One cannot have a thorough knowledge of a country without having a thorough knowledge of its people, the geographic environment that conditions it, its language and its culture. The information gathered by adventurers and missionaries, the first Westerners to sight and set foot on the land of the Empire of the Rising Sun in the middle of the sixteenth century, contributed significantly to the knowledge of Japan.
In effect, the corpus of works and documents written by these European men constituted an indispensable source of documents for the West's discovery and understanding Japanese life.
For the purposes of this article, I will emphasize the contribution of the Society of Jesus, whose missionaries became the chief agents for the dissemination of European culture in Japan and the divulgation of Japanese culture in Europe. In point of fact, these religious men were the principal force behind the mutual impact of two societies.
Merchants, navigators and missionaries, then, played the role of intermediaries between two peoples. Their writings revealed to Europe a less fantastic and more realistic Japan, whilst introducing to Japan important aspects of European culture. 1
From an early stage, the Jesuits understood that effective conversion on Japanese territory was dependent upon proceeding from a thorough knowledge of Japanese customs to a policy of cultural adaptation. From an early stage, they opted for coexistence, adopting manners, clothing and eating habits, even exercising the right to fair treatment, such as was extended to the Buddhist bonze.
Clearly, in order to pursue this policy it was necessary to observe, study and profoundly understand the mental and social processes that surrounded Japanese society. It is natural that in this context works appeared which revealed the intimate knowledge these religious men possessed of the mentality, constitution, idiosyncrasies, customs, habits and culture of Japanese society.
João Rodrigues was one of those fathers who were highly knowledgeable about Nipponese culture and society. He went to Japan at a very early age and completed there a large part of his training and education. He remained in the Orient all his life and had occasion to acquaint himself with the Japanese court culture of his time at close range. He had frequent access to the Imperial court and was eminently knowledgeable about the Japanese language.
As a result of his personality and this combination of facts, he played a vital role in the course of events experienced by both the Portuguese and the Japanese.
By virtue of his immense knowledge of the Japanese language, he wrote the first grammar book and participated in the organization of the dictionary of the Japanese language. 2 Moreover, his work, História da Igreja no Japão, (written in China during the exile destiny had in store for him) is one of the most complete, detailed and in-depth expositions of the geography, philosophy and social customs of the Japanese. One might indeed affirm that the work of João Rodrigues is one of the first sociological studies of Japan.
His book, scrupulously written, abounds in examples revealing attentive and realistic observation. One discerns a combination of surprise and admiration from the tone in which the author writes the História. Unlike other documents of the same genre dating from roughly the same period, it demonstrates understanding and respect for its subject and reveals, from the outset, a broad notion of history. 3
The text as a whole is distinguished by an impartiality which reveals the generosity of human understanding that only the meeting of the two cultures in a single person could foster, the sociopolitical circumstances in which it is written notwithstanding. In fact, from 1587 on, the position of the Catholic Church in Japan remained precarious, since the new central power feared that the continued expansion of Christianity would give rise to discord and disunity. 4
In spite of the continuous persecutions and expulsions to which the members of the Society of Jesus were submitted during this phase of reciprocal instability and mistrust, João Rodrigues, unlike other Jesuit authors, steadfastly demonstrates admiration and consideration for the Japanese people and culture. Rarely in the body of his work do we note any kind of resentment or sense of injustice; rather he refers to the Japanese with deference and courtesy. In essence, João Rodrigues sees with the eyes of the West but feels with the heart of the East.
However, although in discussing Japan and its natural environment there is total candour and limitless comprehension and admiration, such is not the case when his analysis leaves geography behind to enter into social questions, principally when he turns to religion and Church dogma comes into play.
Proof of his vast, profound and exact knowledge of Japanese reality are the chapters that Rodrigues dedicates, in defense of the generosity of mother nature, both to geography and to the wealth of fauna and flora on the Archipelago. It is precisely some of these chapters which I intend to examine in this article. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to mention another work, the narration composed by Jorge Álvares in 1545/75, of a different origin but also of great import for the understanding of Japan.
It would be useful to compare the two testimonies: that of Rodrigues and that of Álvares. 6 Here we have the last and first depictions of Japan, respectively. Álvares shows us how, from the beginning, the Portuguese portrayed the Empire of the Rising Sun with a certain accurateness. These are two views of Japan, by two men, in two periods, with two different destinies, yet they are nevertheless alike in the accuracy of the information provided and in the careful observation of this territory. Each of the two authors speaks directly of what he saw and gives a detailed and empirical description of what he observed. In short, the two testimonies are different in outlook and separated in time.
Álvares' text, included initially in O Livro Que Trata das Cousas da Índia e do Japão7 was written at the onset of the Portuguese arrival on the Archipelago, and was one of the earliest portraits of Japan and the Japanese available in the West. Unlike the work of João Rodrigues, this is a modest account, short, fleeting and naturalistic, written by an adventurer. Álvares describes only what he sees, and it is the testimony of a momentary observation. In spite of the imprecision resulting from this brief sojourn, a large part of his data is correct, revealing great powers of observation.
The História da Igreja no Japão is written almost three quarters of a century later by a Jesuit missionary profoundly immersed in Japanese culture, a master of the language and somebody who participated first-hand in Japanese customs. It is, consequently, a more attentive observation, more deeply felt, more reflective. It bears witness to the Portuguese presence in the Orient, of the advances and retreats of the missionaries, of the triumphs and vicissitudes the Church underwent in a geographically and politically unstable territory where Christianity made headway only with great difficulty.
THE TERRAIN
The description of the terrain in the chapter "Da Qualidade, e Clima de Japão, e frutos que produz a Terra"8 is corroborated by latter-day Japanese geography books. According to the author, the landscape of Japan, in spite of vast spacious plains both cultivated and uncultivated, was principally "very mountainous, with immense, high ranges and dense woodland, and some mountains so high that their peaks are hidden from view."9 Jorge Álvares also comments lucidly in this respect, "This land is cultivated along the shore, and it is said that inland there are plains... I saw mountains sown and being put to good use."10 However, in the opinion of Rodrigues, the greater part of these lands was more infertile than fertile, and so "They are in need of labour to fatten the land if it is to bear fruit every year."11
However, this rhetoric about agricultural infertility later abates, since it transpires that cultivation extends to any parcel of land which is accessible and, by extension, arable. The land is over-farmed in the former areas. Thus he proceeds to draw attention to irregularities and imprecision in some of the statements relayed by the first Portuguese visitors about poverty and food shortages among the Japanese people as a whole: "seeing which, some of the earliest among us, unaware of what was taking place in other regions, wrote that Japan was very poor and lacking in food, that they ate only turnip leaves."12 According to Rodrigues, the cause of food shortages in some regions was not merely infertile soil, but also, and above all, the "continuous civil wars that raged throughout Japan even to the times of Nobunaga"13, a major cause of the hunger and depredation suffered by the peasants.
Still on the theme of Japan's mountainous, verdant nature, João Rodrigues intercalates a series of considerations about the purity of the air "which is extremely healthy and temperate, and for this reason there are no widespread illnesses in the Kingdom, like the plague."14 But this longevity and good health, the missionary observes, was due to an orderly life on the part of the peasants, in contrast to the excesses of the nobles which led them more rapidly to illness and death: "where naturally, common people who are not given to indulgence typically live a long life; the elderly have strong, healthy constitutions, although the nobles and the rich who lend themselves to indulgence grow ill and have shorter lives."15
There is nothing unusual about a missionary, given his vows, being more sensitive to this kind of observation, or being astonished by the healthy and orderly life of the Japanese when in that same period Europe was submerged in a whole gamut of plagues, and was to remain so for a long time to come.
This must have so surprised João Rodrigues that he finished by mixing reality and legend, a feature which is often repeated, however, throughout the course of his work.
MARVELS WITNESSED
In spite of his praise for the moderation of the customs, the author, confirming the ancient oriental myth of longevity and the secret fountain of eternal youth, states that "the Japanese are much inclined to herbal medicines and things which prolong life".16 From here he proceeds to discuss numerous reports that reached his ears and incidents that he himself witnessed and experienced with regard to men whose age far exceeded anyone's wildest expectations:
[T]here was a man in the Foccucu region who lived seven hundred years... and he could recall ancient things, such as wars he had seen, and he recounted particulars which agreed with the written word. He had a sagging ugly face like the moss on stones which did not look human, and hair like bird down, he said that he was tired by then of living and not being able to die, and that at times he had felt like throwing himself from a rock in order to die. 17
This is indicative of the period. The author then discovers the key to this agonizing immortality, when, "asking him what he ate, he responded that once in a valley a person had appeared, who had instructed him to eat only a herb called Cusô that grew in the forest and he lived off this."18
Thus the imaginary arises, interwoven with real knowledge about herbs, in which the Orientals are so well-versed. Rodrigues alludes to the existence of a herb, "widely used in the Court at the time, they also make a wine with it to prolong life, we saw and ate of it and we drank the wine. The land of Japan makes for good living for natives and foreigners alike, all of whom are fine there."19 The missionary speaks with conviction, and in all likelihood he was widely believed, given that in order to underline his point he has recourse to the example of a man in Bengal, who lived three hundred years "and was famed authentically to be in fine fettle by dint of the labours of the Bishop of Cochim, who insisted on an oath with the testimonies".20 Testimonies like these are not exclusive to Rodrigues, since in the same period there were numerous descriptions of this genre.
Another example which clarifies the dichotomy reality/chimera is the chapter "De Alguns Animais Maravilhosos que em Japão se Convertem em Outros"21, where Rodrigues gets lost in a maze of fanciful descriptions of metamorphoses and transmutations in animals and plants:
In these islands there are some marvellous things beyond the realms of nature whereby certain animals and creatures change into things of another species without dying and without becoming disfigured as with other natural transmutations... but whilst still living they start changing into another kind of animal until they are perfectly formed... something which would seem impossible, but for the manifest experience here. 22
Later in the same chapter, the missionary describes "three types of conversion of one thing into another. Firstly, land or water animals with feet and hands turn into fish. Secondly, sea creatures such as shellfish turn into birds. Thirdly, insects of one species turn into insects of another."23 Further, referring to vegetables, "there are certain kinds of inanimate roots of herbs from the forest which turn into snakes when left to stand a length of time in water, which experience also attests to."24
In spite of the modern, innovative and accurate character of the work, Rodrigues and his text are not unmarred by the prevailing contemporary influence of fable and fantasy, since as Braudel affirms, "man is the child of his times."
THE CLIMATE
João Rodrigues dedicates a good part of the text to descriptions of the Japanese climate, mentioning the intensity of the seismic tremors, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes:
[T]he whole of this kingdom consists of islands surrounded by the sea and the land tremors are very frequent and sometimes intense, also in the sea there are tremors which create three waves one after another of amazing size, like very high mountains... which engulf the land, destroying many coastal settlements, costing many lives and killing animals. 25
He speaks of the seasons of the year, of temperatures which make themselves felt across the 12 months, of rains and monsoons, describing in minute detail the process: "The weather is very changeable with much rain and wind and overcast skies. Ordinarily there are two monsoon winds for navigating."26 Jorge Álvares refers to the intensity of the climate in similar words and with the same acuity: "This land of Japan at times quakes... the land of Japan is very windy and racked by storms."27
In effect, Japan always was and still is plagued by frequent tremors, often provoking underwater earthquakes (tsunamis). Hurricanes are frequent, above all at the end of the summer. These phenomena result not only from its volcanic origins and the intensity of the volcanoes on the archipelago, but above all from its insular nature. Its insularity modifies the character of the climate, which is subject to monsoons (although the winter is not completely dry) and accounts for the fact that the average temperature is higher than on the Asian continent at the same latitude.
Japan has a wide range of climates, principally because it is a territory where maritime and continental influences meet. From the standpoint of the climate, the Japanese Archipelago presents marked regional contrasts. 28
THE WEALTH OF THE SUBSTRATA
It is in the chapter "Cousas que cria a terra do Japão"29, however, that Rodrigues describes carefully and fairly the riches of the land in Japan: metals, copper, iron, some lead, and most importantly silver. Rodrigues even goes so far as to designate a few of the principle mining sites for the latter metal: Konoyma, Shogom in the kingdom of Yumi, on the Isle of Sado in the North Sea.
As is well known, silver was one of the main sources of wealth not only for the Japanese themselves but moreover for the navigators and merchants from overseas. After their arrival in Japan, the Portuguese became the principle merchant intermediaries between the two countries, making unbelievably huge profits from the trade of Japanese silver, much coveted in China, and Chinese silks and gold, so valuable in Japan.
According to Rodrigues, the original internal exchange system, the principal currency of which was rice or copper coins few and far between, had been gradually substituted by real coins of gold or silver, and these constituted the treasure of the great lords. As occurred in Europe in certain periods, hoarding was a common practice in seventeenth century Japan:
In the year 1609, we were in the Court... the chief exchequer rendered account of the treasury... and rather than being depleted it was increasing throughout the year: since nothing is spent, a few millions accumulate every year. 30
AGRICULTURAL WEALTH
The main food which grows on Japanese soil is rice. An agricultural product par excellence, the primary and often sole food source of the Japanese, it is the staple diet and also the main crop. In its time, it constituted the economic base of the country. For example, a vassal would be roughly valued according to the quantity of rice he produced. 31
Both Rodrigues and Álvares dedicate part of their texts to this agricultural product considered essential to the Japanese economy. It is sown with the May rains in marshy land and harvested in September. 32 There are various 'groups' or 'types' of this cereal, the principal one being white rice, itself of varied "kinds" and tastes. There is also red rice "which however much it is pounded never becomes white, but remains a russet colour."33
Over and above its nutritional qualities, rice retains an important symbolic and cultural value, and it was and is the centre of a whole ceremony peculiar to the people and culture of Japan.
Another cereal, wheat, was produced in certain areas of Japan for a variety of ends, but not for bread, which was the custom in the West. According to the text of João Rodrigues, it seems that wheat flour was exported to a number of regions in the Far East, mainly Manila.
Barley was another cereal which figured strongly in the dietary economy of Japanese families, being above all a substitute cereal. In less fertile areas or those decimated by war, barley took the place of rice.
In some barren areas it serves as the staple diet for the peasants and poor people, who cook it like rice and combine it with rice... in the barren mountainous areas where rice is scarce, the peasants and poor people eat barley for part of the year along with ferns and acorns from the forests. 34
Naturally, a land "of many rivers, springs and wells" produces a wide variety of vegetables and fruit: beans, corn of various kinds, green vegetables, turnips, and radishes "so big in some regions that four of them are quite a load for a man to carry."35
The author says that the fruit is the same as in Europe: "pears of various kinds, apples... plums, grapes, few because in the absence of cultivated ones, those which there are do not serve for wine."36 Jorge Álvares' comments on this count are identical. According to Rodrigues and Álvares, grapes were known to the Japanese, although the latter did not consume them. It was only with the arrival of the Portuguese that this fruit slowly entered Japanese eating habits. According to Álvares, there existed "white grape vines, which taste very good, but which they did not eat and when they saw us eat them, they ate them as well."37 According to Rodrigues, "in the forests there is a kind of wild grape, black, which the Japanese did not eat and which are real forest grapes, in both taste and quality, and wine is made from them."38
Wine, then, such as produced in the West, was unknown to the Japanese. The discovery of the grape in Japan saw it rapidly quench the needs of laymen and clergy alike. It permitted the former the pleasures of a longed-for beverage, and the latter to fulfil the demands of religious worship: "and in accordance with information that reached Rome, judgment was passed that mass could be said with wine made by them in the absence of another from Europe."39
THE FAUNA AND FLORA
From prehistoric times the use of fats was central to man's survival. Of animal origin in the beginning, but later slowly substituted by the oils of certain plants, fats constituted man's first fuel. Whilst in the West the main fat was the oil of the olive tree, in Japan sesame oil was most commonly used.
Other oleaginous plants were similarly employed: an edible oil was extracted from the seeds of the opium poppy, and also used in painting, or oil from the seeds of another tree (Rodrigues refers to this without naming it) which was used mainly by the women for darkening their hair, unlike the Europeans who even then it seems, "attempted to make themselves blond, which they [Japanese women] abhorred."40
Nevertheless, fats of animal origin ("whale and other fish") were widely used, namely for making candles, akin to a "certain wax from a certain fruit which lacquer was made from."41 João Rodrigues, with an ever-observant and probing eye, draws attention to the errors in some of the information written and communicated on the matter. This commentary is all the more pertinent if one bears in mind the fact that the missionary spent the greater part of his life enmeshed in the practices and customs of the Japanese: "In which many were mistaken, writing that the Japanese had only whale oil, and used pine logs for light, judging by what they saw in poor and barren lands, where many things were scarce, especially in times of war and on poorer islands."42
THE WOODLAND
According to the text, Japanese soil seems to yield a veritable bounty of produce. Lacquer figures amongst these, which is hardly surprising in the context of a mountainous terrain covered in woodland43, given that trees are the alpha and omega of this product. Trees not only supply the resin for lacquer, but also the wood used for furniture and ship building which must be duly treated to make it more hard-wearing or decorative. Lacquer has even wider applications. According to Rodrigues, this lacquer is of very high quality, superior to that of China and other known territories. It is interesting to note that the extraction method for the resin, such as described by Rodrigues, is identical to the methods employed even today by resin craftsmen in their pine groves: "the lacquer is extracted like rubber, by raining blows upon the trunk of the tree, by dint of which this lacquer trickles out in drops."44
Pursuing the subject of woodland and products extracted from trees, João Rodrigues mentions paper, said to be widely used by the Japanese, whose production techniques and way of using it revolutionized the world of the written word in the West. According to the author, the Japanese "make various types of paper from a certain tree bark grown expressly for this purpose."45 Yet apparently these techniques for making and using paper were dominated many years earlier: "it seems they learned from the Koreans, their neighbours, who make it from the same material as the Chinese, who it seems were the first to invent it in the East, or even the world, during the reign of the monarchy the Chinese call Han."46
Wood, considered by the Japanese as one of the most precious gifts of nature, was extensively used, reconverted and recycled. Common camphor was a typical example, obtained by boiling the splinters of trees. There was yet another camphor, rarer and more expensive (different from Borneo camphor) obtained from a scented tree, the wood of which was described as "hard and indestructible" and was used in ship building or exported to the West.
However, the use of wood was not restricted to ship building or furniture production. It was above all the chief material in house building: "everything is made of wood and not stone, or brick as is our case, excepting the fortress battlements made of stone, and the walls round the houses of the nobles."47
João Rodrigues proves himself even at this early point to be well ahead of his times and very modern in his sensitivity to a problem which besets man at the height of the twentieth century: deforestation and the consequent environmental soil erosion:
since the use of wood is so widespread, it is already growing scarce, and many mountains which were previously covered in trees are now stripped bear as if there never had been any woodland there. 48
TEXTILE FIBRES
Forests and agricultural produce did not constitute in themselves the sole source of natural wealth. Fibrous plants suitable for use as textile thread, such as linen, cotton and hemp, were cultivated on a large scale. The cultivation and use of cotton, according to Rodrigues, seems to have increased with the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan. Unlike the traditional and costly linen, a symbol of wealth and prosperity flaunted by the nobility, the cheaper, more rapidly produced and converted cotton met the needs "of the common people", "now with the cotton they have much good thread which they spin into yarn which in the beginning the Portuguese traded with in Japan."49
White silk, according to Rodrigues, although of lesser quality than the Chinese, is also an exportable product and thus highly profitable, particularly in peacetime when commercial routes were reopened. Another silk of inferior quality is used, primarily in the winter, for quilts, bonnets and shawls, because it is "very fine, smooth, soft and warm in the extreme."50
Rodrigues brings to the fore a certain refinement in Japanese attire. Unlike their poor neighbours, the Tartars, Koreans and Chinese, who cover their heads and necks with furs as man did in early times, the Japanese cover these body parts with silk bonnets and scarves, no less warm than furs but more elegant.
WATER RESOURCES
If the earth is generous in the produce it affords man, water is no less so. Both Álvares and Rodrigues observed immediately the extensive and abundant wealth of water resources Japan possessed, and in this respect Álvares says, "This is a land of many rivers, springs and wells. They told me that there were also big rivers with many fish."51 Rodrigues' text adds "Throughout the kingdom there are excellent waters and springs... there are many voluminous rivers, some of them navigable by small boats, there are also many lakes, some of them immense."52 An abundance of water is synonymous not only with fertile agriculture, but also with a great quantity of marine fauna and a prosperous economy. As Rodrigues affirms, "In Japan there is much excellent fish of many kinds, both freshwater and saltwater in the North Sea. There is much salmon which at certain points in the year come to lay eggs in the rivers where the catches are infinite and they salt them and dry them in the sun."53 Álvares also enumerates the species of fish he sees and hears of: "and in the sea there is all kind of fish from our lands: sardines, shad, baby shad and much shellfish."54
However, the way the Japanese in certain regions of the country drank their water, very different from Western habits, took Rodrigues by surprise, as it certainly would any Westerner: "although generally they do not take it cold, it is still prized by the Japanese for their tea ceremony... in the summer and in the winter the Japanese do not generally drink cold water."55 As may be inferred from the text, this hot water would probably be drunk in the form of tea. 56 Without realizing what he was referring to, Jorge Álvares had in turn commented on this count, "In the summer they drink hot barley water, and in the winter water with herbs, I know not which. They do not drink cold water in the summer or winter."57
ANIMALS
Rodrigues devotes himself to detailed description of the flora throughout this chapter, but the fauna is not altogether forgotten although it bears a lesser weight in the economy of the narrative. In the chapter "Various sorts of animals and birds that there are"58, he enumerates the animals which exist in Japan. Comparing the Japanese fauna with the European he gives an account of the animals which do not exist in the Empire of the Rising Sun. He begins by mentioning horses, some domestic and others wild, and the ignorance or absence of the use of horse shoes, substituted by "certain shoes woven in straw and fitted to the hoof of the horse"59, which allowed these animals to tread "stony and clamorous ground."60 As for harnesses and stirrups, he remits the reader to another chapter (which lies outside the limits of this article) where these issues are described in greater detail.
According to the author, mules and donkeys were neither known nor utilized by the Japanese for ploughing (they were, however, in China and Korea). By contrast: "there is an abundance of cows that work the plough, not two to a plough as is our wont but one on its own; at times horses or mares are used to till the land."61 On this count João Rodrigues' text contradicts to a degree the opinion voiced earlier by Jorge Álvares, in this case it is probable that the latter had not encountered bovine livestock, since he affirms: "the servicing of this land was worked by small but very hardy horses, because there are but few cows there and some draught oxen."62
As for domestic animals, only dogs were of genuine use to the family economy since they were employed in hunting. Domestic animals, such as hens, ducks, drakes and rabbits, were only used as pets and never for eating because "it is the wont throughout the kingdom not to eat the meat of farm animals, which they take for unclean, like pigs, hens and cows."63 Álvares had also remarked earlier on this point: "They are people who eat three times a day, and lightly each time. They eat very little meat, and as I already said, they do not eat hens. I think this is because they breed them, and they do not eat what they breed."64
João Rodrigues describes this "strange" custom with the surprise typical of a Westerner, and then points out the increasing influence of Western customs on the ancestral habits of the Japanese.
Wherever the great ship and trading boats of the Portuguese go to trade, they grow these things to sell them and now many there eat these things and merchants who gather from far and wide to trade with them, and some lords, and others, on the understanding that it has a medicinal value and is a new thing, whereupon it is no longer as horrendous and abominable in the Kingdom as at the beginning when they reproached us to our faces with contempt, saying that we eat beef, domestic animals and even human flesh. 65
By dint of their close commercial relations with the European navigators, first the Portuguese and subsequently the Spanish and Dutch, these coastal populations are the most open to the influence and assimilation of western habits. These are populations which put up little resistance to acculturation, (and to a certain degree facilitated the work of the missions), unlike what took place as inroads were made into the inland areas of the country, when barriers to relations and conversion increased. 66
Nevertheless, wild animals, classified as 'sylvan' in the text, serve as delicacies for the autochthonous population. The vast forests of Japan concealed an abundance of wild fauna, particularly hunting stock: mountain pigs, stags, hares (but not rabbits, as the author points out), wolves, bears, foxes, tailless monkeys (those with tails came from outside). According to Rodrigues, there were no tigers or jaguars, and only a few species of known snakes.
As for birds, from the text it seems there was a hierarchy based on the demand and importance accorded these animals at the banquet table. As a consequence, the crane occupies first place, the swan second and third the wild duck, and "at the splendid banquets of the nobles in the tea ceremony, one of these three is always served as the key to the splendour of the festivity; and truth to tell, when cooked according to the custom of this land they are excellent and delicious; in some places fresh crane is worth fifty cruzados, as we saw many times."67
Like their European counterparts, Japanese nobles bred various species of birds of prey in their houses: falcons, goshawks, saker falcons and others. Rodrigues lingers on a detailed description of this subject (we must never forget that he lived at very close quarters with the Japanese élite, whence his more precise knowledge of the habits of the Japanese nobility). These birds were bred, as already stated, by noblemen in "specific houses where they keep these birds with their perches"68, and there were even special servants to handle and take care of these animals. These birds were specially trained to hunt other wild animals on splendid, organized hunting trips. As was the case in Europe, there were zones set aside for the lord's hunting trips, the reserves, where the peasants were not permitted to hunt, nor any person who was not a member of the nobility.
There was, then, a great similarity between the two societies, European and Japanese. In effect, at the height of the sixteenth century, Japan possessed a perfect feudal system, analogous on all counts to that of the West. Nevertheless, it is not to be thought that the latter influenced in any way Japanese feudalism, which appears to have been the result of a natural and self-ordained evolution. We have, consequently, a single system in parallel development, yet neither of the parties had met the other. Overall, they were extraordinarily similar as regards political structure, social hierarchies, rights and responsibilities inherent to each state.
It is precisely works such as this by João Rodrigues that allow us to contemplate and analyze similar evolutionary processes at opposite poles of the world. We do not need to argue that Japanese practices and customs were similar to those in Europe. Rodrigues makes it perfectly explicit in his História.
Throughout his work, João Rodrigues demonstrates very clearly that in some respects, the Japan of those times revealed to its Western contemporaries a degree of superiority in certain moral and civic values. For this and other reasons, the work of Rodrigues is one of the most carefully considered and impartial expositions of Japan. The missionary was perchance and for a long period, the first to understand the philosophy that inspired the habits, customs and social rites of the Japanese people.
NOTES
1 Many travellers, some pilgrims and others merchants, nearly all of them Portuguese, brought with them at times more tales and accounts than proper wealth. Such accounts, gathered here and there, were the only access to knowledge of this 'new world' and therefore very valuable.
The correspondence of the Jesuit Fathers features among the first works written about Japan, offering a faithful picture of the country. Many of these letters are found assembled in collections like that of Juan Ruiz-de-Medina: Documentos del Japón 1547-1557 in Monumenta Historica Societatis lesu, vol. 137. Rome, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1990 or in the Cartas que os Padres e Irmaõs da Companhia de Jesus escreverão dos Reynos do Japão e China aos da mesma Companhia da Índia e Europa desde o anno de 1549 até ao de 1580 (Manoel da Lyra, Évora, 1598).
2 João Rodrigues: Arte da Língua de Japam Composta Pello Padre J. R. Rodrigues da Companhia de lesu, dividida em três livros. No Collegio de Japão da Companhia de Iesu, Nagasaki 1604 (1608): facsimile edition, Tokyo, 1984.
—: Vocabulário da Língua de Japam, Nagasaki 1603-1604 (ascribed to João Rodrigues), BA 46-VIII-35.
3 Regarding this see Armando Martins Janeira, O Impacto Português sobre a civilização Japonesa. Lisbon, 1988.
4 Apparently, neither Hideyoshi nor his successor leyasu held any personal animosity against Christianity. However, for political reasons as well as those of retaining authority they later sought to rid themselves of the Jesuit missionaries and of the considerable influence they exerted in the country by this point. In effect, after the death of Oda Nobunaga, "Christianity undoubtedly lost a unique opportunity to establish strong and deep roots in Japan, and their very presence on the Archipelago... would soon be seriously threatened." João Paulo Oliveira e Costa: "Oda Nobunaga e a Expansão Portuguesa", in Review of Culture, Nºs 13/14, Jan/Jun 1991, pp. 259-272.
5 The references to the works of Jorge Álvares here are based on the document which forms part of the Juan Ruiz-de-Medina's collection, op. cit., pp. 1-23.
6 The Portuguese captain Jorge Álvares was a merchant for several years in the Far East. He is known to have been to Japan in 1547 with his companion in adventure, Fernão Mendes Pinto. He established a friendship with Francisco Xavier, it seems, in India. The two met in Malacca, where Xavier probably asked Mendes Pinto to write his impressions of Japan.
7 Adelino de Almeida Calado: "O livro que trata das Cousas da India e Japão", Boletim da Biblioteca da Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, vol. XXIV, 1960, pp. 1-138.
8 João Rodrigues, História da Igreja no Japão. Transcript of codex 49-IV-53 (fols. 1-181) of the Palácio da Ajuda Library, prepared by João do Amaral Abranches Pinto. Notícias de Macau, 1954, p. 139.
9 Ibid., p. 139.
10 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 5. Jorge Álvares landed at various points of the Kyushu Island over a period of four or five months. However, he went no further inland on the island than three leagues deep as he himself attests and, therefore, describes only the "beauty of the coastal lands".
11 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p.
12 Ibid., p. 144
13 Ibid., p. 144. Oda Nobunaga was a daimyo of Owari, a man whose quest for military and political power finally enabled him to triumph over the shogun Ashikaga himself. His plan for imposing a centralized regime prompted him to embark upon the task of pacification and unification of the country which until then had been immersed in a cruel and brutal civil war dominated by various clans influential in the margins of imperial power (only respected in theory). In this regard, see João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, op. cit., or even Michael Cooper, Rodrigues the interpreter: an Early Jesuit in Japan and China, New York, Weatherhill, 1974.
14 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 139.
15Ibid., pp. 139-140.
16Ibid., p.140.
17Ibid., p.140.
18Ibid., p. 140.
19Ibid., p. 140.
20Ibid., p.140-141.
21Ibid., p. 153.
22Ibid., p. 153.
23Ibid., pp. 153-154.
24Ibid., p. 155.
25Ibid., p. 156.
26Ibid., p. 142.
27 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 8.
28 Cf. and for more information about the climate in Japan see J. Pezeu-Massabuau Géographie du Japon, Paris, PUF. or Max Derruau, Le Japon, Nº 26, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1967.
29 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 142.
30Ibid., p. 143.
31 Cf. Francine Hérail, Histoire du Japon, Paris, 1986, p. 151.
32 At the beginning of summer and autumn respectively the two highest rainfalls are experienced, which characterize the hot period (May/June and September). These are separated by a relatively dry period of six to seven weeks, which favour the ripening of rice crops. J. Prezeu-Massabuau. op. cit., p. 24.
33 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 144.
34 Ibid., p. 144.
35 Ibid., p. 145.
36 Ibid., p. 145
37 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 6.
38 João Rodrigues op. cit., p. 145.
39Ibid., p. 145.
40Ibid., p. 146.
41Ibid., p. 147.
42Ibid., p. 146.
43 Forest covered the great bulk of Japanese territory. Today, forestry still covers 70% of the land, a figure comparable to that of Finland and Canada. This figure may be said to be one of the highest in the world. Consequently, the rich resources of the forests must have been all the more indispensable to the domestic economy of sixteenth century Japan.
44 Ibid., p. 147.
45 Ibid., p. 148.
46 Ibid., p. 148.
47 Ibid., p. 149.
48 Ibid., p. 149.
49 Ibid., p. 147.
50 Ibid., p. 148.
51 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 7.
52 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 149.
53 Ibid., p. 150.
54 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 7
55 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 149.
56 Regarding this matter, see the chapters Rodrigues dedicates to tea and the tea ceremony, op. cit., pp. 487-500.
57 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 13.
58 Ibid., p. 150.
59 Ibid., p. 150.
60 Ibid., p. 150.
61 Ibid., p. 151.
62 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p.6.
63 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 151.
64 Jorge Álvares, op. cit., p. 12.
65 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 151, "The Great Ship, which leaves every year from Macau to Nagasaki, inaugurates an epoch in Japanese history, serving not only the interests of material progress, but also the deepest aspirations of Japanese culture and spirit." Luis Norton Os Portugueses no Japão (1540-1640). Ministério do Ultramar (Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca), 1952, p. 27.
66 In this respect, for a more far-reaching analysis, see João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, op. cit., pp. 259-272.
67 João Rodrigues, op. cit., p. 152.
68 Ibid., p. 152.
*Graduate in History (Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the University of Lisbon)
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