Journey to the West

Abstract

What is often called the first Japanese embassy to Europe was actually a publicity stunt conceived in 1582 by Alexandro Valignano, the inspector of the Portuguese-sponsored Asian missions of the Society of Jesus. Four teenagers from Kyushu were paraded through Portugal, Spain, and Italy-performers and audience at the same time in a theatrical production designed to display the capabilities of the Japanese before influential circles of Catholic Europe while imbuing the Japanese with the idea of the superiority of European civilization under the aegis of the Catholic Church. After returning to their native country in 1590, all four joined the Jesuit order. Three served the cause of Christianity faithfully. The fourth, Miguel Chijiwa, apostatized and derided all that he had been taught to hold sacred. He is the narrator of the scurrilous piece of anti-Christian fiction Kirishitan kanagaki, a fantasy novel avant-la-lettre that deserves much greater attention than it has received. Its multifaceted deployment of European legendary materials makes it a challenge to students of comparative culture. KEYWORDS: Miguel Chijiwa - Mancio Ito - Martinho Hara - Juliao Nakaura - Alexandro Valignano - Dialogue about the Mission of the Japanese Ambas-sadors- Kirishitan kanagaki (ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) ON a June day in 1585, an exotic group paid the Umbrian hill town of Montefalco a visit. What was billed as a Japanese embassy was passing through. Four teenage boys from Kyushu were the stars of this traveling show-Mancio Ito, cast in the role of the ambassador of the King of Bungo; Miguel Chijiwa, assigned the part of the envoy of the King of Arima and the Prince of Omura; and Martinho Hara and Juliao Nakaura, featured as the noble companions of the other two. Members of the Society of Jesus, acting in the indispensable capacity of the youths' mentors and chaperons, accompanied them. An account of these country boys' journey to the West and back to Asia, composed some years later in the form of an elaborate colloquy among them and two of their Japanese Christian friends (actually, it is not much of a colloquy, as the dialogue is dominated by long speeches scripted for Miguel Chijiwa), sums up the object of this brief visit as follows:1 We passed through a town called Montefalco, where we were gladdened extraordinarily by the sight of the sacred cadaver of...Saint Clare, who bears a cognomen derived from the name of that town. Not only is her venerable cadaver uncorrupted and intact to the present day, but her heart is marked by the images of Christ crucified and other mysteries. Moreover, in her heart were found three globes, similar in the highest degree to one another, which are endowed with a supernatural property, so that the weight of all three together is exactly the same as that of each by itself, and there is no difference whether you place one of them on one dish of a balance and two on the other or, then again, put all together in the same dish. In this we perceived the manifest sign of the most holy Trinity, each person of which singly, no less than the three persons jointly, is replete with the same nature, power, and majesty. This supreme mystery of our faith is what this Saint (Diua haec) revered above all in her soul. Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308) was not yet a saint, properly speaking, at the time of the Japanese youths' call at her shrine, as her case for canonization, formally initiated the year after her death, failed for obscure reasons to make progress and was not to be brought to a successful conclusion until 1881. She was, however, the object of a substantial local and regional cult. As a child, she had entered a religious community headed by her sister, whom she would eventually succeed as abbess. Her life in the convent was not circumscribed, however, by the routine practice of monastic virtues. Clare was known for her intense asceticism, her ecstatic mystical experiences, and the ardency of her identification with the crucified Christ. …