Learning from shogun_txt
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This document provides an introduction and overview of the book "Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy". It discusses how James Clavell's novel Shogun has educated many people about Japanese history and culture. The book contains essays that analyze Shogun as both a work of fantasy and as a representation of historical events in 16th century Japan. It aims to help readers learn more about the actual history behind Clavell's fictional story.
![PREFACE
xiv historical inquiry. In a related way, this immensely influential novel We have spelled all Japanese words according to modern romani- xv
about Japan should encourage academic specialists to rethink some zation, which is sometimes different from (and often less historically
basic issues of communication: Who is our audience? What are we accurate than) some of the older forms that appear in Sh gun (such
trying to say? And how are we trying to say it? as Yedo for Edo [the modern Tokyo], or Kwanto for Kanto). As
Finally, we should mention that we have not attempted any Susan Matisoff points out in Chapter 9, the long mark over certain
explicit approach to Sh gun as literature, since we were interested Japanese vowels (calling for a longer duration, not a change in
primarily in what the novel had to suggest about cross-cultural learn- sound) is an important part of the spelling, and we have included it
ing and historical change. We certainly recognize, however, that except for such familiar place names as Kyoto and Osaka (properly
Sh gun is a work of fiction, and those tempted to be disparaging Ky to and saka) and except for those words which have passed
might refresh themselves with a reading of Prince Genji’s famous into the English language (such as ‘daimyo’ and ‘shogun’, which
defense of the art of fiction in The Tale of Genji (c. A. D. 1000): appear in roman letters rather than italics). An exception to the
If it weren’t for old romances like this, how on earth would you get through exception is the title Sh gun itself, which, following the cover design
these long tedious days when time moves so slowly? And besides, 1 realize of the novel, we have treated as a Japanese word, maintaining the
that many of these works, full of fabrications though they are, do succeed in long mark. Japanese names appear, as in Sh gun, in Japanese order,
evoking the emotion of things in a most realistic way. One event follows with the family name first. All page references to Sh gun appear in
plausibly on another, and in the end we cannot help being moved by the italics and correspond to the Dell paperback edition. Most quota-
story, even though we know what foolishness it all really is. Thus, when we tions from James Clavell are from a conversation with the authors
read about the ordeals of some delightful princess in a romance, we may find in May 1980; a few are from NBC press releases, June 1980.
ourselves actually entering into the poor girl’s feelings. (Ivan Morris, The This book would not have been possible without the generous
World of the Shining Prince, p. 315) support of the organizations listed opposite the title page. The editor
We have also tried to bear in mind Genji’s further observation that is grateful to Shelley Brody for editorial help and to Mary Dumont
the author of fiction “certainly does not write about specific peo- for research assistance. Frank Gibney of the Pacific Basin Institute
ple, recording all the actual circumstances of their lives. Rather it is in Santa Barbara has offered encouragement and administrative
a matter of his being so moved by things, good or bad, which he support. Peter Grilli, director of education for the Japan Society of
has heard and seen happening to men and women that he cannot New York, has been of continuing assistance throughout the proj-
keep it to himself but wants to commit it to writing and make it ect; we are particularly indebted to the Japan Society for undertak-
known to other people.” ing the distribution of this book. Finally, I owe a note of personal
Finally, we promised James Clavell that he could have the last thanks to the forty-odd students of History 187A, “The Era of
word: when our conversation with him in May 1980 turned to the Sh gun” in Spring 1980 at the University of California, Santa Bar-
question of how he could so vividly portray what happened in bara. Their enthusiastic and challenging response did much to con-
Japan in the year 1600, he said, “You can say whatever you like, vince me that both student and scholar can indeed learn a great deal
but in the end you should say: he must have been there!” from Sh gun,
Our last and most important acknowledgment is to James Clavell
himself, who was gracious enough to meet with five of the authors
Although this book was written in anticipation of the television on May 16, 1980 (appropriately enough, the 360th anniversary of
adaptation of Sh gun scheduled for September 1980, we have the death of William Adams) and to talk about his views on Japa-
addressed ourselves to the novel alone. Even though we were able nese culture and his intentions in writing the novel. We hope that
to see a filmscript of the TV series through the courtesy of Para- we have respected his claim that “I am a storyteller, not an his-
mount Studios, we were not able to preview the film series itself. In torian,” although one of the lessons of Sh gun is that perhaps his-
any event, it has been our feeling that only the novel is appropriate torians and storytellers need not be such different breeds as they
for learning purposes, since it is (to use one of James Clavell’s appear to be today.
favorite words) “finite”: it is cheap, portable, and easily available.
Most of what we say about the novel will apply to the film; we have Henry Smith
made note of obvious exceptions. Santa Barbara, California
August 1980](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-7-320.jpg)
![SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI
2 romantic retelling constitutes a full-blown modern legend, leads to three initial meetings with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Although written in a 3
a better appreciation of the historical place of Sh gun. formal and reportorial style (the letter to his wife is notably lacking
in any note of real personal feeling), the letters of William Adams
The Historical William Adams are fascinating reading. In the 1611 letter, Adams introduces him-
Three historical coincidences serve to explain the enduring appeal self, not without a hint of pride:
of the story of William Adams. First, he was undeniably the “first
... I am a Kentish man, borne in a towne called Gillingham, two English
Englishman in Japan,” indeed probably the first Englishman to miles from Rochester, one mile from Chattam, where the Kings ships doe
settle in Asia, a fact of considerable importance in the context of lye: from the age of twelue yeares olde, I was brought vp in Limehouse neere
the history of the British Empire, of which Adams tends to become London, being Apprentice twelue yeares to Master Nicholas Diggines; and
a sort of symbolic founding father. This has led to his frequent my selfe haue serued for Master and Pilott in her Maiesties ships; and about
commemoration within the narrow context of modern Anglo- eleuen or twelue years haue serued the Worshipfull Companie of the
Japanese diplomatic and cultural relations, but also more broadly Barbarie Marchants, vntill the Indish traffick from Holland began, in which
as a symbol of the enduring self-ascribed values of the Anglo- Indish traffick I was desirous to make a littel experience of the small
Saxon in Asia: manliness, fair-mindedness, a sense of adventure, knowledg which God had geven me. So, in the yeare of our Lord 1598, I was
bravery, and a dedication to the principles of free enterprise and hired for Pilot Maior of a fleete of five sayle, which was made readie by the
free trade. [Dutch] Indish Companie ...
Secondly, one is struck by the coincidence of the timing of And to this about all that might be added is that Nicholas Diggins
Adams’ arrival in Japan, in the spring of 1600, a momentous year (whom James Clavell transformed into Alban Caradoc) was a well-
in the course of Japanese history. For it was six months later, at the known shipbuilder of his day, that Adams is known to have sailed
Battle of Sekigahara, that Tokugawa Ieyasu established a decisive against the Spanish Armada, and that he left a wife and two chil-
hegemony over all Japan and began the process of solidifying the dren in England. From the symmetrical division of his life into three
regime which he and his thirteen successors as shogun would per- twelve-year terms, we see that he was about age thirty-six on arriv-
petuate for over two and a half centuries. It almost seems as though ing in Japan.
fate were at work to join the destinies of the symbolic progenitor of In both letters, Adams then recounts the hazardous journey of
a great Asian colonial empire and the actual progenitor of one of the Dutch fleet which left Rotterdam in June 1598 in an effort to
Asia’s most durable national regimes. reach the West Indies via the Straits of Magellan and challenge the
The final coincidence is that what we know about the real William Portuguese trading empire there. Following a difficult winter in the
Adams is just enough in terms of the possibilities for imaginative Straits, the fleet moved on into the Pacific in late August of 1599
historical fiction. It is actually quite coincidental that we know any- and was there separated by storms. The De Liefde, of which Adams
thing much about Adams at all, since almost all the information was pilot, proceeded alone up the coast of Chile, surviving various
comes from six letters which he wrote back to England and which encounters with suspicious Indians and hostile Spaniards. Finally
miraculously survived among the records of the British East India in late November, they rendezvoused with the one other ship of the
Company. Scattered other bits of information are available from fleet which had survived the storms, the flagship Hoop. They then
the correspondence and diaries of other Englishmen in Japan in the decided to make for Japan, according to Adams, on the grounds
years 1613-20, and a few more details from Japanese records, but that its northerly latitude would make it a more promising market
all add up to more of an outline for a character than a full historical for their cargo than the Indies, which “were hot countreyes, where
personality. woolen cloth would not be much accepted.”
Of Adams’ four surviving letters, the first two are the most About two months later, halfway across the Pacific, in February
important, one dated October 1611 and addressed “TO MY 1600, the De Liefde was separated in another storm from its remain-
VNKNOWNE FRINDS AND COUNTRI-MEN,” and the other an ing partner, of which no more was heard. They doggedly continued
undated fragment of a letter to his wife. The two letters differ con- on their journey to Japan, supplies dwindling and sickness spread-
spicuously in a number of details (suggesting that they were written ing, finally sighting land in mid-April (the exact date differing in
at quite different times, the one to his wife presumably earlier) but the two letters) off the province of Bungo in northeast Kyushu. By
they both essentially tell of his voyage to Japan, of his first recep- this time, only twenty-four men of an original crew of over a hun-
tion there, and, in the 1611 letter, a few details of his fate after the dred were alive, and of these only seven were able to walk—three](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-9-320.jpg)
![SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI
4 more were to die a day later, and another three shortly after. The • that Ieyasu awarded him an estate in the village of Hemimura 5
curious Japanese who met them “offered us no hurt, but stole all (part of the modern naval port of Yokosuka), valued at about 250
things they could steale.” The real threat came about a week later, koku (a unit measuring the income of land in rice, about five
when “there came a Portugall Iesuite, with other Portugals, who bushels) and with some hundred peasants under his jurisdiction.
reported of vs, that we were pirats, and were not in the way of • that he was known by the Japanese as “Anjin-sama,” or “The
marchandizing.” Pilot”; he came eventually to be known by the surname Miura,
But somehow Adams managed to survive not only the slander of the peninsula south of Edo where his estate was located.
the Portuguese, but also the treachery of two members of his crew,
• that he either purchased or was given a house in downtown Edo,
and soon found himself being transported to Osaka to meet with
in an area which became known as “Anjin Street” sometime after
the “king”—who turned out to be Tokugawa Ieyasu. Adams was
his death, remaining so until the 1930s.
chosen as natural leader of the group because of his ability to speak
Portuguese and because Captain Jacob Quaeckernaeck was too • that he built two English-style ships at the request of Ieyasu, one
sick to move. of 80 tons and one of 120 tons (slightly less than the 150-ton De
Adams met with Ieyasu in Osaka on three occasions in May and Liefde), the latter of which eventually passed into Spanish hands
June of 1600, and his descriptions of these interviews provide the and plied regularly between Acapulco and Manila.
most fascinating and historically exciting vignettes of the entire • that he was active in setting up and working for the English trad-
William Adams story. In Adams’ own words to his wife: ing station in Hirado (on Kyushu) from 1613 until his death in
Comming before the king, he viewed me well, and seemed to be wonderfull
1620.
fauourable. He made many signes vnto me, some of which I vnderstood, and • that he married a Japanese woman, apparently the daughter of a
some I did not. In the end, there came one that could speake Portuges. [This prominent Edo inn-keeper named Magome Kageyu, and that they
person may in fact have been Joao Rodrigues, the model for Father Alvito in had two children, Joseph and Susan—although none of the
Sh gun,] By him, the king demanded of me, of what land I was, and what descendants has ever been traced.
mooued vs to come to his land, being so farre off. I shewed vnto him the
• that he died in Hirado May 16, 1620, and by his will provided
name of our countrey, and that our land had long sought out the East Indies,
and desired friendship with all kinds and potentates in way of marchandize, both for his Japanese family and for his wife and daughter
hauing in our land diuerse commodities, which these lands had not .... Then whom he had left behind in England.
he asked whether our countrey had warres? I answered him yea, with the
Spaniards and Portugals, beeing in peace with all other nations. Further, he Some Questions About William Adams
asked me, in what I did beleeue? I said, in God, that made heauen and earth. From these various facts, we can see that William Adams did
He asked me diverse other questions of things of religion, and many other indeed lead a fascinating career, and that he was in a position of
things: As what way we came to the country. Hauing a chart of the whole considerable importance to the Tokugawa shogunate—although it
world, I shewed him, through the Strait of Magellan. At which he wondred, appears that he fell into increasing disfavor after the death of Ieyasu
and thought me to lie. Thus, from one thing to another, I abode with him till in 1615. But there remains a great deal we do not know about
mid-night. Adams, offering much latitude for fertile imaginations. Let us see
From this point, our detailed knowledge of William Adams what the record does offer, however, about four particularly inter-
becomes progressively sparser, and the opportunity for romancers esting issues:
to embroider becomes correspondingly greater. His wife’s letter 1. What sort of a man was he? From the tone of his letters and
goes only as far as a second interview with Ieyasu. The other letter from reports of his English contemporaries, it would appear that
briefly mentions a third interview, then says that he was sent to Edo Adams was a self-sufficient and standoffish man in personality,
by sea, probably sometime in July. Adams’ narrative at this point quite formal in his relations with others. His letters suggest he was
abruptly switches to a time frame of years rather than weeks, and nothing less than a devout Christian. He was originally hostile to
about all we know of him, through this account and through other the Jesuits for their opposition to him, but later had friendly deal-
bits of information, is essentially the following: ings with them. In terms of his basic instincts, he was first and fore-
most a man of commerce, eager to help develop trading relations
• that he became a fairly trusted adviser of Tokugawa Ieyasu on between Japan and the Protestant nations.
matters of commercial policy with the Protestant nations.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-10-320.jpg)
![SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI
6 2. Did he become thoroughly acculturated to Japanese life? or advisory function. Such men were basically anomalies within the 7
While Adams’ letters give no indication of any special infatuation official Tokugawa four-class hierarchy of samurai-peasant-artisan-
with Japanese customs, he does provide this one revealing estima- merchant. They were known generically as hogaimono, “those out-
tion of Japanese culture: side of the [normal] way,” a term applied primarily to priests, who
had presumably renounced the ordinary world, but extended to
The people of this Hand of Iapon are good of nature, curteous aboue
other anomalous categories. Their privileges were also non-
measure, and valiant in warre: their iustice is seuerely excecuted without any
partialitie vpon transgressors of the law. They are gouerned in great ciuili-
standard: doctors, for example, were permitted to wear two
tie. I meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by ciuill policie. The swords, but in no sense were they considered samurai. When
people be verie superstitious in their religion, and are of diuers opinions. employed by the shogunate such men often had far easier access to
the shogun than even high-ranking daimyo, precisely because of
He clearly respected the Japanese, an attitude that caused consider- their advisory function. So it was surely into this anomalous class
able friction between Adams and Captain John Saris, who arrived that Adams would have fit: it is almost inconceivable that any
in Japan in 1613 to open an English trading station. Saris noted, to Japanese would have considered him a samurai. At best he was an
his annoyance, that Adams persisted in giving “admirable and “honorary samurai.” As for the status of hatamoto, which was a
affectionated commendatyons” of Japan, so that “It is generally specific rank among the retainers of the shogun, there is no docu-
thought emongest vs that he is a naturalised Japanner.” More spe- mentary record for Adams, although a fief of 250 koku might
cifically, Adams refused to stay in Saris’ English-style quarters in barely have qualified him for such status. Again, he was probably
Hirado, preferring the residence of a local Japanese magistrate. We considered simply the anomaly that in fact he was, a well-paid
also have testimony that Adams wore Japanese dress, and of course foreign expert not unlike the “yatoi” of Meiji Japan (described in
he became fluent in the Japanese language. H. J. Jones’ recent book Live Machines).
3. Did he strongly influence Tokugawa Ieyasu? It is here that the
enthusiasm of later panegyrists and novelists—including, of The Romance of “Will” Adams
course, James Clavell—has outstripped the sketchy available evi- In all records from his lifetime, Adams was never known as any-
dence. Adams was indeed an adviser to Ieyasu, and apparently a thing but “William” (although his family name does vary, from
trusted one, but one must remember that Ieyasu had many pro- Adams to Addames to Addams, all common in an era of unstand-
fessional advisers, including a number of foreigners. Indeed, one of ardized spelling). It remained for an obscure writer of adventure
Adams’ shipmates, the Dutchman Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn stories for youth, William Dalton (1821-75), to provide the famil-
(c. 1560-1623), also became a confidant of the shogun, and was iarizing touch of “Will” in what was to be the first of six novels
likewise given a house in Edo—in a distinctly better part of town over the next century based on Adams’ story: Will Adams, The
than Adams, along what came to be called, after its Dutch resident, First Englishman in Japan: A Romantic Biography, published in
the “Yayosu Quay” (and today “Yaesu-cho”). It is highly unlikely London in 1861.
that the relationship between Adams and Ieyasu was ever one of In the almost two and a half centuries between his death and
great intimacy. Still, who knows . . . ? Dalton’s “romantic” revival, Adams had not been completely
4. Did he become a samurai? If by “samurai” we mean a bushi, forgotten by his countrymen, for his all-important letters were pub-
a member of the warrior class, then the answer must certainly be lished twice. The first was in Samuel Purchas’ remarkable early
no, Adams never became a samurai. It is true that he was provided seventeenth-century compendium of accounts of Elizabethan over-
an estate by Ieyasu, for whom he thereby became a retainer. It is seas adventurers, known by its full grandiose title as Hakluytus
also true, according to the account of the chief of the English trad- Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes; Contayning a History of the
ing station, that he left two swords—the customary mark of samu- World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and
rai status—to his son Joseph at his death. Yet in no surviving Others (London, 1625). Here, a scant five years after Adams’
records has any hint of military interest or prowess been ascribed to death, four of his letters were preserved for posterity, and he was
Adams. He remained a dedicated man of commerce—a calling enshrined as one of the adventurous “pilgrims” of England’s great
which was anathema to the bushi class. age of seaborne expansion. Nothing was heard of Adams for over
Adams’ status can be more persuasively explained as akin to doc- two centuries until Thomas Rundall reprinted the letters (with some
tors, scholars, priests, artists, and others of essentially professional corrections of Purchas’ versions) in 1850, together with some early](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-11-320.jpg)
![SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI
10 immediately following the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, a monuments, first a cenotaph at Hemimura in 1917, then an obelisk 11
pivotal event in the modern diplomacy of East Asia by which Japan in his native Gillingham in 1934, and in 1947 a marker in It , where
achieved the diplomatic equality and military security which had been Adams built the two ships for Ieyasu.
her major national goals ever since the imposition of the unequal
treaty system in the 1850s. Enter the British Samurai
It should be no surprise that “Will” Adams, by now well-known as Just at the time that official diplomatic ties between Japan and
the “first Englishman in Japan,” was summoned forth as the symbolic England were souring in the 1930s because of Japan’s continental
progenitor of the twentieth-century alliance of Japan and England. This expansion, further development of the Will Adams legend was sal-
status was eloquently conferred in a revealing speech at the Japan Society vaged by novelists, first in Richard Blaker’s The Needlewatcher
of London in February 1904 (published in the Society’s Transactions (London, 1932, now available in a 1973 Tuttle reprint with an added
and Proceedings, vol. 6) by Arthur Diosy. Entitled “In Memory of Will subtitle, “The Will Adams Story, British Samurai”), and then in
Adams,” the talk introduces Adams as a man who “lived in Japan for James Scherer’s Pilot and Sh gun (Tokyo, 1935).
twenty years, attaining to a position of great influence and dignity, and Of the two, Blaker’s recreation is by far the more detailed and
died in the land where he had so well represented the best qualities of conscientious. Indeed, The Needlewatcher (that is, a pilot, the
his race.” After a detailed account of Adams through his letters, Diosy “needle” being that of a compass) is clearly the most distinguished
sums up the man as: in literary merit of all the Will Adams novels. Richard Blaker
. .. a good Briton, and very probably a great Briton; a man who never (1893-1940) was a talented and respected English writer, born in
did aught in Japan to disgrace his country’s flag; a man who, on the India the son of a high colonial official. Wounded in World War I,
contrary, taught the Japanese much that was new and useful—a man he went on to write Medal Without Bar (1930), a much-praised
who taught them how to build ships in the European way, and indeed novel based on his wartime experience. His version of the Will
may well be said to have founded that glorious Japanese Navy which has Adams story is without doubt the least romantic of the lot; indeed
just given us again proof of its excellence. It is, perhaps, not too great a he contributed more to the de-mythification of Adams than to his
stretch of imagination to picture the spirit of Will Adams looking down continuing glorification, producing a carefully historical work of
[from his grave] on the Bay of Yokosuka, the Chatham of Japan, on the fiction. Pilot and Sh gun is more a pastiche of incidents than
splendid battleships and cruisers that lie there flying the flag of the a novel, put together in a light-hearted manner. James Scherer
Rising Sun. (1870-1944) first went to Japan around the turn of the century as a
The naval “proof” which Diosy mentions is none other than the missionary-teacher, and later became a distinguished American
surprise Japanese attack on Port Arthur which began the Russo- educator, serving at Cal Tech in Pasadena from 1908 to 1926. He
Japanese War, victory in which was the final step in establishing Japan retained a lifelong interest in Japan, and his retelling of the Will
as a full-fledged member of the imperialist club of nations. Note that in Adams story was one of his many books on Japan.
Diosy’s account Will Adams takes on two basic roles. First, in a spirit Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of both Blaker’s and
akin to Dalton’s hero, he is a worthy representative of the “qualities of Scherer’s novels is the emphasis on the cultural confrontation of
his race”—no hint is made of his possible acculturation to Japanese Will Adams with Japan, and in both he is clearly described as meta-
ways. Second, he is a teacher of Japan in the area of technology, morphosing into a full-fledged samurai, something quite different
and, in particular, he is apotheosized as “the father of the Japanese from the lofty “lord” which Dalton envisioned. It is from this time
Navy.” Historically, this is pretty far-fetched, but the symbolism was that the concept of the “British samurai” begins to take root, an
appropriate in the year 1904. Such doctoring of the Will Adams story idea which would see its fullest development in Sh gun.
fits nicely with another image common in those years, the idea of One would have thought that Blaker and Scherer would have
Japan as “The Britain of the East.” In other words, the common military exhausted the market for the Will Adams story but, if so, not for
and diplomatic interests of Japan and England take precedence over long, considering the dampening effect of the Pacific War. The
any lingering cultural differences. This symbolic position of Adams as next version was a curious book by an American writer, Robert
forefather of modern British diplomacy in East Asia has been Lund, entitled Daishi-san (New York, 1960). In an author’s note,
confirmed periodically in the twentieth century by the raising of Lund provides a revealing explanation of the appeal of the Will
Adams story: “In Will Adams’ life and times I felt a close parallel
with our own life and times. I tried to keep the story simple, seeking](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-13-320.jpg)
![PLATH: JAPAN AND JAWPEN
22 can happen again. Not that we can turn back the pages of history. still like to include a section on Topsy-Turvy Land. A Japanese car- 23
It is rather that the basic principles of Jawpenese society, its life- penter, for example, uses saws and planes that cut when you draw
giving myths, are not just a fantasy but are within the realm of them toward you—where ours cut when you push away. But
human possibility. A better civilization could be built around them the reversals seem to become fewer day to day; the Japanese
in the future. even mount their horses from the left nowadays, as astute
If a cultural opposite is to keep on attracting us, it has to remain observers of the TV version of Sh gun may notice.
distant. When people begin to behave pretty much like neighbors, It’s not easy even to imagine that there could be a radically dif-
then we may find them easier to understand (whether or not we like ferent civilization tucked away someplace on our planet now. It’s
them)—but their way of life is not much good as food for thought. been a long time since anybody discovered an unknown island or
In Sh gun the author is careful to remind us from time to time that found a lost valley. The twentieth-century Utopian novelist may still
behavior really does run in reverse in Japan. He reports, for exam- try to persuade us that a more perfect society still could exist in a
ple, that “Blackthorne ordered a servant to saddle his horse and remote locale—in a valley in Tibet (Shangri-la, in James Hilton’s
mounted awkwardly from the right side, as was custom in Japan Lost Horizon) or an island in Indonesia (Pala, in Aldous Huxley’s
and China” (p. 720), Earlier, on page 191, Rodrigues summarized Island). But even these imaginary cultural opposites have to cope
the situation for Blackthorne by saying that “Japan’s an upside- with our same world of big technology, big science, and big govern-
down world.” ment. In Island, for example, an aggressive nearby nation sends its
The image of Japan as topsy-turvydom in fact was first widely troops to demolish Pala and force the people there to join the
purveyed by the European visitors in the era of Sh gun. A prime march of Progress. So if John Blackthorne were alive today and
example is a tract by Jesuit chronicler Luis Frois, Contradictions went looking for Jawpen he would get nowhere on the Erasmus: he
and Differences of Custom Between the People of Europe and This would have to pilot the starship Enterprise across oceans of outer
Province of Japan (1585), an entertaining (and often perceptive) space and crash-land on a distant galaxy.
catalog of all the particulars in which Japan is a civilization in That was not always the case. Once upon a time it was truly pos-
reverse, ranging from religious forms (“Our churches are high and sible to set sail across a salt-water sea and land in the territory of
narrow; the Japanese temples are broad and low”) to matters of your cultural opposite. There was a moment in the tumble of world
intimate hygiene (“We pick our noses with our thumb or index fin- events when people from Westernmost Europe and Easternmost
gers; the Japanese use their little finger”). The theme of reversal Asia saw each other for the very first time. And it was as if—as
was promptly revived in the mid-nineteenth century when contact time is measured in history—the range of human types had mush-
with Japan was resumed. The leading British diplomat of the time, roomed; All around the globe it suddenly seemed that mankind was
for example, explains that “Japan is essentially a country of para- more marvelously diverse than anyone had dreamed possible.
doxes and anomalies, where all, even familiar things, put on new It’s not easy to reconstruct that feeling today. The range of
faces, and are curiously reversed. Except that they do not walk on human types on earth now is pretty well documented, even if some
their heads instead of their feet, there are few things in which they of the types remain a bit puzzling to us. If we want to put ourselves
do not seem, by some occult law, to have been impelled in a per- into the mind-set of a Blackthorne or a Toranaga we have to imag-
fectly opposite direction and a reversed order.” (Sir Rutherford ine answering the doorbell and there being greeted by a BEM.
Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon [1863], I, 357). BEMs are the bug-eyed monsters that populate science fiction. We
We shouldn’t swallow such statements whole, of course. In enjoy meeting them when it’s safe, in the pages of a book or on the
dozens of little particulars, life in Jawpen does not look at all left- screen in Star Wars. But what if one of them actually walked into
handed. But in the case of Clavell, it is not a matter of some “occult your house, and could talk, and had some quite human qualities
law”: he is exaggerating for a purpose. Like an anthropologist—or and quirks? Would you want one to marry your sister?
a Utopian novelist—he accents what is different about the society So John Blackthorne shivers when he first encounters the Jaw-
he is describing in order to define and even question our own penese. They in turn shudder at him, for he is the BEM in their
myths. Clavell may claim to be “just” a storyteller, but Sh gun is a houses. (In traditional Japanese folktales the BEM-like demons
story wrapped around a sermon. had blue eyes, large noses, and red faces: an uncanny resemblance
That sermon would be a lot more difficult to deliver if the story to Anglo-Saxons. So much for the Hollywood fantasy that people
were set in today’s Japan. People who write tourist guides to Japan in many parts of the world fell prostrate before the first white man](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-19-320.jpg)
![HEINZ: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING
28 level when two cultural traditions have been thrust together by the Because of its romantic elements, some academic historians dis- 29
forces of history. It does so in a spell-binding, personal way by miss Sh gun as false both to the real circumstances in Japan and to
making issues of cross-cultural contact and conflict come alive as the character of William Adams. Clavell does not bother to refute
no textbook could do. them. He subtitled his book “A Novel of Japan” and invented new
The lesson of knowing the self and one’s cultural “baggage” names for those characters that can be identified with historical fig-
only when confronted with a different way of perceiving the world ures. Thus, he felt justified in making them behave according to the
is also compellingly brought home by Sh gun. This further under- logic of his theme instead of according to the frequently tedious
lines the value of having students read the novel and watch the TV and sometimes mystifying accounts of written chronicles. Would
dramatization. Despite historical anachronisms and inaccuracies, anyone deny that the struggle for power is clarified by telescoping
Blackthorne’s world is a fascinating telescope through which stu- several interacting governing bodies into a single Council of
dents may see themselves as well as the Age of Discovery, when the Regents?
global world first came into clear focus. Other historians, more lenient, note that many of the novel’s
apparent anachronisms are acceptable, given its pivotal time frame.
History or Romance? Enormous changes took place in Japan within a single lifetime cen-
Sh gun is historically informative. It is set in 1600, when Euro- tered around the year 1600. Who can tell precisely when a particu-
pean voyages of discovery had recently determined the size of the lar phenomenon began or ended? An English historian, Hugh Ross
earth and the locations of major land masses. England and Holland Williamson, writing on the whole problem of taking liberties with
were competing with Portugal and Spain for colonial empires. the “facts” of history, argues plausibly that all of academic history
William Adams, an English pilot, and a few of the De Liefde’s is a “combination of myth, propaganda, and guesswork . . . .
crew had survived a stormy landing on the southwestern coast of Even when the writer has grasped the fact that history is the interac-
Japan after threading the Straits of Magellan and crossing the tion of character and not the invention and propagation of myths,
Pacific. . . . he cannot invent speeches and thoughts for his people; he can
In 1600, Japan was a seething cauldron of intrigue and civil war only record what he can prove.” The historical novelist, on the
—nothing new, but Tokugawa Ieyasu was completing the task of other hand, like the great Greek dramatists, working With known
constructing a stable dictatorship that would provide internal peace outcomes, can interpret the facts so that “an aspect of truth
and isolation from external influences for the next two centuries. emerges which should compel the audience’s belief” (Historical
Sh gun, in a six-month slice of the action, shows the kind of plot- Whodunits [1956], pp. 12-22).
ting and fighting that was typical, even though some of the events The reader can use Williamson’s provocative views and the test
were shifted and characters changed for dramatic effect. But, of Sh gun to approach theories of history as well as to argue
explicitly labelled as fiction, it takes no more liberties with the facts whether Clavell has produced a work of historical fiction that com-
than the TV “docudramas” of the last few years that claim to be pels the reader’s belief or a costume romance that seduces the unin-
true accounts of their subjects. formed reader while infuriating the scholar.
Sh gun also is a romance, a version of the classical cross-cultural What differentiates Sh gun from other costume romances is a
encounter in which passion defies cultural norms only to end, inevi- set of philosophical convictions and life-style preferences for which
tably, in tragedy. Lower-middle-class Adams is transformed into the story is the vehicle (for example, the constant references to
Blackthorne, heroic amalgam of John Wayne and John Carter, “karma”). In this sense, Sh gun can be compared with Utopian
Warlord of Mars, who changes the course of history and mourns novels that use a remote place and time or elements of fantasy to
the death of his even more heroic lover, Mariko, wife of a great and express the author’s arguments. In this it resembles, for example,
cruel samurai. But in the end he has his grief assuaged by the award Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger
of noble rank, two beautiful women to replace Mariko, and a great in a Strange Land, both of which use a mixture of fact, fantasy,
estate. Mariko, exquisitely beautiful and intelligent, and, despite utopianism, and symbolism specifically designed to promote the
her conversion to Catholicism, totally dedicated to her samurai writer’s particular value system in a setting that will give it greater
responsibilities, embodies the values of Japanese feudal aristocracy impact than if it were presented directly on its own merits. The
as Blackthorne epitomizes those of middle-class England. reader is made a participant in the value judgments by identifica-
tion with the characters and their actions.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-22-320.jpg)
![SMITH: STRUGGLE FOR THE SHOGUNATE
56 summary of the actual historical situation. The only exaggeration Ishida, after botching a scheme to assassinate Ieyasu, incurred the 57
which Clavell makes here (and for good literary effect) is the vola- wrath of some rival daimyo on a visit to Osaka Castle and was
tility of the position of “shogun,” the title first assumed by forced to escape in a lady’s palanquin and dress—the ruse which
Minamoto Yoritomo in 1190. He gives the impression of one sho- Clavell provides for Ieyasu himself in Sh gun!
gun after another being toppled while only the position of emperor By the spring of 1600, the unity of the Regents had been shat-
remained “inviolate and unbroken.” But in point of historical fact, tered both by their mutual hostilities and by the scheming of Ishida.
only two lineages of shoguns, both at least officially unbroken, pre- Ieyasu increasingly took authority into his own hands, reverting to
ceded the Tokugawas. Indeed, the position of shogun came in time two techniques that Hideyoshi had expressly prohibited among the
to be much like that of the emperor himself: a figurehead who was Regents: the arranging of political marriages and the taking of hos-
simply manipulated by the real holders of power. So, in itself, the tages. (For example, the heir of Hosokawa Tadaoki—“Saruji” in
title of “shogun” was not necessarily “the ultimate rank that a Clavell’s novel—was not in Osaka in 1600, but was rather being
mortal could achieve” (p. 72), and, in assuming the position in held hostage in Ieyasu’s capital of Edo.) The denouement began
1603, Ieyasu had to take special care to assure that for him and his when another of the Regents, Uesugi Kagekatsu, returned to his
line it would not again become an empty title. fief to the far north and began openly fomenting revolt against
This pattern of the “devolution” of political power, leaving Ieyasu. This forced Ieyasu to leave Osaka and move to Edo to
figureheads of legitimacy at the top and the real wielders of power defend his lands against Uesugi. Well knowing that he was freeing
in lesser positions, has long been stressed by scholars of Japanese (in actual fact, forcing) Ishida to plot against him in his absence,
institutions. It was understandably one of the most confusing Ieyasu feigned indifference and made a leisurely trip north, con-
things about the political scene for the Westerners who visited spicuously indulging in his favorite sport of hawking along the
Japajn in this era. William Adams, for example, in describing his way, and arriving in Edo on August 10.
interview with Ieyasu in Osaka, refers to the daimyo as “Emperor” While Ieyasu supervised the campaign against the enemy to the
and was probably unaware of the powerless figure in Kyoto who north with one eye, he kept the other on the scheming Ishida to the
was the “real” emperor. west through an elaborate network of informants. It was in these
weeks that Ishida moved to seize as hostages the families of those
The Events of (he Year 1600 daimyo who had accompanied Ieyasu to Edo. His first target was
In Sh gun, the author takes the general political situation of Gracia, the wife of Hosokawa Tadaoki, who as an obedient
1600 as the basis for his plot, although he makes no attempt at any daimyo wife steadfastly refused to leave her mansion and—as
very precise correspondences. Of all the various daimyo that detailed in Chapter 7—died with her mansion in flames, providing
appear in the course of Sh gun, only the scheming “Ishido” has a the kernel of the story which James Clavell would use in creating
clear model. This is Ishida Mitsunari, who was indeed an inveterate Mariko.
plotter and implacable enemy of Tokugawa Ieyasu and was ulti- In Sh gun, the author (with a screenwriter’s instinct?) thankfully
mately defeated in the Battle of Sekigahara in the fall of 1600. The simplifies matters by dressing the opposing forces of Ishido and
historical Ishida was not one of the five Regents, but rather a mem- Toranaga in contrasting uniforms of Gray and Brown, enabling the
ber of a separate and lower-ranking five-man board known as the reader to provide some visual sense of who’s who during the chaotic
“Commissioners” (in Japanese, bugy ), which was in charge of battle scenes. In reality, samurai armies were not fitted out with
day-to-day administrative matters and which left issues of high pol- uniforms (which even in Sh gun were explained as exceptional, a
icy to the Regents. mark of the punctilious discipline of Ishido and Toranaga [p. 557]),
Clavell uses the institution of the Council of Regents as an effec- and the problem of distinguishing friend from foe in battle was
tive plot device in Sh gun, but in the actual historical events of 1600 often solved by the use of secret signs, like strips of paper knotted
the Regents were no longer functioning as an effective body. The in special ways around the sword sheaths. The historical Ishida
year and a half between Hideyoshi’s death and the arrival of William Mitsunari was also a considerably lesser lord than the Ishido of
Adams in April of 1600 had seen a series of political plots and Sh gun, his own personal army being but a small fraction of the
counterplots which if anything were more dramatic and fantastic total confederation which was to gather at Sekigahara: Ishida was
than any devised by Clavell, who indeed simply transposes some of simply the nucleus about which the larger anti-Tokugawa lords
their details to the summer of 1600. In summer 1599, for example, clustered. The situation of constantly shifting alliances in Osaka](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-36-320.jpg)
![MATISOFF: LEARNING JAPANESE
80 learns through gestures, the latter through the dramatically clear Consider, for example, “neh.” This little sentence-ending tag 81
context of the actions of sword-drawn samurai: “extralinguistic peppers the pages of Sh gun, rounding off the speeches of all sorts
cues,” the language teacher might say. of Japanese characters, and is even assimilated into the English sen-
The pains and pleasures of language learning are not frequent tences, as in Blackthorne’s comments quoted at the beginning of
subjects of concern in popular novels, with the exception, perhaps, this chapter. The reader quickly gets a correct feel for the meaning
of certain works of science fiction, and there’s much to be praised of the particle: something like the French n’est-ce pas, it asks the
in Clavell’s decision to take the readers along on Blackthorne’s listener’s agreement or confirmation of the sentence. But the tone is
odyssey into an unfamiliar language. Gradually the reader learns a off. Anyone can use neh speaking Japanese, but it’s more used by
few words. When kinjiru reappears some sixty pages later, surfac- women than men; it is only sparingly used by really articulate Japa-
ing from Blackthorne’s memory in one of those moments of extreme nese speakers, and the unsuspecting English speaker who acquires
stress in which Sh gun abounds, this cross-linguistic device conveys an overfondness for neh runs the risk of sounding rather too much
the hero’s state of mind to intense novelistic effect. Language as like a contemporary bar-girl.
communication and the need for this communication, however dif- For those who know Japanese, reading Sh gun produces other
ficult, are major themes of Sh gun; and in many cases the major similar minor annoyances. Some of the spacing of words and a few
points concerning language raised by Clavell are valid. If this were of the romanizations are idiosyncratic to Clavell. Neh for ne, and
a work of science fiction and the language a total invention, we goziemashita for gozaimashita, for example, while kamikazi for
might simply praise the skill with which the author builds his read- kamikaze certainly reproduces the wartime anglicized pronuncia-
ers’ vocabularies. Still, the reader who acquires a smattering of tion, not the Japanese. The frequently occurring expression oh ko
Japanese from Sh gun might wish to know something about the is utterly mysterious.
validity of his newfound knowledge. Other than such problems of style, and typographical errors (of
These comments won’t be relevant for the TV film, in which which there are relatively few), there are certain difficulties in Cla-
Japanese actors will be speaking their own language. The TV series vell’s Japanese which reflect differences between Japanese and
was made using a script “based on a concept that may well spell English that go beyond mere words. A Japanese-language review of
success or failure: the Japanese in ‘Sh gun’ speak in their own lan- the book (Hokubei mainichi shimbun, May 28, 1980) calls the lan-
guage, without any translation. So the viewer will be in the same guage “classroom Japanese,” objecting to the overpoliteness of
situation as Blackthorne and will learn what is going on just as he some of the common phrases like wakarimasu ka (“do you under-
does” (Neil Martin in American Film, April 1980). Differences in stand?”), which does sound peculiar in exchanges we are to take as
pacing and in the essential effects of the two media may well mean gruff speech between soldiers. And though there are occasional
that the viewer will experience Blackthorne’s language learning less correct, complex Japanese sentences in Sh gun which must result
vividly than does the reader, but the Japanese emerging from the from Clavell’s asking a Japanese how to say such and such, much
TV set will presumably be accurate. of the Japanese reflects not a “classroom” but a “phrasebook”
Specific details make the novel teem with life; small errors in lan- approach to the language.
guage don’t really detract from its effectiveness as a novel, though Perhaps the clearest example of this is dozo (which properly
they do limit its usefulness as a language textbook. This might be should be d zo, not dozo: vowel length matters in Japanese, as the
thought a dead issue, but Julian Barnes in The New Statesman title Sh gun itself illustrates). Early on in his experience in Japan
(November 21, 1975) commented, “personally, I enjoyed Sh gun Blackthorne realizes his desperate need to learn the language;
as a basic primer of Japanese; . . . [the words] seem to be arranged thrown in prison, he meets Friar Domingo, a fellow prisoner who
in accordance with the standard learning principle of graded gives him some basic language instruction: “Domo is thank you
reinforcement.” Some examples may serve to show that this and dozo is please. Water is mizu” (p. 241). Yes, but. Water is
eminently successful novel, whatever else it may be, is not a primer water the world around, we might say—though mizu actually
of Japanese. While some of its Japanese is totally correct, and means only cold water—but “thank you” and “please” are not,
some basically correct though anachronistic, other phrases are utter always, no matter what the phrasebook may tell us. D zo as
gibberish and much of the Japanese is subtly wrong, for interesting “please” is correct only in situations of invitation: “please come
reasons which illustrate basic differences between Japanese and this way,” “please be seated,” “please help yourself,” and
English. so forth. In other situations where an English speaker may use](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-48-320.jpg)
![SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI
90 immediate loss of employment and estate for all his retainers, so and applied, an ability that was brought to bear in the most highly 91
that seemingly extreme measures to protect one’s lord were simply developed way in the tea ceremony. It was precisely in the era of
common sense. In Sh gun, for example, the decision of one of Sh gun that the Japanese tea ceremony saw the creative burst of
Yabu’s men to jump off a cliff in hopes of saving his lord’s life innovation that brought it to the state of perfection in which it sur-
(p. 182) makes sense at least as the collective decision of several vives today. A fusion of both courtier and Buddhist traditions, the
retainers (although the “Bansaiiiiiii!” scream, literally “Long live tea ceremony was assiduously cultivated by samurai.
[the Emperor],” is a product of modern militarism rather than tra- In Sh gun, we are given descriptions of both poetry composition
ditional feudalism and has the unfortunate effect of conjuring up and tea ceremony as practiced among the samurai, although the net
World War II stereotypes). impression is that bloody bu was far more their central concern
So also the lord for his part was obliged to protect and reward his than tasteful bun. Still, the very contrast suggests the element of
retainers. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself was highly attentive to the tension inherent in the expectation that samurai be adept at both
proper compensation and encouragement of his closest vassals, as killing and culture. In the idealized formula, bun and bu are com-
we can sense in this passage from his famous “Legacy”: plementary but practiced separately (with different hands, in the
metaphor quoted above). Sh gun, in its rather more down-to-earth
The vassal samurai of the Tokugawa house, great and small, all have shown
the utmost fidelity, even suffering their bones to be ground to powder, and portrayal of the samurai as a man of culture, suggests that perhaps
their flesh to be chopped up for me. In what way soever their posterity may psychologically the division of labor was not so neat.
offend—for anything less than actual treason—their estate may not be A good example would be the single depiction of the tea cere-
confiscated. mony, which Toda Buntaro performs for his wife Mariko (pp.
766-77). The superficial effect of the ceremony is one of idealized
Bun versus Bu detachment and beauty; yet lurking just below the surface and
A theme which appears from an early point in the “house instruc- imparting dramatic tension to the scene is Buntaro’s jealousy and
tions” of medieval daimyo concerns the duty of the samurai to cul- his everyday behavior as an ugly brute. This reminds us that the tea
tivate the literary (bun) as well as the military (bu) arts. Eventually ceremony and other such cultural pursuits were often carefully cal-
expressed as the slogan bunbu ry d , “the twin ways of the literary culated to provide respite from the constant tensions and hostilities
and military arts,” the concept of the basic complementarity of of war. While examples of daimyo pacifying their wives in the man-
civil and military pursuits was central to the samurai class through- ner of Buntaro are unknown historically, the tea ceremony was fre-
out its history, both as an ideal and as a practice. This emphasis on quently used between daimyo themselves as a way of making peace.
the importance of literary pursuits reflects the strong influence of In ways that the conventional English translation “ceremony” fails
two role models, the Chinese literati and the Japanese courtier class, to convey, the practice of chanoyu (literally, “hot water for tea”)
both of which the samurai strove to emulate in cultural achieve- was a means of easing communication in an era of constantly con-
ment. It was an idea of great importance in the era of Sh gun and fused intentions. This social aspect of the cult of tea helps explain
was to be codified as the very first provision of the basic Tokugawa the fierce rivalries among the leading lords of the time for the best
code, the Laws Governing the Military Households (Buke shohatto, in tea utensils. Indeed, this trade came to have major economic sig-
1615): “From of old the rule has been to practice ‘the arts of peace nificance in the era of Sh gun, since a single tea caddy could in fact
on the left hand, and the arts of war on the right’; both must be be traded for a virtual kingdom (p. 773).
mastered.” Just as culture itself came to be a political business, so also did
History confirms that most Japanese samurai, particularly those military matters come to be a matter of artistic concern, as best
of the upper ranks, worked hard to perfect their literary skills. The exemplified in the incredible attention lavished on the design and
type of “literacy” which they sought entailed not only a basic abil- decoration of swords and their accoutrements. What does all this
ity to read and write Japanese, but, given the mixed nature of writ- suggest about the psychology of the samurai? After all, a sword is
ten Japanese in this era, a mastery of Chinese as well. Of equal meant for killing, for chopping off heads and hacking up bodies.
importance were the two artistic skills central to the idea of bun, cal- (Incidentally, the practice of testing swords by chopping up corpses
ligraphy and the composition of poetry. Beyond this, samurai were was a common one, although it was done with great ritual, not in
expected to have keen aesthetic judgment in all the arts, both fine the casual and irreverent way described in Sh gun [p. 229] and
never legally on living commoners as alleged by Rodrigues [p. 141].)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-53-320.jpg)
![SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS
112 as a sort of tutorship in Bushido, with the younger lover imitating
12 Raw Fish and a Hot Bath: Dilemmas of Daily Life
the older in the cultural and martial arts, much as among the war- Henry Smith
riors of ancient Sparta. In particular, such relationships were con-
sidered invaluable for teaching the virtue of loyalty, and samurai
lovers generally proved dependable comrades in battle, loyal vas-
sals, and trustworthy bureaucrats. The text most revealing of this
idea is Hagakure, an early eighteenth-century collection of reflec-
tions on the way of the samurai (see Chapter 10). In one passage, a
samurai master “who understood the foundation of homosexuality
[shud , ‘the way of young men’]” is asked to summarize his under-
standing: “It is something both pleasant and unpleasant.” He
elaborates:
To lay down one’s life for another is the basic principle of homosexuality.
If it is not so, it becomes a matter of shame. However, then you have noth-
ing left to lay down for your master. It is therefore to be understood as
something both pleasant and unpleasant. (William Scott Wilson, trans.,
Hagakure, p. 59)
It is interesting that this conception of samurai love for one
another corresponds surprisingly well to Mariko’s expositions of
the true meaning of love in Japan, as for example:
“Pillowing always has its price. Always. Not necessarily money, Anjin-san. For visitors to an alien culture, the most pressing dilemmas stem
But a man pays for pillowing in one way, or in another. True love, we call it from the mundane mechanics of daily life: eating, dressing, sleep-
duty, is of soul to soul and needs no such expression—no physical expres- ing, washing, and getting about. And so with Blackthorne, who is
sion, except perhaps the gift of death.” (p. 555) as perplexed by Japanese customs as by such abstractions as wa and
This idealistic interpretation finds reaffirmation in the views of karma. Here again we can detect an unmistakable sermon by James
Mishima Yukio, the modern Japanese novelist who was profoundly Clavell, having as its major themes the perils of meat-eating and the
influenced by the ideas of Hagakure on love and death and who was virtues of bathing. If life in Southern California is any indicator of
in the end to die by seppuku with a young man acting as his second. current American culture, the message should strike a sympathetic
Three years before his death, in a book-length commentary on chord with many readers of Sh gun. It was here in Santa Barbara,
Hagakure, Mishima wrote: “Romantic love as seen by J ch [the for instance, that the “California hot tub,” a cultural amalgam of
author of Hagakure] is always reinforced by death. One must die for the Japanese bath and Sunset life-style, was born. And few Califor-
love, and death heightens love’s tension and purity. This is the ideal nians—or indeed New Yorkers—will have trouble identifying the
love for Hagakure” (Mishima, The Way of the Samurai, trans. “slivers of raw fish on balls of tacky rice” in Sh gun (p. 150) as the
Kathryn Sparling, pp. 23-4). In these words we can sense a certain increasingly popular Japanese dish of sushi. So also will the grow-
affinity between Mishima Yukio and James Clavell in their common ing band of vegetarians in America find powerful support for their
idealization of the samurai tradition for its relevance in modern life. cause in the meatless diet preached by Mariko.
It remains only to stress that scholarship in both Japan and the The historian as well finds these cross-cultural dilemmas of daily
West has so far provided us with no more than a tentative under- life intriguing. At one level, they reveal basic differences in religious
standing of the many complex issues in the history of sexual atti- belief and philosophical outlook among different cultures. At the
tudes and behavior in Japan. By insistently raising these issues, same time, such matters as diet and hygiene—closely related as they
Sh gun encourages us to ask new questions and seek new answers are to population change, patterns of nutrition, and the incidence
in the effort to develop a comparative history of human sexuality. of disease—are of concern to the social historian. Unfortunately,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-64-320.jpg)
![SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE
120 diet was far from “simple.” The banquet menus of the samurai and it is surprising to find no mention of its use in Sh gun, because 121
were incredibly varied in ingredients, in visual arrangement, and in it was “welcomed and adopted with an almost frenzied enthusiasm”
methods of preparation—including grilling, sauteeing, deep-frying, after its introduction in the 1590s (Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural
boiling, steaming, drying, smoking, salting, and pickling. History, p. 433). Despite disapproval by Confucian moralists and
Because of their regular contact with Europeans, many Japanese occasional bans by the shogunate (the earliest in 1609, a full decade
in the era of Sh gun became interested in imported foods and for- before James I’s crackdown in England), tobacco came to be a
eign cuisine. Many American readers of Sh gun will have recog- familiar commodity in Tokugawa Japan.
nized the “bamboo basket of deep-fried fish in Portuguese style” Cross-cultural influences in the area of alcoholic drinks are less
(p. 320) as tempura, although few may have realized the Portuguese conspicuous, perhaps because both Japanese and Europeans were
influence on the creation of the dish. The word “tempura” itself is too attached to their own preferred varieties. For the most part,
of European origin, probably from the Portuguese temporas, the samurai stuck to sake, although a number of daimyo are on record
“Ember days” of abstinence on which meat was replaced by fish. as having experimented with brandy, whiskey, and wine. We even
Tempura apparently became quite popular in Kyoto in the 1610s, as have one account of a group of daimyo sipping red wine following
one sad story suggests. In early 1616, the aging Tokugawa Ieyasu a tea ceremony! (If that sounds like an implausible combination,
heard of the latest Kyoto delicacy, seabream deep-fried in sesame consider the “original blend of sake and white-grape wine” which
oil, and immediately ordered it prepared for his table. The aging Suntory International tested in the American market in early 1980
samurai ate more than usual, and four hours later began to suffer under the name of—you guessed it—”Sh gun.”)
sharp intestinal pains. Although historians believe that Ieyasu was
already terminally ill with stomach cancer, his death not long after And What About Raw Fish?
has always been linked anecdotally with the eating of tempura! Near the end of Sh gun, Blackthorne hears the voice of his
The seventeenth century was a period of unprecedented interna- departed lover Mariko speaking to him, gently urging him on to cul-
tional exchange of food plants, and foreign traders brought many tural understanding: “Oh, Anjin-san, one day perhaps we’ll even
other new foods to Japan at this time—some from other parts of get you to like raw fish and then you’ll be on the road to nirvana—
Asia, some from Europe, and some from the New World. Many of the Place of Perfect Peace.” Blackthorne’s problem is shared by
the Japanese names for these foods reflect their foreign origin. many in the West today: “raw fish” has emerged as a symbol for all
Squash was called kabocha from association with Cambodia; pota- those things in Japanese culture which Westerners find particularly
toes seem to have been linked to the trade with Jakarta, for they were difficult to assimilate. Logically, we might ask why this should be
known as jaga-imo (imo being any edible tuber); a sweet poundcake so. Don’t we eat clams and oysters on the half shell, a feat more
which is still highly prized in Japan was called castella, after the Por- challenging by common-sense standards than slipping down a piece
tuguese word for “Spain” (cf. Castille); and the sweet potato came of tuna sushi? But no matter: until they try it, most Westerners tend
to be known as the satsuma-imo because it was imported from the to be horrified by the idea of eating raw fish, and most Japanese
Ryukyu Islands via the southernmost domain of Satsuma. Some of happily reciprocate with an unshakable conviction that only the
the imports, such as potatoes and bread (known as pan, after the most peculiar foreigner can master this unique custom.
Portuguese pão), never really caught on until the renewed fad for It is the business of the anthropologist to figure out why raw fish
things Western in the Meiji period. But others, like yams and water- should be such a potent mark of Japanese exclusivity. The historian
melons, came to be widely cultivated under the Tokugawa regime. can simply confirm that the Japanese have indeed eaten fish raw, or
The exchange of stimulants was another aspect of trade in this at least near-raw, for centuries. Francesco Carletti, an Italian visi-
period. The major East Asian export in this category was of course tor to Japan in the late 1590s, observed that the Japanese “usually
tea, although it became popular in Europe only later in the seven- eat [fish] in a practically raw state, after having dipped it in boiling
teenth century. As reflected in Sh gun, the drinking of tea was vinegar” (Cooper, They Came to Japan, p. 191). Carletti probably
nearly universal in Japan by the 1600s. Originally imported from exaggerates in claiming that the Japanese “usually” ate fish raw,
China, it had occasionally been used by the Heian aristocracy, but for records show that various forms of cooking and curing were
it was not until the thirteenth century that, with the encouragement more common. Since it is dangerous to eat fish raw unless it is per-
of Zen monks, tea-drinking became common in Japan. As for Euro- fectly fresh (particularly in the summer), raw fish in both traditional
pean influences on Japan, tobacco would certainly head the list, and contemporary Japan has always been something of a delicacy.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-68-320.jpg)
![WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN
128 Blackthorne, John (English Pilot-Major of the Erasmus; pp. 16, Doming o, Friar (Franciscan friar whom Blackthorn e meets in 129
133, 553) William Adams (1564-1620), English pilot of the De prison; p. 231). Fictional.
Liefde, arrived in Japan in 1600, came to be known to the Japanese
as Miura Anjin. See Chapter 1. The most detailed biography of Elizabeth (Blackthorne’s daughter; p. 719) the daughter of
Adams is P. G. Rogers, The First Englishman in Japan. William Adams, whom he left behind in England, whose name is
given in East India Company records as “Deliverance.” See pp. 3, 5.
Braganza, Friar (Franciscan priest whose tale is related by Friar
Domingo; pp. 238-240) St. Pedro Bautista (Blanquez), O.F.M. Felicity (Blackthorne’s wife; p. 697) William Adams’ wife,
(1542-97), martyred at Nagasaki in February 1597. See p. 48. whose maiden name was Hyn, and whose given name was probably
either Mary or Elizabeth. See pp. 2-5.
[Toda] Buntaro (husband of Mariko and son of Hiromatsu; pp. 346,
586, 619) Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563-1645), son of Y sai and hus- Ferriera, Captain General (Captain of the Portuguese Black Ship
band of Gracia; a leading ally of Tokugawa Ieyasu. See pp. 63-70, from Macao; p. 302). No direct model; the historical Captain-
91, 95. Major for the Great Ship from Macao in 1600 was Horatio Neretti,
acting on behalf of the Governor of Macao, Dom Paulo de Portu-
Caradoc, Alban (English shipbuilder and pilot, Blackthorne’s gal; the voyage has been described as “most successful and profit-
t e a c h e r ; p . 16) N i c h o l a s D i g g i n s , a we l l - k n o w n s h i p b u i l d e r able” (Charles Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 46).
of Elizabethan England, under whom William Adams served as
apprentice. See p. 3. [Usagi] Fujiko (Mariko’s niece, widow of Usagi, and eventually
Blackthorne’s consort; pp. 395, 443, 656). Fictional. See pp. 84,103.
Chano-Tsubone (Naga’s mother; pp. 740, 883) Saigo-no-
Tsubone, consort of Ieyasu and mother of his fourth son Tada- Fujimoto (a samurai clan; p. 73) apparently the Fujiwara, who
yoshi (see Naga). The name in the novel appears to come from Cha- historically were not a military family, but rather the most power-
a-no-Tsubone, another of Ieyasu’s consorts and the mother of ful clan in the Kyoto court aristocracy during the Heian period
Tadateru (see Tadateru). (ninth to twelfth centuries). See p. 55.
[Yoshi] Chikitada (Toranaga’s grandfather; p. 76) Kiyoyasu, Genjiko, Lady (wife of Sudara and sister of Ochiba; pp. 279, 517)
Ieyasu’s grandfather, who was killed at age twenty-five; for the his- Asai Og (or Kog ), wife of Tokugawa Hidetada and later
torical incident, see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, pp. 38, known as S gen’in. See pp. 105-106.
95. “Chikitada” seems to be modelled on the name of Ieyasu’s
great-great-great-grandfather Chikatada. Go-Nijo (the reigning emperor of Japan; p. 368) Go-Y zei
(1571-1617), the 107th emperor of Japan (r. 1586-1611); the histori-
Chimmoko (Mariko’s maid; p. 791), Fictional. The name is unusual cal emperor Go-Nij reigned 1301-08. The prefix “Go-” means
in Japanese and was perhaps inspired by the word chimmoku “later” and indicates a second emperor of the same name. See p. 66.
(“silence,” the title of End Sh saku’s well-known novel on Chris-
Goroda (dictator of Japan, assassinated by Akechi Jinsai; pp. 215,
tianity in early seventeenth-century Japan); it also bears a strong
resemblance to chimpoko, a l i t t l e boy’s word for his penis, which 600) Oda Nobunaga (1534-^82), first of the three great unifiers
may explain why the name was changed to Chimoko in the film- of Japan in the sixteenth century, killed in a coup by Akechi Mitsu-
script for television. hide. See pp. 54-55, 63, 111.
Gyoko (Mama-san of the Tea House in Mishima; Kiku’s mistress;
dell’Aqua, Father Carlo (Jesuit Father-Visitor of Asia; p. 302)
Alessandro Valignano, S.J. (1539-1606), an Italian Jesuit who in pp. 98, 676). Fictional. See p. 109.
1574 became Visitor-General to the missions in Asia and visited
Harima Tadao (Christian daimyo of Hizen in Kyushu; pp. 239,
Japan on three occasions (1579-82, 1590-92, 1598-1603). See pp. 47,
964) Arima Harunobu (1567-1612), the Christian daimyo of the
52. 110.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-72-320.jpg)
![WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN
130 fief of Arima in Hizen, near Nagasaki (but not, as in the novel, Michael, Brother (Japanese Jesuit acolyte; pp. 753, 1110) Chi- 131
including it). jiwa Seizaemon (c. 1569-?), christened Don Michael, one of two
young nobles sent to Europe in 1582-7; also the model for “Brother
Heir, The. See Yaemon. Joseph” (see Uraga-noh-Tadamasa).
[Toda] Hiromatsu (daimyo of Sagami and Kozuke, old ally of Minikui (Toranaga’s vassal spy; p. 290). Fictional. The name
Toranaga; father of Buntaro; p. 119) Hosokawa Fujitaka means “ugly” and was changed to Sasuke in the television filmscript.
(1534-1610), daimyo of Tamba and leading cultural figure of his
day, better known by his artistic name “Y sai.” See pp. 63, 66-68. Minowara (an ancient military clan; p. 74) the Minamoto, the
warrior clan which came to power in the late twelfth century and
Ikawa Tadazuki (daimyo of Suruga and Totomi who held Toranaga established the Kamakura shogunate; the first shogun, who is called
hostage as a youth; father of Jikkyu; p. 223) Imagawa Yoshi- “Yoshitomo” in Sh gun, was Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-99). Toku-
moto (1519-60), a leading daimyo in whose house Tokugawa Ieyasu gawa Ieyasu claimed Minamoto ancestry. See pp. 56, 96.
spent his childhood as a hostage; the Imagawa were defeated by
Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560. Mura (village headman of Anjiro, in reality a samurai spy for Tora-
naga named Akira Tonomoto; pp. 46, 220, 469, 1205). Fictional.
Ishido Kazunari (daimyo, one of the five Regents, implacable The name means “village” and was changed to “Muraji” in the tele-
enemy of Toranaga; pp. 213, 420) Ishida Mitsunari (1560-1600), vision filmscript.
the daimyo who organized the confederacy against Tokugawa
Ieyasu in 1600; the historical Ishida was not a Regent, but rather a Naga (one of Toranaga’s sons, aged seventeen; pp. 198, 740)
member of a board of five “Commissioners.” He was executed in Tokugawa Tadayoshi (1580-1608), fourth son of Ieyasu. See p. 59.
Kyoto following the Battle of Sekigahara. See pp. 55-58.
Nakamura (“The Taik ,” previous leader of Japan, died a year
[Ikawa] Jikkyu (Christian daimyo, enemy of Toranaga; son of before Blackthorne’s arrival in Japan; father of the Heir, Yaemon;
Tadazuki; pp. 60, 223). Fictional; the Imagawa clan had already pp. 49, 51, 74, 190, 215, 337) Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98),
been destroyed (see Ikawa Tadazuki). second of the three great unifiers of sixteenth-century Japan; see
pp. 45, 48-49, 55, 63-64. For a biography, see Walter Dening, The
Joseph, Brother. See Uraga-noh-Tadamasa. Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Kiku (courtesan at the Tea House in Mishima, under the employ of Noboru (eldest living son of Toranaga; suffers from the Chinese
Gyoko; p. 98). Fictional. See pp. 108-110. pox; pp. 227, 258) Tokugawa Hideyasu (1574-1607), second son
of Ieyasu; died of syphilis at the age of thirty-four. See p. 59.
Kiritsubo-noh-Toshiko (“Kiri,” matron of Toranaga’s ladies-in-
waiting; p. 222) Acha-no-Tsubone (1555-1637), an early consort Nobunaga (Toranaga’s first and favorite son, forced to commit
and later a trusted political adviser of Tokugawa Ieyasu. See p. 104. seppuku at age nineteen; p. 658) Tokugawa Nobuyasu (1558-78),
ordered to commit suicide at age nineteen because of his mother’s
Kiyama, Lord (Christian daimyo, one of the five Regents; pp. 225, scheming (see Tachibana, Lady).
999) roughly, Konishi Yukinaga (?-1600), leading Christian
daimyo who sided with Ishida Mitsunari at Sekigahara; the histori- Ochiba, Lady (consort of the Taik , mother of the Heir Yaemon;
cal Konishi was not one of the Regents. See pp. 58, 61. pp. 216, 283, 517) Asai Chacha (1567-1615), Hideyoshi’s favor-
ite consort, known as “Lady Yodo”; mother of the Toyotomi heir
[Toda] Mariko (Christian wife of Toda Buntaro, secret love of Hideyori. See pp. 55, 61, 105.
Blackthorne; pp. 259, 599-600) Hosokawa Gracia (1563-1600),
wife of Tadaoki and leading Christian lady of Japan. See Chapters [Kasigi] Omi (samurai in charge of Anjiro, nephew of Yabu; pp. 33,
7 and 11. 90). Fictional. See p. 53.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-73-320.jpg)
![WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN
132 Onoshi, Lord (Christian daimyo from Kyushu, one of the five to death in 1579. For details of the incident, see Sadler, The Maker 133
Regents; a leper; p. 225) an apparent composite of the Christian of Modern Japan, Ch. IX.
daimyo Konishi Yukinaga (also the model for Kiyama) and tani
Yoshitsugu (1559-1600), who is thought to have suffered from lep- Tadateru (Toranaga’s youngest son, aged seven; p. 740)
rosy, tani, who sided with Ishida Mitsunari at Sekigahara, com- Tokugawa Tadateru (1592-1683), Ieyasu’s sixth son.
mitted suicide during the battle. See p. 58.
Taik , The. See Nakamura.
Rodrigues, Vasco (Portuguese pilot; pp. 135, 142). Fictional.
Takashima (an ancient military clan; p. 74) the Taira, the samu-
Saruji (son and heir of Buntaro and Mariko; p. 635) Hosokawa rai clan which was defeated by the Minamoto in the Genpei War of
Tadatoshi (1586-1641), heir of Tadaoki; later married a daughter of 1180-85.
the shogun Hidetada (“Sudara” in the novel). See pp. 57, 69.
[Yoshi] Toranaga (Lord of the Kwanto, President of the Regents;
Sazuko, Lady (Toranaga’s newest consort, aged seventeen; p. 280) pp. 199, 656) Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), unifier of Japan
O-Kane, consort of Tokugawa Ieyasu and mother of Yoshinao and first Tokugawa shogun. See pp. 2-6, 49-50, 57-61. For a detailed
(1600-50), Ieyasu’s seventh son, who was born two months after biography, see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan: The Life of
the Battle of Sekigahara. See p. 60. Sh gun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Sebastio, Father (Jesuit priest who interprets for Blackthorne in Tudor (Blackthorne’s son; p. 547) the son, name unknown,
Anjiro; p. 30) the unidentified “Portugall Iesuite” who con- whom William Adams left in England; since no son is mentioned in
fronted William Adams and his crew after their landing in Kyushu. Adams’ will of 1620, it is presumed that the son had died in the
See pp. 4, 45. meantime. See p. 3.
Sen-no-Nakada (Japan’s most famous tea master; p. 773) Sen- Uraga-noh-Tadamasa (previously Brother Joseph, a Japanese Jesuit
no-Rikyu, the great innovator and synthesizer of the tea ceremony. acolyte who apostasized and became a retainer of Blackthorne’s;
See p. 66. pp. 750, 918, 1110) Chijiwa Seizaemon (c. 1569-?), christened
Don Michael (hence also the apparent model for Brother Michael),
Spillbergen, Paulus (Captain-General of the Erasmus; p. 13) sent to Europe in 1582-87 as representative of the Christian daimyo
Jacob Quaeckernaeck (?-1606), Dutch captain of the De Liefde, Arima (see Harima Tadao) and mura; he apostasized after his
known as “Jap Quaeck.” He later joined a Dutch fleet and was return from Europe. See p. 47. For historical details, see Cooper,
killed in a sea fight with the Portuguese. See p. 4. Rodrigues the Interpreter.
Sudara (Toranaga’s second living son and heir, aged twenty-four; Usagi (grandson-in-law of Hiromatsu, husband of Fujiko, who is
pp. 227, 886) Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632), Ieyasu’s third forced to commit seppuku; pp. 200, 217-19). Fictional. The name
son and his successor as shogun (r. 1605-23). See pp. 59, 106. means “rabbit.”
Sugiyama, Lord (one of the five Regents, richest daimyo in Japan; [Kasigi] Yabu (daimyo of Izu; uncle of Omi; p. 67). Fictional. See
p. 225) roughly, Maeda Toshiie (1538-99), daimyo of Kaga, pp. 15, 92, 96.
second only to Tokugawa Ieyasu as the wealthiest daimyo. Maeda
was one of the five original Regents and his death in 1599 weakened Yaemon (“The Heir” of the Taik , son of Lady Ochiba; p. 72)
the council in much the same way as the resignation of “Sugiyama” Toyotomi Hideyori (1593-1615), the son and heir of Hideyoshi
in Sh gun (p. 624). (but widely rumored to have been fathered by someone else; see
p. 105) and his consort Lady Yodo; perished with his mother at
Tachibana, Lady (Toranaga’s first wife, put to death twenty years the fall of Osaka Castle in 1615, ending the Toyotomi line. See
earlier for plotting against Goroda) Lady Tsukiyama, first wife pp. 55, 61.
of Tokugawa Ieyasu; plotted against Oda Nobunaga and was put](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-74-320.jpg)
![WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN
Glossary
134 Yodoko, Lady (widow of the Taik ; p. 277) Nene (1541-1624),
widow of Hideyoshi, known in 1600 by her nun’s name Kodaiin.
See pp. 104-105.
Yoshinaku, Captain (samurai captain, escort of Blackthorne and
Mariko to Edo and then to Osaka; p. 790). Fictional.
[Saigawa] Zataki (daimyo of Shinano; half brother of Toranaga;
pp. 625, 733). N apparent model. The name may have been derived
from “Satake,” the daimyo of Mito in 1600.
This glossary provides a) definitions of basic Japanese terms
appearing in Sh gun and Learning from Sh gun; b) brief comments
on historical aspects of some of the Japanese customs depicted in
the novel; and c) relevant page references to Sh gun (in italics,
from the Dell paperback edition) and to Learning from Sh gun (in
roman type). The editor is grateful to Chieko Mulhern for provid-
ing detailed information on the history of Japanese customs.
abortion. For the courtesan Kiku, abortion may have been a simple
matter of drinking a “weird-tasting cha” (p. 1189) which involved
“no risk to her” (p. 935), but most women of the time had to resort
to far more dubious and life-threatening measures, such as drinking
lye or inserting objects into the uterus. It was only in the late twenti-
eth century that abortion became such a casual and low-risk opera-
tion as that depicted in Sh gun. Abortion, and infanticide as well,
were nevertheless common in premodern Japan, particularly in the
later Tokugawa period.
Amida Tong (pp. 284-94). This secret band of religious assassins is
a fictional amalgam of Chinese secret societies, known as “tongs,”
and the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist sect known as “Ikk ” (“sin-
gle mind,” indicating not fanaticism, as is sometimes suggested, but
rather total faith in the Buddha Amida). Although the Ikk sect did
have independent military power until it was crushed by Nobunaga
(see p. 89), it was never known for clandestine activity. The Buddha
Amida, on whom Pure Land believers called for salvation with the
chant “Namu Amida Butsu” (“Hail to the Buddha Amida”; cf.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-75-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
136 pp. 286, 1037), was a symbol of all-embracing compassion, so Black Ship (pp. 70, 241). The name given by the Japanese to the 137
the association of Amida with assassins is a bit incongruous. See annual Portuguese trading ship from Macao, probably because of
pp. 76-77. the color of the hull. Known by the Portuguese as the “Nao del
Trato” (p. 161), or “Great Ship of Trade,” these carracks were of
anjin (p. 128). Japanese for “pilot” (literally, “contemplating the immense size, reaching as much as 1600 tons. For their history, see
needle [of the compass]”) and the name by which both Blackthorne Charles Boxer, The Great Ship from Amacon (1959). The term
and the historical William Adams were known; see p. 5. “black ship” was revived in the nineteenth century to describe the
fleet of Commodore Perry.
Anjiro. The fictional village where the Erasmus lands, inspired by
the real fishing port of Ajiro; see p. 17. Ajiro is located on the Izu boiling enemies (pp. 95-96, 112). Although boiling one’s enemies
peninsula just north of Ito, the port where William Adams built does not appear to have been a common practice in Japan, the most
two ships for Ieyasu; see pp. ix, 5. famous example occurred, in fact, in the era of Sh gun, when the
legendary burglar Ishikawa Goemon was thrown into a pot of boil-
ashigaru. A footsoldier; see p. 88. ing oil for attempting to break into Osaka Castle and steal the
Taik ’s fabulous hoard of gold. The round iron tubs which later
bamboo saw, death by. This punishment, inflicted on Ishido in came into use for bathing (see Shdgun, p. 527) were thus known as
Sh gun (p. 1211), was the most sensational but probably the least “Goemon baths.”
practiced mode of public execution prescribed by Japanese law,
apparently for want of passersby willing to pull the saw. See pp. bushi. A warrior; a more formal term than “samurai”; see p. 6.
54-55 for its best-known historical use.
Bushido. Literally, “the way of the warrior”; loosely or generi-
bansai! [normally banzai] (p. 182), Literally, “ten thousand years,” cally, the code of behavior of the Japanese samurai, emphasizing
this word traditionally appeared on the funeral banners of the aris- loyalty, bravery, and honor. In a more narrow sense, the term
tocracy. It was not until modern times that it came to be used in the refers to Tokugawa period writings on proper samurai behavior;
sense of “three cheers,” or, as in Sh gun, as a military cry meaning see pp. 88, 96-98.
“Long live [the emperor]”; see p. 90.
calendar. As explained by Tsukku (p. 340), the Japanese counted
battle cries. In Sh gun, samurai shout the names of their leaders years by reference to special “era names,” which were changed peri-
as battle cries, such as “Kasigi!” or “Toranaga!”, (pp. 478, 561, odically for any of a variety of reasons; the average length of an era
etc.), but in feudal Japan it would have been disrespectful to speak in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was about four years. In
the name of one’s lord (especially his personal name) under any cir- addition to era names, as Tsukku also explained, a cycle of twelve
cumstances. The traditional prebattle invocation to the war god years, each named after an animal, was also used; to further com-
went “ei, ei, ” (pronounced “ay, ay, oh”), rising gradually in cre- plicate matters, this was joined with a secondary ten-year sequence
scendo; if any name were used, it would probably have been that of (named after the Chinese five elements, in “junior-senior” pairs)
the enemy. Some Christian daimyo were known, however, to emu- which, when used in parallel, combined to create a longer sixty-year
late the Spanish custom of invoking the names of Christ, Santa cycle. The traditional Japanese calendar was based on the lunar
Maria, and Santiago against their infidel enemies. year, in contrast to the Western solar calendar.
birthdays. The birthday reception for Lady Ochiba in Sh gun carrier pigeons (pp. 468, 546, 622). Although indispensable to the
(pp. 972, 983 ff.) is unusual, since the Japanese had no custom of plot of Sh gun, carrier pigeons apparently were not known in Japan
commemorating one’s day of birth. The birth of an heir was cele- in the sixteenth century. Imported from the West during the Toku-
brated, and the attainment of the ages 60, 77, and 88 called for con- gawa period, they appear to have been used primarily for amuse-
gratulatory ceremonies, but not for women and not on the day of ment, although one anecdote does tell of an Osaka merchant who
birth: by traditional Japanese counting, everyone’s age changes made a killing on the rice market by using carrier pigeons to get
with the beginning of a new year and not on the exact birth day. early warnings of price fluctuations. Military use of carrier pigeons](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-76-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
140 Chinese techniques of herbal medicine, acupuncture, and moxa did samurai come to wear them. The indoor slippers presented to 141
cautery. Japanese doctors were, however, far behind the West in Blackthorne (p. 29) were generally unknown until modern times.
surgical procedures; they did not know how to suture, cauterize, Tabi socks (p. 321, etc.) were less common in 1600 than they are in
splint, or remove bullets, and normally just applied ointment papers Sh gun; made of leather, they were used mostly by samurai as
over open wounds. For Western doctors, see p. 41. outdoor wear; tabi were considered special, and permission was
required to wear them. Cotton tabi became popular only in the late
dozo (passim). Japanese for “please,” as in the case of an invitation; seventeenth century, and even then a young courtesan such as Kiku
see pp. 81-82. (p. 1194) would not have worn them, since geisha were very proud
of their bare feet.
Edo [Yedo] (pp. 858-60). The capital of the Tokugawa domain,
established by Ieyasu in 1590 on the site of a former medieval castle funerals. Mariko’s funeral (pp. 1101-2) accords closely with
which had reverted to a fishing village. By 1600, as Blackthorne descriptions of Japanese funerals by Western observers of the time.
noted (p. 568), Edo was on its way to becoming the world’s largest Although public exposure of the corpse seems unusual for the Japa-
city and, by the end of the seventeenth century, had grown to a nese (see p. 65), one such case is detailed in an account by the Jesuit
population of probably over one million. In 1868, Edo was made the chronicler Luis Frois; see Cooper, They Came to Japan, pp. 363-7.
imperial capital of Japan and renamed “Tokyo.”
Garlic Eaters (p. 348, etc.). Used in Sh gun to refer to Koreans. In
Eight-Fold Fence (pp. 602-3, 835). Mariko’s metaphor for the the modern period, Japanese sometimes refer to Koreans as “smell-
Japanese use of rituals, customs, and taboos to ensure privacy, the ing of garlic,” much as they speak of Westerners as “smelling of
expression comes from an ancient Japanese poem; see p. 106. butter.” It is unclear whether garlic was as common in Korean cui-
sine in 1600 as it is today and whether such an epithet was actually
emperor (pp. 967, 1133-4). In Japanese, “tenn ,” the hereditary line
used in the period of Sh gun. We may certainly presume, however,
of rulers of Japan since mythical times, theoretically divine and
that the Japanese invasions of Korea under Hideyoshi (see p. 45)
unbroken. In the era of Sh gun, the emperor had very little political
caused strong feelings of animosity between Koreans and Japanese,
power but was essential for the legitimation of national rule; see p.
and that such derogatory labels were used by both sides at the time.
56. The emperor was “restored” to power with the fall of the
Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. geisha (p. 747). Courtesans of the Tokugawa period who provided
singing and dancing entertainment along with their sexual services;
Erasmus. The name of Blackthorne’s ship and the original name of
literally, “a person of artistic accomplishment.” Although Gyoko’s
its historical counterpart, the De Liefde; see p. 17.
“invention” of the geisha is imaginary, it was precisely in her time
eta (pp. 472, 643, 869, etc.). The Japanese outcaste class; see pp. that this type of courtesan emerged; see pp. 108-9.
125-6.
guns (pp. 507, 542, 556, etc.). Guns were introduced to Japan by
Floating World (pp. 1189, 1195). In Japanese, “ukiyo,” used from Portuguese visitors in 1543 (see p. 46) and were known as “Tanega-
about the middle of the seventeenth century to describe the hedo- shima,” after the name of the island where the Portuguese landed.
nistic world of the theater and the pleasure quarters of Japanese Guns became a crucial factor in the warfare of the late sixteenth
cities. century in Japan; see p. 58.
footwear. Most Japanese in 1600 went barefoot both indoors and hair styles. Mariko is historically a bit ahead of her time in wearing
out. When required, the preferred footwear was sandals of rush or her hair “in the latest Kyoto fashion, piled high and held in place
straw (as in Sh gun, p. 29). Wooden clogs had long been known in with long silver pins” (p. 259): this description fits the “Katsuyama
Japan (especially for field work), but in 1600 they were still not in style” originated in the 1650s by a Yoshiwara courtesan of that
general use. The clog-wearing samurai in Sh gun (p. 32, etc.) would name. Most women of the period of Sh gun continued to wear their
have been unusual, since clogs were far too noisy and clumsy for a hair in the aristocratic taregami style, long and straight down the
battle-ready warrior; only in the peaceful eighteenth century back. A noblewoman like Mariko would have had long straight hair](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-78-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
142 (possibly scented with floral oils), shaved eyebrows (with false eye- judo and karate. Although a samurai like Mura would certainly 143
brows painted higher on the forehead with soot paste), red-painted have been familiar with the techniques of weaponless fighting which
lips, and blackened teeth. he displays in Sh gun (p. 51), he would not have known them by
these names. The term “j d ” was used by a martial arts school in
harakiri. Ritual suicide by disembowelment; literally, “belly- the early eighteenth century, but the form known today was synthe-
cutting.” A more vulgar term than “seppuku,” commonly mispro- sized in the late nineteenth century by Kano Jigor (1860-1938) from
nounced “harry-carry” in the West. See pp. 73, 95. a variety of existing techniques known as “j jutsu” (“the art of
flexibility”). Karate (more properly, karate-d , “the way of the
harikata (p. 693). A dildo; see p. 110. empty hand”) was imported to Japan from its native Okinawa in the
1920s by Funakoshi Gichin (1869-1957).
hatamoto (pp. 489, 495). A direct retainer of the Tokugawa shogun
with an income of less than the 10,000 koku required for daimyo kami (p. 652, etc.). In indigenous Shinto belief, sacred forces, often
status and with a theoretical right of audience with the shogun; those translated as “gods,” which were most commonly manifested as the
below the hatamoto in rank were called gokenin. During most of the spirits of trees, rocks, places, distinguished men, ancestors, and
Tokugawa period, the hatamoto (sometimes called “banner-men”) mythological figures.
accounted for about one-fourth of the shogun’s approximately
twenty thousand retainers. See p. 7 for William Adams’ status as kamikaze (p. 459). Literally, “divine wind,” historically used to
hatamoto. refer to the typhoons which drove off the invading Mongols in the
thirteenth century. The term was revived in the twentieth century as
hawking (pp. 613-20, 1160, 1207). An ancient noble sport in Japan, part of the title of certain suicide squadrons in the Pacific War. Often
banned in 728 in deference to Buddhist belief but revived in the mispronounced “kamikazi” in the West (cf. p. 81).
twelfth century as a major pastime of the samurai class. Tokugawa
Ieyasu was a skilled and avid falconer; see p. 60. karma (passim). In Buddhism, the accumulated consequences of
one’s actions throughout past incarnations. See Chapter 8.
Hemimura. The village in which William Adams’ estate was
located; see pp. ix, 5, 9, 11. koku (p. 94, etc.), A unit of measure, equivalent to about five U.S.
bushels, used to measure the income of land in terms of its produc-
Hirado. An island off the northwest coast of Kyushu and a major tivity in rice.
port for foreign trade with the West in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. William Adams, the model for Blackthorne, was Kwanto [Kanto]. Literally, “east of the barrier,” referring to any of
employed by the English East India Company’s trading station in several mountain passes on the way from Kyoto to the northeast;
Hirado and died there in 1620; see pp. ix, 5. more specifically, the broad coastal plain along the Pacific Ocean in
central Honshu, traditionally comprising eight provinces. Edo (the
hostages (pp. 69, 121, 216, etc). The taking hostage of family modern Tokyo) is located on the Kanto Plain.
members (particularly the heir) of one’s vassals in order to ensure
loyalty became a common practice in the sixteenth century and was “Legacy” of Toranaga (p. 847). This corresponds to the Legacy of
eventually institutionalized under the Tokugawa shogunate in the Tokugawa Ieyasu, a set of private instructions left to his successors;
“alternate attendance system,” under which all daimyo were see pp. 53, 90. For English translations, see Murdoch, A History of
required to keep their wives and heir in Edo and to live in Edo Japan, III, 796-814, and Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, pp.
themselves every other year. 387-98.
Izu (p. 53, etc.). A peninsula located on the Pacific Ocean about massage (pp. 76, 872). A well-developed art in traditional Japan,
seventy-five miles southwest of Tokyo; formerly Izu Province, it is often practiced by the blind. The use of “fragrant oil” to massage
today part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Blackthorne is unusual and would more likely be a service of
contemporary “Turkish baths” in Japan; the traditional method
involves squeezing the muscles or pressing nerve points, techniques](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-79-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
144 which slippery skin would make difficult. One must also be lightly “Oil Seller” (p. 784). Blackthorne’s sword, which is nicknamed 145
clothed, not naked, as in Sh gun. after its victim; the account in Sh gun is based on an historical (or
at least legendary) incident, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered a
meat-eating (pp. 365, 427, etc.). See pp. 40, 116-9. retainer to cut down an oil merchant who had acted in a rude man-
ner and who managed to “walk a few paces before falling divided
Mishima (pp. 99, 291, 468). Yabu’s castle town. A real city, Mishi- into two”; see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, p. 352.
ma was the ancient capital of the province of Izu and a major stop
along the T kaid ; historically, however, it was a post town, not a Osaka (pp. 120, 189, 195). Osaka, originally known as Ishiyama,
castle town. was a fortified settlement built in the early sixteenth century by fol-
lowers of the Ikk sects of Buddhism (see Amida Tong). With the
Murasama [sword] (pp. 77, 621). Corresponds to the historical suppression of the Ikk by Nobunaga in the 1570s, Ishiyama came
Muramasa, a famous maker of sword blades (see the legend quoted under the control of Hideyoshi, who renamed it Osaka and built his
on pp. 92-93). The story of the curse of such a blade on Toranaga’s great castle there in 1583-6. After Hideyoshi’s death, Osaka became
family is based on historical accounts; see Sadler, The Maker of the castle town of his heir Hideyori; when the Toyotomi family was
Modern Japan, pp. 94-95. destroyed in 1615, Osaka was briefly assigned to a Tokugawa-related
daimyo, but in 1619 it came under the direct control of the shogun-
Nagasaki (pp. 240, 664). A port in western Kyushu, ceded to the
ate. Although a large garrison was stationed in Osaka Castle dur-
Jesuits by the Omura daimyo in the 1570s and used as a center for
ing the Tokugawa period, the city was basically run by merchants
missionary and trading activities until it was confiscated by Hideyo-
and served as a national rice brokerage center. Osaka Castle was
shi in 1587 and placed under central control. After the expulsion of
destroyed in World War II, but has been rebuilt in ferro-concrete.
the Catholics in the 1640s, it became the sole port for foreign trade
See pp. ix, 38, 56-61, 104-5, 115.
in Japan, served by Dutch and Chinese merchants. See pp. ix, 48-50.
pillow book (p. 898). In ancient Japan, the term “pillow book”
neh? (passim). A sentence-ending particle implying expectation of
was used to describe a genre of literary miscellanies, informal jour-
agreement; see p. 81. nals which were probably composed after retiring and hence kept
nightsoil (pp. 533,836). A euphemism for human excrement, which near the writer’s pillow; the most famous example is Sei
was widely used as fertilizer in traditional Japan. In the cities of the Shonagon’s The Pillow Book (late tenth century; translated by Ivan
Tokugawa period, landlords derived an important part of their Morris). In the seventeenth century, however, the expression came to
income from the sale of tenants’ wastes to nightsoil collectors. See be applied to erotic books, some of which were used as visual aids
also p. 125. for the sexual education of young brides, since the “aversion to
talking about pillowing” (p. 333) was scarcely a barbarian
ninja (pp. 1050-62). Practitioners of ninjutsu (“the art of stealth”), monopoly. It is this sort of manual which Mariko seems to have
experts in espionage, sabotage, and assassination. The ninja of shown to Blackthorne.
Sh gun, whose “only purpose in life was violent death for pay”
(p. 1062), reflect the romanticization of the ninja in modern Japa- pillowing (p. 329, etc.). In Sh gun, making love. James Clavell has
nese popular entertainment: the historical ninja were primarily said that he chose this word because it is more pleasing than “for-
experts in political intelligence rather than fanatical assassins. nication” and more polite than its four-letter Anglo-Saxon
Although Toranaga was said to have considered ninja to be “filth” equivalent. It does not really correspond to any Japanese word,
(p. 1077), the historical Ieyasu prized the services of ninja and used although the term “pillow” is used in some archaic combinations
them extensively. In fact, the only lord in Japan in 1600 who could that connote sex (such as “pillow book”). The nuance of “pillow-
have ordered a ninja attack of the scale mounted by Ishido in Sh gun ing” is considerably more sensuous in the West than in Japan, where
would have been Ieyasu himself, since he then controlled the Koga pillows have traditionally been quite small and hard, made of wood
and Iga ninja, the two largest traditional groups. For an account of or of cloth stuffed with tea or buckwheat chaff.
the ninja, see Andrew Adams, Ninja: The Invisible Assassins (Ohara
pissing on a bargain (pp. 299, 485). It is unclear how well-
Publications, Los Angeles, 1970).
established a custom this was among the samurai, but the
historical story of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-80-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
146 Hideyoshi and Ieyasu’s (the Taik and Toranaga in Sh gun, p. Sekigahara, Battle of (p. 1211). The decisive battle in October 1600 147
163) sealing the transfer of the Kanto in this way is recounted in at which Tokugawa Ieyasu and his allies defeated a coalition headed
Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, p. 163; according to this by Ishida Mitsunari and thereby secured hegemony over all Japan.
anecdote, the incident came to be known as “the pair of pissers on This battle is considered by many historians to be the beginning of
the Kanto” (Kant no tsure-sh ben). the Tokugawa period. See pp. ix, 56-58, 60-61.
poisoning enemies (p. 1164). Yabu’s plot to poison Jikkyu in seppuku (pp. 568-9, etc.). Ritual suicide by disembowelment; a
Sh gun is by no means implausible (especially the detail of bribing a more proper term than harakiri. See pp. 73, 95-96.
cook, for it is said that Ieyasu bribed a cook to set fire to the kitchen
of Osaka Castle in 1615), but on the whole poisoning seems to have Shinto (pp. 652-3). The indigenous religious beliefs of the Japa-
been an exceptional way of dealing with one’s enemies in medieval nese, as distinguished from Buddhism, which was introduced from
Japan, for reasons that are not clear; see Murdoch, A History of China. Literally, “the way of the gods [kami]”), See pp. 117, 123-5.
Japan, I, 631.
shogun (pp. 72-74). A national military ruler, an office delegated
raw fish (pp. 150, 365, 1202). See pp. 121-2. Regents, by the emperor. Literally, “general,” the title was first assumed by
Minamoto Yoritomo in 1190; Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed the posi-
Council of (pp. 72, 225, etc.). See pp. 55-56. tion in 1603. See pp. 2, 56.
rocks growing (pp. 835, 1018). In Sh gun, Mariko recommends silk (p. 303, etc.). Silk had long been prized by the Japanese upper
that Blackthorne try listening to a rock grow, as a way of promoting classes as the finest fabric available for clothing, and its import
wa. This provocative device appears to be a sort of Zen riddle espe- from China constituted a major element of foreign trade in the era
cially formulated for the Western mentality, to which the idea of of Sh gun; see p. 49. The Japanese had produced domestic silk for
rocks growing seems nonsensical. To the Japanese mind, however, centuries, but in 1600 the Chinese product was much more valued;
this notion would not be such a conundrum, since the Japanese not until the Tokugawa period did Japanese silk come to match and
believe that rocks do indeed have life within them; the myths even even surpass Chinese silk in quality, eventually becoming Japan’s
speak of a time when rocks could move about and were given to leading export to the West in the pre-World War II period.
occasional violence. Japanese have always been great observers and
connoisseurs of rocks, considering them to possess life and individ- soap (pp. 63, 527, 654). A recent import to Japan in 1600 and an
uality, so that watching them grow would have seemed quite natural unusual luxury; see p. 124.
to Mariko.
sushi (pp. 580, 769). Raw fish with vinegared rice; see pp. 121-2.
r nin (pp. 78, 254, etc.). A masterless samurai (literally, “wave per-
son,” that is, someone floating unattached), who has left his lord’s swimming (pp. 454-7). Although it is conceivable that a Westerner
service either by choice or compulsion (most commonly because of such as Blackthorne could have instructed the Japanese in head-
the confiscation of the lord’s fief). The stigma againt r nin implied first diving (pp. 455-6), it is certain that his samurai pupils would
in Sh gun was a product of the peaceful Tokugawa period, when have been able to swim rings around him. The “art of swimming”
prospects of re-employment were slim. (suiei-jutsu) was an indispensable part of the martial arts, since
samurai often had to fight in the many rivers that divide the Japa-
-sama, -san, -chan (passim). Forms of address attached to a per- nese terrain. Samurai were trained not only to swim, but also to
son’s name; the latter two are modern corruptions of -sama, -san engage in mortal combat, in full armor if necessary, both in and
indicating respect and -chan familiarity; see p. 83, under water. Having mastered techniques of combative swimming,
samurai knew how to grapple with an enemy while falling over-
samurai (p. 30, etc.). A Japanese warrior, from saburau, “to board, how to disentangle armor from seaweed, and even how to
serve.” The ruling class of Japan from the twelfth to the nineteenth jump out of the water into boats. The one thing that samurai would
centuries, the samurai comprised about six or seven percent of the probably not have done is swim naked, as in Sh gun; samurai were
total population during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). rarely parted from their weapons and at the very least would have](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-81-320.jpg)
![GLOSSARY
148 worn a loincloth, which was almost a part of the body for the tradi- first duty to avoid discord.” Many Japanese corporations today 149
tional Japanese male. similarly use “wa” as a motto to encourage cooperation among
employees; see Thomas Rohlen, For Harmony and Strength (Univ.
tai-fun (pp. 464, 971, etc.). A typhoon. “Tai-fun” appears to be a of California Press, 1974). “Wa” can also suggest harmonious bal-
dialectical Chinese pronunciation, the source of the English ance in an artistic sense, and as such constitutes an important aes-
“typhoon”; in Japanese, the characters (meaning “great wind”) are thetic of the tea ceremony. The conception of wa in Sh gun is far
read taif . more privatized and anti-social than in conventional Japanese usage.
taik . Hideyoshi’s highest title, used as a proper noun to refer to wak (p. 666). Japanese pirates, active in the trade with China; see
Hideyoshi himself. His first court title was kampaku, or “regent” for pp. 44-45.
the emperor, which he took in 1585; in 1591, after ceding his title to
his heir Hideyori (hence the reference to Yaemon as “Kwampaku,” wheeled vehicles. As explained by Mariko (p. 801), wheeled vehi-
p. 278), he himself became taik , a special title for a retired regent. cles were surprisingly rare in traditional Japan, although oxcarts
See p. 55. were commonly used for heavy loads. Vehicles with wheels were not
only of limited practical use in Japan’s rainy climate and hilly
tokonoma (pp. 549, 624). A slightly raised alcove in a Japanese terrain, but were also severely restricted by the Tokugawa govern-
room, typically decorated with a flower arrangement or hanging ment as a means of status regulation and military control.
scroll. The tokonoma was a feature of teahouse architecture and in
the modern period of most Japanese houses. Misspelled “takonoma” Willow World (pp. 100, 678, etc.). The licensed pleasure quarters;
(“octopus room”) in Sh gun. see pp. 108-110.
T kaid (p. 290). Literally, “eastern sea road,” the great coast Yedo. See Edo.
highway from Edo to Kyoto.
Yoshiwara (p. 1180). The licensed pleasure district of Edo; see p.
tooth-blackening. In Sh gun, the only blackened teeth are those of 109.
the courtier Ogaki (p. 965) and the (apparently) transvestite Regent
Ito (p. 1077). By the seventeenth century, however, the practice had Zen (p. 48). A Chinese sect of Buddhism introduced into Japan in
spread beyond the courtier class to all upper-class married women, so the thirteenth century; patronized generously by the samurai class,
that Mariko in real life would certainly have blackened her teeth. For Zen Buddhism came to have a profound influence on samurai
the traditional Japanese, gleaming black teeth were considered very morality and on Japanese aesthetics; see pp. 77, 92-93.
sexy in a woman and elegant in a man; for a sensuous modern
appreciation of this aesthetic, see Jun’ichir Tanizaki, In Praise of
Shadows (Leete’s Island Books, 1977), especially pp. 33-35. Teeth
were blackened by the periodic application of a solution of iron fil-
ings pickled in vinegar and sake.
uniforms. The Brown and Gray uniforms in Sh gun are a fictional
device; see p. 57.
wa (pp. 472, 602, 609, 642, etc.). The frequent use of “wa” in
Sh gun to indicate a transcendent state of spiritual “tranquillity”
would strike most Japanese as peculiar. In Japanese, wa implies the
reconciliation of conflicting elements (and hence is perhaps best
translated “harmonization”) and is used primarily to refer to social
harmony, as in the famous sixth-century injunction of Prince Sh -
toku: “Concord [wa] is to be esteemed above all else; make it your](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-82-320.jpg)
![FOR FURTHER READING
158 10. The Samurai Hagakure in Modern Life (trans. Kathryn Sparling: Basic Books, 159
An excellent general history of the samurai, authoritatively writ- 1977).
ten and beautifully illustrated, is Richard Storry, The Way of the The tea ceremony, the most all-encompassing of the many cultural
Samurai (Putnam, 1978); it includes a far more detailed bibliogra- pursuits of the samurai in the age of Sh gun, is described in good
phy than is possible here. For a briefer survey, see H. Paul Varley, historical detail in Arthur Sadler, Cha-no-yu: the Japanese Tea
Samurai (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970). Ivan Morris’ The Nobility Ceremony (Kobe: Thompson, 1934; Tuttle reprint, 1962, paper).
of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (Holt-Rinehart, For a description of the Japanese tea ceremony as it is practiced
1975) examines the important concept of “sincerity” in the samurai today, see Tanaka Sen’o, The Tea Ceremony (Tokyo: Kodan-sha,
tradition. 1973). Okakura Kakuzo’s famous The Book of Tea (1906; Tuttle,
The medieval epics are a marvelous repository of lore about the 1956) is an inspired account of the tea ceremony infused with
samurai class in its classic phase. The Tale of the Heike is available nineteenth-century romanticism. A basic source of information on
in a readable if uninspired translation by Hiroshi Kitagawa and other aspects of the cultural activities and patronage of the samurai
Bruce Tsuchida (2 vols.; Univ. of Tokyo, 1975; paper). The influ- class is the Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art (31 vols.;
ence of this great epic on samurai values (see pp, 89-90) is discussed Weatherhill, 1972-80), which includes volumes on The Feudal
in Kenneth Butler, “The Heike Monogatari and the Japanese War- Architecture of Japan, Momoyama Decorative Painting, Momo-
rior Ethic,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, v. 29 (1969), pp. yama Genre Painting, The Namban Art of Japan, and The Garden
93-108. Two other important military epics have been translated by Art of Japan.
Helen McCullough; The Taiheiki: A Chronicle of Medieval Japan
11. Consorts and Courtesans
(Columbia, 1959) and Yoshitsune: A Fifteenth-Century Japanese
Chronicle (Stanford, 1966). Very little is available in English on the history of women in tradi-
For the samurai martial arts, see, in addition to the titles men- tional Japan. For a concise survey of the changing status of women
tioned on p. 92, the excellent three-volume survey by Don Draeger, in medieval Japan, see Joyce Ackroyd, “Women in Feudal Japan,”
The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan (Weatherhill, 1973-4): Classi- Trans, of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3rd ser., v. 7 (1959), pp. 31-
cal Bujutsu, Classical Budo, and Modern Bujutsu and Budo. Also 68. The position of women in the Heian period is discussed in Ivan
of use is Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook, Secrets of the Samurai: Morris, The World of the Shining Prince (Oxford, 1964; Penguin,
A Survey of the Martial Arts of Feudal Japan (Tuttle, 1973). 1979, paper). Useful comparative material on marriage and
For primary sources on Bushido, see Miyamoto Musashi, A Book inheritance may be found in F. Joüon des Longrais, L’Est et l’Ouest:
of Five Rings (trans. Victor Harris; The Overlook Press, 1974), a Institutions du Japon et de l’Occident Comparées (Tokyo: Maison
treatise by one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen; “Yamaga Sok and Franco-Japonaise, 1958).
the Origins of Bushido,” in W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of Japanese For the women of Sh gun, some sense of Hideyoshi’s relation-
Tradition (Columbia, 1958; paper); and Yamamoto Tsunetomo ships with Nene and Yodo may be obtained from Adriana Boscaro,
[J ch ], Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (trans. William Scott trans, and ed., 101 Letters of Hideyoshi (Tokyo: Sophia Univ.,
Wilson; Kodansha Intl.. 1979). The classic version of the story of 1975), while information on Ieyasu’s wives and consorts is provided
the Forty-Seven R nin is Donald Keene, trans., Ch shingura: The in Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan (see “Basic Background”
Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Columbia, 1971; paper). For a descrip- above).
tion of the practice of seppuku, Jack Seward’s Harakiri: Japanese For the world of the seventeenth-century Tokugawa courtesan,
Ritual Suicide (Tuttle, 1968) is good on the details of the ritual but particularly as it appears in literature, see Howard Hibbett, The
weak on any psychological analysis. Floating World in Japanese Literature (Oxford, 1959; Tuttle reprint,
Modern Japanese interpretations of Bushido must be used with 1974, paper). A marvelously detailed description of the traditional
care; for example, Nitobe Inazo’s well-known Bushido: The Soul Yoshiwara is J. E. de Becker, The Nightless City, or the History of
of Japan (1899; rev. ed., Putnam, 1905), although suggestive, was the Yoshiwara Yukwaku (1899; Tuttle reprint, 1971, paper). The
written by a Japanese Christian for an Anglo-Saxon audience and authoritative history of Chinese ideas about sex is R. H. van Gulik,
has strong polemical overtones. Equally deserving of caution is Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden: Brill, 1961); no comparable
Mishima Yukio’s The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on work has yet been done for Japan, although some useful information
may be found in Howard Levy, Sex, Love, and the Japanese
(Washington, D.C.: Warm-Soft Village Press, 1971). For a partial](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-87-320.jpg)
![POSTSCRIPT
162 creation of the film itself, as detailed in The Making of James Cla- but she still insists that “Japanese is a very simple language,” 163
vell’s Sh gun (Delta Books, 1980), the official account of the project. instructing Blackthorne in distinctions of inflection which do not
Here we find a candid and often amusing chronicle of the persistent make sense in her own tongue. More disturbing than such minor
American refusal to accommodate to Japanese ways, a refusal which errors was the film’s emphasis on those scenes from the novel which
seems to have left the project persistently lacking in any of the wa (in tended most to caricature Japanese behavior. What on earth did all
the Japanese sense; see Glossary) which is so idealized in the novel. the Japanese actors make, for example, of the scene in which the old
The Making of Sh gun also provides a revealing explanation of the gardener is executed for taking down a rotten pheasant in defiance
logic which lay behind the television transformation: of Blackthorne’s orders, contrasting the humane and life-affirming
There is no question that [scriptwriter Eric] Bercovici’s approach subtly Western hero with the blindly obedient and life-negating Japanese?
changed Sh gun’s basic perspective. Clavell himself notes that, in the novel, Presumably, most of the native Japanese involved in the produc-
Blackthorne is the alien. “It’s a Japanese story, a very pro-Japanese story.” In tion of “Sh gun” passed off such scenes with good humor, tolerating
the beginning, we are not at all sure that Blackthorne is a hero .... Only as he them as the sort of exaggeration typical in the Kabuki theater. But
finds the beauty of Japan do we find the beauty of his character. among the American television viewers, a good many were more
By switching the perspective from the Japanese to Blackthorne, all is insulted than amused, particularly in the Japanese-American com-
reversed. Blackthorne becomes a hero and it is Japan that is alien. When we munity. One of the strongest reactions came from Clifford Uyeda,
first see him on the deck of the Erasmus in the film version, he is quite a former national president of the Japanese-American Citizens League,
recognizable Western hero. Says Clavell simply, “Different media. You
who wrote that the “captivating” costumes and photography “were
don’t relate film form to book form.” (pp. 36-37)
mere settings in which subtle racism was beamed into the
The context of this startling admission makes it clear that the dif- subconscious mind .... Japanese characters were not individuals.
ference in perspective is not simply a matter of form: it reveals They were stereotypes, often gross, sometimes odious. Samurai were
instead a tacit conviction that the American television public in 1980 depicted as a class of people cruel to the point of being inhuman.
is so xenophobic that it cannot tolerate an image of the Japanese (or Japanese people were cast as a race to whom life has little meaning
presumably other such non-white, non-Christian cultures) as anything except death” (Pacific Citizen, Sept. 19, 1980, p. 6).
more than incomprehensible “aliens.” What has been effected is a So the TV transformation involved a certain loss of innocence for
reversion to the basically ethnocentric structure of the Will Adams Sh gun, a submission of a very private and self-contained fantasy to
myth (see Chapter 1), deprived of the strongly pro-Japanese tone the compromising demands of the American entertainment industry.
which distinguished Clavell’s novel. The unfortunate part is that so much good will went into the making
The controversial decision by Bercovici to have all the major Jap- of the film series, particularly on the part of James Clavell, who
anese characters except Mariko speak only in Japanese, with no sub- stresses at the end of The Making of Sh gun that “Sh gun was
titles and no dubbing, stemmed as much from the “alien” approach to written to be a bridge between East and West and to dramatize and
Japan as from any concern for authenticity. As explained in The try to explain the Land of the Gods to the West. It is passionately
Making of Sh gun, “The plan was simple: The entire story would be pro-Japanese” (p. 224). Perhaps I am being impatient and idealistic in
told through Blackthorne’s eyes .... What he did not understand, we my disappointment with the TV version of Sh gun. It was certainly a
did not understand” (p, 33). The unfortunate effect was to make the presentation of great visual appeal, with some fine acting by a
Japanese principals appear far more “inscrutable” than in the novel. number of the principals. And for all the latent stereotyping,
In particular, the central male actors were foreclosed from “Sh gun” does seem to have left a generally positive feeling toward
communicating any but the most primitive (and typically hostile) the Japanese among the majority of viewers. If only as “‘the world’s
emotions to the American television audience. costliest language lesson” (N.Y. Times, Sept. 15, 1980), the TV
The one great strength of the TV series was the reliance on Japa- “Sh gun” left millions of Americans knowing far more about Japan
nese expertise to create “authenticity.” But what was achieved was than before. Deep-rooted cultural biases cannot be broken down
rather the look of authenticity, a largely cosmetic effect which pre- overnight, and “Sh gun,” like its parent novel, offers a hopeful
sented the uncomfortable contradiction of skilled Japanese actors, foundation on which to build the deeper cross-cultural understanding
finely costumed, who often behaved in the most un-Japanese ways. which is so clearly the ideal of James Clavell. (H.S.)
Mariko’s hairdo may be more historically correct than in the novel,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/learningfromshoguntxt-100531015850-phpapp01/85/Learning-from-shogun_txt-89-320.jpg)
Learning from shogun_txt
- 1. Learning from Sh gun Japanese History and Western Fantasy Edited by Henry Smith Program in Asian Studies University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California 93106
- 2. Contents Designed by Marc Treib Contributors vi Copyright © 1980 by Henry D. Smith II Maps viii for the authors Preface xi Distributed by the Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, Part I: The Fantasy N.Y. 10017 1 James Clavell and the Legend of the British Samurai 1 Henry Smith 2 Japan, Jawpen, and the Attractions of an Opposite 20 Illustrations of samurai armor are David Plath from Murai Masahiro, Tanki y ryaku 3 Sh gun as an Introduction to Cross-Cultural Learning 27 (A compendium for the mounted Elgin Heinz warrior), rev. ed., 1837, woodblock edition in the Metropolitan Museum Part II: The History of Art, New York 4 Blackthorne’s England 35 Sandra Piercy 5 Trade and Diplomacy in the Era of Sh gun 43 Ronald Toby 6 The Struggle for the Shogunate 52 Henry Smith 7 Hosokawa Gracia: A Model for Mariko 62 Chieko Mulhern This publication has been supported by Part III: The Meeting of Cultures grants from: 8 Death and Karma in the World of Sh gun 71 Consulate General of Japan, Los William LaFleur Angeles 9 Learning Japanese with Blackthorne 79 Japan-United States Susan Matisoff Friendship Commission 10 The Paradoxes of the Japanese Samurai 86 Northeast Asia Council, Henry Smith Association for Asian Studies 11 Consorts and Courtesans: The Women of Sh gun 99 USC-UCLA Joint East Asia Henry Smith Studies Center 12 Raw Fish and a Hot Bath: Dilemmas of Daily Life 113 Southern California Conference on Henry Smith International Studies Who’s Who in Sh gun 127 Glossary 135 For Further Reading 150 Postscript: The TV Transformation 161
- 3. vi Contributors vii Sandra Piercy is a graduate student in English history of the Tudor- Stuart period at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation, “The Cradle of Salvation: Domestic Theology in Elgin Heinz is a consultant on the preparation of educational mate- Early Stuart England,” is in progress. She is also co-editor of King, rials about Asia. He is a former teacher of Asian studies at the high Saints, and Parliaments: A Sourcebook for Western Civilization, school level, and was a member of a team which wrote Opening 1050-1715. Doors: Contemporary Japan (The Asia Society, New York, 1979). David Plath is professor of anthropology and Asian studies at the William LaFleur teaches Buddhism and Japanese thought in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For two decades he Department of Oriental Languages at UCLA. Mirror for the Moon has been studying modern Japanese lifeways, and his latest book (New Directions) is his translation of poems by Saigyo, a monk of on the subject is Long Engagements: Maturity in Modern Japan, twelfth-century Japan. He is currently working on a book entitled issued by Stanford University Press in 1980. The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan. Henry Smith teaches Japanese history at the University of Califor- nia, Santa Barbara. His current interest is the history of urban cul- Susan Matisoff is an associate professor in the Department of ture in Japan, and he has recently written “Tokyo and London: Asian Languages at Stanford University, where she has taught Comparative Conceptions of the City” (in Albert Craig, ed., since 1972. She is the author of The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Japan: A Comparative View). He is currently preparing a book Musician of Japan, and her research centers on the Muromachi entitled Views of Edo: Transformations in the Japanese Visual through Tokugawa periods with a particular interest in drama, oral World, 1700-1900. and folk literature, and popular culture. Ronald Toby is assistant professor of history and Asian studies at Chieko Mulhern is associate professor of Japanese language and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is Japanese history. Part of his current research on the interaction the author of K da Rohan, a literary biography of a modern Japa- between domestic politics and foreign relations in the Tokugawa nese writer, and of “Cinderella and the Jesuits: An Otogizoshi period has been published as “Reopening the Question of Sakoku; Cycle as Christian Literature” (Monumenta Nipponica, Winter Diplomacy in the Legitimation of the Tokugawa Bakufu,” Journal 1979). She is currently editing a volume entitled Female Heroes of of Japanese Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (1977). Japan.
- 4. viii European Voyages to Asia Japan in the Era of Sh gun ix
- 5. Preface “History is today and tomorrow. You know, if you don’t read history, you’re a bloody idiot.” James Clavell in conversation May 16, 1980 This book is intended for those who have read James Clavell’s Sh gun and who are curious about its educational significance as “A Novel of Japan.” Although Sh gun, with its generous serving of sex, violence, and intrigue, is in the mainstream of current popu- lar entertainment, it is set apart by a certain instructional tone. For one thing, Sh gun provides a wealth of factual information about Japanese history and culture, information which is probably new to the majority of its readers. But Sh gun is informative in a prescrip- tive sense as well, since the gradual acceptance of Japanese culture by the hero Blackthorne bears the clear implication that the West has something to learn from Japan. We hope that the following essays will be of special interest to those who, like ourselves, are professional teachers of Japanese his- tory and culture. It was largely the influence of our students that led us to consider Sh gun for its educational uses. My own experi- ence is perhaps typical: uneasy over the depiction of the Japanese samurai as sadistic and uncaring of life, I was initially unable to read past the first two hundred pages of Sh gun. Only when pressed by inquisitive students did I read the entire novel and come to under- stand that the initial image of the Japanese as “barbarians” was a foil for the hero’s eventual understanding that Japan is not only civilized, but maybe even more civilized than the West. In short, the
- 6. PREFACE xii central theme of the novel itself turned out to be exactly our busi- so, we have tried to extend the point in time depicted in the novel xiii ness: learning about Japan. into a line of historical process extending over the century For educators, it is useful to understand Sh gun if only because 1550-1650, and often beyond. This period of history is of great so many people have read it. Based on our own experience, any- importance in terms of institutional and cultural innovations, many where from one-fifth to one-half of all students who currently enroll of which paved the way to the long Tokugawa peace and to what in in college-level courses about Japan have already read Sh gun, and the twentieth century is generally understood as Japanese “tradi- not a few of these have become interested in Japan because of it. tion.” Whether tea ceremony, Confucianism, castle towns, screen With over six million copies of Sh gun in print (and more sure to paintings, geisha, Zen gardens, or many other key features of the follow after the television series), it would appear that the Ameri- ancien régime, each emerged out of the era of Sh gun. So for the can consciousness of Japan has grown by a quantum leap because professional as much as for the popular historian, the period of of this one book. In sheer quantity, Sh gun has probably conveyed Sh gun is of great interest, and focuses our attention on the funda- more information about Japan to more people than all the com- mental question of how historical change takes place, and why. bined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the I would like to put forth a personal suggestion that the idea of Pacific War. At the very least, an understanding of Sh gun may “learning from Sh gun’“ may be relevant not only for a general help those of us involved in education about Japan to better under- audience but for the world of scholarship as well. Many academic stand our audience. scholars of Japan will have much the same reaction to the title In the subtitle “Japanese History and Western Fantasy,” we are Learning from Sh gun as professional architects had to Learning drawing attention to two different aspects of “learning from from Las Vegas (by Robert Venturi and others, 1973), a sense of Sh gun.” Our approach to fantasy in Sh gun is essentially anthro- surprise—and even indignation—at the thought of “learning” from pological, viewing the novel as a contemporary American phenom- popular culture. The point, of course, is that architects should learn enon; in Chapters 2 and 3, David Plath and Elgin Heinz explore from Las Vegas, and historians from Sh gun, not because they are some of the theoretical issues involved. We emphasize that we intend ‘popular, but because popular culture helps professionals reflect on nothing derogatory in our use of the word “fantasy.” After all, a their basic priorities—not unlike the way in which Blackthorne, in fertile imagination is an indispensable component of the historical learning from Japan, clarified his own values. For Venturi and his mind, whether that of a novelist like James Clavell or that of aca- colleagues, the extravagant use of decorative signing along the Las demic scholars like ourselves: how else can we gain real understand- Vegas strip suggested the importance of communication and sym- ing of people in different times, or of different cultures? The real bolism in architecture and served as a critique of the overemphasis task is to recognize, analyze, and reflect upon our imaginative pro- on purity and formalism among modernist architects. In much the jections into the past. same way, I wonder if the effectiveness of Sh gun in opening up With Chapter 4, the emphasis shifts from the anthropological to the world of traditional Japan does not suggest something about the historical, and to the specific problem of learning about Japan the advantages of dealing with matters of immediate human experi- (and, for comparison, England) in the year 1600. This places us ence in the writing of history. squarely in an era of Japanese history unsurpassed for sheer human Just as James Clavell tries to “make things real” in his attention drama. The period of Sh gun is rich in all the staples of history in to personal emotions and the details of daily life, should not we as the old-fashioned, popular sense: constant warfare, delicate diplo- historians take a more sensuous approach to “ideas” and “institu- macy, colorful characters, political intrigue, and religious fervor. Of tions,” treating them less as disembodied abstractions and more as particular importance for comparative purposes is the extensively correlatives of concrete human existence? The lament of French documented contact between Japan and the West in those years. In historian Lucien Febvre in 1941, while perhaps no longer so true of detailing the correlation between the fictional world of Sh gun and Western historiography, would certainly still apply to the case of the historical reality of the time (to the limited extent that we under- Japan: “We have no history of Love. We have no history of Death. stand it), we have not intended to criticize James Clavell but rather We have no history of Pity nor of Cruelty, we have no history of to lead interested readers into an historical “reality” which can be Joy.” We also have as yet very little history of such basic matters every bit as fascinating as “fiction.” as sex, dress, disease, and food in Japan—all items of interest to For those of us who are historians, the; concern has been to the readers of Sh gun. By drawing our attention to human life as emphasize the importance of change in the era of Sh gun. In doing it was experienced from day to day, Sh gun suggests new areas for
- 7. PREFACE xiv historical inquiry. In a related way, this immensely influential novel We have spelled all Japanese words according to modern romani- xv about Japan should encourage academic specialists to rethink some zation, which is sometimes different from (and often less historically basic issues of communication: Who is our audience? What are we accurate than) some of the older forms that appear in Sh gun (such trying to say? And how are we trying to say it? as Yedo for Edo [the modern Tokyo], or Kwanto for Kanto). As Finally, we should mention that we have not attempted any Susan Matisoff points out in Chapter 9, the long mark over certain explicit approach to Sh gun as literature, since we were interested Japanese vowels (calling for a longer duration, not a change in primarily in what the novel had to suggest about cross-cultural learn- sound) is an important part of the spelling, and we have included it ing and historical change. We certainly recognize, however, that except for such familiar place names as Kyoto and Osaka (properly Sh gun is a work of fiction, and those tempted to be disparaging Ky to and saka) and except for those words which have passed might refresh themselves with a reading of Prince Genji’s famous into the English language (such as ‘daimyo’ and ‘shogun’, which defense of the art of fiction in The Tale of Genji (c. A. D. 1000): appear in roman letters rather than italics). An exception to the If it weren’t for old romances like this, how on earth would you get through exception is the title Sh gun itself, which, following the cover design these long tedious days when time moves so slowly? And besides, 1 realize of the novel, we have treated as a Japanese word, maintaining the that many of these works, full of fabrications though they are, do succeed in long mark. Japanese names appear, as in Sh gun, in Japanese order, evoking the emotion of things in a most realistic way. One event follows with the family name first. All page references to Sh gun appear in plausibly on another, and in the end we cannot help being moved by the italics and correspond to the Dell paperback edition. Most quota- story, even though we know what foolishness it all really is. Thus, when we tions from James Clavell are from a conversation with the authors read about the ordeals of some delightful princess in a romance, we may find in May 1980; a few are from NBC press releases, June 1980. ourselves actually entering into the poor girl’s feelings. (Ivan Morris, The This book would not have been possible without the generous World of the Shining Prince, p. 315) support of the organizations listed opposite the title page. The editor We have also tried to bear in mind Genji’s further observation that is grateful to Shelley Brody for editorial help and to Mary Dumont the author of fiction “certainly does not write about specific peo- for research assistance. Frank Gibney of the Pacific Basin Institute ple, recording all the actual circumstances of their lives. Rather it is in Santa Barbara has offered encouragement and administrative a matter of his being so moved by things, good or bad, which he support. Peter Grilli, director of education for the Japan Society of has heard and seen happening to men and women that he cannot New York, has been of continuing assistance throughout the proj- keep it to himself but wants to commit it to writing and make it ect; we are particularly indebted to the Japan Society for undertak- known to other people.” ing the distribution of this book. Finally, I owe a note of personal Finally, we promised James Clavell that he could have the last thanks to the forty-odd students of History 187A, “The Era of word: when our conversation with him in May 1980 turned to the Sh gun” in Spring 1980 at the University of California, Santa Bar- question of how he could so vividly portray what happened in bara. Their enthusiastic and challenging response did much to con- Japan in the year 1600, he said, “You can say whatever you like, vince me that both student and scholar can indeed learn a great deal but in the end you should say: he must have been there!” from Sh gun, Our last and most important acknowledgment is to James Clavell himself, who was gracious enough to meet with five of the authors Although this book was written in anticipation of the television on May 16, 1980 (appropriately enough, the 360th anniversary of adaptation of Sh gun scheduled for September 1980, we have the death of William Adams) and to talk about his views on Japa- addressed ourselves to the novel alone. Even though we were able nese culture and his intentions in writing the novel. We hope that to see a filmscript of the TV series through the courtesy of Para- we have respected his claim that “I am a storyteller, not an his- mount Studios, we were not able to preview the film series itself. In torian,” although one of the lessons of Sh gun is that perhaps his- any event, it has been our feeling that only the novel is appropriate torians and storytellers need not be such different breeds as they for learning purposes, since it is (to use one of James Clavell’s appear to be today. favorite words) “finite”: it is cheap, portable, and easily available. Most of what we say about the novel will apply to the film; we have Henry Smith made note of obvious exceptions. Santa Barbara, California August 1980
- 8. 1 James Clavell and the Legend of the British Samurai Henry Smith . . . Then one afternoon in London he picked up one of his daughter Holly’s schoolbooks and he came upon an intriguing bit of history. “It said, ‘In 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai,” Clavell recalls. “I knew nothing about Japanese history, so I thought I’d better start reading.” NBC press release, May 1980 And so James Clavell began reading, widely, and then writing. Four years and half a million words later, Sh gun was published, in the spring of 1975, and it has since become a remarkably durable best seller. Although Clavell did not realize it when he stumbled across the story of William Adams in his daughter’s schoolbook (nor, indeed, does he seem very conscious of it even now) he was following in the footsteps of at least five earlier Anglo-Saxon novelists who were inspired by the story of “an Englishman who went to Japan in the year 1600 and became a samurai,” Clavell’s standard one-line characterization of Sh gun. Until Clavell’s, none of the novels based on the tale of Will Adams appear to have enjoyed any great success, although one of them (Blaker’s The Needlewatcher) is now back in print. But an understanding of the sources and symbols of the Will Adams story, which in its frequent
- 9. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 2 romantic retelling constitutes a full-blown modern legend, leads to three initial meetings with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Although written in a 3 a better appreciation of the historical place of Sh gun. formal and reportorial style (the letter to his wife is notably lacking in any note of real personal feeling), the letters of William Adams The Historical William Adams are fascinating reading. In the 1611 letter, Adams introduces him- Three historical coincidences serve to explain the enduring appeal self, not without a hint of pride: of the story of William Adams. First, he was undeniably the “first ... I am a Kentish man, borne in a towne called Gillingham, two English Englishman in Japan,” indeed probably the first Englishman to miles from Rochester, one mile from Chattam, where the Kings ships doe settle in Asia, a fact of considerable importance in the context of lye: from the age of twelue yeares olde, I was brought vp in Limehouse neere the history of the British Empire, of which Adams tends to become London, being Apprentice twelue yeares to Master Nicholas Diggines; and a sort of symbolic founding father. This has led to his frequent my selfe haue serued for Master and Pilott in her Maiesties ships; and about commemoration within the narrow context of modern Anglo- eleuen or twelue years haue serued the Worshipfull Companie of the Japanese diplomatic and cultural relations, but also more broadly Barbarie Marchants, vntill the Indish traffick from Holland began, in which as a symbol of the enduring self-ascribed values of the Anglo- Indish traffick I was desirous to make a littel experience of the small Saxon in Asia: manliness, fair-mindedness, a sense of adventure, knowledg which God had geven me. So, in the yeare of our Lord 1598, I was bravery, and a dedication to the principles of free enterprise and hired for Pilot Maior of a fleete of five sayle, which was made readie by the free trade. [Dutch] Indish Companie ... Secondly, one is struck by the coincidence of the timing of And to this about all that might be added is that Nicholas Diggins Adams’ arrival in Japan, in the spring of 1600, a momentous year (whom James Clavell transformed into Alban Caradoc) was a well- in the course of Japanese history. For it was six months later, at the known shipbuilder of his day, that Adams is known to have sailed Battle of Sekigahara, that Tokugawa Ieyasu established a decisive against the Spanish Armada, and that he left a wife and two chil- hegemony over all Japan and began the process of solidifying the dren in England. From the symmetrical division of his life into three regime which he and his thirteen successors as shogun would per- twelve-year terms, we see that he was about age thirty-six on arriv- petuate for over two and a half centuries. It almost seems as though ing in Japan. fate were at work to join the destinies of the symbolic progenitor of In both letters, Adams then recounts the hazardous journey of a great Asian colonial empire and the actual progenitor of one of the Dutch fleet which left Rotterdam in June 1598 in an effort to Asia’s most durable national regimes. reach the West Indies via the Straits of Magellan and challenge the The final coincidence is that what we know about the real William Portuguese trading empire there. Following a difficult winter in the Adams is just enough in terms of the possibilities for imaginative Straits, the fleet moved on into the Pacific in late August of 1599 historical fiction. It is actually quite coincidental that we know any- and was there separated by storms. The De Liefde, of which Adams thing much about Adams at all, since almost all the information was pilot, proceeded alone up the coast of Chile, surviving various comes from six letters which he wrote back to England and which encounters with suspicious Indians and hostile Spaniards. Finally miraculously survived among the records of the British East India in late November, they rendezvoused with the one other ship of the Company. Scattered other bits of information are available from fleet which had survived the storms, the flagship Hoop. They then the correspondence and diaries of other Englishmen in Japan in the decided to make for Japan, according to Adams, on the grounds years 1613-20, and a few more details from Japanese records, but that its northerly latitude would make it a more promising market all add up to more of an outline for a character than a full historical for their cargo than the Indies, which “were hot countreyes, where personality. woolen cloth would not be much accepted.” Of Adams’ four surviving letters, the first two are the most About two months later, halfway across the Pacific, in February important, one dated October 1611 and addressed “TO MY 1600, the De Liefde was separated in another storm from its remain- VNKNOWNE FRINDS AND COUNTRI-MEN,” and the other an ing partner, of which no more was heard. They doggedly continued undated fragment of a letter to his wife. The two letters differ con- on their journey to Japan, supplies dwindling and sickness spread- spicuously in a number of details (suggesting that they were written ing, finally sighting land in mid-April (the exact date differing in at quite different times, the one to his wife presumably earlier) but the two letters) off the province of Bungo in northeast Kyushu. By they both essentially tell of his voyage to Japan, of his first recep- this time, only twenty-four men of an original crew of over a hun- tion there, and, in the 1611 letter, a few details of his fate after the dred were alive, and of these only seven were able to walk—three
- 10. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 4 more were to die a day later, and another three shortly after. The • that Ieyasu awarded him an estate in the village of Hemimura 5 curious Japanese who met them “offered us no hurt, but stole all (part of the modern naval port of Yokosuka), valued at about 250 things they could steale.” The real threat came about a week later, koku (a unit measuring the income of land in rice, about five when “there came a Portugall Iesuite, with other Portugals, who bushels) and with some hundred peasants under his jurisdiction. reported of vs, that we were pirats, and were not in the way of • that he was known by the Japanese as “Anjin-sama,” or “The marchandizing.” Pilot”; he came eventually to be known by the surname Miura, But somehow Adams managed to survive not only the slander of the peninsula south of Edo where his estate was located. the Portuguese, but also the treachery of two members of his crew, • that he either purchased or was given a house in downtown Edo, and soon found himself being transported to Osaka to meet with in an area which became known as “Anjin Street” sometime after the “king”—who turned out to be Tokugawa Ieyasu. Adams was his death, remaining so until the 1930s. chosen as natural leader of the group because of his ability to speak Portuguese and because Captain Jacob Quaeckernaeck was too • that he built two English-style ships at the request of Ieyasu, one sick to move. of 80 tons and one of 120 tons (slightly less than the 150-ton De Adams met with Ieyasu in Osaka on three occasions in May and Liefde), the latter of which eventually passed into Spanish hands June of 1600, and his descriptions of these interviews provide the and plied regularly between Acapulco and Manila. most fascinating and historically exciting vignettes of the entire • that he was active in setting up and working for the English trad- William Adams story. In Adams’ own words to his wife: ing station in Hirado (on Kyushu) from 1613 until his death in Comming before the king, he viewed me well, and seemed to be wonderfull 1620. fauourable. He made many signes vnto me, some of which I vnderstood, and • that he married a Japanese woman, apparently the daughter of a some I did not. In the end, there came one that could speake Portuges. [This prominent Edo inn-keeper named Magome Kageyu, and that they person may in fact have been Joao Rodrigues, the model for Father Alvito in had two children, Joseph and Susan—although none of the Sh gun,] By him, the king demanded of me, of what land I was, and what descendants has ever been traced. mooued vs to come to his land, being so farre off. I shewed vnto him the • that he died in Hirado May 16, 1620, and by his will provided name of our countrey, and that our land had long sought out the East Indies, and desired friendship with all kinds and potentates in way of marchandize, both for his Japanese family and for his wife and daughter hauing in our land diuerse commodities, which these lands had not .... Then whom he had left behind in England. he asked whether our countrey had warres? I answered him yea, with the Spaniards and Portugals, beeing in peace with all other nations. Further, he Some Questions About William Adams asked me, in what I did beleeue? I said, in God, that made heauen and earth. From these various facts, we can see that William Adams did He asked me diverse other questions of things of religion, and many other indeed lead a fascinating career, and that he was in a position of things: As what way we came to the country. Hauing a chart of the whole considerable importance to the Tokugawa shogunate—although it world, I shewed him, through the Strait of Magellan. At which he wondred, appears that he fell into increasing disfavor after the death of Ieyasu and thought me to lie. Thus, from one thing to another, I abode with him till in 1615. But there remains a great deal we do not know about mid-night. Adams, offering much latitude for fertile imaginations. Let us see From this point, our detailed knowledge of William Adams what the record does offer, however, about four particularly inter- becomes progressively sparser, and the opportunity for romancers esting issues: to embroider becomes correspondingly greater. His wife’s letter 1. What sort of a man was he? From the tone of his letters and goes only as far as a second interview with Ieyasu. The other letter from reports of his English contemporaries, it would appear that briefly mentions a third interview, then says that he was sent to Edo Adams was a self-sufficient and standoffish man in personality, by sea, probably sometime in July. Adams’ narrative at this point quite formal in his relations with others. His letters suggest he was abruptly switches to a time frame of years rather than weeks, and nothing less than a devout Christian. He was originally hostile to about all we know of him, through this account and through other the Jesuits for their opposition to him, but later had friendly deal- bits of information, is essentially the following: ings with them. In terms of his basic instincts, he was first and fore- most a man of commerce, eager to help develop trading relations • that he became a fairly trusted adviser of Tokugawa Ieyasu on between Japan and the Protestant nations. matters of commercial policy with the Protestant nations.
- 11. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 6 2. Did he become thoroughly acculturated to Japanese life? or advisory function. Such men were basically anomalies within the 7 While Adams’ letters give no indication of any special infatuation official Tokugawa four-class hierarchy of samurai-peasant-artisan- with Japanese customs, he does provide this one revealing estima- merchant. They were known generically as hogaimono, “those out- tion of Japanese culture: side of the [normal] way,” a term applied primarily to priests, who had presumably renounced the ordinary world, but extended to The people of this Hand of Iapon are good of nature, curteous aboue other anomalous categories. Their privileges were also non- measure, and valiant in warre: their iustice is seuerely excecuted without any partialitie vpon transgressors of the law. They are gouerned in great ciuili- standard: doctors, for example, were permitted to wear two tie. I meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by ciuill policie. The swords, but in no sense were they considered samurai. When people be verie superstitious in their religion, and are of diuers opinions. employed by the shogunate such men often had far easier access to the shogun than even high-ranking daimyo, precisely because of He clearly respected the Japanese, an attitude that caused consider- their advisory function. So it was surely into this anomalous class able friction between Adams and Captain John Saris, who arrived that Adams would have fit: it is almost inconceivable that any in Japan in 1613 to open an English trading station. Saris noted, to Japanese would have considered him a samurai. At best he was an his annoyance, that Adams persisted in giving “admirable and “honorary samurai.” As for the status of hatamoto, which was a affectionated commendatyons” of Japan, so that “It is generally specific rank among the retainers of the shogun, there is no docu- thought emongest vs that he is a naturalised Japanner.” More spe- mentary record for Adams, although a fief of 250 koku might cifically, Adams refused to stay in Saris’ English-style quarters in barely have qualified him for such status. Again, he was probably Hirado, preferring the residence of a local Japanese magistrate. We considered simply the anomaly that in fact he was, a well-paid also have testimony that Adams wore Japanese dress, and of course foreign expert not unlike the “yatoi” of Meiji Japan (described in he became fluent in the Japanese language. H. J. Jones’ recent book Live Machines). 3. Did he strongly influence Tokugawa Ieyasu? It is here that the enthusiasm of later panegyrists and novelists—including, of The Romance of “Will” Adams course, James Clavell—has outstripped the sketchy available evi- In all records from his lifetime, Adams was never known as any- dence. Adams was indeed an adviser to Ieyasu, and apparently a thing but “William” (although his family name does vary, from trusted one, but one must remember that Ieyasu had many pro- Adams to Addames to Addams, all common in an era of unstand- fessional advisers, including a number of foreigners. Indeed, one of ardized spelling). It remained for an obscure writer of adventure Adams’ shipmates, the Dutchman Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn stories for youth, William Dalton (1821-75), to provide the famil- (c. 1560-1623), also became a confidant of the shogun, and was iarizing touch of “Will” in what was to be the first of six novels likewise given a house in Edo—in a distinctly better part of town over the next century based on Adams’ story: Will Adams, The than Adams, along what came to be called, after its Dutch resident, First Englishman in Japan: A Romantic Biography, published in the “Yayosu Quay” (and today “Yaesu-cho”). It is highly unlikely London in 1861. that the relationship between Adams and Ieyasu was ever one of In the almost two and a half centuries between his death and great intimacy. Still, who knows . . . ? Dalton’s “romantic” revival, Adams had not been completely 4. Did he become a samurai? If by “samurai” we mean a bushi, forgotten by his countrymen, for his all-important letters were pub- a member of the warrior class, then the answer must certainly be lished twice. The first was in Samuel Purchas’ remarkable early no, Adams never became a samurai. It is true that he was provided seventeenth-century compendium of accounts of Elizabethan over- an estate by Ieyasu, for whom he thereby became a retainer. It is seas adventurers, known by its full grandiose title as Hakluytus also true, according to the account of the chief of the English trad- Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes; Contayning a History of the ing station, that he left two swords—the customary mark of samu- World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and rai status—to his son Joseph at his death. Yet in no surviving Others (London, 1625). Here, a scant five years after Adams’ records has any hint of military interest or prowess been ascribed to death, four of his letters were preserved for posterity, and he was Adams. He remained a dedicated man of commerce—a calling enshrined as one of the adventurous “pilgrims” of England’s great which was anathema to the bushi class. age of seaborne expansion. Nothing was heard of Adams for over Adams’ status can be more persuasively explained as akin to doc- two centuries until Thomas Rundall reprinted the letters (with some tors, scholars, priests, artists, and others of essentially professional corrections of Purchas’ versions) in 1850, together with some early
- 12. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 8 travel descriptions of Japan, in a publication of the Hakluyt Society Christian hero in a land of hostile heathen, and he finally aids the 9 (a group dedicated to commemorating English exploration) entitled Catholic community in its escape from the Battle of Osaka. We are Memorials of the Empire of Japan in the XVI and XVII Centuries. finally brought back to Will Adams only near the end of the novel, It was this volume which caught the eye of William Dalton and pro- by which time he has been made a “lord” and taken a Japanese vided him the material for his romance. (It is also the Rundall edi- wife—but with little account for his obvious change of heart. tion of Adams’ letters, reprinted in 1963, that is the most accessible If nothing else, Dalton’s novel serves to emphasize how very little version today.) was understood about Japan in the West during the first years after The first revealing thing about Dalton’s novel is its dedication to Perry’s arrival. Dalton himself had of course never visited Japan, James Bruce, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, a distinguished English of which he wrote as though it were any of a number of exotic lands diplomat who a scant two years earlier, in August 1858, had con- to which his Anglo-Saxon adventurers flocked in over a dozen such cluded a commercial treaty between Japan and England—one of novels, including Lost Among the Wild Men: Being Incidents in the the group of five treaties forced on Japan by the Western powers Life of An Old Salt (1868), and The Power Money; or, The Adven- after the “opening” of the country by America’s Commodore tures of Two Boy Heroes in the Island of Madagascar (1874). In all, Perry in 1853-54. It was only natural that William Adams should be Dalton’s novels comprise a marvelous example of fantasizing about revived in this context, since he, after all, had been instrumental in the British in Asia. The key thing about Dalton’s Japan is that it is negotiating the first commercial agreement between Japan and irretrievably exotic, largely by virtue of being non-Christian. All is England in 1613. topsy-turvy in this early version of Jawpen (see Chapter 2 below). Of course the position of England in East Asia was now vastly Dalton takes on with little change many of the attitudes of the early more powerful than in the era of the real William Adams. In the Jesuits themselves, but now in a common front of Protestant and early seventeenth century, English trading efforts had been wholly Catholic against a Japan which is somehow, ironically, even more at the mercy of Japanese authorities and greatly hampered by distant from the European conscience than it had been over two rivalry from the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. In the mid- centuries before. nineteenth century, however, England had established a wholly new and heavily one-sided system of commercial power in East Will Adams and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Asia. This became known after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 as In the decades immediately after Dalton’s book, Japan moved the “unequal treaty system” and was designed largely for the quickly to modernize and Westernize, making the country far less advantage and profit of the emerging European imperialist powers exotic than it had been before—and, in many cases, far less exotic in Asia. But Dalton could still call on the spirit of William Adams than an emerging group of Western aficionados of Japanese tradi- as the first English trader in Japan, and in this way the first step tion would have preferred. Although the dominant image of Japan was made in forging the latent symbolism of Will Adams as a pio- in this period became that of a country adept at mimicking the neer of modern British imperialism in Asia. West, a small but distinct counter-image was already emerging— What of the content of Dalton’s novel? The arrival in Japan fol- that of Japan and its “tradition” as the potential teacher of the lows the lines of Adams’ letters, but the cultural encounter with West (as outlined in a timely article by Robert Rosenstone in the Japan remains pretty much a case of the white hero versus the col- American Historical Review, June 1980). At any rate, knowledge ored heathens: Dalton’s Will is not even persuaded of the pleasures about Japan in the West grew by leaps and bounds in the late nine- of the Japanese bath, which in all later novels was to be the opening teenth century, and the one-sided image of Will Adams as the lone wedge in Japan’s progress to “civilized” status in the hero’s mind. emissary of civilization, as cast by Dalton, became less and less Will’s angry exit from the bath is also pretty much his exit from the credible. novel, and for the bulk of the book Dalton chronicles the entirely The next chapter in the modern mythology of Will Adams was to imaginary adventures of his Dutch shipmate Melchior von Sant- be written not by novelists, but by the British merchants and diplo- voort (a real historical character, of whom however almost nothing mats of the Meiji period (1868-1912). It all began in 1872, when is known). Melchior’s primary exploit involves his connections with James Walter, a British merchant in Yokohama, rediscovered the the Japanese Christian community, centered around the “Queen of presumed tombs of Adams and his wife at Hemimura in a state of Tango,” who is none other than Hosokawa Gracia, the eventual extreme neglect and launched a modest movement to restore the model for Sh gun’s Mariko. Melchior is presented as a valiant burial site. This became a viable project, however, only in the years
- 13. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 10 immediately following the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, a monuments, first a cenotaph at Hemimura in 1917, then an obelisk 11 pivotal event in the modern diplomacy of East Asia by which Japan in his native Gillingham in 1934, and in 1947 a marker in It , where achieved the diplomatic equality and military security which had been Adams built the two ships for Ieyasu. her major national goals ever since the imposition of the unequal treaty system in the 1850s. Enter the British Samurai It should be no surprise that “Will” Adams, by now well-known as Just at the time that official diplomatic ties between Japan and the “first Englishman in Japan,” was summoned forth as the symbolic England were souring in the 1930s because of Japan’s continental progenitor of the twentieth-century alliance of Japan and England. This expansion, further development of the Will Adams legend was sal- status was eloquently conferred in a revealing speech at the Japan Society vaged by novelists, first in Richard Blaker’s The Needlewatcher of London in February 1904 (published in the Society’s Transactions (London, 1932, now available in a 1973 Tuttle reprint with an added and Proceedings, vol. 6) by Arthur Diosy. Entitled “In Memory of Will subtitle, “The Will Adams Story, British Samurai”), and then in Adams,” the talk introduces Adams as a man who “lived in Japan for James Scherer’s Pilot and Sh gun (Tokyo, 1935). twenty years, attaining to a position of great influence and dignity, and Of the two, Blaker’s recreation is by far the more detailed and died in the land where he had so well represented the best qualities of conscientious. Indeed, The Needlewatcher (that is, a pilot, the his race.” After a detailed account of Adams through his letters, Diosy “needle” being that of a compass) is clearly the most distinguished sums up the man as: in literary merit of all the Will Adams novels. Richard Blaker . .. a good Briton, and very probably a great Briton; a man who never (1893-1940) was a talented and respected English writer, born in did aught in Japan to disgrace his country’s flag; a man who, on the India the son of a high colonial official. Wounded in World War I, contrary, taught the Japanese much that was new and useful—a man he went on to write Medal Without Bar (1930), a much-praised who taught them how to build ships in the European way, and indeed novel based on his wartime experience. His version of the Will may well be said to have founded that glorious Japanese Navy which has Adams story is without doubt the least romantic of the lot; indeed just given us again proof of its excellence. It is, perhaps, not too great a he contributed more to the de-mythification of Adams than to his stretch of imagination to picture the spirit of Will Adams looking down continuing glorification, producing a carefully historical work of [from his grave] on the Bay of Yokosuka, the Chatham of Japan, on the fiction. Pilot and Sh gun is more a pastiche of incidents than splendid battleships and cruisers that lie there flying the flag of the a novel, put together in a light-hearted manner. James Scherer Rising Sun. (1870-1944) first went to Japan around the turn of the century as a The naval “proof” which Diosy mentions is none other than the missionary-teacher, and later became a distinguished American surprise Japanese attack on Port Arthur which began the Russo- educator, serving at Cal Tech in Pasadena from 1908 to 1926. He Japanese War, victory in which was the final step in establishing Japan retained a lifelong interest in Japan, and his retelling of the Will as a full-fledged member of the imperialist club of nations. Note that in Adams story was one of his many books on Japan. Diosy’s account Will Adams takes on two basic roles. First, in a spirit Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of both Blaker’s and akin to Dalton’s hero, he is a worthy representative of the “qualities of Scherer’s novels is the emphasis on the cultural confrontation of his race”—no hint is made of his possible acculturation to Japanese Will Adams with Japan, and in both he is clearly described as meta- ways. Second, he is a teacher of Japan in the area of technology, morphosing into a full-fledged samurai, something quite different and, in particular, he is apotheosized as “the father of the Japanese from the lofty “lord” which Dalton envisioned. It is from this time Navy.” Historically, this is pretty far-fetched, but the symbolism was that the concept of the “British samurai” begins to take root, an appropriate in the year 1904. Such doctoring of the Will Adams story idea which would see its fullest development in Sh gun. fits nicely with another image common in those years, the idea of One would have thought that Blaker and Scherer would have Japan as “The Britain of the East.” In other words, the common military exhausted the market for the Will Adams story but, if so, not for and diplomatic interests of Japan and England take precedence over long, considering the dampening effect of the Pacific War. The any lingering cultural differences. This symbolic position of Adams as next version was a curious book by an American writer, Robert forefather of modern British diplomacy in East Asia has been Lund, entitled Daishi-san (New York, 1960). In an author’s note, confirmed periodically in the twentieth century by the raising of Lund provides a revealing explanation of the appeal of the Will Adams story: “In Will Adams’ life and times I felt a close parallel with our own life and times. I tried to keep the story simple, seeking
- 14. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 12 to show the value of tolerance and understanding, and the necessity statement about Japan as a mirror, if not an antidote, for twentieth- 13 for people of different cultures to learn to live with each other.” century Western preoccupations about sex, in particular nudity, Here we first encounter a distinct note of cross-cultural idealism in homosexuality, and the problem of mutual dominance in sexual retelling the Will Adams story—a note which, again, Clavell was to partnerships. develop even further. Note, however, that in the very title of Daishi- But Will’s pilgrimage of self-discovery in Japan as he is con- san—”Great Teacher,” a title which Lund has bestowed on his fic- verted into a loyal retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the “Lord of the tional Will Adams (although in actual Japanese practice it was a Golden Fan” of the title) is more than merely sexual: he is also term reserved for high Buddhist priests, and posthumously at that!) awakened to new levels of meaning in the same issue of life versus —we see the recurrence of the theme that Adams is more teacher death that would preoccupy Blackthorne. Particularly revealing is than learner. In Daishi-san, he is not only a teacher of technology Adams’ response late in the novel to a question from his old Dutch (particularly ship-building), but also of culture, when he ends up shipmate Melchior as to whether he plans to stay in “this barbarous teaching the second Tokugawa shogun a few words of English! country”: Will’s Sexual Awakening “Barbarous, dear friend, certainly. But it is also true. Here at least there is honour, unto death, and duty, unto death, and beauty, unto death. There is We can already see how most of the elements of Will Adams that savageness, to be sure, but it is a simple human savageness. It lacks the would coalesce as Blackthorne were already present in earlier novels sophisticated hypocrisy of Europe.” (p. 421) about the pilot. But perhaps the most revealing precedent is that offered by the last Will Adams novel prior to Sh gun, Christopher In these lines, a further transformation of the Will Adams legend is Nicole’s Lord of the Golden Fan, which was published in London already underway, from a man who is primarily a teacher and an in 1973, only two years before Sh gun (and ironically bearing a Englishman to a man who is primarily a learner and very confused plug for Clavell on the cover of the American paperback edition by about whether he is an Englishman—or a samurai. It remained for Bantam: “Not since Taipan has there been a novel of such tempes- James Clavell to develop this theme to popular perfection. tuous excitement . . .”). Nicole is an Englishman raised in James Clavell As Will Adams Guyana, a colonial background shared by Blaker and, at least spir- itually, by Clavell: the appeal of Will Adams to Englishmen far Although James Clavell is the sixth novelist to take up the Will from home seems particularly strong. A prodigious writer of Adams story, he is only dimly conscious of the fact—and not par- thrillers, Nicole also writes historical novels, all, with the exception ticularly interested. He says (and there is absolutely no reason to of Lord of the Golden Fan, set in the West Indies. doubt him) that he never read any of the earlier Will Adams novels, Lord of the Golden Fan depicts Will Adams as a man in search and that in fact he “deliberately avoided them.” This absence of of liberation from a variety of sexual hang-ups that we would any direct continuity makes all the more interesting the many paral- popularly call “Victorian”—no matter that the Elizabethans prob- lels of theme between his recreation of the story and those of his ably weren’t so hung up about sex (see Chapter 4). The book opens predecessors. One must remember of course that Clavell did read with Will desperately frustrated on his wedding night by a wife who very widely among non-fictional accounts of Adams, many of is convinced that “to be naked is to be lewd,” and that a wife’s which were written in celebration of the symbol as much as the man sexual duty is “to receive, not to give.” Chapter Two leads us and hence have strongly mythical elements (“first Englishman in through a homosexual encounter with none other than Christopher Japan,” “British samurai,” “father of the Japanese navy,” and so (“call me Kitty”) Marlowe, and then, hang-ups unresolved, on to forth). Japan. But Sh gun is of interest also because it is unique, drawing on It is unnecessary to detail the long chain of systematically varied the Will Adams legend and yet creating a totally new version of it in sexual adventures which Nicole’s Will Adams experiences in Japan accord with Clavell’s own background, with his instincts as a story- —ultimately to find some sort of satisfaction in his strong-willed and teller, and with the particular message which he wishes to preach to obediently passionate Japanese wife (a long-time staple of Western his late twentieth-century popular audience. To begin with the fiction on Japan). Lord of the Golden Fan, while of no compelling background: he was born in 1924 the son of Sir Richard Charles literary quality, is provocative light pornographic reading and Clavell, an officer in the Royal Navy, and is intensely proud of a of definite interest to the cultural historian as a well-developed lineage of British military officers “stretching back to Walterus de
- 15. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 14 Claville, armor-bearer to William the Conqueror.” In particular, death and destruction, people died like flies. So I have different attitudes 15 he feels himself to be bound by blood to the British naval tradition. towards things. While he had no first-hand experience in Asia as a child (although Clavell is of course often asked how, after three years of often bru- he was born in Australia, his family shortly returned to England), tal treatment by the Japanese, he could spend four years of his life his father frequently told him tales of the English in Asia, including writing a generally sympathetic novel about his captors; his the story of his grandfather, who served with a force of English response: “I just admire the Japanese. It’s possible to end up naval observers during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-5. admiring an enemy. The relationship of conqueror and conquered Clavell is also proud of his linkage, through the military, with the can be an intriguing one; it doesn’t necessarily lead to hate.” traditions of the British Empire. Only half in jest, he explains that, His prison experience heightened Clavell’s sense of identification My forebears are all military, so I was brought up to be one of these people with Will Adams: “It occurred to me that he was a man rather like who ruled the empire. You know, two or three people used to go out and myself, in an alien land.” Adams, like Clavell, first encountered they used to rule the natives. And they used to dress in dinner jacket in the the Japanese as their prisoner, in fear for his life. If Part I of sweltering jungle. When the natives came and killed them, they said, “That’s Sh gun (and the first three-hour segment of the TV miniseries) a terribly bad show, old boy.” And then the British, wisely, would send a seems disturbingly like a catalog of stereotypes of Japanese battleship and knock off the leader, and say, “Now, look, please behave violence and barbarity from the Pacific War, one must remember yourselves, because we really are better than you, and we really know how that Clavell has real personal memories of undeniable Japanese to look after you better.” inhumanity. It is, of course, necessary for the discerning reader So it is easy to see how closely Clavell could identify with William also to appreciate the differences: it is highly unlikely, for example, Adams, who was at once Elizabethan maritime adventurer, dedi- that the Japanese would ever treat helpless castaways on their own cated advocate of free trade, pioneer of English imperialism in the shores with the sadistic tortures that Yabu devises in Sh gun; Orient, and a man who, a native of Chatham and a sailor under Changi, one must remember, was an alien land for the Japanese as Drake, was involved in the very founding of the British naval well, under circumstances of total war. tradition. Even more important than this initial identification of Clavell Even more central to the conception of Sh gun was Clavell’s with Will Adams—now Adams as “Blackthorne”—is the eventual first extended encounter with Asia, as a prisoner of the Japanese in process of conversion which is so central a theme to Sh gun. Just Changi Jail on Singapore. While reluctant to dwell on the details of as Clavell came in time to admire his captors and to understand the experience, Clavell time and again comes back to its importance that their way of viewing things was not only different but perhaps in molding his attitudes: “Everything goes back to Changi; it is in ways better than that of the West, so the legend of Will Adams Genesis.” In a literal sense, his prison experience provided the as “British samurai” offered the plot outline and psychology of a genesis of his career as a novelist, King Rat (1962), which “is of similar process of conversion. It was a remarkable mesh of the course an autobiography; that’s what happened to me in 1945, as story of a historical figure with a novelist’s own personal experi- near as I could remember it fifteen years afterwards.” Prior to ences, yearnings, and fantasies: in becoming Blackthorne, Will King Rat, Clavell had been primarily a screenwriter, first in Adams was also to become James Clavell himself. England and then from 1953 in America, and he says it was the But before his encounter with Will Adams, Clavell was first to Hollywood screenwriters’ strike in 1960 which enabled him to write write Taipan (1966), a novel loosely based on the historical activi- a novel. “King Rat sort of spilled out, like a dam bursting, because ties of Western traders in the new English colony of Hong Kong in I hadn’t told anybody about anything to do with those days.” King 1841. As Clavell tells the story, he was inspired by the success of Rat won critical acclaim, and Clavell’s career as a novelist was James Michener’s Hawaii (1959), and “there’s nothing like attach- launched. ing to success, so I thought: Michener’s Hawaii—but on Hong As any reader of the trials of “Peter Marlowe” in King Rat will Kong.” The resulting Taipan owed less to Michener than to a dis- grasp, Clavell’s experiences at Changi were harrowing. It was also tinctive formula worked out by Clavell, consisting of a historical his first contact with the Japanese and their attitudes: setting and lots of fictional characters, a short story-time spread Well, I learned fairly young about the Japanese and their attitudes toward out over a large number of pages, a heavy quota of bloody action life. I was barely eighteen, I was a teenager, right? We were surrounded by and intricate intrigue, and a slangy, easy-to-read style. It was a
- 16. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 16 formula that would be repeated in Sh gun, but with the addition Clavell was a screenwriter before he was a novelist), but also to 17 of the all-important themes of cultural conflict and value reduce the real story of “Will” Adams’ experiences in Japan transformation. from a number of years to a number of weeks. Perhaps this is The obvious bridge from King Rat to Taipan to Sh gun was the tailored to the American preference in the late 1970s for quick theme of Englishmen in East Asia, a theme which has led Clavell to conversions, but it is remarkable that it only takes Blackthorne a characterize all of his novels, past and projected, as an interlocking couple of months to reach the stage of “wa” necessary to attempt “Asian Saga.” He is now completing Noble House, set in Hong ritual suicide. Everything is quickened, compressed, and Kong in the 1960s, “which essentially brings Taipan up to date.” intensified in Clavell’s treatment of the Will Adams legend, in After that, back to Japan and ahead to the 1970s, in a novel entitled contrast to the longer and more painful process of acculturation Nippon. And then back again to China—now entitled simply depicted in earlier novels. China—and still ahead in time: “It may even be science Fiction.” Clavell was also the first author of a Will Adams novel to change But the unifying theme of “Asian Saga” will remain simply “the the names of all the characters. Some have criticized him for this story of the Anglo-Saxon in Asia, from the first man, which is (see, for example, Sheila Johnson’s review in the Journal of Japa- obviously Will Adams. And that is what I am trying to do.” nese Studies, Summer 1976), arguing that most historical novelists retain the real names of the historical models. Clavell, however, The Appeal of Sh gun clearly wished for greater license: “I thought, to be honest, that I While none of the earlier novels about Will Adams appear to didn’t want to be restricted by historical personality.” On more have enjoyed any great success, Sh gun has become one of the practical grounds, he argues that the vast majority of American most widely-read popular novels in recent American history. What popular readers would never have heard of the historical Japanese are the reasons for Clavell’s phenomenal success? Exactly what did characters anyway, so he might as well take advantage of the he do to the Will Adams story that no one else had done? The easy opportunity to create names which in spelling and pronunciation answer, of course, is that he merely sensationalized the story in would be more accessible to his audience: Toranaga instead of ways that are obvious from the notices of reviewers: “Seldom does Tokugawa, for example, or Zataki for Satake. Whatever the moti- a novel appear so packed with melodramatic action, so gaudy and vation, the changing of the names of the obvious historical models flamboyant with blood and sin, treachery and conspiracy, sex and gave Clavell a license for fantasy which he exercised freely. murder;” another calls it a novel of “relentless lopped heads, sev- Clavell of course also changed many details of the story of ered torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, William Adams: he arrives at Izu, for example, in the imaginary excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and village of “Anjiro” (derived, however, from Ajiro, an actual fish- breathless haikus.” (For these and other reviews, see the cover of ing village on the Izu peninsula: “I read it off a map”), rather than Sh gun and Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. 6, p. 114.) on the coast of Kyushu. There are only a dozen survivors on the But beyond the undeniable sensationalism—indeed, in spite of Erasmus versus two dozen on the De Liefde (although the pedantic it—one can say a variety of more interesting things about Clavell’s will note that Erasmus was in fact the previous name of the De achievement in Sh gun. Purely at the level of technique, one must Liefde, and that a carving of the famed Dutch humanist remained give Clavell credit for his ability as a storyteller. He is able, through on its stern decoration, preserved to this day in the Tokyo National a prodigious imagination, to hold the reader’s attention with only Museum). occasional lapses: most who have read the novel testify to total But these are small differences: on the whole Clavell follows absorption over a relatively short period of time, to a sense of being closely the story of Adams’ arrival in Japan. It is in a different area totally swept up into the world of Clavell’s fantasy. One important that Clavell makes the most dazzling innovation: he arranges a love secret to this ability to “capture” a reader is the author’s adherence affair between Blackthorne and the wife of one of the most power- to a story time which is not radically different from actual reading ful daimyo in Japan! This astonishing linking of the entirely sepa- time. Only about five months in story time elapse in the twelve hun- rate legends of Hosokawa Gracia (see Chapter 7) and Will Adams dred pages of Sh gun, not much longer than the length of a sum- is at once the most historically implausible and most original con- mer vacation, for which the book seems made to order. tribution of Clavell’s. In a sense, this represents the Americaniza- The effect of this truncated story time is not only to heighten the tion of Will Adams, who in previous re-creations always, as a good almost cinema-like sense of action (it is crucial to remember that Englishman, knew his place and was content to consort with women
- 17. SMITH: THE BRITISH SAMURAI 18 of roughly his own status: maids, prostitutes, and merchants’ status of a model. This theme would seem to reflect America’s 19 daughters. But in Sh gun, he is not only able to approach, but even growing sense of inferiority vis-à-vis Japan in recent decades, par- to seduce, one of the grandest ladies of the land. If Mariko some- ticularly in matters of economic productivity and social order. times seems more like a JAL stewardess than a daimyo wife, it is Sh gun in a sense is a popular-culture version of Harvard only a reflection of the diminished class consciousness which sociologist Ezra Vogel’s controversial Japan as Number One Clavell has brought to the Will Adams legend. (1979), which proposes that America has much to learn from James Clavell also went well beyond the conventional limits of Japan in terms of social, political, and economic institutions. the Will Adams legend in his elaborate depiction of the internecine Many critics have warned that cross-cultural borrowing is not as politics among Japanese warlords in 1600. The very title Sh gun is simple and mechanical as Vogel implies, and the same caveats of a sign of the heavy emphasis on Toranaga and his struggle for course hold doubly true for Sh gun, in which Japan’s superiority power, which competes with the Blackthorne-Mariko affair as the is extended to matters of fundamental spiritual values. central theme of the novel. Earlier Will Adams novels rarely strayed In the end, we see that James Clavell has performed three types into the complexities of Japanese domestic politics except as a foil of operations on the Will Adams legend. First, he has synthesized for the adventures of the English hero, whereas Clavell shows most of the earlier themes by weaving them all into the story of daimyo rivalry as a theme of major interest in itself. While the “Blackthorne”: the latent symbolism of the “first Englishman in depiction of the struggle for the shogunate has been substantially Japan” is strong, the role of self-confident teacher of naval tech- fictionalized (see Chapter 6), it nevertheless indicates a strong inter- nology (if not actually the “father of the Japanese navy”) is what est in Japanese history on its own terms. In this sense, Sh gun is a in the end saves Blackthorne from his grief over Mariko’s death, less ethnocentric version of the Will Adams legend that its prede- and the transcultural ideal of the “British samurai” is of course cessors—although the essentially ethnocentric character of the Will central. But Clavell has also expanded the Will Adams story by the Adams legend itself of course remains. (It should be noted that the incorporation of the Hosokawa Gracia legend and the complex TV miniseries version of Sh gun greatly abbreviated the story of story of the internal Japanese struggle for power. By changing the the struggle for the shogunate, focusing largely on the Blackthorne- names and providing many imaginary characters, Clavell has writ- Mariko love affair and hence in a sense reverting to the format in ten a less strictly “historical” novel than his predecessors, yet at the which Japanese politics is simply the background for the cultural same time he has incorporated far more history. encounters of the Western hero.) Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Clavell has also con- But what finally sets Sh gun most clearly apart from its prede- tracted things in various ways. The Will Adams story is compressed cessors is its instructional quality. At a purely descriptive level, into a bare six months. Cultural information is provided from peri- Sh gun is a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture: ods after the year 1600, in what is better viewed as compression somewhere among those half-million words, one can find a brief than anachronism. And perhaps most importantly, the cultural description of virtually everything one wanted to know about learning of the hero is condensed into the message of simplicity Japan, typically presented through the good offices of our tour itself: in Japan, Mariko tells us over and over again, everything is guide Mariko. In a sense, Sh gun is a painless introduction to so simple, whether it is a matter of food, death, sex, language, or Japan, and the large number of passengers who may be seen whatever. However much we might all realize that things are prob- engrossed in the novel on any tourist flight to Tokyo suggests that it ably not quite so simple in the real Japan, the lure remains, and in is indeed a kind of travel literature. Although he denies any such the end Sh gun’s most original contribution to the legend of the intention, it seems likely that at least subconsciously Clavell was British samurai is the fantasy that maybe, after all, we really can introducing his readers to Japan today as much as to Japan in 1600, “just change our concept of the world.” a feature of the book that helps explain some of the anachronisms. But the instructional quality of Sh gun is at the same time as much prescriptive as descriptive, since Clavell offers a critique of Western views on such essential matters as death and sex by pre- senting the Japanese attitudes as superior (see Chapters 2, 8, 11). In earlier Will Adams novels, Japanese culture was depicted as at best a mirror for the West, whereas in Sh gun it is elevated almost to the
- 18. 2 Japan, Jawpen, and the Attractions of an Opposite is askew, the cultural geometry of life 180° out of phase with what 21 David Plath we had thought normal. The zone of myth is not the place for facts but for beliefs. We get confused about this because we like to call something a myth as a way of branding it a phony idea that fools other people but not us. But myths are the root ideas of any culture. As culture-bound ani- mals, we need myths to live by, whether or not we can prove to any- body’s satisfaction that they are true. We learn them so early, and so thoroughly, that most of the time we are not even aware of them—we don’t need to think about them any more than we need to be aware of the rules of grammar before we speak. An attractive cultural opposite forces us to consider these root beliefs that we had been taking for granted. As he learns the way of life in Jawpen, pilot Blackthorne is of course put to tests of bravery and physical stamina; an adventure tale can’t move forward without them. But his toughest tests are of moral courage: he has to wrestle with his own deepest myths of life. Curiosity and a hunger for challenges seem to be built into human nature. And I have a hunch that in their heart of hearts many people who travel from the West to Japan today would like to imagine that they are pilot Blackthorne storming into Jawpen. Even now in this age of earth-watching satellites, we still seem to hold, in some corner of our Western minds, the idea that the islands of Japan lie temptingly close to the twilight zone of myth. Everybody needs a good cultural opposite. We learn by making Perhaps that idea got its start from early European maps that comparisons, and the royal road to understanding our own way of showed “The Japans” as the most far-out set of islands in the Far life takes us to where we can begin to see it as others do. Often East. Whatever the source, the idea was still dominant a century enough we use a different “them” to define different parts of what after Blackthorne in the classic Gulliver’s Travels of his coun- is “us”: we contrast our cooking with French cuisine, for example, tryman Jonathan Swift. Part Three of the book is Gulliver’s voyage or our notions of the mystical with those of South Asians. But “To Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan.” again and again as we scan the rainbow of life-styles around the The idea surfaces even today: a few months ago I heard a U.S. world, our eyes are likely to fix upon one that attracts us by its spe- manufacturer of metal kazoos, in a radio interview, say that his cial color. Western eyes have been drawn in that way to Japanese product “is sold all over the world—including Japan.” As if some- culture for many generations, so that Sh gun touches a soft spot in how Japan remains in a different category from the rest of the our curiosity. world. We can enjoy Sh gun simply as an adventure story. But this one I’ve seen the disappointment on the faces of travellers arriving in is peculiar, an adventure yarn with a subtitle: “A Novel of Japan.” Japan these days. Tokyo, they discover, looks pretty much like any Yet this is deceptive. Sh gun actually takes us beyond Japan into other industrial mega-city. “The Japanese,” they complain, “have an entirely different country. There we find a culture that resembles sold out their tradition for a mess of transistors.” These travellers sixteenth-century Japan—but with all the pieces rearranged. I call may rush off to a remote mountain village where (according to the that place “Jawpen”—this place of which so many Westerners guidebooks) they still can find fragments of Jawpen (The “Real” have jawed and penned. Jawpen is one of our cultural opposites, Japan). But the weed of doubt has taken root. For if Japan is not, transposed into the twilight zone of myth and epic. It is made up of after all, the cultural opposite that the travellers had expected, then traditional Japanese parts, but it was invented and assembled here what had they been seeking? Was there once a “real” Jawpen—is in the West for domestic consumption. In Jawpen the whole world Sh gun historically true? For if Jawpen happened once, maybe it
- 19. PLATH: JAPAN AND JAWPEN 22 can happen again. Not that we can turn back the pages of history. still like to include a section on Topsy-Turvy Land. A Japanese car- 23 It is rather that the basic principles of Jawpenese society, its life- penter, for example, uses saws and planes that cut when you draw giving myths, are not just a fantasy but are within the realm of them toward you—where ours cut when you push away. But human possibility. A better civilization could be built around them the reversals seem to become fewer day to day; the Japanese in the future. even mount their horses from the left nowadays, as astute If a cultural opposite is to keep on attracting us, it has to remain observers of the TV version of Sh gun may notice. distant. When people begin to behave pretty much like neighbors, It’s not easy even to imagine that there could be a radically dif- then we may find them easier to understand (whether or not we like ferent civilization tucked away someplace on our planet now. It’s them)—but their way of life is not much good as food for thought. been a long time since anybody discovered an unknown island or In Sh gun the author is careful to remind us from time to time that found a lost valley. The twentieth-century Utopian novelist may still behavior really does run in reverse in Japan. He reports, for exam- try to persuade us that a more perfect society still could exist in a ple, that “Blackthorne ordered a servant to saddle his horse and remote locale—in a valley in Tibet (Shangri-la, in James Hilton’s mounted awkwardly from the right side, as was custom in Japan Lost Horizon) or an island in Indonesia (Pala, in Aldous Huxley’s and China” (p. 720), Earlier, on page 191, Rodrigues summarized Island). But even these imaginary cultural opposites have to cope the situation for Blackthorne by saying that “Japan’s an upside- with our same world of big technology, big science, and big govern- down world.” ment. In Island, for example, an aggressive nearby nation sends its The image of Japan as topsy-turvydom in fact was first widely troops to demolish Pala and force the people there to join the purveyed by the European visitors in the era of Sh gun. A prime march of Progress. So if John Blackthorne were alive today and example is a tract by Jesuit chronicler Luis Frois, Contradictions went looking for Jawpen he would get nowhere on the Erasmus: he and Differences of Custom Between the People of Europe and This would have to pilot the starship Enterprise across oceans of outer Province of Japan (1585), an entertaining (and often perceptive) space and crash-land on a distant galaxy. catalog of all the particulars in which Japan is a civilization in That was not always the case. Once upon a time it was truly pos- reverse, ranging from religious forms (“Our churches are high and sible to set sail across a salt-water sea and land in the territory of narrow; the Japanese temples are broad and low”) to matters of your cultural opposite. There was a moment in the tumble of world intimate hygiene (“We pick our noses with our thumb or index fin- events when people from Westernmost Europe and Easternmost gers; the Japanese use their little finger”). The theme of reversal Asia saw each other for the very first time. And it was as if—as was promptly revived in the mid-nineteenth century when contact time is measured in history—the range of human types had mush- with Japan was resumed. The leading British diplomat of the time, roomed; All around the globe it suddenly seemed that mankind was for example, explains that “Japan is essentially a country of para- more marvelously diverse than anyone had dreamed possible. doxes and anomalies, where all, even familiar things, put on new It’s not easy to reconstruct that feeling today. The range of faces, and are curiously reversed. Except that they do not walk on human types on earth now is pretty well documented, even if some their heads instead of their feet, there are few things in which they of the types remain a bit puzzling to us. If we want to put ourselves do not seem, by some occult law, to have been impelled in a per- into the mind-set of a Blackthorne or a Toranaga we have to imag- fectly opposite direction and a reversed order.” (Sir Rutherford ine answering the doorbell and there being greeted by a BEM. Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon [1863], I, 357). BEMs are the bug-eyed monsters that populate science fiction. We We shouldn’t swallow such statements whole, of course. In enjoy meeting them when it’s safe, in the pages of a book or on the dozens of little particulars, life in Jawpen does not look at all left- screen in Star Wars. But what if one of them actually walked into handed. But in the case of Clavell, it is not a matter of some “occult your house, and could talk, and had some quite human qualities law”: he is exaggerating for a purpose. Like an anthropologist—or and quirks? Would you want one to marry your sister? a Utopian novelist—he accents what is different about the society So John Blackthorne shivers when he first encounters the Jaw- he is describing in order to define and even question our own penese. They in turn shudder at him, for he is the BEM in their myths. Clavell may claim to be “just” a storyteller, but Sh gun is a houses. (In traditional Japanese folktales the BEM-like demons story wrapped around a sermon. had blue eyes, large noses, and red faces: an uncanny resemblance That sermon would be a lot more difficult to deliver if the story to Anglo-Saxons. So much for the Hollywood fantasy that people were set in today’s Japan. People who write tourist guides to Japan in many parts of the world fell prostrate before the first white man
- 20. PLATH: JAPAN AND JAWPEN 24 they saw because they thought he was one of their gods come back of all death.” And in addition, “Jesu Madonna, the women are 25 to life.) something else, though, a different species, Ingeles, nothing on Blackthorne is, indeed, the great WASP explorer, tough, clever, earth like them” (p. 140) full of get-up-and-go. The personification of aggressive European But learning to live by an opposite moral geometry is not some- expansion, he has come to The Japans for trade and material trea- thing you can do in the classroom, or by quiet study. The natives of sure, a knight of early capitalism. But we soon find out that he is a Jawpen seem amazingly eager to serve as Blackthorne’s tutors, and true knight after all, a man tender-hearted as well as tough. He has are forever giving him lessons. But like any child he has to learn a streak of poetry in him, a romantic side, a spiritual hunger. And some of the hardest lessons by experience. The hardest lessons, that spiritual hunger has not been adequately nourished in Europe. expectably enough, have to do with myths about love, death, and Certainly not by what the Christian church has to offer. Black- loyalty—central issues for any philosophy. thorne despises the clergy two times over: once for getting to the Consider two instances. In Blackthorne’s philosophy, God and Far East before he did and a second time on general principle. He mankind are fundamentally different orders of being. Every person himself is a skeptic, the cool-thinking master of modern technology owes his or her first loyalty to God; all persons, under God, are and science. He is capable of being skeptical even about the myths equal in that they all deserve God’s mercy and mankind’s charity. that are the base of his own way of life. Toranaga laughs at this Christian conscience that wants to treat all Blackthorne arrives in Jawpen with a kind of “reading souls as equal, that refuses to discriminate among persons. And readiness.” Shown the book of life from his cultural opposite, he Mariko adds that until Blackthorne can shuck off this conscience soon is studying its pages on his own, eager to decipher them. For he will be “defenseless as a doll” (p. 576) in Jawpen. For in this he realizes that this upside-down world is not just a fun house. Yes, country there is no gulf between God and mankind, and all people at times he does act like a kid at an amusement park: sampling new are not to be treated the same. You owe loyalty to your lord and foods, hot baths, and massages, playing house with Mariko. But in your family; other people can fend for themselves. Only those few Jawpen Blackthorne is no longer certain that he knows which who are personally tied to you can be trusted. The rest of mankind values of life are “backward” after all. He has to accept the fact needs to be approached like a pit of vipers, and trust here is child- that in this country he is the BEM: a backward European male. ish. To John Blackthorne the idea that a man should offer a god- If he is going to overcome his developmental disadvantages and like loyalty to another man is blasphemy. He can accept it only be mainstreamed into local society, then he must take its myths after he first has desecrated his Christian values by attempting to deep into the core of his being. To accomplish that, he must be de- take his own life—symbolically, that is, burying his Christian programmed by ordeal, for only then can he be born again as a conscience. samurai and finally reach the goal that author Clavell sent him to On the other hand, Blackthorne takes much more easily to the find: an understanding of the error in Western ways. As Black- idea that sex can be guilt-free. In his philosophy there was a chasm thorne explains to his hostesses, “We’re taught to be ashamed of between body and soul, the soul belonging to God and the flesh our bodies and pillowing and nakedness and . . . and all sorts of being a burden that one endures but does not try to enjoy. But in stupidities. It’s only being here that’s made me realize it. Now that Jawpen no wall separates soul from body, and there is no virtue to I’m a little civilized I know better” (p. 696). be gained from abstaining from physical pleasures. Indeed, people Blackthorne doesn’t have much trouble when it comes to making who are close to one another should help their partners into joy. sense of the larger operations of Jawpenese society. True, the This is almost an obligation between pillow partners. Blackthorne natives have to coach him with regard to peculiarities in the political has to mull over this idea for a while, but soon he is taking it up system and its daimyo rivalries. But the daimyo are men on the with gusto: one would think that he had just invented the wheel. make who behave about the same as calculating princes and bish- As I add up the cultural lessons that John Blackthorne learns in ops and power brokers that Blackthorne has known in other parts Jawpen, he begins to look less and less like an Elizabethan who of the world. What he can’t so readily grasp is the moral geometry, went to the other side of the world in 1600, and more and more like the myths that motivate people in their ordinary everyday relations an American who fell into a time-reverse warp about the year 1970. with one another. Here, too, Rodrigues summarizes the situation He is solidly within the great parade of rugged WASP adventure for him: “All Jappos are different from us—they don’t feel pain or heroes, from the knights of Camelot to Captain Kirk of Star Trek. cold like us—but samurai are even worse. They fear nothing, least But he probably is the only man in that whole parade who shuffles
- 21. PLATH: JAPAN AND JAWPEN 26 along being uncertain about his cultural roots, and who is ready to 3 Sh gun as an Introduction to Cross-Cultural Learning trade them in for a new issue. Elgin Heinz Blackthorne pilots us into an attractive civilization but one that is more attractive to us than it would be, I suspect, to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We are the ones who are troubled about living by myths that seem not to help us face death with composure, that make too much mystery out of human sexuality, that set us too far apart from nature, that do not ease our feeling of being dwarfed by towering and inscrutable technologies and bureaucracies. When we are in Jawpen we seem to have gotten to a place where there are better answers to these problems. And perhaps in time we can con- tinue the journey beyond Jawpen. Perhaps Blackthorne or one of his descendants will pilot us back across the Pacific and land us in Amourica, the land we want God to bless so that we can love. God help me, I’m so mixed up. Part Eastern now, mostly Western. I’ve got to act like them and think like them to stay alive. And much of what they believe is so much better than our way that it’s tempt- ing to want to become one of them totally, and yet. . . home is there, across the sea, where my ancestors were birthed, where my family lives, Felicity and Tudor and Elizabeth. Neh? Sh gun, pp. 718-9 The common recognition that societies, like individuals, both teach and learn from each other is a recent one. Indeed, it has been suggested that perhaps the most important fact about the twentieth century is that, for the first time in history, people of the world have had to take seriously one another’s actions and beliefs. Such recent phenomena as gas lines and flotillas of refugees have dra- matically brought this lesson home to Americans, a people who have traditionally taken pride in being self-sufficient shapers of world events, not passive respondents to circumstances beyond our control. In contrast, Japan has long since realized the reality of interdependence and the value of lessons learned from others. James Clavell’s Sh gun illustrates the teaching/learning process that has taken place at the individual and, to a degree, at the societal
- 22. HEINZ: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING 28 level when two cultural traditions have been thrust together by the Because of its romantic elements, some academic historians dis- 29 forces of history. It does so in a spell-binding, personal way by miss Sh gun as false both to the real circumstances in Japan and to making issues of cross-cultural contact and conflict come alive as the character of William Adams. Clavell does not bother to refute no textbook could do. them. He subtitled his book “A Novel of Japan” and invented new The lesson of knowing the self and one’s cultural “baggage” names for those characters that can be identified with historical fig- only when confronted with a different way of perceiving the world ures. Thus, he felt justified in making them behave according to the is also compellingly brought home by Sh gun. This further under- logic of his theme instead of according to the frequently tedious lines the value of having students read the novel and watch the TV and sometimes mystifying accounts of written chronicles. Would dramatization. Despite historical anachronisms and inaccuracies, anyone deny that the struggle for power is clarified by telescoping Blackthorne’s world is a fascinating telescope through which stu- several interacting governing bodies into a single Council of dents may see themselves as well as the Age of Discovery, when the Regents? global world first came into clear focus. Other historians, more lenient, note that many of the novel’s apparent anachronisms are acceptable, given its pivotal time frame. History or Romance? Enormous changes took place in Japan within a single lifetime cen- Sh gun is historically informative. It is set in 1600, when Euro- tered around the year 1600. Who can tell precisely when a particu- pean voyages of discovery had recently determined the size of the lar phenomenon began or ended? An English historian, Hugh Ross earth and the locations of major land masses. England and Holland Williamson, writing on the whole problem of taking liberties with were competing with Portugal and Spain for colonial empires. the “facts” of history, argues plausibly that all of academic history William Adams, an English pilot, and a few of the De Liefde’s is a “combination of myth, propaganda, and guesswork . . . . crew had survived a stormy landing on the southwestern coast of Even when the writer has grasped the fact that history is the interac- Japan after threading the Straits of Magellan and crossing the tion of character and not the invention and propagation of myths, Pacific. . . . he cannot invent speeches and thoughts for his people; he can In 1600, Japan was a seething cauldron of intrigue and civil war only record what he can prove.” The historical novelist, on the —nothing new, but Tokugawa Ieyasu was completing the task of other hand, like the great Greek dramatists, working With known constructing a stable dictatorship that would provide internal peace outcomes, can interpret the facts so that “an aspect of truth and isolation from external influences for the next two centuries. emerges which should compel the audience’s belief” (Historical Sh gun, in a six-month slice of the action, shows the kind of plot- Whodunits [1956], pp. 12-22). ting and fighting that was typical, even though some of the events The reader can use Williamson’s provocative views and the test were shifted and characters changed for dramatic effect. But, of Sh gun to approach theories of history as well as to argue explicitly labelled as fiction, it takes no more liberties with the facts whether Clavell has produced a work of historical fiction that com- than the TV “docudramas” of the last few years that claim to be pels the reader’s belief or a costume romance that seduces the unin- true accounts of their subjects. formed reader while infuriating the scholar. Sh gun also is a romance, a version of the classical cross-cultural What differentiates Sh gun from other costume romances is a encounter in which passion defies cultural norms only to end, inevi- set of philosophical convictions and life-style preferences for which tably, in tragedy. Lower-middle-class Adams is transformed into the story is the vehicle (for example, the constant references to Blackthorne, heroic amalgam of John Wayne and John Carter, “karma”). In this sense, Sh gun can be compared with Utopian Warlord of Mars, who changes the course of history and mourns novels that use a remote place and time or elements of fantasy to the death of his even more heroic lover, Mariko, wife of a great and express the author’s arguments. In this it resembles, for example, cruel samurai. But in the end he has his grief assuaged by the award Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger of noble rank, two beautiful women to replace Mariko, and a great in a Strange Land, both of which use a mixture of fact, fantasy, estate. Mariko, exquisitely beautiful and intelligent, and, despite utopianism, and symbolism specifically designed to promote the her conversion to Catholicism, totally dedicated to her samurai writer’s particular value system in a setting that will give it greater responsibilities, embodies the values of Japanese feudal aristocracy impact than if it were presented directly on its own merits. The as Blackthorne epitomizes those of middle-class England. reader is made a participant in the value judgments by identifica- tion with the characters and their actions.
- 23. HEINZ: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING 30 All three writers built their imaginary cultures on real founda- challenges readers to examine their own cultural assumptions in the 31 tions—Swift and Heinlein on the England and United States of mirror of Blackthorne’s reactions to Japanese behavior (or, more their own times and Clavell on seventeenth-century Japan, so that, accurately, Clavell’s version of Japanese behavior). Blackthorne often, only artful selection of unexaggerated facts is needed to learned to accept Japanese values for the Japanese, if not always make the reader infer the intended point. Immersed in these believ- for himself. Can we? Should we? Here is material for really signifi- able details, the observer is led to recognize the deficiencies of his cant classroom exploration. It is never the “facts” of history that own culture and to appreciate the values of the alien one in which are the reason for social studies education; it is the way in which he must try to survive. Clavell, as a romancer with a cause, takes students learn to use data to make decisions and value judgments feudal Japanese society and distills the whole complex of two cen- that will guide their attitudes and behavior. turies of Tokugawa culture into stereotypes of personal honor and With the drawing of comparisons, the whole subject of stereo- the complementarity of life and death. To his credit, he does it well. types becomes a problem that must be examined, particularly Mishima Yukio, the great novelist who was “Japan’s last samurai” because Sh gun has been condemned as an enormous pastiche of and who ritualistically disemboweled himself in 1970 after failing to best-seller stereotypes. What is a stereotype? It is simply a generali- revive the samurai spirit in an appeal to the army, would have zation that, through carelessness or ignorance—or, occasionally, appreciated the value system by which Sh gun’s characters lived. malice—has been pushed too far, has become the polarized symbol It is this skill that makes many American academic specialists on for items, or ideas, or people that, when we examine them, show Japan feel nervous. N reader of Gulliver’s Travels is likely to distinct differences among themselves. It is useful to recognize and think of Lilliput as an actual place, however remote. And, on the reject stereotypes but folly not to use generalizations. If we had to other hand, any reader of Stranger in a Strange Land can apply the treat each situation in life as a set of independent variables, we corrective of his own experience and observation to Heinlein’s would be paralyzed by the need to attend to an infinity of insignifi- characterization of today’s American society. But who among us cant details. We must generalize, but we must learn to do it not by has had experience with the real Japan of 1600? Scholars can cite polarizing, but by grouping whatever or whomever we are dealing stereotypes and anachronisms in Sh gun but, on any given detail, with on a continuum. If we polarize Japanese as small, then, by would have to admit that their general knowledge does not rule out comparison, we polarize ourselves as large—a manifest absurdity the possibility of some specific action by a particular individual. when we compare a Japanese sumo wrestler with an American jockey. If we put Japanese and Americans on a size continuum, we Cultural Comparisons see substantial overlap, with less differentiation every year. Sh gun, as a Utopian novel with a following large enough to jus- Applying a continuum to Sh gun, we can find endless Western tify making it into a TV series, encourages classroom comparison parallels, correspondences, overlaps, and duplications. Loyalty with other books that, in criticizing our current social behavior, and honor are concepts that have meaning in both cultures. Differ- have amassed cult-like followings of devotees to various Utopian ences are never in kind, only in degree. We can accept Clavell’s systems. Students can be invited to name other examples of utopian- descriptions of certain kinds of behavior as a deliberate placement ism, found today in what is usually classified as science fiction. nearer one end of the continuum than it would normally occupy They can speculate on the particular appeal that makes some people because we can recognize that it is done for dramatic effect—for try to model their life-styles and value systems on those exempli- example, the treatment of seppuku. fied. In the social studies classroom, these books can be extraordi- This, however, does not answer a larger question that is increas- narily useful—they are entertaining and thought-provoking ingly troublesome to social scientists, particularly cultural anthro- introductions to sociology, cultural anthropology, historical cause pologists. Are there real cultural characteristics that differentiate and effect, use of and adaptation to natural environments, value peoples from each other? Or do we ascribe “national character” on examination and identification, and (though in disrepute because the basis of superficial but highly visible customs—highly visible of unskilled use) values clarification. only because they differ from our equally superficial customs? At In addition to its ideological message, Sh gun provides a three- this point, perhaps it is enough to recognize that we inevitably wear way comparison of seventeenth-century England, seventeenth- the tinted glasses of our own culture. We must make conscious century Japan, and our present-day local culture. In it, students efforts not to polarize, and to recognize that positions on the con- may find that similarities outweigh the startling differences. Clavell tinuum are constantly changing.
- 24. HEINZ: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING 32 Clavell, like most competent novelists, does not kill his philo- all the household expenses, pay the fees of special schools for their 33 sophical theme by overexposure. He supports it by using life-style children, and provide him with an allowance that will permit him to comparisons. One that runs throughout the book and film is the drink in proper style with his office colleagues. And yet there are exposure of Blackthorne to Japanese customs and attitudes, with signs of change: instances are appearing of women who refuse to be his gradual conversion to the former but only partial comprehen- tea-pourers when hired as secretaries or who even put their own sion of the latter. This is a subject of fascinating potential in the careers ahead of marriage. classroom, for, with Blackthorne’s Europe and seventeenth-century In For Harmony and Strength (1974), anthropologist Thomas Japan equally remote, students can, by comparing them, begin to Rohlen details the organization, lifelong commitment, and mutual become conscious of their own value systems without feeling threat- responsibilities in a Japanese bank. Similarities to samurai loyalties ened by a need for self-exposure. One example of confrontation is are plain, as are the rigors of training. What is not clear is whether that between Mariko, who speaks as often for Clavell as for Japan, these are unbroken continuations from the Tokugawa era or mod- and Rodrigues, the Portuguese pilot, on the subject of who’s a bar- ern reconstructions by managers who see the advantages of a loyal barian (pp. 435-6). and dedicated work force. Although the latter is more probable, Another, more complex, confrontation is between Mariko and the existence of the phenomenon can be used to support the case of Blackthorne on male-female roles, money, and family honor those who want to use Sh gun as a guide to modern Japan—but (pp. 367-71). Honor and its inseparable corollary, duty, are implicit only until they notice that lifetime loyalty now is being eroded as or explicit (usually explicit) in nearly every scene of Sh gun. One Japanese companies begin to raid each other for managerial talent. thread of this complex strand is the character of the widow, Fujiko, Continuity and change are the two ends of a continuum. Sh gun compelled by Toranaga to be Blackthorne’s consort (pp. 471-3). gives us a dramatic introduction to the eternal-values pole, a pic- She displays complete control of her personal feelings in assuming ture that so reinforces our own romantic ethnocentrism that we the distasteful duty of managing his household, compensating for may not want to admit that it is a polar view—until, with Sh gun in his wildly unpredictable behavior, and guarding his honor hand, we walk from the plane into one of the world’s busiest air- (pp. 497-8, 500-503, 1178-80). Even after Toranaga gives her per- ports, ride traffic-choked miles into Tokyo, have a quick ham- mission to commit an honorable suicide and join her husband, she burger at McDonald’s, and check into the skyscraper hotel where performs the final duty of arranging the most advantageous terms all signs are in Japanese and English, indistinguishable from a hotel for Blackthorne’s estate and personal welfare after her. demise in Los Angeles where all the signs are in English and Japanese. (pp. 1190-91). Which is really Japan? Both, of course. And everything in between. As with the simple continuum of size, the complex con- Continuity and Change tinuum of cultural behavior is the same as the American—we, too, A comparison of seventeenth-century attitudes with modern ones have company loyalty and women who manage the family house- leads to our last and most challenging question: how valid are hold, myths of chivalry (did you ever see a Western movie in which Clavell’s characterizations today? To what extent does seventeenth- the sheriff shot the villain from ambush?), and philosophical com- century Japan persist into the twentieth century? If it seems to, is it posure in the face of death. But, there are differences in location on a vestige of tradition, of habit not yet discarded, or a real continua- the continuum—and the locations are constantly changing. As this tion? Is it a reconstruction by modern Japanese for their present- is being written, more Japanese than Americans, when asked to day purposes? Or is it simply illusion, our own failure to change express an opinion, would begin an answer with “We” instead of our habitual, ethnocentric views? In short, is Sh gun, as some “I”—but “we” no longer necessarily includes all Japanese. Mod- Americans have used it, a guidebook for travellers to Japan? ernization, affluence, and leisure have multiplied choices. One’s In Sh gun, Fujiko is a tragic figure of feminine fortitude, a par- work is no longer necessarily one’s total field of interest. agon of wifely virtues—and, it appears, an exemplar of ideals that In 1975, a group of Japanese college students, all of whom had still persist in Japanese society. Japanese soap operas show her visited the United States, were asked how they defined “self”—a modern counterpart waiting up patiently for her husband to come conceptual problem that confronts Blackthorne time after time in home late from the office party so she can put him tenderly to bed. Sh gun. After some discussion, they agreed that “in America ‘I’ Statistical surveys show the husband automatically turning over his am always ‘I,’ no matter what the circumstances. In Japan, there is weekly paycheck to her with the expectation that she will manage no absolute or constant ‘I’; who or what ‘I’ am depends on and
- 25. HEINZ: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING 34 varies with the situation. When I am with a superior, I am in a dif- 4 Blackthorne’s England ferent relationship than when I am with a peer, and my attitude and Sandra Piercy language vary accordingly. Instead of thinking first of myself, I must think first of the situation and the others in it to know how to adjust and behave.” Their answer could almost be one of Mariko’s mini-lectures to Blackthorne. But do Americans really ignore the situations they are in? Note that here, too, is a continuum! Sh gun is the story of an Englishman, John Blackthorne, who sailed to Japan seeking wealth and glory. Blackthorne emerged from Elizabethan England, a state in the midst of a period of expansion fueled by a fervent Protestant faith. Even for those who did not hold strong religious beliefs, Protestantism was identified with English prosperity and independence, and there were an increasing number of those who, having grown up under Elizabeth, had a profound commitment to the Protestant faith. Many Englishmen interpreted the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588—a battle in which Blackthorne took part—as a sign that God’s blessing was on their enterprises. This resulted in an out- pouring of national confidence and pride, and nowhere was this greater than in the commercial classes to which Blackthorne belonged. The English and their fellow Protestants, the Dutch, who were engaged in their own struggle against Spain, shared the sense of a great crusade against their national and religious enemies. The desire to fight for their religion was blended with the desire to break the Catholic hold on rich trading routes and colonies. It was this impulse that sent Blackthorne and those like him across the sea to lands where no Englishman had gone before.
- 26. PIERCY: BLACKTHORNE’S ENGLAND 36 English Society Blackthorne as a Townsman 37 When Blackthorne arrived in Japan in 1600, he would have Blackthorne hailed from the densely populated and economically found a society in many ways similar to his own. Both England and advanced area around London. His home, Chatham, was one of Japan had agricultural economies and social hierarchies based on the many seafaring towns on the Thames estuary. It was a bustling, control of the land, but social and political developments in prosperous region where the most radical form of Protestantism England were a few generations in advance of those in Japan. A had a firm hold. It would thus be likely that Blackthorne’s wife, century earlier, England had been ripped by warring noble factions Felicity, who is described as “devout and filled with fear of the each seeking the crown or at least control of the reigning monarch— Lord” (p.697), was a Puritan. much like Japan in the sixteenth century. But unlike Japan, where Although Clavell leaves Blackthorne’s social and economic status the emperor remained an impotent figurehead, the English mon- undefined, some determination of his place in society can be made. archy reigned supreme, and won the cooperation of the landed The trade of pilot was neither prestigious nor lucrative. Despite his classes. skill in his craft, Blackthorne would not have achieved recognition Blackthorne would have instantly recognized the status groups in or acceptance among the gentry. He was not a peasant, but he was Japanese society. He would have found a large peasant class ruled not much better than one. His grandiose conception of his role at by a privileged aristocracy comparable to the peers and gentry back sea (p. 11) would not correspond to his relatively humble place in in England. The English gentry shared many characteristics with society. Blackthorne was definitely not a gentleman in the class the Japanese samurai. They prided themselves on high ideals of usage of that term. His claim to be a knight’s heir (p. 111) is honor and service to the crown, a survival from the feudal age. The obviously a bluff designed to increase his status with the Japanese. predominantly military role of the peers and gentry had changed by His dreams of being knighted by Elizabeth (p. 357) are illusory, this time, but gentlemen were still expected to practice the arts of too: he was too petty a bourgeois for such an honor. He does not war and alone were considered honorable enough to bear arms and own land, has not been to a university, and is evidently not well-off use swords. financially. The description of his house is an indication of his low The leading characteristic of a gentleman was that he was rich social status: it has but three rooms, no chimneys, little furniture, enough not to have to work with his hands, but otherwise this class and rushes on the floor (p. 696-7). His family tolerated an unusual was not rigidly defined. It included all university graduates, army amount of grime in their home (p. 697). It sounds as though Felicity officers, and professional men such as doctors, lawyers, and clergy- was a poor housekeeper. men. As in Japan, those whose wealth was based on commerce If commerce did not command honor it did command respect. were regarded as less honorable, although wealthy merchants could The wealthiest of the merchants were great men indeed, and buy land and set up as country squires. younger sons of the gentry often entered the great merchant asso- There were still large tracts of waste and forest in England. Agri- ciations. Blackthorne’s career is far less grand. He followed the culture there was much less intensive than in Japan, and, where the usual course of entering a trade or craft as an apprentice (p. 16) for Japanese had no space to permit the grazing of animals, English the typical term of seven years. If he were lucky, the apprentice farmers engaged in animal husbandry, especially the cultivation of would be taught to read, write, and do simple sums. The most for- sheep for wool. English peasants worked the land owned by gentle- tunate of them would, like Blackthorne, end up marrying his mas- men as tenant farmers. They lived in small villages which were, ter’s daughter and being taken into the business. apart from families, the most important units in English society. Considering his low status, Blackthorne’s education is very unu- Village order was maintained by the gentry, and peace in the coun- sual, especially his fluency in Latin. By this period Latin was no tryside was only occasionally marred by outbreaks of violence. longer, as Clavell claims (p. 264), the only language of learning. Clavell’s depiction of Blackthorne’s astonishment at the Japanese Nevertheless, it is very likely that a pilot would know the languages peasants’ lack of weapons (p. 29) gives the mistaken impression used by England’s trading partners. Blackthorne grew up in that English peasants carried them. Long years of domestic peace Antwerp, where he could have easily picked up Dutch and Spanish, under Elizabeth made it unnecessary for peasants to go armed, and and Portuguese would have been extremely valuable on his many even when they needed weapons they relied on agricultural tools voyages. Most English townsmen were literate, and a comparatively rather than swords or muskets.
- 27. PIERCY: BLACKTHORNE’S ENGLAND 38 high degree of literacy existed even in the countryside close to The position of women in early modern Europe was not high. 39 London. They had few legal rights, and their property was totally under the Blackthorne would have found Japanese cities completely new control of fathers, brothers, or husbands. Women were not well- and different. England had nothing, not even London, to compare educated or taught any skills beyond housekeeping and needlecraft. to the great castle towns then taking shape in Japan. Blackthorne Gentlewomen could read and write, but usually not very well. would have certainly been overwhelmed by the sheer size of Osaka, Blackthorne would not have been surprised by the broad household whose population in 1600 was well in excess of London’s estimated financial responsibilities attributed to the samurai women (p. 262). 200,000. Many English cities had originally been built with military Even the highest ladies in England had the duty of looking after considerations in mind, but defensive functions had by 1600 been their households. Felicity must have done this often as her husband replaced by commercial ones. was away so frequently, and Blackthorne would have been quite In contrast to the carefully planned castle towns of Japan, such comfortable turning over management of his household to his con- as Ieyasu’s capital of Edo, London grew haphazardly, and neither sort Fujiko. the Queen nor the peerage had the resources or the sustained desire There seems to have been no notion of birth control in Eliza- to regulate urban population or land use. The city itself had grown bethan England, and women were at the mercy of their natural rapidly in the Tudor era, and the result was filth and overcrowding. fertility, though conception could be hindered by lactation or ill- Most of the buildings were rickety structures built of wood and health. Methods of abortion such as those ascribed to Kiku and thatch. Fires were as disastrous in English towns as in Japanese, Gyoko (p. 935) were unknown in England. Methods of prenatal but there was no organized way of fighting them. Like other Euro- care and midwifery were primitive. Childbirth was always danger- pean cities, London featured open sewers and cesspools. The ous, and many women and their babies died. Infant mortality was custom in most English towns was for people to dump refuse of all high, estimated to have been as great as fifty percent before age sorts into the street to await weekly collection. five. But those who did live could survive to an advanced age. Blackthorne’s grandmother was seventy-five, which would have English Family Life been considered venerable but not astonishing. Families were a microcosm of the larger hierarchical society. The Romantic love flourished among all classes in Elizabethan English father’s authority over his wife and children was very great England. Research on Elizabethan sexual mores has just begun, but —but seemingly less than in Japan, where inheritances could be some information has already emerged. The Elizabethans enjoyed taken away at the arbitrary whim of the patriarch, at least in the sex, and even the devoutly religious regarded it as an essential and samurai class. Parental authority was strongest in England where pleasurable part of marriage. It is surprising to find Blackthorne so there was an inheritance involved, so that younger sons of the gen- prudish on this subject. The Elizabethans, while hardly as refined try, for instance, depended on the good will of their fathers to set as Clavell’s samurai about bedroom matters, were quite frank them up in honorable livelihoods, and daughters needed good dow- about sex, and some segments of the population, for instance ries if they were to marry well. seafarers such as Blackthorne, were notoriously bawdy. The general rule was for each conjugal unit to have its own If sex within marriage was seen as a positive good, sex outside household. The classic problem of the mother-in-law which Clavell marriage was strictly prohibited by religious and social authorities. depicts so graphically for Japan (p. 655) was rare in Western The church emphasized chastity and restraint not so much because Europe, where most could not marry until they were in the finan- sex was sinful, but because in the absence of birth control sex out- cial position to set up households of their own, usually in their mid- side marriage produced bastards. Premarital pregnancy was dis- dle or late twenties. While this is the usual practice today, in the graceful in the eyes of most people only if the girl did not eventually 1600s such a pattern was apparently unique to Western Europe. marry her lover. Society was outraged if such women did not Blackthorne claims (p. 534) that Englishwomen married at fifteen marry, mostly because it was likely that they and their children or sixteen, but in fact not even the gentry married so early. While would become a charge on the parish poor rate. instances of child marriage did exist, they were rare and met with Adultery occurred with the same dismal regularity as it does great disapproval. Felicity’s marriage at age seventeen makes sense today. The church did its best to weaken the double standard, but only in view of the fact that she was an orphan—her father having women were nearly always held more guilty than men. In Europe, been killed that year in the battle of the Armada. unlike Sh gun’s Japan (“How sensible divorce seemed here,”
- 28. PIERCY: BLACKTHORNE’S ENGLAND 40 p. 657), a marriage was regarded as a union sanctified by God, and But keeping one’s body clean in Elizabethan England did present 41 consequently divorce was nearly impossible. The lower classes took problems. Because of the cold climate and the difficulty of heating refuge in desertion and bigamy. Unhappily married upper-class water, people bathed infrequently. But Blackthorne’s women devoted themselves to their children and religion while their Granny Jacoba, who insists that a bath at birth and once again husbands took mistresses. Most “kept” women were serving maids, when laid out for burial is enough (p. 273), is not representative. rewarded with little gifts of clothes, money, or trinkets. Rich city Baths were not considered dangerous in themselves but because men would keep courtesans in high style, but prostitution was not some rather foul diseases could result from entering contaminated organized at all, even in London. Blackthorne would have been water. Blackthorne resisted his first Japanese bath because of his amazed by the training and status of a women like Kiku and the fear of the flux (that is, dysentery), which could be caught from system that supported her. Most of the prostitutes he would have bad water. But babies were bathed regularly and sometimes the known were poor country wenches looking to pick up a few extra sick were bathed as a cure. Even though the lower classes did not shillings. have the facilities for bathing, the gentry valued good hygiene. It is difficult to determine whether Blackthorne’s attitude toward The superior cleanliness of the bodies and clothes of the upper homosexuality was typical. It probably was not, but his extreme classes was one of the things that set them apart. The peasants wore hostility (p.330) can perhaps be explained by an early experience on wool or leather, which could not be washed easily, and, since they shipboard when he was nearly raped (p. 334), Homosexuality was had few changes of clothes, the same outfit would serve for months certainly regarded by the Church of England as an unnatural and without being washed. The satin, velvet, and fur outer garments of therefore sinful act. But the common reaction among ordinary people richer people would not wash either, but underneath they wore seems to have been ridicule rather than horror. Homosexual linen underclothes which were changed often and which they took acts were crimes punishable by death, yet most were reluctant to care to keep clean. turn others in, and the authorities rarely imposed the full penalty of In spite of their best efforts, however, not even the upper classes the law. could escape infestations of lice and fleas, which came not from dirt but from animals: livestock, pets, rats, and even servants. Diet and Health Everyone had them. They did not know that this was one way that Apart from sex, the English probably liked eating and drinking disease could spread. People believed that contagion was caused by best. The diet of all Europeans was nutritionally unbalanced, but noxious vapors from the earth, hence Blackthorne’s care in closing the English diet was the worst. The lower classes ate wheat bread, the portholes of Rodrigues’ sickroom to avoid “bad air” (p. 187). some cheese, meat when they could afford it, a few vegetables in Western medicine was hardly past the witch doctor phase, but the spring and summer, and, of course, beer. Fruit was expensive Blackthorne slandered doctors when he said they were dirty and and rare. Both the English and the Dutch ate a wide variety of fish, uncouth (p. 322). Doctors merely prescribed treatment and the but, as Blackthorne and his crew demonstrate in their rejection of tasks of surgery and pharmacy were performed by specialized Japanese fare (p. 44), they liked red meat much better—usually craftsmen, the barber-surgeon and the apothecary. It is likely that mutton or pork. During the winter it would be salt meat, since Blackthorne himself never saw a physician, since their services were nothing fresh could be stored and there was no fodder to keep live- beyond most people’s means. Blackthorne was really referring to stock alive to be butchered. Alcohol in some form was the major barber-surgeons, who were trained and licensed to pull teeth, set beverage. In England wine was drunk only by the rich, but all ages bones, and perform simple operations such as cutting for bladder and classes enjoyed beer and ale and drank a staggering amount of stones. For these operations there was no anesthetic besides alco- it. Because of the high consumption of meat and beer and the scar- hol, so the barber-surgeon had to be strong rather than genteel. city of fresh foods, bladder and kidney problems were widespread. Current medical theory stated that health existed only when the Nearly everyone had vitamin deficiencies and little resistance to four humours of the body, representing qualities of heat, cold, and infection. Skin ailments were commonplace, and scurvy was not moisture, were in balance. Excessive heat meant an excess of the confined to shipboard. hot humour, blood; hence the enthusiasm of Blackthorne and his The English generally had a higher degree of cleanliness than crew for bleeding at the first sign of a fever. Purges and enemas Clavell gives them credit for. Soap was a big commodity in England were also common remedies to restore the balance of the humours and someone must have been using it, mostly for washing clothes. (p.322).
- 29. PIERCY: BLACKTHORNE’S ENGLAND 42 The English World View 5 Trade and Diplomacy in the Era of Sh gun The great majority of the people had no way to explain natural Ronald Toby phenomena scientifically. The English believed devoutly in the supernatural and tended to see sickness, death, storms, famine, and accidents as the result of direct intervention by God in their lives. The attitude of the English toward such phenomena as earthquakes would have been very like that of the Japanese peasant who called a big earthquake a sign from the gods (p. 469). Blackthorne, instead of just shrugging and saying “karma,” would surely have seen the earthquake as a judgment on the village for permitting the death of an innocent old man. The characteristic European outlook appears when the crew of the Erasmus draw lots. They say, “Let God decide” (p. 81). Country folk also believed in nature spirits somewhat like the Japanese kami (p. 652). Blackthorne would recognize the Japanese relationship to these spirits, since it was so like the English. They told each other stories about fairies and pixies who could do people harm if they were angered, and who needed to be placated with simple rites and charms. People also used charms to make their crops grow better and to increase the fertility of their animals and spouses. Young people desired love potions. Victims of crime wanted to divine who the guilty party was or to take revenge. The Europeans of this era held the idea of a “great chain of being” in which everything in the universe, from angels to stones, At the heart of Sh gun lies the rich novelistic opportunity offered had its proper place in the scheme of things. This hierarchy was cre- by the arrival of the first Englishman in Japan at the historical ated by God, and disruption of it was held sinful. Thus, the respect moment of 1600: Japan was at the peak of the most expansive, out- of peasants for their betters and of the gentry for the crown was going period of its pre-modern history. Open to trade, and eager founded not only on economic or political power, but also on the for it, Japan was excluded by Chinese law from direct access to the belief that God had ordained the political and social structure. markets of China. Japanese merchants and seafarers had responded One gets a sense of resignation in some areas of Elizabethan life. in the late sixteenth century by moving further outward to trade, The people of sixteenth-century England accepted chronic illness advancing into Southeast Asia in search of Chinese goods. and discomfort as a natural part of their existence. Food, clothing, Only sixty years before “John Blackthorne” arrived, Japan had and shelter were often inadequate in England’s cold, damp climate. been reached by the farthest extension of the European Age of Dis- Death was ever-present. Disease was rampant, accidents and seri- covery, first by Portuguese traders and then by Jesuit missionaries, ous injury frequent. There was little empathy among the English who came east from Africa and India. They were later joined by for the physical suffering of others. People had a taste for public Spanish traders and missionaries coming west from Mexico and whippings, brandings, and other violent punishments. The English then north from the Philippines. Blackthorne, a northern Euro- did not say “Karma, neh?” but they could have, leading one to pean and a Protestant, thus landed in a country where Iberian suspect that in this, as well as in other areas, Japanese and English Catholics and Japanese were in the midst of a century of vigorous attitudes were closer than Sh gun would have us believe. economic, cultural and religious competition. As a result of a half- century of Jesuit proselytization, the Iberians of the Counter- Reformation were deeply entrenched, with several hundred thousand converts to Catholicism and a critical role in Japan’s external trade to support their position.
- 30. TOBY: TRADE AND DIPLOMACY 44 Japanese Traders in East Asia seriously disrupted the China coast, and further alienated China 45 China had been the focus of all Japanese foreign relations—dip- from Japan. The Ming government, with its anti-maritime orienta- lomatic, cultural, and even economic—for centuries prior to the tion, was ineffectual in suppressing the piracy. And since there was arrival of Europeans in East Asian waters in the sixteenth century. no effective central authority in Japan either, these Japanese free- China, with vast material resources and generally more advanced booters ranged freely along the China coast and into the Indies in culture and technology, was Japan’s major source for silks, medi- search of trade or plunder. cines, books, fragrances, and spices—many of the same “exotic” It was in this volatile atmosphere in the mid-sixteenth century goods that drove Europeans such as Blackthorne to seek passage to that the Europeans first appeared in East Asian waters. This helps the Indies. to explain why Father Sebastio’s charges of piracy against Black- But in the year 1600, China had been relatively passive in mari- thorne (pp. 57-58)—charges which the Jesuits and Portuguese actu- time trade for some time. Until 1567 Chinese were forbidden to ally made against William Adams on his arrival in Japan (see voyage abroad in search of commerce, and even after that they Chapter 1)—would have found such a ready audience in both Omi were specifically prohibited from travelling to Japan, viewed with and Toranaga. good reason by the Chinese as the home of pirates and marauders. Japan’s alienation from continental East Asia, which began with Instead, the Ming dynasty relied on the attraction of Chinese cul- the end of the tally trade and the resurgence of the wak , became ture and the appeal of Chinese goods to bring foreigners to China. almost total in 1592, when Hideyoshi (the Taik ) dispatched nearly Ideologically, the Ming rulers were not eager for trade, being more 160,000 Japanese troops to subjugate Korea, as the first step in his interested in serving as the centerpiece in a morally conceived world planned conquest of China. He had quelled western Japan only a order. So foreigners, if they wished to trade, had to come to China few years earlier in 1587, and the Kanto in 1590, so he was now in a as “tributaries,” explicitly recognizing the superiority of the “Cen- position to bring the wak under central control for the first time. tral Kingdom,” as the Chinese termed their land. N truly convincing explanation has yet been given for this inva- Many East Asian countries, notably Korea and Vietnam, had sion. Some have written it off as the action of a megalomaniac, and accepted this China-centered vision of the world, but Japan pre- the Taik did indeed speak of his dreams of sitting on the throne of sented special problems. Japanese mythology claimed that the Jap- China (as in Sh gun, p. 1039). It has also been suggested that, since anese imperial family, and indeed the Japanese islands themselves, the Taik had managed to bring an end to the century of civil war were descended from the gods. Japan was therefore, as Mariko by his victory over the Hojo (the “Beppu” of Sh gun), he was now instructs us (p. 436), the “Land of the Gods,” the “Divine Coun- seeking a way to dissipate the energies of the large warrior class try.” This ideology made it difficult for any national Japanese gov- outside Japan, rather than allowing them to erupt in a civil war that ernment to enter into official diplomatic relations with any Chinese might topple his regime. But whatever Hideyoshi’s motivation, dynasty without exposing itself to charges of treason against the geography, logistics, and the combined Korean and Chinese armies emperor. Nevertheless, such relations had in fact existed during the ensured the failure of the Korean invasion. Even the large contin- rule of the later Ashikaga shoguns, from 1432 until 1547, during gents of Japanese musket troops were not a sufficient advantage. which eleven official missions were dispatched to the Ming court. In the end the Japanese armies, fighting on hostile territory with In return, the Japanese were given “tallies,” licenses to trade in overextended supply lines running across dangerous seas, were China. This “tally trade” was entirely one-way, since Chinese ships being badly beaten when Hideyoshi died in 1598. The Council of were still not allowed to leave their own country. Within Japan, Regents claimed to be acting on his dying wishes when they ordered control over the tally trade gradually passed from the shogunate the troops home in the fall of the year, and Japan’s first historical into the hands of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, and local foreign war came to a close. daimyo of Western Japan, finally coming to an end in 1547. Direct access to China was now quite out of the question. This But this did not stop Japanese from continuing to try. Now they gave the Portuguese, based in Macao on the coast of South China simply turned to forms of piracy, raiding coastal market towns in since the 1550s, an even more important role in Japan’s foreign China and preying on coastwise shipping. Many of these pirates, trade. But contrary to the picture painted in Sh gun, they did not known as wak (see Sh gun, p. 666), were manned by Chinese have a monopoly, for Japanese traders had also ventured into the seeking to circumvent Ming laws against maritime trade, but they waters of Southeast Asia. By 1570 a small Japanese community had been established on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, boasting
- 31. TOBY: TRADE AND DIPLOMACY 46 a population by 1595 of as many as one thousand. Similar Japanese hostile religious camps, largely along north-south lines. This chal- 47 communities appeared in other locations in Southeast Asia. Japanese lenge raised a new wave of zeal in the Catholic Church, and a new ships, with crews and traders sometimes numbering as many as three priestly order emerged to lead the charge: Ignatius Loyola, Fran- hundred, traded there with Chinese merchants, who after 1567 were cisco Xavier, and a few others founded the Society of Jesus in 1540 allowed to voyage anywhere but Japan. So the Japanese did have to be the “army of the Church militant.” Founded along strongly large ocean-going vessels in the era of Sh gun, and they engaged in a centralized, tightly disciplined lines, the Jesuit order has been far-flung network of trade, even though they could not trade directly described as “a sort of ecclesiastical Green Berets.” Forming a with China. partnership with Portuguese commercial expansion, it was the Jesuits who led the proselytizing assault on Japan. The Europeans’ Arrival in Japan The Society of Jesus was from its inception elitist and intellec- The first European contact with Japan, in the 1540s, preceded tual. These qualities were to serve the Order well in Japan, for its Blackthorne’s arrival by nearly sixty years, but the forces that priests were far more adaptable than their predominantly Spanish brought them to Japan were over a century older than that. Start- colleagues in the mendicant Franciscan and Dominican orders. ing around 1415 Portuguese mariners had pressed down the west Thus, for example, it was acceptable to the Jesuits to compromise coast of Africa, and Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good on matters of dress, going in the garb of Buddhist priests so as to fit Hope to reach India in 1498. In large part, they were trying to out- in with Japanese custom and taste. flank the Arab/Levantine/Italian monopoly on “Oriental” silks The Jesuits also had among their number novices and priests who and spices coming into Europe by seeking new routes to the Indies were willing and able to learn the Japanese language. Priests like and “Cathay” (China). Although Marco Polo had alerted Europe Joao Rodrigues, the model for Father Alvito, could preach in to the existence of “Zipangu” in the thirteenth century, Japan Japanese without relying on interpreters, as Xavier had been forced remained a peripheral interest. In 1542 or 1543, a Portuguese ship, to do. Not content with European priests preaching to the Japa- driven north by a storm, accidentally landed in southwestern nese, either directly or through interpreters, the Order early estab- Japan. The three Portuguese aboard were the first Europeans to set lished institutions to train Japanese catechists, starting with a foot there, and with them came firearms. A few years later in 1549, novitiate founded in 1580. Such institutions trained numerous Francisco (later St. Francis) Xavier landed in Satsuma, also in the young Japanese converts to enter the Order, teaching them Latin southwest; and introduced the other great European export of the and basic doctrine. sixteenth century: Christianity. But the initial enthusiasm of Xavier and some of his early succes- At the same time that the Portuguese were moving around Africa sors for the Japanese had been partially displaced by a suspicion of into the Indian Ocean, Christian Spain, in what may be called a their alleged “duplicity,” and the curriculum at the training insti- continuation of the Crusades, was fighting to expel the Muslims tutes came to be tailored to those assumptions. Japanese students from the Iberian peninsula, a campaign which was completed by were thus restricted to the “safe” parts of Catholic theology: Aqui- 1492. In the burst of energy that followed, Spanish expeditions dis- nas, for example, to say nothing of the pagan philosophers, was covered the Americas (1492) and thence a westward route to Asia not in the course of study. Although two Japanese were eventually via the straits that came to bear the name of the expedition’s cap- ordained as priests, most found their advancement blocked. Many tain, Magellan, reaching the Philippines and Moluccas in 1522. resented the suspicion with which they were regarded, and some Thus the two Iberian peoples, expanding in opposite directions, rebelled in apostasy. Brother Joseph of Sh gun was driven to apos- met in the waters of Southeast Asia at the opening of the sixteenth tasy and reversion to his identity as Uraga Tadamasa (pp. 751-753) century, in the very spot where the Japanese commercial expansion by the same issues that angered actual Japanese catechists of the of the later part of the century would be focused. Papal mediation time, and we may well imagine a conversation between a rank-and- attempted to keep these two competing young empires from open file priest and Luis Cerqueira, the bishop of Funai, very like the conflict, starting with the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), assigning one between Fathers Alvito and dell’Aqua (p. 756). each a separate sphere of colonization and evangelization, much as Still, by 1582, there may have been 150,000 converts in Japan, Blackthorne outlined to Toranaga (pp. 259-276). and 220,000 by 1609—although some Jesuit accounts claim as Quite another sort of crusade also motivated European expan- many as 750,000. The rising success of the Jesuit mission was not sion after 1517 when the Protestant Reformation split Europe into without opposition, however, from the established religions. Jesuit
- 32. TOBY: TRADE AND DIPLOMACY 48 success was greatest in Kyushu, where they succeeded in converting Order to play the market for personal advantage as well. But the 49 several daimyo, one of whom, mura Sumitada, ceded the port town Society’s role in trade was a crucial source of income for its mis- of Nagasaki to the Jesuits in 1580. When Hideyoshi subjugated sionary activities, as suggested in Sh gun by the conversation Kyushu in 1587 and saw at first hand the extent of these successes, between Father dell’Aqua and Captain-General Ferreira (p. 406). So he issued an order expelling the Jesuits from the realm. “Because when King Felipe III of Portugal banned Jesuit participation in the Japan is the land of the Gods,” he decreed, “it is not proper for the trade in 1607, he had to replace the lost income with a royal subsidy Christian countries to propagate their pernicious doctrines” in Japan. of 2,000 cruzados per year. At the same time, he confiscated the city of Nagasaki from the The enthusiasm of the Japanese for silk was substantial and Jesuits. The order was not actually carried out, but it was a harbinger accounts for its importance in the overseas trade, but silk was neither of the strong latent hostility to the Christian advance in Japan. the only fiber the Japanese used, nor was it the cornerstone of the Japanese suspicion was much exacerbated by the arrival in 1592-3 of economy, as Clavell sometimes implies. In fact, one reason the Spanish Dominicans and Franciscans, whose acrimonious Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, and many lesser daimyo sought to purchase silk religious disputes with the Jesuits undercut some of the unified may have been that it was a storable form of wealth, as well as a appeal of Christianity. This suspicion gave way to outright hostility profitable commodity to trade. It was not as safe as gold, which in the first serious incident of persecution in February 1597, when would not burn, but neither could silk rot, like rice. twenty-six Christians—including Spanish Franciscans and Japanese The arrival in Japan in 1600 of William Adams—Blackthorne’s Jesuits and laymen—were crucified in Nagasaki (as recounted in model—came at a critical moment in the development of this foreign Sh gun by Friar Domingo, pp. 238-9). trade. Frequent contact between the Spanish Philippines and Japan in the late 1590s had raised the prospect of competitors to the Trade versus Christianity Portuguese and hence possible benefit to Japan’s trading position. While it was the prospect of Christian converts that had origi- Despite the martyrdom of 1597, Hideyoshi responded favorably to nally lured the Portuguese to Japan, it became the opportunity for the Philippine embassy later that year, and especially to the great vast trading profits that in fact kept the ships plying the waters black elephant they brought him as a present. Hideyoshi was from Nagasaki to Macao and back, encouraging what historian particularly interested in improving his own situation in trade vis-à- Charles Boxer has termed “an unholy alliance of God and Mam- vis the daimyo of Kyushu, the center for the Portuguese trading mon.” Chinese silks were, as Sh gun suggests, the major Japanese operation in Japan. Favorable treatment of the Spanish from the import item in the sixteenth century, and they continued to be Philippines might well bring foreign trade directly to the Kyoto- throughout the seventeenth. Most of the silk was imported in the Osaka area, further enriching the Taik ’s coffers. form of raw silk thread, to be woven into kimono cloth in Japan. Shortly after Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu took Portuguese traders’ profits on this silk were about seventy to eighty steps to encourage such a trade relationship with the Philippines, percent in ordinary years and in the best years topped one hundred being interested in enriching himself at the expense of the heir percent. Gold was also a major item brought from China by the Hideyori in Osaka. When the Franciscan friar Jeronomo de Jesus Portuguese, who took advantage of national differences between smuggled himself back into Japan in 1598, less than two years after relative valuations of precious metals to make immense profits he had survived the Nagasaki martyrdom, Ieyasu not only received exchanging Japanese silver for Chinese gold. the friar in audience—to the dismay of the Jesuits—but also sug- Although merchants were involved in the trade of all countries, gested that Spanish galleons bound from Luzon to Mexico use the Japanese side was increasingly dominated by daimyo, and ulti- Uraga, in Ieyasu’s own Kanto domain, as a port. He also requested mately by Hideyoshi after he confiscated Nagasaki in 1587. On the that the Spaniards lend him some mining technicians and mariners — Portuguese side, the Jesuit mission was actively involved in the he could not foresee the arrival of William Adams—to train his Macao-Nagasaki trade, both as bankers and agents for Japanese, people in these strategic skills. To cap the offering, he permitted the and on their own account (pp. 200-201). The participation of an Franciscans to open a church in his capital city of Edo. arm of the Church in banking and commerce on so blatant a scale Tokugawa Ieyasu was thus every bit as eager for foreign trade as made these activities a matter of controversy, even among the Clavell’s Toranaga, and any tolerance of Christian missionary senior Jesuits in Japan. It was a particularly thorny issue, since work in his domain was a tool to achieve that end. The arrival of official Jesuit participation tempted individual members of the William Adams in a Dutch ship in the spring of 1600 offered Ieyasu
- 33. TOBY: TRADE AND DIPLOMACY 50 new ways to advance his trading interests without going through the final blow to any hopes of commerce with the Catholic coun- 51 the missionaries, for neither the Englishman nor any of his Dutch tries. A year after the fall of Shimabara, the Portuguese too were companions seemed interested in spreading their religion in Japan. expelled from Japan, leaving only the Dutch as a link between They were interested only in trade, Ieyasu’s main interest as well. Japan and Europe. Shortly after the wreck of the De Liefde (“Erasmus”), Ieyasu The untrammeled foreign voyaging of the sixteenth century, the received Adams in Osaka, much as described in Sh gun, and ques- unrestricted involvement of provincial daimyo in foreign trade, and tioned him closely about trade, nautical technology, and international the widespread access of foreign traders and missionaries to Japan affairs. Adams became instrumental in establishing English and which characterized the country on the eve of the age of Sh gun Dutch trade in Kyushu under Ieyasu’s protection after 1609. were all very much the results of Japanese disunity. With no effec- Numerous Chinese traders were also active in Kyushu, in violation of tive central authority, there could be little chance to control any- the Ming ban on trade with Japan, and trade had been reestablished one’s activities in international affairs. But with the advance of with Korea and with the kingdom of Okinawa by the mid-1610s. So central control, from Oda Nobunaga (“Goroda”) to Hideyoshi, there was no further need for Ieyasu to tolerate Catholic missionary and thence to the Tokugawas, central power once more became a activity, which he considered subversive and acceptable only as a reality in Japan, and it was the most effective national power Japan necessary evil for trade. So, within months of the arrival of English had seen in over half a millennium. To be a truly effective govern- traders in 1614, Ieyasu proclaimed the expulsion of all foreign priests ment, the Tokugawas had to bring foreign affairs as much under and missionaries. This edict, unlike Hideyoshi’s order of 1587, was their control as domestic affairs, and in that endeavor the ideal of enforced, and the age of Christian persecution in Japan began in one-port foreign trade had to become a reality. This did not mean earnest. Many Japanese Christians were forced into exile in Manila, that the Tokugawas were opposed to trade: they simply sought to Macao, or elsewhere. bring all aspects of national life, including trade, under their control. The Restriction of Foreign Trade From this time onward, the freedom of Europeans in Japan was progressively restricted, until, by 1641, the only ones left were the Dutch, who were restricted to a trading post on the small man- made island of Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor. Chinese merchants were also restricted to Nagasaki, which became the principal port for Japan’s foreign trade until the nineteenth century. The English had decided to close their operations in Japan at the end of 1623, over 5,000 pounds in the red. The following year the bakufu ended relations with the Spanish in Manila because of mounting (and entirely justified) fears that Spanish ships were smuggling mission- aries into Japan. Fear of Christian infiltration also led to the prohi- bition of Japanese travelling abroad, a ban which was nearly total after 1635; only a few Japanese were especially licensed to go to Korea and to the kingdom of Okinawa for trade. A mounting campaign of persecution followed the expulsion of the missionaries in 1614 and almost completely stamped out Chris- tianity in Japan by 1640. The count of martyrs to the faith between 1549 and 1639 lies somewhere between 2,100 and 4,045. But these figures do not include those who died in the great Shimabara Rebel- lion of 1637-38, in which some 37,000 peasants are said to have died. Some of them were rebelling against excessive taxation and oppressive rule, and some were Christians, but in the eyes of the shogunal government this was a Christian uprising. It was certainly
- 34. 6 The Struggle for the Shogunate very special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, 53 Henry Smith which is never known to anyone except himself alone” (p. 193). Although here voiced by a Portuguese pilot, these words, with only minor changes in phrasing, come directly from the historical writ- ings of Joao Rodrigues, the model for Father Alvito, who goes on to elaborate: But they do not use this double dealing to cheat people in business matters, as do the Chinese in their transactions and thieving, for in this respect the Japanese are most exact; but they reserve their treachery for affairs of diplomacy and war in order not to be deceived themselves. And in particu- lar when they wish to kill a person by treachery, they put on a great pre- tence by entertaining him with every sign of love and joy—and then in the middle of it all, off comes his head. (Michael Cooper, They Came to Japan, p. 45) One might wonder, of course, whether there is anything uniquely Japanese in duplicity—and its corollary: a demand for fierce loy- alty—or whether any country which has been in a state of off-and- on internecine war for over a century would not reveal similar traits. But there is little doubt that both treachery and loyalty were the central themes of sixteenth-century Japanese politics, and Clavell can scarcely be accused of exaggerating them, particularly if we are to believe the accounts of contemporary Western observers like Valignano and Rodrigues, On all sides they are pulled asunder by wars, torment each other From Chaos to Order with continuous carnage: tremble constantly at some pernicious conspiracy arising: promiscuously defraud and deceive each other But the theme of duplicity must not obscure another characteris- in turn, with artifice, fraud, and strategem everywhere dominant: tic of Japan in the era of Sh gun, one also frequently stressed by the servitor does not keep faith with his master: men’s facts and foreign observers: the prevalence of law and order among the pop- treaties are violated: in such fashion that there is perceived among ulace at large. William Adams himself, for example, observed that them no sense of duty, and of compassion none, nor of charity. Japanese “justice is seuerely excecuted without any partialitie vpon Alessandro Valignano, Catechismus Christianae Fidei, 1586 transgressors of the law. They are gouerned in great ciuilitie. I (quoted in Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 41) meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by ciuill policie.” Details in Sh gun confirm this depiction through a somewhat exag- If one places any trust in this opinion of Jesuit Visitor-General gerated emphasis on the tyrannical power of the samurai class. The Valignano—the model for Carlo dell’Aqua in Sh gun—then James tone is set early in the novel when Kashigi Omi lops off the head of Clavell was scarcely deviating from historical reality in his heavy an Anjiro villager who fails to show proper respect. It is in fact true reliance on the theme of duplicity to build the plot and create the that samurai had the right to do so, as codified in the “Legacy” of driving suspense of his novel. While this undeniably perpetuates the Tokugawa Ieyasu himself: “If fellows of the lower orders go Western stereotype of the Japanese (and other Asians) as “inscru- beyond what is proper toward samurai, there is no objection to cut- table,” one must realize that the stereotype itself was in full flower ting such a one down.” So behavior like Otni’s was certainly possi- in the era of Sh gun. Consider the advice of the pilot Rodrigues to ble and doubtless happened from time to time. What must be Blackthorne: “Never forget Japmen’re six-faced and have three added, however, is that a samurai had to have a very good reason hearts. It’s a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his for such an action and would immediately be required to produce mouth for all the world to see, another in his breast to show his full justification to his lord. It is not as though samurai marched
- 35. SMITH: STRUGGLE FOR THE SHOGUNATE 54 about slicing up commoners on a whim, as Clavell not infrequently missed) the punishment of being buried to the neck and gradually 55 suggests: indeed, unjustified samurai killing of commoners was mutilated with a bamboo saw by passersby—until death after three viewed as an even greater threat to the social order than the killing of days. Clavell, by means of his handy technique of “just taking it fellow samurai, particularly under Tokugawa rule when samurai from where it was and putting it somewhere else,” metes out this were viewed as models of proper behavior for the population at punishment to Ishido at the end of the novel. (The historical Ishida large. Mitsunari was simply beheaded: such a gruesome penalty would But the line between lawless and lawful behavior was by no means probably never have been imposed on a daimyo, no matter how always clear. It must be stressed that the era of Sh gun represents a treacherous.) crucial transition from the utter chaos of the mid-sixteenth century to So also Clavell’s choice of the name “Nakamura” for the second of the amazingly stable and well-ordered regime of the Tokugawa the great unifiers Toyotomi Hideyoshi is in a way very appropriate, shogunate a century later. It is precisely this process of transition that since Nakamura is an ordinary name in contemporary Japan and helps us better understand the seemingly contradictory mixture of a conveys a sense of the humble origins of the man who came to be country which is alternately described as in total political chaos and known by his highest title of “Taik ” (a rank within the ancient at the same time as a paragon of law and order. The very fact of bureaucratic system awarded to a retired regent for the emperor). In continued civil war led to the evolution of increasingly effective actual fact, Hideyoshi was born without any family name at all, for techniques of civil control in order to mobilize and supply the large until the nineteenth century very few commoners in Japan were armies required by sixteenth-century developments. We can also permitted surnames, and he arrived at the name “Toyotomi” only detect clear class distinction between chaos and order: it was after experimenting with several others. Hideyoshi took over the primarily among the tiny daimyo elite that duplicity was such a mantle of power by avenging Nobunaga’s assassination in 1582, and norm, and among commoners that strict order was increasingly in in the period until his own death sixteen years later he clearly demand. In a sense this split presaged the actual political structure of demonstrated his genius for both military strategy and civil admin- the Tokugawa shogunate: a rather loose system of military checks istration. Only in the realm of foreign policy, in the ill-fated Korean and balances at the national level, but a tightly repressive civil expeditions, did he clearly fail. While Hideyoshi’s complex person- regime within each autonomous domain. ality has never made him a popular favorite in Japan—although his rags-to-riches success story enjoyed a certain vogue before World The Road to Unification War II—most serious historians would be willing to make him a Whatever institutional and technological developments accelerated leading candidate for James Murdoch’s label of “the greatest man the unification of Japan in the late sixteenth century, no one would Japan has ever seen” (A History of Japan, II, 386). The details of his deny the personal importance of the three successive warrior lords career may be found in a number of standard histories; suffice it to who masterminded the process. It was an era of heroes, rare in a say that the details about the Taik offered in Sh gun are generally in nation in which political leaders have on the whole preferred to wield accord with accepted historical fact. their power either behind the scenes or as part of a group effort; Hideyoshi’s death in the autumn of 1598 created the highly James Clavell is in the right spirit when he calls it “an era when unstable political situation which provides the stage for the drama of giants walked the earth.” 1600—both in Sh gun and in reality. Since Hideyori (“Yaemon” in First of the giants was Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), a small lord the novel), the Taik ’s heir by his consort Lady Yodo (“Lady from central Honshu who in the 1560s began a process of regional Ochiba”), was only a child of five at the time, a council of five conquest that finally led to the capture of Kyoto in 1568 and the “Regents” (in Japanese, tair , literally “great elder”) had been set up replacement of the current Ashikaga shogun with a new one of his to govern until he came of age. own choosing. In Sh gun, Clavell renames Nobunaga “Goroda,” It would be well to emphasize the highly complex situation which, while unusual (if not impossible) for a Japanese family with regard to political legitimacy in Japan at this stage in his- name, conveys in its menacing combination of consonants a good tory, the background for which Clavell provides the reader in one sense of the character of the historical Nobunaga, the man whom of his “instructive” passages (pp. 72-74). Just substitute Taira for English historian George Sansom tagged “a cruel and callous “Takashima,” Minamoto for “Minowara,” and Fujiwara for brute.” It was Nobunaga, for example, who prescribed for a “Fujimoto” (with the crucial provision that the Fujiwara were a warrior-monk with the misfortune to have fired on him (and courtier, not a samurai, family), and one has a pretty good
- 36. SMITH: STRUGGLE FOR THE SHOGUNATE 56 summary of the actual historical situation. The only exaggeration Ishida, after botching a scheme to assassinate Ieyasu, incurred the 57 which Clavell makes here (and for good literary effect) is the vola- wrath of some rival daimyo on a visit to Osaka Castle and was tility of the position of “shogun,” the title first assumed by forced to escape in a lady’s palanquin and dress—the ruse which Minamoto Yoritomo in 1190. He gives the impression of one sho- Clavell provides for Ieyasu himself in Sh gun! gun after another being toppled while only the position of emperor By the spring of 1600, the unity of the Regents had been shat- remained “inviolate and unbroken.” But in point of historical fact, tered both by their mutual hostilities and by the scheming of Ishida. only two lineages of shoguns, both at least officially unbroken, pre- Ieyasu increasingly took authority into his own hands, reverting to ceded the Tokugawas. Indeed, the position of shogun came in time two techniques that Hideyoshi had expressly prohibited among the to be much like that of the emperor himself: a figurehead who was Regents: the arranging of political marriages and the taking of hos- simply manipulated by the real holders of power. So, in itself, the tages. (For example, the heir of Hosokawa Tadaoki—“Saruji” in title of “shogun” was not necessarily “the ultimate rank that a Clavell’s novel—was not in Osaka in 1600, but was rather being mortal could achieve” (p. 72), and, in assuming the position in held hostage in Ieyasu’s capital of Edo.) The denouement began 1603, Ieyasu had to take special care to assure that for him and his when another of the Regents, Uesugi Kagekatsu, returned to his line it would not again become an empty title. fief to the far north and began openly fomenting revolt against This pattern of the “devolution” of political power, leaving Ieyasu. This forced Ieyasu to leave Osaka and move to Edo to figureheads of legitimacy at the top and the real wielders of power defend his lands against Uesugi. Well knowing that he was freeing in lesser positions, has long been stressed by scholars of Japanese (in actual fact, forcing) Ishida to plot against him in his absence, institutions. It was understandably one of the most confusing Ieyasu feigned indifference and made a leisurely trip north, con- things about the political scene for the Westerners who visited spicuously indulging in his favorite sport of hawking along the Japajn in this era. William Adams, for example, in describing his way, and arriving in Edo on August 10. interview with Ieyasu in Osaka, refers to the daimyo as “Emperor” While Ieyasu supervised the campaign against the enemy to the and was probably unaware of the powerless figure in Kyoto who north with one eye, he kept the other on the scheming Ishida to the was the “real” emperor. west through an elaborate network of informants. It was in these weeks that Ishida moved to seize as hostages the families of those The Events of (he Year 1600 daimyo who had accompanied Ieyasu to Edo. His first target was In Sh gun, the author takes the general political situation of Gracia, the wife of Hosokawa Tadaoki, who as an obedient 1600 as the basis for his plot, although he makes no attempt at any daimyo wife steadfastly refused to leave her mansion and—as very precise correspondences. Of all the various daimyo that detailed in Chapter 7—died with her mansion in flames, providing appear in the course of Sh gun, only the scheming “Ishido” has a the kernel of the story which James Clavell would use in creating clear model. This is Ishida Mitsunari, who was indeed an inveterate Mariko. plotter and implacable enemy of Tokugawa Ieyasu and was ulti- In Sh gun, the author (with a screenwriter’s instinct?) thankfully mately defeated in the Battle of Sekigahara in the fall of 1600. The simplifies matters by dressing the opposing forces of Ishido and historical Ishida was not one of the five Regents, but rather a mem- Toranaga in contrasting uniforms of Gray and Brown, enabling the ber of a separate and lower-ranking five-man board known as the reader to provide some visual sense of who’s who during the chaotic “Commissioners” (in Japanese, bugy ), which was in charge of battle scenes. In reality, samurai armies were not fitted out with day-to-day administrative matters and which left issues of high pol- uniforms (which even in Sh gun were explained as exceptional, a icy to the Regents. mark of the punctilious discipline of Ishido and Toranaga [p. 557]), Clavell uses the institution of the Council of Regents as an effec- and the problem of distinguishing friend from foe in battle was tive plot device in Sh gun, but in the actual historical events of 1600 often solved by the use of secret signs, like strips of paper knotted the Regents were no longer functioning as an effective body. The in special ways around the sword sheaths. The historical Ishida year and a half between Hideyoshi’s death and the arrival of William Mitsunari was also a considerably lesser lord than the Ishido of Adams in April of 1600 had seen a series of political plots and Sh gun, his own personal army being but a small fraction of the counterplots which if anything were more dramatic and fantastic total confederation which was to gather at Sekigahara: Ishida was than any devised by Clavell, who indeed simply transposes some of simply the nucleus about which the larger anti-Tokugawa lords their details to the summer of 1600. In summer 1599, for example, clustered. The situation of constantly shifting alliances in Osaka
- 37. SMITH: STRUGGLE FOR THE SHOGUNATE 58 during the summer of 1600 was so confusing that it indeed cries out readers whom I have asked—he is also the most provocative in 59 for the clarity of Brown versus Gray to retrieve any account of the comparison with the historical model. This is doubtless a mark of plotting from hopeless boredom. the relatively plentiful and colorful material available in English The inter-daimyo rivalries in Sh gun are more strongly colored by about the historical Tokugawa Ieyasu (notably Sadler’s biography, Christianity than they were in historical reality. In a sense, this Maker of Modern Japan) on which the author had to draw—in emphasis reflects the accounts of the contemporary Jesuit mission- contrast, for example, to the rather sketchy and bland records aries, who tended to emphasize the prominence and number of the which history has left us concerning William Adams and Hosokawa Christian daimyo. Whereas in Sh gun “there were a number of very Gracia. But the complexity and fascination of Toranaga is equally important Christian daimyos” (p. 59), historian James Murdoch (with a genuine reflection of the many-faceted personality of the histori- a possible Scotch-Protestant bias of his own) has stressed that the cal Ieyasu. openly Christian daimyo in 1600 in fact numbered only six, with a The personalities of great heroes in any national history tend combined koku assessment of merely four percent of the national often to be reduced to one or two key characteristics, typically sup- total (History of Japan, II, 390). Nor were any of them on the ruling ported by nicknames or colorful anecdotes (which are as often as councils at the time. What James Clavell did to enhance the drama of not apocryphal, the classic case being George Washington and the his plot was to invent two Christian Regents, “Kiyama” and cherry tree). So it is with Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose quintessential “Onoshi,” both of whom from the sound of their names (neither of qualities of craftiness and patience are supported by any number of which qualify as identifiably Japanese family names) seem to be examples. The former is epitomized by the nickname “tanuki versions of Konishi Yukinaga, the most powerful and famous of all oyaji,” the Old Badger (more precisely, the old “raccoon dog,” the Christian daimyo. For additional color, Onoshi was made a leper, but at any rate an animal known for being clever and devious—yet a transfer from the non-Christian lord tani Yoshitsugu (whose well- generally likeable). The quality of patience is captured in an oft- known disease may in fact have been syphilis). quoted set of Edo period haiku; all begin Nakanakuba (“If you At any rate, through August and on into September of 1600, Ishida don’t sing”) and conclude Hototogisu (“nightingale”), with the Mitsunari forged a massive confederation of daimyo in opposition to variant middle lines providing the imagined responses to such an Ieyasu. The military campaigns leading up to the Battle of uncooperative bird: Sekigahara in September, in both the north and the west, are complex Nobunaga: Koroshite yar —”I’ll kill you” and may be found detailed in a variety of texts (Murdoch, Sadler, Hideyoshi: Nakashite yar —”I’ll make you sing” Sansom, Trumbull). Although there is no proof of it, one may Ieyasu: Naku made mat —”I’ll wait until you sing” imagine that the weapons and ammunition which Ieyasu confiscated from the De Liefde (and Toranaga from the Erasmus) served him In Sh gun, James Clavell has provided us in the character of well in these campaigns. It might be mentioned, however, that Toranaga a fine elaboration upon both the craftiness and patience Yabu’s dream of a musket regiment had already been realized in of the historical Ieyasu. While some historians might suggest that Japan, and guns were a standard part of Japanese warfare by this these qualities have been overemphasized in the traditional Japa- time—indeed, they were a decisive factor in changing the nature of nese mythology of Ieyasu, in certain ways these images are the war in Japan in the late sixteenth century. One of the persistent “real” Ieyasu. As Clavell claims in the introduction to the Japa- fantasies of the Will Adams legend (although a relatively modest one nese translation of Sh gun (to appear in September 1980), “If they in Sh gun) has been to see Adams as the importer of wholly new and will open their minds to me, I will tell them the legends that they’ve advanced means of gunnery. In fact, in the year 1600 the Japanese learned in their schools in dry form. And I can re-create it.” were among the world leaders in the quality, quantity, and tactical Yet Ieyasu, as befitted the role of most great generals of his day, use of guns—a position they were rapidly to surrender with the could at the same time be quite ruthless, notably with members of coming of peace and the lack of any necessity for further his own family whenever they stood in the way of his considerable development of such weapons. ambition. The depiction of Toranaga’s complex family situation and of the way in which he manipulated his wives, children, and Ieyasu as Toranaga other relatives is if anything considerably less involved than in the Yoshi Toranaga is not only the most interesting and fully- case of the historical Ieyasu. His three mature sons as of 1600— developed character in Sh gun—at least in the minds of most Hideyasu, Hidetada, and Tadayoshi (Noboru, Sudara, and Naga in
- 38. SMITH: STRUGGLE FOR THE SHOGUNATE 60 the novel)—all provided him with numerous granddaughters who stationed in ready elsewhere, historians have estimated there were 61 enabled a diversity of marriage alliances. He was still to father three some 230,000 men in the field at any one time, making the scale of more sons (the child with whom Lady Sazuko is pregnant in the Sekigahara considerably greater than that of Waterloo over two summer of Sh gun was one of them, born in real life two months centuries later. Ieyasu’s final victory after a tense two days was after the battle of Sekigahara), for all of whom he provided large made possible primarily by the defection of two critical contingents domains in solidifying his regime after 1600. from the Western confederation in the heat of battle. In the after- In general, then, Ieyasu was skilled at manipulating people and math of Sekigahara, Ieyasu proved himself proverbially patient, seems only rarely to have been moved by any deep personal and only two of the opposing generals were executed, the Christian emotions. James Clavell’s use of the metaphor of hawking to Konishi (probably just because he was Christian) and of course the describe the way in which Toranaga manipulates others is an effec- scheming Ishida, both of whom were beheaded in the dry riverbed tive way of conveying this quality of the historical Ieyasu, who was in Kyoto. Many of the other conspirators found their fiefs dimin- in fact a great devotee of falconry. Rather less true to Ieyasu’s ished, but all were permitted to live. character as we know it is the religious attitude of Toranaga, as The conclusion of Sh gun depicts Toranaga contentedly medi- capsulized in an inspired passage in which the general lapses into a tating on his “karma” and the future. Although the historical state of meditation: Ieyasu had no such clairvoyance or even intentions in the autumn of 1600, things did work out for him pretty much as Toranaga pre- “Now sleep. Karma is karma. Be thou of Zen. Remember, in tranquility, that the Absolute, the Tao, is within thee, that no priest or cult or dogma or book dicted: Ieyasu was indeed given (or, for all intents, took) the title of or saying or teaching or teacher stands between Thou and It.” (p. 622) shogun three years later, and he did indeed retire in favor of his heir Hidetada (Sudara) in 1605. And he did also in fact wait patiently Here Toranaga seems to have parted ways with his historical for Hideyoshi’s heir and his mother Yodo to “make a mistake,” model and become one with his creator in a distinctively Clavellian although the actual pretext for the siege of Osaka Castle in 1614 sermon on the power of individualized salvation in defiance of all was pretty much cooked up by Ieyasu himself. The extermination organized religion. The historical Ieyasu was far more solicitous of of the Taik ’s line, the last threat to the Tokugawa dynasty, came priests, cults, and dogmas, and indeed devoted much of the last with the fall of the castle and the annihilation of all its defenders in years of his life to setting up institutions which would deify his the summer of 1615. memory and protect his dynasty. He relied heavily on priests We can probably read into Toranaga’s last lines, “I did not among his advisers, notably Suden and Tenkai, the one of the Zen choose to be what I am: it is my karma,” a decided irony, since in sect, the other of the Tendai; he simultaneously encouraged the personality both Toranaga and Ieyasu appear to have very much apostate Buddhist scholar Hayashi Razan to develop a whole set of chosen to be what they were. This was at least true of the historical moral dogma rooted in the teachings of the Chinese Neo-Confucian Ieyasu in the fifteen years of his life that remained after Sekiga- school. Yet in all these efforts, Ieyasu was in fact motivated more hara, a fulfilling period during which he assiduously constructed a by a spirit of manipulation than by any extreme personal piety, and political system of incredible ingenuity, resting on a complex set of one might indeed argue that in his heart of hearts he was perhaps checks and balances among the great lords. To provide ideological not all that distant from Clavell’s Toranaga. cement for this system, he encouraged the study of Confucianism and initiated the course of conversion of the samurai class from a After Sekigahara practicing warrior elite to a nascent civil service. When Ieyasu died James Clavell relates that when he began writing Sh gun he had at the advanced age of 75, just half a year after the fall of Osaka every expectation of recounting the Battle of Sekigahara; indeed, Castle, he was certainly the most successful political leader in Japa- he had anticipated completing the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615. nese history until that time, and the stability of his dynasty for over But the narrative developed day by day rather than year by year, two centuries after his death would only serve to reinforce the and even Sekigahara was left to a brief epilogue. If time and space judgment of history. had allowed, the Battle of Sekigahara would have been a match even for the talents of Clavell, for it was an encounter of epic pro- portions, involving an estimated 150,000 troops, with both sides fairly equally divided. If one includes other troops en route or
- 39. 7 Hosokawa Gracia: A Model for Mariko The Christian Noblewoman 63 Chieko Mulhern Japan’s history can boast but one Christian noble lady versed in Latin and Portuguese: Hosokawa Tama (1563-1600), baptized Gra- cia. The fictional heroine’s name happens to be an apt parallel: mari (ball) corresponds to tama (jewel, ball) and is homophonous with “Maria,” the name by which the Virgin Mary was known to the Southern European missionaries and their early Japanese converts. As reflected in Mariko’s background as provided in Sh gun (pp. 599-600), Lady Gracia was born to a fateful life made of the stuff of historical romance itself. Her father Akechi Mitsuhide (1526-1582) was depicted as the Japanese equivalent of Benedict Arnold in the popular entertainment of the Edo period, if not of her lifetime. The Mitsuhide that she knew—and objective history confirms it—was a cultured, sensitive, dignified man and a compe- tent general with highly technical skills in castle construction and military strategy (as in Sh gun, p. 1199). His services were so greatly valued by his overlord Oda Nobunaga (Goroda) that in 1579 the latter ordained the marriage of Akechi’s daughter Tama to Hosokawa Tadaoki, the heir of another trusted general, to bind their loyalties even more tightly. A scant three years later, Akechi led a sudden coup in Kyoto against Nobunaga, who then perished in the flames engulfing the temple of Honn ji. Akechi was promptly awarded an imperial appointment to the position of shikken (“regent,” second only to One enduring variation of the romantic formula “boy meets girl, shogun in the samurai political hierarchy), but was killed within a boy gets girl, boy loses girl” goes something like this: a man ven- fortnight of his coup by looting peasants as he was on his way to tures into an alien world, receives aid and comfort from an exotic fight Hideyoshi’s forces, thereby earning the derisive title of Jusan woman, and reestablishes his self-identity, but inevitably loses her Kubo,” the “Thirteen-Day Sh gun.” in the process. Hollywood westerns never tire of this cinematic Most of the Akechi family, including Tama’s sisters and their staple, and science fiction has left many a nonterrestrial beauty husbands, perished in battle or died by suicide in the aftermath. transfigured or dematerialized on behalf of a solitary human hero Hideyoshi, claiming most of the credit, lost no time in gaining who had invaded her world in some unique conveyance. hegemony and went on to become the Taik , but Tama’s husband So it is no surprise that the Dutch ship’s pilot-major Blackthorne Tadaoki and his father Y sai also managed not only to emerge is provided with Mariko, who guides, protects, educates, and loves from this dire family crisis unscathed but even to prevail in the him, much as her contemporary Pocahontas (1595-1617) did her process. Immediately after Nobunaga’s fall, the Hosokawa father English Captain John Smith in Virginia and died so very young. In and son promptly shaved their heads to become lay monks and the romantic convention, the exotic woman is expected to be beauti- secluded themselves in mourning, thereby effectively circumventing ful and high-born within the context of her own society, even if the Akechi’s desperate plea for assistance. Tama was sent into hiding hero is a mere fur trapper or a stranded sailor. Mariko is a lady of in a remote mountain village for fear of summary execution if dis- the daimyo class, who has such noble attributes as “beauty, bril- covered alive. For nearly two years (but less than Mariko’s eight liance, courage, and learning” (p. 261) lavished on her by Tora- years in Sh gun, p. 605) she was officially “missing,” until, naga’s wise old ex-consort. Voluminous surviving records in both through the intercession of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Taik ordered Japanese and Western languages happen to suggest a perfect model her brought back and installed in the new Hosokawa mansion just for such a romantic heroine. outside Osaka Castle, obviously as an unofficial hostage.
- 40. MULHERN: MARIKO’S MODEL 64 By the time of the birth of her third son, Tama was seeking spiritual provides the dramatic advantage of allowing her to die in Black- 65 solace in the newly imported Christian faith, which she had thorne’s presence. adopted under the influence of her lady companion Kiyohara The ensuing public outrage and mass exodus of intended hostages Maria, daughter of a high Kyoto court noble who had been one of in Sh gun parallel the actual situation in Osaka following Gracia’s the Jesuits’ earliest converts, and of Takayama Justo Ukon, the death. Ishida had secured all exits from the city, imposed a six devout Christian daimyo and Tadaoki’s close friend. Unlike the o’clock curfew, and ordered daimyo families into the castle. Yet fictional Mariko, whose language instructor (p. 334) and personal most of them escaped, thanks to the general confusion created by confessor (p. 312) were both European Jesuits, Tama had but one Gracia’s spectacular self-sacrifice as well as to their own vassals’ fleeting personal contact with a Spanish priest and the Jesuit desperate efforts. Some were able to flee in boats after the river church. On Easter Day in 1587, she slipped out of the house to visit guards had been drawn to the flaming Hosokawa mansion. the church and pleaded with Gregorio de Cespedes to baptize her As a result, Ishida was forced to abandon the hostage plan alto- on the spot. Perhaps suspecting the strange noble lady to be the gether, while Ieyasu unwittingly reaped the full benefit of Gracia’s Taik ’s consort, the cautious Father declined to take such a precip- tragedy. Ieyasu’s allies were not only spared the painful moral itous action and instead left her with Japanese Brother Cosme to dilemma of choosing between familial emotion and political alle- discuss religion and logic. Cosme later reported his amazement at giance, but they also became irrevocably committed to his cause now her “intelligence, knowledge, and power of comprehension such as that they could no longer play both sides. The vigilantly guarded he had never seen before in Japanese women.” Soon retrieved by Gracia did not actually meet Ieyasu in person, let alone work for him, frantic retainers, Tama was destined never again to leave her house. as Mariko does for Toranaga; but, from his point of view, it was as if She continued to study Christian doctrines by way of Maria. she had died on his behalf at the critical juncture of his military and While her husband was away on Hideyoshi’s Kyushu campaign in political career. Two months later he won a decisive victory at the 1587, Tama had herself baptized at home by Maria, who was acting Battle of Sekigahara and promptly rewarded her husband Tadaoki by under instructions from Fathers Cespedes and Organtino. Thus she more than doubling his fief, from 180,000 koku to 399,000 koku. came to be known to history as Gracia. Even Tadaoki’s rage upon Mariko, whose body manages to remain more or less intact after his return failed to make her renounce the faith, and all he could do the explosion, is sent off with a grand-scale, mixed-religion funeral was order even tighter security around the house to prevent her (with the rather un-Japanese public viewing of the corpse and bier from giving the retainers the slip again. cremation), but the historical Gracia also was given an impressive Christian memorial service two months after her death. Legend has it A Fiery Death that Father Organtino sent Kiyohara Maria back to the smoldering In 1600 Tadaoki set off to spearhead Ieyasu’s punitive expedition ruins to collect Gracia’s bones (identifiable because no retainer dared against Uesugi Kagekatsu in the north, part of a ruse to lure Ishida to die in the same room) and officiated at a service attended by a Mitsunari into showing his hand. Ishida responded by attempting to large crowd of mourners. make hostages of the families of those lords whose loyalties in the impending confrontation remained uncertain. Ishida’s five hundred The Hosokawa Heritage troops surrounded the Hosokawa mansion, demanding that Gracia The plot necessities and moral cosmos of Sh gun are such that move into Osaka Castle. They could not have chosen a worse a romantic love interest would have been invented even had the target. Gracia flatly refused to leave the house without her historical Gracia not existed. Once brought together by Tora- husband’s permission and chose death to safeguard his samurai naga to serve his purpose, Mariko and Blackthorne fit into each honor and loyalty to Ieyasu. According to an extant account by a other’s karma with natural ease, but such a union is expected to woman attendant named Shimo, who was the last to leave the create just the right sense of jeopardy and ultimate doom that premises, Gracia ordered her aged chamberlain to stab her chest make for high romance. So in Mariko’s wake looms the ominous with a halberd. As Shimo made her escape under orders to deliver shadow of Buntaro, a “short, thickset, almost neckless” (p. 345) Gracia’s last letters, the chamberlain sprinkled gunpowder around “baboon” (p. 371), a “squat ugly troll” (p. 596) with an “apelike the room, set fire to the mansion, and duly committed seppuku face” (p. 587), who appears “hateful, ugly, arrogant, violent” in the blaze along with the other defenders. Mariko’s death in (p. 261) even to other Japanese. Such a portrayal of the husband an explosion in Sh gun is an equally dramatic transposition and
- 41. MULHERN: MARJKO’S MODEL 66 of Mariko-as-Gracia will come as something of a jolt to Japanese spiritual tone and rules of form which have been religiously upheld 67 readers. It is comparable to being told that Robin Hood actually to the present day by the schools of tea ceremony. In accord with was closer in appearance to the Hunchback of Notre Dame than to the spirit of tea, which is essentially a synthesis of many different the dashing Errol Flynn. Lady Gracia’s husband Hosokawa Tada- arts, Tadaoki also distinguished himself as a noted poet, as an oki (1563-1645) was one of the most glamorous young lords of authority on protocol and ritual precedent, and as a fine artist—as Momoyama Japan, certain to rate an actor of the Tyrone Power or demonstrated by a handmade gift to his wife, a set of playing cards Robert Redford class in cinema. Extant portraits and historical bearing the “One Hundred Poems” collection and his own gor- accounts picture him as tall, lean, and sensitive yet masculine in geous gilt paintings, some of them extant. In matters of tea, he was appearance, and he was well-known for his aristocratic hot temper. the author of two important books, and after his retirement he was While the fictional Buntaro shares nothing with his father Hiro- in particular demand as a master under the name of Sansai, the matsu but their common viciousness (p. 351), the historical Tada- only survivor among Riky ’s famous “Seven.” oki had more positive qualities in common with his father, the illus- Tadaoki’s cultural fame is easily matched by his military reputa- trious Hosokawa Fujitaka (1534-1610), better known by his artistic tion. By age fifteen he had already earned a commendation written name Y sai. Both were the epitome of the samurai ideal of bunbu in Oda Nobunaga’s own hand (and surviving today) for his success- ry d , the “tandem ways of the literary and martial arts,” the con- ful campaign in the provinces of Yamato and Kawachi. After his cept that the warrior must cultivate both in equal proportions. marriage to Gracia he was granted as a fief the 120,000-koku prov- Y sai himself made history in his own inimitable way. Soon after ince of Tango, which he had conquered himself. By 1600 he held an Gracia’s death, Ishida launched an all-out offensive against additional 60,000 koku in Kyushu and Junior Third Rank, all inde- Ieyasu’s allies. Besieged in Tanabe Castle in the Hosokawa fief pendent of his father’s heritage. north of Kyoto, Y sai managed to hold off the Osaka horde for nearly sixty days with his garrison of only five hundred troops, A Model Husband until at last Emperor Goy zei sent an imperial emissary to order It is tempting to conjure up a full-scale rivalry and decisive con- Ishida to lift the siege and Y sai to open the castle gate. One of the frontation between a gallant, blue-eyed soldier of fortune and a most learned men and talented poets of his day, Y sai had in 1572 fiery epitome of samurai nobility over a tragic and patrician Chris- been accorded the unique honor of receiving the oral transmission tian beauty. Alas, the married lover of an Elizabethan Protestant of the poetic secrets of the great imperial anthology Kokinsh must of necessity be a distressed near-virgin (p. 605), persecuted by ( A . D . 905). It was the threat of the termination of this cultural a brutish husband whose savage wife-beating is witnessed by the lineage by Y sai’s death that moved the emperor to make his hero himself. To ensure that Mariko is not blamed for inviting such unprecedented intervention in samurai political affairs. mistreatment, Buntaro is further discredited by other atrocious Unlike the fictional Hiromatsu, who is credited with having a deeds in his past: he executed his own mother, did terrible things to number of consorts (p. 586), Y sai was a rare monogamist among his consorts (p. 586), used courtesans and let his wife pay the bills the warrior lords of the day (Gracia’s father Akechi was another). (p. 677), and was not known for his manners (p. 585). Whereas Hiromatsu’s only son Buntaro is said to have killed his But when it comes to the historical Tadaoki, even modern femi- consort mother for her alleged infidelity (p. 586), Y sai’s wife bore nists are nearly unanimous in lauding him for his unrestrained him four sons and four daughters. One of their sons, Okitomo, demonstrations of conjugal love and his steadfast refusal to take on became Christian in 1595; Y sai’s wife was also converted, to be another wife—unusual among feudal lords. In secreting Gracia for referred to as “Donna Maria” in the Jesuit annual report of two years following her father’s uprising, he actually risked untold 1600-1. dangers not only to his own personal safety but also to the very Hosokawa Tadaoki achieved a level of distinction worthy of existence of the Hosokawa clan. During Gracia’s absence he did in Y sai’s heir in his military and cultural accomplishments. By the fact take a consort, but only to support the official family claim that year 1600 he had already emerged as a member of the elite coterie his wife was missing. After Gracia’s death he took another consort that served as the primary arbiter of aesthetic taste and social deco- and fathered four children by her, but he never made her his official rum in the privileged circles of Momoyama culture. In particular, wife, so that some historical records list these later children as Gracia’s! he had been one of the famed Seven Disciples of Sen no Riky , the great tea master who did more than anyone else to define the
- 42. MULHERN: MARIKO’S MODEL 68 But this positive image of Tadaoki in the popular Japanese mind Japanese standards of the day, Tadaoki’s behavior on this occasion 69 also has a darker side, suggesting that the characterization of Bun- was well within reason and within his rights as head of the clan and taro was not the result of literary necessity alone. True to the family. The Jesuit records, however, picture him as all but the devil episode-rich Hosokawa tradition, Tadaoki left more than his share incarnate. Their 1587 annual report depicts him as “violent by of dramatic incidents to be recounted not only by his own country- nature, excessively jealous, and so strict in family discipline that men but even by Westerners. For example, he disinherited his eldest while away on military campaigns he posted two elder vassals to son, whose young wife was related to Regents hostile to Ieyasu, and keep watch on his wife.” the son lived out his life as a lay monk hermit. Even more tragic Tadaoki had not always been antagonistic toward Christianity. was the case of his second son, who fought on the Osaka side in In fact he had often related to Gracia the religious beliefs of his 1615 and was found alive after the fall of the castle. Much as Hiro- close friend Takayama Justo Ukon and had adopted Christian matsu is forced to arrange his beloved grandson Usagi’s seppuku in motifs to decorate his personal belongings. His seemingly arbitrary Sh gun (p. 219), so Tadaoki had to submit his son’s head to Ieyasu change of heart on learning of Gracia’s baptism can best be blamed so as to allay any suspicion that the Hosokawa might have been on the official Japanese policy toward Christianity, which kept betting on both sides (as indeed some other daimyo families had shifting with bewildering frequency. Indeed, Gracia’s baptism done successfully). could not have occurred at a worse time for Tadaoki. The Christian Similarly, just as the relationship between Hiromatsu and Bun- Proscription Edict issued by the Taik only a few months earlier taro is strained and even antagonistic in Sh gun (p. 351), so the his- had prompted her to take the irrevocable step. The Taik , whose torical Tadaoki is said to have been estranged from his father after attitude toward the Christian Church had been ambivalent at best, Y sai had committed the “unsamurai-like disgrace” of yielding his is generally believed to have been alarmed by the incautious offer castle to the enemy, even though at imperial command. The actual of Gasper Coelho (then Superior of the Japanese Mission) to order reason for their possibly pretended estrangement was most likely a all Christian lords to come to the Taik ’s aid in his expedition common desire to consolidate the Hosokawa into a single powerful against the powerful Kyushu daimyo Shimazu. Alarmed by the domain through an anticipated reward for their combined exploits threat of an alliance of Christian lords under foreign command, the in the great battle of 1600. Such suppression of personal feelings in Taik issued the proscription even before returning to Osaka. It the face of political necessity is not an uncommon theme in the lives was just at this time that Hosokawa Tadaoki came home from of heroes, whether in Japan or elsewhere. It was in precisely the Kyushu to find his own wife and a son newly baptized. Had her same era (1601), for example, that Queen Elizabeth had her beloved attendants been male, they would have suffered a punishment far but overambitious Earl of Essex executed. But whatever the motives worse. actually involved, such episodes undeniably add a touch of ruthless cruelty to the popular image of their protagonist. The Hosokawa Clan after Gracia As for Tadaoki, whether he was a cold-blooded schemer or a Tadaoki outlived Gracia by forty-five years. In his new Kyushu cool-headed survivor, he himself would be the last to deny that fief he extended hospitality and assistance to Christians, even pro- he was subject to fits of anger similar to the one confessed by Bun- viding a haven for those fleeing persecution in other domains. But taro (p. 619). The actual incident took place in 1587. Upon learning with the death in 1611 of Father Cespedes, who had been Gracia’s that his wife had just been baptized in his absence, Tadaoki ban- first Jesuit contact and the priest most trusted by Tadaoki, the ished her seventeen lady attendants, all of whom had preceded Gra- daimyo began to turn against the Christians at the same time that cia in converting to Christianity. He is further said to have sliced shogunate policy moved swiftly from lenient enforcement of the off the ears and nose of his son’s wet nurse, also a Christian, for proscription edict toward the stage of mass executions. assisting in having her young charge baptized along with his In the siege and final destruction of Osaka Castle in the summer mother. (The removal of the ears or nose was at the time a legal of 1615, Tadaoki and his son rendered Ieyasu distinguished service. punishment, routinely handed out by judges.) Kiyohara Maria, By 1620, he retired and handed the clan over to his third son (Mari- who actually performed the baptism, was not physically punished, ko’s Saruji—but without the hand deformity), who already had the perhaps because she was a daughter of Y sai’s maternal uncle (a honor of calling himself Tadatoshi after the shogun Hidetada, scholarly court noble and an early Christian convert) and already whose adopted daughter he had married. Tadatoshi had been bap- a Christian when she first became Gracia’s companion. By the tized along with his mother Gracia but later recanted. In 1632 the
- 43. MULHERN: MARIKO’S MODEL 70 Hosokawa clan was transferred to the still larger fief of Kumamoto 8 Death and Karma in the World of Sh gun (also in Kyushu), which at over half a million koku was one of the William LaFleur largest domains in the country. There the lineal descendants of Gracia and Tadaoki reigned as daimyo for the remaining two cen- turies of Tokugawa rule. In an ironic twist of fate, it was the Hoso- kawa clan under Tadatoshi that claimed the distinction of killing Amakusa Shiro, the youthful leader of the Christian uprising at Shimabara in 1638. With characteristic adroitness, the Hosokawa family managed to remain aloof from the coalition of great western domains which finally toppled the Tokugawa regime in 1868 and at the same time to survive into modern times as dukes under the prewar peerage. Gracia’s line counts among its contemporary descendants a number of prominent politicians and scholars. The historical William Adams, Blackthorne’s model, never had the pleasure of meeting Lady Gracia, much less conversing with her in Western languages. But the saga of Gracia was memorialized by Jesuit writers soon after her death in a story modeled on the Italian Cinderella cycle. Her life has also been dramatized in numerous tales, novels, stage plays, biographies, and scholarly treatises. “It’s all so simple, Anjin-san. Just change your concept of the world.” Sh gun, p. 528 In reading Sh gun I could not shake off the impression that it was the most didactic novel I had read in many years—as strange as this might seem in so swashbuckling a tale. I asked myself exactly what it was that the author, in addition to telling a good story, wanted to say or teach. My first answer was that Clavell in Sh gun wanted to provide something of an induction into Japanese civiliza- tion, that he intended to convince his readers in the West that, when understood, Japan has been as civilized a culture as our own. But I later revised this opinion and concluded that the author’s didactic program is even more ambitious, for he holds that certain aspects of Japanese civilization—basic attitudes about life and death, for instance—ought to be not only appreciated but also adopted by us in the West. My hunch about this was confirmed by Clavell himself. In con- versation he openly acknowledged his belief that Asian people as a whole have “a better attitude toward life and death—death being a part of life . . . ” He went on to say:
- 44. LAFLEUR: DEATH AND KARMA 72 Why should we be afraid of death when it is inevitable? I mean, that’s may, in fact, suggest that for the Japanese themselves such an atti- 73 pretty stupid. That thought has been implanted into us by our tude could be made to appear “natural” only through constant jus- forebears . . . . It’s the Jewish-Christian ethic for some reason or another. tification. The instinct for self-preservation has, after all, through What is especially interesting to me is that, perhaps for the first millions of years remained fundamentally “natural” to creatures time in Western history, we seem to be ready to entertain the possi- still in the prime of life. There can be no difference between East bility that Clavell’s judgments on life and death—completely apart and West on this. A fear of death was, then, as “natural” for the from any artistic or historical problems in Sh gun—may be correct. late medieval Japanese as it is for any other people; what is inter- Given such an ambitious objective, Sh gun deserves quite serious esting about their society in that period was the elaboration of cul- scrutiny—not only in terms of how well it represents sixteenth- tural mechanisms to contravene such natural fears. “Bushido” is in century Japan but also, I think, as a book which reflects aspects of many ways precisely this. But its existence as a code or norm does the cultural interchange between Japan and the West in our own not in any way indicate that reality in the sixteenth century, for time. Here I merely wish to explore and clarify a few historical and instance, was anything like the ideal or that large numbers of Japa- philosophical issues which I think are raised by discussions of death nese—as Clavell depicts in Sh gun—walked willingly into death. and of karma in Clavell’s book. We can blunt the edge of too sharp a contrast between Japan and the West by working from the other direction as well. It is helpful “There’s a very easy solution, Anjin-san. Die.” to remember that, although the West never created anything quite There is a point fairly late in Sh gun when Blackthorne looks like the Bushido ritual of dying, there has always been an admira- back over the training he has received—largely from Mariko—and tion for persons who had personally conquered death. Socrates’ muses about himself: tranquil acceptance of the hemlock inspired others at least to think about the possibility of “dying philosophically.” Likewise, deeply He was no longer afraid to die. Her courage had shown him the uselessness rooted religious convictions carried many early Christians through of that fear and he had come to terms with himself long ago, on that night in martyrdom with relative tranquility and made it possible for some the village with the knife. (p. 1027) Jews to conceive their forced deaths as opportunities for “sanctify- Since Clavell holds that fear of death is a useless and dispensable ing the name of God.” It is, then, somewhat risky to assume the part of the “Jewish-Christian ethic,” it would seem that in Sh gun existence of a Western attitude which clearly and always contrasts the successful mastery of this fear is the crucial element in Black- with something else assumed to be the Japanese attitude concerning thorne’s deep initiation into Japan as a superior form of civiliza- death and life. The novelist has the power, perhaps even the right, tion. It is also then the key to Clavell’s hope of effecting a change in to fashion different cultures into virtually opposite worlds. The his- the world view of the West. torian, however, has to call attention to the fact that reality is sel- Over the years it has become the (sometimes unpleasant) task of dom, if ever, quite like that. Asianists like myself to raise red flags of warning when we observe Nevertheless, Clavell’s novel and the warm reception it has too easy and too comprehensive a contrast being made between received may be indirectly saying something extremely interesting “the West” and the various cultures of Asia. I am worried about about changing attitudes toward death in our own time. The vivid the implication in Sh gun that a continual fear of death grips the presentation of persons deliberately and painfully dying through Western heart whereas virtually every man, woman, and child of seppuku, in what must be the epitome of courage in facing death, sixteenth-century Japan could face death without flinching and implicitly invites Western readers to see how this contrasts with the even with pleasure. Indeed, Sh gun often gives the impression that multiple means we have devised, especially through modern medi- such a mastery over fear was a fait accompli in Japanese society, cal technology, to anesthetize ourselves as much as possible as we something so worked into the world view and education of the die. In vivid contrast, seppuku if anything heightens the dying per- entire populace that it had become a “natural” part of their lives son’s awareness of his or her death: it makes dying an unusually and outlook. conscious act. It has, therefore, sometimes been championed as an It is possible, however, to give quite a different interpretation to eminently human way to die. Until now, what we usually called all the talk about “the honor of a noble death “ in the writings of late “hari-kari” seemed to be a bizarre practice that was gross and medieval Japan. The frequency and insistence of such references nihilistic. Clavell has raised an awareness that there may be much more depth and dignity in seppuku than the West had assumed.
- 45. LAFLEUR: DEATH AND KARMA 74 Clavell seems to be making the point that in the modern era we about Asia, Clavell presents us with a kaleidoscopic karma, an idea 75 have swung too far in the opposite direction, treating dying as an which seems to shift and turn with each usage. It may be helpful to embarrassment and death as something to be eliminated eventually sort out some of these meanings and try to place them in the con- through technology. It is no longer a natural part of our culture but text of medieval Japanese thought. something hidden away from public view as though it really ought One meaning of the term karma is quite accurately depicted in not to be taking place. When interviewed, Clavell told a story of a that passage where Clavell defines it: dying woman who had written him because reading Sh gun had Karma was an Indian word adopted by Japanese, part of Buddhist philoso- “made her remaining days happy.” Her thanks to him for writing the phy that referred to a person’s fate in this life, his fate immutably fixed novel clearly gratified him and he went on to comment, “This because of deeds done in a previous life, good deeds giving a better position attitude toward death and life, life and death, you know, in a funny in this life’s strata, bad deeds the reverse. Just as the deeds of this life would sort of way is a wonderful thing. It’s there for all of us to grab. I’m completely affect the next rebirth. A person was ever being reborn into this not unique. Anybody can do it.’’ Obviously both the author and his world of tears until, after enduring and suffering and learning through many readers see Sh gun as something more than mere entertainment. lifetimes, he became perfect at long last, going to nirvana, the Place of Perfect Peace, never having to suffer rebirth again, (pp. 219-20) “A great word, ‘karma.’ And a great idea.” As part of the Buddhism which the Japanese began to absorb from Most readers of Sh gun may be fascinated but, I suspect, also China in the fifth century, the idea of karma fascinated them even confused by one word which appears repeatedly in the novel even as earlier it had appealed to the Chinese when they learned of it though its exact meaning remains unclear: karma. Even readers who from the Indians. As understood at that time, karma was part of a have lived in contemporary Japan will be puzzled by the constant fundamental lawfulness in the universe and implied that every repetition of “karma,” a word which appears rarely, if ever, in the being makes or breaks his or her own future. There is, then, really conversation of modern Japanese. Even the Japanese equivalents of no injustice in the world since every being is and has exactly what this Indian word—such as go, in, or inga—are anything but he or she has merited through the morality or immorality of past household terms; if they occur at all, it will be in the more reflective actions. Every being, through a sequence of births (transmigra- conversation of older people, in the temple homilies of Buddhist tion), was continually moving up or down along a ladder stretching monks, or in the last novels of Mishima Yukio. It is ironic that between high and low forms of life. “karma” is more likely to appear in the dormitory conversation of At a time when the concept was still fairly new to the Japanese, American university students than in the parlance of contemporary we can see it reflected in a drinking song of the eighth-century Japanese—even though it is the latter who have in a millennium and Man’y sh , by the poet tomo Tabito, who was at once both a half of their own intellectual history a long record of debate over intrigued by this new notion and skeptical about it: the concept. Such are the paradoxes of our times: things which one culture seems ready to forget become items of curiosity and fasci- Getting my pleasures nation to another. This way in my present life But this still leaves unanswered the question of whether or not May make me turn Clavell was justified in so liberally sprinkling the word throughout Into a bug or a bird the pages of Sh gun, a novel set in the sixteenth century. Although I In the life to come doubt that even then samurai and others would have dropped the Later writers were much less flippant. The Nihon ry iki, an word “karma” at every turn, Clavell is correct in his assumption that important work of the early ninth century, presented the notion of this Indo-Buddhist concept was important in the mental furnishings karmic rewards and punishments through vivid stories which made of the medieval Japanese. So, although the word has virtually the whole system concrete and intelligible to the masses. Its author, disappeared from the speech of modern Japanese, karma as a concept a monk by the name of Ky kai, was thoroughly convinced that, definitely affected the way their ancestors viewed reality. Yet the once karma was understood by all his countrymen, the Japanese as exact meaning of karma never comes very clearly into focus in a people would simply decide to stop doing evil. Ky kai was com- Sh gun, which is understandable in light of the wide diversity of pletely optimistic about the possibility of this: once people came to interpretations the Japanese have given to the concept. Having realize that each person is the architect of his or her own future probably absorbed these multiple meanings through his readings
- 46. LAFLEUR: DEATH AND KARMA 76 destinies, they would simply choose to do good and receive their preparation for seppuku would have called on the name of Amida 77 happy rewards. for help; they would certainly not have moved on to death and Ky kai. however, if he had been given an opportunity to read rebirth with anything as flip as “Sayonara, Tadeo” (p. 569). Sh gun, would have been either perplexed or indignant at the finale But another way of dealing with this sense of imprisonment by of the novel when Toranaga smiles and muses, “I did not choose to one’s karma was a deliberate refusal to be obsessed by such things. be what I am. It is my karma” (p. 1210). Ky kai would have seen In Japan this happened particularly under the influence of that things as quite the opposite; he would insist that Toranaga fails to Chinese Buddhist development which the Japanese called “Zen.” grasp that it was precisely the pattern of choices which Toranaga In Zen it was religiously important to avoid elaborate intellectual himself had made over a number of lifetimes that had brought him concepts, which were viewed as impediments to enlightenment. now to the point of becoming shogun. In the Nihon ry iki, for While Zen Buddhism by no means rejected the notions of karma instance, Ky kai argues that the various emperors fully deserved and transmigration, it did encourage people to avoid the spawning their status because they had earned it through the good deeds of of theories of the universe. Emphasis in Zen was placed rather earlier lives. For Ky kai the concept of karma made the whole uni- upon the importance of the present moment. If Ky kai had encour- verse appear “rational” and was, therefore, an exhilarating new aged people to take a broad conceptual overview of many lifetimes, idea. the Zen masters took a radically different approach and encour- Within a few generations after Ky kai’s time, karma had come aged people to jettison all intellectual concepts as so much ballast to be accepted as a proven fact of life and the universe. The entire and to focus instead upon the immediacy of the present. Karma body of medieval Japanese literature and drama simply assumes its was true but ought not become an obsession. truth. Watsuji Tetsuro, an important modern thinker, has reminded In the pages of S h g u n i t s e e ms t h a t t hi s ve r s i o n o f his contemporaries that “Belief in transmigration . . . made com- karma—rather than Ky kai’s—is the prevalent one. It is clearly the plete and common sense to our medieval ancestors; it lay at the one employed when Mariko, perhaps the most expert synthesizer of basis of their ordinary observations about life.” The prime exam- world religions in our popular literature, counsels Blackthorne: ple of this would be the vast repertoire of N plays in which the “Leave the problem of God to God and karma to karma. Today you are concept of karmic rebirth is a key element in the dramatic action. here and nothing can change that. Today you’re alive and here and hon- And since N was the art form officially sponsored and subsidized ored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, by the Tokugawa shoguns, a karma-centered world view was neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow it does not exist. There is only now. repeatedly presented and reinforced as true in that era as well. Please look.” (p. 499) But karma did not remain the relatively simple and straightfor- ward notion it had been for Ky kai. Nor did all later Japanese It is important to recognize that both of these views of karma— share the early monk’s optimistic vision of man’s ability directly to the broad view of Ky kai and the immediate view of Zen—are pres- fashion a good future for himself. On the contrary, much evidence ent in the pages of Sh gun. Consider, for example, the scene in suggests that the majority of Japanese came to find the notion of which Blackthorne, with the help of Mariko and a hot bath, puts karma a fairly depressing one. Once they began to think of their aside some memories of England which had surfaced in his mind: past and present lives, they became impressed—sometimes over- “I’d rather not remember,” he said with a lazy smile, turning his mind whelmed—with the probability that the accumulated evil deeds of back to the present. “I can’t remember. Here is where we are and here is the past would still bear their “fruit” in the future. In Clavell’s apt where we’ll eat, and I enjoy raw fish and karma is karma.” He sank deeper phrase, they started to “bewail their karma” (p. 749). into the tub. “A great word, ‘karma.’ And a great idea. Your help’s been One response to this depressing problem was the idea that nega- enormous to me, Mariko-san.” (p. 534) tive karma could somehow be either cancelled or reduced through It is important to recognize that this is ambiguous and confusing. the actions of a saving deity such as Amida, the Buddha of the Blackthorne summons karma as a “great word” not to explore but Western Paradise. Much of Buddhist piety in medieval Japan only to dismiss immediately! It’s a “great idea” but, apparently, consisted of actions designed to undo the threatening effects of especially great when it is not permitted to get in the way of Black- past evil. Appeals to Amida and the chanting of various sutras thorne’s enjoyment of his bath, his woman, and his sushi. It’s a were among the many ways in which Buddhists of the medieval fine concept, but all concepts have become barnacles to his increas- period sought release from karma. Most samurai, for example, in ingly enlightened mind and ought to be discarded.
- 47. LAFLEUR: DEATH AND KARMA 78 Blackthorne sometimes receives from Mariko and others the 9 Learning Japanese with Blackthorne advice that karma is something with which he need not deal. But Susan Matisoff this argument can be—and in Sh gun frequently is—carried one step further: karma may also be something with which we really can not deal. According to this understanding, karma is something over which an individual has absolutely no control. At one point, in order to clarify his intention to Father Alvito, Blackthorne makes the easy equation: “That’s karma—in the hands of God—call it what you will” (pp. 786-7). This seems to be the implicit notion in the many passages in Sh gun in which karma is roughly equivalent to the modern colloquial phrase shigata ga nai (“there’s nothing to be done”), a clear statement in Japanese that events have gotten totally beyond the control of the speaker. In such an interpretation, karma consists of a fixed state of affairs and the only possible response is one of resignation. It is more like “fate” or the “will of God” and is undeniably a notion of karma that has its place among the others in the course of Japan’s history. The discerning reader will have noticed that by now we have come to a definition of karma that has moved a full 180 degrees away from that of the early monk Ky kai, who had celebrated karma as a principle by which each and every being has total free- dom over himself—somewhat like the celebrated verse of William Ernest Henley in which “I am the master of my fate: I am the cap- tain of my soul.” The often contradictory meanings of karma ‘This is the key to Japan, neh? Language which we encounter in Sh gun thus reflect the diverse range of is the key to anywhere foreign, neh?” material which history itself presented to Clavell. This serves to Sh gun, p. 786 explain why the main characters in Sh gun seem at one moment to have the whole of their destinies in their hands, and yet at the next The hero of Sh gun John Blackthorne, in these remarks to a to accept a kind of genial fate which is totally beyond their control. priest who has presented him with a long-awaited dictionary of But Clavell has a distinct advantage over those of us whose Japanese, reveals the delighted enthusiasm of a language student karma it is to be historians and philosophers. He has an enviable imbued with curiosity, intelligence, and supreme motivation. For omnipotence as the author—that is, auctor or creator—of the Blackthorne, language is indeed the key to Japan, and, for the read- worlds of his imagination. He is the maker of novel—that is, new— ers of Sh gun, James Clavell’s use of Japanese and approximated worlds. So even though his theories stretch the facts of history and Japanese does much to establish the mood of the lone Englishman’s the ways of logic, Mariko and then her pupil Blackthorne are made encounter with an alien culture. to synthesize the great religious traditions of the world. Often it At the beginning of chapter one, the dazed, shipwrecked sailor seems they do so a bit too quickly and easily. How they ultimately awakens in a strange world where the first words he hears—goshu- put all these things together lies within the subtle structure of their jinsama, gokibun wa ikaga desu ka? (p. 25)—are left untranslated own minds or, more precisely, within the mind of Clavell, their for the English reader who can, therefore, directly taste the fear maker, to whose thoughts we finally have no direct access. Even and fascination that grip the uncomprehending pilot. Through after twelve hundred pages much still seems to lie off-stage, in a Blackthorne’s ears, as it were, the reader who knows no Japanese place hidden from our view and our analyses. Perhaps that’s the will pick up words and phrases. The first of these words, propheti- way it ought to be, for it leaves us the anticipation of future revela- cally enough, is onna (woman) and soon thereafter (though in a tions by the author in some later incarnation, world, or book. different context) kinjiru (forbid). The former word Blackthorne
- 48. MATISOFF: LEARNING JAPANESE 80 learns through gestures, the latter through the dramatically clear Consider, for example, “neh.” This little sentence-ending tag 81 context of the actions of sword-drawn samurai: “extralinguistic peppers the pages of Sh gun, rounding off the speeches of all sorts cues,” the language teacher might say. of Japanese characters, and is even assimilated into the English sen- The pains and pleasures of language learning are not frequent tences, as in Blackthorne’s comments quoted at the beginning of subjects of concern in popular novels, with the exception, perhaps, this chapter. The reader quickly gets a correct feel for the meaning of certain works of science fiction, and there’s much to be praised of the particle: something like the French n’est-ce pas, it asks the in Clavell’s decision to take the readers along on Blackthorne’s listener’s agreement or confirmation of the sentence. But the tone is odyssey into an unfamiliar language. Gradually the reader learns a off. Anyone can use neh speaking Japanese, but it’s more used by few words. When kinjiru reappears some sixty pages later, surfac- women than men; it is only sparingly used by really articulate Japa- ing from Blackthorne’s memory in one of those moments of extreme nese speakers, and the unsuspecting English speaker who acquires stress in which Sh gun abounds, this cross-linguistic device conveys an overfondness for neh runs the risk of sounding rather too much the hero’s state of mind to intense novelistic effect. Language as like a contemporary bar-girl. communication and the need for this communication, however dif- For those who know Japanese, reading Sh gun produces other ficult, are major themes of Sh gun; and in many cases the major similar minor annoyances. Some of the spacing of words and a few points concerning language raised by Clavell are valid. If this were of the romanizations are idiosyncratic to Clavell. Neh for ne, and a work of science fiction and the language a total invention, we goziemashita for gozaimashita, for example, while kamikazi for might simply praise the skill with which the author builds his read- kamikaze certainly reproduces the wartime anglicized pronuncia- ers’ vocabularies. Still, the reader who acquires a smattering of tion, not the Japanese. The frequently occurring expression oh ko Japanese from Sh gun might wish to know something about the is utterly mysterious. validity of his newfound knowledge. Other than such problems of style, and typographical errors (of These comments won’t be relevant for the TV film, in which which there are relatively few), there are certain difficulties in Cla- Japanese actors will be speaking their own language. The TV series vell’s Japanese which reflect differences between Japanese and was made using a script “based on a concept that may well spell English that go beyond mere words. A Japanese-language review of success or failure: the Japanese in ‘Sh gun’ speak in their own lan- the book (Hokubei mainichi shimbun, May 28, 1980) calls the lan- guage, without any translation. So the viewer will be in the same guage “classroom Japanese,” objecting to the overpoliteness of situation as Blackthorne and will learn what is going on just as he some of the common phrases like wakarimasu ka (“do you under- does” (Neil Martin in American Film, April 1980). Differences in stand?”), which does sound peculiar in exchanges we are to take as pacing and in the essential effects of the two media may well mean gruff speech between soldiers. And though there are occasional that the viewer will experience Blackthorne’s language learning less correct, complex Japanese sentences in Sh gun which must result vividly than does the reader, but the Japanese emerging from the from Clavell’s asking a Japanese how to say such and such, much TV set will presumably be accurate. of the Japanese reflects not a “classroom” but a “phrasebook” Specific details make the novel teem with life; small errors in lan- approach to the language. guage don’t really detract from its effectiveness as a novel, though Perhaps the clearest example of this is dozo (which properly they do limit its usefulness as a language textbook. This might be should be d zo, not dozo: vowel length matters in Japanese, as the thought a dead issue, but Julian Barnes in The New Statesman title Sh gun itself illustrates). Early on in his experience in Japan (November 21, 1975) commented, “personally, I enjoyed Sh gun Blackthorne realizes his desperate need to learn the language; as a basic primer of Japanese; . . . [the words] seem to be arranged thrown in prison, he meets Friar Domingo, a fellow prisoner who in accordance with the standard learning principle of graded gives him some basic language instruction: “Domo is thank you reinforcement.” Some examples may serve to show that this and dozo is please. Water is mizu” (p. 241). Yes, but. Water is eminently successful novel, whatever else it may be, is not a primer water the world around, we might say—though mizu actually of Japanese. While some of its Japanese is totally correct, and means only cold water—but “thank you” and “please” are not, some basically correct though anachronistic, other phrases are utter always, no matter what the phrasebook may tell us. D zo as gibberish and much of the Japanese is subtly wrong, for interesting “please” is correct only in situations of invitation: “please come reasons which illustrate basic differences between Japanese and this way,” “please be seated,” “please help yourself,” and English. so forth. In other situations where an English speaker may use
- 49. MATISOFF: LEARNING JAPANESE 82 “please”—asking for a favor (“please pass the salt”) or entreaty of the perfectly, elaborately correct Japanese examples, the equiva- 83 (“please, don’t hurt me!”)—d zo would strike the Japanese lent of “Lord Yabu does not require to see you tonight” (p. 532). It speaker as wholly inappropriate, or even incomprehensible. contains two verbs, but neither, appropriately, ends in -masu. Clavell has plugged in dozo as if it corresponded one-to-one with Clavell realizes, in general, the gulf between English and Japa- every English “please.’’ So there are many instances of dozo gomen nese, and, despite the extensive errors in detail, the general effect nasai, meant, apparently, for the English “please forgive me.” on the reader who simply takes the Japanese as it comes is a sympa- There are also some examples of the impossible combination dozo thetic understanding of Blackthorne’s difficulty in his incomplete goziemashita, where it’s unclear what is meant. In one case dozo piercing of the veil of confusion he finds in Japanese. One aspect of seems to represent the British “please?” for “Huh?” or “What?” this which is quite clearly conveyed is the matter of Japanese (p. 1197). When Blackthorne requests that a bottle of sake be “respect language.” Friar Domingo tells Blackthorne, “Always passed to him, saying, “Here, give it to me. Dozo” (p, 443), dozo r e m e m b e r t ha t J a pa n e r s p u t a gr e a t p r i c e o n m a n n e r s a n d is inappropriate enough, but when Fujiko levels a cocked pistol at courtesy” (p. 241). This good, blunt advice from the mouth of the Omi and shouts, “Ugoku na. Dozo” (p. 502), apparently to repre- fictional character is reminiscent of the words of the real-life Jesuit sent “Don’t move—please!”, there’s danger of disastrous confu- linguist João Rodrigues, who commented that “it is impossible to sion. All this could mean is “Don’t move! Please do!” learn the language without at the same time learning to speak with Plugging in words straight out of a dictionary or phrasebook has d i g n i t y a n d c o u r t e sy ” ( M i c h a e l C o o p e r, T h e y C a m e t o J a p a n, produced a number of uncomfortably contorted passages. When p. 173). Passing references in Sh gun comment on differences Clavell wants to describe a ship as “seaworthy,” he ends up with between men’s and women’s speech and rightly note that it is possi- sonkei subeki umi (p. 854), roughly “a sea worthy of respect.” And ble to be inappropriately overpolite as well as to err on the side of when Blackthorne presents his sword to Toranaga saying, “Kara rudeness. Yet Clavell often falls into overpoliteness, putting -masu samurai ni samurai, neh? Please, Lord Toranaga, from a samurai forms of verbs into the mouths of rough male speakers in nonpolite to a samurai, eh?” (p. 650), the impossible word order in the Japa- situations. nese produces a ludicrous effect, rather than the high drama clearly Clavell does much to establish the relative status and respect due intended. In Japanese, words which correspond to English preposi- different characters through the use of suffixes to names: -san, - tions follow their nouns, so the only possible order would be “sam- chan, and -sama. The first of these is generally used today after urai kara samurai ni.” names as a kind of neutral-respect title; -chan is its diminutive or Near the midpoint of Sh gun there appears a passage we can intimate equivalent, and -sama is the formal suffix from which view as “the language lecture.’’ In this interchange between Mariko both -san and -chan were derived. But for 1600 both -san and - and Blackthorne, Clavell attempts a basic statement on the differ- chan are anachronistic, being modern colloquialisms, while -sama ences between Japanese and English. Her native language seems was in wide use at the time. The effect is especially jarring when easy to her, and, though Blackthorne “felt his frustration rising,” Toranaga addresses an inferior samurai as -san and when Toranaga Mariko assures him, “Oh no, Anjin-san. Japanese is very simple to and his mistress Kiri address each other as “Tora-chan” and “Kiri- speak compared with other languages. There are no articles, no chan” (p. 222). Clavell has the right idea but the wrong execution. ‘the’, ‘a’, or ‘an’. No verb conjugations or infinitives. All verbs are One final linguistic detail requiring mention is the matter of the regular, ending in masu and you can say almost everything using names of the characters. Nearly all of the names are Clavell’s the present tense if you want” (pp. 527-8). The lecture is at one and inventions, of course, though a few are true to their Japanese origi- the same time charming and confused. nals. Names as author’s inventions may bring the characters alive True enough, there are no articles, and conjugational patterns in the writer’s mind and certainly allow him a greater novelistic are regular—but enormously complex. Five or six endings may be freedom. As Clavell has said, “I changed the names deliberately, added in a row to a verb root and -masu is only one of these, serv- because I thought it was pretentious for me to say, about a real ing to make the verb more polite. Like ne, it is especially character- character, Ieyasu Tokugawa, that he got up on top of the castle and istic of feminine speech. The systems have changed somewhat since peed, you know!” In changing the names, Clavell gave thought to 1600, and the range of verb endings was even more complex then his choices, feeling, “you have to choose a name, a Japanese name, than it is now. In fact, the point about -masu endings is immedi- that looks good.” Toranaga, he knows, “sounds strange to Japa- ately contradicted by the next Japanese sentence in the book, one nese ears,” but “in English, to my eyes, it looked good, and that
- 50. MATISOFF: LEARNING JAPANESE 84 was the only thing that bothered me. And it sounded good to me, in legion, there was once a time when there was only one English 85 my ears.” speaker in Japan: William Adams (Bungei shunj , June 1978, Some of the resultant names do, indeed, sound strange to Japa- p. 186). For all its flaws, Sh gun captures the problem of the voy- nese ears. Naga, for instance, is a common element in longer ager into a strange language and culture to splendid effect. names, but sounds odd alone. Usagi (“rabbit”) as a surname for Sh gun is, after all, a novel, not a primer, and one which could Blackthorne’s wife Fujiko put me irreverently in mind of a Playboy not exist were we to insist that it be utterly true to life. Were it writ- bunny. “Fujiko,” for that matter, has an anachronistic sound, as ten in the appropriate Dutch, Portuguese, Latin, and Japanese, does “Mariko,” since women’s names in the sixteenth century gen- there would be no Sh gun. The novelistic effect of battered English erally had the prefix O-, not the suffix -ko, which came into com- like “But first, please must see Lord Ishido. Very important” mon use only within the past century. (p. 1106), to convey the idea of battered Japanese, works well, no Aside from the question of “natural-sounding” names, there’s matter how uncomfortable we may feel over the many “so sorry” ‘s the problem of differentiating surnames and given names, and a scattered throughout the book. And the salty Japanese-English pid- great confusion as to what to do with the name of a married gin of the pilot Rodrigues is an inspired example of enthusiasm and woman. The most complex example is Mariko. The variations on self-confidence as effective elements in communicating through an her name are extraordinary. At times she is Toda Mariko, using the imperfectly mastered language. “Toady-sama” for “Toda-sama,” surname of her husband, Toda Buntaro, and her given name, Mar- Rodrigues says, and in his exuberance, I feel, we find the character iko, in normal Japanese order. No problems here, nor can one find who most directly reflects the author’s own attitudes. Clavell never fault with the elderly female character who calls her Akechi Mar- loses his awareness of language as “the key to anywhere foreign,” iko, reverting to the surname of her childhood, as daughter of Ake- and through his insightful portrayal of the agonies and ecstasies of chi Jinsai. But when Clavell seeks formality, particularly in writing language learning he creates much of the realism of Blackthorne’s of Mariko’s last days, various parts of the names of her husband, experience. her father, and even her father-in-law are inserted, inappropriately, into her name as if the author were seeking something similar to Spanish or Portuguese naming patterns. She is “Toda Buntaro Mar- iko,” “Senhora Mariko Buntaro,” “Toda Mariko-noh-Buntaro- noh-Jinsai,” and “Toda Mariko-noh-Buntaro-noh-Hiromatsu” on different pages. In this at least, the real Japanese would indeed have been “very simple.” It is easy enough to enumerate the linguistic faults of Sh gun, but we should not lose sight of the postive side. Blackthorne’s burn- ing need and desire to learn the language are evoked to wonderful effect. Motivation is always a key element in language training and no contemporary student need worry, as Blackthorne does, that his language teachers will all be crucified should he fail to progress rapidly enough. Blackthorne’s longing for a dictionary and gram- mar of Japanese and his thrill when the dictionary is finally placed in his hands should properly warm the heart of every language teacher who reads Sh gun. In this the novel reflects accurately the historical realities of Japan around 1600, when the Jesuits were working up basic grammars and word lists to aid them in their mis- sionary work. A real Latin-Portuguese-Japanese dictionary of 1595 may be taken as the model for the book that so excited Blackthorne. As a sympathetic review of Sh gun in a Japanese journal has pointed out, though contemporary Japanese is rife with English words and expressions and Japanese students of English today are
- 51. 10 The Paradoxes of the Japanese Samurai forms of samurai behavior in films, in writings about Zen, and in 87 Henry Smith the mystique surrounding the martial arts. Sh gun fits generally within this mythology, particularly in its portrayal of ordinary sam- urai as blindly loyal to the point of inhumanity. And yet at the same time Clavell manages to humanize samurai behavior, describing the inner workings of the samurai mind. The Samurai Facing Two Ways Another explanation for contradictory samurai behavior is that the class underwent a radical change midway through its seven- century career as Japan’s ruling elite. It just happens that the year 1600, in which Sh gun is set, represents the pivotal point of this transformation. The samurai at this time was a Janus-faced crea- ture, looking back at an era of constant war and looking forward to an era of constant peace. Behind him lay bloody battles, treachery, and rapid mobility: ahead of him lay a life of increasingly bureau- cratic normalcy and a fixed, hereditary place in a closely ordered society. Purists might insist that Rodrigues’ observation to Black- thorne that the “Whole country’s split up into castes, like in India. Samurai at top, peasants next important” (p. 141) is less accurate for 1600 than for fifty years later. But by 1600 the direction of change was already clearly established, especially because of the all- important process of removing the samurai from direct control The depiction of the samurai in Sh gun is often contradictory, over the land and placing them in castle towns under the immediate and for good reason: the actual historical evolution of Japan’s control of the daimyo. traditional military elite presents us with a complex pattern of para- One way to dramatize this historical shift is to compare two well- doxes. In Sh gun we see the samurai both obsessed with the ideal known samurai films, Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and Koba- of blind loyalty and yet willing at a moment’s notice to betray yashi’s Harakiri (1962). In Seven Samurai, we see the military class others for personal advantage. We see samurai who can be vicious as a motley assortment of individuals, drawn together in part by sadists and yet refined masters of poetry and the tea ceremony. And sheer love of violence and in part by an idealistic devotion to the we see samurai who habitually act on sudden, unthinking impulse cause of justice; never is any mention made of loyalty to an over- and yet who seem to be constantly calculating every future move. lord, for these samurai have none. The film reflects Kurosawa’s Historical records provide plentiful support for this kind of para- expressed preference for the chaotic conditions of sixteenth-century doxical behavior, and indeed more: if anything, James Clavell has Japan: “It’s my favorite period. People were straightforward and simplified the complexities of the samurai class to present a clearer unpretentious then. It was a time of great ambitions and great fail- and more dramatic image. ures, great heroes and equally great scoundrels” (New York Times, What we need, then, is some framework for sorting out these April 27, 1980, p. D15). complexities and resolving—or at least clarifying—the paradoxes. In stark contrast is the image of the samurai in Harakiri, which is One basic distinction, obvious but too often overlooked, is between set just a few decades later in the year 1630. The samurai is now the ideal and the reality of the samurai. Of course, it is not as locked into a rigid system of oppressive control by the new Toku- though the ideal and the reality were two separate worlds: each has gawa government, and the hero, an impoverished masterless samu- constantly influenced the other throughout the course of history. rai (r nin), has been reduced to making umbrellas for a living. He One might also argue that the ideal of the samurai has become in manages in the end to expose the hypocrisy and inhumanity of the certain ways more “real” than reality, particularly for modern new peacetime regime—but only for the film viewer, since we are Americans, who are subjected almost exclusively to mythicized left to understand that “history” left no trace of his protest. Of
- 52. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 88 course, Kobayashi and Kurosawa—and, in turn, Clavell—are not versions of The Tale of the Heike had little such emphasis, but that 89 documentary historians but artists with a message for a modern it was rather the fertile imaginations of wandering storytellers that audience. Still, the contrast between the two films suggests in a dra- provided the heroics, many years after the events of the war had matic way the tremendous change which the samurai class was passed from living memory. This raises the interesting possibility undergoing around the year 1600 in the transition from war to that many documented instances of obsessive loyalty among later peace. samurai—of which Sh gun provides its own share of fictional The historian would make one further warning: the term “samu- examples—were at least in part a case of life imitating art. Such is rai” is used in Sh gun, as in many books, to cover an extended the power of fiction! hierarchy, ranging all the way from lowly footsoldiers (a substan- But if feudal loyalty was so deeply ingrained an ideal by the six- tial number of whom were recruited from the peasantry on a tem- teenth century, how are we to explain the omnipresence of “treach- porary basis) to the daimyo class. In Sh gun all these are described ery” in the politics of the period? In Sh gun, of course, we are uniformly as “samurai,” and it might make things a bit clearer if given examples of both loyalty and treachery which in frequency we bear in mind the technical distinction between a bushi, a full- and degree tend to be considerably exaggerated for dramatic effect. fledged warrior with the privilege of riding a horse and having And yet in fact the themes of treachery and constant reversal of direct audience with a lord, and an ashigaru, a footsoldier with far fortunes have long dominated the historiography of the Sengoku less status. For example, the rowers on Toranaga’s galley or the period in Japan. The phrase commonly used to depict this phenom- sentries lolling about half-naked (p. 871) should be considered ashi- enon is “gekokuj ,” literally “the lower overcoming the higher”— garu and not true samurai. But what matters is not so much the ter- in a word, the betrayal of one’s lord. Still, if we put to one side the minology as an appreciation of the fact that the “samurai class” moralistic judgment implied by the word “treachery,” we can view (including ashigaru) was very large in size (as much as six to seven this period in Japanese history as one of tremendous social mobility percent of the population) and very diverse in rank and privilege. and opportunity. The ashigaru, who accounted for as much as three-quarters of the Of course gekokuj never got completely out of hand. For one combat force in this era, rarely aspired to the most idealized stan- thing, treachery and disloyalty were pretty much limited to the top dards of samurai behavior, nor indeed were they expected to do so. levels of the samurai class and did not become typical of the popu- lace at large. When popular unrest did appear, the samurai unifiers Loyalty versus Ambition were quick to respond. One of Nobunaga’s first military targets In her frequent reminders of the importance of total loyalty to was the Ikk sect of Buddhism, which had established itself in sev- one’s lord, Sh gun’s Mariko is articulating what is without doubt eral large territorial bases; the only other case of large-scale com- the central theme in the code of the Japanese samurai. Although in moner control of territory was the exceptional (and abortive) Shi- the era of Sh gun there did not yet exist the formal ideology which mabara Rebellion in 1638. For another thing, we must not forget came to be known as “Bushido” (“the way of the warrior”), all the that however much the ideal of loyalty may have been violated in basic components of the creed had already been given expression in practice, it was a living part of the samurai mentality. The highly a variety of ways. Take, for example, the “family instructions” moralistic tone of the samurai code as a whole may in fact have (kakun) which the heads of leading samurai clans began to com- served to keep treachery at a fairly low level, considering the revo- pose in the Kamakura period. These lists of precepts, often lengthy, lutionary times, and to prevent absolute rogues and hoodlums from were mostly of a practical nature, but did include passages on the winning any lasting political power. general duties of the samurai, among which loyalty to a feudal Finally we must remember that feudal loyalty in Japan, as in any overlord was of course emphasized. such society, was mutual, owed as much by a lord to his vassal as It was especially in epic war tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth vice versa. One would have difficulty appreciating this solely on the centuries that the samurai virtues of bravery, loyalty, and honor basis of Sh gun, in which samurai obedience often seems blind to were singled out and glorified. Above all it was The Tale of the the point of fanaticism, and in which daimyo authority appears Heike, the chronicle of the Taira defeat in the Genpei War unconditional to the point of whimsy. History does of course (1180-85) and the greatest of all the military epics, that set the prec- provide examples of fanatic loyalty, but in general a samurai, like edent for stirring accounts of loyalty and valor among samurai. A anyone else, was motivated to a great extent by self-interest and by provocative argument has been made that the earliest written the instinct for self-preservation. Death of a lord often meant
- 53. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 90 immediate loss of employment and estate for all his retainers, so and applied, an ability that was brought to bear in the most highly 91 that seemingly extreme measures to protect one’s lord were simply developed way in the tea ceremony. It was precisely in the era of common sense. In Sh gun, for example, the decision of one of Sh gun that the Japanese tea ceremony saw the creative burst of Yabu’s men to jump off a cliff in hopes of saving his lord’s life innovation that brought it to the state of perfection in which it sur- (p. 182) makes sense at least as the collective decision of several vives today. A fusion of both courtier and Buddhist traditions, the retainers (although the “Bansaiiiiiii!” scream, literally “Long live tea ceremony was assiduously cultivated by samurai. [the Emperor],” is a product of modern militarism rather than tra- In Sh gun, we are given descriptions of both poetry composition ditional feudalism and has the unfortunate effect of conjuring up and tea ceremony as practiced among the samurai, although the net World War II stereotypes). impression is that bloody bu was far more their central concern So also the lord for his part was obliged to protect and reward his than tasteful bun. Still, the very contrast suggests the element of retainers. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself was highly attentive to the tension inherent in the expectation that samurai be adept at both proper compensation and encouragement of his closest vassals, as killing and culture. In the idealized formula, bun and bu are com- we can sense in this passage from his famous “Legacy”: plementary but practiced separately (with different hands, in the metaphor quoted above). Sh gun, in its rather more down-to-earth The vassal samurai of the Tokugawa house, great and small, all have shown the utmost fidelity, even suffering their bones to be ground to powder, and portrayal of the samurai as a man of culture, suggests that perhaps their flesh to be chopped up for me. In what way soever their posterity may psychologically the division of labor was not so neat. offend—for anything less than actual treason—their estate may not be A good example would be the single depiction of the tea cere- confiscated. mony, which Toda Buntaro performs for his wife Mariko (pp. 766-77). The superficial effect of the ceremony is one of idealized Bun versus Bu detachment and beauty; yet lurking just below the surface and A theme which appears from an early point in the “house instruc- imparting dramatic tension to the scene is Buntaro’s jealousy and tions” of medieval daimyo concerns the duty of the samurai to cul- his everyday behavior as an ugly brute. This reminds us that the tea tivate the literary (bun) as well as the military (bu) arts. Eventually ceremony and other such cultural pursuits were often carefully cal- expressed as the slogan bunbu ry d , “the twin ways of the literary culated to provide respite from the constant tensions and hostilities and military arts,” the concept of the basic complementarity of of war. While examples of daimyo pacifying their wives in the man- civil and military pursuits was central to the samurai class through- ner of Buntaro are unknown historically, the tea ceremony was fre- out its history, both as an ideal and as a practice. This emphasis on quently used between daimyo themselves as a way of making peace. the importance of literary pursuits reflects the strong influence of In ways that the conventional English translation “ceremony” fails two role models, the Chinese literati and the Japanese courtier class, to convey, the practice of chanoyu (literally, “hot water for tea”) both of which the samurai strove to emulate in cultural achieve- was a means of easing communication in an era of constantly con- ment. It was an idea of great importance in the era of Sh gun and fused intentions. This social aspect of the cult of tea helps explain was to be codified as the very first provision of the basic Tokugawa the fierce rivalries among the leading lords of the time for the best code, the Laws Governing the Military Households (Buke shohatto, in tea utensils. Indeed, this trade came to have major economic sig- 1615): “From of old the rule has been to practice ‘the arts of peace nificance in the era of Sh gun, since a single tea caddy could in fact on the left hand, and the arts of war on the right’; both must be be traded for a virtual kingdom (p. 773). mastered.” Just as culture itself came to be a political business, so also did History confirms that most Japanese samurai, particularly those military matters come to be a matter of artistic concern, as best of the upper ranks, worked hard to perfect their literary skills. The exemplified in the incredible attention lavished on the design and type of “literacy” which they sought entailed not only a basic abil- decoration of swords and their accoutrements. What does all this ity to read and write Japanese, but, given the mixed nature of writ- suggest about the psychology of the samurai? After all, a sword is ten Japanese in this era, a mastery of Chinese as well. Of equal meant for killing, for chopping off heads and hacking up bodies. importance were the two artistic skills central to the idea of bun, cal- (Incidentally, the practice of testing swords by chopping up corpses ligraphy and the composition of poetry. Beyond this, samurai were was a common one, although it was done with great ritual, not in expected to have keen aesthetic judgment in all the arts, both fine the casual and irreverent way described in Sh gun [p. 229] and never legally on living commoners as alleged by Rodrigues [p. 141].)
- 54. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 92 Isn’t there something contradictory about the practice of butchery more than a cutting implement, whereas the Muramasa could not go beyond 93 and the espousal of super-refined aesthetic ideals? cutting. In particular, the personality of Yabu, although a fantasy of In Sh gun, however, the sense of Zen-like spontaneity and intui- James Clavell’s, suggests that there was indeed a seamy side of the tive readiness among the samurai is often conveyed in a somewhat samurai psyche. The most chilling example is the “Night of the less lofty manner, and the effect is to show the samurai more as an Screams,” the slow boiling in water of one of Blackthorne’s ship- unthinking automaton than as a man whose superior spiritual mates, which is related through the sadistic ecstasy of Yabu as he power serves to “go beyond cutting.” Perhaps the best way to sup- listens from a distance. What is interesting here is Clavell’s use of plement the picture of samurai behavior in Sh gun is to consider stereotyped images of Japanese aestheticism—composing poems to the ideal of sincerity in samurai tradition: whereas “heart” in falling petals in a Zen-like trance—to describe a scene of outright Sh gun seems to mean simply “not using the head,” a more posi- brutality. Connoisseurs of the refined standards of Japanese court tive understanding of the term may be found in Ivan Morris’ The poetry will have good reason to be scandalized by such a scene. And Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (1975). yet isn’t Clavell, by following his instincts as a novelist, suggesting According to Morris, “sincerity” (makoto) is the “cardinal something about the relation between sadism and aesthetics in the quality of the Japanese hero” and is characterized by “purity of samurai personality? Perhaps the high-minded ideal of the comple- motive,” manifested as a certain innocence, even foolhardiness, mentarity of bun and bu could sometimes in real life degenerate and a general contempt for practical or material concerns. Equally into cruelty as an art. important, “sincerity” and its stress on an individual’s intuitive Heart versus Head moral sense could often work against the ideal of loyalty, should one’s overlord act immorally. It is no surprise, then, that the con- For any professional warrior, the need to respond to a threat cept of makoto was used as often as not as an excuse for rebellion, “without thinking” is a simple matter of self-preservation. But in or at least protest, against the status quo. Readers of Morris’ book the Japanese samurai class, this instinctive need was elevated into a will find a provocative account of the ways in which this ideal could refined philosophy, largely under the influence of Zen Buddhism. lead samurai as often to extreme disobedience as to extreme loyalty. This way of thought is quite accessible in America today, thanks to But whether we interpret “heart” as a reliance on blind intuition the popularity of the Asian martial arts; for a fully developed expo- or as a commitment to selfless idealism, we are left asking, where is sition, the interested reader can turn to such classic works as Eugen the “head” in samurai tradition? This question is left largely unan- Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery (1953) or to D. T. Suzuki’s Zen swered not only in Sh gun, but also in much of the more romantic and Japanese Culture (1959). What is interesting about this philos- and idealistic writing about the samurai. Was there no place in the ophy of the samurai military arts is the way in which it resolves the “way of the warrior” for careful thinking, for pragmatic concerns, paradox of the Buddhist respect for life with the warrior’s profes- and for long-range planning? The answer is yes, indeed there was, sional need to kill. The ultimate solution is that a total concentra- and it provides a major, if not very glamorous, element in the his- tion and spiritual preparedness to meet the enemy will in fact serve tory of the samurai class. to deter all actual conflict. A number of Zen stories convey this In Sh gun, for example, we are given few glimpses of what was point, none better than the legend illustrating the superior quality the everyday function of upper samurai in the medieval period, the of the swords made by the master Masamune (as recounted in Zen management of landed estates. True, military responsibilities were and Japanese Culture, p. 92): heavy, particularly in a year of large campaigns such as 1600, but As far as the edge of the blade is concerned, Masamune may not exceed on the whole samurai were less accustomed to lopping off heads Muramasa, one of his ablest disciples, but Masamune is said to have some- than to negotiating with peasants for the proper tax yield, supervis- thing morally inspiring that comes from his personality. The legend goes ing the construction and repair of castles, and sitting on committees thus: When someone was trying to test the sharpness of a Muramasa, he for the administration of justice. Competent daimyo had to be as placed it in a current of water and watched how it acted against the dead expert in matters of flood control, road repair, and personnel man- leaves flowing downstream. He saw that every leaf that met the blade was agement as in the appreciation of tea bowls or the technique of cut in twain. He then placed a Masamune, and he was surprised to find that the leaves avoided the blade. The Masamune was not bent on killing, it was seppuku.
- 55. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 94 From the viewpoint of an institutional historian, the most impor- exaggerated for the benefit of European readers, the emphasis is so 95 tant thing about the era of Sh gun is the transition of the samurai consistent as to leave little doubt that samurai preference for death from a landed warrior to a stipended bureaucrat. This transforma- over dishonor was an impressive reality at the time. tion was gradual and would continue throughout the Tokugawa One extreme dishonor for a samurai was capture by the enemy, period, but it had its start in the consolidation of large domains in as Mariko instructs Blackthorne: the late sixteenth century and in the assembly of the samurai class A samurai cannot be captured and remain samurai. That’s the worst dis- in the new castle towns of the daimyo. Not unexpectedly, this pro- honor—to be captured by an enemy—so my husband is doing what a man, a cess was reflected in an official emphasis on typically bureaucratic samurai, must do. A samurai dies with dignity. For what is life to a samurai? standards of performance. Medieval family instructions had long Nothing at all. All life is suffering, neh? It is his right and duty to die with stressed the importance of prudence, frugality, neat appearance, honor, before witnesses (p. 394). and scrupulous performance of one’s assigned duty. But it was only Although the historian might wish to tone down the machismo during the Tokugawa period that there evolved, under Confucian in Mariko’s emphasis on “man” (in Japan, the same would be influence, a virtual ideology of bureaucratism, stressing measurable expected of a samurai woman) and the rather nihilistic stress on life and efficient performance in matters of practical administration. In as “nothing at all,” the passage is basically valid as a description of such circumstances, a good pragmatic “head” was in the long run the historical samurai. Suicide as a way of avoiding capture prob- to prove more valuable to the samurai than “heart” or “sincerity.” ably originated in the fear of torture, but it did in fact become stan- Life versus Death dard practice. If anything, Sh gun underemphasizes the specific practice of Much is made in Sh gun of the samurai as one who can face seppuku, or ritual suicide by disembowelment (known more com- death with complete equanimity. This is indeed a central theme monly in the West by the less elegant term “harakiri”). The act is within the historical tradition of the samurai, although it should be described once in detail (pp. 568-9), but is in no way sensational- emphasized at the outset that Clavell clearly departs from the his- ized. On the whole, Clavell seems more interested in the psychology torical ideal when he characterizes the samurai as a “death-seeking leading up to suicide than in the act itself, particularly in the detailed warrior” (p. 48). We see this in practice, for example, when Bun- descriptions of aborted seppuku on three separate occasions, first taro is ordered to cease his preparations for seppuku and thereby by Buntaro (pp. 393-7), then by Blackthorne (pp. 509-14), and “cast himself back into the abyss of life” (p. 397), or in the query finally by Mariko (pp. 1044-50). of Yabu’s death poem, “What is life but an escape from death?” The readers of Sh gun are thus spared any excessive contempla- (p. 1188). While such an exaggeration may help dramatize Clavell’s tion of the blunt physical reality of self-destruction by means of personal message about facing death (see Chapters 2 and 8), it has slicing open the abdomen and spilling out the intestines. The careful little basis in Japanese history. Indeed, the historian presented with reader will even note that Blackthorne’s “near-seppuku” would not such a characterization feels compelled to stress that the Japanese actually have been seppuku, since his blade was aimed at his heart are fundamentally a life-affirming people and that the ideal of the and not his bowels (p. 512). This disparity helps explain one samurai was to face death not with yearning, but with indifference. important element in the origins of seppuku, the conception that The more appropriate emphasis, and one which finds ample the bowels (in Japanese, hara) serve as the place of the spirit—the expression in Sh gun, is that for a samurai honor was more impor- role of the heart in Western belief—and that death by disembowel- tant than life. This is a common idea among many traditional ment was thus a way of displaying one’s soul for all to see that it military elites, but there is little doubt that it was practiced with was clean and pure. Hence, as Mariko stressed, the importance of particular rigor by the Japanese samurai. Persuasive evidence is to dying before witnesses. be found in the accounts of European visitors to Japan in the era of But beyond this rather abstract explanation of the symbolic Sh gun, who stress time and again the samurai attachment to meaning of seppuku, we really know very little about the history honor and consequent fearlessness of death. Francis Xavier observed and psychological structure of what is after all a very bizarre cus- that the Japanese “are much concerned with their honor, which tom. The practice of ritual suicide in any form is fairly rare in human they prize above all else,” while the Italian traveller Francesco history; when found, it is usually a form of sacrifice of servants on Carletti asserted bluntly that “there is no nation in the world which the death of a ruler or of the wife on the death of a husband (as in fears death less.” While some such reports were undoubtedly
- 56. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 96 the Hindu custom of suttee). One Japanese anthropologist, break- a variety of articulate and often impassioned writings about the 97 ing an apparent taboo on the scholarly investigation of seppuku, “way of the samurai,” which came eventually (mostly in the twen- has recently proposed that the practice may in fact represent a form tieth century) to be known as “Bushido.” Precisely because of their of sacrifice, specifically the offering of the entrails of captured prey to polemical quality, these versions of the samurai “code” tended to the gods, a ritual widely practiced in hunting cultures. Whatever its be even more rigid and extreme than earlier practice had been and primitive meaning, seppuku first appeared in the tenth or eleventh did much to widen the gap between the ideal and the reality of the century among the Minamoto warriors of northeast Japan, samurai class. members of a strongly hunting-oriented clan. After the Genpei Among the writers on Bushido, there were differences of empha- War, the practice then spread to the samurai class as a whole, prob- sis. Yamaga Sok (1622-85), who is often known as the “father of ably encouraged by glorified depictions of seppuku in medieval war Bushido,” was a r nin anxious to prove himself and worked hard tales. (For a particularly awesome example, see the description of . at the military arts. His primary intellectual bent, however, was the death of Sat Tadanobu in the fifteenth-century chronicle Confucian, as reflected in his stress upon the importance of deco- Yoshitsune, translated into English by Helen McCullough.) rous moral behavior among samurai. He placed particular emphasis In actual practice, seppuku tended with time to become more and on the hierarchical relationships prescribed in Neo-Confucianism, more a matter of formality, with the cutting of the abdomen abbre- not only that of samurai to lord, but also of child to father, wife to viated or even eliminated, and death coming with decapitation by husband, and younger to older brother. He justified the samurai’s the second (in the manner denigrated by Hirasaki Kenko just before lack of any obvious productive function (a lack which was espe- his more traditional form of seppuku in Sh gun, p. 568). This was cially conspicuous in peacetime) on the grounds that a true warrior particularly true during the Tokugawa period, when seppuku should be engaged in full-time practice of the moral “Way” and became essentially a form of execution reserved for members of the thereby serve as a model of behavior for the rest of society. samurai class. Yet the fact remains that the practice survived for Rather different in tone is a work which in modern times has many centuries, and Western eyewitness accounts from the nine- come to be widely known as the most uncompromisingly pure tract teenth century confirm that samurai were indeed able to disem- on samurai behavior, the collection of thoughts and anecdotes bowel themselves without flinching. Seppuku survived as a tradition entitled Hagakure (now available in a new translation by William in the modern military class and was given a spectacular revival in Scott Wilson). This work was compiled from 1710 to 1716 from the rigorously traditional suicide performed by the writer Mishima conversations with an aging samurai named Yamamoto Tsunetomo Yukio in 1970. (1645-1716) of the Nabeshima clan in Saga (Kyushu). Hagakure is Given its uniqueness and long survival in practice, seppuku per- less a systematic philosophy than a collection of random thoughts, haps deserves closer attention by scholars of Japan. One line of and it is best known for its forceful opening lines: “The Way of the inquiry has been proposed by Ivan Morris in his suggestion that Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only seppuku may involve “the transformation of a sadistic fantasy into the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult.” It is here a masochistic one” (The Nobility of Failure, p. 367). This would that we get about as close as history will permit to the idea of death certainly provide logical consistency to the behavior of the sadistic found in Sh gun; but note that even in Hagakure, death is not Yabu, whose suicide is described by Omi as “the best I have ever something to be actively sought out: at best, it is a matter of flirta- seen . . . . The two cuts, then a third in the throat. Without assist- tion. Hagakure, although known in traditional times only in the ance and without a sound” (pp. 1184-5). secret circles of Saga warriors, has acquired a devout following in the modern period, both among the military and most recently in The Formulation of Bushido the person of Mishima Yukio, who wrote a book-length commen- In the era of Sh gun, the “code of the warrior” was largely a tary on it (translated into English by Kathryn Sparling as The Way matter of unwritten rules about which all samurai tended to agree, of the Samurai). whether or not they adhered to them in detail. Constant warfare Through other less extreme and more popular attempts to ration- meant that bravery, loyalty, and an ability to face death coolly were alize the existence of the samurai class in an era of peace, the values fairly basic to survival. Likewise, the absence of warfare during the of this military elite gradually spread throughout Japanese society long Tokugawa peace after 1615 created a need to shore up the as a whole. This is in distinct contrast to the West, where older aristo- ideals of the samurai class against perceived erosion. The result was cratic values were rejected by the rising middle class. One milestone
- 57. SMITH: THE PARADOXES OF THE SAMURAI 11 Consorts and Courtesans: The Women of Sh gun 98 in the popularization of samurai values was the glorification of the story of the Forty-Seven R nin, a group of samurai who in 1703 Henry Smith avenged the death of their lord for an alleged insult and died by seppuku as a result. Through the influence of various dramatic and literary re-creations, particularly the play Ch shingura, the com- moner class of Japan came to internalize the ideal forms of samurai behavior. The greatest relevance of samurai values for the historian lies in precisely the fact that they did spread, in varied dress, to other classes, and thereby managed to survive the sudden demise of the samurai class itself in the few years after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Indeed, it was probably the very diffusion of samurai-like values that best explains the ease with which the class itself was eliminated. In a rough sense, Japan became a nation of samurai, so that all the traditional bushi dilemmas of loyalty versus ambition, heart versus head, and life versus death are still with many Japa- nese today. (Note: This chapter relies heavily on ideas and information pro- vided by Chieko Mulhern, Final responsibility for facts and inter- pretations remains with the author. H.S.) From an historian’s point of view, the depiction of Japanese women in Sh gun has a panoramic quality. The author draws details and images from a millennium of history, ranging from the world of the Heian court in the tenth century to the Edo pleasure quarters of the seventeenth century and even to the bars and caba- rets of contemporary Japan. From a literary point of view, such a telescoped portrayal is effective, since it increases the diversity and complexity of the female characters and their attitudes. But it is also of use to draw the telescope out to its full length again, in order to appreciate a few of the ways in which the role and status of women have changed over the course of Japanese history. “In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun” These words, which became the rallying cry of the modern Japa- nese women’s movement when they appeared as the motto of the new magazine Seit (Bluestockings) in September 1911, call atten- tion to the prominent role of women in the mythical origins of
- 58. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 100 Japanese history. The image of the woman as sun is a direct refer- contradictory implications for women’s rights: advantageous in the 101 ence to Amaterasu, the sun goddess and progenitor of the Japanese short run but detrimental in the long run. Probably as a reflection imperial line and, by extension, of the Japanese nation itself. The of the highly unsettled social situation in the early Kamakura period importance of this role is symbolized by the tale of the darkening of (1185-1333), women of the samurai class enjoyed a substantial the world when Amaterasu shut herself up in a cave and so alarmed degree of personal and legal freedom, greater than that of the Heian the assembled multitude of gods that they staged a dance to lure her court ladies. They could inherit and bequeath property and in some forth. It was also a goddess who was chosen to perform the dance cases actually managed their own estates. Adultery was not treated and who, in a manner expressive of early Japanese attitudes toward as harshly as it would be later, and women could even petition for sexuality, “became divinely possessed, exposed her breasts, and divorce. When Mariko claims, in an important statement about pushed her skirt-band down to her genitals.” Here we find the pro- women in Sh gun, that “We own wealth and property, our bodies totype of the shamaness figure so important in this early age. and our spirits. We have tremendous powers if we wish” (p. 368), This mythic power of woman extended into historical times in she could be referring only to an era about four centuries earlier the frequent mention of female political rulers. The earliest histori- than her own. cal account of Japan, a Chinese record of A. D . 239, describes the By the fifteenth century, the position of women was clearly in country as ruled by a shamaness-queen “Pimiko,” and, according decline, completing the shift from the mythic woman-as-sun to the to imperial chronology, Japan was ruled by an empress for fully role of woman-as-moon against which twentieth-century feminists half the period from 592 to 770, in eight separate reigns. In a turn- were at last to rebel. Samurai men, too busy with politics to indulge ing point in the transformation of woman from “sun” to “moon,” in the leisurely game of Heian courtship, were concerned above all however, the tradition of female rulers was terminated in the wake with a verifiable line of succession. Marriages became in medieval of a scandalous involvement of Empress Sh toku with a handsome Japan what they were in medieval Europe, political alliances of Buddhist monk whom she attempted to promote to political power. families under total patriarchal control. Polygamy continued to be Of the ensuing seventy-six emperors of Japan, only two were the accepted practice for men, although the Chinese legal precedent women and neither had any real political influence, although one of a single main wife and all the rest “consorts” came to be more may be of interest to the readers of Sh gun: Empress Meish strictly enforced than in the Heian court. But for women, monog- (r. 1629-43), the first ruling empress in almost one thousand years, amy was the ironclad rule and, by the Sh gun era, female chastity was the granddaughter of the second shogun Hidetada and his wife was regarded as a matter of life and death, so that, in his involve- Og (Sudara and Genjiko in the novel). ment with Mariko, Blackthorne was courting mortal danger, as The eclipse of female imperial leadership by no means presaged well as moral condemnation by his Protestant conscience. Samurai the end of women as a leading force in Japanese history, however, law made no distinction between rape and love affair or between for the talented court ladies of the tenth and eleventh centuries contemplation and consummation, nor did it allow for mitigating emerged to play a preeminent cultural role. Required to be of good circumstances. As Mariko warns Blackthorne (p. 367), a husband birth, skilled at literature, and ready with wit, the ladies of the indeed had the right and even the obligation to kill his unfaithful Heian court produced an impressive amount of literature, including wife and her male partner, although to do so he needed the consent the great classical novel The Tale of Genji (c. A . D. 1000). Yet in of his relatives. terms of political and economic power, women were at a clear dis- Much further from historical reality, however, is Mariko’s simul- advantage. The legal codes of the period, based on Confucian taneous claim that “We may leave our husbands if we wish, divorce models, relegated women to a distinctly inferior status. But perhaps them” (p. 368). It is true that women of all classes could effectively because of the lingering influence of earlier matriarchy, the codes divorce their husbands by seeking refuge in nunneries (known as were not always followed, and women could, for example, own and “dash-in temples”). And since so many failed to escape the hot inherit property, although they were almost always at the mercy of pursuit of husbands, the rules were eased to the point that a sandal men for the actual management of their estates. thrown within the temple precinct was deemed sufficient to ensure a woman legal sanctuary! But because a woman had to become a The Samurai Patriarchy nun and remain in the nunnery for at least three years, the “dash-in The replacement of the court aristocracy by the rising sam- temples” were a last and desperate resort. In addition, a number of urai class as Japan’s ruling elite in the late twelfth century had clans refused to recognize these temples as legal sanctuary, and there
- 59. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 102 are hardly any known cases of samurai women winning divorces in family members of his friends or even his vassals. One daimyo’s 103 the era of Sh gun. 20,000-koku estate was confiscated and his line abolished by Ieyasu In sad fact, the situation of marriage and divorce was precisely for having looked into a lady’s palanquin on the street, so that in opposite from Mariko’s explanation. Far from being free to deter- real history Ishido would have been resorting to a desperate mea- mine such matters, many hapless ladies were married, divorced, sure when he insisted on raising the curtain of the palanquin bear- torn from their children, and remarried at the whim and conven- ing the disguised Toranaga (p. 359). ience of their fathers, brothers, and even overlords. One of the But apart from Mariko’s remarkable independence of mind and most pathetic examples was the Taik ’s own sister Asahi (men- movement, the sense of samurai women conveyed in Sh gun is tioned but unnamed in Sh gun, pp. 454, 657), who was first mar- quite close to historical reality in suggesting their generally subordi- ried to a peasant, widowed, married again to a samurai, and in her nate place in society. One character who is, if anything, extreme in forties finally reclaimed by her brother to become the reluctant this respect is Fujiko, whose self-abnegation and masochistic urge Ieyasu’s main wife and a virtual hostage. Sudden divorce continued to obey make her almost a caricature of the reality. Mariko coun- to be a constant threat to the Japanese wife throughout the Toku- sels Blackthorne to treat Fujiko, if he wishes, “as nothing—as this gawa period, when what was commonly known as a ‘ ‘three-and-a- wooden post or the shoji screen, or as a rock in your garden—any- half line letter,” addressed to a woman’s father or former guardian, thing you wish . . . . If you won’t have her as consort, be merciful. constituted legal grounds for turning her out of the house overnight. Accept her and then, as head of the house, according to our law, The husband could choose from a long list of widely accepted rea- kill her” (p. 498). Well, samurai law was certainly harsh with sons for divorce, including infertility, unfiliality toward in-laws, women, but not quite that extreme. The head of the house could and—believe it or not—overindulgence in the drinking of tea. kill a wife or consort only for adultery; any other offense would So also Mariko’s boast that “We own our own wealth and prop- mean simple divorce. But Fujiko’s position is of course exceptional; erty” (p. 368), while true to a degree for the Kamakura period, was she seems to have no immediate family to defend her, and being the in historical fact a distant memory by the year 1600. Even daimyo consort of a foreigner was certainly no ordinary position. did not technically “own” the land within their fief, but instead One must not forget, of course, that samurai women comprised merely derived income from it, so that they were neither able nor only a tiny percentage of Japanese female society. We have very little expected to make gifts of land as dowries. Although a very few information about the lives and rights of the commoner women, high-ranking women were given their own incomes—Ieyasu, for who accounted for the great majority, and can only assume that example, provided a stipend for the Taik ’s widow (“Yodoko” in things were not much better for them. Yet there did remain a few Sh gun)—most women owned nothing in their own names, so that specialized roles for women which offered them a bit more than the Mariko’s offer to Blackthorne of funds from her “personal estate” ordinary amount of freedom. As nuns, for example, thousands of to build his ship (p. 1179) would only have been possible much ear- Japanese women dedicated their lives to charitable works, religious lier (or much later, in the modern era). training, and writing. Still another professional niche for women And finally what of Mariko’s assertion that “We can go freely was that of the wet nurse (called “foster mother” in Sh gun, p. 577), where we please, when we please” (p. 368)1 It is true that Western who was often relied upon for the upbringing of a samurai. Most observers around 1600, particularly those from southern Europe, famous of these was Kasuga, the wet nurse of the third Tokugawa where unmarried women were vigilantly guarded from public expo- shogun Iemitsu (son of Sudara and Genjiko in the novel). It was in sure, were appalled by the sight of Japanese women walking freely fact her own political maneuvering that led to the choice of her outside and enjoying flower-viewing parties in public. But these “milk son” as shogunal heir. were commoner women, and ladies of the samurai class were no freer than the Catholic maidens. Hosokawa Gracia’s confinement Mediators and Survivors at home for the last sixteen years of her life (see Chapter 7) was far In spite of their legal situation, a few women were able to exert from an aberrant case, for daimyo wives were rarely allowed to personal influence in the era of Sh gun, and some famous exam- leave their homes. Common to the codes of nearly all the clans were ples appear in the pages of Clavell’s novel. Readers with a precon- prohibitions against samurai women going out-of-doors, receiving ceived view of Japanese male-female relations as wholly “feudal”— male visitors, or even attending religious services without their a view for which the Tokugawa period offers plentiful evidence— menfolk. In all likelihood, the average daimyo never saw the female may be tempted to discount as a Western male fantasy the relatively
- 60. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 104 positive image of women in Sh gun. But in the far more unsettled contrast to Ieyasu, all of whose women after his first wife under- 105 and mobile society of the Momoyama period depicted in Sh gun, ranked him). In Sh gun, Yodoko mercifully dies before the tragic opportunities for women to wield political power did indeed occa- fall of the Toyotomi, but in real life Nene proved to be a pertina- sionally present themselves. It is true that, by the sixteenth century, cious survivor. Known after 1585 by the title Kita-no-Mandokoro high-ranking samurai women rarely engaged in battle alongside and after the Taik ’s death in 1598 by her nun’s name of K daiin, their men as they had sometimes done in earlier feudal times (as by 1614 she was living safely distant from Osaka Castle and circum- did, for example, the famed female warrior Tomoe, the consort of spectly avoided lifting a finger to save the lives of the Heir and his a Minamoto leader of the twelfth century who became the protago- mother. As if to assure her future silence, Ieyasu had earlier built nist of a N play bearing her name). But even in less physically the temple of K daiji for her retirement in Kyoto. She lived into the active roles, women in the time of Sh gun still won fame for their reign of the third Tokugawa shogun, enjoying her court title of political, if no longer their military, achievements. Four such his- Junior First Rank. torical personalities appear in Sh gun in relatively minor roles, and But by far the most renowned of all the historical models for readers may be interested in knowing more about their real-life the women in Sh gun—with the possible exception of Mariko’s models. counterpart Hosokawa Gracia—was the Heir’s mother (“Lady Next to Mariko, the most endearing female character in Sh gun Ochiba”). Born in 1567 and given the personal name of Chacha, she is surely Kiritsubo-noh-Toshiko, affectionately known as “Kiri” was known as one of the most beautiful women in Japan and, as (p. 222). Her model is Acha-no-Tsubone (1555-1637), a consort Hideyoshi’s favorite consort, came to be addressed as Yodo-dono who came to enjoy Ieyasu’s confidence and often served as his (the Lady of Yodo, after the castle which Hideyoshi built for her). political mediator and adviser during his rise to shogun. Married If Gracia was a romantic heroine victimized by circumstances young to a middle-ranking samurai, she was widowed at the age of beyond her control, Yodo more closely resembled a Greek figure twenty-two and entered Ieyasu’s service two years later, in 1579. whose fall is brought on by her own tragic flaw, A haughty and She gradually came to win Ieyasu’s trust and affection, and even willful woman with a tendency to act impulsively, Yodo’s presti- accompanied him on his military campaigns. Kiri’s role in Sh gun gious connections made her many enemies: as Nobunaga’s niece, as Toranaga’s spy and contact within Osaka Castle was doubtless she was coveted by a number of ambitious warlords; as the Taik ’s inspired by the key part played by Acha in negotiating the truce fol- favorite, she was envied by many; as a sister-in-law of Ieyasu’s heir, lowing the winter siege of Osaka Castle in 1614-15. She persuaded she was feared and suspected by Ieyasu himself; and as the mother the Toyotomi forces to agree to some tricky terms regarding the dis- of Hideyoshi’s heir, she was both placated and manipulated by the position of the outer moat; Ieyasu promptly misapplied the treaty Toyotomi loyalists. Even while alive, she suffered many malicious to fill the inner moat as well, turning the castle into a sitting duck rumors about the parentage of the heir Hideyori, whose elegant for his troops. The final annihilation of the Heir and his mother the good looks were in disconcerting contrast to the simian features of following summer thus owed much to Acha’s diplomatic efforts. the Taik . (The suspected father was not Ishido-as-Ishida, as inti- Considering that Ieyasu had two wives, fifteen consorts, nineteen mated in Sh gun, but rather no Harunaga, who led the Osaka children, and no shortage of competent male vassals, Acha must forces in 1614-15 and acted as Yodo’s second at her suicide.) Even have been an exceptional woman to earn so much trust from one of after her death, she continued in disrepute and came to be known the most cautious men in Japanese history. Her career thus demon- in Edo-period chronicles as “Yodo-gimi”—”-gimi” commonly strates that women could achieve positions of considerable influ- denoting a low-ranking lady of the night. ence, and a number of other such cases are known among the wives Considerably less flamboyant than Yodo was her younger sister and consorts of leading daimyo. Og , the “Genjiko” of Sh gun, who was more the survivor type, A rather different course was the one followed by the Taik ’s managing to advance in position in spite of a long string of personal wife Nene (1541-1624), who appears in Sh gun as “Yodoko.” The disasters. Orphaned by the age of ten, she was married off to a daughter of a footsoldier, she was married to Hideyoshi in 1561 minor lord at twelve at the order of Hideyoshi. But after a few when he was little more than a footsoldier himself, and she remained years of apparently contented marriage, she was ordered divorced until his death his only wife and trusted confidante. Hideyoshi by the Taik and remarried to his own nephew. This new husband valued her opinion highly and treated her with the utmost respect, was soon killed in the Korea campaign, and Og , now twenty-three, even though for consorts he preferred women of blue blood (in was once again married off at the Taik ’s command to Ieyasu’s
- 61. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 106 seventeen-year-old heir Hidetada (Sh gun’s Sudara). This strange repository of early Japanese love poetry, the Man’y sh , an eighth- 107 match at last brought stability and even some distinction to the long- century anthology which includes some of the most expressive and suffering Og , who was to be the only main wife of a Tokugawa intense love songs in world literature. shogun to give birth to a future shogun: all the rest were the issue of In the following Heian period, love remained central to Japanese consorts. Her several other children also made distinguished literature, as seen in the novels and diaries of the ladies of the Heian matches, one daughter marrying the Taik ’s heir and another the court. The common theme of all these writings was the relationship reigning emperor. between the sexes; The Tale of Genji, for example, details three generations of courtship and seduction, yet related with exquisite Is “Love” a Barbarian Word? refinement and scarcely a hint of erotic interest. Already one can In an important passage in which Mariko is instructing the bewil- detect the dampening effect of Buddhism. Although not in general dered Blackthorne about the customs of Japan, she turns to the as “sex-negative” a religion as Christianity, neither is Buddhism, topic of love: which views all human passions as futile and fleeting, particularly “Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Chris- sex-positive. We might hypothesize that such pessimism about this- tian ideal. We have no word for love’ as I understand you to mean it. Duty, worldly attachments, which became a central motif in medieval lit- loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, erature, worked in the long run to diminish the preoccupation with all that we need.” (p. 370) romantic love in Japanese elite culture. So also the rise of the samurai class and its concern with duty, Well, it all depends on what Mariko has in mind when she speaks of loyalty, and the subjugation of personal emotions may help explain “Christian love.” Often, she seems simply to mean love of the the decline in the status of love in medieval Japan. Still, as the most garden-variety type featuring affection, desire, and a longing to be basic of human emotions, love continued to appear as a common together. So it is when, three hundred pages later, she is offered the theme in the military epics and popular stories of the time. But for prospect of a divorce from Buntaro: “Oh to be free, her spirit sang. the samurai class itself, it seems fair to say that romantic love was Oh, Madonna, to be free!”—but “Remember who you are, Mar- not a central cultural concern. iko, remember what you are. And remember that ‘love’ is a barbar- It is here we find an interesting contrast with the West. In many ian word” (p. 670). respects, feudal Europe was quite similar to feudal Japan. But just at If all Mariko means is spontaneous affection, as she seems to, the time that a cult of courtship was on the wane in Japan, a similar then she is dead wrong, for simple love was one of the most ancient tradition was emerging in Europe. Somehow, for reasons which are of themes in Japanese literature and could be expressed with a rich still hotly debated among historians, there appeared in late eleventh- vocabulary: the Japanese “have no word for love” only in the sense century France the curious literary phenomenon of “courtly love,” that they have many, many words for love. Nor should the unsus- which was to have a profound and lasting influence on Western pecting reader be lulled into thinking that the Japanese in 1600, or notions of romantic love. Perhaps this is what Mariko had in mind at any other time in their history, were incapable of falling in love when she referred to “Christian love,” since courtly love was in without instruction from abroad. fact strongly bound up with Christianity (one theory connecting it Still, if we permit the author his due in dramatizing by exaggera- to the worship of the Virgin Mary). One can doubtless find within tion, we find that, from the historian’s point of view, Mariko may the Japanese literary tradition certain themes and forms which be suggesting some interesting differences between Japan and the approximate the structure of “courtly love,” but never did it West in the evolution of the ideal of “love.” The Japanese side of become as pervasive an influence as in Europe. the story would probably begin with what is conventionally known as “the oldest poem in Japanese,” quoted for us by Mariko on “We’re Taught to Be Ashamed . . .” page 603 of Sh gun: “Eight cumulus arise / For the lovers to hide At one point in his initiation into Japanese sexuality, Blackthorne within . . . .” Mariko uses the poem to illustrate the psychological feels obliged to apologize to the courtesan Kiku: need of the Japanese for an “Eightfold Fence” to mask the emo- tions, but the original emphasis of the poem is rather on the secluded “We’re taught to be ashamed of our bodies and pillowing and nakedness and passion of two newlyweds. From the same period comes the greatest … and all sorts of stupidities. It’s only being here that’s made me realize it. Now that I’m a little civilized I know better.” (p. 696)
- 62. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 108 Once again, Sh gun presents us with a clear-cut contrast between disproportionately male populations in the mushrooming castle 109 the two cultures. The Japanese see the body and its sexual functions towns of the daimyo, and the feudal authorities viewed the inevita- as “so simple” and “natural,” pleasant but nothing to get steamed ble rise in the demand for prostitution as something to be tolerated up about, while the West—as personified by Blackthorne—is rid- —but segregated. The first such legal district was the Shinchi area den with guilt and shame about such matters. This is doubtless a of Osaka, recognized by Hideyoshi in 1585. Then in 1589 a patent complex issue, but here as elsewhere it may help to point out a few was issued to two r nin for a similar operation in the Shimabara ways in which the historical contrast is not quite as stark as Sh gun quarter of Kyoto. The famed Yoshiwara of Edo, which the colorful might have us believe. Gyoko of Sh gun envisions as her pet project (p. 1180), was in fact First, some historians would stress that the sexual attitudes created in 1616 by a samurai named Sh ji with permission from the ascribed to Blackthorne are anachronistic for the year 1600 and Tokugawa shogunate. The only detail really at odds with history in reflect instead nineteenth-century Victorian views. Secondly, as one the Sh gun version is the sex of the proprietor: all of the traditional recent critic has suggested, the Western “repression” of sex may be Japanese pleasure quarters were founded, owned, and operated by of less historical importance than the “great sexual sermon,” chas- men, originally samurai, and the image of Gyoko as a rough-and- tising ourselves for all that repression (with Clavell, one might add, tumble, foul-mouthed “Mama-san” is straight out of the GI bars as one of its most eloquent preachers), which has swept over the and cabarets of Occupied Japan. West in recent decades (Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Within these licensed pleasure quarters, particularly in the three p. 7). In other words, what is important is not so much the content great cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo, the type of courtesan known of Clavell’s sermon as the question of why he should be so worked as the “geisha” (literally, “a person of artistic accomplishment”) up over the matter at all. emerged. This “Willow World” was a strange realm of fantasy and Third, on the specific issue of nudity: the idea that “they don’t play, in which self-conscious efforts were made to imitate the notice nakedness and that’s totally sensible. You’re in Japan” aristocratic game of courtship as depicted in The Tale of Genji. (p. 455) is correct in the sense that there are few moral or religious Courtesans were ranked like Heian ladies, and each was called by a proscriptions against nudity among the Japanese. But as a matter professional name chosen from a list of Genji characters. Wealthy of social decorum, the Japanese traditionally have been among the customers were entertained with such courtly pursuits as poetry most discreet people in world history when it comes to the unclothed contests, incense-guessing games, and mock weddings. Yet beneath body. In the historical era of Sh gun, notwithstanding the fantasy all the ritual play lay the simple fact of prostitution, for the Willow of a nude Mariko slipping nonchalantly into the bath with an agog World was in the end a world for satisfying male lust. But it was Blackthorne (to be re-enacted by Shimada Y ko for the delight of satisfaction in style, and men competed with each other in making overseas viewers of the feature film version of Sh gun, but— sexual activity a matter of technical virtuosity. Mariko’s insistence thanks to good old Victorian prudery!—not in the American TV to Blackthorne that “giving pleasure to the woman is equally the series), Japanese rarely entered the bath without a loincloth for man’s duty” (p. 554) may seem enlightened, but in fact giving plea- men and an underskirt for women. Even in the erotic art of the sure to the woman was considered an entertaining challenge in the Tokugawa period, when mixed bathing became popular among the Willow World, certainly not a duty. lower classes, lovers are inevitably shown heavily clothed, with only Some of the flowery vocabulary used in Sh gun in matters of sex the (greatly magnified) genital union exposed. In striking contrast may sound quaint, but it is a good reflection of a rich and ancient to the West, the Japanese have virtually no tradition of the depic- Chinese tradition of literature about sex, a tradition which was tion of the nude in art. So, although not ashamed of nudity, neither perpetuated in Tokugawa Japan. The very term “Willow World” did the traditional Japanese ever find it especially proper. (kary kai in Japanese) was taken from an ancient Chinese poem, as was the expression “Clouds and Rain” (p. 693), which was first The Willow World used in a Chinese text of the third century B.C. and became the stan- Although prostitution, as “the world’s oldest profession,” was dard Chinese literary expression for the sexual act. Under the influ- common in Japan long before the era of Sh gun, it was precisely in ence of Taoism and Yin-Yang theory, the Chinese from an early these years that it became highly organized, with the establishment date evolved systematic and detailed sex manuals. The oldest sur- of officially licensed pleasure quarters. The unification of Japan in viving version of these is preserved, interestingly enough, in Japan, the late sixteenth century involved the concentration of large and as a chapter on “The Bedchamber” in a medical text of the Heian
- 63. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 110 period (Ishinh , A.D. 984). Here one can find, for example, the grave penalties by ancient laws and customs to have the use of women and 111 “classic ‘six shallow and five deep’ rhythm” (p. 811, actually “one so they find a remedy for their disorderly appetites by preaching this perni- deep and nine shallows” in the classic version) and the elaborate cious doctrine to the blind pagans. (Cooper, They Came to Japan, p. 46) variety of coital positions of the sort found in Mariko’s “pillow Homosexual practices were indeed widespread in the Buddhist book” (p. 898), many with poetically exotic names. The sexual priesthood in Japan and often respectable. It is not surprising, vocabulary of Sh gun follows this model, although the actual therefore, that many customers of the houses of male prostitution sources are diverse: some terms are authentically Chinese (“Jade which began to spring up precisely in the Sh gun era were monks. Gate,” p. 657), most are Clavellian (“Steaming Shafts,” p. 706, or But of perhaps even greater interest was the spread of homosexual “Pellucid Pestle,” p. 810), and only one is indigenously Japanese, practices within the samurai class itself during those years of con- the “Heavenly Spear” (p. 50) being the phallic instrument which in stant warfare and consequently long periods of isolation from the mythical accounts gave birth to the Japanese islands themselves. women. Oda Nobunaga, for example, who sired numerous sons The ingenious sexual devices which Kiku displays for the aston- and daughters, was also noted for his fondness for handsome boys, ished Blackthorne (pp. 694-5) are also essentially Chinese in origin and popular belief has it that he was assassinated by Akechi Mitsu- (although the Chinese themselves preferred to insist that all such hide because he had promised to reward his favorite page with a fief mechanical aids were of barbarian origin!), but came to be used as which happened to belong to Akechi at the time. Many other lead- well within the pleasure quarters of Tokugawa Japan. As for “hari- ing warriors had similar interests, and Mariko is absolutely right in gata” (in Japanese, normally harikata) or dildos (p. 693), it is very implying that homosexual behavior was never viewed as sinful or unlikely that a high daimyo lady in the year 1600 would be as accus- improper. tomed to such instruments as Mariko appears to be, but they did With the establishment of the Tokugawa peace after 1615, orga- come to be used a century later in the shogunal harem by the many nized male prostitution flourished along with its female counter- women (attendants, maidservants, and even consorts themselves) part, particularly under the reign of the third shogun Iemitsu, who were isolated from men on pain of death. In the era of Sh gun, whose preference for men was coincidentally much like that of his available evidence suggests that harikata were used primarily for near-contemporary, James I of England. Iemitsu even jeopardized the training of male prostitutes, and perhaps for the use of their the continuation of the Tokugawa bloodline with his exclusive inter- customers. est in males until, persuaded at last by his loyal wet nurse Kasuga to “The Sin That Does Not Bear Mentioning” do his duty, he took a wife and, eventually, seven consorts. The shogunate cracked down on male prostitution after Iemitsu’s death In the course of Blackthorne’s painful efforts to shuck off his in 1651, less from specific disapproval of homosexual practices than guilt-ridden attitudes toward sex, probably the most memorable from a feeling that any conspicuous indulgence in pleasure was bad detail is his livid outrage at Mariko’s innocent suggestion that “Per- for the morale of the samurai class. A period of tolerance and even haps you would prefer a boy?” (p. 330). While his reaction seems encouragement then followed during the rule of the eccentric fifth implausibly extreme for a hardened sailor, it does reflect the atti- shogun Tsunayoshi (r. 1680-1709), whose homosexual behavior was tudes of many of the more moralistic Western observers of Japan at considered scandalous only because he attempted to promote some the time. Although in the same scene Mariko claims knowledge of of his male favorites into positions of power. It was in Tsunayoshi’s similar habits among Catholic priests, it was actually the Jesuits reign that the great writer of fiction of this era, Ihara Saikaku, who who were the most bitter in their denunciations of Japanese homo- had until then devoted himself exclusively to depictions of hetero- sexual practices. Father Alessandro Valignano, the model for Father sexual love for a townsman audience, wrote a collection of stories of dell’Aqua in Sh gun, wrote, for example, that the Japanese had a samurai love entitled Nanshoku kagami (The Great Mirror of lamentable addiction to sensual vices, but: Manly Love, 1687), perhaps in a calculated effort to appeal to a Even worse is their great dissipation in the sin that does not bear mention- samurai readership. ing. This is regarded so lightly that both the boys and men who consort with Although in general homosexual love was merely accepted with- them brag and talk about it openly without trying to cover the matter up. out censure among the samurai, one does find in certain instances a This is because the bonzes teach that not only is it not a sin but that it is positive and even idealistic justification of homosexual practice as even something quite natural and virtuous and as such the bonzes to a cer- useful training for a warrior. A homosexual relationship was seen tain extent reserve this practice for themselves. They are forbidden under
- 64. SMITH: CONSORTS AND COURTESANS 112 as a sort of tutorship in Bushido, with the younger lover imitating 12 Raw Fish and a Hot Bath: Dilemmas of Daily Life the older in the cultural and martial arts, much as among the war- Henry Smith riors of ancient Sparta. In particular, such relationships were con- sidered invaluable for teaching the virtue of loyalty, and samurai lovers generally proved dependable comrades in battle, loyal vas- sals, and trustworthy bureaucrats. The text most revealing of this idea is Hagakure, an early eighteenth-century collection of reflec- tions on the way of the samurai (see Chapter 10). In one passage, a samurai master “who understood the foundation of homosexuality [shud , ‘the way of young men’]” is asked to summarize his under- standing: “It is something both pleasant and unpleasant.” He elaborates: To lay down one’s life for another is the basic principle of homosexuality. If it is not so, it becomes a matter of shame. However, then you have noth- ing left to lay down for your master. It is therefore to be understood as something both pleasant and unpleasant. (William Scott Wilson, trans., Hagakure, p. 59) It is interesting that this conception of samurai love for one another corresponds surprisingly well to Mariko’s expositions of the true meaning of love in Japan, as for example: “Pillowing always has its price. Always. Not necessarily money, Anjin-san. For visitors to an alien culture, the most pressing dilemmas stem But a man pays for pillowing in one way, or in another. True love, we call it from the mundane mechanics of daily life: eating, dressing, sleep- duty, is of soul to soul and needs no such expression—no physical expres- ing, washing, and getting about. And so with Blackthorne, who is sion, except perhaps the gift of death.” (p. 555) as perplexed by Japanese customs as by such abstractions as wa and This idealistic interpretation finds reaffirmation in the views of karma. Here again we can detect an unmistakable sermon by James Mishima Yukio, the modern Japanese novelist who was profoundly Clavell, having as its major themes the perils of meat-eating and the influenced by the ideas of Hagakure on love and death and who was virtues of bathing. If life in Southern California is any indicator of in the end to die by seppuku with a young man acting as his second. current American culture, the message should strike a sympathetic Three years before his death, in a book-length commentary on chord with many readers of Sh gun. It was here in Santa Barbara, Hagakure, Mishima wrote: “Romantic love as seen by J ch [the for instance, that the “California hot tub,” a cultural amalgam of author of Hagakure] is always reinforced by death. One must die for the Japanese bath and Sunset life-style, was born. And few Califor- love, and death heightens love’s tension and purity. This is the ideal nians—or indeed New Yorkers—will have trouble identifying the love for Hagakure” (Mishima, The Way of the Samurai, trans. “slivers of raw fish on balls of tacky rice” in Sh gun (p. 150) as the Kathryn Sparling, pp. 23-4). In these words we can sense a certain increasingly popular Japanese dish of sushi. So also will the grow- affinity between Mishima Yukio and James Clavell in their common ing band of vegetarians in America find powerful support for their idealization of the samurai tradition for its relevance in modern life. cause in the meatless diet preached by Mariko. It remains only to stress that scholarship in both Japan and the The historian as well finds these cross-cultural dilemmas of daily West has so far provided us with no more than a tentative under- life intriguing. At one level, they reveal basic differences in religious standing of the many complex issues in the history of sexual atti- belief and philosophical outlook among different cultures. At the tudes and behavior in Japan. By insistently raising these issues, same time, such matters as diet and hygiene—closely related as they Sh gun encourages us to ask new questions and seek new answers are to population change, patterns of nutrition, and the incidence in the effort to develop a comparative history of human sexuality. of disease—are of concern to the social historian. Unfortunately,
- 65. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 114 the systematic study of such topics is still in its infancy among his- Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial 115 torians of Japan, and is made especially difficult for the era of Japan, 1600-1868, pp. 43-45.) Sh gun by the widespread destruction of records for that period, in These conflicting population estimates have important implica- contrast to the relatively rich documentation available for Europe. tions for the issue of population change. The first national census One unique source of evidence, however, does survive in Europe figure which we have for Japan is 26 million for the commoner pop- itself, the detailed and often perceptive accounts of European visi- ulation in 1721; if we add ten-odd per cent (a rough guess) for the tors to Japan at the time. Particularly useful because of their com- samurai class, the national total would be in the range of 30 mil- parative insights, these European accounts (of which a fine cross- lion. Comparing this figure with the traditional estimate for 1600 of section may be found in Michael Cooper’s anthology, They Came to approximately 20 million, we see that the population of Japan must Japan) were also of evident use to James Clavell in writing Sh gun. have been growing steadily during the seventeenth century. And if we were to accept the revised estimate of about 12 million for 1600, The Population Riddle this would indicate an extraordinary pace of growth for a tradi- Diet and hygiene are intimately related to the fundamental ques- tional society. Whichever way, Japan’s population was clearly tion of how many people are being supported by a given amount of expanding in the era of Sh gun, a fact corroborated by documented resources. It is here that we encounter our first big stumbling block, increases in the productivity of agriculture and in the area of land for we have only the haziest idea of the population of Japan in the under cultivation. year 1600. There are theories, to be sure. The conventional view is Even with room for growth in 1600, Japan by European standards voiced by Sh gun’s Rodrigues, who, in providing the newcomer was already a very densely settled country. It is doubtful, however, Blackthorne with a comparative overview (p. 192), indicates that that the Japanese themselves, whose usual standard of comparison the population of “twenty-odd million Japmen” amounted to would surely have been China, felt uniquely populous. Still, Mar- “more than the population of all Portugal, all Spain, all France, the iko’s statement would basically hold: “We’re a frugal people—we Spanish Netherlands, and England added together, and you could have to be, only so little of our land, perhaps a fifth of our soil, can almost throw in the whole Holy Roman Empire as well to equal it.” be cultivated—and we’re many. With us it’s a virtue to be frugal, Turning to such a recent work as Colin McEvedy and Richard even in the amount of food we eat” (p. 365). European accounts of Jones’ Atlas of World Population History (1978), we find that the the time confirm the frugality of the Japanese, although it should normally bombastic Rodrigues is only slightly exaggerating. For be stressed that among the samurai class this reflected less a sensi- the year 1600. the atlas gives Japan’s population as 22 million, and tivity to limited resources than an ethic of dietary restraint common the combined total for the five nations mentioned comes to less to many military elites. Only later, especially in the twentieth cen- than 27 million; only by throwing in the Holy Roman Empire, with tury, did the Japanese come to have the acute sense of ecological a population of 20 million, was he wide of the mark. limits implied by Mariko. Confident of his sources, Rodrigues assures the astonished Black- Another important dimension of population change in Japan thorne, “Why should I lie? There was a census ten years ago. Father around the year 1600 was the dramatic expansion of the urban sec- Alvito said the Taik ordered it and he should know, he was there.” tor, thanks to the boom in castle-town building by the daimyo. In historical fact, Hideyoshi did indeed order a national survey of Indeed, the century 1550-1650 in Japan was one of the most inten- both land and people in 1591, but it was never carried out except in sive periods of city-building known in world history, and one about scattered domains. Thus we have no official contemporary record which historians still have much to learn. The contrast with Europe of Japan’s national population in 1600. The figure of 22 million in is effectively conveyed by Blackthorne’s reaction on viewing Osaka McEvedy and Jones’ atlas is apparently derived from an estimate from a distance: “I thought London was the biggest city on earth, made for the period 1572-93 by Japanese historian Yoshida T g but compared to Osaka it’s a small town” (p. 189). Blackthorne in the 1930s; on the basis of official rice production figures in koku, exaggerates, of course, as does Rodrigues in response (“They’ve Yoshida came up with a national population figure of 18.5 million. got dozens of cities like this one”), but not by much. In every But contemporary scholarship has been critical of the questionable domain of Japan in this era, substantial cities were under construc- assumptions upon which Yoshida based this estimate; a different tion, many with populations in excess of ten thousand. To man this approach recently tried yielded the much lower figure of 12.3 million massive building operation, the various daimyo had to recruit large for 1600. (For a discussion of the issue, see Susan Hanley and Kozo
- 66. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 116 numbers of laborers, artisans, and merchants, most of them from people in the West would certainly have been more genteel in their 117 the countryside. table manners. Still, in matters of etiquette, the Japanese of the time unfailingly impressed even the most cultured European visi- Never Meat? tors. No contrast was more impressive than the Japanese use of Clavell’s nicely drawn contrast of the eating habits of the Western chopsticks, never letting the fingers touch the food, as opposed to “barbarians” with those of their Japanese hosts in Sh gun drama- the European practice of eating with the fingers. tizes an issue of fascination to the anthropologist and historian When it comes to the eating of meat, we learn from French his- alike. On the one hand, we have the Japanese practice, as capsulized torian Fernand Braudel that European levels of consumption were by Mariko: “We don’t eat foods like you do, so our cooking is more indeed unique. For the world in general, he points out, “man’s diet simple. Just rice and a little fish, raw mostly, or cooked over char- between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries essentially consisted coal with a sharp sauce and pickled vegetables, a little soup per- of vegetable foods,” but: haps. No meat—never meat” (p. 365), And so all of Blackthorne’s Europe, which was wholly carnivorous, was the great exception to all this. meals in the novel follow this plain pattern, “a sparse meal, never For several centuries from the middle ages its tables had been loaded with satisfying and never meat” (p. 531). meat and drink, worthy of Argentina in the nineteenth century. This was On the other hand, we have the European diet, typically described because the European countryside, beyond the Mediterranean shores, had as an orgy of alcohol and cholesterol, best depicted in the scene in long remained half empty with vast lands for pasturing animals. (Capitalism which the overindulgent Blackthorne “lay in a semicoma on the and Material Life, 1400-1800, p. 67) floor, retching his innards out.” There on the table lay the cause of Braudel goes on to note that meat-eating declined in Europe in the his misery, “the remains of a mutilated haunch of roast beef, blood seventeenth century under increasing population pressure and rose rare, half the carcass of a spitted chicken, torn bread and cheese to the previous level only with the availability of salted and then and spilled beer, butter and a dish of cold bacon-fat gravy, and a frozen meat imports from America. This explanation of European half-emptied bottle of brandy” (p. 427). Few readers will find this trends helps pinpoint two obvious ecological reasons for the low vision of the Western diet an appetizing one, and here we may detect level of meat consumption in Japan: the relatively high population a lecture on the errors of the contemporary West in overreliance on density since the medieval period and the shortage of land for pas- animal fat and alcohol. Indeed, the West already seems anxious to turing animals. learn the lesson, as evidenced in the clear Oriental influence on In addition, as Mariko explains when offered a gravy-laden French nouvelle cuisine, in the vogue for “lightness” which has chicken leg by a Portuguese sailor, there were strong cultural con- swept through the American beverage market, and, of course, in straints as well: “To eat meat—to eat meat is forbidden. It’s against the growing popularity of Japanese food in the West. the law, and against Buddhism and Shintoism” (p. 426). In reality, But let us turn to history to ask, how great was the dietary con- however, the situation was not that simple. There were no explicit trast in the year 1600? In the accounts of Western observers at the “laws” against eating meat, but there were religious restrictions. time, we find persuasive evidence that it was indeed great. Father Shinto, the indigenous Japanese religion, did not specifically forbid Valignano (the model for Father dell’Aqua) reported, for example, the eating of meat, although the Shinto abhorrence of blood pollu- that “Their victuals and ways of cooking them are such that they tion probably discouraged it. Buddhism, however, clearly banned are quite unlike European food, both in substance and taste. Until the eating of meat as a corollary of its general prohibition against a man accustoms himself to their food, he is bound to experience the taking of life. Although the avoidance of animal flesh (includ- much hardship and difficulty.” As for the content of the diet, ing fish) was practiced faithfully only by the Buddhist clergy, such Father Luis Frois’ description is close to that of Mariko’s: “This beliefs strongly influenced the Heian aristocracy in the form of a nation feedeth sparingly, their usual meat is rice and salads, and, taboo against eating any four-legged animals—birds were always a near the sea side, fish.” (Cooper, They Came to Japan, pp. 192-3). different matter. Kyoto nobles were known to indulge from time to In certain matters of detail, however, the historian might wish to time in venison or wild boar meat for “medicinal purposes,” but qualify the extremes found in Sh gun, On the European side, for on the whole the taboo was scrupulously observed. example, the gross and unmannered eating habits of Blackthorne It was a very different matter with the samurai and indeed with all and his shipmates seem more a mark of sailors’ behavior in a for- Japanese outside the tiny court aristocracy at Kyoto, As a hunting eign port than of general European barbarism: even the common
- 67. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 118 class, the samurai had always consumed their prey and continued preference: it was certainly not a national trait. Even European visi- 119 to do so in the era of Sh gun. Animal flesh was in fact greatly tors were astonished by the variety of fowl consumed by the Japa- prized by samurai and formed a regular part of their diet when nese, although here we find the same qualification as with four- available; some historians have even related the dynamism of the legged animals: as an early observer noted, “they never eat hens, Japanese warrior to a diet rich in animal protein. European reports because, as it seems to me. they breed them and they never eat any- in the era of Sh gun confirm the widespread consumption of wild thing they breed” (Cooper, They Came to Japan, p. 191). It was game in Japan, as for example Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco, less the eating of meat than the raising of animals to be eaten which governor of the Philippines, who visited Edo in 1608 and observed most clearly set the Europeans apart from the Japanese. “the market where game is sold: there was a vast quantity of rab- During the seventeenth century, the eating of meat was probably bits, hares, wild boars, deer, goats, and other animals, which I on the decline in Japan, both because of increasing population pres- never saw before” (Rundall, Memorials of the Empire of Japan, sure on available game reserves and because of the separation of p. 176). To this list might be added such delicacies as bear, otter, the samurai from the land and hence from easily accessible hunting and raccoon dog. grounds. Not until the resumption of Western influence in the late Don Rodrigo continues with an important qualification: “The nineteenth century did the Japanese begin to raise animals for food, Japanese rarely eat any flesh but that of game, which they hunt.” and even then economic constraints made red meat impractical Although horses and oxen were widely (and, in this period, increas- except as a luxury item. It has only been in the past two decades, ingly) used in Japan as beasts of burden, they were rarely eaten. with the rapid rise in living standards, that a dramatic increase in There were exceptions, of course. In the Edo period, for example, the eating of meat has occurred in Japan, and even now the Japa- horsemeat was prized under the euphemism of “sakura-niku” nese remain a people nourished primarily by rice, fish, and vegeta- (“cherry-blossom meat,” after its color), and several of the specialty bles. In this sense, not much has changed since the era of Sh gun. restaurants that served it survive in downtown Tokyo today. Closer to the era of Sh gun were reports of daimyo who experimented with Staples and Frills eating beef. We have proof that Hosokawa Tadaoki, the model for From the European point of view in 1600, the most peculiar fea- Buntaro, ate beef on at least one occasion: it is recorded that Hide- ture of the Japanese diet may have been its heavy reliance on rice as yoshi, after his victory over the H j at Odawara in 1590, treated the overwhelmingly favored staple. Rice had for centuries been the some of his daimyo allies, including Tadaoki and his friend Taka- main crop in Japan, and its high nutritional value and ease of stor- yama Ukon, to a celebratory feast of beef. But this was a passing age made it the mainstay of the economy. Only with increases in fad, and the Japanese were not again to consume beef in any con- productivity in the medieval period, however, were the majority of spicuous way until the Meiji period (1868-1912), when beef-eating Japanese able to eat rice on a daily basis. Still, much of the peas- again became a craze and eventually a normal (but minor) part of antry was too poor to eat rice alone and often mixed it with millet, the Japanese diet, particularly in the Meiji invention known as barley, and beans. The rice of the era of Sh gun was unpolished “sukiyaki.” brown rice, or at best semi-polished for the courtier class. The We must also stress that, except among the Buddhist clergy, the thorough polishing that produces the “white rice” we know today prohibition against eating meat referred only to four-legged ani- became possible only with technological developments of the later mals. It obviously never applied to fish, which have always provided Edo period—bringing with it a marked increase in the incidence of the overwhelming bulk of animal protein in the Japanese diet, but beri-beri. neither did it apply to birds. Indeed, fowl ranked only slightly below To the extent that reliance on rice was heavy, the Japanese diet fish as the most prized food in the era of Sh gun. Japanese of all was indeed, as Mariko suggested, “simple.” And the diet of the classes, including the Kyoto aristocracy, have always been fond of samurai in particular was “frugal” in that they were morally dis- bird flesh and it seems safe to say that almost no winged species couraged from overindulgence of any kind. For the rest of the pop- was safe from being served up on the tables of traditional Japan. ulation, however, frugality was less a virtue than a necessity, as it Pheasant in particular was considered a great delicacy, and Mar- was for most people in the premodern world. One should add that iko’s reluctance to sample such a representative dish as “small Japanese of all classes strove to supplement their diet of rice and pheasant, cut into tiny pieces, barbecued over charcoal with a sweet other grains with a great diversity of vegetables, seaweeds, nuts, soya sauce” (p. 688) can be explained only as a peculiar personal fruits, mushrooms, seafood, and game: in this sense, the Japanese
- 68. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 120 diet was far from “simple.” The banquet menus of the samurai and it is surprising to find no mention of its use in Sh gun, because 121 were incredibly varied in ingredients, in visual arrangement, and in it was “welcomed and adopted with an almost frenzied enthusiasm” methods of preparation—including grilling, sauteeing, deep-frying, after its introduction in the 1590s (Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural boiling, steaming, drying, smoking, salting, and pickling. History, p. 433). Despite disapproval by Confucian moralists and Because of their regular contact with Europeans, many Japanese occasional bans by the shogunate (the earliest in 1609, a full decade in the era of Sh gun became interested in imported foods and for- before James I’s crackdown in England), tobacco came to be a eign cuisine. Many American readers of Sh gun will have recog- familiar commodity in Tokugawa Japan. nized the “bamboo basket of deep-fried fish in Portuguese style” Cross-cultural influences in the area of alcoholic drinks are less (p. 320) as tempura, although few may have realized the Portuguese conspicuous, perhaps because both Japanese and Europeans were influence on the creation of the dish. The word “tempura” itself is too attached to their own preferred varieties. For the most part, of European origin, probably from the Portuguese temporas, the samurai stuck to sake, although a number of daimyo are on record “Ember days” of abstinence on which meat was replaced by fish. as having experimented with brandy, whiskey, and wine. We even Tempura apparently became quite popular in Kyoto in the 1610s, as have one account of a group of daimyo sipping red wine following one sad story suggests. In early 1616, the aging Tokugawa Ieyasu a tea ceremony! (If that sounds like an implausible combination, heard of the latest Kyoto delicacy, seabream deep-fried in sesame consider the “original blend of sake and white-grape wine” which oil, and immediately ordered it prepared for his table. The aging Suntory International tested in the American market in early 1980 samurai ate more than usual, and four hours later began to suffer under the name of—you guessed it—”Sh gun.”) sharp intestinal pains. Although historians believe that Ieyasu was already terminally ill with stomach cancer, his death not long after And What About Raw Fish? has always been linked anecdotally with the eating of tempura! Near the end of Sh gun, Blackthorne hears the voice of his The seventeenth century was a period of unprecedented interna- departed lover Mariko speaking to him, gently urging him on to cul- tional exchange of food plants, and foreign traders brought many tural understanding: “Oh, Anjin-san, one day perhaps we’ll even other new foods to Japan at this time—some from other parts of get you to like raw fish and then you’ll be on the road to nirvana— Asia, some from Europe, and some from the New World. Many of the Place of Perfect Peace.” Blackthorne’s problem is shared by the Japanese names for these foods reflect their foreign origin. many in the West today: “raw fish” has emerged as a symbol for all Squash was called kabocha from association with Cambodia; pota- those things in Japanese culture which Westerners find particularly toes seem to have been linked to the trade with Jakarta, for they were difficult to assimilate. Logically, we might ask why this should be known as jaga-imo (imo being any edible tuber); a sweet poundcake so. Don’t we eat clams and oysters on the half shell, a feat more which is still highly prized in Japan was called castella, after the Por- challenging by common-sense standards than slipping down a piece tuguese word for “Spain” (cf. Castille); and the sweet potato came of tuna sushi? But no matter: until they try it, most Westerners tend to be known as the satsuma-imo because it was imported from the to be horrified by the idea of eating raw fish, and most Japanese Ryukyu Islands via the southernmost domain of Satsuma. Some of happily reciprocate with an unshakable conviction that only the the imports, such as potatoes and bread (known as pan, after the most peculiar foreigner can master this unique custom. Portuguese pão), never really caught on until the renewed fad for It is the business of the anthropologist to figure out why raw fish things Western in the Meiji period. But others, like yams and water- should be such a potent mark of Japanese exclusivity. The historian melons, came to be widely cultivated under the Tokugawa regime. can simply confirm that the Japanese have indeed eaten fish raw, or The exchange of stimulants was another aspect of trade in this at least near-raw, for centuries. Francesco Carletti, an Italian visi- period. The major East Asian export in this category was of course tor to Japan in the late 1590s, observed that the Japanese “usually tea, although it became popular in Europe only later in the seven- eat [fish] in a practically raw state, after having dipped it in boiling teenth century. As reflected in Sh gun, the drinking of tea was vinegar” (Cooper, They Came to Japan, p. 191). Carletti probably nearly universal in Japan by the 1600s. Originally imported from exaggerates in claiming that the Japanese “usually” ate fish raw, China, it had occasionally been used by the Heian aristocracy, but for records show that various forms of cooking and curing were it was not until the thirteenth century that, with the encouragement more common. Since it is dangerous to eat fish raw unless it is per- of Zen monks, tea-drinking became common in Japan. As for Euro- fectly fresh (particularly in the summer), raw fish in both traditional pean influences on Japan, tobacco would certainly head the list, and contemporary Japan has always been something of a delicacy.
- 69. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 122 In being served “raw fish, as always” (p. 594), Blackthorne was than in England. We must note that the history of bathing rarely 123 being treated like a special guest. exhibits steady progress from barbarous filth to civilized Actually, the majority of fish dishes in traditional Japan which a hygiene, but rather a constant series of ups and downs, Westerner would have described as “raw” were in fact pickled in depending on religious attitudes, the availability of water, and salt or vinegar. The two most common terms for raw fish were sushi simple fashion. Everyone knows, for example, of the astonishing and namasu, both of which are probably related etymologically to sophistication of the Roman public baths, a reflection of an su, “vinegar.” Sushi, for example, seems to have originated as a advanced hydraulic technology and a cultural interest in the more method of preserving fish by natural fermentation, either by mix- hedonistic aspects of bathing. Public bathing thus became a well- ing it with rice or simply by salting it lightly. The sushi which has established tradition in the Mediterranean world, particularly in become so popular in America today—perfectly raw fish layered on Islamic cultures. Who has not heard of the “Turkish” bath? vinegared rice—was concocted in the city of Edo in the late Toku- With such a strong tradition of bathing in the Mediterranean gawa period as a way of showing off the freshness of the produce of and Near East, why were the English in 1600 so averse to the Edo Bay. The dish of plain raw fish seasoned with soy sauce known habit? One factor was the antagonism of the Church to Roman- as sashimi is of older origin and seems to have just been coming style public bathing as licentious and hedonistic—which indeed into fashion in the 1600s. it often was. But even the Church seems not to have been able to prevent a widespread revival of bathing in medieval Europe. “You’re All So Clean!” Why then did a decline occur again from about the fifteenth Much like “raw fish,” the “Japanese bath” has become a sym- century? Fernand Braudel offers this explanation: bol of something very difficult to approach—but absolute nirvana The West experienced a significant regression from the point of view of body once you get used to it. For Americans today, the greatest anxiety baths and bodily cleanliness from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. associated with the Japanese bath seems to be caused by a lingering Naked public bathing was general for both sexes in the middle ages. The Victorian resistance to mixed bathing. Many nineteenth-century public baths disappeared, we are told, as a result of sixteenth-century con- Western visitors to Japan were scandalized by mixed bathing, and it tagions and of the terrible syphilis: At Frankfurt-am-Main they decreased was in part their disapproval which led the Japanese to gradually to nine in 1530 from thirty-nine in 1387. Was this the result of fear or because abandon the custom. But even though mixed bathing survives in of a new modesty? We cannot make a clear division. In any case the whole Japan today only in remote villages, the Western response lives on, idea of bathing began gradually to disappear in the West at the same time as now transformed from moral indignation to sheepish inhibition—as the public bath . . . . However, public baths were retained in Finland and demonstrated by a recent television commercial in which a young Russia, even in villages, with a sort of medieval innocence. They reappeared in the West in the seventeenth century, but public baths at that time meant American couple (the kind that has just lost their travelers checks) much the same as brothels for rich clients. (Capitalism and Material Life, is paralyzed with embarrassment to find a Japanese gentleman in 1400-1800, p. 240) the bath with them. For Blackthorne, however, the bath provoked a rather different These speculations are reflected in the attitude of Blackthorne, who reaction, a sort of cultural resistance to cleanliness which we are led resists his first bath for fear of dysentery (p. 51). But as stressed by to understand was characteristic of Elizabethan England. By the Sandra Piercy in Chapter 4, the English were not inalterably opposed end of Sh gun, the reader is left with an image of the filthy, lice- to bathing, and in the Elizabethan era the famous waters at Bath infested Europeans sharply contrasted to the immaculate, sweet- and elsewhere continued to attract those in search of cures. Still, scented Japanese. Blackthorne of course eventually learns his les- there can be little doubt that the English were not, in general, a son: midway through the novel, as he is reflecting on the squalid bathing people in 1600. living conditions back in England, he blurts out to Mariko, “What What about the Japanese? In terms of religious belief, the Japa- a stinking bloody waste! . . . you’re all so clean and we’re filthy nese have always been well-disposed to bathing, as Mariko suggests and it’s such a waste, countless millions, me too, all my life . . . when she tells Blackthorne that “The bath is a gift to us from God and only because we don’t know better!” (pp. 697-8). or the gods, a god-bequeathed pleasure to be enjoyed and treated as What light does history shed on this contrast? On the European such” (p. 527). But the real religious justification was considerably side, we find that the year 1600 indeed represented something of a less hedonistic than Mariko implies. In Shinto belief, bathing was a low point in the vicissitudes of bathing, and nowhere was it lower matter neither of pleasure nor of personal cleanliness, but rather a
- 70. SMITH: DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 124 symbolic act of ritual purification. Daily bathing was thus not a already become among the Japanese by the seventeenth century. It 125 religious necessity for the Japanese. Among the Heian aristocracy of is likely that the increased popularity of bathing owed much to the the tenth century, “bathing, at best a rather perfunctory process, building of the castle towns, where concentrated populations cre- could take place only once in five days—and then only if the day ated a demand for public baths and where, thanks to efficient city was auspicious” (Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince, p. planning, water was plentiful and uncontaminated. As for the 140). Heian records indicate that the ceremonial bathing of newborn effects of frequent bathing, we may speculate that superior Japa- children was a matter of considerably greater concern than was daily nese bodily cleanliness, in conjunction with the practice of recycling bathing for hygienic reasons. Nor is there any evidence of public human wastes for fertilizer (see Sh gun, p. 533), helped reduce the baths in the capital at this time. frequency and severity of epidemics in Japan. For although the It was probably Buddhist rather than Shinto influence that con- Japanese did suffer the ravages of dysentery, smallpox, and influ- tributed most directly to the spread of both personal and public enza, on the whole the impact of communicable disease seems to bathing in Japan after the Heian period. Cleanliness was highly val- have been less than in medieval Europe. Contact with the West ued for both ritual and practical purposes in the Buddhist monas- brought new diseases to Japan: syphilis (the “Chinese pox” of teries, which generally had a separate building for the bath. The Sh gun) arrived as early as 1512 (over three decades before the timing is unclear, but it would appear that the habit of daily bathing Europeans themselves!), smallpox after 1822, and the bubonic was gaining popularity most rapidly in Japan in the sixteenth and plague later in the nineteenth century. seventeenth centuries, particularly in the cities—at precisely the time that bathing was passing through its “regression” in Europe. The Ritual Pollution contrast of bathing habits depicted in Sh gun thus may represent Just as the ritual ablution stressed in both Shinto and Buddhism more an historical coincidence than a fundamental cultural dichot- helped encourage the habit of bathing, so its obverse, a belief in omy between “filthy” Europeans and “clean” Japanese. ritual pollution, fostered a much less admired feature of Japanese From paintings, from European accounts, and from one surviving society, the outcastes known in Sh gun as “eta.” This connection Momoyama-period bath in a Kyoto temple, we know that the is made clear in one of the most effective scenes in the novel, in predominant type of Japanese bath in 1600 was the steam bath, not which Blackthorne (who by now “knows better”) visits his Dutch the soaking tub enjoyed by Blackthorne, which became dominant shipmates in the eta sector of Edo—the place they feel most at about a century later. The bath consisted of a small wooden chamber, home. This is a marvelous play on the reversal of cultural values, by entered through a low door, with steam rising through a slatted floor. which those things most despised by the Japanese (filth and meat) Men normally wore loincloths in the bath, and women entered in are precisely what the Europeans find most congenial. underskirts. After sweating loose the dirt, a bather would have bath Just as purification rituals influenced the development of bathing attendants scrape the skin with bamboo sticks (in much the same way in Japan, so also various religious convictions, from the Shinto the Romans used curved metal tools) and rinse off the remaining dirt abhorrence of death to the Buddhist proscription against the killing with wooden buckets of water. The soap lavished on Blackthorne in of animals, laid the basis for the evolution of the outcaste class. Sh gun would have been unusual; soap was a recent import to Japan Because of these taboos, such tasks as the butchering of animals from Europe (first mentioned in a 1596 letter by Ishida Mitsunari, the and the manufacture of animal products came to be relegated to model for Ishido) and was such a luxury that it would probably not specialized groups. It was during the tenth to twelfth centuries that have been wasted on a visiting barbarian. For cleansing, the Japanese organized discrimination began, with the Shinto shrines and Bud- traditionally used lime, lye, clay, soapberry, and, for the hair, egg dhist temples overseeing the segregation of the tasks in question. In whites mixed with flour or volcanic ash. As in Europe, the public the Tokugawa period, the eta were in charge of disposing of the baths in the cities of Japan often doubled as houses of prostitution. dead at execution grounds, as described in Sh gun. Despite an active The female bath attendants (yuna) were eventually banned by liberation movement over the past several decades, there is still an moralistic Tokugawa officials and replaced by men, known as outcaste class in modern Japan. The term “eta” is highly pejorative sansuke, whose back-scrubbing services disappeared from the public in contemporary Japan, and has been replaced by various euphe- baths of Japan only in the 1960s. misms, of which the most common is burakumin (“villagers”). We still know very little about the precise dynamics of the evolu- The eta class as conveyed in Sh gun seems more like an ethnic tion of bathing into the refined and widespread custom that it had minority than the ritually and professionally segregated class that
- 71. SMITH; DILEMMAS OF DAILY LIFE 126 they in fact were. It seems unlikely, for example, that the Japanese Who’s Who in Sh gun of the time would have used the word “eta” as a curse, and certainly not as frequently as do the characters in Sh gun. In all probability, actually saying the word would have been avoided. One must also remember that ritual pollution does not necessarily mean literal pollution, so that the sentiment of one of the Dutch sailors that “Eters’re the best heathen we’ve seen here. More like us than the other bastards” (p. 870) is not entirely plausible: it is likely that Japanese outcastes would have been just as mystified by the Euro- peans’ love of meat and fear of baths as were other Japanese. So as Blackthorne takes leave of his unregenerate crewmen, who are most at ease among the most despised in Japan, we can under- stand how much “his mind was locked with confusion. Nothing was wrong with eta and everything was wrong with eta” (p. 871). But finally, of course, he breaks down and opts for the Japanese way: “Jesus God, I’d love a bath right now!” This list includes all the major characters in Sh gun and, in addi- tion, most of the minor characters for whom there are clear histori- cal models. Most of the models are only approximate, and might be better understood as “sources of inspiration”; James Clavell himself has indicated that he sometimes drew on more than one historical personage to create a single character. The page numbers in italics indicate where characters are introduced or their backgrounds described in Sh gun (Dell paperback edition); all other page and chapter references are to Learning from Sh gun. Akechi Jinsai (father of Mariko and assassin of Goroda; pp. 599, 1199) Akechi Mitsuhide (1526-82), daimyo and assassin of Oda Nobunaga; father of Hosokawa Gracia. See pp. 63, 111. Alvito, Father Martin (“Tsukku”; Jesuit priest and interpreter for Toranaga; pp. 162, 191, 301 ff.) João Rodrigues, S.J. (1561?-1633), known as “Tçuzzu” in Momoyama dialect; inter- preter for both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. See pp. 47, 53, 83. Rodrigues was the author of an authoritative book about Japanese culture, translated by Michael Cooper as This Island of Japan. For a detailed biography, see Michael Cooper, Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China. Beppu Genzaemon (lord of Odawara, defeated by Nakamura and Toranaga; p. 476) H j Ujimasa (1536-90), daimyo of Oda- wara, defeated by Hideyoshi with Ieyasu’s aid in 1590. See p. 45.
- 72. WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN 128 Blackthorne, John (English Pilot-Major of the Erasmus; pp. 16, Doming o, Friar (Franciscan friar whom Blackthorn e meets in 129 133, 553) William Adams (1564-1620), English pilot of the De prison; p. 231). Fictional. Liefde, arrived in Japan in 1600, came to be known to the Japanese as Miura Anjin. See Chapter 1. The most detailed biography of Elizabeth (Blackthorne’s daughter; p. 719) the daughter of Adams is P. G. Rogers, The First Englishman in Japan. William Adams, whom he left behind in England, whose name is given in East India Company records as “Deliverance.” See pp. 3, 5. Braganza, Friar (Franciscan priest whose tale is related by Friar Domingo; pp. 238-240) St. Pedro Bautista (Blanquez), O.F.M. Felicity (Blackthorne’s wife; p. 697) William Adams’ wife, (1542-97), martyred at Nagasaki in February 1597. See p. 48. whose maiden name was Hyn, and whose given name was probably either Mary or Elizabeth. See pp. 2-5. [Toda] Buntaro (husband of Mariko and son of Hiromatsu; pp. 346, 586, 619) Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563-1645), son of Y sai and hus- Ferriera, Captain General (Captain of the Portuguese Black Ship band of Gracia; a leading ally of Tokugawa Ieyasu. See pp. 63-70, from Macao; p. 302). No direct model; the historical Captain- 91, 95. Major for the Great Ship from Macao in 1600 was Horatio Neretti, acting on behalf of the Governor of Macao, Dom Paulo de Portu- Caradoc, Alban (English shipbuilder and pilot, Blackthorne’s gal; the voyage has been described as “most successful and profit- t e a c h e r ; p . 16) N i c h o l a s D i g g i n s , a we l l - k n o w n s h i p b u i l d e r able” (Charles Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, p. 46). of Elizabethan England, under whom William Adams served as apprentice. See p. 3. [Usagi] Fujiko (Mariko’s niece, widow of Usagi, and eventually Blackthorne’s consort; pp. 395, 443, 656). Fictional. See pp. 84,103. Chano-Tsubone (Naga’s mother; pp. 740, 883) Saigo-no- Tsubone, consort of Ieyasu and mother of his fourth son Tada- Fujimoto (a samurai clan; p. 73) apparently the Fujiwara, who yoshi (see Naga). The name in the novel appears to come from Cha- historically were not a military family, but rather the most power- a-no-Tsubone, another of Ieyasu’s consorts and the mother of ful clan in the Kyoto court aristocracy during the Heian period Tadateru (see Tadateru). (ninth to twelfth centuries). See p. 55. [Yoshi] Chikitada (Toranaga’s grandfather; p. 76) Kiyoyasu, Genjiko, Lady (wife of Sudara and sister of Ochiba; pp. 279, 517) Ieyasu’s grandfather, who was killed at age twenty-five; for the his- Asai Og (or Kog ), wife of Tokugawa Hidetada and later torical incident, see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, pp. 38, known as S gen’in. See pp. 105-106. 95. “Chikitada” seems to be modelled on the name of Ieyasu’s great-great-great-grandfather Chikatada. Go-Nijo (the reigning emperor of Japan; p. 368) Go-Y zei (1571-1617), the 107th emperor of Japan (r. 1586-1611); the histori- Chimmoko (Mariko’s maid; p. 791), Fictional. The name is unusual cal emperor Go-Nij reigned 1301-08. The prefix “Go-” means in Japanese and was perhaps inspired by the word chimmoku “later” and indicates a second emperor of the same name. See p. 66. (“silence,” the title of End Sh saku’s well-known novel on Chris- Goroda (dictator of Japan, assassinated by Akechi Jinsai; pp. 215, tianity in early seventeenth-century Japan); it also bears a strong resemblance to chimpoko, a l i t t l e boy’s word for his penis, which 600) Oda Nobunaga (1534-^82), first of the three great unifiers may explain why the name was changed to Chimoko in the film- of Japan in the sixteenth century, killed in a coup by Akechi Mitsu- script for television. hide. See pp. 54-55, 63, 111. Gyoko (Mama-san of the Tea House in Mishima; Kiku’s mistress; dell’Aqua, Father Carlo (Jesuit Father-Visitor of Asia; p. 302) Alessandro Valignano, S.J. (1539-1606), an Italian Jesuit who in pp. 98, 676). Fictional. See p. 109. 1574 became Visitor-General to the missions in Asia and visited Harima Tadao (Christian daimyo of Hizen in Kyushu; pp. 239, Japan on three occasions (1579-82, 1590-92, 1598-1603). See pp. 47, 964) Arima Harunobu (1567-1612), the Christian daimyo of the 52. 110.
- 73. WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN 130 fief of Arima in Hizen, near Nagasaki (but not, as in the novel, Michael, Brother (Japanese Jesuit acolyte; pp. 753, 1110) Chi- 131 including it). jiwa Seizaemon (c. 1569-?), christened Don Michael, one of two young nobles sent to Europe in 1582-7; also the model for “Brother Heir, The. See Yaemon. Joseph” (see Uraga-noh-Tadamasa). [Toda] Hiromatsu (daimyo of Sagami and Kozuke, old ally of Minikui (Toranaga’s vassal spy; p. 290). Fictional. The name Toranaga; father of Buntaro; p. 119) Hosokawa Fujitaka means “ugly” and was changed to Sasuke in the television filmscript. (1534-1610), daimyo of Tamba and leading cultural figure of his day, better known by his artistic name “Y sai.” See pp. 63, 66-68. Minowara (an ancient military clan; p. 74) the Minamoto, the warrior clan which came to power in the late twelfth century and Ikawa Tadazuki (daimyo of Suruga and Totomi who held Toranaga established the Kamakura shogunate; the first shogun, who is called hostage as a youth; father of Jikkyu; p. 223) Imagawa Yoshi- “Yoshitomo” in Sh gun, was Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-99). Toku- moto (1519-60), a leading daimyo in whose house Tokugawa Ieyasu gawa Ieyasu claimed Minamoto ancestry. See pp. 56, 96. spent his childhood as a hostage; the Imagawa were defeated by Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560. Mura (village headman of Anjiro, in reality a samurai spy for Tora- naga named Akira Tonomoto; pp. 46, 220, 469, 1205). Fictional. Ishido Kazunari (daimyo, one of the five Regents, implacable The name means “village” and was changed to “Muraji” in the tele- enemy of Toranaga; pp. 213, 420) Ishida Mitsunari (1560-1600), vision filmscript. the daimyo who organized the confederacy against Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1600; the historical Ishida was not a Regent, but rather a Naga (one of Toranaga’s sons, aged seventeen; pp. 198, 740) member of a board of five “Commissioners.” He was executed in Tokugawa Tadayoshi (1580-1608), fourth son of Ieyasu. See p. 59. Kyoto following the Battle of Sekigahara. See pp. 55-58. Nakamura (“The Taik ,” previous leader of Japan, died a year [Ikawa] Jikkyu (Christian daimyo, enemy of Toranaga; son of before Blackthorne’s arrival in Japan; father of the Heir, Yaemon; Tadazuki; pp. 60, 223). Fictional; the Imagawa clan had already pp. 49, 51, 74, 190, 215, 337) Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), been destroyed (see Ikawa Tadazuki). second of the three great unifiers of sixteenth-century Japan; see pp. 45, 48-49, 55, 63-64. For a biography, see Walter Dening, The Joseph, Brother. See Uraga-noh-Tadamasa. Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Kiku (courtesan at the Tea House in Mishima, under the employ of Noboru (eldest living son of Toranaga; suffers from the Chinese Gyoko; p. 98). Fictional. See pp. 108-110. pox; pp. 227, 258) Tokugawa Hideyasu (1574-1607), second son of Ieyasu; died of syphilis at the age of thirty-four. See p. 59. Kiritsubo-noh-Toshiko (“Kiri,” matron of Toranaga’s ladies-in- waiting; p. 222) Acha-no-Tsubone (1555-1637), an early consort Nobunaga (Toranaga’s first and favorite son, forced to commit and later a trusted political adviser of Tokugawa Ieyasu. See p. 104. seppuku at age nineteen; p. 658) Tokugawa Nobuyasu (1558-78), ordered to commit suicide at age nineteen because of his mother’s Kiyama, Lord (Christian daimyo, one of the five Regents; pp. 225, scheming (see Tachibana, Lady). 999) roughly, Konishi Yukinaga (?-1600), leading Christian daimyo who sided with Ishida Mitsunari at Sekigahara; the histori- Ochiba, Lady (consort of the Taik , mother of the Heir Yaemon; cal Konishi was not one of the Regents. See pp. 58, 61. pp. 216, 283, 517) Asai Chacha (1567-1615), Hideyoshi’s favor- ite consort, known as “Lady Yodo”; mother of the Toyotomi heir [Toda] Mariko (Christian wife of Toda Buntaro, secret love of Hideyori. See pp. 55, 61, 105. Blackthorne; pp. 259, 599-600) Hosokawa Gracia (1563-1600), wife of Tadaoki and leading Christian lady of Japan. See Chapters [Kasigi] Omi (samurai in charge of Anjiro, nephew of Yabu; pp. 33, 7 and 11. 90). Fictional. See p. 53.
- 74. WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN 132 Onoshi, Lord (Christian daimyo from Kyushu, one of the five to death in 1579. For details of the incident, see Sadler, The Maker 133 Regents; a leper; p. 225) an apparent composite of the Christian of Modern Japan, Ch. IX. daimyo Konishi Yukinaga (also the model for Kiyama) and tani Yoshitsugu (1559-1600), who is thought to have suffered from lep- Tadateru (Toranaga’s youngest son, aged seven; p. 740) rosy, tani, who sided with Ishida Mitsunari at Sekigahara, com- Tokugawa Tadateru (1592-1683), Ieyasu’s sixth son. mitted suicide during the battle. See p. 58. Taik , The. See Nakamura. Rodrigues, Vasco (Portuguese pilot; pp. 135, 142). Fictional. Takashima (an ancient military clan; p. 74) the Taira, the samu- Saruji (son and heir of Buntaro and Mariko; p. 635) Hosokawa rai clan which was defeated by the Minamoto in the Genpei War of Tadatoshi (1586-1641), heir of Tadaoki; later married a daughter of 1180-85. the shogun Hidetada (“Sudara” in the novel). See pp. 57, 69. [Yoshi] Toranaga (Lord of the Kwanto, President of the Regents; Sazuko, Lady (Toranaga’s newest consort, aged seventeen; p. 280) pp. 199, 656) Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), unifier of Japan O-Kane, consort of Tokugawa Ieyasu and mother of Yoshinao and first Tokugawa shogun. See pp. 2-6, 49-50, 57-61. For a detailed (1600-50), Ieyasu’s seventh son, who was born two months after biography, see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan: The Life of the Battle of Sekigahara. See p. 60. Sh gun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Sebastio, Father (Jesuit priest who interprets for Blackthorne in Tudor (Blackthorne’s son; p. 547) the son, name unknown, Anjiro; p. 30) the unidentified “Portugall Iesuite” who con- whom William Adams left in England; since no son is mentioned in fronted William Adams and his crew after their landing in Kyushu. Adams’ will of 1620, it is presumed that the son had died in the See pp. 4, 45. meantime. See p. 3. Sen-no-Nakada (Japan’s most famous tea master; p. 773) Sen- Uraga-noh-Tadamasa (previously Brother Joseph, a Japanese Jesuit no-Rikyu, the great innovator and synthesizer of the tea ceremony. acolyte who apostasized and became a retainer of Blackthorne’s; See p. 66. pp. 750, 918, 1110) Chijiwa Seizaemon (c. 1569-?), christened Don Michael (hence also the apparent model for Brother Michael), Spillbergen, Paulus (Captain-General of the Erasmus; p. 13) sent to Europe in 1582-87 as representative of the Christian daimyo Jacob Quaeckernaeck (?-1606), Dutch captain of the De Liefde, Arima (see Harima Tadao) and mura; he apostasized after his known as “Jap Quaeck.” He later joined a Dutch fleet and was return from Europe. See p. 47. For historical details, see Cooper, killed in a sea fight with the Portuguese. See p. 4. Rodrigues the Interpreter. Sudara (Toranaga’s second living son and heir, aged twenty-four; Usagi (grandson-in-law of Hiromatsu, husband of Fujiko, who is pp. 227, 886) Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632), Ieyasu’s third forced to commit seppuku; pp. 200, 217-19). Fictional. The name son and his successor as shogun (r. 1605-23). See pp. 59, 106. means “rabbit.” Sugiyama, Lord (one of the five Regents, richest daimyo in Japan; [Kasigi] Yabu (daimyo of Izu; uncle of Omi; p. 67). Fictional. See p. 225) roughly, Maeda Toshiie (1538-99), daimyo of Kaga, pp. 15, 92, 96. second only to Tokugawa Ieyasu as the wealthiest daimyo. Maeda was one of the five original Regents and his death in 1599 weakened Yaemon (“The Heir” of the Taik , son of Lady Ochiba; p. 72) the council in much the same way as the resignation of “Sugiyama” Toyotomi Hideyori (1593-1615), the son and heir of Hideyoshi in Sh gun (p. 624). (but widely rumored to have been fathered by someone else; see p. 105) and his consort Lady Yodo; perished with his mother at Tachibana, Lady (Toranaga’s first wife, put to death twenty years the fall of Osaka Castle in 1615, ending the Toyotomi line. See earlier for plotting against Goroda) Lady Tsukiyama, first wife pp. 55, 61. of Tokugawa Ieyasu; plotted against Oda Nobunaga and was put
- 75. WHO’S WHO IN SH GUN Glossary 134 Yodoko, Lady (widow of the Taik ; p. 277) Nene (1541-1624), widow of Hideyoshi, known in 1600 by her nun’s name Kodaiin. See pp. 104-105. Yoshinaku, Captain (samurai captain, escort of Blackthorne and Mariko to Edo and then to Osaka; p. 790). Fictional. [Saigawa] Zataki (daimyo of Shinano; half brother of Toranaga; pp. 625, 733). N apparent model. The name may have been derived from “Satake,” the daimyo of Mito in 1600. This glossary provides a) definitions of basic Japanese terms appearing in Sh gun and Learning from Sh gun; b) brief comments on historical aspects of some of the Japanese customs depicted in the novel; and c) relevant page references to Sh gun (in italics, from the Dell paperback edition) and to Learning from Sh gun (in roman type). The editor is grateful to Chieko Mulhern for provid- ing detailed information on the history of Japanese customs. abortion. For the courtesan Kiku, abortion may have been a simple matter of drinking a “weird-tasting cha” (p. 1189) which involved “no risk to her” (p. 935), but most women of the time had to resort to far more dubious and life-threatening measures, such as drinking lye or inserting objects into the uterus. It was only in the late twenti- eth century that abortion became such a casual and low-risk opera- tion as that depicted in Sh gun. Abortion, and infanticide as well, were nevertheless common in premodern Japan, particularly in the later Tokugawa period. Amida Tong (pp. 284-94). This secret band of religious assassins is a fictional amalgam of Chinese secret societies, known as “tongs,” and the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist sect known as “Ikk ” (“sin- gle mind,” indicating not fanaticism, as is sometimes suggested, but rather total faith in the Buddha Amida). Although the Ikk sect did have independent military power until it was crushed by Nobunaga (see p. 89), it was never known for clandestine activity. The Buddha Amida, on whom Pure Land believers called for salvation with the chant “Namu Amida Butsu” (“Hail to the Buddha Amida”; cf.
- 76. GLOSSARY 136 pp. 286, 1037), was a symbol of all-embracing compassion, so Black Ship (pp. 70, 241). The name given by the Japanese to the 137 the association of Amida with assassins is a bit incongruous. See annual Portuguese trading ship from Macao, probably because of pp. 76-77. the color of the hull. Known by the Portuguese as the “Nao del Trato” (p. 161), or “Great Ship of Trade,” these carracks were of anjin (p. 128). Japanese for “pilot” (literally, “contemplating the immense size, reaching as much as 1600 tons. For their history, see needle [of the compass]”) and the name by which both Blackthorne Charles Boxer, The Great Ship from Amacon (1959). The term and the historical William Adams were known; see p. 5. “black ship” was revived in the nineteenth century to describe the fleet of Commodore Perry. Anjiro. The fictional village where the Erasmus lands, inspired by the real fishing port of Ajiro; see p. 17. Ajiro is located on the Izu boiling enemies (pp. 95-96, 112). Although boiling one’s enemies peninsula just north of Ito, the port where William Adams built does not appear to have been a common practice in Japan, the most two ships for Ieyasu; see pp. ix, 5. famous example occurred, in fact, in the era of Sh gun, when the legendary burglar Ishikawa Goemon was thrown into a pot of boil- ashigaru. A footsoldier; see p. 88. ing oil for attempting to break into Osaka Castle and steal the Taik ’s fabulous hoard of gold. The round iron tubs which later bamboo saw, death by. This punishment, inflicted on Ishido in came into use for bathing (see Shdgun, p. 527) were thus known as Sh gun (p. 1211), was the most sensational but probably the least “Goemon baths.” practiced mode of public execution prescribed by Japanese law, apparently for want of passersby willing to pull the saw. See pp. bushi. A warrior; a more formal term than “samurai”; see p. 6. 54-55 for its best-known historical use. Bushido. Literally, “the way of the warrior”; loosely or generi- bansai! [normally banzai] (p. 182), Literally, “ten thousand years,” cally, the code of behavior of the Japanese samurai, emphasizing this word traditionally appeared on the funeral banners of the aris- loyalty, bravery, and honor. In a more narrow sense, the term tocracy. It was not until modern times that it came to be used in the refers to Tokugawa period writings on proper samurai behavior; sense of “three cheers,” or, as in Sh gun, as a military cry meaning see pp. 88, 96-98. “Long live [the emperor]”; see p. 90. calendar. As explained by Tsukku (p. 340), the Japanese counted battle cries. In Sh gun, samurai shout the names of their leaders years by reference to special “era names,” which were changed peri- as battle cries, such as “Kasigi!” or “Toranaga!”, (pp. 478, 561, odically for any of a variety of reasons; the average length of an era etc.), but in feudal Japan it would have been disrespectful to speak in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was about four years. In the name of one’s lord (especially his personal name) under any cir- addition to era names, as Tsukku also explained, a cycle of twelve cumstances. The traditional prebattle invocation to the war god years, each named after an animal, was also used; to further com- went “ei, ei, ” (pronounced “ay, ay, oh”), rising gradually in cre- plicate matters, this was joined with a secondary ten-year sequence scendo; if any name were used, it would probably have been that of (named after the Chinese five elements, in “junior-senior” pairs) the enemy. Some Christian daimyo were known, however, to emu- which, when used in parallel, combined to create a longer sixty-year late the Spanish custom of invoking the names of Christ, Santa cycle. The traditional Japanese calendar was based on the lunar Maria, and Santiago against their infidel enemies. year, in contrast to the Western solar calendar. birthdays. The birthday reception for Lady Ochiba in Sh gun carrier pigeons (pp. 468, 546, 622). Although indispensable to the (pp. 972, 983 ff.) is unusual, since the Japanese had no custom of plot of Sh gun, carrier pigeons apparently were not known in Japan commemorating one’s day of birth. The birth of an heir was cele- in the sixteenth century. Imported from the West during the Toku- brated, and the attainment of the ages 60, 77, and 88 called for con- gawa period, they appear to have been used primarily for amuse- gratulatory ceremonies, but not for women and not on the day of ment, although one anecdote does tell of an Osaka merchant who birth: by traditional Japanese counting, everyone’s age changes made a killing on the rice market by using carrier pigeons to get with the beginning of a new year and not on the exact birth day. early warnings of price fluctuations. Military use of carrier pigeons
- 77. GLOSSARY 138 in Japan began in 1899, when three hundred birds were imported (silk would have been reserved for a daimyo). Cotton was grown in 139 from China; pigeons were widely used by the Japanese for com- Japan in the sixteenth century, but was used primarily for tents, munications in World War II. banners, and, most importantly, the tapers to ignite matchlocks. castle town. The conventional term used to describe the large cities courtesan (pp. 151, 682, etc.). A conventional term for a prostitute which grew up around the castles of the daimyo in the sixteenth and catering to the wealthy, later known in Japan as “geisha.” See pp. seventeenth centuries; see pp. 115-6. 108-110. census. The national census ordered by the Taik in 1591 (p. 192) courtier. A term conventionally used to refer to members of the was never carried out, but the practice of keeping careful population traditional civil aristocracy of Japan, who resided in the capital of records became well-established in the course of the Tokugawa Kyoto; a small class, it was replaced by the samurai as the ruling period. The registration system described by Mariko (p. 713) was elite after the twelfth century. In Sh gun, Ogaki Tamamoto (pp. 95, developed only after the suppression of Christianity in the 1630s, 1133) is an example of the courtier. See pp. 55, 90, 100. when the practice of requiring all commoners to register at Buddhist temples was begun. Initially a device for controlling Christianity, the crucifixion (pp. 191, 229). A form of execution which was first temple registration system provided the basis for the first national practiced in Japan in the twelfth century under the first shogun, census in 1721; see p. 114. Yoritomo, but which became prevalent only in the sixteenth century. Japanese crucifixion differed from that in the West in that the limbs cha (pp. 321, 689, etc). In Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, “tea.” were lashed rather than nailed to the frame, an additional crosspiece The English “tea” comes from a Chinese dialectical variant of the was provided for the legs, and the victim died not of exposure and same word. See p. 14. debilitation but by being lanced through the vital organs. chanoyu (pp. 263, 766-77). The Japanese “tea ceremony”; see pp. daimyo. A feudal lord, in military and administrative control of an 66-67, 91. autonomous domain yielding an income of at least 10,000 koku. In 1598, there were 204 such daimyo, ranging from 68 with incomes of Chinese pox (pp. 258, 373, etc.). Syphilis, introduced to China by the minimum 10,000 koku to Tokugawa Ieyasu with over 2.5 million Western voyagers and thence, probably by wak , to Japan; the ear- koku. liest documented case of syphilis in Japan occurred in 1512—only two decades after the outbreak of the disease in Europe following death poems (pp. 338, 839, 1188). Although Hideyoshi’s death Columbus’ return from America. Also known in Japan as the poem (p. 338) is historically accurate, it was not the usual Japanese “Ryukyu pox.” Ieyasu’s son Hideyasu (“Noboru” in Sh gun) was custom in this period to compose death poems; the ritual of a warrior one of the better-known victims of the Chinese pox. See p. 125. such as Yabu composing a poem before seppuku (p. 1188) or imminent death in battle was devised by the modern Japanese military Clouds and Rain (p. 153, etc.). An ancient Chinese literary term for class. the sexual act; see p. 109. dictionary (pp. 315, 527, 578, 785). Historically, the dictionary consort (p. 69). Under traditional Chinese and Japanese law, a man given to Blackthorne would probably have been the tri-lingual Latin- was permitted only a single legal wife, and all other wives were Portuguese-Japanese dictionary published by the Jesuit press in 1595; known as “consorts” or “concubines”; see p. 101. In Japan, children a far more complete dictionary of Japanese was completed by a team born of consorts were considered legitimate and often became heirs; of Jesuit linguists in 1603. See p. 84. see p. 106. divorce (p. 368, etc.). See pp. 40, 101-2. cotton (pp. 243, 321, 532, etc.). Cotton clothing was still quite unusual in Japan in 1600, but it was to become more popular in the doctors. As Blackthorne gratefully notes (p. 322), Japanese doctors seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The loincloth given to Black- did not bleed their patients, but instead relied on the traditional thorne (p. 243) would probably have been linen or the cheaper hemp
- 78. GLOSSARY 140 Chinese techniques of herbal medicine, acupuncture, and moxa did samurai come to wear them. The indoor slippers presented to 141 cautery. Japanese doctors were, however, far behind the West in Blackthorne (p. 29) were generally unknown until modern times. surgical procedures; they did not know how to suture, cauterize, Tabi socks (p. 321, etc.) were less common in 1600 than they are in splint, or remove bullets, and normally just applied ointment papers Sh gun; made of leather, they were used mostly by samurai as over open wounds. For Western doctors, see p. 41. outdoor wear; tabi were considered special, and permission was required to wear them. Cotton tabi became popular only in the late dozo (passim). Japanese for “please,” as in the case of an invitation; seventeenth century, and even then a young courtesan such as Kiku see pp. 81-82. (p. 1194) would not have worn them, since geisha were very proud of their bare feet. Edo [Yedo] (pp. 858-60). The capital of the Tokugawa domain, established by Ieyasu in 1590 on the site of a former medieval castle funerals. Mariko’s funeral (pp. 1101-2) accords closely with which had reverted to a fishing village. By 1600, as Blackthorne descriptions of Japanese funerals by Western observers of the time. noted (p. 568), Edo was on its way to becoming the world’s largest Although public exposure of the corpse seems unusual for the Japa- city and, by the end of the seventeenth century, had grown to a nese (see p. 65), one such case is detailed in an account by the Jesuit population of probably over one million. In 1868, Edo was made the chronicler Luis Frois; see Cooper, They Came to Japan, pp. 363-7. imperial capital of Japan and renamed “Tokyo.” Garlic Eaters (p. 348, etc.). Used in Sh gun to refer to Koreans. In Eight-Fold Fence (pp. 602-3, 835). Mariko’s metaphor for the the modern period, Japanese sometimes refer to Koreans as “smell- Japanese use of rituals, customs, and taboos to ensure privacy, the ing of garlic,” much as they speak of Westerners as “smelling of expression comes from an ancient Japanese poem; see p. 106. butter.” It is unclear whether garlic was as common in Korean cui- sine in 1600 as it is today and whether such an epithet was actually emperor (pp. 967, 1133-4). In Japanese, “tenn ,” the hereditary line used in the period of Sh gun. We may certainly presume, however, of rulers of Japan since mythical times, theoretically divine and that the Japanese invasions of Korea under Hideyoshi (see p. 45) unbroken. In the era of Sh gun, the emperor had very little political caused strong feelings of animosity between Koreans and Japanese, power but was essential for the legitimation of national rule; see p. and that such derogatory labels were used by both sides at the time. 56. The emperor was “restored” to power with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. geisha (p. 747). Courtesans of the Tokugawa period who provided singing and dancing entertainment along with their sexual services; Erasmus. The name of Blackthorne’s ship and the original name of literally, “a person of artistic accomplishment.” Although Gyoko’s its historical counterpart, the De Liefde; see p. 17. “invention” of the geisha is imaginary, it was precisely in her time eta (pp. 472, 643, 869, etc.). The Japanese outcaste class; see pp. that this type of courtesan emerged; see pp. 108-9. 125-6. guns (pp. 507, 542, 556, etc.). Guns were introduced to Japan by Floating World (pp. 1189, 1195). In Japanese, “ukiyo,” used from Portuguese visitors in 1543 (see p. 46) and were known as “Tanega- about the middle of the seventeenth century to describe the hedo- shima,” after the name of the island where the Portuguese landed. nistic world of the theater and the pleasure quarters of Japanese Guns became a crucial factor in the warfare of the late sixteenth cities. century in Japan; see p. 58. footwear. Most Japanese in 1600 went barefoot both indoors and hair styles. Mariko is historically a bit ahead of her time in wearing out. When required, the preferred footwear was sandals of rush or her hair “in the latest Kyoto fashion, piled high and held in place straw (as in Sh gun, p. 29). Wooden clogs had long been known in with long silver pins” (p. 259): this description fits the “Katsuyama Japan (especially for field work), but in 1600 they were still not in style” originated in the 1650s by a Yoshiwara courtesan of that general use. The clog-wearing samurai in Sh gun (p. 32, etc.) would name. Most women of the period of Sh gun continued to wear their have been unusual, since clogs were far too noisy and clumsy for a hair in the aristocratic taregami style, long and straight down the battle-ready warrior; only in the peaceful eighteenth century back. A noblewoman like Mariko would have had long straight hair
- 79. GLOSSARY 142 (possibly scented with floral oils), shaved eyebrows (with false eye- judo and karate. Although a samurai like Mura would certainly 143 brows painted higher on the forehead with soot paste), red-painted have been familiar with the techniques of weaponless fighting which lips, and blackened teeth. he displays in Sh gun (p. 51), he would not have known them by these names. The term “j d ” was used by a martial arts school in harakiri. Ritual suicide by disembowelment; literally, “belly- the early eighteenth century, but the form known today was synthe- cutting.” A more vulgar term than “seppuku,” commonly mispro- sized in the late nineteenth century by Kano Jigor (1860-1938) from nounced “harry-carry” in the West. See pp. 73, 95. a variety of existing techniques known as “j jutsu” (“the art of flexibility”). Karate (more properly, karate-d , “the way of the harikata (p. 693). A dildo; see p. 110. empty hand”) was imported to Japan from its native Okinawa in the 1920s by Funakoshi Gichin (1869-1957). hatamoto (pp. 489, 495). A direct retainer of the Tokugawa shogun with an income of less than the 10,000 koku required for daimyo kami (p. 652, etc.). In indigenous Shinto belief, sacred forces, often status and with a theoretical right of audience with the shogun; those translated as “gods,” which were most commonly manifested as the below the hatamoto in rank were called gokenin. During most of the spirits of trees, rocks, places, distinguished men, ancestors, and Tokugawa period, the hatamoto (sometimes called “banner-men”) mythological figures. accounted for about one-fourth of the shogun’s approximately twenty thousand retainers. See p. 7 for William Adams’ status as kamikaze (p. 459). Literally, “divine wind,” historically used to hatamoto. refer to the typhoons which drove off the invading Mongols in the thirteenth century. The term was revived in the twentieth century as hawking (pp. 613-20, 1160, 1207). An ancient noble sport in Japan, part of the title of certain suicide squadrons in the Pacific War. Often banned in 728 in deference to Buddhist belief but revived in the mispronounced “kamikazi” in the West (cf. p. 81). twelfth century as a major pastime of the samurai class. Tokugawa Ieyasu was a skilled and avid falconer; see p. 60. karma (passim). In Buddhism, the accumulated consequences of one’s actions throughout past incarnations. See Chapter 8. Hemimura. The village in which William Adams’ estate was located; see pp. ix, 5, 9, 11. koku (p. 94, etc.), A unit of measure, equivalent to about five U.S. bushels, used to measure the income of land in terms of its produc- Hirado. An island off the northwest coast of Kyushu and a major tivity in rice. port for foreign trade with the West in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries. William Adams, the model for Blackthorne, was Kwanto [Kanto]. Literally, “east of the barrier,” referring to any of employed by the English East India Company’s trading station in several mountain passes on the way from Kyoto to the northeast; Hirado and died there in 1620; see pp. ix, 5. more specifically, the broad coastal plain along the Pacific Ocean in central Honshu, traditionally comprising eight provinces. Edo (the hostages (pp. 69, 121, 216, etc). The taking hostage of family modern Tokyo) is located on the Kanto Plain. members (particularly the heir) of one’s vassals in order to ensure loyalty became a common practice in the sixteenth century and was “Legacy” of Toranaga (p. 847). This corresponds to the Legacy of eventually institutionalized under the Tokugawa shogunate in the Tokugawa Ieyasu, a set of private instructions left to his successors; “alternate attendance system,” under which all daimyo were see pp. 53, 90. For English translations, see Murdoch, A History of required to keep their wives and heir in Edo and to live in Edo Japan, III, 796-814, and Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, pp. themselves every other year. 387-98. Izu (p. 53, etc.). A peninsula located on the Pacific Ocean about massage (pp. 76, 872). A well-developed art in traditional Japan, seventy-five miles southwest of Tokyo; formerly Izu Province, it is often practiced by the blind. The use of “fragrant oil” to massage today part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Blackthorne is unusual and would more likely be a service of contemporary “Turkish baths” in Japan; the traditional method involves squeezing the muscles or pressing nerve points, techniques
- 80. GLOSSARY 144 which slippery skin would make difficult. One must also be lightly “Oil Seller” (p. 784). Blackthorne’s sword, which is nicknamed 145 clothed, not naked, as in Sh gun. after its victim; the account in Sh gun is based on an historical (or at least legendary) incident, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered a meat-eating (pp. 365, 427, etc.). See pp. 40, 116-9. retainer to cut down an oil merchant who had acted in a rude man- ner and who managed to “walk a few paces before falling divided Mishima (pp. 99, 291, 468). Yabu’s castle town. A real city, Mishi- into two”; see Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, p. 352. ma was the ancient capital of the province of Izu and a major stop along the T kaid ; historically, however, it was a post town, not a Osaka (pp. 120, 189, 195). Osaka, originally known as Ishiyama, castle town. was a fortified settlement built in the early sixteenth century by fol- lowers of the Ikk sects of Buddhism (see Amida Tong). With the Murasama [sword] (pp. 77, 621). Corresponds to the historical suppression of the Ikk by Nobunaga in the 1570s, Ishiyama came Muramasa, a famous maker of sword blades (see the legend quoted under the control of Hideyoshi, who renamed it Osaka and built his on pp. 92-93). The story of the curse of such a blade on Toranaga’s great castle there in 1583-6. After Hideyoshi’s death, Osaka became family is based on historical accounts; see Sadler, The Maker of the castle town of his heir Hideyori; when the Toyotomi family was Modern Japan, pp. 94-95. destroyed in 1615, Osaka was briefly assigned to a Tokugawa-related daimyo, but in 1619 it came under the direct control of the shogun- Nagasaki (pp. 240, 664). A port in western Kyushu, ceded to the ate. Although a large garrison was stationed in Osaka Castle dur- Jesuits by the Omura daimyo in the 1570s and used as a center for ing the Tokugawa period, the city was basically run by merchants missionary and trading activities until it was confiscated by Hideyo- and served as a national rice brokerage center. Osaka Castle was shi in 1587 and placed under central control. After the expulsion of destroyed in World War II, but has been rebuilt in ferro-concrete. the Catholics in the 1640s, it became the sole port for foreign trade See pp. ix, 38, 56-61, 104-5, 115. in Japan, served by Dutch and Chinese merchants. See pp. ix, 48-50. pillow book (p. 898). In ancient Japan, the term “pillow book” neh? (passim). A sentence-ending particle implying expectation of was used to describe a genre of literary miscellanies, informal jour- agreement; see p. 81. nals which were probably composed after retiring and hence kept nightsoil (pp. 533,836). A euphemism for human excrement, which near the writer’s pillow; the most famous example is Sei was widely used as fertilizer in traditional Japan. In the cities of the Shonagon’s The Pillow Book (late tenth century; translated by Ivan Tokugawa period, landlords derived an important part of their Morris). In the seventeenth century, however, the expression came to income from the sale of tenants’ wastes to nightsoil collectors. See be applied to erotic books, some of which were used as visual aids also p. 125. for the sexual education of young brides, since the “aversion to talking about pillowing” (p. 333) was scarcely a barbarian ninja (pp. 1050-62). Practitioners of ninjutsu (“the art of stealth”), monopoly. It is this sort of manual which Mariko seems to have experts in espionage, sabotage, and assassination. The ninja of shown to Blackthorne. Sh gun, whose “only purpose in life was violent death for pay” (p. 1062), reflect the romanticization of the ninja in modern Japa- pillowing (p. 329, etc.). In Sh gun, making love. James Clavell has nese popular entertainment: the historical ninja were primarily said that he chose this word because it is more pleasing than “for- experts in political intelligence rather than fanatical assassins. nication” and more polite than its four-letter Anglo-Saxon Although Toranaga was said to have considered ninja to be “filth” equivalent. It does not really correspond to any Japanese word, (p. 1077), the historical Ieyasu prized the services of ninja and used although the term “pillow” is used in some archaic combinations them extensively. In fact, the only lord in Japan in 1600 who could that connote sex (such as “pillow book”). The nuance of “pillow- have ordered a ninja attack of the scale mounted by Ishido in Sh gun ing” is considerably more sensuous in the West than in Japan, where would have been Ieyasu himself, since he then controlled the Koga pillows have traditionally been quite small and hard, made of wood and Iga ninja, the two largest traditional groups. For an account of or of cloth stuffed with tea or buckwheat chaff. the ninja, see Andrew Adams, Ninja: The Invisible Assassins (Ohara pissing on a bargain (pp. 299, 485). It is unclear how well- Publications, Los Angeles, 1970). established a custom this was among the samurai, but the historical story of
- 81. GLOSSARY 146 Hideyoshi and Ieyasu’s (the Taik and Toranaga in Sh gun, p. Sekigahara, Battle of (p. 1211). The decisive battle in October 1600 147 163) sealing the transfer of the Kanto in this way is recounted in at which Tokugawa Ieyasu and his allies defeated a coalition headed Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan, p. 163; according to this by Ishida Mitsunari and thereby secured hegemony over all Japan. anecdote, the incident came to be known as “the pair of pissers on This battle is considered by many historians to be the beginning of the Kanto” (Kant no tsure-sh ben). the Tokugawa period. See pp. ix, 56-58, 60-61. poisoning enemies (p. 1164). Yabu’s plot to poison Jikkyu in seppuku (pp. 568-9, etc.). Ritual suicide by disembowelment; a Sh gun is by no means implausible (especially the detail of bribing a more proper term than harakiri. See pp. 73, 95-96. cook, for it is said that Ieyasu bribed a cook to set fire to the kitchen of Osaka Castle in 1615), but on the whole poisoning seems to have Shinto (pp. 652-3). The indigenous religious beliefs of the Japa- been an exceptional way of dealing with one’s enemies in medieval nese, as distinguished from Buddhism, which was introduced from Japan, for reasons that are not clear; see Murdoch, A History of China. Literally, “the way of the gods [kami]”), See pp. 117, 123-5. Japan, I, 631. shogun (pp. 72-74). A national military ruler, an office delegated raw fish (pp. 150, 365, 1202). See pp. 121-2. Regents, by the emperor. Literally, “general,” the title was first assumed by Minamoto Yoritomo in 1190; Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed the posi- Council of (pp. 72, 225, etc.). See pp. 55-56. tion in 1603. See pp. 2, 56. rocks growing (pp. 835, 1018). In Sh gun, Mariko recommends silk (p. 303, etc.). Silk had long been prized by the Japanese upper that Blackthorne try listening to a rock grow, as a way of promoting classes as the finest fabric available for clothing, and its import wa. This provocative device appears to be a sort of Zen riddle espe- from China constituted a major element of foreign trade in the era cially formulated for the Western mentality, to which the idea of of Sh gun; see p. 49. The Japanese had produced domestic silk for rocks growing seems nonsensical. To the Japanese mind, however, centuries, but in 1600 the Chinese product was much more valued; this notion would not be such a conundrum, since the Japanese not until the Tokugawa period did Japanese silk come to match and believe that rocks do indeed have life within them; the myths even even surpass Chinese silk in quality, eventually becoming Japan’s speak of a time when rocks could move about and were given to leading export to the West in the pre-World War II period. occasional violence. Japanese have always been great observers and connoisseurs of rocks, considering them to possess life and individ- soap (pp. 63, 527, 654). A recent import to Japan in 1600 and an uality, so that watching them grow would have seemed quite natural unusual luxury; see p. 124. to Mariko. sushi (pp. 580, 769). Raw fish with vinegared rice; see pp. 121-2. r nin (pp. 78, 254, etc.). A masterless samurai (literally, “wave per- son,” that is, someone floating unattached), who has left his lord’s swimming (pp. 454-7). Although it is conceivable that a Westerner service either by choice or compulsion (most commonly because of such as Blackthorne could have instructed the Japanese in head- the confiscation of the lord’s fief). The stigma againt r nin implied first diving (pp. 455-6), it is certain that his samurai pupils would in Sh gun was a product of the peaceful Tokugawa period, when have been able to swim rings around him. The “art of swimming” prospects of re-employment were slim. (suiei-jutsu) was an indispensable part of the martial arts, since samurai often had to fight in the many rivers that divide the Japa- -sama, -san, -chan (passim). Forms of address attached to a per- nese terrain. Samurai were trained not only to swim, but also to son’s name; the latter two are modern corruptions of -sama, -san engage in mortal combat, in full armor if necessary, both in and indicating respect and -chan familiarity; see p. 83, under water. Having mastered techniques of combative swimming, samurai knew how to grapple with an enemy while falling over- samurai (p. 30, etc.). A Japanese warrior, from saburau, “to board, how to disentangle armor from seaweed, and even how to serve.” The ruling class of Japan from the twelfth to the nineteenth jump out of the water into boats. The one thing that samurai would centuries, the samurai comprised about six or seven percent of the probably not have done is swim naked, as in Sh gun; samurai were total population during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). rarely parted from their weapons and at the very least would have
- 82. GLOSSARY 148 worn a loincloth, which was almost a part of the body for the tradi- first duty to avoid discord.” Many Japanese corporations today 149 tional Japanese male. similarly use “wa” as a motto to encourage cooperation among employees; see Thomas Rohlen, For Harmony and Strength (Univ. tai-fun (pp. 464, 971, etc.). A typhoon. “Tai-fun” appears to be a of California Press, 1974). “Wa” can also suggest harmonious bal- dialectical Chinese pronunciation, the source of the English ance in an artistic sense, and as such constitutes an important aes- “typhoon”; in Japanese, the characters (meaning “great wind”) are thetic of the tea ceremony. The conception of wa in Sh gun is far read taif . more privatized and anti-social than in conventional Japanese usage. taik . Hideyoshi’s highest title, used as a proper noun to refer to wak (p. 666). Japanese pirates, active in the trade with China; see Hideyoshi himself. His first court title was kampaku, or “regent” for pp. 44-45. the emperor, which he took in 1585; in 1591, after ceding his title to his heir Hideyori (hence the reference to Yaemon as “Kwampaku,” wheeled vehicles. As explained by Mariko (p. 801), wheeled vehi- p. 278), he himself became taik , a special title for a retired regent. cles were surprisingly rare in traditional Japan, although oxcarts See p. 55. were commonly used for heavy loads. Vehicles with wheels were not only of limited practical use in Japan’s rainy climate and hilly tokonoma (pp. 549, 624). A slightly raised alcove in a Japanese terrain, but were also severely restricted by the Tokugawa govern- room, typically decorated with a flower arrangement or hanging ment as a means of status regulation and military control. scroll. The tokonoma was a feature of teahouse architecture and in the modern period of most Japanese houses. Misspelled “takonoma” Willow World (pp. 100, 678, etc.). The licensed pleasure quarters; (“octopus room”) in Sh gun. see pp. 108-110. T kaid (p. 290). Literally, “eastern sea road,” the great coast Yedo. See Edo. highway from Edo to Kyoto. Yoshiwara (p. 1180). The licensed pleasure district of Edo; see p. tooth-blackening. In Sh gun, the only blackened teeth are those of 109. the courtier Ogaki (p. 965) and the (apparently) transvestite Regent Ito (p. 1077). By the seventeenth century, however, the practice had Zen (p. 48). A Chinese sect of Buddhism introduced into Japan in spread beyond the courtier class to all upper-class married women, so the thirteenth century; patronized generously by the samurai class, that Mariko in real life would certainly have blackened her teeth. For Zen Buddhism came to have a profound influence on samurai the traditional Japanese, gleaming black teeth were considered very morality and on Japanese aesthetics; see pp. 77, 92-93. sexy in a woman and elegant in a man; for a sensuous modern appreciation of this aesthetic, see Jun’ichir Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows (Leete’s Island Books, 1977), especially pp. 33-35. Teeth were blackened by the periodic application of a solution of iron fil- ings pickled in vinegar and sake. uniforms. The Brown and Gray uniforms in Sh gun are a fictional device; see p. 57. wa (pp. 472, 602, 609, 642, etc.). The frequent use of “wa” in Sh gun to indicate a transcendent state of spiritual “tranquillity” would strike most Japanese as peculiar. In Japanese, wa implies the reconciliation of conflicting elements (and hence is perhaps best translated “harmonization”) and is used primarily to refer to social harmony, as in the famous sixth-century injunction of Prince Sh - toku: “Concord [wa] is to be esteemed above all else; make it your
- 83. For Further Reading Murdoch has still not been replaced and, despite (or even because 151 of) its old-fashioned tone, his book provides provocative insight and pleasant reading. Sh gunalia James Clavell’s Sh gun (Atheneum, 1975) is now most readily available in the Dell paperback edition (first printing, June 1976; thirty-eighth printing, March 1980), but those interested can still acquire the one-volume Atheneum hardback edition (now in its fourteenth printing), the two-volume edition produced for The Literary Guild, and editions in most major foreign languages— including Japanese (3 vols.; TBS-Britannica, Autumn 1980). For a sampling of reviews of the novel, see Contemporary Literary Criti- cism, v. 6, p. 114; the most thorough of the various journalistic reviews were the ones by Webster Schott in the New York Times Book Review (June 22, 1975, p. 5) and D. J. Enright in the New York Review of Books (Sept. 18, 1975, pp. 44-45). For a more aca- Basic Background demic review, see Sheila Johnson in the Journal of Japanese Studies, First choice for an introduction to Japanese political history is v. 2, no. 2 (Summer 1976), pp. 445-8. Peter Duus, Feudalism in Japan (Knopf, 1969, paper), a brief and The making of the twelve-hour television miniseries of Sh gun well-written survey of Japanese history until the nineteenth century, (broadcast by NBC Sept. 15-19, 1980) proved to be a rerun of many emphasizing samurai rule. For general histories with an emphasis of the crises in cross-cultural communication which fill the novel on culture, see George Sansom’s classic Japan: A Short Cultural itself. For a short account, see Neil Martin, “Sh gun: Culture History (1931; rev. ed., Appleton-Century, 1943; Stanford, 1979, Clash in the Orient,” American Film, April 1980, pp. 18-23; more paper) and R. H. P, Mason and J. G. Caiger, A History of Japan details and hundreds of photographs are provided in The Making (Free Press, 1972). A more detailed political narrative is provided in of James Clavell’s Sh gun (Delta Books, 1980, paper). George Sansom, A History of Japan (3 vols.; Stanford, 1958-73; A board game entitled “Samurai,” by Dan Campagna (© 1979, 1978, paper). Heritage Models), may amuse readers of Sh gun, since it uses For the background of Sh gun in particular, four books are of many of James Clavell’s fictional characters (but with no attribution special importance and were of obvious use to James Clavell in his whatsoever); a mapboard game of the military simulation variety, preparatory research for the novel. Heading the list is Michael “Samurai” is of marginal educational value and is marred by fre- Cooper, ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European quent misspellings and errors of fact. There also exists a board game Reports on Japan, 1543-1640 (Univ. of Calif.. 1965), a well-edited actually entitled “Shogun,” by Epoch Playthings; it is an excellent collection of fascinating primary materials. Second is Arthur Sad- game—a sort of checkers with an element of chance introduced by ler, The Maker of Modern Japan: The Life of Sh gun Tokugawa a magnetic board—but its only tie with Japan is that it was invented Ieyasu (Allen & Unwin, 1937; Tuttle reprint, 1978, paper), the only there: it is lacking in any cultural or historical content. Another English-language biography of the model for Toranaga; often tedi- entry in the category of Sh gunalia unrelated to the novel (except for ous, it is nevertheless filled with fascinating detail, much of which the name) is Suntory’s wine-sake beverage “Sh gun” (see p. 121). reappears in Sh gun. Next is Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 (Univ. of Calif., 1951), the standard account 1. The Will Adams Legend of early European contact with Japan. Finally, James Murdoch, A The best of the various biographical writings on William Adams History of Japan, Vol. II: During the Century of Early Foreign is Philip G. Rogers, The First Englishman in Japan: The Story of Intercourse (1542-1651) (2nd of 3 vols.; Kobe: Japan Chronicle, Will Adams (London: Harvill Press, 1956). Less detailed but also 1903; long out of print), remains the single most detailed political of interest are: Arthur Diosy, “In Memory of Will Adams, The history of the period; although outmoded by current standards, First Englishman in Japan,” Trans. and Proc. of the Japan Society,
- 84. FOR FURTHER READING 152 London, v. 6, pt. 3 (1904), pp. 325-53; Lord Redesdale, “Three 1980, pp. 572-95. For the post-World War II period, an excellent 153 Hundred Years Ago,” ibid., v. 8 (1907), pp. 3-21; and Ilza Veith, short history is Sheila Johnson, American Attitudes Toward Japan, “Englishman or Samurai: The Story of Will Adams,” Far Eastern 1941-1975 (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Quarterly, v. 5, no. 1 (Dec. 1945), pp. 5-27. Public Policy Research, 1975, paper). Some interesting specialized Numerous published primary sources on William Adams and his essays may be found in Akira Iriye, ed., Mutual Images: Essays in English compatriots in early seventeenth-century Japan are avail- American-Japanese Relations (Harvard, 1975). able and provide fascinating details for those willing to tolerate wildly inconsistent spelling and tedious trade reports: Thomas Run- 3. Cross-Cultural Learning dall, ed., Memorials of the Empire of Japan in the XVI and XVII Teachers at the secondary level who are interested in ways of Centuries (Hakluyt Society, 1850; Burt Franklin reprint, 1963), using Sh gun in the social studies classroom will find useful infor- which contains the most important letters of Adams; C. J. Purnell, mation and exercises in “Sh gun: A Guide for Classroom Use,” a ed., “The Log-Book of William Adams, 1614-19,” Trans, and pamphlet prepared by Teaching Japan in the Schools (TJS) and Proc. of the Japan Society, London, v. 13, pt. 2 (1915), pp. 156-302, available for $2 from TJS, 200 Lou Henry Hoover Building, Stan- a record of Adams’ two voyages to the Ryukyu Islands which also ford University, Stanford, CA 94305; those interested may wish to includes more of his letters; Ernest Satow, ed., The Voyage of ask for information on other teaching-related materials produced Captain John Saris to Japan, 1613 (Hakluyt Society, 1900; Kraus by TJS. Also of special interest to teachers at the secondary level reprint, Liechtenstein, 1967), the journal of the man who opened will be Opening Doors: Contemporary Japan (The Asia Society, the English trading station in Japan (see p. 6); E. M. Thompson, ed., New York, 1979), a resource manual for teaching about Japan The Diary of Richard Cocks, Cape-Merchant in the English today. For continuing information on educational resources about Factory in Japan, 1615-1622 (2 vols.; Hakluyt Society, 1883; Burt Asia, teachers of all levels should profit from FOCUS on Asian Franklin reprint, 1965), which contains a number of references to Studies (published three times annually, subscription $3 from Adams; and M. Paske-Smith, ed., Peter Pratt, History of Japan, Service Center for Teachers of Asian Studies, Ohio State Univ., Compiled from the Records of the English East India Company 29 W. Woodruff Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43210). (Kobe: Thompson, 1931; Barnes and Noble reprint, 1972). For a Historical novels have received little attention either as a genre of secondary study of the English trading station, see Ludwig Riess, literature or as potential tools for teaching history, perhaps because “History of the English Factory at Hirado (1613-1622),” Trans, of their relationship to both history and literature is so complex and so the Asiatic Society of Japan, v. 26 (1898). ambiguous. For those interested in other historical novels about Japan, two by Oliver Statler are highly recommended: the classic 2. The Attractions of an Opposite Japanese Inn (Random House, 1961; Arena Books, 1972, paper), an Little has been written on the attractions of a topsy-turvy culture; excellent introduction to Tokugawa Japan by way of the history of on a closely related topic, see David Plath, ed., Aware of Utopia an inn along the T kaid , and Shimoda Story (Random House, (Univ. of Ill., 1971), a set of essays on the “perennial place of impos- 1969), a novel about Townsend Harris, the American diplomat who sible dreams.” The model for Shangri-la is traced in Edward Bern- negotiated the commercial treaty with Japan in 1858 (see p. 8). baum, The Way to Shambala (Anchor Books, 1980, paper). William Butler’s The Ring in Meiji (Putnam, 1965) also deals with Considerably more has been written on Western images of Japan, Americans in mid-nineteenth-century Japan, while Shelley Mydans, although much remains to be explored. For an Asian overview, see The Vermilion Bridge (Doubleday, 1980), is set in eighth-century John Steadman, The Myth of Asia (Simon and Schuster, 1969, Nara Japan. For an example of historical novels by Japanese writers, paper) and Harold Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds: American see Eiji Yoshikawa, The Heike Story (trans. Fuki Uramatsu; Tuttle, Images of China and India (J. Day, 1958; M.E. Sharpe reprint, 1956, paper), a modern retelling of the classic The Tale of the 1980, paper). For Japan, Jean-Pierre Lehmann, The Image of Heike. Japan: From Feudal Isolation to World Power, 1850-1905 (Allen & More manageable than retrospective historical novels in the teaching Unwin, 1978), examines Western ideas of Japan in the Meiji period, of history and culture are the literary classics of the culture itself; and is nicely supplemented by Robert Rosenstone, “Learning from for a discussion of approaches, see “Teaching Social Studies Those ‘Imitative’ Japanese: Another Side of the American Experi- Through Literature,” Social Education, v. 42, no. 5 (May 1978), ence in the Mikado’s Empire,” American Historical Review, June which includes a discussion by Elgin Heinz of The Tale of Genji.
- 85. FOR FURTHER READING 154 4. Blackthorne’s England Between China and Japan, 1368-1549 (Harvard, 1953), and So 155 Tudor England (Penguin Books, 1950) by S. T. Bindoff is a clear Kwan-wai, Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the 16th Century and well-written introduction to the political history of the Tudor (Michigan State Univ.. 1975). A revisionist interpretation of early period and includes basic information on English social, legal, and Tokugawa foreign policy is provided by Ronald Toby, “Reopening religious institutions. Carl Bridenbaugh in Vexed and Troubled the Question of Sakoku: Diplomacy in the Legitimation of the Englishmen, 1590-1642 (Oxford, 1967; paper) explores in detail the Tokugawa Bakufu,” Journal of Japanese Studies, v. 3, no. 2 (Sum- restless society of late Elizabethan and early Stuart England. John mer 1977), pp. 323-63. E. Neale’s biography, Queen Elizabeth I (London: J. Cape, 1934; The activities of Western traders in East Asia in the era of Sh gun Anchor Books, 1957, paper), is the classic account of the life and are detailed in several works by Charles Boxer, including: Fidalgos reign of Elizabeth I; Neale’s admiration for the queen is evident, in the Far East, 1550-1770 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948), a but the book is balanced and beautifully written. history of the Portuguese trade based in Macao; The Great Ship Garrett Mattingly’s The Armada (Houghton-Mifflin, 1959; from Amacon: Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade, 1555- paper) provides a detailed description of the diplomatic maneuver- 1640 (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Historicos Ultramarinos, 1959); ing and military preparations leading up to the great sea battle of and The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (Knopf, 1965). For the 1588 as well as a stirring account of the battle itself. In The Expan- early English traders in Japan, see references in “The Will Adams sion of Elizabethan England (St. Martin’s, 1955), A. L. Rowse tells Legend” above. The activities and influence of the Dutch in Naga- the tale of exploration and warfare in lively style. James William- saki after the exclusion of the Catholics are treated in Charles Boxer, son, The Age of Drake (London: A. and C. Black, 1938), traces Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600-1850 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, Elizabethan voyages of exploration, trade, and colonization against 1950); Grant Goodman, The Dutch Impact on Japan, 1640-1853 the background of English domestic and foreign policy. (Leiden: Brill, 1967); and Donald Keene’s delightful The Japanese Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: England Before the Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830 (London: Kegan Paul, 1952; rev. Industrial Age (Scribner, 1965; paper), is a pioneering investigation ed., Stanford, 1969, paper). of the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in preindustrial England. Two excellent recent books on early Christianity in Japan are The English People on the Eve of Colonization, 1603-1630 (Harper, Michael Cooper, Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan 1954; paper) by Wallace Notestein is a clear and well-written intro- and China (Weatherhill, 1974), a detailed biography of the model duction to English society in Blackthorne’s time, while Keith for “Tsukku” in Sh gun, and George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Thomas’ fascinating Religion and the Decline of Magic (Weidenfeld Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan (Harvard, 1973), a and Nicolson, 1971) takes a look at the world view of the English in scholarly and penetrating study of the acceptance and then rejection the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Penry Williams surveys of Christianity in seventeenth-century Japan. For a different sort of changes in English society and culture in Life in Tudor England understanding of the dilemmas of Christians in Japan in this period, (Batsford, 1965). see End Sh saku, Silence (trans. William Johnston; Tokyo: Sophia Univ., 1969), a provocative novel by a modern Japanese Catholic 5. Trade, Diplomacy, and Christianity author. The best general surveys of early contact between Japan and the West are Charles Boxer. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 6. The Struggle for the Shogunate (Univ. of Calif., 1951); Michael Cooper, ed., The Southern Barbar- For the evolution of Japan’s premodern political institutions, the ians: The First Europeans in Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha. 1971); and best book is John Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, 500 George Sansom, The Western World and Japan (Knopf, 1949; Vin- to 1700 (Princeton, 1966). Useful essays on the evolution of the tage, 1973, paper), which continues the story through the nineteenth daimyo and their castle towns in the era of Sh gun may be found in century. John Hall and Marius Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional His- For a general overview of Japanese expansionism in the time of tory of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, 1968; paper). For special- Sh gun, see Yoshi Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Con- ized scholarly essays on the period, see John Hall, Nagahara Keiji, tinent (2 vols.; Univ. of Calif., 1937). Japan’s diplomatic difficul- and Kozo Yamamura, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political ties with China are recounted in Wang Yi-t’ung, Official Relations Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500-1650 (Princeton, 1980).
- 86. FOR FURTHER READING 156 The military history of the sixteenth-century unification of Japan in Frederick Hoick, ed., Death and Eastern Thought: Understand- 157 is detailed in such general histories as Murdoch and Sansom (see ing Death in Eastern Religions and Philosophies (Abingdon, 1974, “Basic Background” above) and in a readable and well-illustrated paper), pp. 226-56. A samurai view of death is presented by Winston survey by S. R. Turnbull, The Samurai: A Military History (Mac- King in “Practicing Dying: The Samurai-Zen Death Techniques of millan, 1977). For the rise and fall of the military importance of fire- Suzuki Sh san,” in Frank Reynolds and Earle Waugh, eds., arms in Japan, see Noel Perrin, Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Rever- Religious Encounters with Death (Penn. State Univ., 1977), pp. sion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (David Godine, 1979), an interesting 143-58. For suggestive studies of attitudes toward dying in modern book which is best read in conjunction with a perceptive review by Japan, see Robert Lifton et al., Six Lives, Six Deaths: Portraits from Conrad Totman in the Journal of Asian Studies, v. 39, no. 3 (May Modern Japan (Yale, 1979). 1980), pp. 599-601. On the theme of karma in Japanese thought, only fragmentary For biographical background on the three unifiers of Japan, insights are available in English. Ky kai’s Nihon ryoiki, a basic useful summaries and revealing documents may be found in Ch. source, has been translated by Kyoko Nakamura as Miraculous xv, “Heroes and Hero Worship,” in W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Harvard, 1973). For a of Japanese Tradition (Columbia, 1958; paper). Virtually nothing Zen perspective, see Ch. 4, “The Problem of Karma,” in Francis about Nobunaga is yet available in English; Hideyoshi is only Dojun Cook, How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in the slightly better served by Walter Dening’s badly outdated The Life Zen Master D gen’s Sh b genz (Los Angeles: Center Publica- of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Kobe, 1888; rev. ed., 1904; 3rd ed., 1930), tions, 1978). An anthropologist’s insights about the basic problem but should at last receive some of the attention due him in a political of “fatalism” in Japan, trying to explain how a culture long preoc- biography by Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Harvard, forth- cupied with fate can so successfully deal with sudden change, are coming). For Tokugawa Ieyasu, the indispensable English-language provided by David Plath in “Japan and the Ethics of Fatalism,” source is Sadler’s The Maker of Modern Japan (see “Basic Back- Anthropological Quarterly, v. 39 (July 1966), reprinted in Irwin ground” above). For a good introduction to the political structure Scheiner, ed., Modern Japan: An Interpretive Anthology (Macmillan, of the Tokugawa shogunate, see Conrad Totman, Politics in the 1974, paper). Tokugawa Bakufu, 1600-1843 (Harvard, 1967). Totman is also For general background information on the history of Japanese currently preparing a biography of Tokugawa Ieyasu aimed at a religion, see W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of Japanese Tradition general audience. (Columbia, 1958; paper), and Joseph Kitagawa, Religion in Japa- nese History (Columbia, 1966). 7. A Model for Mariko The only English-language materials which provide any details 9. Learning Japanese about Hosokawa Gracia and her family are Charles Boxer, “Hoso- A good short introduction to the Japanese language is Joseph kawa Tadaoki and the Jesuits, 1587-1645,” Trans, and Proc. of the Yamagiwa, “Language as an Expression of Japanese Culture,” in Japan Society, London, v. 32 (1934-5), pp. 79-119, which quotes John Hall and Richard Beardsley, eds., Twelve Doors to Japan interesting Jesuit descriptions of Gracia, and Johannes Laures, Two (McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 186-221. For more detailed linguistic Japanese Christian Heroes: Justo Takayama Ukon and Gracia surveys, see Haruhiko Kindaichi, The Japanese Language (trans. Hosokawa Tamako (Tuttle, 1959), a rather eulogistic account by a Umeyo Hirano; Tuttle, 1978), and, for a more academic and histor- Jesuit scholar. The connection between Hosokawa Gracia and the ical emphasis, Roy Miller, The Japanese Language (Univ. of Chi- Japanese “Cinderella cycle” (see p. 70) has been proposed by cago, 1967). Two different approaches to the fascinating issues Chieko Mulhern in “Cinderella and the Jesuits: An Otogizoshi raised by the Japanese language in its cultural context are Roy Miller, Cycle as Christian Literature,” Monumenta Nipponica, v. 34, no. 4 The Japanese Language in Contemporary Japan: Some Socio- (Winter 1979), pp. 409-47. linguistic Observations (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977, paper), and Takao 8. Death and Karma Suzuki, Japanese and the Japanese: Words in Culture (Kodansha There is as yet no systematic study of Japanese approaches to Intl., 1978). death; for an introductory survey, see William LaFleur, “Death and Japanese Thought: The Truth and Beauty of lmpermanence,”
- 87. FOR FURTHER READING 158 10. The Samurai Hagakure in Modern Life (trans. Kathryn Sparling: Basic Books, 159 An excellent general history of the samurai, authoritatively writ- 1977). ten and beautifully illustrated, is Richard Storry, The Way of the The tea ceremony, the most all-encompassing of the many cultural Samurai (Putnam, 1978); it includes a far more detailed bibliogra- pursuits of the samurai in the age of Sh gun, is described in good phy than is possible here. For a briefer survey, see H. Paul Varley, historical detail in Arthur Sadler, Cha-no-yu: the Japanese Tea Samurai (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970). Ivan Morris’ The Nobility Ceremony (Kobe: Thompson, 1934; Tuttle reprint, 1962, paper). of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (Holt-Rinehart, For a description of the Japanese tea ceremony as it is practiced 1975) examines the important concept of “sincerity” in the samurai today, see Tanaka Sen’o, The Tea Ceremony (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, tradition. 1973). Okakura Kakuzo’s famous The Book of Tea (1906; Tuttle, The medieval epics are a marvelous repository of lore about the 1956) is an inspired account of the tea ceremony infused with samurai class in its classic phase. The Tale of the Heike is available nineteenth-century romanticism. A basic source of information on in a readable if uninspired translation by Hiroshi Kitagawa and other aspects of the cultural activities and patronage of the samurai Bruce Tsuchida (2 vols.; Univ. of Tokyo, 1975; paper). The influ- class is the Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art (31 vols.; ence of this great epic on samurai values (see pp, 89-90) is discussed Weatherhill, 1972-80), which includes volumes on The Feudal in Kenneth Butler, “The Heike Monogatari and the Japanese War- Architecture of Japan, Momoyama Decorative Painting, Momo- rior Ethic,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, v. 29 (1969), pp. yama Genre Painting, The Namban Art of Japan, and The Garden 93-108. Two other important military epics have been translated by Art of Japan. Helen McCullough; The Taiheiki: A Chronicle of Medieval Japan 11. Consorts and Courtesans (Columbia, 1959) and Yoshitsune: A Fifteenth-Century Japanese Chronicle (Stanford, 1966). Very little is available in English on the history of women in tradi- For the samurai martial arts, see, in addition to the titles men- tional Japan. For a concise survey of the changing status of women tioned on p. 92, the excellent three-volume survey by Don Draeger, in medieval Japan, see Joyce Ackroyd, “Women in Feudal Japan,” The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan (Weatherhill, 1973-4): Classi- Trans, of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3rd ser., v. 7 (1959), pp. 31- cal Bujutsu, Classical Budo, and Modern Bujutsu and Budo. Also 68. The position of women in the Heian period is discussed in Ivan of use is Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook, Secrets of the Samurai: Morris, The World of the Shining Prince (Oxford, 1964; Penguin, A Survey of the Martial Arts of Feudal Japan (Tuttle, 1973). 1979, paper). Useful comparative material on marriage and For primary sources on Bushido, see Miyamoto Musashi, A Book inheritance may be found in F. Joüon des Longrais, L’Est et l’Ouest: of Five Rings (trans. Victor Harris; The Overlook Press, 1974), a Institutions du Japon et de l’Occident Comparées (Tokyo: Maison treatise by one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen; “Yamaga Sok and Franco-Japonaise, 1958). the Origins of Bushido,” in W. T. de Bary, ed., Sources of Japanese For the women of Sh gun, some sense of Hideyoshi’s relation- Tradition (Columbia, 1958; paper); and Yamamoto Tsunetomo ships with Nene and Yodo may be obtained from Adriana Boscaro, [J ch ], Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (trans. William Scott trans, and ed., 101 Letters of Hideyoshi (Tokyo: Sophia Univ., Wilson; Kodansha Intl.. 1979). The classic version of the story of 1975), while information on Ieyasu’s wives and consorts is provided the Forty-Seven R nin is Donald Keene, trans., Ch shingura: The in Sadler, The Maker of Modern Japan (see “Basic Background” Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Columbia, 1971; paper). For a descrip- above). tion of the practice of seppuku, Jack Seward’s Harakiri: Japanese For the world of the seventeenth-century Tokugawa courtesan, Ritual Suicide (Tuttle, 1968) is good on the details of the ritual but particularly as it appears in literature, see Howard Hibbett, The weak on any psychological analysis. Floating World in Japanese Literature (Oxford, 1959; Tuttle reprint, Modern Japanese interpretations of Bushido must be used with 1974, paper). A marvelously detailed description of the traditional care; for example, Nitobe Inazo’s well-known Bushido: The Soul Yoshiwara is J. E. de Becker, The Nightless City, or the History of of Japan (1899; rev. ed., Putnam, 1905), although suggestive, was the Yoshiwara Yukwaku (1899; Tuttle reprint, 1971, paper). The written by a Japanese Christian for an Anglo-Saxon audience and authoritative history of Chinese ideas about sex is R. H. van Gulik, has strong polemical overtones. Equally deserving of caution is Sexual Life in Ancient China (Leiden: Brill, 1961); no comparable Mishima Yukio’s The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on work has yet been done for Japan, although some useful information may be found in Howard Levy, Sex, Love, and the Japanese (Washington, D.C.: Warm-Soft Village Press, 1971). For a partial
- 88. FOR FURTHER READING 160 translation of Saikaku’s Nanshoku kagami, see E. Powys Mathers, Postscript: The TV Transformation trans., Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1928; Tuttle reprint, 1972). 12. Daily Life in Traditional Japan Two general surveys of daily life in traditional Japan are available in English: Louis-Frédéric, Daily Life in Japan at the Time of the From the start, the production of Learning from Sh gun has been Samurai, 1185-1603 (trans, from the French; Praeger, 1972), a delicate balancing act, an attempt to maintain a tone which would emphasizes the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, while C. J. Dunn, attract the sympathy of both enthusiastic amateurs and skeptical Everyday Life in Traditional Japan (London: Batsford, 1969; academics. I must confess, however, that my sense of balance (let’s Tuttle reprint, 1977, paper), focuses on the Tokugawa period. In the call it “we”) has been somewhat disturbed by the TV film version absence of any specialized scholarly studies, the most useful and of Sh gun. At best, it was passable soap opera with beautiful cos- provocative information on customs and daily life is to be found in tumes and sets. At worst, and too often, it was a jumble of some of the accounts of Western observers, such as Michael Cooper’s They the more simplistic generalizations and grotesque situations found Came to Japan (see “Basic Background” above). Of the many other in the novel. It was, in short, a far less subtle, less integrated, and in Western accounts, particularly revealing are Engelbert Kaempfer, the end less satisfying work than the novel on which it was based. The History of Japan (3 vols., Glasgow: MacLehose, 1906; AMS This unfortunate distillation of the most dubious aspects of reprint, 1971), a late seventeenth-century chronicle of Japan which Sh gun was achieved by the conscious elimination of precisely those includes an excellent description of the Japanese steam bath (II, 323- aspects of the novel which made it, in our minds, most worthy of 5), and Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese (1890; many later consideration. To begin with, virtually all of the political intrigue editions; Tuttle reprint, 1971, paper). among the Japanese daimyo was either eliminated or left incompre- The standard study of Japanese population trends is Irene Taeub- hensible; even those familiar with the novel found the TV plot diffi- er’s The Population of Japan (Princeton, 1958); for a more recent cult to follow. Hence most of the political background which has and detailed analysis of the Tokugawa period in particular, see Susan been emphasized in Learning from Sh gun will be impossible to Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change appreciate on the basis of the film alone. The most regrettable sacri- in Preindustrial Japan, 1600-1868 (Princeton, 1977; paper). The fice was Toranaga, who in the novel is a rich and complex character growth of castle towns is traced in John Hall, “The Castle Town but who in the film is reduced to an inscrutable cipher, notwith- and Japan’s Modern Urbanization,” Far Eastern Quarterly standing the majestic presence of Toshiro Mifune. (1955), reprinted in John Hall and Marius Jansen, Studies in the Even more unfortunate from our point of view was the elimina- Institutional History of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, 1968; tion and even reversal of the theme of “learning from Japan,” which paper). For a cross-cultural comparison of Edo and London, see we considered so fundamental to the novel. Clavell’s original Black- Henry D. Smith II, “Tokyo and London: Comparative thorne was a confused and complex man, his prototypical qualities Conceptions of the City,” in Albert Craig, ed., Japan: A as a WASP hero constantly challenged by the mores and beliefs of Comparative View (Princeton, 1979), pp. 49-99. the Japanese. As conceived by director Jerry London and played by Richard Chamberlain, however, Blackthorne becomes instead an aloof victim of Japanese aggression who manages to “become” a samurai only by stubborn adherence to his own Western code of values; about all he really “learns” is the art of bathing and a few words of Japanese. Consider, for example, his lines to Yabu in pro- test against the threatened crucifixion of the Anjiro villagers: “It is against my Christian conscience. I will have to commit suicide at once.’’ In the novel, one senses the fundamental moral contradiction between Christian conscience and suicide, but in the film the two statements are edited into a perfectly smooth, unflinching sequence. The transformation of Blackthorne from cross-cultural learner to stubborn ethnocentrist finds a fascinating real-life parallel in the
- 89. POSTSCRIPT 162 creation of the film itself, as detailed in The Making of James Cla- but she still insists that “Japanese is a very simple language,” 163 vell’s Sh gun (Delta Books, 1980), the official account of the project. instructing Blackthorne in distinctions of inflection which do not Here we find a candid and often amusing chronicle of the persistent make sense in her own tongue. More disturbing than such minor American refusal to accommodate to Japanese ways, a refusal which errors was the film’s emphasis on those scenes from the novel which seems to have left the project persistently lacking in any of the wa (in tended most to caricature Japanese behavior. What on earth did all the Japanese sense; see Glossary) which is so idealized in the novel. the Japanese actors make, for example, of the scene in which the old The Making of Sh gun also provides a revealing explanation of the gardener is executed for taking down a rotten pheasant in defiance logic which lay behind the television transformation: of Blackthorne’s orders, contrasting the humane and life-affirming There is no question that [scriptwriter Eric] Bercovici’s approach subtly Western hero with the blindly obedient and life-negating Japanese? changed Sh gun’s basic perspective. Clavell himself notes that, in the novel, Presumably, most of the native Japanese involved in the produc- Blackthorne is the alien. “It’s a Japanese story, a very pro-Japanese story.” In tion of “Sh gun” passed off such scenes with good humor, tolerating the beginning, we are not at all sure that Blackthorne is a hero .... Only as he them as the sort of exaggeration typical in the Kabuki theater. But finds the beauty of Japan do we find the beauty of his character. among the American television viewers, a good many were more By switching the perspective from the Japanese to Blackthorne, all is insulted than amused, particularly in the Japanese-American com- reversed. Blackthorne becomes a hero and it is Japan that is alien. When we munity. One of the strongest reactions came from Clifford Uyeda, first see him on the deck of the Erasmus in the film version, he is quite a former national president of the Japanese-American Citizens League, recognizable Western hero. Says Clavell simply, “Different media. You who wrote that the “captivating” costumes and photography “were don’t relate film form to book form.” (pp. 36-37) mere settings in which subtle racism was beamed into the The context of this startling admission makes it clear that the dif- subconscious mind .... Japanese characters were not individuals. ference in perspective is not simply a matter of form: it reveals They were stereotypes, often gross, sometimes odious. Samurai were instead a tacit conviction that the American television public in 1980 depicted as a class of people cruel to the point of being inhuman. is so xenophobic that it cannot tolerate an image of the Japanese (or Japanese people were cast as a race to whom life has little meaning presumably other such non-white, non-Christian cultures) as anything except death” (Pacific Citizen, Sept. 19, 1980, p. 6). more than incomprehensible “aliens.” What has been effected is a So the TV transformation involved a certain loss of innocence for reversion to the basically ethnocentric structure of the Will Adams Sh gun, a submission of a very private and self-contained fantasy to myth (see Chapter 1), deprived of the strongly pro-Japanese tone the compromising demands of the American entertainment industry. which distinguished Clavell’s novel. The unfortunate part is that so much good will went into the making The controversial decision by Bercovici to have all the major Jap- of the film series, particularly on the part of James Clavell, who anese characters except Mariko speak only in Japanese, with no sub- stresses at the end of The Making of Sh gun that “Sh gun was titles and no dubbing, stemmed as much from the “alien” approach to written to be a bridge between East and West and to dramatize and Japan as from any concern for authenticity. As explained in The try to explain the Land of the Gods to the West. It is passionately Making of Sh gun, “The plan was simple: The entire story would be pro-Japanese” (p. 224). Perhaps I am being impatient and idealistic in told through Blackthorne’s eyes .... What he did not understand, we my disappointment with the TV version of Sh gun. It was certainly a did not understand” (p, 33). The unfortunate effect was to make the presentation of great visual appeal, with some fine acting by a Japanese principals appear far more “inscrutable” than in the novel. number of the principals. And for all the latent stereotyping, In particular, the central male actors were foreclosed from “Sh gun” does seem to have left a generally positive feeling toward communicating any but the most primitive (and typically hostile) the Japanese among the majority of viewers. If only as “‘the world’s emotions to the American television audience. costliest language lesson” (N.Y. Times, Sept. 15, 1980), the TV The one great strength of the TV series was the reliance on Japa- “Sh gun” left millions of Americans knowing far more about Japan nese expertise to create “authenticity.” But what was achieved was than before. Deep-rooted cultural biases cannot be broken down rather the look of authenticity, a largely cosmetic effect which pre- overnight, and “Sh gun,” like its parent novel, offers a hopeful sented the uncomfortable contradiction of skilled Japanese actors, foundation on which to build the deeper cross-cultural understanding finely costumed, who often behaved in the most un-Japanese ways. which is so clearly the ideal of James Clavell. (H.S.) Mariko’s hairdo may be more historically correct than in the novel,