[38] “All military men, the servants of the Shōgun, and persons holding civil offices under the government, are bound, when they have committed any crime, to rip themselves up, but not till they have received an order from the court to that effect; for, if they were to anticipate this order, their heirs would run the risk of being deprived of their places and property. For this reason all the officers of government are provided, in addition to their usual dress, and that which they put on in the case of fire, with a suit necessary on such occasions, which they carry with them whenever they travel from home. It consists of a white robe and a habit of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, and without armorial bearings.
“As soon as the order of the court has been communicated to the culprit, he invites his intimate friends for the appointed day, and regales them with sake. After they have drank together some time, he takes leave of them, and the order of the court is then read to him once more. The person who performs the principal part of this tragic scene then addresses a speech or compliment to the company, after which he inclines his head towards the floor, draws his sabre, and cuts himself with it across the belly, penetrating to the bowels. One of his confidential servants, who takes his place behind him, then strikes off his head. Such as wish to display superior courage, after the cross-cut, inflict a second longitudinally, and then a third in the throat. No disgrace attaches to such a death, and the son succeeds to his father’s place.
“When a person is conscious of having committed some crime, and apprehensive of being thereby disgraced, he puts an end to his own life, to spare his family the ruinous consequences of judicial proceedings. This practice is so common that scarcely any notice is taken of such an event. The sons of all persons of quality exercise themselves in their youth, for five or six years, with a view that they may perform the operation, in case of need, with gracefulness and dexterity; and they take as much pains to acquire this accomplishment, as youth among us to become elegant dancers or skilful horsemen; hence the profound contempt of death which they imbibe in their earliest years. This disregard of death, which they prefer to the slightest disgrace, extends to the very lowest classes among the Japanese.”—Titsingh, “Illustrations of Japan,” p. 147.
[39] His family name was Ōtomo, and his given name was Yoshishige.—Edr.
[40] Pinto gives a long account of this dispute, which has been substantially adopted by Lucina, the Portuguese biographer of Xavier, whose life of the saint was published in 1600, and who, in composing it, had the use of Pinto’s yet unpublished manuscript. Tursellini’s Latin biography of Xavier was published at Rome and Antwerp, 1596. From these was compiled the French life, by Bouhours, which our Dryden translated. Tursellini published also four books of Xavier’s epistles, translated into Latin. Eight books of new epistles afterwards appeared. Charlevoix remarks of them, “that they are memoirs, of which it is not allowable to question the sincerity, but which furnish very little for history, which was not the writer’s object.” They are chiefly homilies.
[41] See Satow’s paper in vol. vii of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.
[42] For some further remarks on Pinto and his book, see Appendix, Note D.
[43] Of Father de Torres we have four letters rendered into Latin, and of Vilela, in the same collections, seven, giving, among other things, a pretty full account of his visit to and residence at Miyako. For the description, however, of that capital, and the road to it, I prefer to rely on lay travellers, of whose observations, during a series of visits extending through more than two centuries, a full abstract will be found in subsequent chapters.
[44] The following passage, from Titsingh’s “Memoirs of the Shōguns,” may serve to shed some light upon the civil war raging in Japan when first visited by the Portuguese, and which continued down to the time of Nobunaga: “Takauji was of the family of Yoshiiye, who was descended from Seiwa-tennō, the fifty-sixth Dairi. He divided the supreme power between his two sons, Yoshi-nori and Motouji, giving to each the government of thirty-three provinces. The latter, who ruled over the eastern part, was styled Kamakura-no-Shōgun, and kept his court at Kamakura, in the province of Sagami. Yoshi-nori, to whom were allotted the western provinces, resided at Miyako, with the title of Fuku-Shōgun.
“Takauji, in dividing the empire between his two sons, was influenced by the expectation that, in case either of them should be attacked, his brother would afford him assistance. This partition, on the contrary, only served to arm them one against the other; the country was involved in continual war, and the princes, though brothers, were engaged in frequent hostilities, which terminated only with the destruction of the branch of Miyako.”