Youths, who might in another era have aspired to
offices of State, had become the trusted servants of Oki heimin. Others,
again, had entered the police, [17] and rightly deemed themselves
fortunate.
No doubt that change of civilisation forced upon Japan by Christian