Memoranda of Ogata Ryosai

I have most certainly understood the order recently issued that, because followers of the Kirishitan sect in this village have been practicing wicked rites and misleading the eyes of the people, I am to report to the authorities, point by point, what I myself have seen and heard.

To begin with: on the seventh day of the third month of this year, a woman named Shino, widow of Yosaku, a peasant of this village, came to my house and earnestly begged me to examine the pulse of her daughter Sato, aged nine, who was gravely ill.

This Shino was the third daughter of the peasant Sobei. Ten years ago she married into Yosaku’s household and bore Sato, but before long her husband died, and since then she has not remarried. She has supported herself from day to day by weaving and doing odd jobs for hire. However, through some grave error of mind, from about the time of Yosaku’s death she devoted herself entirely to the Kirishitan faith, and because she frequently went in and out of the house of a padre named Rodriguez in the neighboring village, there were even people in this village who gossiped that she had become that padre’s mistress. Criticism of her, of one sort or another, never ceased. For that reason, her father Sobei, her sisters and brothers, and the whole family repeatedly tried to reason with her; yet she would only say that nothing was more precious than Deus Nyorai, and would not listen at all. Morning and evening, she and her daughter Sato did nothing but worship a small household image in the shape of what they called a cross, and she even neglected to visit the grave of her husband Yosaku. As matters stand now, she has broken with all her relatives, and it is said that the village has been discussing, from time to time, whether she ought to be expelled.

Since she was such a woman, I told her, even though she begged me again and again, that I could not possibly examine the child’s pulse. At first she went home in tears, but on the following day, the eighth, she came again to my house and pleaded, “I will count it a kindness for all my life; please, I beg you, examine her.” No matter how I tried to refuse, she would not listen. At last she threw herself down weeping in the entrance of my house and said resentfully, “Surely a physician’s duty is to heal the sick. Yet though you hear that my daughter is gravely ill, you cast it aside and will do nothing. I cannot understand it.”

So I said to her: “What you say is perfectly reasonable; yet it cannot be said that I have no reason at all for refusing to examine her. Why? Because your ordinary conduct is exceedingly improper. In particular, I have heard for certain that you have repeatedly slandered me and the other people of this village, saying that our worship of the gods and Buddhas is the behavior of men possessed by demons and heretics. Yet now you, who claim to walk in the true and spotless path, ask people like us, whom you regard as enchanted by devils, to cure your daughter’s grave illness. Why is that? In such a matter, you ought properly to rely on the Deus Nyorai in whom you place your daily faith. If, however, you insist on having me examine her, then from this day forward you must firmly abandon your devotion to the Kirishitan sect. Unless you consent to that, then though it is said that medicine is an art of benevolence, I must still fear the divine punishment of the gods and Buddhas, and so I must respectfully refuse.”

When I had tried to persuade her in this way, Shino too found that she could hardly continue to press me, and went home in dejection.

On the next day, the ninth, there was heavy rain from before dawn, and for a time all traffic in the village ceased. Around the Hour of the Hare, Shino came again to my house without so much as an umbrella, drenched like a soaked rat, and once more begged me to examine the child. I said, “Forgive me, but my answer cannot be changed. In that case, you must decide what matters most: your daughter’s life, or Deus Nyorai. You must give up one of them.”

When I told her this, Shino became like a madwoman. Again and again she bowed her head to the floor before me, or clasped her hands in worship, and cried through her sobs, “What you say is entirely just. But according to the teaching of the Kirishitan faith, once I apostatize, both my soul and my body will perish through life after life forever. I beg you, take pity on my heart and spare me this one thing.” Though she was a follower of an evil sect, her love as a mother plainly seemed sincere, and I could not help feeling some pity. Yet private feeling must not be allowed to overthrow public duty. So no matter what she said, I held firm that unless she apostatized, I could not examine the child’s pulse.

At this, she made a face beyond all description and stared at me for a short while. Then suddenly tears began to fall, and placing her hands at my feet she said something in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzzing. Because of the sound of the rain, I could not clearly catch it, but after asking her several times I finally understood distinctly that, since there was no other way, she would apostatize. However, as there would otherwise be no proof that she had truly done so, I told her she must establish evidence of it. Then, without a word, she drew that cross from her bosom, placed it on the wooden step in the entrance hall, and quietly stepped on it three times. At that moment she showed no particular disorder of mind, and it even seemed that her tears had already dried. Yet in the eyes with which she gazed at the cross at her feet there was something feverish, like the look of a man in delirium. My household servants all said later that they had found it deeply uncanny.

Since, then, the condition I had stated was met, I at once had a servant carry my medicine chest, and in the pouring rain I went together with Shino to her house. There, in a very cramped room, Sato lay alone with her head to the south. As her fever was intense, she seemed scarcely in her right mind. With her tiny hands she repeatedly, over and over again, traced crosses in the air, and every time she did so she kept muttering the word harureya as if she were speaking in a dream, smiling happily each time. Shino, weeping by the child’s pillow, told me then that harureya was a Kirishitan prayer, an offering of praise to the deity of that sect.

Accordingly I immediately examined her pulse. It was unmistakably a case of typhoid-like fever, and moreover already past the point at which anything could be done. I judged that she was not likely to remain alive through the day. Having no choice, I informed Shino of this. Thereupon she once again became like one insane and said, “The only reason I apostatized was because I longed to save my daughter’s life. If she dies after all, then all of it will have been for nothing. I beg you, understand the pain in my heart for having turned my back on Deus Nyorai, and save my daughter’s life somehow, somehow at all.” She prostrated herself not only before me but even at the feet of my servant, begging over and over. Yet since there was nothing that human power could do, I admonished her again and again not to lose herself in false hopes. I left three packets of decoction medicine and, taking advantage of a lull in the rain, made to return home.

But Shino clung to my sleeve and would not let go. Her lips moved as if she meant to say something, yet before a single word came forth, her face suddenly changed color and she collapsed writhing on the spot. I was greatly alarmed, and together with my servant did what we could for her. At length she came back to herself, but she no longer had the strength to stand, and said, “It is now certain that, because my faith was shallow, I have lost both my daughter’s life and Deus Nyorai together.” With that she fell into quiet, bitter weeping. I tried in many ways to comfort her, but it was useless; she paid no heed whatever. And since the child’s condition also seemed beyond hope, I had no choice but to take my servant again and return home.

However, when I later went, sometime in the Hour of the Sheep, to examine the pulse of the mother of the village headman, Tsukagoshi Yazaemon, I learned from Yazaemon that Shino’s daughter had died, and that Shino, overcome by grief, had at last gone mad. If so, it would seem that Sato died within about two hours after my examination; and by the first part of the Hour of the Serpent, Shino was already plainly deranged, clutching her daughter’s corpse in her arms and chanting some barbarian scripture aloud at the top of her voice. Moreover, Yazaemon stated that he had witnessed this directly, and that Kaemon, Togo, and Jihei of the village had also been present, so there can be no possible doubt that it was true.

Furthermore, on the following day, the tenth, there was a light rain from morning on, but toward the latter part of the Hour of the Dragon spring thunder began to roll, and just as the sky was starting somewhat to clear, a horse was sent for me by the village samurai Yanase Kinjuro, requesting that I come and examine his pulse. I therefore promptly mounted and set out from my house. When I came before Shino’s house, however, I found a great crowd of villagers standing there, hurling abuse such as “Padres!” and “Kirishitans!” so that it was impossible even to urge the horse forward.

So from horseback I peered into the house. Its doors were thrown open, and inside stood one red-haired foreigner and three Japanese, all dressed in black garments like clerical robes. Each held aloft either that cross or something resembling a censer, and all together were chanting, “Harureya, harureya.” Moreover, at the feet of the red-haired man, Shino, her hair disheveled, crouched as though unconscious, clutching her daughter Sato in her arms. What most astonished my eyes was that Sato had her arms tightly around Shino’s neck, and in an innocent voice was alternately calling her mother’s name and saying harureya. To be sure, as I was seeing this from a distance, it was hard to distinguish it clearly, yet Sato’s complexion appeared extraordinarily fresh, and from time to time she would loosen her hands from her mother’s neck and make as if to catch the smoke rising from the censer-like object.

So I dismounted and, because Sato had revived, asked the people of the village in full detail what had happened. They all fearfully told me that this red-haired padre, Rodriguez, had come that morning from the neighboring village with his irumans in attendance; that after hearing Shino’s confession he and the others had invoked the power of their sect’s deity, burning and wafting forth a strange incense and sprinkling holy water; and that thereupon Shino’s madness had subsided of itself, and before long Sato too had come back to life. Since there have from ancient times been by no means a few cases of people who, once thought dead, returned to life, such a thing in itself is not unheard of. Yet most such cases involve men overcome by drink, or those stricken by miasma and the like. I have never once heard of a precedent in which someone like Sato, who had died of fever, should have had her soul restored. Therefore this one matter alone makes plain the wicked sorcery of the Kirishitan sect. In particular, the fact that spring thunder shook the heavens repeatedly when the padre came into our village suggests, I infer, that Heaven itself abhorred him.

As for what followed after this—namely, that Shino and her daughter Sato moved that very day to the neighboring village in the company of the padre Rodriguez, and that, by the arrangement of the priest Nikkan, abbot of Jigenji Temple, their house was burned down—these things have already been reported by the headman Tsukagoshi Yazaemon. Thus the rough account above should suffice for all that I myself have seen and heard. If, however, by any chance I have omitted anything from this written statement, I shall submit a further report in writing at a later date.

For the present, this memorandum is as stated above.

Respectfully submitted,

Twenty-sixth day of the third month, Year of the Monkey

Village of --, Uwajima District, Iyo Province

Physician: Ogata Ryosai

(December, Taisho 5 [1916])