Junko Ueda: Samurai Ghosts on the Retiro Gardens by night

Satsuma Biwa show performed by Junko Ueda on the Retiro Gardens of Madrid during the "Noche en blanco" festival, September 11, 2010.

Dan-no Ura

Then the Nii Dono, who had already resolved what she would do, donning a double outer dress of dark grey mourning colour, and tucking up the long skirts of her glossy silk hakama, put the Sacred Jewel under her arm, and the Sacred Sword in her girdle, and taking the Emperor in her arms, spoke thus: " Though I am but a woman I will not fall into the hands of the foe, but will accompany our Sovereign Lord. Let those of you who will, follow me." And she glided softly to the gunwale of the vessel.

Heike Monogatari , XIII c. Translated by Sadler, Arthur. "The Heike Monogatari." Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 46.2 (1918): 1-278; 49.1 (1921): 1-354. (Complete translation of the rufubon, the version of Edo printed texts.)


Yoshitsune

In 1185, the once-proud Taira clan perished in the Inland Sea. The victorious Minamoto no Yoshitsune should have paraded proudy through the broad avenues of Kyoto, but his brother, Shogun Yoritomo, was famed for his suspicious mind. His advisor Kajiwara Kagetoki falsely accused Yoshitsune of sedition and convinced Yoritomo to have him killed. With no place to hide in his brother's realm, Yoshitsune took six retainers dressed as mountain ascetics and went to seek shelter with Fujiwara Hidehira, ruler of the semi-independent province to the north. Our story begins as they approach a new barrier in Kaga province with the unease of one about to tread on a tiger's tail.

Kurosawa, Akira. Tora no O o Fumu Otokachi (The Men who Tread on the Tiger's Tail), 1945. Movie adaptation of the Kabuki play Kanjinchō (Namiki Gohei III, 1840) and the Noh play Ataka (Kanze Nobumitsu, 1465).


Gion-Shôja

The sound of the bell of Gionshoja echoes the impermanence of all things. The hue of the flowers of the teak tree declares that they who flourish must be brought low. Yea, the proud ones are but for a moment, like an evening dream in springtime. The mighty are destroyed at the last, they are but as the dust before the wind.

Heike Monogatari , XIII c. Translated by Sadler, Arthur. "The Heike Monogatari." Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 46.2 (1918): 1-278; 49.1 (1921): 1-354. (Complete translation of the rufubon, the version of Edo printed texts.)

Soke: Historical Incarnations of a Title and its Entitlements

During the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) of Japanese history, especially during the eighteenth century, many new types of artistic and cultural activities came under the domination of families that exercised proprietary authority over the performance of those arts and endeavors by others. These new familial lineages, which essentially operated as commercial guilds, referred to themselves as soke. The leading expert on this subject is a Japanese scholar named Nishiyama Matsunosuke. Early in his career, Nishiyama wrote two seminal studies of soke families and the ways they exercised their authority during this period of Japanese history: Iemoto monogatari (Iemoto Stories, 1956; reprinted as Nishiyama 1982a) and Iemoto no kenkyu (Researches in the Iemoto System, 1960; reprinted as Nishiyama 1982b) (4). Although Nishiyama settled on the term iemoto, in the Tokugawa-period texts he studied the words iemoto and soke were used interchangeably, without any distinction in meaning (Nishiyama 1982b, 15). Both words were used to refer to the main lineage that asserted proprietary authority over a commercial guild or to refer to the person who had attained full initiation as the current legitimate head of that lineage.

Nishiyama cites several factors that contributed to the development of familial lineages (i.e., soke) as commercial guilds. The Tokugawa regime placed governmental authority in the hands of an upper echelon of warrior families who maintained their positions of power through assertions of hereditary privilege and attempts to enforce rigid codes of social distinctions. These new warrior elites readily accepted similar assertions of familial authority over the codification and teaching of artistic endeavors (Nishiyama 1982b, 91-92). Moreover, the warrior rulers patronized many new performative arts and forms of amusement that had developed independently from and, thus, outside the control of the old aristocratic families.

It was the teachers of these new amusements--arts such as tea ceremony (chanoyu), flower arranging (ikebana), chess (shogi), Noh theater, verse (haikai), special forms of music and dance, and so forth--that most quickly asserted familial control over their teaching and over their performance by others (Nishiyama 1982b, 135-140). Finally, the long period of peace produced many unemployed former warriors (ronin) who could seek employment as junior instructors in these guilds; at the same time, the end of incessant warfare promoted the economic prosperity that enabled townsmen and rural landowners to amass surplus wealth that they could spend as pupils of these arts.

Tokaido actor, Kunisada (Toyokuni III), 1852-1853

The existence of a network of junior instructors (i.e., natori) who taught in the name of the soke is a crucial feature that distinguished Tokugawa-period soke families from their earlier counterparts (Nishiyama 1982b, 106). During the Tokugawa period, instruction in the special skills associated with a particular artistic endeavor was marketed through networks of branch instructors who paid royalties and license fees to the soke and who were organized into a pyramid-like hierarchical structure with the soke on top. The soke asserted absolute authority over the branch instructors and indirect authority over their students by controlling what, how, and when subjects could be taught and by restricting access to the most advanced lore, to which the soke alone was privy. Nishiyama labeled the social structures associated with this type of exclusive familial control and networks of branch instructors the iemoto system (iemoto seido). He saw it as a unique feature of Japanese feudalism that exerted a strong influence over the development of many traditional Japanese arts even until modern times (Nishiyama 1982b, 20-21).

These Tokugawa-period artistic lineages can be likened to commercial guilds because they earned money from every single person who participated in their particular school's craft or art throughout the entire country. Nishiyama (1982b, 16) neatly summarizes the commercial rights (kenri) of these familial guilds as follows:

1. Rights regarding the techniques (waza) of the art, such as the right to keep it secret, the right to control how and when it is performed, and rights over the repertoire of its curriculum and its choreography (kata).
2. Rights over instructors (kyoju), over initiation rituals and documents (soden), and over the awarding of diplomas and licenses (menkyo).
3. The right to punish (chobatsu) and to expel (hamon) students.
4. The right to control uses of costumes, of stage names or artistic pseudonyms, and so forth.
5. The right to control facilities and special equipment or tools used in the art.
6. Exclusive rights to the monetary income and social status resulting from the preceding five items.

For almost every art or amusement patronized by the ruling elite, there existed only a limited number of these familial guilds, each one of which enforced the above rights over anyone who practiced that art throughout the entire kingdom (5). No one could legally perform a play, a song, a musical piece, or practice any other art in public without either joining the soke's school or paying fees for temporary permission (ichinichi soden). Enforcement of these exclusive rights enabled soke families to control huge populations of students across all strata of society. Nishiyama argues that from the middle of the eighteenth century these guilds provided a government-regulated medium for the distribution of cultural knowledge within which people assigned to different social classes (samurai of various ranks, townsmen, merchants, priests, wealthy farmers, rural warriors, etc.) could interact with one another on a near-equal footing (Nishiyama 1982b, 531; 1997, 204-208).

Poets, Tokoyuni III, 1847-1852

Nishiyama's research demonstrates that the near-monopoly control over the teaching of peaceful arts exercised by Tokugawa-period soke effectively prevented the proliferation of rival schools. In short, where soke existed, there were no new schools. The very creation of new schools repudiated any notion of soke authority (Nishiyama 1982b, 135-137). Seen in this light, it is obvious that the word soke in premodern Japanese documents could never be translated into English as "founder." The notion of "founder" is even less appropriate in modern Japan.

After 1868, when Japan became organized as a modern state, the government formally recognized the legal rights of soke (a.k.a. iemoto) families to control the copyright of all musical scores, theatrical plays, textbooks, and artistic works produced by members of their guilds (Nishiyama 1982b, 16). In this way, the terms soke and iemoto acquired legal definitions as designations for the modern representatives of the limited number of families who could provide historical documentation that they had controlled these kinds of commercial guilds during the Tokugawa period. To maintain their copyrights, the leaders of these families had to register with the government as legal entities. At the same time that they acquired copyrights, they lost their previous ability to restrict the teaching or performance of their arts by people from outside their guild. They became just one school or performance group among many. While they can restrict unauthorized use of their own name and their own historical resources, they have no legal power to inhibit competition. Today, as long as there is no copyright infringement, anyone can write new instructional guides to tea ceremony or any other traditional art. Anyone is free to devise new methods for practicing them.

Use of the term soke (or iemoto) in martial contexts is even more complex. Before 1868, soke families that were organized into the kinds of commercial guilds described above never controlled instruction in martial arts. This is the reason so many different lineages (ryuha) of martial arts existed in premodern Japan. The contrast between teaching organizations devoted to peaceful arts (such as tea ceremony, flower arranging, and so forth) and those concerned with martial arts could not be more stark. Instruction in any of the peaceful arts was available only from a small number of familial lineages, each one of which organized itself into a commercial guild with a network of affiliated branch instructors available throughout the land. On the other hand, there existed hundreds of different martial art lineages, the vast majority of which were confined to a single location (6). While many martial lineages were consanguineous (i.e., handed down from father to son), many others were not.

Nishiyama (1982b, 273-278) identifies several reasons why martial art lineages never developed into iemoto (a.k.a. soke) systems. Prior to the establishment of the Tokugawa peace, rapid acquisition of military prowess constituted the sine qua non of any system of martial instruction. An instructor who withheld instruction in the most advanced techniques as a family secret, as was the norm among soke who taught peaceful arts, could not have attracted students. For this reason, during the sixteenth century, military students usually attained full initiation rather quickly, after which they were free to teach all that they had learned to their own students. If anyone issued diplomas, they did so on their own authority, without having to pay license fees to any larger organization. After the Tokugawa regime imposed peace on the land, both older and new schools of martial instruction became more structured, more secretive, and developed more complex and time-consuming curriculums. Students who received diplomas no longer necessarily acquired independent rights to issue diplomas themselves (7). The ruling authorities also actively prevented any warrior groups or martial schools from developing organizational bonds across domain boundaries (8). Moreover, the rulers of each individual domain preferred to patronize only their own local martial systems, which could be kept under their own local control. Finally, in an age of peace it became practically impossible for any one martial lineage or group of lineages to demonstrate decisively their superiority over their rivals. Innovative teachers could (and did) devise new methods of martial training and establish new schools without having to risk lives to demonstrate their combat effectiveness.

Osano Jun (187-192) argues that the first martial art in Japan to adopt a true soke system was the Kodokan School of judo. Osano could be right. The Kodokan set the standards not just for members within one training hall in one location, but for all participants in judo throughout the nation. The Kodokan defined the art; it controlled licensing and instruction; and it established branch schools with instructors who maintained permanent affiliation with the headquarters. If the Kodokan does not recognize something as being "judo," then it is not judo. Therefore, there is no such thing as a new style of judo. All of these elements constitute essential characteristics of traditional soke organizations in Tokugawa-period Japan. In actual practice, however, no one ever refers to the Kodokan, or its current head, as the soke of judo (9). The term seems out of place with judo's emphasis on modernity. Having analyzing the term soke in this way, Osano also criticizes the present-day use of the soke label by some Japanese teachers who represent traditional martial art lineages (i.e., koryu). Osano asserts that such usage not only is incorrect but also reveals an ignorance of traditional Japanese culture.

Osano's strict historical understanding is probably too strict. He overlooks the legal and social changes in the status of soke that occurred after 1868. After Japan began to modernize, social critics denounced soke organizations as a disagreeable legacy of a feudal system based on hereditary privilege, which stifled innovation and restricted knowledge for the financial benefit of undeserving family heads who no longer possessed the skills of their ancestors (Nishiyama 1982c, 263-273). Soke organizations saw their networks of branch instructors wither as interest in traditional arts declined and former students broke away to found rival schools (10). Soon many traditional soke disappeared, especially in arts based on direct competition among participants such as Japanese chess (shogi) and in less well-known forms of dance and song. As more and more of these intangible cultural legacies disappeared, modern Japanese gradually developed a new appreciation for the soke families who had managed to preserve their own family traditions and teach them to new generations. Without the determination and persistence of the heirs of these families, direct knowledge of many traditional Japanese arts would have been lost.

Actor and mirror, Kunisada, 1860

Today one could argue that the historical differences between the heirs of Tokugawa-period family lineages which operated as commercial guilds (with the natori system) and the heirs of localized teaching lineages such as those associated with martial traditions are less significant than their modern similarities. In both cases the current successors remain the only legitimate sources for traditional forms of instruction in the arts of that lineage. In both cases the current successors have assumed responsibility for preserving the historical texts, special tools, unique skills, and specific lore that have been handed down within their own particular lineage. In both cases the current successors distinguish their traditional teachings from newly founded rivals by pointing out how their teachings remain faithful to the goals and forms taught by previous generations. Based on these similarities, many modern writers use the terms iemoto or soke as designations for the legitimate heir to any established main lineage. Used in reference to present-day representatives of traditional martial art lineages, therefore, the soke label properly denotes their roles as successors to and preservers of a particular historical and cultural legacy. It should not be interpreted as implying identification with a commercial network (as criticized by Osano) nor as being equivalent to "grandmaster" or "founder" (as mistakenly assumed by casual observers), and might best be translated simply as "head" or "headmaster."

Consider, for example, the case of Kashima-Shinryu (see Friday, Legacies of the Sword). In his books and articles, Seki Humitake, the current head of and nineteenth-generation successor to the Kashima- Shinryu lineage, uses the label soke as a designation for the Kunii family. He uses this term as a way of honoring the role the Kunii family played in preserving Kashima-Shinryu traditions. Down to the time of Seki's teacher, Kunii Zen'ya (1894-1966), Kashima-Shinryu forms of martial lore had been passed down consanguineously within the Kunii family from father to son from one generation to the next. Seki's modern use of the label soke simply acknowledges that legacy (11). In the writings of Kunii Zen'ya and in the traditional scrolls preserved within the Kunii family, however, the word soke cannot be found. Kunii Zen'ya never referred to himself or to his family as the soke of Kashima-Shinryu. He simply signed his name. In writing out copies of his family's old scrolls (these copies would be handed out as diplomas), though, he usually would add the words "Kunii-ke soden" before the title of each scroll. For example, if he copied an old scroll titled "Kenjutsu mokuroku" he would give it the title "Kunii-ke soden kenjutsu mokuroku." In this example, the original title simply means "fencing curriculum" while the longer version means "the fencing curriculum transmitted within the Kunii family." Used to represent this sense of "transmitted within a family," the term soke seems perfectly reasonable. It merely implies that the lore associated with this curriculum was taught exclusively within the Kunii familial lineage.

In concluding, it is difficult to condone the use of obscure Japanese terminology to describe American social practices for which perfectly acceptable English words already exist. One must struggle to imagine how any non-Japanese could call himself a "soke" in English except as a joke. At the same time it is also difficult to regard this term with any special reverence or to become overly troubled by its misuse among self-proclaimed "grandmasters" and "founders." During the Tokugawa period the word soke designated a commercial system of hereditary privilege that took advantage of the ignorance of ordinary people for financial gain. Perhaps teachers of commercial martial art schools in America who adopt the title soke for themselves are more historically accurate in their usage than they themselves realize.

Bodiford, William M. In Keiko Shokon: Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan, volume 3, Koryu Books, 2002. Original article from koryu.com translated to Spanish by Francisco Casas for jodojo.es.

Notes:
(1) Random examples of organizations with websites on the Internet (as of March 2002) that promote use of the word soke as a exalted martial art title include the following: (1) the World Head of Family Sokeship Council (http://www.bushido.org/~whfsc/whfsc.html), which boasts "the most elite and prestigious grandmasters council in the world"; (2) the World Sokeship Council (renamed to World Headfounders/Headfamilies Council in 1989; http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/6471/), which states that it "was established to create a trully [sic] 'elite' and very prestigious fellowship or peer group for that very small group of martial artists who have achieved the right to be called a 'grandmaster' by their peers"; (3) Juko-Kai International (http://www.jukokai.com), which under a link titled "Soke's Corner" describes its own "Zen Kokusai Soke Budo/Bugei Renmei" (a.k.a., Zen Kokusai Soke Remmei [sic]) as the West's first recognized sokeship commission (founded 1970) and identifies soke as someone who founds his own martial art "ryu." I thank Jim Kass for informing me of these websites.
(2) I could not find the word soke in Kim's popular dictionary, in Draeger's pioneering three-volume opus, nor in Hurst's scholarly history. In Frederic's dictionary it appears misspelled as sokei and is not defined but is mistakenly cross-referenced with shodai, which in turn is glossed as a title for the founder of a martial art "ryu" (i.e., ryuha or lineage).
(3) In addition to its historical meanings, this word acquires additional implications when used by modern writers or cultural critics as an analytical concept to explain certain features of the social and historical contexts in which soke appears. (For an explanation of the difference between terms and concepts, see Hall 1983.)
(4) For a brief English-language summary of his research, see the translator's introduction, pages 4-5, to Nishiyama 1997.
(5) Nishiyama (1982b, 14, 19-20) cites Shoryu Iemoto Kagami (Directory of Iemoto Schools), a woodblock text printed sometime in the early nineteenth century, to provide some indication of the number and kinds of artistic schools (ryuha; i.e., commercial guilds) then existing in Japan. According to this text the ratios between arts and number of schools was as follows: abacus = 7 schools; flower arranging = 2 schools; tea ceremony = 1 school (the Senke) with 14 sub-divisions; incense = 2 schools; Noh = 6 schools; poetics (waka) = 2 schools; linked verse (renga) = 3 schools; minimal verse (haikai) = 6 schools; checkers (go) = 4 schools; chess (shogi) = 4 schools; wind pipes (sho) = 4 schools; horizontal flute (fue) = 3 schools; lute (biwa) = 4 schools; zither (koto) = 1 school; and so forth.
(6) Nishiyama (1982b, 279) cites the research of Imamura Yoshio (subsequently published in 1967), which shows that during the nineteenth century more than seventy-one percent of the martial art schools listed in domain records were taught only in one location.
(7) During the Tokugawa period instructors of all types, whether affiliated with an iemoto system (i.e., commercial guild), a martial lineage, or a religious institution, charged monetary fees for diplomas. To protect their interests, they severely restricted the rights of students to reveal what they had learned to outsiders without proper authorization. In martial lineages, new students customarily signed oaths of secrecy and advanced students pledged that upon their own deaths all scrolls, texts, and diplomas they had received would be returned to their instructor's household. There is no evidence, though, that these kinds of restrictions were observed by military students prior to the Tokugawa period.
(8) Friday (18) and Hurst (178-179) also point out how government policies prevented martial art lineages from developing into iemoto systems.
(9) Nishiyama (1982c, 291-292) also discusses the Kodokan as a social institution that rationalized and modernized many features of the premodern iemoto system.
(10) The traditional soke schools of tea ceremony and flower arranging constitute the main exceptions to this trend. They have flourished by redefining themselves as institutions for promoting an appreciation for traditional Japanese culture and, especially, for teaching traditional values and etiquette to young women.
(11) Friday (32, 49-50) also uses the label soke as a designation for the Kunii family, but based on his analysis of soke as lineages characterized by "proprietorship over a package of teachings vested exclusively in the hands of one individual per generation." Friday's usage emphasizes the conceptual similarity among all kinds of instructional lineages before, during, and after the Tokugawa period. In his view, the development of iemoto systems (i.e., networks of branch instructors) by lineages that taught peaceful arts merely constitutes an extreme commercialization across borders of the same rights of proprietorship exercised on a local level by martial lineages.

References:
Draeger, D.F. 1973-1974. The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan. 3 volumes. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill.
Friday, K.F., with H. Seki. 1997. Legacies of the Sword: the Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Hall, J.W. 1983. Terms and Concepts in Japanese History: An Inquiry into the Problems of Translation.Journal of Japanese Studies 9, no. 1: 1-32.
Hurst, G.C. 1998. Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Imamura, Y. 1967. Jukyuseiki ni Okeru Nihon Taiiku no Kenkyu (Studies in Ninteenth-century Japanese Physical Education). Tokyo: Fumaido Shoten.
Kim, S.-J., D. Kogan, N. Kontogiannis, and H. Wong. 1995. Tuttle Dictionary of the Martial Arts of Korea, China & Japan. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle.
Louis, F. 1995. (1988) A Dictionary of the Martial Arts (Dictionnaire des Arts Martiaux). Translated and edited by P.H. Crompton. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Co.
Nishiyama, M. 1982a (1956). Iemoto Monogatari (Iemoto Stories). Reprinted in Iemotosei no Tenkai(Development of the Iemoto System), vol. 2 of Nishiyama Matsunosuke Chosakushu (Collected Works). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan.
------. 1982b (1960). Iemoto no Kenkyu (Researches in the Iemoto System). Reprinted as vol. 1 ofNishiyama Matsunosuke Chosakushu (Collected Works). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan.
------. 1982c (1962). Gendai no Iemoto (Contemporary Iemoto). Reprinted in Iemotosei No Tenkai(Development of the Iemoto System), vol. 2 of Nishiyama Matsunosuke Chosakushu (Collected Works).Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan.
------. 1997. Edo Culture Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600-1868. Translated and edited by G. Groemer. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Osano, J. 1994. Zusetsu Nihon Bugei Bunka Gairon (Illustrated Overview of Japanese Martial Culture). Tokyo: Fuyosha.
Stone, J.I. 1999. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

Rokuro-kubi: A fragment of "Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things"

Yoshitoshi Taiso Ukiyo e

Nearly five hundred years ago there was a samurai, named Isogai Heidazaemon Taketsura, in the service of the Lord Kikuji, of Kyushu. This Isogai had inherited, from many warlike ancestors, a natural aptitude for military exercises, and extraordinary strength. While yet a boy he had surpassed his teachers in the art of swordsmanship, in archery, and in the use of the spear, and had displayed all the capacities of a daring and skillful soldier. Afterward, in the time of the Eikyo (1) war, he so distinguished himself that high honors were bestowed upon him. But when the house of Kikuji came to ruin, Isogai found himself without a master. He might then easily have obtained service under another daimyo; but as he had never sought distinction for his own sake alone, and as his heart remained true to his former lord, he preferred to give up the world. so he cut off his hair, and became a traveling priest,-- taking the Buddhist name of Kwairyo.

But always, under the koromo (2) of the priest, Kwairyo kept warm within him the heart of the samurai. As in other years he had laughed at peril, so now also he scorned danger; and in all weathers and all seasons he journeyed to preach the good Law in places where no other priest would have dared to go. For that age was an age of violence and disorder; and upon the highways there was no security for the solitary traveler, even if he happened to be a priest.

In the course of his first long journey, Kwairyo had occasion to visit the province of Kai. One evening, as he was traveling through the mountains of that province, darkness overcame him in a very lonesome district, leagues away from any village. So he resigned himself to pass the night under the stars; and having found a suitable grassy spot, by the roadside, he lay down there, and prepared to sleep. He had always welcomed discomfort; and even a bare rock was for him a good bed, when nothing better could be found, and the root of a pine-tree an excellent pillow. His body was iron; and he never troubled himself about dews or rain or frost or snow.

Scarcely had he lain down when a man came along the road, carrying an axe and a great bundle of chopped wood. This woodcutter halted on seeing Kwairyo lying down, and, after a moment of silent observation, said to him in a tone of great surprise:--

"What kind of a man can you be, good Sir, that you dare to lie down alone in such a place as this?... There are haunters about here,-- many of them. are you not afraid of Hairy Things?"

"My friend," cheerfully answered Kwairyo, "I am only a wandering priest,-- a 'Cloud-and-Water-Guest,' as folks call it: Unsui-no-ryokaku. And I am not in the least afraid of Hairy Things,-- if you mean goblin-foxes, or goblin-badgers, or any creatures of that kind. As for lonesome places, I like them: they are suitable for meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in the open air: and I have learned never to be anxious about my life."

"You must be indeed a brave man, Sir Priest," the peasant responded, "to lie down here! This place has a bad name,-- a very bad name. But, as the proverb has it, Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu ['The superior man does not needlessly expose himself to peril']; and I must assure you, Sir, that it is very dangerous to sleep here. Therefore, although my house is only a wretched thatched hut, let me beg of you to come home with me at once. In the way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but there is a roof at least, and you can sleep under it without risk."

He spoke earnestly; and Kwairyo, liking the kindly tone of the man, accepted this modest offer. The woodcutter guided him along a narrow path, leading up from the main road through mountain-forest. It was a rough and dangerous path,-- sometimes skirting precipices,-- sometimes offering nothing but a network of slippery roots for the foot to rest upon,-- sometimes winding over or between masses of jagged rock. But at last Kwairyo found himself upon a cleared space at the top of a hill, with a full moon shining overhead; and he saw before him a small thatched cottage, cheerfully lighted from within. The woodcutter led him to a shed at the back of the house, whither water had been conducted, through bamboo-pipes, from some neighboring stream; and the two men washed their feet. Beyond the shed was a vegetable garden, and a grove of cedars and bamboos; and beyond the trees appeared the glimmer of a cascade, pouring from some loftier height, and swaying in the moonshine like a long white robe.

As Kwairyo entered the cottage with his guide, he perceived four persons -- men and women -- warming their hands at a little fire kindled in the ro (3) of the principle apartment. They bowed low to the priest, and greeted him in the most respectful manner. Kwairyo wondered that persons so poor, and dwelling in such a solitude, should be aware of the polite forms of greeting. "These are good people," he thought to himself; "and they must have been taught by some one well acquainted with the rules of propriety." Then turning to his host,-- the aruji, or house-master, as the others called him,-- Kwairyo said:--

"From the kindness of your speech, and from the very polite welcome given me by your household, I imagine that you have not always been a woodcutter. Perhaps you formerly belonged to one of the upper classes?"

Smiling, the woodcutter answered:--

"Sir, you are not mistaken. Though now living as you find me, I was once a person of some distinction. My story is the story of a ruined life -- ruined by my own fault. I used to be in the service of a daimyo; and my rank in that service was not inconsiderable. But I loved women and wine too well; and under the influence of passion I acted wickedly. My selfishness brought about the ruin of our house, and caused the death of many persons. Retribution followed me; and I long remained a fugitive in the land. Now I often pray that I may be able to make some atonement for the evil which I did, and to reestablish the ancestral home. But I fear that I shall never find any way of so doing. Nevertheless, I try to overcome the karma of my errors by sincere repentance, and by helping as afar as I can, those who are unfortunate."

Kwairyo was pleased by this announcement of good resolve; and he said to the aruji:--

"My friend, I have had occasion to observe that man, prone to folly in their youth, may in after years become very earnest in right living. In the holy sutras it is written that those strongest in wrong-doing can become, by power of good resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I do not doubt that you have a good heart; and I hope that better fortune will come to you. To-night I shall recite the sutras for your sake, and pray that you may obtain the force to overcome the karma of any past errors."

With these assurances, Kwairyo bade the aruji good-night; and his host showed him to a very small side-room, where a bed had been made ready. Then all went to sleep except the priest, who began to read the sutras by the light of a paper lantern. Until a late hour he continued to read and pray: then he opened a little window in his little sleeping-room, to take a last look at the landscape before lying down. The night was beautiful: there was no cloud in the sky: there was no wind; and the strong moonlight threw down sharp black shadows of foliage, and glittered on the dews of the garden. Shrillings of crickets and bell-insects made a musical tumult; and the sound of the neighboring cascade deepened with the night. Kwairyo felt thirsty as he listened to the noise of the water; and, remembering the bamboo aqueduct at the rear of the house, he thought that he could go there and get a drink without disturbing the sleeping household. Very gently he pushed apart the sliding-screens that separated his room from the main apartment; and he saw, by the light of the lantern, five recumbent bodies

-- without heads!

For one instant he stood bewildered,-- imagining a crime. But in another moment he perceived that there was no blood, and that the headless necks did not look as if they had been cut. Then he thought to himself:-- "Either this is an illusion made by goblins, or I have been lured into the dwelling of a Rokuro-Kubi... In the book Soshinki it is written that if one find the body of a Rokuro-Kubi without its head, and remove the body to another place, the head will never be able to join itself again to the neck. And the book further says that when the head comes back and finds that its body has been moved, it will strike itself upon the floor three times,-- bounding like a ball,-- and will pant as in great fear, and presently die. Now, if these be Rokuro-Kubi, they mean me no good;-- so I shall be justified in following the instructions of the book."...

Rokuro-kubi & Inugami, part of the Bakemono Zukushi scroll, Edo period

He seized the body of the aruji by the feet, pulled it to the window, and pushed it out. Then he went to the back-door, which he found barred; and he surmised that the heads had made their exit through the smoke-hole in the roof, which had been left open. Gently unbarring the door, he made his way to the garden, and proceeded with all possible caution to the grove beyond it. He heard voices talking in the grove; and he went in the direction of the voices,-- stealing from shadow to shadow, until he reached a good hiding-place. Then, from behind a trunk, he caught sight of the heads,-- all five of them,-- flitting about, and chatting as they flitted. They were eating worms and insects which they found on the ground or among the trees. Presently the head of the aruji stopped eating and said:--

"Ah, that traveling priest who came to-night!-- how fat all his body is! When we shall have eaten him, our bellies will be well filled... I was foolish to talk to him as I did;-- it only set him to reciting the sutras on behalf of my soul! To go near him while he is reciting would be difficult; and we cannot touch him so long as he is praying. But as it is now nearly morning, perhaps he has gone to sleep... Some one of you go to the house and see what the fellow is doing."

Another head -- the head of a young woman -- immediately rose up and flitted to the house, lightly as a bat. After a few minutes it came back, and cried out huskily, in a tone of great alarm:--

"That traveling priest is not in the house;-- he is gone! But that is not the worst of the matter. He has taken the body of our aruji; and I do not know where he has put it."

At this announcement the head of the aruji -- distinctly visible in the moonlight -- assumed a frightful aspect: its eyes opened monstrously; its hair stood up bristling; and its teeth gnashed. Then a cry burst from its lips; and -- weeping tears of rage -- it exclaimed:--

"Since my body has been moved, to rejoin it is not possible! Then I must die!... And all through the work of that priest! Before I die I will get at that priest! -- I will tear him! -- I will devour him!... AND THERE HE IS -- behind that tree! -- hiding behind that tree! See him ! -- the fat coward!"...

In the same moment the head of the aruji, followed by the other four heads, sprang at Kwairyo. But the strong priest had already armed himself by plucking up a young tree; and with that tree he struck the heads as they came,-- knocking them from him with tremendous blows. Four of them fled away. But the head of the aruji, though battered again and again, desperately continued to bound at the priest, and at last caught him by the left sleeve of his robe. Kwairyo, however, as quickly gripped the head by its topknot, and repeatedly struck it. It did not release its hold; but it uttered a long moan, and thereafter ceased to struggle. It was dead. But its teeth still held the sleeve; and, for all his great strength, Kwairyo could not force open the jaws.

With the head still hanging to his sleeve he went back to the house, and there caught sight of the other four Rokuro-Kubi squatting together, with their bruised and bleeding heads reunited to their bodies. But when they perceived him at the back-door all screamed, "The priest! the priest!" -- and fled, through the other doorway, out into the woods.

Eastward the sky was brightening; day was about to dawn; and Kwairyo knew that the power of the goblins was limited to the hours of darkness. He looked at the head clinging to his sleeve,-- its face all fouled with blood and foam and clay; and he laughed aloud as he thought to himself: "What a miyage! (4) -- the head of a goblin!" After which he gathered together his few belongings, and leisurely descended the mountain to continue his journey.

Right on he journeyed, until he came to Suwa in Shinano; and into the main street of Suwa he solemnly strode, with the head dangling at his elbow. Then woman fainted, and children screamed and ran away; and there was a great crowding and clamoring until the torite (as the police in those days were called) seized the priest, and took him to jail. For they supposed the head to be the head of a murdered man who, in the moment of being killed, had caught the murderer's sleeve in his teeth. As the Kwairyo, he only smiled and said nothing when they questioned him. So, after having passed a night in prison, he was brought before the magistrates of the district. Then he was ordered to explain how he, a priest, had been found with the head of a man fastened to his sleeve, and why he had dared thus shamelessly to parade his crime in the sight of people.

Kwairyo laughed long and loudly at these questions; and then he said: --

"Sirs, I did not fasten the head to my sleeve: it fastened itself there -- much against my will. And I have not committed any crime. For this is not the head of a man; it is the head of a goblin; -- and, if I caused the death of the goblin, I did not do so by any shedding of blood, but simply by taking the precautions necessary to assure my own safety."... And he proceeded to relate the whole of the adventure, -- bursting into another hearty laugh as he told of his encounter with the five heads.

But the magistrates did not laugh. They judged him to be a hardened criminal, and his story an insult to their intelligence. Therefore, without further questioning, they decided to order his immediate execution, -- all of them except one, a very old man. This aged officer had made no remark during the trial; but, after having heard the opinion of his colleagues, he rose up, and said: --

"Let us first examine the head carefully; for this, I think, has not yet been done. If the priest has spoken truth, the head itself should bear witness for him... Bring the head here!"

So the head, still holding in its teeth the koromo that had been stripped from Kwairyo's shoulders, was put before the judges. The old man turned it round and round, carefully examined it, and discovered, on the nape of its neck, several strange red characters. He called the attention of his colleagues to these, and also bad them observe that the edges of the neck nowhere presented the appearance of having been cut by any weapon. On the contrary, the line of leverance was smooth as the line at which a falling leaf detaches itself from the stem... Then said the elder: --

"I am quite sure that the priest told us nothing but the truth. This is the head of a Rokuro-Kubi. In the book Nan-ho-i-butsu-shi it is written that certain red characters can always be found upon the nape of the neck of a real Rokuro-Kubi. There are the characters: you can see for yourselves that they have not been painted. Moreover, it is well known that such goblins have been dwelling in the mountains of the province of Kai from very ancient time... But you, Sir," he exclaimed, turning to Kwairyo, -- "what sort of sturdy priest may you be? Certainly you have given proof of a courage that few priests possess; and you have the air of a soldier rather than a priest. Perhaps you once belonged to the samurai-class?"

"You have guessed rightly, Sir," Kwairyo responded. "Before becoming a priest, I long followed the profession of arms; and in those days I never feared man or devil. My name then was Isogai Heidazaemon Taketsura of Kyushu: there may be some among you who remember it."

At the mention of that name, a murmur of admiration filled the court-room.; for there were many present who remembered it. And Kwairyo immediately found himself among friends instead of judges, -- friends anxious to prove their admiration by fraternal kindness. With honor they escorted him to the residence of the daimyo, who welcomed him, and feasted him, and made him a handsome present before allowing him to depart. When Kwairyo left Suwa, he was as happy as any priest is permitted to be in this transitory world. As for the head, he took it with him, -- jocosely insisting that he intended it for a miyage.

The buddhist monk Nichiren in the snow of Tsukahara, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1840

And now it only remains to tell what became of the head.

A day or two after leaving Suwa, Kwairyo met with a robber, who stopped him in a lonesome place, and bade him strip. Kwairyo at once removed his koromo, and offered it to the robber, who then first perceived what was hanging to the sleeve. Though brave, the highwayman was startled: he dropped the garment, and sprang back. Then he cried out:-- "You! -- what kind of a priest are you? Why, you are a worse man than I am! It is true that I have killed people; but I never walked about with anybody's head fastened to my sleeve... Well, Sir priest, I suppose we are of the same calling; and I must say that I admire you!... Now that head would be of use to me: I could frighten people with it. Will you sell it? You can have my robe in exchange for your koromo; and I will give you five ryo for the head."

Kwairyo answered:--

"I shall let you have the head and the robe if you insist; but I must tell you that this is not the head of a man. It is a goblin's head. So, if you buy it, and have any trouble in consequence, please to remember that you were not deceived by me."

"What a nice priest you are!" exclaimed the robber. "You kill men, and jest about it!... But I am really in earnest. Here is my robe; and here is the money;-- and let me have the head... What is the use of joking?"

"Take the thing," said Kwairyo. "I was not joking. The only joke -- if there be any joke at all -- is that you are fool enough to pay good money for a goblin's head." And Kwairyo, loudly laughing, went upon his way.

Thus the robber got the head and the koromo; and for some time he played goblin-priest upon the highways. But, reaching the neighborhood of Suwa, he there leaned the true story of the head; and he then became afraid that the spirit of the Rokuro-Kubi might give him trouble. So he made up his mind to take back the head to the place from which it had come, and to bury it with its body. He found his way to the lonely cottage in the mountains of Kai; but nobody was there, and he could not discover the body. Therefore he buried the head by itself, in the grove behind the cottage; and he had a tombstone set up over the grave; and he caused a Segaki-service to be performed on behalf of the spirit of the Rokuro-Kubi. And that tombstone -- known as the Tombstone of the Rokuro-Kubi -- may be seen (at least so the Japanese story-teller declares) even unto this day.

Hearn, Lafcadio (小泉八雲 Koizumi Yakumo). Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, 1903.

Notes:
(1). The period of Eikyo lasted from 1429 to 1441. (A/N.)
(2). The upper robe of a Buddhist priest is thus called. (A/N.)
(3). A sort of little fireplace, contrived in the floor of a room, is thus described. The ro is usually a square shallow cavity, lined with metal and half-filled with ashes, in which charcoal is lighted. (A/N.)
(4). A present made to friends or to the household on returning from a journey is thus called. Ordinarily, of course, the miyage consists of something produced in the locality to which the journey has been made: this is the point of Kwairyo's jest. (A/N.)

The Ascetic’s Initiation: A fragment of "The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan"

Tengu, Toriyama Sekien, ca. 1732

On an afternoon in November 1963 I went to the Kurama temple with the intention of walking over the top of the mountain and down the other side to Kibune. A little way down from the summit I heard from among the trees a strong hard voice reciting what sounded like mantras. I left the path and followed the voice, until in a clearing in the forest I saw an enormous cryptomeria tree, its huge trunk girdled about with the belt of straw rope, and before it, with her back to me, a woman seated on the ground reciting.

The hard base voice continued for several minutes, through a number of invocations which were unfamiliar to me, while the woman sat perfectly motionless with a long rosary in her hands. Suddenly I heard some words I understood. Over and over again she called upon the daitengu and the shōtengu, the large tengu and the small tengu, at the end of her invocation turning towards the forest and clapping her hands.

Venturing to approach her, I asked if there were still a good many tengu to be found on the mountain. She turned to face me, a brown face peculiarly like an old bird, with an expression fierce yet remote and a pair of extraordinarily glittering eyes, brightly sparkling like steel.

‘If you do gyō like me you can see them’, she replied abruptly.

I asked again if the kami in the great tree was very strong.

‘Ask it anything you like. The tree is more than a thousand years old’, she replied, and without another word and without looking behind her she plunged rapidly down the mountainside until she disappeared among the dark green trees and yellow leaves.

Only after she had gone did I remember that the tengu were traditionally believed to have brightly glittering eyes, and hence realise that the woman was extraordinarily like a tengu herself.

Blacker, Carmen. The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan, 1975. London: George Allen & Unwin, 2005.