BOOKS OF THE QUARTER

Nevertheless, this outline does not fully exhaust the complex relationship between Portugal and Japan in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. Nor was this the main aim of the book. As the title suggests, it is aimed at making generally known a historical event connected to the spreading of the faith, an important reason for the expansion of the Portuguese throughout the world.

We cannot leave out the fact that the author of A Embaixada Mártir is more than an historian. He is a man who is devoted to his missionary work. Thus it is natural that he should empasize the faith and the value of resisting renunciation of one's faith in a demonstration of how the "martyrs" of Japan possess, according to the Catholic view, the "so-called circumstances for canonization and beatification". The remainder of the account is at once subjective and objective given that it is a lesson which has been learned but is, in this case, seen through the eyes of one historian.

All the same, the book reflects a deep concern with objectivity and academic rigour, taking care not to distort reality in the name of an uncritical and unfounded defence of the presence of the Portuguese in these parts. It does, how-ever, paint a positive picture of this presence without any intentions of giving false praise or false pretensions.

Let us now make a brief examination of the contents of the book. The author focusses on two main points.

Firstly there is the question of faith, religious conversion and the trade relations between Macau and Japan. Although these two elements are different, they are connected to each other.

Father Videira Pires describes the birth of Nagasaki, Macau's "twin city", and the role which the missionaries, pre-dominantly Jesuits, played in the devlopments which allowed the Portuguese to go to Japan. The missionary work began and persecution came as a direct consequence of the conversions. Particularly violent were the campaigns of the Shougun Hideyoshi of Ieyasu, the missionaries' daifusamma who was responsible for publishing the edict which was to destroy the Catholic Church, and Shogun Iemitsu. The martyrdoms were to follow, revealing the profound faith of many Japanese Christians including the heimin (peasants, craftsmen and traders) and the dojiko (children of samurais, the oligarchy which controlled the political, economic and financial apparatus of the Japanese empire).

It was precisely this which was, in my opinion, the prime obstacle to spreading the Christian message in Japan. In other words, Christianity took root and began to grow not only amongst the common people but equally in the higher spheres of the political heirarchy putting the existing power relations within the empire at stake. This was all taking place during a period of social instability and political in-fighting with the result that the message of this western religion became yet another destabilizing factor. The shogunate, feeling itself threatened, realized that it would have to get rid of this religion thus breeding an atmosphere of anti-Christian sentiments which ended up as being anti-Portuguese sentiments.

But, in spite of these actions, there is still a Christian community in Japan to this day which not even the passage of time has managed to eliminate.

As regards the second point, trade relations between Macau and Japan, the book makes it absolutely clear that the exchange of Chinese silk brought in the boats from Macau for Japanese silver was in the interests of both parties allowing them to amass "fabulous gains".

In the first stage, the natural reaction to this situation was that the Portuguese traders and missionaries were welcomed giving them the chance to establish themselves in Japan. But the climate grew cooler, not only for the reasons which have already been pointed out but also because "priests from Manila were entering the country at Nagasaki illegally". This led to "the first expulsion order for all Portuguese males resident in Japan while their wives and children were forced to remain in the Land of the Rising Sun".

At the same time, this situation was not the case for the Dutch traders. Why did the Dutch find favour? I believe that although the Dutch, the "enemy of Europe", had deep-seated Calvinist beliefs, they limited themselves to purely commercial activities in this part of the globe. For them business was business and religion was religion and for this reason they were not rejected by the Japanese rulers. This is the prime difference between the activities of the Portuguese and the Dutch. The Portuguese traders of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries were intrinsically religious people who were incapable of disassociating their material interests from their Catholic beliefs.

The establishment and growth of Christianity seems to have encouraged a greater number of missionary fathers to go to Japan. As could be expected, they were transported on Portuguese merchant ships. This was seen as the cause of the strengthening of the Catholic faith in the local population which led to the decision to close the Japanese ports to the Portuguese in 1639.

There were other indirect factors which contributed to the break-down in relations between the Portuguese and the Japanese. One of these was the negative relationship between the religious orders and the Jesuits. Effectively, because the Society of Jesus had been the first to have a base in the Orient they had a fairly thorough understanding of how things functioned in Japan and acted in accordance with that.

The Senate of Macau, whose members consisted of important traders, was convinced that the survival of the city depended on the continuity of economic relations with Japan. This was why they were so intent on sending a mission to appeal, through the diplomatic channels, the annulment of the decree of the previous year which had taken effect as from the 22nd of July, 1640.

The living testimony gives a tragic account of what happened to that mission: sixty one people were executed while the lives of thirteen were saved so that they could return to Macau as a "warning that, for as long as the Sun shone upon the Earth, no Christian should dare to return to Japan either as a trader or as an ambassador from that day on".

The, strange thing is that the martyrs could have been saved. All they had to do was to "renounce the Christian faith" as was proposed to them both individually and jointly by the "shogun's commissioners". "Let the body expire, the soul shall endure!" was the reply of one and all of those who were to become the "martyrs of Japan".

Although this mission was intended to deal with diplomatic and trade issues, the religious aspect to it was emphasized to the detriment of the other questions, more from the Japanese side than the Portuguese. It was the "shogun's commissioners" who were responsible for adapting an issue of economics to an issue of profound religious mysticism. This view has been well established in Embaixada Mártir.

Once the accounts of the thirteen witnesses had been heard, the ecclesiastical authorities in Macau started to work out the necessary details for canonizing and beatifying the four ambassadors and their fifty seven colleagues. When the arrangements were almost complete, they were interrupted by another event of particular significance to Portugal, the restoration of Independence on the 1st of December, 1640.

The Madrid plot also made sure that the arrangements were shelved.

In short, this is a book not to be missed!

As Henri Marrou declared in his book Comment Comprendre le Métier de L'Historien, "just as a physicist or a botanist cannot fake, nor can an historian", thus requiring that history be written by those worthy of the title and not by amateurs.

In order to be sure of a solid foundation of general knowledge there must be a true understanding of history. Father Videira Pires succeeds in bringing these two attributes together. The Martyr Mission is a valuable contribution to the history of relations between Portugal and Japan and the Portuguese of the sixteenth century. The religious theme is central to the book and generates interest in a series of other areas thus enriching the content of the whole.

There is still much to be studied in this field, namely the role of the Dutch and the authorities in Manila and their relations with the Trade City in the first centuries of its existence.

Hopefully we can expect more publications from an author so learned and so skilled in communicating the complex relations between men and reconstructing the history of the Portuguese in the Orient in an understanding and not judgemental manner.

The Portuguese in Asia

Father Manuel Teixeira

Dr. Roderich Ptak, a specialist in Chinese literature, is the editor of the most recent, publication in the series Sudasien-Institute, Universität Heidelberg published by Steiner Verlaz Weisbaden, Stuttgart in 1987. This is a bilingual publication of which the German title is Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung and the English title is Portuguese Asia: Aspects of History and Economic History (XVIth and XVIIth Centuries).

There is a variety of articles in both languages written by specialists on the subject who bring new ideas and theories to this field of study.

Malcolm Dunn, an economist, has contributed an article on "Pepper, Profits and Property Rights in the Development of the State of India" in which he analyses monopoly rights in India and reaches the conclusion that it was this system which led to the fall of the Portuguese empire. He also brings up the point that there was a lack of bourgeois capital in contrast to the vigorous Dutch bourgeois capitalism of the same period.

In an article called "Portuguese Malacca and Spanish Manila: Two Imperial Concepts", John Villiers discusses the different methods adopted by the Spanish and the Portuguese in their search to gain riches and religious converts in the Orient. Malacca was a strategic post with no great traders. Manila, on the other hand, sheltered a wealthy merchant class which made it an ideal trading centre and place for accumulating capital.

In Malacca the Portuguese respected the local traditions, maintaining the same government, administration, social and economic structure and even physical appearance of the city. In their turn, the Spaniards made a new city out of Manila, the capital of a new province of the Spanish empire, they made it a military and naval base, a cultural and religious centre, the control centre for the surrounding islands and a trading post for transpacific commerce.

"Cochin in Decline, 1600 - 1650: Myth and Manipulation in the State of India" is the title of an article by Sanjay Subrahmanyan dealing with the history of the Portuguese in Cochin and examining at which point the decline set in. According to the Portuguese, this opulent trading centre started to decline in the first half of the XVIIth century (1600 -1650) but the English historian A. R. Disney argues that in 1630 Cochin was still an important trading centre, quoting a Portuguese document of the time which states that "Thus in India today there are no rich men other than those in Cochin". This trade was handled by the bourgeoisie who were even allowed to send ships to Portugal.

This seems to confirm Malcolm Dunn's argument that it was the lack of a bourgeois class such as the Dutch had which led to the decay of the Portuguese empire. It was these bourgeois merchants who brought Cochin back to life when the other Portuguese ports sank. Subrahmanyan claims that "in the period from 1600 to 1650, Cochin was not the only port in Portuguese India to suffer a decline. The same was the case with Diu, Chaul and even the state capital, Goa. But, in contrast to these ports which never really recovered from the crisis of the XVIIth century, (...) Cochin was the only port to undergo a renaissance in the XVIIth century".

The editor, Roderich Ptak, has contributed two learned articles, one of which is in English, "The Transportation of Sandalwood from Timor to China and Macao, c. 1350 - 1600" and the other in German. The first article deals with trade in sandalwood before 1400, the establishment of Macau, and Timor's role in the sandalwood trade. Timor had been virtually unknown before trading in this precious resource began but it came to be known as the "sandalwood island", achieving lasting fame in the Portuguese epic poem "The Lusiads".

The remaining articles examine such diverse themes as the bad impression which the Portuguese gave to the Chinese courts of the Ming Dynasty, the role of the Jesuit father Tomás Pereira in the Portuguese Mission to the Orient, and the trade routes to India.

Dr. Roderich Ptak has achieved the masterly task of bringing together the fruits of research on the economic history of Portuguese Asia, resulting in a serious and well documented publication.

ICM MEDALLION A COLLECTOR'S ITEM

The ICM medallion, celebrating the age-old relationship between the Chinese and the Portuguese, is now available to collectors at the Portuguese Bookshop.

The medallion was devised by António Conceição Júnior, winner of the competition held in June of last year by ICM and open to all artists from Macau or who are based here. It has been minted in Portugal, one of the countries with the greatest traditions in making medals.

The winning design uses a contemporary, symbolic language while retaining the traditional circular shape which, as the designer points out, is "in Chinese culture, synonymous with Heaven and the Universe".

The relationship between the two countries is conveyed through the fusion of two different metals in the medallion itself: the silvered outer ring and the bronze of the central portion. A strip juts out from the medallion at an angle forming a groove on the back representing the growth of Culture as the result of the relationship between the two cultures.

The designer has used varying styles of lettering and relief for the inscriptions on the medallion with a bas-relief for the ICM logo.

The medallion is in a limited edition of only five hundred copies which are on sale at 80 patacas each.