They were converted by missionaries four centuries ago
and went into hiding in 1614 to avoid persecution.
Though Japan has become more open to
outside religions, they
have remained. . .
A priest, in ritual kimono for New Year's worship, serves a remote and segregated Narushima island community of Hidden Christians.
Photos courtesy of Cristal Whelan
Hidden Christians
By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin
CRISTAL Whelan took a giant step back in time on a research project that will provide the substance of her doctoral thesis and a documentary film she is producing here.
She lived for a year with "hidden Christians" of Japan, descendants of people who were converted by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries 400 years ago. They went into hiding in 1614 when the imperial government drove out all foreigners and began centuries of persecution of the followers of the outsiders' religion.
A Goto island priest holds the boxed remnant of a martyr's kimono,
a scrap of which is buried with each deceased Hidden Christian.
The last remnants of the "Kakure Kirishitan" continue to live in segregated communities on sparsely populated southern islands, shunning attention despite the religious freedom that now exists in Japan. Their religion contains elements of what was taught by the Jesuit priests interwoven with Shintoism and Buddhism. They refer to themselves as Kakure, which means hidden.
"Most of their prayers are in Japanese, but there are Portuguese and Latin words, which no one understands," said Whelan, a lecturer at Sophia University in Tokyo who is currently an East-West Center fellow. For example, they didn't know that the Portuguese word "Belem" meant Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, until Whelan interpreted it for them.
The believers recite "orasho" - from the Latin "oratio" meaning prayer - but do not understand the Japanese-Portuguese-Latin language combinations. That is not so different from Catholics whose liturgical use of Latin was discontinued only a generation ago. "Most people reciting Buddhist sutras don't understand them either," Whelan said.
The scholar recognized the medieval legend of "Our Lady of the Snows" in one holy day of the Kakure liturgical calendar. The observance is the story of "Biruzen Santa Maruya" - the Blessed Virgin Mary - who thwarted the unwelcome attentions of a king by causing it to snow, then later was taken up into heaven in a wagon of flowers.
Another story, in which the miraculous conception of Jesus was effected by God in the form of a butterfly landing on Mary's lips, may combine mixed symbols, Whelan said. Buddha is sometimes depicted as a butterfly, and so is the soul.
Cristal Whelan holds a 17th century wooden statue of
the Buddhist figure Kuan Yin which Hidden Christians
in Japan revere as a depiction of Mary and Jesus.
The Kakure liturgical calendar includes Christmas Eve, called "Otaiya" meaning big evening, and the O-Bon season of remembering ancestors, "similar in spirit to the traditional Japanese, but with Kakure symbolism." It includes Lent, "a time of entering sorrow which ends with a time of lifting of sorrow, but there is no Easter, no resurrection."
Their sign of the cross, made by crossing thumb over forefinger, seems to be a cryptic insiders' recognition signal. "It reminds me of Buddhist mudras, finger and hand gestures to invoke different gods," Whelan said.
She said the mixture of elements "may not have evolved. It is more likely that they were incorporating (Buddhism and Shintoism) from the start." The European missionaries were probably at the root of confusion. Not even Francis Xavier, the famous leader of about 150 missionaries to Japan, learned to speak Japanese. The Bible they brought was not translated into Japanese. "Theirs was an oral tradition, the stories told by missionaries."
The Kakure scriptures, which translate as "The Beginning of Heaven and Earth," are a blend of Bible stories and Catholic doctrine mixed with some Japanese fables. Whelan's translation of the Kakure's sacred book will be released by the University of Hawaii Press in December.
About 50,000 hidden Christians revealed themselves when Japan opened up in the 1860s under the Meiji dynasty. About half of them became Catholics via missionaries who returned to the historically Christianized areas. But "the Kakure believe they are the true faith, they don't recognize the new-fangled Christians," Whelan said.
"In my research, I came across a photo labeled 'baptism in Goto.' That led to a museum of Kakure artifacts. When the curator told me, 'They won't let you near them,' that's all I needed to hear!"
The Kakure she met - literally led by a mailman down a muddy trail to their village - are in their 80s and 90s, in a community of squid fishermen.
She lived for a year on Narushima island in the Goto islands which are mostly populated by fishing communities.
"Their children have left, part of a general move to the cities, a generation that want their fair share" of the modern materialist culture of Japan.
When she and a National Geographic photographer filmed the Kakure, they did not want it shown in Japan. When the local production team is finished, Whelan will take it back to show them, and hopes to persuade the Kakure to allow their story to be told in their homeland where they have always been in internal exile.