Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Volume II Part 20

'And this I desire to know: Can a man separate his Souls? Can he, for instance, have one Soul in Kyoto and one in Tokyo and one in Matsue, all at the same time?'

'He cannot; they remain always together.'

'How? One within the other--like the little lacquered boxes of an inro?'

'Nay: that none but the G.o.ds know.'

'And the Souls are never separated?'

'Sometimes they may be separated. But if the Souls of a man be separated, that man becomes mad. Mad people are those who have lost one of their Souls.'

'But after death what becomes of the Souls?'

'They remain still together. . . . When a man dies his Souls ascend to the roof of the house. And they stay upon the roof for the s.p.a.ce of nine and forty days.'

'On what part of the roof?'

'On the yane-no-mune--upon the Ridge of the Roof they stay.'

'Can they be seen?'

'Nay: they are like the air is. To and fro upon the Ridge of the Roof they move, like a little wind.'

'Why do they not stay upon the roof for fifty days instead of forty- nine?'

'Seven weeks is the time allotted them before they must depart: seven weeks make the measure of forty-nine days. But why this should be, I cannot tell.'

I was not unaware of the ancient belief that the spirit of a dead man haunts for a time the roof of his dwelling, because it is referred to quite impressively in many j.a.panese dramas, among others in the play called Kagami-yama, which makes the people weep. But I had not before heard of triplex and quadruplex and other yet more highly complex Souls; and I questioned Kinjuro vainly in the hope of learning the authority for his beliefs. They were the beliefs of his fathers: that was all he knew. [1]

Like most Izumo folk, Kinjuro was a Buddhist as well as a s.h.i.+ntoist. As the former he belonged to the Zen-shu, as the latter to the Izumo- Taisha. Yet his ontology seemed to me not of either. Buddhism does not teach the doctrine of compound-multiple Souls. There are old s.h.i.+nto books inaccessible to the mult.i.tude which speak of a doctrine very remotely akin to Kinjuro's; but Kinjuro had never seen them. Those books say that each of us has two souls--the Ara-tama or Rough Soul, which is vindictive; and the Nigi-tama, or Gentle Soul, which is all-forgiving.

Furthermore, we are all possessed by the spirit of Oho-maga-tsu-hi-no- Kami, the 'Wondrous Deity of Exceeding Great Evils'; also by the spirit of Oho-naho-bi-no-Kami, the 'Wondrous Great Rectifying Deity,' a counteracting influence. These were not exactly the ideas of Kinjuro.

But I remembered something Hirata wrote which reminded me of Kinjuro's words about a possible separation of souls. Hirata's teaching was that the ara-tama of a man may leave his body, a.s.sume his shape, and without his knowledge destroy a hated enemy. So I asked Kinjuro about it. He said he had never heard of a nigi-tama or an ara-tama; but he told me this:

'Master, when a man has been discovered by his wife to be secretly enamoured of another, it sometimes happens that the guilty woman is seized with a sickness that no physician can cure. For one of the Souls of the wife, moved exceedingly by anger, pa.s.ses into the body of that woman to destroy her. But the wife also sickens, or loses her mind awhile, because of the absence of her Soul.

'And there is another and more wonderful thing known to us of Nippon, which you, being of the West, may never have heard. By the power of the G.o.ds, for a righteous purpose, sometimes a Soul may be withdrawn a little while from its body, and be made to utter its most secret thought. But no suffering to the body is then caused. And the wonder is wrought in this wise:

'A man loves a beautiful girl whom he is at liberty to marry; but he doubts whether he can hope to make her love him in return. He seeks the kannus.h.i.+ of a certain s.h.i.+nto temple, [2] and tells of his doubt, and asks the aid of the G.o.ds to solve it. Then the priests demand, not his name, but his age and the year and day and hour of his birth, which they write down for the G.o.ds to know; and they bid the man return to the temple after the s.p.a.ce of seven days.

'And during those seven days the priests offer prayer to the G.o.ds that the doubt may be solved; and one of them each morning bathes all his body in cold, pure water, and at each repast eats only food prepared with holy fire. And on the eighth day the man returns to the temple, and enters an inner chamber where the priests receive him.

'A ceremony is performed, and certain prayers are said, after which all wait in silence. And then, the priest who has performed the rites of purification suddenly begins to tremble violently in all his body, like one trembling with a great fever. And this is because, by the power of the G.o.ds, the Soul of the girl whose love is doubted has entered, all fearfully, into the body of that priest. She does not know; for at that time, wherever she may be, she is in a deep sleep from which nothing can arouse her. But her Soul, having been summoned into the body of the priest, can speak nothing save the truth; and It is made to tell all Its thought. And the priest speaks not with his own voice, but with the voice of the Soul; and he speaks in the person of the Soul, saying: "I love," or "I hate," according as the truth may be, and in the language of women. If there be hate, then the reason of the hate is spoken; but if the answer be of love, there is little to say. And then the trembling of the priest stops, for the Soul pa.s.ses from him; and he falls forward upon his face like one dead, and long so--remains.

'Tell me, Kinjuro,' I asked, after all these queer things had been related to me, 'have you yourself ever known of a Soul being removed by the power of the G.o.ds, and placed in the heart of a priest?'

'Yes: I myself have known it.'

I remained silent and waited. The old man emptied his little pipe, threw it down beside the hibachi, folded his hands, and looked at the lotus- flowers for some time before he spoke again. Then he smiled and said:

'Master, I married when I was very young. For many years we had no children: then my wife at last gave me a son, and became a Buddha. But my son lived and grew up handsome and strong; and when the Revolution came, he joined the armies of the Son of Heaven; and he died the death of a man in the great war of the South, in Kyushu. I loved him; and I wept with joy when I heard that he had been able to die for our Sacred Emperor: since there is no more n.o.ble death for the son of a samurai. So they buried my boy far away from me in Kyushu, upon a hill near k.u.mamoto, which is a famous city with a strong garrison; and I went there to make his tomb beautiful. But his name is here also, in Ninomaru, graven on the monument to the men of Izumo who fell in the good fight for loyalty and honour in our emperor's holy cause; and when I see his name there, my heart laughs, and I speak to him, and then it seems as if he were walking beside me again, under the great pines. . .

But all that is another matter.

'I sorrowed for my wife. All the years we had dwelt together no unkind word had ever been uttered between us. And when she died, I thought never to marry again. But after two more years had pa.s.sed, my father and mother desired a daughter in the house, and they told me of their wish, and of a girl who was beautiful and of good family, though poor. The family were of our kindred, and the girl was their only support: she wove garments of silk and garments of cotton, and for this she received but little money. And because she was filial and comely, and our kindred not fortunate, my parents desired that I should marry her and help her people; for in those days we had a small income of rice. Then, being accustomed to obey my parents, I suffered them to do what they thought best. So the nakodo was summoned, and the arrangements for the wedding began.

'Twice I was able to see the girl in the house of her parents. And I thought myself fortunate the first time I looked upon her; for she was very comely and young. But the second time, I perceived she had been weeping, and that her eyes avoided mine. Then my heart sank; for I thought: She dislikes me; and they are forcing her to this thing. Then I resolved to question the G.o.ds; and I caused the marriage to be delayed; and I went to the temple of Yanagi-no-Inari-Sama, which is in the Street Zaimokucho.

'And when the trembling came upon him, the priest, speaking with the Soul of that maid, declared to me: "My heart hates you, and the sight of your face gives me sickness, because I love another, and because this marriage is forced upon me. Yet though my heart hates you, I must marry you because my parents are poor and old, and I alone cannot long continue to support them, for my work is killing me. But though I may strive to be a dutiful wife, there never will be gladness in your house because of me; for my heart hates you with a great and lasting hate; and the sound of your voice makes a sickness in my breast (koe kiite mo mune ga waruku naru); and only to see your face makes me wish that I were dead (kao miru to s.h.i.+nitaku naru)."

'Thus knowing the truth, I told it to my parents; and I wrote a letter of kind words to the maid, praying pardon for the pain I had unknowingly caused her; and I feigned long illness, that the marriage might be broken off without gossip; and we made a gift to that family; and the maid was glad. For she was enabled at a later time to marry the young man she loved. My parents never pressed me again to take a wife; and since their death I have lived alone. . . . O Master, look upon the extreme wickedness of that boy!'

Taking advantage of our conversation, Kinjuro's young a.s.sistant had improvised a rod and line with a bamboo stick and a bit of string; and had fastened to the end of the string a pellet of tobacco stolen from the old man's pouch. With this bait he had been fis.h.i.+ng in the lotus pond; and a frog had swallowed it, and was now suspended high above the pebbles, sprawling in rotary motion, kicking in frantic spasms of disgust and despair. 'Kaji!' shouted the gardener.

The boy dropped his rod with a laugh, and ran to us unabashed; while the frog, having disgorged the tobacco, plopped back into the lotus pond.

Evidently Kaji was not afraid of scoldings.

'Gosho ga waruil' declared the old man, shaking his ivory head. 'O Kaji, much I fear that your next birth will be bad! Do I buy tobacco for frogs? Master, said I not rightly this boy has but one Soul?'

CHAPTER TEN Of Ghosts and Goblins

Sec. 1

THERE was a Buddha, according to the Hokkekyo who 'even a.s.sumed the shape of a goblin to preach to such as were to be converted by a goblin.' And in the same Sutra may be found this promise of the Teacher: 'While he is dwelling lonely in the wilderness, I will send thither goblins in great number to keep him company.' The appalling character of this promise is indeed somewhat modified by the a.s.surance that G.o.ds also are to be sent. But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen j.a.panese goblins, and I do not like them.

Kinjuro showed them to me last night. They had come to town for the matsuri of our own ujigami, or parish-temple; and, as there were many curious things to be seen at the night festival, we started for the temple after dark, Kinjuro carrying a paper lantern painted with my crest.

It had snowed heavily in the morning; but now the sky and the sharp still air were clear as diamond; and the crisp snow made a pleasant crunching sound under our feet as we walked; and it occurred to me to say: 'O Kinjuro, is there a G.o.d of Snow?'

'I cannot tell,' replied Kinjuro. 'There be many G.o.ds I do not know; and there is not any man who knows the names of all the G.o.ds. But there is the Yuki-Onna, the Woman of the Snow.'

'And what is the Yuki-Onna?'

'She is the White One that makes the Faces in the snow. She does not any harm, only makes afraid. By day she lifts only her head, and frightens those who journey alone. But at night she rises up sometimes, taller than the trees, and looks about a little while, and then falls back in a shower of snow.' [1]

'What is her face like?'

'It is all white, white. It is an enormous face. And it is a lonesome face.'

[The word Kinjuro used was samus.h.i.+. Its common meaning is 'lonesome'; but he used it, I think, in the sense of 'weird.']

'Did you ever see her, Kinjuro?'

'Master, I never saw her. But my father told me that once when he was a child, he wanted to go to a neighbour's house through the snow to play with another little boy; and that on the way he saw a great white Face rise up from the snow and look lonesomely about, so that he cried for fear and ran back. Then his people all went out and looked; but there was only snow; and then they knew that he had seen the Yuki-Onna.'

'And in these days, Kinjuro, do people ever see her?'

'Yes. Those who make the pilgrimage to Yab.u.mura, in the period called Dai-Kan, which is the Time of the Greatest Cold, [2] they sometimes see her.'