The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (7 page)

18
  Were it not for the fact that João Rodrigues only had been in Japan a relatively short time, one might suspect him to be the author of the
Tratado
. Rodrigues “the interpreter” would go on to demonstrate a marvelous knack for languages and a profound understanding of Japanese culture. He authored
Arte da Lingoa de Japam
(1604) and a later (1620) abridged edition (
Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa
). He was no doubt also the chief contributor to the anonymous (“compiled by some fathers and brothers…”)
Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam
(1603). Toward the end of his life, Rodrigues authored a history of the Church in Japan. See Michael Cooper, ed. and trans.,
This Island of Japon
. Tokyo: Kodansha International Limited.

19
  Several dozen of Frois' letters can be found in
Cartas … de Iapão & China
. See also Joseph Wicki, S.J., ed.,
Documenta Indica IV (1557–1560)
(Rome: Monumenta Historica Soc. Iesu., 1956), 269–305, 643–694; For a list of Frois' letters see
Cartas … de Iapão & China
, I, 30–31; G. Schurhammer and E.A. Voretzsch,
Die Geschichte Japans (1549–1578) von P. Luis Frois, S.J
. (Leipzig: Verlag der Asia Major, 1926), xxviii–xxiii. For an English-language example of one of Frois' letters from 1565, see Peter C. Mancall, ed.,
Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery, An Anthology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 156–165.

20
  While Latin remained the official language of the Church, during the thirteenth century the Portuguese crown made Portuguese the exclusive language of secular government. A.R. Disney,
A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire
(Cambridge” Cambridge University Press, 2009), 95.

21
  Luís Adáo de Fonseca.
Vasco de Gama; o homem, a viagem, a Epoca
(Lisbon: Comissáo de Coordenacáo da Regiáo Alentejo, 1997); Damiáo de. Góis,
Lisbon in the Renaissance
[Urbis Olisiponis Descriptio], trans. Jeffrey S. Ruth (Ithaca, N.Y.: Ithaca Press, 1996[1554]).

22
  Vitorino M. Godinho,
Os Descobrimentos E A Economia Mundial
. 2 Vols. (Lisbon: Editora Arcádia, 1965), 173–262.

23
  José Sebastião da Silva Dias,
Os descobrimentos e a problematica cultural do século XVI
(Coimbra: University of Coimbra, 1973), 6.

24
  After the fight, which never really materialized as the elephant fled, King Manuel sent the rhinoceros to Rome as a gift for Pope Leo X; the rhino died en route but descriptions of it found their way to Dürer, who turned them into his perhaps most famous engraving. Felipe Veiera de Castro,
The Pepper Wreck
(College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2005), 11; David Johnston, trans.,
The Boat Plays by Gil Vicente
(1997), 8.

25
  See Damião de Góis,
Lisbon in the Renaissance
, 265–26; Nigel Griffin, “Italy, Portugal, and the Early Years of the Society of Jesus.” In
Portuguese, Brazilian, and African Studies
, eds. T.F. Earle and Nigel Griffin, pp. 133–149 (Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1995).

26
  The trials and tribulations of the long voyage to India are powerfully conveyed by Georg Schurhammer, S. J.,
Francis Xavier, His Life and Times
, 4 Vols. (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1977), II, and Jonathan Spence,
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
(New York: Viking Penguin, 1984), 76–80.

27
  Van Linschoten, the Dutch accountant for the archbishop of Goa, Fonseca, noted that many merchants and colonists in Goa had up to thirty slaves who attended to
every
need of their mostly Portuguese masters. Arun Saldanha, “The Itineraries of Geography: Jan Huygen van Linschoten's
Itinerario
and Dutch Expeditions to the Indian Ocean, 1594–1602.”
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
:101(2011):149–178, 163. For another contemporary account of Goa, see Guido Gualtieri,
Relationi della venuta de gli ambasciatori Giaponesi a Roma, sino alla partita di Lisbona
(Venetia: Appresso I Gioliti, 1586), 16–20; Antonio da Silva Rego,
História das Missoes do Padroado português do Oriente, vol. 1, India, 1500–1542
(Lisbon: Agencia Geral das Colonias divisao de Publicacoes e Biblioteca, 1949).

28
  John W. O'Malley,
The First Jesuits
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 37–50.

29
  By the time Frois wrote the
Tratado
, the Jesuit order was essentially redefining itself as a teaching rather than missionary order.

30
  When individuals enter the Jesuit order they undergo training for either the priesthood (spiritual coadjutors) or as “brothers” (temporal coadjutors). Scholastics are those pursuing the first “track,” which can lead to yet more academic training and the highest rank of the Jesuit order, the “professed.” See O'Malley,
The First Jesuits
, 345–347.

31
  A catalogue drawn up in 1559 by Frois' Jesuit superior, P. G. da Siveira, describes Frois as “of slight build, humane spirit, well-intentioned, and naturally discreet. In time he will benefit by becoming a coadjutor having taken three vows.” Joseph Wicki, S.J.,
Documenta Indica IV (1557–1560)
(Rome: Monumenta Historica Soc. Iesu, 1956), 472.

32
  See, for example, Frois' lengthy letters for 1559 and 1560 in Wicki,
Documenta Indica IV
, 269–305, 643–694.

33
  
Cartas … de Iapão & China
, I, 22. The Jesuits' racist attitude toward people of color, who were cast as inherently inferior to whites and thus suitable as slaves, is made explicit in colloquy #5 of
De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium ad Romanam Curia
(Macao, 1590), which was largely authored by Valignano. See also Schütte,
Valignano's Mission Principles
, I, PI, 130–131; Alonso de Sandoval,
Treatise on Slavery, Selections from De instauranda Aethiopum salute
, ed. and trans. Nicole von Germeten (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2008).

34
  The Goa mission was plagued by poor leadership and declining morale during the decade Frois spent in the city. Apparently many Jesuits besides Frois wanted out of Goa, as the Jesuit Father General, Lainez, found it necessary in 1560 to require that they remain at their posts. Donald F. Lach,
Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume I, Book 1
(University of Chicago Press, 1965), 252–253.

35
  Jurgis Elisonas, “Christianity and the Daimyo,” In
The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 4, Early Modern Japan
, ed. John W. Hall, 301–372 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 318–320.

36
  In the anua of 1579 it was noted that there were scarcely 2,000 Christians in all of Bungo and the vast majority were the poor and sick who came to be cured at de Almeida's hospital.
Cartas … de Iapão & China
I, 436,

37
  Ibid., 145–151.

38
  In 1571 Nobunaga's patience seemingly ran out and he laid siege to Mt. Hiei, attacking and destroying the monastery of Enryaku-ji and killing several thousand men, women and children.

39
  Elisonas, “Christianity and the Daimyo,” 63, 75–76.

40
  In letters reproduced in a Jesuit volume from 1575, Frois mentions long conversations he had with Nobunaga and how the Japanese ruler personally escorted him around Gifu and Azuchi castles.
Cartas que los padres y hermanos de la Compañia de Iesus que andan en los Reynos de Iapon escriuieron alos dela misma Compañia
(Alcala: En casa de Iuan Iñiguez de Lequerica, 1575), 287–294.

41
  Frois was assigned this task after Claudio Acquaviva, the fifth father general of the Jesuit order (1581–1615), instructed Jesuit provinces around the world to select a member to compile letters and other documents and write a history of each Jesuit province. Frois' primary responsibility of writing his
Historia
was interrupted on occasion by stints as
socius
or secretary/assistant to the Jesuit vice provincial in Japan as well as the father visitor, Valignano. Also, from 1592–1595 Frois was in Macao as Valignano's assistant.

42
  Not only does the table of contents for the lost book parallel the chapters of the
Tratado
, but the latter begins with a dedication to “Jesus [&] Mary,” which is how Frois also began at least some of his letters. See, for instance,
Cartas … de Iapáo & China
, I, 416.

43
  Schütte,
Kulturgegensätze
, 94–95; Lach,
Asia in the Making
, I, 2, 686–687; J.F.Moran,
The Japanese and the Jesuits, Alessandro Valignano in Sixteenth-Century Japan
(London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 153.

44
  In his
Summary of Japan
, written in 1582–83, Valignano repeats many of the contrasts that show up in the
Tratado. Sumario de Las Cosas de Japon (1583), Adiciones del Sumario de Japon (1592)
, ed. José Luis Alvarez-Taladriz (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1954). See also Valignano's
Historia del Principio y Progresso de la Compañia de Jesus en las Indias Orientales
, ed. Josef Wicki, S.J. (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1944), 136–162. One can well imagine that the contrasts were suggested or elaborated on by Frois while serving as Valignano's “guide.” This possibility is further suggested by the first paragraph from the title page of the
Tratado
, which rhetorically, at least, speaks of more than one author (i.e. “In order to avoid confusing certain matters with others,
we
[emphasis ours] divide this work…”). See also Schutte,
Valignano's Mission Principles
, I, Pt. I, 285–289.

45
  See Valignano's letter to Father General in Rome, in Moran,
Japanese and the Jesuits
, 35. See also Schütte,
Valignano's Mission Principles
, I, Pt. I, 270–271; M. Antoni Ücerler, S.J., “Alessandro Valignano: man, missionary, and writer.” In
Asian Travel in the Renaissance
, ed. Daniel Carey (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 12–42.

46
  As Elisonas points out, while the Japanese were blamed for this piracy, most of the pirates were actually Chinese. Jurgis Elisonas, “The inseparable trinity: Japan's relations with China and Korea,” In
The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 4, Early Modern Japan
, ed. John W. Hall, 235–301 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 250.

47
  Before China prohibited trade with Japan, Chinese fleets with upwards of two hundred ships put into Japanese ports each May, trading silk for silver. Yoshitomo Okamoto,
The Namban Art of Japan
(New York: Weatherhill, 1972), 12.

48
  L.M. Cullen,
A History of Japan, 1582–1914
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 18–62.

49
  This mercantile involvement was in clear violation of Church rules, but it was defended by Valignano on the grounds that there was simply no other source of revenue to support the Japan mission.

50
  Prior to circa 1574, there were relatively few Jesuits in Japan and only a few such as Frois and Vilela knew Japanese. The Jesuits on the whole relied heavily on Japanese assistants called
irmao
and
dojuku
, who often lived in or near Jesuit residences and did much of the actual preaching and work of converting fellow Japanese. See Ross,
Vision Betrayed
, 49–51.

51
  Arguably the monks' opposition to the Jesuits was precipitated by the violent destruction of Buddhist temples by prominent
daimyo
(e.g. Omura Sumitada in Bungo in 1563) who converted to Christianity.

52
  Daniel T. Reff,
Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518–1764
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press);
Plagues, Priests, and Demons
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

53
  The Japanese had a long history of exposure to Old World diseases (and thus acquired resistance to) maladies that devastated Amerindians. Ann Bowman Janetta,
The Vaccinators, Smallpox, Medical Knowledge, and the “Opening” of Japan
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). See also Linda Newson,
Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines
(Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009), 17–18.

54
  McMulin,
Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan
.

55
  Ibid. See also Moran,
The Japanese and the Jesuits
, 70; Murdoch,
History of Japan
, II, P.I, 164.

56
  Michael Cooper,
They Came to Japan, An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999[1965]), 42.

57
  Schütte,
Valignano's Mission Principles
, I, Pt 1, 251–260; Ross,
A Vision Betrayed
.

58
  Ross,
Vision Betrayed
, 59, points out that this realization arose after Valignano visited the Honshu missions founded by Vilela and Frois and run by Organtino, all of whom had acquired an intimate knowledge of Japanese language and culture.

59
  The “way of tea” took definitive shape in the sixteenth century. Dennis Hirota,
Wind in the Pines, Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path
(Fremont, California: Asian Humanities Press, 1995).

60
  Ross,
A Vision Betrayed
, 72. See also J.M. Kitagawa,
Religion in Japanese History
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1966).

61
  Because the Japanese considered Europeans barbarians, Valignano also wanted to impress the four young Japanese with the wealth, power, and grandeur of the Catholic Church and Europe's ruling families.
Cartas … de Iapáo & China
, II, 89.