The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (41 page)

25. Among us there are mules, zebras, donkeys and pack animals; there are none of these in Japan
.

As noted, Europeans relied on a variety of equines for transportation and as beasts of burden. Although Frois focuses in this chapter mostly on horses (ridden by elites), mules and donkeys were more common than horses in Iberia as late as the nineteenth century. Zebras always have been rare in Iberia. During the mid fifteenth century the Portuguese began trading and raiding for slaves in West Africa and also initiated a lucrative trade in gold and a variety of exotic animals, including zebras. Frois is correct that the Japanese had no mules, zebras, donkeys, etc.

26. Among us, only mules wear a long saddlecloth; the horses of the Japanese nobles wear both round leather saddlecloths and others made of straw
.

The French translators of the
Tratado
suggest that the point of this contrast was that a saddlecloth used on a beast of burden (i.e. a mule) was used on elite horses among the Japanese. If on the one hand the Japanese did not mind nudity, on the other they liked multi-layered dress. This same tendency is seen with respect to horses. Speaking practically, their wooden saddle naturally needed more padding below.

27. For us it would be ridiculous for a nobleman to go about with the halter on his horse and the lead rope in his own hand; in the Kingdom of Bungo, the sons of the king often go about in this manner
.

Ridiculous? Not if you like to sit back and enjoy the ride. From the Japanese perspective, galloping across an open field was something warriors did out of necessity during battle. As for the province or “kingdom” of Bungo, on the southern island of Kyushu, it became a Christian stronghold early on, thanks to the
conversion of the local lord or “king,”
³¹
who was converted by none other than Frois himself.

28. When we gallop or ride on horseback, the reins are held in one hand only; in Japan they are held in both hands
.

Again, most Japanese elites were not particularly interested in galloping, but rather in sitting back, taking in the countryside and receiving the prostrations of their retainers. The first American Ambassador to Japan, Townsend Harris, was undiplomatically blunt:

The Japanese are no horsemen; both hands are employed in holding the reins; they have no martingale[
³²
], the horse therefore carries his head very high with his nose stuck out straight. They therefore have no command over them.
³³

29. Among us, bleeding is the only treatment used on horses; in Japan, while they are bled often, they also place large cauterizing irons under the jawbone
.

As discussed in the following chapter, Europeans embraced a humoral theory of health and disease, believing that the health of human beings (as well as horses) required a proper balance of various humors that could be maintained or restored through bleeding. An Englishman, William Dade, recommended drawing blood from a horse's neck on the first day of April to help them stay healthy the whole year. Farriers (those who shoed and doctored horses) used a bloodletting tool called a fleam, which looked something like a pocketknife with different sizes of cutting blades.
³⁴

The Japanese did not practice phlebotomy. What Frois means by “bled” is being stuck by needles. Acupuncture was indeed practiced routinely on horses. It could draw a little blood but was hardly comparable to European bloodletting. The “fire,” or
moxa
, combustion treatment, which is described in the next chapter, was primarily preventative and apparently was intended to stimulate the immune system. (It was done on a calendrical/ritual, basis.) Ambassador Harris believed that the treatment helped explain the poor behavior of Japanese horses.
³⁵

30. In Europe the reins are loosened to make the horse run and tightened to make it halt; in Japan they are loosened to stop and tightened to run
.

It might seem to be common sense to release and pull on the reins of a horse to make it go and stop, respectively. However, horses can be trained to respond to any number and variety of commands. Indeed, today it is common for well-trained dressage horses to stop when the reins are released. Some horse fanciers will tell you that you do not need to do anything with the reins to stop a “good” horse; all you need to do is shift your weight back slightly.

31. We till the earth only with oxen; in Japan they use either horses or oxen
.

Europeans may have preferred to till the earth with oxen as a plow pulled by oxen turned the soil to a greater depth, often resulting in greater crop yields, over time. Still, many a field in Frois' Iberia was plowed with mules. Because Iberian farmers often became haulers once their crops were harvested, they preferred mules over oxen. Mules also were valued for their endurance, toleration of heat, and ease of feeding, to name but several advantages they had over oxen and horses.
³⁶

32. Packsaddles in Europe are made of cloth and straw; in Japan they are made of wood
.

This is the last mention of saddles. Frois neglects to mention perhaps the most interesting contrast involving packsaddles, which is how they were ridden. On each side of the Japanese packsaddle was a side trunk (port mantle) that was used to carry something light and voluminous. Behind the rider, helping to fasten those trunks together, was a stronger back trunk, or
atozuki
, for valuables, made of “thick strong grey paper.” Kaempfer continues:

… the middle cavity between the two trunks, fill'd up with some soft stuff, is the travelers seat, where he sits, as it were upon a flat table, otherwise commodiously enough, and either crossleg'd or with his legs extended hanging down by the Horse's neck.
³⁷

The “soft stuff” makes it clear that Frois is not describing the entire saddle but its frame.

33. Among us, no load is carried without a crupper; in Echizen these are not used
.

It is not clear why in this contrast Frois chose one specific area of Japan to contrast with Europe. Moreover, in
#16
above, Frois already indicated that the Japanese, in general, did not use cruppers. (Recall that the crupper is a strap that goes around the horse's rump and helps keep the saddle in place.)

34. Our pack horses wear bells and rattles; in Japan they wear metal disks like those on a tambourine
.

In both Europe and Japan bells and rattles obviously warned people to stand clear. With respect to Japan, Okada surmises that Frois was referring to either
gyoyo
(literally “apricot leaf,” which were trinkets that hung behind Chinese-style saddles) or
kanrei
(which were hollow, donut-like bronze bells). The Japanese continue to take driving seriously; cities like Tokyo are loud not because people are impatient (as in New York) but because it is mandatory—indeed, automatic—for drivers to use their horns whenever they back up or otherwise perform a potentially dangerous maneuver.

35. Our bulls are huge and mean; in Japan they are small and tame
.

The Japanese raised cattle primarily for draft animals, presumably without interest in particularly large (thus costly to feed) and aggressive animals. Iberians raised cattle for a variety of purposes, including bullfighting. As an aside, a form of “bullfighting” where two bulls go head to head (not unlike sumo wrestling) is popular in parts of Japan (e.g. Okinawa) and also Korea.

36. In Europe, muleteers burden their beasts and carry nothing themselves; in Japan, out of sympathy for the beasts, the muleteers sometimes carry a third of the load on their own backs
.

Neither Shintoism nor Buddhism are predicated on the notion of a great chain of being that implies that human beings can use other life forms as they see fit, in the manner of the Judeo-Christian worldview laid out in Genesis (I:28). Perhaps more importantly, equines were never as numerous in Japan as in Europe and thus the Japanese were accustomed to carrying loads. Because the grass in Japan is not as calcium-rich as in Europe, horses may have been more prone to leg injuries
³⁸
and thus Japanese concern for their horses also may have been a matter of prudence.

There is also a difference between European muleteers and the Japanese who work with horses. In the Japanese language both those who care for horses and those who use horses to haul cargo or for other transportation services (usually the same person) are called simply
mago
, “horse-child” in Chinese characters, where “child” has the nuance of the American slang term “boy,” meaning a person doing menial work, especially but not always service-related. Japanese-English dictionaries provide only the awkward “road-horse man,” so there appears to be no simple English equivalent, as both muleteer and groom miss the mark.

37. In Europe, the load to be placed on a beast is determined visually; in many kingdoms of Japan, nothing is loaded on a beast that is not weighed first
.

Who can say whether this was due to a Japanese tendency to be exacting or for the reasons of kindness or prudence noted above? Living in Japan for twenty years, Gill was always struck by a Japanese reluctance to make a “rough guess.” The Japanese usually insisted on making him wait until they arrived at a precise figure or answer.

38. Among us, an unsaddled horse is led by a man using a halter; in Japan the horses of noblemen, even those that are very gentle, have to be moved by one man with a rope in front and another with a rope in the back, like a roped bull
.

Even a gentle horse can react when bitten by a horsefly, so it did not hurt to be careful in a country with crowded streets where dereliction of duty could, quite literally, cost a man his head.

39. Our saddles are strapped onto the horse using a girth beneath the saddle; Japanese saddles are secured with a strap over the front pommel
.

This difference between strapping beneath the saddle and strapping over top of it may reflect the fact that European horses often were ridden at a gallop. It also may reflect the different manner of cinching up the girth. The Japanese have long excelled in all forms of binding and fastening. Kaempfer
³⁹
was impressed with the way horses could be “unsaddled and unladen in an instant.”

1
  Robert M. Denhardt,
The Horse of the Americas
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975); Ann Hyland,
The Medieval Warhorse: From Byzantium to the Crusades
(Dover, N.H: Alan Sutton Publishing Inc, 1994).

2
  Michael Cooper,
They Came to Japan
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965), 143.

3
  Hyland,
The Medieval Warhorse
, 127–28.

4
  Lisa J. Robertson, “Warriors and Warfare.” In
Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan
, ed. William E. Deal, 131–185 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 154–155.

5
  Isabella Bird,
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1987[1880]), 152.

6
  Horses and dogs were instrumental in the English domination of Ireland and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, to give just two examples. Robertson, “Warriors and Warfare,” 155, suggests that the “unmanageability” of Japanese horses was actually desired by the Japanese, who also favored stallions over geldings.

7
  Money L. Hickman, “Painting.” In
Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama
, ed. M.L. Hickman, pp. 93–181 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 137–144.

8
  
Yxei
[
isei
]. Here we follow De la Fuente's Spanish translation of the
Tratado
in his use of the term “magnificence.”

9
  Akio Okada, trans. and ed.,
Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka
[European Culture and Japanese Culture] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965).

10
  “
Mea legoa
,” or half a league (approximately 1.8 miles).

11
  Hyland,
The Medieval Warhorse
, 57–59.

12
  Engelbert Kaempfer,
The History of Japan, Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–92
. 3 Vols. (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906[1690–92]), II, 284–285.

13
  
Há bastarda
.

14
  
Náo se cavalga senáo só a jineta
. See De la Fuente Ballesteros, 88–89.

15
  Robertson, “Warriors and Warfare,” 156.

16
  When it was no longer than the toe bag, it was called a “short tongue.” There were also half-tongue and long-tongue designs, the last of which gave support to the entire sole of the foot. This development was partly due to the soft bottoms of the footwear worn by the Japanese while riding.

17
  
Somente de vara, que hé da cana de nós muito curtos
.

18
  
Retrancas e caparazóes e nominas
. The last,
nominas
, also translates as phylactery—wrap around leather straps, although Japanese translators write “decorative studs.”

19
  See also
Chapter 1
,
#13
.

20
  The Portuguese original is problematic. Although Schütte has suggested “
ressas
,”
arreio
(saddle) would seem to make more sense.

21
  Robertson, “Warriors and Warfare,”155–156.

22
  Ibid., 155.

23
  Extant Japanese screens from ca. 1560–1600 provide a sense of how Japanese horses were stabled. See Money L. Hickman, “Painting.”
In Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama
, ed. Money L. Hickman, pp. 93–180 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 140–143.

24
  Rutherford Alcock,
The Capital of the Tycoon, A Narrative of a Three Years' Residence in Japan
(London: Longman, Green, and Roberts, 1863), 165.