Frontmatter
pp. N/A
Page I STUDIES IN JAPANESE CULTURE: 1 Yayoi Culture Harumi Befu Social Values and Personal Attitudes in Primary Human Relations in Niiiki George DeVos Practical Approaches to Japanese Traditional Music William P. Malm Bounty of the Kuroshio Jack T. Moyer The Soka Gakkai Robert L. Ramseyer The University of Michigan Press * Ann Arbor * I96; Center for Japanese Studies ~ Occasional Papers No. g
Page II Copyright~ 1965 by The University of Michigan University of Michigan Center for Director: Robert B. Hall Associate Editor: John L. Weber Japanese Studies The Occasional Papers of the Center for Japanese Studies are published by the University of Michigan Press. Sales correspondence should be directed to the University of Michigan Press, 616 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. Editorial correspondence should be directed to the Center for Japanese Studies, 108 Lane Hall, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.
Page III CONTENTS Page YAYOI CULTURE HARUMI BEFU 1 Introduction................................................. 3 Pottery Tradition.............................................. 4 Physiography, Sites, and Site Distribution............................. 20 Econom y................................................... 26 Ceremonial and Decorative Tradition................................ 32 Continental Relations and Absolute Dating............................. 40 Summary and Interpretation....................................... 42 SOCIAL VALUES AND PERSONAL ATTITUDES IN PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE GEORGE DeVOS 51 Introduction................................................. 53 The Expression of Primary Emotions in NiiikeCertain Psychological Correlatives.................................. 55 Attitudes Concerning Achievement.................................. 56 Attitudes Concerning Work and Leisure............................... 59 Attitudes Concerning Marriage Relationships........................... 61 Parent-Child Relationships....................................... 69 Attitudes Toward Authority....................................... 74 General Sources of Worry........................................ 79 Sum m ary................................................... 81 PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC WILLIAM P. MALM 93 Introduction................................................. 95 Basic Concepts in Japanese Music.................................. 95 Conclusion.........................................1....... 102 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO JACK T. MOYER Introduction................................................. 107 Geography.................................................. 107 Climate.................................................... 110 The Effect of Weather on Fishing................................. 111 Non-Fishing Occupations......................................... 11 iii
Page IV iv CONTENTS The Fishery Resources of Miyake-Jima................... The Fisherman's Cooperative.......................... Fishing Techniques................................. Prospects for the Future.............................. Sum m ary....................................... THE SOKA GAKKAI ROBERT Introduction..................................... Nichiren Shoshu and the Soka Gakkai...................... The Founder of S6ka Gakkai............................ K achiron........................................ History, Organization, and Staff......................... The Great Shakubuku Advance......................... Political Activity................................... Conclusion....................................... *.......... *......... * * * * * * * * * * L. RAMSEYER *........... * * * *............. * * * *.. * * *......*.............. * *..*... Page 113 115 115 128 128 141 142 154 156 163 172 179 186
Editor's Preface
pp. v
Page V EDITOR'S PREFACE In training scholars for specialized work in Japanese Studies, the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies puts primary emphasis on the graduate and postdoctoral levels of training and research. This program includes two mutually supporting phases, one in the University classrooms and library, the other in Japan. On the Ann Arbor campus, staff members offer various departmental courses on Japan, but also join in a one-year Multidisciplinary Course that introduces a wide range of fields represented in Japanese Research and, in sequence, a Multidisciplinary Seminar further acquainting students with the methods and interests of various research fields. In Japan, the program emphasizes field research for all persons associated with the Center, whether as advanced students or as staff members. Research publications of merit have come out of this program, ranging from monographic studies such as Village Japan by Richard K. Beardsley, John W. Hall, and Robert E. Ward, or Takashima: a Japanese Fishing Village by Edward Norbeck, to briefer contributions in professional journals and in the Center's own series, Occasional Papers. A good many research papers were based on field work conducted out of the field station maintained by the Center in Okayama Prefecture 1950-1956. The present papers result from the program described above and continue a policy begun earlier in this series: the grouping together of studies bearing thon a common general aspect of Japanese culture. The first such issue (Occasional Papers No. 5) contained a pair of community studies of agricultural villages in the Inland Sea Region by Dr. John B. Cornell and Robert J. Smith; Occasional Papers No. 7 contained studies of Japanese politics and law, edited by Professor Robert E. Ward. The studies presented in this issue go together in that they deal with matters of cultural interest, although their authors are specialists in a variety of fields. Various circumstances have delayed the publication of this issue beyond the normal period, among them the wide scattering of editors and contributors across the country and overseas. Our regrets for the excessive lag is hereby offered to each contributing author. Despite the delay, each paper treats a subject which remains of interest and has not been dealt with previously to our knowledge. Harumi Befu, visiting associate professor at the University of Michigan, writes on Yayoi culture, dealing with both its development and diffusion, as well as with the pottery, implements, and weapons of the culture which have been recovered by archaeologists. This paper is an adaptation of a Master of Arts thesis submitted to the University of Michigan in 1956. Dr. George DeVos' paper presents a non-technical summary of results obtained from three of the psychological tests given to inhabitants of Niiiki village in Okayama prefecture, Japan, in 1954. Today's Japan is experiencing radical shifts in both behavior and attitudes, not only in urban life, but also in more tradition-bound rural areas. Niiiki is one example of what was to be found in Japan in 1954. At present, Dr. DeVos is with the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. William P. Malm, associate professor of music at the University of Michigan, provides in his paper guidelines for an approach to Japan's various music traditions. This article is an extension of a paper read at the 1963 annual meeting for Asian Studies in Philadelphia. The result of research done while living with a Japanese family for three years, Jack T. Moyer's paper presents a study of the fishing industry in Tsubota, a small seaside community in the Izu islands of Japan. Mr. Moyer is at present with the American School in Tokyo. v
Page VI vi EDITOR'S PREFACE Robert L. Ramseyer, a missionary currently in Japan, presents a study of what is probably the most widely discussed religious group in Japan today, the SOka Gakkai. Perhaps because of its comparatively recent rise to national prominence, the SOka Gakkai appears to be little understood. This paper does much to provide that understanding. The work of editing this volume was shared by Mrs. Karen Brazell and Mr. John Weber. Mr. Hirofumi Ando supplied the necessary calligraphy. The cover design was created by Mrs. Marilyn Mihal.
Yayoi Culture
Harumi Befupp. 1-50
Page 1 YAYOI CULTURE Harumi Befu University of Missouri Adapted from a Master of Arts' thesis submitted to the University of Michigan in 1956.
Page 3 INTRODUCTION The prehistory of Japan goes back considerably before the time of Christ. The earliest cultures, known from Iwajuku, Gumma prefecture, and other sites, had only chipped stone tools. This cultural phase was followed by two main types of neolithic culture: the JOmon type $, ~ and the Yayoi type j? L. Although the latter culture is the main subject of this paper, a knowledge of the major features of J1mon culture is essential. Almost all of the Jomon sites were on the seacoast or along rivers. Although there are Jomon sites in all areas of Japan, they are most numerous in the north and east, i.e., north of a line drawn along the Ibuki and Suzuka mountain ranges and their southern extension. Sites are more numerous northeast of the Kanto Plain because the Jomon culture persisted longer there. Late and final Period sites are especially frequent toward the northern half of Honshu. Jomon shelters were mostly of two types: 1) a ground-level, stone-floored hut, and 2) a semisubterranean pit with a hearth close to the center and a roof supported by four to six posts. The economy consisted of hunting, fishing, and collecting land and sea products. Deer, wild boar, and, occasionally, bear constituted the major game, while sea bream, sea-perch, cod, salmon and fresh and salt water shellfish were also an important part of the diet. Arrow heads and spear heads were used for hunting, and horn and bone harpons and hooks were used for fishing. Various types of chipped and polished axes and scrapers and, probably, small fishing nets were also used. Jomon pottery shows no use of the potter's wheel. It was generally fired at a low temperature. According to the customary typological analysis, Jomon pottery is usually divided into five periods: initial, early, middle, late, and final. Designs became extremely varied and elaborate. For example, cord impressions on the surface (from which the name of the culture is derived) were first employed in the early period and were variously treated in successive periods. In the late period the cord design was often partially erased after it had been impressed on the pottery. Bold, incised outlines of various shapes often framed areas from which cord design was erased, creating groovebordered zones. Another common technique was to finish the undecorated surface with a rough brush, leaving brush marks on the surface. In the late and final periods, the shape of the pottery became more and more varied and elaborate. Clay figurines of considerable aesthetic merit have also been found. Ornamental wear included necklaces, bracelets, waist ornaments, hair dressings, earrings, and comma-shaped beads (magatama l Y_ ). A dead body was placed in a pit without a coffin or a permanent marker. Accompanying objects are meager. One of the most striking characteristics of the Jomon period is increasing elaboration in all aspects of the culture. Stone and bone tools became varied and even indicate specialized uses. The pottery repertory became extremely varied and the ornaments rich. Ornamental objects became ornate in design and varied in shape. This elaboration and the rich remains in shell mounds clearly indicate the vitality of the Jomon culture. The success of the Jomon technology within the Japanese environment of that time released a considerable amount of surplus energy, which was expended in artistic and possibly in religious endeavours. Its success, nevertheless, was within the framework of a gathering economy with social organization probably composed of families and bands. For any further qualitative progress of the culture, Japan had to await diffusion of new means of economy from the culture center on the continent. The culture that resulted from new continental contact is known as Yayoi. This was an agricultural economy and seems to have had some metal implements. Following this was the Tomb culture, occupying a period sometimes called proto-historic, during which tombs, occasionally of colossal size, were built for nobles. This cultural period gradually merged into fully historic time. Although the recent trend among the Japanese archaeologists working on the Yayoi culture is 3
Page 4 4 YAYOI CULTURE to find greater and greater continuity between the Jomon and Yayoi cultural traditions, the division between them remains fairly sharp. The most decisive factor distinguishing the two is the difference in the type of economy. The transition from Yayoi to the Tomb culture, in contrast, was rather smooth. The important distinguishing characteristic of the Tomb culture is the gradual emergence of chieftain states built upon the rice economy inherited from the Yayoi culture. Yayoi culture may be regarded as the first genuinely Japanese culture. The components of the Yayoi tradition were derived, however, from the Asiatic continent, and it was native only in the manner of its integration. Continental contact seems to have been important to progress throughout this cultural period. Available evidence points to northern Kyushu, or at least western Japan, as the gateway for entering continental cultural elements, whence these elements spread east and northeast. Agricultural economy based on rice cultivation increased population and at the same time stabilized it. Success in rice economy, moreover, produced enough food to enable a certain portion of the population to shift from subsistence production to secondary industries. The specialization of labor and the nature of the wet rice cultivation, especially the increasing necessity for water control, required the cooperation and coordination of a larger and larger population. To meet these needs an elite emerged that served to coordinate, from above, the increasingly differentiated community. In succeeding sections of this paper I shall discuss the factual evidence on which these interpretations are based. In the final section my conclusions about the Yayoi culture will be presented in greater detail. POTTERY TRADITION Several general statements can be made about Yayoi pottery regardless of region. Yayoi ware is technically superior to the preceding Jomon pottery, for it was fired at a higher temperature. Consequently it is harder and thinner, and could be made much larger. The high temperature at which the pottery was fired strongly suggests the use of a kiln, although no direct evidence is available. Specialists generally agree that Yayoi pottery, with the possible exception of the very early types, was made on the wheel. The design, by and large, is more intricate and finer than that of Jomon pottery, and has a more geometric nature. Whereas Jomon designs typically covered the whole surface, Yayoi designs girdled a limited sector, usually above the midline, leaving the lower part blank. Sometimes the design was limited to only one or two relief bands around the shoulder. In general, designs ran in horizontal bands, allowing for rapid production on the wheel. Techniques of design included incision, impression, punctation, a relief band around the body, and occasionally paint. Plates 1 - 4 show some of the main design patterns. Spatulae or comb-like tools, which allowed several lines to be drawn at once (see Plate 2: d and f), and the edge of a shell were the chief tools for designing. There were four main typologically defined shapes: urn (Plate 1: c), jar (Plate 1: a), bowl (Plate 3: d), and footed bowl (Plate 3: h). Their sizes varied from a few inches to a few feet in height, although, except for the urn, they seldom exceeded a foot and a half (45 cm). Western Japan Within these general characteristics, regional and chronological differences were well marked. Map 1 shows the regional divisions. The boldest line is drawn along the Ibuki and Suzuka Ranges and their southern extension, which divides Japan into east and west. In western Japan there were two centers of pottery diffusion: North Kyushu and Kinki. These two regions will be described first in some detail, then other regions will be described - chiefly with respect to influences from these two centers.
Page 5 HARUMI BEFU 5 1. Northern Kyushu 2. Southern Kyushu 3. Inland Sea 4. San in 5. Southern Shikoku 6. Kinki 7. Tokai 8. Central Mountains 9. Hokuriku 10. Kanto 11. Tohoku V AT 0 100 300km Map 1. Regionalism in Pottery Traditions. Northern Kyushu.l This region includes the northern half of Kyushu Island, Iki and Tsushima islands and the western tip of the Chugoku region of Honshu. Following the general practice of Japanese archaeologists, I have divided the whole of Yayoi tradition into three time periods: early, middle, and late. For comparison, Mori's and Sugihara's subdivisions for Northern Kyushu are given in Table 1. TABLE 1 CHRONOLOGY OF NORTHERN KYUSHU POTTERY Period Mori Sugihara B Zasshonokuma Takamizuma IX Mizumakicho Late A VIII VII Isaza VI Middle Sugu V Sugu II IV Sugu I B Shimoita III Early A Ongagawa II Tateyashiki I Itazuke Sources: Mori 1955: 34, Figure 1; and Sugihara 1955: 5, Table 1.
Page 6 a. luk ~le jar (14 cm)=~ b. Sagu, I style url (44 cm) (e Isaza stlee urn (28 cm) c. Sugu II st: le urn (94 c m) F, 'rurt~a- 1,: Northiier"n Kyushau Pottery (See Ta, ble~f I fo~r sty~les)
Page 7 b., Kara~ko style ur~n (17? cm) d, KWwgati I style jar (36 cm) Figure 2, Kinki Po9ttery (See Table O2 for styl es) Photographs:our te sy of Sh:!ak:a, Kabushiki Kaisha Tokyo
Page 8 a. Suwaada stale Sar (43 cm) b. M~iyanodai style jar (24 cm) c. Kugahara styl~e jar~ (38 cm)T~ d. Miyanodai stylea bowl (12 cm). e. Kugahara style bowlO~ (9 c rn f. yoico stle jar (20 cm.) g. Mienocho style jarji~ (20~ cm) h. Maenocho style footoed bowl (8.5 cm,)) Frigure 3. Southern~r Kdnto Potterys (See T~able 6 for sty~les) Photogrtaphs corurtesgy off Sho-akan Kabushik;i Kai ha, a oko
Page 9 a. syeja r b Fgrn jar wihfc. Mnmgynaslejar (40 cm) 685cmi) (21 c m.) d. *i~.a ioa as eurn e. Masgtgkisyejar f.Mau tgkosylur (47.5 c )(3 6 ci)(36cm 4.:~ 9;9
Page 10 10 YAYOI CULTURE Northern Kyushu urns of the earliest phase of the early period (Itazuke) had an everted rim and only a slight shoulder (Figure 1). The impressed design around the rim and the roughened surface treatment suggest a relation to late Jomon pottery. The jar made by the coil method generally had a spherical body with an everted rim. Designs, if any, were of simple geometric nature, done by incision or in color: red, white, or black. In contrast to the urn, the jar lacked the Jomon heritage. There were also footed bowls. In the middle of the early period an incised line below the rim of the urn became common, and its middle portion tended to bulge out. The roughened surface finish of the previous phase disappeared. Jars had wider shoulders than before and the center of gravity was higher. Larger ones had reinforced rims (Figure 5: e), which became a common characteristic even for smaller jars in later phases. In the last phase of the early period the urn had two incised lines below the rim, and some urns had T-shaped rims (Figure 5: a). Some of the jars were carinated on the side. Designs were abundant and a new pattern, the quatrefoil, became popular. Throughout the early period the clay had a heavy quartz content, which diminished gradually and the color was still dark brown. The urns were usually fired hardest from the middle portion up. a b c d e f g h i Figure 5. Rim Shapes of Northern Kyushu Pottery. a-c. Changes in shape of urn rims from early to late Yayoi. d. Footed bowl rim as it widened and flattened in middle Yayoi. e-i. Changes in shape of jar rims from early to late Yayoi. The middle period saw technical progress, especially in standardization of forms and in application of fire from the bottom. Walls thinned out and the quartz content decreased. The color became light red, and in general the pottery of this period is aesthetically more pleasing than that of the previous period. In the early phase of this period most urns had a T-shaped rim. Jars had flaring necks (Figure 5: f) with reinforced rims and carinated shoulders. The rims of footed bowls began to be widened and flattened (Figure 5: d), while the foot became elongated. Red paint and relief bands which were sometimes used in the early phase, became common in the middle phase. Some middle phase jars had incurved rims (Figure 5: g). In the last phase the urn began to have a rounded and bulged mouth (Figure 5: b), and became thinner. The rim of the jar was now exclusively incurved and the relief bands disappeared. The center of gravity became lower, and the general appearance was bulkier than before. In the late period the urn rim sloped outward (Figure 5: c), its middle portion bulged, and the bottom became smaller and smaller, finally becoming round. In the early phase of this period the urn had an everted rim, and the body bulged out slightly so that the diameters across the mouth and belly were approximately the same. The brush-finish of the surface was a little coarser than before.
Page 11 HARUMI BEFU 11 In the middle phase the greatest diameter of the urn was across the body. Instead of the brushfinish the surface was sometimes treated by paddling it with a flat stick. Jars were thinner and less painted. The rim of some jars were sharply incurved (Figure 1: h). Representational pictures of natural objects were sporadically seen on jars, as they were on the early and middle phases of later pottery from other regions. Some jars had elongated necks (Figure 5: i). Bowls with separate pedestals came into being. Toward the end of the late period, the excellence in technical and aesthetic development gradually declined, designs disappeared, and the general shape of the pottery became less attractive. The pottery of this period gradually merged into the Haji tradition, which is associated with the Tomb period. Kinki The earliest pottery style in Northern Kyushu seems to antedate the earliest style in Kinki. Because of this it is usually supposed that the Kinki style is derived from the Northern Kyushu style, but the data are not sufficient to establish such a developmental sequence clearly. In either case Kinki quickly became an important center of diffusion. Its mid-early style was noted in the Inland Sea region and in Southern Shikoku. Also, the influence of the comb-technique and style, a middle Kinki vogue, reached as far west as Southern Kyushu and as far east as Kanto. Jars of the early period in Kinki were of two general styles (Figure 2 and Table 2). Both styles favored bulging bodies. One style had a slightly everted rim, and little design (one or two horizontal lines and/or a quatrefoil). The other had a fairly large, everted rim, and punctated relief bands around the neck and/or the body. There were flat or conical lids, sometimes with a quatrefoil design on top. These lids often had small holes in them. The urn was widest across the mouth, with inwardly sloping sides, and a slightly everted rim, which might have punctation all around and two or four parallel incisions below the punctation. The bottom was small, and the center of gravity high. Bowls may have had small handles. Pottery of this period had high quartz content, and the surface was well polished. The color was generally dark brown, and some were painted red. The only significant innovation during the transitional phase into the middle period was the introduction of the water-flow design (Figure 2: e). The middle period is most strikingly characterized by the use of a comb-like tool for design. There were four general categories of jars: 1) those with fully rounded bodies and wide, everted rims; 2) jars similar to this but without necks; 3) jars with long, slightly bulged necks; and 4) asymmetrical, pitcher-shaped containers with handles, and with or without feet (Figure 6: a-d). Design was limited mostly to the upper half of the ware. Straight or curved lines in a set of four or five, drawn with the comb-like tool, were made into varied patterns: straight parallels, waves, waterflow, hachure. Lids were perforated and conical, with the top cut off. The urn was made thin with TABLE 2 CHRONOLOGY OF KINKI POTTERY Hozumi Late Nishinotsuji Shinzawa Kuwazu II Middle Kuwazu I Uriwari Early Karako Source: Sugihara 1955:5, Table 1.
Page 12 12 YAYOI CULTURE a b c f e g h i 1 J k m n Figure 6. Shapes of Kinki Pottery a-d. Middle period jars e. Middle period urn f-i. Middle period bowls j. New type base for bowl (late period) 1-n. Late bowls
Page 13 HARUMI BEFU 13 a slightly bulged body, sharply carinated neck and a small base (Figure 6: e). The only design was around the rim. Bowls had either everted or inverted rims (Figure 6: f and g). The footed bowl had either 1) an inverted or straight rim and a conical foot which sometimes had a relief band at the bottom (Figure 6: h) or 2) an everted rim and a foot which spread out sharply toward the bottom (Figure 6: i). The following, transitional phase into the late Kinki period saw rapidly diminishing use of the comb design. The jar was usually elongated with an everted rim. Instead of the comb design the surface was finished with simple brush work. Punctation sometimes was used around the rim, and representational pictures were seen occasionally. Among the few changes was the introduction of a new type of base to be combined with a bowl (Figure 6: j). (Ed.: The tazza shape of continental Asia is prototypical of the last-named shape). As in other regions, the style of late period pottery in Kinki lost its vitality and became uninterestingly uniform and crude. Jars were either spherical with an everted rim, or long-necked. The latter were finished by smoothing the surface with a spatula. The necks of urns were carinated, and the surface finished by paddling it with a flat stick. Bowls had similar surface finish and either a single or double curvature (Figure 6: 1 and m). Some had rounded bottoms. A special innovation appeared in the form of asymmetrical ware which was open on one side, but closed on the top of the other side (Figure 6: n). Various of these late Yayoi traditions were carried into the succeeding Haji tradition. Other Regions of Western Japan Though we risk over-simplification, we may characterize other regions of western Japan (i.e., Southern Kyushu, San'in, Inland Sea, and Southern Shikoku) as derivative from the Northern Kyushu and/or Kinki pottery traditions. The conventional regions of Chugoku and Shikoku are sometimes treated separately in Yayoi typology, but there seems to be considerable evidence to suggest that the Inaldn Sea region (i.e., the southern half of Chugoku and the northern half of Shikoku) should be treated as a unit. Although the San'in region in northern Chugoku would seem to be important in determining the possible cultural derivation of the Kinki Yayoi tradition, few sites have been excavated in this area and no systematic study has been done. The earliest Southern Kyushu style (i.e., Shimojo) shows a close affinity to the mid-early Northern Kyushu style in the angular boundary between the neck and the body, the bulged body, and the low center of gravity. In the east this style diffused as far south as the Osumi Peninsula, but few signs of it have been found along the west coast. In the middle period there were several styles of Southern Kyushu pottery (Table 3). The middle Northern Kyushu style predominated on the west coast down to the southern end of the Kumamoto Plain. The KurokamichO style of the Kumamoto Plain, and the Osumi style of the eastern half of southern Kyushu also corresponded closely to the middle Northern Kyushu style known as Sugu. These various styles were distinguishable by such stylistic differences as the shape of the rim, the number of relief bands, and the presence or absence of a foot on the urn. A somewhat later middle period style, known as Menda, flourished in the western half of Southern Kyushu. Later Menda jars were closely related to the comb-style of Kinki and to the Satsuma style. The Satsuma style, which was probably derived from the Osumi style and influenced by the North Kyushu style, was the last of the decorated South Kyushu wares. As was true all over Japan, the terminal phase of Southern Kyushu pottery saw diminution in size, disappearance of designs, and lack of variation in shapes. Pottery of all types tended to express utility at the expense of aesthetic quality. The chronology of Inland Sea pottery clo se mbles that of the neighboring areas (Table 4). Influences from both Northern Kyushu and Kinki are seen. Traces of the mid-early Northern
Page 14 14 YAYOI CULTURE TABLE 3 CHRONOLOGY OF KYUSHU POTTERY N. Kyushu J_ S. Kyushu I! i _.tclla I i - OULSUi l ma@ - - ka"%,60 A A Ta SuE camizuma Menda Kurokamicho - II I u Osumi Shimojo Ongagawa Source: Otomasu 1955:49, Chart 7. TABLE 4 CHRONOLOGY OF INLAND SEA POTTERY S. Chugoku N. Shikoku Joto II Inuzuka Late Joto I Nakadera Nigo Maeyama (East) Middle Kaigarayama Maeyama (West) Kameyama Monda Agata Early Sekito Takao Sources: Kamaki 1955:61, Chart 1 (for S. Chugoku); and Okamoto 1955:50, Chart 1 (for N. Shikoku). Kyushu style are found in the earliest pottery of this region. Kinki influence, such as the quatrefoil design, is discernible from the subsequent phase. The Middle period of northern Shikoku is not well known, but on the Chugoku side of the Inland Sea region, the rim of the jar became exaggerated and elaborately decorated. Comb and lattice designs predominated; waves, zigzag, and latticed designs were used around the rims, while comb designs of various kinds filled the upper half of the belly. Some of the jars had narrow necks or none at all. The footed bowl appeared for the first time, and the foot was sometimes perforated. Urns had sharply everted rims and several parallel lines near the rim. On both sides of the Inland Sea in the late period the jar had an everted rim and a relief band separating the neck from the rounded belly, and on the Chugoku side many jars had elongated necks. Pedestals of various kinds were made with elaborate designs. Pictorial designs were occasionally present. In Southern Shikoku the pottery of the initial or Irida phase of the Yayoi tradition still utilized
Page 15 HARUMI BEFU 15 Jomon techniques of firing and design. However, the parallel incision, hallmark of the early Northern Kyushu style, was also unmistakably present. The quatrefoil design was absent in the early phase of this region. Aside from these influences from the two major centers of diffusion, there was also some influence from Northern Shikoku which reached the south toward the end of the early period. In the early late phase, a style faintly suggestive of the early late northern Shikoku is found in pottery of several sites. These specimens had comb designs and often reinforced rims. The late period ended with a style common throughout Shikoku. The urn had a sharply carinated neck, with a rounded bottom. As elsewhere the pottery of this phase is often mixed with Haji wares. Eastern Japan Before discussing the pottery traditions of various regions in eastern Japan, it is useful to make a few introductory comments about eastern Japan as a whole. Western Japan, in spite of the local differences discussed above, had much more in common than eastern Japan: in western Japan the Yayoi tradition showed a considerable break from and little contact with the JMmon tradition. To be sure, a mixture of Yayoi and JOmon pottery, such as at Karako, Nara prefecture, as well as blending of the two traditions in designs, design techniques, and firing techniques at some of the earliest Yayoi sites (e.g., Irida, Kochi prefecture, or Meusu, Fukuoka prefecture) should not be overlooked. But it remains true that the blending of the two traditions can be detected only with the most careful scrutiny. In Japan east of the Ibuki-Suzuka boundary, however, the blend of the two traditions becomes more and more apparent the farther eastward one proceeds; in fact, the amount of Jomon tradition that is retained may be said to be roughly in proportion to the distance from the Kinki region. This increasing amount of Jomon influence is observed in design (the use of cord design, or the boldly incised outline), and in shapes (the wavy rim), and also in the irregularity of types such as spouted vessels, gourd-like vessels, figurines.2 Our justification for considering this mixed tradition in eastern Japan is that our concern is not merely with pottery typology, but with a culture which has been affected by the Yayoi tradition of western Japan. Wherever the influence of Yayoi pottery styles was present, other aspects of the Yayoi culture, especially rice cultivation, were also evidenced. Tokai. While Yayoi pottery was diffusing eastward, a Jomon style called Mizukamihira was developing vigorously in the Tokai region (Table 5). The earliest Yayoi tradition in this area shows some mixture of the Mizukamihira style with the early Yayoi, especially the late early Kinki style, such as in the use of the comb design. Names from the type site, it is called Mizukamihara B. The Ise Bay area shows somewhat greater influence from Kinki than does the area farther east. TABLE 5 CHRONOLOGY OF TOKAI POTTERY Ise Bay Mikawa Enshu Suruga Kakeyama Kyokkin Late Late Yorimichi Iida Iba Early Yorimichi Kikkawa Toro __..Nagatoko Shiroiwa Uto Sotodoi Shimonagayama Middle Mineda Harazoe Kaidach5 Urig5 Early Asahi Mizukamihira B Source: Hisanaga 1955.
Page 16 16 YAYOI CULTURE The Early Ise Bay style, then, was derived from Kinki, having spatula designs punctated relief bands, and red paint, but not shell. impressions. The eastern style has crudely made urns, jars, and bowls, which are finished with rough brush work on the surface; but it also has finely made jars and shallow bowls which are decorated with the water-flow and lattice designs. After a transitional phase, the Ise Bay area developed two slightly different styles; their distinctions may be ignored in this outline treatment. In this area, rough lines, horizontal or in herringbone design, and wavy comb design generally were used. The Eastern Tokai area in this period had jars with elongated necks, cord design, and thick incision, suggestive of the Jomon technique. Urns had gradually everted rims, horizontal or slanted comb design, and punctated and/or wavy rims. Kinki influence was felt in the late period again in the Ise Bay area. The jar became spherical with a wider neck and mouth. Comb designs of various forms were used. The asymmetrical ware seen in Kinki appeared here also. Designs usually became simplified toward the end of this period. The trend toward coarse, unattractive pottery was seen here as elsewhere. Central Mountain and Hokuriku Although influence from the western Japanese Yayoi tradition began to be effective in its middle period, the early Yayoi pottery tradition was not entirely unknown in this region. Urns and jars of the late early Yayoi style were used, but with designs of strong Jomon derivation, e.g., rough surface finish and net-like design. Some Tokai Yayoi influence can be seen as well. The early period was brief in the Central area, and the middle period was more influenced by the western and central Tokai areas. The middle period is characterized by 1) development of local color, 2) revitalization of the cord design, which was rarely seen in the early period, and 3) introduction of comb-marking. Bold, deep, incised outline (a Jomon technique) and dotted or wavy lines were common features of this period. Locally, concentric arcs and whorls were used. Pottery of unusual gourd-like or spouted shapes, and footed jars existed. In the late period, comb designs continued but towards the end of this period local variations diminished. Incised parallel lines and wavy lines were combined in various ways to decorate jars and urns, while comb-marking disappeared entirely. Kanto A jar, light orange in color and with a high sand and mica content, was discovered at Suwada (Plate 3). It has a narrow neck with a small mouth. The design extends from the shoulder to neck, having bold, incised outlines filled with cord design. The lower half of the jar has a roughened surface finish. The bottom shows the impression of a woven material, on which the ware was molded. Such impressions from a woven or knitted material or from objects such as a leaf very frequently appear on the flat bases of earlier Yayoi pottery throughout eastern Japan, especially in Kanto and northeast thereof. An early date in this region's Yayoi series is assigned to the Suwada ware (Table 6). The Suwada style was followed by a Miyanodai style, which has jars with everted rims and small bottoms, showing the influence of Tokai comb design. It makes use of the bold, incised outline and a pseudo-water-flow design. Some influence from northern Kanto is discernible in the use of comb-marking around the neck. The latter style entered northern Kanto through the Central Mountain area. The earliest northern Kanto pottery included deep bowls and jars, both of which have comb and cord designs (Figure 4). Their distribution is concentrated toward the mountainous, north-western corner of this area. The style shows influences from Kinki. Late southern Kanto is subdivided into three phases: Kugahara, Yayoicho, and Maenocho. Kugahara jars have wider mouths than the previous Miyanodai urns. The curvature along the belly is gradual and the rim is reinforced. The YayoichO style also has a reinforced rim, but it is more
Page 17 HARUMI BEFU 17 TABLE 6 CHRONOLOGY OF SOUTHERN KANTO POTTERY Maenocho Late Yayoicho Kugahara Middle Miyanodai Suwada Early Source: Sugihara 1955:5, Table 1. everted and the bottom is smaller. Herring bone, cord and "S" designs are used on the upper half of the jar. Maenocho jars have sharply everted rims, no design and spherical bellies. The urn is footed and has a rough, brushed finish. In northern Kanto the late style continued to be linked with the Kinki tradition, using comb designs in waves and other patterns. There developed another style, however, which is closely related to the Late southern Kanto style. This is distributed chiefly on the plain, rather than in the mountains. Some baked clay human masks have been found in this area. Tohoku Most of the data concerning this region comes from the east and southeast, although some information from the north and west is also available. The earliest Yayoi style, Tanakura, has bold incised outlines enclosing the erased cord design. The south-eastern variety has a rough brushed finish, showing affinity with southern styles. Gourd-like styles as well as cylindrical figurines also existed. The next style, Masugatagakoi, is cord-marked with the markings running in a slanted direction; horizontal bands of geometrical design near the rim are characteristic. Urns are less decorated than other types, which often have concentric circles or arcs, zigzag designs, or a design which seems a variation of the "lazy H" seen in the final Jomon pottery. The Masugatagakoi style was followed by a Yamakusaka style which is characterized by jars with incised whorls, concentric circles and arcs, zigzag designs on the upper half, and cord design on the lower half. The Sakurai style, which probably followed the Yamakusaka, has similar designs, except that they are drawn with much sharper and thinner lines. One style whose relation to the main stream of the Tohoku pottery tradition is unknown is called Tennoyama. A wavy, everted rim, a pair of parallel lines with punctated dots between the lines, wavy lines, erased cord design running horizontally or vertically but never diagonally, characterize this style. The Inakadate style of Aomori prefecture, which was probably derived from the Tennoyama style, is much like the latter except for less use of the erased cord design and an absence of parallel lines with dots. The foregoing typolotical analyses are sketchy but they should provide a guide to the relative chronology and regional affinity of other kinds of artifacts found in association with the Yayoi pottery. In western Japan, Northern Kyushu seems to have had the oldest style; and the rest of western Japan received the following, Tateyashiki style, upon which each region built its local variations of the Yayoi tradition, influenced, of course, from time to time by centers of diffusion. In eastern Japan, however, the diffusion became more and more delayed as the Yayoi tradition moved eastward. The Ise Bay area and some parts of the Central Mountain region, as has been noted, received influence beginning with the late early Kinki style. In Kanto the earliest style was the mid-Middle; in Tohoku, the late-Middle. Thus a delay of a phase or so as one moves eastward characterizes the
Page 18 18 YAYOI CULTURE ' --- —- early-Early *...... mid-Early — *- late-Early early-Middle -...... mid-Middle.- -. late-Middle Map 2. Pottery diffusion: Early period (I) Map 3. Pottery diffusion: Middle period (I) early-Late — i.-L mid-Late - - late-Late Early. ---M _ Middle.. ---. Late Map 4. Pottery diffusion: Late period (I) Source: Sugihara 1955, Diagrams 2, 3, 4, 1. Map 5. Pottery diffusion: Early-Middle-Late periods.
Page 19 HARUMI BEFU 19 0 0 a 0 I Map 6. Pottery diffusion: Early period (II) Map 7. Pottery diffusion: Middle period (II) a Map 8. Pottery diffusion: Late period (II)
Page 20 20 YAYOI CULTURE relative time of introduction. The diffusion of styles was not restricted to the initial phase of the Yayoi tradition in any area; instead diffusion of styles continued from time to time, although it was not, as it initially was, a one-sided, eastward diffusion. The middle Tokai style, for example, is considered to have been somewhat influenced by the southern Kanto style. In terms of absolute dating the occurrence of mid-middle style in Kinki should not be regarded as contemporaneous with the mid-Middle style in Kanto because a certain amount of time must be allowed for the mid-Middle style to diffuse eastward. Thus the initial appearance of Yayoi style in Kanto may have been contemporaneous with late-Middle Kinki or even later. This absolute time lag in the corresponding phases of several regions must be kept in mind if the inter-regional relationships are to be accurately assessed. To summarize the diffusion of pottery styles, Maps 2-8 show the pattern of diffusion during each of the three major periods and throughout the Yayoi period. Maps 2-5 show the limits of diffusion by period, while Maps 6-8 show tentatively the directions and routes of diffusion. PHYSIOGRAPHY, SITES, AND SITE DISTRIBUTION The sea level, receding since the middle Jomon period, had retreated considerably by the beginning of the Yayoi period, by which time the general outline of the Japanese Islands was much as it is today. The lowering of the coast line, and erosion on land created deltas and basins with the depositing of silt. By the time the Yayoi tradition appeared in the Japanese Islands there were numerous small swampy areas along rivers and streams, along coasts and in basins all over Japan, created either by the retreat of the sea or by the deposition of stream-carried silt. It was on this swampy land that the Yayoi people began to settle, in contrast to the J1mon people who stayed along the rockier coast or on the hillsides. This change in settlement location, of course reflected the differing ecological requirements of the wet rice economy. Leaving the foothills was probably the general practice with the coming of rice cultivation, but some people seem to have remained on the slopes. Indeed, Morimoto (1946: 12-30) distinguishes between two kinds of Yayoi sites: "highland" sites on hillsides, such as Miyataki and Takenouchi, in Nara prefecture; and "lowland" sites on plains, such as Karako and Miminari, also in Nara prefecture. In contrast with the lowland sites, which show a good deal of evidence of agricultural practices, highland sites are characterized by a much greater abundance of hunting tools. Map 9 shows the Yayoi sites in the Yamato Basin, Nara prefecture. Various indirect evidence suggests that there was a large lake in the center of this basin. Sites on the hill slopes are notably few and none is large; this feature testifies to the importance of wet rice cultivation. Similar patterns appear in the distribution of Yayoi sites in the Ise Plain, Osaka Plain, and northern Kyushu (Fujioka 1947: 114-31). Morimoto makes use of three separate distributions corresponding to the Early, Middle, and Late periods (1942: 46-47). According to Morimoto, most sites in the early period were in the alluvial lowlands but settlements in the middle period moved away from the cultivated area and became located near or on hillsides. In the late period, however, settlements again moved down onto the plain. Iseki (1955: 160), analyzing site location in relation to soil deposition, asserts that many late Yayoi settlements remained on hillsides and that the movement onto the alluvial plain did not take place until the following Tomb period. Yayoi sites include shell mounds, house pits, burial sites, places where solitary ceremonial objects were found, and in one instance, paddy fields. Shell mounds contain not only shell and bone refuse but also implements of horn and bone, pottery, and sometimes human remains, all of which provide clues to the the nature of the life led. Shell mounds, which are found in abundance for the Jomon period, are found in appreciable number only in the initial phases of the Yayoi tradition, indicating a rather rapid diminution in dependence on sea products in particular and on hunting and gathering in general.
Page 21 HARUMI BEFU 21 Map 9. Yayoi Sites in Nara Basin. Note: Size of triangle indicates relative size of site. Dotted line encloses area below 50m. elevation. Hachures show hills surrounding the basin. Source: Suenaga, Kobayashi and Fujioka 1941-1942:8. The few scattered instances of complete settlements are not sufficient to permit any real estimate of the size of a community at any one time. The Karako site in the Nara Basin, however, offers a possible guide as to settlement size. This site is surrounded by a rectangular moat of about two hundred and fifty meters by a hundred and thirty meters (Figure 7). One hundred and seven pits were excavated. Their chronological seriation was established through pottery styles, in terms of five phases running throughout the Yayoi period. If we include a dozen or two pits that escaped careful recording, we may assume the total number of pits inside the moat to be about a hundred and thirty. Though this number is quite large it is probable that not all of the pits were inhabited throughout the Yayoi period. Many pits, too small for habitation, were probably used exclusively for storage purposes, and many pits may have been inhabited by more than one generation. A precise estimate of the size of the settlements or the population at any one time is therefore almost impossible. Structures intended for human habitation are circular, oval, or rectangular with rounded corners. Figure 8 shows some of the pits discovered at Toro, Shizuoka prefecture. The size of these pits, twelve meters across at their widest, is representative, within a few feet, of most shelters of this type. A low dike was built around the shelter floor. The edge of the roof seems to have rested on the dike which was surrounded by a shallow moat. Before erecting a house post, a wooden block a little larger than the cross section of the post was first placed in a hole and the post was then set
Page 22 22 YAYOI CULTURE Figure 7. Karako site pit distribution. O Phase I e Phase III X unidentified e Phase I and II Q Phase IV ( Phase II * Phase V Source: Suenaga, Kobayashi and Fujioka 1941-1942. on it. Cedar (hinoki) was the commonest structural material. Factual information concerning the upper part of the shelter is very meager but according to the report on the Karako site some organic material such as vine was used to tie the structural material together; and bark was used for thatching the cryptomeria roof. Another type of shelter found elsewhere has the posts outside the pit in rows on two sides of the pit. Two different types of storage structures are known. One type discovered at Toro and Karako may be considered a miniature of the large semisubterranean shelter discussed above. It is about two meters or less in diameter and about fifty centimeters deep. The pits at Karako included large amounts of pottery containing various plant seeds. The other type, discovered at Toro, is a large house with a raised floor. Four posts were erected in each of two rows, about two and half meters apart. The posts of each row were spaced about one and a third meters apart. Wooden planks served as walls (Figure 10). A portion of a notched log ladder, probably used for climbing to the storehouse, was also found. Some structures of this type are much smaller in size (Goto 1954: 9). Pictorial representations of such a storage structure can be seen on a bronze bell and a pottery fragment in Figure 10. For some reason, most known burial sites of the Yayoi period have been found in North Kyushu, generally on the plains or on the hillsides near the plains. Most of these sites contain a large number of burials.
Page 23 HARUMI BEFU 23 By far the commonest kind of burial in North Kyushu is urn burial. "Burial urns," functionally defined include not only the urn but also the jar and bowl as typologically defined. Urn burial may consist of a single urn, or it may be a combination of any two urns, jars, and bowls (Figure 11). When a jar or bowl is used in combination with an urn, the urn is usually placed below, its rim covered by either the jar or the bowl. Urn burial in the Early period tended to use two containers of the same size, joined mouth to mouth, although single-urn burial was also practiced. In the Middle period the latter practice became more common; although use of the joint-urn continued, two urns of different sizes were more frequently used. The inside of the container was often painted; and in joint-urn burial, the joint was sealed with clay. Urn burial sites are concentrated toward the middle of North Kyushu, i.e., the northern rim of Kyushu Island (Map 10). These containers are sometimes placed horizontally, but more frequently slightly tilted, within 300 of vertical at most. There is, however, no definite orientation for the containers. Because of the high degree of porosity of the pottery of the Yayoi period, skeletons in urns have mostly disintegrated. The few remains that serve to identify posture suggest mostly extended burial face up or toward one side, although flexed interments are not infrequent. The single-urn burial, because of its size, suggests a flexed position. Cists, which are much fewer in number, are distributed in the periphery of North Kyushu (Map 10). A cist, rectangular in shape, is formed by the combination of several flat slabs covering the four sides and the top. These slabs are not finished or cut into exact shapes, unlike their Tombperiod counterparts. The dimensions of a cist varies from adult to infant. Sources of basalt, andesite, and chlorite schist, which are used in the cists are not found near the burial sites, and so must have been brought in from a distance. Kagamiyama notes (1942: 73-73) that, out of twenty cist sites for which orientations are known, fourteen had E-W, four S-N, and two NNE-SSW orientations. Thus some belief about orientation seems to have been attached to cist burial, though not to urn burial. To judge from the associated pottery, cists first came into being in the Middle period and lasted into the Tomb period. Even in the Yayoi period some cists were beginning to be covered with earth in the form of mounds. Elaboration and perfection of the cist continued on gradually from Late Yayoi to Early Tomb period, perhaps anticipating the great tomb complex of the subsequent period. (Kagamiyama 1942: 50). Any one of the foregoing kinds of burial may be associated with the dolmen, which lasted throughout the Yayoi period in North Kyushu. This large stone structure of continental origin has two or more supporting rocks on which a relatively flat stone is placed. While continental dolmens are invariably associated with cists, Japanese ones are associated more often with urn burial than with cists or unencased burial pits. Though much smaller than the continental dolmen, these rocks still weigh from four to six tons. Such large rocks would seem to necessitate a large labor force and the existence of a social organization complex enough to muster such labor without jeopardizing the subsistence. There are sixty or more dolmens at about twenty sites in North Kyushu. Although these are the major types of burial, others, either of continental or indigenous origin or a combination, are also known. Harada (1955: 180) deals with four indigenous customs, viz., urn burial, unencased burial, piling of rocks on top of the burial, placing of a rock on the dead; four continental customs, viz., dolmen, a stone slab erected on top of the pit, piling of rocks on top of the burial, and the cist; and one custom of uncertain origin, viz., the mound. In the Early and Late periods only a few different kinds were practiced, but in the Middle period practically every kind was practiced. Of the thousands of burial cases found, only about ninety had any contents. (Harada 1955: 182). These included Chinese mirrors, bronze or iron weapons, bronze ornaments, precious stones, stone or bronze arrowheads, pottery, and other miscellaneous objects. Four sites contained a much greater quantity of these: Sugu, Mikuma, Yarimizo, and Sakuranobaba, all in central North Kyushu, i.e., the northern tip of Kyushu Island.
Page 24 24 Pagee!~}raphs at (1) o ai ~FFm aito1,'5::P, te54~ no, 7. el (2) on ptey* ~F~o Saio 195:P~ie 54,~ e~56 Ph h c es ofsb
Page 25 HARUMI BEFU ~~~~~~~~25 /^\. * ~~~jar i (' I ~~~~x cist 0 21 i 4) r50 ki \ 17 (:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.3 ~~ ~T\ A
Page 26 26 YAYOI CULTURE In contrast to the numerous sites in North Kyushu, the paucity of burial sites in other regions is a curious phenomenon. Notwithstanding several record of urn burial in regions outside of North Kyushu, such as in Chugoku (Omoto 1949: 62), Kinki and Shikoku (Harada 1955: 171), Tokai (Hisanaga 1955: 75), and Kanto (Ito 1955: 48-51), their paucity in comparison with North Kyushu must be attributed to some yet unknown cultural factor. ECONOMY The now accepted hypothesis that the Yayoi people not only practiced but depended chiefly for their subsistence on rice cultivation was most vehemently advanced by Morimoto long before the important discovery of the rice paddies at Toro in 1943. Toro, Shizuoka prefecture, is a swampy area created by the depositing of river silt. The rice paddies are surrounded by raised paths (aze in modern Japanese), and are rectangular shapes of varying sizes, ranging from a third to a half acre. The paths were constructed by driving cedar stakes into the ground in two rows, about one meter apart, the space between being filled with rubble and dirt for firmness. (Figure 12). Tens of thousands of these stakes in a preplanned arrangement for the whole Toro site suggest a fairly complex society - complex enough to enable coordination of the work involved in their installation. Since Toro dates from the early Late period, we can conclude that types of artificially constructed rice paddies in Japan west of Toro began in or before the Late period. How early this sort of paddy existed and whether such man-made paddies existed from the beginning of the Yayoi period are as yet undetermined. Though the technique of cultivation may be uncertain, the presence of rice from the beginning of the Yayoi period has been definitely established by the discovery of rice husks and impressions of rice husks associated with the Early pottery. Maps 11-14 show the locations of the evidence for rice husks and impressions of rice husks chronologically divided on the basis of the pottery chronology. It is clear from these maps that by the end of the Yayoi period rice was found all over Japan. There were many types of tools used in rice cultivation, most of which were undoubtedly also used for other purposes. At Toro and Karako, large numbers of farming implements of oak were discovered, such as forked hoes, hoes, and shovels (Figure 13). From the Early period, moreover, there were many clearly differentiated types within each of these general categories, indicating the importance of agriculture. Besides these wooden implements half-moon shaped stone knives of shale or slate were found. These were probably used as sickles (Figure 14). At Yakinomasa, Fukuoka prefecture, a large number of these were found suggesting the process of mass production (Harada 1954: 16-19). Knives produced at Yakinomasa (as can be identified by the rock material), have been found in areas far beyond the immediate community. There was a single, though important, find at Kitakoga, Fukuoka prefecture, of an iron sickle copied from a stone prototype (Kobayashi 1952: 99). The distribution of stone knives is predominantly though not exclusively concentrated in western Japan. In eastern Japan a small number of shell knives have been found which are possibly substitutes for the stone knives. These have the blade on one side and two holes on the opposite side for the purpose of fastening the knife to the handle with a string. Some stone knives of the Middle North Kyushu period have holes which suggest they may have been drilled with a metal awl. Shapes of knives differ from one region to another: the half-moon shaped knife with the blade on the curved edge is found mainly in North Kyushu; in Shikoku and Chugoku the blade is set on the straight side; and in Kinki the general shape is more like a sickle, with the blade on the inside edge (Morimoto 1942: 172-188). In eastern Japan the knives of Miyagi prefecture as dealt with by Ito (1950: 44) are practically all half-moon shaped, with the blades on the curved edge. Evidence that the knives were used like similar crescent knives of recent times comes from Karako, where bundles of rice plants were found cut a few inches below the head. The single-bladed
Page 27 HARUMI BEFU Iaf 27 0 0 Map 11. 22 Early sites with evidence of rice. Map 12. 46 Middle sites with evidence of rice. a o o0 / Map 13. 47 Late sites with evidence of rice. Map 14. 114 Early-Middle-Late sites with evidence of rice. Maps 11-14 are adapted from Inasakushi Kenkyukai 1954: 2-3.
Page 28 28 YAY ICULTURE.,,,,,12. R s at Toro*, 5 *Fron Saito 1,955:51 o fF r () m 8 gX Xt 0, 9 5 5 D 5 ~ -gt, rttSgDtYt - kaX0bkDnDT(
Page 29 Fiurfe 14 Sne seckes* From Kebaayshi 194 A 221 oF:gure.1 Stone adzes and axes* f From Kobayashi 1943 219 Photo Xgra CtolouIesy Of S? k'ogakkal' Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo
Page 30 30 YAYOI CULTURE stone adze (Figure 16, Nos. 3-5), usually made of hard slate, was probably used for woodwork, perhaps for routing. For chopping wood a large, double bladed adze (Figure 16, Nos. 1 and 2) was probably used. At Imayama, Fukuoka prefecture, this type of adze occurred in such large numbers as to seem mass produced. The distribution of adzes produced here extends for a radius of about thirty-five miles from the Imayama site. This and another site in the vicinity are the only places where mass production of the adze is known. There were also chisel-like (Figure 16, Nos. 6-7), and plane-like (Figure 16, Nos. 8-10) tools, chiefly made from sedimentary rock. The so-called horned tool (or axe or sword) is considered by Shimizu (1954) and Ito (1954) to be a type of functional axe, rather than a degenerate imitation of the ceremonial bronze sword, as Morimoto had supposed (1942: 202-224). All of these stone tools mentioned are polished. For making fire, Toro produced specimens of the bow-drill. Morimoto distinguishes between two functional types of pottery (1946: 83-104). One type, usually a well decorated and sometimes painted jar was used for storage, and the other, usually an urn, shows little decoration and was used for cooking purposes. For cooking an urn containing rice may have been placed above the fire, supported by wooden blocks or rocks arranged like a tripod (Kobayashi 1952: 102). In the Late period, however, rice was placed in a jar-shaped steamer with small holes at the bottom. The steamer with a lid on it, was set on an urn filled with water and heated from below. At Karako rice and seeds of edible fruits such as peach and melon, and nuts such as walnut and chestnut were sometimes found in jars in small semi-subterranean pits. There is also evidence of other domesticated plants, such as musk melon and two species of bottle gourd. Wild plants including grape and the miscanthus were also found at Toro and Karako. A wooden mortar was found at Uto, Shizuoka prefecture (Figure 16, Nos. 2-4) and pestles at Karako which were probably used for husking grain (Figure 16, No. 1). The discovery of well-shaped pestles and differentiated farm implements from the Early period at Karako suggest that the technical knowledge for manufacturing them and the whole complex of rice cultivation must have come from some other place. The existence of textiles in Yayoi culture can be inferred from such pieces of evidence as parts of looms, stone and earthen spindle weights, and impressions of cloth on the bottom of pottery. Although rice cultivation was the chief means of subsistence, hunting and fishing continued, both in the Early period and later, along the coast and in the mountains, where the area was not adaptable to rice cultivation. As in the Jomon period deer and wild boar were the predominant game. Hunting implements included spearheads, scrapers and stone balls used with a sling. The most usual weapons were, however, bows and arrows. Bows, found at Karako, varied from a crude self-bow of willow to a lacquered compound bow bound with cherry bark. Arrowheads were mostly chipped or polished stone, although some were made of bronze, horn, or bone. From the Middle period on bones of game and stone arrowheads decreased rapidly. Though hunting became of decreasing importance during the Yayoi period, the decrease in stone projectile points may be due in part to replacement by iron implements, for there is evidence that other common tools such as the knife, sickle, and hoe blade tip were made of iron. Since we must presume that the iron decomposed rapidly, we need not be entirely bound by the fact that evidence of iron in the Yayoi period is extremely meager. Sugihara (1948: 168-169; see also Kobayashi 1952: 152 and Harada 1950: 100) accepts the theory that Yayoi culture possessed iron tools. Despite such authoritative acceptance, the extreme paucity of iron during the Yayoi period is a curious anomaly in the light of the abundant evidence of iron tools during the Tomb period. The problem must be further explored before any hypothesis either positive or negative, can be verified. Shell mounds, which were numerous during the Early period, rapidly disappeared during the Middle period, although sites in the Tokai region show a considerable persistence of shell mounds (Iseki 1955: 157-158). Stone and earthen weights presumably attached to large dragnets have been discovered in large quantities along the coast from Late components. Boats, seen as crude pictorial representations on potsherds at Karako in a late Middle component (Figure 17) and on a bronze bell, were large, plank-built boats rowed by several persons.
Page 31 HARUM BEFU 31 (1) _ii:: u S~~~~~~~~~~ (2) (3) (4) *(X);, (2), (3), and (5.) nFosm 1 95 5 I, 6,S 5. Fue 17 eral repesentans of bats on pee y *~From'tl Sugl:Jh'aFi 1956s~13 Pla~te 334o Phe~tosr;aph's ceurtesy Of ShlOsaka~n Ka~bushi,k~ His~ha~ Tokye
Page 32 32 YAYOI CULTURE CEREMONIAL AND DECORATIVE TRADITION The two most important categories of artifacts in the ceremonial and decorative complex are bronze bells (dotaku) and bronze weapons. It may be noted from the outset that these bronze artifacts, especially bells and weapons, have mostly been found in isolation, with the result that their dating in the Yayoi chronology, regrettably, has not been particularly successful. Bronze Bells Although the typological classifications attempted by various scholars (Torii 1913; Numata 1913; Kida 1918; Umehara 1940: 123-167; Morimoto 1942: 250-265; and Miki 1955) differ considerably, there is general agreement on certain points. All recognize rather crude, small bells (about twenty centimeters in height) as distinct from refined large bells (about one meter in height). Table 7 gives the contrasting characteristics of the two types. These are to be understood as tendencies, the several traits having considerable independent variation. Morimoto's classification has been used because of the correlation with his analyses presented below. TABLE 7 CHARACTERISTICS OF BRONZE BELLS Small Large 1. Crude design with low relief lines Refined design with high relief lines 2. Thick; blackish color Thin; bluish green color 3. No circular knots on the side Circular knot decoration on the sides 4. No notches, or round notches, at the bottom Square notches at the bottom 5. No holes, or round holes, near the top Square holes near the top 6. Wide in proportion to the height Narrow in proportion to the height 7. Surface divided into panels or bands Surface divided into panels only 8. Designs often pictorial Fewer pictorial designs Morimoto establishes two classes, A and B, depending on whether or not the rectangular panels or horizontal bands on the surface of the bell are filled with designs. Each class is divided into three types. Type I comprises the small, crude variety, Type III the large refined variety, and Type II is intermediate (Figure 18). AI and BI both have horizontal bands. In AI the spaces between the bands are filled with various designs such as whorls, or concentric circles, but not water-flow, while in BI the space is blank. AII has the horizontal bands filled with the water-flow design. BII has rectangular or square blank panels separated by broad cross-hachured bands. In AIII the surface is divided into rectangular or square panels, sectioned by thin, high relief lines, and the panels are filled with the water-flow design. BIII is like AIII, but the dividing bands have thin, high relief lines in the middle. Whether the small, crude type is to be considered as earlier or later than the large refined type has posed some problems, due to the lack of sufficient association with dateable artifacts. Hamada and Goto have suggested that the refined type came from China and degenerated into the crude type. Others, including Umehara and Morimoto, have argued that the crude bells are older on the grounds of 1) similarity of the design on the crude bells to some contemporaneous Chinese designs, 2) closer resemblance of the crude bells to Korean bells, 3) assumption of an evolutionary trend from simple to complex, from crude to refined and 4) the distribution of the crude variety predominantly along the Japan Sea side, suggesting a possible route of diffusion. The general concensus of opinion among Japanese archaeologists at present is toward the latter view.
Page 33 33 At:IR BI AllI Figu~e 18 M."i"[}()S CiaSStflO' of blO[~Ze bels' aAll except BI from Miki 1956;204~ 205, 206, 211.5 Plates 279, 280,~ 28,1 290), Bi ~rom bayaski 1943: 239. Photot~~raphs courtesy of S!taan Kabushki Kasha~ Tyo
Page 34 34 YAYOI CULTURE Chemical analysis of twenty-three bells has been done by Umehara (1940: 214-256). Though his classification is somewhat different from Morimoto's, it is similar in that three types are recognized: crude, 1) intermediate, 2) refined, 3). Types II and III are divided into two subgroups with slight variations in design and shape. A general tendency towards increasing the copper and decreasing the tin content in the more refined bells is apparent. (Table 8). TABLE 8 CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF BRONZE BELLS Umehara Types I II-1 II-2 III- 1 III-2 Number of specimens analyzed 1 5 8 3 3 Copper % 79.4 69.0-86.5 74.2-90.3 88.0- 90.9 88.2-93.3 Tin* 11.4 5.1-15.5 6.4-15.6 3.5-5.7 3.2-5.6 *Other elements are ignored here. TABLE 9 BRONZE BELL ASSOCIATIONS* Prefecture Hiroshima Nara Tottori Osaka or Hyogo Tokushima Kagawa Kagawa Kagawa Bell Type** I I II II II II II II Associated Artifact Narrow bronze sword Yayoi pottery Zigzag Mirror*** Yayoi pottery Yayoi pottery Narrow bronze sword Narrow bronze sword Haji pottery Broad bronze sword *Based on Miki 1955, p. 226. **Morinu','s classification (A or B unidentified). ***Cf. Figure 22, p. 68. According to Oba (1953: 106) a total of over two hundred and fifty specimens are known from a hundred and sixty-two sites, within an area reaching from the eastern half of the Inland Sea region to just west of the Kanto region. Miki (1955) counts 186 sites. Map 15, though somewhat out of date, shows the frequency by prefecture of finds of bells while Map 16 shows the distribution of sites. No mold has ever been found, probably because the lost wax method was used in manufacture. The different types do show some distributional variation, though of not very clear significance. Type I (in Morimoto's classification) is scattered over the Chugoku region (except the western extremity), the Japan Sea side from Kinki northward to Kaga prefecture, and the Osaka Bay area including Yamato Basin. Type II is most heavily concentrated in southeastern Chugoku, the eastern half of Shikoku, and Kinki south of Osaka. Type III is found mostly in the eastern half of Shikoku, the Osaka Bay area, and from Ise Bay eastward to the western part of Shizuoka prefecture.
Page 35 HARUMI BEFU Map 15. Bronze bell distribution by prefecture* *Based on Morimoto 1929:170-184. 0 f 0 Map 16. Distribution of bronze bell sites* *After Umehara 1927: end of the volume 2.
Page 36 36 YAYOI CULTURE Yayoi affinity of bells is confirmed by association of bells with Yayoi artifacts, and by similarity to pottery in such designs as cross-hachure, herring bone, whorl, and zigzag. Identical pictorial representations found both on bells and on Yayoi pottery also substantiate the Yayoi affinity. The problem of assessing the position of bells in the Yayoi chronology is difficult owing to insufficient association. Only at eleven out of 186 sites were bells found associated with anything at all (Miki 1955: 24). Associated pottery has been lost and the reports are too incomplete to permit identification of the pottery by subperiod. Association of Type I bells with a narrow bronze sword and a zigzag mirror, both of which are dated as late Early or Middle, could be the basis for a tentative estimate of the date of introduction of bells to Japan. However, the water-flow design on Type II bells resembles late Early Kinki pottery; Type II bells are also associated with narrow swords, later than Type I bells, as believed, the latter must predate late Early pottery in the Kinki area. But the Type II bell may have lasted long, for its association with a broad sword (identified as Middle or Late) places the Type II bell well into the Middle or even Late period. Moreover, the association of a Type II bell with Haji pottery may indicate that the bell complex lasted well into the Tomb period. Most bells were buried horizontally; some were placed upside down; and a few were set vertically, right side up. Most site locations are on hillsides close to the plain. Although most bells were found singly, two or more were found together at about thirty sites. Though these bronze artifacts are called "bells" or taku, not only is a clapper missing but usually there is nothing on which to hook a clapper. The existence of clappers on some of the earlier bells may indicate an initial use for producing sounds, but this was not the case later, for even if one supposes the use of a separate hammer, holes deliberately cast or cut into the bell would have prevented their resonating. The deliberate burial of the bells at otherwise unlikely topographic locations may indicate a magico-religious function. Weapons3 Typological classification of bronze weapons has been attempted by various specialists (see Takahashi 1916: 650-653; Umehara 1940: 251-264; Morimoto 1942: 525-615), who usually divide the weapons into three groups: spears (Figure 20, No. 5), swords (Figure 20, Nos. 1-3), and krises (Figure 20, Nos. 7 and 8). The spear has a socket at its base into which a handle was inserted. The sword and kris have tangs for insertion into a handle. The kris differs from the sword in having a slightly slanted base to the blade. The narrow (Figure 20, Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7) and broad (Figure 20, Nos. 3, 6, and 8) types are distinguished according to whether the blade at its tip is narrower or broader than near its base. As the weapon becomes broader, it also tends to become bigger in size and flatter. Spears generally have holes on one side near the base, through which an ornamental tassel was probably tied. Swords often have small protruberances on both sides of the blade near the base. Where the fluting meets the base of the kris, there are holes through which a string was inserted to fasten the kris to its shaft. Over twenty molds for the broad variety of kris and spear have been found in North Kyushu (Figure 20, Nos. 9-10), but none for swords. The great majority of narrow weapons were found in North Kyushu, especially in the Tsukushi Plain, directly across from Korea, and in the islands of Iki and Tsushima that lie between. Scattered exceptions come mostly from the Inland Sea region. Broad krises were found scattered in the fringe area of North Kyushu; and broad spears were generally distributed over this region with a large number from Tsushima. Broad krises were found exclusively in the eastern Inland Sea region. (Maps 17, 18, 19, and 20 show the distribution of broad swords, spears, and krises separately, and of narrow weapons collectively).4 The absence of molds for the broad weapon on the continent seems to indicate it was produced exclusively in Japan, specifically in central North Kyushu, i.e., the Tsukushi Plain and its vicinity. The relative lack of broad weapons in this area would seem to indicate a specialization in production
Page 37 3~~~~~~~~~~~~3 7~~~~5 Fiue20. Soeadwoeimtinsof mtlwaos *(1) -(9) frmSio1956;(10) fo at 956 (1) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(2) 21.,~a-~ *(, (2) Photoraph of Tok
Page 38 CA 00 => 2 0 a-4 fH,4 *Frome Kobyashi 1943 237, 235 Figu re 22. Bronze weapns and their m tds* Photo raphs ceurtesy of Slhoa an Kabushki Ka-isha TKkah
Page 39 HARUMI BEFU 39 X mold 0 I, 0 0 f * O 19 Map 17. Distribution of broad swords. Map 18. Distribution of broad spears. X mold 0.0 J 0 o 6o / ol Map 19. Distribution of broad krises. Map 20. Distribution of narrow weapons. Maps 17-20 adapted from Harada 1954:27.
Page 40 40 YAYOI CULTURE and subsequent trade of this commodity to other parts of Japan and perhaps even to Korea, as one broad spear has been found at the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. The narrow weapons are functionally suited for fighting. Their blades are well sharpened and finished with an overall polish. Their Chinese derivation is unquestionable: production of narrow weapons in Japan is very unlikely since molds have been found there for broad weapons only. Broad varieties are considered to be later imitations of narrow ones; their blades are no longer functional, for they are too large, too broad and especially too thin for cutting or piercing without being damaged. Many were left unfinished (i.e., unpolished and unsharpened) after casting, and holes and sockets were left filled with bronze. Weapons found in association with other objects are generally narrow and almost always inside burial urns or cists, while broad weapons tend to be found in isolation (Morimoto 1942: 549). The earliest associated jars are of the late Early Yayoi period, although the majority of them belong to the Middle period. A comparison of weapons associated with urns or cists shows that cists tend to be associated with broad weapons and urns with narrow ones (Morimoto 1942: 553). Besides these bronze specimens there are stone and wooden imitations. Stone imitations include swords (Figure 20, Nos. 1-3), krises (Figure 20, Nos. 8-9), and the so-called "iron-sword" type. Stone imitations have been found even as far north as Niigata (Okazaki 1955: 207) and Miyagi (Ito 1950: 45) prefectures. Wooden sword specimens have been found at Toro (Figure 20, No. 10) and Karako. Most authorities doubt whether even the narrow weapons were ever used for fighting. The appearance of broad weapons and, more often, narrow ones in individual tombs has led specialists to believe that these weapons were the private property of the individuals buried in the tombs. The paucity of tombs associated with weapons and other valuables suggests that the owners must have been men of considerable authority. Weapons probably were status symbols. Because of their dissociation from individuals the ones found in isolation, like bells, have been generally interpreted as having some magico-religious function for the whole community. Thus both weapons and bells can be regarded as religious objects alternatively performing the same function. This may be the reason why the distribution of the two types is fairly distinct; most weapons occur throughout the central portion of the Inland Sea, centering on West Honshu and North Kyushu, whereas most bells are distributed east of this line, centering on the Kinki area. Mirrors Mirrors found in the Yayoi period are generally either Chinese, or non-Chinese with zigzag design (Figure 21). Almost all the Chinese mirrors were found in Fukuoka prefecture in burial urns at Mikuno, Sugu I, and Iwara. The mirrors at Mikuno and Sugu I are all of the Former Han Dynasty in China while all mirrors at Iwara are of the Later Han Dynasty. Only three zigzag mirrors have been found in Japan: in Yamaguchi, Osaka, and Nara prefectures. There have been many other ceremonial or decorative objects found in tombs, chiefly in urns, but they occur much less frequently than weapons. These include: whorl-shaped bronze objects, circular glass objects, comma-shaped beads, tubula beads and bronze bracelets. The greatest quantity of these ceremonial and decorative objects has been found in Yamaguchi, Osaka and Nara prefectures; most of the remainder were discovered elsewhere in North Kyushu. This high concentration of wealth is certainly suggestive of social stratification. CONTINENTAL RELATIONS AND ABSOLUTE DATING Japanese archaeologists today consider that Yayoi culture, in all but a few of its features, was derived from the continent, and it is important that the basis for this view should be assessed.
Page 41 HARUMI BEFU 41 Ando (1951: 1-51) states that the particular species of rice that came to Japan originated in the tropics and diffused northward to the Honan area in China to Korea, and finally to Japan. The large number of impressions of rice husks on Early Yayoi pottery clearly suggests the contemporaneous introduction of the Yayoi pottery and rice. Some of the pottery types, especially the urn, and the design techniques such as the use of spatulae on early Early Yayoi pottery are now considered to be of probably Jomon origin. The foreign origin of the great bulk of Yayoi pottery cannot be denied, however, in the light of the overwhelming discrepancy between Early Yayoi and Final Jomon pottery in western Japan, despite the serious difficulty of establishing the actual connection owing to the relative lack of positive evidence on the continent. Sugihara (1950: 10) sees some similarity between the Tateyashiki style of North Kyushu and the pottery found in Liaotung peninsula. The existence at Karako and other sites of well-defined and specialized farming implements, both wooden and stone of the Early period, and also, negatively, the complete lack of such evidence in the Jomon period makes it very difficult to envisage anything other than continental derivation, most likely as part of the rice cultivation complex. The absence, in the Jomon period of polished stone tools, such as the knife, plane or chisel, which have wide distribution through Korea and south Manchuria seems to indicate a continental origin. The storage structure with the raised floor, which is radically different from anything known in the Jomon period, is most likely of southern or continental origin. The bronze-casting technique, and the basic classes of bronze object have definite continental prototypes. For example, Korean bells, which are similar to the Japanese Type I, though much smaller, may offer a clue to the continental connections of the bell. Narrow weapons of all three types have been found throughout Korea and China. Comparatively few of the broad, non-utilitarian type have been found on the continent, however, and these were at the southern extremity of the Korean peninsula, presumably brought there from Japan. The derivation of continental traits in burial customs has been discussed previously. Whereas Harada sees a possible continuity of the urn burial of infants in the J6mon period with the later Yayoi urn burial (1954: 39), Kobayashi regards the practice as Korean. The dolmen and cists, relatively less important than urn burial, are both of continental derivation. Zigzag mirrors, some of which are cruder than those found in Japan, are known in Korea and Siberia, suggesting a northern Asiatic origin, rather than a transfer directly from China. This type of mirror has radically non-Chinese elements: for example, the single protrusion in the center of the Chinese mirror is replaced by two or three protrusions placed off center; the design on the back is quite unlike the Chinese designs; in cross section the edge of the zigzag mirror is semicircular, while that of Chinese mirrors is rectangular. Two other important artifacts which connect the Yayoi culture with China are the Hsin coins and a gold stamp with an inscription meaning "King of the Ito [Ido] country of Han". The former were discovered in Fukuoka, Kyoto, and Osaka prefectures; and the latter in Fukuoka. It is uncertain whether the gold stamp, found in isolation, did belong to the Yayoi culture, but a later Han document states that messengers came in A.D. 57 from Wato Country (a different reading is required by a slightly different character), and gave tribute, and that the Emperor gave them a stamp which signified the status of a vassal (Harada 1954: 97-103). The country mentioned is generally considered to be Japan. In light of the prosperity of North Kyushu at the time it does not seem incongruous to identify the Fukuoka stamp with the one mentioned in the document, assuming that the piece is not a fraud. The absolute dating of Yayoi culture depends largely on how firmly these continentally derived artifacts can be tied to Chinese absolute chronology and to the Yayoi relative chronology, although extrapolation from historical archaeology can also be used (Sugihara 1955: 12-16).
Page 42 42 YAYOI CULTURE Historical archaeology dates the Haji pottery tradition, which was derived from the Yayoi, as lasting into the eighth and ninth centuries in the Yamato Basin. Its beginning, inferred from pottery associations with temple ruins which are dated by documents, is about the fourth century, A.D. in the Kinki region. Therefore the Yayoi pottery tradition probably ended in about the third century, at least in this area. Secondly, Hsin coins known to have been made in China in A.D. 14, are correlated with early Late Yayoi in Japan; allowing a diffusion lag, the beginning of the Late period would be about A.D. 50-100. Thirdly, Chinese bronze mirrors made during the first century B.C. were associated with the late Middle period found at the Sugu I site. The late Middle period therefore can be set at about A.D. 1. Fourthly, the particular variety of narrow weapons dated late Middle Yayoi were found in Korea in association with coins made either in 60 or 43 B.C. Hence, A.D. 1 again would seem to be an appropriate time for the late Middle period. The consistency of these four absolute-relative matchings is a good indication of the accuracy of the estimation. Other absolute time points can be extrapolated from these estimates. The beginning of the Middle period may be put at 100 B.C., and the beginning of the Early period, about 300 B.C. In such estimates, however, a margin of about fifty to a hundred years of probable error must be allowed. SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION Origin Judging from the typological analysis of Yayoi pottery, two areas in western Japan stand out as being the most likely centers from which the new culture was diffused throughout much of Japan. These centers are North Kyushu and Kinki. Although the issue is somewhat controversial, priority of the Itazuke style of North Kyushu as compared with the Karako style of Kinki (see page 15) is accepted as being an indication that the first appearance of Yayoi pottery was in North Kyushu although the possibility of parallel origins at the two centers can not be entirely excluded. The distribution of Type I bronze bells suggests that further research in the relatively uninvestigated San'in area may reveal a link from that area to Kinki and may show a second independent route of cultural introduction from the continent. The predominant foreign derivation notwithstanding, recent studies are revealing increasing continuity in Western Japan from Jomon to Yayoi traditions in pottery, stone and wooden implements, whereas in the past an almost complete break between the two was the generally accepted view. As discussed earlier, all metal implements seem to have their origin on the continent. It should be noted that bronze artifacts and the better known metal implements were used exclusively for ceremonial purposes, with the relatively unimportant exception of arrowheads. The term "bronze culture" (or age), sometimes used to designate this period should be understood as referring, not to the dominant technological basis of the culture, but to techniques put to the ceremonialsymbolic uses. Whether iron existed from the Early period and to what extent it served in the economic sector of the culture is an important question. As more and more evidence has accumulated, the trend among Japanese researchers has been to place increasingly greater importance on the role of iron in the technological basis of this culture. The continental origin of many of the important stone and wooden agricultural implements has been discussed earlier. Yayoi culture therefore may be seen as one in which a continental culture implanted itself firmly on the existing Jdmon culture. As Yayoi culture diffused through western Japan, Jomon culture became almost obliterated in the initial period. It should be noted that although the term "continental culture" has been used as if it were an integral culture that moved onto the Japanese Islands, current knowledge indicates that different elements of Yayoi culture came from many parts of the continent at various times. Rice came from Southeast Asia in the Early period, perhaps via Korea, bronze weapons from China via Korea in the late Early period, and zigzag mirrors from northern
Page 43 HARUMI BEFU 43 Asia via Korea in the late Early or Middle period. It is necessary, then, to realize that the term "continental culture" paraphrases a variety of continental or Asiatic cultures. Yayoi culture should be regarded as the peripheral expression of the Far Eastern culture area, resulting from the diffusion of elements from various parts of the Far East during the interval of a few hundred years. Early Period In the initial phase pottery diffused rapidly and in no great quantity throughout western Japan. Although still strongly influenced by North Kyushu and later by Kinki, local color is discernible from the mid Early period on. The enormous increase in the number of sites and in the quantity of pottery in the mid Early and late Early phases seems to indicate a greater expansion of the Yayoi culture than can be accounted for alone by population growth of the initial Yayoi pottery users; the explanation probably lies in the continual adoption of the Yayoi culture by the neighbouring Jomon people who became acculturated (Sugihara 1950: 19). On the other hand, the complex knowledge required for the cultivation of rice, even on the most primitive level - involving all the necessary techniques from sowing and harvesting to cooking - makes its diffusion practically impossible except by example. This strongly suggests migration of cultivators from north Kyushu to various parts of western Japan, at least at the initial stage of the diffusion of the rice complex. Eastern Japan at first remained unaffected by Yayoi culture except for the Ise Bay area into which the late Early Kinki style diffused. The failure of rapid diffusion of Yayoi culture into this area in the Early period was probably due, at least in part, to relatively unsuitable conditions for rice. Rice was probably grown in swampy areas where a minimum of water control was necessary. Whether paddies were artificially constructed, or whether transplantation was practiced is unknown. As known from the Early Karako components, well defined and specialized implements were used from the Early period. Middle Period Three significant developments took place during the Middle period: 1) expansion of Yayoi culture into eastern Japan, 2) development of local variants, and 3) success of the rice economy and a consequent increase in the differentiation of social organization. The diffusion of the Yayoi pottery tradition into eastern Japan, which had begun late in the Early period, reached as far north as the Matsushima Bay area. Unlike Western Japan, the expansion of the Yayoi tradition took place by blending with the Jomon tradition; the J1mon elements showing an increasing influence further east and northeastward. The local variance of Yayoi tradition in eastern Japan paralleled strong localism already shown in the Final J1mon period in areas such as Ise Bay, Central Tokai, Central Mountains, Eastern Tokai and Kanto, and Matsushima Bay. In western Japan, North Kyushu and Kinki, developed as the two centers of pottery tradition. Their surrounding areas were re-influenced by the two centers in the Middle period. The Middle North Kyushu style, viz., the Sugu style, exerted its influence into South Kyushu, to Iki and Tsushima. In Kinki the influence of the Middle, or Kuwazu style, as characterized by the comb design, can be noted in the Ise Bay area and along both shores of the Inland Sea region. Nevertheless, the local tendencies which had begun in the Early period, continued, and each little area developed its own style. It is, however, in the regionalism of bronze artifacts that we see the great florescence of the Middle period. In the area influenced by the Kinki pottery style, bronze bells, datable from the Early period on, are found in a great quantity. Although there are certain exceptions the distribution of types suggests that the bells first appeared in the eastern half of Chugoku and Shikoku and in Kinki, and then spread eastward on the Pacific side as far as Shizuoka prefecture. The general correspondence of the distribution of the combed pottery style with that of bells cannot be ignored
Page 44 44 YAYOI CULTURE entirely. In the absence of any evidence such as molds to show the place of manufacture, little can be said about localized manufacturing, though the metallurgical knowledge and the artistic skill required in their production imply the existence of specialists. The design technique of Middle Kinki style pottery was specially suitable for mass production, through use of comb-like tools, the potter's wheel and emphasis on horizontal design. The adherence to this style and technique, then, may be regarded as the consequence of specialized production at least at the centers of diffusion. In bell production and in pottery production there seems to be the beginning of labor specialization. Bronzes found in the Kinki area include besides bells, a small number of weapons, Chinese and zigzag mirrors, and Chinese coins. If these were properties of the elite, they would serve as evidence for the beginning of social stratification. Bells may serve the same purpose, but archaeologists tend to interpret them as magico-religious symbols representing the whole community, rather than status symbols of particular individuals, although it is also possible that they were the property of the community entrusted to the elite. North Kyushu seems to provide better evidence for a complex society with labor specialization and social stratification. The proximity of North Kyushu to the continent made it possible to acquire elements of both material and non-material culture from the continent before other regions in Japan. By commanding this strategic position, North Kyushu was able to secure an amount of wealth unsurpassed by any other region. Beginning late in the Early period and increasing in the Middle period, a large number of bronze weapons, mirrors and other ornamental objects were introduced in the northern tip of Kyushu, where these objects seem generally to have been owned by a restricted elite class of urn-burying people. The commodity used in exchange for these objects from the continent may have been mostly rice, in view of the scarcity of other Japanese resources. A surplus of rice beyond a subsistence level must have been available in North Kyushu. This must have been either produced locally and/or obtained from surrounding areas by trading local products such as stone or bronze implements or goods imported from the continent. Later in this period and probably in succeeding periods, large broad weapons of non-functional styles, began to be produced in central North Kyushu. These were usually transported to other areas, where they were sometimes individually owned, as among the cist-burying people in peripheral North Kyushu, but more often possessed by the community for some magico-religious function. Manufacturing in central North Kyushu of broad weapons and possibly of smaller bronze artifacts and precious stones like the comma-shaped beads and tubular beads, most likely required expert craftsmen. Evidence for mass production probably by specialists of some of the polished stone tools in this area has been noted earlier. Here again the distribution of the tools suggests trading. The picture of North Kyushu seems fairly clear. Specialists were engaged in the production of bronze artifacts, stone tools, and possibly pottery, which were then traded to the surrounding areas in exchange for rice. Surplus rice obtained by trade and local production would be in part consumed by the specialists and the elite, and the remainder shipped to the continent in exchange for luxuries of the advanced culture, for use of the elite. The elite controlled this society, which now was dependent to some extent on the division of labor and an exchange economy, and it is probable that they taxed rice as a means of acquiring and maintaining the symbols of their status. Seen thus, it is fairly evident that North Kyushu during the Middle period was the most prosperous area in Japan, though rivaled by the Kinki area as we shall see. This does not imply political control of the rest of Japan by North Kyushu but merely relatively greater wealth and complexity of the society. It must be remembered that the wealth and complexity of the society in the final analysis are dependent upon the success of the rice economy of the Yayoi culture as a whole. Late Period The Late period continued the advancement of the culture that began the Middle period. Though localistic tendencies in pottery styles continued, a broader trend, in terms of the Yayoi culture as a whole, can be seen in continued diffusion of the combed design technique, which reached almost throughout Japan. Even the area previously under the influence of the North Kyushu style now
Page 45 HARUMI BEFU 45 adopted the combed technique, as the North Kyushu style itself used less decoration, perhaps because of the greater emphasis placed on mass production and/or because of a shift of the culture center. The striking degree of the uniformity of pottery styles towards the end of this period presents quite a problem. No single area seems to have possessed sufficient political power at this time to account for such standardization; even in protohistoric and historic times local clans were far from being subjugated by the central power in Kinki. In all probability North Kyushu continued to use bronze weapons and Kinki and its vicinity bells. Whether their use terminated with the disappearance of the Yayoi pottery style is as yet unknown, mainly because of a lack of sufficient association of these artifacts with pottery. The unique discovery of the rice paddy at Toro offers a good deal of information concerning the agricultural practice of the time. Construction of artificial paddies in a swampy area at the cost of a large amount of public labor and attempts to regulate the passage of water from one paddy to another had already begun by this time. During the Yayoi period Japanese culture firmly established the type of economy upon which it was to depend for two millennia to come, and the solidarity of this economic basis was expressed in the social organization which already had begun to be stratified and specialized. The way was prepared for development of a far more complex social structure through the emergence of a state. The signs of such complex social structure, viz., great earth tombs and their contents are found however, not in North Kyushu but in the Nara Basin. How this shift was accomplished is still an unsolved problem. One angle of this problem - the relation between the Yayoi culture and the Tomb culture in the Nara Basin - may be briefly discussed. It has been generally accepted that the end of Yayoi culture, judged primarily on the basis of the pottery style, marks the beginning of the Tomb culture, determined on the basis of the existence of the tombs, and in North Kyushu, the pottery style. Recently, however, attention has been called to the overlap between Yayoi style pottery and the tomb complex by such authorities as Kobayashi (1953), Sugihara (1950), and Umehara (1953). Some of the grounds for regarding the tomb complex as contemporaneous with Yayoi style pottery are: 1) in Kinki the pottery style to follow the Yayoi pottery is found, not in the early tombs, but in the later ones, the very early tombs being mostly devoid of pottery; 2) some of the Chinese mirrors found in the early tombs are known to have been produced in China in the first half of the third century A.D., when the Late Yayoi pottery style is considered to have been still extant; 3) in some of the early tombs Yayoi style pottery has been found; and 4) the cylindrical haniwa placed around the earlier tombs have ceramic characteristics of the Yayoi style pottery. Therefore it may be that we can no longer speak of the Tomb culture as something distinct from the Yayoi culture. The culture of the third century or so, at least in the Kinki area, may have included simultaneously Late Yayoi pottery and early tombs. If the beginning of this hypothetical Late Yayoi-Early Tomb period coincided with the establishment of the imperial system, and if the Nara Basin of this hypothetical period represented the (Yamatai country) described in the Wei record, then the Nara Basin culture center would have to be regarded as an important rival to North Kyushu in the extent of its political control and cultural influence, and in the complexity of its social structure. These are, however, hotly debated problems which must be left undiscussed in the scope of this work. NOTES 'The regional discussions to follow are mainly based on the section "Kaku-chiiki no Yayoishiki doki i?A AJ z: (Yayoi pottery of each region)," in Sugihara 1955: 32-118. 2The complexity of the blending of the two traditions has led Sugihara to view with disfavor the treatment of eastern Japan as basically Yayoi with Jomon mixture or basically Jomon with Yayoi mixture. He would instead treat eastern Japan as constituting an independent tradition, which he calls "contact culture" (sesshoku Bunka *4 13 4J), (1948: 177-180). In this wide sense "contact
Page 46 46 YAYOI CULTURE pottery" would include all pottery that shows a blending of the two traditions in eastern Japan; in a narrow sense, Sugihara uses the term to refer to pottery only of the initial contact, i.e., that earliest phase in which the blend of the Yayoi and Jomon tradition is discernible in eastern Japan (Sugihara 1948: 177-180). 3 Strictly speaking, the terms "bells" and "weapons" are to be understood only in the typological, and not in any functional sense, although the terms are used because of the resemblance of the sodesignated artifacts to functional bells and weapons. 4 For other distribution maps of bronzes see: Oba 1953: 106-107; Takahashi et al. 1950: opposite 38; Toa Koko Gakkai 1953: 160; Saito 1955: opposite p. 43, 44; Morimoto 1929; end of volume. REFERENCES CITED AKABOSHI NAOTADA it & - - ' 1955 Minami Kanto ~] ], _l (Southern Kanto [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 101 -107. ANDO KOTARO - - ) Kp 1951 Niho kodai inasakushi zakko ] - - - G' 4$ 'J; j~ (On the history of the rice cultivation in ancient Japan). Tokyo: Chikyu Shuppan kabushiki kaisha. FUJIMORI EIICHI 4 ~- 1955 Chubu kochi Hokuriku T r& { ' t.t (Central Moutains and Hokuriku [pottery tradition]), Sugihara, 1955: 88-100. FUJIOKA KENJIRO 4 )f],i - - [ 1947 Chiri to kodai bunka ~t _. L ' _Lj~ (Geography and the ancient cultures), Kyoto, Oyashima. 1952 Senshi chirigaku no ichi kadai x. y AitS, ) -;- (A problem in prehistoric geography), Chirigaku Hyoron < Jt (Geographical Review of Japan), 25: 318-327. FUKUSHIMA YOICHI $~ -- ~ 1955 Nihon no ine ag io (Japan's rice), Sugihara, 1955: 232-237. GOTO SHUICHI 4 - - - 1954 Yamaki ibutsu yori mita Yayoi-shiki no kokuso A 1,,_ ot f{i ' ~ ~7 (Yayoi granary as inferred from the Yamaki remains), Nihon Kokogaku Kyokai Iho. Beppen -', i44 t~% ~._l,- (Japanese Archaeological Association. Reports. Supplement), 3: 9. HARADA DAIROKU E. m t 1952 Fukuoka-ken Ishigasaki no shisekki o fukumu genshi kichi ) i-;* 't&t& '. - ~ $t (The primitive site containing a dolmen at Ishigasaki, Fukuoka prefecture), Kokogaku Zasshi f; t/ (Journal of the Archaeological Society of Nippon), 38: 4: 1-33. 1954 Nihon kofun bunka ] - - 3C _ (The tomb culture of Japan), Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. 1955 Fumbo: Nishi Nihon 1t:j';4_ (Burials: Western Japan), Sugihara 1955: 171 -191. HARADA YOSHITO, i A.5t, 1950 Nihon Kokogaku Nyumon ]9 3~_; ~. - 9 (Introduction to Japanese archaeology), Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan. HISANAGA HARUO L i 4- X~ 1955 Tokai j_ -j- (Tokai [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 75-87.
Page 47 HARUMI BEFU 47 INASAKUSHI KENKYUKAI ~4t t1'f 4;t (Research Society of the history of rice cultivation) 1954 Shutsudo kodai mai ~ 3j -, (Excavated ancient i ice), Tokyo, Norin Kyokai. ISEKI KOTARO # fA 4S X ep 1955 Tochi riyo - t 'J } (Land use), Sugihara 1955: 152-162. ITO NOBUO K 1950 Tohoku chiho no Yayoi-shiki bunke Jt i ~,? A 3 JC4 (Yayoi culture of northeastern Japan), Bunka;tAL (Culture), 2: 4: 40-63. 1954 Yukaku sekki no yoto ni tsuite.;jt ) j. -o <, ' (On the use of the horned stone tool), Kokogaku Zasshi 40: 3: 25-27. 1955 Tohoku J:- (Northeastern Japan [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 112-118. ITO SHIGETOSHI j- / 0/ 1955 Ibaragi-ken Ashiarai hakken no yojiso ni shiyo sarete ita Yayoi-shiki doki ni tsuite (On the Yayoi pottery found at Ashiarai, Ibaragi prefecture which was used for child burial), Kokogaku Zasshi, 40: 4: 48-51. KAGAMIYAMA TAKESHI t Ah 4 1941 Genshi hakoshiki kan no shiso /Ai? - * i ' " q- (The nature of the primitive cist), Shien ( J (Journal of History), 25: 131-164. 1942 Genshi hakoshiki kan no shiso, Shien, 27: 43-84. 1953a Sekigai doko ni kansuru oboegaki,2 JI. jL tIj - P W (Notes on the burial pit with stone covering), Shien, 56: 161-186. 1953b Takatsuka kofun no genryu /;j / X /5 u; ^ l- (The origin of the mound-tomb), Shien, 58: 37-70. KAMAKI YOSHIAKI 4 $ A 1955 Chugoku 7 g (Chugoku [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 57-62. KANZAWA YUICHI;*, -- 1955 Fumbo: Higashi Nihon 3~: 4 l (Burials: Eastern Japan), Sugihara 1955: 192-196. KIDA TEIKICHI. - 1918 Dotaku ko J.J ~ (On the bronze bell), Rekishi Chiri t t -tiL (Journal of historical geography), 32: 2: 83-121. KOBAYASHI YUKIO ]\ A+ /T;T 1943 Yayoi-shiki bunka 5 ^ ' I_ L (Yayoi culture), Shinshu Nihon bunkashi taikei. Dai ikkan: Genshi bunka 1T;h 1Lr -4JvL- j t -4 5 e Y & (Revised outline of the Japanese culture history. v.l: Primitive culture), Tokyo, Seibundo, pp. 214-253. 1952 Nihon kokogaku gaisetsu 1a -j i fltj (Introduction to Japanese archaeology), Tokyo, Sogensha. 1953 Kofun jidai bunka no seiin ni tsuite W # 1 4'tx' 4 t '' o A: ->,( (On the origins of the Tomb culture), Nihon Jinrui Gakkai '.A-/KX1 (Anthropological Association of Japan) ed., Nihon minzoku ] H ^ -, (Japanese people), Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, pp. 113-129. MIKI FUMIO "_ 3 A( 1955 Dotaku.] _ (The bronze bell), Sugihara 1955: 217-230. 1956 Seidoki *4JJ AJ (Bronze implements), Zusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei. Dai ikkan: Jomon Yayoi Kofun jidai (1 t E -. ~ _-,' Xit,_:. ~~ q -)' (Graphic outline of the Japanese culture history. v.l: Jomon, Yayoi, and Tomb periods), Tokyo, Shogakkan, pp. 200-217. MORI TEIJIRO k- X, - *P 1955 Kita Kyushu t 7 'L )]'1 (North Kyushu [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 32-40.
Page 48 48 YAYOICULTURE MORIMOTO ROKUJ-I A, K 1929 Nihon seidoki jidai chimeihyo 'j &*4* ] j 4-'t 74. (Lists of Japanese bronze age sites), Tokyo, Oka Shoin. 1942 Nio/okgk knyA~2- t T'~I t (Studies in Japanese archaeology), Kyoto, Kuwada Bunseido. _rI f Teoii farcluei 1946 Nihon noko bunka no kigen V +j_* FrK,.v(h oii f giuluei Japan), Suwa, Ashikabi Shobo. NAKAMURA HARUHISA A Ft ) r - 1955 Kinki 3jjL-W' (Kinki [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 63-74. NAKAYA JUJIRO ~'v - 7 ~ 1930 Nihon sekki jidai bunken mokuroku ~ K L4f$Q '(Japanese stone age bibliography), Tokyo, Oka Shoin. NIHON KOKOGAKU KYOKAI 4 - 2 ' (The Japanese Archaeological Association) 1949 Toro 16 Y (Toro), Tokyo, Mainichi Shimbunsha. NUMATA REISUKE JQ 1913 Dotaku ko I~o] (On the bronze bell), Kokogaku Zasshi 3: 54 1-582. OBA IWAO 1953 Tairiku no kosho to waga seido bunka #Zj-k U' ),L A~~tj(The continental contact and our bronze culture). Shin Nihon Rekishi Gakkai ( (New Japanese Historical Society) ed., Shin Nihon rekishi: Senshi oyobi kodai f1Jf I J t wt% jf (New Japanese history: Pre -history and the ancient period), Tokyo, Fukumura Shoten, pp. 102-111. 1956 Saishi shinko kankei no iseki ibutsu 4z- 4 1_'44J? 4-k VA V (Sites and artifacts related to ceremony and beliefs), Zusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei. Dai ikkan. pp. 284-303. OKAMOTO KENJI g~ *- 14t ) 1955 Shikoku yl:E 14 (Shikoku [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 50-56. OKAZAKI KEI (11J,4~ vX... 1955 Doken doboko doka 41 oI4It (Bronze swords, bronze spears, bronze krises), Sugihara 1955: 198-216. OMOTO TAKUJU k / 4 1949 Kibi chiho senshi jidai ibutsu hakken chimeihyo '1 't (Lists of prehistoric sites in Kibi area), Okayama, Setonaikai Kobunka Kenkyukai. OTOMASU SHIGETAKA Z 1955 Minami Kyushu f~ L IT! (South Kyushu [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 41-49. OZAKI KISAO AL&kt 4-f -kY 1955 Kita Kanto ~t~,.(Northern Kanto [pottery tradition]), Sugihara 1955: 107-111. SAITO TADASHI ~4- t 1955 Nihon kokogaku zukan 2-) lJ4 (Japanese archaeology illustrated), Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan. SHIMADA SADAHIKO 1928- Chikuzen Sugu shizen iseki no kenkyu T77JT~1 9 ~ 1930 (Study of the prehistoric site at Sugu in Chikuzen province) Kyoto Teikoku. Daigaku Bungakubu Kokogaku Kenkyu Hokoku (Reports of Archaeological Research. Faculty of Literature, Kyoto Imperial Univers ity), No. 1 1 SHIMIZU JUNZO 5 1954 Yukaku sekki no sho-mondai 0 z c) -P $ (Problems of the horned stone tool), Kokogaku Zasshi, 40: 1-18.
Page 49 HARUMI BEFU 49 SUENAGA HARUO t Y. 1944 Miyataki no iseki ~ ~ 4 (The Miyataki site), Kyoto, Kuwana Bunseido. SUENAGA HARUO, KOBAYASHI YUKIO, and FUJIOKA KENJIRO 1941- Yamato Karako Yayoi-shiki iseki no kenkyu & rz2 i~ 3 2L _ c9 1942 (Study of a Yayoi site at Karako, Yamato province), Kyoto Teikoku Daigaku Bungakubu Kokogaku Kenkyu Hokoku, No. 16. SUGIHARA SOSUKE 4' A V 1948 Genshigaku joron (Introduction to prehistory), Suwa, Ashikabi 1950 Nihobo.ksh koza: Kodai zenki no bunka $~/ fAJ~~IA (Series on Japanese history: The culture of the early ancient period), Tokyo, Chuo Koronsha. 1955 Yayoi bunka 5 L CA (Yayoi culture), Nihon kokogaku koz a ~ 47 (Series on Japanese archaeology), v. 4, Tokyo Kawade Shobo. 1956a Noko seikatsu no hattats IVJ ' (Development of the agricultural life), Zusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei. Dai ikkan. pp. 164-181. 1956b Yoyoi-shiki doki 51 L.- A'i-Zr' (Yayoi style pottery), Zusetsu Nihon bunkashi taikei. Dai ikkan. pp. 182-188. TAKAHASHI KENJI -4 1916 Doboko doken ko /J '- ~ J, (On the bronze spear and bronze sword), Kokogaku Zasshi, 6: 649-664, 697-715. 1917 Doboko doken ko. Kokogaku Zasshi. 7: 83-85, 144 -155, 280-188. 1922 Doboko doken ko. Kokogaku Zasshi. 13: 1-19, 76-90. TANAKA KUNIO TIEJ At TM 1944 Yayoi-shiki Jomon-shiki sesshoku bunka no kenkyu o ~~(Study of Yayoi-Jomon contact culture), Tokyo, Otsuka Kogeisha. TOA KOKOGAKKAI (East Asiatic Archaeological Society) 1953 Tsushima (Tsushima), Toho kokogaku sokan ~ ~tIF -' (Publications on Eastern Archaeology), Series B, no. 6, Kyoto, Toa Kokogakkai. TORII RYUZO Jk 1913 Dotaku koV 11J INj (On the bronze bell), Rekishi Chini, 22: 4 7-52. UMEHARA SUEJI 1927 Dotaku no Kenkyu ix~J-<V~[ (Study of the bronze bell), Tokyo, Ookayania Shoten. 2 v. 1940 Nihon kokogaku ronko '~,, -- ~W 5<!(Treatises on Japanese archaeology), 1953 Tokyo, Kobundo.t (Othclsisye 1953 ~Jodai no koshikifun ni tsuite j'f%.V 0- (nthclasc tl tomb of the ancient period), Nihon Jinrui Gakkai ed., Nihon Minzoku, pp. 100-112. WASEDA DAIGAKU KOKOGAKU KENKYUSHITSU ff&Jt~ (Waseda University Archaeological Laboratory) 1954 Awa Katsuyama Tagodai iseki At- JA )!- (The Tagodai site at Katsuyama, Awa province.
Social Values and Personal Attitudes in Primary Human Relations in Niiike
George DeVospp. 51-92
Page 51 \ SOCIAL VALUES AND PERSONAL ATTITUDES IN PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE by George DeVos University of California Berkeley
Page 53 INTRODUCTION This paper presents a non-technical summary of results obtained from three of the psychological tests given to inhabitants of Niiike village in Okayama prefecture, Japan, in 1954. No special attempt is made to sketch the material and social conditions of the people whose social values and personal attitudes we are considering. For such an account of this agricultural hamlet and its inhabitants, which enriches comprehension of the following discussion, the reader is referred to the detailed community study Village Japan (Beardsley, Hall and Ward 1959). Limitations of format and space of that volume prohibited a presentation of the psychological materials summarized here. On the other hand, those interested in a more technical analysis of particular aspects of these materials are referred to a series of articles published in other journals.' Our particular purpose here is to examine social values related to specific social role relationships as they are subjectively experienced in Niiike. It is not a complete report of all the methods used in a large scale study conducted at Niiike but only of tests properly called "projective," that is, tests eliciting attitudes spontaneously, unselfconsciously expressed. These tests contrast with opinion questionnaires or attitude schedules which directly elicit a person to express his agreement or disagreement with specific statements. In the course of our discussion we will describe briefly the derivation of social values from a traditional pre-modern social code and point out undercurrents of change that in the particular village studied had not as yet reached frank, overt expression. Any empirical approach to the study of values challengs notions that values are static or that they are arranged in a completely harmonious system. Various values, even though fairly general throughout a group, may be basically incompatible with each other in nature. Such disharmony underlies potential conflict which can take place not only among individuals, but within the psychic structures of individuals as well. At any point in time, moreover, values are in flux and are held on varying levels of conscious attention to varying degrees of intensity by members of a community. Values are at no time held with equal intensity nor even necessarily held in common by all the individuals in a group. Times of rapid change cause special inconsistencies to appear in attitudes. Today's Japan is experiencing radical shifts in both behavior and attitudes; these are pronounced in urban life but are also evident in more tradition-bound rural areas. Niiike is one example of what was to be found in rural Japan in 1954. In their general overt behavior, the people of Niiike adhere fairly firmly to the social values contained in what the Japanese call their traditional family system. The Japanese family system views the family as thes legal unit of responsibility and loyalty. During the Tokugawa era (1608 -1868) there was a concerted attempt to make the Confucian ethical system a moral and legal code for interpersonal relationships. Hierarchical loyalty was stressed. Family members owed their loyalty to the head of the household, who in turn owed even greater loyalty to his lord. Social mobility and change of occupational status were considered disruptive influences. Growth consisting of branching out to new lands or raising the agricultural yield in other ways was encouraged, but only as long as it did not disrupt the framework of traditional loyalties. The Tokugawa concept of family life for the farmer stressed the virtue of hard work and so functioned positively to maintain both social and personal stability in agricultural communities. The code had functional utility both to Japanese farming methods and to psychological stability, as it must to survive without severe legal enforcement. After the Meiji Restoration, industrialization on the Western model contributed to higher regard for individual initiative and responsibility. Recent revisions in Japanese social legislation have emphasized these individual values over collective ones. Social values, however, run deeper than legal codes and their revisions. Patterns of living and attitudes about human relationships are influenced by deeply set emotional patterns learned from early childhood on and often persist in the 53
Page 54 54 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE face of conscious efforts to bring about change through legal and other formal institutions. Therefore even though the present government runs on a basic philosophy of government drastically changed from that of Tokugawa times, many farm families still find economic utility as well as moral virtue in the old ideas and tend to maintain them even without legal support. Japanese farmers in general, including those of Niiike, have been less overwhelmingly exposed to economic and social change than the urban segments of the population. The evidence gathered in 1954 still pointed to a tendency to cling with some tenacity to traditional attitudes toward lineage and household, parent-child relationships, marital-family relationships, and to the traditional measures of success and achievement in adult occupational roles. Values in these areas of life are unlikely to change much unless the overall way of life described in Village Japan also changes radically. To understand the motives behind expressed values, one must deal with the universal human feelings of love, fear, and hate, and their most complex derivatives, as they are shaped by family and other social relationships. A culture, from one psychological viewpoint, is a mode of expressing in all their complexity these primary feelings, which are aroused by innate inner biological urges or occur as reactions to specific outer stimuli. The agency through which these feelings are integrated and expressed is the individual's personality structure as it is influenced by his socialization within the matrix of his family. Much that might be said about the feelings of the people of Niiike toward family relationships or about their ideals of life adjustment would be true of people anywhere. For the sake of brevity, this discussion is limited to peculiarities in the integration of attitudes and emotions that may be considered "rural Japanese"; we do not deal with features which are more broadly human in nature. The degree of unanimity and the firmness of various social values held by Niiike residents in 1954 was investigated through a large scale survey employing psychological tests and opinion scales. These various methods were administered in 1954 to most of Niiike's adults as well as to some of the children over 12 years of age. The tests and interviews of 80 of the 124 persons over 12 at Niiike were conducted as a joint enterprise by the members of the Human Relations Interdisciplinary Research Group at Nagoya University: T. Muramatsu, M.D., director; with the cooperation of George DeVos, Ph.D. as a Fulbright research scholar; the Center for Japanese Studies of the University of Michigan; and participation by faculty and students of Okayama University. Analysis of the projective story material was conducted at the University of Michigan by George DeVos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma aided by a grant from the Behavioral Science Division of the Ford Foundation. To compare Niiike with other rural as well as urban communities, similar surveys were conducted elsewhere as well. 2 The following scales and tests were used in two cities and three villages including Niiike: 1) intensive interviews; 2) opinion scales: (a) the "F scale" used in The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, et al. 1950), (b) excerpts from the "Tough, Tender, Liberal, Conservative Scale" used by Eysenck, (c) a direct opinion scale on the family system and (d) an indirect "liberal-conservative scale of Japanese psychological attitudes;" 3) the Rorschach Test; 4) the Thematic Apperception Test used by Murray (with drawings revised to provide Japanese features of face, dress and background details); 5) Spontaneous Figure Drawings; 6) the Problem Situation Test (adapted from Sargent's "Insight Test" method). 3 By using indirect methods of eliciting information, such as getting people to tell stories or to suppose what a person would do when confronted with a particular situation, one gains a spontaneous expression of social attitudes as well as of personality variables. In psychological terms, subjective experience of values takes place at various levels of consciousness. For purposes of simplicity we consider three such levels: 1) values self-consciously expressed; 2) values indirectly
Page 55 GEORGE DeVOS 55 expressed in the context of real or hypothetical behavior; 3) values expressed unconsciously in real or hypothetical behavior and interpreted by the analyst's inference from the data. In the analysis of the stories and other materials obtained from inhabitants of Niiike there is a sufficiently detailed exposition to make clear the method of analysis used. Not only is interpretation based on manifest content, i.e., the type and manner of behavior depicted in story material produced or what is manifestly expressed as the feelings of a particular individual in a particular situation. Interpretation is also based on other less overt aspects of material elicited by our technique. The emotional tone of a story may be as significant as the statement of what behavior is attributed to a particular character. To illustrate: In constructing a story to the card depicting a sleeping figure two individuals may describe the figure of a person as sleeping, but while one condemns the figure as "lazy" the other may commiserate with a person exhausted from hard work. (Man, age 27, picture M3M) 4This person is sleeping. He is supposed to study. But he is lazy. Or he prefers playing." (Man, age 38, picture M3M) "This... girl. She is resting, is taking a nap between labors at a hospital. She is exhausted from her work." The reader in the course of the following exposition should become further acquainted with how a psychologist uses expressive data of individuals to gain a picture of personal values held in the context of individual personality. In addition, in analyzing a group quantification of all materials it is necessary to obtain the relative incidence of a particular emotional tone revealed in a specified soare most characteristic for a particular social group such as Niiike village. THE EXPRESSION OF PRIMARY EMOTIONS IN NIIIKE CERTAIN PSYCHOLOGICAL CORRELATES In Niiike, as elsewhere in village Japan, there is a muted quality to the observable expression of feelings; few opportunities exist for the expression of feelings with any vehemence or abandon. Ceremonial activities consist mainly of quiet visits to shrines or temples. Niiike de-emphasizes even those forms of dancing and drinking which occur in other Japanese communities. The only dancing which is general in Japan is the joyous and rhythmic, but controlled, Bon dance; Niiike does not celebrate the Bon festival with dancing. Drinking is a minor form of release throughout Japan, but Niiike seems relatively puritan in this respect as well, and drunkenness, except on the occasion of certain feasts, is not at all characteristic of Niiike men. Moreover, although Niiike has not been completely without incidents of criminal violence and open conflict among individuals, relationships within the village characteristically avoid any direct conflict or overt expression of hostility or aggression. Psychological evidence concerning personality structure also shows very little pressure of any direct aggressive approach to situations. Even beneath the surface, the people of Niiike do not seem to be possessed of any undue hostility or anxiety. The Rorschach test results,4 for example, do not reveal seething emotions, but suggest that as a group the people of Niiike are by American standards quite rigid and constricted. They are significantly more rigid than the inhabitants of nearby Okayama City. Such rigidity, however, is not unique to Niiike; research with other rural groups in Japan and elsewhere makes it appear that it may be widespread in rural communities. Rigidity in Niiike is expressed in a rather over-cautious and inflexible approach to problems and a constriction in free access to feelings and impulses. The people of Niiike restrain positive as well as negative expressions to the extent that both happy and disturbed feelings generally remain muted and suppressed. The Niiike Rorschach records are notably free from signs of freely expressed anxiety. It is possible that anxious feelings are quickly resolved by adherence to the fixed rhythm of daily work activities.
Page 56 56 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE In respect to measures of overall maladjustment, the group as a whole scored higher than a normative sample of Americans in respect to constrictive defenses and pervasive blocking of thought processes, but they differed significantly when compared with American neurotics and schizophrenics in ability to maintain excellent ego control. People in Niiike have a strong sense of reality. They see the world as it is without distortion. The Rorschach results suggest the prevalence of two basic patterns for what is termed "outer control" or control over affective reactivity to outer stimuli. First, a cautiousness in affective responsiveness while maintaining a capacity for some spontaneity; second, for a considerable number, a complete constriction of spontaneity. In regard to measures of what is termed "inner control" (the relationship of thought processes to kinethetic experiences, awareness of motivational pressures from within, the socialization of imagination and fantasy, etc.) the evidence suggests that, as a group, the people of Niiike are potentially strongly introversive in orientation. There is, however, considerable blocking of this introversion by strong repressions, together with a lack of maturation in what imagination or fantasy is consciously available. However, one must quickly note that there are a number of individuals in Niiike who escape this generalization and who do show potentials of a superior sort in respect to creativity and imagination. It cannot be assumed, therefore, considering the village as a unit that it completely lacks imaginative capacities. For a well-functioning small community, it is probably sufficient that such traits find representation in a few of its leading personalities. The thematic test material, supporting the impression gained from the Rorschach records, show that Niiike men are highly cautious and restrained in their descriptions of appropriate behavior. Women, however, in suggesting solutions to problem situations often give answers with strong affective content. This may seem to be a discrepancy within the test results since no such difference between the sexes appears in the Rorschach test material, but it may be explained by the differences between the consciously acceptable social roles of men and women: women are characteristically denied overt action in dealing with situations of conflict whereas men are continually oriented toward goal-directed behavior. Therefore, women tend to think about what they feel; while men think about what they do. Neither men or women are necessarily given to overt labile affective displays except where they are socially sanctioned. Actual affective behavior in situations where it could be socially disruptive is notably well-controlled. ATTITUDES CONCERNING ACHIEVEMENT AND SUCCESS On the surface rural Japanese society presents a picture of stability and continuity, but imbedded in rural (as well as in urban) culture is a strong emphasis on values of hard-work, achievement and educational advancement which rivals the force of these values in socially and professionally mobile middle class Americans. Even in a rural hamlet like Niiike one finds stories, told both by teenagers and by older people, of growing up to be a great man (or, as in one story given by a girl, of marrying a prime minister). It is as if the ghost of some Oriental Horatio Alger were one of the patron deities of the local shrine. The rapidity of Japan's development into the modern industrial giant of Asia was due in part to the remarkable energy of its people, who can apply diligence and hard work with equal intensity to industrial expansion and to agriculture. Part of this energy and application is related to basic social values and can be explained in psychological terms. In many respects achievement values in Niiike resemble those found in American culture, but there are emphases which have a distinctively Japanese tone. The Niiike villager usually molds his achievement needs within a framework which does not force him to leave the bosom of his family.5 One notes here a major difference from the stories told by many middle class Americans who, in their fantasies, leave their parents' homes to strike out for themselves. The Japanese tested in our survey do not desire to leave home; the strong need to remain close to the family takes precedence
Page 57 GEORGE DeVOS 57 over the need to achieve. On a deeper psychological level the data suggest that the Niiike man does not want to give up the primacy of his relationship to his mother by leaving the household. In the stories given in response to T.A.T. pictures, however, the achievements envisioned by Niiike people were not limited to the field of agriculture; they were very much aware of broader horizons. Nevertheless, stories in which achievement took a person away from his family often ended with his subsequent return. In stories depicting a person leaving home there were often indirect expressions of guilt over the evasions of one's filial responsibilities. In such stories the departure was frequently due to domestic conflict and was not merely a matter of pursuit of individualistic ambitions.6 It is noteworthy that despite the emphasis placed on achievement as a means of gratifying one's immediate family, there were very few stories in which a person sought success in order to bring honor to his ie(( house). It seems that a person's emotional relationship to the real members of his household - to those who are close around him - plays a more important role in achievement and success than any abstract notion of the ie L as an institution. Since the T.A.T. stimuli are focused on primary family situations, it is to be assumed that the appearance of this characteristic is partially due to the nature of the test; nevertheless, the results emphasize the strongly affective ties which underly the formal social structure of values concerning the household. Achievement stories showed certain values that are characteristically Japanese. To elucidate these values, the 83 stories (out of a total of 807 stories elicited) which contain an achievement theme have been categorized into four basic groups: 1) self-motivated achievement (48 stories); 2) encouraged or inspired achievement (13 stories); 3) achievement as repayment (10 stories); 4) achievement as expiation (12 stories). These stories were elicited by nearly all the T.A.T. cards presented, not only to cards such as cards 1 and 2 which most commonly evoke such themes. Self Motivated Achievement A major characteristic which permeates the first group of achievement stories is an emphasis on the pursuit of success at all costs. The virtues of persistence and tenacity will help to overcome all difficulties; so even if one is at a loss or feels inadequate, he must not give up. This value was illustrated by the following story: (Man, age 16, picture JM1) "I like music and I used to go to a teacher to receive violin lessons. One day he told me that I'd better give up the violin because I was not doing well. However, I swore in my mind that I would become a good player. I practiced day and night, as hard as possible, and finally my teacher had to admit I was playing well." The fact that a story such as the above occurs with fair frequency in Niiike well illustrates that such social values are especially strong in this village. A simple reading of stories given to the same card in other cultural settings would reinforce this impression. Stories of themes of persistence towards success must be considered characteristic of the Japanese in comparison with other cultures. There were age and sex differentials among those who told self-motivated achievement stories. Proportionately fewer such stories were told by women at all age levels with the exception of those from 18 to 24 years of age. The men of this age group tended to be more concerned with stories of family conflict and heterosexual problems than any of the other groups considered. They also on other measurements, such as a maladjustment score on the Rorschach test, showed signs of interpersonal disturbance. The meaning of these findings for this young age group in Niiike is difficult to ascertain, but one has the impression that there may be an under-current of social and intrapsychic tension experienced in a good number of the young men of this village under 25. For the women in the village generally there was more emphasis on a self-effacing social role; they were more apt to give themes of death and illness of a person in the family, sometimes involving stories of self-sacrifice.
Page 58 58 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE Encouraged or Inspired Achievement Stories of encouragement and inspiration expressed the feeling that a father should serve as a respected and admired example for his son. The son should strive toward success with the encouragement and advice of his father: (Woman, age 40, picture J7M) "This is a father and this is a son. The father is encouraging his son who is very studious; the son tries very hard and becomes successful." However, in reality the father may not always be a great and successful man. A son's pursuit of success may actually mean that he will exceed his father's accomplishments, thus putting the son into a situation similar to that in which many American sons find themselves. In such a case an attitude of respect or idealization is maintained by the suggestion that despite his poverty or low status, the father, richly experienced in life, can be seen as a man of noble character or superior wisdom. In the T.A.T. stories there was sometimes an idealization of the image of a dead father. Some of the achievement stories (mostly those told by people under thirty-five) show a son inspired by a portrait or an image of his father rather than by his father in person. The father as an idealized image inspires the child; when the father is dead, realistic limitations cannot inhibit his inspirational function: (Man, age 17, picture J7M) "I think that this man has not been very successful in business so far (pointing at the young man). But since his father was a great man, I think he will remember his father and will make strong efforts to be as successful as his father." (Man, age 15, picture J7M) "This young man's father died forty-nine days ago. Today he gazes at his father's picture and thinks about whether he should become a farmer cultivating a big field - a rice field - according to his father's will; or whether he should become an engineer as he himself would like to do. He himself cannot decide, and he consults his former high-school teacher. His teacher receives him pleasantly, listens to his opinions about his problem, and thinks it over seriously. His teacher finally says that he should become a farmer and try to become a leader of his country (district) just as his father was. Afterward, he talked over various other matters with his teacher, and decided that he should remain in his country and take care of his ancestral land. Since then he has worked very hard at farming and has become a popular young man in his country." (Man, age 23, picture J7M) "He is thinking of his dead father. This is the image of his father.... this... he is recalling his father and is making up his mind to strive toward success. I don't know what his profession is... anyway, he has an ambition now." Although this value of encouragement and inspiration from a father image is prevalent in Niiike, it is somewhat more weakly represented here than in other Japanese village samples. Niiike women, especially, tend to think of a son as more autonomous from his father. In certain stories, a son is described as going counter to parental advice: (Man, age 17, picture J7M) "A conventional and obstinate father is in conflict with his son. They live separately." (Woman, age 16, picture J7M) "A father who is conventional and feudalistic, told his son to marry a girl. The son does not obey but walks out. He lives on his own, establishes himself and marries a girl he likes. The father will forgive him and they will live in contentment." Such negative stories, however, were in a minority.
Page 59 GEORGE DeVOS 59 Achievement as Repayment The third category of stories concerning achievement stresses the reciprocity of what have been termed on relationships: parents should willingly undergo hardships to raise and educate their children; and the children, out of a sense of gratitude to their parents, should try to be successful so that they will be able to care for their parents when they are old. Thus achievement can satisfy the sense of obligation to one's parents: (Man, age 29, picture J2) "They are farmers, pretty well off. The parents work very hard and send their daughter to high school. The girl is studying hard and is deeply grateful to her parents. She will study hard, and even though she is a woman, she will accomplish good research work in the field of agriculture." (Woman, age 45, picture J2) "It is the country. The father and mother are farmers and this is the daughter. The father and mother think it will be good if they have a nice crop. The girl is studying very hard. She wants to improve herself and be able to take care of her parents and make their life easy." The same virtue of repayment of on A, (ongaeshi) seen from the viewpoint of the parent may become a realistic expectation that if you raise your children well and if they observe filial piety, you will be cared for by them when you are old and cannot support yourself. This rather prosaic and realistic aspect of on was depicted in some of the stories: (Man, age 17, picture J2) "They are farmers. They are doing painful work. They raise their children and send them to school by doing hard work so that in the future when they are old they will be taken care of by their children." Achievement of Success as Expiation Hard work and success are not undertaken only in repayment of good done by parents, but they may also represent a measure of unconscious guilt for having hurt one's parents in some way by one's behavior, often by an act of self-will about marriage, or a lack of seriousness toward education: (Man, age 40, picture J5) "In a middle class family their single child does not like to study. The mother gets worried and comes to see whether the child is working. The child gets addicted to philopon (a stimulant drug used widely in Japan from 1950 to 1956) and becomes an outlaw. The mother becomes very worried, gets sick and dies. The child reforms himself and becomes successful in the future." (Woman, age 17, picture J7M) "A father scolded his son for being stupid. The son walks out. The father dies. This inspires the son to work hard and he becomes successful." These stories have pictured vocational achievement in the man. For women in Niiike, there are relatively few stories suggesting that a woman's accomplishment lies in any direction other than functioning as closely as possible to the ideal of wife and mother. As apparent throughout the psychological material this role revolves around a deep sense of responsibility for the care and well being of her husband and his purposes, and even more, the development of her children into successful adults in their respective male and female social roles. ATTITUDES CONCERNING WORK AND LEISURE Work itself is positively valued in Niiike regardless of goals and achievement. The necessity to work hard, whatever the personal cost, is stressed in certain T.A.T. materials. There were even certain stories in which excessive work led a person to ruin his health:
Page 60 60 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE (Woman, age 17, picture M3M) "What's this appearing on the side?... (talking to herself)... [interviewer: just say what you think it is]... It is hard to say... This girl lives on dress making. It does not bring in enough income, but she has to keep on living just the same. No matter how hard she works, the situation doesn't improve. Her body gets weaker from the hard work, and she can't stay up late at night because of fatigue. If this goes on, what will become of her? She won't be able to recover. The reason why I mentioned dress making is that this thing (pointing) looks like a pair of scissors." An item in the Problem Situation Test was constructed to measure the relative importance of health and work: "A person who is ill is told by a doctor to rest for some time, but if he takes a rest it will seriously interfere with his life's work." In only sixty percent of the replies did the person follow the doctor's orders. Four women directly stated that work is paramount over health. Several who would leave their jobs, as well as some who would continue to work, stressed concern with possible economic distress if they were to stop working. A young man stated, "Life is but fifty short years." Two older men resignedly, and in indirect religious terms, left their problem in the hands of fate or providence. One characteristic of certain T.A.T. stories was a separation of the farmer's life from any identity with goals of greater leisure or ease. In this regard farming was seen as distinct from other occupations. As an example of this, the girl with books in picture JM2 is seen as unrelated to the working figures in two-fifths of the stories told in Niiike. In the following story, a defensive (Man, ag 3 pire 39, pictre J2) "What idea does this picture contain? This is a problem. They would be the same when they are small, and they look like individuals of rather mature years, but from different circumstances. One of them works in the field and the other is a spoiled daughter of a certain family and... when they have happened to meet on the road, one of them is thinking of one's hard field work and the other is thinking that one can live easily without doing such laborious work. The one working in the field intends to live close to the soil and by so doing to be free of insecurity. The other is thinking that here the farmers are engaged in such hard work while her own life is enjoyable. In the future, the person at work will lead a happy life, but this spoiled daughter's family will become unstable... Nothing else especially." Leisure was depicted positively by some respondents but negatively by others. The attitude toward leisure was directly related to the age of the story teller. The pattern of distribution evokes Ruth Benedict's description of the "u"-shaped curve of Japanese life, with the middle years full of responsibility, and the early and late years happier and freer from pressure (Benedict 1946). The combined total of leisure stories told by men and women from ages eighteen to fifty is sixty-two; only eleven of these, or approximately eighteen percent, were positively toned. On the other hand, if the stories of teenagers from twelve to eighteen are combined with those of men and women over fifty, there are a total of forty leisure stories, approximately two-thirds of which were positively toned. There is only one positive story of leisure told by any woman between eighteen and thirtyfive, and only two positive stories by men between twenty-four and fifty. Conversely, there were many more stories told by people in these age groups which described leisure activities in a negatively colored situation. (Cf. Table 1.) The greater incidence of negative stories of leisure by individuals in their middle years is related to the large number of stories of drinking or drunkenness which were told by the same people. Men often associated drinking with violence and conflict, and sometimes linked it to extra-marital affairs with bar hostesses. Some stories very self-consciously pointed out the evil effect of drunkenness on family life: (Man, age 37, picture J5) "The husband came back home drunk, and his wife quarreled with him. He got angry and goes out again. She is anxiously seeing him off."
Page 61 GEORGE DeVOS 61 TABLE 1 DISTRIBUTION OF T.A.T. STORIES IN WHICH LEISURE OR RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES ARE DEPICTED ACCORDING TO AFFECTIVE TONE OF THE STORIES Stories Age of subjects 12 - 17 18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 49 50 - 64 65+ Total Number % % % % % % Men Women Positive or neutral tone 72 26 7 17 60 89 17 21 Negative affective tone 28 74 93 83 40 11 29 35 Drinking is a fairly common leisure-time activity throughout Japan, but it did not appear in a positive light in any story. Niiike residents seem very restrained in this matter; no one in the community is noted as a drunkard. Niiike may be somewhat more puritanical in attitudes toward drinking than rural Japanese villages in general. The most positive among leisure situations depicted were those which told of families together at home or traveling together for a visit: (Man, age 68, picture J7M) [man in picture visually distorted into old woman] "An old couple are going to worship at the grave (hakamairi;. a). They pay deep respect to their ancestors and they will end their life in peace and contentment." These traveling stories usually involved either an older retired couple or a grandparent and a grandchild. Most such leisure stories were told by people above fifty. They reflect the attitude that one's old age should be a time of peace and enjoyment of one's family. In these years, free from the responsibilities and conflicts which filled one's earlier years, one may find companionship with one's spouse. These stories also indirectly emphasized the relaxed attitude of older people toward their grandchildren. ATTITUDES CONCERNING MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIPS Choice of Marriage Partners The psychological material in general reflects marriage as a stable and fixed institution. Such stability is attributed in part to the Japanese institution of the arranged marriage. Parents and other authorities are thought in general, if not in specific instances, to have more wisdom concerning the suitability of marriage partners than younger people who lack life experience. In Niiike, as indirectly revealed by T.A.T. materials, there was marked distrust of free choice in marriage. There was not only some change and lack of unanimity noted among Niiike inhabitants in this regard but intra-psychic ambivalence was also in evidence. There were no spontaneous T.A.T. stories which attributed marked unhappiness in a consummated marriage to the fact that the marriage partners had been chosen by outsiders. On the other hand, in far greater degree than found elsewhere in Japan7, failure was often assumed to go with free choice marriages. To some individuals a love marriage seemed dangerous, unstable, and unconsciously guilt-producing, but there was no complete unanimity in the village on this matter. Some positive value was attached to individual choice of a marriage partner, and love was not completely overlooked as a valid and forceful consideration in marriage. On a conscious level, in contrast to the more unconscious fear of free choice revealed in the T.A.T., the positive value of free choice in marriage was expressed in Niiike by a relatively large minority in answer to Problem
Page 62 62 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE Situation Test items.8 A love marriage, even in opposition to the wishes of parents, did find some acceptance in a number of men and women. (Cf., Table 2). The number who would oppose parental wishes varied with the hypothetical circumstances under which free choice and obligation were opposed in the problem situation items we used. When in a hypothetical problem the parents raised strong objections to a marriage desired by their child even after having been introduced to the potential spouse, there were fewer advocates of the love marriage. (Cf., Table 3). Three-fourths of the women and two-thirds of the men would not persist in making the disapproved match. Some of the men would hope that with patience they might persuade their parents to change their opinions. Only a few individuals explicitly stated an autonomous position: they would go counter to parental wishes, since marriage was for them a life-long relationship between two people and should be based on mutual love. The primacy of the marriage bond over the ties of lineage was thus explicitly confirmed by a minority in Niiike. When faced with a problem situation in which a person wants to marry a spouse who is opposed by his parents because of a somewhat "lower" social status, only one-seventh of the men and twofifths of the women queried would think of giving up the idea of marriage. (Cf., Table 2). Overcoming a concern about status in the name of love is a noble concept for most Niiike villagers. TABLE 2 DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSES TO PROBLEM SITUATION TEST ITEM 14 (14) A man is loved by a girl who is 'below' him in wealth and social position. Reciprocating the love he too wants to get married with her. He talks to his parents about it; but they are against the idea. (FAM) (The same question for men and women) Age a(18+) y(25+) m(35+) o(50+) s(65+) Tot. Men Tot. Women M 3 3 4 3 1 14 W 1 3 6 4 1 15 I-Marry A. Marry 9 6 1. for one's self 1 m 2. because social position is not important 4 ammo 3. because he loves her 6 aymmms 1 o 4. because a marriage should be made freely 2 yo B. Leave home and marry unless he is permitted to by persuading the parents 1. because social position is beneath his notice 1 a, II-Make efforts to marry 3 3 A. Ask the parents for permission 1. in order to marry 1 m 2 yy 2. because he hopes for happiness 1 o 3. for future and belief 1 a B. Ask a mediator 1. in order to marry 1 o III-Don't marry 2 6 1. because marriage results in undutifulness to the parents l o 2. because trouble may happen in the future 1 y 3 ymo 3. because the parents are right 1 m 4. because it does not keep long even though they they are tied by the impulse of the moment 1 m 5. for the parents and Ie (house) 1 s
Page 63 GEORGE DeVOS 63 TABLE 3 DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSES TO PROBLEM SITUATION TEST ITEM 19 (19a) A man is engaged to be married with a girl whom he loves, however, when he introduced the girl to his parents, one of them raised strong objections. (FBM) (The same question for men and women) Age a(18+) y(25+) m(35+) o(50+) s(65+) Tot. Men Tot. Women M 3 3 3 3 3 15 W 5 2 5 2 2 16 I-Marry 6 4 A. Marry 1. because they have been close for a long time 1 o 1 m 2. in order to keep a promise to marry 1 m 1 m 3. because it is O.K. if they love each other 1 a 4. because his mother agrees 1 a 5. because this marriage is their own business 2 ao 6. because the fiancee is beautiful 1 a B. Marry if the fiancee is good for him 1. no reason 1 y II-Talk with the parents 4 2 1. in order to have the parents co-operate 1 m 2. because it is better to be in agreement 1 a 3. because if he does so he can marry 1 a 4. because he thinks the parents will allow the marriage y 5. wait until the marriage is allowed 1 s 6. have the parents investigate the fiancee, because he has confidence in her 1 m III-Don't marry 3 8 1. for the parents 1 s 2. because it is bad to be scolded by the father 1 m 3. because she loves her father much more than the fiancee 1 s 4. for the peace of the home 1 o 5. because it is not necessary to marry against reason 1 y 6. because it is not allowed in Japan. The national character of Japan is different from America's 1 s 7. because he thinks of his relatives 1 m 8. because he was opposed by the parents 2 ao 9. because there are many men in the world 1 y 10. marry with another man because he was opposed severely by the father 1 a IV-Emotional Reaction 2 2 1. can't give up 1 y 2. be disappointed because his opinion is different 1 o 3. be distressed 1 s 4. be sad because he is opposed in the marriage 1 m
Page 64 64 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE TABLE 4 DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSES TO PROBLEM SITUATION TEST ITEM 12 (12) A man's parents were habitually indebted to an individual for help. (M) One day he asks the parents to accept his daughter as a bride for their son. The man's parents are very happy about the request. (W) One day he asks for their daughter as a wife for his son. The woman's parents are very happy about the request. Age a(18+) y(25+) m(35+) o(50+) s(65+) Tot. Men Tot. Women M 3 3 4 3 1 14 W 5 2 5 2 2 16 I-Don't get married 5 2 1. because he dislikes the other person a 2. because he already has a lover and dislikes the other person 1 a 3. because one should get married by one's own will 3 ays 4. because it is better to give things as thanks for receiving help 1 o 5. because he is ashamed 1 a II-Get married if the other person is suitable 3 1. because should get married for themselves not for parent and family or obligation 3 ymo III-Investigate 1. because one can't get married more than once a whole life 1 y IV-Get married 6 12 1. for obligation 3 amo 5 mmmos 2. for setting the parents at ease 6 aymmos 3. because he has had the will to be married 1 m 4. because he finds the other a suitable person 2 ym 1 a V-No response 1 a Nevertheless, certain women in response to other items made occasional references to status. They were concerned, for example, that nothing should injure the good name of their families, lest their possibilities for a "good" marriage be impaired thereby. Even in these cases, the primary concern was for marriage and not for status as such. If put in the role of marrying to satisfy a parental obligation to an outsider, men and women revealed different attitudes. (Cf., Table 4). Only three of the fourteen men queried on this item, including one adolescent, directly accepted marriage for such an obligation. Only five men definitely rejected the idea of the marriage, however, and there was a great deal of hedging in the replies of the other men. Two said, for example, that they would marry "if the other person were suitable and not for family obligations." While four men directly stated the principle of marrying only according to one's own will, one of these added that "he would marry in this case because he had the will to marry." No age differences appeared among the men with regard to these attitudes. Among the women, eleven of the sixteen who were given this item, including all nine women over age 35, accepted the idea of a marriage of obligation. Most of their replies explained directly that if one's family owed much to the other family, one must aid in the return of the favor because one owed so much to one's parents and because it would "set the parents at ease." In women under thirty-five, more conflict appeared: one woman refused to answer the item; one hoped for further
Page 65 GEORGE DeVOS 65 "investigation," since one cannot be married more than once; and two girls under age 18 directly refused to get married out of "shame" or "dislike" for the person selected as a potential mate. The replies to this item bring out rather clearly an interesting value differential operative in Niiike: all but the youngest women showed little conflict between filial piety and obligation on the one hand and individual choice on the other. They clearly submitted to the older collective virtues. Adolescent girls were troubled, but they had little tendency to phrase their concern in terms of principles. They probably have had no experience in defending their feelings by an appeal to such ideals as "women's rights." Men of all ages, however, showed a hesitancy and a qualification in their answers and were more visibly caught in a dilemma between a sense of obligation and gratitude toward the parents and a respect for individualism. As a group they appreciated the value of self-will as opposed to passive submission to obligation. In the hedging which appeared, however, it is evident that there was only a veneer of active, masculine self-will over a deeper attitude signifying submission to possible family pressure. In another item (Cf., Appendix, item 17) the problem was that of inability to support both a mother and a potential mate whom one loves. In general men were more apt to seek a solution, while a greater number of women gave up the idea of marriage out of consideration for the potential mother-in-law. The most common solution, suggested by one-third of both men and women, was that the couple marry and the wife find work. Such a solution is probably more readily available to farmers, who have a tradition of women working, than it would be to individuals of a higher status, who would consider it shameful for a wife to work. Two individuals considered establishing a residence separate from the mother, and a few men suggested postponement of the marriage. However, no women considered delay a satisfactory solution to this problem as women are more conscious of age as a factor in marriageability than are men. One third of the men and over half of the women gave up the idea of marriage. Most of this group were individuals between 35 and 50, some of whom stated resignedly that the marriage would "make life too difficult." The greater number of women resigned themselves to the impossibility of marriage under these circumstances, because they felt more strongly the emotional side of a man's attachment to his mother; the men more consciously phrased the problem in financial terms of their duty to take care of their mothers. One woman gave as a reason for foregoing the idea of marriage "the look in his mother's eyes," possibly suggesting the feeling of jealousy implied in this kind of relationship. In general, the men seemed more concerned with the love relationship, the women with economic pressure and indirectly with the primacy of a man's obligation to his mother. Nevertheless, enterprise in resolving the situation through hard work on the part of both marriage partners was also a notable factor in the responses of both sexes. The people of Niiike clearly demonstrated their conservative attitude toward free choice in the matter of the remarriage of a widow. (Cf., Appendix, item 20). Almost all women refused to consider remarriage; only two suggested the possibility of remarriage "for a happy home life." The most common reason given for refusal to remarry was the "future" of one's children. Other answers involved concern both the children and the "house" (ie), for remarriage would deprive children of their right to inherit their dead father's household. To understand why women do not consider it possible to remarry and still secure their children's future, one must understand that a second husband does not have any responsibility toward the children of another man, nor would his family be interested in them. Children belong to the house of their own father, and a man can totally ignore the children of a widow whom he marries. He need give no financial support for them; hence a widow remains dependent on the house of her former husband for their support, and if she were to oppose their wishes, they might not give her any money for her children. A woman is supposed to sacrifice herself for her children, and should not be selfishly concerned with her own happiness. The question of remarriage theoretically involves the matter of fidelity as well, since a woman is supposed to remain faithful to her husband even after his death. Moreover, her obligation to her mother-in-law, at least in theory, does not cease with her husband's death. These concerns, however, received no direct representation in
Page 66 66 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE the results. The responses of the women of Niiike make it clear that the obligation of a mother to her children is the primary consideration in such a question. It is obvious from the above items that the more concretely and directly an item put free choice into conflict with other values, the weaker the attitude in favor of free choice became. Many may, in romantic fantasy, contemplate opposition to parental wishes and marriage to a person of their own choosing. Reality, however, gives young people little opportunity for such individualism in the face of the social sanctions of their own and neighboring communities. Moreover, a strong sense of the "rightness" of obedience to parents and potential guilt for rebellion insure eventual submission to parental and community pressure. In short, whatever the attitudes held, few people in Niiike possess the degree of personal autonomy required to attempt a love-marriage. When it actually occurs, such a marriage is usually an act of rebellion against the parents and generally produces a disharmonious situation. Although structured in terms of positive feelings of mutual love, the bond between the young people is more often one of shared antagonism toward parents. As such, love marriages do not often have a sufficiently stable base to insure permanency, and the internal sanctions of guilt eventually take their toll.9 Problems in Marriage Relationships Two main problems were spontaneously depicted in T.A.T. stories pertaining to marriage: the wife's adjustment to her mother-in-law, and infidelity and profligacy on the part of the husband. Both men and women tended to see these problems as central issues in marriage, although there was some difference in their views. The mother-in-law problem is a conscious and important issue in Niiike, as it is elsewhere in Japan. Countless articles in Japanese magazines deal with this perennial sore spot. Evidence from both T.A.T. and problem situation tests indicates that very little is required to stimulate strong feelings on the subject in women. No matter what T.A.T. card was presented, someone (usually a younger woman) managed to depict a conflict situation involving an unreasonable mother-in-law. Men, on the other hand, preferred to avoid conscious concern with the problem. Although they were quick to recognize that a problem did exist, women taking the role of wives would only concede they must have patience and endure in such a situation. Not one woman expressed any possibility of direct opposition to the excessive demands of a mother-in-law. (Cf., Appendix, item 26). Such results reflect the degree to which the women of Niiike accept the fact that a bride has no personal rights in her new house until she has established her status, usually by bearing children. As an outsider she is not readily accepted as a true member of the family. Fulfillment of her responsibilities to her husband is not sufficient; she must also develop and display a deep feeling of respect for his ancestral lineage. When her mother-in-law is present, the new wife is never considered the manager of the home; and the mother-in-law, herself once an outsider, is considered the proper disciplinarian. She should see to it that the proper attitudes are established in the young wife, a process of indoctrination which may include a great deal of unnecessary cruelty and jealousy. In two cases, women who suggested submission to the mother-in-law also stressed a need to "avoid" falling ill. The juxtaposition of these two topics suggests an unconscious mechanism at work. Consciously it would be impossible to malinger, but becoming ill can be used unconsciously in certain instances as one way of escaping excessive demands.10 One of these women suggested the possibility of returning home to avoid illness, while the other suggested ignoring, as much as possible, what the mother-in-law said, but doing one's work. Inferentially, by ignoring one can avoid internalization of excessive requirements, and hence avoid illness. Two other women gave culturally noteworthy reasons for "enduring." One said that there was no alternative because she would have no other opportunity for marriage. Another stated that even if she were to marry again the chances were that her new mother-in-law would be no better. To maintain autonomy is often to remain unmarried, but a person who remains unmarried is considered
Page 67 GEORGE DeVOS 67 strange in Japan; national statistics demonstrate how comparatively rare it is for either men or women. Most unmarried women are entertainers or prostitutes, so the alternatives to marriage are avoided at all costs by most women, especially those in the rural areas. For the village woman, then, there is no real escape from the mother-in-law problem, unless one is fortunate enough to marry a second son whose residence is different from that of his mother. Men were more likely than women to see divorce as a solution to the friction between a husband's mother and his wife. (Cf., Table 5). In answers to a problem situation where one's spouse suggests divorce because the wife's relationship with the mother-in-law is impossible, the men were divided about evenly between those who would accept the wife's desire for divorce and those who would seek reconciliation. The reasons most frequently expressed by the men for accepting divorce were that parents must be given paramount consideration and that one must take account of social considerations, such as the scandal involved in continued friction between a woman and her mother-in-law. Those men who would reconcile the differences expressed a variety of reasons: love for the wife, concern for the children, and a man's responsibility to resolve differences between his wife and his mother. It is noteworthy that only one man mentioned the possibility of setting up a separate residence from that of the parents. Sixty percent of the women subjects, in solving a situation wherein a husband recommends divorce, suggested apology to the mother-in-law and/or self-reform with patience. Only twenty percent would accept the husband's suggestion of divorce; two women expressed disappointment with the weakness which the husband displayed in failing to give moral support to his wife. Two other women suggested that the couple establish a separate residence. Some women stated more realistic reasons for a fear of divorce than those offered by the men. One woman stated frankly that it would be difficult to marry again. Others talked about the personal shame of such an eventuality. Generally, the women showed, on the surface at least, an attitude of self-reproach and submission which clearly delineates both traditional values and the actual social reality of the Japanese wife who lives with a mother-in-law. From the woman's standpoint the vertical relationship of a man to his mother and family seems much stronger than his horizontal relationship to his wife. The second major marital problem, that of infidelity, clearly involves a double standard. Japanese wives are not usually surrounded with much jealousy by their husbands; in cities women can and do go to movies and elsewhere by themselves, and husbands only very rarely become suspicious or possessive. The possibility of adultery on the part of a wife does not enter into the spontaneous thinking of men or women in Niiike. On the T.A.T., the only suggestion of extra-marital contacts by a woman once married was in reference to a widow. In a problem situation item worded to suggest straying affections or possible unfaithfulness in a wife, (Cf., Appendix, Item 25) the men were content to "investigate," implying a general caution against jumping to conclusions and a maintenance of emotional distance. They seemed to be unwilling to consider the possibility seriously unless it was stated in more direct terms. In solving a problem in which a wife actually loves another man (Cf., Appendix, Item 8), more than half the men suggested divorce, but usually only after definitely establishing that the reports were true by interview or investigation. Moreover, several individuals suggested discussion with the wife to reestablish harmony, rather than divorce. Those who did recommend divorcing a straying wife justified it in diverse ways: concern about the children's future, the need to insure the peace of the entire family, concern over one's own loss of happiness, and mutual incompatibility. One old man blamed the parents in such a case for having made a poor marriage arrangement. Women's responses to the same items showed none of the caution expressed by the men. They quickly assumed unfaithfulness on the part of a husband in doubtful situations, but they were characteristically resigned to the difficulty of doing anything about it. The usual answers involved advice or admonishment. In some cases, only anger was expressed, with no course of action indicated. Only two women would consider divorce, and for reasons quite different from those given by men: one suggested divorce as a matter of principle, whereas the other woman masochistically suggested divorce so that the man might be happy with the other woman.
Page 68 68 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE TABLE 5 DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSES TO PROBLEM SITUATION TEST ITEM 6 (6) A man's wife did not get along with her mother-in-law well since their marriage. They had conflicts over all sorts of matters. (The same question for men and women) (M) As a result, his wife one day tells him she would like a divorce. (W) As a result, her husband one day finally suggests divorce. Age a(18+) y(25+) m(35+) o(50+) s(65+) Tot. Men Tot. Women M 3 3 3 3 3 15 W 3 1 6 4 1 15 I-Divorce 7 3 A. Parents paramount 1. because it is necessary that he support his parents 2 ys 2. because she is one who does not know how to obey 1 s B. Social considerations 1. because it is socially scandalous 1 o 2. because it is foolish from the standpoint of the state of the world 1 y C. Egocentric concerns 1. because he becomes unhappy 1 a D. Loss of feeling for husband 1. because she heard it from her husband who should take care of her 2 mm E. Other (avoidance of issue) 1. because she is not beautiful 1 a 2. use of a mediator for divorce 1 y II-Don't divorce 7 9 A. Become reconciled to each other 1. because the husband loves his wife 2 yo 2. for the parent 1 s 3. because this is his responsibility 1 m 4. because there are many examples like this in the world and he thinks of his child in the future 1 m 5. no reason 1 o B. Investigate 1. in order to know what the cause is a C. Apologize to her husband and have him think it over again 1. because she thinks that her husband and mother-in-law have responsibility too 1 y 2. because she is ashamed to divorce 1 m 3. because it is difficult to marry again 1 m 4. because appearance is bad 1 o D. Reflect and reform herself 1. because it is the duty of a Yome (bride) to submit to her husband and mother-in-law 1 o E. Be patient for filial duty 3 aos III-Husband and wife set up separate living 1 2 1. for their own future happiness 1 m 2. no reason 2 ym IV-Answer unclear 1 o
Page 69 GEORGE DeVOS 69 Three women thought that increased care for the husband might solve the problem of his infidelity, and two women saw the wife as somehow directly responsible for having allowed her husband's interest to wander. The tendency to blame the wife for the husband's infidelity or his general dissatisfaction was expressed by both men and women. This theme was often evoked by picture J13 of the T.A.T. series, which depicts a semi-nude woman lying in bed in a posture usually interpreted as that of sleep, illness, or death. The man, shown with his arm across his eyes, seemed to some male respondents to be angry or disappointed over a lack of wifely care. To other men the carelessness in the sleeping posture of the woman suggested a lack of wifely devotion.l In their stories they complained that "such a wife" would not care for a husband properly and would even go to sleep before his return at night rather than wait up for him. Women also saw a lack of attention to the husband as a potential source of discord between a man and his wife. The converse, discord due to a husband's inattention to his wife, was never elicited. T.A.T. pictures evoked many stories of a husband or father who stayed out late to drink, and in a certain number of these, extra-marital affairs on the part of a husband were also suggested. Many of the stories about a husband's profligacy, told by both men and women, were of a moralistic tone. Drink and impulsive behavior under the influence of alcohol are proclivities in men which were not condoned, but which seemed to be acknowledged as part of the nature of certain men. Aggressive quarreling as such was generally associated with drinking. The profligacy of men was not seen by either sex as a common cause of permanent rupture of the marriage bond. The wife was never pictured as "f earful" of losing her husband to another woman as is frequently the case in stories told by American women. The Japanese wife may suffer from neglect in such situations, but she does not characteristically fear permanent loss. One may infer that she is secure in providing the basic maternal care for her husband which builds an ultimately stronger bond than that of satisfying sexual impulses. American wives, on the other hand, are more conscious of having to maintain the interest of their husbands or lovers by remaining sexually attractive, and therefore display more anxiety under such circumstances. PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS Attitudes Concerning Child Socialization: Care and Training of Children Many of the stories given in response to T.A.T. pictures dealt with the means by which mothers advise, admonish, and care for their children so as to assure their successful futures. Long-range goals were expressed so often that one cannot escape the impression that Japanese mothers are constantly self-conscious of the possible influence of their behavior on the future development of their children. The nature of his mother's care is considered crucial in assessing a child's chances of becoming a success in life. While the mother's role is usually expressed in terms of direct, active influence, the father is considered more as a model image to be emulated. His role is to encourage or inspire, and his inspiration may be effected not only through daily contact, but also through a child's memory of his image. Some stories depicted a dead father who inspired a child to achieve in order to care for his mother, as his father had done. In a small minority of stories, the absence of a father made it impossible for a mother to cope with the discipline of their son and hence led to a negative outcome. In other stories a widowed mother, through selfish interest in other men, allowed herself to be distracted from proper devotion to her child's upbringing. The strong feeling that it is somehow wrong for a mother to remarry is linked directly to her need to devote herself to her children, whom she would ordinarily have to leave with her first husband's family were she to remarry. Methods of discipline in Niiike differed with the age of the child and the problems presented. The mother was usually the admonishing figure, although she would sometimes involve the elder brother of a child by having him intercede actively as disciplinarian in her support. In stories involving younger children, indirect refusal of a child's demands by ignoring them or by distracting
Page 70 70 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE the child with other activities was more prevalent than the use of direct verbal refusal or physical punishment. Excessive scolding was linked to unsuccessful results. Children are thought to develop negative attitudes if punished with any severity, and it was said that children so treated become "soured" or "distorted in their attitudes" toward life. The principal source of trouble in these stories of conflict between parents and younger children was "laziness," or lack of application to study on the part of the child. Violent chastisement did occur in some stories. The figure of the cruel step-mother was often evoked in negatively toned stories to depict the life-long evil effects of cruel or severe punishment of children: (Man, age 56, picture J18) "This is.., Ah... A stepmother and a daughter, I suppose. And the stepmother is... to her stepdaughter furious... At present... I suppose the stepmother is chastising her stepdaughter. As the stepmother is always hard on her daughter, the daughter has a "jaundiced" mind and does not obey her stepmother. It seems to me that the daughter has contradicted her mother on something, and the mother is chastising her by gripping her neck. If such a relationship between the stepmother and her daughter continues indefinitely, their minds will grow more opposed to each other and a coolness will grow up between them, and... but they have pure thoughts in the bottom of their hearts, I think. Finally, even if they cannot keep a good intimate relation with each other, they will surely come to know that they have been wrong, if they meet on an occasion when one of them dies of illness." Conversely, in some stories, selfish children failed to recognize the self-sacrifice of a good stepmother until much later in their lives. There were no stories of cruel stepfathers, of fathers who were severe disciplinarians, or of violent behavior in a man toward his son or daughter. In the nine stories told by men about physical violence within a family, all nine violent acts were committed by women: in seven of these stories the violence was actually extreme discipline directed toward an adult son. Among seven stories of this kind told by women, four involved acts of violence by a woman toward her son, and three described violence inflicted by a man on his wife. Violent chastisement occurred in a more positive light in a more positive light in stories which suggested a deep sense of the continuing responsibility of the mother toward society for the proper behavior of her child, even after he has reached adulthood. Such stories are related to those which unconsciously depicted a mother who masochistically "punished" herself and/or her son by becoming ill and dying, after which the son usually reformed himself and worked hard. Parents in such stories never turned to legal sanctions, such as the police, to punish delinquency. The responsibility for delinquent behavior was clearly the mother's: (Man, age 20, picture J18) "Mother severely chastises her disobedient child who committed a crime." (Man, age 20, picture J18) "A parent is choking a son who committed burglary. The son is arrested by a policeman, reforms himself, and lives with parents happily." (Man, age 17, picture J18) "A mother strangles to death her prodigal son. She will be imprisoned." In a few stories a woman killed herself after killing a delinquent young son, and one older person constructed a traditional story of a mother who kills her son in order to fulfill an unspecified giri obligation. The figures on the same T.A.T. card (JM-18), when interpreted as a mother-daughter situation, evoked only three stories of conflict. Violence toward a daughter was only rarely inferred, and the
Page 71 GEORGE DeVOS 71 picture was usually seen as a depiction of a mother's tender concern for her daughter during illness or malaise. It is to be noted as well that a mother-in-law was never described as physically abusive toward a bride no matter how negatively she was seen in other contexts. One sees reflected in these data the fact that fathers in Japan are not usually considered active disciplinarians. The responsibility for child-rearing rests upon the mother, and mothers, in assuming this responsibility, are not passive in their relationship to children even after they are grown. On the contrary, women are considered capable of violent chastisement of their wayward children. Such an active attitude appears in other contexts as well; stories of marriage arrangements, for example, ordinarily showed a mother taking the initiative and handling matters with a firm will. Much as a man conceives of his adulthood in terms of occupational achievement, a woman sees the successful maturation of an adult son as a prerequisite to a sense of fulfillment. This end is her principal goal in life. Care and Solicitude Towards Parents - on gaeshi The relations of parents and children in Niiike are characteristically both intense and positive. Even though direct comparison with other social relations is difficult due to limitations in the stimuli value of the tests, the sentiment between children and parents ws undoubtedly very strong. The people of Niiike expressed this sentiment in ways resembling Americans, but they appeared to feel negative feelings were buried so deeply that they were only expressed unconsciously. The strength and spontaneity of parental attachment varied, of course, with the individual. This variation was evident in the reactions to problem situations and T.A.T. pictures which involved a choice between the vale of obedience to parents and that of self-motivated achievement. Care and solicitude for a mother was a paramount concern. In one such problem test, men and women were asked what a person should do if, when studying or working away from home, his father died and he was asked to return. Another hypothetical situation posed the question of carrying on with one's own plans or of coming home in response to a parental request for a specified reason (e.g., to care for one's mother or to succeed to the house leadership). Taking responses to all such situations together, we find that both men (70%) and women (75%) preponderantly judged it best for the hypothetical person to return home. Most of the respondents either stated specifically or seemed to assume that a person living away from home would be a younger son, who would be less implicitly obliged by custom to continue the parental household than a first son. Some men (27%) and fewer women (16%) felt it proper for such a person to refuse to return home permanently. The following stories are examples of the majority and minority points of view: (Man, age 36, Problem Situation (la) "He returns home to stay because it is his duty to become the head of his family." (Woman, age 25, Problem Situation (la) "He returns home only temporarily to take care of funeral ceremony, etc., but afterwards continues to work toward his own goal away from home." Men who recommended the traditional role of returning home, whether to succeed as family head or to take care of one's mother, nonetheless spoke of the regret that would accompany the giving up of one's chosen studies or occupation. Women who submitted to the need for the person (presumably their husband) to accept the duty of head of the household were apt to treat this situation as a required service to their mother-in-law. The women who rejected this tradition were younger, all but one of them under thirty-five. Three women explicitly rebelled against life with a motherin-law and one went so far as to say that divorce would be preferable to such a life. It would seem that they accept marriage to a younger son, which has its own disadvantages, because of the freedom which it offers from the mother-in-law problem; and to have to contend with a mother-in-law after all would be too much of a burden.
Page 72 72 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE In opposing the community pressure to observe tradition, the younger women's attitude led to a certain amount of inner conflict. Late adolescence is the time when girls are apt to reach for a freedom which they later resign themselves to doing without. Therefore we are probably on safer ground if we view the clash of attitudes shown here as part of the maturation process in the individual, rather than a sign of changing times and transfer of values. Quite possibly, an identical problem, if posed to the same young woman and girls ten years later, would bring answers comparable to those of the older women at present. In the responses discussed above, care and solicitude for the parents gave strong emotional shading to the practical problem of succession to the leadership of a household. Only a few men, and they were the elders of the village, mentioned the formal concepts of obligatory succession and family duty. It was also these few elders who habitually expressed the responsibility of leaders to serve as examples for others to follow, and who created self-consciously moralistic stories in which vice was always punished and virtue arose triumphant. The majority of the men framed their responses to these parent-child problem situations as if the emotional sense of responsibility for the care of the aging mother were uppermost in their minds. If they rebelled against the idea of returning (specifying that their role was that of a second son), we may judge that their attitude reflected the parents' tendency to lavish greater affection on the oldest son, whose sense of gratitude for their sacrifice should thus surpass that of a younger son. Surely the majority of men who urged return also recognized this invidious distinction. It is thus noteworthy that they resigned themselves to the abandonment of self-set goals in order to repay the sacrifice and hard work of their parents and not for the purpose of fulfilling the overt, formal duty of succession. They followed custom willingly through an emotional motivation, and not merely to meet a formal requirement. Obedience to Parents Opposed to Other Values When, in a problem situation (Cf., Appendix, item 10), the values of personal achievement and obedience to parental wishes were opposed, men showed a surprising amount of concern for personal achievement. The duty of a son to follow in his father's occupation was apparently not strongly felt in Niiike. Both men and women tended to consider positive interest and talent more important than parental wishes in the choice of a career; not a single man spontaneously suggested obedience to the wishes of parents in this matter. Nevertheless, disregard of parents' desires was phrased with concern for their feelings. One man stated, for example, that even though such behavior was impious, one could eventually repay his parents by achievement. Another expressed the idea that failure itself is impious, so that it is better to follow one's own interests and talents: (Man, age 36, Problem Situation, item (5) "He gets the job he is interested in (rather than succeed his father) because his parents are successful in their own profession, and it is filial piety for him to be successful in his own." Others regretted that they must disappoint their parents, but felt that the parents would eventually see the wisdom of the son's choice. Another item (item 10) posed the problem of whether a child should continue his education over parental objections or despite the pressure of poverty on his parents. Over half the men answered that they would continue their schooling. The answers often included some indication that since mental labor brings more advantage than does physical labor, education is a guarantee of a profitable future. On the other hand, all but two women said they would give up their educations if their parents requested them to do so. Their concern was with a girl's duty to help her parents. Very few women in Niiike envisioned any feminine career other than that of housewife. The woman's role as they saw it did not include higher education, so this problem did not reveal many signs of conflict in their response. Although education did not seem to mean a great deal personally to women, they did appreciate the benefits it held for boys. On items which assessed the relative strength of parental pressure and individual choice in the selection of marriage partners, a surprising number of men answered that they would persist in a
Page 73 GEORGE DeVOS 73 choice which their parents opposed, but would attempt to gain parental approval. A number of men said that they would refuse to consent to a marriage which had been arranged in repayment of an obligation incurred by their parents. With the exception of a few younger girls, women were usually submissive in their expressed attitudes concerning obedience to parents, whereas men much more often asserted self-choice and disregard of parental wishes. (See "Choice of Marriage Partners" above) In a situation in which a child and its parents clash on religious or political issues, only one man of 29 tested said that he would change his opinions to conform with those of his parents, but five of the thirty-one women tested would do so. However, about one-third of the women felt free to urge their views on their parents. The women tended at least in their imagined behavior, to become directly assertive or else completely submissive, and they showed less submissiveness in response to the item concerning religious and political opinions than in any other case. Quite a number of women showed a rather assertive but friendly attitude toward their parents, saying that they would defend their own beliefs because they were right or because there were differences between one generation and the next. Men, on the other hand, suggested that one would best attempt to assume a neutral attitude in order to keep peace in the family. Their attitude toward their parents was conciliatory; they wished "to keep friendly relations with parents." Half of the men and one-third of the women showed such constrained attitudes. The men especially tended to avoid the problem by claiming that an individual in this situation would leave home, keep silence, or listen to parent's views for his own information. Such an attitude may exemplify the Japanese saying, "keep clear of the devil"; in other words, do not pursue matters too thoroughly and avoid emotional involvement in a situation. These results - especially the open assertiveness in the answers of some of the women - contrast to some degree with results obtained on other items. There may be several reasons for this difference. One possible consideration is the degree to which in Japan politics and religion are removed from the requirements of the family and from community sanctions. Hence, expression of opinions contrary to those of parents would not constitute such an affect-laden situation as in the West, where differences in religious opinion can be a cause of extreme tension within families. Religion has never played such a central role in Japan; morality is related to systems of obligation to family and social hierarchy, and not to God and a system of abstract principles. People seem to consider theology a personal proclivity rather than a burning issue. Politics is also a minor matter for most of the people of Niiike. Radical younger people in the city might see more potential conflict in this problem than do the younger people of Niiike. Another factor to be considered is that although the family demands conformity in behavior and to a certain extent seeks to orient feelings, individuals feel free to keep their own opinions on matters which are not directly related to daily behavior. Since the opinions in question do not immediately involve important social sanctions or social and family obligations, individuals feel freer, in general, to champion the right to their own opinions. When asked about the reactions of a son or daughter who got into trouble outside the family (Cf., Appendix, Items 21 and 7), women were most concerned about parental feelings. In sharp contrast, only a small minority of men were so oriented: most men seemed to be primarily concerned with resolving the difficulty in which they found themselves, and they were less emotionally involved in a dependent way with their parents. Women, whatever their age, continue to feel very dependent upon their parents or parental surrogates, and show little development of any ideas of self-reliance. (Such attitudes contribute to the conservative, authoritarian modes of thought exhibited by women in their responses to opinion scales as well as in the projective psychological data.)
Page 74 74 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE ATTITUDE TOWARD AUTHORITY Family Sanctions: Family Responsibility and Family Solidarity When a problem situation was presented in which a family member had done something disgraceful (Cf., Appendix, Item 4), Niiike respondents did not usually feel sympathetic toward the offending member, nor were they particularly concerned with his reform. (Cf., Table 7). Their concern was principally with the disgrace the whole family suffered and with the social rectification of the misconduct. The family itself turned upon an errant member rather than protecting him against the outside world or leaving him to his own resources and fate. These reactions reveal the extent to which the Niiike family feels responsible for the behavior of its members, in spite of postwar reforms which stress the legal responsibility of the individual. Men and women reacted differently to this sense of family responsibility. Men were most concerned with the social rectification of the misconduct of a family member. A number of them, particularly men who held some of the more active and responsible actual roles in the village, spoke of a public apology by the family head. One suggested type of public apology was kinshin: (Man, age 24, Problem Situation 4) "He does kinshin and makes an effort himself to restore the previous state of affairs, because to do so is the duty of a person who is in the position of a leader." Traditionally, kinshin;3iLt'was the social behavior required of a samurai when he had committed some disgraceful act which was not of severe enough a nature to require seppuku f2ly i(suicide by disembowelment), or when a person was compromised by subordinates for whom he was responsible. He would confine himself to his house and give up ordinary affairs for a fitting period of time. A superior could ask a subordinate samurai to do kinshin, just as he could order seppuku for more serious offenses. Kinshin seems to be rather similar to medieval European public penance, but it was undertaken in expiation of "disgraceful" behavior, and not to atone for "sin." One individual felt, however, that kinshin was not enough. Since a member of his family had disgraced him, the househead could no longer be a fitting leader, he had lost his moral force over others: (Man, age 39, Problem Situation 4) "I think he was rather a high placed person. Probably he stood above others in public position. If such a thing occurs within a family, an attitude of kinshin is probably expressed. If one's house produces such an individual, one loses any qualifications for leading others by his own example." In contrast to the men, the women's reactions were generally more passive. They worried about the shame which they would feel if they were disgraced, and suggested avoiding people, or even leaving home. One said that a woman might fall ill as a result of being disgraced by a family member. (As indicated elsewhere [see pageo66], illness is sometimes unconsciously used as a punishment of others or as an excuse to avoid a hopeless situation or one in which a person fears future failure.) Certain men and women were more concerned with the admonishment of the offending family member. But even among this group, three men also showed concern with public appearances, while only one man was worried about the internal harmony of the family. One of the two women who would directly admonish the offender was anxious to reform him; the other concentrated upon the personal harm which the offender's behavior had caused her. As the Niiike family tends to accept responsibility for the behavior of its members and to show little sympathy toward the errant member, the offending individual faces not only community sanctions, but also the possibility of severe rejection by his own family. The existence of these two complementary sanctions probably helps to explain the general lawfulness of the Japanese, not only in Japan, but even among those who have emigrated to America (where their delinquency rates are very low). In spite of all the warmth felt among the members of a Japanese family, one gains the
Page 75 GEORGE DeVOS 75 TABLE 6 DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSES TO PROBLEM SITUATION TEST ITEM 4 (4) A man who came from an honorable family has been respected by his neighbors. But one of his family did a dishonorable thing so that he is not able to show his face in public. (FAM) (The same question for men and women) Age a(18+) y(25+) m(35+) o(50+) s(65+) Tot. Men Tot. Women M 3 3 4 3 1 14 W 5 2 5 2 2 16 I-Don't change behavior 1. continue usual activity because people gradually change their opinion as a result of his efforts 1 s 2. don't leave home and don't do anything because his actual neighbors are not the ones who speak ill of the girl 1 a II-Admonish or apologize (emphasis on correction of difficulty) A. Publicly apologize 8 2 1. kinshin and make efforts to recover the previous state of affairs, because it is duty for him who is in the position of leader to do so 1 a 2. kinshin and retire from public affairs. He can't any longer be respected in a position of leader 1 m B. Publicly apologize and admonish the family member 1. because it is publicly inexcusable 2 mo 2. because it is reasonable 1 m C. Admonish (constructively or aggressively) the offending member and console the family 1. in order to restore peace of the family 1 y 2. because the other member harmed him 1 y D. Caution the offending person not to do it again 1. because he must not repeat it again 1 a E. Give up shameful behavior because he did something which is shameful in appearance (mistakes behavior as his own) 1 o F. Work as hard as possible 1 y III-Escape and avoid (emphasis on dire results) 3 6 A. Avoid meeting people and give up some usual activities 1. because he is afraid of punishment from the neighbors 1 a 2. because he is ashamed to meet people 2 ym B. Leave home 1. because he is ashamed to show his face 2 mo 2 mo C. Get ill 1. because he is ashamed to meet people 1 m D. Be married with a person who is lower in status 1. because she abandons a hope of marriage with a person who is of good birth 1 s IV-Emotional reaction 6 1. hate the family member, because when she married she must marry a person who is lower in status 1 m 2. be ashamed and sad, because she is ashamed to show her face 3 amo 3. be distressed 1 s 4. ashamed to show her face to the family because she was severely scolded (mistakes behavior as her own) 1 a V-Investigate 1. for his brother 1 a VI-No response 1 y 1 a
Page 76 76 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE impression that if one member should cause disgrace, he would receive very little family support. The difference between this attitude and that of an Italian family, for instance, where family ties are often held above the law, is striking. External Sanctions of Authority The T.A.T. cards used by their nature brought out little data on attitude toward possible external authority. There is some indirect evidence in the material to indicate that the teacher is a figure of authority in village life, but priests, doctors, and other figures never appeared in such a role. The teacher appeared sporadically (especially in the stories of younger women) as a counselor in times of stress. As a teacher, he is a secondary father figure, whose advice is respected by the community. The teacher was also seen, in general, as an unquestioned authority on problems of child-rearing. Both men and women seemed to accept without question or disapproval the advice or admonition of teachers on the subject of child behavior. In response to one Problem Situation (item 27), men showed an attitude of passive non-interference in a situation where a child's behavior met with disapproval from the teacher; they expressed the feeling that it was the mother's duty to correct the child. Women felt more need to respond personally to rectify the child's behavior. Stories of antisocial actions by older children outside the home were most commonly told by younger men and, to a lesser extent, by women under twenty-four. Six of these T.A.T. stories were about stealing, two about murder, and others about mixed or unspecified crimes. Punishment or reform was mentioned in all but three of the stories. Such results are in striking contrast to the data from records of similar T.A.T. pictures with American lower class and certain American Indian samples. These latter groups showed a much higher incidence of concern with crime and with avoidance of punishment through some sort of escape. Crime more often entered the fantasies of young people in Niiike than those of older individuals, but even their fantasies don't allow crime to go unpunished. There was some tendency in the young people to see rebellious or antisocial behavior in story characters of the opposite sex. That is, young girls tended to depict bad behavior in boys, and vice versa. Women told more stories of rebellion by sons than did men. Some men gave stories of a girl who leaves home and falls into prostitution in the city: (Woman, age 14, picture M3M) "This boy quarreled with his parents. He runs away from home, but commits suicide after all." (Man, age 27, picture 13F) "This girl was scolded by her parents. She ran away from home - sexual promiscuity - she cannot go back home. She finally kills herself to apologize to her parents." When the sex of the parent against whom the child rebelled was specified (in forty-three of fiftytwo stories) it was the mother whom a son or daughter defied. In many stories of rebellion no outcome was indicated. In other stories, especially those told by women, there was an eventual submission to the wishes of parents. In only about one-fifth of the stories was a child successful in his opposition to parental wishes, and most of these stories of successful rebellion dealt with the reconciliation of parents to a marriage choice. Stories of misfortune following an act of rebellion were told by one-fifth of the men and a few women. In such stories punishment for rebellion seemed often to come in the form of some ill-fate (such as the death of parents or the beloved), and was less often caused by some human agent. Except in some moralistic stories, the ill-fate following rebellion was not consciously defined as a punishment: this sequence of association was unconscious: (Women, age 13, picture J7M) OA father died and the son walked out of home because his
Page 77 GEORGE DeVOS 77 mother repeatedly told him to become like his father. The mother lived a lonely existence. When she finds her son again, she dies. The son becomes a hard-working man." (Man, age 39, picture J6F) "A daughter whose mother is dead, is listening to her father urging her to be married to a certain person. She refuses, having her own choice - Her father agrees finally -After her marriage, she takes good care of her father, but her father dies." In stories which depict no outcome or a successful outcome for rebellion, there was often an emphasis on severe scolding or admonition by the parent. Such a story was used unconsciously to depict the ineffective or negative results of over-severe scolding or punishment. The Negative Sanctions of Conscience12 Errant behavior called forth conscience as a sanction more often than external authority. In the stories concerning bad behavior (twenty-five by men and eleven by women, most of which considered failure to be serious and hard-working), a variety of modes of resolving the internal pressures of conscience were employed. In eleven of the men's stories and in two of the women's, these feelings were finally resolved by reform of one's behavior and by expiatory hard work. In five stories by men and one by a woman, a person committed suicide as a way out. Three stories by men and three by women suggested a public apology or a confession to police. The situation was left unresolved, and the individual continued to feel regret or sadness in six other stories. These stories re-emphasized the pragmatic orientation of Niiike men: they tended to solve the problem positively by reform rather than merely to dwell passively on guilt. In American stories there tends to be more concern with conscious guilt or with other feelings, such as regret, and less emphasis on eventual reform. Some of the stories presented suicide as the only solution. This was true in two stories of failure in studies due to neglect, in two stories of sexual promiscuity in women, in a story of marriage failure followed by crime, and in a story of murder. In response to items in different categories, other suicide stories were told with a variety of reasons given for the suicide. The results suggest that women may experience guilt for sexual behavior not because it is sinful per se, but because parents are hurt by it. In a few stories told by men about girls who went to the city and fell into a life of prostitution, the outcome was regret or suicide; such a girl could not return home, and there was no other way out of her predicament. Certain stories of marriage failure were categorized as "bad behavior" stories, because in each of five cases the teller specifically stated that the marriage was a love-match (implying its unsanctioned nature). In addition to one suicide as a result of the failure of a love marriage, there were stories of regret (one story) and divorce (three stories), and one melodramatic story of a man who so regretted having opposed parental wishes that he murdered his wife and gave himself over to the police. After serving time in jail, he started a new life: (Woman, age 22, picture J13) "He got married for love with a woman in spite of opposition by his parents. While they were first married, they lived happily. But recently he reflects on his marriage and the manner in which he pushed his way through his parents' opposition... and the present wife... he wishes his present wife would not exist... he attempts to push away the feeling of blame within his breast. One night on the way home he buys some insect poison and gives it to his wife to drink and she dies. What he has done weighs on his mind. He gives himself up to the police. He trustfully told his story to them. He reflects on how wicked he has been in the past. He completes his prison term and faces the future with serious intent." The story brings out a feeling of guilt for having attempted a love marriage. Such a marriage is psychologically forbidden fruit to many Japanese, and tasting of it brings punishment upon the
Page 78 78 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE transgressor like that which follows extra-marital sexual experiences in the fantasies of some more puritanical westerners. There were no stories by Niiike respondents which showed guilt in men for extra-marital sexual activities; this is in sharp contrast to the relative prevalence of such stories told by American groups in response to similar T.A.T. pictures. In the stories of some Japanese men there was guilt, not for sexuality itself, but for the fact that a lack of self-control could lead to a love marriage: (Man, age 35, picture J13) "Well, this man and woman married for love. The woman was a cafe waitress and married the man for love. But they have not lived happily, so the man repents the marriage very much. Well, this man used to be a very good man, but he was seduced by the waitress and lost his self-control and at last he had a sexual relationship with her. Afterward he becomes afraid that he has to think over their marriage. If their married life has any future at all, I hope they will maintain some better relationship. But if this woman doesn't want to do so, he needs to think over their marriage, I suppose." In certain of the stories of love marriage, regret seemed to stem not only from a sense of guilt for having acted contrary to filial obligations under the influence of sexual attractiveness and other considerations, but also from a sense of chagrin over having married an unsuitable woman. There was perhaps a projection of some of the man's guilt onto the woman: she must be somehow worthless, since she was sufficiently active to enter a love marriage, thus disregarding the rules of proper conduct and submissiveness to parental wishes which must be obeyed by the model Japanese woman. Turning Blame on Oneself Masochistically In many responses to T.A.T. pictures a stressful situation was handled by a woman by turning the blame on herself. This self-blame was of a sort which can only be understood psychologically as masochistic; i.e., there are many examples in Japanese culture where one obtains relief from a stressful situation by the assumption of blame even where there is no apparent reason to do so. In T.A.T. stories, one finds themes of this nature related to a strong sense of ultimate responsibility women assume for the behavior of men. In two of these stories, a woman apologized for having quarreled with her husband. In two more, a wife blamed herself for her husband's unfaithful behavior: (Woman, age 23, picture J4) "Her husband comes back very late at night. She thinks it is due to the lack of her affection. She tries hard, and he reforms himself finally." In another story, when a man who committed a crime was arrested and finally reformed, his sister (with no explanation given in the story) felt that she was somehow to blame: (Woman, age 15, picture J9) "The elder brother did something wrong and is examined by the policeman. He will be taken to the police station, but he will return home, reforming himself. The younger sister is also thinking that she was wrong herself." A few women misconstrued certain problem situations to include a young woman who gets the blame. In certain stories, wifely devotion was expressed in even more extreme forms of selfimmolation: (Woman, age 17, picture J13) "(Gazes at the picture a long time). Although this couple was married and have lived happily, the wife is not healthy. She was put to bed with a cold. Her husband took care of her and did not attend to his work at the company. On this day he thought she was somewhat better, and he went to work. When he came home that night, he found his wife dead. From her diary lying there, he learned that she had felt sorry for her husband (having to take care of her) and had committed suicide by taking
Page 79 GEORGE DeVOS 79 poison. He is now crying with grief. Having lost his wife he continued to work very hard and... He led a lonely life by himself without ever forgetting his dead wife." As in the stories in which a parent dies, subsequent devotion to duty was emphasized here. This story recalls many sentimental novels written around the theme of noble self-sacrifice on the part of the sick wife who commits suicide to relieve her husband of the burden of her care. It is further implied that her motive was to inspire him to devote himself completely to his work: how could a man, without experiencing the most severe guilt, ever be able to treat his work lightly, after his wife has so sacrificed herself? (The feeling of this story recalls stories of a mother's sacrifical behavior even unto death, as a source of guilt in her children.) From a western standpoint such fantasies may seem to be excessively masochistic, but to a Japanese they are very moving since they are supposed to reflect the degree of devotion of a wife to her husband and his purposes. Tears are brought forth in the older members of a Kabuki audience when such a story is presented in a dramatic form. The young Niiike girl who told this story perhaps romantically envisioned her future married role in such self-sacrificing terms. GENERAL SOURCES OF WORRY Niiike men and women told an approximately equal number of stories depicting a figure who was worried over some matter, but the nature of the anxieties which they saw differed. Women saw possible illness as a chief source of worry, but they also inferred anxiety about the safe return of a loved one (usually a husband or a son), or they worried about some form of personal inadequacy. Men showed no dominant pattern in their stories: worry over personal inadequacy or illness was only slightly more common than other anxieties which they depicted. Illness and Death13 A dominant concern of the women of Niiike is the possible ill-health or death of a family member. About one-fifth of all the stories told by women in response to T.A.T. pictures included a figure who was grieving or worrying about the illness or death of someone close to him, or who was ill or dead himself. Men gave only about half as many such stories, and the endings of their stories involving illness were far more optimistic. Women tended to give no outcome in such stories or else to see eventual death, exhibiting in many instances the masochistic quality already mentioned. Some of the stories told by men about illness or operations revealed a less pronounced masochistic quality. The distribution of T.A.T. stories indicates that whereas women see the mother-son relationship in the emotional context of problems of accomplishment or rebellion, they put the motherdaughter relationship much more into the context of problems of physical care and death. The family member most often described by women to be ill was a mother or a daughter, and less often a father or a husband. The figure most often said to be dying or dead was a wife. Men most often thought that a dying figure must be a wife. Men over fifty seemed especially concerned with the possible loss of the care and attention of a beloved wife. No specific illness was singled out as a major source of anxiety. There were, however, in the stories of younger women, a number of references to vomiting or stomach upset, suggesting the possibility of unconscious concern over sexuality and pregnancy. There were also four specific references to tooth trouble, a most unusual specification which is never encountered in American T.A.T. stories. Accident Stories of accidental death or injury were told more often by men than by women, and in such stories the most common victim was the husband or the eldest son. These results are probably related to the fact that men are naturally more prone to hazards than are women, but they may also
Page 80 80 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE involve anxiety over the threat to family security which such a mishap would entail. Almost totally absent from the preoccupations of the villagers was any evident concern over the dislocations or sorrows caused by the recent war. In all the material, there was but one story of a war death, one story of a family impoverished by war, and two indirect mentions of war casualties. In the stories of younger people, contemporary catastrophes such as the sinking of a ferry and the radiation illness of the fishermen on "The Lucky Dragon" were used for dramatic effect in stories of accidents. Mental Abnormality A small number of stories manifested concern over the kind of mental abnormalities which lead to strong affective display. Insanity or neurotic behavior in women was mentioned in eight stories. When specified, these abnormalities were attributed to the loss of a loved one or to the unfaithfulness of a husband. (Similarly, one encounters in traditional N6 plays the figure of a woman driven insane by jealousy or sorrow.) In one other story pertaining to mental abnormality, a "weak-minded boy" dreamed about his mother being pierced by a dagger; in another, a sister killed her "idiot" brother to spare him the torment of his cruel stepmother; and in a third, a mother devoted herself to trying to improve her "unintelligent" daughter. Financial Concerns within the Family The T.A.T. pictures produced only a small number of stories concerning financial difficulty, in contrast to cross-cultural samples reported for other areas. These stories were most commonly told by people from 18 to 35 and most frequently by men. A number of them dealt with the difficulty of a family in the event of the death of a father. In constructing such stories, young men showed their concern with possible financial responsibility resulting from such an eventuality. The projective test material indirectly affirms the fact that patterns of inheritance are relatively fixed in Japan. Inheritance is not seen as a source of difficulty among family members. Except in two stories, one in which a mother disinherited a profligate son and another in which two brothers quarreled over succession to property, the subject did not appear. Another type of story dealing with economic matters pertained to the payment of taxes and the use of family connections to mediate tax reductions. A few stories suggest that financial success may be seen as an aggressive act of revenge for insult or injury in a family or love relationship. In a large proportion of the stories, financial difficulties were connected with obligations to extended family relations. Certain individuals in Japan readily take advantage of such feelings of obligation and are able to impose upon a more responsible relative who feels unable to refuse. A lender cannot ask for proof of a transaction, such as a written I.O.U., from a family member because to do so would insult the relative by casting doubt on his integrity and would make it a business relationship rather than a purely family matter. This allows an unscrupulous person to borrow freely from relatives without concern about repayment. Such a person can also claim to have lent money to a dead person, and the new family head or the widow may be compelled to preserve the dead man's honor by paying, even without actual proof of the existence of the debt. In one story, after a father's death, the widowed mother was plagued by an uncle whose claims against the dead man proved to be untrue: (Woman, age 17, picture Jll) "When a boy has come back home from high-school... his mother and a guest are talking, so he is eavesdropping. And... the guest is his uncle. While his father was alive, the uncle pretended to be kind but since his father died he changed his attitude suddenly and is giving some troubles to the boy's mother saying that she has owed some money to his uncle since before his father died. He understands this by hearing it through the wall. Having heard this story he told it to his class teacher to make sure whether the debt (uncle's story) is true or not. The teacher determined the story was put on trial, was punished and the boy could then live peacefully without any interruption."
Page 81 GEORGE DeVOS 81 Many stories of money were told in a manner which suggested that financial matters are something secret or private in Japan. The extent to which borrowing actually occurs in Niiike cannot be readily determined; it is a part of the secret life of the community. Sometimes in stories about money there was a suggestion that the widowed mother was sexually involved, indicating that economic matters, like sexual relations, are matters which should be kept from the curiosity of innocent children. In one story an element of jealousy about one's mother was directly expressed: (Man, age 25, picture Jll) "A nephew comes to his aunt to ask for money to get out of his business failure. Her child listens to them wishing that the nephew would go away. His mother must be going out with the nephew as she is in pretty clothes. She will come home and console her child with presents." Money is a "touchy" matter between parents and sons in Japan: it is not given very readily to children, and when it is freely given, it is a mark of an exceptionally close relationship. In response to T.A.T. cards, when a mother rejected an older sons' request it involved either money or the selection of a marriage partner. SUMMARY Japan is changing. Rural Japan is aware of the new attitudes and modes of living which are already established in the cities. Some individuals leave the farms to take up urban life, but those who remain in the villages are able to ward off the possible disruptive influences of new values by maintaining their firm identity with traditional values which, when realized in their behavior, become sources of deep personal satisfaction and lend meaning to their lives. In Niiike, and probably in other rural communities,14 certain accomodations and shifts in emphasis from traditional ways of thinking can be perceived. In some instances there are expressions of underlying uneasiness about the new generation: will the younger men maintain their attitude of respect for parental figures in the face of individualistic propensities? Will the younger generation lose interest in a life of virtuous hard work and forget its obligations in profligate behavior? In general, at the time of this research, however, the "cup of custom" remains unbroken. The village has assimilated changes in laws of succession and in the legal position of women without a disruption of community life. Older women maintain traditional value patterns with great intensity. Some of the young, unmarried girls give evidence of internal conflict about submission to their prescribed roles as adult women in a farming community, but they cannot voice their conflict in any articulate fashion. They are willing to depend on their elders for guidance. The men of Niiike, on the other hand, show a great respect for individual initiative and selfwill. This is in part incongruous with traditional values of individual subordination to family goals, and the men do express certain attitudes contrary to what is supposed to be the traditional system; occupational succession, for instance, is not considered a necessity. The value of doing what one is best at is recognized, and education is desired even at the expense of opposition to parents. To a certain extent the results presented here suggest that the continuity of tradition and values in Niiike is not maintained merely by inculcated formal attitudes concerning lineage, but by the force of underlying patterns of affection for parents as well. When a Japanese speaks of on he has within himself a deep-seated feeling for his parents which is the basis of his moral feelings toward all others. These feelings are related to the Japanese sense of social purpose and success. The emphasis on effort and perseverence, and the manner in which this is reflected in hard work, suggest a sort of puritan-like ethic for Niiike as a whole. The rapid industrialization of Japan does suggest a definite analogy between certain aspects of the Japanese ethic and the parts of the Protestant ethic which were operative in the industrialization of Europe. In Niiike one must work hard and undergo the pain of diligent toil, but not for God's salvation; success in hard work proves one's dutifulness toward parents and one's love for them. There is no transmutation of feelings toward
Page 82 82 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE one's parents into a personal relationship with a transcendental deity; in fact, there is little concern with such a deity, but there is instead a respectful idealization of a father image, and a feeling of loving devotion to a mother who deserves eternal gratitude. Although it is often stated that the Japanese are without a sense of "sin" or "guilt," our evidence suggests that this is not the case. What might be called Japanese "puritanism" does not view bodily functions as evil: one's impulses are good if they are directed properly and with control. But although there is not a single expression of guilt over sexual transgressions per se, some projective test stories displayed guilt over the loss of control which leads to an unsanctioned love marriage, countering one's life purposes as prescribed by one's parents. Generally, a person feels guilt in Niiike for rebellion against his parents, and not for transgressions against a code of behavior sanctioned by a supernatural deity or by a religious code. One works hard, not in order to stay in a state of grace or to do penance, but to repay one's parents in gratitude or to expiate their sacrifice in honest toil. Within the traditional Japanese value system, the worst possible eventuality is "excommunication" from one's house and community. There seem to be psychological analogies between ie and Church, which result in similarities between certain of the social values and personal attitudes of the inhabitants of Niiike and those of Americans. Japanese interest in self-motivated achievement at least, strikes a familiar chord even if the motivational source in Japanese rural family and community life would at first glance be an unlikely sourse for what we have come to define as values prevailing in the American middle class. This paper does not exhaust the possible topics related to social values or interpersonal relationships, but I believe I have been able to describe, by means of the instruments used, some quantitative pictures as well as qualitative picture of how the people of Niiike thought and felt in 1954. For me, the task was a challenge to develop anthropological methods beyond the simple gathering of impressions from selected informants. By use of projective methods, in addition to necessary field work, it is possible to let the subjects speak for themselves and express their views without undue structuring. Quantitatively one can assess the relative prevalence of specific social attitudes and how they are qualified by the people holding them. Methods such as those used in the study also permit one to test the relative strength of social attitudes when they become opposed in conflict situations. In retrospect, the report represents well the social relationships of Niiike ten years ago. Modern technology has changed the basic farming patterns that were in use in Niiike at the time of the study. Other factors are increasingly at work to bring about change. It would therefore be interesting to know how much the attitudes in evidence in this report have also shifted with time.
Page 83 APPENDIX SUMMARY DESCRIPTION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS The Problem Situation Test The Problem Situation Test employed in our research is based upon the "Insight Test," a clinical diagnostic personality test originated by Helen D. Sargent. A problematic situation is described to the subject, who is asked to state what he believes an individual would do to resolve the situation, why, and how the individual involved would feel under the circumstances. In adapting the Insight Test for use with Japanese subjects, we were equally interested in the sociological and the psychological values of each item, and therefore freely adapted items to Japanese situations. Only a few of Sargent's items survived unchanged through the revisions which followed the pretesting of college students. The revised test administered in Niiike consisted of two alternate forms, A and B, for each of 16 items (for which there were also M and W variants for male and female subjects). This use of alternate forms allowed for some changes in wording in items related to similar problems permitting some differences in emphasis. Due to the inappropriate nature of some of the items for younger subjects, only subjects over 18 years of age were tested. The test was administered to a total of 29 men and 31 women in Niiike. The principal purpose of the Problem Situation Test items used in Niiike was to elicit attitudes towards various forms of inter-personal relationships. We focused on attitudes related to the Japanese family system, and to a lesser degree, relation of family to community. For purposes of analysis we grouped our items into six general categories: I - Parent-child relationships. II - Marriage and parental obligations. III - Possible marriage choice and attitudes toward arranged marriages. IV - Marital discord and family tensions. V - Reputation and personal sensitivity. VI - Duty, obligation, and responsibility. I - Parent-child relationships. (7 items). Item 16 - A man has been very much loved by both parents: however, on one occasion his father tells him of his dissatisfaction with his mother. (This item sought to elicit the perception of what role a child might take in relation to parental disharmony.) Item 21 - A young man gets into trouble. If he tells his parents they can help him but they will be much disappointed and will strongly disapprove of what he has done. (Japanese values have stressed the role of a child as a representative of his family. His disgrace brings disgrace on his parents. This item sought to elicit the degree to which such considerations are of spontaneous concern.) Item 7 - A man is caught in petty theft. His employer offers to let him keep his job if his parents will vouch for him; otherwise he will be forced to look for another job without references. (This item sought to elicit similar concerns as item 21 with the additional factor of employment as a consideration.) 83
Page 84 84 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE Item 3 - A man acquired religious and political opinions away from home which are in direct conflict with his parents ideas. He is home for a visit and religious and political subjects are raised for discussion. (This item sought to elicit how differences of opinion are handled in childparent situations.) Item 5 - A man's parents have always looked forward to having their son take over their business and have educated him for it. The son becomes interested in another vocation. (Occupational succession is put in opposition to individual interests and ambitions.) Item 10 - A young man of poor family wants to go to a senior school after finishing his lower courses and discusses the matter with his parents. He is told by his parents that for the sake of everyone he should not speak more of such a selfish plan. (Poverty and obligation for supporting the home and parents is put in opposition to educational advancement.) Item 1 - A man working (or studying) away from home receives a letter from his mother after the death of his father asking him to move back home. (Living separately and following an individual career is put in opposition to house succession and to care of a mother.) II - Marriage and parental obligations. (5 items). Item 12 - A man's parents were habitually indebted to an individual for help. One day this individual asks the parents to accept his daughter as a bride for their son. The man's parents are very happy about the request. (A marriage as a fulfillment of obligation (giri ^ -_) demands that a child sacrifice his future as a repayment for obligation.) Item 17 - A man wants to get married to a girl he loves but he cannot support both his mother and a wife. (This item tests for the priority given a love relationship or care for parents.) Item 20 - A woman's husband dies early. After his death she receives a proposal of marriage from a man to whom she was previously very close. Talking it over with her parents-in-law, they say, "Don't leave our house: we are planning to leave all our family property to you and your children." (This item concerns itself with the possible marriage of a widow as opposed to the obligation to her new family through marriage.) Item 14 - A man is loved by a girl who is "below" him in wealth and social position. Reciprocating the love, he too wants to get married. When he talks to his parents about it he finds them opposed to the idea. (Love and free choice are put in opposition to questions of social position and parental disapproval.) Item 19 - A man is engaged to be married with a girl whom he loves. However, when he introduces the girl to his parents, one of them raises strong objections. (Love is put into opposition to strong, direct parental disapproval.) III - Attitudes towards men-women relationships and marriage possibilities. (3 items). Item 13 - A man is strongly attracted to a girl who is "above" him in wealth and social position. He hears indirectly that she is interested in him. (The item sought to test the relative weight given love and other considerations such as class position.) Item 9 - A man discovers that a girl to whom he is engaged has a very bad reputation. (This item sought to test reactions to rumor and sensitivity to the reputation of a fiancee.) Item 23 - A man is engaged to a girl who wants him to change certain habits, manners and ways of acting. (This item sought to test sensitivity to criticism about social behavior and manners.)
Page 85 GEORGE DeVOS 85 IV - Marital discord and family tensions. (4 items). Item 25 - A man heard that his wife goes out often with another man. (This item, indirectly suggesting unfaithfulness in a woman, sought to test Japanese attitudes in this regard.) Item 8 - A man gets married to a beautiful woman who comes from an honorable family and is much envied by his neighbors. One day he comes to know that his wife loves another man. (This item more directly suggests that the marriage partner loves another. It sought to test the nature of reactions to this type of situation.) Item 6 - A man's wife did not get along with her mother-in-law very well. They had conflicts over all sorts of matters. (6a) As a result his wife one day tells him that she would like a divorce. (6b) As a result her husband one day finally suggests divorce. (This item directly approached the most notable source of family tension in Japan. It was worded to elicit the possible types of reaction to a suggestion of divorce on the part of both the husband and wife.) Item 26 - A woman works as hard as possible every day doing her housework. Nevertheless, one day she overhears her mother-in-law complaining to the neighbors that her son's wife is not a good worker. (This item sought to test the reactions of a wife to an unreasonable mother-in-law.) V - Reputation and personal sensitivity. (3 items). Item 4 - A man came from an honorable family much respected by the neighbors, but one of his family does such a dishonorable thing that he is not able to show his face in public. (This item tests family responsibility for the conduct of an individual member.) Item 11 - A man gets the impression that others are discussing him. (Form b-discussing his family). He thinks that the conversation has stopped or the subject changed when he entered the room. (This item attempts to test sensitivity to gossip concerning oneself and family and how it is handled.) Item 2 - A man working in a company is insulted one day by the son of the president in the presence of other employees. (This item poses conflict between economic considerations and personal insult.) VI - Duty, obligation, and responsibility. (7 items). Item 18 - A man's superior resigns. Soon after, the man and one of his fellow workers are recommended for the vacated post. He is asked how he feels about this recommendation by his boss. The fellow worker also recommended is an older man who has been working for the firm a longer time. (This item sought to elicit attitudes toward job seniority as opposed to personal ambition. Traditionally, individuals are supposed to exercise reserve about being self-forwarding.) Item 24 - A man is asked by his boss to leave town to carry out important business. At the same time he receives an urgent letter from someone to whom he has been much indebted asking for his immediate help. (This item poses conflict between duty to job [gimu A A] and obligation to others [giri A, -ftJ].) Item 28 - A man's family is in needy circumstances. One day at the town assembly it is decided to collect contributions from all to carry out a group project. (This item poses a conflict between economic duress and duty to support the community endeavors.) Item 27 - A person is told by a teacher to correct certain habits and manners of his child.
Page 86 86 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE (This item was devised to gain some insight on the status of the teacher as related to parental feelings about social behavior of a child.) Item 22 - A man who was formerly a tenant farmer was treated badly by his landowner. He now hears that the former owner is very badly off due to the effect of the law re-organizing land ownership. (This item was devised to test for the survival of attitudes of obligation towards land owners.) Item 15a - A man has been feeling quite ill but the doctor tells him not to worry since he is not seriously sick and it will do him no harm to go on leading a normal life. (This item attempted to elicit possible hypochondriacal feelings as well as the relative strength of trust in a doctor's knowledge and authority.) Item 15b - A man is not well and he is told by the doctor to rest for some time, but if he follows the doctor's advice it will seriously interfere with his life's work. (Conflict is posed between endangering one's health and the necessity to continue work obligations.) Thematic Apperception Test Our large-scale use of the Japanese Thematic Apperception Test had two purposes: (1) the analysis of personality and social values indicated by other material, and (2) the standardization for psychodiagnostic purposes of a T.A.T. suitable for use in Japan. The Thematic Apperception Test consists of pictures of persons in ambiguous situations, designed to elicit in response various stories, which are then analyzed for content and tone. A set of such pictures was first developed by Morgan and Murray at Harvard in about 1935. The idea has since been put to a variety of uses, and the content of the test has often been modified for various types of research. We attempted, in adapting the test for use in Japan, to change as little as possible the cards of the third Harvard edition, which has proven particularly helpful both in clinical and in research work. The Nagoya edition or Marui-DeVos Japanese Standard T.A.T. includes 35 cards, not all of which are used with equal frequency in research since only a limited number may be administered at any one time to an individual. The set includes 5 of the original Murray cards without modifications, 14 cards from the original series with minor changes of face or background, and 16 new cards on themes potentially valuable for the eliciting of personality variables or pertinent value attitudes. Modified Cards *JM1 Boy with violin *J2 Farm scene *J3 F Girl with bowed head at door *J4 Excited man and woman *J5 Woman peering into room New Cards *J1 Boy looking at book *J9 Family scene *J11 Boy eavesdropping on woman J12M Young man entering room of old man *J12F Older woman -younger woman J15 Buddhist temple and graves J19 Japanese landscape *J21 Woman at telephone *J22 Child crying between two figures - man and woman facing in opposite directions J23 Very disturbed scene of possible violence *J6M Mother - adult son *J6F Woman surprised by a ma] *J7M Older man-younger man *J7F Younger girl read to by mi *J8M Young boy - operation scee J8F Girl dreaming, sitting on ( J10 Embracing pair n other ne chair J24 Man at back door
Page 87 GEORGE DeVOS 87 Modified Cards *J13 Semi-nude reclining woman - distraught male *J18 Woman choking other figure Murray Set unchanged *M3M Young figure slumped against couch 14 Figure peering out at sky 15 Blank card 17 Man climbing 20 Figure under lamp post at night New Cards J25 Nude male figure J26 Geisha J27 Teenagers in front of coffee shop J28 Nursing mother and child J29 Old woman walking in a poor neighborhood J30 Poor old man in an impoverished setting *Used in Niiike Eleven of the nineteen cards employed in Niiike were presented to all subjects. From among them, the cards judged to be most successful in eliciting rich stories were administered to as many as forty persons, but it was planned to present all cards to twenty-five or more subjects. Eighty persons over twelve years of age participated in the test; they were grouped in age as follows: 12-17 18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65 plus Total Men 5 6 7 8 6 4 36 Women 10 6 5 13 6 4 44 Most of the pictures which were directly referred to in this paper are reproduced here. The Rorschach Test The Rorschach Ink Blot Test has been used in a number of previous personality and culture research projects and has had wide-spread use in clinical diagnostic practice in both psychiatry and psychology. It consists of ten standardized ink blots which are relatively free of cultural structuring. The basic assumption of the test revolve around the fact that in responding to the text individuals tend to express in microcosm the way in which they perceive and experience the world about them. The basic determinants of responses -form, color, shading, depth, movement, the distribution of responses to various locations, the nature of the content of the responses and other combinations - are subjected to quantitative evaluations which are interpretable according to certain standard assumptions concerning their relationship to personality parameters. The interested reader is referred to any of several standard texts for further elucidation. For use of the test with Japanese subjects including Niiike, cf. several of the above cited references. In Niiike the test was administered to the 80 same subjects given the T.A.T., 36 men and 44 women.
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Page 90 90 PRIMARY HUMAN RELATIONS IN NIIIKE NOTES 1 Those articles which have already been published are noted in the appropriate sections of this paper. 2A report of many of these results by Muramatsu, Tsuneo, and Associates, has been published in Japanese under the title Nihonjin- -Bunka to Pdrsonariti no Jisshoteki Kenkyu (The JapaneseEmpirical Study of Culture and Personality) 1962. 3See Appendix for a technical description of the tests used as the basis of the conclusions of this paper: The Problem Situation Test, T.A.T., and the Rorschach Test. 4Detailed results with the Rorschach, as well as comparative material from two other villages and two cities have been published by Eiji Murakami, "Special Characteristics of Japanese Personality Based on Rorschach Test Results" in Muramatsu 1962. Also, cf., Murakami 1959. George DeVos has compared certain aspects of Niiike village records in detail with Japanese American records and materials obtained from American and Algerian Arab subjects (1960 b). New York: Rowe-Peterson, 1960. 5Since we have not tested or interviewed villagers who have left Niiike, we cannot compare these results with those of individuals who were motivated strongly enough to leave the village for the city or other areas. 6 In the stories told by Japanese emigrants to America, one finds a much stronger expression of feelings of guilt than in those given by Niiike villagers, for the Issei have actually left their families behind to emigrate. Such feelings of guilt are most often expressed toward a mother, who often rejects her son in Issei stories. The son in such a story sometimes asks for forgiveness from his mother. For a detailed examination of stories of achievement given by Japanese rural villagers in comparison with Issei and Nisei as well as American middle and lower class persons, see the unpublished master's dissertation of Hiroshi Wagatsuma ms. Also, cf. Caudill and DeVos 1956. 7For a more detailed examination of the results obtained in Niiike in comparison with the reports of surveys taken elsewhere in Japan, see DeVos and Wagatsuma 1962. 8Wagatsuma and DeVos discuss at length the difference between more conscious attitudes toward arranged marriage revealed by the Problem Situation Test in contrast with the more guilt laden attitudes revealed by the T.A.T. (1962). 9In Niiike, only one "love" marriage was reported to have occurred in recent years (up to 1954). It did not succeed according to the villagers. l"Numerous cases have been reported among farm women of hisuteri, an hysterical illness which is recognized by some professional Japanese to be related to interference by the mother-inlaw in the sexual life of a young married pair, or else a reaction to excessive work demands made by the mother-in-law. 1 Decorum in Japanese women extends to the sleeping as well as the waking state. A young girl is taught to control her body even while asleep. 12 For a more detailed theoretical discussion of guilt in Japanese, see DeVos 1960 a. 3The following material in more detail is discussed in more theoretical form in an article by DeVos and Wagatsuma 1959. 14A detailed comparison of certain of the value-attitudes found in Niiike in contrast with those of a fishing village are discussed in a paper by DeVos and Wagatsuma 1961.
Page 91 GEORGE DeVOS 91 REFERENCES CITED ADORNO, T. W. et al. 1950 The Authoritarian Personality: Studies in Prejudice. American Jewish Committee Social Studies Series, 3. New York, Harper and Brothers. BEARDSLEY, RICHARD K., JOHN W. HALL and ROBERT E. WARD 1959 Village Japan. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. BENEDICT, RUTH 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston, Houghton-Mifflin. CAUDILL, WILLIAM and GEORGE DeVOS 1956 "Achievement, Culture and Personality: the Case of the Japanese Americans." American Anthropologist LVIII, 6: 1002-1126. DeVOS, GEORGE 1960 a "The relation of guilt toward parents to achievement and arranged marriage among the Japanese," Psychiatry XXIII, 3: 287-301. 1960 b "Symbolic analysis in cross cultural research." In Studying Personality Cross Culturally, B. Kaplan, ed. New York, Row-Peterson. DeVOS, GEORGE and HIROSHI WAGATSUMA 1959 "Psycho-cultural significance of concern over death and illness among rural Japanese," The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, V, 1: 5-19. 1961 "Value attitudes toward role behavior of women in two Japanese villages," American Anthropologist, LXIII, 6: 1204-230. MURAKAMI, EIJI 1959 "A normative study of Japanese Rorschach responses." In Rorschach Kenkyu —Rorschachiana Japanica, II: 39-85. MURAMATSU, TSUNEO ed. 1962 Nihonjin- bunka to pasonariti no jissho teki kenkyu M -, --._ (The Japanese-empirical study of culture and personality). Nagoya, Reimer Shobo. WAGATSUMA, HIROSHI MS "Japanese values of achievement - the study of Japanese immigrants and inhabitants of of three Japanese villages by means of T.A.T.," Unpublished M.A. thesis, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1957. WAGATSUMA, HIROSHI and GEORGE DeVOS 1962 "Attitudes toward arranged marriage in rural Japan," Human Organization, 21, 3: 187 -200.
Practical Approaches to Japanese Traditional Music
William P. Malmpp. 93-104
Page 93 \ PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC by William P. Malm This article is an extension of a paper read at the 1963 annual meeting of The Association for Asian Studies in Philadelphia
Page 95 INTRODUCTION Japanese music, like the other Japanese fine arts, has gone through several marked stylistic changes. These extend over a period from approximately the seventh century to the present day. During the Nara and Heian periods Buddhist chanting and court orchestral music (gagaku) flourished while the Kamakura and Muromachi periods saw the rise of biwa lute accompanied narratives and a host of theatricals which culminated in the noh drama and its music. The Edo period luxuriated in music for the thirteen stringed koto zither, the end-blown shakuhachi flute, and the three stringed shamisen. The latter became an essential element in the bunraku puppet plays and the kabuki theatre. In the twentieth century, traditional musicians made several efforts to meet the challenge of western music, with varying degrees of success. Through all these periods of music history certain fundamental Japanese musical characteristics can be found. Their specific applications change with each period as, for example, in the West the concept of many-part (polyphonic) music in the thirteenth century varies vastly from that of the sixteenth, eighteenth, or twentieth centuries. The principles to be discussed have an importance to Japanese music analogous to polyphony in western music. Continuing the analogy, an awareness of the western fondness for several different lines of music sounding simultaneously is certainly one useful guide to understanding western music in general. With such knowledge one could go on to distinguish periods or styles of music in which a more vertical (harmonic) orientation is present such as early classical music, hymns, or modern folk singing, and traditions in which a more horizontal (contrapuntal) orientation dominates as in fugues, twelve tone music, and Dixieland. By this process, ideally, one becomes an "intelligent" music lover. The principles in Japanese music presented below can also be subjected to such a process of refinement. My intent in this article, however, is not to create a new body of Japanese music lovers, but rather to provide guidelines for an intelligent approach to Japan's various music traditions. BASIC CONCEPTS IN JAPANESE MUSIC The characteristics of Japanese music fall under three general headings; 1) the sound ideal, 2) the structural ideal, and 3) the artistic intent. In actual practice, of course, these three areas are difficult to separate. The Sound Ideal A basic concept in most Japanese music is to get the maximum effect from the minimum amount of material. Many times the full technical possibilities of an instrument have not been exploited in order to concentrate the player's and the listener's attention on a deliberately restricted sound spectrum. The taiko stick drum of the noh and kabuki theatres is a good example. It has two cowhide heads stretched over iron rings some twenty inches in diameter and lashed over a barrel-shaped body which is suspended off the floor by a special frame. One could play some brilliant solos on the taiko by banging away on its rim and heads, but the Japanese play it only on a small circle of deer skin set in the center of one head. The slightly muffled yet resonant tone that results is a musical equivalent of the shibui colors of Japanese fabrics and other materials. It is a brightness showing through a subtle dullness. Since part of art is, by definition, artifice, it is important to realize just how deliberate such effects can be. In the case of this taiko sound, one finds that it is capable of still further refinement. When the drum is used in pieces which contain dramatic dances the ropes that lash the skins to the body are tightened so that the pitch of the sound is higher while in more lyrical compositions the pitch is lowered. It is the combination of many such "little" things that creates artistry in the performance of any music, be it by Beethoven or Kineya Rokusaemon, the Sixth. 95
Page 96 96 JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC A restriction of the sound spectrum does not mean a sameness of sound. It means, rather, looking for variety in a microcosmos instead of a macrocosmos. Consider the sound of the thirteen stringed koto zither as an example. Its harp-like tone has often appealed to foreigners and, judging from personal experience, the soothing sameness of its sound apparently makes it an ideal background music for "oriental" parties. When one actually studies koto music it becomes apparent that its supposedly plain classical melodies are subjected to a large number of subtle variations. The strings of the instrument can be twisted, pushed down, or stroked in a variety of ways, each of which adds its own special color to the tones of the instrument. Of course, to be effective these techniques must in themselves be used with restraint. One can often judge the artistry of a performance by the player's sense of taste in the distribution of such ornamentations.1 Another aspect of the Japanese sound ideal is the chamber music approach. While this idea is partially an extension of the maximum effect-minimum material axiom, it has additional connotations. By a chamber music approach I mean that no matter how large the ensemble becomes, the individual instruments are meant to be heard. The antithesis to this is found in the orchestral music approach of the western romantic and impressionistic schools in which the sounds of individual instruments are merged into one massive musical color. The chamber music sound can easily be heard in such ensembles as the western piano trio (piano, violin, and cello) or in Japanese sankyoku (koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen). It is my contention, however, that the principle applies as well to the larger Japanese ensembles such as the gagaku court orchestra and the kabuki nagauta ensemble.2 In gagaku the arpeggios of the pear-shaped biwa lute and the court koto (gaku-so) are clearly etched against the harmonic matrix of the sho mouth organ. The melody played on the hichiriki oboe differs slightly from that of the flute and those who have heard the hichiriki's tone quality would agree that it would be unlikely to merge with any other sound. The sounds of the interpunctuating drums and gong are also distinct. In the kabuki ensemble, the stacatto-like notes of the shamisen are clearly separated from the vocal line. In very lyrical sections a bamboo flute is used which tends to merge with the vocal sound, but even in this case the flute's ornamentations help to separate its line from the voice and shamisen. When the noh flute (nokan) is used in kabuki, it differs from the voice and shamisen parts not only in melody but in tonality. The three drums of the kabuki (borrowed along with the nokan from the hayashi ensemble of the noh drama) also present contrasting sounds. Besides the taiko stick drum mentioned earlier there is a ko-tsuzumi shoulder drum and an o-tsuzumi side drum. Though both tsuzumi are played with the right hand, their tones are quite different. The ko-tsuzumi produces four different sounds, the most characteristic being a deep, trailing "pon." The o-tsuzumi by contrast produces a sharp, hard, cracking sound. Put all these kabuki sounds together and you have great variety but little coalescence. This is the essense of the Japanese chamber music sound ideal, distinctness versus coalescence. Such an ideal is not exclusively Japanese. It is found, for example, in most Near Eastern and Indian ensembles as well as in medieval and renaissance Europe performance practice. Nevertheless, it is a useful point of contrast between Japanese music and the western symphonic tradition as well as between Japanese music and the gamelan orchestras of Indonesia, similar ensembles in Southeast Asia, and the theatre orchestras of China. The Structural Intent In most music the basic structural unit is the melody. By extending the time span of our structural hearing we are able to recognize phrases, periods, sections, and entire pieces as coherent units. In the last three hundred years of western music there has been a general tendency to hear individual melodies in two parts and entire pieces in rounded or closed forms. The western two part attitude is often expressed in such terms as question and answer, arsis and thesis, or antecedent and consequent. Thus, for example, the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (G G G E flat) require for us a four note answer (F F F D). In addition, we presume that, if this theme is important to the work, it is likely to show up again somewhere near the end of the piece if not earlier. This is what is meant by a rounded approach to form, the feeling that material heard earlier should return. In addition to being frequently used in art music, binary tunes and rounded forms are also
Page 97 WILLIAM P. MALM 97 characteristic of most western folk and popular music. In binary tunes like "Clementine," for example, we presume that a line like the one ending "... excavating for a mine" must be answered by a line like the one ending "... and his daughter, Clementine." As for rounded forms, one has only to think of the AABA form of such old standards as "Sweet Sue," "Blue Moon," or "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" to realize that the rounded form has long been a way of life in tinpan alley, not to mention the "gay nineties" or Stephen Foster. In Japanese folk and popular music there are many binary tunes and rounded forms. The two part melodies are also common in art music. There are, however, a very large number of Japanese examples which divide the melody into three parts and use what is called an open form, i.e., a form in which the material first heard does not return later. Many examples of three part melodies can be found in the vocal music of the noh drama called utaii or yokyoku. For example, the standard 7-5 syllable division of a line such as "Sore kato omou, omo kage no" from the play Hana gatami would seem to require a two part division but, when set in the typical eight beat phrase of noh, it looks as follows (Gakudo 1922: 135): JO HA KYU 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 So re ka-to o- mo-u o - mo ka-ge no - In noh the terms used to describe these divisions are jo-ha-kyu, introduction, scattering, and rushing. These divisions are reinforced by the accompanying drummers who tend to place special vocal calls'(kakegoe) before the third, fifth, and seventh beats. There also tend to be more drum beats played during the rushing kyu section just as, in the example above, there are more syllables at that point. Larger applications of the jo-ha-kyu concept can be found by studying an entire noh drama for its many sections can be arranged in three large divisions (Tatsuo 1957: 181-200). Actually, the terms jo-ha-kyu first appeared in Japan as general divisions in the ancient court dances (bugaku). Since that time they have been used to explain both the minute and general meaning of pieces from many genre. The subdivisions of nagauta shamisen music, for example, have often been arranged like noh music in three parts (Malm 1963: 36, 40, 118). In gidayu music from the puppet theatre one can find acts divided into three sections called kuchi, naka, and kiri. While some of the applications of a three part form on Japanese music have been artificial twentieth century superimpositions, the very fact that the Japanese musician turns to jo-ha-kyu or some equivalent tripartite term when he is forced to explain something shows that it forms part of his basic attitude towards music. It is his "natural" first reaction just as the binary approach is "natural" for the westerner. The term natural has been put in quotes because neither approach is really the result of natural laws. Both are the result of cultural conditioning. Both are valid, but their validity must be judged within their cultural context.3 One should add that the general Japanese performer, like his western counterpart, is wont to play his part and not intellectualize about its meaning. An understanding of the three part approach in Japanese music, however, may prove useful to the intellectualized western listener. The reader familiar with western music has perhaps by now evoked the famous three part sonata allegro form of western classical music (exposition, development, and recapitulation) to confound my generalizations. The entire approach of this form to the musical material, however, is totally different from that found in Japan. Indeed, it is very important to realize that one must not listen in Japanese music for returning themes or thematic development, at least, not as they occur in western symphonies and sonatas. There are, of course, Japanese forms in which material is repeated. In court orchestra music (gagaku), for example, melodies are often broken into three or more sections which are repeated in various ways (Harich-Schneider 1953: 49-74). In addition, koto variation pieces (danmono) display a kind of developmental technique in which a main melodic figure begins each section (dan) of the variations while the rest of the material relates to this "theme,"
Page 98 98 JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC some other earlier material, or is an accretion of new ideas which in turn may be varied in a later section. The music of the noh flute displays a similar variation and accretion technique. These various examples not withstanding, the western listener is generally more aware of a seemingly endless wandering in Japanese tunes rather than a repetition of previously heard material. Obviously some new orientation is needed if the ear is to follow the logic that must be there. To find this logic, one should really approach each kind of Japanese music as an individual case capable of a solution unique from other Japanese cases. The discussion that follows, however, will deal with a principle common to many Japanese genre. This is the principle of stereotyped patterns. Stereotyped patterns are essential to communication, be it music or Morse code. In music they play an important role in the aesthetic enjoyment of a piece because the listener tends to anticipate the coming sounds through familiarity with the patterns of the particular music. This idea is, of course, not uniquely Japanese.5 Its specific applications in Japanese music, however, can be quite different from those of the West. The drums of the noh drama are an excellent example. Their music consists almost entirely of named, stereotyped rhythm patterns, usually oriented to an eightbeat phrase. A practice book for a noh drummer (notation is never used on stage) contains only the names of the patterns to be played. It is rather like the lead sheet of a jazz pianist or the figured bass of the Baroque harpsichordist, for in each case a single symbol or term stands for a musical complex. The crucial difference in the analogy is that the western examples both deal with vertical sound complexes called chords while the Japanese example deals with horizontal rhythmic patterns. Nevertheless, the analogy can be carried even further because these rhythmic patterns, like western chords, tend to appear in given orders. Thus, by cultural conditioning, the intelligent listener to noh music feels a sense of closure when, for example, the taiko pattern uchikomi is followed by the pattern kashira. It is the same kind of satisfaction a western-trained listener receives from the final chord of an "amen" cadence. The puppet theatre music, called gidayu - bushi, offers a very different approach to stereotyped patterns. One singer and one shamisen player carry the full musical and narrative load. Musical research in this field has only just begun, but a preliminary study shows at least two kinds of stereotyped patterns in use. First, there are a set of repertory-wide leitmotives which are clues to emotions, actions, or the character of the puppets. For example, the pattern naki (crying) is played high for women's weeping and low for men's. Likewise, the entrance pattern nori will vary considerably in its tune depending on the age and sex of the character coming on stage. The second kind of pattern in gidayu serves as a clue to the formal division of the play. If, for instance, in a concert of gidayu music the shamisen begins a selection with the tune called sanju, one knows, even though there is no scenery, that the next section represents a change of scene from the last. If the pattern okuri is played the setting is the same and if sonae is used the performance is starting at the very beginning of the first scene of a play.7 There are other patterns which tend to show up only at certain points within sections of the form and thus signal a formal change just as, in western classical music, the return of tie first theme in its original key signals the recapitulation in sonata-allegro form. In short, patterns are clues not only to what is happening but also to what might happen next. For example, if the crying pattern naki is followed by shichome one knows that the end of an aria (sawari) is approaching. If narration is to follow immediately after the tears the shamisen will play a short phrase that ends in a sudden "wrong note" in relation to the scale in which the previous pattern was played.8 This leaves the ear suspended, the anticipation unresolved, and leads the listener into the narration smoothly. As yet I have not found a name for this song-tonarration pattern. There are many other such unnamed stereotypes, each of which guides the perceptive listener through some specific aspect of the music. The cumulative effect of all these patterns is a sense of logic in the musical form. It is important to recall once more that stereotyped melodies are not uniquely Japanese. Renaissance madrigals have their mannerisms, Baroque cantatas and chorale preludes have their doctrine of affections, and romantic operas, particularly Wagner's, have leitmotives. In addition, every music in the world must have specific ways of indicating a stop, a start, or a moment of
Page 99 WILLIAM P. MALM 99 tension. It is as true for a Mozart symphony as it is for a Piphat orchestral piece from Thailand or a Chinese opera aria. In the study of ethnomusicology one is constantly reminded that the term art, as indicated earlier, is related to artifice and artificiality. The logic of music, while certainly influenced by the physical laws of sound, is basically man-made. The wonder is that we can still call so many pieces divine. Perhaps one of the great appeals of art may be that, as we struggle to find logic in other man-made structures such as history or sociology, the arts show us that man can create something which is both logical and beautiful. In any case, the western listener should approach unfamiliar musics with the expectation of logic, though the base from which this logic starts may be different from that of the music to which he is accustomed. One of the more complex forms of Japanese musical logic is found in the main music of the kabuki theatre, nagauta. It combines principles from both the noh and bunraku traditions as well as adding ideas of its own. The standard kabuki ensemble, as mentioned earlier, consists of the noh hayashi (three drums and a flute) plus a line of shamisen and singers. A bamboo flute (takebue) is also used on stage while a whole battery of percussion instruments plus additional flutes and shamisen may be used by an off-stage (geza) group.9 In addition, musicians from other genre of shamisen music such as kiyomoto, tokiwazu, gidayu, or shinnai may appear on or off stage. When a kabuki piece is derived from a noh play or has an "ancient" atmosphere, the drums make extensive use of the stereotyped rhythm patterns mentioned earlier. In kabuki dance pieces there is a greater tendency for the tsuzumi drummers to emphasize the rhythm of the shamisen in a style of drumming called chiri-kara after the mnemonics with which their part is learned. In addition, the kabuki has created its own stereotyped rhythm patterns to fit the needs of its more exuberant dance style. For example, in kabuki music there is a long rhythmic-melodic unit played by the taiko and noh flute called sarashi.10 It is used specifically for that part of the dance Echigojishi in which two long streamers (sarashi) are waved by the dancer in imitation of a folk manner of drying dyed strips of cloth. The interesting aspect of this pattern is that it also is used in other dances in which this choreography does not appear. In such cases it evokes the same mood rather than supporting the same gesture. Thus, rhythm patterns can contribute to the mood and character of a piece as well as articulate its rhythm or its form. The melodic stereotypes of nagauta shamisen music are of four types. First, there are melodies borrowed from other shamisen genre, many of which have ceased to exist as independent styles today. These borrowings evoke the mood of these other styles. A second type of borrowing is really a subtype of the first but its use is so specific that it is separated here. This is the socalled forty-eight ozatsuma-te derived from the now defunct ozatsuma-bushi. These patterns are all named and are used whenever there is a recitative or a moment of kabuki- or noh-style speaking in the midst of a nagauta piece. One need only think of a Mozart opera recitative to realize that the West has a similar stereotyped way of accompanying declamatory vis a vis lyrical sections in a vocal piece. Nagauta is classified as a more lyrical (utamono) than narrative (katarimono) genre. Therefore, there are few of the named patterns which stand for specific dramaturgical actions such as were mentioned in gidayu. There are, however, subtle reactions to the text in nagauta such as the depiction of a hot summer day in Azuma hakkei and a slight staggering rhythm whenever the drinking of sake wine is mentioned. The fourth type of stereotypes in nagauta indicates formal divisions. In nagauta they tend to be unnamed though they function just as clearly as the formindicating patterns of gidayu. One of the problems in approaching kabuki music is the fact that it does combine so many different techniques. When the drum rhythms of the noh and the shamisen melodies of the kabuki appear together there seems to be a kind of chaos. Sometimes the taiko rhythm doesn't match up with the shamisen and the noh flute, as noted earlier, is always in the "wrong key." From what has been said already about noh drum rhythms, however, we know that they operate much like chord sequences in western music with their sense of order and progression to a "tonic" pattern. A study of the noh flute shows that its melody is often inextricably linked with the rhythm of the seemingly dissident taiko drum. Put very simply, there seems to be a unit in nagauta ensemble music which serves neither a basically melodic or rhythmic function. Instead, it adds color to the music and creates tension against the melodic line which drives the melody forward to a goal at some cadence point.
Page 100 100 JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC In western music these are important functions of the unit called harmony. Harmony plays no significant role in nagauta and this unit of one drum and one flute obviously cannot play chords. I believe, however, that in lieu of harmony this third unit can perform harmony's functions. I have called this the dynamic unit, not in the sense of loud and soft dynamics but in the connotation of dynamism, that quality in things which gives them their sense of motion and action. Thus, if western music can be said to have melody, rhythm, and harmony, nagauta can be said to display melody, rhythm, and dynamism. There are several additional structural intents in Japanese music that will be mentioned briefly. It has been implied that Japanese melodies tend to be non-harmonized and ornamented. In addition, they show a very careful use of melodic tension through notes that require further resolution. This is an important means of keeping up a purely melodic dynamism when rhythm is not prominent. All Japanese rhythm is not as metronomic as our earlier discussion might indicate. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Japanese rhythm is the frequent use of a rather elastic beat. The beginning rhythm of a court orchestra piece, for example, can best be understood by taking a deep breath before every fourth beat. The term breath rhythm, in fact, is most useful in discussing such situations. Likewise, one can seldom tap one's foot to the rhythm of a noh drama except in the dance sections. The great flexibility of noh rhythm is one of the reasons that the drum calls (kakegoe) are so important. It must be remembered that there is never a conductor as such in a Japanese traditional ensemble. Often there is not even eye contact between the musicians. The drum calls that startle so many westerners on first hearing are a vital part of the musical structure as well as a distinctive coloristic device. Similar calls are given by the shamisen players in narrative musics to assist the singers in timing their entrances on each phrase. Understanding the meaning of such calls is certainly an important step towards the appreciation of this characteristic device. Understanding the frequent flexibilities in rhythm should also increase one's enjoyment. The Artistic Intent So much has been said about stereotyped patterns that one might think, as some Japanese have said (Eishi 1952: 5-6), that Japanese music is nothing but a string of sterotyped patterns. When one looks at specific pieces, however, it is obvious that the arrangement of patterns and their linking materials are means to a very creative end just as the sterotypes of various periods of western music history are handled quite differently according to the individual genius of each composer. Japan has had its compositional geniuses as well. Most of the names that come down to us from before the sixteenth century are difficult to verify. A similar situation existed in the study of western music until the flourishing of musicology in this century. After the sixteenth century, the situation clears up in both Japan and the West. Thus one can speak of Japan's great composers such as Yamada Kengyo (1757-1817) in koto music, Takemoto Gidayu (1651-1714) in bunraku music, and Kineya Rokuzaemon, the Tenth (1800-1859) in nagauta. Our study of non-western art music has not progressed to the point where we discuss stylistic characteristics of individual composers as we do with Haydn or Mozart, but this is a result of the primitive state of our knowledge of non-western music, not the result any primitive state in the music itself. It is true, nevertheless, that the relation of the composer to his creation in Japan differs from that relation in the West. For example, the names attached to shamisen pieces are always those of a singer. As far as we can tell at present, the singer creates the vocal line on the basis of a given poem. He is not always the creator of the shamisen accompaniment. In the puppet theatre, individual singers pride themselves on their special styles and hence adapt previous compositions in the light of their own talents. The shamisen player must then make the necessary adjustments in the traditional accompaniment by extending, shortening, or altering specific phrases as necessary. When larger ensembles are involved such as the nagauta group in the kabuki, other instrumentalists are called in to contribute their part. Thus, some pieces are truly cooperate compositions. While the composer whose name is attached to the piece is the main performer, the drummers, shamisen players, and flutists had their part in the creation of the artistic whole. When the music is connected with the theatre it undergoes occasional revisions to suit the requirements of new productions and new actors. In addition, the guild (ryu) system in Japanese music tends to encourage
Page 101 WILLIAM P. MALM 101 variant versions of the same piece. Thus, while there is a standard repertoire, there is not a standard version of each piece except as the standard refers to a specific group of performers. There is no improvisation involved here; rather there is variation. Once a given guild sets the piece they play it the same way every time. The variation comes in the guild interpretation of the piece plus the sylistic penchants of individual singers. Analogous situations can be found in purely instrumental forms by comparing various guild performances of, for example, the honkyoku pieces for the shakuhachi flute or the danmono of the koto tradition. Variation in performances can extend beyond the notes. Many guilds have changed the construction of the instrument and use special playing techniques. Actually, such variations reinforce a very important characteristic of Japan music which can only be appreciate in vivo. In Japan it is not just what you play but how you play it. The correct posture, arm movement, gesture, and facial expression are as important as the correct pitches. Perhaps the most stable performance tradition is court orchestra music because of its relatively limited repertoire and few number of performing groups. There is little belief that it is played today as it was centuries ago (Garfias 1960: 16), but the tradition has two stabilizing factors which are unusual in Japan: notation and a fixed pitch system. Since its importation from China in the Nara period, gagaku has used individual part books, some of which contained fingerings plus a vocal mnemonic for the instrumental melody. 1 The part books were arranged according to the mode in which the piece was played and the basic pitches upon which these modes were based were derived from pitch pipes of fairly fixed measurement. Such details are seldom ours to enjoy in the music traditions that followed. The noh drama, as shown earlier, gave a fairly accurate picture of its drum accompaniment through the names of the stereotyped patterns being used but the actual performance of these patterns, if we can judge from contemporary practice, varied with the different guilds. Writings on noh singing from Zeami on give us many theoretical clues to style including some discussions of pitch and scales, but the form of notation used (gomaten) serves only as a reminder of a repertoire already learned. It cannot be sightread. There is considerable variation not only in the various schools of noh singing but also in the accompanying drum and flute parts. As with the kabuki music mentioned earlier, a given performance group will be consistent in its particular version of a specific piece. There are a few notations of koto and other musics from the Edo period but, in general, koto and shamisen notations remain rare and, when existant, rather vague until the twentieth century. Since that time both traditions have developed rather detailed notations which give clear indications of rhythm, intervals, and instrumental techniques plus the vocal line when it is present. The only inconvenience of these systems is that, again, each instrument and each of the several guilds playing one instrument uses a different system. It is important to note that while the intervals between notes are set in Japanese notations, the basic pitch (except for gagaku) is not. In vocal music, the basic pitch depends entirely on the range of the singer. Instrumental pieces are tuned to the best resonance of a given instrument. An analogous situation in the West is found in vocal music where, for example, one can buy a copy of a Schubert song in any one of several different key depending on the range of the voice. The difference in the Japanese case is that the notation does not show pitch but rather interval and thus one notation serves for all "keys." One need only tune the instrument to the proper starting pitch. Thus, there is no specific "key" for a given Japanese piece such as the western sonatas in B flat minor or symphonies in A major. The word key has been put in quotes above because Japanese music is not in the keys of the western major-minor tradition. It has its own scale systems such as the ryo-ritsu pair of scales and the in-yo pair along with their modal forms.12 Of course, contemporary Japanese music played on traditional instruments may make use of all tonal systems including an occasional brush with the Schoenbergian twelve-tone rows.
Page 102 102 JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC All that has been said above may seem to be somewhat remote from our subheading of the artistic intent. These attitudes towards notation, pitch, and variation, however, are all reflections of the artist's view of his own work. A composer with the idea of self-expression so hallowed in nineteenth century western art music or the concept of the social message popular in the twentieth century would, I believe, view these problems very differently. One has only to think of Beethoven or Verdi raging against the slightest changes in their pieces and the plethora of detail on performance practice which loads every page of late nineteenth century scores. Indeed, certain modern western composers have been dabbling with non-western principles in order to loosen up the tight hold western composers have had on their creations in recent centuries. A good performance of a Japanese piece needs all the accuracy of the performance of a Mozart symphony, but in Japan the model for accuracy is not necessarily that of the original composer. Within the limits of a given school and a given generation the standards of performance are exacting and provide solid ground for an appraisal of a given performance. Other schools or other generations may change the standard in its details. The general outline of the piece as seen in its form, text, and important melodic moments, however, tends to remain constant. The intent of the composer is to provide this framework. Another aspect of the artistic intent of Japanese music is its tendency to be word-oriented. This is obvious in the great number of vocal forms found in Japan. However, purely instrumental pieces as well tend to be descriptive or to be the evocation of something poetical. This is seen, for example, in the repertoire of the shakuhachi where such titles as "The Sound of the Deers" (shika no tone) are common. Even the titles of gagaku pieces such as "The Barbarians Drinking Wine" (Konju) and their frequent use as dance accompaniment give this repertoire a literary tint. The first important exceptions to this literary tendency are the koto variation pieces with their abstract forms and titles. A similar word orientation is found in much of the music of China and may have been part of Japan's Chinese heritage along with so many of her instruments and much of her theory. Indeed, there is always a tendency to lump the Chinese and Japanese musical cultures together since they have the same general roots. The end products of these roots, however, are quite different, though Japanese music in general has more relationship to Chinese music than to other Asian cultures. Again, gagaku seems to be the exception when one compares it with the present day instrumental ensembles of Southeast Asia. Its historical roots, however, are also primarily Chinese. Actually, the linking of various national musics depends to a large extent on one's point of view. If one chooses to study music as history, the high civilizations of the East and West provide ample written and archaeological material for the construction of chains of influence from one side of the world to the other.13 If one takes simply the similarity of sound, the patterns of distribution become very different and intriguing.14 If one takes the basic approaches to music as a guide, as this article has done, inter-cultural linkage becomes more tenuous. Each culture offers its own unique solutions to the aesthetic, creative challenges of art music, but each has to contend with similar problems such as tension and release, unity and variety, and meaningfulness to the members of the culture in which it is created. CONCLUSION Thus, while the actual sounds and some of the principles of Japanese music differ from those of the West, there are in the two musics a surprising number of approaches which serve analogous functions. As we learn more about other oriental traditions it becomes apparent that similar analogies can be made for their musics as well. Perhaps the term "oriental music" is becoming meaningless except in the geographical sense. Of course, there is still the problem of meaningfulness in music. It is primarily the private property of the cultural carrier. Nevertheless, I believe that the cultural outsider can at least learn to recognize the musical logic of a given genre with the proper clues and a musical ear. This can be a pleasurable experience. It also may provide new insights for the listener into the character and structure of the society as a whole. It is the hope of many ethnomusicologists that it can. In any event, the enjoyment of the arts has taken on an international potential. Non-western plastic arts have long been held in esteem. Non-western music
Page 103 WILLIAM P. MALM 103 may also now join the ranks of the respectful.'5 Music is not a universal language, but its many dialects are wonderful to hear. I hope the approaches listed in this article may prove useful when the reader looks for a meaningful experience in hogaku, the traditional music of Japan. NOTES 1 These differences can be heard by comparing various performances of the piece "Rokudan" on the Miyage Michio record (Nihon Victor JL 7), the Eto Kimio record (World 1428), and the Yuize Shinichi record (Cook 1132). The last is, in my opinion, overdone. 2 It can also be applied to larger western ensembles such as the orchestra as used by Anton Webern. By the same token, western chamber works can sound orchestral, for example, the Ravel string quartet. 3In this context it is interesting to note that the academic discipline concerned with music outside the Euro-American art tradition was first called comparative musicology, but later changed its name to ethnomusicology, the study of music in culture. 4 This technique can be heard clearly in the recorded piece listed in note 1. 5 One of the best discussions of anticipation and patterning in the comprehension of music is found in Meyer 1956. 6 For specific examples, see Malm 1958. tSee further Bunraku (in Japanese) 1959. 8For example, in a passage that has been using the scale A B C# E F#, the last notes will be F E D. 9The instruments and functions of geza music are discussed in Malm 1959. '~A transcription of this pattern can be seen in Malm 1963. 1 This notation can be seen in Malm 1959. A resume of Japanese scale systems is found in Peri 1934. 13 For example, there have been attempts to link the shamisen with the nefer of ancient Egypt (Tanabe 1963: 13). A study of the movement of music along the East-West trade routes can be seen in Kishibe 1940: 261-304. 14 For example, the sound of some Okinawan folk songs resembles that of the Tung people of China and also a folk style in Indonesia, while the female singers of Korea produce a sound similar to that found in Southwest Asia and among the gypsies of Spain. "Respect will not come without a struggle. As late as 1960, Maraini said that the orient could claim equality in everything but science and music (1960: 13). The statement may be more a result of his Italian background than his Japanese insight.
Page 104 104 JAPANESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC REFERENCES CITED B UNRAKU 1959 Bunkazai. Tokyo. GARFIAS, ROBERT 1960 "Gradual Modification of the Gagaku Tradition." Ethnomusicology. IV, January: 16-9. HARICH-SCHNEIDER, ETO 1953 "The Present Condition of Japanese Court Music." Musical Quarterly. XXXIX, Jan.: 49-74. KIKKAWA, EISHI 1952 "Samisen and Samisen Music." KBS BULLETIN. June: 5-6. KISHIBE, SHIGEO 1940 "The Origin of the P'ip'a." The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. December: 261-304. MALM, WILLIAM P. 1958 "The Rhythmic Orientation of Two Drums in the Japanese Noh Drama." Ethnomusicol - ogy. II, September: 181-200. 1959 Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. Tokyo, Tuttle and Company. 1963 Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music. Tokyo, Tuttle and Company. MARAINI, FOSCO 1960 Meeting with Japan. New York, Viking Press. MEYER, LEONARD 1956 Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. MINAWAGA, TATSUO 1957 "Japanese Noh Music." Journal of the American Musicological Society. X, Fall: 181 -200.
Bounty of the Kuroshio
Jack T. Moyerpp. 105-137
Page 105 \ BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO A Study of the Fishing Industry of an Izu Island Settlement by Jack T. Moyer The American School in Japan Tokyo
Page 106 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to the members of the Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative and the many residents of Miyake-Jima for their cooperation and friendship; especially to Mr. Heio Tanaka, Managing Director of the Cooperative, to Mayor Murakami and Mr. Kanichi Tanaka of the Miyake Village Office, to Mr. Masao Tani of the Tsubota Lower Secondary School, to the staff of the Miyake-Jima weather station, to the owners and crews of the Koryo Maru, Magoe Maru, and Daikatsu Maru of Tsubota's fishing fleet, and to Dr. Robert E. Ward, Dr. John E. Bardach, and Dr. Richard K. Beardsley of the University of Michigan. Special thanks goes to Dr. and Mrs. Tatsuo Tanaka of Tsubota, who took me into their home as one of the family for almost three years. Jack T. Moyer Ann Arbor, Michigan May, 1960 106
Page 107 INTRODUCTION This is a study of the fishing industry in Tsubota, a small seaside community in the Izu Islands of Japan. Tsubota is a highly efficient and productive example of a particular type of small-scale fishing community. I hope that this account may serve as a starting point for a deeper understanding of a segment of rural Japan that is too often neglected. The thousands of villages and hamlets on the 13,845-mile coastline of Japan are in many ways similar to Tsubota, though few of them are so prosperous. The large mechanized deep sea fisheries of Japan are among the most efficient in the world and are well known, but surprisingly little information is generally available about the techniques, practices, and the way of life of the workers in its small-scale, private fisheries. These fishermen work the coastal waters of the home islands and account for the bulk of the catch consumed in a nation known for its marine products. Today Japan's coastal fisheries are faced with many serious problems.' Pressure from overfishing has increased since World War II. Medium-sized fishing companies have been driven to coastal waters by restrictions in former fishing grounds off Korea, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka. Competition from these companies has had a disastrous effect on the economies of many seaside villages.2 To add to these difficulties, the two most important prewar fisheries, i.e., the sardine and herring fisheries, have failed because of natural fluctuations in fish populations.3 The result has been increasing poverty in coastal villages in many parts of Japan (Tone 1959: 106-110). Nevertheless, the small-scale private fishermen from more than 2,000 coastal villages account for about forty percent of all fishery products landed annually in Japanese ports (Tone 1959: 107). Not all coastal villages are faced with economic difficulties. Some are assured an abundance of easily accessible, valuable resources because of their favorable geographic locations., Especially fortunate in this respect are villages in areas rich in resources unsuitable for large-scale exploitation, for example, certain seaweeds and shells which must be harvested by hand. These communities are relatively free from the competition of highly capitalized companies. Tsubota is such a community. GEOGRAPHY The Izu Islands extend from Oshima, an island twenty miles east of the Izu Peninsula, to Aogashima, 155 miles to the south.4 This group is the first of four clusters of islands in the IzuMariana Arc.5 It contains ten populated islands and seven large reefs. All of the islands are of volcanic origin. Mt. Mihara on Oshima and Mt. Oyama on Miyake-Jima are presently active. The main stream of the Kuroshio (Japan Current) bisects the Izu Islands, passing between Mikura-Jima and Hachijo-Jima. Because of their latitude, the general oceanic influence, and the warming effect of the Kuroshio, the islands are quite warm with an abundance of rain. In spite of a characteristic similarity of climate throughout the archipelago, actual differences are sufficient to result in marked changes in flora and fauna as one moves southward. Although camellia orchards and hydrangea thickets are dominant throughout the entire archipelago, sugar cane does not do well north of Mikura-Jima, and only Hachijo-Jima can boast of fruit-producing banana and mango trees (introduced). Two endemic subspecies of birds appear from Kozu-Jima southward, two more are added on Miyake-Jima, and another pair first appear on Hachijo-Jima (Moyer MS). There are striking similarities between the zoogeography of the southern Izu Islands and the islands of Yakushima and Tanegashima, south of Kyushu (Moyer 1957: 215). Other variations in biogeography, resulting from climatic changes, are reflected in the economies of some of the islands. Phoenix trees are grown as a garden crop of limited commercial value on Miyake-Jima, but they constitute an important segment of the economy of Hachijo-Jima (sixty-five miles further south) where they are sold as tourist souvenirs along with banana trees, rubber trees, and other exotic tropical plants. 107
Page 108 108 BUT'OF TEKRSI....^ ^ 1..." '............ I~~~~~~ I YI { (~~~~~~~~~~~~~~KWS tight~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1
Page 109 JACK T. MOYER 109 The seas surrounding the Izu Islands are at the fringe of some of the finest skipjack and tuna grounds in the North Pacific (Shapiro 1948). These waters make up the so-called Zunan Region, where the Kuroshio passes over the submarine ridges of the Izu-Mariana Arc. Tuna boats from mainland ports as distant as Tohoku and Shikoku appear in all seasons. These sturdy all-weather craft surrounded by dense swarms of streaked shearwaters are a familiar sight throughout the area. Miyake-Jima, the third largest of the Izu Islands, lies at 34~ 05 'E and 139~32'N, 100 miles directly south of Tokyo and 45 miles south of Oshima. Miyake's volcano erupts less frequently than Mt. Mihara on Oshima, but its eruptions are apt to be quite severe. The 1940 eruption began at the summit but was most severe along the eastern shore of the island. What is now Akabakyo Crater was a bay until 1940. Previous eruptions resulted in deep craters at various places on the island. Two of these craters form the basins of Tairo and Shinmyo ponds.6 Miyake-Jima is seventeen miles in circumference and is dominated by 2,500-foot Mt. Oyama. The slopes of the mountain are covered with a dense subtropical vegetation in which there are more than 500 varieties of plants. A lack of reptilian and mammalian predators results in a surprisingly dense bird population. The unspoiled natural beauty of the island is expressed in the opening stanza of a local folk song:... Miyake-Jima kayo! Midori ga shima kayo! Kotori saezuru. Uta no shima yo! Miyake-Jima kayo! Oh island of green! Birds are singing. Oh island of song! Miyake-Jima is administered under Tokyo-to (Tokyo Metropolitan Area). Its 6,966 people live in five major communities (oaza) and six smaller hamlets (Fig. 1) which were amalgamated in 1956 into one administrative unit: Miyake Mura. Four of the five oaza are located on the north and west sides of the island, with Tsubota the only exception. A similar situation exists on all of the Izu Islands to Mikura-Jima, and is probably related to the fact that the northern and northwestern coasts are nearest to the mainland. It seems logical that settlements would be built close to the nearest point of contact with the news, supplies, and leadership from the mainland (Yamaguchi 1935: 6). The position of the oaza in relation to climatic and oceanographic features is of great importance; Tsubota's wealth is a direct result of its lone position on the southeast side of the island. Tsubota, with a population of 1,924 people from 556 households, is the largest oaza on the island. Because the prevailing winds favor a location on the southeast side of the island, it has become the major port. When weather conditions permit, the Tokai Steamship Company sends about nine boats a month with supplies, mail, and passengers to the island from Tokyo. The main island office of the Tokai Company is in Tsubota, as are the Miyake Village Office and the Miyake High School. An airport is under construction near Tsubota. A road circles the island and a villageoperated (mura) bus line provides efficient transportation between communities. The local pride that exists in the separate oaza has hindered development of the island's economy. Until recently the village office was moved from oaza to oaza annually with considerable expenditure of time and effort. In 1959, after months of opposition from Kamitsuki leaders, Tsubota was chosen as the permament site. The same rivalry, most obvious in Tsubota-Kamitsuki relations, enters into nearly every major decision from road repair and construction to harbor development and held up a decision on the airport site for several years. This rivalry is deeply rooted in the cultural traditions of each community. The original inhabitants of the various villages presumably arrived directly from the sea, without contact with other parts of the island. Each community may consist of descendants of settlers from a particular part of the mainland, different in each case. Language and marriage and funeral customs differ, and the way of life varies between oaza in many subtle ways. The importance of these local differences and resulting rivalries must not, however, be overestimated. Marriages are commonly arranged between
Page 110 110 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO households in different communities and the biennial festival at Toga Shrine is a result of the cooperative efforts of all the islanders. Warm, friendly relations exist between the communities in day-to-day contacts in work and play. And yet, when important decisions are to be made, the rivalry presents itself and is indeed a problem - one which becomes more significant when the distribution of the island's wealth is considered (Table 2). CLIMATE Miyake-Jima enjoys a warm climate. The annual mean temperature is 63.6~. August is the warmest month with an average high temperature of 83.90. February, the coldest month, has an average low temperature of 44.20 (Table 1). Frost sometimes occurs in January and February in a wooded ravine in Kamitsuki but is almost unknown in Tsubota. TABLE 1 MIYAKE-JIMA WEATHER (1942-44, 1950-55) Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Average Total Temperature: High Low Average Precipitation (inches) Days of wind velocity greater than 22 m.p.h. Strongest wind recorded (mph)a Days of Fog Days with rain Typhoonsb Prevailing wind 52.7 52.9 58.1 64.0 70.5 75.2 81.1 83.9 80.2 71.8 64.8 61.0 44.6 44.2 48.4 54.0 49.1 48.9 53.6 59.2 61.4 67.6 73.5 65.8 71.2 77.2 75.5 72.4 64.4 79.5 76.0 68.4 56.6 61.0 50.0 54.3 67.8 59.4 63.6 6.1 6.9 9.1 10.5 11.1 14.7 5.6 12.5 11.7 15.0 11.8 4.8 119.8 28 26 27 27 18 16 11 16 15 24 26 28 262 83.0 67.6 73.3 55.5 51.3 45.2 54.0 49.7 63.8 85.0 87.0 58.8 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 14 14 16 13 15 16 13 15 18 17 15 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 5 4 5 0 12 0 3 179 20 W W W WSW SW SSW SW SW WSW NE NE W aWinds of 114 mph were unofficially recorded in October 1958. bTotal 1955-59. No earlier records. Data from Miyake-Jima Weather Station Miyake-Jima is one of the wettest areas in a wet nation. Its annual rainfall is nearly 120 inches. Considerable rain may fall in any month, but there are two peak seasons: late spring and late summer-early fall. From August to November many low pressure centers and occasional typhoons skirt the southeastern coasts of Japan. During the transition season between the winter and summer monsoons in May and June a stationary front may hang for days over the Izu archipelago bringing brisk southwest winds and frequent showers. October, with 15 inches of rain, has the most precipitation; December, with a 4.8 inch average, has the least. The combination of heavy rainfall and warm temperatures results in dense subtropical vegetation. Another important feature of Miyake-Jima weather is strong wind. Wind velocities of 50 m.p.h. or higher have been recorded in every month. The highest velocity was 114 m.p.h. unofficially recorded in Ako in October, 1958, during a typhoon. On the average, about four typhoons per year
Page 111 JACK T. MOYER Ill pass near the island, bringing strong winds, destructive waves, and heavy rains, but the prevailing winds throughout most of the year are from the west. From December to March fishing operations are severely curtailed, particularly along the west side of the island, by high seas which accompany the strong, cold monsoon wind that blows almost daily. The direction and the velocity of the wind are noted by small-boat fishermen as naturally as a city dweller notes red and green traffic lights. The expression, Narai kaze da ji yo!, means that fishing boats must operate with caution because the feared northeast wind is blowing.7 THE EFFECT OF WEATHER ON FISHING Winds, waves, and climate in general are important considerations in any fishing industry and particularly so on Miyake-Jima. The nearly elliptical shape of the island and the lack of good natural harbors limit the size and type of fishing boat that can be used. Miyake-Jima craft are small, ranging from one and one-half to five tons (Plates 4 and 5). Larger craft are impractical because they cannot be beached during stormy weather. The size limitations on fishing craft are reflected in the types of operations and techniques used by the fishermen. All operations are limited to an area within a few miles of the island partly because of the time it takes to launch and beach the boats and to travel to and from the fishing grounds.8 In addition, it would be impractical and dangerous to operate more than a few miles from shore, since sudden storms might result in tragedy. Fishing is seldom completely stopped, even in high winds, because fishermen in communities on the leeward side of the island can operate close to shore in the shadow of Mt. Oyama. A comparison of the locations of communities on the map (see page 108) with the direction of prevailing winds and number of days with winds of more than 22 m.p.h. (Table 1) reveals the advantages of Tsubota's geographic position. During the long season of western monsoon winds, Tsubota boats can operate close to the eastern side of the island. For much of this period boats from all other communities except Shimashita are unable to leave port.9 The four- or five-day intervals of high rolling waves that precede each typhoon in late summer and early autumn keep Tsubota boats on the beach, but these days are of limited importance economically because they come after the close of the profitable Gelidium season.'0 During the summer months the prevailing winds that blow toward Tsubota are usually not strong enough to curtail operations. The geographical advantage Tsubota holds was partly reduced in 1959 by new restrictions on the spiny lobster fishery, formerly the most profitable winter operation (see page 127). When fishery resources are low, calm water is of no particular advantage. The most important advantage that Tsubota derives from its geography is oceanographic: the combination of the flow of currents and the effect of prevailing winds on surface waters. These factors will be discussed in detail in connection with fishery resources. NONFISHING OCCUPATIONS Table 2 shows a breakdown of yearly income by occupations in Miyake-Jima communities in 1958. In Tsubota, clearly the most prosperous oaza, the average annual income from all sources was almost twice as large as the sum of the yearly averages of all other communities. Earnings from fishery products alone amounted to more than the total income for any other settlement. Fishery income accounted for exactly half of Tsubota's total earnings for the year and for 43 percent of the economy of the entire island. It would appear that the high amount of income from agriculture and other occupations in Tsubota is related to the prosperity of its fishing industry. Profit from a prosperous fishing year can be invested in a new stand of cryptomeria trees, a new cow, high-grade fertilizer, or other
Page 112 112 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO TABLE 2 YEARLY INCOME BY OCCUPATION IN MIYAKE-JIMA COMMUNITIES: 1958 (Income in $100 units) Average Fishery Farm Other Total Popu- House- Income per Location Income Income Income Income lation holds Household Tsubotaa 1670 835 835 3340 1924 556 6.00 Akob 280 420 560 1260 1860 473 2.67 Kamitsukic 560 280 420 1260 1563 376 3.35 Izu-Okubo 310 80 280 670 833 204 3.28 Igaya 280 170 190 640 786 181 3.54 Total 3100 1785 2285 7170 6966 1790 4.01 a Includes Miike. b Includes Abe and Sabinohama. c Includes Tosa and Shimashita. Data from Miyake Village Office agricultural improvements. Fishermen and their families with money to spend can buy items such as those sold at Tanaka Shozo's department store or any of four other clothing shops and numerous food shops. Next to fishing, agriculture is the most important occupation, and there are many who would rate it above fisheries, certainly in prestige. Most of Tsubota's boat owners, if asked, would classify themselves as "farmers who fish" rather than as "fishermen." Some of them seldom, if ever, go out on their boats, and many of the crew members are hired from other areas, such as Ako, Igaya, and Niijima. Fields are tilled in the fall and winter. In summer, most of the activity centers around the sea and shore, and the fields become weedy and neglected. In recent years the important winter cash crops were celery and lettuce which were exported to Tokyo. Since 1958 the demand for these crops has sharply decreased, causing many farmers to lose interest, at least in celery. Other crops include sweet potatoes, potatoes, upland rice, wheat, barley, watermelon, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Water is a major problem, especially in summer, because the soil is porous. Even the abundant rainfall does not guarantee a successful crop, and the yield per acre, especially of rice and wheat, is sparse by Kanto standards. The dairy industry is the most important single agricultural activity. The 250 households in Tsubota own a total of about 280 cows. Gathering food for the cows is a major task for all members of the family and a favorite chore for children. After school and especially on weekends, groups of primary school boys or girls leave for the mountain armed with cutting tools and pulling "rearcarts." By evening the carts are filled with grasses, hydrangea leaves, thistles (Cirsium sp.), and alder leaves. Each child's stomach is filled with mulberries, wild strawberries, or raspberries, according to the color of his lips and the season of the year. One cartload of vegetation is a day's food for one cow, and the endless job of gathering continues day after day, rain or shine, changing from adventure to chore as one grows older. Cows are milked at dawn and at dusk. Their milk is sold to the dairy, which is owned and operated by the Farmers' Cooperative. Early in the morning children hurry to the dairy with milk cans strapped to their backs to sell the milk and get in a quick game of marbles or hopscotch by the dairy before hurrying off to school. Much of the milk is churned to butter and packaged under
Page 113 JACK T. MOYER 113 the brand name "Miyake-Jima Island Lily Butter." It is exported to Tokyo where a single buyer takes the entire supply and sells it to hospitals. Another important function of the Farmers' Cooperative is the operation of a plant that processes camellia oil. Camellia oil is used for cooking in Japan and is also valued as a hair oil. Oshima, 45 miles to the north, is well known for the oil, which is a favorite souvenir for thousands of tourists who visit the island in season. Much of Miyake-Jima's camellia oil is exported to a buyer in Tokyo who sells it as a "special product of Oshima." Many Tsubota landholders own stands of the valuable camellia trees. The nuts are harvested every September, but the best crops come biennially. There is always the danger that an early typhoon may destroy much of the crop. Tsubota is well known in the Izu Islands as the location of a shochui brewery. The beverage, made from sweet potatoes, is brewed and bottled in Tsubota and shipped to the other islands, especially Mikura- Jima and Hachijo-Jima. Other important Tsubota industries include lumbering and making charcoal. Lumbering began on a large scale in 1954 with the arrival of some agents from a paper pulp company in Shimizu, Shizuoka prefecture. Nearly every large black pine (Pinus thunbergii) has since been cut down and shipped out. Miyake-Jima's large stands of subtropical timber are dwindling in much the same way that the forest resources of Oshima and Hachijo-Jima were destroyed. It is unfortunate that the islanders themselves did not attempt to manage the timber on a sustained yield basis, but the high price paid by the lumber companies has had a certain appeal. In a country well known for high standards of forest conservation, the "exploit-and-move-on" policy of the Shizuoka companies is to be deplored. Charcoal production is a major winter occupation in Tsubota and in the other Miyake-Jima communities. The village office sponsors an annual reforestation drive, paying school children, women's clubs, youth groups, and others to plant hundreds of thousands of alder seedlings (Alnus sieboldiana) each spring in areas freshly cut by charcoal producers. This program should insure a permanent supply of new trees for charcoal as long as it keeps pace with the charcoal producers' cuttings. The category "other income" in Table 2 includes, in addition to the occupations already mentioned, the salaries of the postmen, the policeman, teachers in the primary, junior high, and high schools, and other service workers. THE FISHERY RESOURCES OF MIYAKE-JIMA Miyake-Jima's position in the Zunan Kuroshio Region guarantees an abundance of fish. Under normal conditions the main stream of the Kuroshio flows just south of Mikura-Jima, but when the current shifts from its usual course, the waters around Miyake-Jima may undergo marked changes in temperature, turbidity, and other characteristics. The warm seas surrounding the island support a rich fauna of skipjack, tuna, flying fish, dolphin, hammerhead sharks, surgeon fish, parrot fish, and other Indo-Pacific species. One hundred and twenty-seven species have been recorded in its waters (Moyer MS). The island's fishermen exploit only a few of these, the most valuable being the spring flying fish (Cypselurus pinnatibarbatus). Other exploited fish include various tuna (Thunnus thynnus orientalis, Neothunnus albacora, Euthynnus affinis and Parathunnus sibi), skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), summer flying fish (Prognichthys sealei, Prognichthys agoo, and Cypselurus atrisignis), striped marlin (Makaira mitsukurii), takabe (Labracoglassa argentiventris), aodai (Paracaesio caeruleus and Paracaesio xanthurus), horse mackerel (Decapterus lajang), a large grouper (Epinephelus sp.), and a small grouper (Epinephelus fasciatus). (Table 8). Other species that are exploited but are much less valuable, either because of inferior quality, scarcity, or the distance to good fishing grounds, include a triggerfish (Xanthichthys lineopunctatus), a small parrot fish (Colotomus japonicus), a goatfish (Pseudupeneus spilurus), a jack (Caranx
Page 114 114 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO delicatissimus), Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus niphonius), hammerhead shark (Sphyrna zygaena), and three kinds of greenfish (Girella sp.). The poor quality fish of this group are consumed by the fishermen and their families or sold locally by the Fishermen's Cooperative. Higher quality fish such as the jack or Spanish mackerel may be sold locally or shipped to Tokyo. Because they are not important to the economy, neither the low quality fish nor the rare fish will be discussed in the sections describing fishing methods. Another fish of fairly high quality, the dolphin (Coryphaena hippurus), is rather common, especially in the waters between Miyake-Jima and Mikura-Jima, but the islanders believe that it feeds upon dead human bodies, and its meat is despised by most people. A group of seaweeds, red algae of the genus Gelidium, from which agar is produced, are a considerably more important resource for the islanders than are fish. Miyake-Jima is Japan's biggest producer of Gelidium, and Tsubota is the center of this fishery. The distribution of Gelidium species in the island's waters seems to be directly related to the flow of currents and to the direction of the prevailing winds (and resulting waves) during the season of reproduction. Gelidium cannot grow where the current is swift as it is along most of the west coast of the island. The fast current that strikes the island from the west at Toga Point (see page 108) divides into two streams. One flows up the west side of the island past Ako and the Izu light. The other follows the south coast to Nii Point and continues out to sea in a southeasterly direction. This current is joined by tide rips from Daiga Hama (below Tairo Pond) and Okibara (east of Tsubota). Probably equally important as a limiting factor in the distribution of the valued seaweeds are the prevailing winds and waves. Gelidium spores in late winter or early spring, when the prevailing winds are from the west. During this season the western half of the island from Kamitsuki to Nii Point is constantly lashed by large waves. On that side of the island new spores cannot survive in the heavy surf or in the fast currents of deeper waters. At Toga Point a long, rocky coastline of bare, white rocks contrasts with an adjoining, reef-protected cove, which supports a lush growth of Gelidium amansii. Sheltered from currents and from winter winds, the eastern side of the island (except for the Okibara rip and certain sandy areas) is covered with a dense growth of seaweed from Shimashita to a point just east of the Daiga Hama rips. Much of this vegetation consists of various species of Gelidium, which are concentrated most heavily in the area from Daiga Hama to Miike. This geographical dispersion is the primary factor in the tremendous economic advantage Tsubota holds over the other oaza (Table 2). In general, the typhoons that sweep in from the south in late summer and autumn cause little damage to the Gelidium crop because they come at the end of the growing season. The critical time seems to be the period of reproduction, when winds and currents play a crucial role. Two severe typhoons in 1958 changed the topography of the ocean floor at Tsubota, rolling over boulders and filling up crevices with rocks and sand. These storms destroyed a sizeable area of Gelidium which was replaced the next spring by an inferior green algae. Such severe storms are unusual, however, and the area can probably be reclaimed through the skillful management of the Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative. Spiny lobster (Panulirus japonicus) are common in Miyake-Jima waters, although the severe typhoons of 1958 seem to have caused them considerable damage. The only other invertebrate of economic significance is a small three-inch abalone (Haliotis japonica). The spiny whelk, sazae (Turbo cornutus), which was once a resource of minor importance, has disappeared. Various small shellfish, barnacles, and crabs are gathered for home consumption but have no commercial value. Laver (Porphyra sp.) grows on the rocky shores from January until early May and is harvested for home consumption under the control of the Fishermen's Cooperative.
Page 115 JACK T. MOYER 115 THE FISHERMEN'S COOPERATIVE The fishing industry of each 5aza is controlled by a fishermen's cooperative. Anyone who works more than thirty days per year at fishing and who has paid the entrance fee of 5000 yen is eligible for membership along with his family. Membership in the cooperative includes so many definite advantages that it is inconceivable to think of a household not belonging. The harvest of the agarproducing seaweeds, laver, spiny lobster, and the small abalone is limited to members and their employees. Members of the cooperatives have exclusive rights to the seaweeds and invertebrates growing within the waters controlled by their 5aza. With fish the rules are somewhat different. Certain pelagic fish, such as flying fish, horse mackerel, and takabe (Labracoglassa argentiventris), can be taken anywhere within the waters of Miyake-Jima and Mikura-Jima by boats from any Miyake-Jima community. The rules differ slightly depending upon the species of fish. Flying fish operations, for example, are controlled through the cooperatives by the Miyake-Jima sector of the Regulations Committee of the Izu Island Marine Fishery Federation (Izu Shichito Rengo Kaiku Gyogyo Chosei linkai), which was established by the government of Tokyo. Depending upon conditions in the area during a given season, a limited number of boats from neighboring Kozu-Shima may be allowed to operate in Miyake waters."' These boats fly special flags to establish their identity. Tuna, skipjack, and marlin are open to any fisherman properly licensed, and large all-weather tuna boats from mainland ports frequently appear in Miyake-Jima waters. The Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative is an autonomous organization, working in close cooperation with but completely independent of other fishermen's cooperatives on Miyake-Jima and the other Izu Islands. The Fishermen's Cooperative and the Farmers' Cooperative are the most important organizations in the community. All permanent residents, without exception, are members of both. The teachers, policemen, lumbermen, and harbor construction workers who do not belong to the cooperative are clearly, in every sense of the word, outsiders. A general assembly, made up of all members of the cooperative, elects the cooperative director (kumiai-cho) and a five-man board of directors who meet to elect one of their group to the important position of managing director (senmu-riji). The director and managing director supervise the activities of a staff which includes three administrators, an assistant administrator, an engineer (gishi), and a clerk. The cooperative serves many invaluable functions. These include purchasing equipment for fishermen at wholesale rates; banking of savings for its members; administering loans to members for their work or for use in emergencies such as sickness or death in the family; transporting, processing, preserving, and selling fishery products for its members; conserving and propagating valuable seaweeds and shellfish; protecting and maintaining local fishing grounds; constructing and maintaining harbor facilities; providing refrigeration; organizing rescue operations; giving advice about marine insurance and administering insurance policies for members; disseminating information concerning all aspects of fisheries; and looking after the general welfare of its members. Accidents are not uncommon in fishing villages, and Tsubota has had its share. At these times of crisis, the cooperative takes command. If the injury is too serious for local hospitalization, the managing director contacts the police who request special transportation in the form of a Japanese or an American military helicopter. A cooperative official then telephones a mainland hospital to make arrangements for the patient, and either the director of the managing director goes to the mainland on the next boat to take care of administrative problems. Since 1957, three Tsubota fishermen have been saved by the effective rescue operations of their cooperative. FISHING TECHNIQUES No study of Tsubota's fishing industry would be complete without some detailed discussion of the techniques used in the different fisheries. There is considerable variation in fishing methods
Page 116 116 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO from community to community in Japan (Tone 1959: 111), and Miyake-Jima is no exception. Beach seines are used by the fishermen at Okubo (see page 108) where a sandy topography favors such gear. Fishermen at Igaya are skillful in the use of boke-ami, a type of lift net. Neither method is used in Tsubota, but the fishing techniques practiced there are widely used in the Izu Islands and are typical of small-boat fishing in the entire area. In mid-February preparations are made for the flying fish season which begins in March. This fishery is discontinued in late April with the beginning of the Gelidium season. When Gelidium harvest is no longer profitable, the season for sokozuri (bottom-fishing) begins. Bottom fish include aodai (Paracaesio sp.) and the small grouper (Epinephelus fasciatus). (Occasionally one or two boats will try for summer flying fish before the bottom-fishing season begins.) Horse mackerel, takabe, tuna, skipjack, and spiny lobster are exploited in autumn. In late January and in February large concentrations of striped marlin move into Miyake-Jima waters. Marlin, black tuna (Thunnus thynnus), and spiny lobster provide the only resources until the first shoals of flying fish arrive again in March. Each of these fisheries will be described, with emphasis placed on the two most important: spring flying fish and Gelidium. Spring Flying Fish (Cypselurus pinnatibarbatus) One begins to notice a feeling of excitement in the oaza as February approaches. The cold western monsoon winds have blown steadily since early December, making the seas too dangerous for more than a few days of trolling for tuna. Now the crew of the Kuroshio Maru, the Tokai Steamship Company's bi-weekly boat to Hachijo-Jima, reports that fishermen there are beginning to see the first shoals of tobi-uo (flying fish). The word spreads rapidly, and soon Tsubota is bustling with activity. Kazuo Miyake, whose skill at locating shoals of migrating tobi is the envy of younger fishermen, arrives with futon from Ako to take his traditional position as flying fish skipper on Magoichiro Kimura's Magoe Maru. The rumor is that Heio Tanaka has hired a top-notch skipper from Wakago, Niijima, to handle the tiller of his Kanshichi Maru. On the ballground of the junior high school, the baseball team is complaining because the crew of the Daikatsu Maru is mending its nets in right field. The sound of hammering and sawing comes from the waterfront, where boats are being repaired and outfitted with spotlights. The monotony of winter is forgotten as the community becomes alive with anticipation. On Miyake-Jima tobi-uo is the harbinger of spring. The spring flying fish migrates into Izu Island waters to spawn. In January the first shoals reach Torishima where they are exploited by fishermen operating in large all-weather craft from a number of ports. From the Izu Islands, Hachijo-Jima is represented, and Shikine-Jima sends a boat. In 1958 a forty-ton boat was rented by Miyake-Jima fishermen for a try at the Torishima shoals, but the venture was not prosperous and was not attempted in 1959. By late February the fish have reached Aoga-Shima, where they become the exclusive property of Hachijo-Jima Fishermen. The peak of the migration at Hachijo-Jima comes between March 10th and 20th (Abe 1955: 193), after the first small shoals have already reached Miyake-Jima. Miyake seems to mark the northern limit of the dense shoals of spawning fish, although small schools have been observed in May off the Boso Peninsula of Chiba prefecture (Abe 1955: 194). The fishery at Hachijo-Jima is much more productive than the one at Miyake-Jima in most years because the shoals of spawning fish are denser there. Tobi-uo is the most important fishery product on HachijoJima (Abe 1953: 115), but it is a rather poor second to Gelidium on Miyake (Table 8). Nevertheless, it is an important fishery in Tsubota, as is evidenced by the enthusiasm of the spring preparations. The first trips to the fishing grounds are usually made in late February, but the date depends on the temperature of the current. Spring flying fish spawn where surface waters are 19~ centigrade (660 F) or above and do not appear in economically useful quantities in cooler seas. Because Miyake-Jima is on the fringe of the Kuroshio, there may be considerable variation in water temperature from one season to the next. Such variation can have tremendous consequences for a fishing industry like Tsubota's where the boats are limited to a range of a few miles from the home port. Fishermen cannot follow the shoals but must wait for the fish to come to them. In 1959 fishing
Page 117 JACK T. MOYER 117 started in late February, but in 1958, because of cold currents, the flying fish season began much later. This close association between favorable currents and profitable fishing is important in almost all fishing operations. The fisherman's awareness of the influence of currents is obvious in everyday conversation. Miyake-Jima residents seldom speak of "the ocean," but invariably refer to it as "the current" (shio).12 One or two boats may go out to try their luck early, before the large shoals have reached Miyake waters. At such times, catches of less than ten fish are not uncommon, but the trips serve the important purpose of developing teamwork and efficiency. The first good catch by such a boat starts the fishery for everyone. A typical operation begins at about 4 p.m. when the crew of six to eight men begins to arrive at the pier. The engineer is usually first since he needs time to get the hot-bulb engine fired up and ready to go. Nets which have been drying in the sun are loaded into the boat (Plate 6), and by 4:15 p.m. the boats begin to leave for the fishing grounds. Flying fish feed on plankton, a supply of which is constantly available at the edges of swift currents. Thus the heaviest concentrations of flying fish are generally found at the fringes of the Okibara rip, the Daiga Hama rip, and similar areas near Miike, Shimashita, and Okubo (see page 108). Flying fish seldom appear on the west side of the island from Nii Point to Okubo. Because of prevailing winds and the concentration of fish, the best fishing is usually found between the Miike light and Okubo. By, 5 p.m. most boats are on the fishing grounds. They cruise until schools of fish are seen just below the surface or taking to the air. As soon as a sizeable school is located, the crew attempts to maneuver the boat into a position "up-current" from the fish. This is important because the fish habitually swim against the current. The drift nets are then dropped. From sixteen to eighteen nets, each about 24 fathoms long and 2 fathoms wide, have been lashed together with a triangular wooden buoy with a red flag marking the end. The buoy is dropped in, and two fishermen begin rapidly throwing in the nets, one throwing the lead line and the other handling the buoy line which holds the nets at the surface. A third fisherman keeps the pile of unfolding nets from becoming tangled, while a fourth, with a long bamboo pole in his hand, stands at the stern to prevent the submerging line from becoming entangled in the screw. As the skipper keeps a course "up-current," the nets string out behind the boat. When a white cord on the first float of the middle net shows that half of the gear is in the water, he steers the boat across the current. Just as the last net has run out, he begins to double back. The engine is idled now and is occasionally throttled slightly to keep the nets taut. After a moment, the water ripples and splashes as a flying fish becomes entangled in the net some 25 yards away. The fishermen immediately begin to take stones from a basket in the bow and throw them in the direction of the trapped fish. This frightens other fish that have been moving along the net searching for an opening, and drives them into the net. As they become entangled one by one, the fish at the surface make telltale splashes in their struggle to escape. The skipper maneuvers the boat back towards the net to close the opening. In the meantime four crewmen are furiously pulling in the net, and a fifth stands on the bow platform slapping the surface of the water with a long bamboo pole to drive in more fish. The engineer, whose chief responsibility is to prevent the engine from stopping at this crucial time, may stray far enough from his station to throw an occasional rock. As the boat nears the netting, usually near the middle, excitement reaches a maximum. This is the moment when the frightened fish either become entangled or dive deep to escape. A few take to the air and occasionally one hits the boat with a loud slap. As a few fish dart under the bow of the boat, the bowman shouts something and is quickly passed a large white oar with a rope tied to the handle. Standing on the bow, he plunges it into the water and retrieves it again and again. The flashing white oar, which sinks ten feet below the hull of the boat, drives the fish back into the nets, only a few fathoms of which remain in the water. As the nets are pulled into the boat, the fishermen, with skillful flips of the wrist, shake loose each fish, and soon the deck is silver with the catch.
Page 118 118 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO At last the buoy marked with the red flag is pulled aboard and the skipper throttles the engine to begin the search for another shoal. It is now dusk, and the fishermen are more than ready for some food. For the last few minutes the engineer has been warming a pan of rice on the stove beside the engine house. Two flying fish are cut up to be eaten raw with soy sauce and horse radish. But the meal is never finished because suddenly another school of fish is sighted. Fishing techniques change slightly after dark. Flying fish can no longer be seen from a distance, so they cannot be strategically flanked as in late afternoon. Two or three crewmen now ride on the bow platform searching the dark water for the shadowy grey flashes of another shoal. A cry announces the fish, the spotlights go on, the engine is slowed, and the nets are dropped in the same pattern as before, with special consideration for the reaction of the fish to the currents. A lamp marks the buoy. It is difficult to see whether or not fish are striking the nets, but the gear is left in the water for about a half an hour before being lifted. During the interim the spotlights are left on. Flying fish show a rather strong positive phototaxis, though much less so than the related saurypike (Cololabis saira). Swimming slowly in a peculiarly off-balance posture, many fish enter the illuminated waters near the boat where they are scooped from the water with dip nets. During periods of less activity, a crewman may bait a large steel hook with a flying fish, and lower it to the bottom on a hand line to try for the 40- or 50-pound groupers that lurk below. Other crewmen may fish for squid. Care must be taken to keep the nets and the boat from drifting into a tide rip. The pull of the swirling water in a fast rip can drag the buoyant nets straight down and shred them on the rocks of the ocean floor. The fishermen take great precautions to avoid this frightening and costly experience. Other problems include twisting or tangling the nets because of changes in the currents and tides and hopelessly tangling the nets of two boats. During the early part of the season most of the boats return before midnight. After a short rest, the crew may go out for another try, returning after daybreak. The heaviest catches seem to coincide with the rising and setting of the sun and the moon, but during the height of the season, fish are caught all night long and the fleet operates around the clock. After a full night of fishing a boat may return at nine or ten a.m. with a catch of four to five thousand fish (about a ton). The fish are counted and packed and carried off to the cooperative to be sold. Then the deck is scrubbed down, the crew eats a snack of flying fish and rice, and the afternoon is spent mending nets. This strenuous schedule continues throughout April, the only rest coming with periodic storms. These are regarded with mixed feelings by the exhausted fishermen who are anxious for sleep but reluctant to miss a night of profitable fishing. By the end of April most of the boat owners are ready to abandon the flying fish operations to prepare for the Gelidium season. In unusually good years, some boats may continue to operate into May. Ten boats worked from Tsubota for spring flying fish from late February to early May in 1959 and earned $13,730 or 7.1 percent of Tsubota's fishery income for the year (Table 8). Table 3 shows the earnings of one of Tsubota's flying fish boats in 1959, a good tobi-uo year. Because of high seas, the crew was able to operate on only fifteen nights in March and twenty in April. Eight nights of fishing were conducted in May before changing to the Gelidium fishery. Forty percent of the total, or $589.20, went to the owner. Of this amount, 3 percent ($17.68) was paid to the cooperative for use of the winch during landings, 18 percent ($106.06) went for fuel, and 25 percent ($147.30) was paid for food for the crew, many of whom stayed at the owner's house during periods of bad weather. The owner's net earnings in 1959, after expenses, amounted to $318.16. The skipper and the engineer each received 10 percent of the total earnings, or $147.30. Each crewman earned 6.5 percent or $95.75. When these earnings are compared with the average yearly earnings per household in Tsubota, shown in Table 2, it is obvious that the forty-three days and nights of flying fish operations in 1959
Page 119 JACK T. MOYER 119 TABLE 3 EARNINGS OF A TSUBOTA FLYING FISH BOAT: 1959 Nights of Month operation Total earningsa March 15 $361 April 20 898 May 8 214 Total 43 $1473 aBalance after Cooperative marketing charges have been paid. Data from Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative Records were profitably spent. The amount of money expended for boat repairs, mending nets, other repairs, and new equipment, which would have to be subtracted from the owner's net earnings, is not available; however, $100 would probably be more than enough for such costs. The average earnings per boat in Tsubota in 1959 were $1373 (Table 3), so our example ($1473) was somewhat above average. Although the spring flying fish fishery produces only 7.1 percent of all fishery income in Tsubota, it is an extremely important business. Tsubota is in a favorable position geographically, since prevailing winds throughout much of the period are from the west (Table 1). During the latter half of the season, the Okubo harbor also is shielded from prevailing winds, but Ako remains exposed throughout the season The Gelidium Fishery Miyake-Jima is known throughout the Izu Islands as a tengusa (Gelidium) island. Most of the island's tengusa lies in Tsubota's waters, and the Gelidium fishery is Tsubota's most important occupation. There are five species of tengusa in Tsubota's waters, ranging in grade from the best, Gelidium amansii, to the inferior hiragusa (Gelidium subcostatum). The quality of the seaweed is related to its value as a raw material for the production of agar. Gelidium amansii is the principal raw material in Japanese agar production; other species are used only as admixtures (Tressler and Lemon 1951: 64-65). There is variation in the value of a particular species from early summer to autumn; prices go up as the year progresses and the product becomes scarce (Table 4). There may be a wide range in quality within a single species, for example, Gelidium amansii is divided into four grades. Prices fluctuate on the national market in a normal supply and demand pattern. Each species is valued for particular properties, and a shortage of one on the national market may cause the price to go up in a manner confusing to the observer of the local scene. For example, Gelidium japonicum brought higher prices than three of the four grades of superior Gelidium amansii in the period between July 2 and 23, 1959 (Table 4). This does not mean that the quality of G. amansii was poor during that period, but that the agar factories in Nagano and Gifu prefectures were experiencing shortages of the inferior but much rarer G. japonicum. Preparations for the coming season begin in April. The seaweed drying grounds at Kamakata and Miike are cleared of weeds, and equipment such as diving goggles, net tengusa -bags, and buoys is repaired or purchased. Boats which did not engage in the flying fish operations are prepared for Gelidium fishery, and special attention is given to diving equipment, such as suits, hoses, and compressors.
Page 120 120 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO TABLE 4 PRICE FLUCTUATIONS IN THE GELIDIUM MARKET: TSUBOTA, 1959 (Yen per kilogram)a Gelidium amansii Gelidium Gelidium Period Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 japonicum subcostatum May 1-May 7 86 71 70 May 8-May 18 88 72 73 29 May 19-June 8 94 80 79 31 June 9-July 1 99 83 86 35 July 2-July 23 103 86 85 84 87 37 July 24-Aug. 2 104 89 86 85 84 39 Aug. 3-Sept. 9 107 91 89 85 40 Sept. 10-Sept. 30 110 92 90 89 40 a 360 yen is equal to one dollar. Data from Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative Records, courtesy of M. Tani. Most of the flying fish vessels stop work before May to make sure that everything is ready for the tengusa season. The last few days before "opening day" are filled with equipment checks and anticipation. Every year on April 30 all boats journey to the bay below Toga Shrine (Toga Point, see page 108), where offerings of sake and rice placed on tiny wooden boats are offered to the protecting deity of fishermen. Each member of the crew ceremoniously drinks three sips of sake and more offerings are made to the sea. After taking the boats in three complete circles, they return to Tsubota. By 5 a.m. May 1, the pier is alive with activity. The fishermen are busy launching boats that have been decorated with banners and flags for the spectacular departure. One by one the craft put to sea and head toward the richest grounds, which have been searched out by each crew far in advance. By 6 a.m. the harbor is empty except for the Tokai Steamship Company's barges. A new season is under way. May 1 is the opening day for all boats, but only two areas are open to swimmers at this time.13 The seas at Miike and Daiga Hama are considered " open water," and swimmers from any community on Miyake-Jima can harvest seaweed there after May 1. Coastal waters between Miike and just east of Daiga Hama (below Tairo Pond, see page 108) are the exclusive property of members of the Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative. Seaweed harvests in this area are under the strict control of the Cooperative. Officials place red flags on buoys anchored at a depth of three fathoms. The tengusa between the flags and shore is reserved for swimmers operating from the shore. Helmet divers, working from boats, are prohibited in this area. Since overfishing could quickly destroy the crop, the Fishermen's Cooperative selects special days in May and June for the harvest of Gelidium growing inside the three-fathom markers. Days with a combination of a morning low tide and calm seas are chosen. Calm seas are considered essential for safety, since even small waves could make tengusa harvesting dangerous for swimmers who must work close to jagged, barnacle-covered reefs to get the better grade of seaweed. Periods of low tide are chosen to make the harvest as easy as possible, for swimmers do not have to dive as deeply at low tide as at other times. Boats and swimmers may operate outside the flags at any time during the season, weather permitting. In early July when the bulk of the valuable species has been picked, the cooperative declares open season.
Page 121 JACK T. MOYER 121 The Free-Swimming Divers and Shore Gatherers Both men and women swim for tengusa, but women are far more productive. It is not unusual for a girl diver to bring in 325 pounds of high quality seaweed in a single day. The better divers among the men harvest about 250 pounds a day. Girls can stay in the water for from 3 1/2 to 4 hours at a stretch, but it is a rare man indeed who can stay in for two hours. Groups of diving girls enter the water as soon as the loudspeaker at the Fishermen's Cooperative office gives permission.14 Dressed in woolen sweaters and long white skirts, and with heads wrapped in towels (Plate 10), the girls contrast with the nearly naked diving girls of Mie prefecture and the Boso peninsula. In summer the girls occasionally wear T-shirts and shorts, but naked divers are quite unusual on Miyake-Jima. The divers are equipped with diving masks, finger gloves for protection from cuts and scrapes when seaweed is plucked from jagged rocks, large net bags to hold the harvest, and round wooden tubs 15 to 24 inches in diameter to hold the bags of seaweed at the surface while the girls dive. The equipment used by men is similar except that they prefer to use wooden diving goggles instead of diving masks. The best seaweeds (Gelidium amansii and G. japonicum) grow most abundantly on the sides of reefs and large boulders in exposed waters where waves are often high. G. amansii and some inferior species also grow in the deep water around the flags. Here a good yield depends upon the diver's ability to make repeated dives with little or no rest. Most of the better divers can stay down for a minute or more, but the majority of dives range between 20 and 30 seconds -enough time to fill both hands with seaweed. After surfacing, divers often whistle loudly to refresh themselves before diving again. Accidents are rare because the divers make special efforts to avoid dangerous waters and fish stings. The rocky coastline is hazardous when the sea is choppy. (Even the calmest days have some waves.) A swimmer must also avoid the well-known rip tides and currents. One of the most unpleasant experiences that can befall a tengusa diver is to grasp a handful of seaweed only to be severely stung by either a small catfish (Plotosus anguilaris) or scorpion (Pterois lunulata) which may have taken refuge in the vegetation. Both of these fish are quite poisonous, and the diver's hand may be swollen and painful for several days. Divers must also be careful to avoid the notorious moray eel, three species of which are common in Miyake-Jima waters. Although the moray's bite is not poisonous, it is very painful. The poisonous sting of the Portuguese Man-of-War (Physalia sp.) is dreaded by all divers. When the wind is from the southwest, these jellyfish may be present in such numbers that the divers are driven from the water. A total of one thousand free divers (swimmers) worked from Tsubota shores at some time during 1959, earning $102,870 (Table 8). Considerably fewer divers worked regularly. The harvest of tengusa is a community effort and every able person from 7 to 70 participates to some degree. It is a common sight to see small children picking tiny handfuls of low-grade Gelidium from shallow tide pools, which they will proudly add to their mothers' harvests. Old women in their sixties and seventies often enter the water to their waists at low tide to gather what they can. But the bulk of the harvest is gathered by diving girls. Table 5 shows the 1959 earnings of a girl who is one of Tsubota's better divers, but probably not the best. Her earnings over the five-month period were much larger than the average annual income per household in the 5aza and were almost three times the average annual income of an Ako household. In spite of such lucrative earnings, many girls refuse to become divers. After graduation from school, most girls prefer to take jobs in Tokyo, or to try to find employment in the village office, the post office, or in some other position which carries social prestige. There is another profitable method of harvesting tengusa in shallow water. During squalls and storms in the spring and summer, Gelidium is frequently torn from the rocks and washed ashore by the high seas. Old people and children gather the seaweed from the beach as it washes in. Younger women and school girls enter the water as far as they dare in the surf to scoop out the
Page 122 122 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO TABLE 5 EARNINGS OF A GIRL TENGUSA DIVER: TSUBOTA, 1959 Month Earnings May $272 June 175 July 117 August 108 September 61 Total $733 Data from Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative Records precious algae with dip nets. But the most productive method involves the use of a large drag net, about six feet wide and four feet high. This net is fastened to two sturdy ropes and is dragged back and forth across a cove by two men, one on each side of the cove. This is strenuous but profitable work, particularly in the days of rough water before and after typhoons or severe storms. Table 6 gives the earnings of a Tsubota household that used a combination of the various tengusa-gathering techniques. It consisted of a husband and wife, a school-age girl, and a hired hand. July 1959 was a stormy month with several days of high seas and this is reflected in the high earnings shown for that month. By August, most of the tengusa had been gathered. Operations of this type, depending as they do upon the effects of stormy seas, must be subject to considerable variation from one season to the next. Unfortunately no data from other years is available for comparison. Harvesting from Boats Next to free-swimming divers, helmet divers operating from boats provide the most to Tsubota's fishing economy. Nineteen boats collected tengusa worth $71,540 in 1959. (Table 8). Divers from boats collect a larger quantity of Gelidium than free divers, but most of it is the low grade hiragusa (Gelidium subcostatum), which grows in deep water up to twenty-five fathoms or more. TABLE 6 EARNINGS OF A SINGLE HOUSEHOLD FROM GELIDIUM HARVEST BY DRAG NET, DIP NET, BEACH-GATHERING, AND SWIMMING: TSUBOTA, 1959 Month Earnings May $268 June - - - July 730 August 17 September 7 Total $1022 Data from Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative Records
Page 123 JACK T. MOYER 123 Boats begin the season in May in as shallow water as possible (close to the red flags) and work out into deeper water as the season progresses and the seaweed becomes more scarce. Early in the year the divers are able to harvest high grade tengusa, but this is soon gone and by mid-June hiragusa is dominant. As the boats move into deeper water, the danger of caisson disease increases. A diver who has worked at 100 feet for an hour should stop twice for decompression while making his ascent. An ascent from such a depth should take more than forty-five minutes. Tsubota's divers, who by August are working at depths up to 120 feet and staying down for two hours at a time, seldom decompress as long as they should. Many of them feel that the time spent in decompression could be spent harvesting more Gelidium. Most of the divers know their own tolerances, but a year rarely passes without at least one serious diving accident. Other dangers such as faulty equipment or a sudden powerful change of tides make helmet diving for Gelidium a dangerous occupation. Tragedy strikes suddenly. In July 1959, a sudden change in tidal currents swept two divers off their feet. One surfaced immediately and suffered hemorrhages around both eyes. The other diver's hose was snapped by the pull of the current. His body was found twenty minutes later by a diver from another boat. Such experiences tend to convince many would-be divers to seek employment elsewhere. Many young men work as helmet divers for short periods of time, but only the true lover of adventure returns year after year. Tengusa boats are equipped for either two or three divers, depending upon the size of the air compressor. There are at least six crewmen on a three-hose boat, because each diver must be tended by one man in the boat. The earnings of one three-hose tengusa boat are shown in Table 7. This boat was also used in Table 3 as an example for the flying fish season. It is of interest to compare the earnings during the two periods. TABLE 7 EARNINGS OF A THREE-HOSE GELIDIUM BOAT: TSUBOTA, 1959 Month Earnings May $ 645 June 1120 July 1780 August 2120 September 622 October 395 Total $6682 Data from Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative Records Fuel, repairs, equipment, and general upkeep cost $416. Sixty dollars were spent to purchase insurance for the six-man crew at $10 per man. Total earnings after expenses amounted to $6206. Thirty-five percent of the earnings ($2171.10) went to the owner. The remaining 65 percent ($4033.90) divided between the six crewmen yielded $672.31 for each man. The Processing of Gelidium. Tengusa is sold by the fishermen and diving girls to the Fishermen's Cooperative by wet weight. Each individual's daily harvest is recorded and a receipt is furnished. Payments in cash are usually made in December.
Page 124 124 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO After weighing, the crop is loaded into trucks and carried to one of two processing centers at Kamakata and Miike where it is placed on the ground to dry in the sun. Summer showers falling on the dried seaweed cause bleaching, which increases the value of the product since this is the first step in agar extraction. While it is drying and bleaching, the crop is turned frequently to assure thorough drying (Plate 13). After the crop is dried, it is rolled into packs of specified size (Plate 14) and shipped to buyers in Tokyo. From there it is sent to various agar factories in the mountains of central Japan. Agar is an important export item. Much of it is sent to the United States, where it is used in food production, pharmaceuticals and for bacteriological culture media (Tressler and Lemon 1951: 85-86). It is clear that the five common species of Gelidium seaweeds, so abundant in Tsubota's waters, result in the bulk of the oaza's income. More than 90 percent of all fishery earnings came from this crop in 1959 (Table 8). If 50 percent of the community's total income in 1959 came from the fishing industry, as it did in 1958 (Table 2), it follows that 45 percent of Tsubota's total earnings came from the Gelidium harvest. The seaweed harvest is even more significant in terms of individual earnings. The boat owner, skipper, and crewmen (Table 7), the diving girl (Table 5), and the drag-net operator (Table 6) all earned sums significantly larger than the average annual income per household in the 5aza (Table 2). Why, then, are not more of the community's young men interested in becoming fishermen? The answer seems to be that most of the permanent households in Tsubota are engaged in varying degrees in the profitable industry. Families with able-bodied men who are willing and capable of taking the risks involved in such an occupation, and those with diving girls, are obviously best equipped to make profits. Many men and women refuse to work full time in the fisheries, preferring to work in "prestige" occupations where earnings may be comparatively low, but social status is high. An interesting custom practiced in the oaza results in a further lowering of the average income per household. Old people, when they reach the age of retirement (inkyo), move into separate houses (inkyo-jo). They continue to work at farming as long as possible, providing as much of their needs as they can. In figuring the average income per household shown in Table 2, the inkyo-jo are treated as separate households, although they are not, in fact, totally independent units. Finally, many "outside" salaried workers live in the 5aza. School teachers, harbor construction workers, lumbermen, Tokai Steamship Company longshoremen, and others all earn considerably less than the $600 annual average. The abundance of Gelidium in Tsubota waters results from geographic factors such as winds and currents (p. 111). Its agricultural wealth and "other income" (Table 2) may be a direct result of a prosperous fishing industry (p. 111). Tsubota's wealth, then, is a product of the efforts of hardworking people living in an area which for geographic reasons is provided with an abundance of a single valuable resource- the Gelidium seaweeds. Other Fisheries Summer Flying Fish, Takabe, and Horse Mackerel The summer and autumn net fisheries for flying fish, takabe, and horse mackerel earned a combined total of only $300 or 0.17 percent of the oaza's fishing income in 1959 (Table 8). These fisheries will be discussed here only because they are important in other communities and on other islands in the Izus. All three utilize drift nets similar to those used for spring flying fish but with smaller mesh. Unlike the spring flying fish, the summer species is pursued only during the day and with somewhat different techniques. Crews are large, with a dozen or more men taking part. One or two tenma boats15 are towed behind the fishing craft until the flying fish schools are located. The nets are dropped in a semicircular pattern with much the same reference to currents as in the spring fishery. The tenma carries fishermen to the side of the school which is farthest from the nets. The fishermen dive into the ocean, one by one, from the tenma and swim toward the nets,
Page 125 JACK T. MOYER 125 TABLE 8 SYNOPSIS OF RECORDS KEPT BY TSUBOTA FISHERMEN'S COOPERATIVE: 1959 INDEPT. BOATS: NO OF DIVERS ~SEASON ~ YEARLY BOATS YEARLY NO OF TOTAL INCOME SEASON INCOME (APPROX INCOME INDEPT COLUMNS o RESOURCE J F. M, A,M, J. J A, S. O. N,D IN $100 CREW) IN $100 DIVERS 3 ANDS 5 SPINY LOBSTER _ _. 2.2 e 2.2 0.1 SKIPJACK 0.4 1 (4) 0.4 0 02 TUNA _ 2 4 12.4 24) 10.6 STRIPED MARLIN A I (5) A SPRING FLYING FISH _137.3 1 0(75) 1 37.3 7. I SUMMER FLYING FISH____I 2_ 12) 2.0 1(120. I GELIDIUM SR ____ I. 716.4 1 9(105 1028.7 1000 1744.1 90.2 LABRACOGLASSA SR.I 1(12). 0.01 PARACAESIO SRP. I 8. 2 7(40) I 6.2 0.8 HORSE MACKEREL.A 9 I(X).9 0. 06 SMALL ABALONE eB 8.2 9(50) 5.9 63 14.1 0.7 SMALL GROUPER. 6_(5) 2.36)2. 0. I LARGE GROUPER.3 2(14).3 0. 02 LAVER C TOTAL 895.7 19 1036.8 1932.5 99.81 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 B A - UNKNOWN SOLD TO OTHER DEALERS B -AUGUST 23 AND AUGUST 26 ONLY C-HOME CONSUMPTION slapping the water and making as much commotion as possible to drive the flying fish into the nets. This can be dangerous work since the flying fish is a pelagic species which must be pursued in the open ocean, often several miles from land, and since gigantic sharks sometimes share the crew's interest in the fish. In 1957 a young Shikine-Jima fisherman was pulled down by a shark while participating in a flying fish drive, but no shark casualties have been recorded in this type of fishing for Miyake-Jima. Two summer species of flying fish are commonly taken: Prognichthys sealei (making up the bulk of the catch) and Cypselurus atrisignis. Occasionally Prognichthys agoo may be caught, but this is unusual. Due to a combination of large crews and small fish, the summer fishery for flying fish is not profitable. Takabe (Labracoglassa argentiventris) is a pelagic fish that moves in dense schools. It is taken in much the same manner as the summer flying fish. Takabe are driven into the nets by swimmers. They congregate closer to shore than flying fish and apparently do not attract as many sharks. In summer and in autumn crewmen are paid in a way similar to that described above. Forty percent of the total income goes to the boat owner and sixty percent is divided among the crewmen. Tenma boats are rented for the operations at a cost equal to one crewman's share per tenma. One boat operated from Tsubota in 1959 earned $210 between late Ju.y and November. Of this, $84 went to the owner and slightly more than $10 was paid to each crewman. These operations were conducted at irregular intervals after tengusa had become rather scarce. Cn Kozu-Jima, Shikine-Jima, Oshima, and at Ako on Miyake-Jima where the takabe fishery is a fulltime occupation, it is much more profitable. In Tsubota the Gelidium fishery is much too profitable to justify full time takabe fishing. The horse mackerel fishery also uses drift nets. I have had no experience in this fishery and shall not attempt to discuss its techniques. Soka-zuri (Bottom Fishing) Like the summer and autumn net fisheries, soko-zuri for aodai (Paracaesio caerulus and P. xanthurus) and for the small grouper (Epinephelus fasciatus) does not begin until the Gelidium fish ery is no longer productive. Fishing methods are simple. Hand lines with multiple hooks each
Page 126 126 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO baited with saury pike (purchased from Tokyo) are fished from boats. Aodai are limited to waters deeper than 100 meters, P. caerulus occuring in much deeper water than P. xanthurus. These high quality fish sell for about 200 yen (180 to 230 yen in 1959) per kilogram. In 1959 seven boats earned $1620, slightly less than 1 percent of the fishing economy that year. Thirty percent of the earnings go to the boat owner, out of which about $10 is paid for fishing tackle and more than $2 a day for fuel. The crewmen divide the remaining 70 percent. Grouper are caught in less than 100 meters of water by similar methods. Another technique, less common in Tsubota than elsewhere in the Izu Islands, is to fish with a hand line while swimming. The only equipment needed is a long hand line with two or three hooks, a pouch to hold the bait (saury pike), a long stringer which is tied to the waist, and a pair of diving goggles. The fisherman swims in about 10 fathoms of water until he sees a grouper among the rocks below. He drops the bait in front of the fish, which takes it almost immediately. The fish is pulled in, placed on the stringer, and finally the bait is removed. On good days, fifteen to twenty can be taken in a few hours with no operation costs. On Miyake-Jima, grouper are usually caught from boats; the swimming method is considered more of a sport than an occupation. But in such isolated areas as Kojima (a satellite of Hachijo-Jima) and Minami Buraku on Mikura-Jima, the primitive swimming technique is quite important. Tuna, Skipjack, and Marlin Although Miyake-Jima lies in the heart of excellent tuna and skipjack waters, Tsubota fishermen earn comparatively little from these fish. To be profitable, fisheries for skipjack, tuna, and related Scombriformes must follow the feeding shoals of fish. The small Tsubota boats are not equipped to follow tuna shoals and must take advantage of days when the fish congregate in Miyake waters. Since their presence in local waters depends upon rather complex ecological factors related to the currents, and since the currents are subject to marked changes from day to day, there is considerable variation from year to year in the number of tuna, marlin, and skipjack taken.'6 The year 1959 was poor for skipjack but average for tuna (Table 8). The appearance in Miyake waters of large all-weather tuna boats from mainland ports is a sign that there are tuna in the vicinity. If the flying fish or tengusa season is not in progress, a few boats from Tsubota may go out to troll back and forth among the big tuna boats. The commercial tuna and skipjack boats that operate in Miyake waters all use pole and line. The technique is to locate shoals of tuna or skipjack, attract them to the boat by throwing out live sardines, and catch them on hooks baited with live bait or feathered jigs (gijibara). To give the impression of large schools of sardines breaking water to escape the approaching tuna, water is sprayed into the sea when the boat is in or near a school of tuna. When a large boat turns on its water-sprayers, the little Tsubota boats steer a course as close to the tuna boat as possible, while three or four crewmen troll with hand lines and jigs, locally called bake. This parasitic relationship between the Tsubota boats and the commercial tuna boats often results in good catches. But the big tuna boats are not always present when tuna are. Crews on aodai boats usually troll to and from the fishing grounds and sometimes discover that tuna are in the vicinity. The word spreads and the next day several boats from Tsubota and Ako will be out to try for the big fish. They cruise the edges of tide rips and currents looking for seri (a disturbance of the water surface made by hundreds of sardines attempting to escape from skipjack and tuna). Having located seri, fishermen troll in and out of the shoals. The presence of tuna and skipjack is also signalled by dense flocks of sea birds (streaked shearwaters, Puffinus leucomelas) just above the surface of the sea. These birds frequently plunge into the water to feed upon schools of sardines and other small fish which are also important food for skipjack and tuna. At Mikura-Jima, the location of one of the largest streaked shearwater colonies in the world, this is a common phenomenon, and Mikura-Jima fishermen have a special term yotoko (or yetoko) to describe it. Seen somewhat less frequently in Miyake waters, the significance of the birds' behavior is recognized but no special terminology is used.
Page 127 JACK T. MOYER 127 Late September and October are usually profitable months for bake trolling, because many small schools of young yaito tuna (Euthynnus affinis yaito) congregate in Miyake waters where they are exploited by aodai and grouper fishermen trolling to and from the fishing grounds. 17 Striped marlin (Makaira mitsukurii) are common from January to early April, especially along the Daiga Hama rip and in the stretch of fast current from Toga Point to Nii Point. The crew of one Tsubota boat is skilled at harpooning marlin. These men are brothers who came to Tsubota several years ago from the Awa region of the Boso peninsula. 18 No other Tsubota fishermen have taken up this difficult technique. On the best marlin days a wind from the northeast strikes the current, stirring up a choppy sea. The boat crisscrosses the current until the caudal fin of a marlin is sighted. An effort is made to head off the fast fish. If it can be approached, one crewman throws out saury pike, one at a time, hoping the marlin will stop long enough to take the bait. Any delay on the part of the marlin allows the fishermen to approach close enough to throw one or two large harpoons. In a typical day, fifteen to twenty marlin may be sighted, five to eight approached close enough to attack, and perhaps one may be caught. It is a formidable task to hit the fish with a heavy harpoon while balancing on the narrow bow platform, tossed by choppy seas. To add to this difficulty, the little Tsubota boat must compete, often for the same fish, with 40- to 60-ton tuna boats which are much faster and less at the mercy of the waves. Spiny Lobster The spiny lobster (Panulirus japonicus) was formerly an important resource. It is a delicacy with a high market value in Tokyo. During the New Year's season when lobster is used for ceremonial purposes, the fishermen may get more than 3000 yen per kan.19 Lobster are taken with twoinch mesh tangle nets placed in dark crevices and under boulders and rocks. Nets are put out in the late afternoon to catch lobsters as they move out from under the rocks at night to feed. The catch is harvested early the following morning. Until 1959, the most productive lobster fishermen operated from boats, utilizing the diving equipment used in the Gelidium season. Three divers, working from a single boat, could place more than fifty nets in a short period of time, resulting in perhaps ten kan of lobster the following morning (Plate 15). Helmet diving for lobster was banned in 1959 (see footnote 13) because heavy fishing and the severe typhoons in the autumn of 1958 had decreased the lobster population. Skin-diving for spiny lobster remains legal, but only eight men operated lobster nets in 1959. The prospect of entering the January ocean at dusk to put in nets and at dawn to harvest the catch does not appeal to most fishermen. A skin-diver is limited in his fishing grounds by the depth he can dive and the length of time he can work under water. Most of them work in two to four fathoms of water, usually along exposed areas of shore or off-shore reefs. The motion of a rough sea over a jagged, rocky bottom can destroy the expensive nets, so only the calmest nights are fished. December and January, the most profitable months for lobster fishing, are months of uncertain weather, when rapid changes are frequent. The fisherman places his nets just before sunset. He is perhaps a little uneasy about the haze that has been gathering in the southwest and is just now beginning to envelop Mikura-Jima, but he cannot afford not to take advantage of the calm seas. The danger of a change in weather destroying his nets worries him, and three or four times during the night he awakens to listen to the surf. If the sound of the waves seems loud, he may even get up to investigate. As soon as there is enough light to allow him to locate his fishing grounds, he is on his way to the seashore to check the nets, collecting firewood as he goes. Placing the nets in the late afternoon is difficult and unpleasant work, but the morning swim, in temperatures in the low forties, takes on an air of anticipation and excitement as the fisherman wonders what his nets hold. Weather is not the only factor limiting the lobster fishery. Nets are put out only on dark, moonless nights. On nights when the moon shines brightly, lobsters will not enter the nets, which they apparently can see. The best catches are between the last quarter of one lunar month and the first
Page 128 128 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO quarter of the next. The season is closed during the peak of the breeding season, June 1st to September 1st. Small Abalone The small Abalone (Haliotis japonica) is rather common in Tsubota's waters, for many of the same reasons that give the oaza a wealth of Gelidium. The Fishermen's Cooperative controls abalone fishing carefully. In 1959 it permitted fishing on only two days (Table 8). Even with such restrictions, abalone was the fourth most important marine resource in Tsubota, earning $1410. Helmet divers, working from boats, accounted for most of the catch, but 63 skin-divers also contributed significant quantities. Divers pry the shellfish from beneath the rocks with special iron hooks. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE The fishing industry of Tsubota depends upon the harvest of agar-producing seaweeds for 90.2 percent of its income. Forty-five percent of all earnings in the oaza come from this crop. At present Tsubota enjoys a very high standard of living which will probably continue at its present level for some time to come. However, the production of agar from Gelidium is an expensive process, and the agar factories in the highlands of Honshu would welcome the discovery of a cheaper and more common raw product. When the supply of Japanese agar was cut off during World War II, the United States was forced to find another source. At that time, the extraction of agar from Hynea musciformis, a common seaweed of the Atlantic coast, was attempted with some success (Tressler and Lemon 1951: 78-80). The development of a process for cheaply producing agar from another source would destroy the economy of Tsubota. There is probably little to fear from a synthetic substitute. In recent years various silica gels have been developed that may replace agar for some purposes, but agar has certain important characteristics such as a high gel strength and a wide hysteresis range that would be difficult to match in a synthetic product. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that a substitute for Gelidium as a source of agar will eventually be discovered and for this reason efforts should be made to diversify the Tsubota fishing industry to fully utilize other resources, without interfering with present Gelidium production. One resource with considerable potential is the small abalone (Haliotis japonica). Perhaps with careful management the abalone crop could be increased to a point where a selected sustained yield could be harvested annually. Other fisheries offering good possibilities for development are those for Labracoglassa, Paracaesio, and the large and small grouper (Epinephelus). The leaders of the Tsubota Fishermen's Cooperative are aware of the dangers of dependence on the Gelidium fishery and are attempting to develop a more diversified fishing industry. With the help and advice of scientists from the Tokyo Government Fisheries Research Laboratory at Habuminato, Oshima, the next few years may show improvements in this respect. SUMMARY 1. Tsubota, a small community on Miyake-Jima in the Izu Islands, is an example of one of many types of coastal fishing villages on the long coastline of Japan 2. Miyake-Jima is fully exposed to the effects of summer typhoons and strong winter monsoon winds. Because there are no good natural harbors, fishing boats must be beached when not in use. The small size of the boats limits them to operations on relatively calm days in waters immediately adjacent to the island.
Page 129 SAC K!T. MOYER 129 Plate1,b. Tsubota S
Page 130 130 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO Plate 3. Tsubotals small harbor faces the open sea,. Photograph by Katsuyuki Moriyama Plate 4. FIS-11-ling-, I)oatg are sma,11, weighing frorn 1 1/2 to 5 tons.... Plate 5. and, must be beachedwhen riot n use ex 'i cept, n tlie calmest weather, to prevent damage from the waves.
Page 131 JACK T. MOYER ~~~~~~131 Plt 6 are anld m:~aintenane ofE nets is a major taski~ during the flyialg fishl season.O-i~ ~~ E~~late 7. A good night's catch of flying-k fishP (CypseluruJls Pinnatiabarbatus). Plate 8. Magoichiro Kimora helps unload~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ flyig fih fom hs bot, he Mgoe arv
Page 132 132 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO priory to4 the opening of thSe Gelidium season~r to assure a ~prosperous and saafe season., Plt 1. iving girls harvgest mosta of the hi~gh gr~ade Gelidium8~k sexweedsed from tlae shallow wKaters close to shore. Plte11 De wte vritesofGeidu such as Shohei Uematsu of the Daikatsia Maru.n~iD~_:~~~
Page 133 SACK T. OYER, 13 rthe wav~es, is scooiped from the water withf, dip nets.~~~~~~~~~~~~-~~~l~i Plate.3 Trnngllengs,11toasur packe~d for shipment to~I agar factories in~ the mlouritains of Central Ho~nshu.
Page 134 134 BOUNTY~l~gU OF THE KUROSHIO ~~~Plt 1.A iergtin nt iseuimn ~~~bfr gigdw o lektelose es a ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~Hle iigfrsiylbtrwsbne 211 ~.~~~~~z ib ~ ~ ~ ~ ~l~ad acre manwit a arg grupe I =li ~: b~could stand incr toeased exploitatio laees
Page 135 JACK T. MOYER 135 3. Due to the effects of geographic factors such as prevailing winter winds and ocean currents, an abundance of agar-producing seaweeds (Gelidium sp.) grows in Tsubota's coastal waters. For the same reasons, only a limited amount of the valuable seaweeds grow in the vicinity of the island's other communities. These geographic factors also give Tsubota a favorable advantage in the exploitation of the spring flying fish (Cypselurus pinnatibarbatus) and the small abalone (Haliotis japonica). The result is a great economic advantage for the people of Tsubota. 4. The rich Gelidium fishing industry of Tsubota gives residents capital to invest in agriculture and other occupations, resulting in a healthy economy. 5. The fishing industry is controlled by an efficient Fishermen's Cooperative. All permanent residents are members. 6. Fishing operations begin with the prosperous exploitation of the spring flying fish. This is followed by the most important operations of all- the Gelidium harvest. Several less important resources are taken in autumn and winter. 7. The agar-producing seaweeds account for 90.2 percent of the local fishing economy and 45 percent of the total economy. Development of a cheaper raw material for agar extraction by the factories in the highlands of Honshu is a definite possibility. The local fishing industry should be diversified as a safeguard against such a possibility. Efforts are being made in this direction. APPENDIX Local Names for Marine Resources Exploited by Tsubota Fishermen Terminology becomes a problem when studying marine resources in Japan. Names of fish, seaweeds, and shell fish vary in different areas. Dialects differ from island to island in the Izus, and often between villages on the same island. Most of the well-known resources are known by the same name throughout the archipelago, but this name is often different from that used in Tokyo. Some of the lesser known fish species are known by local names, resulting in some confusion. For example, a spotted snake eel (Ophichthys sp.) is rather common in Miyake-Jima waters, but goes by a variety of names including umi-hebi, steki, kame-no-ko, and many others depending upon the locality. Local, standard Japanese, English (when named), and scientific names for some of the more common marine resources exploited by Tsubota fishermen are given below. Tsubota Name Standard Japanese English Name Scientific Name Ise-ebi Ise-ebi Spiny lobster Panulirus japonicus Konagarel Tokobushi Small abalone Haliotis japonica Arame 2 Makusa Gelidium amansii Nori Nori Laver Porphyra sp. Katsuo Katsuo Skipjack Katsuwonus pelamis Meji3 Maguro Black tuna Thunnus thynnus orientalis Uzuwa Suma Yaito tuna Euthynnus affinis Kajiki Ma-kajiki Striped marlin Makaira mitsukurii Takabe Takabe Labracoglassa argentiventris Aodai4 Aodai Paracaesio caeruleus Haru-tobi Hamatobi-uo Spring flying fish Cypselurus pinnatibarbatus
Page 136 136 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO Tsubota Name Standard Japanese English Name Scientific Name Natsu-tobi Daruma-tobi Summer flying fish Prognichthys sealei Aka-tobi Summer flying fish Cypselurus atrisignis Muro Muro Horse mackerel Decapterus lajang Kasago5 Aka-hata Small grouper Epinephelus fasciatus Moroko6 Hata Large grouper Epinephelus sp. Higedai7 Himeji Goatfish Pseudupeneus spilurus Notes 'Fishermen in Tsubota recognize two species: konagare and tokobushi. The taxonomy of this genus is in some confusion, but the konagare of Tsubota are marketed in Tokyo as tokobushi. On Shikine-Jima and Niijima they are known as konage or konagai. Kozu-Jima fishermen call them kobuku. 2The Gelidium seaweeds are known collectively as tengusa. The Tsubota name, arame, for Gelidium amansii, is particularly confusing since it is the standard name for a brown algae, Eisenia bicyclis, harvested in other parts of Japan for the production of iodine and potash. 3Meji is the name commonly given to immature tuna by commercial tuna fishermen. The bulk of the tuna catch in Tsubota waters is made up of young fish, weighing less than sixty pounds. 4This fish is called aoze on Hachijo-Jima. 5Kasago of Miyake-Jima is called Akaba on the other Izu Islands, aka-hata in Tokyo, and akape in Osaka. Confusion here results from the fact that kasago is the standard name for a rockfish (Sebasticus marmoratus), known in Tsubota as ganmon. 6I have been unable to determine the species of large grouper caught by Miyake-Jima fishermen (Plate 17). The grouper are known collectively as hata. 7Himeji is the name given to the goatfish genus, of which four species are common in Japan. The standard name for the Miyake-Jima species is oki-na-himeji, which means "large goatfish. Higedai means "bearded tai" and refers to the chin barbels. In other parts of Japan higedai is used to describe both Hapalogenys nigripinnis and H. nitens. NOTES 'The word "fisheries" is used in this study in its broadest sense. A "fishery product" is defined as any biological marine resource harvested (or caught) by man for commercial purposes. 2For specific examples the following publications are recommended: Doi 1959; Orima 1952; Tanaka 1951, 1954, 1955; Tone 1959. 3More than half of the prewar landings in Japan proper were from the sardine fishery, resulting in a value equal to 20 percent of the nation's income from fishing (Foreign Economic Administration 1945: 35). This fishery began to fail in 1940 and has remained at minimum production since then. The area hardest hit has been the Kujuku-ri coast of Chiba prefecture, formerly the most productive area. Various theories for the sudden disappearance of the sardines have been proposed, but it is now generally agreed that natural changes in the environment are responsible. (See Ishigake et al. 1959: 1-20). A similar situation exists in the herring fishery in northern Honshu and Hokkaido (Asia Kyodai 1957: 5). 4Torishima is often included as one of the Izu Islands, but because it is rather isolated from the rest of the group and uninhabited except for a small government weather station I am excluding it.
Page 137 JACK T. MOYER 137 5For further information on the physical geography of the Izu archipelago see: Mochizuki 1940; Tokuda 1927. No. 4 (April, 1927), pp. 1-18. 6Miyake's volcano erupted again in August, 1962. 7Winds from the northeast are usually strong, bringing dangerous waves. Islanders fear a northeast wind more than the more common west winds since it is often apt to build up into a serious storm. Narai means "northeast" (hokuto) in the Miyake-Jima dialect. 8 An exception comes during the autumn months when boats from Ako and, more rarely, Tsubota operate drift nets for horse mackerel off the coast of Mikura-Jima, ten miles to the south. Also, in the autumn of 1958, a Tsubota boat and crew occasionally carried takabe (Labracoglassa argentiventris), a small densely schooling fish of high quality, from Ako to Niijima, twenty-two miles to the north. The five ton Tsubota boat is larger than any Ako boats and therefore better suited for making the long trip. Although such long trips are occasionally taken, they are generally discouraged by weather considerations. 9Kamitsuki and Izu boats are kept at Okubo and Miike boats at Tsubota. (Fig. 1). (There is no port at Miike; being a part of Tsubota, Miike uses the Tsubota port.) ~0Fishing at this season is often for the purpose of supplying food for home consumption. "In other words, they are allowed to fish outside of their normal sector. Kozu-Shima is included in the Oshima sector of the Izu Island Marine Fishery Federation of Tokyo-to, whereas Miyake-Jima comprises a separate sector. '2Shio can be translated as "tide" and, of course, is often used in Tsubota in that sense too, depending upon the situation. For example, tide is significant in reference to goatfish or green fish (Girella), which move into shallow water with the high tide to feed and are caught with gill nets worked from the shore. In most cases, however, the meaning is closer to "current" (choryf). '3Opening day varies from one season to the next. Conservation rules for the Gelidium fishery are set locally and vary annually according to circumstances, while flying fish and spiny lobster regulations are defined by prefectural or national agencies. 14Each harvest day prior to the declaration of "open season" is started at a specific time, announced over the loudspeaker by a Cooperative official. This is to prevent the possibility of someone taking an unfair advantage. 15A tenma is a kind of sampan which is propelled by sculling. 6 For a discussion of factors influencing the distribution and skipjack see: Shapiro 1958: 17, 22-23, 32. 17These fish all measure from 30 to 40 cm. I have seen only one adult yaito tuna taken on Miyake-Jima, a large fish over one meter in length, caught in May 1959. '8Awa fishermen are well known for their skill with harpoons. 19 One kan is equal to about eight pounds. Lobsters are worth more than one dollar per pound at this season. REFERENCES CITED ABE TOKIHARU 1953 Notes on the Flying Fishes of Hachijo Island, with Nomenclature Remarks on the Flying Fishes of the Mainland of Japan and Hokkaido, I: Tobi-uo, Prognichtys agoo. Bulletin of Tokai Regional Fisheries Research Laboratory. Tokyo. 1955 Notes on the Flying Fishes of Hachijo Island, with Nomenclature Remarks on the Flying Fishes of the Mainland of Japan and Hokkaido, II: Cypselurus pinnatibarbatus japonicus. Bulletin of Tokai Regional Fisheries Research Laboratory. Tokyo.
Page 138 138 BOUNTY OF THE KUROSHIO ASIA KYOKAI 1957 Japanese Fisheries: Their Development and Present Status. Tokyo, Obun Printing Company. DOI SENKICHI - t 'A 4 1959 "Isei en-yO sokobiki-ami gyogyo konkyochi no seisui".X-N, i~-= if t,- o, 2, # $t$><efi^ Lt (Rise and fall of the dragnet fishing ports of Isei), Chirigaku Hyoron, XXXII, 1: 1-23. FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION, ENEMY BRANCH 1945 Japanese Fishing Industry. Washington ISHIGAKI TOMIO et al. 1959 Progress Report of the Cooperative Coastal Important Resources Investigations: 1955. Yoichi, Japan, Fisheries Agency, Hokkaido Regional Fisheries Research Laboratory. MOCHIZUKI KATSUMI 1940 "Shichito-Mariana-ko no seiin" - J ) 7~'TJ,)jfg ~ (The origin of the ShichitoMariana Arc), Chirigaku hyoron, XVI, 4: 1-11. MOYER, JACK T. 1957 The Birds of Miyake-Jima, Japan, The Auk LXXIV (April): 215-28. MS Koto no hakubutsugaku-sha A\, Tj i A _F, (A naturalist on an isolated island). Tokyo: Hosei University Press (in preparation). ORIMA JUNPEI -4- $ + 1952 "Iki no shima no gyogyo" _ L,> k 9." t (The fishing of Iki island), Chirigaku hyoron, XXV, 4: 8-16. SHAPIRO, SIDNEY 1958 The Japanese Tuna Fisheries. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fishery Leaflet 297. Washington. TANAKA TOYOJI t' ~ V i 1951 Oki no suisan keizai bunseki ]-; —) Y73K<- t ^ / 4fT '(The disintegration of the Oki fishing industry), Chirigaku hyoron, XXIV, 6: 22-29. 1954 "Oki ni okeru kindaiteki gyogyo no shinnyi to sono eikyo". J4'- A'tf i-'LtVJ f ji. ~i o 3 -,, ~W[ c4 (The influence of modernization on the fishing industry of Oki Island), Chirigaku hyoron, XXVII, 5: 203-12. 1955 "San-in chiho ni okeru shihonsei gyogy6 no hattatsu to sono eikyo" J.?~_t;i t ~;i J $-$i..^tt. ^4 (TThe development and influence of capitalized fishing in the San-in district), Chirigaku hyoron, XXVIII, 4: 159-70. TOKUDA TEIICHI 4,' - A 1927 "Shichito-Mariana zOzantai ni tsuite" - j --,),; _ K, v ' v (On the Shichito-Mariana orogenic zone), Chirigaku hyoron, III, 4: 1-18. TONE YUTARO 7],; K _ ~ 1959 Nihon no gyoson =;- A (Japanese fishing villages). Tokyo. TRESSLER, DONALD K. and JAMES McW. LEMON 1951 Marine Products of Commerce. New York, Reinhold Publishing Corporation. YAMAGUCHI SADAO JA7 ' A 1933 "Izu shoto no kaishokugai 4X ~ k j > - - jt (The sea cliffs of the Izu Islands), Chirigaku hyoron, IX, 2: 1-18. 1935 "Izu shoto no shurakukei" 1- M — j 2* A R (Settlement types in the Izu Islands), Chirigaku hyoron, XI, 12: 1-29.
The Soka Gakkai
Robert L. Ramseyerpp. 139-189
Page 139 \ THE SOKA GAKKAI Militant Religion on the March by Robert L. Ramseyer
Page 141 INTRODUCTION As a result of its explosive growth and its political activities, the Soka Gakkai is probably the most widely discussed religious group in Japan today. Its 1953 membership of 35,000 had grown to 3,000,000 by 1957 and to 4,000,000 by 1958. When its second president, Toda Josei, died in 1958, 300,000 followers reportedly marched in his funeral procession. In national elections for the House of Councillors in 1959, the Soka Gakkai nominated and elected six members. Nevertheless, the Soka Gakkai appears to be little understood, perhaps because of its comparatively recent rise to national prominence. Originally organized in 1930 as the Soka Ky6iku Gakkai (I 4;J t 'AL - ), the sect was suppressed during World War II and was reorganized during the Allied Occupation as the Soka Gakkai. In Japan, the decade of the thirties was a time of economic depression and national crisis. During these years the Japanese people were asked to live in austerity and to make great personal sacrifices for the benefit of the state. The extreme nationalists and militarists who were gaining complete control of Japan were pushing her to the brink of national destruction. These conditions were of particular significance for the development of the Soka Gakkai. Economic depression and unemployment led to financial insecurity for many Japanese. Koizumi Takashi (,), p5: 1I), a member of the board of directors of the Gakkai describes his own feelings during this period: There was no certainty anywhere and nothing to turn to but drink, until even my health was gone. The only thing left was a strong will to live. Then one of my drinking companions suddenly reformed and began discussing things in a logical way. I warned him that it was very dangerous to join the Communist Party, but he came back at me with principles from the Kachiron. Until this time my interest in education had extended only-far enough to enable me to pass my tests, but Mr. Makiguchi's theories made sense to me. I was thrilled (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 63). It has been pointed out that most of the so-called 'new religions" (Shinko shikyo rt '. t ^) that have become so popular in modern Japan began in times of war, depression, or chaos. World War I saw the rise of Omotokyo ( )K4- $ ); Hito no Michi ( - Lo o5 ), Seicho no Ie (.- -, ), and Reiyukai ( k j./- ) grew up during the economic panic of the mid-1920's; and Odoru Shfikyo ( Al " ~'.J ), Sekai Kyiseiky5 ( i irJtC_'~), and Rissho Koseikai (i L 4X+,~) arose in the period of chaos after World War II. Saki and Oguchi, who studied the rise of these new religions in great detail, have concluded that this phenomenon is the reaction of a populace gasping under the inhuman control of extreme imperialism. It is the tragic figure of a disorganized and falling middle class which could not reorganize and free itself by its own power seeking in a mystic vision release from the decadent social order in which it was caught. It was partially a tranquilizer for the neuroses of a people escaping from bitter reality, and partially a momentary diversion for lower-class housewives. But more than this, it came from the demand of a trapped populace for freedom (1957: 31). As we have seen, the Soka Gakkai grew up in a similar period. Indeed, because of its recent origin and fast growth, the SOka Gakkai is usually treated in the press as one of the "new religions" such as Seicho no Ie, Rissh5 Koseikai, PL Kyodan, Reiyukai, and Sekai Kyuiseikyo. The Soka Gakkai itself rejects classification with the "new religions" and claims that it is not a religion at all but rather the advertising arm (sendentai. Aj.-) of Nichiren ShoshO, a Buddhist sect which dates back to the late thirteenth century. With respect to doctrine and teaching this contention must be accepted, as can be demonstrated on several grounds: 141
Page 142 142 THE SOKA GAKKAI 1. No religious observances attended by the members of the Gakkai are held under its auspices. They all are conducted under the leadership of priests and officials of Nichiren ShOshQ, and absolute obedience is shown to these officials. The Soka Gakkai built a beautiful new lecture hall and dormitory at the headquarters of Nichiren ShOshQl, but continued to make an old building in Tokyo its headquarters for many years. 2. The Soka Gakkai's interest in education, which has always been an integral part of the movement, is not found in the "new religions." Its founder, Makiguchi TsunesaburO, was himself an educator. In attempting to develop a new theory and method of education, he was led into the work which resulted in the beginning of the SOka Gakkai. Its doctrines are based on teachings of Nichiren ShOshf and on Makiguchi's Kachiron ( A4 4/j it: Theory of Value). To explain its doctrinal position the SOka Gakkai publishes a great deal of literature, including a monthly magazine, a weekly newspaper, and many books and pamphlets. This emphasis on education had great appeal in the period before World War II. Many people in Japan who were dissatisfied with the prevailing methods of education found new hope in a method that seemed more scientific (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 64). Soka Gakkai provided both a philosophy of education that promised a way out of personal difficulties and a religious philosophy to sustain its adherents. The less educated members of the Gakkai seem to have been attracted by the mystical influence of Nichiren ShOshQ, whereas the philosophic emphasis of the Kachiron appealed to its many scholarly members (Sekai, September, 1956: 141). In fact, one reason given for the rapid growth of the organization is that the name Gakkai ("institute") appeals to young people who are also attracted by the logically constructed philosophical base provided in the Kachiron (Kondo 1956: 290). 3. In contrast to the practice of most of the "new religions," there is no deification or excessive veneration of the founder in the SOka Gakkai. Though he is respected as a great philosopher and wise religious leader, Makiguchi is never regarded as more than human. In later publications of the Gakkai he is rarely mentioned. 4. Most of the "new religions" claim some new revelation from above, whereas the Gakkai claims no new oracles from any deity. SOka Gakkai is instead an emphatic restatement of teachings that date back at least to the time of Nichiren's immediate successors. NICHIREN SHOSHU AND THE SOKA GAKKAI S6ka Gakkai is not organized as a separate religion. In a technical sense, it is not a religion at all. It was founded as a laymen's group affiliated with Nichiren ShOshQ, to help each member become a true follower of Nichiren and to work for the spread of Nichiren ShOshQ (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 366-69). Since the object of worship, the honzon, belongs to Nichiren ShOshf and not to the SOka Gakkai, initiations, funerals and other religious ceremonies are presided over by priests of ShOshU (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 29). Members of SOka Gakkai, old and young, study the sacred books of Nichiren ShOshil with great interest. The works most frequently studied are the Juryobin no Sanmyogoron and the Mondeigeshu Sandan. Members of the Gakkai who become priests of Nichiren ShOshQ are treated with great respect and considered to be most virtuous (Sake and Oguchi 1957: 29). Most of Japan's new religions have built elaborate new headquarters at great cost. Tenrikyo is one of the most conspicuous examples. In contrast, the headquarters of the SOka Gakkai in Shinano, Tokyo, was for many years in a shabby building. Before spending money on a central office, the Gakkai constructed temple buildings and a large dormitory for Nichiren ShOshi at the headquarters of the sect, the Taisekiji, at Mt. Fuji. The Taisekiji has a sanctuary and a lecture hall, costing 470 million yen, which can accommodate five thousand worshippers.2 The Taisekiji was until very recently the rural temple headquarters of a very small sect with only local significance. In 1952, the seven hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Nichiren
Page 143 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 143 sect, four thousand members came to worship at the Taisekiji. This attendance astonished witnesses since the S6ka Gakkai was at that time a tiny group unknown to the general public (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 42-3). Now members of the Gakkai often charter special trains to come in large numbers to worship the honzon. After a time of worship, a leader holds a session in which questions are asked and discussion takes place. Members often spend the night in spiritual exercises. On special days, members of the youth corps of the Gakkai, wearing armbands, serve as messengers, run errands, and in general make themselves useful to those who have come to worship. They parade through the temple area early in the morning singing songs written especially for their youth corps. These closely resemble in rhythm and sentiment the pre-war songs of the Japanese military (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 43). Nichiren and His Teachings Nichiren (1222-1282) was born to a rather poor family in a fishing village in Chiba prefecture. As a young boy he entered the Seicho-ji, a local temple of the Tendai sect, as an apprentice. Because he was a good student, he was later sent to the Tendai headquarters on Mt. Hiei to study. At Mt. Hiei he became convinced that recitation of the nembutsu, which was practiced during this period in all Tendai temples, was a corruption of true Tendai doctrine. Nichiren felt that nembutsu had no power to reform men's lives because it was unrelated to the real problems of government. It was, he believed, too otherworldly. It was escapist. Nichiren demanded a return to orthodox Tendai teaching. Because of his stand, Nichiren was forced to leave the Tendai sect in 1253; the year of his departure is regarded by his followers as the date of founding of the Nichiren sect. Nichiren set out to recapture the place that Tendai had once held as the foremost Buddhist sect in Japan. Specifically he wanted to replace Namu Amida butsu with Namu myoho rengekyo, on the grounds that the Lotus Sutra, was the basic scripture of the Tendai sect. In simplest language his slogan was "Lotus Sutra first." Nichiren lived in Kamakura in relative obscurity, and most of his followers came from dissatisfied elements of society- warriors, Tendai priests, and townspeople. He was interested in politics as well as religion. His ideas were practical and yet at the same time contained a mystical element. He led a group of ardent and defiant religious believers who urged the government to believe in the Lotus Sutra so that the common people could be saved. The extremely unsettled times in which Nichiren lived, comparable in many ways to the period in which the SOka Gakkai was organized, saw peasant uprisings, famines, and minor skirmishes between bands of warriors. The very existence of Japan as a nation was threatened by Mongol attacks. Nichiren believed that only if Japan embraced the true religion, the religion of the Lotus Sutra, could she defeat the Mongols and save herself. Fearlessly and with great fervor he confronted the greatest religious and political leaders of his time. The Lotus Sutra One of the sutras of Northern Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra purports to be the last and the greatest of Sakya's teachings. It was written by a group of priests between the first century and the eighth century A.D., probably over a long period of time (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 47). Since its style is simple, its writers may have been men who had had little formal education (Watanabe 1958: 177 -78). The Lotus Sutra was introduced early into Japan. It is a readable and interestingly written essay, easy for common people to understand. It is usually considered the most widely read and best loved of all the sutras. ShOtoku Taishi wrote a commentary on it, and it is the sutra most frequently used in masses for the dead. The Lotus Sutra teaches only one path for salvation, the way of the Bodhisatva. It teaches the concept of the eternal Buddha who is absolute mercy and who will eventually save all men, even those who rebel against him (Kishimoto, Masutani, and Kitamori 1958: 46). The distinctive feature of the Lotus Sutra is the way in which it praises itself as the "king of the sutras" and promises rewards for those who will receive it in faith. It also promises punishment
Page 144 144 THE SOKA GAKKAI for anyone who rejects it (Watanabe 1958: 179). The Lotus Sutra predicted invasion for any nation which rejected it; Nichiren applied this prophecy to the Mongol invasion of Japan which seemed imminent (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 82). It also prophesies that those who follow the sutra will have to face persecution from those who are without knowledge: There are many without wisdom Who will slander and curse us; They will even beat us, But we will endure all. Lotus Sutra (Kanjihon) It promises that the true believer will receive a great reward for the virtue thus displayed. Decline of the Law The ancient doctrine of the decline of the law, to which Nichiren gave new emphasis, is important to an understanding of his other teachings and his course of action. It gained prevalence in China in the middle of the sixth century during a period of national confusion which had resulted from a civil war between rival dynasties (Watanabe 1958: 54). The doctrine of the decline of the law divided time into three great periods. The first was the golden age of Buddhism (shdobo'-,) when the Buddha law was obeyed in its most orthodox form. This age began with Sakya himself and was supposed, in some versions, to last one thousand years - in other versions, five hundred years. (In another version the correct teachings last longer but are faithfully followed for only a thousand years). The second period, the age of the imitation law (Zobo {-t 5~ ), was also to last five hundred or a thousand years. The appearance of true Buddhism would be continued, but men would not achieve enlightenment. This period corresponds to the period of great Buddhist art in China and Japan. The third period, the period of the decline or destruction of the law (mappo L-5~ ), will last for ten thousand years, some believe. These will be years of decadence and great turmoil. True Buddhism will no longer be followed; instead men will follow all manner of false teachings. In this period the few followers of the true teaching must expect to be persecuted (Watanabe 1958: 54; Saki and Oguchi 1957: 47). In China the beginning of this period of the decline of the law was placed at A.D. 434; in Japan it was usually set at A.D. 1025 or 1052. In both countries belief in the doctrine gained prominence during times of internal confusion and stress (Watanabe 1958: 56). Emphasis on the decline of the law is also characteristic of HOnen and the founders of the Pure Land sects, but whereas the followers of the Pure Land sects were primarily interested in the salvation of the individual. Nichiren was concerned with the national and political crises.... The belief in the decline of the law and in himself as the chosen one was common to both H6nen and Nichiren, but whereas HOnen was concerned with the salvation of the individual, Nichiren was a nationalist who proclaimed the unity of government and religion, and maintained that natural disasters were the punishment of the gods.... (Watanabe 1958: 62). Rissho Ankoku Ron The Rissho Ankoku Ron (j-~4-! $Bf ), the teaching that a country can only have peace and stability when it is founded on the true faith, was not unique to Nichiren, but he was the first to proclaim it with so much vigor, and the first to carry it to the real centers of power in the bakufu at Kamakura (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 49). His message was simply that the disasters which had come and which were coming upon the country were the result of forsaking the true way of the Lotus Sutra and following false ways, particularly the nembutsu. "Japan," he said, "is the country of the Lotus Sutra." "For twenty-eight years Nichiren has labored to put the five characters of the name of the Lotus Sutra (Myoho ren ge Kyo ',y-;,^,,J) into the mouths of all the people of Japan. This is the same mercy that a mother shows when putting milk into the mouth of her infant child." (Quoted in Watanabe 1958: 79).
Page 145 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 145 According to Nichiren, when Japan rejected the Lotus Sutra, she was rejected by the protecting dieties who had been guarding her. "The protecting gods have all departed and will not return. This is the result of following HOnen. For some tens of years a billion people have been enchanted with this devilishness and many have been led astray. They love the side paths and forget the true path, thus arousing the anger of the benevolent gods" (Watanabe 1958: 79). Nichiren interpreted earthquakes and famines as the consequence of Japan's desertion by the gods. This doctrine of national welfare through faith was expressly formulated in 1260, when Nichiren presented the RisshO Ankoku Ron to the Regent H6jo Tokiyori in Kamakura. At this time there were severe earthquakes and famines which were widely interpreted as manifestations of divine anger. These natural disasters were, he said, the result of neglecting the sutras and the teachings of Tendai Taishi and DengyO Taishi, of protecting nembutsu halls and worshipping at them instead of at Tendai temples, and of believing in the nembutsu. The gods he said, had abandoned Japan because Japan had rejected the Buddhist law (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 81). According to Nichiren, China and Korea were conquered by the Mongols because those two countries followed the way of the nembutsu and the way of Zen. (Nichiren condemned Zen because it took the sutras lightly and relied on direct communication from mind to mind. This, he said, is false to the faith proclaimed by Sakya (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 48). Nichiren and his followers always laid great stress on the superiority of the law- the sutras -over human subjective experience.) Nichiren's attacks on other religions, which he presented to the bakufu, did not go unanswered, and since his own following was small he was soon arrested and exiled to Sado. When pardoned, he settled in Minobu where he built a temple, the Kuonji. The steward or jito of this area, Hakiri Sanenaga (9;t-.- ), believed in his teaching and protected him (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 49). In his later years, Nichiren became convinced of the importance of his own role in the spread of the true doctrine. He wrote that "Nichiren is the only one in all Japan who understands this," and "Nichiren is the pillar of Japan. If Japan loses Nichiren she will collapse" (Watanabe 1958: 80). He thought of himself as the Jogyb Bosatsu, great leader and teacher coming up out of the land (ji yu no daidoshi jogyobosatsu r54e.'-) If ), prophesied in the Lotus Sutra as one who would come in the days of the decline of the law proclaiming the true way of the Lotus Sutra and would be persecuted (Kodaira 1959: 46-7). Nichiren died in 1282 in Ikegami in the province of Musashi at the home of one of his followers (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 43). After his death, the sect which he founded became more and more the religion of the oppressed classes - merchants, artisans, and masterless warriors. As a symbol of resistance to the central authority it was often repressed by the bakufu and by the local lords. It moved away from concern with political issues and became more mystical, teaching that Nichiren himself was the eternal, absolute Buddha revealed in the Lotus Sutra (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 52). Growth of Nichiren ShOshfl At Nichiren's death, the leadership of his movement descended to six elder disciples, five of whom came from Kant6; the sixth, Nikko ( 4 ~L ), came from the Fuji area. There is no agreement among the modern successors of these disciples as to what Nichiren intended their relationship to be. Most historians take the view that Nichiren did not designate any one disciple as his successor, but that they were to alternate in presiding at the temple he had founded in Minobu and in taking care of his grave. In 1289, when this system broke down, Nikk6 left Minobu to found the Taisekiji at Mt. Fuji in the following year. This was the beginning of the present-day sect,Nichiren 5h6shia. There is little agreement as to what caused the break. One school of thought holds that the other five disciples, who were often in KantO, gradually came to leave the temple at Minobu in the hands of Nikko. Nikko had been instrumental in the conversion of Hakiri Sanenaga, the jito who had protected Nichiren (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 52; Y. Takagi 1952: 11). However, Nikko had censured Hakiri severely for worshipping at the Mishima Jinja and for building a statue of Buddha. Because the other five disciples were willing to compromise on these issues, but Nikko was not,
Page 146 146 THE SOKA GAKKAI the sect split into two groups: Nikko on one side as the leader of a puritanical group (genshuku-ha Aki-,kt% ) and the other five on the other side as a liberal group (kanyo-ha F ~-;`I ). Nikko was forced out. There were various doctrinal differences between Nikko and the other five disciples, but it is generally thought that these developed later (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 52-3; Shugyo 1952: 12). Other sources say that Nikko split away when Hakiri wanted to end the rotation of jobs and make another elder disciple, Nik6 ( 1 t ) chief over them all. Nikk6 said that this was a violation of the express orders of Nichiren which he could not accept. Since the other disciples were willing to abide by this new order, Nikko cut himself off from them and left Minobu (Hashigawa 1929: 408; Washio 1911). The SOka Gakkai version is that Nichiren gave the honzon and the full leadership of his group to Nikko in 1282, because of Nikko's outstanding behavior at the time of the Atsuwara persecution (see below). After the death of Nichiren, Nikko was put in charge of the headquarters in Minobu as Nichiren had ordered, and the other disciples went back to their native areas in Kanto. Later when Nik6 returned to Minobu, Nikko employed him gladly. When NikO and the other four elder disciples tried to introduce compromises in the rule of the sect in order to escape the persecution of the bakufu, Hakiri Sanenaga as local jito sided with them. He himself committed blasphemies such as worshipping at the Mishima Jinja and using the nembutsu. Nikko admonished him to stop, but it did no good. Finally Nikko moved to Fuji where he founded the Taisekiji (Kodaira 1959: 209-11). All accounts agree that Nikko broke with the other five disciples on the issue of compromise. He was unwilling to compromise on any of the things which he considered to be the true faith as given to him by Nichiren. This split is still reflected in the present differences between Nichiren Shoshui and the main branch of the Nichiren sect. Nikko, a member of the Oi family, was born in 1246 in what is now Kajikazawa-machi, Minamikoma-gun, Yamanashi-ken. He entered the Iwamoto Jissoji as a young boy, and later became a follower of Nichiren. He is particularly well known for his role in the Atsuwara persecution. In 1277, NikkO converted three monks of the Ryiusenji, the Tendai temple at Atsuwara in Suruga. Two years later about twenty farmers of the village forsook the nembutsu and were converted to Nichiren. The abbot of the Ryuisenji, a member of the HOjO family, was a large landowner who had been oppressing the peasants and other inhabitants of the area. After their conversion, he accused the peasants of robbery and they revolted against him. The uprising was suppressed and three followers of Nichiren and Nikko were put to death. They died proclaiming, Namu myoho rengekyo. NanjO, a patron of NikkO, had backed him in this dispute and the HOjO used this as an excuse to confiscate some of his property (Y. Takagi 1952: 34; Ono 1957: 338). Perhaps this experience in the persecution may have helped to make NikkO uncompromising and unbending. It is said that on November 12, 1279, when Nichiren heard of this bloody persecution, he was so moved that he sat down at once and wrote the mandala which is the honzon enshrined in the Taisekiji (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 55). After leaving Minobu in 1289,3 NikkO went to the territory of his patron NanjO, who was the jit5 of Ueno, and the enemy of Hakiri, the jito of Minobu (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 42). Here in Suruga, in 1290, NikkO founded the Taisekiji which became the center for his followers who were known as the komompa ( Ai rl AK; ) (Tanaka 1941: 574) or the Fuji-ha (MombushO 1954: 234). Both Nikko and the Taisekiji acquired a great deal of prestige and land in this area (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 42). Nikko died in 1332, at the age of 87 (Washio 1911). There was much internecine warfare among the followers of NikkO who broke into many groups after his death. The form of the present doctrine of Nichiren ShOshtt has resulted in large part from a revival begun by Nikkan (1665-1726), the twenty-sixth abbot of the Taisekiji, who stressed the supremacy of the mandala and the Lotus Sutra. He emphasized that Nichiren, the mandala, the daimoku, (invocation) and the Kuon-gan-sho-no-honbutsu ( A t 'M 9; );+-4p True eternal Buddha)
Page 147 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 147 revealed in the Lotus Sutra are all mystically united in one entity: Nichiren is the great, eternal, absolute Buddha (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 55). Nichiren ShOshf was officially part of Nichiren-sha until the first year of Meiji. From 1867 until 1900 it was one part of the komompa. From 1900 until 1912 it was independent under the name of Nichiren-shiu, Fuji-ha, and has since remained independent under the name Nichiren Shoshi (MombushO 1954: 234). Nichiren ShOsha considers itself to be the main line and true successor of Nichiren. It claims to possess the board mandala which Nichiren left after him as the only true object of worship. Its members claim to be the true followers of Nichiren's teachings and doctrines as revealed in his writings. It is not known how much of this tradition actually originated with Nichiren and how much grew up later within the sect itself. Since the leaders of the sect prohibit scientific study of the mandala, the relics, or the writings, it is impossible to determine whether or not they are genuine. (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 50). In spite of the fact that Nichiren ShOshi considered itself the only legitimate successor to Nichiren, it was actually very small when compared to Nichiren-sha to which ninety percent of the believers in Nichiren belonged. The headquarters of Nichiren-shf is the Kuonji at Minobu, a temple which Nichiren founded. This sect had approximately five thousand temples and fifty-five hundred priests in 1957. Most people in Japan consider this the orthodox sect of Nichiren and the other sects merely small branches (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 50). In 1929 Nichiren ShOshi had 135 temples. The Ministery of Education (1954: 546) gives the following statistics for Nichiren ShOshu as of December 31, 1951: Registered temples 117 Priests 132 Registered churches 8 Total 125 Members 116,710 Non-registered temples 11 Total 136 It is readily apparent there was no significant change in the size of this sect before 1952. The present (1960) strength of the SOka Gakkai is estimated at about four million, and it can be assumed that the membership in Nichiren ShOshQ is at least this large. Worship and Doctrine in Nichiren ShOshO Compared to most Buddhist sects in Japan, worship in Nichiren ShOshi is very austere. The sole object of worship is the board mandala on which are written in gold the words "Namu myoho rengeky5- Nichiren." The worship of anything else is strictly forbidden. When seven temples in Miyazaki prefecture withdrew from the Minobu-ha and joined Nichiren ShOshU in 1957, the members of these temples were forbidden to retain images or other objects of worship in their homes. The headquarters sent each household a replica of the honzon at the Taisekiji to be used in family worship (Hyiga Nichinichi Shimbun August 30, 1957). There are no images in a Shoshu temple. The Taisekiji does have a relic of Sakyamuni, but it is not worshipped. The priests wear grey, not purple or gold. Like other Buddhist sects, Nichiren ShOshU uses branches of star anise in its ceremonies, but it permits no flowers. (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 42). In worship as well as in doctrine, it seems appropriate to characterize this sect as "puritanical." Nichiren ShOshi teaches that Nichiren himself is the eternal Buddha of the Lotus Sutra. According to the doctrine of the period of the decline of the law, Buddhas appear at various times and places, and the law they present is valid for a certain period of time. Thus Sakya was the Buddha for his age but not for ours. The law of Sakyamuni is dead. He was able to help his own people, but he cannot help men now. The teachers of Nichiren ShOshO feel that their awareness of this distinction sets them apart from other sects of Buddhism which still follow old and irrelevant laws and worship Buddhas of a past age (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 97-99). In order to emphasize
Page 148 148 THE SOKA GAKKAI the fact that Nichiren is the only Buddha relevant to men living in these days of the decline of the law, the writings of the S~ka Gakkai explain the differences between Nichiren and Sakyamuni in great detail. The leaders of Nichiren ShOshu maintain that their sect has always taught that Nichiren is the real Buddha for this period, but other branches of Nichiren claim that this doctrine was invented later by the ShOsha sect. In an attempt to prove that Nikko himself believed in Nichiren as the Buddha, an explanation of the teachings of ShOsha published by the SOka Gakkai lists the terms of address which Nikko used in his various communications to Nichiren. One instance of the use of a term now commonly signifying "a Buddha," hotoke ( A4 ) is cited, but the context is not given, and there is no way of knowing what Nikko meant (Kodaira 1959: 90-91). Shoshf teaches that the universal Buddha life (Buddha heart) has taken form in Nichiren himself. From Nichiren it has been made more concrete in the words of the daimoku "Namu myoho rengekyo" and then most completely in the honzon, the board mandala which contains these words of the daimoku carved on it. Thus we have a steady progression which runs from a very abstract concept to a very concrete form. The progression can be expressed like this: universal concept - flesh - words - form of words carved on wood It has been suggested that this extreme simplification of a very abstract concept may have been an attempt to compete with the simplicity of the nembutsu (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 85). The Lotus Sutra is divided into twenty-eight chapters or divisions. These are grouped together into two sets of fourteen chapters each. The first group of fourteen chapters is known as the shakumon (Ir I ) and the second group of fourteen chapters is known as the honmon (-f I ). This doctrine called the shoretsu no gi, teaches that the last fourteen chapters are superior to the first fourteen chapters. It maintains that these last fourteen chapters are the greatest writings in the whole of Buddhist literature (Ono 1957: 344). This doctrine is traced back to NikkO himself, and is sometimes given as one of the reasons for his split with the other five elder disciples (Shugyo 1952: 18). This belief in the superiority of one part of the Lotus Sutra over another part has the same origin as the belief in the superiority of Nichiren over Sakyamuni and all other Buddhas -the doctrine of the period of the decline of the law. The time for the promulgation of the shakumon (the first fourteen chapters) has passed; it passed with Tendai and DengyO. With the coming of Nichiren the shakumon is no longer appropriate, and the time of the honmon has come. The shakumon teaches theories which are unrelated to life in these days of the decline of the law. The honmon teaches of the eternal Buddha who is Nichiren himself (Kodaira 1959: 36-39). Nichiren ShOshl continues by setting apart two chapters, one from the shakumon and one from the honmon as being the only necessary chapters for life in this day. These two chapters are the Hobenpon ( 5 ~_ u, ) and the Nyoraijuryopon (-ac*A Ad, ). In the morning and evening services which are conducted, only these two chapters, plus the kannenmon ( ~ ~.L(_ ) and the daimoku, are used. The Nyoraijuryopon, reveals the eternal, absolute Buddha, who is Nichiren himself. Nichiren ShOshui differs from most of the other sects of Nichiren on this division of the Lotus Sutra (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 85). Closely related to the division of the Lotus Sutra is the teaching of the five relationships which separate, in progressive fashion, the true faith from all false teachings (Kodaira 1959: 64-65). These are as follows: 1. Inner to outer. The inner includes all Buddhist groups. The outer is any non-Buddhist teaching such as Confucianism or Christianity. 2. Greater to lesser. The greater is Mahayana Buddhism and the lesser is Hinayana Buddhism.
Page 149 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 149 3. Jitsu (. ) to gon (A ). Jitsu is the sects which are based on the Lotus Sutra including Tendai. Gon is the teachings based on the sutras which came before the Lotus Sutra and includes JOdo, Shingon, and Zen. 4. Hon ( ) to shaku ( it). Hon is the realities which are found in the hommon division of the Lotus Sutra. Shaku is those theories which are found in the shakumon. 5. Shu (ft ) to datsu (t3j ). Shu is those people who understand what is actually taught in the hommon, in other words, members of Nichiren ShOsha. Datsu is all other Nichiren sects. The Mandala. According to the tradition handed down in Nichiren ShOsha, the mandala was written by Nichiren in 1279 on the occasion of the persecution at Atsuwara and was carved into a board of camphor wood by one of Nichiren's disciples. Nikko enshrined it at the Taisekiji when he founded that temple. It was intended to be enshrined in a national kaidan ( AK' I- alter or ordination platform) (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 134). Nichiren supposedly taught three great mysteries which embody completely all true religion (Kodaira 1959: 62). These are: 1. Installing the honzon. This includes the Buddha (Nichiren) and the Law (the Lotus Sutra). 2. Worshipping the honzon. This is the display of complete devotion which includes both faith and works. 3. The significance of the altar where the honzon is installed. This embodies all the ceremonies. Because oo i the zon incorporates all theBuddha mind or energy in the universe, in its worship one is taken out of the cycle of rebirth and is given the power of understanding eternal life in his own daily life. The fate of a worshipper can be completely changed in an instant: he enters on a course which brings him happiness from that time forward (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 111-113). The writings of the Soka Gakkai make it quite clear that the essential difference between true religion and false religion is the honzon itself (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 327 ff.). The daimoku in the center of the mandala enshrined at the Taisekiji is written in a fancy style known as higemoji ( ^ L_ * ); around it are the names of various bodhisatvas. It is signed "Nichiren." The authenticity of this particular mandala has frequently been questioned. All documents that refer to in the possession of Nichiren ShOsha. There are no independent documents. This seems strange, if Nichiren intended it to be installed in the national kaidan. The mandala was made from a large camphor board that was supposedly picked up in the vicinity of Minobu, but the camphor tree (i4] ) is not found in that region. It contains the words "ganshu... Yashiro Kunishige" (rj| - -j i ), but since he is otherwise unknown it is considered unlikely that he would have been the petitioner on this most sacred of mandalas. The answer of the SOka Gakkai to such doubts is essentially that the documents possessed by Nichiren ShOshi are authentic and are not to be questioned (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 134-34). The most reliable way to determine the authenticity of this mandala would be to have the writing inscribed upon it analyzed by experts. During his lifetime Nichiren wrote a large number of mandalas and gave them to his various disciples. A number of those still in existence are genuine although there are many forgeries (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 134). Though most Nichiren temples allow experts to examine the mandalas which they have enshrined, the priests of the Taisekiji will not permit examination of their mandala. This in itself would be enough to cause doubts. Scholars who have studied the only available photograph of the mandala are inclined to feel that it was not written by Nichiren, but they cannot be certain because the photograph is not clear and was taken from some distance away (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 135).
Page 150 150 THE SOKA GAKKAI Life and death. The concept of life is somewhat abstract in Nichiren Sh6shu, but it seems to be reducible to the fact that the universe itself is life. Life is not something which was created before or after the universe. This, says Nichiren Shoshu, is the only explanation which is compatible with science and evolution (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 26). This belief is very close to pantheism. "Life" can be equated with what the pantheist calls god: the sun, the earth, human life, all are parts of this universal life. This concept of life is the basis for a refined doctrine of rebirth, which emphasizes the effect of a person's actions in one existence on his status and life in the next existence. Nichiren Sh6shu teaches that there are three worlds or states: the previous, the present, and the future. Science, which ignores these three states, has tried to separate life from the law of cause and effect, and teaches only that life begins and ends. Nichiren Shoshu says this is foolish. Only on the basis of the law of cause and effect which extends over these three worlds can one explain the fact that some men are born intelligent and some men are born stupid, that some men are born rich and some men are born poor, some healthy and some sickly (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 16 ff). As Toda JIsei, second president of the Soka Gakkai, explained it, death is like sleep. When we awake from a good night's sleep, many of the problems and joys of the previous day's existence follow us. In the same way, when a person is reborn after death many of the effects of his previous existence follow him into his new life (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 3 f). In connection with the cording to biologists the human body changes completely in substance every seven years. Thus, Toda wrote, since the human body is composed of an entirely new set of cells every seven years, the body of a man at age 37 is physically entirely different from his body at age 30. Logically, if a man commits a crime at the age of 30, by the time he is 37 he is no longer the same man and ought not to be held accountable for the crime. Yet he is held accountable because there is obviously something in him which is continuous with the man of 30. It is not body and it is not mind (the cells of the brain change completely too). According to Toda, the thing which is continuous is life. The problem of being reborn, said Toda, is exactly the same. A person may seem to be completely different in his next existence, but his life is the same. Person A at seven years of age and person A at forty are mentally and physically entirely different people, yet they are the same because they have the same life in them. Person A in this life and person A in his next existence are mentally and physically entirely different, yet they are the same because the life is the same. There is no more discontinuity between an old man who dies and is reborns s a baby than there is between a baby and the old man he grows up to be (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 35-37, 48-49). When a person dies, his life merges back into the life of the universe until it is time for him to be reborn again. Toda compared this to a game of go that is interrupted. The go pieces will be cleared off the board, but when tthe game is renewedday, the pieces will e next day, the pieces will be replaced on the board in the same pattern as the day before, and the game game will be resumed at the point where it was stopped. Thus, according to Toda, what a man does in this life has a great effect on what he becomes in his next existence. There is, however, very little emphasis on the future life in the the teachings of Nichiren ShOshu and a great deal of emphasis on the present life. The goal of life is to achieve happiness in this life, and the fact that one has happiness in this life is proo that oe will have a blessed existence in the future life (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 40, 50). Faith in the honzon of Nichiren that is enshrined at the Taisekiji will assure happiness in this life and a blessed future existence as well. Proof of this may take some years, but it will come before death. Therefore, Toda wrote, if you are still poor or have other problems, take heart; it means you are not going to die yet; because if you believe in the honzon, you cannot die until all of your problems have been solved (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 33-34, 54). This belief is closely related to the matter of jobutsu (; 4 ) achieving Buddhahood. In Nichiren ShOshO, becoming a Buddha does not mean escaping from the cycle of birth and death, nor does it mean entering into the pure land or a western paradise. "Becoming a Buddha means that
Page 151 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 151 one is always born overflowing with strong life power so that he can accomplish the aims of his life as he wills, without being hindered in any way." Achieving Buddhahood means achieving the power to be born over and over again, living each time in complete happiness. The proof of having attained Buddhahood is the attainment of complete happiness in this life. Thus one's religion stands or falls upon success or failure in the many small problems of daily living. "The ordinary man considers religion a matter of the heart separated from the problems of daily life. This is the shallow thinking of a man who has no knowledge of religion. Actually religion is the basis of life" (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 42-43, 46, 264). Nichiren Shoshi puts great emphasis on the manner of dying. "The accounting of our good and evil deeds is done at the moment of death, and it becomes our first step into the next world. Therefore it is most important that we pray to leave the world as Buddha teaches, peacefully, with the daimoku on our lips" (Kodaira 1959: 158). Closely related to the teaching about life and death is the concept of ichinen sanzen (-Y- ~ ), which states that any instant in life includes the three thousand states of life or existence. At any one moment in a human life one of them will be dominant. These various states are likened to the colors in a ray of light which are not revealed unless the ray strikes a prism. Only worship of the honzon can keep the Buddha world dominant in our lives at all times (Kodaira 1959: 77; Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 72). The teachings of Nichiren ShoshQi about the relation of true religion to the daily life of the individual have many implications for society. Disputes between the SOka Gakkai and the coal miners' union, for example, came not so much because of any theories about unions or about society, but rather from teachings of the Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu about the individual and the way he should seek to achieve economic security and personal happiness. The sect says that true religion is not the product of society, but rather that it shapes society "the Lotus Sutra sets the social norms" (hokekyo wa seho nari n -slt.ft ') ). "Buddhism is the body, society is the shadow" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 92-93). The national kaidan. Nichiren Shoshl and the Soka Gakkai have as their ultimate aim the setting up of the national kaidan which Nichiren advocated in his Rissho Ankoku Ron. According to a letter in the Taisekiji, Nichiren told Nikko when he gave him the mandala that the national kaidan was to be built at Fuji (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 88-89). "... since the Soka Gakkai, the auxiliary of Nichiren ShoshQ, aims at making this sect the only national religion of Japan and at suppressing all other religions, it may be called the modern edition of Nichiren's nationalism" (Watanabe 1958: 81). Historically this has been the aim of all of the various sects of Nichiren, but ShOsh1 has been the most vehement. The leaders of Nichiren ShOshi expected that the emperor would become a believer and set up the national kaidan, proclaiming Nichiren ShOshO as the national religion and suppressing all others. Now that this is no longer within the power of the emperor, the SOka Gakkai has put its hope in the National Diet (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 90). This is a reason for its interest in political action. Kosen rufu and shakubuku. Kosen rufu ( 4^ '_,> ) is the propagation of the true faith throughout the world, as predicted in the Lotus Sutra and again by Nichiren. From the Lotus Sutra and various other prophecies, the leaders of Nichiren ShOsht learned that the true teaching is to be spread from Japan to China, to India, and then to the rest of the world (Kodaira 1959: 56). It has now been revealed that the time for the propagation of the true faith throughout the world is at hand. This knowledge is based on a number of factors, one of which is especially noteworthy. Before his death Nichiren left one of his teeth with Nikko. This tooth is still preserved and treasured at the Taisekiji. According to priests of Nichiren Shoshi a piece of flesh that adheres to the tooth is growing around it. The time for spreading the true faith around the world will have come when the tooth is enclosed by flesh. It is difficult to obtain information about its present state, since this relic is shown only to priests of the higher echelons, and only when the abbot of the Taisekiji
Page 152 152 THE SOKA GAKKAI changes. It was last shown in April, 1960 when Nittatsu became abbot of the Taisekiji (Seikyo Gurafu April 1960: 7). At that time the flesh was growing rapidly and was about to envelop the tooth. Nichiren ShOsha and Soka Gakkai evangelists are quick to point out defects or errors in other religions. The Shakubuku Kyoten contains a section giving detailed analyses and criticisms of the other religions found in Japan. This section of the Shakubuku Kyoten deals with: 1) various sects of Buddhism, 2) other branches of Nichiren, and 3) non-Buddhist religions - Shinto, Christianity, Tenriky6, KonkOkyo, SeichO no Ie, AnannaikyO, Morarojii, PL KyOdan, MeshiyakyO, popular beliefs, and divination. There are, according to the teachings of Nichiren ShOshil, two basic ways of propagating the faith: setsuji ( jg t ) and shakubuku ( frlK ). Using setsuju one never says anything bad about other religious groups or other religious teachings. A person's beliefs and point of view are tolerated while he is gradually led to the true way. Shakubuku, on the other hand, is the policy of spreading the Buddhist law by force, if necessary. It is, quite literally, a plan for annihilating the other person's religious position and forcing him to come over to the true way. In older times, it was done with armed might; now it is usually done without physical violence, but the element of force is still present. S6ka Gakkai leaders say that setsuju was the proper method for spreading Buddhism in earlier periods, but that shakubuku is necessary in these days of the decline of the law (Kodaira 1959: 124, 126-127). filled with unlimited kindliness" (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 255). In doing shakubuku one becomes the Buddha's agent, teaching men the right way of the Buddha and the law and saving them from suffering. The greatest good a man can do is to lead others to the true faith through shakubuku. The true faith is good for all men in all circumstances and for all time (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 114). Shakubuku and worship of the honzon are the two requirements imposed on all members of the Gakkai. Shakubuku is essential if the aims of Nichiren are to be realized. When a member of the Gakkai does shakubuku, he shows that he is an ally of Nichiren and he will, therefore, according to the teachings of Sh6sha, immediately receive a great reward. In fact, "Shakubuku is the only way to achieve any reward from one's faith" (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 244-245, 255). The authors of the Shakubuku Kyoten recognize that shakubuku is very difficult. Because we are living in a filthy and contaminated world, among men who follow false, faiths and do not listen to the true law, only a disciple of Nichiren, the true Buddha of the days of the decline of the law, can perform this task. "When one does shakubuku he will always be slandered, hated and despised.... When this happens the one doing shakubuku should rejoice, remembering that by performing this Buddha law his previous sins of slandering the law are disappearing" (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 247, 252). Religious proofs. The necessity for proving the efficacy of religion receives a great deal of emphasis in the writings of the SOka Gakkai. We all need proof in our daily lives, they state, for without proof even the greatest theory is nothing more than empty words. Nichiren himself spoke of the necessity of religious proof and set up three kinds of proof for religion: 1) Literary proof (from the sutras). All non-Buddhist religions are discounted at this level because it is held that their scriptures are clearly inferior to the Buddhist sutras. 2) Rational proof (from logic). Logic shows the philosophical value of a religion and demonstrates its relation to modern science. 3) Experimental proof (from the practice of religion in daily life).
Page 153 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 153 This is considered the most important of the three kinds of proof, because many people do not recognize the superiority of the sutras and do not follow Buddhist logic. At Gakkai meetings members frequently testify as to how belief in the honzon has helped in healing sickness, in solving financial problems, and in other ways: in this way proof of its validity is demonstrated in the actual life of the believer (SOka Gakkai KyOgakubu 1958: 109 ff.; Saki and Oguchi 1957: 123). A theme which keeps recurring in the writings of the Gakkai and in shakubuku is, "If you do not believe us, try it and see. Compare our faith with Christianity to see which will bring you happiness if you accept it, and which will bring you catastrophe" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 64-65). Just as there is happiness in the daily lives of those who follow the true way and worship the honzon, so will there be punishment in the form of misfortune in the lives of all those who reject it and worship a false religion. Even when worshipping the true honzon, it is essential to be constantly aware of its exclusiveness and of the harmful nature of all other religions. "If one believes in the honzon of Nichiren ShOsha without clearly differentiating between it and the honzon of false sects, thinking that Nichiren-shtl unites them all, he has fallen into hell" (Kodaira 1959: 153, 155). According to Nichiren ShOsha the world is governed by a super-natural law of cause and effect that is revealed only in the philosophy of Buddhism. Only the priests of ShOsha understand its intricacies and only they can influence the law in any way (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 132). Thus for the average believer, faith is far more important than understanding. One can achieve Buddhahood without understanding, so long as one has faith; but without faith and with understanding alone, it cannot be achieved (Nichiren, Niike Gosho, in Hori, ed. 1952: 1443). Since Nichiren Shoshfu emphasizes proof in daily life, the question naturally arises as to how to interpret misfortune experienced by a person who does believe in the honzon. There are several answers to this problem. One is that calamity should be interpreted not as divine punishment, but as evidence of the Buddha's protection, without which the calamity would have been much worse (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 125). Another interpretation is that misfortune is the consequence of some evil action in a previous existence that has not yet been atoned for. "When we feel misfortune instead of happiness in this life, it is because we believed in a false religion during a previous existence; he who believes in a false religion in this life must bear misfortune, not only now, but in a future life as well" (Soka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 93-94). Misfortune can also be attributed to devils. Nichiren said that the faith of the true believer is continually being attacked by devils, and it may be necessary to persevere for years until these devils are completely vanquished. The believer must be diligent in daily worship and in converting others and may have to wait three, five, or seven years before his faith will be rewarded, but he must believe that it definitely will come (Saki and Oguchi 1958: 126-127). Kodaira cautions that, in looking at proofs, one must be careful not to be sidetracked by insignificant things. The greatest value is that which comes from the Buddha, often something which cannot be expressed with words (Kodaira 1959: 131, 133). It seems fairly obvious that empirical proof from daily life is subject to interpretation by the leaders of the movement, and that this kind of proof may not be acknowledged by the average outsider. Certain charms are supposed to protect the wearer against various kinds of misfortune. A mamori honzon ( Jf ') 4 ) is a paper copy of the honzon rolled up in a metal container and hung on a chain around the neck. Gohifu 4IV is a piece of paper with writing on it prepared by the priests of the Taisekiji. When swallowed while one recites the daimoku, it is believed effective in healing almost any kind of disease. The available writings of the SOka Gakkai do not mention it (Saki and Oguchi 1958: 136). Relation to ShintO. The followers of Nichiren Shoshi and the SOka Gakkai are forbidden to worship at Shinto shrines. They do, however, believe in the deities to whom these shrines are dedicated. Nichiren ShOshQ recognizes the existence of these deities and their importance as guardians of Japan and protectors of the Lotus Sutra. However, as Nichiren said in the Rissho ankoku ron, since Japan has forsaken the Lotus Sutra, these guardian deities have left Japan and are no longer present in
Page 154 154 THE SOKA GAKKAI the shrines dedicated to them. In their place are devils who bring misfortune to the country and to those who worship at the shrines. Japan lost the last war not because of any laxity or lack of power on the part of the goddess Amaterasu Omikami on whom Japan relied, but because she was not in Japan. The Sun Goddess and the other deities will come back only when Japan returns to the true way of the Lotus Sutra as revealed by Nichiren Shoshu (Soka Gakkai KyOgakubu 1958: 399-400). THE FOUNDER OF SOKA GAKKAI Makiguchi Tsunesabur6 was born on June 6, 1871, to the Watanabe family in the village of Arahama in Niigata prefecture (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 57; Makiguchi 1956: 235). He was adopted into the Makiguchi family at the age of three. Later he moved with an uncle to Otaru in Hokkaid6 and graduated from Sapporo Shihan Gakk6 (Sapporo Normal School), earning his way through school. Because of his excellent record Makiguchi was offered employment by his alma mater. He was, however, more interested in research, particularly in geography, and he continued his work in this field in Tokyo under Shiga JQko. He felt that contemporary studies in geography did not deal with his special interest: the relation of nature to man's life. His book Jinsei Chirigaku (.tZ^'2 -Human Geography), published in 1901 by the Toyoyamabo Publishing Company, dealt with the problems of Japanese society. This book, which went through eight printings, is considered a pioneering work even by international standards. (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 57). After completing this book, Makiguchi continued his studies in Tokyo. He published a magazine on geography, delivered many lectures, and wrote geography textbooks for the Ministry of Education (Makiguchi 1956: 235). Finally in 1909, disgusted with the way in which his manuscripts for textbooks had been altered to conform to prevailing ideologies, he left the Ministry of Education and became an elementary school teacher (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 58). He was then 39 years old. During the next twenty years, in which he continued to teach in various elementary schools in the Tokyo area, he became interested in doing research in educational principles. Until he was 56 years old, Makiguchi was nominally a member of Nichiren-shl, the traditional religion of his family. His actual position was that of a rationalist inclined to ridicule all religion as not being scientific (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 61). In 1928, Makiguchi was converted to Nichiren ShOshi by Mitani Sokei, principal of the Mejiro Commercial School, who was an influential member of the sect. His subsequent work on the creation of value in education was related to his faith in this sect. He tried at the same time to continue his rational approach to life by maintaining that the Lotus Sutra is the rational way to a happy life. In the first volume of the Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei, Makiguchi wrote, "I entered the faith of Nichiren ShOsha and my life was changed" (quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 61). His writings, over the years, show that the religious elements from Shoshf gradually became dominant. In 1930, Makiguchi, assisted by Toda Josei ( f'1:At i), formed the Soka KyOiku Gakkai ( ~,\ Ad 0;:_| Ik Institute for Education for the Creation of Value), a publishing organization. Makiguchi, the president, and Toda, the director, were the only members (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 56). Toda JOsei was very much interested in education and religion. According to his own testimony, he had tried many religions including Christianity and faith in Amida. Then he read the Lotus Sutra, and all was revealed to him; he was filled with joy. Other religions had never been able to solve his problems, but the Lotus Sutra did (SOka Gakkai Kyogakubu 1958: 15-16). The first volume of Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei (\ 4 y' - r, Outline of Education for the Creation of Value) was published on November 18, 1930. In this work Makiguchi reported the results of his study of educational methods and principles (Makiguchi 1956: 235). Eventually, because of his efforts to introduce into his teaching program methods which he considered more scientific, Makiguchi lost his position as a public school teacher (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 58). Some educators accepted his new principles, but most rejected them (Makiguchi 1956: 235). After he was forced to leave his job, he devoted his entire time to the publication of the Taikei and to other writings about the creation of value and the happy life.
Page 155 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 155 A nationalist, Makiguchi maintained that educational theories imported from abroad would not work in Japan. His own theories were based on his experience in Japan and were, therefore, he believed, suitable to the Japanese situation. As his theories developed, Makiguchi tested them in his own teaching. His ten-year record as principal of the Shirogane Primary School in Tokyo attests to their appropriateness. The theory of education that Makiguchi held at this time was a reaction against what he considered to be deadening authoritarianism and formalism in Japanese schools. He believed that this resulted from rigid rules laid down by the Ministry of Education. His theory was also a reaction against the idealist philosophies which stressed certain values - truth, beauty, and goodness - as the aims of human life. His early writings are full of criticisms of the prevailing pattern of education. The four published volumes of the Soka Ky5ikagaku Taikei deal with such topics as the organzation of education, the objectives of education, the theory of value, the reform of education, educational materials, and educational methods (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 59-60). Makiguchi's utilitarian approach stressed practicality and rationalism. He placed extreme emphasis on technique, efficiency, and "practical" goals for education. For example, he told his students that words must be learned because words are useful tools for the attainment of happiness in later life. On moral education he wrote, "Make children realize that to attain the aims of life it works better to do good than to do evil" (quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 59). In stressing the practical aspects of education, he neglected other areas such as literary education and character building. It has been suggested that this pragmatic emphasis was partly a reflection of the concurrent effort to make Japan's industry as efficient as possible. Makiguchi wanted to achieve the same goal in education. Men must be matured as quickly as possible and the means to accomplish this must be discovered. He felt that the only valid aim of education was to lead men to happiness, and that educational techniques which did not do so were of little practical value (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 59 -61). Makiguchi was completely occupied with the creation of value and its relation to education. He considered the creation of value the aim of all life and the key to happiness. He felt that education leads in the creation of value and that because teachers are the leaders in education, their role is very important. Thus, teachers should plan carefully in order to lead their students into a safe and satisfying life (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 59). In 1931, Makiguchi published the Kachiron which outlined in detail his theory of value. This became the philosophical foundation for the Soka Gakkai (Sekai September 1956: 139). In 1936, Makiguchi and Toda converted the Jishf Gakkan ( }4, ~ ~ ), a private school which Toda had been operating, into an experimental school to train teachers in the theory of education for the creation of value. Akizuki and other teachers who were in sympathy with Makiguchi's theories were the first students. The tuition was ten yen per month. Students were required to be believers in Nichiren ShOshi and the first session was held at the Taisekiji. Saki and Oguchi (1957: 62-63) have advanced the theory that Makiguchi and Toda shifted their emphasis from education to religion at this time because the government had begun to restrict and control education, whereas religion was still comparatively free. Nothing could be published in the field of education without the approval of the Ministry of Education. In 1937, the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai was reorganized with sixty charter members (KondO 1956: 289). The first organizational meeting was held in Azabu, Tokyo, at the Kikusuikan. Makiguchi was named president and Toda managing director (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 63). In the spring and fall of the succeeding years Makiguchi lectured to large audiences in Tokyo on the theory of value. Each summer there was a retreat at the Taisekiji and many smaller study and lecture meetings were held throughout the year. During this period the Jishu Gakkan served as headquarters for the group. Apparently Toda was the organizer and manager- the man behind the scenes, while Makiguchi was the teacher (sensei), the man who drew the crowds. This conjecture
Page 156 156 THE SOKA GAKKAI seems to be borne out by the pattern of Toda's activities in the Gakkai after World War II. He developed an extremely efficient organization but did little work on new theories or teachings. After 1937 the SOka Kyoiku Gakkai enlarged its activities, publishing many texts for the small discussion groups which met regularly. In 1941 the organization began to publish an official periodical, Kachi Sozo ( t j a\\ i I Value Creation) for its 3000 registered members (Kondo 1956: 289; Makiguchi 1956: 235). During this period the government began to control religion more rigidly than before, but for a time the Soka Ky6iku Gakkai seems to have avoided trouble. Because of its relationship with an old established religion, and because some members of the Gakkai had connections high in the bureaucracy, government officials were inclined to leave the organization alone. In 1941, however, the government began to require all religions to include worship of the emperor in their ceremonies and to remove anything inconsistent with this practice. The government's next step was to require that all homes display and pay respect to charms (Ofuda) from shrines. This requirement violated the teachings of Nichiren Sh6shui, and Makiguchi and the other leaders of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai refused to meet it. Makiguchi and the other leaders blamed the defeats and the hardships which were coming to Japan on the fact that the nation had made Shinto, a false faith, its state religion. Japan could be saved, they said, only if she returned to the Lotus Sutra and the true way as outlined by Nichiren. By January, 1943, the secret police were disrupting meetings of the Gakkai because the organization was known to prohibit ceremonies required by the state. At the end of June 1943, the head abbot of the Taisekiji called Makiguchi and Toda to the temple for a conference and urged them to compromise, warning them of the dangers which otherwise awaited them. In refusing Makiguchi is reported to have said, "Surely this is the time when we should admonish the nation. What are we afraid of?" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 66-67). Publication of Kachi Sozo, the house organ of the organization, had been stopped by police order in 1942, but the leaders of the organization were not arrested until July of the following year. The final crisis was precipitated by a cleaner named Jinno in Nakano ward, Tokyo, who was a firm believer in the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai. In trying to convert a neighbor whose daughter had just died, Jinno told him that this death was his punishment for not following the true faith. The neighbor complained to the police, who arrested Jinno and a director of the Soka KyOiku Gakkai named Arimura (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 67). On July 6, 1943, Makiguchi, Toda, and twenty-one other leaders of the Gakkai were arrested and indicted for breaking the peace preservation law ( { -.- 5t, chian iji h5) and for lese majeste (Makiguchi 1956: 235). They were questioned so severely that one of them attempted suicide. Their crime seems to have consisted of rejecting the worship of Amaterasu Omikami and of maintaining that only worship of the honzon could save the nation (Kondb 1956: 290). (The honzon is a board mandala carrying the invocation "Namu my5oho rengekyo" (Hail to the Sutra of the Lotus of the supreme law) in the calligraphy of Nichiren, founder of the Nichiren sect.) The organization was disbanded and most of the members were scattered. The treatment of the Gakkai officials in prison was harsh and within a year all of them except Makiguchi, Toda, and a director named Yajima Shilhei had recanted and been released. Makiguchi was held in solitary confinement from August 1943, when he was transferred with the others to Sugamo prison, until his death from malnutrition on November 18, 1944, at the age of 73 (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 67-68). Toda remained in prison until July 1945. After his release, he reorganized the Gakkai, changing its name to Soka Gakkai (,'J] Aj * * Institute for Value Creation), As president, he remained at its head until his death in April 1958. KA CHIRON Makiguchi's major literary work, Kachiron' was written in 1931. In it his theory of value is presented in a logical, orderly fashion and in great detail. This work is still the philosophical basis for the S5ka Gakkai.
Page 157 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 157 The Importance of Value Judgment In the Kachiron Makiguchi makes proper judgment of value the major factor in human life. "Whether we succeed or fail, whether we are filled with joy or are at the depths of despair in our daily lives, depends solely on whether or not we have exercised proper value judgment in our daily lives" (1956: 181). "A happy life is that life which, without regret, achieves and actualizes value" (1956: 5). According to Makiguchi, "The greatest weakness in present-day society is the lack of a sense of purpose." Men do not know why they are living or what they are living for. We have made great material progress in the objective world, but there has been no corresponding advance in the subjective world. Sakyamuni and Nichiren made the way very clear long ago, but their teachings have been ignored. As a result says Makiguchi, we have the many social problems present in society today (1956: 176, 178). "Men suffer with the problems of livelihood, with a delinquent child, with illness; family quarrels are endless; anger, jealousy, greed, stupidity, depravity, and pride are everywhere. All men are in distress" (1956: 6). The attainment of happiness, which can only come through the creation of value, is the real purpose in life. If the creation of value is the key to human happiness, it becomes important for men to understand value and the processes by which it is created. Makiguchi defines value as the relationship between an object and an evaluation of that object (1956: 20). It is the power that a thing has, either intrinsically or because of its relationship to the evaluator, to affect the evaluator either in his emotions or in his intellect (1956: 40). It may be present or absent according to the aims and purposes of the person involved. Something can be a value for one person and not for someone else. It can be a value at one time and not a value at another time. Value varies according to its relationship to the subject and according to its own substance (1956: 108f.). The first task which Makiguchi undertakes in the Kachiron is an attack on one of the three Greek values - truth, beauty, and goodness. Truth, he argues at length, is not a value. Man cannot create truth; it can only be recognized. Truth exists independent of any observer. Whether or not it is useful or actually used makes no difference; truth does not change (1956: 10-11). It is not necessarily desirable and may even, on occasion, be harmful. Value, on the other hand, changes with circumstances. It can be either created or discovered. The example that Makiguchi gives is the gradual discovery of the usefulness of various things that exist in nature. Although their properties remain the same, their value changes significantly as new uses for them are discovered (1956: 11, 13). Value is relative. It is definitely related to man's happiness. Truth is absolute and is not related to man's happiness. Therefore truth has no relation to value and cannot be one of the values (1956: 14, 18). The Three Categories of Value As a substitute for truth, Makiguchi postulates "personal advantage." According to Makiguchi, the three values are: 1) advantage with its counterpart, disadvantage; 2) beauty with its counterpart, ugliness; and 3) good with its counterpart, evil. The content of these three categories may change greatly under different conditions, but they are always desired by men(1956: 14, 18). Their relationship can be shown schematically as follows: p perserso nal advantage - advantage - in terms of advantage _ _ Value. 2 i o npublic advantage - good P"" "in terms of aesthetics -beauty
Page 158 158 THE SOKA GAKKAI These categories of value can be further defined as: 1) aesthetic value - a sensual value related to a part of human life; 2) economic value - an individualistic value related to the whole of human life; and 3) moral value - a social value related to group life (1956: 125). Makiguchi points out that value is often first thought of in economic terms and that this is the only aspect of value that receives much attention. There are, he says, two kinds of economic value - use value and exchange value. Economic value does not differ in kind from moral and aesthetic value; hence, the same basic rules for the creation of economic use and exchange value apply as well to moral and aesthetic value (1956: 133-39). In discussing aesthetic value Makiguchi defines beauty as "that sensory object which reveals a change sufficient to give rise to a wonderful feeling of cheerfulness in the human heart" (p. 152). Beauty and good are often found together: that which is beautiful is usually also good (although sometimes beauty may be evil and ugliness may be good). Makiguchi characterizes beauty as interesting (lQi^3 omoshiroi) and good as noble ( A v. totoi) (1956: 158, 164). The Kachiron contains a lengthy discussion of moral value, the problem of the good. Makiguchi (1956: 140) defines good as public advantage. "The general welfare is good" ( z k -_ ~ L jv koeki o zen to iu). "Private interest which ignores the public welfare is evil" ('Ak,;tt..r4cA tL.Jvt koeki o mushi shita shieki wa warui). Makiguchi maintains, of course, that moral value is totally relative: good is that which is generally recognized as being in the common welfare, for the advantage of all (1956: 140). Therefore, he says, good is basically a negative concept, because the desires which men have in common are generally negative ones. Accordingly Makiguchi maintains that the Oriental proverb (usually ascribed to Confucius) "Do not do unto others that which you would not have them do to you" is more scientific than the Occidental proverb which comes from Christ, "Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you." If a man does for others what he wishes they would do for him, they may not necessarily be pleased. If, on the other hand, he refrains from doing to others the things that he would not want done to him, he will be doing them good, since most men have the same negative desires (1956: 141). In a brief discussion of law, Makiguchi points out that law by itself is not an effective force for the preservation of morals or the public good. It exists only for the purpose of preventing men from breaking the lowest limits of morals (1956: 144). He describes in detail the kinds of action that can be viewed in moral terms as either good or evil. These distinctions apply of course only to the actions of human beings and not to those of other living creatures. Moreover, they apply only to actions in which the human will is involved and seldom even to willful actions unless some other person is involved. The only act that refers solely to the actor and can be described in moral terms is suicide (1956: 145). Since moral value is defined as general welfare and those desires which men have in common, it is socially determined. Good is what society says it is. An individual can never judge what is good and what is evil. In contrast, economic value and aesthetic value are determined by and vary with the individual. Moral value is related to economic and aesthetic value only indirectly in that society is composed of individuals (1956: 152). This concept of the social origin of good (and evil) does not seem to have been carried to its logical conclusion in religious matters by Makiguchi or by other leaders of the movement. Standards for Value Judgment Makiguchi gives ten standards for value judgment (1956: 182-98). 1) To be concerned over likes and dislikes and to forget advantage and disadvantage is foolish, moreover it is to forget good and evil.
Page 159 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 159 2) To be misled by minor advantage or disadvantage and to forget far-reaching advantage and disadvantage is foolish. 3) To be concerned with profit and loss and to ignore good and evil is evil. 4) "Not good" is evil and "not evil" is good. These are only minimal quantities, but this is the effect. 5) To be content with a small good and turn your back on a great good is a great evil. If a small evil opposes a great evil it is a great good. 6) The same small evil becomes greater if committed by someone in a higher position. In the same way a greater evil becomes the greatest evil. Good is just the opposite. 7) Good and evil which is unconcerned with advantage and disadvantage, profit and loss, is an empty concept which cannot be carried out.... 8) Truth and falsehood refer to existence, value refers to a relationship to human life. Therefore truth is not an ingredient of happiness.... 9) The content of right and wrong (L JL ) is completely different from good and evil. Among evil men evil is right and good is wrong and among men with perverse minds justice is despised as evil.... 10) Anyone who does not understand simple reason as we have stated it above is mad, and one who does understand but does not follow is a coward.... Right and Wrong and Good and Evil The complete relativity of value, including moral value, is evident from the ten standards listed above. However, at the same time, it is important to note the distinction which is made between right and wrong, and good and evil; this distinction is not just one of semantics, but is very important in the logical development of this religion. The concept of truth and right not being a value is quite consistent with an ethic which is based on society instead of absolute principles. In Makiguchi's standards for moral value, the individual is completely subordinated to society. Thus in his Taikei Vol. I, he says, "The creator of value is not the individual; it is society. The individual is merely a technician in that great organization called society. The individual can become a creator of value only when he is completely conscious of himself as a member of society, a social animal. That which nurtures this awareness is education for the creation of value (quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 60). He points out that only when good is the basis of life can an individual attain real happiness. Therefore true individual happiness can only come through society and the national state which is the larger society (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 114). However, the claims for the superiority of Nichiren ShOshu are not made on the basis of social approval. Nichiren Shoshu is the true religion, not because society recognizes it as such, which it obviously does not, but rather it is chosen on the basis of the scientific method as outlined below. SOka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshui embody the greatest good because, when analyzed scientifically, they work. Belief in the honzon of Nichiren Shoshu brings happiness and profit; therefore it is the highest good. Pragmatism and Utilitarianism Makiguchi seems to make pragmatism and utilitarianism the basis for value judgment. The
Page 160 160 THE SOKA GAKKAI fact that a religion works and can bring the things which one desires, specifically the happy life, which is the aim of all human life, is the justification for that religion and the reason for believing in and following it. It has been suggested that this emphasis on pragmatism and utilitarianism, coupled with his emphasis on personal advantage, was designed to appeal to the pre-war Japanese who were regimented under the almost ascetic cult of emperor worship with its continual call for personal sacrifice for the benefit of the state (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 100). It would be difficult to know whether or not this was deliberately designed for this purpose, but certainly these emphases would seem to have appeal for men in such circumstances. On the other hand, in running counter to the official ideology, Makiguchi faced persecution and made his movement unpopular with those who considered themselves patriotic Japanese; this kept his group of followers small. Evaluation Although Kachiron is written as a philosophical study of the theory of value, actually it is not so much a philosophical treatise as it is an attempt to outline a way of salvation for mankind. Makiguchi is not so much concerned with outlining in objective fashion the nature of value, as he is concerned with showing man the road to true salvation and happiness. As such, the Kachiron becomes a religious tract rather than a philosophical essay. Makiguchi's world view, as outlined in Kachiron, is completely anthropocentric. In this he is true to his Buddhist heritage, since this is a characteristic of primitive Buddhism. Man is placed at the center of the universe; the salvation of man becomes the most important value in this universe; and this salvation is made the only true aim of religion. Because religion exists only for man's salvation, because it has meaning only in relation to man, religion, in Makiguchi's scheme of things, is a relative concept, not an absolute one. Religion is one thing among many things, not set apart different in kind from all else. Since religion has meaning only in relation to man's salvation, self-interest is the primary motivation for embracing religion. A person chooses a religion because it gives him what he needs, not because of loyalty to a principle or to truth. Religion, by definition, becomes that which gives happiness. Thus, for Makiguchi, the object of worship is not the Lord, the Ruler, to whom absolute loyalty is given, but rather a tool to be used for personal gain. The allegiance which must be given to religion is always a qualified allegiance, qualified because it is contingent on receiving some benefit from the religion. This element of personal gain is found to some degree in all of the great religions of the world, but only in perversions of them does it achieve the dominance that it is given in this philosophy of value. Makiguchi's handling of religion is entirely utilitarian. Religion should be followed, not primarily because it is true (truth is not a value), but rather because it works. Makiguchi wants to apply the "scientific method" to religion. While at first glance this seems logical, it means, in essence, that religion becomes subservient to science. Makiguchi apparently feels that there is nothing in religion which science cannot deal with and measure. This attitude is explicit in his denial of a religious value, the "holy," a concept which for some reason he ascribes to Windelband. The otherness of religion is completely denied, and there is no discontinuity between the object of worship and the worshipper. This is consistent with the Buddhist world view and the basic difference between the Christian and Buddhist concepts of reality. In his theory of value, Makiguchi posits three values -personal advantage, beauty, and good. As he develops them, however, it becomes clear that actually he has posited one basic value - personal advantage, and two derivative values - beauty and good. Beauty and good can be explained in terms of personal advantage. Personal advantage as defined by Makiguchi, however, is not a narrow self-interest, but rather something that might be called enlightened self-interest. It is never in conflict with the public good. In his concepts of the individual and society, Makiguchi has a basic conflict which he has not
Page 161 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 161 resolved and of which he seems unaware. He makes personal advantage, individual advantage, the basis of his system of values, but at the same time he makes society the basis for moral standards, develops a hierarchical ethic, and denies to the individual the right to oppose the standards instituted by society. He seems to be championing what are basically a Confucian ethic and a reaction against the Confucian ethic at the same time and without realizing it. Perhaps this is a reflection of some of the tensions which have been found in modern Japanese society. Although Kachiron deals with concepts of philosophy, it has been almost totally ignored by Japanese philosophers. This is probably due to the fact that Kachiron is a text of the Soka Gakkai, a group considered fanatical and beneath the notice of responsible scholarship. The only known review of this work by a philosopher is one by Yamauchi Tokuryu (J, 1 4t 1L ) which appeared in the Chugai Nippo on 12 February 1957 under the title "Kachiron o Yomite- Ni, San no Gimon ni Tsuite (Two or three Problems after Reading Kachiron" (Quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 102). The review is generally appreciative except at the point where Makiguchi turns from the theory of value to religion. Makiguchi does seem to develop his discussion of value in a very logical and reasoned fashion up to the point of the consideration of religion; and then to jump from the world of logic into a world of blind faith, faith in the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren. However, on careful analysis, it can be seen that there is no break in Makiguchi's reasoning at this point, and Yamauchi has apparently failed to understand Makiguchi's argument. In his analysis of value, Makiguchi was careful to develop two principal theses. The first is that value is a relative concept, that it depends on its relation to the evaluator and cannot be a value solely on the basis of something intrinsic to it. A value cannot exist in a void. The second thesis is that that quality which actually brings man happiness is value. The question to be applied in judging anything, even religion, is "What does it bring to me? " Makiguchi, on the basis of his experience and study, finds that the honzon of Nichiren ShOshi is the only thing that brings the highest happiness and profit to man; therefore this is the true religion, the highest value, and the greatest good. Beginning with this promise, there is no break in his reasoning. The language of the Kachiron is rather difficult for one not trained in philosophy and there is reason to believe that it is not too widely read by the average member of the group. In the first part of the Nichiron Shoshi Kyogakumondai no Kaisetsu t4J ~,^,.. F1, e? c" (Explanation of Doctrinal Problems in Nichiren ShOshfl), there is a resume of the Kachiron which is apparently an attempt to bring the argument down to the level where it can be understood by the man in the street. It is a brief resume filled with many illustrations. Religion and Value Makiguchi rejects outright the neo-Kantian idea that there is a fourth category of value, the holy. All religious values, he said, are included either in advantage or in good. "Religion has no reason for existing in society except to save men and the world. The saving of.man is the value of advantage and the saving of the world is the value of good" (1956: 166). Therefore, a religious value can either be placed under economic value for the individual or under moral value for society. In actual practice the S6ka Gakkai puts more emphasis on economic value than on moral value. The section in which Makiguchi discusses the scientific method as it applies to the creation of value is an extremely important part of his work. He uses this method to show the relationship of his philosophy of value creation to the teachings of Nichiren ShOshO. Members of the Gakkai use arguments based on this method when they seek new members for the movement. Outlining the argument, Makiguchi wrote, "When we see a cause and effect relationship within one experience, instead of being satisfied with that and leaving it there, we should examine similar phenomena and compare them to discover which elements in the causal relationship are essential and which are nonessential. If one can then find the reason for this relationship and prove it in daily life, the assurance is born that no matter how quickly the externals may change, as long as the
Page 162 162 THE SOKA GAKKAI essential elements are the same, the law of cause and effect will hold. This brings about a firm and unchanging faith. By following this process one reforms his life and creates value" (1956: 65-66). This is the basis of the utilitarian philosophy which permeates the SOka Gakkai: one must learn the cause of happiness and then follow it. Makiguchi says that the principles for the scientific creation of value must be applied to religion as well. "True religion is scientific in its approach to study and the results of its study have a logical organization, proven with scientific experimental proofs. Moreover, its propositions and equations must have universal validity. Its systematic propositions must show clearly in what way they are useful and what the subject of their study is. Moreover, these propositions cannot be limited by time and space. They cannot be something appropriate to Japan and not to India, nor can they be something which was effective one hundred years ago, but is not today." He criticizes Christianity, the worship of Amida, and the use of the nembutsu on the grounds that these religions contain things which cannot be scientifically explained. Christianity, for example, is disqualified because of the "miracles" which Jesus performed (1956: 168-69). "Why bring religion into this discussion at all?" Makiguchi asks. "Simply because we cannot think of value and happiness, the objectives of our discussion, apart from religion." Although religion differs from other objects of study, it can be classified under the same categories of value. "Religion is not the subject of cognition, the subject of scholarship, but the subject of our evaluation which we believe and by which we live, and it can therefore be judged by our view of value" (1956: 207-208). Religion is essential because it seeks the happiness "which is the highest desire of the human race and the essential demand of life. Because it clarifies the essential nature of life and reveals life's real form, it is the only absolute means of obtaining real happiness" (Shakubuku Kyoten 1951: 1). In Makiguchi's view, religion is analogous to science in that, like pure science, it is concerned with ultimate truth. It is concerned at the same time with the problem of how to make men happy in their daily lives in this world; in this respect it is comparable to applied science (1956: 170). Makiguchi and other leaders of the Gakkai have emphasized the aspects of religion that are comparable to applied science. Makiguchi states categorically that only Nichiren Shoshra meets the requirements for a true scientific religion, and he presents a brief history of religion to support this assertion. He observes in passing that religion, like science, puzzles the uninitiated, who need both faith and knowledge to understand it (1956: 169, 171). According to Makiguchi, research into the philosophy of religion began with Sakya. The highest form of Sakya's philosophy is found in the Lotus Sutra which teaches that: 1) There is in the universe a level of life called the "Buddha life." 2) Even ordinary men can attain this level. 3) The appearance of the person who understands this Buddha Life will enable all men to attain this level. 4) Since this Buddha life is eternal and all men who believe in it have eternal life, the man who perceives this Buddha life is himself a Buddha. 5) Perceiving the Buddha life is the attainment of the highest happiness in human life. 6) Believing in the Lotus Sutra is the only way to perceive this Buddha life. 7) Therefore, to carry out the philosophy of the Lotus Sutra is to believe in the Lotus Sutra (1956: 171-72)
Page 163 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 163 These teachings are considered inseparable from Nichiren, because he is the man prophesied in these teachings who will make the blessings of the Buddha life available to all (1956: 172-73). The only requirement for achievement of the highest happiness and entrance in the Buddha life is belief in the honzon and repetition of its daimoku (1956: 173). Since this is the road to happiness, it is obviously also the way to the creation of value. "Religion is the base which creates the values - advantage, good, and beauty - for the individual and for society" (1956: 173). In an analysis and criticism of what he considers to be prevalent ideas about religion, Makiguchi (1956: 208-220) makes the following observations: 1) Atheism. The truth in this position lies in its denial of supernatural gods and Buddhas and in its denial of an immortal soul or spirit in men. The fault of atheism is that it is negative and has no positive answer to religion. 2) Conscience and conviction. One cannot live by these alone because they vary with the individual. Conscience comes from parents, teachers and society, which are imperfect. Without knowing the Lotus Sutra, one cannot really have any knowledge and understanding of oneself, and cannot, therefore, have a reliable conscience. 3) The foundation of the heart. People seek religion to gain a satisfying spiritual foundation for their lives. This is not an adequate goal, especially if one is only seeking individual satisfaction. 4) Moral teaching. This confuses the distinction between spiritual training and religion and is not the way to real happiness. In the present period of the decline of the law ( *->5 mappo), it is useless to try to reform society with moral teaching. 5) Something greater than man. The crux of the matter here is that one must be clear about the nature of this "something." It is foolish in this scientific age to worship something only because it is mysterious. Animism, pantheism, ancestor worship, or worship of great men are stupid because such objects of worship can do nothing for man. 6) The grave and religion. There are some who think of religion as merely the caretaker of cemeteries. If this were true, instead of writing the deepest religious philosophy Sakya would have written on such subjects as "How to Recite Sutras" and "How to Take Care of Dead Bodies." HISTORY, ORGANIZATION, AND STAFF Toda JOsei Toda Josei, the second president of the SOka Gakkai, was born in February 1900 in the tiny fishing village of Shioya (now part of Kaga-shi) in Ishikawa Prefecture. When he was five years old he moved with his family to Atsuda, another fishing village, in Hokkaido, where he completed higher elementary school. Toda wanted to become a public school teacher and he completed the necessary education while working full-time in a store in Sapporo. In 1918 he took a job as a substitute teacher in the Yilbari district of Hokkaido. Toda soon came to feel that teaching was too confining. He resigned and went to Tokyo in 1920 during an economic recession in Japan when jobs were scarce. Finally, when he could find nothing else, Toda again applied for a teaching position. With a letter of recommendation from a friend, he approached Makiguchi TsunesaburO, the principal of the Nishimachi Primary School. Toda told Makiguchi that he was able to transform even the least intelligent pupil into a good student, and Makiguchi hired him as a temporary substitute teacher (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 152-153). Toda became a devoted disciple of Makiguchi, staying with him through the troubles that were to come. When Makiguchi was transferred to another school, Toda went with him. After three years of teaching in Tokyo, Toda resigned to become an insurance salesman, an occupation in which he was evidently quite successful (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 153).
Page 164 164 THE SOKA GAKKAI Toda's marriage in 1923 was a love match rather than an arranged marriage, and it seems to have been happy. A child was born in 1924 but did not live long. In 1926 his wife died of tuberculosis and Toda himself was stricken with pleurisy, suffering from it for many years. As a result of these troubles and other factors, Toda became a Christian (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 154). He was interested in going to Brizil and felt it would be appropriate to go as a Christian. Toda was apparently quite active in the Christian church at one time, even engaging in evangelism. For Toda, Christianity was only a theory and a code of moral behavior without real power. He had had, he said, a rather vague belief in God, but he could not really feel His greatness. He was never able to find peace in his heart in Christianity, nor was he able to find the answer to his debts and the unsettled conditions of his business. He took these problems to Tanaka Tatsuo, a parent of one of his pupils and the man responsible for leading him to the church, but Tanaka could not answer them in a satisfactory way. Unable to find the answers to his problems, Toda left Christianity (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 157). In 1928, shortly after the conversion of Makiguchi, Toda was converted to Nichiren Shoshu by Mitani Sokei. When Toda questioned Mitani about religion, the result was much the same as when he had questioned Tanaka about Christianity; Mitani was unable to answer his problems. But Mitani told him, "There is no way except to let you worship the honzon," and took him to the Taisekiji. Toda said that when he arrived at the Taisekiji and worshipped the mandala, he suddenly found the peace he was seeking. When he returned home he burned the image of Amida that his brother had given him at the time of his wife's death and became a member of Nichiren Shoshui. He attended the Nakano Church of Nichiren Shoshu (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 157-158). With Makiguchi's help, Toda set up the Jishui Gakkan, a school that prepared young people for school entrance examinations, which he managed while continuing to sell insurance. He also began to publish manuals for students who were preparing for their examinations. He wrote and published Shido Sanjutsu (Guide to Arithmetic 4 X J JT- ) which sold over a million copies. While carrying on these various activities, he attended the economic department of ChQ6 University, from which he was graduated in 1931 (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 155). Toda, with his financial acumen, made a fitting companion for Makiguchi who seems to have been completely occupied with his educational theories and little concerned with financial matters. Toda was the manager of the original SOka Kyoiku Gakkai when it was organized in 1930. From the early 1940's until he and Makiguchi were sent to prison in 1943, Toda directed an investment company, played the stock market, and operated the Daidosha, a company that published many popular novels (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 156, 158). He said he had made six million yen before World War II began. During his two years in prison, 1943-1945, Toda began, apparently for the first time, to study the doctrines of Nichiren ShoshQ carefully. He read the writings of Nichiren and also the Lotus Sutra over and over again. He began to repeat the daimoku regularly; he said that this gave him confidence that he would be kept safe. He claimed to have converted two of the guards while he was in prison. When the air raids over Tokyo became more frequent, he reportedly told his guards, "The bombs won't hit you if you stand over here beside me" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 159). When he was released in July 1945, Toda found his school, the Jishfa Gakkan, totally destroyed. The Soka Kyoiku Gakkai had been disbanded on the orders of the authorities. Makiguchi was dead. Toda set up two companies in Kanda, the Nissho ShObO and the Nippon Shogakkan, to publish a number of popular magazines including the Boken Shonen, Shonen Nippon, and Rubii. As soon as possible after the end of the war, he set about reorganizing the SOka Gakkai. He began giving public lectures on the Lotus Sutra and practicing shakubuku on his drinking companions, dragging them off to the Taisekiji to worship (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 74). By means of newspaper advertisements Toda sought together the former members of the SOka Kyoiku Gakkai. Most of the present leaders of the Soka Gakkai joined the movement at this
Page 165 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 165 time, including Koizumi Takashi As,& *:, Harajima Koji tJbt Ma, Tsuji Takehisa it, if-, Kashiwabara Yasu *6-t, Izumi Satoru -i*v X~A, Kodaira Yoshihei,I 'k1-, and Shiraki GiichirO 5;. —pXI. Two important leaders who joined as young people at this time during the early postwar period were Ishida Tsugio and Ikeda Daisaku. The first general meeting of the new SOka Gakkai was held in the autumn of 1946; it was combined with a funeral service for Makiguchi (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 74). Toda put great emphasis on the teaching of doctrine. He believed that the SOka KyOiku Gakkai had been persecuted during the war because doctrinal teaching had been neglected. He began to shift the emphasis from educational theory and abstract philosophy to a doctrine of human life (jinsei kan A-t4t_ ) and the problems of living. This pragmatic approach, plus an emphasis on healing, helped persuade people to join the movement. Toda served as chairman of the board of the Soka Gakkai from its founding until he resigned and was replaced by Yajima Shahei at the fifth general meeting in November 1950. (The office of president had not been filled after the death of Makiguchi.) Toda was at that time under police investigation as the head of the Tokyo Construction Credit Association (Tokyo Kensetsu Shiny5 Kumiai,jtt L ) _ ~,,v- ). A man named Nakamura who had suffered a heavy loss when the association collapsed during the inflation of 1949 had accused Toda of fraud. According to Nakamura, the company had been liquidated with the understanding that Toda would refund, by 1951, thirty percent of the debt of fifteen million yen which he had outstanding with the company. This accusation was never directly denied by Toda. He was indicted, but contrary to the expectations of most observers, he escaped conviction (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 160). On May 3, 1951, after he was freed, Toda became the second president of the Soka Gakkai as a result of a petition circulated among the membership. Yajima gave up his position as chairman of the board and became a priest of Nichiren ShOshl (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 137). Toda was a oneman ruler with absolute authority over his subordinates. He was, for all practical purposes, the SOka Gakkai. His private life was similar to that of any middle-class Japanese businessman. He married again and, although he was the head of a flourishing credit company, lived with his wife and one son in two rooms on the second floor of a rented house. He lived entirely on his income from secular pursuits and prided himself on not accepting gifts or salary from his religious activities. He did this to show that he was not using religion to make a living, in contrast to some leaders of other "new religions" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 151, 163). Toda was a very blunt man, quite different from the usual conception of a Japanese religious leader. He made no claim to deity or to having received special oracles from a deity. Toda liked recreation and was a rather heavy drinker. His tastes were ordinary and he was not interested in philosophical speculation. His lectures and sermons were quite practical and down-to-earth. After interviewing him KondO HidezO said that Toda reminded him of a department head in a small business or factory. "Toda has the feelings of an ordinary man. It is for this reason that the SOka Gakkai has progressed this far" (KondO 1956: 284). Toda Josei died of heart trouble at Nihon University hospital in Tokyo, on April 2, 1958. He was fifty-eight years old (Asahi Shinbun April 4, 1958: 5). Ikeda Daisaku For two years after Toda's death the office of the president was left unfilled. During this period control of the organization was largely in the hands of three men: Koizumi Takashi (4 ] ), chairman of the board of directors, Ishida Tsugio (Z;^ 1 ~ ), editor of the Seikyo Shimbun, the SOka Gakkai weekly newspaper, and Ikeda Daisaku (sL i,-z' ), chief of staff and chairman of general affairs. This interim arrangement ended on May 3, 1960, when Ikeda became the third president of the SOka Gakkai. Koizumi moved up to a new office, supreme advisor (saiko komon Ad a at n ) and Ishida continues as editor of the Seikyo Shimbun.
Page 166 166 THE SOKA GAKKAI Ikeda Daisaku was born in Ota-ku, Tokyo, on January 2, 1928. He graduated from Tokyo Commercial School in 1946 and joined the S6ka Gakkai in 1947. He became very active in the organization and was named to the central executive of the youth department when it was formed in 1951. In 1952 he was also made a member of the executive of the Kamada branch of the Gakkai, the most active and powerful branch in the organization. By 1954, he had risen to the rank of chief of staff, working directly under Toda, from whom he received advice and instructions. He became, in essence, Toda's protege. As chief of staff, he was responsible for carrying out the more aggressive policies and actions of the youth department and the Gakkai, including the election campaigns which were so successful. He also served as chairman of the publicity department in the central headquarters. After Toda's death Ikeda was chairman of the general affairs department until his accession to the presidency. As chief of staff and later as chairman of general affairs, Ikeda's position resembled that of the executive secretary of a political party. On April 9, 1960, the board of directors, on the nomination of Chairman Koizumi, asked Ikeda to serve as president. Ikeda finally accepted their third request on April 16. He is strictly an organization man who has risen from the ranks. He has a reputation for getting along well with his co-workers and it seems unlikely that the tradition of one-man rule by the president will be resumed (Seikyo Shimbun April 22, 1960: 1). The Church Militant The strong monolithic structure of the postwar Soka Gakkai is almost entirely the work of Toda Josei. The organization exists to carry on the holy war of shakubuku, the kosen rufu. At its head until his death was Toda, the great general, the commander-in-chief. His followers, particularly those in the elite youth department, pledged absolute obedience to him. By May of 1957, 53,000 young men had pledged themselves to die if necessary for Toda and the S6ka Gakkai (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 150). The scholarly attitude fostered by Makiguchi before the war has been largely replaced by an aggressive emphasis on shakubuku. A popular Soka Gakkai song has a line which says, "I leave my home and will not return until I have converted someone" (Sekai 1956: 140). The emphasis on military style is evident in the terms which are used for groups and in the mass meetings of the Soka Gakkai. Toda presided over a mass meeting at Mt. Fuji in November 1954 called "reviewing the troops" (eppei shiki t A -' ). On that occasion 13,000 members of the men's and women's youth corps, wearing white headbands and carrying staves, participated in a ceremony which was called "departing for the front" (shutsujin shiki. 4 A4 ). The front for which they were departing was the battle of shakubuku, to win new converts for the SOka Gakkai and Nichiren ShOshQ. Toda reviewed them while seated on a white horse. Observers were reminded of the Emperor reviewing his troops in pre-war Japan. Such incidents have helped to give the S6ka Gakkai a Fascist reputation (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 142). At the mass meetings of the Soka Gakkai music is usually furnished by a military band. Its songs are set to the music of pre-war army and navy marching songs. An assembly at the KOrakuen in Tokyo was begun by the leaders marching in to military band music. More than a hundred priests of Nichiren Sh6sha led the procession. They were followed by the flags of each section of the youth corps. Next came the "Tsuru no Maru," the official flag of the SOka Gakkai, and a group of national leaders, followed by the flags of each of the branches, truly a most impressive sight. At the close of the meeting the band struck up the Soka Gakkai anthem, a song in which Gakkai members pledge themselves to die if necessary in fighting the holy war. The audience joined in singing and clapped in cadence (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 176-177). The SOka Gakkai has become widely known for its tightly knit, efficient organization. Scholars, politicians, and others who tend to despise this type of new religion are coming to have great respect for the power of its organization because of its success in the political arena and its ability to infiltrate labor unions. An election official reportedly said that the votes from the labor unions and from the Soka Gakkai are solid, because of their organization (H. Takagi 1959: 209-210). The Communist party of Japan has taken some pointers from the organization of the SOka Gakkai,
Page 167 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 167 particularly at the local level An official of the Ajia Minzoku Kyogikai, a rightist organization, said, "From now on the rightist movements must adopt the fighting methods of the Soka Gakkai." With this in mind he joined the S~ka Gakkai and became a squad leader. A similar case was also reported in Ibaraki prefecture (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). At the present time the Soka Gakkai is officially devoted to peaceful methods of expansion. Yet it has never repudiated the principle that the use of force in shakubuku is sometimes justifiable. According to Saki and Oguchi, the Soka Gakkai could grow into a "very dangerous power" if it were to "strengthen its political character and turn into a clearly Fascistic organization" (1957: 179-180). National Organization The S6ka Gakkai is legally incorporated as a religious juridical person. For many years its headquarters have been in an old two-story building in Tokyo. On the first floor are offices, a board room, and a reception room. The honzon is enshrined in a large room on the second floor. There is usually a large group of worshippers before the honzon chanting the daimoku. This chanting can be heard echoing through the building (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 180). The head of the organization is the president (kaicho W -k ). (see Fig. 1) There is a board of directors (rijikai 4L ) with a chairman (rijicho 3 -t ). The president, the board of directors, and the heads of the various departments make up the central executive (daikanbu Aejs). Ten departments function under the board of directors. The seven regular departments include: supervisory (tokan A,%? ), guidance (shido:L - ), religious education (kyogaku ja. ), culture (bunka i_ 4 ), finance (zaimu *I I- ), women (fujin -,_ ), and public relations (shogai -k. p~ ). Three more departments are separate under the board: the secretariat (hissho ~t - ), planning (kikaku 4 *j ), and publishing (shuppan;{ A_ ). Two departments are independent, reporting directly to the president: the youth department (seinenbu - -t-P ) and the student department (gakuseibu?4 J ). The two independent departments under the president are described as his hatamoto ( f;-) or direct vassals. There is also a general staff (sanbo shitsu t;. ) to direct the Great Shakubuku Advance. Many people predicted that the Soka Gakkai would disintegrate after Toda's death (Shukan Asahi June 21, 1959: 9). This has not been the case and there are no particular strains or stresses apparent within the organization. The present leaders seem to be well aware of the dangers and appear to have guarded against them successfully. Most of them are comparatively young men who entered the organization at approximately the same time. They were trained together under Toda and apparently work well together. Local Organizations Under the general headquarters in Tokyo there are seven regional divisions: Kansai, Kyushu, Hokkaido, Tohoku, Chugoku, Chubu and Saitama (Saikyo Shimbun April 22, 1960: 1). In May 1960 there were 61 branches (shibu L -~w ) under these larger divisions. Most of the branches are organized by prefectures with a few of the larger prefectures subdivided into smaller units. Each branch has a chairman, a women's leader, and executive secretaries for each of the departments found in the central headquarters (education, culture, publicity, etc.). Unless the branch is especially large, the headquarters is usually maintained in the chairman's home (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 182-183). Each branch is responsible for organizing a children's group for middle and primary school children (Seikyo Shimbun February 26, 1960: 4). Each branch is divided into districts (chiku +3 3, ); the organization of these districts is patterned after that of the branch. The district is then divided into squads (han,} ) and the squads into groups (kumi,.L ). Each squad and each group has a chairman and a women's leader who make up the executive at these levels (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 182-183).
Page 168 168 THE SOKA GAKKAI Figure 1 ORGANIZATION OF THE SOKA GAKKAI, 1960 Organization of the National Headquarters President |Youth | Students | Board of Directors Chief of Staff. ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~ a |I _Culture General Staff | Finance Supervision I Guidance A i Secretariat I Planning --- I Publishing _~~~~ Public Relations Women Religious Education | National Structure National Headquarters 7 Regional Divisions 61 Branches (shibu) Same departments as National Headquarters Districts (chiku) Patterned after branches Squads (han) Chairman and Women's director Groups (kumi) Chairman and Women's director Individual Member
Page 169 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 169 The kumi is the most important unit in the SOka Gakkai. Composed of from five to twenty members, it is a tight, compact unit. The center of activity is the weekly zadankai or discussion meeting led by the chairman of the kumi and another leader, usually a woman. The zadankai is the most important meeting on any level of the organization. It is the meeting at which prospective members are received and doubters or backsliders are brought into line. The actual discussion is usually led by a member of the education department or a squad leader. Much of the discussion centers around SOka Gakkai interpretation of current events, particularly with regard to the doctrine of the decline of the law. Part of the meeting is usually devoted to reports from members who have experienced the power of the honzon in their lives during the previous week. This testimony is often decisive in convincing a visitor to join the organization. There is usually some recreation and singing (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 178, 201). The zadankai is often the most important factor in shakubuku. Prospective members are encouraged to come to the meeting and see for themselves. This is especially effective with those who otherwise might be inclined to argue with a Gakkai member. Merely to come and listen seems safe enough, whereas to refuse would be both unscientific and unnecessarily rude. The zadankai is a period of sharing so open and aboveboard that often all doubts are overcome. Many a prospect is caught up in the enthusiastic atmosphere and becomes a fervent member (Sekai 1956: 141). The zadankai is also important in keeping members active and in preventing them from falling away because of doubts which may arise in their minds. Members are urged to attend each week and when one fails to appear the others try to bring him back. The atmosphere of the zadankai is one of mutual trust and helpfulness in which each member is encouraged to speak freely. A trained leader is always present to give counsel and advice. Thus, doubts and troubles are expressed and dealt with before they grow to proportions which might cause a member to leave the movement. It has also been suggested that the sharing of problems and ideas and the atmosphere of mutual trust are positive factors in promoting mental health. Since physical health is closely related to mental health, it is quite possible that the zadankai plays an important role in the seemingly miraculous healings which occur in the Gakkai (Sekai 1957: 143). It is not surprising that the zadankai is of great importance to women in the movement. A Japanese housewife is occupied almost completely with household duties and has few social contacts outside of her home. When she joins the Soka Gakkai, however, she becomes an active positive part of a new social structure. In the zadankai the housewife, who is otherwise only something to be used in the home, becomes a social activist. Her role as a propagator of the faith is emphasized. She enters society with a new ideal, a purpose for social action. Thus, although positions of leadership in the Soka Gakkai are generally dominated by men, women are very active and speak freely in the zadankai. Discussion topics often revolve around such themes as the democratization of the home (H. Takagi 1959: 213; Saki and Oguchi 1957: 167). It is estimated that about sixty percent of the total membership is female, although no statistics are available. Departments Among the various departments of the SOka Gakkai, the most important are publication, religious education, finance, and the youth department. These carry the main thrust of the advance of the movement. Publications The publication department of the Gakkai is very important. It publishes many materials, including the complete works of Nichiren, the important writings of the later leaders of Nichiren Sh6sh0, and commentaries on the Lotus Sutra and the writings of Nichiren, It also publishes a monthly magazine, Daibyakurenge ( K &~ i3 1- The Great White Lotus). The Seiky5 Shimbun is published by a separate corporation, the Seikyo Shimbun Sha (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 181).
Page 170 170 THE SOKA GAKKAI Religious Education The religious education department is well organized at every level. It is actually an order of lay evangelists within the Gakkai, comparable at many points to the Jesuit order. A member must pass an examination in doctrine before he can be admitted and must pass other examinations to rise in rank within the department. To prepare for these examinations, the members take courses in the Kachiron, the Shakubuku Kyoten, the writings of Nichiren, and other important doctrinal writings. Ranks within the religious education department parallel those used in a university faculty. The lowest rank is the assistant (joshi - 3 ); the next highest rank is instructor (koshi t- p F), then assistant professor (jokyoju ej j'ti ), and professor (kyoju 4I'lj). Difficult examinations are given at each level. In 1957, half of the members of the religious education department were also active in the youth department, indicating that the staff of the department is relatively young (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 193-194). On February 19, 1960, the Seikyo Shimbun carried an account of special examinations held in the Nagoya area. These examinations had been scheduled for the autumn of 1959 along with similar examinations held in all areas of the country but were postponed because of the typhoon that struck Nagoya in 1959. According to the report, 445 persons living in the area qualified as assistants in this examination. Another seventy-five persons were raised to a higher rank. The same issue carried an account of another special nationwide examination in which 671 assistants became instructors. Members of the religious education department are active in each zadankai as leaders, resource persons, or advisors. They handle theoretical and doctrinal problems and lead in the shakubuku of prospective members who come to the meeting. The higher ranking members of the department lecture regularly in each district. During the period before an election in which Gakkai candidates are involved, the doctrinal lectures tend to become political speeches (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 194). Finance Funds for running the Soka Gakkai are provided by the finance department. Gakkai members may apply for membership in the department at the beginning of each year. A member of the finance department is expected to contribute about 4000 yen per year to the organization and receives a special pin and additional prestige (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 160). The Seikyo Shimbun carries editorials and articles encouraging members to join this department, but there is no evidence that members of the Gakkai are pressured into this contributors' group. The members of the S6ka Gakkai pay no dues or membership fees and are not required to make contributions to the organization treasury. The officers of the Soka Gakkai are unpaid; only the clerical staff receives salaries. The headquarters budget in 1956 was about Y 200,000 per month (Kond6 1956: 288). Youth department The youth department has spearheaded the Great Shakubuku Advance and the political activities of the Gakkai. It differs from most of the other departments in that it is placed under the president rather than the Board of directors. Members must be under thirty years of age. They are called the president's hatamoto or personal vassals (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 187). The entire youth department is presided over by a chairman (seinenbucho W -~p ). Directly under the chairman is a chief of staff (sanboshitsucho ~t.:L ) and a group of staff officers (anbo,t- ) (Shukan Asahi June 21, 1959: 9). The department is divided into a women's division (joshibu - - 4 ) and a men's division (danshibu 3 5 X ), each with its own chairman. The men's division is progressively subdivided into corps (butai -vT f. ), companies (tai pK ), squads (han ~A_. ), and then into parties (buntai -. 4t ) of about ten members each. It has, in addition, a transportation squad (unsotai f '1 Al ) and a military band (gunrakutai [f~ ). The women's division is divided into corps, districts (ku &_ ), squads, and groups (kumi. _ ). It also has a fife and drum corps (kotekitai tt V by ) and a chorus (gasshodan P-; )Y ). In
Page 171 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 171 the summer of 1959 there were 120,000 men in eighty-five corps and 70,000 women in seventy-eight corps (ShukanAsahi June 21, 1959: 9; Saki and Oguchi 1957: 187). See figure 2. Figure 2. Organization of the Youth Department. Toda trained the youth department to be the first line of attack in the Great Shakubuku Advance. The shock troops in mass demonstrations, invasions of temples, and picketing are drawn from this elite corps. Its own battle song (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 142) begins: Where is the youth with the banner, Who will be willing to throw away his life? Do you not know Fuji's peak? Come quickly to the battle. In his Instructions to Youth (Seinenkun - *- ~1 ) Toda gave three reasons (quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 184-185) to fight for the faith: 1) Others must be informed that there is only one true honzon which is worthy of worship and which gives one a life full of rewards. 2) False faiths -the source of all hardship and suffering - must be entirely eliminated. 3) Each person must reform his own life and develop a life full of mercy; this must begin with love for one's parents. In these instructions, Toda gave specific directions to the members of the youth department as to what they should do to carry out their role as the leaders in shakubuku: 1) Be "filled with absolute assurance" and recognize the fact that the honzon is "lord, teacher, and parent." 2) "Study hard and have the writings written on your hearts." 3) "In your attack avoid harsh words and lead with reason. In both your sterness and tolerance there should be courage which will not retreat." Student department The student department, begun in June 1957, is one of the weakest parts of the organization. Its
Page 172 172 THE SOKA GAKKAI main strength is in the universities of the Tokyo area, but its membership is still extremely small. In any one university in Tokyo there may be only two or three active members. About one-third are women. This department emphasizes doctrinal matters, apparently because these students are expected to be leaders in matters of theory and teaching who will play a major part in future shakubuku battles. As reorganized in February 1960, the department is presided over by a chairman and subdivided first into groups (guruupu /-7'~ ) and then into squads (han). Under the chairman there is a permanent executive secretary (joninkanji t~4- #i ). Each branch (shibu) of the Sbka Gakkai has one group of the student department (Seikyo Shimbun February 26, 1960: 4). Membership in the S6ka Gakkai To join the S~ka Gakkai, one must of course become a believer and agree to the tenets of the faith. Usually about six months of training after conversion precede formal admission as a member (Kondo 1956: 288). There are no membership or entrance fees, although there is a small fee for a copy of the Lotus Sutra and for the small replica of the Taisekiji honzon that is enshrined at the family altar as a center for daily worship. The initiation ceremony for the Soka Gakkai is held at a Nichiren ShOsha temple. The candidate chants the daimoku to the honzon, listens to a lecture on the Law, and kneels with bowed head while the scroll is held over him. He is then a member of the S6ka Gakkai (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 207). As soon as he joins, the new member is visited by members of the local group who perform hobobarai Vt > \ v) I, the removal from his house of anything which would defile it. Buddha images, sutras, ofuda, crosses, and Bibles are thrown out and burned. This procedure is usually very offensive to the other residents of the neighborhood and gives the SOka Gakkai a reputation for violence, especially when hobobarai is performed over the protests of other persons in the household who are not members of the Gakkai. This gives the impression that members of the S6ka Gakkai have forced their way into the home and are removing and destroying sacred objects without permission (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 207). A Gakkai member is expected to attand many meetings. Aside from the weekly zadankai, there are lectures, branch meetings, women's meetings, youth meetings, executive meetings at all levels, the regional assembly, and the national assembly. In addition each branch sends a certain quota of members on pilgrimage to the Taisekiji each month. At times the headquarters has had to warn members not to attend so many meetings that their jobs would be neglected. On February 19, 1960, the Seikyo Shimbun (p. 4) devoted considerable space to a discussion of overattendance and to testimony in which members told how they had solved the problem. One man told how he worked faster so that he could finish his job early and have time for the Gakkai, another told how he had learned to get along with less sleep and thus have time for Gakkai activities, and a student explained that he devoted Sunday to the Gakkai. THE GREAT SHAKUBUKU ADVANCE In the period immediately after World War II the Soka Gakkai gained new members at the steady but unspectacular rate of seventy to eighty households per month.3 The organization was growing much more slowly than most of the so-called "new religions" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 75). In 1951, at the time that he assumed the presidency, Toda JOsei proclaimed the Great Shakubuku Advance (Shakubuku Daikoshin f 4)- 4l ), which was ostensibly aimed at "saving" Japan and Asia. The immediate goal was to win three million households in Japan. At that time the estimated number of individual members of the SOka Gakkai was between two and three thousand (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 137, 227). The Advance concentrated first on the Tokyo metropolitan complex: the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Chiba, and, specifically, on the industrial zones within this area. Within one year the membership had increased to about ten thousand households. By the spring of 1952, fourteen branch offices had been established (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 138).
Page 173 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 173 In his opening proclamation, Toda listed four basic reasons (quoted in Saki and Oguchi 1957: 137) for proclaiming a Great Shakubuku Advance: 1) "Shinto as a national religion is broken." 2) "The authority of the emperor to suppress a religion at any time is destroyed." 3) "The people are suffering." 4) "In its occupation by American forces, Japan has suffered the invasion by a foreign power that was predicted in the Rissho Ankoku Ron. Under American pressure the numbers of the unemployed are rising, wages are falling, and it is difficult even to eat. The people are trying to escape from this suffering, but the Communist party has no answer. Thus, this is our chance." The Attack -Shakubuku Bands An area picked as a target for the Great Shakubuku Advance is invaded by men of the Gakkai. The shakubuku bands are often led by members of the youth department. Many of these bands are so large that they seem to take over entire areas. The temples of other Nichiren branches are primary targets. Meetings of other groups such as TenrikyO, Christian churches, and the Rissho KOseikai have also been attacked (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 140-141). The S6ka Gakkai attack on the head temple of Nichiren-sha furnishes a good example of the methods used. On March 11, 1960, the youth department of the Soka Gakkai invaded Minobu, the main headquarters of Nichiren-shO, with over one thousand men and a marching band. They paraded through the temple, held a meeting in front of the temple gate, and distributed to the surrounding countryside special issues of the Seikyo Shimbun which proclaimed the falseness of the Minobu sect. Using a small truck outfitted with a public address system, they broadcast speeches as they paraded through the streets of the town. Apparently the leaders of Nichiren-sht had learned from painful experience that it did not pay to engage in public dispute with the S6ka Gakkai for this demonstration met no resistance (Seikyo Shimbun March 18, 1960). The following incidents also illustrate these methods. In 1954, about twenty young men came to the abbot of the Shingon Yfrakuji in Tokyo and asked for instruction in the doctrines of Shingon. After listening for half an hour, they began to ask questions which had no relation to the instruction such as, "Who is greater, Buddha or Nichiren? " They created such an uproar that the abbot decided to withdraw into his own quarters. When they saw him preparing to leave they cried, "Are you running away?" and left the temple shouting, "We won." (Asahi Shimbun October 26, 1954). On June 12, 1957, five or six SOka Gakkai men broke into an Aomori Christian church and said to the minister, "Christianity is a false religion. We'll recommend you to our leader, so you come and join our group." When the minister refused, they overturned the pulpit, stamped on the Bible, and left the church (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). In recent years there seems to be less of this kind of activity. It seems probable that the S6ka Gakkai is becoming more mature and responsible and that it now has greater control over its more fanatical elements. Literature Literature, especially the Seikyo Shimbun, plays an important role in the Great Advance. Each week the Seikyo Shimbun features a lecture on some phase of doctrine, plus a full page on the horrors and errors of some other religion, usually one related to Nichiren. Occasionally a special issue is devoted entirely to a "false religion." On April 1, 1960, for example, the paper discussed the ButsuryO-shQ, a sect which split off of the main Nichiren line in 1857. The Seikyo Shimbun frequently prints testimony to the power of the honzon in daily life. The issue of February 26, 1960, contained these accounts:
Page 174 174 THE SOKA GAKKAI 1) The engineer of an express train on the TOhoku line reported that after he became a member of the STka Gakkai he discovered how to cut fuel consumption by more than one third. The new method utilizes more complete combustion and also reduces smoke. 2) A forty-two year old woman had been married twenty-three years without a child. Doctors told her there was no chance that she could ever have a child. She had had an operation in 1939, but this was a failure. She had been a faithful member of Konkokyo for three years, hoping this would help her, but nothing happened. Finally a friend told her that she had all this trouble because she was a member of a false religion. She joined the S6ka Gakkai in 1954 and in 1958 gave birth to a fine baby boy. 3) A Japanese woman who is married to an American and lives in Virginia keeps the honzon enshrined in her house. Her daughters take all of their troubles to the honzon and chant to it regularly. The eldest daughter used to go to Sunday School, but of her own accord realized that this was wrong and stopped going. She says that her husband is not yet a believer but is sympathetic and babysits for her when she goes to the zadankai. She feels that he will come to believe when he realizes all of the blessings that have come to them because of the honzon. On February 19, 1960, the Seikyo Shimbun reported that in Tokyo the annual ratio of fire damage victims to the general population is.28 percent, whereas for the members of the Soka Gakkai it is only.027 percent. The article has maps which show how members surrounded by fire have miraculously escaped injury. When a Gakkai member has been hurt, the injury has been less severe than expected or has in some unusual way led to a greater blessing. The headlines on the front page of the issue of February 12, 1960, proclaimed that a Soka Gakkai member was among those rescued from the Ytbari mine disaster which killed thirty-six miners. Although he was older than the others and very deep down in the mine, he was the first to be rescued. Nine Gakkai members who were supposed to have been in the mine at the time were actually outside and safe. This is held to be proof of the power of the honzon. "If only we had been more faithful in doing shakubuku," these men were reported to have said, "the number of those killed would have been much smaller." Violence Does the SOka Gakkai use violence in shakubuku? The evidence indicates that physical violence has occasionally been used, but its use is repudiated by the central headquarters. Intimidation and threat of punishment seem to be more common. The following examples are fairly typical: 1) In 1957, a sick man in Akita prefecture reported in a letter to the editor of the Asahi Shimbun that S6ka Gakkai men had promised him complete healing if he would join the group. When he refused, he was told that his punishment would come within three years. He also said he knew of employers who had fired employees who refused to join (Asahi Shimbun June 25, 1957: 5). 2) In the same year, the Yomiuri Shimbun (July 6) reported from Arakawa-ku that two primary school teachers told the parents of a child that he was weak and sickly and would not be normal unless they joined the S5ka Gakkai. This intolerance comes from the SOka Gakkai attitude toward other religions. According to Toda, "Without exception, all other religions are false religions. Because we say this clearly we have many enemies. We are often called a violent religion and can't seem to get rid of that reputation" (Kondo 1956: 285). The Gakkai headquarters has frequently warned its membership against the use of violence and intimidation and the Shakubuku Kyoten does not sanction it. However, the use of force and even killing in the defense of the Lotus Sutra is approved in the Nichiren tradition. In the Shugan Gosho ( c yL P $% ) Nichiren reaffirmed the Buddhist principle of not taking life but says, at the same time, "Harming an enemy of the Lotus Sutra is the first virtue," and goes on to mention that Asoka
Page 175 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 175 killed 178,000 followers of false religion (Hori Nikko, ed. 1952: 1075). Some violence thus would seem to be a normal result of the official teaching of the sect. Toda himself admitted that there had been some excesses but blamed them on the youthful exuberance of the participants (Asahi Shimbun October 26, 1954). Counter-attack Other forces within Japanese Buddhism have begun to move against the Soka Gakkai but not with the organization or efficiency which the Gakkai has shown in its own attack. The Nishi Honganji in Kyoto published a criticism of the Soka Gakkai in a pamphlet called Soka Gakkai Hihan ( '1 4~ '-:tt -J ), but little other countermovement has been evident (Saki 1957: 239). In the past the problem of burial has been troublesome to Gakkai members. They have often been refused interment in the grounds of the ancestral temples which they deserted to join the Gakkai. "I've switched to Nichiren Sh6sha," one member reportedly told his priest who replied: "Then take your family graves and get out" (Saki 1957: 243). The ashes of some members have gone unburied for years. This, of course, hinders the Shakubuku of new members. This problem seems to have been settled now in favor of the Soka Gakkai. On March 18, 1960, the Seikyo Shimbun reported a decision of the Health and Welfare Ministry interpreting the law governing burial and cemeteries. The ministry stated that change of religion is not sufficient grounds for refusing interment in a temple cemetery. The S6ka Gakkai proclaimed this as another great victory demonstrating the power of the honzon. Three Areas of Advance, Examples of Shakubuku Methods Miyazaki Prefecture. The advance of the Soka Gakkai into Miyazaki prefecture provides an opportunity to study the methods used in the Great Advance. In the summer of 1957 seven temples of Nichiren-sht, all located in the Hyiga City area, decided to return to Nichiren Shoshi, the sect to which they had belonged before the war. The supporters of these temples did not object until they found out that the Soka Gakkai was involved. Then they began to fear Gakkai domination. Toward the end of July, the Gakkai sent their shakubuku bands into the Hyuga area in full strength. The bulk of these forces came from Osaka and Fukuoka, although other areas were also represented. According to the Hyuga Nichinichi Shimbun (August 30, 1957), "The members of the shakubuku bands which have come to Miyazaki include university professors, farmers, housewives, hotel maids, etc. Literally every kind of person is participating. There are even mothers with children on their backs, but the most noticeable feature is the number of junior and senior high school students.... They have given up their vacations to come and do shakubuku." Groups of about twenty members went door-to-door throughout the area. As a reaction to this activity many of the temple supporters turned against the priests who had made the decision to return to Nichiren Sh6sh0. The priests tried to explain that the Soka Gakkai was a laymen's organization of members of Nichiren ShOshU and that it did not control Nichiren Sh6shQ. On August 30, 1957, when the seven temples were returned to Nichiren Shoshufi, 3,200 members of the S6ka Gakkai participated in this service. Included were many of the top leaders from the Tokyo headquarters. Members arrived by chartered bus and by train and marched to the temple carrying banners and placards and singing their military songs. One hundred and twenty members of the youth department directed traffic (Hyiga Nichinichi Shimbun August 31, 1957). They stood for over an hour in the hot August sun outside the temple chanti the daimoku and then listened to the ceremony and speeches that followed. Even after the ceremony the dispute within the ranks of the supporters of these temples continued. On September 23, 1958, 130 of the 700 members of the Teizenji in Hytga City withdrew their membership and joined the Hontoji in Nobeoka, a temple of Nichiren-sht. Seventy members of the Hozoji in Kadogawa, another of the original seven temples, left that temple and took their ihai
Page 176 176 THE SOKA GAKKAI to the Hont6ji. The mayor of Kadogawa had tried unsuccessfully to mediate this dispute (Hyiga Nichinichi Shimbun October 2, 1958). The advance of the Sdka Gakkai into other areas of Miyazaki prefecture was also accompanied by dissension within Nichiren temples. Members of temples affiliated with Nichiren-shu joined the S6ka Gakkai and then began to fight with their priests. The abbot of a Nichiren-sha temple in Miyazaki City fought the Gakkai so vigorously that his headquarters in Minobu tried to persuade him to be somewhat less violent. He withdrew from the Minobu group and formed a separate independent sect within which he continues his violent attacks on the SOka Gakkai (Hyiuga Nichinichi Shimbun June 8, 1959: 7). In 1952, there were 35 households in Miyazaki prefecture that belonged to the Soka Gakkai. In 1959, there were 10,650 (Hyiga Nichinichi Shimbun June 8, 1959: 7). The distribution of the Gakkai membership within the prefecture seems to follow rather closely the traditional areas of Nichiren strength. In the elections to the House of Councillors in 1959, the percentage of votes cast for the Gakkai candidate was largest in the prefectural capital and in the only industrial city in the prefecture. In the fishing villages the vote was also fairly high, but it was low in the inland agricultural centers. Miyazaki prefecture is organized as a separate branch of the SOka Gakkai. It is subdivided into districts which have 800 to 1300 member households each. The district is subdivided into squads with about ten groups (kumi) in each squad and ten households in each group. The male division in 1959: 7). Hokkaido. The Gakkai first entered Hokkaido in the summer of 1953 when a shakubuku band hit the major cities. About one hundred households joined at that time. There were 1500 member households in Hokkaido in 1954, 3800 in 1955, 11,500 in 1956, and 25,303 by May of 1957 (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 17). On March 11, 1955, as a result of a dispute between a believer of the Nichirenshu MyOrytji in Otaru and a member of the Soka Gakkai Otaru squad, the Gakkai held a public debate at the Otaru public hall with representatives of Nichiren-sht. The Soka Gakkai had moved into Otaru under the direction of Kashiwabara Yasu, the head of the guidance division in Tokyo, who was later a candidate for the upper house from the Tokyo district. She divided the town into 15 districts and had a SOka Gakkai team visit each house and leave a copy of the Seikyo Shimbun. In ten days an Otaru squad of sixty-two households had been enrolled directly under the central headquarters. By the time of the debate 13 kumi with 138 households had been enrolled (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 144). The Minobu sect sent two of their best debaters for the occasion but otherwise seemed to take the debate rather lightly. The Soka Gakkai made detailed preparations. They sent in a plane load of leaders from Tokyo to survey the situation and keep in daily contact with the Tokyo headquarters by telephone. Two days before the meeting leaders from all over Hokkaido began to arrive in Otaru. A special issue of the Seiky5 Shimbun was printed and distributed. Photographs exhibited around the meeting place included a picture of a building at Minobu that is supposed to contain the bones of Nichiren which was captioned "Aren't these really horse bones?" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 145). Each side had been allotted half of the 1000 seats in the public hall. Nichiren-shtl could fill only three hundred of them, so the Soka Gakkai filled the rest. The speakers for the Gakkai were Kodaira Yoshihei, head of the education department, and Tsuji Takehisa, head of the youth department (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 146). (Both of these men are now in the House of Councillors.) They said in the debate that the Minobu honzon was not the true one, that Nichiren-shu worshipped foxes and snakes, and that Nichiren-shil used and collected offering boxes. Nichiren-sha speakers responded with complaints about the methods used by the SOka Gakkai and then called the honzon at the Taisekiji a forgery. During a speech by a member of the Nichiren-shtl, the meeting erupted into chaos and the representatives of Nichiren-sht left. After they were gone, the SOka Gakkai
Page 177 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 177 speakers led the audience in three banzais for victory. The meeting was widely publicised as a great victory for the Gakkai which published the results of the debate in a booklet entitled: The Otaru Debate; Record of Victory in a Doctrinal Dispute (Otaru Mondo - Horon Taiketsu Shori no Kiroku (,' — a A -?,,l —,~ c'I,). By 1957, 2500 households in Otaru had been enrolled in the SOka Gakkai (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 143-147). Okinawa. The SOka Gakkai has now spread as far as Okinawa. The Komyoji, the first temple of Nichiren ShOsha to be erected on Okinawa, was dedicated on March 6, 1960. On February 19, 1960, the Seikyo Shimbun reported that 5000 households on Okinawa had been enrolled in the SOka Gakkai. Who Joins the SOka Gakkai There are as yet no reliable statistics that show the composition of the SOka Gakkai membership. It is possible, however, to make some general observations. Most of the members seem to come from the urban lower middle class. Many of them are small merchants and businessmen attracted by promises of greater profits. As Toda told those gathered for the opening of the Osaka headquarters: "If we have good fortune, money comes to us. For morning devotions thirty minutes is enough. In the evening twenty minutes is all right. For materials all you need is a candle, incense, and anise. I came here because I want to make the Osaka group rich. Keep your faith firm and make money. No matter how much you make I'll never ask for any" (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 174). Labor and farm elements are well represented, as are teachers, policemen, and other civil servants. The Soka Gakkai seems to have a higher percentage of members who are very poor than any other major religious group. In 1959 there were 120,000 men and 70,000 women in the youth department. Being a member of the youth department requires a great deal of extra time and there are many young women who belong to the Gakkai but not to the youth department, probably because of time-consuming duties in their households. With the exception of Christianity, the Soka Gakkai is the only religion in Japan whose membership includes a large percentage of young people. Probably about 60 percent of all the members of the Gakkai are women (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 164). The biggest increases in SOka Gakkai membership occurred first in the Tokyo-Yokohama industrial belt, next in Osaka (particularly in the industrial wards), and then in the industrial and mining areas of northern Kyushu and Hokkaido. This concentration of membership in industrial areas is clearly shown in maps of voting strength for SOka Gakkai candidates. By 1957, a third of the union members in some of the large plants in the Kawasaki and Tsurumi areas were reported to be nMembers of the SOka Gakkai. The percentage was particularly high among young workers, though many of them dropped out after a few weeks (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 172-173). SOka Gakkai and the Japan Federation of Coal Miners' Unions. A dispute with the miners' union first won national prominence for the S6ka Gakkai. Because of the dangers of their work, miners are particularly susceptible to promises of protection from injury and accidental death. The Gakkai tells the miners that they will make money, avoid accidents and sickness. It even claims to raise men from the dead. For example, the Gakkai has given wide publicity to the story of a miner in northern Kyushu who hung himself. His family found him after several minutes and cut him down but gave him up for dead. A number of S6ka Gakkai men came and began chanting the daimoku. After several minutes the miner revived and got up. The family and friends who witnessed this incident rushed to join the SOka Gakkai (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). Another important factor in the conversion of many miners is Gakkai use of threats of trouble for those who refuse to join. On June 30, 1957, the Seiky5 Shimbun reported a gas explosion that killed ten miners: "Among the dead was Yoshikawa Yoshio (25) a Zen believer. Five attempts had been made to convert him, but he refused them all. At the fifth attempt he boasted, 'It's all right if I die. I won't believe even if it kills me.' Just two weeks after this he met his death. Just forty days before, Yoshikawa's wife had died in childbirth leaving the newborn baby. Forty days after its
Page 178 178 THE SOKA GAKKAI birth this child is left alone in the world. Here is revealed clearly the horrible fate of those who oppose the true law." By 1957, the Soka Gakkai was strong among the miners in Hokkaido and Kyushu and particularly so in the women's auxiliary of the union. There were S5ka Gakkai cells in every mine, large and small. At one mine 20% of the unionists were members of the S6ka Gakkai. In April 25,000 believers from the Chikuho mining area came to a Gakkai meeting in Fukuoka by chartered bus. Union officials observed that attendance at union meetings was very low when Gakkai meetings were scheduled at the same time. (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). The situation in Hokkaido was similar. In a local election in the Yabari mining area about 3000 union votes are estimated to have gone to the S5ka Gakkai candidate rather than to the union-backed candidate. According to a union survey taken in 1957, about 10,000 union members in Hokkaido belonged to the S6ka Gakkai (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). The S6ka Gakkai is opposed to strikes. Their slogan is "Work three times as hard and everything will be all right" (Sekai 1957: 140). The miners' union decided it would have to take action against the Gakkai or be taken over by it. Writing in the Asahi Gurafu, Koga, who was executive secretary of the miners' union, said, "If over half of our members become believers, our union activity will be paralyzed, and we'll be headed down the road to Fascism. Our well-being does not come from this fanatical activity but from rational action. Concretely, we must talk with each union member and get him to understand the facts of reality clearly. Since this is not just the problem of of the union decided to give special help to people who were very poor or in trouble so that they would not have to turn to the S6ka Gakkai. They felt that the union was not meeting the needs of its poorest members (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 221, 223). When the union on June 17, 1957, decided to boycott the Soka Gakkai, it responded by sending in 800 action squads and holding mass meetings at Sapporo and Ytbari. Since 1957, the tension between the union and the Gakkai has subsided to some extent. After the Soka Gakkai successes in the upper house elections in 1959, Nomiya Nobuo, executive secretary of the union, commented that "the Soka Gakkai is not working against our union as vigorously as it did two or three years ago. However, I would not want to say that the influence of the S6ka Gakkai is absent. There are those who seek spiritual refuge in the Gakkai from the living conditions at the mines and from dangerous work. It is a fact that there are believers within the union. From our previous experience we have strengthened our aid program and have also started resisting the Gakkai by asking the most fanatical members to do the most dangerous work and then watching them shrink back. They are running counter to modern industry by working to make the S6ka Gakkai a state religion. They cause laborers to lose their class consciousness, and if we would let them, they would paralyze the whole labor union movement. We need not be frightened, but we do need to study the situation realistically" (Shukan Asahi June 21, 1959: 11). The Police. According to a police survey, in 1957 over 200 policemen in Japan belonged to the S~ka Gakkai, including 50 in Tokyo and more than 20 each in Kanagawa and Osaka. There were, reportedly, cases of policemen giving police secrets to Soka Gakkai headquarters. A number of policemen were reported to have taken off a week or more from their jobs to do shakubuku in neighboring prefectures. When reprimanded, they accused their superiors of religious persecution and threatened to resign if they were prohibited from further activities of this kind (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957). The Communist Party. In 1957 several score Communist party members were also active in the S6ka Gakkai. At the same time, the Communist party as an organization was working strenuously against the Gakkai. In 1956 and 1957 Nozaka, the executive secretary of the Communist party, and Shiga, a central committeeman, were vigorous in pushing charges of election law violations against the Gakkai (Asahi Shimbun June 26, 1957).
Page 179 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 179 The Progress of the Advance Since the time of its proclamation in 1951, the Advance has moved forward with astonishing speed. When the Advance began, the SOka Gakkai had two to three thousand members. When the Gakkai was incorporated as a religious juridical person in 1952, its membership was reported to be 11,000 households. By 1956 its estimated membership had grown to 400,000 households. In June 1959, the membership was given as 1,100,000 households, and by April 1960, the figure had reached 1,500,000 households (Shukan Asahi June 21, 1959: 8; Seikyo Shimbun April 22, 1960). Gakkai membership was increasing by 30,000 households per month in the first part of 1960, according to the conversion totals of the 61 branches published by the Seikyo Shimbun. The branches in the metropolitan centers in core Japan were growing fastest. This estimate of the monthly rate of increase does not represent an absolute gain in the membership because a certain percentage of new members in this type of organization drop out. In the Osaka branch, turnover was particularly high. Out of every ten new members, four remained faithful, four left the movement, and two disappeared (Saki 1957: 241). The rate of loss for the entire movement is certainly not so high, but no statistics on losses are available. POLITICAL ACTIVITY Local Elections of 1955 The local elections of 1955 marked the first direct venture of the Soka Gakkai into politics. In these elections the major activity of the Gakkai was centered in the Tokyo area. Koizumi Takashi, a member of the board of directors, was elected to the Tokyo prefectural assembly and 33 Gakkai men were elected to ward assemblies. In the number of votes received, seven of these 33 ranked first in their ward and seven others were second. In this election and in those to follow, the heaviest concentration of votes for Gakkai candidates came from the wards with the highest percentage of very poor people - Ota, Kita, and KWt6. In city council elections six men were elected in Kanagawa, five in Saitama, four in Miyagi, and two in Chiba. Outside of the Tokyo area the SOka Gakkai elected 57 men to various city councils. (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 147, 170, 212). Upper House Elections of 1956 In the election for the House of Councillors in July 1956, the S6ka Gakkai moved onto the national political scene. The Gakkai entered candidates in the Osaka and Tokyo electoral districts and in the national constituency. Preparations began a year in advance. The weekly zadankai in each locality stressed the importance of the coming election. There were special shakubuku campaigns in Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Tokyo. In Osaka a special Kansai headquarters was set up to facilitate election activities. Two Socialists, one Communist, and one Liberal-Democrat were elected in the Tokyo district. The Gakkai candidate was Miss Kashiwabara Yasu ( 4i )5. N Y ), a primary school teacher who was head of the guidance department of the Soka Gakkai. She received 203,623 votes and came in fifth, 37,000 votes short of election (Asahi Shimbun July 7, 1956). In the Osaka district a SOka Gakkai candidate was elected. He was Shiraki Giichiro ( 4 C.i - p ), 36 years old, a former professional baseball player and chief of the Gakkai headquarters in Kansai. Table 1 shows the number of votes received by Shiraki and the other two elected candidates (Asahi Shimbun July 7, 1956). The Soka Gakkai nominated four candidates in the national constituency and elected two of them. Table 2 gives their names and ages, the number of votes they received, their rankings among all candidates, and the occupations of the two successful candidates (Asahi Shimbun July 7 and 9, 1956). The first fifty-two candidates were elected. In the national constituency the four Gakkai candidates
Page 180 180 THE SOKA GAKKAI TABLE 1 THE VOTE FOR CANDIDATES ELECTED FROM THE OSAKA DISTRICT (House of Councillors Election, 1956) Affiliation Number of Votes Received Liberal-Democratic Party 332,381 Socialist Party 252,041 Soka Gakkai 218,915 TABLE 2 THE SOKA GAKKAI CANDIDATES FROM THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENCY (House of Councillors Election, 1956) Rank Number of Soka Gakkai among all votes Name of Candidate Position Occupation Age candidates received Tsuji Takehisa Head of the Primary school 38 23 315,597 youth department teacher Hoj0 Shunhachi Advisor to the Former member 65 44 261,348 culture department of House of Peers Kodaira Yoshihei 34 59 224,815 Harajima KSji 46 78 189,792 polled a total of 990,000 voteso Tsuji received more than 50,000 votes from Hokkaido alone, largely as a result of his work in Otaru. Although he was not elected, Kodaira ran second in Kanagawa prefecture and first in the city of Kawasaki (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 213). An election official in Tokyo observed that many of the Soka Gakkai voters were very old and very poor, people who had not previously taken enough interest in politics to vote (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 219). Election Law Violations. During the campaign there were frequent reports from all parts of Japan of election law violations committed by those who campaigned for SOka Gakkai candidates. There were, according to police reports, 230 suspected cases of election law violation in Kanagawa. There were similar reports from Kyoto, Osaka, Hachioji, Miyagi, Aomori, Tochigi, Saitama, and Tokyo. The police raided the local headquarters of the Gakkai in many areas looking for incriminating evidence. At police headquarters in Kanagawa twenty Gakkai leaders were questioned at length on suspicion of having done door-to-door electioneering, the most frequent charge against the Gakkai. The police reported that over 80 percent of the election law violations for door-to-door electioneering throughout the nation involved members of the SOka Gakkai. These cases were difficult to prove because in most instances the electioneering was combined with shakubuku and religious counseling. The general pattern was that a Soka Gakkai member would go to a home where there was sickness or other trouble, present a card with the name of the Gakkai candidate on it, and say, "Join our group and vote for this man and your illness and trouble will soon go away. If you refuse, Buddha will punish you and destroy your family" (Asahi Shimbun June 25, 27, 28, 30, and July 11, 1956). In Osaka, 110 SOka Gakkai members, including top leaders of the Kansai area, were indicted for violating the election law. Most of them were charged with door-to-door solicitation. Forty of
Page 181 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 181 the 110 were charged with visiting more than forty homes each and were formally indicted. The others were charged with visiting more than five homes and had summary indictments subject only to a fine. In addition, four young people were turned over to the family court (Asahi Shimbun September 19, 1956). The Gakkai was quick to fight back against what it termed religious persecution. After the police raids and arrests, the Seikyo Shimbun carried articles headlined "Uniformed Policeman Rips Down Poster for Candidate," "Ichikawa Police Question a Sick Member for Twelve Hours," "Member is Called to Musashino Police Station and Cursed, 'Your Religion is False!' ", "Osaka Kawauchi Station Violates Liberty." On July 1, the Seiky5 Shimbun carried an article calling these arrests police persecution. Members took this issue around to various police boxes and asked all policemen to read it and reconsider their position. Police headquarters ordered all policemen to report anyone who came around with the newspaper and to note the content of the conversation (4sahi Shimbun July 5, 1956). As an organization the Gakkai spent nothing on the campaign. Toda's reported orders were, "Use no money so that they cannot arrest you. Visit the homes of your relatives and friends." When Toda was questioned by the police he replied, "Misfortune will come upon you. Stop this investigation and believe" (Asahi Shimbun July 11, 1956). After this election the Gakkai in Osaka suffered a sharp drop in membership, probably due in part to the arrests of members for violation of the election law. Later, however, when the election law violaters were pardoned in a general amnesty which the Ska Gakkai interpreted as the tetriumph of the Buddha Law over the forces of evil, the membership in Osaka began to climb again (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 215). Special Upper House Election of 1957 In April 1957 a special election was held in the Osaka district to fill a vacant seat in the House of Councillors. Although the Soka Gakkai candidate did not win, he showed significant strength. Table 3 shows the number of votes received by the Liberal-Democratic, Socialist, and Soka Gakkai candidates in this election (Asahi Shimbun April 24, 1957). In the previous year the Gakkai candidate from the Osaka district had received 16.6 percent of the total vote. In this election the Gakkai candidate received 20 percent of the vote. TABLE 3 THE VOTE FOR CANDIDATES FROM THE OSAKA DISTRICT (Special Election to The House of Councillors, 1957) Name of Candidate Affiliation Number of Votes Received Ogawa Liberal-Democrat Party 277,903 Murao Socialist Party 276,064 Nakao Soka Gakkai 170,497 This special election marked the high point of election law violations for the Soka Gakkai. Over 90 percent of those arrested for violations in this election were members of the Gakkai (Saki and Oguchi 1957: 217). The methods they used were extremely crude. One thousand four hundred one hundred yen bills with Nakao's card pasted on them and 3600 packs of cigarettes and 1000 boxes of caramels imprinted with his name were given to unemployed laborers waiting in line at the employment office the day before election. Koizumi Takashi was arrested and charged with having engineered their distribution. Ikeda Daisaku, head of the public relations department, was arrested on the same charge, although he was later released. In all, forty-five members of the Soka Gakkai were indicted on this charge and for door-to-door electioneering (Asahi Shimbun July 3, 4, 17, and 29,1957).
Page 182 182 THE SOKA GAKKAI In the 1956 election those arrested had been treated as religious martyrs suffering for their faith, but apparently some of the methods used in 1957 were too gross for the leadership of the Gakkai, for many of those arrested after this election were removed from membership (Saki 1957: 242). Local and Upper House Elections of 1959 The advance into politics continued during the local elections of 1959. The Gakkai elected four candidates to the Tokyo prefectural assembly although Koizumi did not run for re-election. Seventysix Gakkai members were elected to ward councils in Tokyo. Throughout the nation 293 S6ka Gakkai members were elected to prefectural, city, and ward assemblies (Shuikan Asahi June 21, 1959: 5). The upper house candidate of the Soka Gakkai in the Tokyo district was 42-year old Kashiwabara Yasu, who had also entered the 1956 election. Surprisingly, she received the highest number of votes in the district and rolled up a margin of almost 180,000 votes over the next highest candidate. Table 4 shows the number of votes received by the four elected candidates (Asahi Shimbun June 3, 1959). The total vote for all Liberal-Democratic candidates was 808,511; for all Socialist candidates, 644,431. Thus the Soka Gakkai was now a strong third party in the Tokyo area, approaching the Socialists in strength. TABLE 4 THE VOTE FOR CANDIDATES ELECTED FROM THE TOKYO DISTRICT (House of Councillors Election, 1959) Affiliation Number of Votes Received Soka Gakkai 471,472 Independent 292,927 Liberal-Democratic party 256,602 Socialist party 219,326 The Soka Gakkai nominated five candidates from the national constituency and all five were elected. The total number of votes received by the Gakkai candidates was 2,490,000 compared to 990,000 three years earlier in 1956. Table 5 gives their names, ages, and occupations, the number of votes they received, and their rankings among all candidates (Asahi Shimbun June 3 and 4, 1959). Several observations can be made about this election. (1) The Gakkai candidate who received the fewest votes ranked twenty-fourth among all candidates, a striking advance over the Gakkai record three years before. (2) This election showed that Gakkai strength in western Japan had increased, particularly Chugoku and Kyushu. (3) The S6ka Gakkai candidates were much younger than most of the candidates of political parties. Their average age was 41. (4) In this election ten candidates without party affiliation were elected. Of these, six were S6ka Gakkai candidates. The vote in Miyazaki prefecture in the upper house election of 1959 illustrates the sharp increase in political strength that the S6ka Gakkai had achieved. When Ishida's picture was posted, most people wondered who he was and what a youngster of thirty-four was doing on the ballot. When the returns for the prefecture were in, however, it was found that Ishida had come in second only to Kawano K6mei, a native son. Political observers then discovered that in the local city elections in the spring the Gakkai had elected four councilmen, a fact which had not come to public notice at the time. In the prefectural capital, the two Gakkai candidates elected ranked sixth and seventh; in Nobeoka, an industrial city, the Gakkai candidate ranked first; and in Hy1ga, a rural city, nineteenth. All four had been running for political office for the first time. Noting these successes, some observers in the prefecture recommended membership in the Gakkai as a shortcut to political success (Hyufiga Nichinichi Shimbun June 8, 1959).
Page 183 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 183 TABLE 5 THE SOKA GAKKAI CANDIDATES FROM THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENCY (House of Councillors Election, 1959) Rank Number of Soka Gakkai among all votes Name of Candidate Position Occupation Age candidates received Ishida Tsugio Director Editor of the 34 5 663,601 Seikyb Shinbun Nakao Tatsuyoshi Head of Senba, Dentist 43 14 494,742 Osaka branch Kodaira Yoshihei head of religious Employee of the 37 15 484,483 education department Labor Ministry Harashima Koinosuke Director Ota ward councilman, 49 19 441,003 (Koji) primary school teacher Ushida Hiroshi Chairman of the 44 24 403,965 youth department Election Law Violations. In the 1959 elections, very few election violations by Gakkai members were reported. Apparently the Gakkai had learned its lesson in 1957. By June 6, 1959, four days after the election, only eleven cases of violations by Gakkai members had been reported. Of these, five were for talking to people outside the polls and were obviously the work of overzealous individuals unrelated to any organizational plan (Shfkan Asahi June 21, 1959: 7). Campaign Methods. The organizational strength of the S6ka Gakkai was clearly revealed in the 1959 campaigns. Its headquarters had divided the national constituency into five geographical blocks, each of which supported one of the five S6ka Gakkai candidates. An analysis of the vote shows that this strategy worked. In most prefectures from 90 to 95 percent of the S6ka Gakkai vote was concentrated on one candidate and in no prefecture was it less than 80 percent. The major organ for election propaganda was the Seikyo Shimbun. Most of the members of the Gakkai who were questioned by a writer for the Shukan Asahi declared that as soon as the Seikyo Shimbun had introduced the candidates, their vote was decided. The reply of a young girl who had graduated from St. Paul's University in English and American literature was typical: "Since the previous election I have known that these two would be candidates and my vote was decided. At the election I asked my friends and those who were undecided to vote for Miss Kashiwabara and Mr. Harashima (ShikanAsahi June 21, 1959: 6). Since the Soka Gakkai is a religious organization it may, without violating the law, hold public meetings before the official campaign period opens. This has many advantages. In 1959, the Gakkai held such a meeting in Osaka. By 10 a.m. over 100,000 people had assembled. There was no mention of the election, but Nakao was the principal speaker and the meaning of the rally was clear. At the end of his speech Nakao received a tremendous ovation (Shuikan Asahi June 21, 1959: 7). Other novel methods by which the Gakkai evades the election law have been reported, but there is no indication as to how widely these methods were employed, and the reports themselves may be unreliable. In Kumamoto the Gakkai reportedly sent two of its members into the midst of street crowds to discuss the election. The name Ishida was repeated very loudly throughout their conversation. In another method, reportedly used in Tokyo, a man would step on a lady's foot and then say, "Oh excuse me, I'm very sorry. I guess you're not going to vote today are you...." and proceed to talk about the Gakkai candidate (Shikan Asahi June 21, 1959: 7-8).
Page 184 184 THE SOKA GAKKAI The Political Philosophy of the S6ka Gakkai The most obvious characteristic of Soka Gakkai political philosophy in the past has been its naivete. Toda, for example, felt that the revision of the education law was a relatively minor matter; he was much more concerned about building the emperor a palace of which the nation could be proud. He was not against rearmament, feeling that Japan needed arms to put Syngman Rhee in his place. He favored conscription because he felt that two or three years in the armed forces was good moral training and would give young men time to plan for their future professions. On foreign policy he was a neutralist, believing that Japan must not be allied either with Russia or with the United States. He also said that United States bases must be removed from Japan (Kond6 1956: 186-187). Soka Gakkai candidates have campaigned on popular slogans but have never proposed definite plans for accomplishing them. Kodaira's platform included rationalization of taxes, fair elections, ten million emigrants, and a clean-up in politics and labor. Kashiwabara pledged herself to get rid of crowded schoolrooms and to furnish educational funds from the national treasury. Significantly, although she was a teacher and campaigned on a platform of educational reforms, she had never participated in activities of the teachers' union or worked in any way to bring about improvements in educational facilities (Shukan Asahi June 21, 1959: 4-5). Although devotion to candidates rather than to issues is typical of Japanese politics, the activism and loyalty shown by the members of the S6ka Gakkai is exceptional. The support of the candidate by the membership seems to be a matter of blind faith and trust. An example is this story of a housewife who worked for the election of Miss Kashiwabara. When I first met Miss Kashiwabara I thought she was a little strange, but a wonderful person. When I cried, people usually cried with me, but when she saw me cry she just laughed more and more. "There is a way to have happiness. Try it, after you die it will be too late. If what I say is not true, you can have my whole salary. I get paid on such and such a day, come to the school and get it." She really had confidence. I don't know anything about religion, but I thought I would just try her religion because of her character. This election was the same thing. I don't know anything about politics, but if Miss Kashiwabara does it, I know from experience that it is right. I put my housework aside, packed a lunch, and talked with all my friends and relatives. I guess I'm sort of a weakling because I could only line up about fifteen certain votes for her (ShukanAsahi June 21, 1959: 4). At various times the Gakkai has been accused both of being rightist and of being merely a tool of the Liberal-Democrats. It vigorously denies these charges and claims to be neither rightist nor leftist. This seems to be true, although the political philosophy of the Soka Gakkai is basically conservative. Soka Gakkai members have participated actively in pacifist demonstrations and in rallies against the use of nuclear bombs. Toda himself came out strongly against atomic testing. In Osaka members of the Gakkai cooperated with a Communist leader in selling peace badges (Akahata July 24, 1957). Although it is strongly anti-Shinto, the S6ka Gakkai is very friendly toward the imperial family. When the crown prince announced his engagement, the Seikyo Shimbun (April 10, 1959) sent congratulations and mentioned that when the prince and his fiancee first met on the tennis courts at Karuizawa, Toda had been in a hotel room which overlooked the courts. The article implied that their meeting was the result of Toda's blessing. The Soka Gakkai has been militant in its opposition to state support for the grand shrine of Ise. In this case the Gakkai does not follow the conservative forces in the Diet. The Gakkai has built a Nichiren Shoshu temple at Matsuzaka to convert pilgrims who come to Ise (Shinohara 1959: 103).
Page 185 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 185 The most definite indications of the neutralist position of the Soka Gakkai came in Ishida's interpellation of the prime minister and the cabinet over the revision of the mutual security treaty. The questions were anti-government in tone and corresponded closely to the issues which the Socialists were raising. Ishida's questions and comments, with the minister's replies, were published in full in the Seiky6 Shinbun on February 19, 1960. Eight of his remarks are quoted or paraphrased below. 1) Does not the concept of mutual security, of helping another country with military aid, in itself violate the constitution? 2) Will not Japan automatically be involved in a war which the United States might have with a third power in Asia, and will this not lead to the destruction of Japan? How is this related to article nine of the constitution? 3) Is not the provision for consultation actually meaningless? If Japan says no, is America legally bound not to act? 4) A ten-year limit is not realistic. 5) "Next, I want to ask the foreign minister a question with reference to relations with the Communist bloc, particularly with China, since China is our neighbor in the Orient, and the fate of Japan is inseparable from China, it is absolutely essential that diplomatic and trade relations with China be established. This is one very important means of insuring our security. Does the foreign minister have any concrete plans?... This revision of the security treaty is a hindrance to diplomatic and trade relations... What does the foreign minister plan to do to overcome these hindrances to better relations? " 6) "The Lockheed is nothing but an expensive 1960 model of the bamboo spear. Arms for Japan are useless.... Spending ten percent of our national budget for self defense in this way is money thrown away. Let us eliminate this defense money and use it for social security and building up our land." 7) Because of the security treaty, will the prime minister also want a military secrets protection law ( S- ~ i t,, gun ki ho go ho), a conspiracy law ( b. b b 5 bo ha), conscription and a police law? The prime minister's assurance that these will not be requested is important since this is the fervent wish of the people. 8) A hundred security treaties could not ensure Japan's security. Only peace between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China could do that. The government should work in the United Nations to ensure Japan's security. 9) On the same date the Seiky5 Shimbun placed over the replies the heading "Ministers' Answers Evade the Issue." Whether Ishida's questions represent a genuine change in approach for the S5ka Gakkai or whether he was only making clever use of a popular issue, it is too early to say. In either case the Gakkai approach to political issues is much more sophisticated that it was in 1957. After the upper house elections of 1959, the Shikan Asahi (June 21, 1919: 10-11) published the following statements by officers of the S6ka Gakkai, the Liberal-Democrat '.c party, and the Socialist party. Ikeda Daisaku, chief of staff of the Soka Gakkai commented: The Gakkai is not a political party. It is always at the head of the religious world. We want to work for the well-being of the people without being partial to the LiberalDemocrats, the Socialists, or the Communists. In the prefectural governors' election we may have been too deeply involved, but the Gakkai is absolutely not attached to the Liberal-Democratic party.
Page 186 186 THE SOKA GAKKAI Fukuda Takeo (; ~ K - ), secretary general of the Liberal-Democratic party commented: The people have rebelled against today's politics. The methods of the Soka Gakkai have historical background in the street preaching of Nichiren when the Mongols threatened our country. This is the backbone of their presentation. It is a reaction against those who forget Japan's position and head off in one direction. We must observe the S6ka Gakkai's future movements, but they seem friendly to the Liberal-Democratic party. In an election when even one person is enthusiastic the votes mount rapidly. The S6ka Gakkai has many enthusiastic persons. Even the Liberal-Democratic party can learn from them at many points. Asanuma Inejiro ( A, 5~; i i ), secretary of the Socialist party, commented: Sometime ago when returning by boat from the Izu peninsula, I met a group of young people. They knew I was Asanuma and they began to argue with me. As I think of it now, it must have been S6ka Gakkai shakubuku. It was very aggressive. Since they operate by inspiration, it is frightening. It thrives on political poverty, sickness, and misfortune, and it is advancing resolutely. Nevertheless I do not feel that this is the rise of Fascism. They have many young fighters, but no superman. The only danger is that they will be used by existing politicians. The Liberal-Democratic party has already used them in the elections for prefectural governors. The Liberal-Democrats probably think of them as reserve forces which they can manipulate at will. They can probably maintain their present strength at the next election, but they will reach the ceiling after awhile. The people will eventually wake up and the S6ka Gakkai will lose their opening for advance. The ultimate political aims of the S6ka Gakkai are far from clear. The organization has denied that it is trying to get sufficient strength in the Diet to make Nichiren Shoshf the state religion. Toda himself said that he wanted Gakkai men in all areas of society, all professions, and that electing Gakkai members to the Diet was just one part of this effort (Kond6 1956: 289). The fact that the Gakkai has not entered the lower house supports this thesis. However, Nichiren and his followers have always taught that the state must support the true religion and suppress all others. It is difficult to believe that the present political activity of the Soka Gakkai has no relation to this ultimate objective. CONCLUSION The doctrine of the Soka Gakkai comes from two different sources - Nichiren Shoshf and the Kachiron. The language of Nichiren Shoshf is that of ancient Buddhism and the language of the Kachiron is that of Western philosophy, but the essential teaching is the same. In both the approach is pragmatic and utilitarian. In the Kachiron Makiguchi says that in the search for value the only significant question is, "Does it bring me happiness and well-being?" The key to value is enlightened self-interest. The ancient teaching of Nichiren Sh6sha is that happiness and well-being are secured through worship of the board mandala, the true honzon, because it is the embodiment of the whole Buddha law. Applying his "scientific method" to worship of the honzon, Makiguchi found that it is indeed the true object of worship- that is, it gives happiness and well-being. This "scientific method" is identical with the proof in daily life taught by Nichiren. If a religion is true it will bring blessings in the believer's daily life, blessings that are apparent to any observer. Both Nichiren and Makiguchi agree that religion is relative, that it is not an approach to absolute
Page 187 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 187 truth. It is part of the natural phenomenal world in which we live. The object of worship is part of the natural world, not discontinuous with it. Therefore if a man's religion is true, it should not only aid his spiritual well-being but should solve his business and financial problems as well. Toda gave up Christianity because it did not enable him to pay off his debts. Religion, by this approach, becomes primarily a tool to be used to further one's own well-being rather than the object of absolute loyalty and obedience. The devotion of members of the S6ka Gakkai to the honzon is always contingent on the reception of blessings from the honzon. If it could be demonstrated conclusively that worship of the honzon does not bring blessings, the worshipper would be forced by his own theory to give up his devotion. Practically, this could never be demonstrated to a devout worshipper, but the distinction is still important. Although it makes personal gain the primary motivation in religion, the doctrine of the Soka Gakkai places the individual beneath the objective law and demonstrates that the individual per se does not count for much. For example, although the aim of Shakubuku is the salvation of the individual at whom it is directed, his feelings and convictions can nevertheless be totally ignored in the attempt to lead him into salvation. His personal well-being is the ultimate goal, but he is given no right to self-determination. This is also evident in the matter of morals. The individual has no right to rebel against the moral code determined by society. There is an unresolved tension in the philosophy of the S6ka Gakkai between an extreme individualism that seeks only personal gain and an anti-individualism that denies, even to Soka Gakkai believers, the right to self-determination. The Soka Gakkai teaches intolerance of all other religions. Falsehood and error have no rights. Nichiren Sh6shQ is the only true religion. This attitude is not strange to Western Christendom, but it is unusual in Buddhism. The highly centralized and disciplined organization of the Soka Gakkai sets it apart from all other Buddhist organizations in Japan and gives it a power far out of proportion to the size of its membership. The Soka Gakkai can marshal the full strength of its membership in any critical spot in Japan at the most opportune time. The militant attitude of the S6ka Gakkai is the legitimate heritage of Nichiren. The Gakkai differs from other Nichiren sects, however, in that not just the leadership but the entire membership is kept militant and active. The Gakkai is organized for and exists for one specific aim: winning others to the true faith. This extreme sense of purpose is largely responsible for the vitality and rapid growth of the sect. The members feel that they are playing an important role in saving their nation and the world through shakubuku. By giving its members a sense of mission, the Soka Gakkai has met, as has almost no other religious group, the social and religious needs that resulted from the partial disintegration of postwar Japanese society. The group zadankai is a focus for worship, for fellowship, for recreation, and even for political activity. The believer's whole life becomes centered in the S6ka Gakkai. In this sense, the Gakkai can be seen as a protest against religion that is only peripheral. Its success is a serious indictment of organized religion in Japan. The Soka Gakkai is very popular with youth, probably again because it offers a sense of purpose. The leadership of the Gakkai has shown a remarkable grasp of adolescent psychology and as a result has in its youth division, a completely dedicated group of young people who will do anything for their leaders. The youth department is the mainstay of the Great Shakubuku Advance and, indeed, of most of the forward motion of the organization. The Gakkai puts young people to work and makes them feel needed. It sets up clear goals for young people and gives them the motivation for striving to carry out these goals. For the youth of Japan who have often been made to feel that they have no meaningful place in society, this appeal is almost irresistible. In carrying on the mission, education is emphasized above all else. The religious education department has produced evangelists who are highly trained in doctrine and in modern techniques of
Page 188 188 THE SOKA GAKKAI propaganda and salesmanship. In cooperation with the publishing department, it has armed them with attractive printed materials. The membership is carefully educated so that it will have the answers to questions raised during shakubuku. They can draw upon the doctrine of Nichiren Sh6shti and the philosophy of Makiguchi which appear to be intellectual and rational. Thus they are not afraid to approach even the most sophisticated person. Nevertheless, the object of this missionary activity is most often people who are not satisfied with the way things are, members of social classes which feel themselves to be depressed or oppressed. Members of the Gakkai often visit families in which a member is ill or out of work: people who are looking for a way out of an immediate pressing difficulty. To these people who are potential left-wing elements in society, the Gakkai promises economic and social security. Much has been made in the newspapers of the threats and intimidations that often accompany an attempt at shakubuku. For example, the story of the coal miner who died after refusing shakubuku would be enough to make even a miner who was not superstitious think twice before refusing it. Gakkai members see nothing wrong in using threats and intimidation because they believe that what they threaten will really happen and the person might as well know about it. As far as they are concerned, what seems a threat is actually a warning of what will actually occur. Religion for them is relative, the personality of the object of shakubuku counts for nothing, and error has no right. The end justifies the means, and any means used to bring a man into the true religion can be justified. In setting up the Soka Gakkai, Toda Josei seems to have been extraordinarily successful in developing an effective organization and extremely wise in his choice of young men to serve under him. These men assumed responsibility for the organization after his death. Under their stable and effective leadership the Gakkai has continued its phenomenal growth. Toda's organizational structure gives every indication of being able to stand indefinitely. The leaders of the Soka Gakkai have been careful to avoid spreading its resources too thin. Whether in politics or shakubuku the Gakkai never takes on an opponent unless victory seems assured. Thus one or two more S6ka Gakkai candidates from the national constituency might have been elected in 1959, but the leadership preferred to enter only the number of candidates they were confident they could elect. Continued victories sustain morale and ensure that the organization will continue to grow and prosper. The political activity of the Soka Gakkai is consistent with the whole Nichiren tradition, and this activity can be expected to continue on an increasingly larger scale. Within the S~ka GakkaiNichiren Shoshui concept of the nature of religion, religious activity and political activity are indeed merely two parts of the same whole. Its role as a religious organization gives the S6ka Gakkai certain advantages in its political activity. It can, for example, campaign under the guise of religion before the official period for campaigning has begun. On the other hand, it also has serious liabilities. Because a candidate from a militant religious organization is unlikely to pick up much of the uncommited vote, the political influence of the Gakkai can only increase as the membership itself increases. Even though little is known about the composition of its membership, some generalizations can be made about the future of the S6ka Gakkai. At the present time, the Gakkai is gaining new members at the rate of thirty thousand households a month. In an address given at the time of his installation, Ikeda set a definite membership goal of three million households by April 1965 (Seikyo Shimbun May 6, 1960: 1). Barring a radical change in the composition of Japanese society or a catastrophic development in the leadership of the Soka Gakkai itself, its growth can be expected to continue at an increasing rate. Since each member is supposed to be an evangelist, the growth of the Gakkai has tended to be in geometric rather than arithmetric progression. Long-range predictions about the future of the S6ka Gakkai are difficult to make. If the S6ka Gakkai can penetrate the hard core of Japanese society, the possibilities for growth are practically unlimited. If, on the other hand, the bulk of its members comes from fringe elements in Japanese society, then at some future time the Gakkai will reach a saturation point within these groups, and
Page 189 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 189 its rate of growth will begin to decrease. The second prediction seems more likely to be fulfilled since the S6ka Gakkai is strongest in the traditional areas of Nichiren strength and in those areas where dissatisfied elements of the population are most numerous. With increasing urbanization, however, the number of displaced persons within Japanese society is rising rapidly so that the membership of the S6ka Gakkai, even though largely restricted to this group, could conceivably grow at a rapid rate for some time. Although there are no apparent stresses within the S6ka Gakkai, the fact that it derives its whole rationale from mission and exists for shakubuku alone presents a serious problem for the future. Can it exist as an organization with a stable membership of ten or twenty million when its growth begins to level off, or will it begin to disintegrate? Unless its objectives are changed, it seems very unlikely that the organization can exist at all once the rate of shakubuku begins to decline. On the other hand, the S6ka Gakkai has survived crises in the past. Its leaders may be able to carry it over the transition from a rapidly growing missionary group to a religious body with a relatively stable membership. In any case, this problem is not likely to arise for another ten to twenty years. As for policy, it seems improbable that the S6ka Gakkai will radically change direction. The present policies of the Gakkai are part of the militant Nichiren tradition which has not been seriously modified since the time of Nichiren himself. The Gakkai can be expected to continue its appeal to the material well-being of the individual here and now and its intolerant attitude toward other religions. Thete will be modifications in the methods of the Soka Gakkai from time to time. Some change has been evident in recent years. The Gakkai seems to have become more responsible and to have achieved better control over its fanatical elements. Election law violations and actual violence in shakubuku have been reported much less frequently. The Soka Gakkai can be expected to play an ever-increasing role in the life of Japan for the immediate future, but it is not yet clear whether as an organization it will ever become large enough and strong enough to appreciably alter the way of life of that nation. NOTES 1Religious statistics in Japan are often unreliable because membership is often in terms of households rather than individuals. An individual may have membership in more than one group, and members are counted long after they have left the group. The membership figures of the S6ka Gakkai, however, do suggest explosive growth (Ariga 1959: 29f). 2The headquarters of the S6ka Gakkai are located at 32-6 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku, Tokyo. The headquarters of Nichiren Shoshui are located at 205 Kamino, Ueno-cho, Fujigun, Shizuoka-ken. 3In another source this date is given as 1288 (Mombush6 1954: 234). 4Accessions to the Soka Gakkai are always numbered in households rather than in individuals. A S6ka Gakkai household is any household containing at least one member. Estimates on the number of individual members run from two to three times the number of households.
Page 190 Organization as of January, 1962 Public Relations Office Liason Office CD CD CD CD (C) 0 0 rm. CD CD C ~~~ ~~CD Ci> o 0 0 CD 00 ~I g CD~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~e C,- p, CD CD VIE 0 En 0C 0 (D~~~~~~~~ 00 tZ I I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Taken from Tokyo Daigaku Hokeky6 Kenky~ikai 0 P,.t ~~~~~~~~~Nichiren Sh6shii S~ka Gakkai CD ~~~~~~~~~~Tokyo: Sankib5 Busshorin 1962, P. 336 The general branch, branch, district, squad, group organization is not strictly geographical. You join the group of the man who converted you. When you convert a few people they form a group of which you are the head. When there are enough for a squad you become squad leader, etc. The block structure parallels this on a strictly geographical basis and is chiefly for instructional purposes. There are periodic lectures at each level of the block structure.
Page 191 ROBERT L. RAMSEYER 191 BIBLIOGRAPHY AKAHATA,, F (Red Flag) 1957 Tokyo: July 24. ARIGA TETSUTARO 1959 The Non-Christian Religions, in Japan Christian Yearbook. ed. Hirai Kiyoshi, 24-33. Tokyo, Kyobunkwan. ANONYMOUS 1956 Nihon no ushio, S6ka Gakkai 1 4,) 1'] i iE (Currents in Japan, the S6ka Gakkai). Sekai 129: 139-41. 1957 Nihon no ushio, tanr6 ni idomu S6ka Gakkai ~ '- v ', - kt ']-; '43 -(Currents in Japan S6ka Gakkai challenges the miners' union). Sekai: 140-44. 1959 Sangiin o shakubuku sen' If; ft-ft /,- k (We shall convert the House of Councillors, Shukan Asahi, June 21: 3-1). ASAHI SHIMBUN J 1 t 5 (Asahi Newspaper) 1954- Tokyo. 1959 HASHIGAWA TADASHI l'|.I. 1959 Nihon bukky6 shi a;~-A 4~ C ~ (History of Japanese Buddhism). Kyoto, Heirakuji Shoten. HORI NIKKO, ed. t ~ t 1952 Nichiren Daishonin Gosho Zenshfu a t. A-f # +. (Complete Writings of Saint Nichiren) Tokyo, S6ka Gakkai. HYUGA NICHINICHI SHINBUN ] 4i r ~ _f 1957- Miyazaki. 1959 KISHIMOTO HIDEO 42 ^, MASUTANI FUMIO 4Ji-j, and KITAMORI KAZO -Lt ^^^&j eds. 1958 Mainichi shikyo koza 4, Shikyoteki koten e no michibiki -- 4,/ J(.- 4,,Atc Ut i5 -)N oV -,- - > p (The Mainichi course in religion No. 4, Guide to the religious classics). Tokyo, Mainichi Shinbunsha. KODAIRA YOSHIHEI,, ' { t 1959 Nichiren Sh6shu ky6gaku mondai no kaisetsu f i ~_ E. J. gpE] 'J A o t0 (Explanation of doctrinal problems in Nichiren Sh6sha). Tokyo, The S6ka Gakkai. KONDO HIDEZO tL V Q ~, ' i 1956 S6ka Gakkai $'l 4 z, Cho6 Koron LXXI, 10, pp. 284-290. MAKIGUCHI TSUNESABURO tL, -P, revised by TODA JOSEI:A 1956 Kachiron 4 iI. ~ (Theory of value). Tokyo, S6ka Gakkai. MOMBUSHO C_ - -f (Ministry of Education), ed. 1954 Shfuky6 benran ), 4j. t t, (Handbook of religions). Tokyo, Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku. NIIJIMA SHIGERU tf f S6ka Gakkai bamu j| - f'- 7"L (S6ka Gakkai boom), The Shuppan News, No. 388, p. 1. OGUCHI ICHI, '1 t7 4 -- 1951 Shin shuky6 shidan no keisei to sono kiban f 0) fC -- ~ W ~ i~ % (The formation and basis of the new religious groups). Shis6, No. 330, pp. 49-57.
Page 192 192 THE S6KA GAKKAI ONO TATSUNOSUKE f T 3 -- - 1957 Nihon bukky6 shis6 shi ~ - -jC. ) - 1- _(History of Japanese Buddhist thought). Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kobunkan. SAKI AKIO 4- '. 1957 S6ka Gakkai no chosha junan seri,'J ~/ 0 ) /& ~ t- )_ (Author of Sdka Gakkai Suffers). ChQo K6ron, LXXII, pp. 238-246. SAKI AKIO /A- $-~, and OGUCHI IICHI ] - -- 1957 Ska Gakkai /'] 4i ~ ' (Institute for value creation). Tokyo, Aoki Shoten. SEIKYO GURAFU /._ 7" 7!(The Seiky6 Graphic) 1960 No. 3, April. SEIKYO SHINBUN z j t i (Seikyo newspaper) 1960 Tokyo: January to May. SHINOHARA HAJIME /- -~ 1959 S6ka Gakkai to Ise Jinga Sij ~,/ '. 'F - A-]t (Soka Gakkai and the Grand, Shrine of Ise). Sekai No. 164, p. 103. SHUGYO KAISHU t i - * - 1952 Nichiren Shuky6gaku Shi,3. -' #_ (History of Nichiren doctrine). Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1952. SOKA GAKKAI KYOGAKUBU /'J ] ~ /-I 'J 1951 Shakubuku ky6ten;Jf;Ky., (Conversion Manual). Tokyo, S6ka Gakkai. 1958 Shakubuku ky6ten fr 4fX' /) Q (Conversion Manual). Rev. ed. Tokyo, S6ka Gakkai. TAKAGI HIRO. t 1959 Taishu soshiki to shite mita shink6 shlky6 %.,', ~.. J t, bl t hff J.J (The New Religions seen as mass organizations). ChQo K6ron, LXXIV, pp. 209-217. TAKAGI YUTAKA, - * 1952 Atsuwara h6nan ni tsuite,^ k /. v z_,Ai, t (Concerning the Atsuwara persecution), Shigaku Zasshi, LXI. TANAKA CHIGAKU T t 1941 Nichiren Sh6nin no Ky6gi 3!. L /A -k (The teachings of Saint Nichiren). n.p. Tengyo Minposha. UI HAKUJU T # 4 1956 Nihon bukky6 gaishi E -; A J tt L (An outline history of Japanese Buddhism). Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten. WASHIO JUNKEI s \' 1 t f 1911 Nihon Bukke jinmei jisho 1 // 4 I /A7 ' i (Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist leaders). Tokyo, Kokinkan. WATANABE SHOKO,, 1958 Nihon no Bukky5o > a 3 14 (Japanese Buddhism). Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten.