Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kinoshita Mokutarō

At dusk, a steamship arrived at a small harbor.

Since some time had passed after the lamps were lit, the ships, the people, and the surrounding nature were all profoundly still.

As he listened to the quiet sounds passing through during that time, he wondered whether the delicate sentiments of his boyhood—fragile as thin glass—might not return once more.

The work chants of the people loading cargo from the lighter boats onto the main ship were of particular interest.

“Heave-ho, come on now, yo-heave-ho!”

“Heave-ho, come on—”

And then, hearing the unified voices' pitch suddenly descend from that "sayo-na" moment was truly sorrow's utmost depth.
For here could be discerned that plaintive tone which forms the undercurrent of all Japanese folk songs.

Compelled to describe it, one might say it was within winter night air—cold as molten copper-green ore, air so dense it blurred the scattered lamplights of fishing villages and even infused the ship's bell—startled needlessly by wind—with crystalline metallic resonance—that those chants of "Yare-kora sa yo na—yako-ra sa no osa!" were compelled upon the ear.

And then once more, the steamship departed.
Through the quiet life shared between humanity and nature, the great black steamship began its voyage majestically, leaving behind a sorrowful steam whistle.

The lingering voices of chants and human cries that remained like tinnitus in its wake were indeed comparable—if comparisons must be made—to the aroma of aged wine “LEGENDE.”
(December 29, Meiji 43 [1910], in Izu Ito)

There existed no object of natural observation that piqued our interest as vividly as the interplay between human livelihood and coastal nature.
Kagoshima had long cut off communication with other regions and was said to possess remarkably rare scenery; however I had yet to find an opportunity to wander there.
Otherwise，whether in Kyushu’s various ports like Amakusa and Shimabara，in Eura along the Kishū coast，or nearby regions such as Bōshū and Izu，among those sharing roughly equal conditions of climate，geography，livelihood，and other factors，we could also invariably find common human life and its expressions.
Even when reading Goethe’s old Italian Journey，particularly its chapters on Venice，Naples，Sicily，and others，we found ourselves compelled by the same fascination to strike our knees.

The gentle climate makes them lazy.

The struggle against the wild sea’s force and sound strengthens their muscles, thickens their voices, and roughens their speech tones.
Nevertheless, their life—constantly removed from human settlements—deepens the affection between husband and wife.
Who would ever anticipate this sort of sentimentalisme within that rock-like build and those ferocious features?
However, it is equally certain that the communal life inevitably demanded by seaside labor—while eliminating designated overseers of work—simultaneously deepens mutual consideration among comrades.
The elderly fishermen are constantly scolding the small children, yet behind their rough words surely lies lively banter.
This communal life, much like the carefree ease of migratory birds or travelers, makes life itself appear thoroughly pleasant.
And further, their being accustomed to welcoming ships from distant lands—blue, blue ships surging cloud-like from beyond—along with new cargoes, unknown people, their dialects, even rare tales and seasonal ballads, renders their hearts profoundly romantique and leads them to readily believe in fanciful tales.
Thus arise tales of “sea priests” and “ship ghosts.”
Moreover, on stormy days when water spouts stand upon the horizon, they must inevitably attribute these phenomena to the power of that strange creature called the “dragon.”
Furthermore, this Romanticism exerts its influence even upon practical life.
Thus they make their festivals lavish.
They render the rituals solemn.
For example, they enshrine even a comb that has washed ashore by chance—claiming it to be a comb once cherished by Princess Tachibana—within the shrine.
The priest pompously bestows upon it the name Wadatsumi Shrine.
Guidebook writers comically exaggerate the elders’ legends and analyze the incident of the comb’s drifting ashore.
However, since the uneducated fishermen and their sons know nothing of such matters, they have people call this shrine Ryūgū-san.
Moreover, they distort its pronunciation into “Ryūgon-san.”
However, from this very fact, it conversely comes to light that this shrine’s true essence is neither Princess Tachibana’s comb nor Urashima’s treasure box, but rather “the sea”—the boundless sea—which, interpreted by these simple fishermen (by nature of human hearts’ conventions) as a spirit of the sea endowed with form.
Such things matter little.
Even that elusive sea spirit, once confined within this small shrine akin to Solomon’s jar, must now serve their practical lives.

At the time of a new ship’s launching, it served the farcical role of being worshipped as a pretext for rowing around the harbor to show off. In truth, they merely paid homage to these sea god shrines as a ritual of apparent predestination beforehand—all to drink sake afterward and dunk into the sea those young women whose usual demeanor displeased them. This ship-launching rite was now abolished. The pitiful smiles of girls left drenched and dripping after their immersion must have been the érotique concealed behind that ritual’s lofty artistic activity. And yet elsewhere, intertwined with such Romanticism, their daily lives—ruled by fickle weather—rendered them starkly worldly; meanwhile, winter’s vivid ochre on mixed forests, the sea’s green, the yellow of tachibana fruit—these natural hues imbued their hearts, garments, and utilitarian crafts with garish primitive grotesquerie. Indeed, any visitor to these shores would surely share this impression upon seeing those *manzai* kimonos and ship decorations.

This afternoon, I once again strolled aimlessly along the coast.
As it was the New Year, all ships had been hauled ashore, their midsections adorned with bamboo, pine, and bitter oranges while flags stood erected at their sterns.
The small ships bore flags of either white or red cloth.
Viewed from a slight elevation, the red flags particularly stood out vividly against the ultramarine sea surface like turquoise gems.
I could not help but admire these brushstrokes that would startle even Nature herself—that Impressionist painter.
The banners on slightly larger ships showed more complex designs.
They drew horizontal indigo stripes across the top of rectangular Mooka cloth.
Below these ran parallel red stripes.
Next came black crests.
They dyed thick circular rings,
placed ivy within them,
and patterned the cloth's lower edge with pale aqua waves.
Some bore black and red stripes with circular arrowhead crests above wave patterns mottled with straw-cloaked turtles.
Others divided their banners' lower edges with diagonal red stripes instead of waves, dyeing these triangular sections black while leaving white grid patterns.
The crests featured ascending wisteria enclosing the character 'dai'.
Between crests and red stripes appeared horizontal inscriptions of 'Shōtoku-maru'.
The ships' names themselves proved intriguing—constrained by fishermen's limited associations yet hinting at local ties and simple mental lives.
Names like 'Fudō-maru,' 'Tenjin-maru,' and 'Myōhō-maru' derived from deities they routinely worshipped.
'Seihō-maru' and 'Seitsū-maru' merely betrayed their lexical poverty.
Yet their chromatic hunger remained unsated; they painted steamship inn gables crimson and adorned hybrid bonito boats' gunwales with ultramarine.

In Tokyo during winter, the city’s color scheme found its main tones in subdued silver-gray and off-white.
Even if the Tenpō Reforms had never been enacted—and even if there had been no tendency to make exteriors plain and interiors luxurious for that purpose—showy winter garments would still have clashed with their surroundings.
Thus those once-trendy azuki-red and vivid-hued haori jackets recalled goldfish in a dim zoo aquarium.
That Edo left its subdued aesthetic sensibilities in Tokyo was no accident.
Goethe states that when Neapolitans paint carriages red, adorn horses’ heads with flags, and wear multicolored hats, it stems not from barbaric taste but from their bright surroundings.
In this same sense arose the blue ships of this land—and those “manzai” ceremonial kimonos.

Even nature was capricious.
There was no telling how many times the sea and sky changed hues within a single day.
Far off on the horizon floated the range of Sagami’s Ōyama.
What I saw was evening.

The silhouette of Ōyama bathed in sunset upon green waters stood truly as a Gandharva city mirage.
That red—though one might call it red—held no monotony.
It burned with lamp-lit vermilion like raw cuprite ore.
While its shaded purple mirrored fluorite's turbid depths,
one luminous stretch of capeshadow shimmered beyond compare—
red-hot as stove-copper blazing—
till gazing from this distant strand,
my heart slipped into Arabian Nights' twilight realm.

“If I inscribe a letter upon the beach’s pure white sand—

Another wave comes and fades away.

Ah, from afar my thoughts—

"The distant cape swallows the setting sun."

A faint swell of waves departed from the copper castle’s edge in barely perceptible motion—gradually deepening in hue, sharpening in form—until, to anthropomorphize, it resembled someone who had conceived a jest approaching their intended interlocutor with laughter from afar—this swelling wave too drew nearer to the shore, until with laughter’s explosive release it clattered a noisy black susurrus of “za, za, za, za, za…”, whereupon the boiling crest dragged out its “zatsukuron—” in prolonged crash before shattering.
The blue water’s rampart transformed entirely into white bubbles of sound.
Then the water slid over the beach—smooth as polished serpentinite—creating a gentle yet resilient sound-utterance of "zazaaa—rulo, rulo, rulo—" before quietly receding with a "sura, sura, sura…"
By then, the second wave had already swelled high, its crest beginning to scatter.—Thus did the waves, never tiring, persist in their gentle mischief.
And as each receding wave’s path—each and every bubble—was struck obliquely by the setting sun’s rays nearing the Western Hills, they revealed beautiful dreamlike patterns akin to soap-bubble hues.

Amidst these principal movements of the waves existed a minor conflict comparable to an episode from a lengthy novel. Especially between the waves that drew back from the shore and those that advanced, there existed an expression akin to ants greeting one another—a light, gentle commotion.

When I quietly calmed my heart and listened to the melodic undulations of these waves, I could not help but recall the cadence of the “boat-songs” sung during the fishermen’s gatherings. To say that he had given birth to these would have been far too forced. However, it was utterly inconceivable that the sea and waves—their very disposition—had no deep connection with the melodic patterns of these boat-songs. There were times when, as that song flowed gently along, one was startled by the song leader’s sudden high shift. It closely resembled the feeling when a large wave suddenly broke. The fact that beneath this song there were passages where a high-pitched call-and-response-like melody persisted at length closely resembled how the boisterous life of the seaside disrupted the melodic patterns of tranquil evening waves.

At this time too, I was startled anew by the shouts of people hauling the barge ashore.
Though their figures remained hidden behind the ship, from their voices alone I could imagine how they bent their backs as if bearing the vessel upon them, how they strained at the ropes.
"Heave-ho, heave-ho, heave now, heave-ho, heave-ho..."—the cadenced rhythm of work chants reached my ears.

In that interval—though only thirty minutes had passed—both sky and sea had completely changed their garb.
The vermilion akin to natural copper vanished, replaced by violet-blue hues of sunlit violets through which the jagged modelé of Ōyama's expanse emerged in flattened planes.
Particularly where sky met horizon, it had settled into a heavy, melancholy purple like iodine sediment at a test tube's base.

At that moment, the shadow of a steamship emerged at the faint hem of the land’s silhouette.

When I wandered out to the river mouth, there was a mound of ash where garbage had been burned.
Papers stamped with Afuri Shrine’s sacred seal, talismans inscribed with “Namu Fugen Daikōjin Guard” and phrases like “Fire cannot burn, water cannot wash away,” lay scattered about.
These are a kind of secretion produced by nature dwelling along the shore—nature that possesses a ‘heart’.

Just as the distant steamship sounded its first whistle.

(January 2nd)

Today in the afternoon, I happened upon those people clad in ceremonial kimonos trailing by along the street. Among these approximately twenty people, there were also quite a few children mixed in. The adults mostly wore black crested haori over them, but regardless—from the hems of their shichiji crepe or habutae silk kimonos emerged vibrant red and green patterns: Takasago’s venerable couple, Sanbasō, a man astride a turtle, someone bearing a fan inscribed “Bountiful Catch,” along with motifs of the Dragon Palace, Treasure Ship, and Seven Deities of Good Fortune—all of which compelled one to acknowledge that this constituted the “proper” attire befitting southern seaside regions.

The *parallélisme* of this motley crowd of young and old unified in identical attire—much like Jakuchū’s “Group of Chickens” painting—strikingly delighted the visual sense, yet simultaneously compelled one to observe them as *diminutif*. Therefore, it became all the more artistic.

In the distance lay the blue of the sea; surrounding it stretched winter rice fields, mountains and forests steeped in village legends, and half a cityscape that pulsed with life. And on both sides of the street were rivers, theaters, restaurants, and fruit shops. Please try to imagine this group of twenty or thirty people walking through this.

Particularly fascinating was how deeply the children’s kimonos were tucked up at the waist, with the lower halves of Benzaiten, Bishamonten, Hotei, and Fukurokuju concealed by blue-striped fabric, leaving only their hems and feet visible.

At night, boat songs drifted from a brightly lit vessel on the water.
Had someone unaccustomed to this sound—a stranger from distant lands—heard it, they would scarcely have believed it was a gathering of human voices.
In truth, it resembled so closely the resonance of the sea’s waves.

On the morning of the second day—a ritual called *nori-hajime*—they would take boats out to sea while darkness still lingered, miming the act of bonito fishing with rods devoid of lines.
Having heard this recounted year after year, I supposed they must have done so originally.
Nowadays, they merely celebrated the rite aboard ships moored on land.

(January 3rd)

January 4th was the day for the monks’ New Year visits.
Garments of lively attire, different from the fishermen’s ceremonial kimonos, could be seen here and there throughout the town.

It was exceedingly pleasant to see the group of monks in golden brocade robes—constantly in motion yet set against the backdrop of the eternally unchanging great blue sea.
When one further considered the town’s history linking these two elements, there emerged a flavor suggestive of—how shall I put it—the final page of a lengthy novel.

The ignorant past had been a happy age.
An age that would debate doctrine through scientific knowledge and seek to scrutinize the ālayavijñāna was already the mark of an end time.
Separated from rituals of empowerment and processions, divorced from ordination ceremonies, yet still the seething masses sought—from which scriptures?—that solemn intoxication born of forgetting deities and humans.

At dusk, in a bathhouse facing the river, I heard the evening bell’s toll.
The sensual pleasure and the sweetness of meditation dissolved into the small room filled with twilight and hot spring steam.
(January 4th)

When I looked down at the sea from the second-floor railing in the evening, only the steamship's mast was passing over the roofs of houses lining the coast. When the houses gave way to open space, I saw the ship's broad hull struck by intense evening light—the black paint glowed an uncanny brown while red window shutters glittered garishly. Though strangers all, I could clearly distinguish each passenger on deck, and watching their departure filled me with inexplicable loneliness. Within moments, the steamship grew distant indeed. Then came its final whistle—a low, rumbling drone—until by the horizon they lit a yellowish lamp like a peanut flower blooming in August grasses.

In Goethe’s Italian Journey, dated March 2, 1787, in Naples, the same sentiment is written.
From the matter-of-fact opening line—"Here too, the sea and ships assume an entirely different aspect"—he reports on the frigate that sailed for Palermo the previous day propelled by strong northerly winds, conjecturing that "with such winds, this voyage should not take more than thirty-six hours."
"When I watched that vessel’s sails, swollen full with wind, race between Capri and Minerva’s capes until they finally vanished into the unknown," he writes, "my heart overflowed with limitless yearning.
If one were to see a lover departing like that into the distance, they would surely pine away and die without fail."
It seems people’s hearts remain unchanged from past to present.

By the time I finally located this page within that travelogue at my window—guided only by the memory of having read it long ago—the sea had already darkened, and the ship’s silhouette ahead had become impossible to discern.
The charm of travelogues lies in how they capture a journey’s essence through seemingly disconnected details connected only through their temporal sequence—much like how Lu You, in his *Rushu Ji*, concludes passages describing landscapes and memorializing ruins with terse notes such as “evening brought a gale, so sailors added mooring lines,” or “night rain fell,” or “mosquitoes swarmed, forcing us to erect a canopy anew.” Similarly, immediately following Goethe’s aforementioned sentimental account, he writes in the very next line: “Now that the southeast wind has risen, how profoundly intriguing the waves off Moro would become if it strengthens!”—a juxtaposition that lays bare both this poet’s sentimental disposition and the Mediterranean milieu.

But enough digressions—the tales of Matsura Sayohime and Shunkan of Kikaigashima were likewise permeated by this same sentiment, yet for all the partings of those who go and those who come, I thought the song “A white sail visible on the dark open sea” stood as the supreme masterpiece of folk ballads.
In comparison, the song “The steam departs, the smoke remains” struck a slightly vulgar note.
But still, that there remained such an intimate relationship between daily life and folk songs surpassed by far what one found in recent school hymns.
(January 5th Night)

In the center of a slightly large panel was depicted a painting of a bonito boat, barely taking shape.
On the wooden board, it had been thickly and unevenly built up with paint mixed with plaster.
On the ship stood twenty to thirty wooden figures lined up with navy-blue paint.
And from among those figures rose ten-odd fishing rods.
They formed awkward vertical lines as they stood side by side, yet a bonito clung to the tip of each line.
At the ship’s bow floated two white birds.
A flock of seagulls flew wildly behind the ship, so vividly that one could almost hear their cries.
The horizon stood high.
There was an island formed of rocks there—a place where the morning sun began to rise from behind the island’s shadow.
At the top of the panel was written “Dedicated” in large characters.
This pertained to a dedication made in late autumn of Meiji 41.

There was another panel of identical composition. Here Ōshima had been depicted billowing smoke across the horizon in place of the small island. In the waves beneath the ship floated dozens of bonito converging on the fishing rods' tips.

A bonito motif had been dyed onto the curtain of a small mountainside shrine. Though sunlight streamed through gaps in the fabric, precisely that area stood cinched tightly together. Alongside characters proclaiming "maritime safety."

Such primitive art of fishing villages holds no interest unless seen through one's own eyes.
I believe that eyes which observe the local topography, examine its industries, and comprehend its history would undoubtedly gain a more nostalgic and deeply moving impression than when beholding great foreign art.

Exiting the small village shrine, when I gazed out from the adjacent temple’s bell tower, the southern winter sea wove a surface of warm blue hues.
On the cape across the sea, a cluster of roofs that had received the pale morning shadows were lined up.
Even a mountainside shrine was visible.
Especially since there was a festival there that day, several banners stood erected; yet through the transparent air, even the fluttering of those cloth banners—nay, even the sails of the harbor’s ships—could be seen so clearly that one could almost hear their rustling.
Truly, this was a kind of “Hiroshige-esque aesthetic sensibility.”
That is to say, the painterly stimulus that stirred the visual sense immediately became a trigger evoking legends of the seaside.
As the foreground stood a mountain gate on the descending path.
A large mountain cherry tree and a cluster of kumquat trees.
A four-hundred-year-old pine tree.
And the red flags of ships on the seaside below.
And the aforementioned dedicated panel had to be appreciated against the backdrop of such a local landscape.

Given the local character, there were quite a few panels contrasting Nichiren and the Soga brothers.
This was also seen at a temple in a different district.
Among the many panels adorning the walls of the Founder’s Hall, that depicting Funanori Yasaburō held greatest interest.
The portion showing this village’s corner in *Meisho Zue*’s bird’s-eye style occupied most of the panel’s upper right section, while the cape’s tip stretched further across much of the left half.
Funanori Yasaburō was aboard a small temma boat, having just cast his net with a splash.
Instantly, golden light blazed forth from a seabed Buddha.
Yet this votive panel’s artist appeared determined to express land’s essence more strikingly.
Thus they added Ōshima spewing smoke upon the sea.
Moreover they faithfully included even a small island near the cape.
This anonymous creator—honoring conventional motifs within one cohesive design—doubtless believed two sail silhouettes on the horizon and dawn’s crimson halo over waves would yield manifold effects.

After indulging in idle meditations, we descended the temple slope.
Then we observed a firefighting New Year's drill rehearsal in an elementary school courtyard, and while relishing the winter rice fields' agreeably warm hues beneath the midday-approaching sun, we entered the district preparing that festival.

Regarding how the seaside festival had created a delightful harmony between the surrounding nature and its inhabitants—this demanded that I take up the pen anew to recount.
I was now tired.
I thought I would take a hot spring bath then.

Today was also like that, but during the daytime the day before yesterday, a spring-like breeze had sounded through this town.
As I gazed at the withered grape leaves, sweet flags, and wild parsley in the garden, my eyes blurred from the heat haze.
When I went out to the rice fields, the familiar Inamura was bathed in faint sunlight.
The color of the soil in the lower fields, the color of the levee grass—these held a familiarity and nostalgia unseen in other seasons.
In Japanese oil paintings, apart from the somewhat older *Inamura* painting by Mr. Kume, Mr. Yamamoto Morinosuke’s *Farmhouses at the Mountain Foothills*, and Mr. Atomi Yasushi’s *Rice Fields* from the Hakuba-kai two years ago, I had not seen such depictions rendered.
I want to see paintings depicting such local color once this Exoticomanie has passed.

Now for the hot spring.
That smell of hydrogen sulfide and the gentle pressure of the lukewarm liquid were altogether pleasant.
It possessed more than enough power to turn people into idlers.
Today, just before sunset, as I walked along the highway and emerged into a section of the hot spring, I was once again abruptly assailed by this odor.
Though called a rural town, its bustling main street hosted a communal hot spring facility nestled among tobacco shops, *geta* clog shops, and sundries stores—where glimpses of nude figures could be caught from outside—all evoking an utterly foreign atmosphere.
The willow trees standing by the roadside, the stone roadside deity, the scent of bathwater flowing from the trough into the river, the faint breeze of a tranquil winter day, the skylarks rising over fields, and the grease pooling in rush-grown paddies—these were precisely the poetic essence of Buson.

People born in such a land—I cannot speak for the present age—but it stands to reason that those of olden times became idlers or pleasure-seekers.
Anecdotes of such people linger in households here and there.
Many of them lie buried beneath graves on small hillsides.
Some houses have vanished while others remain today, sheltering those who came after.

*Vedi Napoli e poi muori!* (January 7th, evening.)

Now I shall write of the festival—that festival we saw together two years past.
I had believed it occurred once every four years, but no—it was biennial.
Had I known then, I would have told you so. Yet this year, being now accustomed, nothing stirred my heart so profoundly.
Two years ago—though I kept this from you—when suddenly confronted with all those things I had utterly forgotten over more than a decade’s span, I found myself wholly returned to boyhood’s sentiments; laughable though it seems yet no lie, I was moved until tears flowed unbidden despite my efforts to stay them.

This morning, while guiding a rarely visiting relative on a tour of historic sites, I glimpsed banners from halfway up the mountain and only then realized this district was holding a festival. Then we finally arrived at a small area within this town that was most intimate with the sea. At a glance I understood what an exceptionally calm day it was upon the waters. At one edge of the sea—dense like undiluted ultramarine—near the shore, a single ship stood adorned in splendor. The red, white, and yellow upon the blue water's surface—flags, curtains, artificial flowers and other decorations—these sufficed amply to delight my visual senses. How much more so when they symbolized the lives of seaside dwellers! As we approached this district, tall banners thrusting skyward came into view—lanterns spanning the roadways, sakaki branches bearing paper streamers, summer tangerine boughs, shrimp motifs, and ritual straw flies. The festival's painterly elements instantly imbued us with its celebratory mood.

The high stone steps of that familiar shrine overlooking the sea and houses directly below already had a large crowd gathered upon them.
So we too parted through the human wave and climbed up the stone steps.
People holding spearheads tipped with the Four Symbols—the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and others—along with brocade banners, sakaki branches, sake vessels, offerings of rice cakes, and such stood solemnly lined up atop the stone steps.
They wore expressions anticipating something momentous.
These men were waiting for the Kashima dance in the narrow upper square to conclude.
Once it ended, they would immediately begin to move.
At the slope's foot clustered about ten boys pressing conch shell mouths to their lips.
They meant to sound them when the dance concluded—by this time we already heard singing rivaling sea wave harmonics.
This was the song of the Kashima dancers.

Beneath the stone torii of a narrow, cliff-top square, approximately thirty people in eboshi hats and white robes were performing the dance. As someone with a particular deep interest in human physiognomy, I immediately began searching out intriguing expressions and bone structures among these people. But what particularly moved my heart was the profoundly earnest faces of the four singers standing to the side, singing alone.

The lyrics of the song were hard to make out. Apart from fragments like “planting camellias in the Kamakura imperial palace’s garden, nurturing them, and such” or “that ship of Miroku’s and such,” I could scarcely comprehend anything else; yet the one leading these chants was an old man with a face like a clay-fired mask—the sort often seen along the coast—whose bleary eyes, crusted with blepharitis and framed by ashen lashes, rendered his countenance all the more solemn. This man wore a crested haori jacket but no hakama trousers. The second and third persons wore matching hakama trousers and carried short swords. They were relatively young. The third man in particular had burly muscles and the very model of a fisherman’s face. Moreover, his attitude was exceptionally severe. Moreover, carved upon his mask-like countenance was an expression of utmost piety, as though singing a heartfelt hymn to some immense entity. The fourth person was also elderly and similarly did not wear hakama trousers.

These four would sometimes sing in unison. At times they fell silent for a brief moment, holding their breath as if awaiting the dancers' answering song. At times they sang together with the dancers.

They held the staff's handle in their left hand and a fan in their right, singing as they danced. At first glance, one could discern no underlying order. They expanded and contracted like children playing at lotus blossoms. At times they clattered together into a perfect circle, laid their fans and ritual wands before their knees, and chanted: "There, there, there—there now, there you go—ha-iyah!" With that, one section concluded. Then they began dancing again, repeating the motions.

In any case, this dance was an utterly foolish thing to be performed by such robust, mature men of discernment.
It did not seem to hold such value.
And yet, when one sees not just one but twenty or thirty people dancing together—moreover, dancing with solemn faces, not showing the slightest hint of finding it trivial—somehow, the viewer is overcome with a profoundly sentimental sorrow or tragic emotion.
Generally speaking, when many people gather to perform a single act together, a certain sense of “force” arises there; but as the purpose of that activity shifts from grand to trivial, this feeling becomes accompanied by a secondary emotion—sublimity, tragic grandeur, or even pathos.
In old paintings depicting many monks collectively gazing upon Shakyamuni Buddha in nirvana, there lies tragic grandeur.
When one merely sees twenty musicians singing and playing shamisen to accompany the beautiful dances of the Wisteria Maiden and the Falconer, there arises a sorrow that moves people to tears.
I do not know whether it is one or the other of these two effects that moves those who watch this Kashima dance, but in any case, spectators who are impressed by a certain force yet feel the dance itself to be trivial ceaselessly seek the source of this power behind the dance—behind this human activity.
In other words, it was not for the sake of the dance itself.
And thus they came to discover that this was performed to venerate the so-called “sacred object” and bring it pleasure.
Thereupon, people’s attention gathered upon this sacred object.

After passing through the torii and climbing another set of stone steps, there stood a hall of worship adorned with bonito curtains and Ebisu masks.
Sakaki branches stood, and lanterns were consecrated.
A group of people here were also intently gazing at an object within the hall.

Upon the newly mat-covered floor of the shrine hall stood priests arrayed in motley hues, wearing yellow damask robes and indigo iridescent brocade court attire.
Beside them sat a fisherman in formal attire wearing a short sword.
At this point, from what I noticed, while the black habutae silk haori with large crests were fine, the under-kimonos were mostly things like pale indigo Benkei checks or rough Satsuma stripes in light indigo.
There certainly were inherited silk ceremonial garments, but even those still new appeared gaudy, ill-suited to their wearers' years.
Even seeing them wearing these gaudy colors and striped patterns meant to appeal to fishermen’s eyes—garments that sat somewhat awkwardly on their frames—evoked a peculiar, profound sorrow.

And these people transferred the sacred object into the portable shrine through a solemn ritual.
“They’ve transferred the soul to the portable shrine now!” A whispered murmur spread among the children.
They all wore expressions of apparent awe.

Mystery—is that not what all people on earth, from antiquity to the present day, have sought to uncover?
When the atomic-molecular hypothesis began to somewhat neatly explain the laws of the universe, people grew astonished and sought new mysteries.
And they strove to unlock the second door with the newly discovered key called electrons.
Religious art goes without saying, but even science—which at first glance appears nihil admirari and unadorned—also seemed to strive to multiply mystery in the human world.
Now, regarding this soul-transfer ritual, I could not help but smile at the broad-mindedness of people of old who found mystery all too easily and were satisfied thereby.
When the soul transfer was completed, suddenly a gun fired.

“Hey, heave-ho! Heave-ho!”

“Heave-ho…”

And then, just as they were midway through their call-and-response song, the dancers—startled—ceased their dance and huddled together.
At the foot of the slope, the children began blaring conch shells raucously.
The portable shrine, borne by some thirty sturdy men, descended the stone steps before the hall of worship and emerged into the square beneath the torii.
The crowd parted to clear the way.
Red, green, and yellow flags began to sway gently.

The portable shrine emerged onto the narrow flatland atop the cliff. And then it staggered forth. Two or three old fishermen hurried off at a trot with worried expressions and attempted to pacify the thrashing deity.

There existed an onomatopoeic phrase—būjakan, jakan, jakan—coined by the children. The drawn-out “bū” mimicked the conch shell’s blare. The “jakan, jakan” likely imitated the clatter of beads and wind bells adorning the portable shrine. Even now, it resounded in just that manner as the shrine swayed.

From atop the high slope overlooking the narrow street below, the portable shrine that had just descended now appeared between the rooftops.
The conch shell resounded imposingly.
And after stopping and staggering several times—each jolt pained the children’s tender hearts—the portable shrine suddenly rushed down a narrow path eastward as though struck by inspiration.

A stone torii stood on the mountainside; below it, an immediate cliff dropped to rooftops lining the sea.
There, a white banner rose from the blue waters.
Beyond the horizon slept the mountains of Bōsō.
This scene already held Hiroshige’s nostalgic sensibility.
And it seemed a rare marvel that within such sentiment lingered festivals and annual rites—unbroken by modern civilization’s all-destroying waves—still preserving traces of antiquity.
In truth, even this Kashima dance might not be particularly uncommon.
The twin shrines of Katori and Kashima had wielded influence since the Fujiwara era’s distant days, their branch shrines likely numerous still.
Thus while Kashima dances, rituals, and boat songs might yet endure in scattered regions, the Bon dance—though flourishing until recent years—now lay nearly extinct.
This breed of festival too would likely vanish ere long.
Therefore I resolved to record precisely what I saw, spurning no detail however prolix.

Then, we did not pursue the portable shrine’s path but waited at the shore where it was to arrive later. In what I remembered seeing two years prior, there was again a dance there, after which about thirty naked men loaded the portable shrine and people onto a boat.

Before long, that too appeared to have been completed, and the boats moored at the shore began to move. A mysterious murmuring of people could be heard approaching from afar. On each boat stood two bamboo poles bearing lanterns and banners, with several artificial flowers cascading down. Centered around these two main boats, four or five other small vessels encircled them. There was another vessel—a carved float adorned with polychrome—commonly called the "sacred ship" (go-fune). At its bow sat a person wearing a formal shoulder garment and bearing large and small swords.

These boats began to move, and though the figures of those rowing were visible, the vessels showed no sign of drawing near.
On this coast, the crowd of spectators increased until it numbered five or six hundred people.
The many boats hauled up on land were occupied by these people.
In the windows of the two-story houses standing on the coast, women, children, newlywed women—people of that sort—stuck out their heads.
And in reality, in such a cramped town, knowing who was where became a delightful subject for speculation; when this was reported to family members upon returning home, it enlivened the women’s evening conversations around the hearth. From there, their inquiries shifted to matters concerning other households’ relatives, and thus the talk leaped back an entire generation.
And thus, everyday conversations finally came to be imbued with a narrative tone.

Two more fishermen’s children had climbed aboard the land boats.
One of them was staring enviously at the two small peppermint water jars held by another child.
Finally, he came to demand it.
And so a little quarrel began.
However, in the end, the one who appeared to be an older brother decided to distribute one bottle.
But before giving it, the majority of the liquid in the jar had already been poured out.
This episode too became a fitting laughingstock for the people who had grown utterly bored from waiting.
Yet the one who had obtained a single jar—after some dispute—had already resigned himself and now appeared almost reverent as he began licking the jar’s mouth.

Amidst the call-and-response of boat songs and Kashima melodies, the clear rhythm of pilgrim's staffs striking boat planks to the refrain of “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!” grew audible, and now this shore too stirred with excitement.
The two youths energetically took off their clothes, handed them to the women, and plunged into the cold seawater to purify the sea and dredge up seaweed debris.
There, a light stirring of emotion emerged among the spectators.
With a seriousness that could not be mistaken for mere ritual, these two men ran about in the sea.
The festival’s playful activities had become increasingly gilded with solemnity.
Though this was not Lipps’ theory of self-projection, even the spectators felt a muscular tension as if they themselves had entered the sea, and consequently, their anticipation for the sacred ship grew ever more urgent.
The spirit of the portable shrine had possessed the six hundred spectators.

However, the interest of this situation would likely be better captured by what was seen from that second-floor window than from where I stood.
Through the opened window in the background, a suggestive blue sea could be seen.
While gazing in that direction, a group of eight or nine women and children stood.
From time to time, a clamorous uproar could be heard from below.
If one of those women were to recount the unfolding events below in words as beautiful as Hofmannsthal’s, it might well become a full-fledged play.

The boat songs too became distinct.
The faces of those singing them too became discernible.
A white straight-robed Shinto priest stood on the shore and worshipped from afar.
Suddenly, forty or fifty youths stripped off their clothes and leapt into the sea.
Someone grappled with the portable shrine.
Others carried the people of the Kashima dance one by one on their backs to the shore.
The way they hoisted them onto their shoulders was bizarre—suddenly grabbing someone by the chest and lifting.
Then the tall person bit into a sheet and, thrusting forward his left hand holding ritual instruments, shouted “Heave-ho!”
For a time, the shore became choked with voices shouting “Heave-ho! Heave-ho! There!”
Even children holding small conch shells performed the same motions.
They removed the sakaki branches; others received them.
The waves of the sea reflected variegated patterns.
The child who had already come ashore blew the conch shell.—Once these matters concluded, the dance resumed.

As for boat songs and the Kashima dance, I possessed no knowledge whatsoever.
I had asked a few people as well, but could not comprehend it.
Having no particular inclination to delve into it, I left it at that.
What I found pleasing about this kind of human activity was how artistic the lives of people in the past had been.
There existed shrines, and through enshrining deities within them, their purposes became mystified.
In the days of Tenpyō Shōhō, from nobles to commoners alike, this held the same meaning as paying homage to the Great Buddha—a symbol of human hearts given form.
All grievances and resistance against the strict order of elders and youth, classes, and systems arose from this mystique's dissolution.
Even if we suppose that the human mind which seeks knowledge will not rest until it elucidates all enigmas and purifies thought's impurities, it also appears people cannot be satisfied without new mysteries.

In truth, this morning I observed the fire brigade youths practicing in the elementary school plaza. It was company or battalion drills, and the person leading them was a reservist. Since humans inevitably demand communal activities, this type of purposeful cultural conduct deserves approval compared to the foolish festival games of old; yet the clearer its purpose becomes, the more unavoidable it is that feelings of faith and devotion diminish.

Where can one find a giant magnet powerful enough to unify the hearts of the masses beyond militarism?

(Same day, night)

That night, out of a kind of curiosity, I briefly peered into the theater.
I had wanted to learn what entertainments the people of this small seaside town sought, but I made no particularly novel discoveries.
There was nothing particularly special about it.
In this age of convenient transportation, seeking such people in a place not far from Tokyo was fundamentally impossible; yet the stage and its audience shared an extraordinary intimacy.
At unpleasant villains, mandarin orange peels were thrown.
The hanamichi was occupied by a group of children, and when the curtain opened and Matsumae Gorobei’s wife appeared, she first had to scold the children in a low voice to create space for her emotional emphasis along the way.
There, the children scattered away in a flurry.

Gorobei, wearing a dirty pale blue-green kimono, was subjected to torture and made an ugly face.
On the crude two-tiered stage, officials were taking down testimony in large characters as if practicing penmanship.
I supposed extracting an artistic utopia from such a place would require rather forced élimination, yet the spectators remained utterly absorbed in their viewing.
However, here as in Tokyo, those under thirty had no connection whatsoever to legends like Matsumae Gorobei—let alone Shirai Gonpachi, Suzuki Mondo, or Umekawa Chūbei—nor to their artistic sentiments; thus with little more than killing time to occupy them, they did nothing but eat sushi and mandarins.
Their pleasures, romance, and even debauchery were utterly mathematical.
Even if there was rhythme, there was no mélodie.
At least twenty years ago—whether for better or worse I didn't know—there still had existed such a thing as folk music among the people.

Even so, a man in his forties—the sort who looked like he might hum a tune—would occasionally call out in a contrived manner, “Hey, Chiyobo, Chiyobo.”
Before long, a dirty curtain dyed with the names of various merchants was drawn.
Then with a clamor, the children rushed out, thrust their heads into the curtain, and saw off the departing actors.

Growing uncomfortable, I left the theater and visited relatives to bid farewell. By chance emerged a story from a generation prior that I found quite intriguing. As its content proves too particular to interest any but those directly involved or acquainted with the individuals' fates, I shall refrain from recounting it. Yet even you can likely imagine such matters. That is to say, there was a time when books like *Kyūri Mondō* ["Dialogues on Natural Philosophy"], *Sekai Hizakurige* ["Shank's Mare"], *Gakumon no Susume* ["An Encouragement of Learning"], and *Wakokuji Seiyō Bunko* ["Japanese-Western Library"] arrived via convict transports or rare steamships at a port not far from Tokyo, displacing volumes such as *Tōsei Nyōbō Katagi* ["Modern Wives' Dispositions"] and *Hokusetsu Bidan* ["Northern Snow Romance"] from bookshelves; when ukiyo-e prints by Eishan and others, actor portraits by Toyokuni and Kunisada, scrolls depicting Yoshiwara's blooming courtesans by Kunimitsu, and illustrations like Yoshitora's *Yōkoku* ["England"], Kiyochika's *Tōkyō Meisho-zu* ["Famous Tokyo Views"], along with "Exquisitely Unique British Embassy Diagrams" and "Five-Story First National Bank Blueprints," were appended to handscrolls; and when an elder in a tiger-hunting cap expounded Western natural philosophy instead of the Sumeru theory—that the sun accumulates endlessly in the western seabed or that earthquakes stem from a giant catfish beneath the earth. To my eyes, the figures from that era remain vividly present. And the sensation of unearthing relics from that time in an old bookcase carries a unique quality. Alongside jinku ballads of those days—like "The Yokohama-bound steamer rides a thousand-layered cart; to this house comes a rickshaw"—which held a certain exotic charm, there come moments when I vividly recall that age of pure old customs and lingering folk songs, instilling sorrow so profound it verges on tears.

The boatman who once rode oar-driven vessels to Tokyo, settled accounts after finalizing partitions and payments, and at early morning departures moved the people of Reiganjima's shore to tears with his mast-raising song still lived—yet he no longer remembered the song.

Even the children no longer sang along to rug ballads like *Shirokiya’s Saizō-san* and *Jōhachi-san*.
Yet when I hear those songs now, associations open a hazy world of the past.

Yet when one pursues these associations further, traces of such a world being gradually dismantled come to mind.
Among these, what left the deepest impression on me was the history of how Christianity came to this town.
At first, red cross lanterns were lit in small houses on Sunday nights.
When that practice fell into disuse, a mysterious man suddenly came to this still-desolate town and stood at the crossroads each night to preach.
It was a person from this village who had returned from the West.
Later, his new, emotional personality deeply influenced many youths in this village.

Recalling such matters and comparing them to the present state, I realized how various shifts in the social climate could occur even within ten or fifteen years.
The moment this thought arose, I felt as though some immense force lay concealed behind me.

Then I went out again to the dark sea and indulged in willful meditation.

I went out to the shore at dusk.
When someone would sing a nijōri-bushi ballad,
"In days of old," crooned the feeble blind one,
"people sang thus..."
And on he intoned:
"Even now—unchanged through time—
hearts bear their harshness,
their yearning,
their sorrow."
On stone walls alongshore,
pale pink dianthus bloomed.
(Same day—dead of night)

Last night the sky was pitch black, and even when I rose at six-thirty this morning—though winter—it remained unusually dark. Nevertheless, by sunrise, the clouded sky gradually brightened. There, in the distance, a steamship whistle sounded.

At the steamship inn had gathered a crowd—university students clutching gaudy striped coats under their arms, a man in a mouse-colored double-layered kimono, a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl dressed in Western clothes (among whom that deep navy coat stood out for its beauty)—all forming a kind of living tableau.

Last night, snow fell on the nearby mountain.
Such occurrences were rare in these southern maritime regions, so people had substituted talk of them for their morning greetings.
And so, the townspeople all saw the mountain bathed in morning sunlight.
Fields on the mountainside, pine and mandarin trees, and the wrinkled contours of distant mountains—all lay blanketed under white snow tinged with purple, while the hues peeking through their interstices shone as beautifully as if inlaid with various minerals.
Particularly the distant peaks, presenting a translucent grayish-green like red zeolite, sank vaguely into the boundless expanse of the great sky.
Here and there, patches of white clouds—as if carved with a sharp knife—drifted without any wind.

“So last night’s cold was no joke—look how much piled up on the mountain.” Whether fishermen standing on the shore or wives in half-coats made from old ceremonial kimonos carrying children on their backs—all shaded brows with hands and gazed toward the mountains.

When I looked toward the town after boarding the steamship, a row of houses appeared directly below the mountain range, and the three-thousand-koku plain beneath did not seem to exist. The sight of the send-off party returning and the day’s work beginning was visible in the distance. I felt a strange sensation as though life’s mechanisms—their trajectories and causalities—were laid bare beneath an eternal aspect.

Before long, the bell rang, and "Go off!" was passed from person to person.