Sakai people

“ Delinquents by nature, such as are to be found in most of our large cities; people born with savage instincts; men who would rather pass their days in the midst of vice and open corruption than live a life of honour and opulence.
None of these delinquents are to be found in thorough-bred Sakai tribes, they may however be met with amongst the inhabitants of the plain where there is a mixture of race, the result of those forced unions which were the desperation of Sakai women when taken prisoners. ”

“ Instead, we find the Sakai occupying this position, thus indicating that they have been driven northward by the Malays, and that the latter people has not been expelled by the Mon-Khmer races from the countries now represented by Burma, Siam and French Indo-China. The Sakai population is dying out, and must eventually disappear. (With regard to the Malay, see Malays.)
Archaeology.—The only ancient remains found in the peninsula are the stone implements, of which mention has already been made, and some remarkable ancient mines, which are situated in the Jelai valley in Pahang. ”

“ It was natural, therefore, that, after the civil war of the Ohnin era, Sakai should be considered safer to live in than Kyoto. Sakai became the asylum for the civilisation of Japan, to save it from utter destruction. Poets, painters, musicians, and singers, who had found living in the turbulent metropolis intolerably hard, sought shelter in Sakai, and there occupied themselves quietly with their own professions. Various handicrafts, such as lacquering, porcelain-making, and weaving were all started there with enormous success. ”

“ From this simple episode one can understand what an amount of energy, boldness, and resolution the English Authorities need in order to liberate the poor Sakais from the moral tyranny that still oppresses them. But the British Government is quite equal to the task it has undertaken, and there is no reason to doubt that before long it will have reduced to impotency these dregs of Society who creep in amongst the Sakai tribes, that are far removed from civilization and justice, there to work out their wicked schemes and practise their crafty wiles. ”

“ The frontier-line, however, and the course of the river, were afterwards changed, so that the city is now entirely included within the province of Idzumi, and there is no river running near the city. The fact that it was once a border town shows that it could never have been the seat of the provincial government. Neither had it ever been the residence of any powerful feudal lord during the whole military régime. Moreover, nature has bestowed no special favour on the city. The bay of Sakai is very widely open, affording no protection [Pg 240] against the west wind. ”

“ Altogether the figure of the Sakai does not reveal any large amount of vigour perhaps because he is usually thin and is what might be termed pot-bellied, owing to the sort of food he eats and the cold he suffers during the night, but he is much more robust and taller (the average height of an adult is a little past one metre and a half) [7] than the other tribes and races around him who are in close reports with civilization. ”

“ The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity of his race. ”

“ I mean the bourgeois class in several large cities. After the decline of the trade of the historic city of Sakai, brought about by the hard blow struck at the root of the political power of her haughty merchants by Nobunaga, and caused also by the growth of a rival in the great commercial city of Ôsaka founded by Hideyoshi quite near it, the refined humanistic culture cherished by the citizens of Sakai vanished with its prosperity. After that, it took a considerable while to witness the revival of the cultural influence of the bourgeois class in Japan. ”

“ The more they told me about them the more I felt attracted towards the Sakais, it seeming to me that a people so foreign to every light of civilization, so bold as they were described to be, so free from every regime or authority, must needs afford an interesting study to one who sought to know them at close quarters. ”

“ Amongst us it is so rare to find either one or the other that it would be difficult for a Sakai to understand when you talk of men different to him in form or robustness. If however, the Evil Spirit [94] makes one of our children be born deformed, or with a defect, he is treated with the care necessary to his state but he cannot transmit his infirmity to others because, first of all our customs compel him to lead a life of chastity, and secondly, no woman of our tribe would consent to a union with him". ”

“ Well-informed followers of Saigō could never have been sincere believers in representative institutions. These men belonged to a province far removed from the scene of Saigō’s desperate struggle. But the broad fact that they had sealed with their life-blood an appeal for a political change indicated the existence of a strong public conviction which would derive further strength from their act. The Japanese are essentially a brave people. ”

“ At Sakai, the largest port in the three provinces of Settsu, Izumi, and Kawachi, whence vessels sail to other provinces, lives Amakawaya Gihei, well thought-of by his townsmen and without a spot upon his reputation. He has amassed wealth; and though he looks a man of moderate means, he is in reality rich. He is tying heavy boxes in his shop, and the skipper of a large vessel addresses him. ”

“ The Sakai is enthusiastic over his poisons, so much is he engrossed in the science that it takes with him the post of a besetting. Like a maniac which always speaks of his strange fancies, so this poor savage speaks all day long of his poisons, and studies their qualities. ”

“ This is a quotation from the Italian poet Petrarch. Translator's Note.
[107]
CHAPTER IX. The origin of the Sakais​—​Hypothesis and legend​—​Physical character​—​Thick tresses, gay flowers and troublesome guests​—​Hereditary antipathy​—​The five senses reduced to two​—​Food and drink​—​Tranquil life​—​Intolerance of authority​—​Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law​—​Logical laziness​—​A Sakai journalist​—​The story of a mattress.
Paolo Mantegazza, the scientific poet writes:
"Man is eternally tormenting himself with unanswered questions: Where did our species first come from? ”

“ Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others in intelligence—as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral qualities—if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and benevolent interest.
Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate themselves to agriculture. ”

“ Many of the higher vassals of the Shogunate borrowed money from the merchants of Sakai in order to equip their soldiers. Nay, even the Shogunate itself had often to mortgage its landed estates to the merchants of the city in order to save its treasury from running short. The wealth of the citizens enabled them to fortify their city very strongly, by surrounding it with a deep moat, and to enlist into their service a great number of knights-errant, who abounded in Japan at that time. ”

“ CHAPTER X. The Sakai woman​—​Conjugal fidelity​—​A life of labour​—​Betrothals and nuptials​—​Love among the Sakais​—​Divorcement​—​No kissing​—​Chastity​—​Bigamy​—​Maternity and its excesses​—​Aged before the time​—​Fashion and coquetry.
Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies, creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments, amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. ”

“ With his blowpipe ready the Sakai penetrates into the forest, creeping softly among the tall grasses and bushes. No rustling, no crackling of dry leaves denounces the presence of the man who advances cautiously under the broad green roof, casting keen and restless glances [205] towards the branches of the trees. His ear catches the faintest flapping of wings. From time to time he utters a cry like that of a bird or a monkey, and quickly a feathered biped, moved by curiosity descends from a higher to a lower bough ”

“ I went to Sakai, of course,—and bought a sword, and saw the grave of the eleven samurai of Tosa who had to commit seppuku for killing some foreigners,—and told them I wished they could come back again to kill a few more who are writing extraordinary lies about Japan at this present moment. I would rather live a month in Ōsaka than ten years free of rent in Tōkyō. ”

“ The toalang, rengas, and sagol are to be found scattered profusely over the forest but the Sakai does not interest himself in their venomous properties because he finds that those of which he already knows the secret fully satisfy his wants in promptness and effect. On the contrary he wages a continual war against these noxious plants beating them down and destroying them wherever he comes across them. He is very careful, however not to touch them with his hatchet but chops down one of the giants growing near which bears them to the ground in its ponderous fall. ”

“ Well, the Sakai inflicts no suffering upon his foe. The terrible poisons with which he tinges his fatal arrows cause almost immediate death, and his sole motive for killing is to rid himself of one whom he thinks will do him harm, but should his enemy run away before he can hit him he would neither follow nor lay an ambush for him. He might almost take as his motto the celebrated line by Niccolini:
Ripassi l'Alpi e tornerà fratello. ”

“ To their credit, be it said, they are really working very hard to attain their ideal. One has only to visit Osaka, the Manchester of the Mikado’s Empire, to realize the amazing progress made by the Japanese in the last quarter of the century. This city, which has a population of about half a million souls, is situated midway between Kioto and Kobe, about thirty miles distant, which respectively contain 340,000 and 150,000 inhabitants. About six and a half miles further on is yet another industrial centre, Sakai, with a population of 50,000. ”

“ My five Sakais divided their presents with each other, putting away some for the dear ones at home, and I often noticed that in the midst of the bewilderment which those simple souls must have experienced at being surrounded by people and things so totally new to them, they never seemed to forget for a moment the beloved persons they had left behind in the jungle. ”

“ But although in comparison to their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber, poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very clever in making. ”

“ More than one foreign man-of-war has touched at Saigo, and English and Russian officers of the navy have been seen in the streets. They were tall, fair-haired, stalwart men; and the people of Oki still imagine that all foreigners from the West have the same stature and complexion. I was the first foreigner who ever remained even a night in the town, and I stayed there two weeks; but being small and dark, and dressed like a Japanese, I excited little attention among the common people: it seemed to them that I was only a curious-looking Japanese from some remote part of the empire. ”

“ My last talk with Niiro was on October 12, when he gave me information about the native Christians, already recorded.
Last year I had met at Robertson's house a doctor belonging to the Kurumé clan, and he now came with his son to ask permission to bring some of his fellow clansmen to call on me. This they did on the 8th October. Their names were Imae Sakai, said to be connected with the government of the clan; Nagata Chiûhei, who was visiting Nagasaki for the first time in his life; and Tanaka Konoyé. ”

“ Saigo, Satsuma reformer, iii. 235; leader in Revolution of 1867, character, iv. 205, 207; resigns from ministry, 208; insurrection, 208, 209, 213. Saimei, empress, i. 137. Saionji, noble family, furnish imperial consorts, ii. 15, 18; hereditary privileges, iv. 5. Sakai, Tokugawa house, hereditary privileges, iv. 28. Sakai, trade centre under Hideyoshi, vi. 166. Sakakibara, Tokugawa house, hereditary privileges, iv. 28. Saké. See Drink. Salvage, mediæval law on, vi. 198, 239. Samurai. See Military class. Sanjo, emperor, superstition, i. 180. Sanjo, court noble, radical anti-foreigner, iii. ”

“ Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages! are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a fresh water one in a convenient river. ”

“ Meanwhile Saigo had been educating his pupils. The time at last came that the two leaders had to measure their strength against each other. Saigo collected nearly thirty thousand men, consisting mostly of Satuma people, and suddenly marched toward the capital. ”