UP-COUNTRY ORATORY
(YAMAGUCHI)
I have confidence, which began with hope and strengthens with
experience, that humanity is gaining in the stores of mind.--MEREDITH
The main street of an Inland Sea island we visited was 4 ft. wide.
Because it was the eve of a festival the old folk were at home
"observing their taboo." The islander who had been the first among the
inhabitants to visit a foreign country was only fifty. The local
policeman made us a gift of pears when we left.
At another primitive island querns were in use and "ordinary families"
were "only beginning to indulge in tombstones." In contrast with this,
the constable told us that a small condensed-milk factory had been
started. (This constable was a fine, dignified-looking fellow, but so
poor that his toes were showing through his blue cloth _tabi_.) The
condensed-milk factory must have been responsible for some surprises
to the cows when they were first milked in its interests. I heard a
tale of the first milking of an elderly cow. She had ploughed paddies,
carried hay and other things and had drawn a cart. But it took five
men and a woman to persuade her that to be milked into a clay pot was
a reasonable thing.
The third island we explored lies in such a situation in the Inland
Sea that sailing ships used to be glad to shelter under it while
waiting for a favourable wind. Someone had the evil thought of
providing it with prostitutes, and, until steam began to take the
place of sails, the number of these women established in the island
was large. Even now, although the whole population numbers only a
hundred families, there are thirty women of bad character. These poor
creatures were conspicuous because of their bright clothing and
dewomanised look. A scrutiny of the islanders old and young yielded
the impression that the whole place was suffering from its peculiar
traffic. There were two houses, one for registering the women and the
other for investigating their state of health, and the purpose of the
buildings was bluntly proclaimed on the nameboards at their doors.
When we got out to sea again the newest Japanese battleship doing her
trials was pointed out to me, but I was more interested in a large
fishing boat running before the wind. A sturdy woman was at the helm
and her naked young family was sprawling about the craft.
Someone spoke of villagers of the mainland "failing to realise that
they now possessed the privilege of self-government." I was reminded
of the pleasant way of the headman of a village assembly in the
Loochoos, Japan's oldest outlying possession. He assembles or used to
assemble his colleagues in his courtyard and appear there with a draft
of proposed legislation. They bowed and departed and the Bill had
become an Act.
Although we were already within the territorial waters of Hiroshima
prefecture, we determined not to make the mainland at once but to stay
the night at the famous island which is called both Miyajima (shrine
island) and Itsukushima (taboo island), and is considered to be one of
the three most noteworthy sights in Japan. Photographs and drawings of
the shrine with its red colonnades on piles by the shore and its big
red _torii_ standing in the sea are as familiar as representations of
Fuji. It used to be the custom to prevent as far as possible births
and deaths occurring on the island. Even now, funerals, dogs and
kuruma are prohibited. The iron lanterns of the shrine and galleries
and a hundred more in the pine tree-studded approaches are undoubtedly
"a most magnificent spectacle at full tide on a moonless night"; but
what of the subservience to the profitable foreign tourist seen in
this shrine notice?--
_Zori_ (straw sandals), _geta_ (wooden pattens) and all footgear
_except shoes and boots_ are forbidden.
One is attracted by the idea of listening to music and watching dances
which came from afar in the seventh or eighth centuries, but the
business-like tariff,
Ordinary music, 12 sen to 5 yen,
Special music and dance, 10 yen and upwards,
Lighting all lanterns, 9 yen,
is calculated to take one out of the atmosphere of Hearn's dreams. The
deities of the shrine get along as best they can with the raucous
sirens of the tourist steamers, the din of the motor boats and the
boom of the big guns which are hidden at the back of the island and
make of Miyajima and its vicinity "a strategic zone" in which
photography, sketching or the too assiduous use of a notebook is
forbidden. Alas, I had myself arrived in a steamer which blew its
siren loudly, and in the morning I crossed from the holy isle to the
mainland in a motor launch.
The name of Yamaguchi prefecture, which is at the extreme end of the
mainland and has the sea to the south, the east and the north, is not
so familiar as the name of its port, Shimoneseki. It was mentioned to
me that the farmers of Yamaguchi worked a smaller number of days than
in Ehime, possibly only a hundred in the year. The comment of my
companion, who had visited a great deal of rural Japan, was that 150
full days' work was the average for the whole country.[185]
I was told that here as elsewhere there was an unsound tendency to
turn sericulture from a secondary into a primary industry. "Experts
are not always expert," confessed an official. "Our farmers have had
bitter experience. Experts come who have learnt only from books or in
other districts, so they give unsuitable counsel. Then they leave the
prefecture for other posts before the results of their unwisdom are
apparent."
The same official told me of a "little famine" in one county which had
imprudently concentrated its attention on the production of grape
fruit to the annual value of about a million yen. When a storm came
one spring there was almost a total loss. "The river and the sea were
covered with fruit, fishing was interfered with, and the county town
complained of the smell of the rotting fruit." It seems that many of
the suffering orange growers were samurai who found fruit farming a
more gentlemanly pursuit than the management of paddies. Like rural
amateurs everywhere, "some of them would do better if they knew more
about the working of the land."
Rice was being assailed by a pest which survived in the straw stack
and had done damage in the prefecture to the amount of 30,000 yen.
In this prefecture and two others during our tour my companion
delivered addresses to farmers under the auspices of the National
Agricultural Association. The burden of his talk was their duty as
agriculturists in the new conditions which were opening for the
nation. His three audiences numbered about 700, 1,000 and 1,500. They
were composed largely of picked men. At the first gathering the
audience squatted; at the next chairs were provided; at the third
there were school forms with backs. What I particularly noticed was
the easy-going way in which the meetings were conducted. No gathering
began exactly at the time announced, although one of the audiences had
been encouraged to be in time by the promise of a gift of mottoes to
the first hundred arrivals. At each meeting the Governor of the
prefecture was the first speaker. At one meeting the Governor arrived
about 8.30 a.m., made his speech and departed. When my friend had been
introduced to various people in the anteroom, had drunk tea and had
smoked and chatted a little, he was taken to the platform half an hour
or three quarters after the conclusion of the Governor's speech.
Nothing had happened at the meeting in the interval. The idea was that
the wait would help the audience's digestion of the speech it had had
and the speech it was going to have. There was no formal introduction
of the orator. He just mounted the platform and spoke for two hours.
[Illustration: SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT.]
[Illustration:cTHE AUTHOR ADDRESSING, THROUGH AN INTERPRETER, LAFCADIO
HEARN DEATH-DAY MEETING AT MATSUE.]
At the second meeting the Governor awaited our arrival but "went
on" alone. The star speaker meanwhile refreshed himself in the
anteroom with tea, tobacco and conversation as before. In a few
minutes the Governor, having done his turn, rejoined us, and my friend
proceeded to the meeting to deliver his speech, the Governor taking
his departure.
[Illustration: A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT.]
At the third meeting the Governor and the speaker of the day did enter
the hall together, but before the Governor had finished his
introductory harangue my companion took himself off to the anteroom to
refresh himself with a cigar and a chat. When the Governor concluded
and returned to the anteroom there was conversation for a few minutes,
and then my friend and his Excellency went into the meeting together.
This time the Governor stayed to the end.
In his three speeches my friend said many moving things and his
audiences were appreciative. But no one presumed to interrupt with
applause. At the end, however, there was a hearty round of
hand-clapping, now a general custom at public gatherings. On the
conclusion of each of his addresses the orator stepped down from the
platform and made off to the hall, for no one dreamt of asking
questions. When he was gone an official expressed the thanks of the
audience and there was another round of applause. Then everybody
connected with the arrangement of the meeting gathered in the anteroom
and one after the other made appreciative speeches and bows. I
marvelled at the orator's toughness. Before he went on the platform he
had been pestered with unending introductions and beset by
conversation. But I do not know that my friend felt any strain. Nor
did the fashion in which the speakers wandered on and off the
platform, and thus, according to our notions, did their utmost to damp
the enthusiasm of the meetings, seem to have any such effect. Once in
an oculist's consulting clinic in Tokyo I was struck by the fact that
when water was squirted into the eyes of a succession of patients of
both sexes and various ages, they did not wince as Western people
would have done.
I was told that school fees go up a little when the price of rice is
high; also of the "negatively good" effects of young men's
associations. During the period of our tour efforts were being made to
systematise these organisations. The Department of Agriculture wanted
a farmer at the head of each society, the War Office an ex-soldier.
There can be no doubt that the militarists have been doing their best
to give the societies the mental attitude of the army.
In the country we were entering, the horse had taken the place of the
ox as the beast of burden. Two men of some authority in the prefecture
agreed that it was difficult to think of tracts in the south-west that
would be suitable for cattle grazing. There was certainly no "square
_ri_ where the price of land was low enough to keep sheep." As to
cattle breeding and forestry, one of them must give way. It was
necessary to keep immense areas under evergreen wood for the defence
of the country against floods. With regard to the areas available for
afforestation, for cattle keeping and for cultivation respectively, it
was necessary to be on one's guard against "experts" who were disposed
to claim all available land for their specialties.
When we took to an automobile for the first stage of our long journey
through Yamaguchi and Shimane--the railway came no farther than the
city of Yamaguchi--I noticed that just as the bridges are often
without parapets, the roads winding round the cliffs were, as in
Fukushima, unprotected by wall or rail. This was due, no doubt, to
considerations of economy, to a widely diffused sense of
responsibility which makes people look after their own safety, and
also, in some degree, to stout Japanese nerves. That our driver's
nerves were sound enough was shown by the speed at which he drove the
heavy car round sharp corners and down slippery descents where we
should have dropped a few hundred feet had we gone over.
At our first stopping-place I saw a photograph showing a Shinshu
priest engaged with the girl pupils of a Buddhist school in tree
planting. Our talk here was about the low incomes on which people
contrive to live. A little more than a quarter of a century ago the
family of a friend of mine, now of high rank, was living in a county
town on 5 yen a month! There were two adults and three children. Rent
was 1.20 yen and rice came to 1.80 yen. Even to-day an ex-Minister may
have only 1,500 yen a year. Many ex-Governors are living quietly in
villages. We went to call upon one of them who was getting great
satisfaction out of his few _tan_. Among other things he told us was
that there were five doctors and one midwife in the community. These
doctors do not possess a Tokyo qualification. They have qualified by
being taught by their fathers or by some other practitioner, and they
are entitled to practise in their own village and in, perhaps, a
neighbouring one.
It was thoughtless of me, after inquiring about the doctors, to ask
about the gravedigger. I was told that when there was no member of a
"special tribe" available it was the duty of neighbours to dig graves.
A community's displeasure was marked by neighbours refraining from
helping to dig an unpopular person's grave. (One might have expected
to hear that such a grave would be dug with alacrity.) Families which
had run counter to public opinion had had to "apologise" before they
could get neighbourly help at the burial of their dead.
Only one family in the village, I learnt from the headman, was being
helped from public funds. This family consisted of an old man and his
daughter, who, owing to the attendance her father required, could not
go out to work. The village provided a small house and three pints of
rice daily. The headman in his private capacity gave the girl, with
the assistance of some friends, straw rope-making to do and paid a
somewhat higher price than is usual.
Of last year's births in the village 10 per cent. had been legally and
5 per cent. actually illegitimate. Four or five births had occurred a
few months after marriage.
We ate our lunch in the headman's room in the village office. Hanging
from the ceiling was a sealed envelope to be opened on receipt of a
telegram. Some member of the village staff always slept in that room.
The envelope contained instructions to be acted upon if mobilisation
took place.
When we had gone on some distance I stopped to watch a farmer's wife
and daughter threshing in a barn by pulling the rice through a row of
steel teeth, the simple form of threshing implement which is seen in
slightly different patterns all over Japan. (It is the successor of a
contrivance of bamboo stakes.) The women told me that one person could
thresh fourteen bushels a day. The implement cost 2-1/2 yen from
travelling vendors but only 1-1/2 yen from the co-operative society.
While we talked the farmer appeared. I apologised to him for
unwittingly stepping on the threshold of the barn--that is, the
grooved timber in which the sliding doors run. It is considered to be
an insult to the head of the house to tread on the threshold as in
some way "standing on the householder's head."
This man had a bamboo plantation, and he told me, in reply to a
question, that the bamboo would shoot up at the rate of more than a
foot in twenty-four hours. (During the month in which this is dictated
I have measured the growth of a shoot of a Dorothy Perkins climber and
find that it averages about quarter of an inch in twenty-four hours.)
FOOTNOTES:
[185] See Appendix XII.