THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

THE FOUNDATIONS
OF JAPAN

NOTES MADE DURING JOURNEYS OF

6,000 MILES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS AS

A BASIS FOR A SOUNDER KNOWLEDGE

OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

BY J.W. ROBERTSON SCOTT

("HOME COUNTIES")

WITH 85 ILLUSTRATIONS

"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door, yet it is a little window"

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1922

TO

SCOTT SAN NO OKUSAN

FOR WHOLESOME CRITICISM

[TO TABLE OF CONTENTS]

A concern arose to spend some time with them that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them when the troubles of War were increasing and when travelling was more difficult than usual. I looked upon it as a more favourable opportunity to season my mind and to bring me into a nearer sympathy with them.—Journal of John Woolman, 1762.

I determined to commence my researches at some distance from the capital, being well aware of the erroneous ideas I must form should I judge from what I heard in a city so much subjected to foreign intercourse.—Borrow.

INTRODUCTION

The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of the West with Asia which the historian of the future will unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time.

I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was told chiefly during rural journeys—more than half the population is rural—extending to twice the distance across the United States or nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John o' Groats.

These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other volume has explored. Because they fall short of what was planned, and in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may be pardoned on the beginnings of the book—one of the many literary victims of the War.

The first book I ever bought was about the Far East. The first leading article of my journalistic apprenticeship in London was about Korea. When I left daily journalism, at the time of the siege of the Peking Legations, the first thing I published was a book pleading for a better understanding of the Chinese.

After that, as a cottager in Essex, I wrote—above a nom de guerre which is better known than I am—a dozen volumes on rural subjects. During a visit to the late David Lubin in Rome I noticed in the big library of his International Institute of Agriculture that there was no took in English dealing with the agriculture of Japan. [^[1]] Just before the War the thoughts of forward-looking students of our home affairs ran strongly on the relation of intelligently managed small holdings to skilled capitalist farming. [^[2]] During the early "business as usual" period of the War, when no tasks had been found for men over military age—Mr. Wells's protest will be remembered—it occurred to me that it might be serviceable if I could have ready, for the period of rural reconstruction and readjustment of our international ideas when the War was over, two books of a new sort. One should be a stimulating volume on Japan, based on a study, more sociological than technically agricultural, of its remarkable small-farming system and rural life, and the other a complementary American volume based on a study of the enterprising large farming of the Middle West. I proposed to write the second book in co-operation with a veteran rural reformer who had often invited me to visit him in Iowa, the father of the present American Minister of Agriculture. Early in 1915 I set out for Japan to enter upon the first part of my task. Mr. Wallace died while I was still in Japan, and the Middle West book remains to be undertaken by someone else.

The Land of the Rising Sun has been fortunate in the quality of the books which many foreigners have written. [^[3]] But for every work at the standard of what might be called the seven "M's"—Mitford, Murdoch, Munro, Morse, Maclaren, "Murray" and McGovern—there are many volumes of fervid "pro-Japanese" or determined "anti-Japanese" romanticism. The pictures of Japan which such easily perused books present are incredible to readers of ordinary insight or historical imagination, but they have had their part in forming public opinion.

The basic fact about Japan is that it is an agricultural country. Japanese æstheticism, the victorious Japanese army and navy, the smoking chimneys of Osaka, the pushing mercantile marine, the Parliamentary and administrative developments of Tokyo and a costly worldwide diplomacy are all borne on the bent backs of Ohyakusho no Fufu,[^[4] ] the Japanese peasant farmer and his wife. The depositories of the authentic Yamato damashii (Japanese spirit) are to be found knee deep in the sludge of their paddy fields.

One book about Japan may well be written in the perspective of the village and the hamlet. There it is possible to find the way beneath that surface of things visible to the tourist. There it is possible to discover the foundations of the Japan which is intent on cutting such a figure in the East and in the West. There it is possible to learn not only what Japan is but what she may have it in her to become.

A rural sociologist is not primarily interested in the technique of agriculture. He conceives agriculture and country life as Arthur Young and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to be precious in the rural life of my own land.

An interest in rural problems cannot be simulated. As I journeyed about the country the sincerity of my purpose—there are few words in commoner use in the Far East than sincerity—was recognised and appreciated. I enjoyed conversations in which customary barriers had been broken down and those who spoke said what they felt. We inevitably discussed not only agricultural economy but life, religion and morality, and the way Japan was taking.

I spoke and slept in Buddhist temples. I was received at Shinto shrines. I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so many gaku[^[5] ] for school walls and for my kind hosts that my memory was drained of maxims. I attended guileless horse-races. I was present at agricultural shows, fairs, wrestling matches, Bon dances, village and county councils and the strangest of public meetings. I talked not only with farmers and their families but with all kinds of landlords, with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, policemen, shopkeepers, priests, co-operative society enthusiasts, village officials, county officials, prefectural officials, a score of Governors and an Ainu chief. I sought wisdom from Ministers of State and nobles of every rank, from the Prince who is the heir of the last of the Shoguns down to democratic Barons who prefer to be called "Mr.", I chatted with farmers' wives and daughters, I interrogated landladies and mill girls, and I paid a memorable visit to a Buddhist nunnery. I walked, talked, rode, ate and bathed with common folk and with dignitaries. I discussed the situation of Japan with the new countryman in college agricultural laboratories and classrooms, and, in a remote region, beheld what is rare nowadays, the old countryman kneeling before his cottage with his head to the ground as the stranger rode past.

I made notes as I traversed paddy-field paths, by mountain ways, in colleges, schools, houses and inns. It can only have been when crossing water on men's backs that I did not make notes. I jotted things down as I walked, as I sat, as I knelt, as I lay on my futon, as I journeyed in kuruma, on horseback, in jolting basha, in automobiles, in shaking cross-country trains and in boats; in brilliant sunshine and sweltering heat, in the shade and in dust; in the early morning with chilled fingers or more or less furtively as I crouched at protracted private or official repasts, or late at night endeavoured to gather crumbs from the wearing conversation of polite callers who, though set on helping me, did not always find it easy to understand the kind of information of which I was in search. One of these asked my travelling companion sotto voce, "Is he after metal mines?"

I went on my own trips and on routes planned out for me by agricultural and social zealots, and from time to time I returned physically and mentally fatigued to my little Japanese house near Tokyo to rest and to write out from my memoranda, to seek data for new districts from the obliging Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural College people at the Imperial University, and to eat and drink with rural authorities who chanced to be visiting the capital from distant prefectures. I had many setbacks. I was misinformed, now and then intentionally and often unintentionally. There were many days which were not only harassing but seemingly wasted. I often despaired of achieving results worth all the exertion I was making and the money I was spending. I must have worn to shreds the patience of some English-speaking Japanese friends, but they never owned defeat. In the end I found that I made progress.

But so did the War, which when I set out from London few believed would last long. I was troubled by continually meeting with incredible ignorance about the War, the issues at stake and the certain end. The Japanese who talked with me were 10,000 miles away from the fighting. Japan had nothing to lose, everything indeed to gain from the abatement of Europe's activities in Asia. Not only Japanese soldiers but many administrative, educational, agricultural and commercial experts had been to school in Germany. There was much in common in the German and Japanese mentalities, much alike in Central European and Farthest East regard for the army and for order, devotion to regulations, habit of subordination and deification of the State. Eventually the well-known anti-Ally campaign broke out in Tokyo, a thing which has never been sufficiently explained. Soon I was pressed to turn aside from my studies and attempt the more immediately useful task: to explain why Western nations, whose manifest interests were peace, were resolutely squandering their blood and wealth in War.

If what I published had some measure of success, [^[6]] it was because by this time, unlike some of the critics who sharply upbraided Japan and made impossible proposals in impossible terms, I had learnt something at first hand about the Japanese, because I wrote of the difficulties as well as the faults of Japan, and because I was now a little known as her well-wisher. One of the two books I published was translated as a labour of love, as I shall never forget, by a Japanese public man whose leisure was so scant that he sat up two nights to get his manuscript finished. Before long I had involved myself in the arduous task of founding and of editing for two years a monthly review, The New East (Shin Toyo),[ ^[7]] with for motto a sentence of my own which expresses what wisdom I have gained about the Orient, The real barrier between East and West is a distrust of each other's morality and the illusion that the distrust is on one side only.

The excuse for so personal a digression is that, when this period of literary and journalistic stress began, my rural notebooks and MSS., memoranda of conversations on social problems and a heterogeneous collection of reports and documents had to be stowed into boxes. There they stayed until a year ago. The entries in a dozen of my little hurriedly filled notebooks have lost their flavour or are unintelligible: I have put them all aside. Neither is it possible to utilise notes which were submarined or lost in over-worked post offices. This book—I have had to leave out Kyushu entirely—is not the work I planned, a complete account of rural life and industry in every part of Japan, with an excursus on Korea and Formosa, and certain general conclusions: a standard work, no doubt, in, I am afraid, two volumes, and forgetful at times of the warning that "to spend too much Time in Studies is Sloth."

What I had transcribed before leaving Japan I have now been able in the course of a leisured year in England to overhaul and to supplement by up-to-date statistics in an extensive Appendix. In the changed circumstances in which the book is completed I have also ruthlessly transferred to this Appendix all the technical matter in the text, so that nothing shall obstruct the way of the general reader. At some future date there may be by another hand a book about Japan in terms of soils, manures and crops. That is the book the War saved me from writing. In the present work I have the opportunity which so few authors have enjoyed of jettisoning all technics into an Appendix.

"It is necessary," says a wise modern author, "to meditate over one's impressions at leisure, to start afresh again and again with a clearer vision of the essential facts." And a Japanese companion of my journeys writes, "Never can you be sorry that this book is coming late. This time of delay has been the best time; we have had enough of first impressions." The justification for this volume is that, in spite of the difficulties attending the composition of it, it may be held to offer a picture of some aspects of modern Japan to be found nowhere else. Politics is not for these pages, nor, because there are so many charming books on æsthetic and scenic Japan, do I write on Art or about Fuji, Kyoto, Nara, Miyanoshita and Nikko. I went to Japan to see the countryman. The Japanese whom most of the world knows are townified, sometimes Americanised or Europeanised, and, as often as not, elaborately educated. They are frequently remarkable men. They stand for a great deal in modern Japan. But their untownified fellow-countrymen, with the training of tradition and experience, of rural schoolmasters and village elders, and, as frequently, of the carefully shielded army, are more than half of the nation.

What is their health of mind and body? By what social and moral principles and prejudices are they swayed? To what extent are they adequate to the demand that is made and is likely to be made upon them? In what respects are they the masters of their lives or are mastered? In what ways are they still open to Western influences? And in what directions are they now inclined to trust to "themselves alone"?

If the masters of the rural journal were sometimes mistaken in the observations they made from horseback, I cannot have escaped blundering in passing through more dimly lit scenes than they visited. "If there appears here and there any uncorrectness, I do not hold myself obliged to answer for what I could not perfectly govern."[^[8]] But I have laboriously taken all the precautions I could and I have obeyed as far as possible a recent request that "visitors to the Far East should confine themselves to what they have seen with their own eyes." As Huxley wrote, "all that I have proposed to myself is to say, This and this have I learned."

I take pleasure in recalling that some years ago I was approached with a view to undertaking for the United States Government a socio-agricultural investigation in a foreign country. Reared as I have been in the whole faith of a citizen of the English-speaking world, I am glad to think that the present volume may be of some service to American readers. The United States is within ten days—Canada is within nine—of Japan against Great Britain's month by the Atlantic-C.P.R.-Pacific route and eight weeks by Suez. There are more American visitors than British to Japan. It was America that first opened Japan to the West, and the debt of Japan to American training and stimulus is immense. But British services to Japan have also been substantial. Great Britain was the first to welcome her within the circle of the Great Powers, and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance did more for Japan than some Japanese have been willing to admit. The problem of Japan is the problem of the whole English-speaking world. Rightly conceived, the interests of the British Empire and the United States in the Far East are one and indivisible.

The Japanese version of the title of this book (kindly suggested by Mr. Seichi Narusé) is Nihon no Shinzui, literally, "The Marrow" or "The Core of Japan." His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, the beauty of whose calligraphy is well known, was so very kind as to allow me to requisition his clever brush for the script for the engraver; but it must be understood that Baron Hayashi has seen nothing of the volume but the cover.

I greatly regret that the present conditions of book production make it impossible to reproduce more than one in thirty of my photographs.

It is in no spirit of ingratitude to my hosts and many other kind people in Japan that I have taken the decision resolutely to strike out of the text all those names of places and persons which give such a forbidding air to a traveller's page. I have pleasure in acknowledging here the particular obligations I am under to Kunio Yanaghita, formerly Secretary of the Japanese House of Peers and a distinguished and disinterested student of rural conditions, Dr. Nitobe, assistant secretary of the League of Nations, and his wife, Professor Nasu, Imperial University, Mr. Yamasaki, Mr. M. Yanagi, Mr. Kanzō Uchimura, Mr. Bernard Leach, Mr. M. Tajima, Mr. Ono and two young officials in Hokkaido, who each in turn found time to join me on my journeys and showed me innumerable kindnesses. It was a piece of good fortune that while these pages were in preparation Mr. Yanaghita, Professor Nasu and other fellow-travellers were in Europe and available for consultation. Professor Nasu unweariedly furnished painstaking answers to many questions, and was kind enough to read all of the book in proof; but he has no responsibility, of course, for the views which I express. I am also specially indebted to Dr. Kozai, President of the Imperial University, to Mr. Ito and other officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, to Mr. Tsurimi, one of the most understanding of travelled Japanese, to Mr. Iwanaga, formerly of the Imperial Railway Board, to Dr. Sato, President of Hokkaido University, and his obliging colleagues, to the Imperial Agricultural Society, to Professors Yahagi and Yokoi, and to Viscount Kano, Dr. Kuwada, Mr. I. Yoshida, Mr. K. Ohta, Mr. H. Saito, Mr. S. Hoshijima, and many provincial agricultural and sociological experts.

Portions of drafts for this book have appeared in the Daily Telegraph, World's Work, Manchester Guardian, New East, Asia, Japan Chronicle and Christian World. I am indebted to the World's Work and Asia for some additional illustrations from blocks made from my photographs, and to the New East for some sketches by Miss Elizabeth Keith.

FOOTNOTES:

[ [1] There is a small book by an able American soil specialist, the late Professor King, which describes through rose-tinted glasses the farming of Japan, and of China and Korea as well, on the basis of a flying trip to countries the population of which is thrice that of Great Britain and the United States together. The author of another book, published last year, delivers himself of this astonishing opinion: "The Japanese is no better fitted to direct his own agriculture than I am to steer a rudderless ship across the Atlantic."

[ [2] Vide Sir Daniel Hall's Pilgrimage of English Farming and articles of mine in the Nineteenth Century and Times, and my Land Problem.

[ [3] The Japanese have only lately, however, made some acknowledgment of their debt to Hearn, and in an eight-page bibliography of the best books about Japan in the Japan Year Book Murdoch's as yet unrivalled History is not even mentioned.

[ [4] Ohyakusho must not be confused with Oo-hyakusho or Oo-byakusho, which means a large farmer. O is a polite prefix; Oo or O means large.

[ [5] Horizontal wall writings.

[ [6] About 35,000 copies of my two bilingual books were circulated.

[ [7] With the backing of a London Committee composed of Lord Burnham, Sir G.W. Prothero, Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey and Mr. C.V. Sale.

[ [8] Tenison, 1684.

CONTENTS

STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE (AICHI)

CHAPTER

[I. THE MERCY OF BUDDHA]

[II. "GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"]

[III. EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES]

[IV. "THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"]

[V. COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE]

[VI. BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-KAMI]

[VII. OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI]

THE MOST EXACTING CROP IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER

[VIII. THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD]

[IX. THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION]

BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE APOSTLE AND THE ARTIST

CHAPTER

[X. A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL]

[XI. THE IDEA OF A GAP]

ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND BACK)

CHAPTER

[XII. TO THE HILLS (TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)]

[XIII. THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (FUKUSHIMA)]

[XIV. SHRINES AND POETRY (NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)]

[XV. THE NUN'S CELL (NAGANO)]

IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE

CHAPTER

[XVI. PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE (SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)]

[XVII. THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM (NAGANO)]

[XVIII. "GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES (NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)]

[XIX. "FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE]

FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE WEST COAST

CHAPTER

[XX. "THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED" (FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)]

[XXI. THE "TANOMOSHI" (YAMAGATA)]

BACK AGAIN BY THE EAST COAST

CHAPTER

[XXII. "BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST (YAMAGATA, AKITA, AOMORI, IWATE, MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA AND IBARAKI)]

[XXIII. A MIDNIGHT TALK]

THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU

CHAPTER

[XXIV. LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA" (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)]

[XXV. "SPECIAL TRIBES" (EHIME)]

[XXVI. THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN (EHIME)]

THE SOUTH-WEST OF JAPAN

CHAPTER

[XXVII. UP-COUNTRY ORATORY (YAMAGUCHI)]

[XXVIII. MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES (SHIMANE)]

[XXIX. FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN (SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)]

TWO MONTHS IN TEMPLE (NAGANO)

CHAPTER

[XXX. THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS]

[XXXI. "BON" SEASON SCENES]

IN AND OUT OF THE TEA PREFECTURE

CHAPTER

[XXXII. PROGRESS OF SORTS (SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)]

[XXXIII. GREEN TEA AND BLACK (SHIDZUOKA)]

EXCURSIONS FROM TOKYO

CHAPTER

[XXXIV. A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS (CHIBA)]

[XXXV. THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND THE CARPENTER (SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)]

[XXXVI. "THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN" (GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)]

REFLECTIONS IN HOKKAIDO

CHAPTER

[XXXVII. COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS]

[XXXVIII. SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?]

[XXXIX. MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"?]

[XL. THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN]

[APPENDICES]

[INDEX]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[ BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL facing title-page ]

[ JŪJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL ]

[ BYGONE DAYS IN JAPAN ]

[ THE ROOM IN WHICH THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN ]

[ THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
]

[ "TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST" ]
(AUTOGRAPH OF OTERA SAN)

[ PLAN OF THE FARMER'S SYMBOLIC TREES ]

[ ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS ]

[ LIBRARY] AND [ WORKSHED] OF A Y.M.A.

[ LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER ]

[ SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE ]

[ MR. YAMASAKI, DR. NITOBE, AUTHOR AND PROF. NASU ]

[ THE HOUSE IN WHICH THE TEA CEREMONY TOOK PLACE
]

[ AUTHOR QUESTIONING OFFICIALS ]

[ AUTHOR PLANTING COMMEMORATIVE TREES ]

[ RICE POLISHING BY FOOT POWER ]

[ "HIBACHI," A FLOWER ARRANGEMENT AND "KAKEMONO" ]

[ SCHOOL SHRINE CONTAINING EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT ]

[ FENCING AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL ]

[ WAR MEMENTOES—ALL SCHOOLS HAVE SOME ]

[ A 200-YEARS-OLD DRAWING OF THE RICE PLANT ]

[ SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED PADDIES ]

[ PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS ]

[ PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER ]

[ MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP PRICE OF RICE DOWN ]

[ MUZZLED EDITORS ]

[ "THE JAPANESE CARLYLE" ]

[ MR. AND MRS. YANAGI ]

[ CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS ]

[ MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME CHILDREN ]

[ CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS ]

[ IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES], AND [ A BALE OF RICE ]

[ MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL ]

[ FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED ]

[ TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES ]

[ AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING" ]

[ SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING" ]

[ IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY ]

[ JAPANESE GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A SCYTHE ]

[ CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS ]

[ NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL" ]

[ STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL ]

[ TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL ]

[ GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE ]

[ SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS ]

[ SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA ]

[ VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM ]

[ ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL ]

[ CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE ]

[ RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" AND POT OF TEA ]

[ A SCARECROW ]

[ THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG ]

[ MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES ]

[ PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER ]

[ VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE ]

[RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER]

[ SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT ]

[ AUTHOR ADDRESSING LAFCADIO HEARN MEETING ]

[ A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE ]

[ GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT ]

[ TEMPLE IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN ]

[ FIRE ENGINE AND PRIMITIVE FIGURES ]

[ YOUNG MEN'S CLUB-ROOM ]

[ MEMORIAL STONES ]

[ ROOF PROTECTED AGAINST STORMS BY STONES ]

[ OFF TO THE UPLAND FIELDS ]

[ FARMER'S WIFE ]

[ MOTHER AND CHILD ]

[ A CRADLE ]

[ FIRE ALARM AND OBSERVATION POST ]

[ RACK FOR DRYING RICE ]

[ VILLAGE CREMATORIUM ]

[ DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA ]

[ AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS ]

[ "TORII" AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX GOD ]

[ TABLETS RECORDING GIFTS TO A TEMPLE ]

[ INSIDE THE "SHOJI" ]

[ AUTOMATIC RICE POLISHER ]

[ AUTHOR IN A CRATER ]

[ A TYPE OF WAYSIDE MONUMENTS ]

[ GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON" ]

[ CUTTING GRASS ]

CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND OFFICIAL TERMS

The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of 1921:

"You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to maintain the price of 25 yen. Taking at 100 the figures for the years 1915 or 1916—fortunately there is not much difference between these two years—the prices of six leading commodities reached in 1919 an average of about 250. After 1919 the prices of some commodities went still higher, but mostly they did not change very much; on the other hand, recently the prices of many commodities—among them rice and raw silk especially—have been coming down and this downward movement is gradually extending to all other commodities. From these considerations I deduce that the index number of general commodities may be safely taken as 200 when your book appears. The reader of your book has simply to double the figures given by you—that is the figures of 1915 and 1916—in order to get a rough estimate of present prices."

Where exact statements of area and yield are necessary, as in the study of the intense agriculture of Japan, local measures are preferable to our equivalents in awkward fractions. Further, the measures used in this book are easily remembered, and no serious study of Japanese agriculture on the spot is possible without remembering them. While, however, Japanese currency, weights and measures have been uniformly used, equivalents have been supplied at every place in the book where their omission might be reasonably considered to interfere with easy reading. The following tables are restricted to currency, weights and measures mentioned in the book.

MONEY[^[9]]

Yen = roughly (at the time notes for the book were made) a florin or half a dollar = 100 sen.

Sen = a farthing or half cent = 10 rin.

LONG

Ri = roughly 2½ miles.

Shaku (roughly 1 ft.) = 11.93 in.

Ri are converted into miles by being multiplied by 2.44.

SQUARE

Ri (roughly 6 sq. miles) = 5.955 sq. miles.

Chō (sometimes written, Chōbu) (roughly 2½ acres) = 2.450 acres = 10 tan = 3,000 tsubo.

Tan or Tambu (roughly ¼ acre) = 0.245 acres = 10 se = 300 bu.

Bu or Tsubo (roughly 4 sq. yds.) = 3.953 sq. yds.

An acre is about 4 tan 10 bu or 1,200 bu or tsubo (an urban measure). The size of rooms is reckoned by the number of mats, which are ordinarily 6 shaku in length and 3 shaku in breadth.

CAPACITY

Koku (roughly 40 gals. or 5 bush.) = 39.703 gals, or 4.960 bush. = 10 tō. According to American measurements, there are 47.653 gals, (liquid) and 5.119 bush, (dry) in a koku. A koku of rice is 313½ lbs. (British).

A koku of imported rice is, however, 330½ lbs. The following koku must also be noted: ordinary barley, 231 lbs.; naked barley 301.1 lbs.; wheat 288.7 lbs.; proso millet, 247.9 lbs.; foxtail millet, 280.9 lbs.; barnyard millet, 165.2 lbs.; brickaheat, 247.9 lbs.; maize, 289.2 lbs.; soya beans, 286.5 lbs.; azuki (red) beans, 319.9 lbs.; horse beans, 266.6 lbs.; peas, 306.5 lbs.

Hyō (roughly 2 bush.) = 1.985 bush. = 4 tō = bale of rice.

Tō (roughly 4 gals, or ½ bush.) = 3.970 gals, or .496 bush, or 1.985 pecks = 10 shō.

Shō (roughly 1½ qts.) = 1.588 qts. or 0.198 pecks or 108½ cub. in. = 10 gō.

Gō (roughly ⅓ pint) =.3176 pints or 0.019 pecks.

Rice is not bagged but baled, and a bale is 4 tō or 1 hyō.

WEIGHT

Kwan or kwamme (roughly 8¼ lbs.) = 8.267 lbs. av. or 10.047 lbs. troy = 1,000 momme.

Kin (catty) = 1.322 lbs. av. or 1.607 troy = 160 momme.

Momme = 2.116 drams or 2.411 dwts. According to American measurements a momme is 0.132 oz. av. and 0.120 oz. troy.

Hyakkin (picul) = 100 kin = 132.277 lbs.

A stone is 1.693, a cwt. is 13.547, and a ton 270.950 kwamme.

LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE TERMS

Ken.—Prefecture. There are forty-three ken and Hokkaido. Ken and fu are made up of the former sixty-six provinces. Sometimes the name of the ken and the name of the capital of the ken are the same: example, Shidzuoka-ken, capital Shidzuoka.

Fu.—Three prefectures are municipal prefectures and are called not ken but fu. They are Tokyo-fu, Kyoto-fu and Osaka-fu.

Gun (kōri).—Division of a prefecture, a county or rural district. There are 636 gun. Gun are now being done away with.

Shi.—City. There are seventy-nine cities.

Cho.—A town or rather a district preponderatingly urban. There are 1,333 cho.

Machi.—Japanese name for the Chinese character cho.

Son.—A village or rather a district preponderatingly rural. There are 10,839 son.

Mura.—Japanese name for a Chinese character son.

A true idea of the Japanese village is obtained as soon as one mentally defines it as a commune. There may be a rural community called son or a municipal community called cho. The cho or son consists of a number of oaza, that is, big aza, which in turn consists of a number of ko-aza or small aza. A ko-aza may consist of twenty or thirty dwellings, that is, a hamlet, or it may be only one dwelling. It may be ten acres in extent or fifty. I found that the population of a particular municipality was 10,000 in seven big oaza comprising twenty-two ko-aza.

THE ROOM, OVERLOOKING THE PACIFIC, IN WHICH MUCH OF THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
The feet of the chair and table are fitted with wooden slats so as not to injure the tatami. Electricity as a matter of course!

THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
The worshippers in the front row lost relatives by a flood.
This is not the priest referred to in Chapter I.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE (AICHI) [^[10]]

CHAPTER I

THE MERCY OF BUDDHA

The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of Feelings.—Havelock Ellis.

One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he answered, "I am."

We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing, Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[ ^[11]] "Contrary to the principles of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the way of improvement.

The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (Bimbogami). He said that the Spirit visited a man when he became rich—in order to bring curios to him; and again when he became poor—in order to take them away from him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him again.

Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition. People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad influences of civilisation.

Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young people—formerly young men used to visit the factory girls—but it was rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.

There was in the neighbourhood, this Buddhist pastor went on, a temple belonging to the same sect as his own, and he was on friendly terms with its priest. It was good discipline, he said, for two priests to be working near one another if they were of the same sect, for their work was compared. In answer to my enquiry, the old man said that he preached four days a month. Each service consisted of reading for an hour and then preaching for two hours. About 150 or 200 persons would attend. He had also a service every morning from five to six. In addition to these gatherings in the temple he conducted services in farmers' houses. "I feel rather ashamed sometimes," he said," when I listen to the good sermons of Christians."

As the priest was taking leave he told me that he was going to a farmer's house in order to conduct a service. I asked to be allowed to accompany him. He kindly agreed, and invited me to stay the night in his temple.

When I reached the farmhouse there were there about two dozen kneeling people, including members of the family. On the coming of the priest, who had gone to the temple to put on his robes, the farmer threw open the doors of the family shrine and lighted the candles in it. The priest knelt down by the shrine and invited me to kneel near him. In a few words he told the people why I was in the district. Whereupon the farmer's aged mother piped, "We heard that a tall man had come, but to think that we should see him and be in the same room with him!"

When he had prayed, the priest read from a roll of the Shinshu scripture which he had taken reverently from a box and a succession of wrappings. Afterwards he preached from a "text," continuing, of course, to kneel as we did. A flickering light fell upon us from a lamp hanging from a beam. The room was pervaded with incense from an iron censer which the farmer gently swung. The worshippers told their beads, and in intervals between the priest's sentences I heard the murmur of fervent prayer. The priest preached his sermon with his eyes shut, and I could watch him narrowly. It is not so often that one sees an old man with a sweet face. But there was sweetness in both the face and voice of this priest. He spoke slowly and clearly, sometimes pausing for a little between his sentences as if for better inspiration, as a Quaker will sometimes do in speaking at meeting. His tones were no higher than could be heard clearly in the room. There was nothing of the exhorter in this man. His talk did not sound like preaching at all. It was like kind, friendly talk at the fireside at a solemn time. "Faith, prayer, morality: these alone are necessary," was the burden of the simple address. "We have faith by divine providence; out of our thanksgiving comes prayer, and we cannot but be good." It was plain that the old women loved their priest. In the front of the congregation were three crones gnarled in hands and face. When the sermon of an hour or so came to an end they spoke quaveringly of the mercy of Buddha to them, and of their own feebleness to do well. The old priest gently offered them comfort and counsel.

After the service, in the light of the priest's paper lantern, I made my way along the road to the temple. At length I found myself mounting the lichened stone steps to the great closed gates. The priest drew the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined in detail.

About half-past four in the morning I was awakened by the booming of the temple bell. It is the sound which of all delights in the Far East is most memorable. I got up, and, following the example of my host, had a bath in the open, and dressed.

Then I was lighted along passages into the public part of the temple. The priest with an acolyte began service at the middle altar. Afterwards he proceeded to a side altar. At one stage of the service he chanted a hymn which ran something like this:

From the virtues and the mercies of divine providence we get faith, the worth of which is boundless.
The ice of petty care and trouble which froze our hearts is melted.
It has become the water of divine illumination, bearing us on to peace.
The more care and trouble, the greater the illumination and the reward.

I knelt on the outside of the congregational group. It was cold as the great doors were slid open from time to time and the kneeling figures grew in number to about forty. Day broke and a few sparrows twittered by the time the first part of the service was over.

The priest then took up his lamp and low table, and, coming without the altar rail, knelt down in the midst of the congregation. In this familiar relation with his people he delivered a homily in a conversational tone. Buddha was to mankind as a father to his children, he said. If a man did bad things but repented, his father would be more delighted than if he got rich. The way of serving Buddha was to feel his love. To ask of the rich or of a master was supplication, but we did not need to supplicate Buddha. Our love of Buddha and his love for us would become one thing. Carelessness, an evil spirit, doubt: these were the enemies. Gold was beautiful to look at, but if the gold stuck in one's eyes so that one could not see, how then? The true essence of belief was the abandonment of ourselves to divine providence.