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Beyond Mitigation: The Emotional Functions of Natural Disaster in

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Alexander Edward Jania, B.A.

Graduate Program in East Asian Studies

The Ohio State University

2015

Thesis Committee

Philip C. Brown, Co-Advisor

Ying Zhang, Co-Advisor

Katherine Borland

Copyright by

Alexander Edward Jania

2015

Abstract

In contemporary Japan folk and religious explanations of natural disasters, rooted in pre-modern beliefs about the environment, continue to persist despite the understanding of modern day science. Previous scholars have examined these folk/religious beliefs in relation to their ongoing effects on scientific fields like seismology, and their continued influence has been characterized as ahistorical and detrimental. However, scholars have not asked the important question of why these beliefs continue to have cultural currency. Through examining pre-modern Japanese , early modern print culture, and the modern folktale “The Rice Bale Fire,” I argue that the continuity of folk and religious explanations of disasters is due to their emotional functions as coping mechanisms for an unpredictable and destructive natural environment. Natural disaster folklore achieves this by being both a vehicle for the portrayal of, as well as a tool utilized in, emotional practices. Ultimately this indicates, like modern science, culture was used to order and understand nature and humanity’s relationship to it.

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Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to the kind-hearted people of Minami Sanriku.

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Acknowledgements

This thesis was completed in part thanks to friends, family, colleagues, university staff, and mentors who offered their help and support during my two years at The Ohio

State University. I am especially grateful for being awarded the generous Distinguished

University Fellowship by OSU, which funded my time in Columbus, allowing me to focus on my classes and research.

My project benefitted greatly from the input of the three mentors that made up my thesis committee and university staff members. Philip Brown, in addition to being a wonderful advisor, helped me hone my topic and challenged me to be a clear, concise, and accessible writer.Ying Zhang facilitated many aspects of my academic development with the intellectual rigor of her classes and advisement sessions. I received my introduction to folklore in academia from Katherine Borland, whose classes were informative and always enjoyable. In addition I would like to thank Maureen Donovan, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, and the Inter-Library Loan staff for all their help.

To my colleagues in the East Asian Studies program, whether we discussed coursework, ate meals together, or watched Ohio State win the national championship, each of you offered great friendship. I thank all my friends in Columbus for the good times, especially Xiao, who offered his support when I needed it most. Finally I would

iv like to thank Amanda and my family for all of their love, support, and understanding from the beginning of my program to the end

Vita

June 2009...... Cedar Park High School

2013...... B.A. History, Baylor University

Field of Study: Japanese History

Major Field: East Asian Studies

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Table of Contents

Abstract...... ii

Dedication...... iii

Acknowledgements...... iv

Vita...... v

List of Figures...... vii

Chapter 1: Introduction...... 1

Chapter 2: Defining Disaster in Pre-Modern Japan...... 19

Chapter 3: Monsters, Messengers, and Omens...... 34

Chapter 4: Burning Rice to Save Lives...... 53

Chapter 5: Concluding Thoughts...... 79

Bibliography...... 87

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Catfish being subdued by the deity of the Kashima shrine using the “foundation stone.”...... 38

Figure 2: Whale-like catfish approaches Edo as onlookers beckon it...... 39

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Chapter 1: Introduction

At 2:46 pm (JST) on March 11, 2011 the Northeastern coast of the main island of

Japan (Honshu) was struck by a magnitude 9.0 mega-thrust earthquake which occurred roughly 70km offshore and at a depth of 24 km. Although the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake was the fourth strongest ever recorded since the development of modern measurement and the largest to hit Japan, the damage from the earthquake itself was relatively minimal due to Japan’s seismic building codes. However the earthquake created tsunami that hit the Tōhoku coast and reached heights of 10-15 meters, which destroyed towns, caused the spillage of numerous chemicals into the environment, and led to a meltdown at the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor.1 Especially hard hit was an area of Tōhoku called the

Sanriku Coast that not only has a long history of relatively frequent tsunami disasters

(five large scale tsunami events have occurred there in the past 400 years), but also coined the term that became common usage in both Japanese and English for the phenomenon of seismically caused sea waves.2

1 Ian Stimpson, “Japan’s Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami,” Geology Today 27 (2011): 96-98. 2 The first extant usage of “tsunami” is found in a Tokugawa-era (1600-1868) journal that records the news of the Sanriku earthquake of December 2, 1611, before this time other terms like oshio (large tide), takanami (high wave) and kaisho (roaring and resounding sea) were used. The journal entry recounts the destruction of property and loss of life in Mutsu (in modern day Tōhoku, encompassing land now divided into Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, and Aomori prefectures) by a large wave, reporting that locals “call it a tsunami.” In addition, in 1896 the Sanriku region was hit again by a devastating tsunami, an event reported by the journalist Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore in National Geographic, who introduced the Japanese term “tsunami” to the everyday English speaking world for the first time. Julyan H. E. Cartwright, Hisami Nakamura, “Tsunami: A History of the Term and of Scientific Understanding of the Phenomenon in Japanese and Western Culture,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 62 (2008): 151-166. 1 The frequency of tsunami on the Sanriku coast has significantly shaped the cultural responses to natural disasters. For example, in the wake of the 3/11 disaster refugees who were being sheltered at the Akasaki Fishing Village Center in Ōfunato,

Iwate Prefecture were interviewed about a newly circulating belief that a local Tsunami memorial stone was cursed and causing the village to be inundated by tsunami. The stone monument stands about 5 meters high, and carved upon its surface are the cautionary words, “If there is an earthquake beware of a tsunami, if a tsunami comes, go to a high place.” Originally erected near a mountain shrine two years after the 1933 Showa Sanriku

Earthquake and Tsunami using leftover donations from those collected and distributed to affected villages by the Asahi Newspaper Company of , the stone was later moved to the side of a coastal road. In 1960, the waves of the Chile Tsunami surged past the stone, swallowing it up, so the stone was moved further inland some 50 meters away from the shoreline. During the 3/11 disaster tsunami waves surged yet again to the location of the stone.3

The that the tsunami marker stone was being chased inland by increasingly large disaster events led some refugees to ask “wouldn’t it be better if we sunk it into the sea?” Even those who recognized the educational value of placing the stone memorial in a visible place in the town seemed certain that tsunami were chasing it and admitted that perhaps “there is some sense in those who say ‘sink it into the ocean.’”4 Although the refugees of Ōfunato likely have at least a basic understanding of the modern scientific

Gregory Smits, When The Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in Japan (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 27-28. 3 “Oo tsunami ga oikakete kuru to iu norowareta tsunami kinenhi densetsu,” Shūkan Shinchō 2788 (2011): 41. 4 Ibid., 42. 2 explanations for earthquakes and tsunami it is obvious this folk explanation held some sway over their contemporary conception of natural disaster.

The case of the Tsunami Memorial Stone legend of Ōfunato is indicative of a larger phenomenon: despite Japan’s westernization, modernization, and, arguably necessary, specialization in seismology, folk and religious explanations and conceptions of natural disasters persist to the present day. While there is not much scholarship regarding folk beliefs about natural disasters in Japan, the intellectual historian Gregory Smits, whose recent research focuses on earthquakes and the development of seismology in early modern and modern Japan, has incorporated folk and religious beliefs into his work. Smits examines the persistence of Japanese belief in precursors to earthquakes, which he shows has had a profound effect on Japanese seismology, leading to the investment of both money and time to find a way to predict earthquakes. As part of his larger argument that the government and seismologists should focus on earthquake mitigation rather than prediction, Smits blames the focus on prediction techniques in part on “a lack of historical perspective” on folk explanations of natural disasters and their continued influence on Japanese seismology.5 However, while

Smits’ call for increased research in mitigation is well argued, I seek to ask a different type of question: why, despite modern understandings of natural disasters, do folk explanations and conceptions still persist?

Argument

This study argues that the persistence of and beliefs about natural disasters into the present day is due in part to their emotional function, in that they

5 Gregory Smits, When The Earth Roars, 5. 3 render an unpredictable world patterned, predictable, and meaningful. Smits, once again writing on earthquake beliefs and literature of the early modern period actually keys into the emotional aspect of these cultural forms writing that, “earthquake literature often addressed a wide range of emotions and fears, often in the name of edification that promoted social resilience.”6 However, he still chooses to emphasize the development of

“rational” and “mechanical” explanations of earthquakes during the early modern period, which would lead to the adoption of western scientific methods. By focusing on the larger continuities in folk and religious beliefs about natural disasters in general, this study will show that emotional reassurance is not only facilitated by the scientific rationalization of nature, but in predictions, interactions, and as well. In this cultural framework fulfilled omens of disaster indicated the human ability to foretell and read the natural environment. Periods of relative stability and peace in regards to disasters proved that preventative were efficacious. Stories of the heroics of everyday Japanese during disasters not only reassured others of the ability of humans to confront nature, but also provided moral templates of appropriate .

Similar to modern science, which reassures us that we are prepared to explain and react to natural disasters rationally, folk beliefs and narratives reassured pre-modern, early modern, and continue to assure present day Japanese that they are culturally, religiously, and even morally prepared to deal with natural disasters.

Analyzing folk beliefs about natural disaster through the lens of emotion offers a new perspective to the study of history. In particular emotion as a subject of study widens the research possibilities in regards to the topics of the environment and science. It is

6 Bruce L. Batten and Philip C. Brown, eds. Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present (Oregon, Oregon State University Press, 2015), 112. 4 particularly useful for expanding the possibilities of environmental history and history of science and technology, in that it not only adds a dimension to the current body of scholarship, but also often allows for the questioning of dichotomies in these fields such as traditional and modern, or science and belief. Instead underlying similarities in emotion allow the researcher to find commonalities and continuities in seemingly opposite time periods or worldviews.

I provide evidence of the continued importance of folk belief and in understanding natural disasters due to emotional function in large part by examining the popular tsunami folktale “The Rice Bale Fire,” (Inamura no hi). While the tale was based on the real-life actions of Hamaguchi Goryō during the Ansei Nankai Earthquake and

Tsunami of 1854, I will show that the author Nakai Tsunezo chose to retain the moral message of the tale rather than produce an accurate and/or scientific depiction of the disaster event. By focusing on the moral aspects of Hamaguchi’s actions “The Rice Bale” serves the emotional function of reassuring those who read it that catastrophic natural disasters can be dealt with by human actions, and also provides an example of how to morally conduct oneself during a disaster.7

Part of a larger cultural system of Japanese folk narratives, religious ideas, and beliefs that humanize, moralize, and ultimately normalize natural disasters, “The Rice

Bale Fire” provides a window into the many cultural definitions of the natural environment one can find in Japan throughout history. Natural disasters are a particularly rich subject for examining cultural ideas about the natural environment due to the fact that natural events such as earthquakes, tsunami, floods, volcanic eruptions etc. are not

7 Smits, When the Earth Roars, 27, 48-54. 5 considered to be “disasters” in and of themselves by disaster studies scholars, being merely natural mechanisms of the environment, but are defined as such when they impact human populations negatively.8 This points to the culturally constructed nature of natural disasters as human events. Indeed due to their disruptive nature the circumstances of disasters often give various social actors the opportunity to inscribe meaning upon the occurrence to further their individual agendas.9 However, mixed in with the opportunity to argue for reform or other social agendas, the reality of human loss and suffering remains, themes which consistently underlie folklore and beliefs about natural disasters, making narrative and belief important sites to investigate how Japanese emotionally cope with the environment through cultural means.

Place in Japanese Studies

As stated above, there is no previous study in English that takes a similar interdisciplinary approach as well as attempts to study a similar breadth (both thematically and chronologically) of Japanese natural disaster folklore, but this work can be situated among any number of disciplines and subjects ranging from environmental history, disaster studies, to even the study of trauma within folklore. This research was aided by the existing scholarship of a number of key historians and folklorists of Japan whose work is worth mentioning in the context of this thesis.

Scholars in the field of Japanese history have greatly informed the chronological aspects of this thesis. Primarily relevant have been the works of Gregory Smits and

Gennifer Weisenfeld who deal with intellectual conceptions and cultural depictions of

8 Gregory Smits, Seismic Japan: The Long History and Continuing Legacy of the Ansei Edo Earthquake (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013), 8. 9 Gennifer S. Weisenfeld, Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual ’s Great Earthquake of 1923. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), x. 6 earthquakes in the early modern and modern eras. In particular Smits’ work in his monographs Seismic Japan: The Long History and Continuing Legacy of the Ansei Edo

Earthquake and When the Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in

Japan as well as his chapter entitled “Earthquakes as Social Drama” in Environment and

Society in the Japanese Islands, sheds light on the impact of folklore on popular and academic conceptions during the early modern and modern periods, but also leaves room for an exploration of the affective functions of natural disaster folklore.10 Weisenfeld’s expert analysis of artistic depictions of earthquakes during the modern era in Imaging

Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923, especially the complexity of competing viewpoints that inscribed meaning on the disasters, greatly influenced this study.11 In addition Gerald Figal’s Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of

Modernity in Japan, although it only touches briefly on supernatural folk beliefs of earthquakes, was helpful in its detailing of how folk belief and the supernatural was used in defining Japanese modernity during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods.12

Another work influential to this study has been Brett Walker’s The Lost Wolves of Japan, in which emotion was used as an analytical tool to write an environmental history of the extinction of the Japanese wolf.13

Folklorists of Japan have also contributed to how this study analyzes belief and popular about the environment. Cornelis Ouwehand and Miyata Noboru, who each published works on the phenomenon of Catfish prints, which symbolized and

10 Batten and Brown, eds. Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands, Gregory Smits, When The Earth Roars, Gregory Smits, Seismic Japan. 11 Gennifer S. Weisenfeld, Imaging Disaster, 7-11. 12 Gerald Figal, Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). 13 Brett Walker, The Lost Wolves of Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 9, 12, 18-19. 7 depicted early modern earthquakes, have provided a large informational base for this study.14 In addition, the works of Japanese folklorist Michael Dylan Foster, especially his article “Haunting Modernity: Tanuki, Trains, and Transformation in Japan,” which deals with the subjects of supernatural folklore, modernization, emotion, and the natural environment in Japan have been foundational in shaping how this thesis approaches the aforementioned issues throughout Japanese history.15

Broader Significance

This research also more broadly implies that societies and cultures around the globe use existing cultural schema such as folklore and belief to define and cope with large scale cultural trauma. The search for the emotional function of such cultural forms in reaction to typhoons in Taiwan, blizzards in Siberia, or even in events of national tragedies like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or 9/11 in America, would offer compelling insights into the culturally specific as well as universal aspects of how humans use culture to cope with large scale social trauma. Scholars have noted many similarities between the natural disaster folklore of various cultures, which has sparked comparative studies of disaster beliefs.16 One potentially universal aspect of coping with collective trauma that is particularly relevant to this study is the importance of narratives,

14 Miyata Noboru, Takada Mamoru eds., -e: Shinsai to nihon bunka (Tokyo: Ribun Shuppan, 1995). Cornelis Ouwehand, Namazu-e and Their Themes: An Interpretive Approach to Some Aspects of Japanese (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964). 15 Michael Dylan Foster “Haunting Modernity: Tanuki, Trains, and Transformation in Japan” Asian Ethnology 71 (2012): 3-29. 16 For an example of one such study see, “Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan,” which compares the earthquake and tsunami folklore of Japan and the Cascadia region of North America, and finds many similarities. Ruth S. Ludwin, Gregory J. Smits, D. Carver, K. James, C. Jonientz-Trisler, A.D. McMillan, R. Losey, R. Dennis, J. Rasmussen, A. De Los Angeles, D. Buerge, C.P. Thrush, J. Clague, J. Bowechop, J. Wray, “Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan.” In and Geology editied by L. Piccardi and W.B. Masse, (London: Geological Society, 2007), 67-94. 8 especially narratives that deal with belief. Although some scholars, similar to Smits, have decried folk beliefs as potentially harmful and detrimental to those that live according to them, Pat Mullen argues that belief plays an important role in disaster narratives.17 The relationship between belief and disaster is reciprocal; how one views and portrays disasters are based on one’s beliefs, and disasters also have the power to shape and influence belief. People often develop opinions about beliefs, whether they believe, disagree, or are skeptical. Perhaps because belief is experienced at a deep level, disaster narratives that are shaped by and shape beliefs are natural tools for portraying and expressing emotion. Carl Lindahl’s work on Hurricane Katrina refugees sharing of disaster narratives based on their system of indicates the important therapeutic function of narrative in coping with disaster.18

Methodologies

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this research, this thesis employs approaches from numerous fields. Here I will outline the three main methodologies that will be used to analyze natural disaster folklore throughout Japanese history. These methods are drawn from the fields of folklore, affect studies, and history. I will explain folk belief, and folk religion, as analytical categories, the concept of emotional practices from affect studies, and a specific periodization of pre-modern, early modern, and modern in its examination of Japanese natural disaster folklore.

17 Patrick B Mullen, “Belief and the American Folk,” The Journal of American Folklore 113, No. 448 (2000): 125-126. 18 Carl Lindahl, “ of Hurricane Katrina: The Right to Be Wrong, Survivor-to-Survivor , and Healing,” The Journal of American Folklore 125 (2012): 139-176. 9 Folklore, Folk Belief, and Folk Religion as Analytical Categories

This study makes use of the analytical categories of Japanese folktale, folk religion, and folk belief in its examination of natural disaster folklore. The use of modern western analytical categories by academics who study the (both western and non- western) past can be seen as an of translation of past realities into western terms, one akin to and requiring similar cultural contextualization as, translating between languages like Japanese and English. 19 Some scholars such as Greg Anderson in his paper

“Retrieving the Lost Worlds of the Past: The Case for an Ontological Turn,” argue that this translation of the past into modern analytical categories is “historicist imperialism,” robbing past cultures of their self-determined categories and conceptions of reality.20

Instead Anderson argues for the meticulous definition of academic categories within a specific cultural context, and abandoning them in situations where western categories would be unrecognizable to the people of the time (in Anderson’s example ‘religion’ to ancient Athenians). 21 However Anderson admits that this method of “translating historical realities” without using western analytical categories does make it difficult to recognize certain general continuities and commonalities in the human experience despite a myriad of terminologies and historical understandings of the world, rendering comparative analysis, even between time periods in similar regions, difficult.22 In

19 Greg Anderson, “Retrieving the Lost Worlds of the Past: The Case for an Ontological Turn,” (lecture at OSU Political Theory Workshop, Columbus, OH, September 29, 2014), 1. 20 Anderson, 22. For a similar challenge to essentialist definitions of religion in favor of historical definitions see Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), which uses Judaism to illustrate the importance of understanding religions in their historical context. 21 Ibid., 4-5. 22 Ibid., 35-36. 10 addition trying to write history without modern terminology may also hinder readability for readers.

This paper argues, in contrast, for the continued utility of western analytical terminology through its use of the terms Japanese folklore, folk religion, and folk belief.

However, in the spirit of Anderson’s main concern, these terms will be carefully defined so as to avoid unduly distorting the historical realities of Japan. Much like the term religion, folklore and who constitute “the folk” are analytical categories that have been debated. For some, especially those who use “folk” and “folklore” colloquially, it evokes traditional fairytales and stories of the supernatural, a connotation that has its roots in the earliest conceptions of folklore; when it was studied in certain European countries as a way to “rediscover” an ethnicity’s traditions amongst the common people as part of the highly modern project of nation building.23 The academic field of folklore has moved beyond this initial conception of folklore to study subjects such as on college campuses, and traditions in office settings or “occupational folklore,” thus rendering college students, professors, and office workers as “the folk.” The prominent folklorist

Alan Dundes perhaps gives the broadest and most inclusive definition of folklore as any shared within a “folk group,” which could be as few as two people..24

While there was indeed an indigenous understanding of who the folk were and what traditional Japan was during the early modern period in “Native Studies” and later in the academic minzokugaku (Folkloristics), which was similar to contemporaneous

23 Dundes, Alan. “Who Are the Folk?” In Essays in Folkloristics, (New Dehli: Folklore Institute, 1978), 1. For more information on Tokugawa-era native studies see “ and Native Studies: Overview” in James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, John C. Maraldo, eds., Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2011), 457-465. For a discussion of folklore’s general ties to romantic nationalism see William A. Wilson, “Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism,” The Journal of Popular Culture 6 (Spring 1973): 819-835. 24 Dundes, 14. 11 nationalist folk studies in Europe, the conception of “folk” as used in this paper in the terms Japanese folklore, folk religion, and folk belief falls somewhere between the initial and somewhat romantic definition of folklore and ’ broad and inclusive definition. There has been debate as to whether “folk belief” is a loaded academic term, with some folklorists treating such beliefs as “pathological” from a scientific rationalist perspective. Others exoticized folk beliefs and by extension believers and portrayed them in romantic modes as quaint and close to nature.25 Likewise Leonard Primiano has questioned the appropriateness of the term “folk religion,” arguing that it inherently implies a hierarchical dichotomy between upper class “organized/official” religion and lower class “unorganized/unofficial” religion.26 It is likely that many did/do not want to recognize “folk” beliefs as being religion. Instead Primiano prefers the term “vernacular religion” stating that it avoids the hierarchical implications of “folk religion” and gets at the private and creative aspects of what he calls the “lived” religious practice of individuals. However this study argues for the continued use of folk belief and religion that does not emphasize the naivety of the Japanese. Instead folk methods of knowing and believing are conceived, not hierarchically, but as part of a spectrum of popular and institutional religious beliefs and practices with no clearly delineated boundaries.

Essentially this study approaches folklore, folk religion, and folk belief as ways to analyze stories, religious culture, and beliefs of early modern Japan that are not explicitly connected with institutional religion or thought, and instead are communally shared amongst individual Japanese informally through anonymous oral transmission and/or the

25 Mullen, 119-121. 26 Leonard Norman Primiano, “Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife,” Western Folklore 54 (1995): 38-40. 12 budding media culture of the Tokugawa (1603-1868) and Meiji Eras (1868-1912). That is to say that this study does not look at sources directly linked with any religious institution, philosophical school, or great thinker of the early modern era in Japan; instead, it examines the wider cultural milieu of popular beliefs about natural disasters. In many ways this conception of Japanese folklore, folk religion, and folk belief, mirrors those used by Ichiro Hori during his contribution to the Haskell Lecture series at

University of Chicago, where he sought to distinguish the features of Japanese folk religion from institutional .27

Emotions as Cultural Practices

Emotion is central to this study’s main thesis and examination of Japanese natural disaster folklore and how it is approached throughout the analysis below is greatly informed by the field of affect studies. 28 In an effort to examine the emotional content and function of Japanese disaster folklore in an accessible manner this study will employ a theorization of affect that conceives of emotions as actions which have their origins in

“bodily dispositions” and are conditioned by socio-cultural contexts.29 In other words emotions are not just mental abstractions, but physical phenomena that are interpreted

27 For a more in-depth discussion of Hori’s conception of these features see Chapter 1: Main Features of Japanese Folk Religion in Japan in Ichiro Hori, Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 1-48. 28 Although the study of affect, especially in the humanities, has its roots in both biology and philosophy and was pioneered by scholars in queer studies such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, when broadly defined it includes disciplines and subjects as diverse as neuroscience, cybernetics, non-Cartesian philosophy, psychology, as well as critical discourses and histories of emotions. This list is an abbreviated sample of the wide range possibilities of affect theory outlined in Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg’s The Affect Theory Reader in which they “tentatively” lay out eight main orientations of affect studies. Seigworth and Gregg The Affect Theory Reader, 5-7. 29 Monique Scheer, “Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (And is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion,” History and Theory 51 (2012): 193. 13 and acted out by creatively using existing cultural frameworks.30 The idea of “emotional practices” used below is based mainly on Monique Scheer’s theorization in which she uses Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus to conceive of the body, and thus the actions that arise from it, as not “static, timeless and universal,” but rather culturally contextualized, trained, and pliable.31 By recognizing the possibility of historical changes in the body and its habits historians can then better examine the two sides of emotion, the mental/internal experience (which has already drawn the attention of historians due to its culturally constructed and language-like nature) and the bodily/external expression.32 Ultimately the ability to deal with internal is the true strength of using this theoretical framework for looking at natural disaster folklore, in that it allows the historian to use folktales and beliefs as more than expressions of an ideology or worldview, but also as sources that portray and allow us to glimpse the genuine emotional experiences and the internal lives of historical Japanese.33 Just because their portrayal may be stylized and “fictionalized” it does not falsify the experience. Experience is often enhanced or modified as a means to gain the attention and highlight certain details importance over others.34

In order to examine the internal lives of historical Japanese, disaster folklore and beliefs will be analyzed on two levels; as source material that depict emotional practices as well as cultural tools used in potential emotional practices. The first theoretical orientation is relatively straightforward and deals with the emotional content and themes found within disaster folklore. Essentially the description and depiction of emotional

30 Scheer, 194-196. 31 Scheer,193. 32 Scheer,193, 195-196. 33 Scheer,193. For more on affect theory’s strength for examining everyday internal life see Seigworth and Gregg, 20. 34 Mullen,137. 14 practices within “Inamura no hi” and other disaster folktales will be analyzed as a way to examine which emotional responses and actions were deemed and portrayed as appropriate/moral (as well as inappropriate/immoral) in the social context of natural disasters. The second level of analysis will analyze how the writing, rewriting, and reading of these natural disaster folk texts are emotional practices in and of themselves with long-term emotional impacts for those that create or come into contact with them.

Periodization

This study examines the thematic and functional continuities of Japanese natural disaster folklore through the pre-modern, early modern, and modern eras, and uses the tsunami folktale “The Rice Bale Fire” (based on an early modern event that was dramatized during the modern era) as a case study. While it is easy take accepted periodization for granted, the categorization of time is actually an analytical framework that underlies the writing of history. I will attempt to highlight periodization in this study, especially the idea of “early modernity.” Although most historians consider pre-modern as including the early modern period, this study treats it as a separate and distinct moment in Japanese history, as a way to analyze the meeting of “traditional” Japan with the

“modern” west, and question the true nature of tradition and modernity.

Additionally, while this study focuses on continuity to make its main argument, highlighting periodization also allows for the analysis of important historical changes and their effect on natural disaster folklore. Various methods of expression, circulation, and creation developed around the thematic and functional continuities described in the following chapters. The steady development in complexity of natural disaster folklore

15 from pre-modern literature to the modern iteration of “The Rice Bale Fire” can be attributed to the mixing of various belief systems as well as the increasing influence of economic, artistic, and political factors in early modern and modern Japan. By the time

“The Rice Bale Fire” appeared in wartime textbooks it could be read as a secular tale about disaster mitigation with nationalist undertones. The accumulated complexity obfuscates the folk religious origins of the tale’s themes and similarities to earlier disaster folktales. However by focusing on the long term historical development of natural disaster folklore, this study shows the powerful underlying continuities amidst complex change.

For the purposes of this study pre-modern Japan refers to the period of recorded history before the beginning of the Edo-Period in 1603 C.E. Early modern Japan is essentially analogous to the Edo-Period when the Tokugawa shogunate had consolidated political power and was located in Edo (modern day Tokyo) from 1603 C.E. to 1868

C.E.. The period is characterized by the development of mass media and urban culture in addition to increased commercialization, population and literacy, which was achieved before the political organization of Japan as a modern nation-state or large-scale adoption of industrial technology. The modern era of Japanese history begins with the Meiji

Restoration of 1868 and continues to present day and marks the period where Japan organized itself as a nation-state, utilized science and industrial technology, and built infrastructure (such as the railroad etc.).

By looking at long-term continuities of folklore, which is, at least colloquially, conceived of as traditional or pre-modern/non-modern knowledge/ways of knowing, this study inherently questions the accepted narrative (grand narrative) of the modern being a

16 departure from the pre-modern. In addition, by looking at the region of Japan, this thesis will examine the particularities of Japanese modernity, and the question of whether or not there is one universal standard of “modernity” or multiple modernities, each with their unique inflections and expressions. To this end the great bulk of the study will focus on early modern Japan as a transition period in history that, despite modernization and the influx of western attitudes and idea, also fostered the continuity of “traditional” folk religious beliefs about natural disasters. Ultimately through the examination of the emotional themes and functions of Japanese natural disaster folklore this study will seek to problematize what is “Japanese” about modernity in Japan as well as the widely accepted dichotomies of pre-modern, modern and folk explanation and science.

Summary

This study examines the emotional function of Japanese folklore and beliefs about natural disasters in the early modern and modern periods, using the case study of “The

Rice Bale Fire” to illustrate larger continuities in thematic content and form. The second and third chapter will broadly describe the larger historical continuity of beliefs about natural disaster, of which “The Rice Bale Fire” is a part, stretching from the pre-modern through the early modern, and into the modern era. Specifically the second chapter looks at the thematic and formulaic presentation of natural disasters and natural disaster beliefs in the pre-modern works of literature Hōjōki and Heike . I argue that the creation and performance of literature itself was an emotional practice for pre-modern

Japanese. The third chapter examines the beliefs connected to and depicted in catfish prints (namazu-e), which became popular following the Ansei Edo earthquake (1855) in early modern Japan. In addition to showing continuities in and form of natural

17 disaster beliefs, catfish prints show the importance of humor in coping with natural disaster. The fourth chapter will look at the development and emotional functions of “The

Rice Bale Fire” as a disaster narrative in depth and compare it to disaster tales with similar moral overtones in Ansei Record (Ansei Kenmonroku), a chronicle detailing the events of the 1855 Ansei Edo earthquake. I will then analyze these tales using the theory of “emotional practice.”

18

CHAPTER 2: Defining Disaster in Pre-Modern Japan: The Emotional Functions of

Religious and Folk Beliefs About Disasters in Literature

Introduction

When natural disasters strike it is often with little or no notice. This lack of warning is then compounded by the awesome power of the event itself, be it the earth shaking, inundation by water, or consuming flames, often resulting in the destruction of human infrastructure and death. The aftermath of such disasters as well as the threat of future ones not only causes economic and material strain, but emotional stress as well.

How have humans throughout history dealt with this stress brought on by the sometimes chaotic and unpredictable natural environment? This question is especially interesting when one considers the time period before the advent of the modern day fields of seismology, cosmology, and volcanology, which seek to explain such intense phenomena in scientific terms. Instead pre-modern peoples looked to religious and folkloric belief for explanations of natural disasters. While these explanations were often inaccurate by the standards of modern science, the very act of defining the natural environment in understandable and relatable terms performed powerful emotional functions, so much so that modern people, even in the west continue to look to religion and folklore for disasters’ meaning. Studying pre-modern and early modern beliefs about the environment allows us to see how humans use the creation of meaning to craft a more understandable and predictable environment, ultimately gaining, however small, a sense of security in

19 that knowledge. Understanding the function of these “superstitious” beliefs about the environment throughout human history can then help one explain their persistence in spite of modern science without dismissing them as backward. In fact scientific as well as supernatural explanations of the natural environment can be seen as fulfilling similar emotional functions, in that they both render the chaotic and unpredictable world in more familiar, patterned, predictable, and ultimately meaningful ways.35

Often subjected to many different kinds of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunami, Japan offers an interesting case study in answering the larger question of what sort of functions religious and folkloric beliefs about the environment have performed throughout world history. The modernization and westernization of Japan during the Tokugawa-Meiji transition is especially interesting in that despite the development of modern science, perceptions and of natural disasters displayed incredible similarities to more “superstitious” pre-modern ones. Before looking more closely at the development of early modern representations of and beliefs about seismic events from the Late to the Kanto Earthquake of

1923 during the Taisho era, it is important to understand the pre-modern legacy that led to them. Using pre-modern literary sources such as Hōjōki and Heike monogatari this chapter explores major themes in beliefs about and depictions of natural disasters before the introduction of modern western science. In addition to a stylistic emphasis on eyewitness accounts of disasters and belief in the efficacy of prediction, this study finds that that pre-modern Japanese believed that human morality and the environment had a

35 For a similar formulation see Gerald Figal’s Civilization and Monsters in which he argues that instead of seeing the competition between science and folk knowledge as a battle between truth and , it should be viewed as a competition between two modes of observing the world. Figal, Civilization and Monsters, 155. 20 reciprocal cause and effect relationship; human immorality could prompt natural disasters, natural disasters could correct moral or social wrongs, and rituals could prevent future disasters. This all indicates a belief that humans, and the natural and supernatural worlds were all closely connected. However Japan was far from the romantic picture of a pre-modern culture more “in-touch” with nature and spirituality. Instead the analysis of natural disaster belief through the lens of emotion reveals that much like modern societies pre-modern Japanese experienced great anxiety due to the environment. In order to cope with the threat of disaster they strove to understand, define, and influence a powerful and ultimately unpredictable environment.

The Seismic of the

Numerous Japanese as well as Western scholars have characterized Japan as an

“Earthquake Country,” and the most seismically active in the world. However, when looking at a number of different modern metrics such as frequency of earthquakes and/or yearly death toll due to earthquakes other countries such as Iran and are shown to be just as if not more prone to earthquake disasters. Nevertheless, the fact remains that

Japan is a country located in one of the most seismically active regions of the world and its history has been shaped by seismic events like earthquakes and tsunami.36

The Japanese archipelago is located on four or five tectonic plates, two of which are oceanic subduction plates that make the region particularly vulnerable to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunami (seismic sea waves).37 The subduction zones of the

Pacific Plate and the Philippine Plate which both are being dragged down underneath the

36 Smits, When the Earth Roars, 8. 37 Gina L. Barnes in Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands gives four to five tectonic plates whereas Smits in When the Earth Roars cites four as being underneath the archipelago. Batten & Brown, 34. Smits, When the Earth Roars, 5. 21 edge of the islands which sit on the conjoined North American and Eurasian plates provide the greatest opportunity for disastrous seismic events. The constant sliding of these plates under the North American and Eurasian plates causes small daily earthquakes; it is when this sliding is inhibited that the Pacific or Philippine plate becomes compressed. This compression leads to a build up of energy that when let out in a single burst is considered a mega-thrust earthquake event. Events like these are often around Magnitude 7.0 or above and can produce deadly tsunami.38 Thus the geological particularities of Japan’s geographic location has not only made small earthquakes a daily occurrence throughout its history, but also subjected the archipelago to violent large-scale seismic events.

The Depiction of Natural Disasters in Hōjōki

Literature is an important source for pre-modern representations of and beliefs about seismic events and other natural disasters. The narrative content and style of literature sources like the Hōjōki and Heike monogatari not only provide representations of and beliefs about seismic events, but historical beliefs about the function of literature also offers insights into how Japanese conceived of human’s interaction with the environment in regards to natural disasters.

The Hōjōki is a memoir written in 1212 by Kamo no Chōmei about the series of events in his life leading up to and his experience living as a hermit in a hut in the mountains at Hino. Beyond being a memoir, Hōjōki is also a Buddhist essay on the impermanence of all things and futile nature of attachment. Salient to a discussion of pre- modern Japanese beliefs about and representations of natural disasters is Chōmei’s

38 Batten & Brown, 35. 22 description, in some extant versions of the Hōjōki, of five calamities he witnessed during his time in the capital.39

Before Chōmei forsook life in the imperial capital for his ten foot hut modeled after the Bodhisattva Vimilikirti’s, he experienced five calamities that befell the city that he would record in Hōjōki: a fire, a whirlwind/tornado, the moving of the capital, a famine, and an earthquake. Interestingly the human caused calamity (in Chōmei’s eyes) of moving the capital is listed among the four natural disasters. This lack of distinction between human caused disasters and natural disasters is actually based in the Buddhist thought that all disasters were linked to human immorality and thus were all “caused” by humans.40 It is also possible that the Confucian idea of “moral meteorology” from China, in which the cruelty and immorality rulers and officials caused natural disasters, had arrived in Japan to influence Chōmei’s understanding of natural disasters. Once again we see a distinctly causal relationship between human (moral) action and disaster.41 In fact these beliefs are oddly similar to the modern understanding that would be no such thing as “natural disasters” if they did not affect humans in someway, in many ways there are only man-made (whether through cause or definition) natural disasters.42 Urban areas highlight this human culpability. While not caused directly by human morality, many disasters throughout history have been determined by how humans designed and where

39 Thomas Blenman Hare, “Reading Kamo no Chōmei,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49 (1989), 188. 40 Weisenfeld, 16. 41 For more on Confucian moral meteorology see: Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 414-436. 42 Ibid.,15-16. 23 they placed their settlements. Even Chōmei questions why anyone would build their dwelling in a place as dangerous as the capital.43

Natural disasters were then, in the pre-modern Japanese Buddhist conception, morally caused and charged events.44 Chōmei in accordance with the Buddhist thought that human immorality led to calamitous events, attributes these disasters as being the evidence of the decadence of the “Latter Days of the Buddhist Law,” (mappō). These

“Latter Days” were believed to be a ten thousand year period during which humans could no longer fully comprehend Buddhist teachings and thus the world would fall into immorality and discord. Many pre-modern Japanese believed this age had begun in 1052

C.E. and would culminate in the coming of Amida Buddha. In addition to being caused by immorality natural disasters were also believed to have a profound effect on human morality, in that they were a purifying force evidenced by the line, “immediately after the event people all talked about the meaninglessness of life and seemed somewhat more free from spiritual impurity than usual.”45 In early modern time natural disasters, especially seismic events would continue to be seen as morally charged, although with distinctly socio-economic implications.

In order to serve his larger purpose of illustrating the transient nature of life,

Chōmei’s descriptions of the disasters focus especially on human suffering and indiscriminate damage to the dwellings of both the rich and poor. In his description of the fire in 1777, he recounts how some died instantly from the flames, while others fell

43 Helen Craig McCullough, ed., Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 382. 44 Ibid., 13. 45 Helen Craig McCullough, trans. The Tale of the Heike, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 386. Kamo no Chomei, Hojoki Goshu, Ed. Matsuura Teishun, (Tokyo: Koten Bunko, 1947), 78. 24 victim to the smoke, counting “dozens” of men and women that died in addition to

“innumerable horses and oxen.” Chōmei also mentions that while some escaped with their lives, their belongings had turned to ashes and laments at how much property was lost.46 His description of the famine is perhaps filled with the most graphic depictions of human suffering, describing a population pushed to the limit where even people of “quite respectable appearance” begged and corpses rotted in the open without any way to dispose of them. Again Chōmei also focuses on the material toll of the disaster and tells of people disassembling houses as well as more revered structures like temples for firewood.47 However, despite the horrors of the famine Chōmei describes the earthquake as “the most terrible of all terrible things,” describing violent shaking that changed the landscape itself. Neither human nor structure was safe from the event and their fates seemed to be tied as Chōmei recounts how many victims were crushed by their own falling dwellings.48 The description of disaster in Hōjōki is relatively graphic in its description of both human and material damage.

Another salient aspect of this section of Hōjōki is the stylistic presentation of the five calamities as eyewitness disaster narratives. Although the extent to which the Hōjōki is literary artifice and whether or not Chōmei actually witnessed each of these events has been debated, the fact that Chōmei chose to present them as a first hand experience is interesting.49 In Classical Japanese verbs are often connected with inflecting auxiliary words that create phrases with nuanced meaning. Using this linguistic knowledge, one can interpret this part of the Hōjōki as a first hand account due to Chōmei’s frequent use

46 McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose, 380-382. 47 Ibid., 384-385. 48 Ibid., 385-386. 49 Hare, “Reading Kamo no Chōmei.” 25 of the auxillary word “ki,” to frame his description of these disasters.50 In Classical

Japanese ki is an auxiliary that expresses established fact as opposed to the related auxiliary “keri,” which indicated externally established fact. Essentially ki can be taken to indicate that the writer experienced the event he/she is presenting first hand, whereas keri indicates something that has happened outside of their personal experience, but is taken to be true. Keri is often translated in modern Japanese as hearsay using the grammatical construction “…sō da.” It is obvious that Chōmei valued a personal presentation of the disasters, whether or not he actually witnessed them, over simply reporting them as news.

While it may merely be an evocative choice of the author, or because he truly did witness these events with his own eyes, it is obviously a powerful rhetorical tool. While disasters have also been described as second hand accounts, the presentation of disaster narratives as personal anecdotes in the similar vein of Chōmei’s Hōjōki can be seen throughout

Japanese history.

Heike Monogatari and the Role of Vengeful Spirits in Natural Disaster

Another literary work in which disasters as well as belief about disasters are presented is Heike Monogatari. Classified as a war tale (gunkimono) Heike Monogatari presents the rise and fall of the Taira warrior clan and their leader Taira no Kiyomori. Set during the late years of the and the Genpei War (1180-1185) the story ends with the Taira’s rivals, the Minamoto, eradicating them. Like Hōjōki, Heike Monogatari incorporates the Buddhist themes of the Latter Days of the Law and the impermanence of all things into this military tale, functioning on one level as a didactic text.51 The disasters and upheaval in the Heike Monogatari were thus seen as indicators of these Latter Days

50 Chōmei, 70-72, 74, 77. 51 McCullough, The Tale of The Heike, 471-473. 26 and the inherent inability of humans to act morally due to an inability to understand the

Buddhist scriptures. However, Heike Monogatari also presents more specific supernatural causes of disasters.

Beyond the general discord brought about by the moral degeneracy of the Latter

Days, spirits of humans who were wronged in life, killed horrifically (like in battle), or not mourned or interred correctly were known as vengeful (onryō); they were supernatural beings that were believed to pose very real physical danger to humans through various means.52 One of the most illustrative instances of the danger of vengeful ghosts comes at beginning of the third book of Heike Monogatari. In the narrative

Kenreimon’in, Taira no Kiyomori’s daughter and wife of the emperor, becomes ill while pregnant with the future emperor Antoku. While a modern reader could interpret this in medical terms as natural complications or even acute morning sickness, within the story the Taira are convinced that the sickness derives from the malevolence of vengeful spirits. It is found through the use of spiritual mediums that a number of vengeful spirits are invading her body and causing her harm.53 Among them is listed Major-Counselor

Narichika, a man whose execution Kiyomori ordered due to his involvement in an anti-

Taira rebellion . In this we see Narichika manifested as a taking vengeance on someone related to Kiyomori, the orchestrator of his death. This displays a very focused physical attack of onryō, but pre-modern Japanese also believed these vengeful spirits had sway on the environment itself.

52 Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai (Berkley: University of California Press, 2009), 5-7. 53 Interestingly, living people (the Kikai-ga-shima exiles) are also listed among the vengeful spirits possessing Kenreimon’in, indicating that there was a belief that even the living, if provoked enough, could somehow exert spiritual power as ghosts and cause harm. McCullough, The Tale of the Heike, 97. 27 Many types of natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and even earthquakes were considered to be the work of vengeful spirits.54 Heike Mongatari presents some of the same disasters that Chōmei discusses in the Hōjōki, but attributes them to spirits rather than the more general state of moral affairs. The account of the whirlwind that hit the capital comes directly after a discussion of the bad karma accumulated by the Taira due to the their causing a great amount of human suffering through their rule.55 This is no coincidence and although no specific vengeful spirit is named, the whirlwind is not only foreshadowing the Taira’s imminent decline, but also results from wronging the dead.

The connection is more explicit in the treatment of the earthquake, which occurred after almost all the major members of the Taira had been killed and the

Minamoto had triumphed. The particular ways in which the Taira died and/or were humiliated before their death are mentioned within the passage, such as the drowning of the boy emperor Antoku, who was Kiyomori’s grandson, as well as the parading of high- ranking Taira through the streets of the capital before their subsequent executions.56 Thus this earthquake was seen as the Taira’s vengeance on the victorious Minamoto, who despite their victory over the Taira in life, were very anxious about their rivals’ power in death. It is interesting that one of the realms these vengeful ghosts were believed to have had power over is the environment and illustrates again the belief that natural disasters were very much linked with human actions, even human actions beyond the grave.

54 Herbert Plutschow, Chaos and Cosmos: Ritual in Early and Medieval , (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 204. 55 McCullough, The Tale of the Heike,115. 56 Ibid., 401-402. 28 Another belief about natural disasters in Japan on display in Heike monogatari, is their connection with prediction. In the case of the whirlwind, while the event itself was not predicted, after its occurrence a “mantic ceremony was performed by the Department of Shrines” and the natural disaster itself was deemed a supernatural precursor of future calamity.57 Likewise the episode of the earthquake shows that after the earthquake

Astrologers were quick to predict another large earthquake between the Hour of the Boar and the Hour of the Rat.58 Although the narrative does not detail how the astrologers predicted another earthquake, it was believed that human immorality, in addition to causing natural disaster, also distorted the heavens and abnormalities of the sun, moon, or stars could be read as precursors of disaster.59 The connection between modes of religious/folk belief and the prediction of natural disasters has been studied by scholars who have shown that the belief that natural disasters could be predicted through various means greatly influenced the development of seismology in Japan.60 For the purpose of this study it is meaningful to show this focus on prediction was not only present in early modern or modern Japan, but also had a deep pre-modern legacy. Prediction of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami also appears as a theme in various beliefs about natural disaster in the early modern period. This human predilection to try to predict natural disasters can be seen as an effort to render the chaotic and ultimately unpredictable natural environment more orderly. Part of the stress that comes with natural disasters is their suddenness -- believing that they can be predicted is thus a strategy

57 Ibid., 115. 58 Ibid., 402. 59 Smits, Seismic Japan, 40. 60 Smits, When the Earth Roars. 29 common throughout history to cope with these events by making the time of their occurrence something knowable.

It is not only the content of Japanese literature, but also its perceived purpose and function, that offers a view into pre-modern beliefs about the dynamic relationship between man and the natural environment. Literature in pre-modern Japan was not only read, but many types of writing were also performed.61 When combined with music in particular many performed forms of literature took on ritualistic as well as entertainment functions.

There are many different versions of Heike monogatari, each version falling into one of two broad categories: books to be read (yomihon) and books to be performed

(kataribon). Itinerant, and supposedly blind, monks employed the latter and sang passages from the tale to the accompaniment of a lute-like instrument called the biwa.

These performances became incredibly popular during medieval Japan and could be seen as entertainment in the marketplace or as a ritual sponsored by the shogunate. The pervasiveness of these performances has even led some scholars to see performed versions of Heike monogatari as being the first “national literature” of Japan.62

Given the Minamoto victory, as well as each subsequent shogun claiming, however tenuously, descent from them, it might seem odd to the outside observer that a military about the Taira would become so popular. It is especially intriguing since certain members of the Taira are portrayed so nobly throughout the work, something, one would think, that the Minamoto would not be particularly interested in preserving

61 Plutschow, 5. 62 Barbara Ruch, “Medieval Jongleurs and the Making of a National Literature,” in Japan in the Muromachi Age, eds. John W. Hall and Toyoda Takeshi, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1977), 284-290. 30 through their sponsorship. In his book The Nobility of Failure Ivan Morris attributes this popularity to a particularly Japanese fascination with the aesthetic of “” archetypes.63 However, this overlooks the ritual function that performances of tales about defeated heroes historically fulfilled. Tales like Heike monogatari were seen as necessary memorials to the dead in order to pacify their vengeful spirits that, as evidenced above, could potentially wreak havoc on those who had wronged them in life.64

The ritual performance of literature like Heike Monogatari, which memorialized defeated and dead enemies, was yet another expression of the pre-modern Japanese belief that human actions could affect the environment. By performing the stories of the dead their spirits were believed to be placated and natural disasters avoided. The Minamoto sponsorship of such performances can then be more cynically and perhaps more accurately seen as not only an appreciation of the tragic hero archetype, but also a necessity to ensure the family’s protection from their dead rivals’ vengeful spirits. In fact the extent to which the Taira were devastated enabled their supernatural vengeance to even be a possible threat to the nation itself, as illustrated by the earthquake supposedly caused by the fallen Taira described both in the Hōjōki and Heike Monogatari. Thus the memorialization and placation of these fallen warriors through performed literature was actually an attempt to protect the Japanese shogunate and its people from large-scale natural disaster.65

In fact this deep connection between the act of writing and performing literature and events in the natural and supernatural world can be traced even further back in

63 Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975), xxi-xxiii. 64 Plutschow, 205, 220-221. 65 Ibid., 205. 31 Japanese history. Scholars argue that early Japanese literature and performing arts sought to work homeopathic on the natural and spiritual world. Literature, , and music being arts that utilize form and order were thus meant to order the chaotic, unpredictable, and changing natural and spiritual worlds which were inextricably linked in the minds of pre-modern Japanese.66 It is believed that even poems were sung in early

Japanese history (as was the case in many ancient contexts) and Ki No Tsurayuki in his preface to the Kokinshū (Collection of Japanese Poems, Old and New) lays out the power of poetry to “move heaven and earth, stir the feelings of the invisible gods and spirits, smooth the relations of men and women, and calm the hearts of fierce warriors.”67

The Creation and Performance of Literature as Emotional Practice

Tsurayuki’s conception of Japanese poetry shows that while pre-modern literature is a useful source for descriptions of natural disasters and folk beliefs about them, the creation and performance of literature also functioned as emotional practices that were believed to affect the environment itself. A closer analysis reveals the intimate connections between morality, emotion, and nature. Take for example the case of vengeful ghosts and their ability to cause natural disaster. The ghosts themselves are supernatural actors and their vengeance, expressed as natural disasters, can be considered emotionally motivated supernatural actions and thus a kind of emotional practice. It is important to note that these emotional practices are strongly tied to morality; the dead become vengeful ghosts after having been wronged in life, or improperly mourned. It follows that the creation and performance of literature, aimed at the placation of these spirits and the prevention of natural disaster is also an emotional practice. In addition to

66 Ibid., 1, 7. 67 Ibid., 11-12. 32 being performances that expressed human emotion, literature was believed to literally affect supernatural emotions, soothing the anger of the vengeful dead. In practice literature was both an outlet for and regulator of emotions. For the practitioners literature was an emotional practice not only because it dealt with emotional subject matter, but also interacted with emotions themselves. It is perhaps telling that Tsurayuki mentions nature (heaven and earth), supernatural beings (invisible gods and spirits) and humanity

(men and women, fierce warriors) as all being affected by poetry, they were all connected in a network of emotional action and reaction.

Conclusion

Both the thematic content and ritual function of Japanese literature can offer us glimpses into how pre-modern Japanese conceived of natural disasters and provide the historical background for the development of environmental beliefs and conceptions during the early modern period. Using the examples of the Hōjōki and Heike mongatari it is obvious that literature, emotion, human moral actions, ritual, the supernatural, and the natural, were all closely intertwined in the pre-modern Japanese consciousness and that efforts at prediction using various methods and personal accounts of natural disasters were prevalent. In this we can see humans attempting to use cultural systems of ordering to achieve a sense of control over the particularly powerful and unpredictable environment of the Japanese archipelago.

33

CHAPTER 3: Monsters, Messengers, and Omens: Catfish Prints and Trends of

Continuity in Early Modern Natural Disaster Beliefs

Introduction

The early modern period is a unique moment in Japanese history. Coinciding roughly with the rule of the Tokugawa shoguns also known as the Edo period (1603-1868

C.E.), early modern Japan was relatively isolated for over two centuries due to a “closed country” (sakoku) policy and enjoyed relative peace and political stability. Although contact with the west was maintained during this time period and western science was studied as “Dutch learning” (rangaku), early modern institutions were developed separately and with little influence from western models. During that time Japan’s urban areas grew, Edo becoming one of the most populous cities in the world, and the economy became increasingly commercialized. This increasing concentration of people in urban areas and availability of commercial goods in addition to an increase in literacy had a profound effect on culture. Instead of focusing on themes popular in medieval Japanese literature such as the impermanence of all things or the moral degeneracy of the Latter

Days of the Law, Edo-period print makers and authors celebrated the “floating world”

(ukiyo), which emphasized the pleasurable aspects of urbanites. Filled with erotic and humorous themes both images and narratives of this era explored the exploits of workers and customers of the pleasure districts. Additionally Japan became more Confucianized and the ideas of filial piety, one’s place in social hierarchy, and a suspicion of merchants

34 who made profit on others work increasingly mixed with religious traditions of the pre- modern period. The arrival of the American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 and his

“black ships” was also an important event that heralded the end of Japanese isolation and the swift modernization and westernization of the island nation.

The effect of a budding media culture, in addition to rising literacy and new commercialization is particularly relevant to the development of natural disaster folklore in the early modern period. The prints and tales analyzed in the following two chapters, unlike Hōjōki and Heike monogatari were targeted at a more literate and more urban populace and were, to some extant, commercial ventures, produced for profit. With prints and written tales more available to a reading public of various socio-economic backgrounds, mass media became increasingly important for shaping the publics conception of disaster events. Not only did early modern media reach a wider than pre-modern tales, but it also presented an opportunity for a more diverse collection of authors, belief systems, and viewpoints on disaster. Not only is the suffering and loss of common Japanese still depicted in these prints and tales, but also their stories and desires are more are treated more closely. All of these factors led to the growing complexity of natural disaster folklore and show a Japan that was becoming increasingly modern.

How Japan was able to so quickly modernize is complex and has been the subject of many studies, but it is obvious that the early modern period in Japan set the stage for the adoption of western developments in technology, science and other areas. However, despite these incredible shifts in culture and science, beliefs about the environment remained relatively consistent with their earlier pre-modern roots. Certainly other

35 cultures nurtured early modern developments while also maintaining pre-modern beliefs, however the rate at which Japan modernized following its early modern period, as well as the level of influence of pre-modern beliefs (illustrated by modern catfish research) makes Japan a compelling case study. Many Japanese continued to emphasize the close connections between human action/morality, supernatural forces, and natural disasters; however, with commercialization and the increasing importance of money to daily life, economic morality became an important iteration of these themes. Economic morality was expressed in the worldviews of various religious systems, but Confucianism proved to be particularly useful. In addition with rising literacy rates, a booming print culture, celebration of the pleasurable “floating world,” and discontent with urban development and the Tokugawa government a number of natural disaster depictions began to function as social as well.68 This indicates that even as themes remained consistent, using culture as a coping mechanism could be manifested in any number of emotional practices. In the case of early modern Japan, catfish prints still depicted the anxieties and tragic loss of disaster victims in the upheaval and destruction of earthquakes. However, the humorous and satirical folkloric depictions of natural disasters in step with the pleasure focused cultural milieu also developed as an important emotional practice alongside those explored in the first chapter.

Catfish: Avatars of Disaster

A particular set of beliefs that are useful for illuminating this development are those surrounding the culture of Catfish prints (namazu-e) during the Tokugawa era.

After the Ansei Edo Earthquake of 1855, which not only struck the Tokugawa capital of

68 Miyata Noboru, Takada Mamoru eds., Namazu-e, 57. 36 Edo, but also caused subsequent fires that burnt down parts of the city, many artists began to produce woodblock prints of catfish that symbolized the disaster. The period after the Ansei Edo Earthquake would be catfish print culture’s highest peak in popularity.69 This popularity is due in part to numerous other earthquakes during the

Ansei reign and the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” from America to open up trade with relatively isolated Japan in 1853 and again in 1854. The combination of natural disasters and geo-political pressures created a unique social climate of anxiety that the catfish prints after the earthquake of 1855 depicted and commented upon. When dealing with belief throughout history, even though continuity can be found, the particular circumstances of events are also important in discussing their exact temporal iteration.70

These catfish, sometimes called “earthquake catfish,” (jishin namazu) were depicted in various ways, three of which will be informative in talking about early- modern beliefs about natural disasters. In addition folk beliefs about real catfish connected to catfish print culture will also be useful. One type of depiction of an earthquake catfish is as a giant creature that lives underneath the earth and whose movements cause earthquakes. This catfish under the earth is usually depicted as being subdued by a deity (usually the god of Kashima Shrine) by means of a gourd (hyōtan) or the supernatural “foundation stone” (kaname’ishi). (Figure 1) Another depiction of earthquake catfish was as whale-sized monsters swimming in bays that shared certain similarities with the “black ships” of Commodore Perry. (Figure 2) Others were depicted

69 Ibid., 21. 70 William H. Sewell Jr., Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation, (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2005), 246. 37 as anthropomorphic “catfish men” (namazu-otoko) that can be seen acting in various human roles, such as medicine sellers or saviors of earthquake victims. Adding to the variety of depictions, these various catfish, and thus the earthquakes they signified, were also presented at times as a positive force, and others as a negative one. This stems from a complex history and web of meanings surrounding catfish and their relationship to earthquakes in Japan.

Figure 1: Catfish being subdued by the deity of the Kashima shrine using the “foundation stone.”

38

Figure 2: Whale-like catfish approaches Edo as onlookers beckon it.

These nineteenth century depictions of earthquake catfish popular after the Ansei-

Edo earthquake are the result of a combination of various pre-modern beliefs developing over time and merging to form the plethora of meanings behind earthquake catfish.71 This in itself is a testament to the deeply syncretic nature of Japanese religious and folkloric belief throughout history. However, scholars do point to a common source for the earthquake catfish of nineteenth century Japan in earlier Chinese depictions of a deity or

Daoist immortal riding an animal that often look like a fish or turtle, or some hybrid of

71 Gregory Smits, “Conduits of Power: What the Origins of Japan's Earthquake Catfish about Religious Geography,” Japan Review, 24 (2012), 49. 39 these creatures called an , that usually also had a small island on its back.72 These depictions of ao look strikingly similar to the catfish depicted in the prints circulated after the Ansei-Edo Earthquake, especially those depicting the giant catfish that lives under the earth.

While the historical development of this particular depiction and belief about earthquake catfish is not easy to trace precisely, it is possible to construct a general timeline using various literary and image sources. This historical development is made more complex due to the fact that both catfish and ao were often conflated with dragons and a dragon was oftentimes depicted as supporting the earth on its back and causing earthquakes such as in the “Ise calendar” (Ise goyomi). This calendar, likely produced in

1624, depicts a dragon encircling the Japanese islands whose neck and tale are pinned down with a sword.73 It is interesting to note that this calendar also functioned as a talisman to ward off earthquakes, showing that once again the human enactment of ordered art (this time visual instead of literary/aural) was believed to affect the environment. The first evidence available for earthquake catfish in literature or art in

Japan is the painting poetry set Hyonenzu, which is attributed to Josetsu, and is dated to

1413 C.E. The theme made a more explicit appearance in a 1540 poem by Arakida

Moritake, connecting gourds and catfish, but this was not recognized as a set or frequent connection to be made in poetry, as evidenced by catfish not being associated with gourds or even being recognized as a separate category in poetry dictionaries called tsukeaigo shū (Collections of Attaching Words, used to show which words were usually associated with each other in haikai poetry). Catfish did not become associated with

72 Ibid., 48. 73 Ibid., 44. 40 gourds in poetry dictionaries until 1669. By 1676 it seems that catfish had begun to acquire most of their associations with earthquakes, gourds, and the Kashima shrine. In addition notes about a giant catfish that carries Japan on its back were written.74 In 1678 the famous haiku poet Matsuo Bahsō even wrote a poem that explicitly connected catfish with dragons and earthquakes that reads as follows:

大地震つづいて龍やのぼるらん Daijishin tsuzuite ryū ya noboruran A great earthquake continues on and a dragon rises

長十丈の鯰なるらん Take jūjō no namazu naruran It was a ten jō long catfish.75

Basically the connotations surrounding the giant catfish that supported the earth in the 1855 Ansei-Edo prints were largely in place by the late seventeenth century. This giant catfish underneath the earth would then be connected with exceptionally large whale-like catfish, anthropomorphic “catfish men” (namazu otoko) or catfish that had transformed into humans, as well as normal catfish. Each of these categories of catfish became culturally associated with earthquakes and they make appearances in the catfish prints that were published quickly after the 1855 quake. Smits stresses that there is no historical evidence that people actually believed that a giant catfish that caused earthquakes lived under the earth and that the giant catfish as well as many other depictions of earthquake catfish were merely metaphoric images. While this seems to have been true for learned men who engaged in discussions of earthquake mechanics, which they considered to be caused by an imbalance of yin and yang energy, it is hard to

74 Ibid., 48. 75 Quoted in Miyata and Takada, 54. 41 say what common people in early modern Japan truly believed due to a lack of known primary sources. 76 The fact that a few of those early authors so passionately argued that belief in a giant earthquake catfish were incorrect and characterized them as the

“explanations of women and children,” may be evidence that there were those who believed.77 The gendering of the is reminiscent to the English phrase

“old wives’ tale” and could have been used to shame men who believed in the earthquake catfish. In this case a blanket statement may be misleading. The question of how to gauge “belief” in societies where certain groups are illiterate or not well represented in sources aside, we will see that while people may have viewed the depiction of giant underground catfish as metaphorical, the beliefs and assumptions it represented show a great deal of thematic as well as stylistic continuity with pre-modern Japanese beliefs about natural disasters.

One example of thematic continuity with pre-modern modes of belief in catfish prints is the connection of human actions/ morality to earthquakes. In many of the prints published after the Ansei Edo earthquake catfish are depicted redistributing wealth. In one print catfish men are shown forcing land developers to defecate and vomit money on common people gathered below.78 In another print a whale-like catfish is shown swimming in a bay spraying money out of its spout, causing coins to fall on people standing by. It has been pointed out that the catfish in this depiction bears a certain resemblance to the black steam ships imitating their color and steam exhaust.79 Yet another print shows people who, due to their occupation as roofers or carpenters,

76 Smits, “Conduits of Power,” 46. 77 Smits, Seismic Japan, 34. 78 Miyata and Takada, 33. 79 Ibid., 60. 42 benefited from the destruction of the earthquake riding on the back of a giant catfish.80

All of these prints show in various ways the belief that the earthquake occurred in order to correct human-caused economic imbalance framed as a moral issue. This was connected with the Daoist belief that one’s energy (ki) should flow freely throughout the body. It was thought then, that money’s flow too should be free from obstructions and that when backed up, or in other words concentrated in the possession of a wealthy minority, the earth would react to remedy the imbalance accordingly with events like earthquakes, or even the arrival of foreign powers on Japanese shores.81 In this we see a doubling of the connection between human actions/morality with the state of the natural environment. Not only did perceived economic imbalance cause earthquakes, but the social world of Japan was seen as operating in similar ways to the human body in Daoist belief. While Chōmei’s description in Hōjōki attributes the moral degeneracy of the times to the latter days of the Buddhist law and depicts the earthquake as triggering increased contemplation of the transitory nature of life, the moral failings of late Tokugawa Japan were socio-economic in nature. Immorality, in this case the perceived unethical hoarding of money by the higher classes, thus continued to be seen as a primary cause of disasters, but the particular inflection of moral consciousness reflected the nature of the concerns of the time, religious during early medieval Japan and socio-economic during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The theme of natural disasters as a corrective event that was displayed by Chōmei can also be seen in this redistribution of wealth by the earthquake of 1855. Thus natural disasters are not only seen as punishment in reaction to human deeds throughout Japanese

80 Ibid., 60. 81 Ibid., 58-59. 43 history, but also as a chance to start anew. This is expressed in the Japanese term yonaoshi or “world correction” often used to characterize large-scale earthquakes. In the late Edo-period the aspects of the world that were considered in need of correction were distinctly socio-economic and the 1855 Ansei-Edo earthquake was seen as a chance for many workers to work for higher wages.82

Additionally the Ansei-Edo earthquake was also seen as a chance to refocus on things more important than money, similar to how Chōmei saw the disasters of the Late-

Heian period as a chance to refocus on Buddhist principles. In “The Story of the Man

Who Forgot his Wealth and Protected his Parents,” (Zai wo wasurete fubo wo mamotta otoko no hanashi) published in the Ansei Kenmonroku which will be analyzed in more detail in the next chapter, a man who is gainfully employed in a shop nearby Asakusa immediately rushes to find and take care of his parents after the earthquake instead of attending to his place of employment. Here we see the earthquake as an event that could encourage one to choose filial piety over wealth. A choice, the narrator mentions, that is not as common as one may think, with people worrying about their riches first and parents afterwards.83 It was believed that money, while an increasingly important part of early modern urban life, should not be hoarded or privileged over one’s human relationships. These beliefs reflected the increased Confucian influence on Japanese life, which emphasized the proper conduct in all social relationships and was particularly suspicious of merchants that chased wealth. Once again we can see the particularly socio- economic tenor of moral concerns in the Late-Edo period.

82 Figal, 31. 83 Arakawa Hidetoshi, Jitsuroku Ōedo kaimetsu no hi: Ansei kenmonroku, Ansei kenmonshi, Ansei fūbunshū, (Tokyo: Hanbai Kyōikusha Shuppan Sābisu, 1982): 78-82. 44 Another way the earthquake of 1855 was depicted as a corrective event was through characterizations of it as a “medicine” to cure the ills of Japan. Various prints depicted catfish men as medicine vendors peddling “catfish medicine,” (namazu gusuri).

Catfish medicine was also presented in satirical advertisements that parodied announcements of patent medicines.84 Viewing such a costly event, both in terms of material wealth as well as human life, as good medicine perhaps has links to the Japanese “good medicine is bitter to taste” (ryōyaku wa kuchi ni nigashi). The Ansei-Edo earthquake was bitter medicine indeed, and only one dose in a series of earthquakes compounded with the arrival of Matthew Perry occurring during a very brief period of time. However in these depictions of the earthquake, as freeing the flow of money as well as bitter yet effective medicine, one can see the attempts of early modern Japanese to put a positive spin on a truly devastating natural disaster, a coping method that is evidenced in the Hōjōki as well. This is not unlike modern day after natural disasters in

Japan, which depict their aftermath as a chance to rebuild in better ways and start anew.

Another area of thematic continuity regarding belief and natural disasters throughout Japanese history is the emphasis on the efficacy of natural disaster prediction that was evidenced in Heike Monogatari. Connected with the various themes surrounding earthquake catfish prints was the belief that by observing real life catfish one would have the ability to predict earthquakes. It was believed that the appearance of large schools of catfish or erratic behavior was an omen (zenchō) of disaster, most often earthquakes but

84 Miyata and Takada, 58. 45 also floods, rebellions, and the like.85 There were also particular places that were linked to this phenomenon such as the “catfish hole” in the river in front of Fukuoka prefecture’s Fushimi shrine.86 In “The Story of Rats Swarming from the Earth” (Nezumi ga dochū kara tairyō ni hasseishita hanashi) found in the popular account of the earthquake entitled Ansei Kenmonroku, rats perform a similar predictive function as catfish.87 It seems as though animals in general were believed to be able to predict earthquakes, but catfish were the creature most commonly connected with seismic activity.

The belief that catfish were the harbingers of disaster also had connections to the supernatural as well. Because catfish were so closely linked to shrines like Kashima, they were often said to be the messengers of the gods of these shrines, much like the fox is the messenger of Inari shrines.88 These catfish, in addition to sending messages about disasters through erratic behavior could also transform into humans in order to warn of disaster, much like foxes and tanuki in Japanese folklore. In contrast to foxes and tanuki, who were often seen as trying to trick humans by transforming themselves into human guises, catfish were rather helpful and usually presented themselves as monks or diviners.89 There is also a bit of a comedic element to their appearance in that they retained catfish-like appearances such as a sharp and prominent mustache.90 These catfish

85 Ibid., 26-28. Zenchō (前兆) has a range of meanings and can also be interpreted in English as precursor, portent, sign, or premonition. In this case “omen” conveys the preternatural inflection of this particular type of zenchō. 86 Ibid., 26. 87 Arakawa, 94. 88 Ibid., 26. 89 Ibid., 24-25, 31. 90 Ibid., 30-31. 46 changelings were called mono iu namazu, or “catfish that have something to say.”91 It is important to note that catfish were not the only creatures that were believed to predict earthquakes. Again one can see continuity between pre-modern Japanese beliefs and early modern ones about natural disasters. Natural disaster prediction and its efficacy, whether by supernatural or more “realistic” means, remained a major theme throughout

Japanese history.92

Similarities with pre-modern disaster depictions can also be found in the continuing stylistic prevalence of eyewitness accounts of natural disasters and their aftermath. One such example is the Fujiokaya Diary (Fujiokaya nikki) published directly after the Ansei-Edo earthquake. Written by a used bookstore owner and described by one scholar as “blog-like,” the publication helped circulate tales, both fantastical and realistic about the events surrounding the earthquake.93 Again we can see a particular emphasis on personal accounts of disasters similar to Chōmei’s own account of the five calamities.

Perhaps served to put a human face on the disaster making it less abstract and large. In addition it could lend credibility to the account. Through the eyes of a fellow human the event is humanized, believable and thus easier to come to terms with.

By looking at catfish print culture and the beliefs surrounding it, especially after the 1855 Ansei-Edo earthquake, many similarities with pre-modern Japanese beliefs and depictions of natural disasters can be found. Although it is debatable whether people actually believed that supernatural forces caused earthquakes, they retained a deep connection with gods and monstrous creatures, even if only as . In addition the

91 Ibid., 25. 92 Smits, When the Earth Roars. 93 Ibid., 55. 47 earthquake was depicted as a reaction and remedy to human shortcomings, however with an overwhelmingly socio-economic focus rather than a religious one. An emphasis on prediction was also present in the belief that strange movements of real catfish as well as benevolent catfish messages could foretell disaster. Eyewitness accounts also retained their popularity and perhaps represented a way of humanizing disaster. Different from the pre-modern depictions of natural disasters was the tendency towards social satire seen in catfish prints that displayed land developers vomiting money or in depictions of comical catfish men with distorted fishlike facial features. However, in all of these themes we can see early modern Japanese trying to make sense of catastrophic events in culturally and temporally specific ways.

Satirical Depictions of the Great Kantō Earthquake

Although Smits argues that beginning in the aftermath of the Ansei-Edo earthquake people began to be skeptical of the connection between the supernatural, human morality, and natural disasters, Gennifer Weisenfeld’s work on the Great Kantō earthquake shows that morality still had a place in the discourse of natural disaster images.94 Taking a Taishō-era example from the Japanese collection of the Billy

Ireland and Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University one can confirm

Weisenfeld’s conclusion about the thematic continuity of disaster images in the 20th century.

Jiji manga was a newspaper political cartoon published from 1921 to 1931 providing comic and playful images of contemporary events. The October 14, 1923 issue deals mainly with Great Kantō Earthquake containing lighthearted comic strips

94 Batten and Brown, 110, Weisenfeld, Imaging Disaster. 48 commenting on various aspects of the disaster. The comics depict how animals view the disaster. One features a rabbit asking a pheasant (another animal said to be able to predict earthquakes) why the bird did not warn everyone as usual. The bird replies that the earthquake was so frightening he too hid. Another shows two birds conversing about how unfortunate humans did not have wings to avoid the disaster as they did, stating because they lived in trees earthquakes were not as big of a worry. However a third bird interrupts their conversation lamenting that his nest had fallen and his eggs had cracked due to the quake.95 These comics underline just how disturbing the Great Kantō quake was, not even the animals were spared from fear or destruction.

The cover picture of the issue is relevant here to the discussion of modern continuations of catfish print culture. The satirical cartoon shows an anthropomorphized catfish tearing off the outer layer of a Japanese woman’s kimono. Both the outer and inner layers of the woman’s kimono are inscribed with four character idioms

(yojijukugo). The outer layer’s four character idiom means “ostentatious appearance, weak essence,” while the under layer’s reads “strong inner essence.” Thus we can once again see an earthquake being depicted as a supernatural catfish man that is highly tied to human morality, in this case separating the outwardly extravagant but morally weak from those with true inner strength.96 This shows the continued efficacy of catfish print culture in inscribing natural disasters with social meaning into the modern era.

95 Jiji Manga, (October 14, 1923), 8. 96Ibid., 1.

49 Portrayal of Emotions in Catfish Prints and Humor as Emotional Practice

Early modern and modern catfish prints, like pre-modern literature often depicted the emotional practices of disaster victims. Catfish prints often depicted frightened disaster victims and, in the case of the wealthy being forced to vomit gold, those who were caused discomfort due to the earthquake as well. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect is the positive emotional practices depicted in and associated with catfish prints. The windfall profits and benefits enjoyed by the common people in Edo are depicted literally. Workers being showered with the vomited gold reach for it excitedly, those riding on the back of the catfish appear almost joyful. The Edo-ites watching the giant whale-like catfish approach beckon it happily to come closer. Like Chōmei’s observation in Hōjōki that people became more moral after disasters, these can be seen as an attempt to depict the disaster in a positively, specifically in positive emotional practice.

Catfish prints not only depicted positive emotional practices in the wake of the

Ansei Edo quake, but they were also tools in positive emotional practices as well. Most notably catfish prints often depicted the disaster in humorous and satirical modes.

Wealthy merchants vomiting up their wealth and anthropomorphized catfish men were likely intended to induce the smirks of early-modern Japanese. While fear, grief, and mourning are all important in the wake of disaster, catfish prints in their portrayal of the good aspects of the Ansei Edo earthquake and their ability to evoke humor show that positive emotional practices were also used to cope with natural disasters. Whatever their particular manifestations, emotions remain important to how Japanese have dealt with the threats posed by the environment throughout history.

50

Conclusion

Pre-modern Japanese literature of the early and Catfish prints in the early modern and modern era, show strong continuity in the ways Japanese have used beliefs and descriptions to cope with natural disasters throughout history. An intimate cause and effect connection between human action/ morality and the natural environment as well as between the supernatural and the natural are consistent themes. In addition to being a response or punishment from the supernatural realm for man’s actions natural disasters are also seen as having a purifying or corrective effect on society. During the early modern period these themes were expressed in terms of economic morality, influenced by commercialization’s effect on urban culture and the increased importance of Confucian values. The continued importance and efficacy of prediction, and the depiction of natural disasters through the medium of eyewitness accounts and personal narrative show Japanese throughout history rendering these chaotic and unpredictable events as logical and predictable events humanized through anecdotes. Catfish prints portray the emotional practices of fear and discomfort, but in the spirit of the “floating world” also show that levity and humor was an important method of coping with natural disaster as well. Although different in expression, emotional practices continued to be central to how early modern Japanese dealt with disaster. The particular inflections of these themes and functions reflect then the particular concerns of the time and natural disaster folklore became more multilayered and complex in the early modern era.

Nevertheless they still represent strong continuity in that they try to make sense of these unpredictable and harrowing experiences, in order to cope with them, through culturally

51 and temporally specific means. Each of these historical themes are prevalent in the tsunami folktale “The Rice Bale Fire” which will be analyzed as a case study in the following chapter to further uncover the ties between belief, morality, narrative, and emotion that have been surveyed above.

52

CHAPTER 4: Burning Rice to Save Lives: Religion, Morality, and Emotion in Early

Modern Japanese Disaster Folklore

Introduction

On December 24th, 1854 a magnitude 8.4 quake that occurred in the Nankai trough that caused violent shaking in much of southern Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu and triggered deadly tsunami waves. Known as the Ansei Nankai earthquake and tsunami, this disaster event was important in shaping natural disaster folklore in modern

Japan and remains relevant to this day.97 During this tsunami a man from what is now

Wakayama prefecture named Hamaguchi Goryō set fire to the village rice stores to light the way to high ground for fellow refugees. These actions were later dramatized in the popular tsunami folktale “The Rice Bale Fire” (Inamura no hi), which, because of its inclusion in national language textbooks for children, was widely read during the wartime

Showa era.98 “The Rice Bale Fire” has been interpreted as a Showa-era exercise in nationalism or a story meant to convey a disaster prevention philosophy in an

97 In June 2011, three months after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that struck the Tōhoku region of Japan, the Japanese declared that November 5th would be “Tsunami Disaster Prevention Day,” to heighten citizen awareness about tsunami and tsunami safety measures. November 5th was chosen because it is the anniversary (according to the old lunar calendar) of the Ansei Nankai earthquake of 1854. Kasai Akira, “‘Inamura no hi’ ni okeru ‘bōsai’ no shisō nitsuite,” Kenkyū kiyō/ Fukushima kōgyō kōtō senmon gakkō hen 53 (2012): 111. 98 Japanese names are given in the order family name, given name, unless the person has published in English. English translations of Japanese titles are used throughout the paper for the sake of flow. Unless otherwise noted all translations are original. 53 informational account of a tsunami disaster.99 However the nationalist and informational aspects of “The Rice Bale Fire” do not describe the tales’ full range of cultural functions, and overlook what is perhaps its most powerful aspects: its portrayal of and use in emotional practices. In addition “The Rice Bale Fire” contains many of the themes discussed in the previous chapter, illustrates the continued importance of personal narrative for disaster folklore, and because a large audience across Japan read the tale, it is a valuable case study for the analysis of the emotional aspects and functions of natural disaster folklore. The overtly moral and religious nature of these themes is obscured in

“The Rice Bale Fire” due in part to the increased complexity and multilayering of natural disaster folklore in the early modern and modern periods. This chapter analyzes the moral themes of “The Rice Bale Fire” and compares the tale to the moral/religious folk disaster tales in the 1856 Ansei Record in order to further illustrate the thematic continuities in natural disaster folklore as well as the importance of its reassuring function through portrayal of and utilization in emotional practices.

Hamaguchi Goryō: The Man Who Inspired “The Rice Bale Fire”

“The Rice Bale Fire” is based on the real life actions of Hamaguchi Goryō during the 1854 Ansei Nankai earthquake and tsunami in his home village of Hiro in Kii province (current day Hirogawa-cho in Wakayama Prefecture). Hamaguchi Goryō (1820-

1885) was born into a branch family of the Hamaguchi family who had gained fame during the Genroku-era (1688-1703) for founding the Yamasa Corporation and selling

99 In his book When the Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in Japan Gregory Smits explores the nationalist values in “The Rice Bale Fire,” which was published and used when an atmosphere of patriotism pervaded Japan. In his article “‘Inamura no hi’ni okeru ‘bōsai’ no shisō nitsuite,” Kasai Akira analyzes the tale’s disaster prevention philosophy. Gregory Smits, When The Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in Japan (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 50. Kasai Akira, “‘Inamura no hi’ ni okeru ‘bōsai’ no shisō nitsuite,” Kenkyū kiyō/ Fukushima kōgyō kōtō senmon gakkō hen 53 (2012): 111-116. 54 soy sauce. He was later adopted into the main branch of the Hamaguchi family and became the seventh generation head of the Yamasa Corporation.100

Beyond his heroic efforts during the earthquake and tsunami of 1854,

Hamaguchi’s magnanimous nature and concern for his village of Hiro and the budding nation-state of Japan is apparent in many of his ventures. Notably, in the last years of the

Tokugawa shogunate ( period) in accordance with the isolationist political sentiment of the times summarized in the four character idiom “revere the emperor, expel the barbarians” (sonnō jōi), Hamaguchi became interested in the problem of national defense. In 1851 he organized a local defense force called the Hiro Village Sugidan and, believing the education of young men was necessary for opposing the threat of foreign nations, set up a training hall the following year. Although Hamaguchi, like others of his generation would later change his opinion in favor of opening up Japan to the west, in order to bolster trade and learn modern technologies to strengthen the country, his inclination to protect Japan and the is evident in his activities following the Ansei Nankai earthquake. In addition to making contributions of rice to starving refugees immediately after the earthquake, three months later Hamaguchi supervised the construction of Japan’s first sea wall embankment to protect Hiro village from tsunami in the future and tangentially put unemployed villagers to work. In 1946 it proved effective in protecting much of the town from being flooded by the Showa Nankai tsunami.101

Hamaguchi was on his way home when the 1854 Ansei Nankai earthquake struck on December 24th at dusk. The earthquake was characterized by violent shaking of the

100 Kasai, 114. 101 Ibid., 114-116. 55 earth quickly followed by a tsunami wave.102 In his diary Hamaguchi recalled, in what could be considered one of the first of the event, “roof tiles flying, walls and fences collapsing, and (being) covered by dust and smoke.” Shortly thereafter,

Hamaguchi was swept up by the initial tsunami wave, but luckily was washed up onto high ground and managed to survive the incident. Hamaguchi then made his way up to the village’s high ground shelter, but upon arriving realized just how few people had made it there. Enlisting the help of some able bodied men, Hamaguchi descended towards the village and, because it had grown dark, set fire to the rice bales in front of the village storehouses as a way to signal the path to the shelter area. 103 Nine more villagers were able to make their way up to the high ground shelter thanks to Hamaguchi’s actions.104

From Reality to Folktale: The Moral and Religious Themes in

Dramatizations of Hamaguchi’s Actions

Hamaguchi’s actions during the Ansei Nankai Earthquake would later be adapted into two different versions, an English narrative and a Japanese folktale used in children’s language textbooks. A thematic analysis of these two dramatizations shows the importance of the text’s moral functions rather than informational or nationalistic functions. First the story of Hamaguchi fire to the village rice-bales to save his fellow townsmen would be dramatized forty-three years later by , whose version of the tale makes it obvious that retaining the moral truth of the events was a higher priority that displaying an accurate account of the disaster. Lafcadio Hearn was a

102 Murai Sadami, “Inamura no hi densetsu, nihon ni nokoru tsunami no hi no hanashi,” Kaigan 40 (2000): 45. 103 Murai, 46. 104 Kasai, 112. 56 Greek born journalist and folklorist who was sent to Japan on a journalistic assignment and became so enamored of the country that he stayed to collect, transcribe, translate and publish Japanese folk tales for English speaking audiences; eventually became a naturalized citizen. 105

Hearn’s version of Hamaguchi’s actions appeared in his collection entitled

Gleanings in Buddha Fields under the title “A Living God” in 1897, 12 years after the real life hero had passed away on a trip to America. While it is unclear how Hearn encountered the tale and whether he had access to Hamaguchi’s diary, because Hearn could not read Japanese well and usually collected oral tales with the help of his Japanese wife, it is likely he encountered it as an oral tale. “A Living God” is certainly a fictionalized version of Hamaguchi’s story, Hearn having made a few key changes to the time period, Hamaguchi’s character, and the features of the disaster event itself. Hearn’s tale is set “long before the era of Meiji,” despite the Ansei Nankai earthquake having occurred only 24 years before the Meiji Restoration and a little under half a century before “A Living God” was written.106 The adjustment of the time period shows Hearn’s preference for a romanticized “feudal” Japan, which he likely thought would be more appealing to western audiences as well.107 In addition the adjustment to a distant past also indicates a mythologization of first person disaster narrative. Hamaguchi’s given name is changed to “Gohei,” and he is made into a wise old man referred lovingly to as ojiisan by

105 Lafacadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., 1904), ix. Daniel Stempel, “Lafcadio Hearn: Interpreter of Japan,” American Literature 20 (Mar., 20): 1, 3- 5 7-8. 106 Lafcadio Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha Fields: Studies of the Hand and Soul in the Far East (New York: Houghton Milfin Company, 1897), 16. 107 Stempel, 3-5. 57 the villagers, despite having been in his 30s during the earthquake in real life.108 Again we can see a romanticized narrative to fit folkloric themes, in this case Hamaguchi is transformed into a wizened elder, whose almost preternatural senses about the environment comes from years of experience.

Although the details of time period and Hamaguchi’s character are obvious departures from the real life events, Hearn takes most artistic license in the description of the disaster event itself, altering the nature of the tsunami, the rationale for Hamaguchi’s actions, the ownership of the rice bales used to create the fire, and increasing the amount of people saved. While the Ansei Nankai incident, as shown above (as well as in the seismic record), was characterized by violent shaking followed by an initial tsunami wave quick enough to catch Hamaguchi before he could make it to high ground, the earthquake in “A Living God” is a small one, noticed by Hamaguchi’s character in his residence on high ground, but unnoticed by those in the village by the coast. In addition the story’s tsunami does not come suddenly after the shaking, instead Hamaguchi notices the tide pulling away from the shore against the wind, to the point where normally submerged seabed becomes exposed, which Hamaguchi recognizes as a sign of an imminent tsunami.109 Realizing that the villagers, numbering around 400, are in danger,

Hamaguchi asks his grandson to fetch him a torch. With the torch Hamaguchi proceeds to set fire to his own rice stores, representing his livelihood, to get the villagers’ attention.

Upon noticing the fire at Hamaguchi’s residence the young and able-bodied villagers run up quickly to help put the fire out. Hamaguchi however, insists that they do not put out the flames and that he wants the whole village to gather. This greatly distresses his

108 Hearn., Gleanings in Buddha Fields, 17. 109 Ibid., 19-20. 58 grandson, who thinks his grandfather is crazy for setting fire to his own rice. Then, as everyone who was in the village below gathers around the blaze, the tsunami wave crashes into the village below, sweeping it away and Hamaguchi dramatically, but quietly announces in the wake of the destruction “that is why I set fire to the rice.” Realizing the sacrifice Hamaguchi made by burning his livelihood to save the village, the people prostrate themselves before him and his grandson, who asks for his forgiveness.110

“A Living God” is clearly altered when compared to the events of the Ansei-

Nankai disaster recounted by Hamaguchi himself as well as the seismic record. Although

Hamaguchi being swept up by the first tsunami wave could have made for a compelling plot development, Hearn’s tsunami is not only foreboding and menacing, but also gives

Hamaguchi the chance to into the wise old man archetype, by predicting its arrival based on his knowledge and experience. In addition Hamaguchi saves the entire village before anyone is swept up in the waves. While dramatic presentation certainly was a concern of Hearn’s, the tsunami event described in “A Living God” also resembles the

1896 Meiji Sanriku tsunami that struck the northeastern coast of Japan only a year before

Hearn’s collection was published.111 Unlike the Ansei Nankai earthquake, which was characterized by violent shaking swiftly followed by an initial tsunami wave, the Meiji

Sanriku quake was a “tsunami earthquake” that caused only mild unperceivable shaking followed by unexpected but massive tsunami wave trains. It is obvious that Hearn used the events of the Meiji Sanriku quake and tsunami of 1896, rather than the historical

Ansei Nankai event as a model for the disaster in his story, not focusing on the accurate historical description of the tsunami event itself.

110 Ibid., 21-26. 111 Kasai, 112. 59 The rationale behind and nature of Hamaguchi’s setting fire to the rice bales is also different. Instead of being used as markers for high ground, in “A Living God” they are used by Hamaguchi as a way to lure the unknowingly endangered village to his residence on the hill. In addition, instead of setting fire to the common village rice stores,

Hamaguchi sets fire to his own, giving his actions a more explicitly sacrificial and moral . While these actions are not necessarily out of line with the real life character of

Hamaguchi, especially given that he personally saw to it that the starving villagers of

Hiro were provided with food after the Ansei Nankai earthquake, it does show that Hearn was focused on preserving the moral truth of the story rather than presenting an accurate historical depiction.

It is also interesting to note “A Living God” is framed within a religious Shinto context. The prologue to the story is a short discussion of the architecture and practices of

Shinto shrines. Perhaps telling from the title “A Living God,” Hearn is particularly fascinated by the fact that some people’s souls are worshipped as in Shinto shrines even before they die, an honor bestowed upon Hamaguchi by the villagers he saved.112

Hamaguchi’s status as “A Living God” is not merely Hearn exoticizing Japanese folk religion, Kasai also notes that the villagers honored Hamaguchi by referring to him as

Hamaguchi Daimyōjin and regarding his soul as psuedo-kami.113 The epilogue of the tale is a conversation Hearn had about this phenomenon with a “Japanese philosopher” friend of his. Hearn is perplexed by the idea that Hamaguchi could be alive and at the same time his soul was being venerated somewhere else and asks whether Japanese “peasants” believed that Hamaguchi had multiple souls or that a particular piece of his soul had

112 Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha Fields, 1-12. 113 Kasai, 116. 60 separated from the one in Hamaguchi’s body to reside in the shrine. His friend answers that the peasants “think of the mind or spirit of a person as something which, even during life can be in many places at the same instant…such an idea is, of course, quite different from Western ideas about the soul.”114

Hearn does not specify what Japanese words he translates as “soul” or “spirit” in

“A Living God.” However, given the way Hamaguchi’s spirit is honored, even in life, it is likely that he is referring to Hamaguchi’s mitama or tamashii, or universal spiritual energy tama that has been “particulized enough” to be identified with something individual, such as a certain person, a certain tree, a certain group of people.115 It is important to note that in Shinto the physical world holds some relation to the spiritual realm either externally or internally, and humans and kami are internally related, one not being fully itself without the other. Given this interconnectedness, individual kami are seen not only as being a part connected with the spiritual whole of the world, but also as containing it within its being, much like DNA is a part of one’s self, but also contains the essential information about the whole of one’s self. Thomas Kasulis in his monograph

Shinto: The Way Home calls this phenomenon, in which individual kami become a way to appreciate/ reflect the whole of spiritual existence the “holographic entry point.” We can see then, just as Hearn’s philosopher friend explained that Hamaguchi while alive was not deified in a western sense, but instead his actions and personage embodied in his mitama or tamashii, which are no more connected with kami than anyone elses’, were

114 Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha Fields, 28. 115 For example Kasulis discusses the “collective” soul/spirit of the Japanese people called the “Yamato damashii.” Thomas Kasulis, Shinto: The Way Home (University of Hawai’I Press, 2004), 16. 61 recognized as being connected to the spiritual realm in a unique way.116 In this way

Hamaguchi became a holographic entry point to the entire religious sensibility of Shinto, and thus was not bound to his person only. Although the later adaptation of “A Living

God” for use in school children’s textbooks during the years of World War II would shed this overt religious connection to Shinto, one can see how the moral content of the tale would serve the nationalist promotion of the Japanese spirit during the heyday of state

Shinto.

Nakai Tsunezo (1904-1994), a teacher, was so moved by “A

Living God,” which he read as an English language learning material, that he decided to write a Japanese version in order to convey Hamaguchi’s memory to the children of

Japan. He submitted his translated and adapted version entitled “Inamura no hi,” commonly translated as, “The Rice Bale Fire,” to be included in national language textbooks in 1934 and the story appeared in 5th grade textbooks from 1937 to 1946.117 As stated above, this version of Hamaguchi’s story does not have any explicitly Shinto connotations. The character Hamaguchi Gōhei is startled by a soft but long shaking and mutters, “this isn’t something ordinary,” intuitively knowing that something disastrous will occur.118 He exits his house and looks out upon the villagers who are preparing for a festival and are unaware of the small earthquake. Just as in “A Living God” he sees the sea retreating against the wind, exposing the sea floor and immediately recognizes a tsunami is coming. Hamaguchi then sets fire to his own rice stores and as the villagers gather to help extinguish the fire he counts them to make sure everyone is safe. They all

116 Kasulis, 20-23. 117 Kasai, 112. 118 Nakai Tsunezo, “Inamura no hi” in Shogakkō kokugo yomihon 10 (Tokyo: Bunbushō 1937), 512. 62 watch as their village is swept away by the tsunami wave and, realizing the nature of

Hamaguchi’s sacrifice, turn and bow to him in reverence.119

“The Rice Bale Fire” has been analyzed for both its nationalistic and informative functions, however it is important to point out that it still retains moral and religious themes. In comparison to “A Living God,” “The Rice Bale Fire” is much shorter, due to the lack of background Shinto information in addition to being written as a reading selection for elementary school children. In his article “‘Inamura no hi’ ni okeru ‘bōsai’ no shisō” Kasai Akira analyzes the story’s informative functions for disaster prevention and emergency procedures like tsunami. He stresses things like counting refugees to ensure everyone is safe as well as younger members of the community following the instructions of their elders as important lessons for disaster prevention and survival.120 In

When the Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in Japan Smits points to the nationalist use of “The Rice Bale Fire” during the war years. Hamaguchi exemplifying “virtues such as wisdom, bravery, and generosity,” portrayed the values that Japan wanted conveyed to its youth and made them feel good about being Japanese.

Smits also observes that “because he did battle with nature and not opposing armies,”

Hamaguchi continued to be viewed as a heroic national figure into the postwar years as well.121 While these elements are certainly aspects of “The Rice Bale Fire’s” function as a narrative, it is also important to note that it retains much of the moral character of “A

Living God,” which is based in the folk religious themes/ folk beliefs discussed in the first chapter. Most notably these narratives emphasize that disasters can be predicted and

119 Nakai, 513-519. 120 Kasai, 114. 121 Smits, When the Earth Roars, 50. 63 can prompt/ are connected with human morality. These in turn contribute to the overall emotional function of the text, which helps readers cope with natural disaster, show that they are predictable, and when one reacts in certain moral ways, surmountable. However, before these emotional aspects can be examined more closely it is relevant to examine the more explicitly moral and religious folktales that came out of the 1855 Ansei Edo quake, to which “The Rice Bale Fire” is similar and related.

Folk Religion, Belief, and Morality in the Disaster Tales of Ansei Record

On November 11, 1855 around 10 p.m. an earthquake, which is estimated to have been a magnitude 6.9-7.0, struck Edo, the seat of the Tokugawa shogun, almost a year after the Ansei Nankai earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on Hamaguchi’s community. Known commonly as the Ansei Edo earthquake, it severely damaged structures in areas such as “Daimyo Lane” (roughly between present day Yuryakuchō and

Tokyo stations) and Asakusa, as well as many storehouses throughout the city. While exaggerated accounts of the death toll have circulated, present day scholarship suggests around eight to ten thousand perished.122 The Ansei Edo quake was a jarring natural as well as social event and while the shogunate actually responded to it well and it cannot be seen as causing the fall of the Tokugawa, it has been argued that in many ways the quake conditioned the Japanese public for the eventual overthrow of bakufu power.123 It was an event that was also a heavily recorded by the print media culture of the late-Tokugawa, which inscribed satirical, socio-economic, moral, and religious meaning to the earthquake through multimedia documents that would include descriptions of earthquake mechanics, vivid prints of disaster and/or the supernatural, and short moral narratives of disaster

122 Smits, Seismic Japan, 16. 123 Ibid., 170. 64 victims’ experience. Most famous perhaps is the explosion of prints that associated the earthquake with giant and/or anthropomorphized catfish known as namazu-e (catfish prints) discussed in the preceding chapter.

The Ansei Record (Ansei Kenmonroku) was published in early 1856 shortly after the earthquake and was very much a part of the print media frenzy following the disaster.

Commercially successful, Ansei Record was truly “multimedia” for its time, including mechanistic explanations of earthquakes based on the prevailing yin-yang based theories of the time, maps of the disaster, and short moral disaster narratives complete with print illustrations. Relevant to this study are the aforementioned morality tales that interpreted the disaster using folk religion and beliefs. Not only do they share similar themes with

“The Rice Bale Fire,” but they also are similar in their short length and narrative format.

Each normally comes with a pithy title that indicates the moral lesson or message of the tale, which is usually although not always influenced heavily by Confucian values. While

Ansei Record’s commercial success has been attributed to the “shock value” of these tales, that do recount the gruesome realities of being a victim of disaster, it is also important to note the folk religious elements, emotional content, and emotional functions of the tales, which likely struck a chord with those who had experienced the disaster and sought to find meaning in it.124

One theme that is prominent in the disaster narratives of Ansei Record is the folk belief that natural disasters can be predicted, at times almost supernaturally. The text includes accounts of strange occurrences that were seen as precursors to the event such as

124 Smits, Seismic Japan 189. 65 a story about swarms of rats before the earthquake.125 More relevant to this study are two tales that deal with people who predicted or foresaw the Ansei Edo earthquake entitled

“Lowly Old Man who Predicted Natural Disaster” (Iyashii rōfu ga tenpen wo yochishita hanashi) and “The Blind Person Who had a Premonition of the Future” (Mōsha ga mirai wo yokanshita hanashi). The men in each tale exhibited almost supernatural foresight in predicting the disaster and thus saving lives in the ensuing earthquake.126 The “lowly old man” anticipates Hearn’s version of Hamaguchi, who in addition to intuition relied on passed down experiences to predict the tsunami. In the Ansei Record story the lowly man, who is a gatekeeper of a retainer’s household, goes outside on the morning of the quake and after gazing for a long time at the four cardinal directions, says there will be a quake and prepares by preparing food and gathering it at an open area. Although there are those who do not believe him, he proves to be right and is able to help those who were inside the residence when the earthquake struck and provide them with sustenance. The gatekeeper explains that he was able to make this prediction by having lived through two earthquakes prior and receiving advice on how to tell if an earthquake is coming based on the prevailing yin-yang theory of seismic events .127 The gatekeeper and Hamaguchi are both shown as men who, because they rely both on experience, imparted wisdom, and paying attention to the natural environment, are able to predict and in many ways mitigate natural disasters.

125 Arakawa Hidetoshi. Jitsuroku Ōedo kaimetsu no hi: Ansei kenmonroku, Ansei kenmonshi, Ansei fūbunshū. (Tokyo: Hanbai Kyōikusha Shuppan Sābisu, 1982), 94. 126 Arakawa, 34-41, 83-88. 127 Earthquakes were believed to be cause by the build up and violent release of energy in the Earth to the sky above. It was said that before an earthquake a little energy would begin to leak out and distort the appearance of distant objects making them appear closer. The gatekeeper, looking out in all directions reportedly saw this phenomenon the morning of the Ansei Edo quake. Ibid., 34-38. 66 The connection of natural disasters with human morality is also prevalent in the tales of Ansei Record. The importance of human lives and relationships over material goods/wealth is one such moral theme that is strongly represented and also bears similarities to Hamaguchi’s actions. This theme can be seen in the tales “The Warrior

Who Personally Saved the Starving” (Mizukara kimin sukutta bushi no hanashi) and

“The Man Who Forgot His Wealth and Protected his Parents” (Zai wo wasurete fubo wo mamotta otoko no hanashi).128 In the first story a samurai, who is not wealthy himself, depletes his own rice stores feeding the hungry and suffering in his neighborhood. He goes to a food vendor whose shop appears to be open to purchase more rice, however the vendor explains they are not open for business and he is not willing to sell. The samurai protests and explains to the vendor that he is buying the rice to feed those who are starving. The vendor then feels compelled to sell the samurai rice at a discount.129 In the second story a man who owns a candy shop leaves his store unattended in order to find and take care of his parents after the earthquake. As they become hungry the following day the shop owner rushes back to his store hoping his belongings were not stolen. He arrives finding everything how he left it and he prepares rice to feed his parents.130 Both of these men’s actions are similar to Hamaguchi’s actions in “The Rice Bale Fire,” when he burns his own personal rice stores, with little regard for his personal wealth, to save his fellow villagers, in various ways these stories make moral exemplars out of those who sacrifice or disregard material wealth for the sake of people in need with whom they have a relationship.

128 Ibid., 41-46, 78-83. 129 Ibid., 41-45. 130 Ibid., 78-82. 67 While this material sacrificing moral ideal no doubt has its practical applications

(for instance school children in modern America are taught to leave behind their belongings in case of a fire at school) it is also important to note that it has particularly

Confucian overtones that reflect the folk utilization of Confucian ideals during the

Tokugawa era. Most obvious is the importance of ritual propriety (Confucian proper conduct) in social relationships, each of the in the story either help their relatives or fellow community members. Another way these stories reflect folk Confucian morality of the time are in their reflection of Confucian values that are implied by the

Tokugawa class system. The class system, place Samurai, who cultivated their mind and body, at the top; farmers and artisans, who produced useful things through their own work, in the middle; and merchants, who sold things they did not produce for profit, at the bottom. This system shows an inherent disdain for economic profit, which was deemed predatory. Thus by disregarding profit or gain the candy merchant and

Hamaguchi (who was a merchant in real life), as well as the samurai who is literally depicted scolding a merchant, are acting in moral ways according to the folk interpretation of the values underlying societal structure of the time.

Another theme that shows the highly Confucian influences on early modern disaster folklore are stories about the actions of filially pious women, which further highlights natural disaster narrative as a site for moral debate and the connection of morality meaning with natural disasters. Stories such as “The Filial Woman’s Untimely

Death” (Kōfu ga himei ni shinda hanashi), “Abandoning One’s Clothing and Finding

Your Husband’s Corpse” (Irui wo suttee otto no shigai wo hirotta hanashi), and “The

Filial Woman Who Faced Death and Left a Memento” (Shigo ni nozonde katami wo

68 nokoshita kofu no hanashi), all show the importance of filial piety in Tokugawa Japan.131

The first story, about a women who escapes her residence only to go back in attempting to save her mother-in-law and ending with them both being crushed, is followed by a debate on whether or not her actions were filial. The author writes that as a woman,(women were believed to less able to grasp filial piety than men) she fulfilled her duty, although he reports others think she should have thought of her mother-in-law first.132 The second deals with a wife who seeks out her husband’s corpse and like many of the aforementioned stories, abandons her material wealth to do so.133 The third story, concerns a daughter who, without thinking of her own safety, runs off to find her parents and is crushed in the process. It shows that Confucian were often mixed in syncretic ways with other beliefs in Tokugawa folk religion. Although the girl acted according to filial piety, her ultimate demise is attributed to residual karma, showing that, in order to understand natural disasters, Japanese used multiple belief systems seamlessly within folk disaster narratives.134

Disaster narratives in Ansei Record that center on the theme of morality are not restricted to heroic tales of moral exemplars, however. Stories entitled “Abandoning

One’s Parents and Suffering” (Ryōshin wo misutete hisaishita hanashi) and “If One

Believes Gossip, They Beckon Misfortune” (Uwasa wo shinjireba wazawai wo maneku to iu hanashi) are moral cautionary tales, indicating that immorality can lead to further misfortune.135 The first deals with a daughter who tries to escape during the earthquake

131 Ibid., 26-29, 29-34, 72-78. 132 Ibid., 26-29. 133 Ibid., 72-78. 134 Ibid., 29-33. 135 Ibid., 47-52, 56-62. 69 without thinking of her parents and is ultimately crushed. The author purposefully compares her to the other more filial women in the preceding stories and makes it clear that the daughter did not act filially.136 Although it is not stated the underlying message of the tale seems to be that she was instantly punished for her actions. The second story recounts how a community is tricked by thieves who start a rumor that another earthquake as well as a tsunami will strike a few days after the Ansei Edo quake in order to rob the community’s abandoned houses as people flee. The story shows that older and wiser members of the communities are not fooled by the gossip because no recognized precursors or omens had occurred to indicate an impending disaster.137

The similarities of the folk disaster narratives of Ansei Record and “The Rice Bale

Fire” show that although the former had nationalist and informational meanings and functions it also was part of a larger narrative tradition that viewed disaster through the lenses of morality and folk religion. Hamaguchi’s intuitive prediction, material sacrifice, and efforts to personally save his village were not only heroic, but also consistent with the larger folk religious and moral themes present in Japanese natural disaster folklore since the pre-modern era. These narrative themes in turn render natural disasters predictable and also provide readers with examples of not only what to do during a disaster but how to morally act, effectively patterning the natural environment as well as human reaction to it.

Emotional Content and Function of Folk Disaster Narrative

Disaster folk narratives such as “The Rice Bale Fire” and the morality tales of

Ansei Record have been analyzed for their nationalist messages, informative content, and

136 Ibid., 47-49. 137 Ibid., 56-61. 70 commercial success; however, an important aspect of these narratives are their emotional content and function. Although scholars such as Smits have commented on the

“reassuring” nature of early modern disaster narratives and have touched on the emotional aspects to cultural reactions to disaster, it remains an area that should be studied further.138 Using the theoretical framework of “emotional practice,” I analyze these disaster narratives’ emotional functions on two levels: as sources that describe and depict emotional practices and as tools used in emotional practices.

As shown above the natural disaster stories of “The Rice Bale Fire” and Ansei

Record depict moral actions by their characters; however, in early modern and even modern Japan moral actions were not emotionally neutral, but culturally inflected emotional practices as well. As has been explored, there were a number of folk religious influences on the themes of natural disaster folktales, but perhaps the best aspect to explore in order to illuminate the intersections of morality, emotion, and practice is folk

Confucian morality. Writing about the filial piety of mother-son relationships during

Qing dynasty China, Maram Epstein finds that the display of emotion was an important part of “demonstrating [one’s] moral worth” in Confucian terms.139 The approach

Epstein takes is similar to this study, looking at the written genres of biography (nianpu) and fiction (xiaoshuo) for “idealized representations” of filial piety as Confucian moral emotional practices.140 In the case of early modern and modern Japan, this study extends

138 Batten and Brown, 112. 139 Maram Epstein, “Sons and Mothers: The Social Construction of Filial Piety in Late-Imperial China” in Love, Hatred, and Other Passions: Questions and Themes on Emotions in Chinese Civilization edited by Paolo Santangelo and Donatella Guida (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 286. 140 Epstein, 286. 71 Epstein’s research, finding emotional aspects not only in depictions of filial piety, but also other folk Confucian moral practices described in disaster folktales.

Just as Epstein shows in her research, filial piety in natural disaster folktales, were emotional as well as moral practices, which in many ways go beyond the “universal” bond felt by children and parents, taking on culturally specific qualities.141 While a number of the disaster folktales in Ansei Record depict filial piety as an emotional practice it is perhaps most evident in “The Filial Woman Who Faced Death and Left a

Memento.” In the tale, a woman around 20 years old was staying the night at a neighboring couple’s residence helping with the preparations for funerary rites when the earthquake struck, and without thinking of herself ran off to check on her parents. Taking a closer look, her rushing to find her parents is framed not only as a moral action, but a distinctly emotional practice. After witnessing the residence she had been spending the night at topple from the shaking of the earthquake, she hastily says “I am worried about my parent’s well being. I apologize,” before running off despite the protests of the neighboring couple who offer to go with her.142 Her emotion, specifically her worry, is depicted in two ways. One way it is shown is in her verbal expression that she is “worried”

(shinpai). In addition the depiction of her actions of speaking quickly and running off show that she is putting her anxiety into practice, expressed through filial piety.

The filial woman’s enacting of filial piety is not only emotional for her, but also evokes the emotional response of other characters within the story. After the women runs off the older couple finds her pinned under debris as a fire approaches. The couple tries to save the women, but she insists that they save themselves before it is too late, blaming

141 Epstein, 288. 142 Arakawa, 30. 72 her fate on residual karma. Before they leave her she makes a final request of them, that they take care of her parents in her stead. This moves the couple so much that their “tears pour down” as they agree to her request. They cry again as they leave to escape the fire after the woman leaves them a final expression of her filial affection, a hair comb, to be given to her parents as a memento.143 In natural disaster folklore filial piety is not only an emotional practice for its enactors, but it can also evoke powerful emotional reactions of those who witness it.

Filial Piety is not the only act of morality depicted as an emotional practice in

Ansei Record; other folk Confucian values are also articulated in emotional terms. A good example of another moral/emotional practice is found in “The Warrior Who

Personally Saved the Starving.” Although the general plot is explained above, a closer look at the language used to describe the samurai’s moral actions show that they were distinctly emotional practices that evoked an emotional response. For example, when the shop owner explains that they did not intend to sell rice that day, the samurai is described as becoming extremely angry (hidoku okotte), questioning why the merchant continues to display a lantern advertising rice bowls if they do not intend to sell anything, and if they are merely looking down on him for being a poor samurai.144 His anger is such that the samurai “would not even listen,” to the merchant’s protestations.145

Once the samurai convinces the merchant to sell rice to him, explaining that even though he can not feed all the of the thousands of starving earthquake victims, he would try to feed as many as possible, the samurai’s anger is revealed to be morally righteous.

143 Ibid., 33. 144 Ibid., 42-43. 145 Ibid., 45. 73 The merchant is moved by the samurai’s sentiment and “solemnly looks up at the warrior,” (igi wo masashite, bushi wo aogimiru) and offers to sell him the rice at a discount, excluding the price of the firewood used to cook it.146 The emotional reaction does not end with the merchant’s solemn change of heart; upon hear that the rice would be discounted and that he had swayed the merchant, the warrior becomes “overjoyed”

(hijō ni yorokobi).147 In the tale of the warrior a string of moral actions/ reactions are depicted as emotional practices. The samurai’s righteous anger leads to the merchants solemn and moral discounting of the rice, which in turn brings joy to the samurai. This story connects moral action and emotional practice in natural disaster folklore with

Confucian themes, emotional practice not only being a method of expressing moral action, but also being an effective means of inspiring other moral/emotional practices.

“The Rice Bale Fire” also offers a glimpse at the connection of moral action and emotional practice. Although Tsunezo’s portrayal comes across as relatively collected when compared to the characters in Ansei Record, the emotional undertones are evident in the conclusion of the tale. After Hamaguchi lights his rice stores on fire and lures the village up to high ground the village is washed away by the tsunami wave. Only then do the villagers realize the sacrifice has made. They respond emotionally, and “without a word get down on their knees before Hamaguchi.” This action, much like the merchant’s “solemn” change of heart, is an emotional practice, conveying the gratitude of the villagers as well as the gravity of Hamaguchi’s moral sacrifice.148 Even though

Hamaguchi’s execution of his moral action is portrayed without emotion, the emotional

146 Ibid., 45. 147 Ibid., 45. 148 Tsunezo, 509. 74 aspects of setting his own rice on fire are evident in the villagers’ response. His concern for the villager’s well-being evoked their emotional response of gratitude, much like the filial woman evoked the tears of the older couple. The moral tales of the Ansei Record and “The Rice Bale Fire” not only portrayed emotional practices, but were also tools in emotional practices themselves.

While these portrayals may evoke drama or , they also likely prompted a visceral reaction from early modern and modern Japanese who by reading, writing, and/or purchasing these tales were themselves engaging in emotional practices. Perhaps the most concrete evidence for the tales themselves being tools in enacting emotional practice is that one of Nakai’s main reasons for making a Japanese version of Hearn’s “A

Living God” was because he was so “moved” by the tale.149 It should also be noted that

Nakai also attended a school set up by Hamaguchi in Yuasa, Wakayama Prefecture and used the road by the sea wall commissioned by Hamaguchi to get to school.150 Thus, writing “The Rice Bale Fire” for student textbooks can be seen as an emotional practice, motivated by and expressing his admiration for Hamaguchi’s courageous and moral actions, as well as love for his hometown and nostalgia. Although it may be problematic to look at a tale so deeply influenced by a western author (Hearn) as an example of

“Japanese” emotions, and it would be very difficult to delineate what emotional aspects of the tale were “westernized,” the fact that Nakai found the tale moving and not only translated, but also re-crafted it for a Japanese audience merits it as an acceptable case study.

149 Kasai, 112. 150 Ibid., 112. 75 It is likely then, that reading “The Rice Bale Fire” for Showa era Japanese school children was meant to be an emotional experience. Hamaguchi’s heroics could inspire pride in the students’ Japanese heritage as well as hope that if they too were ever to experience a natural disaster they would and could act in a similar fashion. Ultimately readers could derive a feeling of security that, despite Japan being a disaster prone nation, they had a moral framework for how to act in the event of an earthquake or tsunami. A feeling that likely extended to air raids during the years of World War II. Reading the repurposed folktale “The Rice Bale Fire” was intended to evoke the emotions of Japanese school children and can be considered an emotional practice when effective.

Ansei Record can also be analyzed as a tool for various emotional practices as well. Ansei Record was a commercially successful collection of seismic theories and moral disaster tales; however, assuming that profit was only motivation behind creating the collection is cynical. Creating Ansei Record can also be viewed as an effort to memorialize the disaster and disaster victims. In addition purchasing Ansei Record can be viewed as more than just a desire to find entertainment in the shocking drama of the tales, but as Edo residents wanting a memento of disaster as a way to remember it, and perhaps those they lost in the disaster. In addition much like the case of “The Rice Bale Fire” reading Ansei Record could be seen as an emotional practice as well. Portraying disasters as predictable and mapping appropriate moral responses to them, the folk disaster narratives of Ansei Record provided readers with reassuring patterned models of the environment and human reaction to it. By rendering a natural environment predictable in culturally meaningful ways its helped ease anxiety about its unpredictable aspects.

Reading the tales of Ansei Record could have also allowed readers to process their

76 perhaps similar earthquake experiences or loss of loved ones in manners similar to those who lost their life in the stories. Thus folk disaster narrative can be seen as a type of cultural coping mechanism by means of emotional function, producing them, purchasing them, and reading them each constituting a reassuring cultural and emotional practice.

Conclusion

Although the National Diet has used the anniversary of the Ansei Nankai tsunami that inspired “The Rice Bale Fire,” as an informative tool to heighten public awareness of tsunami, the folk tale’s legacy strikes a deeper emotional chord. “The Rice Bale Fire” is a modern iteration of the forms and themes of natural disaster folklore, such as prediction and the cause and effect connection of the environment with human morality, which can be found far into Japan’s pre-modern era. Although continuity in “The Rice Bale Fire” is partially obscured by the multilayered quality of modern disaster folklore, the tale’s connection with the larger corpus of moral/religious folktales is made even more apparent by comparing it to the overtly moral folktales about the Ansei-Edo earthquake in Ansei

Record. The tales of the Ansei Record, while multilayered in their own right and drawing on various religious traditions, does show the increasing influence of Confucianism in early modern Japan. These Confucian iterations of broader historical themes would greatly shape the moral messages of “The Rice Bale Fire.” The prevalence of morality in these tales, especially in the portrayal of moral/emotional practices and their effects shows that beyond being descriptions of natural disaster events “The Rice Bale Fire” and other disaster folklore had important emotional meaning for Japanese readers.

Furthermore the writing, purchasing, and reading of these texts’ were distinct emotional practices in themselves, while everyone approached the tales differently, the narratives

77 could be used as tools to evoke pride in the Japanese spirit, easing anxiety about potential future disasters, or even memorializing the deceased.

78

Chapter 5: Concluding Thoughts

Summary

There is remarkable continuity in the thematic content, form, and function of natural disaster folklore in Japan from the pre-modern to modern eras. Broadly speaking folklore about the natural disasters in Japan thematically depict the ability of human morality to influence the environment, a deep connection between the supernatural and natural worlds, natural disasters as corrective events that right moral or social wrongs or at least give actors the chance to act morally, as well as an emphasis on the efficacy of prediction (both “scientific” and supernatural). Disaster folklore is often presented stylistically as eyewitness accounts and/or personal narratives, although artistic has at times been coupled with narrative to illustrate folk belief. While these natural disaster beliefs and the cultural forms that convey them have at various times functioned as social commentary, satire, nationalistic indoctrination, commercial entertainment, and moral lessons, they also entail emotional aspects and functions as a method of coping with natural disaster.

Because they reflect a number of similar approaches and themes, the pre-modern era medieval works of literature such as Hōjōki and Heike Monogatari provide useful evidence for analyzing Japanese beliefs about the natural environment and also suggest an emotional function. In Hōjōki, Kamo no Chōmei portrays the five disasters that befall the capital as the consequence of human immorality. On a larger scale Chōmei also sees

79 the rampant immorality and subsequent natural disaster as indicators that The Latter Days of the Buddhist Law are in full swing. However, the disasters are not completely negative events for Chōmei, but serve as a corrective force as well, causing those who live through them to refocus on moral matters, specifically the impermanence of everything. The descriptions of disaster in Heike Monogatari show that vengeful spirits that were wronged in life or improperly mourned after death have the power to cause natural disasters that endanger the living. In addition throughout history Heike Monogatari as been performed as a ritual to pacify the vanquished spirits of Taira warriors, who died during the war narrated within the text, and prevent their vengeance through natural disasters. In this way the ritual function of text is another example of the belief that human action can affect the environment and cause natural disasters. Furthermore this ritual tradition shows that the creation and performance of literature in pre-modern Japan was itself an emotional practice aimed at soothing and appeasing supernatural emotional actors.

In early modern Japan catfish prints and the culture surrounding them, especially following the Ansei Edo earthquake are an excellent case study for the analysis of natural disaster beliefs, and their focus on satirical depictions of themes shows the importance of humor as an emotional practice used for coping. Products of the flourishing print culture of the Edo-period, catfish illustrations were largely used as for earthquakes due to the many folkloric associations of catfish with earthquakes. One such legend stated that Japan sat atop the back of a giant catfish that was normally subdued by a deity, but when it got the chance to move, it would cause an earthquake. Catfish were also thought to be able to predict earthquakes either because of natural sensitivity to seismic activity or

80 as messengers of certain deities. In prints, especially those after the Ansei Edo quake, catfish were shown sometimes as large and imposing and other times as comical anthropomorphic “catfish-men,” responsible for destruction but also for increased circulation of money to the lower classes, as well as selling powerful medicine that would cure Tokugawa society. Essentially, through the metaphor of catfish, the earthquake was seen as being caused by and correcting the moral degeneracy of Edo-period Japan: economic inequality and stagnation. Often these corrective effects, especially the circulation of money, were couched in folk religious terms. In addition these prints often accompanied moral disaster tales, personal narratives, and eyewitness accounts of the earthquake. While the catfish prints often portrayed the emotional response of disaster victims their satirical nature also indicates that humor was an important emotional practice for coping with . The beliefs and culture surrounding the catfish prints of Edo-period Japan show great continuity with pre-modern Japanese beliefs, emphasizing the cause and effect relationships between human morality, the supernatural, and the environment and the efficacy of prediction, in addition to valuing eyewitness accounts and personal narrative. Although there is a sense that there was a shift in emphasis of disasters being the result of moral degeneracy to tales describing how to act in the face of disaster, even tales with a focus on disaster mitigation had moral undertones. Again, these can all be seen as an effort to emotionally cope with and inscribe meaning on uncontrollable and unpredictable natural disasters. The work of scholars like Smits and Weisenfeld indicate that these beliefs and depictions of disasters continue to have currency in modern day Japan.

81 “The Rice Bale Fire,” a tsunami folktale adapted from Lafcadio Hearn’s “A

Living God,” which itself is based on the real life actions and personal account of

Hamaguchi Goryō during the Ansei Nankai earthquake and tsunami, is an effective case study for illustrating the complex relationship between folk belief, morality, emotion, and narrative in natural disaster folklore. The tale’s dominant themes show that the authors were each interested in preserving the moral and emotional qualities of the tale instead of an accurate and/or scientific portrayal of the actual tsunami event. This point is further proven by comparing “The Rice Bale Fire” to the moral disaster folktales of Ansei

Record, which share many themes with the tsunami folktale. These tales emphasize that it is possible to predict disasters, the value of human life over material wealth, and the importance of Confucian ritual propriety during disaster events. The many similarities between “The Rice Bale Fire” and these morality tales show that it can be considered part of the larger tradition of disaster folklore that connects human morality, emotion, and environmental phenomenon, and that the textbook tale was not merely about national identity or disaster mitigation.

Furthermore, looking closer at the emotional content of “The Rice Bale Fire” and the tales of Ansei Record shows that they portray moral actions as distinctly emotional practices. These emotional practices in turn evoke emotional responses from other characters within the story. More broadly, the writing, purchase, and reading of these stories can all be seen as emotional practices in themselves, making the narratives a tool in the acting out of emotions by early modern and modern Japanese. In particular they could be used to evoke pride in human ability to mitigate disaster, ease anxiety by

82 providing a moral framework to deal with disaster and suggest that natural disasters are predictable, or they may be used to memorialize those lost to disaster.

Larger Implications

Beyond describing the continuities in Japanese natural disaster folklore and exploring the relation of “The Rice Bale Fire” and other moral disaster tales to Japanese emotional practice, this study has implications for issues beyond Japanese history, notably in the fields of folklore, affect studies, and general history. These implications will be organized around the three guiding methodologies explained in the introduction: folklore as an analytical category, the theory of emotional practice, and a periodization that focuses on the early modern as a unique moment in history. This study specifically suggests folklore is a useful source for the study of how humans deal with natural disaster. In addition I argue emotional practice is a particularly effective theorization of affect. Finally this research complicates the simple dichotomy of pre-modern and modern by complicating the transitional elements of the early modern period.

The Relevance of Folklore For Studying Disaster

Throughout this study, folklore, broadly defined as a non-institutional collection of beliefs and cultural forms that are communally circulated and perpetuated, has been used as a source of commonly held ideas about natural disasters. This case suggest that folklore offers a promising tool for studying ideas about human responses to and understandings of natural disasters, and the environment in general, perceptions that coexist and sometimes converge with accepted science, but ultimately move beyond it to touch many aspects of everyday culture and life, especially emotional responses to

83 environmental developments. This allows the researcher to reconstruct cultural conceptions about the dynamics of natural disasters and their relation to humanity through the use of various sources such as , belief, literature, and mass media.

Essentially, because folklore permeates so many aspects of everyday life, the researcher will be able to map the cultural framework that exists in compliment and contrast to science, through which natural disasters are understood.

Emotional Practice as an Analytical Tool for Historical Writing

This study successfully exhibits that emotional practice, which conceives of emotion not only as an internal experience, but as an external action arising from internal experience, was a useful tool for examining “The Rice Bale Fire” and the tales of Ansei

Record. In these folktales characters rarely described their internal feelings and the narrators did not speculate on their stream of thought consciousness. Instead emotion was described as well as acted on in a bodily way. Emotional practice allowed the examination of both of these sides of emotional experience. This should prove to be valuable to historians, who cannot always rely on the description of internal feeling and motivation, but must often analyze subject’s behaviors. Emotional practice served to tether this study’s analysis of emotions in history to outward reality.

Periodization: Revisited

By considering the continuities of natural disaster folklore through the pre- modern, early modern, and modern throughout Japanese history this research calls into question some of the accepted differences between the “traditional” and the “modern” in

84 regards to indigenous folk knowledge and western science This thesis has specifically focused on “early modernity” as a complex era of change and cultural syncretism.

Indeed, the many changes in the early modern period such as commercialization, the development of a media culture and the rising influence of Confucianism in Japan, all served to make natural disaster folklore more multilayered and complex, sometimes obscuring the pre-modern folk religious origins of thematic elements. Analyzing disaster folklore across the span of pre-modern, early modern, and modern Japan has revealed that despite the changes of early modernity, strong basic commonalities remained. In part, early modernity indicates a conceptual transition from the non-rational aspects of pre-modernity to the dominance of science. Additionally early modernity implies that this transition ends with the beginning of “modernity,” however this research shows that not only do folk explanations of the world persist, they also perform useful emotion functions for modern Japanese.

Despite the adoption of western science, “traditional” ideas and forms of natural disaster folklore persisted during early modernity. In fact it could be argued that, in the realm of prediction, folkloric ideas merged with modern science to produce a unique type of seismology in Japan. This could be due to the fact that Japan did not experience an

Enlightenment Age shift to the rationality of modern science. In addition the continued influence of folkloric ideas, even in intellectually respected realms of academia (as Smits shows in the case of seismology) was not necessarily the result of anti-rationalistic romanticism as was the case in Europe.

Instead, in Japan both folklore and modern western science were merely two different, and not altogether competing ways of rationalizing, understanding, and

85 ultimately coping with natural world that were capable at times of merging into distinctly

Japanese intellectual traditions. Ultimately this indicates the underlying and basic emotional and cognitive similarities in the functions of folklore and science. Although both folklore and science can be seen as reassuring those that believe in it that they understand the world, folklore maintains relevance as being both a vehicle for the portrayal of and tool utilized in emotional practice. Japanese modernity then problematizes a clean break between the traditional and the modern globally, opening up the possibility to consider “multiple modernities.” It also calls into question in what ways

“traditional” beliefs and folkloric assumptions have not only persisted in the western world, but how they have interacted with and shaped modern science

86

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