Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan: Part 3

 Part III  The quest for the magic, liminal or non-ordinary

                                   10  Pilgrimages in Japan

               How far are they determined by deep-lying

                             assumptions?

                                     Peter Ackermann

                                      Introduction

Places of pilgrimage in Japan are frequently situated in the mountains, ‘mountains’

meaning anything from wooded and slightly elevated terrain just outside a town or a

village, to places far from any settlement, hidden in a lonely valley or exposed to the

winds high up on a peak. Pilgrimage thus consists of moving a certain distance, usually

upwards, through space, this movement giving the pilgrim something he or she deems

vital for his or her well-being. What emotional value, however, is attached to this

movement? What expectations might be related to it?

    Interviews and discussions may give us a few plausible answers. People might say, for

instance, ‘I like to come to this place because of its natural beauty’ or, ‘I like to come

here because my parents and grandparents used to come too’. Yet the question remains

whether there is not some deeper and more compelling logic guiding the pilgrim, maybe

far beyond his or her awareness.

    In other words: is it possible to catch a glimpse of what might lie behind the data that

we can gather through observation and interviews? The intention is not to cast doubt

upon what has been observed, but to try and give observable actions a place within an

encompassing framework of logic, a place which may help us to see an action not as a

possibly random or merely spontaneous one, but as one that forms part of a concrete,

albeit unconsciously held, pattern of reasoning.

                            Mystic experiences in mountains

There could be several reasons for a person to leave home and suffer the sometimes

severe hardships of a journey to an often remote temple or shrine. However, one principal

motivation for such a journey could well be the wish to travel to a mountain. No doubt,

on the surface the legends surrounding the great centres of pilgrimage play a prominent

part in the formation of the conscious and unconscious images people hold of the places

they visit, and of the high value attributed to going there.1 Beyond these legends,

however, and beyond a particular deity (or Buddha, or Bodhisattva) that is to be revered,

it is, as mentioned, noteworthy that the goal of pilgrimage as a rule is situated on the

slopes, or even on or near the summit of an elevation. This factor alone, I assume, could

well be the major reason for making the pilgrimage.

                                 Pilgrimages in Japan     93

    Let us take a closer look at the way pilgrimages were traditionally described in songs

and stage plays, in which persons setting out to a sanctuary were a common topic.

Sometimes the name of the sanctuary is explicitly mentioned (e.g. Mii-dera in Shiga

Prefecture, Dōjōji in Wakayama Prefecture, the Ise shrines etc.). Often, however, we are

just told of a journey to a hill, a mountain (which, if surrounded by water, could also be

an island), or a peak whose sanctuary is mentioned only by the way, if at all. What is

important is that at the goal of such a journey it is possible to have a mystic experience.

    To give some concrete examples, of the seven central songs sung to the

accompaniment of the zither koto in the city of Edo around 1800 several can be

categorized as sankei-michiyukimono (pieces [singing] of the visit to a shrine or temple).2

These pieces deal with movement through space and reach a climax of artistic elaboration

when the text indicates a mystic experience. In two songs this journey is explicitly a

pilgrimage (one to the island of Enoshima, the other one to the Sumiyoshi shrine in the

present-day city of Sakai). The remaining songs describe a journey to a sacred space in

mountainous territory, one in the Province of Kii (Wakayama Prefecture), the other—

using imagery associated with Mount Yoshino in Nara Prefecture—in the wooded lands

of Kitano, outside Kyoto (cf. Hirano 1978).

    The larger context into which the mystic experience at the goal of the journey is

embedded is basically the same in all of the songs: at the beginning of the piece the

singer describes how they are conscious of reality, which is determined by the law of

karmic causality and the cycle of growth and decay. Caught within the cyclic structure of

reality the singer then refers to miserable days spent performing some empty routine or,

worse, suffering from emotional disturbance such as grief, sorrow, anger or unrequited

love. After this, however, the suffering singer sets out on an imaginary journey.

    In many stage plays, particularly in nō theatre, it is not the person suffering who sets

out, but a priest, who in the course of his wanderings meets human beings in distress. In

other words, here—in a sense—the mystic place comes to those who are suffering. In

both cases—in the songs of Edo and in nō plays—the state of suffering and that of being

at least emotionally if not physically tied and thus incapable of moving through space are

inseparably linked. It is logical, therefore, that after depicting a state of suffering, a song

or a stage play will describe efforts to break away. This is precisely where asobi (play)

comes in and becomes such an essential part of human experience.

    Asobi helps a person regain physical energy and health by relieving him or her from

the negative effects of suffering. However, we may note that asobi does not include true

mystic experience and in the end is shown to be futile, even if it marks an important first

step in a person’s spiritual quest. Asobi is characterized by circular movement, in line

with the idea of the karmic cycle, that also takes a person onward from spring to summer

(often implying from youth to adulthood) and in the process widens the scope of

experience. However, in the wake of just such experience a person becomes all the more

conscious of autumn and winter (i.e. of decay and evanescence) and is thus led back to a

state of suffering. The cyclic nature of both an ordinary life as well as asobi, something

all ordinary people seek, is often portrayed by images of wheels or carriages, or by

enumerations (e.g. of place names), that equally create the feeling of ‘going round’.

    One example of how a song may illustrate asobi is the well-known ‘Forgetting-shell

(wasuregai) song’, which is cyclic in both structure and content and forms the centre part

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    94

of Sumiyoshi, one of the late eighteenth-century pieces mentioned above and portraying a

pilgrimage to the Sumiyoshi shrines:

       The forgetting-shell—it’s just illusion:

       meeting, parting, and after that

       looking forward to blossom viewing once again,

       one counts the days, remembering…

       The forgetting-grass—it’s just a cheat—

       sprouting, withering, and after that

       looking forward to moon viewing once again,

       night for night, remembering…

       spring and autumn.

        (wasuregai to no na wa soragoto yo/ōte wakarete sono nochi wa/mata no

                                hanami o tanoshimi ni/hikazu kazoete omoidasu.

       wasuregusa to no na wa itsuwari yo/shigerite karete sorekara wa/nochi no

               tsukimi o tanoshimi ni/yowa o tsumitsutsu omoidasu/haru ya aki.)

The ‘Forgetting-shell song’ both is, and sings of, asobi. However, true mystic experience

lies beyond asobi. As noted above, this place beyond is usually a mountain or an

elevation where nature has a powerful impact on the human psyche.

                                 Seeking (re)vitalization

As a rule, some sort of sanctuary will be found at the elevated spot that is conceived to be

something beyond asobi. Accordingly, the Edo period songs in their final part after the

asobi take the singer onward to a goal, and this is usually one of the great shrines or

temples everyone knew at least from hearsay (cf. Ackermann 2000). At such spots the

laws of ordinary life, characterized by suffering on the one hand and play—asobi—on the

other, are described as being no longer in force. The mystic atmosphere at the end of the

songs has an overwhelming impact and is created by a climax on all levels: music, text

and (often) dance. On the textual level, we find descriptions of how the moon appears,

the tide comes rushing in, the wind from the mountains starts to blow through the pines,3

cherry blossoms or maple leaves scatter, or a waterfall thunders down the rocks.

Sometimes, a deity or supernatural being will reveal itself personally in such a context.

   The piece always ends with the implication that a pilgrimage to the particular temple

or shrine mentioned, or to the region, or at least into the kind of nature described, will

help the individual out of his or her being trapped within the karmic cycle, and will

restore full vitality, energy and good health.

   We may thus assume that moving through space away from normal life into a territory

with a mystic quality can be seen as an essential step once a person has become conscious

of the facts of existence. However, consciousness—and hence suffering—fixes attention

                                Pilgrimages in Japan     95

on the cycle of cause and effect, growth and decay, and therefore saps away energy

needed to live a healthy life. This explains the importance of a mystic experience beyond

rational thinking.

    Here we must recall the fact that in pre-Meiji Japan it was certainly common sense

that physical well-being had to be planned and kept up through practice, and that good

health—and hence longevity, one of East Asia’s most basic traditional concepts (cf.

Bauer 1971)—could be gained by generating or regenerating energy and maintaining its

flow. The regeneration of energy was essentially coupled to two things: first, the

prevention of useless outpouring of energy (such as will happen if one wastes it through

suffering); second, the intake of clear, good energy—particularly in the mountains.

    The emphasis on the idea of vitalization and revitalization appears to me a

characteristic that may set Buddhist places of pilgrimage apart from non-Buddhist ones

elsewhere around the globe.4

          Mystic experience in mountains described by the Kokin Wakashū

It is remarkable how constant the metaphors used in describing Man’s efforts to break out

of the karmic cycle and regain energies have remained to this very day, even if their

deeper implications are no longer understood. These metaphors, probably all originating

on continental Asia, have their direct roots in the classical framework of Japanese

expression that took shape during the ninth and tenth centuries. To gain a more profound

understanding of them as they appear in fixed sequences I looked through the Kokin

Wakashū (‘Collection of waka of Former and Recent Times’, compiled around 904–914

CE), the first imperial anthology of Japanese language poetry (waka) and definitely

Japan’s most influential collection of poems for all subsequent centuries.

    As we read through the poems in the Kokin Wakashū in strict sequence we witness a

fascinating movement of up and down, coming and going, growing and decaying, out and

back. This movement, which bears witness to an understanding of time and space in

terms of the philosophy of yin and yang, is of special interest here in so far as it portrays

movement between the plain and the mountains, between no and yama. At the same time

we may note that it is always yama that relate to a mystic experience. In the plain (no)

decay sets in, but at a certain point a shift of perspective occurs from ‘this world’ (the

plain, the house, the private surroundings) to ‘that world’ (yama, the mountains, the

wilderness). It is as if yama had the power to rejuvenate, revitalize and re-energize.

                                          Spring

The first poems in the Kokin Wakashū (all examples here are taken from Kubota 1960)

portray the beginning of the year and human beings at home enjoying the white

plum blossom. Energy comes in form of the warbler that visits from the mountains (poem

no. 16):

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    96

       not far from the fields/is where I live/so the warbler’s call

       reaches my ear/morning after morning

       (nobe chikaku iei shi oreba uguisu no naku naru koe wa asa na asa na kiku)

Activity at this stage is concentrated in the plain and is of a down-to-earth nature,

characteristic of the straightforwardness of youth (poem no. 26):

      the fresh green willow threads/are twined and twisted/

      by the winds of spring

      in great confusion/the blossoms now burst open!

      (aoyagi no ito yorikakuru haru shi mo zo midarete hana no hokorobi ni keru)

When the plum blossom has been picked, or has fallen, Man realizes for the first time the

cyclic nature of the universe, that is, he realizes that things come to an end (poem no. 46):

          if the plum blossom’s scent/I could transfer to my sleeve/

          and have it stay there

          it might—once spring has passed—/keep memories alive

                 (ume ga ka o sode ni utsushite todometeba haru wa sugu tomo

                                                           katami naramashi)

When this cycle of growth and decay, and, for the first time, the notion of evanescence

(here: the awareness that the plum blossoms will scatter) has been dealt with, attention

turns to yama and moves away from no (poem no. 51):

      cherry blossoms in the mountains/as I come from far to see you/

      mists of spring

      begin to rise on slopes and peaks/concealing you from view

                  (yamazakura wa ga mi ni kureba harugasumi mine ni mo o ni mo

                                                            tachikakushitsutsu)

The next climax in the sequence of poems takes place in the mountains, not in the plains

(poem no. 66):

                                Pilgrimages in Japan     97

        in the radiance of cherry blossom/I will deeply dye/

        the robe I wear

        so once the blossoms all have scattered/I may remember them

                             (sakurairo ni koromo wa fukaku sometekimu hana no

                                                   chirinamu nochi no katami ni)

Then the cycle draws to a close as also the cherry blossoms scatter.

                                         Summer

In the humid and rainy summer yama cannot be visited, and the poems tell of

how humans sit in their dwelling and hear the message of yama from the cuckoo (poem

no. 145):

    if you cuckoo/in the summer hills/

    can feel for others

    do not make me—being deep in thought—/have to hear you calling!

                       (natsuyama ni naku hototogisu kokoro araba mono omou ware

                                                                ni koe na kikase so)

Consciousness, that saps our energies and makes us aware of the karmic cycle, becomes

more und more of a problem (poem no. 162):

      cuckoo/calling in the mountains/

      who are you waiting for

      I all of a sudden/feel my longing grow

      (hototogisu hito matsuyama ni naku nareba ware uchitsuke ni koi masarikeri)

                                         Autumn

In early autumn, as the crickets in the plains start to wail, feelings of frustration reach a

peak (poem no. 196):

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    98

       you crickets!/do not wail and wail/

       in these long autumn nights

       for drawn-out laments/I have reason—more than you

       (kirigirisu itaku na naki so aki no yo no nagaki omoi wa ware zo masareru)

However, after these sounds of frustration in the plain, attention is again drawn to yama,

which literally call out to those who are sensitive enough to listen (poem no. 215):

     deep in the mountains/stamping through the coloured leaves/

     a stag

     when its call reaches our ear/we intensely feel what autumn means

     (okuyama ni momiji fumiwake naku shika no koe kiku toki zo aki wa kanashiki)

In contrast to summer, this time of the year again has a playful element. This is similar to,

but more intense than, what we witnessed in spring (poem no. 230):

       the maiden flower/bends in the wind/

       that sweeps the autumn plains

       in whose direction I ask myself/does all its feeling tend?

       (ominaeshi aki no nokaze ni uchinabiki kokoro hitotsu o tare ni yosuramu)

Play (asobi) clearly belongs to the realm of the plains, and this realm stands in the

sharpest possible contrast to that of the mountains. We can see this in the following

poem, which spells out a state of majestic detachment by referring to the idea of eternity

and invariability contained in a mountain’s name, ‘Tokiwa-no-yama (i.e. Mountain of

Timelessness)' (poem no. 251):

   never changing, never breaking out in colour/Mountain of

   Timelessness/

   does not the sound of the wind/

   tell us there/that autumn has come?

       (momiji senu tokiwa no yama wa fuku kaze no oto ni ya aki o kikiwataruramu)

                               Pilgrimages in Japan    99

The yama that are referred to from here on have the quality of a supernatural and mystic

realm (poem no. 296):

    where the deity resides,/up to Mount Mimuro/

    I go in autumn

    feeling that the falling leaves/were tailoring a robe for me

    (kamunabi no mimuro no yama o aki yukeba nishiki tachikuru kokochi koso sure)

   A mystic climax is reached soon after (poems no. 304 and 305):

   when the wind blows/the autumn foliage scatters/

   while waters, crystal-clear

   let even leaves that have not fallen/appear—reflected—in their

   depths

       (kaze fukeba otsuru momijiba mizu kiyomi chiranu kage sae soko ni mietsutsu)

    standing still/and looking ere I cross—/

    autumn foliage

    falls like rain/yet the waters do not rise

    (tachidomari mite o wataramu momijiba wa ame to furu tomo mizu wa masaraji)

                                        Winter

When winter sets in, the experiences of the year—basically the experiences of movement

between no and yama and of pleasure and suffering on the one hand and detachment on

the other—have created a state of mind that is beginning to break out of the karmic cycle

(poem no. 316):

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   100

       in the wide skies/the moon shines brightly/

       pure and clear

       the waters that reflect its rays/are the first to freeze

       (ōzora no tsuki no hikari shi kiyokereba kage mishi mizu zo mazu kōrikeru)

Finally we come to the image of retained strength and energy (poem no. 340):

   snow has fallen/and the year draws to a close/

   this is the time

   where to the pines that know no autumn colours/at last our eye is

   drawn

       (yuki furite toshi no kurenuru toki ni koso tsui ni momijinu matsu mo miekere)

                          Retaining energy in the mountains

In its 1,111 poems the Kokin Wakashū addresses a basic problem of human life, namely

Man’s incapability to become detached. This fact is repeatedly driven home by sequences

of poems that illustrate the senselessness of emotional reaction and stress the evanescent

nature of the objective world. In this context, the poems show how consciousness leads to

suffering, because Man emotionally cannot come to terms with evanescence.

   At regular intervals the Kokin Wakashū thus draws attention to the fact that there is a

link between suffering and consciousness. It is here that the poems begin to refer to a

world represented by mountains. In the mountains we are shown a mystic dimension

beyond the grasp of a discerning mind, where escape from suffering is said to be

possible, and, as a consequence, a person’s body is revitalized.

   In line with a pattern of structuring the sequence of its poems in a back and forth

movement between no and yama, towards the end the Kokin Wakashū comes to images

like the following (poems no. 944 and 951):

   a dwelling in the mountains/is a lonely place indeed/

   yet rather

   than suffer in a wretched world/I am pleased to live here

   (yamazato wa mono no wabishiki koto koso are yo no uki yori wa sumiyokarikeri)

                               Pilgrimages in Japan    101

    as in this world we pass our time/feelings of wretchedness increase/

    to the steep paths

    of rocky Yoshino therefore/I now shall make my way

    (yo ni fureba usa koso masare miyoshino no iwa no kakemichi fuminarashitemu)

              The impact of Buddhist concepts of Man and the universe

I have tried to shed some light on assumptions that presumably play a part in shaping the

idea of travel—especially travel to a sacred place—in Japan. I am not saying that in

present-day Japan people set out to shrines and temples with the same kind of

expectations as they did in past centuries. The point I wish to make is that we can assume

that a specific logic founded on Buddhist concepts of Man and the universe has, over a

very long period of time, systematically patterned people’s expectations as to why and

when journeys (for spiritual gain) should be undertaken. Whatever the motivations may

be today for visiting shrines and temples (particularly those that are, as it were, ‘out in

space’, separated from where everyday life takes place), I expect them not to be identical

with, but to have evolved out of, the concepts outlined above.

   We should remember that the manifold efforts to create images of Japanese culture

since the Meiji period, combined with the impact of naive foreign interpretations,

particularly of what are classified as ‘religious’ establishments, have led to patterns of

explanation both in and outside Japan that should not be taken at face value. I would

argue that vague feelings, expectations and associations, having taken shape through the

transmission of values among the members of family lines, or been sparked off directly

by the sensual experience of a visit to a sanctuary, are invariably rooted in an

understanding of human nature that was shaped by the great traditions of East-Asian

thought, in particular Taoism and Buddhism.

   To sum up: in order to gain a deeper insight into assumptions that are likely to

determine attitudes towards movement through space, and hence also towards pilgrimage,

I have drawn upon songs, stage plays and poetry. The songs I focused on were especially

sankei-michiyukimono (songs depicting a visit to a sacred place), composed around 1800.

The stage plays were pieces for the nō theatre (mainly fourteenth/fifteenth century). Both

the songs and the nō plays have a three-part structure: 1) a description of suffering; 2)

asobi, i.e. seeking comfort and solace in a this-worldly way, only to find that the cyclic

chain of cause and effect merely leads back into suffering; 3) rapid and straight-forward

movement towards a mystic experience suggesting harmony outside the constraints of

space and time; in the nō play often a final dance (cf. Yasuda 1989).

   In the songs, the mystic experience takes place at the final goal of the initial

movement out into space, as a rule a sanctuary. In the stage play, however, a wandering

priest—a representative of space and the mountains, as it were—meets suffering people

(in the plains) and helps them. Both songs and stage plays show the benefit of an activity

that is at the same time mental and physical, namely training to overcome attachment to

this-worldly phenomena. This alone is said to lead to the regeneration of vital energy,

good health and longevity.

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan        102

    Finally, the poetry of the Kokin Wakashū, dating from the ninth and tenth centuries,

deals with the human nature that at the same time enjoys the laws of the universe and

suffers under them. In the course of the year (which is clearly an image of the course of

life) it becomes more and more obvious that personal attachment to this-worldly matters

arouses emotions that sap away vital energy and thus trap a person within the cycle of

growth and decay (cf. Ackermann and Kretschmer 2002).

    In the sphere beyond every-day life, however, symbolized by mountains—especially

mountains in deep, white snow—the mind is cleared of all colour (i.e. emotion and

destructive consciousness), so that the human body can regain—and retain—energy.

    In view of the importance attached to the transmission of the Kokin Wakashū

throughout the ages, and the fact that its poems are drawn upon as a model of classical

imagery in all subsequent centuries, we may conclude that this anthology of poetry is a

particularly valuable source for discovering basic assumptions about the order and

rhythm in life. These assumptions, I maintain, deeply influence concepts of movement

out into space, into nature and to the realm of a sanctuary.

                                             Notes

  1 Here the Buddhist concept of engi should be introduced. Engi has several meanings, all

     related in some way to the concept of ‘cause’ (within a relationship of cause and effect). The

     specific meaning of the engi referred to here is the ‘reason for the origin of a temple or

     shrine’, or the ‘legend concerning miracles or virtuous deeds of a being with supernatural

     powers’. Vivid descriptions of such engi appear in the picture scrolls (emaki) that became

     extremely popular from the fourteenth century onward and may also be found throughout the

     Edo period wherever mention is made of shrines and temples.

  2 Typical categories for musical pieces are shūgimono (festive pieces), tsuizenmono (pieces to

     recall a deceased person), sankei-michiyukimono (pieces singing of the visit to a shrine or

     temple), engidanmono (pieces telling of some engi) and shikimono (pieces dealing with the

     four seasons). For details see Hirano (1972, 1978).

  3 A poem from the Imperial Collection Shūishū (early eleventh century) is often used to recall

     these associations:

     with the sound of the zither/the wind in the mountain pines/

     is felt

     on which peak, which string/do the tunes originate?

                (koto no ne ni mine no matsukaze kayōrashi izure no o yori shirabe-

                                                                       somekemu).

                                  Pilgrimages in Japan       103

   4 Practically all pre-Meiji temples and shrines of Japan I would consider as Buddhist institutions

      in a wide sense. Even though the notion of kami as specifically meaning ‘the gods of Japan’

      was familiar in the Edo period, strict ideological separation was brought about by shin-butsu

      bunri, the division of religious spheres into Shintōism and Buddhism in 1868.

                                           References

Ackermann, Peter (2000) ‘Sumiyoshi, Enoshima and Yoshino—On the function of meisho in

   traditional Japanese music’, Kosaka Shiro and Johannes Laube (eds) Informationssystem und

   kulturelles Leben in den Städten der Edo-Zeit, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 169–81.

Ackermann, Peter and Angelika Kretschmer (2002) Kokin Wakashū. Die vier Jahreszeiten,

   klassische japanische Gedichte, Frankfurt/M und Leipzig: Insel.

Bauer, Wolfgang (1971) China und die Hoffnung auf Glück, München: Carl Hanser.

Hirano, Kenji (ed.) (1972) Nakanoshima Kin’ichi zenshū [The Complete Collection of [pieces

   played by] Nakanoshima Kin’ichi], Tokyo: Victor Record Company.

Hirano, Kenji (1978) Yamada Kengyō-shū [Collection of Pieces [composed by] by Yamada

   Kengyō], Tokyo: Sony.

Kubota, Utsubo (ed.) (1960) Kokin wakashū hyōshaku [The Kokin Wakashū, annotated edition],

   Tokyo: Tokyo do.

Yasuda, Kenneth (1989) Masterworks of the No Theatre, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana

   University Press.

                               11 Agari-umāi, or the Eastern Tour

           A Ryūkyūan royal ritual and its transformations

                                    Patrick Beillevaire

                                      Introduction

Agari-umāi (Higashi o-mawari in standard Japanese), literally the Eastern Tour, is the

common term for a major state ritual of the ancient kingdom of Ryūkyū, which involved

its two leading figures, the king and the chief priestess. Initiated during the fifteenth

century, as the ruling class was setting up a centralized system of civil and religious

administration, it lost part of its importance as early as the mid-seventeenth century under

the influence of Confucianism. Nevertheless, it survived official downgrading as well as

the more dramatic demise of the kingdom itself by gradually becoming the focus of

ancestor worship for kin groups from all over the Ryūkyū Islands. Thus, with some

adjustments in scope, it remains a most popular ritual in today’s Okinawa Prefecture.

    The study of the Agari-umāi as a state ritual raises a number of difficult questions

ranging from the practical details of its execution to the development of the Ryūkyū state

organization and ideology. In this chapter, I limit myself to a general presentation of the

Agari-umāi ritual.

    Modern authors refer to Agari-umāi as junpai, junrei or sankei, terms that, as

previously discussed, mean ‘touring/visiting places of worship (haisho); or sacred

places/abodes of spirits (reijō)’ Pilgrimage, a standard translation of these terms, appears

to be an accurate designation of both the ancient and modern forms of the Agari-umāi.1

    The phenomena of pilgrimage cannot be dissociated from the belief in the existence of

special places located beyond the territorial boundaries of daily life—the term

pilgrimage, after all, comes from peregre, meaning ‘abroad’ or ‘from abroad’. There,

humans would come into contact with some principle, whatever its nature, governing

their existence or with what may be termed some sacred otherness. Pilgrimages are often

comprised of more than one holy place, so that the devotional exercise follows a route or

circuit along which the assistance of supernatural entities is solicited—gods, saints,

ancestors or abstract forces—be it for one’s own individual benefit, or on behalf of one’s

community. The narratives attached to those routes and places express a generally

complex and flexible world-view supported by myths, legends and history. Visits to such

places contribute, among other things, to sustain social cohesion and people’s feelings of

belonging to the land. While this aspect of pilgrimage is largely obliterated in

monotheistic religions, because of their emphasis on individual salvation to the detriment

of collective and this-worldly perspectives, it appears fundamental in polytheistic cultures

such as Japan and the Ryūkyū Islands.

                           Agari-umai, or the Easter tour    105

                                     The royal ritual

During the initial period, extending from about the mid- or late fifteenth century to the

mid-seventeenth century, the Agari-umāi was conducted by the king (kokuō) and the

chief priestess (kikoe-ōgimi, chifi-ufujin in Ryūkyūan) whose singular relationship with

the country’s supreme deities was regarded as the source of royal authority.2 The chief

priestess was a relative of the king, ideally perhaps his eldest sister, but in fact, as the

records show, more often a paternal aunt, a mother or a daughter, if not a more distant

kinswoman (Wacker 2001:52).

    The ritual, taken as a whole and without entering into the intricacies of the attempts at

reconstructing its early developments, consisted of two different journeys—one during

the Second Month, the other during the Fourth Month of the lunar calendar—to a series

of sites scattered along the coast of Ōzato, Sashiki, Chinen and Tamagusuku districts

(magiri), all situated east-southeast of Shuri, the former seat of the royal government.3

Among those sites—the same ones that attract today’s pilgrims—the most important are:

Yonabaru-uyagawa, Baten-utaki, Sashiki-uigusuku, Sukuna-mui, China-uteda-ugā,

China-ugā, Seifa-utaki, Chinen gusuku, Chinen-ugā, Yabusatsu-nu-urabaru, Hamagawa-

utaki, Yaharajigasa, Ukinju-hainju and Mifūdā, Minton-gusuku, Nakandakari-hīgā,

Tamagusukunuru-dunchi (see map).

    Okinawan sacred places, like their Japanese equivalents, are generally associated with

impressive spots in nature such as groves (mui), springs (gā) or with ancient strongholds

(gusuku, or gushiku). Some of these spots are referred to as utaki (shrine). Literally, utaki

means ‘peak’ or ‘mountain’, although not every utaki stands on an elevated piece of land.

    The general purpose of the royal journeys, designated in historical accounts as gyōkō

or junkō—two respectful terms referring to a monarch’s outings—was to celebrate the

bestowal of the so-called five staple grains (gokoku), that is, generally, mugi (barley), ine

(rice), awa and kibi (two varieties of millet) and mame (beans) by the country’s primeval

deities, and to ensure the renewal of fecundity and prosperity in the kingdom.4 Several

versions of the myth, of varying complexity, relate that event and are found in the official

chronicles (see below) and in the Ryūkyū shintō ki (‘The Account of the way of the gods

in Ryūkyū' [1609]), written by the Japanese Buddhist priest Taichū.

    To give a very brief account, the central figure of the myth is named Amamikyu. He

or she (this is not always clear), possibly acting on behalf of a heavenly deity, alights on

earth, begets humans, and provides them with the seeds of the five grains. In some

variants, Amamikyu is coupled with another deity, Shinerikyu, in which case they are

definitely female and male. Local traditions locate Amamikyu’s descent to earth in many

different places in the area. In the official narratives, it occurred on the small island of

Kudaka, five kilometres off Cape Chinen, where the first seeds of barley would have

been grown. Then, crossing the sea, Amamikyu is said to have set foot in Tamagusuku

and planted the first seeds of rice.

    This is just one version; the region is rich in other versions of the origin-myth of

humans and grains. Regarding the latter, they can be received from heaven through a

variety of devices, sometimes brought by the sea in a drifting jug, sometimes carried by a

bird. In a slightly more realistic version from Hyakuna, quoted by Mabuchi (1974), the

rice seeds were carried from China by a crane on request of an Okinawan traveller.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     106

    The myth of Amamikyu recorded in the official chronicles also provides a schematic

account of the origin of society. With respect to their sex and birth rank, the deity’s

children are said to be the progenitors of the kings, local lords and priestesses, sometimes

of the common people too, depending on the source.

    Historical sources give only scant information about the ceremonial contents and the

establishment of the Agari-umāi. The earliest document is the Omoro sōshi, an anthology

of ceremonial songs compiled between 1532 and 1623, but these remain allusive and

difficult to interpret. Later sources, especially the official chronicles Chūzan Seikan

(‘Mirror of the ages of Chūzan’, i.e. the kingdom of Ryūkyū), completed in 1650; the

Ryūkyū-koku Yuraiki (‘Account of the origins of the Country of the Ryūkyū [Islands]'),

completed in 1713; and the Kyūyō (a poetic name for Ryūkyū), compiled between 1743

and the 1870s, all mention the ritual shortly, without giving substantial details.

Conversely, the records kept in some of the villages involved in the royal tour supply a

wealth of details, but, because of their fragmented and sometimes anecdotal nature, they

do not give a precise picture of the whole event. Even the very periodicity of the Agari-

umāi remains an open question. According to the Ryūkyū-koku Yuraiki and other sources,

the royal journeys, to Kudaka during the Second Month and to Tamagusuku during the

Fourth Month, would have taken place every other year, maybe alternately. Even though

it is this 2-year periodicity which is today generally accepted, the Chūzan Seikan implies

that both journeys occurred in one and the same year (Mabuchi 1974:614; Suetsugu

1995:102; Wakugami 2000:464).

    Turning to how the Agari-umāi was actually carried out, what we know is that before

setting forth the king first visited Sonohiyan-utaki, a small shrine located in front of the

palace, to ask for its deity’s protection during the journey. On their way to and along the

coast, the king and the chief priestess, accompanied by a retinue of male and female

dignitaries, were welcomed and entertained by village officials and priestesses (now,

nuru in Ryūkyūan). During the Second Month, after a stop at a resting place called

Yonabaru-udun, the royal cohort embarked at the nearby harbour for Kudaka Island,

where the priestesses waited for their arrival in order to perform the mugi-mishikyoma

festival which celebrates the first ears (hatsuho) of mugi, in other words the beginning of

its maturation. Even though the actual contents of that festival are unknown, Iyori (1995)

has shown that the use of a red canopy during the annual festivals on Kudaka Island was

a trace of the royal attendance that marked the barley festival in former times. The visit to

Kudaka Island also included ceremonial prayers to the deities of the local utaki, which

assumed special significance for the court.

    On their second eastward journey, during the Fourth Month, the king, the chief

priestess, and their followers visited the sites along the coast of Chinen and Tamagusuku

districts.5 The event coincided with the festival celebrating the first ears of rice (ine-

mishikyoma). A highly solemn stage of this journey consisted of a ceremony held at

Seifa-utaki, a rocky formation flanking the hilly Cape Chinen and commanding a view of

Kudaka Island. In the days of the kingdom, entrance to Seifa-utaki was forbidden to all

men save for the king himself; as for the ceremony performed we have no further details.

The wooden and secluded area, about 12 kilometres from the royal capital, is considered

to be Okinawa’s most sacred place. Its importance in the context of the Agari-umāi is

underscored by the fact that, two days before the king’s departure from Shuri, water

                           Agari-umai, or the Easter tour     107

drawn from an adjacent spring by the now of the neighbouring village of Kudeken was

brought to the court to be offered to the king and the chief priestess (Miyahira 1987:159).

    The homonymy between sites for prayers at Seifa-utaki and at the Shuri Palace

suggests a complementary relationship between these two places representing,

respectively, the centre of the spiritual and of the secular realms. Moreover, it is also on

the hallowed ground of Seifa-utaki that the newly appointed chief priestesses, escorted by

their subordinates, would receive divine investiture. The ritual, called oara-ori, was

conducted by Kudaka Island’s leading priestess who held the prerogative of hanging the

sacred jewels, magatama, the symbol of eminent spiritual capacity, on the new chief

priestess (Wakugami 1983; Iyori 1993).

    After the ceremonies at Seifa-utaki the royal cohort, heading south, made its way to

another sacred spot of paramount importance in the mythological genesis of the Ryūkyū

country. This place, located close to the shore, about four kilometres away from Seifa-

utaki and in an area that formerly belonged to the southern kingdom of Nanzan,

comprises two springs and the nearby tiny paddy field they irrigate. The springs are

referred to as Ukinju-hainju, and the paddy field as Mifūdā. According to the origin-myth

of the Ryūkyū Islands sketched above, Mifūdā (the field of the three ears of rice) is a plot

of land where the first grains of cereal were planted (Mabuchi 1974). On their visit to that

site, the king and the chief priestess were sprinkled with the water flowing from the

springs, which is thought to have a rejuvenating power. This rite, still observed today and

performed on other occasions such as the New Year, is called ubi-nadī (o-mizu-nade in

Japanese).

    Finally, it is necessary to point out that the king also had the opportunity to ‘worship

from afar’ (yōhai) the sacred places in the east. For that purpose, two small altars were

erected in a shrine called Benkadake (Binnutaki in Ryūkyūan) within the precincts of the

royal palace, on the highest spot of the whole area (165 m above sea level). One was

intended for the deities of Kudaka Island, the other for those of Seifa-utaki.6

                            Historical and ideological outline

Even though the circumstances leading to the establishment of the Agari-umāi are

obscure, it is known that ceremonial visits to Seifa-utaki, in connection with the

importance already attached to Kudaka Island, were organized under Shō Toku’s reign

(1461–1469), the last king of the first Shō dynasty. Shortly after, according to the

Irōsetsuden—a collection of myths and tales compiled around 1720—a resting place

intended for the king was built in China-gusuku (Chinen district) during the reign of King

Shō Shin (1477–1526) of the second Shō dynasty.

   It is under the latter’s rule that both civil and religious affairs within the country were

subjected to strongly centralized control.7 Almost a century before similar measures

would be taken in Japan, former regional lords (aji or anji) were disarmed and forced to

live in the vicinity of the royal palace in Shuri, where they were granted the privileges of

an aristocratic status. As a consequence of that displacement, a shrine called dunchi was

built in each of the three wards (mihira) of the capital corresponding to the three

administrative divisions of the kingdom. This made possible the continuation of the

‘worship from afar’ of their native deities.8 The shrines were under the responsibility of

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    108

the three ufu-amu-shirare, the immediate assistant priestesses of the kikoe-ōgimi. In

parallel with the civil administration, a hierarchical system of religious functionaries was

created, headed by the kikoe-ōgimi and her assistants of high birth and extending through

intermediary offices down to the noro in charge of villages.

    Whatever the circumstances surrounding the selection of the Chinen and Tamagusuku

regions for the Agari-umāi, it cannot be considered a mere transposition of ritual

practices that had previously existed elsewhere, and the details of the route leave no

doubt about the rulers’ intent to take full advantage of the mythrelated topography east of

Shuri to enhance the royal authority.

    As a state ritual epitomizing an ideology centring on the king and the kikoe-ōgimi

couple, the Agari-umāi draws much of its symbolic weight from the enactment of some

pervasive elements of Ryūkyū folk-beliefs. The most fundamental belief-although there

are local exceptions or adaptations—is the association of the east, the direction of the

rising sun (teda or tīda) with the primeval life-giving deities controlling the renewal of

fecundity (and descendents). Their dwelling place, known as nirai or nirai-kanai, is

understood to be situated beyond the horizon, where the sea and the sky merge, or under

the sea. The kikoe-ōgimi and the other priestesses, at their respective level, play the role

of intercessors between these deities linked with the solar radiance and the human

community. In that respect it is no coincidence that on the winter solstice, as observed

from a vantage point in Urasoe-gusuku, the early seat of the government, the sun rises

exactly behind Fubū-utaki, Kudaka Island’s most sacred shrine. Seen from Seifa-utaki,

located closer, the sun also appears to spring up from that island most of the year.

Okinawan scholars sum up this primitive form of solar worship, more or less explicitly

retained in actual religious practices, under the notion of wakateda shisō (young sun

ideology).

    From an early age, and together with the penetration of Chinese and Japanese

Buddhist, Taoist or native religious notions, heaven and nirai-kanai have tended to

appear as interchangeable locations for the supernatural beings. This overlapping is

widely exemplified by the uncertainties of village cosmologies, but above all it is also

found in the origin-myth of Ryūkyū, some versions presenting Amamikyu as a celestial

being under the command of the ‘heavenly ruler’, others as a resident of nirai-kanai,

from where the deity is said to have acquired the first grains.

    In the context of sixteenth-century ceremonial activities, as evidenced by the Omoro

songs, the ‘sun as deity’ took on even greater importance in connection with the king’s

identification with ultimate life-sustaining power. The young sun ideology evolved into

what is termed tedako shisō (son of the sun ideology; cf. China 1988; Smits 2000). That

conceptual shift, which was meant to strengthen, or to account for, the sacredness of the

king’s person and authority, also implied that he no longer stood as a passive recipient of

the divine message or energy (shiji) transmitted to him by the kikoe-ōgimi on ritual

occasions. By being directly associated with the sun, the king had become a divine agent

himself. Thereby, the role of the kikoe-ōgimi now carried some ambiguity as regards her

role towards the king. Her spiritual power, on which the ruler’s authority had so far relied

(cf. note 5), seemed to have lost part of its primary significance.

    The ‘son of the sun’ ideology had been clearly inspired by the Chinese concept of

‘ruler of heaven and earth’ and by the cult of the solar Buddha, Dainichinyorai, in the

Shingon school of Buddhism. It is to be noted that the term tīda, itself a possible

                          Agari-umai, or the Easter tour    109

derivation of tendō, could be used to designate either the ruler of heaven and earth,

Dainichi-nyorai, or the kikoe-ōgimi.

    In passing it should be observed here that periodic festivals performed in a number of

villages throughout the Ryūkyū Islands involve comparable eastward movement

conducted by priestesses and representatives of the community. Examples are the harvest

or rain rituals in Hateruma and the Sutsu-upunaka in Tarama, both meant to invite the

life-sustaining force yū (Japanese yō) to impregnate the human world (Beillevaire 1982;

Ouwehand 1985). We may thus possibly consider the Agari-umāi as the aggrandizement

onto the scale of the entire kingdom of a process found in village rituals.

                        Decline and rebirth of the Agari-umāi

The invasion of Okinawa by Satsuma’s troops in 1609 brought to an end the political

autonomy of the kingdom of Ryūkyū.9 This traumatic event, however, did not entail the

collapse or even the weakening of the state apparatus. On the contrary, in the following

decades, the bureaucratic control over the nobility was reinforced by the application,

among other things, of Confucian ethics. That policy was understood by the rulers as a

means to consolidate the Ryūkyū state, despite its overall submission to Satsuma’s

interests (Smits 1999).

   At the religious level, the enforcement of the Confucian principles entailed a

downgrading of folk-beliefs and a strengthening of ancestor worship, as reflected in the

formation of patrilineal groupings known as munchū (or hara). In 1667 the kikoe-ōgimi

was superseded in the state hierarchy by the queen. Simultaneously her power of

divination was denied. Henceforth she occupied the third rank in the state hierarchy.

Eventually, ten years later, the government decided that her office was to be held by the

queen.

   Concerning the Agari-umāi, the reform movement caused it to be discontinued in what

may be termed its primitive form. As several chronicles relate, in 1673 (the fifth year of

King Shō Tei’s reign), and under the rule of the regent and Confucian scholar Haneji

Chōshū (Chinese name Shō Jōken), the king ceased to perform the Agari-umāi in

person.10 His role was now limited to the ‘worship from afar’ of the eastern deities in the

previously mentioned Benkadake shrine, especially in times of severe drought.

   The Haneji shioki, recording Haneji’s directives, states the arguments brought forward

in order to put an end to the king’s participation in the ritual:

       1) The passage to Kudaka Island during the second month is unsafe; 2)

       The annual rituals of Kudaka Island should be performed by the

       priestesses (fujo) of the island shrines; 3) The expenses for the two

       festivals organized every other year should be borne by the peasants of the

       four eastern magiri (districts) Chinen, Tamagusuku, Sashiki, Ōzato; 4)

       The rites of Kudaka and Chinen are merely recent practices; if one wishes

       to regard them as being ancient, one could perform them once in a

       lifetime, send a substitute, or invite the deities of Kudaka and Chinen to

       come near Shuri Palace; moreover, the five grains having been brought

       from Japan by humans, their ritual celebration could be performed at any

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    110

       place; 5) The resting place built for the king in the castle of Chinen, where

       he used to spend four or five days, is insecure.

                                           (Haneji 1981:43–4; Miyahira 1987:160)

With this rationale, Haneji was clearly following up a plan to raise the kingdom’s

political and social virtue in order to gain respect from its tutoring neighbours, in

particular from Japan whose domination he did not challenge (Tonaki 1988; Smits 1999).

To this end, a minimal requisite was for the king to abstain from conducting public rituals

along with women, more especially so as his status appeared to be inferior to theirs on

such occasions. Consequently, in application of Haneji’s views, the king himself would

no longer be involved in the ritual pilgrimage. In his place, an official supervising the

palace ceremonies—the shitakuri-atai—was to be dispatched from time to time to

accompany the chief priestess on her visit to the sacred sites of the Agari-umāi.

   In the same year, the king’s attendance at two other shrines, namely the kikoeōgimi-

udun (the chief priestess’s own shrine near the palace) and the Shuri-dunchi (a shrine

administered by one of the three assistant priestesses of the kikoeōgimi), for the Ninth

Month thanksgiving festival for the second crops of barley and rice was likewise

considered inappropriate and therefore discontinued.11

   In the early eighteenth century members of the kingdom’s shizoku class, the gentry

(locally known as samurē), started visiting the sites related to the Agari-umāi. Two

reasons may explain this. Firstly, a growing concern for ancestry prompted by, on the one

hand, the adoption of funeral tablets and the development of family funeral rites, on the

other, by the increasing influence of Confucian ideas that had already led to the creation

of a Bureau of genealogies (keizuza) in 1689. Members of the gentry were thus

encouraged to conceive of their family in a rigorously defined patrilineal perspective on

the model of the munchū groupings. Secondly, in the earlier half of the eighteenth

century, the release of the gentry from the over 200-year-old obligation to reside in Shuri

resulted in many of them resettling in the countryside. Here they created new villages

called yādui. In turn, the family-centred and male-oriented concept of ancestor worship

diffused to the peasantry, bringing about the reshaping of traditional practices and the

establishment of munchū groupings responsible for the necessary rituals.

   When the Ryūkyū kingdom was abolished in 1879, the custom of touring the sites of

the Agari-umāi spread quickly among both the inhabitants of the new capital, Naha, and

the peasants of nearby regions. With time, the custom reached areas more and more

remote from the capital. The first manuals of the Agari-umāi were published around

1900, introducing to a popular readership its different courses and the mythological,

legendary and historical details concerning the sites encountered on the way.12

   As it no longer had the function of upholding the authority of autocratic rulers, the

Agari-umāi now relied solely on the appropriation of its sites, myths and deities by kin

groups of ordinary people associating their family ancestors with the island’s primeval

deities.13 At regular intervals, most often once every five or seven years, munchū

members, who may rarely see each other the rest of the time, gather at some place to

reach the coastal area together and to walk the path of the Agari-umāi side by side. They

carry with them incense, food, sake, and sometimes ritual paper money for the deities.

The tour is performed under the guidance of the munchū ritual leader (kaminchu, kudī,

kudingwa), traditionally a female elder belonging to the main branch of the family. Each

                          Agari-umai, or the Easter tour    111

group of pilgrims has some favoured sites identified by a family narrative that possibly

relates them to the ancestors or simply recalls past habits. One day is now enough to

complete the tour, which commonly takes place between the Eighth and the Tenth Month

of the lunar calendar, when the farming population can take some time off. The visits to

the numerous wells and springs, especially those irrigating the first paddy field in

Tamagusuku, are occasions to dab one’s face with their sacred water and to fill some

flasks for those who could not join the tour. The mystery of the surrounding scenery,

which conjures up images of Amamikyu’s terrestrial deeds, appears to arouse a feeling of

closeness to one’s forebears.

   The Agari-umāi is not the only pilgrimage of the sort in Okinawa. It is often

compared, in particular, with the Nakijin-nubui (or Nakijin-umāi, Nakijin-ugami) of

Motobu Peninsula, with which it shares structural similarities. The latter’s circuit, much

smaller in scale, is comprised of a series of sites close to the remains of Nakijin-gusuku,

the stronghold of the former northern kingdom of Hokuzan.

   Apart from the family groups, the sites of the ancient Agari-umāi are also visited by

kamigakari, more commonly called yuta (often associated with shamans), whose

competence is to communicate with spirits or deities, frequently in order to remedy

human misfortunes resulting from the wrongdoings of an ancestor. Their activities were

officially forbidden in 1736, although the population never stopped accepting their

assistance. From the late nineteenth century onwards, they have played a major role in the

stimulating concern for the patrilineal ancestors and in the popularization of the Agari-

umāi. The increasing number and commercial prosperity of these religious specialists

observed in recent decades is considered to be, not without reason, the consequence of

the weakening of community and family ties entailed by mass urbanization.

   Former participants in the Agari-umāi had to stride several days on stony and dusty

paths. Today, the sacred places are reached comfortably by car or bus.

Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   112

      Map 1 Okinawa Island.

                            Agari-umai, or the Easter tour       113

                             Map 2 Route of the Agari-umāi.

As a family event, the ritual seamlessly combines a recreational dimension with a deep-

rooted sense of obligation towards one’s ancestors and an abiding devotion to the

country’s deities. Despite all the changes experienced since the abolition of the kingdom

and the oblivion into which its rulers may have sunk, the Agari-umāi thus contributes to

maintain a strong attachment of the Okinawans to their natural environment and to their

past.

                                             Notes

  1 It is also the term chosen by Ronald Y.Nakasone (2002), an Okinawan American scholar

      living in Hawai’i, who had the opportunity to participate in the Agari-umāi with members of

      his kin group.

  2 The expression kikoe-ōgimi could mean either ‘the chief priestess who has her prayers heard

      by the deity’ or ‘the great deity who consents to hear the prayers of the priestess’, the sun

      being the deity alluded to in the context of the Agari-umāi. On this issue, see Sakima (1991).

      Very aptly, Gregory Smits uses the phrase ‘empowering agent’ to define the function of the

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan          114

    high priestess in relation to the king, although, as his analysis shows, this relation remained

    fundamentally ambiguous (Smits 2000:90).

3 A discussion of ancient sources on the Agari-umāi routes and a minute examination of their

    variations are found in Suetsugu’s Ō no gyōkō (1995). Detailed information on the sacred

    sites is provided in: Okinawaken kyōiku iinkai (ed.) 1995–1996.

4 As in mainland Japan, kami (kam, kang in Ryūkyūan) is the common designation for all

    deities, which are only infrequently given an individual name.

5 The leading role played in the ritual by the kikoe-ōgimi is in fact but one expression of the

    female predominance in the spiritual or religious sphere that characterizes Ryū-kyū culture at

    all levels. Moreover, sisters, especially the eldest sister, are supposedly endowed with a

    protective power over their brothers, a belief subsumed under the concept of onari-gami

    (sister-deity) and recounted in numerous myths, legends and biographies throughout the

    archipelago. Even after marrying, the eldest sisters stay, or used to stay, in charge of the

    rituals for the dead and the ancestors of their brother’s household, and of his patrilineal

    group as well, despite the fact that they were no longer counted among its members

    themselves.

6 Both Sonohiyan-utaki and Benkadake were constructed in 1519 by a man from Yaeyama and

    named Nishitō.

7 It is important to note that the process of political unification which took place during the

    fifteenth century resulted in the complete domination of Chūzan (Middle Mountain) over

    two other little chiefdoms, retrospectively referred to as kingdoms, namely Hokuzan to the

    north and Nanzan to the south. The three kingdoms had developed in tandem during the

    fourteenth century, vying with each other to expand their seaborne trade, and had been

    successively recognized as tributary states by the recently established Ming government in

    China. However, King Shō Hashi (1421–1439) achieved political unification of the island by

    seizing control of Chūzan, his native region, before defeating Hokuzan in 1416 and Nanzan

    in 1429. Soon after, the Amami-Ōshima Islands, located north of Okinawa, were also

    brought under Chūzan’s control. Shō Hashi, who initiated the transfer of the capital from

    Urasoe to Shuri, is the founder of the short-lived first Shō dynasty, although, for diplomatic

    reasons, it is his father, originally lord of Sashiki district, who officially preceded him on the

    throne under the name of Shō Shishō (1404–1421). Shō Shishō's father, Samegawa-ōnushi,

    in turn originated from the small island of Izena off the north-west coast of Okinawa Island,

    before settling in Baten in Sashiki district (Kadena 1983). It is noteworthy that Shō Shin, the

    father of Shō En (1470–1476) who founded the second Shō dynasty, also originated from

    Izena Island (Naka 1983). As some authors have suggested, there may have been a voluntary

    over-emphasis of the symbolic value of the east in consequence of that geographical origin;

    also, the Agari-umāi may owe something to the tradition of ‘worship from afar’ and to the

    ritual welcoming of the sea-deities, both found on Izena Island (Iyori 1993; Mabuchi 1974).

8 This is another instance of yōhai. The three dunchi were designated as Shuri-dunchi, Makabe-

    dunchi and Gibo-dunchi, the term dunchi being composed of the characters for dono

    (mansion, temple) and uchi (inside).

9 However, the kingdom was thereafter allowed to continue its diplomatic and commercial

    relations with China.

10 The function of regent (sessei) was a permanent one in the Ryūkyū state organization. Prince

    Haneji Chōshū (1617–1675) occupied that position from 1666 to 1673.

11 The king used to visit those shrines, accompanied by the kikoe-ōgimi, once every 3 years

    (once every 2 years according to the Ryūkyū-koku Kyūki). The rite performed within the

    Shuri-dunchi related to the fire deity (fī nu kam), who was conceived as an intermediary

    between the humans and the sun.

12 The handbook of munchū-related ritual tours edited by a Research group on Okinawan

    customs, although meant for a more educated public, can give an idea of what these early

    manuals were like (cf. Okinawa no Shūzoku Kenkyūkai 1986).

                            Agari-umai, or the Easter tour       115

   13 In contemporary conversations the name Agari-umāi calls to mind almost exclusively the

      actual popular forms of the ritual. The article of the Encyclopedia of Okinawa which alludes

      to the ancient royal tour only at the end bears witness to that bias (Shinjō 1983).

                                         Bibliography

Beillevaire, Patrick (1982) ‘Le Sutsu Upunaka de Tarama-jima. Description d’un rite saisonnier et

   analyse du symbolisme spatial sur une île des Ryûkyû’, Bulletin de l’Ecole Française

   d’Extrême-Orient LXXI, 217–57.

China, Teikan (1988) ‘Okinawa no taiyō shinkō to ōken: ‘tedako’ shisō no keisei katei ni tsuite’

   [Royal authority and the solar cult in Okinawa: on the development of the ‘son of the sun’

   ideology], in Okinawa no shūkyō to minzoku. Kubo Noritada sensei Okinawa chōsa nijūnen

   kinen ronbunshū [Okinawan Folklore and Religion. Collection of Essays in Commemoration of

   Professor Kubo Noritada’s Twenty Years of Investigation in Okinawa], Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō,

   pp. 101–22.

Haneji, Chōshū (1981) ‘Haneji shioki’ [Records of Haneji’s directive], Okinawaken shiryō.

   Zenkindai 1. Shuri ōfu shioki [Historical Documents of Okinawa Prefecture. Premodern Period

   1. The Administration of the Royal Government of Shuri], Naha: Okinawaken Kyōiku Iinkai,

   pp. 3–57.

Iyori, Tsutomu (1993) ‘Sei naru shima e no kokkateki shikaku no keisei. Ryūkyū ōkoku oara-ori

   girei ni miru Kudakajima no imi’ [Formation of a national sacred island in the kingdom of

   Ryūkyū Significance of Kudaka Island as seen from the royal ritual of oara-ori], Ningen

   Kankyōgaku, 2, 23–55.

Iyori, Tsutomu (1995) ‘Saijō no akai tengai to shiroi tenmaku. Okinawa Kudakajima no nenjū

   saishi saijō ni miru Ryūkyū ōkoku saishi saijō hosetsu no kage’ [Red canopy and white tent.

   Remains of the royal ritual setting in the annual festivals of Kudaka Island, Okinawa], Nihon

   kenkyū, 12, 121–57.

Kadena, Sōtoku (1983) ‘Samegawa ōnushi, Shō Shishō, Shō Hashi’, Okinawa Daihyakka Jiten, 2,

   238, 419, 431.

Mabuchi, Tōichi (1974) ‘Okinawa no tanemono kigen setsuwa’ [Okinawan tales about the origin of

   grains], Mabuchi Tōichi chosakushū, 2, 603–24.

Miyagi, Eishō (1979) Okinawa noro no kenkyū (Research on the noro of Okinawa), Tokyo:

   Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.

Miyahira, Minoru (1987) ‘Agari-umāi no michisuji to minzoku’ [Route and folklore of the Agari-

   umāi], in Okinawaken rekishi no michi chōsa hōkokusho 4: Shimajiri shokaidō, Shuri, Naha no

   michi, Ginowan: Rokurindō, pp. 158–67.

Naka, Shōhachirō (1983) ‘Shō En’ Okinawa Daihyakka Jiten, 2, 410.

Nakasone, Ronald Y. (2002) ‘Agari-umaai: an Okinawan pilgrimage’, in his edited Okinawan

   Diaspora, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Okinawa no Shūzoku Kenkyūkai (eds) (1986) Munchū haisho meguri no tebiki. Okinawa reichi no

   rekishi to denshō [Handbook for Visits to munchū-related Places of Worship. History and

   Tradition of Okinawan Sacred Places], Naha: Shinkokai Publishing.

Okinawaken Kyōiku Iinkai (ed.) (1995–1996) Agari-umāi nado kanren sōgō chōsa, I, II [General

   Survey of the Places of Worship Relating to the Agari-umāi and other rituals], Naha: Shinkokai

   Publishing.

Ouwehand, Cornelius (1985) Hateruma: Socio-religious Aspects of a South-Ryukyuan Island

   Culture, Leiden: E.J.Brill.

Sakima, Toshikatsu (1991) Omoro fūzokukō [Study of the Old Customs in the Omoro], Yonabaru:

   Ryūkyū Bunka Rekishi Kenkyūjo.

Shinjō, Tokuyū (1983) ‘Agari-umāi’ in Okinawa Daihyakka Jiten, 1, 32.

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan       116

Smits, Gregory (1999) Visions of Ryukyu. Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and

   Politics, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Smits, Gregory (2000) ‘Ambiguous boundaries: redefining royal authority in the Kingdom of

   Ryukyu’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 60(1), 89–123.

Suetsugu, Satoshi (1995) Ryūkyū no ōken to shinwa [Myths and Royal Authority in Ryūkyū],

   Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō.

Tonaki, Akira (1988) ‘Ryūkyū ōken ron no ichikadai: Kokuō no Kudaka, Chinen, Tamagusuku

   miyuki no haishi wo megutte’ [Contribution to the discussion on the royal authority in Ryūkyū:

   on the abolition of the king’s trips to Kudaka, Chinen and Tamagusuku], Okinawa no shūkyō to

   minzoku (Kubo Noritada sensei Okinawa chōsa nijūnen kinen ronbunshū) [Okinawan Folklore

   and Religion. Collection of Essays in Commemoration of Professor Kubo Noritada’s Twenty

   Years of Investigation in Okinawa], Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō, pp. 295–313.

Wacker, Monika (2001) ‘Onarigami: Holy woman in the kingdom of Ryūkyū: A Pacific culture

   with Chinese influences’, J.Kreiner (ed.) Ryūkyū in World History, Bonn: Bier’sche

   Verlagsanstalt, pp. 41–67.

Wakugami, Motō (1983) ‘Oara-ori’, Okinawa Daihyakka Jiten, 1, 364.

Wakugami, Motō (2000) Okinawa minzoku bunkaron. Saishi, shinkō, utaki [Essays on Okinawan

   Popular Culture. Rituals, Beliefs, Shrines], Ginowan: Yōju shorin.

                             12  Takiguchi Shūzō and Joan Miró

                                      Pilar Cabañas

                                       Introduction

In this chapter, I wish to demonstrate how an encounter with something beyond the

‘ordinary’, far away and outside the boundaries of one’s culture, often bears fruit in art.

Because of its implications for understanding the process of such an encounter, I would

like to pay particular attention to the personal relationship between the Spanish painter

Joan Miró and the Japanese poet Takiguchi Shūzō. This relationship greatly influenced

the collaborative work they did, while the admiration that Takiguchi felt for Miró has

played an important role in the interpretation and acceptance of his art by the general

public in Japan.

                                     Takiguchi Shūzō

Takiguchi Shūzō (1903–1979) was the principle Japanese artist involved in the

introduction of Surrealism to Japan. Among his achievements is the diffusion of the

painting process invented by the Spanish artist Oscar Domínguez called decalcomania

(i.e. the technique of transferring an image from one surface to another one). In the

magazine Mizue (May 1937), the painter Imai Shigeru wrote an article entitled: ‘About

Decalcomanie and its method’. In this article Imai Shigeru described the Fifth Exhibition

of New Plastic Art, in which 15 decalcomanies, painted in conjunction with short poems

by Takiguchi, were shown. Imai wrote: ‘As haiku and haiga (painting in the haiku spirit)

were joined in our country, now poetry and painting have joined their hands as well’

(Iwaya 1993:132). Since the poet Takiguchi maintained artistic collaborations with

different painters, among them two very well-known Spanish artists, Antoni Tàpies and

Joan Miró, it seems to me that the Japanese art tradition of collaboration was deeply

embedded in Takiguchi’s psyche. It should be noted that Takiguchi was the only

Japanese poet who practised ‘automatic painting’, the very essence of the Surrealistic

method. Also, he translated Breton’s Surrealism and Painting (1930) into Japanese, and

had a very close relationship with many of the French Surrealists. Thus he is considered

to be one of the leaders of the new artistic movements in Japan.

    During the Second World War, the militarist government in Japan attempted to

eradicate progressive elements in art, and in 1941 Takiguchi was arrested and imprisoned

for eight months. When he left prison the authorities kept him and his activities under

surveillance. After the war he began to work as an art critic. In the light of his arrest, it

can be concluded that he had already begun to be active and influential as a critic before

the war; further evidence of this is a 1939 monograph that he wrote on Joan Miró, which

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    118

in 1940 was also the first published work about the painter. It has been already noted that

Takiguchi was intrigued by the continuity between writing and drawing, a fascination

that was to have interesting consequences. As the poet noted in the catalogue for his first

drawing exhibition (October 1960):

       It began when I bought a notebook for drawings. I sketched some lines

       with my pen. I was looking for something more than just writing

       characters. I did not know if I was writing or painting. What I was really

       interested in was in that uncertainty.

                                                                (Iwaya 1993:133)

In November 1956 Takiguchi visited the exhibition of World Contemporary Art in

Tokyo, and his interest in the continuity between writing and drawing was reinforced. In

May 1958 he travelled to Venice as the Japanese member of the international jury of the

Biennial. During this first trip abroad he stayed in Europe for five months, meeting Dalí,

Duchamp and Michaux, while of his meeting with André Breton he remarked that it had

changed his life. He visited Spain and spent some days in the house of Tàpies in

Barcelona, but did not meet Miró. When he returned to Japan, he found it difficult to

continue working as a journalist, and his experiments with the decalcomanie method

became more frequent. It was during this period of the 1960s that his interest in Miró

increased.

             The personal relationship and artistic collaboration between

                                 Takiguchi and Miró1

The personal relationship between the two men began when Takiguchi heard that Miró

was coming to Japan to visit his own great retrospective exhibition. Takiguchi wrote a

letter to Miró that was described by him as a curieuse lettre d’identification.2 In this self-

introduction he speaks of his book about Miró, published in 1940, and about the fact that

a friend had told him that he had seen a copy of the red-covered monograph in Miró's

library. In his letter, Takiguchi explained to Miró that he was writing part of the

catalogue for the exhibition and he invited the painter to write to him if he wanted to

know anything about Japan, even if only to ask about trivial matters.

    When Miró travelled to Japan he had a meeting with Takiguchi in Tokyo. Afterwards,

Takiguchi sent a letter with a poem entitled Avec des étoiles de Miró (dated September

1966) that he had composed in honour of Miró, commemorating this great retrospective

exhibition. In the letter the poet asked Miró to illustrate the last part of the poem and to

autograph his exhibition catalogue. So it was that the first step towards the artistic

collaboration of the two artists was taken by the Japanese part. As we know from notes

written just after returning to Spain in October, Miró considered the possibility of doing a

book written in Japanese and French: ‘It could be a beautiful book’.3

    In May 1967 the Maeght Gallery published a catalogue of Miró’s current exhibition at

the gallery. In this catalogue Miró’s illustrations of poems by various writers were

included, among them one by Takiguchi, Itinéraire. When Takiguchi wrote to Miró to

express his sincere and enormous gratitude, he added that he had felt great emotion upon

                          Takiguchi Shuzo and Joan Miro        119

seeing his little poem printed together with Miró’s wonderful pictures. He explained to

Miró that he had written to Mr Maeght telling him about a Japanese publishing house’s

proposal, namely the publication of a book with Miró’s drawings combined with

Takiguchi’s poems in Japanese and possibly in French as well. Takiguchi asked Miró for

an opportunity to create a work that could symbolize their friendship.

    Miró, after some further correspondence that defined the idea more clearly, accepted

the proposal. The Barcelona publishing house favoured by Miró, Polígrafa, decided to

publish the work, but asked Takiguchi for more poems to add to the three he had

composed for Miró. Miró thought it would be better for Takiguchi to write some short

and poetic sentences, or even to choose some fragments from his previous works. Miró’s

idea was to make a luxurious album with big lithographs printed on beautiful paper. In

1967, after returning from Japan, Miró had already illustrated a book entitled Haíku, and

in his personal library he possessed a book on the best haiku poets.4 He felt that painting

and poetry as mediums of expression were very close. In the short haiku poems he found

concentrated all the emotion that words could evoke, and intended to respond to these

emotions aroused by the poems with his paintings. Miró specifies that it was absolutely

essential that Takeguchi’s poems be written in Japanese characters, since the painter

conceived his own work in relation to the pictographic writing. Miró also added that in

order to promote the work and give it wider diffusion, it should be translated into

different Western languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish and Catalán.

    Miró’s idea was to create a work that was light, subtle and beautiful like a flower.5

When Miró returned to Japan in 1969, he received a welcome letter from Takiguchi,

informing him that he had already finished the poems. The poet said they were short and

simple and added that some of them were close to the haiku. He entitled them Handmade

Proverbs.

    Looking at this work, the union of Western and Japanese cultural traditions can be

observed and appreciated. The vertical format is reminiscent of Japanese kakemono

(hanging scrolls with a painting or a work of calligraphy). Also the elongated size of the

paper, the composition of the drawings with their strong diagonal strokes, and the

monochrome black used in the text’s illustration, give the work an air of ‘Japaneseness’.

However, the hand which guides the brush is Western and the symbols and lines are

orchestrated in a special and unconventional way typical of Miró. In the Japanese

lithograph version, the importance of the drawing loses some of its impact because of the

relevance of the pictographic writing; it is evident that Miró had based his work on the

characters.

    I would like to call attention to this work as an example of a situation that has occurred

in many different cases and fields: Western esteem helps Japan to examine itself and to

rediscover—and reinterpret—its own tradition. Miró asked Takiguchi to forget the

modern writings of his fervent Surrealist years and to concentrate on the composition of

small and condensed poems, richly evocative and similar to haiku.

    On the other hand, Miró’s style seems to abandon the metallic and thin strokes he had

used before the Second World War, and a progressive approach to Japan can be observed.

The strokes become softer and thicker, resembling calligraphic brushstrokes. When

Takiguchi saw the result of their collaboration, he was surprised by the Japanese feeling

transmitted by the Handmade Proverbs. He affirmed that this work was a monument not

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    120

just to their own friendship, but to the friendship between Miró and Japan. He described

Miró’s work as drawn calligraphy possessing great simplicity and power.

    The other collaborative project between Miró and Takiguchi had a more difficult

conception and delivery. Even though the idea arose at the same time as the Handmade

Proverbs, it did not become a reality until 1978, nearly 10 years later. This work is

entitled Miró no hoshi to tomo ni (‘Among Miró’s stars’), and the publisher was

Heibonsha, although the lithographs were done by Arte Adrien Maeght in Paris. This

work can be seen as the culmination of their relationship and the reciprocal admiration

cultivated throughout the years. In this art work Miró's style is recognizable in its most

characteristic form and, at the same time, the profound feelings that it aroused in

Takiguchi are also apparent. I think it is possible to argue that the emotion felt by the poet

was shared by the thousands of Japanese spectators of the Catalán painter’s work.

    On this occasion it was Takiguchi who suggested the format of the work. Since he felt

it was necessary to publish the poems dedicated to Joan Miró, he wanted the work to

resemble the folded books used to record Buddhist sutras which opened like fans when

read. In some way his intention was to present Miró’s work as similar to that of these

sacred texts, and he probably wanted to express the high regard he felt for Miró’s art

through this format. The work was published in Japanese with a French translation on a

separate leaflet.

    Miró’s paintings should be understood not as a direct illustration of the contents of the

text, but as the result of the emotion aroused by Takiguchi’s poems in Miró’s spirit. He

created a visual code for transmitting this emotion. This was something he had done

before; Joan Brossa, a famous Catalán poet, said that when Miró was illustrating his work

Oda a Joan Miró, the painter took some notes: “the colour has to be like a punch,…the

background like a symphony that finishes smoothly,…as if I push a door” (1989:216).

    In Miró no hoshi to tomo ni one can appreciate how Miró felt about the poems as he

translated them into a plastic form using symbols from his own vocabulary. There is a

perfect interrelation between the text and the designs: If the text were taken out it would

be the equivalent of erasing some of the characters in Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas.

The harmony and movement between the vertical lines of writing and the horizontal

pictorial flow are beautiful, and impossible to achieve with Western writing; rhythm and

balance are two of the main characteristics of this artistic work.

    It might be that for visual and aesthetic reasons, Miró had rejected the idea of

including prose in the first book, as the abundance of pictograms might have spoilt the

rhythm and harmony between writing and painting. Moreover, Miró no hoshi to tomo ni

did not see publication in other languages, since this would have resulted in a totally

different creation: the mutual understanding between Takiguchi’s Japanese texts and

Miró’s painting could not have been reached if the writing had been the Western

alphabet. The Japanese writing system, which goes from top to bottom and from right to

left, permits reading and painting in a contiguous way, allowing the viewer to go along

with the text to the work’s end. It is also interesting to note, in this connection, that

Takiguchi’s signature could at first sight be confused with the strokes of Miró’s painting,

though close observation shows that it was done in a very loose way without lifting the

brush.

    As already noted, the poetic feeling in Miró’s works is a consequence of his desire to

communicate in a plastic way what the poet does with his words. Beyond that, the works

                         Takiguchi Shuzo and Joan Miro       121

are also of special interest as examples of a cultural encounter. It can be seen how Miró,

continuing to be himself, ‘drinks’, as it were, from Takiguchi’s poems, acting as a

participant in the work and not as a simple illustrator. A great part of this work’s value

lies in the enrichment produced by the cultural encounter between Takiguchi Shūzō and

Joan Miró.

                    Takiguchi looks at Miró, Japan looks at Miró

The fact, mentioned above, that Takiguchi Shūzō was the first-known author of a

monograph about Joan Miró (published by Atelier Editions of Tokyo in 1940) merits

further elaboration. The book was neither voluminous nor expensive, consisting of 36

pages of text and 48 pages of black and white plates. To put it in context, it is necessary

to remember that Takiguchi was the leader of new artistic tendencies introduced in Japan,

as well as—in 1930—the translator of the work by Breton, Surrealism and Painting; at

the same time he was the sponsor of the Surrealist movement in Japan, and a friend of

many of the French Surrealists. Thus when Takiguchi thought of writing this monograph

about Joan Miró it seems probable that his intention was to introduce Miró to the

Japanese.

   Furthermore, the fact that Joan Miró was the personal preference of Takiguchi, one of

the prime movers diffusion of Western artistic movements in Japan, was bound to

influence the Japanese public in their valuation of Surrealism. This is the artistic

movement in which Miró is often included, although because of his peculiar artistic

personality, he is difficult to classify. Thus even today, when you ask about a Surrealist

painter in Japan, Miró is probably one of the first names that come to people’s mind, even

before Max Ernst, Marc Chagall or René Magritte. Takiguchi’s choice, then, conditioned

the diffusion of the Japanese public’s knowledge of Miró.

   Takiguchi’s interest in Miró, together with that in Antoni Tàpies (whom I cannot

discuss in detail here), has led me to focus on these two painters. In both cases it can be

seen that the attraction they felt for Japanese culture and tradition, which, for both of

them, lay far beyond the ‘ordinary’, had a decisive influence upon their work. Yet at the

same time certain features of their own characters and attitudes seem in a sense to be very

close to the Japanese traditions. As an example I would like to quote Miró:

       The very last works are the three large blue canvases. They took me a

       long time. Not to paint, but to think them through. It meant an enormous

       effort on my part, a very great inner tension, to reach the emptiness I

       wanted. The preliminary stage was intellectual…. It was like preparing the

       celebration of a religious rite or entering a monastery. Do you know how

       Japanese archers prepare for competitions? They begin by getting

       themselves into the right state, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling. It was the

       same thing for me. I knew that I had everything to lose. One weakness,

       one mistake, and everything would collapse. I began by drawing them in

       charcoal, very precisely. (I always start work very early in the morning.)

       In the afternoon, I would simply look at what I had drawn. For the rest of

       the day, I would prepare myself internally. Finally, I began to paint: first

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    122

       the background, all blue; but it was not simply a matter of applying colour

       like a house painter: all the movements of the brush, the wrist, the

       breathing of my hand—all these things played a role. ‘Perfecting’ the

       background put me in the right state to go on with the rest.

                                  (Miró, 1961 interview with Rosamond Bernier)

Recently, while interviewing a Japanese person it appeared to me that she had

understood, in a very intuitive way, the feeling and manner of expression of Joan Miró.

She noted that his works very often transmit the sense of, as well as reminded her of, the

concentration and emptiness of spirit needed to practise calligraphy. In my opinion this

identification—the recognition of something Japanese in Miró’s work—was one of the

reasons why Takiguchi, consciously or unconsciously, was drawn to Miró (and Tàpies),

becoming friends with them.

   At the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, the general public in Japan looked

at European art through the work of art critics, and, in this post-war period, Takiguchi

was one of the more outstanding among these. Thus we can say that when the Japanese

looked at Miró they saw him through Takiguchi’s eyes. The participation of this poet and

art critic in Miró’s exhibition catalogues was obvious, and in the first great retrospective

of Joan Miró organized in Japan, Takiguchi wrote most of the catalogue (except for the

introduction which was written by the commissary of the exhibition, Jacques Dupin, the

French poet and a good friend of Miró).6 Japan received an impression of Miró that was

somewhat ‘Japanized’ by the fact of being filtered through Takiguchi. In contrast to the

American public, who paid attention to the strength of the basic colours and the strong

impact of the gestures, therefore, the Japanese valued his signs, the cheerfulness of his

colours, and a sense of the Universe found in his works. Perhaps some of these

perceptions were like those of the painter’s own. Miró said in 1959 in relation to the

interpretation and experience of the public, “…my painting could be considered as

humorous and happy, although I am tragic”.

   The association of his work with the idea of happiness certainly influenced the Osaka

Gas Company, participating in the Expo ‘70 in Osaka, to think of Miró as the ideal artist

for the occasion, as Fukuda Tsuneari had proposed ‘Smile’ as the topic for the main

pavilion in which art was exhibited and theatrical performances were held. The Osaka

Gas Company entrusted Miró with the task of creating in the pavilion an atmosphere

similar to that of his paintings; they gave him total freedom and he accepted the

opportunity to return to Japan with enthusiasm. Miró created a ceramic mural with the

idea that it would be exhibited later in the city’s museum, and another mural painting

done in situ that would have to be destroyed with the pavilion. It was a confrontation

between permanent and ephemeral art. There was a great contrast between the intense

composition and the black lines that enclose the bright colours in the ceramic mural, and

the ephemeral painting on the downward ramp which led to the pond. The pond acted as

a mirror to the ceramic wall that was set behind it. In the painting on the ramp, by

contrast, the white colour of the wall that was used as canvas is predominant, the strokes

are freer, and the colours at their purest.7

   Continuing the idea of the contrast between the permanent and the ephemeral, Miró

created some bronze sculptures painted in his personal colours, and some ephemeral

designs to be worn as costumes for the pavilion’s guides. Characters invented by Miró

                         Takiguchi Shuzo and Joan Miro       123

similar to Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse in Disney World were to stand at the entrance

to welcome visitors. These characters, incidentally, carried pilgrims’ gourds (calabaza de

peregrine)—which are a very common object in Spain. As planned, the mural painting

created by Miró in situ was destroyed with the pavilion, and the fancy dresses were

replaced by regular uniforms.

   After visiting Miró in Osaka, Takiguchi sent him a short poem about the ceramic wall.

The poet refers to the human laughing openly and describes it as promising good luck for

everybody:

                    ōkuchi akete warau darō

                    makoto ni warau kabe ni fuku kitaru

                    (The mouth wide open, appearing to be laughing.

                       Truly, to the laughing wall comes good luck)

A French version of the poem runs as follows:

                         Regardez le mur Miró

                         Tous les hommes riront en éclat

                         comme une carbassa a la bouche

                         grande overte

                         devant le grand mur riant

                         qui invite vraiment le bonheur

                         au monde entier

                                            (Shūzō Takiguchi,

                                    28 November 1969, Osaka)8

In my opinion Takiguchi understood this work as hare (i.e. ‘pure’ in the Japanese

religious sense) and through their happy and noisy laughing humans are inviting the gods

to smile and send them good fortune. I believe that this happiness and amusement in

Miró’s work was understood by the Japanese, and that it was one of the reasons why he

was attractive to them.

                                      Conclusion

Takiguchi Shūzō has come to exemplify the admiration of the Japanese for the world of

contemporary art in general, and for that of Joan Miró in particular; while Miró himself

assumed that his discovery and acceptance of what is Japanese was generally valid in the

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     124

world of Western contemporary art. Moreover, the Japanese public became acquainted

with Miró through Takiguchi’s translations, which acted as a filter for this encounter

between a Spanish and a Japanese artist.

    Between them there took place an intercultural encounter which touched on their

artistic creativity at its most profound, although each of them had their roots in, and were

attached to, ancient cultural traditions that were conceptually distant. In Miró’s pictures

we can observe both calligraphic strokes and the creator’s eyes as found in Romanesque

frescos. Takiguchi in turn discovers in Miró the tradition of Western painting which, in

search for its own path, converges with the Eastern tradition of pictographic signs. In an

essay titled The Age of Abstraction (Iwaya 1993:135) Takiguchi stated:

       Writing; drawing. Once again I have doubts about the difference between

       the two things. In ancient times, writing was very near painting. They

       were almost indistinguishable. In fact some of the ancient steles on metal

       or stone are akin to Klee or Miró’s modern paintings. In the Orient an

       original form of writing known as shodō (the Way of the Brush) is

       aesthetically developed thanks to the brushstrokes, the Chinese ink, the

       paper, the special climate, and the animistic sensitivity, which imbues

       spirit to a line. On the other hand, in modern Western painting something

       characteristic for oriental writing has appeared.

Takiguchi points out that Klee and Miró were the ones who reduced the distance between

reality and its signs or representations. In this manner they revived the life of writing as

art, producing cheerful, emotive and suggestive works that invite the spectator to

participate actively.

    There are many anecdotes about Miró and how he interpreted his work. Whenever he

was asked, ‘Is it this? Is it that? Is it the other?’, he usually answered ‘Yes’, even though

the options were contradictory. Despite his delight in such interpretive uncertainty, it can

be said with some certainty that Joan Miró discovered in Takiguchi a poet who used the

signs of writing as referential images; he saw in him the possibility of working ‘directly’,

interweaving his own signs with those coming from Takiguchi’s brush. Far beyond the

borders of what is ‘ordinary’ in one’s own part of the world, respect and admiration has

thus formed the basis for the meeting of compatible ideas, and the interweaving of

techniques and visions that have led to the creation of fascinating works of art.

                                           Notes

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró of Palma

de Mallorca who helped fund the research for this project; to its Director at the time, Mr

Pablo Rico; to Ms Aránzazu Miró, the librarian of the institution, for her helpful service

and advice; to the Fundació Joan Miró of Barcelona in the person of Ms Teresa Montaner

for its kind collaboration; to Ms Katō Ruiko from the National Museum of Modern Art,

Kyoto, and to Mr Yagi Hiromasa from Toyama Museum for the information they gave

me; to Mr Françesc Catalá-Roca and Mr Jacques Dupin for giving me the opportunity to

interview them; to Mrs Usui Sachiko from the International Research Center for Japanese

                           Takiguchi Shuzo and Joan Miro           125

Studies, for her constant confidence and encouragement in this research; Dr Junko Sasaki

and Professor Maria Dolores Rodríguez del Alisal, President of the Fundación Institute

de Japonología, for their collaboration, support and friendship; and to Ms Diane Bucy

who helped me to correct the English version of this paper.

   1 The material I use in this section is based mainly on the research I have done on the letters

      sent by Takiguchi Shūzō to Joan Miró and some drafts of the replies sent by Miró (both in

      the archives of the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma de Mallorca), and on the works

      which were the result of their artistic collaboration.

   2 Tokyo 14 July 1966 (Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca [NIG 6015 Archive

      CA039001]).

   3 ‘…en podría fer un llibre preciosista’ (Note, October 1966. Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma

      de Mallorca NIG 5992).

   4 This was Le Haiku translated by Georges Bonneau (1935) (Le Colleccion Yoshino, vol. 9,

      París: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner).

   5 cf. Draft letter 28 September 1969 (Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca [NIG 6006

      Archive CA039901]).

   6 The wide distribution of this book is noteworthy, taking into account that around 9,000 people

      visited the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of Tokyo the first day it was open to the

      general public.

   7 There exists a silent film of the encounter at the Osaka Gas pavilion between Miró and

      Takiguchi, shot by Miró’s photographer, Françesc Catalá-Roca, and by his dealer Adrien

      Maeght. The film includes a scene in which Miró is totally absorbed in his creative work,

      and another one recording the visit of Takiguchi when it was already finished. One can

      observe how Miró explains the painting to Takiguchi, his hands moving as if he were

      painting it all over again.

   8 ‘Poema inédito entregado en mano a Miró durante su estancia y días de encuentro en Osaka’

      (Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró [NIG 5993 Archive CA 040101]).

                                         Bibliography

Bernier, Rosamund (1961) ‘Interview with Miró’, L’Oeil, July-August, pp. 258–259, Paris.

Brossa, Joan (1989) ‘Reloj del viento’, 109 llibres amb Joan Miró, Barcelona: Fundació Joan Miró.

Cabañas, Pilar (1996) ‘1966. Miró en Japon. Impresiones de un viaje’, Actas del II Congreso de la

   Asociatión de Estudios Japoneses en España, Madrid: Institute de Japanología.

Cabañas, Pilar (1998) ‘Los poemas de Shūzō Takiguchi a Joan Miró. El origen de una colaboración

   artística’, Actas del III Congreso de la Asociatión de Estudios Japoneses en España, Madrid:

   Institute de Japanología.

Cabañas, Pilar (1999) ‘Dos visiones de haiga: de la tradición japonesa a la obra de Joan Miró’,

   Japón. Hacia el siglo XXI, un enfoque pluridisciplinar y multicultural en el avance del

   conocimiento. Actas del IV Congreso de la Asociatión de Estudios Japoneses en España,

   Barcelona: Asociatión de Estudios Japoneses en España.

Cabañas, Pilar (2000) La fuerza de Oriente en la obra de Joan Miró, Madrid: Electra.

I way a, Kunio (1993) ‘Shūzō Takiguchi y la Decalcomanía’, Sueños de Tinta Decalcomanía de

   Oscar Domínguez a Marx Ernst, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Centre Atlántico de Arte

   Moderno.

Miró, Joan (1959) ‘Je travaille comme un jardinier’, Revue XX siécle, le 15 février, (1), Paris.

Shigeru, Imai (1937) ‘About Decalcomanie and his method’, Mizue.

                                   13  Hiroshima, mon amour

                      An inner pilgrimage to catharsis

                                      Antonio Santos

                     There are two kinds of memory:

                     the small memory for remembering small things,

                     and the big memory for forgetting big things.

                                              (Montserrat Roig 1993)

                                       Introduction

In the film script Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais 1959), written by Marguerite

Duras (1988), the city of Hiroshima serves as a dialectic space. The fortuitous encounter

between a French woman and a Japanese man in Hiroshima allows us to compare, on two

levels, different lines of dramatic and narrative development. On the spatial and temporal

level we find a context which conditions the contrasting experiences of the tale’s two

protagonists. On a psychological level the audience is presented with a seminal conflict in

which are juxtaposed the co-ordinates of the real and the imaginary, and of remembering

and forgetting.

   Hiroshima will be considered, following the film’s plot, as a space of agony, where the

opponents enter into conflict. But it is also the place where reconciliation with the past

becomes possible; and also the place that serves as the starting point for the foreigner’s

catharsis. In other words: both in Duras’ and in Resnais’ work, Hiroshima is treated not

so much as a geographical and historical setting as it is a symbolic and subjective one.

Within the conflict presented, the coming together of Europe and Japan makes possible

the reconciliation between past and present; or, in the words of Resnais himself, provides

a resolution for the contradiction between history and poetry, while oblivion is

transformed into a complementary mechanism for memory as well as an indispensable

strategy for living. As a consequence of these characteristics, Hiroshima, mon amour is

valued as an open, suggestive text: an outstanding example of the poetry of the real,

defining and enlightening with artistic intensity many of the troubles which oppress us.

                      Alain Resnais: The real and the imaginary1

This singular film-maker, antithetical to both narrative conventions and commercial

demands, has often shown his unwillingness to be considered an ‘author’ (auteur) in the

sense in which this word is normally used; in fact he has preferred to refer to himself as a

metteur en scene. His films are based on texts written by such reputable authors as

Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbé Grillet, Jorge Semprún or the scientist Henri Laborit.

                               Hiroshima, mon amour       127

Initially limited to making documentary films, he has in several instances highlighted

genocides committed throughout the twentieth century: Guernica (1950), Night and Fog

(Nuit et brouillard 1955), as well as Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), which was his first

feature film.

   The theme of memory is one that recurs in most of his films, whether they are

documentaries or fiction. As a complementary mechanism to memory, Resnais likes to

use the concept of the imaginary: some parts of history—both personal and collective

history—he understands as capable of being retrieved by an inner, subjective

manipulation of events. If we accept this as an authentic activity, it is possible to admit

that our inner, imaginary life may be inseparably linked to the world conventionally

termed ‘real’.

   Hiroshima, mon amour was initially conceived as a project for a documentary on the

atomic bomb. Marguerite Duras’ collaboration, and the system of co-production with

Nagata Masaichi and Anatole Dauman,2 resulted in a more complex and ambitious work

that is set in the city of Hiroshima, taking place over a period of only 24 hours. In spite of

the spatial and temporal limits, the action arouses a whole stream of reminiscences

extending back over the previous 15 years to the end of the Second World War.

   Both protagonists remain strictly anonymous throughout the film; only at the end is

each of them referred to by the name of their respective birth-place—a final act of

atonement for their past lives. SHE (Emmanuelle Riva) is a French actress who is on

location making a film in the city, now in the throes of rebirth after nuclear chaos. HE

(Eiji Okada) is a Japanese engineer who meets her for the very first time that afternoon.

Together they embark on a fortuitous, adulterous love affair; it is, we could say, a

consummated ‘Brief encounter’. The film begins with the couple making love in a hotel

room. The spectator is not informed about any previous meeting between them; the

narrative just focuses on what happens in the few hours which elapse after this casual

encounter.

                           Memory is a path towards oblivion

The title of the film itself suggests a reconciliation of two principles which seem to be

opposed: Hiroshima as a representation of chaos and supreme absurdity, and Love. We

may certainly speak of an antithetical opposition between pain and love. The woman

recognizes this all along in her inner monologue: ‘You are killing me. You are my life.

Devour me. Deform me into utmost hideousness’. The fusion of these antithetical

principles will result in oblivion, whose erosive action proves to be essential for survival.

   The plot used is commonplace, but at the same time the setting chosen is an unlikely

one: Hiroshima. As Duras (1988:13) says, ‘A special atmosphere marks every gesture,

every word there’. The evocation of horror occurs in a hotel bed, at the moment of

pleasure’s consummation. According to Duras, the scene might appear to be sacrilegious.

In the script’s preface, however, the readers/spectators are asked to free themselves of

their prejudices and accept everything they are going to read or see about this couple:

‘What is truly sacrilegious, if sacrilege exists, is Hiroshima itself. This fact should never

be allowed to escape the mind, and all hypocrisy must be rejected’ (Duras 1988:12).

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     128

   Hiroshima thus is shown as a place of agony and horror, yet at the same time it is the

space where encounter and reconciliation are possible. In Hiroshima the woman finds

herself at a place where the possibility for catharsis exists that would release her from her

past.

                                     Crippled bodies

The film opens with an abstract image, shot in negative. A few moments later, this

becomes a recognizable wound in the skin of a person and will be understood as

analogous to the pain which has left its scars on the memory of a woman whose

perceptions the audience will share. Because of memory both wounds—the physical and

the mental—are open. We can speak of torture before catharsis.

    Soon the spectator is bombarded with a confused succession of shots which are later

recognizable as bodies twisted together, naked and sweaty, but whose faces are never

shown. This is the first hint at anonymity, which will be maintained throughout the film;

it is also a sign of mutilation and deformation. The aggressive editing, as well as the

fragmented composition of each shot, compel us to equate torn flesh with violence. In

other words, the cutting of the film dissects the two lovers. Such ‘visual anger’ links

love-making to the dead bodies, lacerated by an air raid, evoked in the following images.

    The physical encounter of the bodies opens up a path towards time as experienced

internally along the two symbolic planes of imagination and memory. This way, the

senses are given a vehicle to indulge in a special kind of communication: anonymous and

isolated, the man and the woman ‘talk without talking’.

    From the subsequent break between spaces and times comes the paradox which has

fed all preliminary episodes: the sexual meeting does not coincide with spiritual

agreement. The first dialogues lay down the norm: HE methodically denies everything

SHE affirms. This dialectic rule, followed throughout the prologue, is only once turned

round, when SHE is negative (‘I have invented nothing’), arousing the only affirmative

statement from HIM: ‘You have invented everything’.

    The opposition between these two perspectives allows the audience to extract their

own conclusions: SHE represents an imaginary, subjective point of view, while HE

represents a realistic one. SHE represents the connection between past and present (both

the real and the imaginary); HE is bound only to present and hardly speaks about his past.

Images do not spring from HIS memory as they do from HERS.

    As Duras comments, it is impossible to talk about Hiroshima: a community destroyed

in a few seconds; a community which has come to represent horror and absurdity. This

Japanese city is, in the words of the French writer, the only place in the world where the

universal experiences of love and pain are seen in implacable light (Duras 1988:13–14).

                                  The poetry of the real

The binary oppositions which—as I have tried to show—provide the film’s foundation

are resolved within the conflict between love and pain, or, we may say, between life and

death. The physical senses create an intimate path for a voyage of selfknowledge which

                               Hiroshima, mon amour        129

unites intuition and experience, but such knowledge is revealed as frightening: The

woman’s inner pilgrimage is a journey of love and death. She must close her eyes in

order to survive the chaos. In this film we see empty sockets, a brutal image of eyes

gouged out by barbarism, reminding us of Oedipus who tore out his own eyes lest he

should see himself trapped in his own horror.

   Thus the nuclear bomb is juxtaposed with the story of an unconventional amour fou.

Resnais’ images often recall surrealistic models, which take their meaning from an

absurd and cruel situation—which is what this apocalypse of the twentieth century was.

We specifically recognize Buñuel’s about-to-be-cut eye, as well as the radioactive ants

which surface from nothing, represented in that sterile, polluted land of Hiroshima.3

   The sweaty, embracing bodies which the editing violently hurls around at the

beginning of the film take on an ominous resemblance to the dead bodies covered by

ashes after the atomic explosion; they may also recall the lovers whose bodies were

discovered in Pompeii, carbonized by the Vesuvian eruption.4 Past tragedy joins present

delight.

   Under the ashes of Hiroshima, in museums and in hospitals, the visitor discovers an

unintelligible, aggressive space, a universe that Alain Robbé Grillet, recalling Sigmund

Freud and Jacques Lacan, defined as ‘real’ (Robbé Grillet 1986:50–3). It should be

pointed out that for Robbé Grillet and his sources the ‘real’ is not equivalent to ‘realism’.

Jacques Lacan affirmed that ‘the real begins where sense is finished’ (quoted in Robbé

Grillet 1986:50–3). A poetic of the ‘real’ would be, in this way, one where sense

vanishes. The oppositions on which the film is built well illustrate the three registers

identified by Lacan: The ‘real’ (to kill/to live); the ‘imaginary’ (to see/not to see); and the

‘symbolical’ (to know/not to know).

   The sexual relationship treads the narrow boundary between life and death. It is, in the

final instance, a sensual way of perceiving the ‘real’, and just as Vicente Aleixandre

equated destruction with love in his poetic work, during this scene love-making is

identified with the nuclear apocalypse. The orgasm, after all, has been defined as the little

death,5 where individuality is lost, giving way to a state bordering on insanity.

Accordingly, the woman demands from her lover a fate similar to Hiroshima’s: ‘Deform

me into utmost hideousness’. Only in this way does it seem possible to achieve absolute

possession: ‘Eat me up’, she cries.

                              Memory of shadows and stone

Even in opposition, memory and oblivion are two complementary activities sharing

similar characteristics. This was elegantly noticed by Marguerite Duras (1988:34):

‘Oblivion is only possible when Memory is able to finish its work’. At one point in the

opening sequence of the film, the woman says to her lover: ‘Like you, I wished I had an

inconsolable memory, a memory of shadows and stone’. What could this sentence mean?

The woman’s memory recalls a series of events which we shall define as real, namely her

traumatic love affair in Nevers during the German Occupation. The legacy of that

episode—a lasting memory—could metaphorically be defined as a ‘memory of stone’. In

contrast, the vague, subjective images could well be part of that unreal knowledge which

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     130

she links with shadows. The shadows and stone also allude to two other senses—sight

and touch—which synaesthetically mark out a path towards the inner world.

    Shadows refer us to the intangibility of the film image itself. The woman did not

experience the actual events that really occurred in Hiroshima: film image is not real, it

only represents reality. Also, as it is not possible to apprehend reality, it is necessary to

resort to its representation. Such a metaphorical opposition in the end pits reality against

fiction, as in Plato’s Myth of the Cavern: the shadows reflected on the rock—an

anticipatory image of filmic representation—are also a source of a false knowledge about

reality.

    From films, but also from graphic or written sources, history is discovered to be a

manipulated tale. In Hiroshima, both the hospital and the museum are spaces for the

justification, or explanation of history. The museum, as a fictitious space, is closely

connected to film as a document, as both reconstruct a second reality, essentially different

from the reality they are representing. In the museum’s halls, evidence of chaos has been

collected and transformed into a witness of the past. The images come to life, and are

reflected in the dying figures. As the woman notes: ‘The illusion is so perfect that when

seen, people cry’.

    Photographs and films have supplied the woman with—manipulated—information

about Hiroshima’s fate. Through her work in the film in which she is acting, she even

contributes to increasing such a false knowledge of reality; tragedy becomes a

performance, as in all the films shot about the nuclear bomb. Tragedy is even minimized

in the gift shops of the city, where small copies of its Atomic Dome are sold.

                                      East and West

After meeting her Japanese lover in Hiroshima, the woman evokes her past. Her personal

history is marked by an incident in Nevers, on the banks of the Loire, where she suffered

the painful wounds of love. Fourteen years later, that event, buried in her memory but not

forgotten, is brought to light again. The present moment, lived with unusual intensity

because of its brevity, revives a series of events in which the past seems to be reflected.

When she mentions that episode in her past for the first time, the woman pronounces the

name of her birthplace, clearly differentiating its two syllables: NE-VERS, which in

French could mean ‘not towards’. The place-name could also be equated with the English

adverb NEVER. Semantic word-plays apart, Nevers is a departure point now left behind

her, and to which she does not want to ever return.

   Despite her wishes, the past insists on remaining alive in full force. This happens, for

instance, through the Japanese man’s hand. While he lies on the bed, a journey is initiated

back into memory, for the image is linked with her reminiscence of the hand of the

German soldier killed by the French Resistance. The woman herself, as an implicit reader

of her own history, mixes up both times. Moreover the search made by the Japanese lover

into her past leads him, retrospectively, to Nevers during the occupation years. Just at this

point his interest in her past stops. This is not accidental, because that is the point where

the woman’s affective memory began to be forged. At that spatial and chronological co-

ordinate, the close encounter between present and past time is established.

                               Hiroshima, mon amour       131

    In the same way, the French woman chooses only one point in the life of her Japanese

lover: Hiroshima. These two cities represent their respective birthplaces—furusato—that

is: their starting points. In both places they began to be what they really are at the

moment of their meeting. Appropriating these identifications, and fusing them together

with the places of their germination, each character will receive, at the end of the film,

the name of their respective home-towns.

    The lost love on the banks of the Loire is recovered (and even reincarnated) in the

Japanese figure, through the woman’s memory. Her disposition towards giving herself up

to a German and to a Japanese (both enemies of her country during the war), connotes a

predisposition towards reconciliation and concord. In this way, Nevers is projected on

Hiroshima; the German lover on the Japanese; and the West, finally, appears to be

projected onto the East.

    Dichotomies between East and West are usually resolved through the confrontation

between spirituality and materialism; that is: wisdom against ignorance; contemplative

life versus active life. This duality, often present in films and literature, comes from

supposed cultural differences in reasoning, frequently discussed by Western observers.

However it also comes from cyclical evidence: the sun rises in the East, and sets in the

West, and Japan—Nihon, etymologically meaning ‘the land of the rising sun’—

represents the East.

    Accordingly, the film begins with a sunrise, and ends when the sun sets. For

Westerners, Japan is the receiver of light: its culture and tradition; its stoical resignation

to pain; its recognition of the ignorance and shallowness of the West. Japan has also

received, as a punishment for its arrogance, a devastating light, burning with the flame of

one thousand suns. These flames, coming from the West, annihilated two whole cities,

destroying an empire established by the Sun Goddess, and illuminating the new position

which this Asian country will be allowed to play in the world thenceforth.

                          The seven branches of the Ōta River

Following the binary scheme of the film, there are two rivers flowing through the tale: the

Loire and the Ōta. While the French river looks as clear and bucolic as the passion of the

woman when she was a teenager, the Japanese stream moves in a corrupted and muddy

manner. Its degradation corresponds to the pain which has eroded memory over the years.

   In the West, a river metaphorically represents the flow of time. From Heraclitus

onwards, fluvial streams have been related to impermanence: fieri; panta rei (everything

flows; nothing remains). The same happens with human memory, and moving water

resembles the inner pilgrimage undertaken by each of us, like that of the anonymous

woman of our film.

   Participating in this dynamism the camera moves forward through lengthy

displacements, just as the river does. Some of these sophisticated movements even link

two different spaces and times, that is: European and Asian cities; modern and ancient

ways of life; present and past.

   It should also be noted that the Ōta River empties its waters into the sea, which in a

context like Hiroshima’s can be seen as a fateful anticipation of death. Black ashes, after

the nuclear apocalypse, represent the fate of the city together with its river’s.6

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   132

    Therefore the river’s mouth is an important location. Both the voice of the off-screen

narrator as well as the film images insist on depicting the river delta as having seven

tributaries. This special geographical feature reflects the woman’s journey: the seven

fluvial paths allude to cyclical experience, the seven days of the week, or the seven

branches of the Cosmic Tree. Also the Buddha is represented by seven symbols, while

the pilgrimage to Mecca demands seven laps around the Kaaba. The number seven,

magical in the most distant cultures, represents a renewed cycle of life and death. It is a

sign of a moving totality, an absolute dynamism.

    Hiroshima is in this way represented in the seven branches of its river: a fulminant

cycle of life and death identified with the fluvial cadence. As a consequence of all these

vicissitudes, the whole martyred city goes forward with its geographical and historical

scenario, becoming a magical place: something like a temple where oppositions come

together. This appreciation is not only true for a European woman who begins her inner

pilgrimage precisely in this place, but also for a whole collective: the Japanese people,

and even for the rest of humankind, who will encounter in Hiroshima a tragic shrine

where reconciliation with past mistakes may become possible.

                                       Conclusion

Jorge Luis Borges assured that ‘Poetry always works in the Past; Memory works in the

Present’. This paper has tried to confirm his axiom through analysing a literary and

cinematographic work which locates its two characters at the intersection of both co-

ordinates. The most vivid reminiscences are often condemned to oblivion; while the need

to keep memory alive co-exists with the desire to forget the painful episodes of life. And

so, in a city devastated by war and fire, as Hiroshima was, two nameless lovers begin an

inner pilgrimage through life and death, memory and oblivion, attempting a rebirth from

their own ashes. Only at the end of the trip will destruction be fused with love.

   In Resnais’ and Duras’ work oblivion becomes an antidote against the pains of

memory. This state has been described by the Spanish romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo

Bécquer:

   En donde esté una piedra solitaria/sin inscriptión alguna,/donde

   habite el olvido,/allí estará mi tumba

                                              (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rima LXVI)

(Where a lonely stone stands, without any inscription, where oblivion dwells, there my

grave will be.)

                                 Hiroshima, mon amour          133

                                               Notes

   1 Alain Resnais’ work has not inspired a very copious bibliography. Essays which have featured

      his films include those quoted in the references.

   2 Nagata Masaichi, President of Daiei Eiga Productions, had produced many classic Japanese

      films, directed by Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and others. Anatole Dauman was to enjoy his

      biggest professional success some years later, after producing the two controversial films by

      Oshima Nagisa: in The Realm of the Senses (Ai no Corrida, 1976), and Empire of Passion

      (The Ghost of Love, Ai no bōrei, 1978).

   3 We may associate these images with Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí,

      1929).

   4 This idea is not strictly an original one on the part of the duo Duras/Resnais, since it had

      already been used by Roberto Rossellini in his 1953 masterpiece Viaggio in Italia. In the

      latter a married couple whose relationship is in crisis visit the ruins of the Roman city, where

      they recognize themselves in the remains of the lovers covered by lava. The protagonists are

      Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders.

   5 The relationship between sex and death as a mechanism leading to insanity is a frequent topic

      throughout the history of the cinema. Representative examples are, The Realm of the Senses

      (Oshima Nagisa 1976), Excalibur (John Boorman 1981), La Carne (a failed film by Marco

      Ferreri 1991), Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven 1992) or Crash (David Cronembergh 1996),

      which is an adaptation of a James G.Ballard novel.

   6 This is a dramatic motif also exploited by Imamura Shōhei in his film Kuroi Ame (Black Rain

      1989).

                                          Bibliography

Bounoure, Gaston (1974) Alain Resnais, Paris: Seghers.

Castro, Antonio (1977) ‘Alain Resnais’, Dirigido por… August (46), 30–47.

Duras, Marguerite (1988) Hiroshima mon amour, Barcelona: Seix Barral.

Riambeau, Esteve (1988) La ciencia y la fición: el cine de Alain Resnais, Barcelona: Lerna.

Robbé Grillet, Alain (1986) ‘Lo real no es realista’, Quimera (58), 50–3.

Roig, Montserrat (1993) Dime que me quieres aunque sea mentira: sobre el placer solitario,

   Barcelona: Ediciones 62.