The Foundations of Japan Part 27

THE SOUTH-WEST OF j.a.pAN

CHAPTER XXVII

UP-COUNTRY ORATORY

(YAMAGUCHI)

I have confidence, which began with hope and strengthens with experience, that humanity is gaining in the stores of mind.--MEREDITH

The main street of an Inland Sea island we visited was 4 ft. wide.

Because it was the eve of a festival the old folk were at home "observing their taboo." The islander who had been the first among the inhabitants to visit a foreign country was only fifty. The local policeman made us a gift of pears when we left.

At another primitive island querns were in use and "ordinary families"

were "only beginning to indulge in tombstones." In contrast with this, the constable told us that a small condensed-milk factory had been started. (This constable was a fine, dignified-looking fellow, but so poor that his toes were showing through his blue cloth _tabi_.) The condensed-milk factory must have been responsible for some surprises to the cows when they were first milked in its interests. I heard a tale of the first milking of an elderly cow. She had ploughed paddies, carried hay and other things and had drawn a cart. But it took five men and a woman to persuade her that to be milked into a clay pot was a reasonable thing.

The third island we explored lies in such a situation in the Inland Sea that sailing ships used to be glad to shelter under it while waiting for a favourable wind. Someone had the evil thought of providing it with prost.i.tutes, and, until steam began to take the place of sails, the number of these women established in the island was large. Even now, although the whole population numbers only a hundred families, there are thirty women of bad character. These poor creatures were conspicuous because of their bright clothing and dewomanised look. A scrutiny of the islanders old and young yielded the impression that the whole place was suffering from its peculiar traffic. There were two houses, one for registering the women and the other for investigating their state of health, and the purpose of the buildings was bluntly proclaimed on the nameboards at their doors.

When we got out to sea again the newest j.a.panese battleship doing her trials was pointed out to me, but I was more interested in a large fishing boat running before the wind. A st.u.r.dy woman was at the helm and her naked young family was sprawling about the craft.

Someone spoke of villagers of the mainland "failing to realise that they now possessed the privilege of self-government." I was reminded of the pleasant way of the headman of a village a.s.sembly in the Loochoos, j.a.pan's oldest outlying possession. He a.s.sembles or used to a.s.semble his colleagues in his courtyard and appear there with a draft of proposed legislation. They bowed and departed and the Bill had become an Act.

Although we were already within the territorial waters of Hiroshima prefecture, we determined not to make the mainland at once but to stay the night at the famous island which is called both Miyajima (shrine island) and Itsukushima (taboo island), and is considered to be one of the three most noteworthy sights in j.a.pan. Photographs and drawings of the shrine with its red colonnades on piles by the sh.o.r.e and its big red _torii_ standing in the sea are as familiar as representations of Fuji. It used to be the custom to prevent as far as possible births and deaths occurring on the island. Even now, funerals, dogs and kuruma are prohibited. The iron lanterns of the shrine and galleries and a hundred more in the pine tree-studded approaches are undoubtedly "a most magnificent spectacle at full tide on a moonless night"; but what of the subservience to the profitable foreign tourist seen in this shrine notice?--

_Zori_ (straw sandals), _geta_ (wooden pattens) and all footgear _except shoes and boots_ are forbidden.

One is attracted by the idea of listening to music and watching dances which came from afar in the seventh or eighth centuries, but the business-like tariff,

Ordinary music, 12 sen to 5 yen, Special music and dance, 10 yen and upwards, Lighting all lanterns, 9 yen,

is calculated to take one out of the atmosphere of Hearn's dreams. The deities of the shrine get along as best they can with the raucous sirens of the tourist steamers, the din of the motor boats and the boom of the big guns which are hidden at the back of the island and make of Miyajima and its vicinity "a strategic zone" in which photography, sketching or the too a.s.siduous use of a notebook is forbidden. Alas, I had myself arrived in a steamer which blew its siren loudly, and in the morning I crossed from the holy isle to the mainland in a motor launch.

The name of Yamaguchi prefecture, which is at the extreme end of the mainland and has the sea to the south, the east and the north, is not so familiar as the name of its port, Shimoneseki. It was mentioned to me that the farmers of Yamaguchi worked a smaller number of days than in Ehime, possibly only a hundred in the year. The comment of my companion, who had visited a great deal of rural j.a.pan, was that 150 full days' work was the average for the whole country.[185]

I was told that here as elsewhere there was an unsound tendency to turn sericulture from a secondary into a primary industry. "Experts are not always expert," confessed an official. "Our farmers have had bitter experience. Experts come who have learnt only from books or in other districts, so they give unsuitable counsel. Then they leave the prefecture for other posts before the results of their unwisdom are apparent."

The same official told me of a "little famine" in one county which had imprudently concentrated its attention on the production of grape fruit to the annual value of about a million yen. When a storm came one spring there was almost a total loss. "The river and the sea were covered with fruit, fishing was interfered with, and the county town complained of the smell of the rotting fruit." It seems that many of the suffering orange growers were samurai who found fruit farming a more gentlemanly pursuit than the management of paddies. Like rural amateurs everywhere, "some of them would do better if they knew more about the working of the land."

Rice was being a.s.sailed by a pest which survived in the straw stack and had done damage in the prefecture to the amount of 30,000 yen.

In this prefecture and two others during our tour my companion delivered addresses to farmers under the auspices of the National Agricultural a.s.sociation. The burden of his talk was their duty as agriculturists in the new conditions which were opening for the nation. His three audiences numbered about 700, 1,000 and 1,500. They were composed largely of picked men. At the first gathering the audience squatted; at the next chairs were provided; at the third there were school forms with backs. What I particularly noticed was the easy-going way in which the meetings were conducted. No gathering began exactly at the time announced, although one of the audiences had been encouraged to be in time by the promise of a gift of mottoes to the first hundred arrivals. At each meeting the Governor of the prefecture was the first speaker. At one meeting the Governor arrived about 8.30 a.m., made his speech and departed. When my friend had been introduced to various people in the anteroom, had drunk tea and had smoked and chatted a little, he was taken to the platform half an hour or three quarters after the conclusion of the Governor's speech.

Nothing had happened at the meeting in the interval. The idea was that the wait would help the audience's digestion of the speech it had had and the speech it was going to have. There was no formal introduction of the orator. He just mounted the platform and spoke for two hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT. p. 113]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AUTHOR ADDRESSING, THROUGH AN INTERPRETER, LAFCADIO HEARN DEATH-DAY MEETING AT MATSUE. p. 253]

At the second meeting the Governor awaited our arrival but "went on" alone. The star speaker meanwhile refreshed himself in the anteroom with tea, tobacco and conversation as before. In a few minutes the Governor, having done his turn, rejoined us, and my friend proceeded to the meeting to deliver his speech, the Governor taking his departure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE. p. 378]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAVESTONES REa.s.sEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT. p. 72]

At the third meeting the Governor and the speaker of the day did enter the hall together, but before the Governor had finished his introductory harangue my companion took himself off to the anteroom to refresh himself with a cigar and a chat. When the Governor concluded and returned to the anteroom there was conversation for a few minutes, and then my friend and his Excellency went into the meeting together.

This time the Governor stayed to the end.

In his three speeches my friend said many moving things and his audiences were appreciative. But no one presumed to interrupt with applause. At the end, however, there was a hearty round of hand-clapping, now a general custom at public gatherings. On the conclusion of each of his addresses the orator stepped down from the platform and made off to the hall, for no one dreamt of asking questions. When he was gone an official expressed the thanks of the audience and there was another round of applause. Then everybody connected with the arrangement of the meeting gathered in the anteroom and one after the other made appreciative speeches and bows. I marvelled at the orator's toughness. Before he went on the platform he had been pestered with unending introductions and beset by conversation. But I do not know that my friend felt any strain. Nor did the fashion in which the speakers wandered on and off the platform, and thus, according to our notions, did their utmost to damp the enthusiasm of the meetings, seem to have any such effect. Once in an oculist's consulting clinic in Tokyo I was struck by the fact that when water was squirted into the eyes of a succession of patients of both s.e.xes and various ages, they did not wince as Western people would have done.

I was told that school fees go up a little when the price of rice is high; also of the "negatively good" effects of young men's a.s.sociations. During the period of our tour efforts were being made to systematise these organisations. The Department of Agriculture wanted a farmer at the head of each society, the War Office an ex-soldier.

There can be no doubt that the militarists have been doing their best to give the societies the mental att.i.tude of the army.

In the country we were entering, the horse had taken the place of the ox as the beast of burden. Two men of some authority in the prefecture agreed that it was difficult to think of tracts in the south-west that would be suitable for cattle grazing. There was certainly no "square _ri_ where the price of land was low enough to keep sheep." As to cattle breeding and forestry, one of them must give way. It was necessary to keep immense areas under evergreen wood for the defence of the country against floods. With regard to the areas available for afforestation, for cattle keeping and for cultivation respectively, it was necessary to be on one's guard against "experts" who were disposed to claim all available land for their specialties.

When we took to an automobile for the first stage of our long journey through Yamaguchi and Shimane--the railway came no farther than the city of Yamaguchi--I noticed that just as the bridges are often without parapets, the roads winding round the cliffs were, as in f.u.kushima, unprotected by wall or rail. This was due, no doubt, to considerations of economy, to a widely diffused sense of responsibility which makes people look after their own safety, and also, in some degree, to stout j.a.panese nerves. That our driver's nerves were sound enough was shown by the speed at which he drove the heavy car round sharp corners and down slippery descents where we should have dropped a few hundred feet had we gone over.

At our first stopping-place I saw a photograph showing a Shinshu priest engaged with the girl pupils of a Buddhist school in tree planting. Our talk here was about the low incomes on which people contrive to live. A little more than a quarter of a century ago the family of a friend of mine, now of high rank, was living in a county town on 5 yen a month! There were two adults and three children. Rent was 1.20 yen and rice came to 1.80 yen. Even to-day an ex-Minister may have only 1,500 yen a year. Many ex-Governors are living quietly in villages. We went to call upon one of them who was getting great satisfaction out of his few _tan_. Among other things he told us was that there were five doctors and one midwife in the community. These doctors do not possess a Tokyo qualification. They have qualified by being taught by their fathers or by some other pract.i.tioner, and they are ent.i.tled to practise in their own village and in, perhaps, a neighbouring one.

It was thoughtless of me, after inquiring about the doctors, to ask about the gravedigger. I was told that when there was no member of a "special tribe" available it was the duty of neighbours to dig graves.

A community's displeasure was marked by neighbours refraining from helping to dig an unpopular person's grave. (One might have expected to hear that such a grave would be dug with alacrity.) Families which had run counter to public opinion had had to "apologise" before they could get neighbourly help at the burial of their dead.

Only one family in the village, I learnt from the headman, was being helped from public funds. This family consisted of an old man and his daughter, who, owing to the attendance her father required, could not go out to work. The village provided a small house and three pints of rice daily. The headman in his private capacity gave the girl, with the a.s.sistance of some friends, straw rope-making to do and paid a somewhat higher price than is usual.

Of last year's births in the village 10 per cent. had been legally and 5 per cent. actually illegitimate. Four or five births had occurred a few months after marriage.

We ate our lunch in the headman's room in the village office. Hanging from the ceiling was a sealed envelope to be opened on receipt of a telegram. Some member of the village staff always slept in that room.

The envelope contained instructions to be acted upon if mobilisation took place.

When we had gone on some distance I stopped to watch a farmer's wife and daughter threshing in a barn by pulling the rice through a row of steel teeth, the simple form of threshing implement which is seen in slightly different patterns all over j.a.pan. (It is the successor of a contrivance of bamboo stakes.) The women told me that one person could thresh fourteen bushels a day. The implement cost 2-1/2 yen from travelling vendors but only 1-1/2 yen from the co-operative society.

While we talked the farmer appeared. I apologised to him for unwittingly stepping on the threshold of the barn--that is, the grooved timber in which the sliding doors run. It is considered to be an insult to the head of the house to tread on the threshold as in some way "standing on the householder's head."

This man had a bamboo plantation, and he told me, in reply to a question, that the bamboo would shoot up at the rate of more than a foot in twenty-four hours. (During the month in which this is dictated I have measured the growth of a shoot of a Dorothy Perkins climber and find that it averages about quarter of an inch in twenty-four hours.)

FOOTNOTES:

[185] See Appendix XII.

CHAPTER XXVIII

MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES

(SHIMANE)

Nothing but omniscience could suffice to answer all the questions implicitly raised.--J.G. FRAZER

When we descended from the hills we were in Shimane, a long, narrow, coastwise prefecture through which one travels over a succession of heights to the capital, Matsue, situated at the far end. Two-thirds of the journey must be made on foot and by _kuruma_.[186] Some talk by the way was about the farmers going five or six miles daily to the hills to cut gra.s.s for their "cattle," the average number of cattle per farmer being 1.3 hereabouts. It seemed strange to see buckwheat at the flowering stage reached by the crops seen in f.u.kushima several months before. The explanation was that buckwheat is sown both in spring and autumn.