The Foundations of Japan Part 25

I enquired about the new sects of Buddhism and Shintoism, for there had been pointed out to me in some villages "houses of new religions."

"New religions in many varieties are coming into the villages," I was told, "and extravagant though they may be are influencing people. The adherents seem to be moral and modest, and they pay their taxes promptly. There is a so-called Shinto sect which was started twenty years ago by an ignorant woman. It has believers in every part of j.a.pan. It is rather communistic."[176] None of the landlords who talked with me believed in the possibility of a "revival of Buddhism."

One of them noted that "people educated in the early part of Meiji are most materialistic. It is a sorrowful circ.u.mstance that the officials ask only materialistic questions of the villagers."

I asked one of the landlords about his tenants. He said that his "largest tenant" had no more than 1.3 _tan_ of paddy. It was explained that "tenants are obedient to the landowner in this prefecture." Under the system of official rewards which exists in j.a.pan, 1,086 persons in the prefecture had been "rewarded" by a kind of certificate of merit and nine with money--to the total value of 26 yen.

When I drew attention to the fact that the manufacture of _sake_ and _soy_ seemed to be frequently in the hands of landowners it was explained to me that formerly this was their industry exclusively.

Even now "whereas an ordinary shop-keeper is required by etiquette to say 'Thank you' to his customer, a purchaser of _sake_ or _soy_ says 'Thank you' to the shop-keeper."

The flower arrangement in my room in the inn consisted of an effective combination of _hagi_ (_Lespedeza bicolor_, a leguminous plant which is grown for cattle and has been a favourite subject of j.a.panese poetry), a cabbage, a rose, a begonia and leaf and a fir branch.

A landowner I chatted with in the train showed me that it was a serious matter to receive the distinction of growing the millet for use at the Coronation. One of his friends who was growing 5 _sh=o_, the actual value of which might be 50 or 60 sen, was spending on it first and last about 3,000 yen.

I enquired about the diversions of landowners. It is easy, of course, to have an inaccurate impression of the extent of their leisure. Only about 1 per cent, have more than 25 acres.[177] Therefore most of these men are either farmers themselves or must spend a great deal of time looking after their tenants. Still, some landowners are able to take things rather easily. The landowners I interrogated marvelled at the open-air habits of English landed proprietors. They were greatly surprised when I told them of a countess who is a grandmother but thinks nothing of a canter before breakfast. The mark of being well off was often to stay indoors or at any rate within garden walls, which necessarily enclose a very small area. (Hence the fact that one object of j.a.panese gardening is to suggest a much larger s.p.a.ce than exists.) A good deal of time is spent "in appreciating fine arts."

Ceremonial tea drinking still claims no small amount of attention. (In many gardens and in the grounds of hotels of any pretensions one comes on the ostentatiously humble chamber for _Cha-no-yu_.) No doubt there is among many landowners a considerable amount of drinking of something stronger than tea, and not a few men sacrifice freely to Venus. Perhaps the greatest claimant of all on the time of those who have time to spare is the game of _go_, which is said to be more difficult than chess. One cannot but remark the comparatively pale faces of many landowners.

As we went along by the coast it was pointed out to me that it was from this neighbourhood that some of the most indomitable of the old-time pirates set sail on their expeditions to ravage the Chinese coast. They visited that coast all the way from Vladivostock, now Russian (and like to be j.a.panese), to Saigon, now French. There are many Chinese books discussing effectual methods of repelling the pirates. In an official j.a.panese work I once noticed, in the enumeration of j.a.panese rights in Taiwan (Formosa), the nave claim that long ago it was visited by j.a.panese pirates! The j.a.panese fisherman is still an intrepid person, and in villages which have an admixture of fishing folk the seafarers, from their habit of following old customs and taking their own way generally, are the constant subject of rural reformers' laments.

I spent some time in a typical inland village. The very last available yard of land was utilised. The cottages stood on plots b.u.t.tressed by stone, and only the well-to-do had a yard or garden; paddy came right up to the foundations. Now that the rice was high no division showed between the different paddy holdings. I noticed here that the round, carefully concreted manure tank which each farmer possessed had a reinforced concrete hood. I asked a landowner who was in a comfortable position what societies there were in his village. He mentioned a society "to console old people and reward virtue." Then there was the society of householders, such as is mentioned in Confucius, which met in the spring and autumn, and ate and drank and discussed local topics "with open heart." There were sometimes quarrels due to _sake_. Indeed, some villagers seemed to save up their differences until the householders' meeting at its _sake_ stage. At householders'

meetings where there was no _sake_ peace appeared to prevail. The householders' meeting was a kind of informal village a.s.sembly. That a.s.sembly itself ordinarily met twice a year. There were in the village, in addition to the householders' organisation, the usual reservists' a.s.sociation, the young men's society and agricultural a.s.sociation. As to _ko_, from philanthropic motives my informant was a member of no fewer than ten.

My host told me that he spent a good deal of time in playing _go_, but in the shooting season (October 15 to April 15) he made trips to the hills and shot pheasants, hares, pigeons and deer. In the garden of his house two gardeners were stretched along the branches of a pine tree, nimbly and industriously picking out the shoots in order to get that bare appearance which has no doubt puzzled many a Western student of j.a.panese tree pictures. Each man's ladder--two lengths of bamboo with rungs tied on with string--was carefully leant against a pole laid from the ground through the branches. Many of the well-cared-for trees in the gardens and public places of j.a.pan pa.s.s the winter in neat wrappings of straw.

I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets. When I was examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon might come out. There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure and a well-roofed manure house. The family bath in an open shed was of a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it.

Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made by the farmer's son, a day's work being 40 yds. At another farm a woman showed me the working of a rough loom with which she could in a day make a score of mats worth in all 60 sen. From the farmer's house I went to the room of the young men's a.s.sociation and looked over its library. I was impressed by the high level of civilisation which this village seemed to exhibit in essentials.

When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by means of which water was being lifted into a paddy. Each wheel was worked by a man who continually ascended the floats. The two men were able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell. It seems that a man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour. The two wheels together were lifting an amazing amount of water at a great rate. When the pumping is finished one of these light water wheels is easily carried home on a man's shoulders.

Farther on I saw in a dry river bed a man sieving gravel in an ingenious way. The trouble in sieving gravel is that if the sieve be filled to its capacity the shaking soon becomes tiring. This man had a square sieve which when lying on the ground was attached at one side by two ropes to a firmly fixed tripod of poles. When the sieve was filled the labourer lifted it far enough away from the tripod for it to be swinging on one side. Therefore when he shook the sieve he sustained a portion only of its weight.

As we rode along I was told that the largest taxpayer in the county "does not live in idleness but does many good works." The next largest taxpayer "labours every day in the field." When I enquired as to the recreations of moneyed men I was told "travelling, _go_ and poem writing."

As we rode by the sea a trustworthy informant pointed out to me an islet where he said the young men have the young women in common and "give permission for them to marry." There is a house in which the girls live together at a particular time and are then free from the attentions of the youths. Children born are brought up in the families of the mothers but there is some infanticide. In another little island off the coast there are only two cla.s.ses of people, the seniors and the juniors. Any person senior to any other "may give him orders and call him by his second name." (The surname comes first in j.a.panese names.)

Our route led us along the track of the new railway line which was penetrating from Kagawa into Ehime. Not for the first time on my journeys was I told of the corrupting influence exerted on the countryside by the imported "navvies," if our Western name may be applied to men who in figure and dress look so little like the big fellows who do the same kind of work in England. Although these navvies were a rough lot and our ancient _basha_ (a kind of four-wheeled covered carriage) was a thing for mirth, we met with no incivility as we picked our way among them for a mile or two. I was a witness indeed of a creditable incident. A handcart full of earth was being taken along the edge of the roadway, with one man in the shafts and another pushing behind. Suddenly a wheel slipped over the side of the roadway, the cart was canted on its axle, the man in the shafts received a jolt and the cargo was shot out. Had our sort of navvies been concerned there would have been words of heat and colour. The j.a.panese laughed.

The reference to our venerable _basha_ reminds me of a well-known story which was once told me by a j.a.panese as a specimen of j.a.panese humour. A _basha_, I may explain, has rather the appearance of a vehicle which was evolved by a j.a.panese of an economical turn after hearing a description of an omnibus from a foreigner who spoke very little j.a.panese and had not been home for forty years. The body of the vehicle is just high enough and the seats just wide enough for j.a.panese. So the foreigner continually b.u.mps the roof, and when he is not b.u.mping the roof he has much too narrow a seat to sit on.

Sometimes the _basha_ has springs of a sort and sometimes it has none.

But springs would avail little on the rural roads by which many _basha_ travel. The only tolerable place for Mr. Foreigner in a _basha_ is one of the top corner seats behind the driver, for the traveller may there throw an arm round one of the uprights which support the roof. If at an unusually hard b.u.mp he should lose his hold he is saved from being cast on the floor by the responsive bodies of his polite and sympathetic fellow-travellers who are embedded between him and the door. The tale goes that a tourist who was serving his term in a _basha_ was perplexed to find that the pa.s.sengers were charged, some first-, some second-and some third-cla.s.s fare. While he clung to his upright and shook with every lurch of the conveyance this problem of unequal fares obsessed him. It was like the persistent "punch-in-the-presence-of-the-pa.s.sengare." What possible advantage, he pondered, could he as first cla.s.s be getting over the second and the second cla.s.s over the third? At length at a steep part of the road the vehicle stopped. The driver came round, opened the door, and bowing politely said: "Honourable first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers will graciously condescend to keep their seats. Second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers will be good enough to favour us by walking. Third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers will kindly come out and push." And push they did, no doubt, kimonos rolled up thighwards, with good humour, sprightliness and cheerful grunts, as is the way with willing workers in j.a.pan.

FOOTNOTES:

[173] At Anjo agricultural experiment station I saw eighteen kinds of small threshing machines at from 13 to 18 yen. There were husking machines of three sorts. A rice thresher was equal to dealing with the crop of one _tan_, estimated at 2 _koku_ 4 _to_, in three hours.

[174] See Appendix XLVI.

[175] It is quite possible that the trees had also come into their positions artificially. There are no more skilful tree movers than the j.a.panese.

[176] It has recently come into collision with the authorities.

Another sect with Shinto ideas was also started by a woman.

[177] See Appendix XLVII.

CHAPTER XXV

"SPECIAL TRIBES"

(EHIME)

A frank basis of reality.--Meredith

In the prefecture of Ehime our journey was still by _basha_ or _kuruma_ and near the sea. The first man we talked with was a _guncho_ who said that "more than half the villages contained a strong character who can lead." He told us of one of the new religions which taught its adherents to do some good deed secretly. The people who accepted this religion mended roads, cleaned out ponds and made offerings at the graves of persons whose names were forgotten. I think it was this man who used the phrase, "There is a shortage of religions."

I had not before noticed wax trees. They are slighter than apple trees, but often occupy about the same s.p.a.ce as the old-fashioned standard apple. The cl.u.s.ters of berries have some resemblance to elderberries and would turn black if they were not picked green.[178]

Occasionally we saw fine camphor trees. Alas, owing to the high price of camphor, some beautiful specimens near shrines, where they were as imposing as cryptomeria, had been sacrificed.

I began to observe the dreadful destruction wrought in the early ear stage of rice not by cold but by wind. The wind knocks the plants against one another and the friction generates enough heat to arrest further development. The crops affected in this way were grey in patches and looked as if hot water had been sprayed over them. In one county the loss was put as high as 90 per cent. Happily farmers generally sow several sorts of rice. Therefore paddies come into ear at different times.

The heads of millet and the threshed grain of other upland crops were drying on mats by the roadside, for in the areas where land is so much in demand there is no other s.p.a.ce available. Sesame, not unlike snapdragon gone to seed, only stronger in build, was set against the houses. On the growing crops on the uplands dead stalks and chopped straw were being used as mulch.

I noticed that implements seemed always to be well housed and to be put away clean. Handcarts, boats and the stacks of poles used in making frameworks for drying rice were protected from the weather by being thatched over.

We continued to see many white-clad pilgrims and everywhere touring students, as often afoot as on bicycles. I noted from the registers at many village offices that the number of young men who married before performing their military service seemed to be decreasing. In one community, where there were two priests, one Tendai and the other Shingon, neither seemed to count for much. One was very poor, and cultivated a small patch near his temple; the other had a little more than a _cho_. The custom was for the farmers to present to their temple from 5 to 10 _sho_ of rice from the harvest.

In connection with the question of improved implements I noticed that a reasonably efficient winnowing machine in use by a comfortably-off tenant was forty-nine years old--that is, that it dated back to the time of the Shogun. The secondary industry of this farmer was dwarf-plant growing. He had also a loom for cotton-cloth making. There were in his house, in addition to a Buddhist shrine, two Shinto shrines. After leaving this man I visited an ex-teacher who had lost his post at fifty, no doubt through being unable to keep step with modern educational requirements. He had on his wall the lithograph of Pestalozzi and the children which I saw in many school-houses.

On taking the road again I was told that the local landlords had held a meeting in view of the losses of tenants through wind. Most had agreed to forgo rents and to help with artificial manure for next year. I found taro being grown in paddies or under irrigation. Not only the tubers of the taro but its finer stalks are eaten. I saw gourds cut into long lengths narrower than apple rings and put out to dry. I also noticed orange trees a century old which were still producing fruit. Boys were driving iron hoops--the native hoop was of bamboo--and one of the hoop drivers wore a piece of red cloth st.i.tched on his shoulder, which indicated that he was head of his cla.s.s. One missed a dog bounding and barking after the hoop drivers. Sometimes at the doors of houses I noticed dogs of the lap-dog type which one sees in paintings or of the wolf type to which the native outdoor dog belongs. The cats were as ugly as the dogs and no plumper or happier looking. When I patted a dog or stroked a cat the act attracted attention.

We saw a good deal of _hinoki_ (ground cypress), the wood of which is still used at Shinto festivals for making fire by friction.

We were able to visit an Eta village or rather _oaza_. Whether the Eta are largely the descendants of captives of an early era or of a low cla.s.s of people who on the introduction of Buddhism in the seventh or eighth century were ostracised because of their a.s.sociation with animal eating, animal slaughter, working in leather and grave digging is in dispute. No doubt they have absorbed a certain number of fugitives from higher grades of the population, broken samurai, ne'er-do-weels and criminals. The situation as the foreigner discovers it is that all over j.a.pan there are hamlets of what are called "special tribes." In 1876, when distinctions between them and j.a.panese generally were officially abolished, the total number was given as about a million. Most of these peculiar people, perhaps three-quarters of them, are known as Eta. But whether they are known as Eta or Shuku, or by some other name, ordinary j.a.panese do not care to eat with them, marry with them or even talk with them. In the past Eta have often been prosperous, and many are prosperous to-day, but a large number are still restricted to earning a living as butchers and skin and leather workers, and grave diggers. The members of these "special tribes," believing themselves to be despised without cause, usually make some effort to hide the fact that they are Eta.

Shuku seem to be living princ.i.p.ally in hamlets of a score or so of houses in the vicinity of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara, and are often travelling players, or, like some Eta, skilled in making tools and musical instruments. There seems to be a half Shuku or intermarried cla.s.s. Many prost.i.tutes are said to be Shuku or Eta. I was told that most of the girls in the prost.i.tutes' houses of Shimane prefecture are from "special tribes," and that they are "preferred by the proprietors" because, as I was gravely informed, "they do not weary of their profession and are therefore more acceptable to customers." As prost.i.tutes are frequently married by their patrons, it is believed that not a few women from "special villages" are taken to wife without their origin being known. Unwitting marriage with an Eta woman has long been a common motif in fiction and folk story. Many members of the "special tribes" go to Hokkaido and there pa.s.s into the general body of the population. The folk of this cla.s.s are "despised," I was told by a responsible j.a.panese, "not so much for themselves as for what their fathers and grandfathers did." The country people undoubtedly treat them more harshly than the townspeople, but a man of the "special tribes" is often employed as a watchman of fields or forests. I was warned that it was judicious to avoid using the word Eta or Shuku in the presence of common people lest one might be addressing by chance a member of the "special tribes."

Except that the houses of the village we were visiting looked possibly a trifle more primitive than those of the non-Eta population outside the _oaza_, I did not discern anything different from what I saw elsewhere. The people were of the Shinshu sect; there was no Shinto shrine. At the public room I noticed the gymnastic apparatus of the "fire defenders." The hamlet was traditionally 300 years old and one family was still recognised as chief. According to the constable, who eagerly imparted the information, the crops were larger than those of neighbouring villages "because the people, male and female, are always diligent."

The man who was brought forward as the representative of the village was an ex-soldier and seemed a quiet, able and self-respecting but sad human being. His house and holding were in excellent order. None of his neighbours smiled on us. Some I thought went indoors needlessly; a few came as near to glowering as can be expected in j.a.pan. I got the impression that the people were cared for but were conscious of being "hauden doon" or kept at arm's length.[179]

Our next stop was for a rest in a fine garden, the effect of which was spoilt in one place by a distressing life-size statue of the owner's father. When we took to our _kuruma_ again we pa.s.sed through a village at the approaches to which thick straw ropes such as are seen at shrines had been stretched across the road. Charms were attached. The object was to keep off an epidemic.

The indigo leaves drying on mats in front of some of the cottages were a delight to the eye. There were also mats covered with cotton which looked like fluffy coc.o.o.ns. On the telegraph wires, the poles of which all over j.a.pan take short cuts through the paddies, swallows cl.u.s.tered as in England, but it is to the South Seas, not to Africa, that the j.a.panese swallow migrates. When the telegraph was a newer feature of the j.a.panese landscape than it is now swallows on the wires were a favourite subject for young painters.

We crossed a dry river bed of considerable width at a place where the current had made an excavation in the gravel, rocks and earth several yards deep. It was an impressive ill.u.s.tration of the power of a heavy flood.

I found in one mountainous county that only about a sixth of the area was under cultivation. A responsible man said: "This is a county of the biggest landlords and the smallest tenants. Too many landowners are thinking of themselves, so there arise sometimes severe conflicts.

Some 4,000 tenants have gone to Hokkaido." The conversation got round to the young men's societies and I was told a story of how an Eta village threatened by floods had been saved by the young men of the neighbouring non-Eta village working all night at a weakened embankment. Some days later an Eta deputation came to the village and "with tears in their eyes gave thanks for what had been done." The comment of a j.a.panese friend was: "In the present state of j.a.pan hypocrisy may be valuable. The boys and the Eta were at least exercising themselves in virtue."