The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (29 page)

In the older uniform hour system first promulgated by the Japanese Court, each of the twenty-four hours in a day (called
shinkoku
) was subdivided into four quarters, so one could speak of Rat one or Cow three and thus be specific to within thirty minutes. Thus, if the Japanese of Frois' time can be said to have had half as many hours as we do, at one point in time the Japanese had twice as many.

14. We count the hours from one, two, three, up to twelve; the Japanese count them in this manner: six, five, four, nine, eight, seven, six, etc
.

This distich and the previous one clearly leave a lot unsaid with respect to how the Japanese kept time. They provide further evidence that the
Tratado
was intended as a teaching tool, a collection of statements that served as a point of departure (rather than a definitive statement) for understanding Japanese society and customs.

Frois might have explained that the Japanese made no use of the notions of one, two, or three o'clock because the first three strokes of the bell were for getting one's attention.

When using their fingers to count, the Japanese consistently fold their open fingers down. Counting down was a practice common to many cultures, including the Romans, who did it in a more confusing, partial manner. But why does Frois begin his count at six? The answer may be that dawn (the sixth hour) was considered the start of a new day.

15. We adorn our churches with branches and strew them with rushes or flowers; the Japanese scoff at this, saying that we turn our churches into thickets or gardens
.

There is a wonderful irony here, considering that Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines long occupied and thus protected old-growth forests, while Christians often toppled trees worshipped by pagans and viewed forests as the haunt of thieves (e.g. Robin Hood), ghosts, and evil spirits. While the Christian tradition of adorning churches with boughs, rushes, and flowers stemmed in part from Celtic and Germanic traditions that sacralized nature, perhaps more important was the Gospel of John (12:13), which relates how Jesus was met by a large crowd waving palm fronds while en route to Jerusalem for the Passover before his crucifixion.

With “windows” as tall as doors and as wide as walls the Japanese temple or house is open wide to nature.
²³
Compare this with a Christian church, where the windows function not to reveal nature but to harness sunlight for the purpose of relating a narrative in stained glass.

16. Our candles are thick at the base and thin at the top; in Japan they are thick at the top and thin at the base
.

Candles in Europe were made from tallow and less smelly and more expensive beeswax, using the dip-and-drip method, hence the thick base and taper. The Japanese relied on sebiferous trees (mostly the “wax tree” or sumac) for vegetable tallow, which was best shaped by hand. Japanese wax tends to drip less and runs just enough to look good hanging down from the upper edge, while not covering the surface of the candle, which often was decorated with an auspicious and artistic motif.

17. Ours have a wick made of string; theirs are made of the wood and heart of a reed
.

Edward Morse, who visited Japan in the late nineteenth century, suggested that the wick used by the Japanese was made from the dried pith of a woody shrub or rush belonging to the
Junaceae
family (the rush plant is also used by the Japanese to make their
tatami
).
²⁴
The reed not only burned slowly and consistently, but as the candle got low one could place the remaining inch or so on top of a new candle, meaning there was very little waste.

18. As we pray, we advance our rosary beads outward away from us; they always pray pulling successive beads toward themselves
.

The Japanese pull their beads (
juzu
, literally “bead count”), which are arranged in a circle, down into the hand with the right thumb, one bead at a time, one for every syllable of the sutra. While the Japanese who use beads today still pull them down in this way, Catholics no longer consistently push theirs forward. Many unwittingly work their rosaries in the “Japanese” way. Perhaps the biggest
difference is that whereas the Japanese move along at high speed (the beads of fast chanters make a gear-like noise as they rapidly hit together), Catholics move their beads rather slowly, one prayer at a time.

19. Our deceased depart with their hair as it is when they die; in Japan the deceased (both men and women) must go with their heads entirely shaved
.

Buddhists identified hair with worldly desire. Shaving the head also was thought to help ensure a favorable rebirth, hence the custom of referring to a person's death as
jobutsu
, or “attaining Buddhahood.” This was part of the appeal of Buddhism as a religious system that managed death and the afterlife.

During the Edo period (1603–1868) this custom of shaving the dying was relaxed somewhat, allowing the shaving to occur after, rather than before, death. Eventually, the practice of shaving the head of the deceased was minimized to only a portion of the head, or even simply going through the motions of shaving.

20. Our caskets are elongated; theirs are round, that is, in the form of a half-barrel
.

The elongated casket remains the preferred packaging for Europe's dearly departed, although the quality of the casket still tends to vary by class. “Theirs” refers to the coffins of the commoners in some, and possibly most parts of Japan. Cornwallis, writing in 1857, described the Japanese casket as “a sort of tub” about three feet high, two and half feet in diameter at the top, and two feet at the bottom.
²⁵
These caskets, which were once made of pottery, in the nineteenth century were made of wood. They were known as “quick-tubs” (
haya-oke
) because they could be constructed on the spot by a specialist in barrel making (there were no undertakers
per se
).

21. Our deceased are buried face up in a reclining position; theirs are seated and bound with their face between their knees
.

Christians anticipate the resurrection of the dead, which some scripture (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18) suggests will begin with a trumpet call and other great signs in heaven, hence the logic of being buried face up, preferably with the body oriented east-west with the deceased's head positioned so as to view the dawn of the “day of judgment.” With respect to the Japanese, Frois wrote in 1565 that the hands of the deceased were pressed together like someone praying, with the head bent toward the ground. The hands were not always in this position, but the fetal position was standard in Japan. With the hair shaved off, we get an image of a baby in the womb of the earth. Practically speaking, the fetal position reduces the size of the casket and the labor involved in excavating and then backfilling a grave. This also made it easier to transport the deceased; Japanese art shows the casket dangling from a pole that is carried easily by two men.

22. We bury our dead; the Japanese generally cremate theirs
.

Christians long have favored burial over cremation, partly because of a belief in the inseparable nature of body and soul (affirmed theologically in the
fourth century CE), and partly because of the early and enduring importance of the cult of the saints and their relics, which emphasized preservation of the body (or body parts).
²⁶

The Japanese have an equally long tradition of burying their dead (the corpses of nobility often were left in mountain caves, a custom also practiced by Old Testament Jews). The Buddhist priest Dosho (628–700 CE) is said to have been the first person cremated in Japan. The practice subsequently spread with the embrace of Buddhism, particularly
Jodo-shinshu
, which held that prompt dissolution of the body facilitated transmigration and rebirth. Although the embrace of Confucianism by Japanese elites during the Edo Period (1603–1867) led to a prohibition on cremation among commoners, the practice quickly became the norm once the prohibition was lifted in the late nineteenth century.
²⁷

Today close to 95 percent of Japanese dead are cremated.
²⁸
Most families, nevertheless, have “grave” sites, where a portion of the cremated remains may be interred. As noted earlier (see 1 above), what Frois never mentions is that there is a device common to most of the Far East but not found in the West by which the dead and the living may be consoled without going all the way to the cemetery: a fine wooden shrine, usually about the size of a bathroom medicine cabinet, with doors that swing open in front. Inside there is a place for a picture or, nowadays, photograph of the deceased, as well as shelves in front where one can burn incense and place offerings and flowers. It often holds a small urn with some of the aforementioned remains, generally including the
nodobotoke
, a bone called literally the “throat-Buddha,” which we know as the Adam's apple. Often this warm custom ignorantly has been portrayed as “ancestor worship.”

23. We keep our images and printed sayings within our chambers; the Japanese nail them up outside their doors, facing the street
.

Homes in Europe and the United States still display religious images such as the Last Supper or placards bearing “God Bless this Home.” Europeans also once placed gargoyles, crosses, and other Christian and pagan symbols on the outside of homes, churches, and castles to ward off evil spirits.

The Japanese, perhaps like most people, concentrated their efforts on keeping out the bad and bringing in the good. Thus, gates, doors, and doorframes were and are the most common places to post images and sayings. In 1690 Kaempfer observed many of these protective devices, which were printed on a half-sheet of paper:

The most common is the black-horn'd [sic]Giwon … the Ox-headed Prince of Heaven, whom they believe to have the power of keeping the family from distempers, and other unlucky accidents, particularly from the Sekbio, or Smallpox, which proves fatal to great numbers of their children. (Fig.99.). Others fancy they thrive extreamly [sic] well, and live happy, under the protection of
a countryman of Jeso, whose monstrous frightful picture they paste upon their doors, being hairy all over his body, and carrying a large sword with both hands, which they believe he makes use of to keep off, and as it were to parry all sorts of distempers and misfortunes, endeavoring to get into the house. On the fronts of the new and pretty houses, I have sometimes seen Dragons, or Devil's heads painted with a wide open mouth, large teeth and fiery eyes.
²⁹

24. Among us, following a funeral the relatives of the deceased withdraw into the privacy of their home; in Japan, they give a banquet for the bonzes and everyone else who attended the burial
.

In
Chapter 4
(
#36
) Frois makes it seem like the food at these funerals was all for the bonzes. That is not the case, as there were/are many guests other than the
bonze
(or
bonzes
). Today in Europe and America it is not at all uncommon to follow a funeral, particularly for someone who has lived a full life, with a “party” where relatives and friends of the deceased eat, drink, and are respectfully merry. Such funeral banquets have a long history dating back to the Middle Ages; they provide a symbolic way of reconstituting a community that had been fragmented by death.
³⁰

While the Japanese do not practice complete seclusion and find the laying in period and funeral a good time to see old friends and receive their condolences, there was and still is a type of limited seclusion called
mo
, or mourning. It is virtually universal for the bereaved to refrain from marrying and from exchanging the customary greeting cards or visits on the following New Year; they send out a special card ahead of time asking others not to send them greetings.

25. Among us, someone who turns away from the faith is considered a heretic
³¹
and an apostate; in Japan they change from one sect to another whenever they want, without any infamy
.

Today one might suggest that the Japanese side of this distich bespeaks the greater religious tolerance of the Japanese as compared with European Christians. Here, as elsewhere (see
Chapter 4
,
#13
,
#24
), Frois chose to cast the Buddhist “search for truth” as unprincipled eclecticism.

26. Our baptism is rich in ceremonies and solemnities; in Japan it suffices to place a book on the head of the person in order for him to become a member of that sect
.

Frois is seemingly referring to the public part of the first step to becoming a
bonze
(there is more going on in private that Frois ignores, including long hours of meditation and mastery of sutras). Rather than the novice simply putting a
book on his head, the novice lifts a book containing the cherished sutras of the sect over and slightly in front of the head, as if offering something to a superior or receiving something from the same, thus showing reverence for the teachings of the sect.

27. We beseech one single God Almighty for the blessings of this life and the next; the Japanese beseech the kamis
³²
for earthly blessings and the fotoques
³³
for salvation only
.

Frois ignores the fact that Catholics beseeched innumerable saints, particularly Mary, for favors in this life and the next. Technically, that is according to Catholic theology, the saints had no power other than access to God Almighty. Arguably, many Catholics lost sight of this fact when they established a special relationship with Mary, Saint Ann, Saint Sebastian, Saint Roque, etc.

In Japan, the native religion (Shinto) and the imported religion (Buddhism) managed to retain separate niches: gods for this life and gods for the next, respectively. When Buddhism first came to Japan, there was considerable friction, as rulers who favored different belief systems argued over the merits of each and their respective efficacy or responsibility for epidemics and other natural disasters. In the end, “live and let live” won out and there was some amalgamation and a division of interests (call it specialization). The introduction and spread of Christianity in Europe during the early Middle Ages also entailed accommodation with paganism (hence the Christmas tree),
³⁴
although the Church as an institution never has been comfortable with this reality and on occasion (e.g. the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) has violently sought to “purge” itself of paganism.