In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians

A Story Of Suppression, Secrecy And Survival

John Dougill

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780281075539
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia giapponese

In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians is a remarkable story of suppression, secrecy and survival in the face of human cruelty and God's apparent silence. Part history, part travelogue, it explores and seeks to explain a clash of civilizations-of East and West-that resonates to this day.For seven generations, Japan's 'Hidden Christians' preserved a faith that was forbidden on pain of death. Just as remarkably, descendants of the Hidden Christians continue to practise their beliefs today, refusing to rejoin the Catholic Church. Why? And what is it about Japanese culture that makes it so resistant to Western Christianity?

Chapter One

Genesis

(Kagoshima)

The Japanese and the Jesuit

Six years after the Tanegashima musket came the Bible. It was brought by Francisco Xavier (1506–52), “Apostle of the East” as he has been dubbed. Born into the Navarre aristocracy (the country was annexed by Spain while he was still a child), he was raised in a splendid castle that is now a tourist sight and destination for an annual pilgrimage. As a youth he went to study in Paris, where he proved himself a gifted scholar ahead of whom lay a promising career, but a chance meeting with Ignatius Loyola changed the course of his life. Under the Spaniard’s direction, Xavier took to a disciplined regime of fasting and meditation. In 1540 he became one of the seven founding members of the Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits.

Since the Christian mission to Japan was essentially a Jesuit affair (for over forty years they had a monopoly), it’s worth considering the opening words of the organization’s charter. It reflects the military background of Ignatius Loyola, who saw the group as a religious crack force at the service of the pope.

Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated by the name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth, should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty and obedience, keep what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine.

The order was founded at a time when Catholicism was struggling to come to terms with the Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther had nailed his protest to the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517). In the drive to reinvent itself, the Church found a new sense of purpose and righteousness. Such were Loyola’s convictions that he famously said: “We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.” It’s an extraordinary remark, and one that sheds light on later developments.

The Jesuits were the first order to be organized specifically for missionary work, and when the king of Portugal asked the pope for a priest to accompany his ships to Goa, the task fell to Xavier. He set sail on his thirty-fifth birthday. The voyage was a perilous undertaking, for the large double-masted ships were unstable and navigation was an inexact science. It was not unusual for up to half of the crew to die en route, so the boats were deliberately overmanned, with six hundred to eight hundred men. As well as sickness and storms, losses could be expected to hostile encounters, onboard riots or simply the lure of foreign parts. In Xavier’s case the ship was delayed in Mozambique by unfavorable winds, and the journey took some eighteen months.

During the voyage Xavier ministered to the crew despite frequent sea-sickness, and though he was invited to have a servant and dine at the captain’s table, he chose to share the conditions of the ordinary sailor. It was typical of the one-time aristocrat, who throughout his career lived as the poorest of men, eating little and sleeping on bare boards or the ground. He insisted too on walking everywhere, even when offered rides on horseback. There seems to have been a curious masochistic element to his zeal, for as well as scourging himself he wrote of pain as participation in the “sweetness” of the cross and he idealized crucifixion as a measure of God’s love. The devotion is impressive, though the psychology puzzling.

Goa at this time was the Catholic base for the whole of Asia, with fourteen churches and 20,000 converts. As head of the mission, Xavier proved an indefatigable worker, preaching to the poor and caring for outcasts. He was concerned too about deviations from orthodoxy and wrote to the pope to urge an inquisition. He tried to spread God’s word as widely as he could, traveling back and forth over the equator in his efforts. From Indonesian cannibals to Philippine poisoners, he showed a willingness to brave every type of danger if he thought there was a chance of spreading the word. One of the places his travels took him was the Portuguese enclave of Malacca, and it is at this point that a Japanese fugitive named Yajiro (also known as Angero) enters the story.

Whether Yajiro was a samurai or a merchant is uncertain, but involvement in a killing forced him to escape from Kagoshima on a Portuguese ship, along with two companions (one of whom may have been his younger brother). The ship delivered them to Macao, where in less than a year Yajiro was able to make himself understood in Portuguese. He developed an interest in the religion of the Europeans, and though his motives are unclear, it’s an intriguing thought that he may have been driven by a guilty conscience and a wish for absolution. To deepen his understanding he was advised by a Portuguese captain to consult the well-informed priest at Malacca, and after traveling there by ship he managed to track Xavier down to a church where he was conducting a wedding. In their discussion he asked some probing questions and took notes, which impressed the missionary. “If all the Japanese are as eager to know as is Yajiro,” he wrote in a report, “it seems to me that this race is the most curious of all the peoples that have been discovered.”

Xavier encouraged Yajiro and his companions to go to Goa for further study, where they became the first ever Japanese Christians by being baptised in the cathedral. Yajiro, thirty-six by this time, took the name of Paolo; his companions became Antonio and Joane. With their Christian names, they became Westernized figures who stood halfway between the extreme west of Europe and the extreme east of Asia. How appropriate then that the ceremony should have taken place in India.

Meanwhile, Xavier had commissioned a report on Japan from a Portuguese captain, which confirmed that the people were educated, diligent and interested in new ideas. It seemed the country was ripe for missionary work. “I have with much interior satisfaction decided to go to this land,” he wrote in a letter, “for it seems to me that a people of this kind could by themselves continue to reap the fruit which those of the Society are producing during their own lifetime.”

With him Xavier took two Spanish Jesuits, Father Cosme de Torres and Brother Juan Fernandez, as well as an Indian and the three Japanese converts. The group first headed for Malacca, where after some time they found a Chinese junk to take them on to Japan. The two-month journey proved unpleasant, with rough seas and coarse company. The captain was nicknamed “the Thief,” and the crew’s rites to their sea god made Xavier uncomfortable. It was with much relief then that the mission landed at Yajiro’s hometown of Kagoshima in southern Kyushu. It was August 15, 1549. Christianity had arrived in Japan.

Landings

The modern-day jetfoil from Tanegashima to Kagoshima runs a similar course to that of Xavier’s junk, with the first part leading across choppy seas to Cape Sata on the southernmost tip of Kyushu (made famous through Alan Booth’s book about walking the length of Japan). Once around the headland, there are calmer waters as the ship passes the picture-perfect Mt. Kaimon, known as the “Satsuma Fuji” for its conical shape (Satsuma was the local fiefdom). The boat then enters the expansive Kinko Bay, which extends inland for twenty-five miles. Lined with rocky sides and wooded hills, it makes for a welcoming backdrop to the country with its view of distant peaks: even the ugly blemishes of the twentieth century—factories, pylons and resort hotels—fail to mar the majesty.

Along the shoreline little fishing boats bob up and down, much as they would have done in Xavier’s time, until one draws near the volcanic island of Sakurajima. Just over 3,600 feet in height, the mountain has erupted twenty-seven times since 1468, destroying whole villages and welding the island to an adjoining peninsula. A major eruption in 1914 left gray lava fields and a torii buried up to its neck. The volcano still remains active, and the city of Kagoshima on the opposite shore gets covered in an occasional film of ash. The day I arrived the fumes issuing from the barren peak were colored by the sunset to form an orange dragon’s tail twisting dramatically up into the sky. Xavier and his fellow missionaries must have been impressed too by the dramatic beauty of the unknown land.

Since the jetfoil docks close to where the first mission landed, I took a taxi straight there and on the way asked the driver if the volcano was always so active. “Recently it’s been rumbling a lot,” the driver replied. “It’s probably going to erupt soon, but don’t worry. It won’t happen today.” At the landing site, a relief sculpted by a Belgian artist shows Xavier being carried ashore from a junk while a group of locals, including a two-sworded samurai, look on curiously. It’s not hard to imagine the interest the multiracial group must have aroused. Along with the robed Europeans were the Indian, a Eurasian, a Chinese servant and the three foreign-speaking Japanese, no doubt with crosses around their necks.

As I stood in the park by the water’s edge, I noticed with surprise the peak of Mt. Takachiho in the distance. According to Shinto myth, the mountain is the place where a grandson of Amaterasu, the sun goddess, “descended from Heaven.” How extraordinary that the arrival of Xavier should have happened within sight of the mythic mountain. Could it be just by chance that these two very different “landings” had taken place so close to each other? Or was it rather a matter of geography, as in Tanegashima, with the flow of ocean currents bringing immigrants to the same welcoming bay? Coincidence or not, it made for a curious paradox. One religion was tribal in essence, based on particularism. The other originated in the Middle East and claimed to be universal. Japan was a land of gods, but Xavier and his companions had arrived to make it a land of God. What a challenge!

It must have been bizarre, this first encounter. A painting by the modern artist Seiji Utsumi shows European giants in black robes and wide-brimmed hats towering over a crowd of curious Japanese in loose clothing and straw sandals. The customs and behavior were unlike anything the Westerners had encountered before: the bowing and kneeling, the nodding and manner of conversation. Men had shaved foreheads, wore kimonos and carried fans, while the women had blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows. Some of the local priests dressed in black robes, while others wore white and had tall hats. The porters were virtually naked, and sexes bathed together unashamedly. Houses were made of wood and had paper screens for windows. Writing was from top right to bottom left. Every country is different, it has been said, but Japan is more different than any other. How much truer that would have been in the past!

The peculiarities of Japan as seen through European eyes were later spelled out in a list of 611 items by a Jesuit priest called Luis Frois (1532–97). His Tratado (1585), translated as Topsy-Turvy by Robin Gill, was written to help Europeans understand the country. Some of the observations are timeless. Physical attributes, for instance: “Our noses are high, some aquiline; theirs are low with small nostrils.” Other entries are clearly obsolete: “European women do all they can to whiten their teeth; Japanese use iron and vinegar to make their mouth and teeth black.” In putting together his paired contrasts, Frois cast interesting light on the clash of cultures.

In Europe, clarity of language is sought and ambiguity avoided. In Japan ambiguous words are good language and held in high estimate.

We ask one omnipotent God for favors in this life and the other. The Japanese ask kami for temporal good, and hotoke [buddhas] for salvation.

Among us, someone who changes faith is considered a traitor and an apostate. In Japan, one may change sect as often as one likes without infamy.

Among us, killing oneself is considered a grave sin. The Japanese in war, when they can do no more, cut their belly to show their guts.

With us there is no crucifixion; in Japan, it is something very common.

We are passionate with anger running free and impatience barely tamed at all. They, in some strange manner, control themselves and thus are moderate and prudent.

With us, men join religious orders to make penitence and save themselves; the bonzes [Buddhist priests] enter religious orders to live in idleness and luxury and escape work.

We drink with one hand; they always drink with two. We drink seated on a chair; they, sitting on their knees. With us, no one drinks more than he himself wants to . . . Japanese are so demanding they make some throw up and others drunk. Among us, making loud noises while we eat or gulping down wine is considered gross; the Japanese think they are both just dandy.

The differences were at their starkest in terms of hygiene, for the Europeans were unfussed about cleanliness whereas the Japanese were meticulous. The notion that bathing was unnatural and unhygienic was so prevalent in Europe that according to Bill Bryson’s At Home, “By the eighteenth century the most reliable way to get a bath was to be insane.” It doesn’t take much imagination to realize how after months at sea the unwashed sailors must have struck the Japanese as hairy barbarians indeed. Eating with their hands and blowing their noses on their sleeves, the newcomers not only looked uncouth but were said to give off an unpleasant odor due to the dairy products they ate. By contrast, the Europeans were staggered to find Japanese bathed not just every day, but sometimes even twice a day. The immersion in hot water was too indulgent for the Jesuits, so they compromised by allowing themselves a bath once a week in summer and fortnightly in winter. If cleanliness is next to godliness, there’s no doubting that spiritually the Japanese were on a higher plane.

First footsteps

The morning after my arrival in Kagoshima I headed for Xavier Church, where I was to meet up with a volunteer guide called Matsumoto-san. A Buddhist all his life, he’d married a Christian as a young man and his wife had brought up their daughters in her own faith. Now, in his retirement, he’d decided to join the rest of his family, and two years previously had converted to Catholicism. I gathered that companionship rather than faith was the motivation: no doubt, like my Japanese partner, he thought one kami as good as another. We went first to the park in front of the church, or rather the patch of bare earth with swings that often passes for a park in Japan. In one of the corners stood three statues put up in 1999 to mark the 450th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity, and the choice of figures was interesting. As well as Xavier and Yajiro, there was the less well-known Bernardo.

In a sense, Bernardo represents the counterpart of the Tanegashima Portuguese, for he is the first Japanese known to have reached Europe. One of Xavier’s earliest converts, he became a devoted disciple and left Japan with the missionary in 1551 bound for Goa. From there he sailed for Lisbon, arriving in 1553. Xavier intended for him “to see the Christian religion in all its majesty” so that he could impress his fellow countrymen on his return. While in Portugal, Bernardo joined the Jesuits and studied at the College of Coimbra before traveling to Rome, where he met with Ignatius de Loyola and the pope. He apparently died of a fever in Portugal in 1557, but sadly this cultural pioneer left behind no account of his impressions. What did he make of the peculiarities of Europe, with its odd customs and topsy-turvy culture?

Xavier Church is a strikin...