V Minskota Kumsgusu (1867-1941) & Iwatq Jun'ichi (1900-1945)

MORNING FOG (Correspondence on Gay Lifestyles)

Translated by William F. Sibley

Introduction

The correspondence between Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941) and Iwata Jun'ichi (1900-1945) from which the following five letters have been ex- cerpted began in 1931 and extended to the year of Minakata's death ten years later. These selections all date from the first few months of the cor- respondence, which eventually ran to 120 letters. I have chosen them rather than some later letters because it is here that the correspondents seek both to define the terms of their divergent approaches to the history of homosex- ualities in Japan and, through a somewhat lopsided dialogue on central principles, to find common ground. Iwata expresses himself deferentially to the much older man (though not without some pointed questions in the Ietter of 8/27 /31) while Minakata, in keeping with his age and his great ac- complishments, maintains a stern, often schoolmasterish tone where guid- ing principles are concerned. Although Minakata's letters did not first appear until 1951 and Iwata's only in 1991, this correspondence that began 64 years ago marks in a real sense the beginnings-to be sure, in mutually pledged privacy-of a mod- ern Japanese discourse on, not simply the history of homosexualities (some work had been published in this area, particularly with respect to Toku- gawa literature), but basic theories, methodological, MINAKATA Kumagusu, at the age of ethical, and existen- fifty-five, in 1922 tial, about what male homosexualities have been in the past in Japan, were at the time of writing, could be and should be. As this anthology no doubt confirms for the reader, there has been no lack of fictional and poetic representations of gay themes, characters, and images in both modern and premodern Japanese literature, many of them pleasantly sensual and celeb- ratory, when they are not anguished and introspective (or, as is generally the case with Mishima's writings in this area, alternately self-intoxicated and selfloathing). But while in the l6th to lgth centuries (in striking con- trast to Europe and America in those times) there was a prolonged, play- ful discourse-perhaps more in the nature of a set of superficially invoked tropes-on gay vs. straight sex and associated feelings and lifestyles, in modern Japan, before the early ShOwa era(1926-1989), there had been no serious direct discussions on the subject, apart from a sparse and wholly IWATA Jun'ichi, at the age of in 1925 twenty-five , imported medical literature that consigned same-sex relations to the realms 136 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 137

physical degeneracy. of psychopathology or of Men.' But the letters included here are those of a 65-year-old man full the discussion in Minakata's and lwata's correspondence, The terms of of the experiences of an astonishingly multifarious life, and the raucous/ which were partially (and in comparable privacy) shared by such contem- sad letters omitted, those of a brilliant but very unsettled 2O-year-old. poraries as the novelists Inagaki Taruho and Edogawa Rampo, will strike Suffice it to say that the early letters, whose preservation, not to mention as partly very unfamiliar, even bizarre; partly familiar-the most of us eventual publication (a process that is apparently still far from complete) back to a distant Golden Age, for example, whether constant harking of is something of a miracle, deserve to be juxtaposed to the mature writings at times no doubt as all too familiar, medieval Japan or ancient Greece; and in some other context. as in the defensive-sounding appeals, reminiscent of Gide, to "lesser" races I leave this correspondence to speak for itself, and have provided only species. But we should not lose sight of the enormous obstacles and other a bare minimum of notes, on the assumption that some readers will recog- posed which Japanese society in the early 20th century to candid, open nize many of the places, people, and periods referred to and others may reflections on their topic, as in considerable measure it continues to do. not betoo concerned with such details. But briefbiographical sketches of This less in spite of than because of the fabled "tolerance" and efficient Minakata (from time to time below, and throughout the notes, I have called commodification of an amazing range of sexual practices and erotic him instead by his distinctive personal name, Kumagusu, in keeping with fetishisms from the 1920s to the present in Japan, none of which has been what seems to be a growing trend) and of Iwata seem in order here. permitted in any significant way to interfere, ever, with either reproduc- Minakata was born on the very eve of the Meiji Restoration in Waka- tive heterosexual marriage or smooth, defined as utterly homogeneous, yama prefecture, a region of southwestern Honshu known for its mild cli- interpersonal relations in the workplace, be it factory, corporation, or mate, distinctive syncretic religions (along with many associated shrines and university. temples), and propitiously for Minakata's vocation as a naturalist-bot- How much do either Minakata or Iwata challenge these formidable bar- any, mycology, and marine biology were to be his specialties-for its lux- riers? On the face of it not very much, since they are writing in private and uriant vegetation and abundant sea life. His father made a sizeable fortune principally of things from the distant past. The dismissive contempt that as an early Meiji entrepreneur and, until his death in middle age, was able flares up here and there in Minakata's letters, and less convincingly, if not to support Kumagusu in his wanderings within and outside Japan as an downright sycophantically, in Iwata's, for contemporary "faggots who itinerant, independent scholar of a type not uncommon in l9th-century cruise the parks of Tokyo by night," even at the unseemly ages of 35 or Euro-America, but virtually unheard of, then as now, in Japan. After an 40; their agreement, again a bit too compliant on Iwata's part, to consider unpleasant and unsuccessful encounter with the nascent modern Japanese the "gaudy, flighty goings on" of homosexuals portrayed in Tokugawa educational establishment (he attended the preparatory school for Tokyo literature as "impure," in distinction to the "pure," supposedly Platonic University but failed the entrance examination, apparently due to poor male bondings of the preceding Sengoku era, the Golden Age-these at- math scores), Kumagusu fled Japan for America, partly goaded into this titudes are likely to appear to present-day readers as offensively reaction- bold move by the threat of being designated the family heir (in place of a ary. And since they go on to discuss with evident gusto and in much detail wayward brother) and, as an inevitable corollary, of being forced into an these "goings-on"-much of the remaining correspondence is in fact con- quote just give sumed by minute descriptions of tools of the trade, places of assignation, 'I might very briefly from one of these letters to some inkling of how different they are in tone and content from the selections below. He begins a letter dated etc.-the earlier censoriousness is bound to strike us as also hypocritical. 9/9/1887 to his friend Sugimura Kotaro by stating that "the behavior of these barbarians palpable golden But we should pause to reflect here on the need to find is not such as to satisfy the needs of my heart. " He then goes on as follows: "You criti- ages, exotic places (sometimes simply the "lower orders") and basic ethi- cize me for writing of nothing by 'the Way of Prince Lung-yang [a legendary figure as- cal justifications for homosexual feelings that we see abundantly in such sociated with homosexuality in Chinese literature].' But even if that is so, everyone has early modern Euro-American writers on the subject as Whitman, Car- some little foible, so permit me this one, which is also known as 'the Way of Shikishima [an old poetic name for Japan],'by which I mean the way to proceed when a handsome penter, Symonds, and Gide, as well as their distinct reluctance (with the boy is spread out beneath you [there is a pun here with the poetic name for Japan and notable exception of Whitman) to address contemporary practices. shiki ma, literally, when (or where) spread outl. So long as they are not horribly ugly, Had I included here excerpts from a few early letters by Minakata writ- I cannot help myself. And how can you, with your beautiful face, refuse to have peo- ten from America to friends back home in tones both amusingly raunchy ple fall in love with you? I am not made of stone. To feel desire leads to affection, to and desperately lonely (these letters have been studiously ignored by many act upon it leads to lust. To love and to be loved-is this not the Great Vehicle fiit., Ma- hayanal for traveling down the road of one's personal history? I simply cannot give up admiring critics and historians until quite recently), it would have thrown this pursuit." Quoted in [Shinbungei tokuhonJ Minakata Kumagusu (Kawade shobd into even starker relief his stern pronouncements below on the Pure Way shinsha, 1993,123). TI 138 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 139 early marriage. He spent close to fifteen years in America and England sentient beings") and various human behaviors, especially sexual. This studying natural history and biology on his own, though with infrequent habit of making bold encompassing analogies between the supernatural and interactions with established scholars which often ended in the sort of ran- human worlds on the one hand and his scientific observations of lower or- corous outbursts that would characterize his professional relations through- ganisms on the other has led recent scholars of his work to invoke often out his life. In England he studied and worked part-time at the British the image of "the Minakata Mandala," the mandala being a relatively late Museum, where he met both illustrious figures (such as Sun Yat-sen) and Mahayana type of pictorial icon representing the correspondences between a few compatriots with whom he formed lifelong, if again "difficult," the illusory, provisional orders of the human and certain super-mundane friendships (e.g., with Toki HOryr1, the future head of the major temple worlds on one side and, on the other, the eternal, numinous order of the complex on Mt. Koya, which along with its founder, Kobo Daishi, has for Buddhist cosmos. a millenium or so been credited in wry poems and pseudo-histories with the The highpoint in Minakata's public career came in 1929 when he was in- "invention" of male homosexuality in Japan. vited aboard the imperial yacht to present a lecture to the young Sh6wa On returning home at the turn of the century Minakata continued to pur- Emperor on slime molds and local sea creatures. As can be seen in the letter sue his solitary career as a naturalist, now with a confirmed emphasis on of 8/20/31, this occasion served to further crystallize his devotion to, not what would be his specialty, the study of slime molds. With money doled merely the memory, but the internally apotheosized spirit of the long dead out by his brother, all too parsimoniously as he obsessively observed to Hayama Shigetar6, the great love of his life with whom he had had in his many, he set up shop in the remote, mountainous regions of his beautiful youth an all too brief relationship that ended with his departure for Amer- native province. It was here that he also began to apply his great energies ica. Concerning this relationship, as with Iwata in his letter of 8/27/31, to his lifelong avocation as a scholar of Japanese religions, folklore and, there is much we might like to know, and not presumably out of simple so to speak, folk history. These interests soon brought him into contact prurience. But any further details that Kumagusu may have chosen to con- with Yanagita Kunio, the founder of what the Japanese call minTokugaku fide in other correspondents must await the publication of various rumored (often misleadingly translated as "ethnology"; in fact it has to do only with letters which are not yet available (none to Hayama himself has been pre- Japanese folk studies). Kumagusu differed often with Yanagita, frequently served, to my knowledge). with characteristic vehemence, over methodologies and emphases, most The imperial "command lecture" elicited in the letter of 8/20/31 and notably over Yanagita's studious avoidance of sexuality and eroticism- elsewhere in his writing produced fervent expressions of awe and humil- an area that clearly interested Kumagusu a great deal from early on. For ity which create the impression of something close to Emperor-worship on our purposes it is important to stress that, as the letters below abundantly Kumagusu's part. This seems at odds with the dominant contours of his attest, Kumagusu did not keep his accounts separate where the fruits of his public career and private life, in both of which he emerges from the pages vocational and avocational pursuits were concerned. His work on mycol- of the ever-proliferating biographies as an irascible battler against many ogy and marine biology is partly informed by beliefs, some of them trace- of the orthodoxies of state and society alike. But as with Natsume SOseki, able to well-established Mahayana cosmologies, in the interpenetration of the Meiji novelist who more than any other single figure paved the way for all phenomena, both physical and metaphysical; and in the necessity for a broadly anti-establishment culture (before the rise of Marxism in the the naturalist of making intuitive leaps (even if, according to Leibniz's 1920s, that is), the imperial institution clearly meant something quite differ- aphorism, "Natura non facit saltus"). By the same token, in his folk- ent for this man born in the very year of the emperor's restoration to the historical studies he gave a kind of credence to various religious and seat of central state power (it was, of course, accompanied by the aboli- "superstitious" views and practices which one does not associate with tion of the old order) from what it meant to many of those whose special scientists. As we can see in his letter of 8/20/31 , perhaps the single most interests and power strategies came to agglomerate around this institution famous letter he ever wrote, he even seeks to find in basic biological prin- in later years. Whatever Kumagusu's near-Emperor-worship meant, it did ciples (here, the life-reproduction-death cycle of slime mold) "scientific" not preclude his throwing himself, in an almost self-destructive way, into grounds for certain religious doctrines (in this case, metempsychosis, ac- the movement to oppose the consolidation of Shinto shrines (and the abo- cording to his own, possibly idiosyncratic reading of the Nirvana Sutra). lition of countless small shrines rooted in local folk cults) which was pur- And in a formulation that appears to presage in part Georges Bataille's sued by the state in the early years of this century. more extended analogies in his Z'Erotisme, he likewise often draws Of Kumagusu's private life, little can be said here, as I have not read parallels, not always to be construed as implying cause and effect, between much and what I have read often seems opaque or contradictory. To be biological functions pertaining to all organisms (in Buddhist terms, "all frank, surrounding those matters about which he himself chose to confide rl Morning Fog 141 140 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi / played in a few correspondents like lwata, such as the constant resentment of his many articles and letters on homosexuality little role in the earlier brother centered on money matters and remarks on the tribulations of be- stages of the "boom." By now, though, this significant portion of his work recurrent figure in the "Minakata Mandala," so to speak-is being ing a husband and a father, there appears to be more than a faint odor of -a unfairness, hypocrisy, at times something close to cruelty. Where his wife treated by a variety of scholars and critics. It is too soon to tell what the lines interpretation (So they gamut is concerned, in a text now known as his "curriculum vitae" (it was actu- dominant of will be. far seem to run the ally written in a letter to a friend to whom he complained of being forever from the dubious strategy of endless metaphorization, that is, assertions misrepresented) Kumagusu declares in an oddly boastful tone that he had to the effect that these interests articulated in so much of his work are general never had any "carnal knowledge" of women until he married her when essentially displaced expressions of a discontent with the strictures modern its perfervid he was forty; moreover, that since that time he has only "done it" from of Japanese society and bourgeois values, to affir- time to time, and even then, aside from procreation, only "for purposes mations, backed up by copious references to Foucault, of Minakata's of statistical comparison," as he never fails, he adds, to note down (in struggle to "make himself and his world Gay"-a word that he did not, quality Greek) the positions employed. (His remarks on his conjugal relations to of course, know, and a that the critics who adopt this approach Iwata in the 8/20/31letters are similarly boastful, though in this context seem to have reified into an all-embracing conceptual construct with ap- parently also slightly defensive.) More telling, and chilling, is the observation to a little to do with something so mundane as homosexual love and childhood friend in one of the letters from America to the effect that relationships.) through relations with handsome boys (specifically, in what he describes However the reception of this aspect of Minakata's work may develop, greater (in as the ethically proper frontal position) he has learned "tender feelings" the availability of his own writings on the subject editions well (o-nasake), and that these feelings are what enable him to so much as look annotated for a contemporary readership that might otherwise find his ,,without semi-premodern prose and copious is at a woman whacking her."2 Allowing, as I have suggested one allusions forbidding) bound to con- should with these early letters, for his youth (he was twenty) and his deso- tribute a major chapter to the still slender volume, for so long simply a (in lation at the time of this writing, this startling remark, together with numer- closed book, of serious, direct discussions of same-sex relationships this case need ous other obiter dicta on the subject of women, leaves little room for doubt exclusively male, I not add by now) and the culture arising from that Kumagusu was something of a misogynist. Of his children I know them in Japan. nothing beyond whatever can be deduced from his frequent complaints of Iwata was port prefecture. having to provide for them because of his brother's stinginess, to which he Jun'ichi born in 1900 in the city of Toba, Mie attributes his son's growing insanity in early adulthood, a condition that In his youth he studied painting and drawing with the noted illustrator Takehisa appears to have lasted for the rest of his life' Yumeji and, briefly, at a couple of art academies. Coming from a While for all his solitary and anti-establishment stance Minakata was far well-off merchant family, he appears to have worked at the family busi- ness pur- from unknown in his lifetime, his present great fame in Japan was achieved only sporadically, and was able during his foreshortened life to posthumously, mainly in the last twenty years, following on the publica- sue at leisure his life's avocation, research on the literature and history of homosexualities published tion of the second edition of his complete works (the first, published some in Japan. Beginning in 1930, he in the magazine Honzaigaku twenty years previously, was neither complete nor edited with basic schol- ("Criminolo gy") a series of articles on the representations of homosexual arly honesty, the editors having taken it upon themselves to delete many relationships in various periods of Japanese history, later re- vised published (posthumously) of what they viewed to be intemperate remarks about famous people and and as Nanshoku-kd ("On Man-Love/ Lust"). hallowed institutions). The numbers of books, articles, public lectures' even Minakata Kumagusu, having noticed with interest one or two of these middlebrow TV talk shows devoted to Minakata, especially over the past articles, entered into a correspondence (through the intermediary of a mutual decade, are staggering. Not surprisingly, his abiding preoccupation with acquaintance) that lasted until the older man's death in 1941. While Iwata gave the history of homosexualities in Japan, as well as other cultures, is a topic some time to a study of local folk beliefs and customs, his lifelong labors were that has only emerged from the critical closet quite recently. Although the devoted mainly to research, especially of a bib- liographical phenomenon of Minakata's explosive popularity clearly owes to various nature, on literary and historical sources related to male homo- sexuality from the classical (Nara period complex factors in recent Japanese intellectual life, it is safe to say that his and Heian) down to the early 20th century. Much hampered by the suspect nature of his subject from the point of view of various forms of censorship, both official and self-imposed 2Undated letter to Nakamatsu Morio quoted in [shinbungei tokuhonJ Minakata by the publishing publish preliminary Kumagusu (1993),125-126. The editor suggests August, 1892 as a likely date' establishment, he only managed to a Morning Fog / 143 142 / Minqkota Kumagusu & Iwato Jun'ichi World War' a work Iwata) or committed to an ideal of a sublimated, spiritualized "Pure Way" version of his bibtiography in the midst of the Second of his close (as was, I believe, the mature, though not the young, Kumagusu) and most that was later revised ani re-published through the efforts character- especially, to the very limited extent we can know anything about them, friend Edogawa Rampo. Iwata's rather short historical essays, progressed only up presented by the lives of their spouses and children. ized by a sciupulous adherence to "authentic" sources' war's end. (one to thehokugawa period before his untimely death near the gathersfromstrayremarksbylwatathattheenormousquantityanddiver- sityofTokugawamaterialsimpededhisprogressindealingwiththisera.) Iwata ex- in addition to the extensive correspondence with Kumagusu, MORNING FOG his adult life' changed some 200letters with Edogawa Rampo throughout death out (Correspondence on Gay Lifestyles) Unfoitunately, the two men burned most of these before Iwata's in these let- of concern for their own privacy and that of others mentioned to have allowed ters. Iwata,s social positiln and financial security appear in a very From lwata Jun'ichi to Minakata Kumagusu, him, not only to pursue his scholarly avocation' but to engage' been considered August 16,1931 clandestine manner' in various forms of what would have conduct. In a brief, deeply ambivalent reminiscence that ap- anti-social I was honored to receive your epistle through the courtesy of peared recently, his son relates how Iwata accomplished the astonishing fonev Mr. Nakagawa Taro of Tokyo.' I am at a loss for words to express the (by feigning both mental and physical illness) in I ieat of dodeing the draft you addition to con- gratitude and awe I feel that in the midst of all your work should be the midst of the burgeoning militarism of the mid-30s. In ,,icy writings so kind as to write to a young upstart like me. a very feeling" on reading some of his father's fessing to I should begin by begging your indulgence for my future importunings, ,,unorihodox type of sexual desire" that he himself "cannot com- about-an as I hope to learn agteat deal from you. Judging from the concluding re- go.t ott to conclude his reminiscence with a stark ac- prehend," the son your you your physical abuse that he and marks in letter, I realize how very busy are with research, count of the regular beatings and other forms of in general and in order to spare you copious correspondence, I am resolved to con- his sister suffered at the hands of their father.s He also alludes considered un- vey to you only the most vital points on which I wish to request your help. terms to the routine neglect (it would in any case have been father treated his Indeed, even to raise various questions in my first letter would seem exceed- remarkable in lwata's ici"t' at that time) with which his a roll ingly self-serving of me, yet I am bold enough to beg your forebearance who was chosen byher mother-inlaw, he tells us' through mother, while I detain you ever so briefly with a few petty questions. the dice. of I am extremely grateful that you have read my "History of Man-Love" InKumagusu,sletterofs/20/3l,afterestablishingfortherecordthe age fNanshoku-shiJ2 and have been kind enough to offer your suggestions. It ,,normality;' of his own marital relations, he declares that "even in the samurai is a great joy to be instructed concerning matters on which I was insuffi- when the warrior code was so strongly in force that ' ' ' older sharing of ciently informed, and others that I was not aware of at all. Since I shall in would risk their Iives to protect boys entrusted to their care, the governed by a simi- any case be revising the whole work from start to finish, at that stage I in- a heterosexual conjugal ted was (as in ancient Greece, Pure Way of tend to incorporate the materials you have brought to my attention through lar ethic), the univeisal rule. This is very much part of the Japan, one might add, rThe Men.,, And very much part of industrial-capitalist original text I have used for this and the fbllowing lettcrs is Minakata Kunngusu we should not lose sight long after the disappearance of so-called Bushido. nanshoku dangi, Hasegawa KOzO and Tsukikawa Kazuo, editors (Yasaka Shobo, l99l). ofthetolltakenonmiddle-classgaymenandwomenincontemporary Minakata Kumagusu's first letter, the one that initiated this correspondencc, was ad- approach to dressed to and transmitted a a rvell-knorvn North America and Northern Europe by the crudely binary by mutual acquaintance, Nakayama Tar6, from the nurturing' scholar of folklore and folk history. I have chosen not to include it as it is not rvritrcn choice of sexualities, in terms of theiacrifices exacted But such hard- directly to Iwata, and most of the major points it makes arc reiterated in subsequent parentally inclined among them as well as_true bisexuals. letters. lives of homosexuals in 2Nanshoku-shi ships pale beside tt.-rp.itu.r. presented by the was the gencral, working title for a series of articles on the history the case with modern Japan, whether actively practicing (as was surely of homosexuality in Japan rvhich hvata had recently begun to publish in a popular, somewhat sensationalistic magazine with the pseudo-scientific title of "Criminology" (HanTaigaku). They rvere subsequently collected together and published undcr the title - KOzd and Tsukikawa Kazuo (cds')' .;*** *r*"fusu nanshoku dangi,Hasegawa of Nanshoku-kti. 1991 , 412-433. 144 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 145 various emendations and additions. Furthermore, there are over fifty items which he ascribes tg the time he gave as an example the story I can think of right now that I wish to, rather that I must know about. I how the Ladv Izumi I9:...A't of shikibu, while on a p'grimage to will make every effort to direct my inquiries so as not to interfere with your became th;K; shrine, inflamed with lust on seeing grass-cutter you me u.o,n-on in the midst research . . . but I wonder if might consent to oblige in this mat- of a rain storm and the next day inviled him to her lodging, where ter. . . .[Iwata goes on here to address one particular criticism that Kuma- her pleasure she took with him.6 I believe that such liaisons r,uu."f.* gusu made of his account of the assassination of Hosokawa Masamoto, homosexuals rormed by too. (In generar, Iibidinous tendencies length great shame and fulsome gratitude.l that exist within hetero_ expressing at both sexuality can be found in homosexuality as well, it would seem, and In my work on manlove /lust [nanshokuJ I have always striven to dis- seeking to write if, in contemporary fiction abtut love and tinguish strictly between homosexual love and homosexual desire sex u.t*..n L"n, on. [ddseiaiJ chose to emphasize the characters' psychological seiyoku].Yet where the whole category of friends" states-rather than dwell_ [dosei "beautiful /arra- ing on some extraordinary aspect, suctr as saitaku does in his tales of the washiki tomoJ is concerned, since historical and literary sources are on the avenging of one lover by anbther-the result would pr"u"ur, lsembre whole not at all detailed in their accounts, it is hard to distinguish between novels about heterosexual sex and love. I have in fact thought I,d like love and lust; but I have tended to assume that all relationships between write a homosexual to novel, and yet I hord back. stit, ratery friends so described are characterized by purity. As for the role historically boring I have been har- such designs and feel that, if it were written played by age age discrepancy] in defining these relationships, I have in a certain form, it [and could end up being a rather innovative work.) partly presented not made this an issue, having in mind the example by con- Some years ago (I am now thirty_two and married), I liked boys, espe_ temporary Tokyo faggots [kagemal. For instance, it is a fact that among cially lower-class boys, but relativeiy .t.un-.ut types, unlike what has those cruising Asakusa Park under cover of night there are old men who, related in the pages been of "criminololy" about a certain prominent as with the so-called "KOya sextagenarians,"3 seek out sex in which they politi- cian' English, I think, whose ruun.tiy proclivities play run to ,..ti", u*o the passive role with men in their thirties and forties. (The faggots call boys and kissing them up and downiheir legs, etc. Rather, I wourd"", the passive role "receiving" [ukeJ and the active role "delivering" [tachiJ. amuse myself often by picking.up-good_looking working_ctass.Uoys It would be interesting to write about their habits in detail, which would habits and, without of clean actually d;ing anythin'g with thlm, ,i_pf no doubt bring to light a lot of things no one knows much about now. But money and gaze v eiu. tt with preasure at their happy faces. g-oo*ing ". there has been a spate reportage the based ila.ti, i ,.utir. recently of on subject, all of it that my motives were not artogether pnirinti,ropic, that deep down there on rumor and hearsay and highly fragmented. In reaction to this the Tokyo was some sexual feeling my part.) It has occurred to faggots, who look askance at me as if I were the sole source of this misin- 9n me that these feel_ ings of mine might be. relat.o to .ut.gory grown vou. of cross-class riaisons. (on formation, seem to have very wary of cruising around Asakusa Park the other hand, if this were to,-t ought-io huu. felt myself to be in the [for which they have a special name, "A. Krap"o]. Needless to say, I could woman's role; as this was not the.ur", it wourd seem hardly write anything along these lines under my own name-I fear the that with respect to such attractions homosexuatity presents ,";il;;;'"il faggots' reaction more than the censors'-and so have refrained from pur- [Iwata goes _ir", I on here to mention u i.* *ora examples of ,,cross-crass,, suing this project.) In any case, I have consistently classified relationships sons in Kabuki plays ]iai- and a premodern .oti..tion of short between "beautiful friends" as homosexu al love and all those that are not Historicalrv, fiction.l most of those who have u..no,ou.a as homosexu al desire . Thus I was delighted to read in your letter today of the t;;;ffi,.,.. on death of their rord or their close friendT you should be counted as homosex_ the distinction make between the Pure and the Impure in the Way of ual lovers, assuming that the .etationsirip Men. iad notbeen tainted by homo- sexual desire' (Perhaps we may assume that these..tutionrt ip, uegan *itrr On one of my visits to Tokyo I heard from Mr. Nakayama about the only one partner being passionately in rou. *nil" the other, at first category of "superior spouse/inferior spouse,"t or cross-class liaisons, rassed by embar- this unexpected passion, was then gradually led'into...ip.o.ur feelings' I've gathered 3An thatln ancient cr.l.. tr,.y old term used generically, though it refers specifically to monks on Mt. Kdya, liked their boys as young for men middle-aged and beyond who continue to practice homosexuality. 6This tale of a brief dalliance by aSub-cultural gangster th.e I I th-century poet and diarist Izumi slang in Japanese, like argot, often takes the form of revers- "a strapping boy" whom Shikibu with she meets in the midst oi u ruin ing a word's syllables (in this case the word for park, kaen, becomes enka, an effect that is found in storm whire on a pirgrimage the l3th-century collecrion Xot onr-nirlonLrT can sometimes be mimicked by spelling the English translation backwards, as here. 7So-called jansfti: (tale #201). sAn this form or.ri.ii"l".'i"tli, apparent neologism to be read as jokon/gekon], in a subsequent *,..-ro."ud in the r5th [presumably centuries, and though rhe pracrice p..rirt.a and l6th letter Kumagusu disclaims having coined it. iniJ'ii'" tongrotrgawa era, became more an ideal, much increasingry ..r.ui"i.Ji" ri..i.r'""0 batads, than a reality. V

146 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 147 as possible and that the older partners did not care at all about the boys' and here proceed to reply. . . .' feelings, avidly seeking only their own pleasure, but is this true?) . . . [He As you mention in your letter, pure love (the Way of Men briefly raises here a question about a legendarily close male friendship in impure love (sex [nandOfi and yi,h. *:n naisnotili are differen, China that is described in "The Spring and Autumn Annals."l Japanese ."",i..r. Among writings (ficrion inciuded) r rsandal- tt that the Prince boys rater period there_is a tradition vouns $?#Tl;me*t at was so bearers that I referred to previously, there have been extreme cases such or the aforementioned emperor) Konoe Nobunori (th";;;;;tt'ita Todo as Miyoshi Nagamoto of Awa whose hiring of a handsome eta boy as a Masanori' Date Masamune' and exceedingly comely ttraiFutustrima to be page was denounced as a harbinger of the collapse of the state. And in such pretexts as tea ceremonies among oth;, ;;;; use of Yamaoka Akiguma's ltchomonjil, it is related that Hanazono Udaijin Ari- Takaori, it may seem unbelievable' Wnife ta"V" point of view in his presence. i'o- I have men- hito (a son of the Emperor Go-Sanj0, I believe, whose status was changed in uttv of the historical cases we have no reason,"';;;;;;ilu, Prince Konoe' to that of a commoner) would look for an opportunity when no retainers the ancient chinese king or tioned here, wheth.r"iiii.i on their were present to order his ox-driver into the carriage and hastily deign to b.autifur boys with ,p.c1fic designs these admiring men fr;;;J;" for all those have him. In present-day Paris it seems to be not uncommon for gentle- readilv understandable today' derrieres.5 To put it;;;;; men to violate their young chauffeurs inside the car. (While the aforemen- and money on this or that renowned men who shower t-Ott'i"t Otesents of ascending tioned episode related by Akiguma may be fiction, one imagines such th;;t i; not o"t in a hundred who dreams geisha of Tokyo, .,but those lipj' things often happened.) i;is rathe, a single word from her mons veneris.s;;i;, as a sln- A few years ago, in 1920, after repeated invitations from Toki HOry[,6 traue been rewarded with so much have sought, una if ihey the abbot of Mt. Kdya and a friend from my years in London, I made my they will treasure for a lifetime' on p;;, tnJi"otohing they gle short verse foolish' much like first visit in thirty years to the KongObu temple, taking along a painter of of such admirers otherwise is To view the expectaiiJns with whores' this region named Kawashima S6do who had won first prize in that year's of foreign visitors who equate geisha the recent oUr.,uution' con- local exhibition. . . . In the course of our visit the abbot, mainly for my qint a;nuuv *9Tk entitled Pinhua On perusing tluit -b^aoiizn' sake, ordered to be taken from storage and hung before us several paint- 'nt the pretty boy apprentices of the cerning romantic they mainly ings brought back from China by KObO Daishi. Among them was a large "tt*nl"t"tt'betweenmale patrons' one finds that Peking op.ru t'oupt' unA tnti' is scroll depicting Dainichi Nyorai [Mahavairocana]. The face was that of a wrrat is mentioned beyond that exchanged .ruuo'u"ii*o'atJ itutti twenty-four- or twenty-five-year-old man, his face of a rosy peach-tinged onlyamutualpassionforelegantconversationandtastefulpastimes.Itiswho go af- hue so brilliant (a color achieved, according to S0d6, through the use of Jr'o treats of disgusting low'types true, though, ,n"t iili' *"J describes powdered coral) that even after more than a thousand years this Dainichi *"t oi rutndress]es andthe like' and ter barbers' "oo*t'#;;;t Nyorai appeared to be alive. There was none of the facial hair normally as he mentions' an anecdote -Tr=.".=..-rrtugur,, relate here' "from memory"' 6Kumagusu priest p*eds to young ferryman that formed a lifelong friendship with this Shingon sect during his Lon- king's encounttt *iitt handsome a newly investeJ bhint" " responds don years. Born in the Bakumatsu period, Toki was a shrewd monastic administrator about love tong in which the young man a ctra'mingty iirtti' lrittpt"ful' anecdote' who was central to re-establishing the large, old temple complex on Mt. KOya as a viable includes aot' no"t cite the source of this to the king's u'a"nt ui"uttt'' Xutugu'u (and profitable) institution in modern Japan. In addition to their increasingly infrequent have averred one or another' ,ecent editio'i'lirris writings Japa- meetings together, Kumagusu and Toki carried on a very extensive correspondence, por- though co*pound, one very rarely used in ,Kumagusu ura. t ara u chinese character passages of tions of which are devoted to exploring ways in which various doctrines and practices n'oo"ttltrt widely in erotic *"unt titt'uiiy*'ttut gu'dtn'" usage of late Mahayana Buddhism (in particular, so-called esoteric Buddhism) could be nese, that *a^qirg dvnasties,"ied its unusually frequent grear chinesc rendering reaffirmed, often through considerable reinterpretation, in the context of the contem- rhe "*Jlit,'n.-t#itli"g.".., to ,o-e slightly precious by Kumagusu in tt,i, .o,",",ponJ.n." '!q.iii. porary rationalist and utilitarian rvorld. *uch as I have adoPtcd here' 150 / Minakata Kurnagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / l5l depicted in such images and his limbs, both arms and legs, were preter- the page-boy Sen'kichi. Today, naturally long. Now this is something that would not be apparent to in the absence of any contemporary models' it would be extremely airricutt for you or anybody Japanese viewers, but what had been depicted here was clearly the figure to write fiction about else, I think, homosexual love which could of a eunuch (Japan, as you know, never had eunuchs). as pale convey even so much a reflection of the pure Way In China there were various kinds of eunuchs: those who were mainly of Men. used as supervisors in the women's quarters . . . and others who were re- Three years ago' around october Ig, I believe, tained by their lords chiefly for their sexual pleasure. In ancient Persia and Uematsu I set out from home with Shigeru , who naa .om. to'visit other countries it was common for kings to have the sons of vanquished preserve ' from Tokyo, for the Imoo Forest in Hidaka countv enemy rulers castrated and use them for their pleasure. The beauty most oi*rii province. on the third day uematsu returned to Tokvo i" Mr. favored by Alexander the Great was not a woman but a eunuch. And the part in an imperiar ceremony. (I later heard from the v'iagers".;.;;;-;;le Emperor Nero, so despondent at the death of the Empress Poppaea that at of whom had come to watch him cross the rope "ir"rnri"ro, out bridge rutp.na.o over the he was on the verge of taking his own life, discovered in the face of a youth having advanced rith Hlil;;;.r, how, named Sporus the very image of his departed consort. Having had him cas- -extreme ;;;;, ;; he rooked down through meshes of the rope at the the swift torrenf far below, he trated and transvested, he placed him among the women at court, then ping in his coutJ noi t.tp ,top_ tracks for a spell.) I stayed on to proceeded to stage an elaborate ceremony to proclaim the boy empress, at origina'y sketch local funguses. I had intended to exam.ine zoosampies the end of which he openly kissed him to the cheers of the assembled public. and ca'it quits, but with prospect of returning to no such a remote mountainous region . . . The sensibilities and innermost feelings of this [conjugal] type of eu- I decided to take in my ord age, 300 samtles inro nuch were completely different from those of women, on the one hand, or ature the *;";;r..iil; remper_ went down to 50 and ,emained"rdrr;;;;n professional - thai cota day after of catamites on the other. (Up until about the time I was born, fatl froze sorid in day. The water_ mid-air, .^foriu;;Jlik"i'. ,on*u.s that is, roughly the beginning of the Meiji era, in India and adjacent coun- a painting' of Fudo,s flames in ' . . Besides mvserf there tries there were close to 100,000 eunuchs of this general type, each regional r;;; i;. forestry department officiars staying in the government lodge. group of whom was presided over by a They And there was a cat that when "king" [srd. would take hus- offered some boniro flakes first took;riil;;j;;n off, bur once bands to whom they became permanently attached, and in their dress, stuck into his a few had been mouth would.o-. uiouna u.gging adornment, and etiquette conducted themselves exactly like women. Given up one for them. Having turned dav as a soritarv kitten, he had seats of honor and assigned particular roles at various ceremonies, they **;;;;ffi;;l;i;'il*ono. on carm days he wourd go down r" ,n" ri"". in the valrey where were well rewarded, such that some of them became quite rich. During their and ate a smalr he caught fish calred aai. since rre lifetimes it proved impossible to establish whether they were men, women, no iio n.u., seen a femare, he had sex drive' once in a while the inhabitait, asexual or hermaphrodites; and so in that sense they posed problems for bate of th. lodge would mastur_ him' which he found so strange those societies.) ,h" ;; Iet out a freakish yowl. In addition to eunuchs, at the height of the Roman Em- morning he got up Every and went to lool arou"iirr. kitchen, pire there was a category of people half-male, half-female who were valued beside the where he sat down blazing fireprace. rrr.* n. ',"u.n' by libertines more highly than any other type, so it was said, partly because rlu]a himserf at the fire, nor moving even when he began to b. of their extreme rarity. These ,.or.l.a. wrrir" there are tales were the true hermaphrodites. In addition, such as Duke Lu_yang or C_hina;;;?;_"ri of how there were many sub-categories of receptive male homosexuals. in our country rried ro bSck the settins sun, I have no*here To describe the true nature of the aforementioned three categories [i.e., ff:::l else seen a cat thar plays with in Chinese, Indian and Western antiquity], not to mention women's nature, Forty-four years orior to this visit (therefore now forty-six is exceedingly difficult. How much more difficult is the task in the case of having become years ago), feveiish anO.si.lcy Juri", n.'r our country, where none of these types exist today. Indeed, as can be seen to wakayama. rr* in Tokyo, I had returned Since my father was uorn"in'iriouka in such texts as the preface to The Chrysanthemum Garden, Being a Con- county and we st'r had r nere rs -. a long passage omitted here spectus of Man-Sex,7 by the Meiwa era (1764-17 7l) the practice of train- orscusses [Nanshoku dangi,4g-50] in which a) the trearment of this *ci";, Kumagusu ing young Kabuki actors to play exclusively boy-lover roles had b) more ,;;r;;Jior.rr, in ethnographic literature; [wakashuJ deraired description oi the suirouniin*'ffir.uo" srsted und the extreme been discontinued. Hereafter onnagata [actors who specialize in female during his stav; c) an epidemic cord that per_ broke out rolesl would also play such boy-lover roles as those of Hirai Gompachi and "ilfr;".;;;;ar at that time and af_ i'r-'"riiniui.al"'a'lr his l::Ti;:TI",T,T.'l;::*', search ror a rare tree he had 1 ilifi i';;l''J,l'"'.Ifi j":l Nanshoku saiken, kiku no sono. lh1i.ffi f :'".-,"Jit",l:::J;XT."f.?,X*jl;m;*:{l ii' 152 / Minakata Kumogusu & Iwata Jun'ichi l Morning Fog / lS3 relatives scattered around the region, I went wandering in these parts as a serected by my father, running way of recovering my health. At the time there lived in Kita-Shioya the around indulging himserf until brought home and made to ,.*,,irl'.". he was wealthy family of a country doctor named Hayama. There were then five .'i.ll * ,h. .";;;;;;rl.no, suaded to stick with an urrung.,n"n, u. p.r_ sons in this family, the oldest named ShigetarO and the next oldest Han- tt.i,^a nt rik;, ;;;ilili.rutionrr,ip with mv father went rrom uJ10;;;. jiro. (The etymology of the name Hayama as you probably know, can be At this juncture mv father cated an incrination_to break o'*itrr indi- conjectured to derive from its association with the word hayama [a settled together lim and estabrish a new househord with myserf, the second mountain slopel as it occurs in the poem "Below the peak of Mt. Tsukuba/ ron. i i.ura rumors that ing sought for me. Should a wife was be_ though the hamlets flourish/and the mountainside is thickly overgrown/ tf,"i""r" t"', w o u r d n ever b e u r o none of this has kept me/from falling deeply in love.) On a little hill near " ;".i!,XlT ;l;T::T.. up rotting away as "-i ",,,.?r, fi :",liiili ?;,i one of the -"".t-tr"uber.) once the Hayama residence stood a shrine to the "Shioya Prince," sion to go to _a_provincial I,d made my deci- America' I was a.t".-in.i io ninety-nine so-called "prince-shrines" strung out along the way from ships ro uo to Tokyo to inquire and set sa' as soon as possibre. about Kyoto down through the Kumano region. It is a very old shrine mentioned But first I went io Ieave of a few of my relatives Hidja to take Progress Kumano" and has long been popularly there. in "The Imperial to It was the very end.of o.tou..-*t .n spent known as "The Prince of Beauty." Thanks to this, perhaps, the five Ha- I one night on the second yama brothers, most especially the two oldest, were devastatingly beautiful. i,Jj.,l,li.r,j;f iii."",,residence,;;;;.:li"r";;l;;;;J,.iJ"o,n,no_ While I was still living in Tokyo, Shigetard, the oldest brother, with my en- whsha!,;ililTj;T;i":J"T,'['jl,1l?il:i:T::nlm,*:* couragement had come up and, intending to enter Tokyo University, en- to three) was well arong in another pr.gnui.y rolled in a preparatory school (called Dokuwa Gakujuku or the like) that signs and had this very day of being readv to give birrh. W;il;i'tfrougtrt shown boarded students in HongO Migumi-ch6. The principal was an austere man be rittle ro myself, rhere woutd chance of sieep tonight, una iop.n.a of the old school who forbade the wearing of socks and enforced a regi- the the window to gazeout sea. Silvery waves were breaking over men in which students endured their cold quarters clad only in padded tiny island, no shoal, known as Katsuoji_u; ";;1. .or. than a robes. In the fierce winter of that year ShigetarO, having just arrived from tt .io* t:":1" blew softly pines; and over the sea,shone,rt"" through rhe Wakayama, caught a cold that spread to his lungs, and had to be hospital- *oon,"talf-hidden rrom uie* foliage. This night would be,, ;;o*u1irv by the ized at the University. Afterward, he went home to Wakayama, at which to enjov il for rhe foreseeable future the naturar beauries ;h;; point I came to stay with his family. As spring turned into summer, we olii"i rrr. worrd. with a heavy I wondered about the countless"'f heart traveled around together to such local spots as Nakayama Hot Springs. At both interesting I wourd have in the unfamiria; ""p..i.n."r, -triui'alsiantand difficult, that time, a lot of students who had gone from this region to study in ffi;il;r'off to urrorr when once again I day migtrt gaze ai;;;;: . . Tokyo were back for vacation. Given the state of ShigetarO's health, they four o'clock and before I knew it, it was in the morning. Just irr.n joined me in persuading the family that in his stead his younger brother the unort., commotion arose house: for the first time"a alr over should enter the University; and when the time came at summer's end for arrival diil;;ilorn into this fam'y. with of the babv- hourl r.-uin.a,'iiearized, the the students to return to Tokyo, I made a point of coming back to the vil- burden "uery wourd cause an to the household, and added lage to make sure that HanjirO got off to Tokyo on time. After staying over ; il;;l;'rnuo" rn, farewells through the at-encompassing and set forth one night I accompanied him to Wakayama, where the next day I sent him -irt tr,ui*us as yet unpierced rays. Shigetard accompaniei by the sun,s off to Tokyo with the other students. Later I requested of Seki Naohiko me f;;; the_embankment Hidaka River (to the along the (a very spot where", the '?ure princess,, former Diet member now in the House of Peers) that he do what he rs said to of Dajaji fame have removed, hertou", trut could for him and, through Seki's good offices, did all I could to assure self g'it oi, u ,r.., and transformed into a snake.e As the her- the success of HanjirO's studies. --I".*--Iil "td;;;;;;;.r,"il.u.n if you accompany your t" rhe earriesr versions For a time I remained in Wakayama, but there was unpleasantness in my of this famous regend, a young monk named family and I decided to go to America. (We were at the time considered one ;:;.s;*::ll"Htffi of the two major merchant houses of Wakayama. A year ago, my father y'f?aTffi #i",."iliij#;il*i:,#r#T::i: having thought it best for my younger brother to marry a daughter from some prominent family in the neighboring province, a lovely, gentle bride ffit*:**:tj*iHf il,,l':.:lTf ii+Hi,ti:*,..,t"nn:Fi{ffi trH: j was indeed found for him. He was, however, an innately dissolute man, ; * *rt xr*# rs.-.nously ri l+T[i:l t;m::il::,i:xl{ifu;" fond of loose "professional" women and spurned the bride so carefully et Ij:: in the No pttay Dajaj)il-;"rr;il.,i, ni ba'ads. i",jr, ano v

154 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 155 dear friend on the first thousand years of his journey to say farewell, it is they gave me suggestions through what is known as mind-to-mind still farewell," and so I restrained him from coming any further with me. nication' when commu_ in my work I sought our the spots thev r,ui'ruJg.rt.a As we moved off in opposite directions we both kept turning around un- me' I usuaty to found rare specimens. Rerying on this pio..rr, til we could no longer make each other out in the distance, and were finally or six years wandering iiient riu" through extremely remote, secluded mountains parted. valleys. The process and involved the spontaneous workings of my ,,subcon_ After that I went to the capital whence, after two months of frantic ac- scious," as it is ca'ed, there in the midst of those desoiate suirounoingr. tivity, I embarked from Yokohama on "The City of Pekin" (a large ship It sometimes came to me in the form of reversed writing, Francisco. By the time returned from England, at other times for those days) for San I specific physicar phenomena actuaily materiarized; uut in'.iit.r case, the after more than fourteen years of vicissitudes abroad, both my parents were result was that I discovered things i .outa not otherwise have no longer in this world, the friends of my childhood now had children of finding. imagined It is clear from such accounts as are be places to found in [F.W.H.] their own, and many to whom I had been close had departed for Myers'r0 writings on paranormal psychology that similar occurrences have unknown. As for the aforementioned Hayama family, the oldest son, hav- happened to foreign naturalists, * i ao noi consider my experience singu- ing for a time been restored to health, entered Osaka Medical College as lar' whenever I meet people who are skepticar about this a top-ranking student, only to suffer a recurrence of his lung disease within only response ,oJolit ing is to smile, and to pitv tnJm for havint o"rv-i.ua"or,n.r.'nv a year and return home where, two years later, he died. The second son, matters in books and not experienced them for themielves. . . . who was sixteen when we parted, lived to the age of twenty-six, becoming gusu proceeds to reminisce iXuru_ here about two encounters with the Hayama a first-class student at the medical school of Tokyo University-also, family over the decades since he returned from abroad, endowed as he was with the affability of the spectacularly good-look- the first very brief, the second, which has taken ptace rai.ty .ecentty;;;;;;;;;on?,,r, ing, "first class" where women were concerned. But just after the Sino- surviving members ,n. of the brotherr and sist"r, he first *"; ,;i;;;;go. Japanese War, he too fell ill and died. The third, fifth, and sixth sons (this the beginning of At his account of this reunion there is a cha.acte"ristically last born while I was abroad) had all proved likewise to be excellent stu- lengthy digression .ol:".r.ring another figure from his past who happens dents and had all died as well before reaching thirty, leaving only the fourth to reappear briefly in his rife on the o..urion of his visit *itt, tn. uuyuo,ur, sonalive.... a prominent scholar of Taoism named Tsumagi JikiryO 1tt g.unaron While abroad I found that American schools were inferior to ours, and of.a Buddhist temple abbot renowned in iu.uguru,, youth as" a kind of the American professors, as might be expected, not worthy of comparison spiritual mentor to a surprising number of men who went on to distin- to Europeans. Moreover, I am a person of strong, undiluted opinions and, guished careers in business and politics, the details of which rr. urro as I would not yield to the Americans, quarreled with them often. In the over lingers in a way that seems typical of his ambivalent preoccupation-*iil, end gave up schools and studied on reading at libraries and .on_ I on my own, ventional "success stories"). The translation resumes here with the digres_ conducting my own field observations. . . . sion about this scholar.l Once back in Wakayama, since there was nobody at all for me to be hap- Twenty years ago professor Tsumagi . . came to see me at the height pily reunited with (as the wry old poem puts it, "Ah, my native place! /Any- of the summer whire I was examining specimens under you a microscope in the where e/se look/pear blossoms in bloom") I went off to Kachiura in midst of the charcoal stora€e room just 1*nfon, he has mentioned.u.ii.ii..u.a Kumano, thence to Nachi, which at that time struck me, back from as a laboratory in his secluded retieatl. we spoke of many tirings. tt so England, as more primitive than Kenya or Zululand, but where in any case happened that at the moment I was examining some srime mold under I established my retreat. All year round I wore only a thin yukata with a microscope, the and so I showed it to him ana exptained how piece of rope for a sash and tramped around the fields and mountains, my it, rir" lv.r.'- sole possessions being a microscope, pencil, water colors and paper (and younger yen r.English my brother issued me an allowance of twenty per month). I poet, critic. and essayist (1g43-1901), co-founder psychical proceeded a parts, a was of the Research to spend long time in these time that both lonely Association and author of seu.rui boor., on;:;;iil;; phenomena, such as the survival and full of delights. of certain aspecrs of indiviaual human p..r"i.iii, .r,.r death (a preoccupation which During my sojourn abroad and then my years in Kumano, by day or by Kumagusu appears to share serectivelyj. cr. u.r"* t i, idiosyncratic reformulation of late Mahayana ideas aboutrhe tire-aeattr-tire night, I never forgot for a moment my two friends who were now dead and .v.i. human, as weil as alr sentient, beings-ideas that even in Kumagusu;. "i gone. The images of these Hayama brothers, as well as of my parents, had ;;;;;.;irg"r;"terpretation through anarogies with the reproducrion and d.eath o-r rri.".oiir;;"";i; not appear always been with me, always at my side. Although no words were uttered, vival of a discrete personality. to arow for the sur_ V

Morning Fog / 157 & Iwato Jun'ichi 156 / Minakato Kumagusu good effect that at leaves and rotting trees, and when weather returns, extends itself and forth in the Nirvana Sutrail to the lustrates the principle set created' again forms spores. But once the retransformation into lobes, spore cases, is'exrineuished another is moment when one;il;;;;i;;ing spores and threads is complete, the slime mold itself becomes inert. In this the fu*p i' light€; the darkness is destroyed without interruption, form it exists only to protect the spores for future propagation, lying in wait "J*-i't" " ttt"La' Similartv' as a sinner approaches and when it goes d;;;;;;it the as it were for the right opportunity to scatter hither and yon. Thus, when "tt order awaits birth; but should down in htll as it the mold is in its original state, if you tell people what it is they dismiss it death, "";;itL-infernaltr't ur-uotn child of hell cries out dying sinner recover ilil;;;i; crv out' as so much amorphous, mucous-like liquid, even though in this state it is dies do the fiendish hordes is stillborn. onlv wtren a;;;;";;ter active while in the form into which it next develops it is in fact dead mat- deliverv of a new cohort' the safe dead ter, existing only to protect the spores for the purpose of subsequent propa- ;,tott;;;;"iling utiu.tt.s itself to rotting trees and Slime mold in its in"itili stug. period gation. How mistaken people's perceptions can be!-to look at dead matter a) after a considerable as follows: and ignorantly conclude that the mold has grown and become active and leaves. Its subseque*;;;;s of warmth' sunlight' moisture' it is actei upon by the effects yet to consider it virtually lifeless in its original state. . Despite this life- during which state; b) the mold . . longer remain in its original wind, etc. the mold tun no into either less appearance, the mold has in fact resumed its active life. That even to oiiginat matter is transformed extends itself such trrui it, this day the aboriginal peoples of New Guinea and other places do not tri*utd,these stems while' simultane- llobes] the think death a cause for sorrow, seeing it rather as a release for humankind "stems" "' '*tt;;ii"t turn.into spore cases that enfold other bits of the original matter into from this debased world and a transition to rebirth into the sublime and ously, o'iginul mold are transformed spores; c) still other f;;il;;iiht lofty hereafter-this is not, then, something to scorn. . . . [Kumagusu goes snore cases; d) then the spores threads that bind t"rtti*iit^iitlittihreads 31d on here to expound at some length on the severe limitations on human- 'po"' beclme dessicated and break off' dry out in the wind, iit so kind's ability to reach definitive, profound truths by means of its cognitive releasing the spores into the air' tt. iiJt' i"ik optn' powers at any given time, citing such examples as Einstein's overturning whereupon oriJinal form of the mold and later'po" d"t;;; ;y the of hitherto immutable Newtonian Laws; then launches into a diatribe of that at some "'u*t on oiserving the lpenultimatel be readv,o oroourut! ilil;;i;;;tions' sorts against the lack of general knowledge-and more intuitive forms of aloud' Oh! here we have some this process, tittt rn"nt exclaim wisdom-among over-specialized contemporary scholars.l stage of that before these lobes' gro*ing. sut no* let u.s suppose is, went real slime moto comes a big So it I on to say to Professor Tsumagi, that the self-proclaimed have finished drying' along spore cases' spores ffil;t matter of specialists of today, spend their lives bogged down in other people's books, of a sudden the ionstituent u"J'uin' All this plausible, good points . storm with *uth *ila no trace of the finding theory that one not lacking in a few . . original form' leaving behind these feature, its the heartily supporting some works, giving some credence to others, as if play- "ut'i'-'o destruction' it lies hidden beneath spores, etc. Havingiiu' t"upta ing at some game of chance, such that in the end they accomplish nothing whatsoever of practical value. Compared to this, old-fashioned learning, in the 5th cen- without the pretenses of specialized scholarship of the modern type, yet into Chinese'bv Dharmaraksa -i^***^frd: first translated Buddhism develooment of Mahavana with a propensity to find provisional resemblances among phenomena; to it was a particularlv;;;ffi;;;;tu1n turv. 'ttt ur tt'. iuit "sermon" of the historical posit them as such only within the limited scope where they appear to ob- in iast Asia. rhis lengthy i:ilil;;;;;'ii*ir proceeds to no rt""itt irtt w.oild (parinirvana)'but tain; and further to invoke their observations as convenient metaphors- Buddha, preached lit'"i principle of buddhahood-a "" 'nt t*""ii"a ubiquitous this old approach did often lead to useful, practical results. [Kumagusu reolace this transitory uil-r.nti.nt beings' Although in o.ri".i"r*iit"n''i" lr'"rii,n"i.ivl...rriur.-ro proceeds to invoke few state that is further *o *ttt*ltt" that make up the bulk of a metaphors of his own, based on botany and zool- the "dialogues" *tinT"ti""' ii'iipi"' the premodern one of t'itto'ituf disciples' Kaundinya) ogy, to the effect that Nature, like learning, is economical and the sutra (the one *itt"ntii* .g"Jdt'a's is quite differ- ir'u-durt"]if" ,oo^ is introduced, the iontext capable of something like "leaps of logic" in its approach to productivity.l meraphor of lamps u.ng r,gt i.a of his own' t;;'i'ttir r"rarv recollected "sermon" In a similar vein, take such old adages as "in this world, the two indispens- ent from what Kumagurr'l:;il Buddhist view of trans- here between a generalized while the parallels he draws to a Iav- able things for a man are righteous duty and a loincloth"; or "to see what Indeed, u" uottt interesting and convincing and the life trtl;';;;;;;;oiJ reference is right or to look at a woman and not to do one's duty are equally spine- migration mitptaced when raisid with specific man like mvself , "^1'""t the radical late Mahayana reformu- less." If one scrutinizes such sayings with specialist rigor of course one can sut'u,'t"v *ttitf"ppJ"l''",,.,?*rtui i' l:ti:iitius of to the Nirvana views on the nature of human' poke holes in them and see how they present only superficial perceptions. Iation of both the very tt;;;;;ibuddt'at'ood-and their cvcles of uting'"iiii' ttj"irtttrto i" uuodrrarrooa' and hence Yet to discern general principles that are 8090 or 9090 true for the human rather, a// senti.nt to'.on.rrlt u popularized synopsis of life-death-rebirrh. But,n"rl'iil""".rit'i..". form' and super-mundane realms alike-this was always adequate to satisfy point Kumagusu"ur" read all of it in its original this sutra, and no douut ai some 158 / Minakata Kumogusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 159 general human needs. The so-called "esoteric summations"'2 of the Zen I recalr from the work Kakugozenhow when sai Konron was preaching school for the most part deployed this type of provisional, imperfect rea- devotees at the imperiar to co,urt, one lady was so transported yet proved be much use to the world. by the subrime soning, to of truths he expounded that she became unable to speak, ;;;;;il; all But concerning the analogies I've suggested to you between the slime even seemed to have stopped breathing_was, over, in fact, to all appearances mold's life cycle and the philosophical truths for our lives to be found in dead' whereupon the Master said, "Liie this woman shall you the Nirvana Sutra, the specialized scholars of today would seek to foreclose Buddhas in the all become here and now," orsomething to that.ft*.;ilhis any further extrapolations by declaring that slime molds and human be- actly how professor is ex_ Tsumagi rooked *n.n r,. got up ings are not at all the same, thus rendering any observations on the sub- in complete s'ence. ,hat day . . . [The author nowleturns to "Ji.ri "r'. ject the confines the scientific discipline.'3 night his account of an over_ totally useless beyond of visit' in the recent past, to the household yamada, of the Hayama sister, now The Frenchman Vernois'a has said that so long as scholarship preoccu- Mrs' who had been born on the rast night of his stay pies itself with matters remote from what could benefit the world, ordinary family many years with her ago' on the eve of his departure for yokohama people cannot be expected to take note of its findings. To put this another America.l ancr way, if one can stand to keep poking oneself up the ass long enough, it is The whore cran assembred and we went to visit the possible there Hayamas, ancestral that eventually will be some lubricious secretion in the colon home' of the originar six brothers ano two sisters in rh;;;;;t;"i , kn"ru, that will yield a bit of pleasure. But rather than going to such extremes only the two girrs had married into families named yamadi and yamatawa, to come up with useless productions, it would surely benefit the world and only the fourth b-oy, named yoshiki, survived. His wife had died much more to teach excellent precepts like this one, uttered by Mito Yoshi- previous year' when I visited the the famiry iust uero.e leaving for America, mura: "One should rule one's subjects as one makes love to a woman, not Yoshiki had been only six years old. irr.re naa been quite a ruckus, I as one makes love to a page. For in the former case both partners, the one recalled, when he knocked hir tittt. Irortr.. (then three years old) on the on top and the one below, find pleasure; in the second case, the one on top head in the midst of a fight over a t-t, una I herped to restore peace enjoys himself, the one below suffers." giving them tovs I'd by brought arong. ii;;;* he was fiftv And so good priest, said to him, you wish to speak the pressed vears ord. I ex- I if of things of to him my regret over our having been out of touch for so long and the human world and of hell alike in a homely, readily understandable listened arrenrivery tohis ch'dhooa ,n.tiJ., of his brothers. The window fashion, you should explain this passage from the Nirvana Sutra in terms on the second storey from which, ro.g ugo,'r had gazed at the sea and the of the life-and-death cycle of slime molds. When they listen to you people moon shining through the pines ,.rnuinJd'inru.t. will forget that slime molds and human beings are different. Yes, yes, they will say, in one thing are all phenomena revealed-this is truly the way of In this world where all has changed,/so utterly changed for the world. And they will be enlightened in a flash. What joy! that me the wind still muimurs,zamidst the pines Thus spoke I, Kumagusu, in the little charcoal room, to Professor Tsu- magi, on whom my words seem to have made a deep impression. Striving I wrote this on seeing. that the ancient pines I had gazedat on that mightily to commit them all to memory, with an eye to echoing my sermon had not faded night in the srightest, th;;;;;e stitt wtrispered he as at around them faithfully in the future, stood up and left with nary a word of farewell. before. Then, at long last, "rdwe went ag;;.. to pay our respects at the aforementioned shrine ,,the prince of of"Beauty.,, So_called civilization '2Gendan: a precis of a sutra's most important points given as a preface to a full-scale had' it appeared, reached even to ,rr" r...rr., of this remote countryside. lecture on it. The sacred groves of yesteryear had alr been fe'ed, and in their place had 'rCf. Georges Bataille after implying an analogy between the life-reproduction-death been planted manv-oetaled ,.p.ony_lh..ri.r,,, cycle of asexual organisms and human beings: "These broad conceptions are not in- cosmos, and other showy flora of the tended to be taken as precise analogies. It is a far cry from ourselves with our self- kind aisntayea at horticurtu.uiitu.irt the artractions. It was as if awareness minute question. warn you, figures of Matsuiaze to the organisms in I do however, against the and Murasame, in thei, classic pose of scooping habit of seeing these tiny creatures from the outside only, of seeing them as things which brine from the sea, had been."ptu."J*it. modern-day bathing do not exist inside themselves. . . . The distance between diminutive creatures and our- --_ beautiesr5 selves is nevertheless considerable. . . . All I meant was to give a clear idea through a 'rCo-protagonists in the n6 play Malsukaze (ascrrbedto Seami), they are beautiful kind of reductio ad absurdum of those infinitesimal changes at the very foundations of sisters' once lovers of the tong-6ea6 H.i""'o".|*"itier yukihira, whose ghostry our life." Eroticism: Death & Sensuality (San Francisco: 1986, 14-15). rstences as rhev continue to.'.'pine" ex- one miii-;n'tniiame Matsukaze 'oI have been unable to identify this name (and my transliteration back into Roman tree and to yearn) for means both pine_ Yukihira *. o".i*t"a iir.."rnr, inrertwined letters is tentative: the original has "Buerunoa"). surroundings. "r with the natural tl Morning Fog / 16l & Iwata Jun'ichi 16O / Minakata Kumagusu was enshrouded Greek city-states, when a boy was reaching the prime of his early youth his That morning the whole shoreline very appealing' as well' parents and elder brothers would approach some upright-seeming samurai -not t"ntint hid its precinct from view in fog, which as *t uoo'oii*nJiht in the midst and formally request his protection. Assuming that the samurai who ac- forty-foury.ur. ugo, I had parted It put me in mind of how, far as cepted such a role proved trustworthy, the boy's safety would be assured. brother' who saw me off as of fog from Mrs' Y;a;;; otaest In my native Wakayama this tradition of "the Way of Men" did not ex- day' AmaJa before the break of ist, and in the rare instance where something along these lines appears to have happened, it turns out to have been based on lust. I do believe, us as we parted That early morning fog/all aroul$ though, that in regions where the old samurai code took root things hap- morning I feel it in my bones' Saying only "Nwe'r-lu:'i"tl"-.tThis pened more or less as Baba maintained. According to the historian [Henry] When Hallam, in the Western Middle Ages when chivalry was in force, while and handed it to the fourth brother' I wrote this on a piece of paper much lip service was paid to the Love of Noble Maidens, there was in fact him to.present it to his older brother's we reached the shrine, iu.r.a visit with a great deal of promiscuous sexual behavior. Although there may be some ;; io ton"tua" his account of this spirit. . . . [The auth;; ;; how' just truth to this assertion, if chivalry had actually been nothing but a pretext gayim-a families' and to relate at some length the Yamada unO Kotaro' for promiscuity, it would have led to complete social anarchy, and the invitation from Dr' Hattori after his return h"*;, ;;-t;;i;;J; present whole code would have gone to pieces in a year's time. f"U"t"i"tv at the imperial palace' to head of the biology on the occaslon"]:::ll: Although it so happens that this year I have not once "shared the con- his researchon slime molds' to the Empero"ontlini* virtual panic jugal bed" with my wife it is obvious from the fact we have had two chil- to the Wakayama region' In a of an impending i*pt'iuiu"iJ capac- dren that she and I have often slept together. Even in the age when the performance-and well aware of his over this unfo,eseen commana ur- warrior code [BushidO] was so strongly in force that, as we have seen, older quite unwittingly-he tells how he itv for offending o.;;:';;times undertaking' samurai would risk their very lives to protect boys entrusted to their care to pray for his in this gently appealed to Mis' Yamada (as was the case in the civilian life of ancient Greece, governed by a simi- her late 'utititbrother' whom Kumagusu and to do so as d;;i;;;'oguttio' go-well with lar ethic), the sharing of a heterosexual conjugal bed was, I believe, the " guuiaiun deity' ihat all did in fact consistently oou'uv'l' ii' to universal rule. This is very much part of the Pure Way of Men. That even yacht some months later, he attributes his lecture on uoarlttrei*p'eriur well beyond those who have studied these matters enough to perceive the ideal princi- his request' Indeed' she went Mrs. Yamada's compliance with to ples involved-we need not speak of the common views of vulgar people- journeying to the seashore location closest the terms of nis reduest' still revile these traditions as evil, unclean, immoral, impure, etc. is no offrhor. and praved ferventlv for where the imperial;ffi;",J;;;;;',n'"r'; doubt because they have only understood one half of what they have read on board'l ttte duration of Kumagusu's stay and not the other. In my own life, I believe that I owe my success on the ulotr" is a story about a boy whose In one trr. Hu.tiirlr:ivu Con- occasion of my command performance before the Emperor, something for "r him far^there above the common herd' eood looks uto ri* tit"iuitt"tt goes to call on which I was neither worthy nor prepared, to the fervent prayers of Mrs. is greatiy perturbed and Itantty importunediv'ui*i'""' he Yamada, who acted in this capacity in place of her departed brother, he ayoungsamurai*t'-o"to"Aucthasalwavs'beenabovereproach'"Please with whom I shared my heart. him' "anJsave me from these dangers'" be my older brottre;;;' ;;;;tt overwrought Though in my declining years (I am sixty-five), poor and dependent on declines, but on seeing how truly At first the samurai politely he others to raise funds for me, and with a wife and two children who suffer to refuse uny longtt' As promised' the boy t u, u.to*tiit'tu";iutur atime when from various afflictions, I have managed to continue my biological on the Uov' sui there'comes doesn't let anybody lay a finger research. All the while there has been a steady stream of visitors, some to approach the boy' The man or other tu"ugt' wishing pay respects, some with particular inquiries. But I have re- a new admir"' and proceedt t" to their he is'o*tho* totally innocent of any tuiiin"niion' 9T: fused precious me money is insists that boy and his samurat them all. For at my age, even more to than Uetween his teeth' Both the his tea cup into fittft fjitttt that the man rs time, of which I am very jealous. I beseech you, then, to make do for now by this displav and conclude protector u,. out'itti;;J friend' who at- with this letter, meant for your eyes only, and not to cause me to lose any heard from a now deceased thoroughly in the ancient more time. It is past dawn now and I must conclude here. In the course of 'intttt"i-onceg"U" Tatsui' that in Tosa' much as tributed this to tt'tiutt writing this letter I have let spoil three containers full of fungus samples. . . . But one cannot be bothered about such things if one wants to discuss -...------.-----.-----.----,oA early eighteenth century printed *b*nre of short, episodic l:li?n in the serious matters with someone on paper and truly get one's point across. So oonulu, Kyoto publisher of this name' from woodblotft' unJ tola by a Morning Fog / 163 162 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi younger please rest assured that I have no regrets. moments of his death; also a further choleric outburst against his Anyonewhoistotallyunawareofthekindsofthingslhavewritten brother, the heir to the family fortunes.] you abouihere, or is incapable of understanding them, will certainly not be able Were to say to me, "If there is in our world today even a single ex- of the Pure Way Men, would venture to comprehend the traditional way of Men. Taine has emphasized that in ample of show him to me," I to re- ply precisely order show you am single have oul. upprou.h to the past, ifwe do not enter into the individual characters that in to that I that example I letter, great great penmanship and tiri social life of a given era, if we do not in fact enter into the spirit written this both in haste and at length. My poor of that time, it is pointless simply to chronicle events of long ago' On the is and even l cannot read what I have written here. But to send it as as without witness subject that we have been discussing, to denounce such experiences in is, revision or adornment bears further to the truth of all I general impure, immoral, sordid and irrational-when the way of Men is I have told you. . . . Perhaps you are snickering at me for having written the five central relation- of these strange experiences at such length, in the meantime neglecting the I iothing *Lr. or less than true friendship, one of shipsis but to pander to vulgar conventional opinion. Those who do so important work that I should have been doing on my fungus samples- indeed, wasting a prodigious have are not only incapable of any serious work on this subject. Moreover, they for, amount of time and effort. That I gone point are the sort whose work on any subject whatsoever will never amount to on at this length about trivial matters, to the of incurring the yourself more than parroting the vulgarities in which they have immersed them- derision of even someone like who is not a fellow biologist, is all above, he con- because of my propensity for loving friendship. Anybody who would scorn selves. . . . [Despite having declared that he is signing off tinues to hoid forth here at some length and with much animus on the this could only do so because he himself has no first-hand experience of spoken feel subject of the shallowness of contemporary scholars and men of letters. Af- what I've ofand can nothing on hearing ofanother's. . . . As late Spencer ter a digression on the increasing sloppiness of scholars of Western cultures, the Herbert observed, there is nobody who on crossing a he poinledly raises the matter of some malicious remarks in a recent issue bridge and seeing a child fall into a river does not feel some pity. But those who water of l,Criminology," a popular periodical with dubious scholarly pretensions will dive into the and try to rescue the child are but one in a in which the young Iwata, having little choice, published much of his hundred; and if you ask such a person about his past, you are sure to learn he himself early work on the history of homosexuality. The self-serving, philistinical that either once almost drowned or had a close relative who died remarks Kumagusu quotes below, were clearly directed against Iwata in this way-a rather obvious but true observation. himself.l Thus any attempt to write a novel based on the Way of Men as it existed hundreds years There are of late many things among the pronouncements of Japanese of ago is extremely challenging, is, in fact, doomed to result (like writers and scholars that I simply cannot understand. To give only one ex- in some cheap travesty those little so-called "wham-bam" porno- graphic possess ample, in a recent number of "criminology," there was a piece by some- books), that is, f the would-be author does not the kind experience on. o, other about the spectacle of both young would-be kabuki actors and of I have described and the authority it confers. If one wants to write about the Pure especially actual apprentice actors hanging around the parks of Tokyo and Way of Men, one must first read intensively about ancient Greece offering sexual favors to foreigners. . . . In the introduction the author be- and delve deeply into works related to Bushido in Japan. gins by saying, "This article describes the contemporary reality of kabuki If on the other hand one is content to approach the topic (as do Sakai Kiyoshi boys' prostitution, and as such deserves to be called /iving scholarship. It and Umehara what's-his-name) as simply one variety of erotic and pleasure, it will end up sounding is not lust another bunch of little bits dug up from dusty old books a Iot like heterosexual relations, but of a strungtogether with incomprehensible witticisln5"-s1 something to this debased, twisted nature; nothing more. Lately effect. . . . I have never encountered a case in America or Europe in which my eyes and hands have ceased to work the way they did ten years ago. For editors allow a previously published article to be subjected to an attack of me to have written such a long letter as this is like some plant that has thrived yielding this sort in the very same publication. But for some time now Japanese for a long time one last fruit. I've written it, rough as them it is, because have your your editors have seen nothing wrong with such practices, large numbers of I been moved by work, the result of long, patient labors, youthful being quite capable of reading one thing in a certain frame of mind' and by my own experience to which it has some relevance. in quiti a different frame of mind, and in any case not wishing to trouble"notn.i themselves with making judicious decisions' ' ' ' [There ensues here a lengthy account of the death of the fourth, and only surviving, Hayama brother, and of his apparition that Kumagusu describes as hav- ing appeared to him in the night at a time he later ascertains to be within [f '

Morning Fog / 165 From lwata Jun,ichi to Minakata Kumagusu August 27, 1931 of beauty as well? Or are they from their inception rooted in spiritual love? Clearly, received opinion will accept and praise as worthy of the five cen- [This letter begins those friendships that are both conceive{ and continued with a very lengthy, convoruted apology, accompaniecr tral relationships by much self-justification, of spiritual love alone. But in the case love, for havingsent to the editors oi:;c.i-inorogy,, on the basis of homosexual a copy of the passage would appear to be the added requirement of an attraction based on in Kumagusu's previous letter where he inveighs there against their having printed physical beauty. The actual love between friends in the Sengoku in thi pages tf the same journar a thinly veiled outward, attack on Iwata's articre. (In should be seen, I think, as having been realized through the conjunc- a letter omitted from this ,.t..tion, rumagusu period has sternly taken Iwata to task for this breach of confidenc., p..r,upr, *. tion, as in a perfect circle, of both spiritual love and a love inspired by phys- may imagine, because as he elsewhere makes ical attraction. Moreover, it would seem to be the case that at a later period i clear, he does noi *irh to huu. made public in crept in, so that eventually these relationships came to be viewed any way his interest in the history of Japanes. no-or."- impurities I ualities.) Iwata also apologizes by the world as a kind of vice; and when this vice became rampant, the true here for having put so many triviar ques_ / tions to Kumagusu of Young N/:n came to an end. (There is, for example, an ac- and worries that he may traue given his .o.."rpono.nt Way [shudal i the impression he is engaged, count in "The Grand Design for Wise Rulers and Loyal Ministers" of how not in serious scholarship, but the ,,idle pas- time of a dilettante.',] Hosokawa Sanzai' put a stop to an infatuation between two of his re- tainers.) While the world will accept as "true friendships" those in which nra_o. three times over the splendid two men bond together out of regard for each other's spiritual beauty, I l-^T long letter that you were re_ cenry so klnd as to send prease without any mutual physical attraction, if something occurs between them ^ me. allow me to say that this account of actual events in your that causes them both to desire a complete fulfillment of their beautiful life, in which can be discerned what a beautifur friendship truly is, friendship, will the world still praise this as worthy of the five ethical has moved me more than any work of fiction possibly could- On reading particular relationships? it, in the passage about your partiig from your friend on the banks of the Finally, are homosexual love and what received opinion calls friendship Hidaka iiu.., t courd not rr.ip *unting to know further details-beyond spiritual love without calculations of self-interest-the same? If so, is the brief description of the farewelr, I -a wanted to hear the words your this because from ages past the company of those who have enjoyed friend- of conversation together then. It grieves me to think how estheticalry ship, so defined, has for the most part been made up of men given to Pure obtuse you must find me for having ,iu.n.a ,o often on sordid matters in Homosexual Love? But then it may be that my posing of this question sim- my letters. But while it is true tt u"t pu.i or has a predilection for lower-crass -. ply goes to show that I have failed to understand fully the meaning of Pure boys, so much so that impulserln tnut direction come to mind on Love. I am not asking here for some sort of checklist in which various con- the slightest provocation, I believe I have another side that is capable ditions are set forth as sine qua non for pure homosexual love and others of entering into true friendship and not hope- lessly impeded or sullied by as pertaining only to regular friendship. Still, I find myself wondering if baser impirlses. In this connection, as I men- tioned in passing in an earrier there is not present in homosexual love, by which I do mean pure love, letter,ihere is someone with whom I have a beautiful friendship, some sensual vulnerability (at least in the initial stages) on the part of one but if I were to speak of it here it would take too much time' It is a very friend or the other. Most of the sources we have for the events of the Sen- complex relationslip, not so much in terms of par- ticular events as psychologicalry goku period come from the ensuing Tokugawa era, the heyday of impure complex, ana so I would rike to find a more tranquil time man-sex, and the majority of them pose great difficulties to those of us to discuss it with you in an open, leisurely manner. There is one point that who, from our present day point of view, would seek their true meaning. I do not fulry understand. No doubt i am failing into petty argumentation, At the very least, however, one might expect to find in accounts by writers as is my wont, but is it really possible to equate a beautiful homosexual who lived through the transition from Sengoku to Tokugawa many com- rove with relationships which can be defined, in conventional terms, as "true friendship"? According to received opinion, true friendship ,,fiu" (1563-1645), part in Hide- indeed qualifies as one of th. ethical retationstriisztive 'More commonly known as Hosokawa Tadaoki he took constancies." yoshi's ill-fated invasion of Korea and was married to Hosokawa Garashiya [Gracia], But does this admit of homosexuar love? Most friendships an ardent Christian who perhaps had some role in his proscribing the practice of "the are adventitious and in the end come down to a question of mutual self- Way of Young Men" among his retainers (a position that would appear especially interests, yet there are certainly others that cannot be so described. Is it pos- anomalous for the southwestern domain that he ruled, where age-graded homosexual sible that friendships in this other category are partly based on p.r."ption, bonds were more or less institutionalized from sometime fairly early in the medieval period). 166 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 167 mentaries on the true Way of Men, including passages where they recall in the bedroom they would have strapped around their upper thighs small how things used to be and deplore the flighty, gaudy goings on of the triangular-shaped cushions of velvet that pressed down hard on their present day. I have, in fact, only recently come to realize that Arai penises. (In Europe they employed similar devices, to the point where the Hakuseki's Hankampu2 could be a reliable source in this context. . . . penis went limp and lost its normal function.) On Mt. KOya, then, the fron- [Iwata closes with still more apologies for his perfidious conduct in hav- tal position was the established one, and since on these occasions the aco- ing tried to use Kumagusu's private observations as a rebuttal of his critic lytes wore short underskirts of a double thickness, they would have moved in "Criminology."l their bodies in the same way as girls, so I gathered. Apart from the absence of breasts, acolytes and novices (or "nemeses"' as they were dubbed) were indistinguishable from girls; and even the nomenclature for them as they From Minakata Kumagusu to lwata Jun'ichi, progressed through various stages (chigo, nisai, nassho2) mirrored that of August 31,1931 the girls in the pleasure quarters (musume, shinzO, toshima3), with a differ- ent style of clothing for each stage. Thus they functioned quite analogously DELTcHTED see in your most recent that from my previous letter T o" to to wives and concubines. Up until around 1882, the abbot of the temple you have a proper understanding the distinction to be made I acquired of on Mt. KOya would pay a visit to our house accompanied by a low-ranking pure in treating of love among men between the and the impure. monk. He had about him the aura of a feudal lord. Now, having reached your as good but where You refer in letter to such matters looks and age, the highest honorary clerical rank, he lives in retirement at the main temple places our topic is concerned these are of no consequence. In like North of Miyajima in Aki. In the meantime it would appear that he has indeed (Algeria, pay no at- Africa Egypt, etc.) where homosexuality thrives, they reached great enlightenment, as he has gone and married a bluestocking (It remove so that tention to age limits. is their custom to their facial hair who made a lot of money painting inthe bunjinga style. Apparently on Mt. grow women, it does not back, to dress in a manner indistinguishable from KOya there were also cases known as "widowed young men" who, having and in some cases to enlarge the anus to the size of a vagina, occasionally literally loved their head priests to death, seized their assets and positions going grow so far as to a clitoris. . . . In China, eunuchs served in a role and proceeded to rob the cradle themselves, to the great discomfort of the no different from that of female concubines to a ripe old age, and when temple's lay congregation. were just as legitimate wives they died even buried with their "husbands," In the Ashikaga-period collection "Tales From Iwashimizu" it is related and concubines were.) On the subject of looks, there is the old adage "I'd that the Vice-Governor of Hitachi, a married man who had also had an il- good rather have them in bed then pretty," and among blacks it is very licit affair with an older woman (she later became Empress), was favored generate the flesh common for their bodies to a lot of internal heat, and for by the love of the then Regent's heir-apparent. Although this comes from pliable as as one likes. to be so that it can be easily twisted and turned much a work of fiction, we may assume that such relationships were not uncom- possess misshapen, Provided that they such desirable traits, men with mon in that period, as in those times no one would have read stories made downright ugly features are if anything more sought after than others. In up out of whole cloth. In this account, the man in love with Hitachi-no- and Turkey, China, and especially in the Roman Empire, Persia, India, suke sings his praises by comparing him to the guardian deity Aizen My60 there were many men who, already having both wives and concubines, then (Sanskrit: Ragaraja). This deity is analogous to Eros, the Greek god of progressed sex with men. In contrast young boys, they had already to to love, and was originally worshiped as the divine patron of love between with their acquired much experience in the so-called arts of the bedroom men. . . But in the depictions of Aizen MyOO he appears much more (The women, and so were unbridled in their diverse interests. lTth-century ferocious than Eros. For all the ferocity of this deity's images, it is clear he was Persia, there Frenchman [J.B.] Tavernier tells us that while visiting that during the Ashikaga there was a wide-spread preference for boys who was a case of a married man who was killed for refusing another man's were gentle and refined. (We also know from the diaries of this period, vigorous advances, and whose wife in turn avenged him by slaying his at- rHere tacker. Such tales have been told in Japan as well, at least in fiction.) and in the ensuing passage there are a number of punning slang words used Though there were no eunuchs in Japan, in the course of my visits to Mt. by the monks apropos of their acolyte-lovers most of which I have not attempted to KOya, which took place up until about 1882, I often heard from former reproduce. acolytes there, now old men, how when they were attending senior monks ']Roughly translatable as young boy, "greenhorn," and book-keeper (a lowly func- tion apparently assigned to adolescent monks). rOne 2A chronology of events in the domains of 337 different daimyo, covering the years of several age-graded categorizations of girls/women applied to prostitutes in between 1600 and 1680. the pleasure quarters of the Edo (Tokugawa) pcriod, then to geisha of a later era. 168 / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwato Jun'ichi Morning Fog / 169

however, that there were not a few cases of acolytes and novices commit- resentations of the young bodhisattva Manjusri [Japanese: Monju] and the tingmurder....) various sacred boy-princes of Mt. Hiei and Kumano, as depicted in both [A.J.] Symonds, the distinguished British man of letters whom I men- painting and sculpture. tioned in my first letter, in spite of frequent rumors to the effect that he In any case, you must never lose sight of the distinction between the pure was quite the lady's man, maintained vigorously that from an ethical point and the impure, and should devote yourself to refining your whole outlook of view there is nothing whatsoever reprehensible about homosexuality. He on this point. As with the saying that "to the boundless ocean of Bud- privately published two essays on this subjecto at his own expense, in num- dhism, faith is the single point of entry," so is a single-minded faith vital bered editions both of which I have copies of in my possession. On the basis to all important undertakings. To approach any worthwhile project off the of a detailed inquiry into the practices of well-known [contemporary] top of your head, so to speak, will not yield any profound results. homosexuals, he concludes in these essays that anal sex formed no part of At last we have been visited here by unmistakable harbingers of autumn' the more sincere, committed kind of bonding between men; rather, that so I am busier than ever with my fungus sketches and must sign off here' moments of heightened emotion in a relationship of this nature are sealed

I with nothing more than an embrace. (I am reminded in this connection of Mitamura Gentatsu's account of how he once went and paid for a prosti- From lwata Jun'ichi to Minakata Kumagusu, tute only to find that, though of course she was his for the taking, he was September 2,1931

I overcome by pity and could not bring himself to do anything. This reac- j tion strikes me as both commendable and believable, but of course there Cl rNcr rr sEEMS that you are busier than ever with your research, for the would be many small-minded men who would refuse to believe it and in- D ti-. being I have resolved to avoid writing any more letters filled with I sist on demanding the "real story" behind his behavior with such questions questions, and you may just throw this one away as soon as you've read as "How many times did you do it with your wife the night before? Was it if you like. Thanks to your generous and illuminating comments in your she satisfied?" etc.) most recent on the subject of the pure and the impure in the Way of Men, Inthe Agama scriptural corpus, which was probably compiled about a the points about which I raised doubts in my last letter are now clear to me. hundred years after the death of the historical Buddha, there is a passage (I feel that I have hitherto been too literal-minded to grasp the full mean- in which a heavenly prince (or more literally, a "heavenly child") appears ing of various things you have written to me. For instance, in reading what at night in the quarters of the arhats and listens to them expounding on the you wrote in your letter received today about the Emperor Kammu and his dharma, then in turn preaches to them on the subject of sacred hymns. In admirer Sugiyama, I realize that through failing to take into account your Japan, as part of the process in which various native deities came to be oblique style of presenting such material-the way you eschew crude direct- linked to those that came in with Buddhism, the original handsome figure ness-I have initially registered only the superficial meaning of your words, of the "heavenly child" gave rise to flourishing cults of various "young with the result that I come up with the kind of foolish questions I have put princes" (Nyaku-Oji5 and the like). And these cults became, I believe, the to you in previous letters. In this light, now that I have read over once again very foundation of the Way of Men (witness the poem ascribed to the the long letter you sent me before the last one, your true meaning has be- figure known as "the Boy who belonged to Two Mountain Gods"6 to the come lucid and the things set forth there completely clear to me.) effect of "Try though I will/to bear the thought/that you have pledged to The initial motivation for my research on man-love had nothing what- another/the same vows pledged to mell cannot restrain my tears"). In soever to do with any interest on my part in the impure side of these mat- order to learn about these matters you should begin by studying the rep- ters. Rather, I began my studies out of a sense of joyous awe at the mystery oClearly of Platonic love. (What the motives might be of those who in our times a reference to Symonds' "A Problem in Greek Ethics" and Problem in "A grotesque, have no idea, but to be judged Modern Ethics." write about things erotic and I 5A deity perhaps inspired by an Indian Buddhist original but in any case made in- the same as such writers would be most distressing to me.) It is, however, digenous to Japan through his veneration at a shrine of this name established by the Em- true that in the course of my studies I have come to learn about vulgar mat- peror Go-Shirakawa in Kyoto (his cult is a subordinate offshoot of that of Kumano ters pertaining to the impure aspects of this topic, and have taken them in Gongen, centered in Nachi). 6This along with everlthing else-perhaps because part of my sensibility is in fact sobriquet, which none of the commentators on these letters choose to elucidate, drawn to these things. Given this background, when I enter into discussions appears to be a cheerfully blasphemous pun involving the cults and doctrines surround- ing the kami (a native god in the large Japanese pantheon) Sann6, a Buddhistic mani- of homosexuality, it seems that along with the pure, I always speak also festation of the older kami Omononushi-no-mikoto. of the impure; and although my spirit is not hopelessly mired in the impure l7O / Minakata Kumagusu & Iwata Jun'ichi Morning Fog / l7l

alone, when I write on this topic such matters inevitably come up; and then as "the boy Monju"l. (These were in fact among the various questions that my imagination and powers of conjecture often run away with me. That I have been wishing I could ask you.) Your recent remarks are tantalizingly is why, then, I have often written to you in this vein in my previous letters, suggestive, and if by chance you should have time. . . . I have also for for which I must apologize to you profusely. If, however, someone were years been very curious about the "Young Prince" figures, and that of JizO to urge upon me a choice between the pure and the impure where the Way [Sanskrit: Ksitigarbha] who appears in various collected tales, such as of Men is concerned-not that it would ever be possible for me to be ruled Konjaku monogatari, Shosekishn, Nihon reiiki with almost importunate exclusively by one or the other for a lifetime-I would certainly declare my- frequency. These figures are all represented as beautiful boys, as are the t, self without a moment's hesitation in favor of the pure. And this response handsome youths invariably portrayed as attending upon the bodhisattvas. would come from my true nature, not out of any attempt to defer to your . . . In my untutored view (l have yet to formulate it with any clarity), this estimable opinions on this subject. depiction in various literary sources reflects a whole train of thought in Be our true natures what they may, though, for the sake of discussion which an extreme degree of glorification, even veneration, of young boys there are all kinds of things we may feel free to raise on this topic. In your in early [monastic] culture, which is homosexual but in a pure way, leads I most recent I read with great interest your observations on the homosex- to the sublimated adoration we find in these texts. . . . But I wonder if this ual practices at the KOya monastery, all of which is new and very useful phenomenon is addressed in your "Studies on the Konjaku monogotari." to me. Concerning your remarks on the monks' impure activities, the busi- I have not yet been able to read this work (it seems not to be included in ness about restraining the boys' penises and taking them frontally, I once your "Collected Essays"), so I have no way of knowing and simply raise heard from a certain impure homosexual in Tokyo that there too the fron- the question directly here. tal position, chest to chest, has been the preferred practice, with a wad of From your most recent as well as from an earlier letter I have learned that bleached cotton used as a restraint during intercourse. Likewise I've heard you are in possession of private editions of Arthur Symons' [sic]2 works, that among the rent-boys of Shanghai it is the custom to render their which fills me with envy. You have read an astonishing number of rare penises completely inoperable when offering sex (this last, I should say, is works that are very difficult to obtain. . . . Do you, I wonder, own all of only hearsay on my part, not based on any first-hand research). On the these or did you take meticulous notes when you read them, such as to have other hand, in the Nagasaki region, according to what I've learned from virtually committed them to memory? Being myself something of a biblio- the novelist Hirayama Ashie, who comes from there, penetration from be- phile (not that I have in fact been able to look at many rare books), I can- hind is the proper approach, while the frontal position is thought to betray not help taking special notice of your references to such writings; and while a demeaning attitude toward one's partner. I wonder on reflection if this I gather from Nakayama Sensei that you have taken extensive notes on distinction in Nagasaki is not similar to the emotional differentiation evi- these works, and that also you have a goodly number of them in your pos- dent in heterosexual practices between conjugal relations and recreational session, I have not yet heard from you anything about why you have made sex with whores. If my information is correct, perhaps we may suppose a point of collecting in this area. When you have the opportunity, please that, at least in the southwestern regions, with Kagoshima setting the stan- give me some idea of how you came to take up this particular interest. . . . dard in this regard, anal penetration from behind corresponds to the proper I have only written this letter as an inadequate expression of gratitude "conjugal" approach. . . . But I do not as yet have enough data to state for your most recent, and in order just to pay my respects. Please forgive this general conclusion unequivocally. me for my usual clumsy style of writing. And please look after your heatlh, I noted with interest in your most recent your comments on Aizen MyO6 which is of the utmost importance with your condition. On reading over in the context of "Tales of Pure Water Spilling Over Rocks" [Iwakiyomizu yet again your long epistle from a couple of letters ago, even someone like monogatarit/. When I was writing my essay "On Man-Love" I was ar- me cannot help feeling a deep, personal grief. Do, please, write again but rested by various descriptions of this "Japanese Eros." I have also been do not concern yourself about your penmanship (I have no trouble mak- wanting very much to have a clearer understanding of the figure of the ing out all of the words), sentence structure, and the like. I only beseech Bodhisattva Manjusri, who appears very often in other texts [sometimes you to keep writing whenever the spirit moves you and to impart to me some of your wisdom.

'An episodic narrative dating from the mid-thirteenth century, two chapters in length. 2lwata One of the earliest monogatari to have a warrior-class hero and to be set in the eastern presumably means to mention J.A. Symonds here, whom Kumagusu has cited provinces, it relates episodes in the life of Iyo-no-kami, most of them having to do with in previous letters for his essays on homosexuality in Greek antiquity and late nineteenth- homosexual and, by and large, unhappy love affairs. century England, not the critic and poet Arthur Symons. First Edition 1996 Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television rcview, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, clectronic or mechanical, iniluding photocopying and recording,.or by any information storage and rctrieval system, or computer sys- CONTENTS I tcm, without permission in writing from the publisher. This project is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Any findings, opinions, or conclusions contained hercin are not neces- sarily those of the C.A.C. 7 Editor's Preface press PanrrNcs rr DnwN is copyright o 1996 by cay Sunshine Inc. copyright on original Japanese Stephen D. Miller texts remain with the authors or other copyright owners, except for fhose in publii domain. The .,Today,s Publisher's Note following translations are copyright. o 1996 by cay Sunshine press Inc.: Tales of 9 Yesterday".translated ,,Flyboys" by Paul cordon Schalow. by Ihara saikaku, transiatei by Robert Winston Leyland Lyons Danly. "The Blue cowl" by Ueda Akinari and "Morning Fog,' by irainakita Ku-agusu and.Iwata Jun'ichi, translated by william F. Sibley. (,.Morning Fog"-is tui.n t.orn'ii,. Jupun.r. I I Introduction edition Mina.katu Kuntagusu Nonshoku-Dangi publisired by vaiat