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O-Iwa's Curse O-Iwa’s Curse Apparitions and their After-Effects in the Yotsuya kaidan Saitō Takashi 齋藤 喬 Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture In traditional Japanese theater, ghosts appear in the shadowlands between the visible and the invisible. They often try to approach those who harmed or abused them in life to seek revenge with the aid of supernatural powers. In such scenes, the dead are visible as a sign of impending doom only to those who are the target of their revenge. An examination of the Yotsuya kaidan, one of the most famous ghost stories in all of Japanese literature, is a case in point. The story is set in the Edo period, where the protagonist, O-Iwa, is reputed to have put a curse on those around her with catastrophic results. Her legend spread with such effect that she was later immortalized in a Shinto shrine bearing her name. In a word, so powerful and awe-inspiring was her curse that she not only came to be venerated as a Shinto deity but was even memorialized in a Buddhist temple. There is no doubt that a real historical person lay behind the story, but the details of her life have long since been swallowed up in the mists of literary and artistic imagination. In this article, I will focus on the rakugo (oral performance) version of the tale (translated into English by James S. de Benneville in 1917) and attempt to lay out the logic of O-Iwa’s apparitions from the viewpoint of the narrative. ho is O-Iwa? This is the name of the lady of Tamiya house, which appeared in the official documents of Tokugawa Shogunate. As a result, there can be no doubt about that she did exist in the Edo period. But she is also a legend, which Wclaims that she killed around fifteen people by the forces of a curse. Eventually she was venerated in Shinto shrines and memorialized in Buddhist temples in efforts to console her spirit. O-Iwa’s story is called Yotsuya kaidan 四谷怪談, which inspired later writers and engendered numerous kinds of works. Here we will deal with the Yotsuya kaidan, one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan. More precisely, the English translation in 1917 by James S. de Benneville will be referenced. The original text was by Shunkintei Ryūō春錦亭柳桜 (1826–1894), Bulletin 42 (2018) 24 Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture saitō takashi who was a professional storyteller of the Yotsuya kaidan and published a book based on his oral performance in 1896. This article consists of three parts. In the first part we will take a look at the kaidan world. The word kaidan is a Japanese term which means a story about the mysterious and horrible. The Yotsuya kaidan, or O-Iwa’s legend, basically took three literary forms: documentary novels (jitsuroku 実録), theatrical plays (kabuki 歌舞伎), and oral performances (rakugo 落語). Our aim is to clarify how O-Iwa’s curse appears by comparing the concrete scenes between different ver- sions. The second part presents some interpretations of Japanese ghosts. Around the beginning of the Meiji era in the late nineteenth century, Japanese people encountered and enjoyed new trends from European civilization, which were imported and widespread at that time. This period is characterized by the slogan “Civilization and Enlightenment” (文明開化)1 and created an obsessive atmosphere for eliminating old-fashioned Japanese customs. Especially in the newspapers, journalists and intellectuals introduced the vocabulary of psychia- try to promote “scientific” perspectives. Phrases such as “ghosts do not exist; it is simply a neurosis,” became generally accepted. But in fact, the telling of ghost stories survived through this period, and interestingly people still were being scared by ghosts, even though they fully accepted the enlightenment discourse. So “why is it scary”? That is something we need to take a closer look at. In the third part we will mention some parts of the Yotsuya kaidan, which was translated into English by Benneville, the author of several books about Japanese culture. In the Yotsuya kaidan, our protagonist named O-Iwa is abused by her husband, betrayed by neighbors and relatives, and sold as a prostitute in return for money. Soon after finding out about their conspiracy, she puts a curse on them and disappears. And then one by one they fall into O-Iwa’s hands and are killed. As her grudge terrifies the people in the ward, they decide to console her wrathful spirit in two ways, the Shinto one and the Buddhist one. Three Literary Forms of the Yotsuya kaidan As mentioned earlier, the Yotsuya kaidan has three literary forms. The oldest text on O-Iwa’s legend is titled Yotsuya zōtan 四谷雑談 and said to be pub- lished underground. Researchers have discovered three variant manuscripts of this work and suspect that the year of first publication was most likely 1727 (Konita 1997, 281–3). In fact, the author is unknown—probably because the book contained a public scandal, in which three houses of shogunate bureau- 1. It is well known that this term was used by Fukuzawa Yukichi in An Outline of a Theory of Civiliza- tion 『文明論之概略』( ) first published in 1875. Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture 25 Bulletin 42 (2018) o-iwa’s curse crats—Tamiya, Itō, and Akiyama—had been officially disrupted after some sort of trouble. Even in those days the rumor was that they were all killed by the grudge of Tamiya’s wife, O-Iwa, for their vile plot. About one hundred years later, Tsuruya Nanboku 鶴屋南北 (1755–1829), one of the most famous kabuki playwrights in the late Edo period, created a theatri- cal performance in adapting the documentary novel for the kabuki stage. This play, Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan 東海道四谷怪談, premiered in 1825 at the peak of the kaidan culture. Nanboku’s work is been the best known variant of O-Iwa’s story. Thus Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan has one translation and one adaptation. The French translation was achieved in 1996 by Jeanne Sigée under the title Les spectres de Yotsuya. And then the adaptation of Nanboku’s text was written in 1997 by Kyōgoku Natsuhiko 京極夏彦, whose book Warau Iemon 嗤う伊右衛門 won several literary awards in Japan and also was turned into a film. In addi- tion, Kyōgoku arranged his novel in accordance with the original documentary novel Yotsuya zōtan. After the Meiji Restoration, another book on the Yotsuya kaidan was pub- lished in 1896 under the name of Shunkintei Ryūō. This is the record of his oral performance; he is not the author in a narrow sense but just performed it as a rakugo storyteller. While his storytelling followed the previous masters’ tech- niques, it should be pointed out that such an oral performance of the Yotsuya kaidan preceded the Nanboku’s theatrical play (Nobuhiro 1967, 12–13). Ryūō’s plot seems more like Yotsuya zōtan than Tōkaidō Yotsuya kaidan. This rakugo version has one translation and one adaptation. James S. de Benneville trans- lated Ryūō’s text into English in 1917 as a book entitled The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O’Iwa Inari: Tales of the Tokugawa. Soon after the translation was published, Osanai Kaoru 小山内薫, a famous playwright and theater director of the Taishō period, read it and was so moved that he translated it back into Japanese again consulting with Ryūō’s original, adapting it in the form of a novel. His work was published in 1919 under the title O-Iwa『お岩』 . In the postscript of Ryūō’s text, Tada Seiken 多田省軒, a famous detective novelist in the Meiji era, explained the prehistory of its publication in the light of O-Iwa’s legend. The protagonist is a wise woman keeping her chastity, and because her graceful virtue was not ordinary, it has been respected by the following people.… The publisher said to me, “For the serious spirituality of the Inari shrine in Yotsuya, if someone wrote about her kaidan story, the person would always meet with the divine anger of Inari. In addition, after the other publisher in Tokyo produced a book on this matter last year, it must have stopped as soon as they were in fear of meeting Bulletin 42 (2018) 26 Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture saitō takashi divine punishment. Since then, nobody has tried to distribute such a publication. (Seiken 1896, 1)2 According to Seiken, O-Iwa was a dutiful woman with both virtue and charity until she was caught in the conspiracy against her. As she had a devout faith in the Inari deity of Yotsuya, when horrible accidents happened one after another soon the rumor became widespread saying that those who conspired against her must have caused the divine wrath of the Inari. Although he says that no publisher dared to deal with the Yotsuya kaidan, worried about O-Iwa’s curse, why were they able to publish Ryūō’s version? As Seiken said, the reason is that only this book shows the true story of O-Iwa’s life, and the publication serves the purpose of repayment for her suffering. Further- more, he emphasizes her divinity as a Shintō deity, using terms such as “divine anger” and “divine punishment.” In this way, he tries to clarify the intention of the publication, and enhance the authority of the Inari shrine. Ryūō’s book tells the true story, and therefore the lives of the readers will be spared by the benevo- lence of the deity, instead of being punished by wrath. On the other hand, Benneville pointed out the historical context of O-Iwa’s legend in the preface of his book.
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