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Redalyc.Kirishitan Kô by Tadano Makuzu: a Late Tokugawa Woman S Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies ISSN: 0874-8438 [email protected] Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal Gramlich-Oka, Bettina Kirishitan kô by Tadano Makuzu: a late Tokugawa womans warnings Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, núm. 8, june, 2004, pp. 65-92 Universidade Nova de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=36100804 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BPJS , 2004, 8, 65-92 Kirishitan Kô by Tadano Makuzu 65 KIRISHITAN KÔ BY TADANO MAKUZU: A LATE TOKUGAWA WOMAN’S WARNINGS Bettina Gramlich-Oka Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut In the second month of 1825, the shogunate issued the expulsion edict of 1825 based on a proposal by shogunal astronomer Takahashi Kageyasu 高橋景保 (1785-1829) in order to put an end to ambiguities in dealing with foreign ships.1 In the spring of the same year, the Mito domain scholar Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎 (1782-1863) finished writing Shinron 新論 (New Theses, 1825), a text that would become legendary as representing the intellectual drive of anti-foreignism among loyalists (shishi 志士) in the Bakumatsu period. A couple of months later, on the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month of that very year, the poet and philosopher Tadano Makuzu 只野真葛 (1763-1825), who never emerged on the political platform and remains largely unknown, died.2 While Kageyasu and Seishisai knew each other and Makuzu may never have met either of these two men, there is a link between these three thinkers.3 All of them were concerned with foreign imperialism at the doorsteps of the archipelago and all three of them identi- fied Christianity as being instrumental to this threat. Ever since the arrival of Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century, intellectuals engaged themselves in the debate over Christianity and its potential threat to ruling authorities. Even after the expulsion of Chris- tian missionaries from the archipelago and the persecution of converts in the early Tokugawa period, the concern with the religion never entirely ceased. One reason was the reappearance of Christian communities that had gone underground, which resulted in the shogunal order to all daimyo in 1 The edict can be found in Tokugawa kinrei kô 徳川禁令考, edited by Shihôshô 司法省, vol. 6 (Tokyo, Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1932), pp. 609-610. For an English translation of the edict see Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan. The New Theses of 1825 (Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 60. Kageyasu’s petition is cited in Uehara Hisashi, Takahashi Kageyasu no kenkyû (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1977), pp. 289-294. Kageyasu is today better known as the main protagonist in the Siebold-affair of 1828. 2 Takizawa Bakin, Makuzu no ouna in Toen shôsetsu 兎園 小説 (Stories of the Rabbit Grove), vol. 1 of 2nd series of Nihon zuihitsu taisei (Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1973), p. 257. 3 Seishisai met Kageyasu the latest in 1824, when Kageyasu was sent to Mito as the inter- preter of foreign prisoners. (Wakabayashi, 1986, p. 87.) See below for the occurrence. 66 Bettina Gramlich-Oka 1664 to require their populace to register with local temples and shrines to demonstrate that they were not Christians.4 Another main event that stirred intellectual concern occurred some decades later when in 1708 Jesuit missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti (1668-1714) entered Japan despite shogunal prohibitions. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657-1725) who interviewed the imprisoned Sidotti engraved his views on Christianity in Seiyô kibun 西洋紀聞 (1715-1725) which influenced later thinkers. The debate entered a new level of intensity when Russian traders in the North and English ships in the South and East appeared more frequently on Japanese coasts. Tadano Makuzu, along with others, took up Christianity and paid close attention to this foreign creed at a time when various incidents on the archipelago’s shores made clear that foreigners in association with their religion could no longer be ignored. In this article, by linking Tadano Makuzu’s notions with other contem- porary thinkers, in particular those who belong to a group close to informing and forming shogunal policies, I will discuss how in late Tokugawa Japan Christianity was perceived as a power destructive to the existing social order but at the same time envisioned as an ideological tool for successful rule. The commentaries under investigation that will contextualize Makuzu’s pamphlet Kirishitan kô キリシタン考 (Thoughts on Christianity, no date) were written over a span of more than four decades and display different agendas and perspectives.5 But they still share a common concern: all authors see the urgent need to protect the country from Western colonization. 1. The author Tadano Makuzu (1763-1825) Tadano Makuzu, whose thoughts remain rather obscure today, was probably not unknown among Edoites of her time. We can assume that those who knew her prominent father Kudô Heisuke 工藤平助 (1734-1800), physi- cian to the lord of Sendai, were aware of the bright woman whose accom- plishments as a poet made her well-respected on her own terms. 4 In regard to underground Christians see Japan’s Hidden Christians, 1549-1999, 2 vol. (Curzon, 2000). The tera-uke system (registering with a temple or shrine), which had not only Christianity in mind but also other means of political suppression, was formerly only employed on shogunal lands. For some incidents with underground Christians, see Conrad Totman, Ear- lyModern Japan (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), p. 129; and C. R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 395-396. 5 Included in Tadano Makuzu shû 只野真葛集, ed. Suzuki Yoneko 鈴木よね子 (Vol. 30 of Sôsho Edo bunko 叢書江戸文庫, Kokusho Kankôkai, 1994), pp. 390-391. Kirishitan Kô by Tadano Makuzu 67 Born in the shogun’s capital as the oldest daughter to Heisuke and his wife – the daughter of another physician that served the Sendai domain – Makuzu grew up with an excellent education. Her first outside teacher, Kada no Tamiko 荷田蒼生子 (1722-1786), who was celebrated at the time as one of the great female poetry teachers, taught Makuzu to read and write in the style of Heian classics, such as the Kokinshû or Ise monogatari.6 From the age of sixteen, Makuzu served her lord’s daughter for about ten years, where she learned about the ruling elite first hand, providing her with insights that she would incorporate into later works. At the age of thirty-five she married a Sendai retainer, Tadano Iga Tsurayoshi 只野 伊賀 行義 (d. 1812/4/21), and moved to the domain’s capital, where she would die at the age of 63. In her parent’s household Makuzu indirectly participated in the salon of her father whose acquaintances came from a wide social spectrum. Fellow physicians, daimyo, Buddhist priests, chefs, and kabuki actors came to see him for his medical skills as well as expertise in many other subjects.7 The network around Heisuke provided Makuzu with much information about what occurred in and beyond the archipelago, which broadened her horizon accordingly. It created for Makuzu an environment that even if it did not include women would at least from behind the screens enable her to nurture her curiosity. The result of Makuzu’s knowledge and inquisitiveness is documented in a variety of writings.8 Makuzu is today best known for her semi-autobio- graphical narrative Mukashibanashi むかしばなし (Stories from the Past), and her provocative political treatise Hitori kangae 独考 (Solitary Thoughts). Mukashibanashi, written around 1812, tells mainly about Makuzu’s upbring- ing in a physician’s household during the late eighteenth century and some ethnographic impressions of the Sendai domain, while Hitori kangae, written around 1818, is a proposal for rulers and their advisors that exposes – from the position of a woman – the current socio-economic conditions and gives 6 Mukashibanashi, in Tadano Makuzu shû, p. 110. Tamiko was the younger sister of Kada no Arimaro 荷田 在満 (1706-1769) and niece of Kada no Azumamaro 荷田 春満 (1668-1736). About Kada Tamiko, see Iwatsuki Akie, “Kada Tamiko to kashû ‘Sugi no shizue’,” Edo ki onna kô, vol. 11 (2000) and vol. 12 (2001). 7 Heisuke was known to be a man of many interests. Makuzu’s portray of her father’s various pursuits, such as gardening, the collection of Dutch objects, the theater, and culinary expertise, explains the hospitality of his house to some extent, but it was foremost his reputation as a physician that made him well known beyond the city limits of Edo. Already in his early thirties he drew disciples from all over Japan to his medical school Bankôdô 晩功堂. (Mukashibanashi, p. 45.) One reason for his fame from Matsumae in Ezo (today Hokkaido) to Nagasaki in Kyushu may have been, according to Ôtomo Kisaku, Heisuke’s output of more than one hundred medical books, of which regrettably none but one withstood time. Ôtomo Kisaku, Hokumon sôsho, vol. 1 (Tokyo, Kokusho kankôkai, 1972), pp. 17-19. 8 For Makuzu’s published works see Tadano Makuzu shû. 68 Bettina Gramlich-Oka advice for reform and improvement.9 Makuzu flaunts her erudition par- ticularly in Hitori kangae when she comments on works by Kamo Mabuchi 賀茂真淵 (1697-1769) and Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730-1801), evalu- ates political ideas of Arai Hakuseki and Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619- 1691), criticizes Confucianism and specific sections in the Classics, mentions a Western anatomy book, and parades her own skills as a poet who has been praised by one of Mabuchi’s main disciples, Murata Harumi 村田春海 (1746-1811).10 Some evidence for her recognition as a poet is passed on in her correspondence with leading poets after her move to Sendai.
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