Matsue

“ When Matsue's parents died her loss only seemed to make her love Teoyo the more. The older they grew the more they loved each other. Every night, when the moon shone, they went hand in hand to the pine-tree, and with their little rakes they made a couch for the morrow.
One night the great silver face of the moon peered through the branches of the pine-tree and looked in vain for the old lovers sitting together on a couch of pine-needles. Their little rakes lay side by side, and still the moon waited for the slow and stumbling steps of the Pine-Tree Lovers. But that night they did not come. ”

“ A deep male chant is heard, and the women respond. Many songs follow, until the night is waning. Then this seeming witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and soft chatting all disperse.
Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city of the Province of the Gods, where he gathers legends and impressions. Of course it has its temples. The temple is the best place to see the life of the people. There it is that the children play all day long. In the summer evening, the young artisans and labourers prove their strength in wrestling-matches. ”

“ In Matsue there is a little newspaper of which I must send you a copy as a curiosity. Every week or two there is an article in it about me. For “the foreigner’s” every act is a subject for comment. There is no such thing in Japan as privacy. There are no secrets. Every earthly thing a man does is known to everybody, and life is extravagantly, astoundingly frank. The moral effect is, in my opinion, extremely good,—though the missionaries, who lie hard about this country, say the reverse. ”

“ I leave Matsue for Kitzuki early in the afternoon of a beautiful September day; taking passage upon a tiny steamer in which everything, from engines to awnings, is Lilliputian. In the cabin one must kneel. Under the awnings one cannot possibly stand upright. But the miniature craft is neat and pretty as a toy model, and moves with surprising swiftness and steadiness. A handsome naked boy is busy serving the passengers with cups of tea and with cakes, and setting little charcoal furnaces before those who desire to smoke: for all of which a payment of about three-quarters of a cent is expected. ”

“ Although not subjected to persecution, a native Christian hardly ever remains in his birthplace. The Matsuë converts whom we met had come from Hiroshima, Ōsaka, and other spots. Some estimate of the progress of Western religion among Matsuë merchants may be based on the proportion of believers in the middle school, to which all the boys of the better classes are sent. Out of about five hundred boys and sixty masters, two boys and one master profess Christianity.
Etiquette is luckily assimilated to foreign custom among Japanese Christians. ”

“ The registry people said that as the parties came from Matsue, Izumo, they would only make the statement of the marriage by Matsue authority,—and that I had better write to Matsue. But at the same time, they said words to this effect: “The law is difficult for you. If you wish the boy to remain a Japanese citizen, you must register him in the mother’s name only. If you register him in the father’s name, he becomes a foreigner.” ”

“ Some of the old samurai of Matsue are living in the Oki Islands. When the great military caste was disestablished, a few shrewd men decided to try their fortunes in the little archipelago, where customs remained old-fashioned and lands were cheap. Several succeeded—probably because of the whole-souled honesty and simplicity of manners in the islands; for samurai have seldom elsewhere been able to succeed in business of any sort when obliged to compete with experienced traders, Others failed, but were able to adopt various humble occupations which gave them the means to live. ”

“ The koya-no-mono are slaughterers and dealers in hides. They are never allowed to enter any house in Matsue except the shop of a dealer in geta and other footgear. Originally vagrants, they were permanently settled in Matsue by some famous daimyo, who built for them small houses—koya—on the bank of the canal. ”

“ Old beliefs handed down from century to century, old temples sanctified for generations, old emotions that had moulded the life of the people, had for him supreme attraction. When he arrived at Matsue and found an Arcadian state of things, a happy, contented, industrious people, and an [Pg 143] artistic development of a remarkable kind, the girl he married, also, Setsu Koizumi, having been brought up in the tenets of the ancient faith, it was a foregone conclusion that he should endeavour to harmonise Shintoism and Buddhism with the philosophy propounded by his high-priest, Herbert Spencer. ”

“ Now, at Matsue, after a touch of somewhat severe illness obliging him to pass some weeks in bed, it became really a matter of life or death that he should give up living from hand to mouth in country inns.
With the Japanese teacher of English at the Matsue College, an accomplished English scholar, Hearn had formed a close intimacy from the moment of his arrival, [Pg 181] an intimacy, indeed, only broken by Nishida Sentaro's death in 1898. ”

“ Nearly all are from temples in Matsue or its vicinity; and the Buddhist ones indicate by the sacred words upon them to what particular shu or sect, the family belong—for nearly every soul in this community professes some form of Buddhism as well as the all-dominant and more ancient faith of Shinto. And even one quite ignorant of Japanese ideographs can nearly always distinguish at a glance the formula of the great Nichiren sect from the peculiar appearance of the column of characters composing it, all bristling with long sharp points and banneret zigzags, like an army ”

“ One day, while Matsue was sitting under the pine-tree, she sang the following song:
"No man so callous but he heaves a sigh
When o'er his head the withered cherry flowers
Come fluttering down. Who knows? the Spring's soft showers
May be but tears shed by the sorrowing sky."
While she thus sang Teoyo stood on the steep shore of Sumiyoshi watching the flight of a heron. Up, up [Pg 188] it went into the blue sky, and Teoyo saw it fly over the village where the fisherfolk and their daughter lived. ”

“ Not one has addressed to me a single ungenerous word. As a teacher of more than five hundred boys and men I have never even had my patience tried.”
There were presents from the teachers, of splendid old porcelains, of an ancient and valuable sword from the students, of mementos from every one. A banquet was given, addresses made, the Government officials and hundreds of friends came to bid him good-bye at the docks, and thus closed the most beautiful episode of his life.
Matsue was old Japan. Kumamoto represented the far less pleasing Japan in the stage of transition. ”

“ Children cried for fear on seeing them pass through the streets. And in remoter districts, Japanese children are still apt to cry at the first sight of a European or American face.
A lady of Matsue related in my presence this curious souvenir of her childhood: 'When I was a very little girl,' she said, our daimyo hired a foreigner to teach the military art. My father and a great many samurai went to receive the foreigner; and all the people lined the streets to see—for no foreigner had ever come to Izumo before ”

“ There is a tradition that these cannot be carried away beyond a certain distance; for 'tis recorded that when a daimyo named Matsudaira ordered one of them to be conveyed to his castle at Matsue, the stone made itself so heavy that a thousand men could not move it farther than the Ohashi bridge. So it was abandoned before the bridge; and it lies there imbedded in the soil even unto this day.
All about Oba you may see many sekirei or wagtails-birds sacred to Izanami and Izanagi—for a legend says that from the sekirei the gods first learned the art of love. ”

“ THE SHADOW OF A TO-MORROW Nikko's thin street, with its gigantic isle of cryptomeria, was a shimmer of gold, a flicker of crimson and mandarin-blue. All the town was out of doors, for it was the matsuri, the local festival of Ieyasu, the great shogun deity, when the ancient furniture and treasures of the temple are carried in priestly processional through the streets. The path of the pageant was lined with spectators: old country-women with shaven eyebrows and burnished, blackened teeth, and with hair tightly plastered in old-fashioned wheels and pinions ”

“ When other entertainment fails, there is always a matsuri. This is a great holiday institution among the lower and middle classes—a fair held in the streets or in the open spaces about a temple—for, like the drama, the matsuri traces its origin to a religious rite. The most popular of these fairs is held near the great Buddhist temple known as Asakusa Kwannon. The long street leading to this temple is very gay with the shops on either side filled with wonderful toys. ”

“ We were met on our arrival by a crowd of Matsuo’s relatives, all in ceremonial dress, for we had brought the sacred ashes with us; and from then until the forty-nine days of ceremonies for the dead were over, I was treated as an honoured messenger-guest. After that my position was very humble, for a son’s widow is an unimportant person in Japan, and, virtually, that is what I was, Matsuo having been, until he decided to remain in America, the adopted son of Uncle Otani. ”

“ Japan would be emptied completely of her men. Now was the time, if ever, to draw patrons to the house, since the departing soldiers celebrated their going at the most popular geisha-houses. Only the fact that the House of Slender Pines was some distance away among the hills kept the soldiers from patronizing it in preference to those in the city of Kioto. But, could Matsuda venture down below, proclaiming the fact of the return of the Spider, ah, then indeed he might be assured of customers for a time at least! ”

“ This unvaried good temper is itself annoying, when the foreigner feels that it is not the result of sympathy, but because he is regarded as a strange animal, not to be judged by the rules which govern the conduct of civilized people. At last Matsuba told me that he had found a place, “top side,” with plenty of azaleas, and rooms where I could stay. It was a small Buddhist temple called Tennenji, once very popular but now almost deserted, which stood on the hill-side beyond the rice lands, and somewhat above the swarms of mosquitoes which haunt the marshy shores and the lagoons of Lake Biwa. ”

“ Kneeling on the mats before the two men, he placed his ghastly burden before them.
"There was no alternative, so I was forced to behead the young lord. May Heaven forgive me! As it is a matter of such importance that there should be no mistake—please examine it carefully."
With these words, Takebe's hand stealthily fell upon his sword-hilt. Every fibre was on the alert to cut down Matsuo the moment he realized the deception that had been practised on him. ”

“ They, being born, must die. And being born, are dead. And being dead, are glad to be at rest.'
CHAPTER FIVE Two Strange Festivals THE outward signs of any Japanese matsuri are the most puzzling of enigmas to the stranger who sees them for the first time. They are many and varied; they are quite unlike anything in the way of holiday decoration ever seen in the Occident; they have each a meaning founded upon some belief or some tradition—a meaning known to every Japanese child; but that meaning is utterly impossible for any foreigner to guess. ”

“ The following drama, one of the most popular in Japanese literature, tells the story of one heroic incident in the scattering of the Sugawara family, and of the rescue of Lady Sugawara, and the loyalty of Matsuo and O Chiyo, his wife, vassals of the Sugawara.
Matsuo, the better to serve his lord's cause, feigns to be unfaithful to him and to go over to the enemy—in fact, he acts the dangerous part of a spy. The Fujiwara Minister is completely deceived and, enlisting his aid, reveals to Matsuo his secret plans for the final overthrow of the exiled Sugawara and the murder of his son. ”

“ He called to her sharply, commandingly, and yet with a world of pleading emotion. Matsuda, hovering near, turned and looked loweringly at the girl on the ground. Her face was humbly in the dust at the feet of the Lord Saito Gonji. It was a position unworthy of a geisha, and Matsuda moved furiously nearer to them. This was the work of the Okusama, inwardly he fumed. Now when the geisha was put to the greatest test she was found wanting. At the feet of the man when he should have knelt at hers. ”

“ O Chiyo followed, and kneeling, placed over Kotaro the white shroud and the sacred banner.
Matsuo and his wife then took off their outer robes, revealing the white garments of ceremonial mourning in readiness for the obsequies. Takebe and his wife made a gesture of surprise and deprecation.
"It is against custom that parents should attend the funeral of their own son. Let us spare you this trial—we will do everything in your place!" they cried.
"No, no," said Matsuo, loyal unto death, even the death of his only son for the sake of his lord, "this is not the body of my boy. ”

“ This made us realize what a little American we had in our Japanese nest, and brought directly before us one of the great problems of Japan.
“If our daughter were a boy,” Matsuo said that night, “we might have reason to look serious. I should not want to prepare my son to live in a country where, if capable, he would not be welcome to occupy the highest position his country has to offer its citizens.” ”