Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back

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Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back Page 1

by Janice P. Nimura




  DAUGHTERS

  OF THE

  SAMURAI

  A JOURNEY FROM EAST

  TO WEST AND BACK

  JANICE P. NIMURA

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

  NEW YORK LONDON

  FOR YOJI

  CONTENTS

  PART I

  PROLOGUE

  1. SAMURAI DAUGHTER

  2. THE WAR OF THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

  3. “A LITTLE LEAVEN”

  4. “AN EXPEDITION OF PRACTICAL OBSERVERS”

  PART II

  5. “INTERESTING STRANGERS”

  6. FINDING FAMILIES

  7. GROWING UP AMERICAN

  8. AT VASSAR

  9. THE JOURNEY “HOME”

  PART III

  10. TWO WEDDINGS

  11. GETTING ALONG ALONE

  12. ALICE IN TOKYO

  13. ADVANCES AND RETREATS

  14. THE WOMEN’S HOME SCHOOL OF ENGLISH

  15. ENDINGS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  CREDITS

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  INDEX

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Little Granddaughter, unless the red barbarians

  and the children of the gods learn each other’s

  hearts, the ships may sail and sail, but the two

  lands will never be nearer.

  —ETSU INAGAKI SUGIMOTO, A Daughter of the Samurai, 1926

  PART

  I

  Samurai training will prepare one for any future.

  —ETSU INAGAKI SUGIMOTO,

  A Daughter of the Samurai, 1926

  The girls on the occasion of their audience with the empress. From left to right: Tei Ueda, Shige Nagai, Sutematsu Yamakawa, Ume Tsuda, Ryo Yoshimasu. (Courtesy Tsuda College Archives.)

  PROLOGUE

  NOVEMBER 9, 1871

  IN THE NARROW STREETS surrounding the Imperial Palace, newfangled rickshaws clattered around corners, past the indigo hangings in the doorways of the merchants, past the glowing vermilion of a shrine’s torii archway, past the whitewashed walls of samurai compounds. The runners between the shafts gleamed with sweat and whooped at those in the way; the passengers, mostly men, sat impassively despite the jolting of the iron-rimmed wheels. Shops selling rice or straw sandals stood alongside others offering wristwatches and horn-rimmed spectacles. Soldiers loitered on corners, in motley uniforms of peaked caps and wooden clogs, short zouave jackets and broad silk hakama trousers. They stared at the occasional palanquin passing by on the shoulders of several bearers, wondering at the invisible occupant: an official, in a stiff-shouldered tunic? a retainer’s wife, on a rare outing to the local temple? Servant girls in blue cotton darted in and out of traffic, their sleeves tied back.

  Tiny alongside the forbidding bulk of the palace’s massive stone embankments, five girls filed past. Two of them were teenagers; the others younger, the smallest no more than six. They were swathed in rich silk, the three older ones in paler shades embroidered all over with leaves and trailing grasses, cherry blossoms and peonies; the other two in darker robes emblazoned with crests. Each girl’s hair was piled high in heavy coils and loops secured with combs and pins. They held themselves carefully, as if their elaborate coiffures might overbalance them. Their painted lips were crimson bows against the powder that whitened their cheeks. Only their eyes suggested anything other than perfect composure.

  Imposing timbered gates rumbled open to admit them, and then rolled closed again. Inside, all was quiet. Within this maze of fortresses and pleasure gardens, time flowed more slowly: everything seemed choreographed, from the movements of the guards to the gentle fluttering of each flaming red maple leaf. The girls padded along corridor after twisting corridor, taking small pigeon-toed steps in their gorgeous new kimonos, the finest they had ever owned, each tightly tied with a broad stiff obi in a contrasting hue. Grand court ladies escorted them, hissing instructions: to keep their eyes on the polished floor just in front of their white split-toed socks, their hands glued flat to their thighs, thumbs tucked behind fingers. Floorboards creaked, silk rustled. The subtle perfume of incense wafted from behind sliding doors. Stolen glances revealed screens painted with cranes and turtles, pine and chrysanthemum; lintels carved with tigers and dragons, wisteria and waterfalls; flashes of vivid fabric, purple and gold.

  At last they arrived in a cavernous inner chamber. A heavy bamboo screen hung there, though the girls dared not look up. Seated behind it, they knew, sat the Empress of Japan. The five girls knelt, placed their hands on the tatami-matted floor, and bowed until their foreheads touched their fingertips.

  Had the screen been moved aside, and had the girls been brazen enough to lift their eyes, they would have beheld a diminutive woman of twenty-two. Her head was the only part of her that emerged from a cone of ceremonial robes: snow-white inner kimono, wide divided trousers of heavy scarlet silk, an outer coat of lavish brocade, edged in gold. Though she held a painted fan bound with long silken cords, her hands were invisible within her sleeves. Oiled hair framed her oval face in a stiff black halo, gathered behind into a tail trailing nearly to the floor, and tied at intervals with narrow strips of white paper. She had a strong chin, and prominent ears that lent her an almost elfin look. Her face was powdered white, her eyebrows shaved and replaced with smudges of charcoal high on her forehead. Her teeth were blackened, in the style appropriate for a married woman, with iron filings dissolved in tea and sake, and mixed with powdered gallnuts. Though her husband had just been fitted for his first Western-style clothing, personal grooming for the women of the imperial court remained, for the moment, much as it had been for centuries.

  Lacquered trays on low stands appeared before the girls, bearing bolts of red and white crêpe—auspicious colors—as well as tea and ceremonial cakes, also red and white. The girls bowed, and bowed again, and again, staring down at the woven tatami between their hands. They did not touch the refreshments. A lady-in-waiting emerged, holding a scroll before her. Her hands were graceful and astonishingly white as she unfurled it. In a high clear voice, using language so formal the girls could barely understand her, she read the words the empress had brushed with her own hand, words no empress had hitherto dreamed of composing.

  “Considering that you are girls, your intention of studying abroad is to be commended,” she chanted. Girls, studying abroad—the very words were bizarre. No Japanese girl had ever studied abroad. Few Japanese girls had studied much at all.

  The reedy voice continued. “When, in time, schools for girls are established, you shall be examples to your countrywomen, having finished your education.” The words were impossible. There was no such thing as a school for girls. And when they returned—if they returned—what kind of examples would they be?

  The lady-in-waiting had nearly reached the end of the scroll. “Bear all this in mind,” she concluded, “and apply yourself to your studies day and night.” This, at least, the girls could do: discipline and obedience were things they understood. In any case, they had no choice. The emperor was the direct descendant of the gods, and these were the commands of his wife. As far as the girls knew, a goddess on earth—seeing but unseen, speaking with another’s voice—had given them their orders.

  The audience was over. The girls withdrew from the scented stillness of the empress’s chamber and retraced their steps through the labyrinth of corridors to the clamor of the world outside the walls, no doubt light-headed with relief. They returned to their lodgings laden with imperial gifts: a piece of the rich red silk for each, and beau
tifully wrapped parcels of the exquisite court cakes. So sacred were these sweets, it was said, that a single bite could cure any illness. The girls might be the newly anointed vanguard of enlightened womanhood, but their families were not about to trifle with divine favor. Portions of the cake were carefully conveyed to relatives and friends.

  In a month, the girls would board a ship for America. By the time they returned, if all went as planned, they would be grown women.

  1 SAMURAI DAUGHTER

  OF THE FIVE GIRLS on their way to America, the middle one in age, Sutematsu Yamakawa, had traveled the farthest, whether the distance was reckoned in miles or memories. She was born a warrior in the waning days of an era without war, February 24, 1860. The youngest child of the late Shigekata Yamakawa, chief retainer of the lord of Aizu, she was called Sakiko then: “blossom child.” In that northern domain of dramatic peaks and paddy-terraced valleys, she would be one of the last to live the rhythms and rituals of a samurai family.

  Perched high on a hill, the gleaming white walls and swooping tiered roofs of Tsuruga Castle dominated the town of Wakamatsu, seat of Aizu’s leaders. An inner moat ringed the castle keep, and an outer moat enclosed an area of more than five hundred acres, within which stood granaries, stables, and the homes of the highest-ranking samurai. Earthworks rose from the inner bank, pierced by sixteen gates.

  The Yamakawa compound, itself comprising several acres, stood near a northern gate of the castle. It was a traditional bukeyashiki, or samurai mansion, a sprawling walled maze of single-story buildings and courtyard gardens, home to the family for generations. The newer part of the compound was pristine and spare, comprising graceful rooms floored with hay-scented tatami mats, perfectly empty of everything except what might be required in the moment: floor cushions and low, lacquered tables at mealtimes; thick sleeping quilts at night, along with the wooden headrests used instead of pillows to protect carefully dressed hair from disarray. The only ornaments were to be found in the alcoves known as tokonoma, where might hang an antique scroll appropriate to the season, accompanied perhaps by a single spray of blossoms from the garden arranged in a ceramic vase.

  The garden itself provided the decorative element absent from the interiors. A hidden spring in its center fed a tiny waterfall, which in turn filled a miniature lake stocked with goldfish darting beneath pink and white lotus blossoms. A diminutive series of carefully sculpted hills surrounded the lake, creating the illusion of a more expansive landscape. A rustic bridge crossed a stream and led to a ceremonial teahouse. In warm weather the paper-paned shoji screens that formed the outer walls of the main building slid back, allowing the breezes and the meticulous beauty of the garden to enter every room.

  Serene and elegant as the setting might be, this was yet the home of warriors. The main gate of the compound, never unattended, was itself an imposing edifice, its tiled roof sweeping outward in deep eaves over massive timbers. Anterooms in which guards might keep watch unseen were tucked behind walls. The lavatory was roofed with unsupported tile; an intruder intending to catch an adversary in a vulnerable position would tumble straight through.

  For a child like Sutematsu, the compound’s walls were the edges of the world. Everyone she knew lived within them: her mother, grandfather, brothers and sisters and sisters-in-law, as well as stewards, maids, pages, gardeners, gatekeepers, and the children’s nurse, who had her own tiny cottage on the grounds. The servants were like family themselves, many having been raised in the compound from childhood.

  As new structures were added to the complex, older ones fell into disuse. A casual visitor could become lost. A child’s imagination could roam free. Sutematsu and the other children would gather in an abandoned room after dark to play the hyaku monogatari, or hundred tales. Gathered around a lamp in the middle of the tattered tatami-matted floor, each child would take a turn telling a kaidan, a ghost story of the past: Kitsune Yashiki, or “The Foxes’ Mansion” ; Yuki-Onna, “The Snow-Woman” ; Jikininki, “The Flesh-Eating Goblin.” After each telling the light was lowered, until the children sat trembling in the haunted darkness, determined not to betray their samurai training by showing fear.

  THE SAMURAI WERE a hereditary warrior class, and though by Sutematsu’s time battles were largely the stuff of legend, samurai culture was shaped by ideals of courage, obedience, austerity, and martial prowess that led directly back to a more warlike age. Totaling about seven percent of Japan’s thirty million people, the samurai as a class contributed nothing to the Japanese economy. They administered public life and cultivated the arts of war and of peace—including poetry, calligraphy, and scholarship—supported by a stipend from the lord of their particular domain, to whom they owed ultimate allegiance. Holding themselves to a lofty code of loyalty and honor, they left the baser necessities of production and trade to commoners.

  According to Japanese mythology, the first emperor had descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu two thousand years before. Over the centuries, however, true power had come to rest with the shogun, a military dictator nominally appointed by the emperor, who served as a kind of divine endorsement. Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa clan, had established his headquarters at Edo (modern Tokyo) in the late sixteenth century. The Tokugawas consolidated administrative control over hundreds of territorial warlords, or daimyo, leaving the emperor enshrined in virtually powerless seclusion as a living symbol of Japan’s divine heritage. Rarely seen, and insulated from the outside world by a small city of pureblood imperial courtiers, the emperor lived “above the clouds” in tranquil Kyoto, while nearly three hundred miles to the northeast in bustling Edo, the shogun ran the country.

  Once in power, the Tokugawas’ first priority was their own stability. To that end they devised an ingenious administrative system to preserve the delicate balance between the shogun, in Edo, and the hundreds of daimyo spread across the islands of Japan—each with his own domain, his own castle stronghold, his own loyal samurai retainers. Each daimyo was free to collect his own taxes, make his own local laws, and arm his own troops, as long as he also agreed to contribute money and laborers for Tokugawa projects including highway maintenance, mining, and palace construction. The shogun, attending to international relations, left the daimyo largely alone.

  Largely, but not entirely. In a masterstroke of administrative cunning called sankin kotai, or “alternate attendance,” the shogun required each daimyo to maintain a second palatial residence in Edo, where in alternating years his presence in attendance on the shogun was mandatory. And though the daimyo returned to their own territories roughly every other year, their wives and children were required to remain in Edo, safely under the shogun’s eye.

  Alternate attendance was essentially a ritualized hostage system, with an extra twist: it was fabulously expensive. Not only did each daimyo need to build, staff, and maintain an Edo compound appropriate to his rank; he also had to pay for the lavish procession to or from his own domain each year—an important opportunity to advertise his own power and dignity. All of which served to discourage unrest: it was much harder for a power-hungry daimyo to cause trouble for the shogun when he had no revenue left to spend on making war.

  The unintended benefits of the system were considerable. The continuous tide of daimyo and their retinues flowing to and from Edo required a well-maintained highway network and provided regular trade for inns and teahouses along the road. News, ideas, and fashions flowed constantly from the vibrant whirl of Edo to the most remote castle towns. And every daimyo’s heir, no matter how provincial his ancestral home, grew up a city boy, sharing experiences in common with the elites of every region of Japan.

  . . .

  TO THE NORTH, remote from both Kyoto’s ancient refinements and Edo’s brash urbanity, lay the domain of Aizu, Sutematsu’s home, harsher in both climate and culture. Walled in by mountains, Aizu was unusually isolated even for Japan, whose extreme topography made travel and communication a continual challenge. Getting in or out of the domain ent
ailed scrambling over high mountain passes where deer and monkeys were more numerous than people, and bear and wild boar more of a threat than brigands. Aizu was a land unto itself, its local dialect all but incomprehensible to rare sojourners from other regions.

  Aizu was the fiefdom of the Matsudairas, a collateral branch of the Tokugawa family, which by 1860 had governed Japan in relative peace for two and a half centuries. In a country formed of rival domains, Aizu was known for its martial prowess, its substantial standing army, its code of conduct for soldiers and commanders alike, and its fierce loyalty to the Tokugawas. “Serve the shogun with single-minded devotion,” the Aizu code began. “Do not measure your loyalty by the standard of other domains.” Sharing the triple hollyhock crest of the Tokugawas, the Matsudairas established their seat in the castle town of Wakamatsu, a hundred miles north of Edo at the convergence of five roads spidering across northeastern Honshu, Japan’s main island. It was a strategic spot, linking the Tokugawa stronghold with northern regions more distant both geographically and politically.

  Just as the castle in Wakamatsu presided over the landscape, the injunctions of the Aizu code dominated the lives of the samurai families living within the castle precincts. Confucian morality—placing men over women, parents over children, benevolent rulers over dutiful subjects—blended easily with martial hierarchy. “Do not neglect military readiness,” the Aizu code instructed. “Do not confuse the duties of the higher and lower ranks. Older brothers should be respected and younger brothers loved. Lawbreakers should not be treated with lenience.” An Aizu retainer, whether escorting his lord on the road to Edo or overseeing domain affairs at home, was to comport himself with discipline at all times, setting aside personal pettiness in the service of his daimyo. And last, “the words of women should be totally disregarded.”

 

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