Seas of Fortune(170)
“Is this going to take all day?” Kanesada asked.
She ignored him. At last she announced, “this is mostly a peaceful offering, made by the Ixchenta. They live on the other side of this river, near the mouth.”
“Why do you say, ‘mostly’?”
She frowned. “Putting an arrow into the ground is a sign of peaceful intent. But using so many arrows seems to me to also be a veiled threat, ‘we are many, we have arrows to spare, so don’t mess with us.’”
“What do you think we should do next?” asked the headman.
“Set out gifts for them.”
Kanesada agreed. Without discussing it with First-to-Dance, he also placed a samurai in hiding, to spy on the Indians when they came and report back how many there were, their weapons, their state of health, and so on.
One day, the gifts vanished.
The samurai watchman never saw the Indians, coming or going.
Kodachi Machi/Santa Cruz
Yamaguchi Takuma stood outside his home, and greeted his guest. His guest, in turn, bowed and handed over a present, medicine in a clamshell.
“What an honor!” cried Takuma. “I could hardly believe it when I saw you come off the ship. Up to now, we have only had a doshiki, and a few confraternity leaders like myself, to serve the religious needs of a community of over a thousand Christians. But now we have you, a Franciscan brother! Trained in a seminary in Manila, no less!”
Friar Franciscus Tanaka put a finger to his lips. “I would prefer that you say nothing of the matter until the ships leave . . .”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“Don’t you?” The friar stared at him. “Haven’t you wondered why there are no priests among you, or among us new arrivals?”
“I assumed that it was because none of the Japanese-born priests had come out of hiding yet.”
“No, no, there was one; from Nagasaki. And was he sent to Monterey Bay, with the other kirishitan from Nagasaki? No. He wasn’t even placed on the same ship. His ship parted from us early, going somewhere far to the north.
“Plainly, this grand governor doesn’t want the kirishitan of Monterey Bay to have a priest. And if gambling weren’t sinful, I would wager that if I had let the inspectors know that I was consecrated as a friar, I bet I would be shivering somewhere up north, too. Because the grand governor doesn’t want us ‘corrupting’ his precious samurai.”
At least the grand governor’s samurai aren’t hanging us upside-down in a pit of shit, thought Takuma. But rather than say so, he bowed deeply and ushered Friar Franciscus Tanaka into the zashiki, the most formal room of the house. It was the only room whose floor was completely covered with tatami mats, no doubt brought to California from Japan. Their presence marked the Yamaguchi family as being one of quite prosperous commoners before their journey into exile; even a century ago, only samurai dwellings would have had them.
* * *
In the zashiki, the friar was invited to sit with his back to the tokonoma. This was the kamiza, the “top seat.” It would, after all, be gauche to force the guest of honor to view the contents of that alcove: a picture scroll from home, and a bouquet of native flowers.
Franciscus started to murmur some obligatory words of gratitude for the honor bestowed upon him, when the words caught in his throat. An unmistakable butsudan—a Buddhist altar—sat on a cabinet on one side of the room. The doors were closed, but Franciscus knew what would be inside.
No doubt it was necessary to have a butsudan back in Nippon, during the decades of persecution. The authorities might at any time search a home for signs of christian worship, and, failing to find such, still find it suspicious if there were no signs of proper obeisance to the buddhas and kamis. But why would it be brought here, where Christianity was legal?
He sniffed the air. No . . . yes. . . . There was a taint of incense. Incense sticks had been burned here, probably this very day. Probably in front of an ihai, a spirit tablet, now safely stored in the butsudan.
“Is something wrong, Brother Franciscus?” asked Takuma.
Franciscus wanted to rail at him and his wife, but this was not the time. Not when he was a guest at their home. But it horrified him to find a a butsudan in the home of a mizukata, an elected baptizer for a Christian community.
His gaze rose to scrutinize the ceiling, especially above the doors to adjoining rooms. Well, at least they hadn’t compounded their heresies by putting a kamidama, a Shinto shrine, between the crossbeams.
He breathed in and out slowly. “No,” said Franciscus, “nothing is wrong.”
Maruya/Carmel
The first arrow lodged in the straw canopy that shaded the fishing boat.