The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (27 page)

4
  This seems to have been particularly true of parish priests and more senior members of the ecclesiastical Church. Marcelin Defourneaux,
Daily Life in Spain In the Golden Age
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), 109; A.R. Disney,
A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 158–160.

5
  Luiz Mott, “My Pretty Boy: Love Letters from a Sodomite Friar, Lisbon (1690).” In
Pelo Vaso Traseiro
, eds. Harold Johnson and Francis Dutra, pp. 231–262 (Tucson: Fenestra Press, 2008); John Boswell,
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 187.

6
  Federico Garza Carvajal,
Butterflies Will Burn
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003).

7
  Tsuneo Watanabe,
The Love of the Samurai: a Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality
, trans. D.R. Roberts (London: Gay Men's Press, 1989).

8
  Francesco Carletti,
My Voyage Around the World
, trans. Herbert Weinstock (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964[1610]), 173.

9
  See, for example, Natalie Zeamon Davis,
The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 25.

10
  Sei Shônagon,
The Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon
, trans. Ivan Morris (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991[1000]), 53.

11
  Ignatius Loyola understood this problem and thus the Jesuit “formula” (founding rules of the order) mandated that Jesuits
not
accept ecclesiastical appointments. The rule, however, at times was broken, inasmuch as the Jesuits found it difficult to deny requests from kings and other powerful leaders who asked them to accept ecclesiastical positions that came with titles and honors.

12
  The word
Negoro (
not
Nengoro)
might have sometimes been used by the Japanese to refer to the monks of said place, but it is not, strictly speaking, correct.

13
  Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal
, 223.

14
  C.R. Boxer,
The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951); see also Josef Franz Schütte,
Valignano's Mission Principles for Japan 1573–1582
. Vol. I, Part II, trans. J. Coyne (St. Louis: Institute for Jesuit Sources, 1985), 168, 304.

15
  Boxer,
The Christian Century in Japan, 70–71
.

16
  Henry James Coleridge,
The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier
. 2 vols. (London: Burns and Oates, 1881), II, 340.

17
  
Tonos
.

18
  
Buriaqos
, or strategists, derived from
buryaku
, or strategy.

19
  Boxer,
The Christian Century in Japan
.

20
  Dauril Alden,
The Making of an Enterprise, The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond 1540–1750
(Stanford University Press, 1996).

21
  Akio Okada, trans. and ed.,
Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka
[European Culture and Japanese Culture] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965).

22
  Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal
, 176–177.

23
  Andrew C. Ross,
A Vision Betrayed
(New York: Orbis Books, 1994), 33.

24
  Coleridge,
The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier
, II, 339–340.

25
  The frequency of shaving actually depended on the particular sect of Buddhism.

26
  Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal
, 223.

27
  Olivia Remie Constable,
Medieval Iberia
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 288–292; see also distich 36.

28
  Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal
, 28.

29
  
Matsuo Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Other Travel Sketches
, trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa (New York: Penguin Books, 1966[1684–94]), 54.

30
  
Cartas que os Padres e Irmãos da Companhia de Iesus Escreuerão dos Reynos de Iapão & China aos da Mesma Companhia da India & Europa, des do Anno de 1549 Até o de 1580
. 2 Vols. Facsimile edition by José Manuel Garcia (Maia: Castoliva Editora, 1997), I, 171v.

31
  
Zen-shu
, or the Zen school was one of the three main schools of Buddhism in Japan. Perhaps the most salient difference among the three schools centers around how to realize enlightenment. Whereas Zen held fast to the traditional Buddhist emphasis on meditation, the Pure Land and Nicheren schools argued that this path (and others more esoteric) were unrealistic. The only real hope for salvation rested with Amida Buddha and his promise of saving any and all who placed their trust in Him. Yoshiro Tamura,
Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History
(Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 2001); Kazuo Kasahara,
A History of Japanese Religion
(Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 2002).

32
  Luís Fróis,
Historia de Japam
, ed. José Wicki, S.J. 5 vols. (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, 1976–1984[1597].

33
  Cooper,
They Came to Japan
, 23. Rodrigues went on to say that Zen was so much “hypocrisy,” but one wonders, given his frequently expressed cultural relativism, whether he wrote this to please superiors.

34
  For instance, thousands of Protestants and Catholics died during the “Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre” in August of 1572. Luc Racaut,
Hatred in Print
(Burlington: Ashgate, 2002).

35
  A contemporary dictionary indicates that there were traditionally thirteen sects in China and eight in Japan. However, the number eight suggests “many” in Japanese.

36
  Englebert Kaempfer,
The History of Japan, Together With a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–92
. 3 Vols. (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906[1690–92]), II, 60–62.

37
  Cooper,
They Came to Japan
, 340.

38
  In addition to Emma, there also were horrifying demons that served to ward off evil spirits or guard this or that Buddhist treasure. Perhaps the closest Christian equivalent is the cynocephali St. Christopher, whose beastly powers were enlisted on behalf of his new religion. Most sects did not make a big deal of these demons; only the
Konpira
sect centered on images of the powerful
tengu
goblin. Like St. Christopher, he was the patron “saint” of travelers and, most of all, seafarers.

39
  Okada,
Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka
, 76.

40
  One of the first Jesuits to be canonized as a saint was Luis Gonzaga, who gave his life in 1594 caring for the sick during an epidemic in Spain.

41
  Okada,
Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka
, 77.

42
  
Koromo =
robe, in this case, a religious habit or priestly garment.

43
  Carlos M.N. Eire,
From Madrid to Purgatory, The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

44
  
Hokekyo
is the short title of the Lotus Sutra.

45
  As noted, Frois devoted almost a year to studying The Lotus Sutra of the Pure Land and Nichiren sects.

46
  Anonymous,
Lazarillo de Tormes
, trans. Stanley Applebaum (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2001 [1554]), 33.

47
  See Hikaru Suzuki, ed.,
Death and Dying in Contemporary Japan
(London: Routledge, 2013).

48
  New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897, 139.

49
  Marques,
Daily Life in Portugal
, 222–223.

50
  
Isei
= authority.

51
  J.S. Cummins,
Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish Expansion to the East
(London: Variorum, 1986).

52
  Italian and Iberian theologians and inquisitors attributed most acts of sorcery or witchcraft to ignorance or superstition, rather than a rational, conscious decision to enter into a pact with Satan.

53
  
Cartas de Japáo & China
, II, 85v–88v; See also Cooper,
They Came to Japan
, 324

54
  Ibid., 319.

55
  Mastic here refers to a transparent resin that is pale yellow to green in color.

56
  Bruce Trigger,
Understanding Early Civilizations
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 88–89.

57
  See Cooper,
They Came to Japan
, 363–366.

58
  Robin D. Gill,
Fly-ku!
(Key Biscayne, FL: Paraverse Press, 2004), 41.

5   Concerning [Buddhist] temples, images and things pertaining to the practice of their religion

1. Our churches are long and narrow; temples in Japan are broad and shallow
.
¹

Frois' perspective is from the front of the building. When you enter a church you essentially enter a long hall with an altar at the end. Here the most important Catholic belief—that God became man—is celebrated during mass. Catholicism is very much a religion centered on sacraments (i.e. baptism, confession, communion, marriage) that take place in a church. The altar in a Catholic church is not just a stage of sorts; it is understood as a sacred space by virtue of a holy relic within the altar and the consecrated host, which is kept secure in a tabernacle.
²

Isabella Bird, who visited Japan during the mid-nineteenth century, offered one of the best summary descriptions of Buddhist temples:

Writing generally, it may be said that in design, roof, and general aspect, Japanese Buddhist temples are all alike … There is a single or double-roofed gateway, with highly coloured figures in niches on either side; the paved temple-court, with more or fewer stone or bronze lanterns;
amainu
, or heavenly dogs, in stone on stone pedestals; stone sarcophagi, roofed over or not, for holy water; a flight of steps, a portico, continued as a verandah all around the temple; a roof of tremendously disproportionate size and weight, with a peculiar curve; a square or oblong hall divided by a railing from a “chancel” with a high and low altar, and a shrine containing Buddha, or the divinity to whom the chapel is dedicated; an incense burner, and a few ecclesiastical ornaments … Some temples are packed full of gods, shrines, banners,
bronzes, brasses, tablets, and ornaments, and others, like those of the Monto sect,
³
are so severely simple, that with scarcely an alteration they might be used for Christian worship to-morrow.
⁴

Japanese Buddhists do not go to temple for regular services or sacraments the way Catholics attend church. In Frois' time, they went mostly for the anniversaries of Buddha's death, the sect founder's death, or the recent death of a relative (hence the often-repeated truism about Japanese religion: Buddhism is for dying, Shinto is about living).
⁵
During funeral services, the head priest does not face the congregation, but sits closest to and faces the honzon—statue of the Buddha.
⁶
Behind him sit fellow priests, with the mourning family in a row behind them, and relatives in a row behind them, and so forth.

Despite widespread agnosticism in Japan today, seemingly every Japanese family has an altar in their home that serves “religious” purposes.
⁷
These altars often consist of a small cabinet with images of deceased relatives, the Buddha, or any item or icon (e.g. a dried flower) that facilitates contemplation. The altars provide a focal point for Shinto reflection, Confucian ancestor reverence, and/or Buddhist prayer. The popularity of these altars and a lack of temple-centered sacraments such as confession or communion explain in part why the Japanese do not go to temples regularly the way Christians go to church. Following the expulsion of Christians from Japan during the early seventeenth century, the Tokugawa rulers made owning an altar mandatory. This also contributed to the embrace of altars.

Note that while the Jesuits under Valignano embraced Japanese architectural styles for Jesuit residences and schools, Valignano warned against constructing Catholic churches that might resemble a “devil's temple.”

2. Our churches have choir lofts with pews or chairs to sit on; the bonzes pray before their altars seated on tatami
.

As we have seen, the Japanese attach great significance to the relative heights of people and things. Thus, even if Japanese Buddhists had a choir, its members would not be seated above the altar and the abbot.
⁸

3. We put our books on a bookstand so that everyone can sing together; each bonze has a little stool in front of him with his own book
.

Perhaps this reflects the difference between the private devotion that seems to be at the heart of Buddhism and Christian rites and rituals that emphasize community, such as communion, where Christians share the body of Christ. In fact, despite an occasional small bell being struck, Japanese chanters are usually out of synch with each other, as chanters freely pause to catch their breath. Be that as it may, it is more likely that the difference stems from the fact that there was more and cheaper printed matter in Japan than in Europe. It may also derive from the Japanese practice of sitting: It is easy to share a book while standing (as Europeans usually do when singing), but it is clumsy when sitting cross-legged.

4. Our books are made by folding the pages and they are closed with a clasp; the bonzes' books are rolled up and tied with a ribbon
.

“Our books” presumably refer to Holy Scripture and the works of the Latin Church Fathers, which often were bound in leather volumes that had hinged metal clasps to guard the contents from unauthorized readers as well as silverfish, the wingless insect that eats paper and the glue in book bindings. Much to the consternation of Martin Luther and other reformers, the Church insisted that only clergy were properly trained to read and interpret the Bible or the Latin texts of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other Christian theologians.