Japanese Plays and Playfellows

by Osman Edwards

Personators of Jizō (Kiōgen).

That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and clatter of small feet below my balcony. Crowds of children, on foot or slung behind the patient backs of mother or elder sister, were making their way to the large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond and below the southern entrance of the hotel. It being holiday time, I had never seen any of the scholars, and the sole occupant of the spacious play-ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of Jizō in a red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint (nure-botoke), as the Japanese laughingly call such unhoused divinities, had always excited my sympathy, for there he stood without his five companions’ society, exposed to rain and wind, disregarded even by the very infants whose patron saint he is considered to be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones would be glad enough, on reaching the dry bed of the River of Souls, to seek refuge in his large kimono sleeves, when mischievous demons should demolish the pebble-heaps which it would be their duty to pile up there as the penalty of childish faults. But perhaps they were too busy playing to remember him during the holidays, or perhaps they had unbelieving teachers who connived at their neglect. I indulged a faint hope that public expiation was to be made, and that the toddling crowd would lay some tribute on his faithful lap. But its destination was a temple situated below the school-house, and as it swept merrily by grotesque, deserted Jizō I fancied that the stone features grew more rigid and grey beneath the cotton night-cap, his consolatory proof of at least one worshipper.

Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed the rest to a small temple, which was surrounded by women and children. On a raised platform, which formed the temple-floor, about a dozen priests, resplendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The babies were gazing open-eyed on the bright embroideries of instruments and vestments, while as many people as could be accommodated were allowed to occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. Among them a place was obligingly made for me, and soon after I had taken my seat the priests also sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and watched the crowds making prostration, buying holy knick-knacks, and flinging copper coins into the broad-barred money-boxes, but this was the first sermon I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting to the theme, “Mina sekai no hito kiodai”—all beings in the universe are brothers—the orator spoke long and earnestly of the unseen ties which bind the living and the dead, of the infinite chords and scales of existence, of the love and goodwill which no creature was too humble to show or too lofty to accept. Sometimes an old man groaned, and sometimes an urchin was removed screaming, but most of the listeners remained passive and stolid till the end. Then babies were hoisted, farewell bows were exchanged, and the congregation melted away. If you ask me why so many children were present, I can only suppose that they were attracted by the excitement of novelty. There was none of the bustle and glare which make a matsuri, the ordinary temple fête, one glorious saturnalia of piety and merriment, when theatres and booths, covered with wonderful paper toys and every known variety of sweetmeat, block the approaches to the sacred building. In this the Buddhists greatly outshine their more austere Shintōist rivals. Probably nine-tenths of the peasants are in agreement with an old man with whom I conversed after an impressive service at Hommonji, the chief temple of the Nichiren sect. As we descended the temple-steps I asked him why he preferred Buddhism to other forms of faith. “Because,” he answered, “it is more amusing.”

I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar rocking sensation, as if my bed were a cradle swung to and fro by invisible hands. Then I saw the obbasan, an old woman who waited on the European guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the verandah. It dawned on me that this must be a long-hoped-for earthquake, and as the vibrations ceased after some seconds, which naturally seemed of unusual length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say that the fear of earthquake, unlike the fear of other dangers, is increased rather than lessened by experience. Certainly the Japanese themselves, in spite of their fatalism, realise to the full the terrible penalty of inhabiting a land of volcanoes. That day little else was talked of. Two little girls, who had been adopted by Kindayu San after losing their parents in the great shock, followed by a tidal wave, some years before, became objects of particular attention. Now, Ikao is perched on the flank of a volcano, and the site of an extinct crater is occupied by the beautiful Haruna Lake, which I had not yet visited, so gladly I accepted the proposal of Nitobe San to walk there. I had made his acquaintance a few days previously on the archery-ground, adjoining the hotel, where he displayed remarkable skill in handling the unwieldy bow which is still a popular and effective weapon in the hands of Japanese archers. Indeed, he was only surpassed by a samurai of about fifty, who hit the bull’s-eye four times out of five. Yet his appearance was far more studious than athletic, for Nitobe San attended the medical school at the University of Tōkyō, and when he pored over German text-books through gold-rimmed spectacles had already the reassuring gravity of a family doctor.

Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, instead of continuing to the source of the mineral spring, we ascended a steep and tortuous path to the right, which at every turn disclosed new aspects of the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop to gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like golden stars in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except where the carefully kept track wound in and out, the mountain side was swathed in evergreen. Issuing at length from the trees, we reached a grassy plateau, on which is the grazing ground of the milch-cows that supply Ikao. To the left is a curious conical hill, known as the Haruna Fuji; and other masses of irregular rock are partially covered with lichen, so as to produce the effect of ruined castles half hidden by clambering ivy. Indeed, my first impression was that these were relics of feudal fortresses, until closer inspection revealed the freakish cleverness of Nature. Two miles of level walking brought us to the lake, which is simply a large tarn surrounded by small bosom-shaped hillocks at such regular intervals as to repeat the irresistible suggestion of human ingenuity. It might have been a giant’s silver shield embossed upon the border with knobs of jade.

Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for hot sun and loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and ear. After lunch I took a bathe from the only boat to be obtained, though its crazy, water-logged condition left much to be desired. However, the boatman did his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft, and, as I undressed, hung each garment in succession round his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, as they otherwise certainly would have been. Much refreshed, I persuaded my companion to extend our walk to the ancient Shintō temple of Haruna, not more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes too narrow and precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges suddenly into a curiously imagined glen. Never had I seen such bizarre configuration, such eccentric juxtaposition of tree and stone. Pines darted like dragons from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a thicket, or lowered savagely across the torrent, which raced or trickled below. It seemed as though the spirits of water and wood and fire had suddenly been petrified at the supreme moment of a great triangular battle, and waited, weapon in hand, to spring once more each at his adversary’s throat. Evidently the old temple, dedicated to Ho-musubi, the god of fire, and Haniyasu-hime, the goddess of earth, was the citadel, defended and attacked by these weird combatants. Towering cryptomeria stood on guard around it, and huge rocks, tip-toe on tenuous bases, attended the word of command to crush the curving rafters. It needed but one signal from the imprisoned fire-god, one movement of the volcanic earth-goddess, to fill that fantastic glen with the clamour and débris of primæval war. Elsewhere we might have admired the carven serpents, that writhed so realistically about the side-beams of the porch. At Nikkō or the Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyōto they might have impressed us as masterpieces of creative carpentry, but at Haruna the comparison was too trying. It was hopeless to compete with God’s more monstrous curios.

Here at last was a Shintō stronghold which did not seem abandoned and desolate, but bore traces of frequent worshippers. Above the sacred cisterns waved blue towels, suspended after purification; at the feet of a Shintōised Jizō rose a mound of propitiatory stones; on the kagura-dō, or dancing platform, an old woman, the priest’s wife, began her symbolic dance. As she slowly revolved, shaking her bunch of bells or waving her fan, she chanted words so venerable that all clue to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly the solemn contortions of a dying faith than the smart young priestesses of Nara in their red silk trousers and snowy mantles of flowered gauze. When those tripped forward, with thickly-powdered faces and chaplets of artificial wistaria, their garish aspect transformed the temple to a tea-house, but in this sombre fastness at the heart of Haruna we seemed to behold a very sibyl of aboriginal Japan. The assistant priest was affable but ignorant. A copy of the “Kojiki,” earliest of known records of the Way of the Gods, was kept there, he affirmed, but he had never opened it and might not show it to strangers. In winter it was terribly cold, and snow-storms would sometimes cut them off from all communication with the outer world. When floods made the torrent impassable the senior kannushi’s children were obliged to do their lessons at home. But summer brought troops of pilgrims to the valley, and their offerings sufficed to keep the little band of guardians at their posts. “Are you never afraid,” I asked, “of the earth opening and the rocks falling? Only this morning we felt a slight shock of earthquake at Ikao.” The young priest smiled gravely. “No,” he answered. “For more than five hundred years the kami have protected their holy place. Why should we be afraid?”

We made a small donation, and received in exchange a printed promise of Ho-musubi’s and Haniyasu-hime’s blessing, to which our names were appended. Then, turning our backs on that grim sanctuary, we climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we retraversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San described the student’s life at Tōkyō. Between 1890 and 1898 their numbers had increased from thirteen to nearly nineteen hundred, so that a second university was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyōto. But of course the Red Gate (as the Tōkyō University is familiarly called) would remain the classic portal of modern learning. The college of medicine, in which his own studies were pursued, is entirely under German influence: none but German and Japanese professors give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engineering, literature, science, and agriculture, English teachers predominate. Most of the students work desperately hard, but enjoy great liberty. The majority are poor, and some have very rough manners. The Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief of Police, who had been summoned to receive orders to repress anti-foreign demonstrations, that “the offenders were invariably either rickshaw-men or students.” Their life is far more gregarious than that of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the small block of residential buildings within the university grounds six or eight young men read, eat, and sleep in one room. These are a privileged minority of scholarship-winners, and are subjected to rather irksome restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. But the larger number live in lodging-houses, where practically no more control is exercised than over any other class of citizens. Competition is so severe that posts cannot be found for any but a small fraction of the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists who hope to make a living in those professions. In consequence the disappointed graduates turn sōshi and live by their wits as spies, agitators, actors, authors, or even as itinerant musicians. Naturally, extreme views are adopted and discussed with the fervour of youth. The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western innovations, Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the substitution of Roman characters for Chinese ideographs. In vain I pointed out to him how the latter blocked the pupil’s advance and impeded international intercourse. He feared that such a step would not only tend to destroy communion with the past, but would also diminish the probability of that alliance between China and Japan which was cherished as the only means of checking Russian aggression. I formed the conclusion from this and other conversations that the salient qualities of a Japanese student are independence and passionate curiosity. It did not surprise me to learn afterwards from an English professor that his classes had summaries of his lectures printed at their own expense to facilitate the acquisition of new ideas in a foreign tongue.

While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton hakama (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation—a joy too subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters.