Christian Sorcerers on Trial, translated by Fumiko Miyazaki et. al. (excerpt chapter 1)

Chapter 1 Sano and Her Associates

Dossier of the investigation of those who worshipped a buddha image of the proscribed pernicious sect, transmitted its practices and rituals, extorted money and goods, or possessed books of the Jesus creed Inquiry submitted to the Osaka governor in the ninth month of 1827; sentences pronounced in the twelfth month of 1829 Osaka eastern magistrate, Takai Sanenori

PREFACE TO THE DOSSIER Sometime ago we began to receive reports that strange rumors were circulating about a noblewoman from Kyoto living in retirement, of unknown name and domicile, who was staying in the Dōjima area of this city of Osaka. It was said that when people had her perform prayer rituals or divine what fortune or misfortune awaited them, she would be able to foresee everything, and her clients’ households would naturally prosper.

We were having these rumors looked into when word came of an altercation involving a woman named Sano, resident with her son, Kyōya Shinsuke, in quarters rented from Kenpōya Yohei in Kawasaki village, Settsu province, in the district under the jurisdiction of the intendant Kishimoto Budayū.1 Sano was said to have plotted together with Shinsuke and a woman named Yae, the wife of Kenpōya Yoshichi, resident in the same village, to persuade Sano’s landlord, Yohei, to have prayer rituals performed for his prosperity. Sano had gotten Yohei to put up large amounts

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of money and goods and subsequently had fled toward Harima. Yohei had pursued her there and brought her back to Osaka. [In the initial investigation of this altercation,] it became clear that the alleged noblewoman of unknown name and domicile from Kyoto who performed prayer rituals was in fact Sano. We arrested her and through repeated interrogation learned the names of others, in addition to Yohei, who had been persuaded to have prayer rituals performed and to put up money and goods. We learned also that this Sano had prayed [to the deity] of the proscribed sect and confounded people by doing so. Thereupon we conducted a thorough investigation and probed the source of these practices. Below is the report of what we have learned about the circumstances of this matter, based on the interrogation of those involved.

TESTIMONY OF SANO Sano: fifty-six years of age; resident together with her son, Kyōya Shinsuke, in quarters rented from Kenpōya Yohei, village of Kawasaki, Nishinari county, Settsu province, in the district under the jurisdiction of the intendant Kishimoto Budayū Remanded to jail the twenty-second day of the first month, 1827

Sano’s Early Life and Encounter with Kinu Under interrogation Sano stated as follows: My forebears came originally from the province of Mino, where my grandparents, who were called Yohei and Shū, were farmers in the village of Imao. I don’t recall the county name. According to what I have heard, they were hereditarily adherents of the Ikkō sect.2 At some point, I don’t know exactly when, my grandparents moved to Kyoto, where they rented quarters on Imadegawa street, in the area around the temple of Honpukuji.3 My grandfather registered himself under the name Iseya Yohei and worked as a day laborer. My grandparents had a daughter named Kino, my birth mother. She married Isogawa Gonzō, who was a retainer of some noble house— I don’t know the name. (Investigators: We looked into the name and residence of Isogawa Gonzō as well as those of this noble house but were unable to find any further information.)4

SANO AND HER ASSOCIATES

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I was born in Gonzō’s house, but the same year my father fell ill and died, and after that my mother went back to my grandfather’s house, taking me with her. As my mother was still young, she remarried, and thus I was raised by my grandparents. In 1778, when I was seven, my mother fell ill and died at the house into which she had remarried. I recall hearing about these things from my grandparents later, when I was older. In 1787, when I was sixteen, my grandparents both fell ill and died, one right after the other. Since I had no other blood relatives, I found work here and there as a short-term servant. In 1793, when I was twenty-two, I married a man named Minoya Heibei. He resided in rented quarters located in front of the Kyoto Daibutsu and managed by Shin’edaya Rihei.5 Heibei made his living as a dealer in secondhand goods. My son, Shinsuke, was born in 1803, when I was thirty-two. As a child he went by the name Masajirō.

Subsequently my husband fell ill and died on the tenth day of the eleventh month of 1807. I was then thirty-six. Being a widow and with Shinsuke, who was still a child, to look after, it was difficult to scrabble together a living, but I had no desire to remarry. Since ancient times, I’d heard, it’s been said that humans are the ultimate spiritual being among the myriad things. By concentrating one’s mind and undergoing proper training, one can thus acquire miraculous powers and astonish others by doing remarkable things. I wanted to acquire such miraculous powers and hoped to find someone who had mastered arts beyond the ordinary and would teach them to me. But after my husband died, it was hard eking out even a hand-to-mouth existence, and I had to move repeatedly from place to place. In 1813, when I was forty-two, I moved to a rear tenement in Uma-machi owned by Takeya Ihei, where I got by making playing cards for gambling.

While my husband was still alive, I had become friends with a woman named Kinu, the wife of Kyōya Kihei, who rented quarters from Yamatoya Kahei in Nushiya-chō, north of Shichijō street in Kyoto.6 (Investigators: This Kinu later took the name Harimaya Kikue and moved to Osaka, where she lived in Tatsuta-machi in the Tenma area.7 At present she is detained in the jailhouse.) Kinu’s husband had also died a while previously, so she, too, was a widow. She worshipped Inari and called herself an Inari medium, and she made a living [by conducting healing rituals] for the sick and by performing divinations. After I was widowed, Kinu continued to come to visit as before, and I often lamented to her about how hard it was to get through the world while looking after a young child. “You can’t begin to

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feed yourself by making playing cards,” Kinu told me. “Things will surely not end well if you continue this way. It would be better for your child, too, if you made up your mind to remarry.” But when I explained to her why I found it distasteful to take another husband, Kinu said she felt the same way. “I call myself an Inari medium,” she said, but in fact I’ve learned mysterious arts from a yin-yang diviner, a woman named Toyoda Mitsugi who lives in Yasaka, down the hill from Kiyomizu here in Kyoto. I practiced austerities regularly, and little by little I acquired the ability to foresee the future and perform healing rituals. I have to pretend that I do these things as an Inari medium because otherwise my clients will think it strange, and I would be in trouble if the magistracy became suspicious and decided to look into the matter. So I act just like ordinary Shinto diviners do when they call down Inari to predict the future. I pretend to be possessed by Inari— I hold the sacred wand in both hands, shake it, and fall to the ground. I put on a show of being in a trance and pronounce what the future holds as an oracle from Inari, or if I have an attendant with me, I have that person transmit the oracle to the people who have come to learn their fortunes.

What ordinary Inari mediums do is in fact little more than a game; one can do it without practicing austerities. The method that Mitsugi transmitted to me, however, is extremely difficult. If you are indeed determined not to take a husband for the rest of your life or to have anything to do with lust, I will teach you this method. But it will be impossible to master it unless you first rid yourself of any inclination to be startled by what you see. And you cannot have the slightest fear for your life. So first you must perform austerities to secure an unwavering mind. You should go into the mountains at night and you should stand every day under a waterfall or douse yourself with well water.

What Kinu told me matched what I had hoped for, and I begged to become her disciple. She agreed, and we entered into a secret pact to regard each other as sisters. Kinu gave up her residence in Nushiya-chō and moved in with me. She began a new business doing the same things as she had done up to then [in Nushiya-chō]: conduct healing rituals and foretell the future in the guise of an Inari medium. She generally would sense that people were coming for divination and would make paper effigies of

Figure 1.1 Female medium shaking a wand. Ehon Raikō ichidaiki, “Miko” (section).

International Research Center for Japanese Studies.

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them or something like that beforehand.8 She didn’t explain to me what she was doing, but she seemed to collect a substantial amount of money.

I was amazed by Kinu’s mysterious powers, so much greater than those of an ordinary Inari medium, and I decided to put all my faith in her.

“If I undergo thorough ascetic training, wouldn’t I, too, be able to do all sorts of things?” I asked Kinu. “Of course, it is possible to acquire such powers,” she replied, but the method for doing so can’t be transmitted lightly. First you have to undertake training to secure an unwavering mind by going to the Fushimi Inari mountain at night. If someone sees you, say [that you’re doing this to become an Inari medium], since this mountain is connected with Inari.9 The essential thing is to climb the mountain, seek out terrifying places, close your eyes, and concentrate on securing an unwavering mind, just as in Zen meditation.

Following Kinu’s instructions, I secretly doused myself with water at my house during the day, or I went to stand under one of the falls at Nyakuōji in the Higashiyama area, making sure that nobody saw me.10 At night I climbed the Fushimi Inari mountain, sometimes together with Kinu. For three years I performed these austerities without skipping a single night.

Sano and Kinu Move to Osaka; Kinu Initiates Sano I was told that the rules of this practice strictly prohibit direct contact with the master of one’s master, but I longed to see at least once what Mitsugi looked like, so on one occasion I went with Kinu to Mitsugi’s house and was able to catch a glimpse of her. But since it would inconvenience Mitsugi if we continued to engage in these arts in Kyoto, we decided to give up our residence there, and twelve years ago, in the eleventh month of 1816, Kinu and I moved to this city of Osaka. I got an acquaintance, Kagaya Bunjirō (now deceased), who resided in Naga-machi 8- chōme, to act as my guarantor and rented a room from Shioya Heibei in Era-machi in Dōjima.11 I lived together with my son, Shinsuke, who registered himself under the name of Nakaya Masajirō, and I was listed in the population register as residing with him. Kinu was also eventually able to arrange through an acquaintance to rent quarters from Harimaya Jirobei in Tatsuta- chō in Tenma.

IN 1829, THREE WOMEN AND THREE MEN were paraded through Osaka and crucified as devotees of the “pernicious creed” of Christianity. Christian Sorcerers on Trial offers annotated translations of a range of sources on this sensational event, from the arrest of the alleged Christians through the case’s afterlife. The result is an extraordinarily vivid picture of late Edo society.

“Christian Sorcerers on Trial is a fascinating, startling, and revealing introduction to and translation of rich primary texts from a little-known but important episode in Japanese religious and cultural history. Scholars of Japanese religion, Japanese history, and Christian history will benefit from it.”

—ELIZABETH MORRISON, Middlebury College

“This is a monumental study of Edo-period religious life. Based on the most detailed testimonies ever compiled of the lives of popular religionists, their colorful clients, and the processes of their judicial interrogation, this work makes for truly fascinating reading.”

—HELEN HARDACRE, author of Shinto: A History

“Christian Sorcerers on Trial is a veritable gold mine for understanding the late Edo period. These translations reveal much about popular religion, the failure of the shogunate to eradicate the ‘pernicious’ Kirishitan sect, the lingering influence of the Christian religion, and the legal procedures and punishments for dealing with religious deviancy. This volume is destined to become a standard resource in the field.”

—MARK R . MULLINS, University of Auckland

“Masterfully translated and deeply revealing, Christian Sorcerers on Trial offers a powerful example of the way legal records can be used to illuminate the cultural and mental universe of an era.”

—DANIEL BOTSMAN, author of Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan

FUMIKO MIYAZAKI is professor emerita at Keisen University, Tokyo.

KATE WILDMAN NAKAI is professor emerita at Sophia University, Tokyo.

MARK TEEUWEN is professor of Japanese studies at the University of Oslo.

Miyazaki, Nakai, and Teeuwen previously collaborated (with Anne Walthall and John Breen) on a translation of another late Edo source: Lust, Commerce, and Corruption: An Account of What I Have Seen and Heard by an Edo Samurai (Columbia, 2014).

Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee Cover image: Fūryū ningyō no uchi: Watōnai, O-tsuji, Bōtarō. Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Description: The print depicts a famous scene from a play in which a woman seeking the success of a vendetta performs water austerities with great determination. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Columbia University Press • New York cup.columbia.edu

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