Sotome

Haven’t written about my second Ikitsuki trip and some other doings in Nagasaki, but I’d like to blog about my excursion to Sotome while the memory’s still fresh. One of the two Kirishitan 帳方 from Sotome drove all the way down to Nagasaki to take me around Sotome yesterday. First off, cannot be thankful enough for how nice the guy was – treated me to lunch, tea, AND dinner, bought me “Doro somen”, a type of noodle that the Catholic priest Marco de Rotz made for a living - on impulse when I asked about it at the café, literally spent over 10 hours with me on his Saturday, the list goes on and on.

Our drive through Sotome once again made me impressed with how Japanese drivers maneuver through those impossible one-lane curves and hills. Sotome is north of Nagasaki bordering the sea, surrounded by a pretty scenic view with Goto in the very far distance. It’s also the site of the Kakure Kirshitan in Endo Shusaku’s Silence, one of my favorite novels to this day and the reason why I became interested in Kirishitan in the first place. Apparently, Endo came up to Sotome himself to ask the Kirishitan 帳方 at the time (the grandfather of the current 帳方) if he could visit certain places to contextualize the setting for Silence. Ahh *impending geek alert*

Again, bummed that I don't have a proper camera and I'm just uploading all these mediocre ones from my phone. But Sotome is beautiful! View from Endo Shusaku Museum - almost can't tell the sky from the ocean. 

Honestly, I felt like I was going on a Kirishitan “tour” as I was driven every which way. First, we climbed up a hill to look at some unknown Kirishitan graves, marked by a large, flat stones stacked on top of each other as a gravestones, with teacups set on top by someone. 

Graves of unknown Kirishitan

Afterwards, we climbed up another hill to Karematsu Jinja, famous for being a shrine without a torii gate because the Kirishitan used it as a shrine for a saint they called San Juan-sama. Interestingly, there’s an ecumenical festival held every year here by the local Buddhist priests, the Catholic authorities, and the Sotome Kirishitan. We went inside the shrine for him to offer a prayer to San Juan-sama. He took showed me the stones placed in a bowl inside and said people kept them to protect themselves, giving me one to "write my thesis and graduate" (lol). 

Karematsu Jinja

Then to the house of a former company president who collected items as a hobby, some of which were Kirishitan artifacts. There was an iron pot with a cross faintly inscribed inside and a crucifix in pretty good condition. Finally, we made a detour to Ohno church, part of the pitch for Nagasaki's churches to be instated into the World Heritage List, and the former residence of another martyr, Bastian, who is credited with passing on the calendar of Kirishitan observances that San Juan-sama himself taught him.

The cross in the pot!

Finally, we stopped at his house where he showed me some very, very old manuscripts of the Bastian calendar and orashio. Unlike the Goto Kirishitan, the Sotome Kirishitan don’t have any Maria-sama figurines and the like – probably destroyed in a fire, he said. My interview was definitely one of the most interesting so far, if only because he had strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to voice them. Echoing the Goto 帳方, he took pride in the fact that the Kirishitan religion didn’t require money. He insisted that the Kirishitan religion, although it incorporates elements from different religions, is something separate from Buddhism and Catholicism. Moreoever, the Kirishitan religion that was preserved for hundreds of years didn’t “change” from its original Catholic beginnings; rather, it was the Catholic Church who had changed by the time the two groups were able to interact with each other again in the Meiji era. Interesting idea I definitely want to explore further.

A manuscript of The Beginning of Heaven and Earth, the sacred book of the Kirishitan

He drove me back to Nagasaki and took me up to Mount Inaseyama to see the shrine of Kuwahime, the daughter of a Christian daimyo who was exiled to the mountains. Her shrine is marked by two stones inscribed with X’s that are said to be diagonal crosses. 

The alleged crosses on Kuwahime's shrine

Finally, we went back to the station where he treated me to some delicious チャンポン. Once again, can’t get over how nice this guy was, and I wish I had something more to give him than my customary Yale postcard.

Even though, I’m interviewing these people, I’m also learning a lot from these older leaders, something that's sometimes hard to get out of a four-year college experience where you’re limited to people your own age. I think they also sense my age and just want to share their values with me while I’m asking them questions.

Lesson of the day – You need to understand the history of something as you research it. Going around to these landmark Kirishitan sites isn’t direct fieldwork for the thesis I want to explore, but it’s been so helpful contextualizing these people and how they value their Kirishitan ancestors and background. Also need to transcribe all these interviews while I still have time over here! (I know I’m just going to push off everything once I'm back at school…) 

The 帳方 in his garden

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