The state of the hidden Christians’ villages and their distinctive religious system.

Exertion of a great impact (the Bastian tradition)

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  The kumi (small communities) that sprang up in various locations from the start of the propagation of Christianity, the orasho (derived from “oratio,” the Latin word for “prayers”) permeated with the significance and importance of the faith, and the ethos of martyrdom; everything that supported the Christians during the long years of hiding arose from the instruction of the early missionaries. However, one thing that was different from the past was that the believers were forced into leading double lives with a public face and an underground organization. Something that became a huge force in the handing down of the faith in the midst of such an environment was the oral heritage called the Bastian tradition
  
  Bastian was a Japanese preacher who was active in the Sotome region  of Nagasaki. It is said that he became a disciple of the missionary Jiwan (Juan) and dedicated himself to preaching the Gospel. This Juan is the San Juan introduced in the previous feature who is enshrined at the San Juan Karematsu Shrine. After Juan left Japan, the persecution of Christians became more belligerent. Bastian hid in the mountains of the Makino district in  Sotome, instructing the Christians. However, he was secretly reported by one of the local residents and later arrested. He spent three years and three months in Nagasaki City’s Sakuramachi Prison, where he was tortured on 78 occasions and eventually martyred. What Bastian is said to have left the Christians with are the Bastian calendar, the Bastian crucifix, the Bastian camelia and the Four Prophecies of Bastian.
  
  Even today the well that was used by Bastian still stands where it was in the Shitsu Makino district, Bastian’s Hut had been rebuilt, and the area is a sacred place for Christians. How must the Hidden Christians have felt when they witnessed the martyrdom of Bastian, who had devoted his life to protecting the faith? Being executed, or bearing persecution and exile before losing their lives, and being exiled for their faith was also a type of martyrdom - for the root of the word “martyrdom” derives from the Greek word for “witness.” In other words, what is regarded as martyrdom is both the bearing of witness to the faith even unto death  and simultaneously calling for and inspiring other people to the faith.
  
  Now we would like to turn to the form of the faith upheld by the Hidden Christians who entered a spiritual world of protecting their faith with their lives despite having lost their instructors, as well as their emotional mainstays.

Bastians’s crucifix and Bastian’s camelia

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  The Bastian crucifixes treasured today in the homes of Christians are based on the crucifix he is said to have loved and entrusted to his son-in-law upon being seized, and are regarded as having been venerated by people throughout the years of hiding. The Bastian camelia also drew the veneration of the faithful.
  
  During the period of persecution, Bastian hid himself on Mount Akadake in the Kashiyama district on the southern tip of the Sotome region, where he said to have preached and performed baptism, leading to the mountain being known as Bastian’s kamiyama (god’s Mountain.)
  
  The Bastian camelia was a large camelia tree located at the foot of Mount Akadake, on the trunk of which Bastian  drew a cross with his finger that remained so clearly it became venerated as a sacred tree. It was later cut into pieces and stored. When one of the faithful died, finely chopped pieces of the wood chips were wrapped in white cotton and placed on the forehead of the deceased before burial. Eventually Mount Akadake itself became a place of veneration as a sacred mountain. There was a saying at the time: “Climbing Mount Iwaya three times is as good as one pilgrimage to Kashiyama (Mount Akadake); three pilgrimages to Kashiyama are as good as one pilgrimage to a church in Rome.” The Hidden Christians of Urakami who in those days venerated Mount Iwayama (in the northwestern part of Nagasaki) all visited Mount Akadake on pilgrimages.

From Sotome to the Goto Islands
A life-risking journey on little boats

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  During the prohibition, the Christians moved home to unknown lands in order to protect their faith. It is thought that from the Sotome region under the rule of the Ohmura Clan - where there were Christian villages - over 3,000 people moved to the Goto Islands, which were governed by the Goto Clan and actively seeking new settlers in order to compensate for a shortage of agricultural workers. The crackdown on Christians enforced by the Ohmura Clan was particularly fierce, and the fumie practice of forcing all residents to stamp with their feet on a picture of Christ was enforced annually. In addition to this, extreme regulations on the birth of children were in place, with one boy being allowed to live as the eldest son while the rest of the children were apparently killed. Wishing to escape all these hardships, many Christians gave up the homes they were used to and sought somewhere they could live safely.
  
  The propagation of Christianity in the Goto Islands began in the year 1566, earlier than in the towns of mainland Nagasaki. At its height in 1606 there were over 2,000 believers, but with the suppression resulting from the Edo shogunate’s strengthened policy of prohibiting the religion the renunciation of the Christian faith was thoroughly enforced and Christianity wiped out. In other words, the history of the Hidden Christians in the Goto Islands started with the arrival of settlers from Sotome.
  
  As well as those with all their travel permits in hand who proudly crossed the seas as pioneers there were the Christians who, in order not to be known as Christians, rowed across the oceans in the dark on shabby little boats. There can be no doubt that what was awaiting them was one thing alone – the hope that they would be able to live in peace of mind as long as they kept believing.

To a land of green mountains and remote islands
The Hidden Christians of the Goto Islands

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  What faced the Sotome Christians, who settled in the Goto Islands in search of tranquility, was unfortunately a very harsh environment. After repeated attempts at settling on the islands in places where there were just slightly better conditions, villages of Hidden Christians were formed in 80 locations. Looking at the distribution of these villages, it is clear that all of their hiding places were on heavily wooded remote islands.
  Nozaki Island lies two kilometers east of the easternmost point of Ojika Island, the largest of a group of 17 islands on the northern part of the Goto Islands. Nozaki Island was pioneered by Oda Denjibe’e Shigetoshi , a wealthy merchant from Ojika Island who had earned his fortune through whaling. Subsequently, the Christians originating from Sotome who had arrived in the Goto Islands settled permanently on Nozaki Island, and the village of Nokubi was formed.
  
  The other place that the Christians went to hide on Nozaki Island was the village of Funamori, which was founded by three men brought from Omura harbor by Tokuheiji, the fifth-generation proprietor of a shipping business called Murozumiya, licensed by the Hirado Clan. While he was loading his cargo for the trip home Tokuheiji encountered three Christian men who were set to be executed the next day. He hid the three men in the fishing nets piled up on his boat and headed for home, but as there were no Christians on Ojika Island he let off the men at a point on Nozaki Island called Setowaki where they would be hard for people to see. The terraced rice fields of Funamori that cling to the steep slopes of the mountain surface right up to its top were created by these men.

Amakusa, connected by the seaways

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  However, in the wake of the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion that forced the Christians to go in to hiding and during which the Christians of Shimabara were totally wiped out, there was not a single Christian left in Shimabara. But what about the post-rebellion situation in the other scene of the rebellion, namely the Amakusa region across the sea in Kumamoto Prefecture?
  
  Christianity was transmitted in the islands large and small that constitute the Amakusa district even before Nagasaki, where Luis de Almeida propagated the faith in the year 1566, 17 years after Francisco de Xavier arrived in Kagoshima in 1549.  The five feudal lords of Amakusa during the Age of the Warring States were Shiki Rinsen (Shiki Castle), Amakusa Shigehisa (Don Miguel) (Kawachiura Castle and Hodo Castle), Oyano Tanemoto (Oyano Castle), Sumoto Chikataka (Sumoto Castle) and Kotsuura Tanenao (Kotsuura Castle). The first site of the propagation of the faith was Shiki Village, and when Rinsen converted to Christianity his retainers followed suit and the following year the construction of a church was completed. In the year 1569 all of the five feudal lords of Amakusa had converted to Christianity following the propagation of the religion in Kawachiura (today’s Kawaura Town.)
  
  Around the year 1600 a bishop resided in one of the stations of Shiki, and affiliated seminaries were established in the three locations of Amakusa, Hondo and Kotsuura. The mountainous area was dotted with 45 churches and European culture flourished as it had in Nagasaki. The Amakusa Islands are the collective name for a group of large and small islands including Oyano Island, Kami Island and Shimo Island, and in the past Shimo Island was referred to as Amakusa Island, and in particular the Kawachiura district as Amakusa. The “Amakusa” referred to in Sotome is said to have been the Kawachiura (now Kawaura) settlement located at the back of the island’s main bay.
  It was only Oyano Island, and the eastern parts of Kami Island and Shimo Island that were involved in the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion, and the Christians in the western and southern parts of Shimo Island that did not take part in the rebellion continued to maintain the faith in hiding after it had ended. Then from 1595 to 1616, just as in Nagasaki, the suppression of the Christians started in Amakusa too.

Various reasons why some Hidden Christians did not return to Catholicism

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  When indicating the people who continue to protect the ways of the faith of the hidden era passed down from their ancestors, the name “Hidden Christians” has become common currency. The researcher into Christianity and person who coined the phrase “Hidden Christians,” Professor Kentaro Miyazaki of Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University has argued in one of his books: “What’s important for the Hidden Christians is to ceaselessly pass down what their ancestors taught, even if they themselves do not understand its meaning. And because this is not aimed at the Christian God but is thought by them, as descendants, to be their major duty to their ancestors, it is actually more appropriate to describe them as “ancestor worshippers” rather than “Christians.”
  
  With a peak reaching 534m, Mount Yasumandake is a mountain situated towards the western coast of Hirado Island. The mountain consists of a virgin forest of Japanese red oaks that remain across wide parts of it, the approach to Shirayamahime Shrine, a stone shrine called “the Christian shrine” on the peak, and the site of the abandoned Saizenji Temple that was built at the same period as Shirayamahime Shrine. During the years of the prohibition of Christianity there was a merger of the ancient religious view arising from mountain worship and veneration as both a sacred Christian place and martyrdom site. Along with Nakaenoshima Island where Christians were martyred in the early years of prohibition, Mount Yasumandake developed into a place of faith as one of the places sacred to the Hidden Christians in the Hirado district. In the mid-16th century, the mountain veneration Buddhist forces centered on Saizenji Temple wielded a great deal of power, and the letters sent by Christian missionaries at the time clearly show that they were fiercely opposed by  the Buddhists.
  
  In the present day too, the descendants of the Hidden Christians living along the western coastline of Hirado Island go to worship at the Christian shrine on the peak of Mount Yasumandake, and it is said that they include the chanting of words showing respect to the mountain and its  spirit  in their recital of “kamiyose -no-oratio,” which is a prayer specific to the Hidden Christians and handed down by them over the years. There are also villages where up to 30 religious events take place each year, and among these the practices of ancient Japan can be observed. It can be seen that the Hidden Christians follow a unique folk faith in which both the Christianity passed down to them by their ancestors and Shinto-Buddhism syncretism have merged.

What lies at the roots of the Veneration of the Virgin Mary

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  Shusaku Endo, the author of the novel Silence, gave a fascinating and unique interpretation during one of his lecture meetings. While walking around the places connected to Christianity Endo, who had visited Nagasaki on numerous occasions, became deeply interested in exactly how the Japanese people of the time - who maintained that faith even to the extent of going into hiding – regarded Christianity, and decided to make this his theme. With a complete absence of any missionaries, a faith was maintained by the people who continued with the oral transition of their ancestors that mixed Christianity with unrelated Shinto and Buddhist practices. In other words, Endo thought that in a state in which there were no missionaries, in a sense the Christian faith that had entered the hearts of Japanese people became distorted. He went on to suppose that if he could investigate in what manner it had become distorted this would serve as a clue to understanding how the Japanese people regarded Christianity. Endo then pointed out that among the objects of secret worship by the Hidden Christians there was an overwhelming quantity relating to the Virgin Mary.
  
  Endo argued that if you divide religion into two there is the “paternal religion” of judging and punishing, and the “maternal religion” of suffering together, forgiving and enfolding. Outside of Japan mothers may be a large presence, but in Japan the “maternal religion” in which mothers are admired is a particularly strong aspect. Endo said that the single god religion in which the “paternal religion” aspects of Christianity are strong in the Old Testament transforms into a “parental religion” in the New Testament, but when Christianity was passed down orally and changed during the period of the Hidden Christians the “paternal religion” aspects became diluted, and the “maternal religion” aspects inherent in the presence of the Virgin Mary came to the fore.

The Virgin Mary – a subject of prayer

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  The statuettes of Maria Kannon discovered later in the houses of Hidden Christians. The statuettes themselves are ordinary Buddhist statuettes just like the Statuette of the Affectionate Mother Kannon holding a child that came from China or the Japanese Statuette of Koyasu Kannon (the Giver of Children), but they were used as a statue of the Virgin Mary, and only those used as objects of prayer gained this name.
  
  Furthermore, in 1973 a sacred picture entitled Our Lady of the Snows was discovered in the house of a Hidden Christian in the Sotome region’s Shitsu. The various stories about the Virgin Mary that were imparted by missionaries during the period of the prohibition of Christianity were passed down by the Nagasaki Christians, and became jewels of folklore while being incorporated into the cultural climate of Japan. Our Lady of the Snows is just one such example  . According to Christian legend, on August 5th in the year 352 during the hottest time of the year snow fell in Rome on a certain spot indicating where a church dedicated to Mary the mother of Christ should be built. The miracle was performed by the Virgin Mary who having completed the miracle was to be seen ascending to heaven. This picture of Our Lady of the Snows, which the Christian protected with their lives throughout the Christian era and the era of religious persecution, doubtless captured the hearts of the faithful and continued to soothe them.
  
  Kamigoto is the area from Wakamatsu Island southwards through the Wakamatsu Seto inland sea route. If you weave your way through a number of small islands you will encounter a landscape where the cultivation of Japanese amberjack and other fish flourishes in the inlets least affected by sea waves, and your boat will arrive at a legendary land where the many faces of nature can be enjoyed. “Harinomendo” is a word even Japanese people cannot guess the meaning of just from the sound, but it actually means “the eye of a needle.” “Mendo” is “hole” in the local dialect. Many sea cliffs can be observed along the coastlines of the Wakamatsu Seto inland sea, showing the erosion caused by the waves over a long period of time, but the shape that is indeed like the eye of the needle and is only unveiled when the tide is out, is agreed by all the local people to resemble the shape of the Virgin Mary.

The winds sweeping each and everyone’s path

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  During the Edo era’s fierce suppression of Christianity, when there was not a single priest in the country, the greatest source of guilt for the Hidden Christians was surely the practice of the fumie. Begging forgiveness for this guilt the Christians would go home and continue to offer prayers of contrition, and later sought calm from the burden of their guilt through confession, wishing and hoping for the return to Japan of a confessor who would listen to their prayers of contrition. 
  
  The final part of the Bastian tradition, the Bastian prophecies, were that after seven generations a day and age would come when the Christians could profess their faith, that there would be a resurrection of the Christian Church, freedom of religion, and equity among all people.
  “The confessor will arrive aboard a large black ship. It will be possible to go to confession every week.” This prayer of longing for a confessor, however, was not handed down through the generations on Hirado City’s Ikitsuki Island. And this fact went on to have a great impact upon their path after the discovery of Christians in Japan in the 19th century.

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