The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (26 page)

The bonzes did sell charms to deal with illness, heartbreak, etc., and some apparently went overboard, offering what amounted to “tickets to paradise,” which are perhaps analogous to the plenary indulgences that Christians can obtain during Jubilees and other special occasions.

35. The Franciscan friars bestow their order's habit on some deceased [
non-members
] at no charge; the bonzes compel men and women, while they are living, to acquire some paper catabiras with foqeqio
⁴⁴
written on them, so that they can be worn when they die, in order for the bonzes to thereby profit
.

The Franciscan order of friars, founded by St. Francis at the outset of the thirteenth century, actually was part of a much broader religious movement that encompassed lay people who came to form a “third order” of the Franciscans. Within a decade of St. Francis' death in 1226, wealthy knights and ladies, and in Frois' time, explorers such as Columbus, embraced the “rule” of the third order and were honored with burial in the simple sackcloth habit of St. Francis. Theologically speaking, the robes were nothing more than a statement that the individual had endeavored to live a good life, following the example of Christ and Saint Francis. Implicitly it was understood (based on medieval traditions) that the robes provided a protection of sorts from damnation or the fires of hell (perhaps experienced en route to the pearly gates).

In his
Historia
, Frois recounts Nobunaga's brutal execution of everyone related to a political rival, Araki, including 120 women who went to their death wearing sutra-embossed paper undergarments. These paper
catabira
or robes, which were sold by the
bonzes
, were painted with Chinese characters denoting “The Sutra on the Lotus of the Wonderful Law” (
Myohorenge-kyo
or
Saddharma Pundarika Sutra
).
⁴⁵
Because written language in the Sino-cultural world need not be evoked to be invoked, it was enough to skip the sutra itself and just say or write its name. The writing could be burnt or exploded to float up into heaven; vibrated into heaven by being written around the bonze's hand-drum or upon a temple bell that is struck; “read” to the universe by rotation using human, hydraulic or wind power; cast upon the wind, each flutter of a sutra-lettered flag comprising a reading; dissolved and drunk; or simply worn, like the robes mentioned here by Frois.

36. Our priests conduct funeral rites for the deceased in churches; the bonzes quite often hold them in the home of the deceased, in order to eat and drink there
.

While it is true that the most solemn part of a Catholic funeral, the funeral mass, takes place in church, it is not uncommon for the participants, including the
priest, to adjourn to a banquet. The picaresque classic, [The life of]
Lazarillo de Tormes
(1554),
⁴⁶
pokes fun at what was obviously a tendency in sixteenth-century Iberia for priests to overindulge at funerals. Hired by a priest as an assistant, the perpetually hungry Lazarillo found that “… at the meetings of religious societies and funerals where we prayed, if someone else was paying, he [the priest] used to eat like a wolf and drink more than a faith healer.”

With respect to Japan, while important people often had memorials said at Buddhist temples, Frois is essentially correct in emphasizing the central role of the home in Japanese funerals. Prior to burial or cremation, the Japanese hold long wakes or vigils at their homes.
⁴⁷
Relatives gather and help with the cooking, cleaning, reception of people, recording of gifts received, and so forth. People sit around and reminisce about, and occasionally view, the deceased. The
bonzes
may have played a greater role in these affairs in Frois' time than today and, naturally, enjoyed the repast. Still, to claim the whole affair was for the sake of the
bonze's
bellies is ridiculous. There is a fine story in Eliza Scidmore's
Jinrikisha Days in Japan
that suggests something other than selfish Buddhists:

When the American man-o-war
Oneida
was run down and sank with her officers and crew by the P. and O. steamer
Bombay
, near the mouth of Yeddo Bay, January 23, 1870, our Government made no effort to raise the wreck or search for it, and finally sold it to a Japanese wrecking company for fifteen hundred dollars. The wreckers found many bones of the lost men among the ship's timbers, and when the work was entirely completed, with their voluntary contributions they erected a tablet in the Ikegami [temple] grounds to the memory of the dead, and celebrated there the impressive Buddhist
segaki
(feast of hungry souls), in May, 1889. The great temple was in ceremonial array; seventy-five priests in their richest robes assisted at the mass … The scriptures were read, a service was chanted, the Sutra repeated, incense burned, the symbolic lotus-leaves cast before the altar…. No other country, no other religion, offers a parallel to this experience …
⁴⁸

Here,
pace
Shakespeare, we see it is not birth but
death
that makes all men kin. “No other country” is overdoing it, but Scidmore's point is that the Buddhists very often were kind. They lived, and still live, for the repose of souls.

37. Among our religious yellow is a garish and indecent color; the bonzes consider it a virtuous color and enjoy wearing yellow or green
.

Christians divide the year into liturgical seasons such as Advent and Easter, which have different theological emphases that are conveyed, in part, through the different colored vestments worn by priests (e.g. purple during Lent). Although ecclesiastical vestments of yellow (and blue) were known during the Middle Ages in Portugal, by Frois' time green and yellow were deemed inappropriate colors
for clergy.
⁴⁹
Buddhist sects wore different colors depending on the season, and the yellow and green robes mentioned by Frois probably were closer to moss and manilla. Today, at least, only esoteric Buddhist high-priests,
hari-krishna
evangelists, and members of marginal cults go in for truly bright colors.

38. Among us, there is no hatred between one religious order and another; the bonzes of one sect abhor those of other sects, for the good of their own authority
⁵⁰
and advantage
.

Maybe not hatred, but Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans—not to mention secular clergy—frequently fought with each other over matters of faith, power, and influence. Indeed, the Mendicants and Jesuits fought with each other for Papal and Crown support of missions to China and Japan as well as in the Americas. Franciscans and Dominicans who returned to Europe from China in the 1630s accused the Jesuits of allowing the Chinese to retain many of their “superstitions.”
⁵¹

Okada points out that the precepts of the egalitarian Pure Land sect (written about 100 years before the
Tratado
) include an admonition from its founder, Rennyo (1415–1499), against badmouthing other sects. Yet it is clear that Rennyo's advice largely was ignored during the sixteenth century by both his own sect (known by its detractors as
Ikko-shu
, or One-way-cult!) and others. Apparently the recent political upheavals and the effect of centuries of civil war (driving out those in the middle and encouraging fanatics) was reflected in the behavior of some Buddhists, who took their differences of interest and in catechism into the streets. In 1536, for instance, an army of militant monks of the Tendai school from Mt. Hiei attacked and destroyed Nicheren temples in Kyoto.

39. Among us, sorcerers are punished and castigated; the bonzes of the Ikkoshu and Yamabushi sects enjoy their company because they [themselves] are sorcerers
.

During Frois' lifetime, Europe witnessed the great witch craze that cost the lives of tens of thousands of women, in particular. While Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy accounted for a small percentage of witch trials and executions
⁵²
(eastern France, Germany, and Switzerland had the majority), the Church in Iberia, and more precisely, the Inquisition, was quick to investigate accusations of sorcery or witchcraft. While the accused got off with a warning and mild penance most of the time, there were occasions when the punishment was severe: In 1507, thirty women accused of sorcery were burned to death in Calabarra, Spain.

Sorcery was not an issue in sixteenth-century Japan. The
Yamabushi
, literally meaning “mountain warriors,” actually look wizard-like in their unique clothing. They combine elements of esoteric Buddhism and shamanism and can hardly be considered a sect. After undergoing terrifying ordeals and inhuman austerities in their mountain headquarters, they wander around the country, to put it crudely,
exchanging magic for money. In 1583 Frois devoted almost an entire letter to a discussion of the
Yamabushi
, explaining how the “monks” with curled and straying hair made a profession out of selling curses as well as blessings and finding things that were either lost or stolen.
⁵³

The large
Ikko
“sect” practiced a form of “sorcery” that is more like Pentecostal Christianity, where, in a spiritually charged atmosphere, a charismatic leader heals the sick and works other “miracles.” The head was venerated as a reincarnation of
Amida
(
Amithaba Buddha
) himself. Frois' fellow Jesuit, Vilela, offered this telling description of the
Ikko
:

They give this
bonze
so much money in alms that he controls a large part of the country's wealth. Every year a great festival is held in his [i.e., Amidabutsu's] honour, and so many people wait at the gate of the temple to enter that many die in the stampede which results when they open the gates. Such people, however, are considered very lucky to have died in that way and some at their own request are dropped into the crowd around the gates and are thus killed. At night he preaches them a sermon during which they shed many tears.
⁵⁴

40. The tabi [socks] worn by laymen are black or mastic
⁵⁵
colored; the bonzes and noblewomen wear white tabi made of cotton
.

It is not clear what Frois intended with this contrast, except perhaps to suggest that the
bonzes
in Japan enjoyed wearing
tabi
of cotton, whereas religious in Europe wore poor-quality socks. Today in Japan white cotton is cheap, as it is in the West, but in Frois' day most
tabi
were leather and those of white cotton were a luxury.

41. In Europe when a master dies, his servants weep as they accompany his corpse to the gravesite; in Japan, some cut their stomachs and many others cut off the tips of their fingers and place them on the fire to burn
.

Committing suicide by
hara-kiri
or “belly cutting” seems to have been uniquely Japanese. Finger joint cutting (today seen only in films and practiced mostly by apologetic
yakuza
) is found among many Pacific Island peoples. While the practice of self-injury and “retainer sacrifice” is found in many cultures,
⁵⁶
in Japan's case it continued much longer than elsewhere. There were, nevertheless, many types of funerals in sixteenth-century Japan, and Frois here focuses on the more outlandish. Indeed, elsewhere Frois describes a sumptuous funeral with no split bellies or chopped fingers.
⁵⁷

42. In Europe, we Christians beat our chests while asking God for forgiveness; in Japan the non-Christians vigorously rub their beads in the palms of their hands
.

One of the prayers (
confiteor
) of the Latin mass has participants utter “
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
(I am at fault; I am at fault; I am entirely at fault),” while striking the chest. Perhaps because of the absence of an icon such as the crucifix (to which Christians direct their guilty pleas), Japanese Buddhists rub their prayer beads as they contemplate their shortcomings and request mercy. Note that Frois wrote gentiles rather than
bonzes
because Japanese Buddhist laymen also had beads. Frois does not exaggerate when he says “vigorously.” A group of Buddhists who pray in this way can sound like a tree filled with cicada. Rubbing and prayer or supplication went hand in hand. One of Issa's most famous haiku (
yare utsu-na
) features a fly rubbing his hands and feet for mercy. Another of his haiku, less famous, has them copying the people in the temple, rubbing their prayer beads (
dô no hae juzu suru hito no te o mane suru
).
⁵⁸

1
  With
bonze/s
we follow the customary Anglicization of the Iberian
bonzo/s
. Like all Japanese words,
bonso
or
bonzo
has no number.
Bonzo
is properly a low-ranking Buddhist monk, while Frois uses it to refer to
all
Buddhist monks. Japanese editions of the
Tratado
change Frois' references to
bonzos
to the common general term
bozu
, which includes higher ranking monks, or the Chinese characters for a rare word for the same,
butsuso
, with the pronunciation indicated as
bonzo
. Frois' denigrative tone is captured by affixing a rude plural suffix ~
ra
to these terms.

2
  It is hard to overstate the extent to which Jesuit authors were “governed” by superiors; the latter saw most everything and edited or otherwise approved any and all texts that circulated within the order or that were published. See Lionel M. Jensen,
Manufacturing Confucianism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 67–68.

3
  As regards Portugal in particular, see A.H. de Oliveira Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal in the Late Middle Ages
(Madsion: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971), 224–225.