Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2012, vol . 7 Women and Kirishitanban Literature: Translation, Gender, and Theology in Early Modern Japan Haruko Nawata Ward irishitan women contributed to the religious literature of the Jesuit Kmission in Japan (1549–1650).1 When the Japanese authorities banned Christianity in 1612, they attempted to destroy all evidence of the Kirishitans and their writings, including their women’s writings, dur- ing the following three hundred years of suppression. Thus, historians of this period must rely for the most part on extant sources written by men. One of these sources is the religious literature of Kirishitanban (literally, “Christian edition” but, generally, Christian “publication”), most of which was freely translated from European originals into Japanese. Kirishitan women advised Jesuit translators on the content and style of the Kirishitanban, particularly on gender-specific aspects of the Japanese language, literary tradition, and culture. As a result, Christianity, having originally arrived in European cultural dress, was translated and trans- formed into a new mode more fitting to Kirishitan women’s spiritual garb. The extant Kirishitanban texts show some traces of these changes. Other sources are the Jesuit records of and references to the Kirishitan women who assisted with the translation and read, wrote, transmitted, and used the Kirishitanban in their own ministries. A careful examination of both sources restores women’s voices from their banished silence. After introducing Christianity to Japan, the Jesuits noticed that it had a highly literate culture, and many types of written texts proliferated 1 Kirishitan was a term derived from Portuguese cristão to designate Catholic con- verts and their distinctive culture in early modern Japan. 271 EMW12.indb 271 8/28/12 12:30:42 PM 272 EMWJ 2012, vol . 7 Haruko Nawata Ward in the lives of women and men. Immediately they began translating vari- ous Christian materials into Japanese to be used as tools for interreligious dialogue, education, and conversion. Kirishitanban includes some manu- scripts and woodcut prints as well as about sixty titles printed by the Jesuit press using movable type during its operation in Japan between 1590 and 1614.2 My view of Kirishitanban translations as evidence both of trans- culturation and of women’s contribution to the process is explained in a discussion of the following topics: 1) the gender-conscious choice of script, 2) team translation and audience participation, 3) religious hybridity, and 4) theological transformation. First, Kirishitanban translators chose two types of script that were preferred by the common ordinary readership, especially women. About half of the works are set in roman characters, the Jesuit mission’s inven- tion. The other half are in traditional kanamajiri (かな混じり), a mixture of Japanese and Chinese characters. Both the romanized transliterations and kanamajiri use phonetic symbols for about eighty sounds. Kanamajiri is a type of vernacular writing, in contrast to kanbun (漢文), which then was exclusively used by the male elites. Kanbun consists only of Chinese characters and presumes the readers’ knowledge of a wider range of char- acters and familiarity with the Chinese classics, to which women generally did not have access. In fact, the Kirishitanban translations avoided kanbun altogether. Yet the Kirishitanban texts contained numerous citations from the original Portuguese, Latin, and, to some extent, Spanish languages, requiring the readers, including women, to have some knowledge of them. Thus, the Kirishitanban placed women and men, lay and clergy, native and foreign-born on a level playing field of learning. A good example of women’s knowledge of Portuguese and Latin can be seen in the case of Lady Hosokawa Tama Gracia (細川玉伽羅奢) 2 Visitor Alessandro Valignano imported the movable type press to Japan in 1590. For a list of the published Kirishitanban, see Ernest Mason Satow, The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan, 1591–1610 (Tokyo: Privately printed, 1888); John Laures, Kirishitan Bunko: A Manual of Books and Documents on the Early Christian Mission in Japan . With Special Reference to the Principal Libraries in Japan and More Particularly to the Collection at Sophia University, Tokyo . With an Appendix of Ancient Maps of the Far East, Especially Japan, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs no. 5, 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1957). EMW12.indb 272 8/28/12 12:30:42 PM Women and Kirishitanban Literature 273 (1563–1600).3 The Jesuit reports were consistent about her extraordinary intelligence, appetite for knowledge, and mastery of roman script. From her conversion to her last days, Kirishitanban literature formed her intel- lectual and spiritual life. Young Tama excelled in Zen (禅) meditation, and after her marriage to Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki (細川忠興), she was reputed to be more knowledgeable than her Zen master. In 1582 her father Lord Akechi Mitsuhide (明智光秀) assassinated the First Unifier Oda Nobunaga (織田信長) and subsequently was killed, whereupon Tadaoki exiled Tama. In 1584 the Second Unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) pardoned Tama, but Tadaoki permanently secluded her in her quarters in the Hosokawa residence in Osaka (大阪). Intrigued by the new Kirishitan religion, Tama ventured out to visit the Jesuit church in spring 1587 dur- ing one of Tadaoki’s absences in warfare. There she interrupted the sermon and waged a Zen mondō (禅問答) disputation with the Jesuit preacher. When it was time for her to return home, she asked to borrow some of the Kirishitanban books. From then on in her permanent seclusion, she cor- responded with the Jesuits regarding these books via her lady-in-waiting, Kiyohara Ito Maria (清原いとマリヤ). Because these books were still in man- uscript form and written in roman script with many foreign words, Tama quickly learned the roman alphabet. Soon she desired to be baptized. When Hideyoshi issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Padres (伴天連追放令) in July 1587 and the Jesuits had to go into hiding, they instructed Ito Maria to baptize Tama secretly in her confinement as Gracia. With Ito Maria as an intermediary, Tama Gracia exchanged letters with the Jesuits containing questions and opinions about the books, and as she studied them, she also taught classes on them to the women in her residence. In 1600 she died when her residence was engulfed by a fire set by the enemies of Tadaoki, who was away fighting for the victory of the last unifier Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) with his supporters. The Jesuits reported that, until her last days, Tama Gracia studied and taught the Kirishitanban literature. They also mentioned her compositions, possibly in Portuguese, but all of her 3 On Hosokawa Tama Gracia, see Haruko Nawata Ward, Women Religious Leaders in Japan’s Christian Century, 1549–1650, Women and Gender in the Early Modern World Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). EMW12.indb 273 8/28/12 12:30:42 PM 274 EMWJ 2012, vol . 7 Haruko Nawata Ward Christian writings, including her correspondence with the Jesuits, were destroyed, except for some Portuguese translations of her letters preserved in the Jesuit records. The second topic concerns the role of translators in the contexts of both early modern Japan and Europe, when translation was most often done by a team rather than by an individual. The Jesuit translation team consisted of both the missionaries who were constantly learning Japanese and the male catechists who were fluent in Japanese. The team worked in the Japanese tradition of treating literary texts as ever open for communal revision. The Kirishitanban translators freely edited and commented on the original texts. Then they tested the versions of Japanese translation in docuju (読誦) fashion, that is, a Buddhist liturgical recitation of the scrip- ture to the congregation. The audience responded to these readings and added their own commentaries. The published revisions reflected these verbal exchanges, which allowed for women to contribute their critiques and comments. For example, many years prior to the publication of Sanctos no gosagvueo no vchi nvqigaqi (Excerpts from the Acts of the Saints), the Jesuit team began translating stories of the saints.4 These stories were performed in the traditional style of setsuwa (説話) or “moral ballad” by blind, itinerant biwa hōshi (琵琶法師), guitar-like-instrument-strumming- singer-story-telling former Buddhist monks who had become Jesuit preachers.5 These Japanese Jesuit storytellers often visited and performed for Kirishitan households. The translator-writers took into account the 4 Sanctos no gosagvueo no vchi nvqigaqi, published in roman alphabet by the Jesuit press in Kazusa (加津佐) in 1591, is a hagiographic collection from various original sources. Two copies are preserved, one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the other in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, of which facsimile is found in Kōso Toshiaki, ed., Sanctos no gosagveo no vchi nvqigaqi, 2 vols. in 1 (Tokyo: Yūshodo, 2006). 5 On the general history of the practice of itinerant story telling by biwa minstrel- priests since the thirteenth century, see Haruo Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, trans. Sonja Arntzen, et al., Translations from the Asian Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 9; Also see pp. 1159–60 on the popularity of sermon ballads (sekkyo-bushi 説経節) of the street performers between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the records of Christian biwa hōshi, see Juan G. Ruiz de Medina, Iezusu Kaishi to Kirishitan fukyō (イエズス会士とキリシタン布教) (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2003), 131–68. EMW12.indb 274 8/28/12 12:30:42 PM Women and Kirishitanban Literature 275 preferences, reactions, and comments from the audiences in their pub- lished editions of these stories. In her house Hibiya Monica (日比谷モニカ) (ca. 1549–ca. 1577) participated in the manuscript preparation of the saints’ stories. Monica was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Hibiya Ryōkei Diogo (日比谷了珪 ディオゴ) of Sakai (堺), who provided generous patronage and safe haven for many Jesuits who were acquainted with his children.