The Love of a Silver Fox: Folk Tales from Seki CIty

by Darvin Babiuk

  ***THE END***

  THE CRUCIFIXION OF KINEHMON:

  NARRATED BY A TREE WITH NO NAME

  By Sohkichi Gotoh

  Hello. How are you? Did you come for a picnic? You couldn't have picked a better Fall day. The weather's perfect. I'm glad you could come. Come closer. Gather round and I'll tell you a story about something that happened here a long, long time ago.

  Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. You don't know my name. It's "The Tree With No Name." I'm really an ash tree, but a long time ago I was given this unusual name. I'm very proud of it, even if it says I don't have a name at all. There aren't many trees around with even that much of a name, so I think it's a very good thing. I got it because the spirits of some poor farmers from a long time ago are still alive in my body today.

  Do you want to hear my story? It happened more than three hundred years ago, but I think that it's a good thing if elementary school students like you hear it today. Come on. Get closer. Don't be shy. Sit down in the shade. Take your caps off. It's cool here. Sleep if you want.

  Is everyone ready? Good. First, I want you to look at the rice fields all around us. The ears on the rice are so heavy it looks like they're bowing, doesn't it? If we get another bumper crop this year, I'll be happy.

  I don't want to scare anyone, but today's story is just the opposite. It's cruel and pitiless; a story about something that happened in a year when the rice seedlings were dying and the harvest was bad. There wasn't enough water, but somehow or other the farmers managed to get the rice planted. They waited and waited, but the rains never came. The earth became cracked and chapped, and the young rice's roots became broken and brown, clinging to the dry earth trying to survive.

  "Water. We want water. Make it rain," I could hear the poor farmers pray again and again. But the gods in the heavens didn't listen to their prayers.

  Kinehmon had enough to worry about without hearing that a dreadful fight over water had broken out. Ten minutes before daybreak, the sound of someone knocking violently on the shutters of his house made the master of Kitta village come running to see what the matter was.

  "Master! Master! Kinehmon!" There were two farmers standing there, their faces pale with the news they had to tell him.

  "There's a big fight over in the North Valley over water," they said.

  "What! Not again?"

  "This time, it really sounds bad. You've got to come help."

  Running behind them, Kinehmon rushed out to the North Valley, where two mountains came together. On one side was Kitta village and on the other was another village. The valley divided the water that each village got. For Kinehmon, who was close to fifty years old, it was a long run and he was just barely able to keep up.

  Suddenly, he came across a scene so awful it made his blood freeze and run cold the other way. All he could do was stop and stare in disbelief. What could have caused it? Being beaten with a hoe or a scythe maybe? Someone from Kitta village was lying on the ground dead, with his head ripped open and blood pouring out. Beside him was another man with a blood-stained cloth covering his forehead and arm. He was covering the dead man with leaves from a tree.

  "Damn! Damn!" cried another, madly churning up the dirt at the bottom of the valley with his hoe to get the little water that was still there flowing back the right way to Kitta village.

  "Master!" cried another man, running up in front of Kinehmon, his words coming all out in a jumble. "I'm sorry. It wasn't our fault. We couldn't help it! We were sleeping under that tree last night when we were attacked by some men from the next village."

  "It's okay," Kinehmon said, putting his hand on the shoulder of the man, who was still trembling with excitement. "You were just trying to make sure no broke the promise that our two villages would share the water that flows through this valley equally."

  "That's . . . that's right. But some men from the next village wanted to take it all for themselves."

  "When did it happen?" Kinehmon asked.

  "Sometime in the middle of the night. I was sleeping when I heard someone cry out. I woke up just in time to see shadows running in the darkness and my friend lying there dead. There must have been five or six of them in all. They were trying to draw the water over to their side so it flowed to their village."

  "And this poor fellow was killed trying to stop it. What a waste!" Kinehmon said, putting his hands together to pray over the dead man's body. He repeated it over and over in his heart.

  "None of us can live comfortably if conditions are so bad that even poor farmers fight over water and kill each other. I'm in charge here. I'm the master. I have to do something. But what?"

  Two or three days later, Kinehmon was summoned to the magistrate's house. When it was his turn for an audience, he bowed his face and prostrated himself before the judge.

  "Ohtaki Kinehmon," he said. "Don't worry. Relax. I'm not here to scold you. Lift up your head and listen. You're the master of Kitta village. The drought and poor harvest have gone on for three years and we've heard it's very difficult for the farmers. Has it been affecting your village, too?"

  "Yes. Recently, we've had lots of trouble. Of course, there was the fight over the water. But that's not all. The harvest has been very bad and the farmers don't have enough to eat. The men that are strong enough to work have to go farther and farther just to find food and water. But there's still not enough, and some of the girl children have started to die. Besides that, there's an epidemic going around, high fevers and a pain in the stomach that makes it feel like your belly is on fire. In the last two or three months, many people have died."

  "That's a very regrettable thing. I'm sorry to hear it. But it's not just your village, you know. It's the same everywhere. You and the next village have to stop fighting over water and killing each other. Don't you think if you stop fighting and work together, you can increase the harvest?"

  "Yes," Kinehmon said, even though he didn't know if it would do any good. Even if they managed to stop fighting, how would that make the drought go away?

  "Ohtaki Kinehmon. Listen to the great pity your landlord has for you. Because of the troubles over the past two or three years he has agreed to reduce the rice tax this year to only fortypoint five per cent of the normal amount."

  Kinehmon was very troubled over the magistrate's words. Up till then, the take from the entire village had been two thousand four hundred ”koku." One ”koku" equals 180 litres, or about five bushels, which was forty three per cent of the harvest. Now the magistrate said he was going to reduce it to forty point five per cent. If you heard just that, you couldn't help but think the magistrate had a warm heart, but it wasn't really that way. Two thousand four hundred ”koku" was the harvest for a normal year, and this was no normal year. Because of the drought, the harvest was very bad. It would probably be only half of that. Didn't that mean the magistrate really wanted almost all of the harvest? What were the people in the village expected to live on?

  He wanted to tell the magistrate how exhausted and tired the people were. Rice was something they only dream of these days. Adults were beating children with bamboo sticks and calling them thieves just for pulling a radish out of the field and eating it. The luckiest people had barley or millet. But most of them were eating the roots of trees and grass, or grinding up the bark of pine trees and mixing it in with millet.

  He wanted to tell him this, but couldn't. The rate had already been decided. Worse, the Magistrate already thought he was doing everyone a favour by lowering it. It would be ungrateful to ask for any more. Still, something had to be done or they would all die.

  "I will report the state of the magistrate's heart carefully to the people," Kinehmon said, rising to stand in front of the judge. "About the great mercy he has shown us by reducing the yearly tribute."

  Despite his careful words, Kinehmon returned from the Magistrate's mansion in a dark mood. For a long time he went around with a long face, not saying a word. Finally, he called the people together and told them what hap
pened. They withdrew into the houses for the rest of the day, whispered talk going on and on. When they were done, the people's faces had turned pale.

  "Okay."

  "Tomorrow night."

  "It's time to set an example," they said, nodding together and going home.

  The next night dawned clear and fine, Mount Saizan shining in the light from the silvery moon. Forty or fifty villagers gathered at the crossroads next to the shrine for the children's deity, axes and scythes and hoes in their hands, the leaders wearing headbands and giving out orders to the rest in low voices.

  At a signal from Kinehmon, their Commander-in-chief, the first company started out. With a big wave of the straw flag he'd made, he marched in front of them, a single body, the only sounds coming from the scuffing of their straw sandals on the road.

  The next morning, all the women and children from the village gathered noisily at the crossroads to greet them on their return.

  "Look! They broke into the warehouse!"

  "What a brave master Kinehmon is! He's brought us back rice from the magistrate's mansion. We can eat all the rice we want!"

  "What a great man!"

  "Thank you! Thank you!

  For the villagers, who had been used to eating leaves and grass and even straw, just to see rice was a greater joy than even the most expensive treasure.

  "Look! It's rice! Rice! Let's eat rice porridge!" children's voices called out as they received their shares.

  "The gods gave us that rice," the adults said. Each of them had been given three ”jyoh, about five liters of rice for their own use. "Don't waste it. Make it last. Don't eat it all at once," they said.

  Kinehmon had never been happier. The rice was turning into flesh and blood for the villagers before his very eyes. He thought he might cry. He stood watching them, wiping the corner of his eyes.

  Even the village they'd had the fight over water with was surprised and pleased when they heard the news that Kinehmon and the others had attacked the magistrate and stolen the rice from his warehouse.

  "Well done, Kinehmon!"

  "Bravo!"

  "What a brave man!"

  "He's like a god coming to our rescue!"