xxvi. Taiji Bay (太地湾) or Taiji (太地) Part 5 (Epilogue)

Location (Semi-Nagare Monument): Taiji (near JR Line Taiji Stn.), Wakayama Prefecture; about 3.5 hours from Osaka + 45 min. walking time; or a 10 min. walk from either Ebisu Shrine or the Memorial Tower for Whales

Associated with: Sazae Oni (栄螺鬼) or the "Sea Snail Demon"

If you have followed my suggested route up to the Semi-Nagare Monument, you will have found yourself slowly circling Taiji Bay. It is out there on the ocean where we have a location which is a candidate for a rather squeamish account involving a (gasp) actual yokai.

The marine creature from which this yokai gets its name is the sazae, a type of edible sea snail that lives in a turban-shaped shell. (They sometimes make an appearance at a seaside barbecue, plonked on the grill and cooked in their shells.) It's said that such a sea snail will become a type of demon called a sazae oni once it has lived for thirty years. Another recipe for spawning this yokai is to throw a lusty woman into the ocean, where she will first transform into a sea snail. She will reappear later on a moonlit night, breaching the water as a sea snail demon.

Got that? Well in Namikiri of Kishu Domain (present day Taiji), there is the account of a band of pirates who while sailing across the bay came across a beautiful woman struggling in the water. Though the pirates were quick to rescue her, in their dark hearts they harbored an unchivalrous motive; that night each to a man had their rough way with her. It turned out, however, that they had been tricked, for the woman was a sazae oni. Later that night she transformed into a demon and bit the testicles off every pirate on the ship. The next day she ransomed their balls back to them for a tidy sum of gold.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Beyond Semi-Nagare

After the tragedy, the traumatized town found itself in a state almost beyond recovery. Taiji Kakuemon, the man who had issued the command to hunt, wrote, "Words cannot describe the wretched state of the hundreds of bereaved." In dealing with his own grief, Kakuemon distributed his estate among the families of the deceased. However, without the level of support that whaling had contributed to the economy, many of the town's young men left to look for work elsewhere.

But somehow Taiji managed to survive and piece together a new whaling fleet. Sawadayu and the survivors apprenticed new whalers, including Sawadayu's son Yasoichi, who had been too young to be a member of the fleet caught in the Semi-Nagare tragedy. The boy became a harpooner like his father, and later changed his name to Kimidayu (dayu being a special suffix attached to the names of harpooners). The invention of the whaling gun and other advances in technology made hunting safer, and Kimidayu would pass the trade onto his children. However, never would the next generation have to risk their lives out in the old chasers, setting the giant nets, or locked in the hunt. They would not understand the old saying, "On a boat, one is only an inch or two from a watery grave," in quite the same way their ancestors did. Kimidayu would be the last harpooner.

Kimidayu died at the age of 76 on June 28, 1945 just a few months before the end of World War II. Amazingly, footage exists of the old whaler. Taken in 1932, it shows the Ayaodori, a dance in which young men line up along a board placed across two traditional moso-bune boats. Kimidayu along with his friend, another old harpooner by the name of Uradayu, can be seen sitting on the bows of the boats, singing and banging the taiko.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Closing Thoughts

It has been nearly ten years since the footage for 2009's Cove was shot, but the battle still rages. With the discrimination case against the Taiji Whale Museum and Ric O'Barry's deportation from Japan just this year, there is yet to be a decisive winner. Without choosing a side though, my feeling is that Taiji will find its way much as it has always done. The town is a survivor. And while the dolphin slaughter footage is both compelling and disturbing, the fact of the matter is that the protesters have failed to meaningfully engage the townsfolk. Instead they have resorted to celebrity hype, international pressure and brute force. History has shown that in Taiji, successes as well as hardships forge a complex identity. The protesters would do well to note that the mother whale and its calf, an icon of unimaginable tragedy for the town, are eternalized in a gigantic monument that eyes visitors on their approach. So too now do the protesters play a part in galvanizing this identity.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Having been to Taiji, I do respect the protesters for putting their money where their mouths are and actually traveling and spending time there. It's possible to go straight there from Kansai airport without ever taking in a single major tourist site. Once on the ground it must be homesick-inducing, lonely and heartbreaking work. However, if the protesters really want the people of Taiji to care about their opinion, they first need to show that they understand theirs. That's not easy, but to understand is not to condone. It is the first step toward laying the groundwork for the possibility of change.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Getting Back to Taiji Station

It's a long walk back to the station, but hopefully it's been worth it. A tourist map will point out some other sites that might interest you, so keep having a wander around if you like. When you're ready, head back to the station by more or less retracing your steps. This time you can cut through the town and also take a shortcut through the mountain to save you having to walk all the way around the peninsula.

Map courtesy of Google Maps

Some Acknowledgements

Originally all I wanted to do was go see a torii made out of bones. I would have been clueless about it had it not been for Zack Davisson's article on the bakekujira at hyakumonogatari.com. That article can be read here:

https://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/05/10/bakekujira-and-japans-whale-cults/

C.W. Nicol is an author I stumbled upon horrendously late in the fifteen years I've been living in Japan. Nicol, one of the living treasures we are lucky to have among us, spent a year in Taiji doing research for his novel Harpoon. Though these days he condemns the cruelty of the dolphin hunt, he has been a defender of sustainable fishing practises, including traditional whaling. He continues to write a weekly column for The Japan Times, and his essay Taiji - Winds of Change can currently be read online here:

http://luna.pos.to/whale/jwa_taiji.html

A verse and chorus from Lament for the Fisherman's Wife are at the beginning of each main entry of this series. It's neither Japanese nor particularly old, but a tune by Scottish folk greats Silly Wizard. It appeared on their 1981 album Wild and Beautiful and with one listen you can tell that the song is both. You can find it on YouTube.

Artist Unknown, 1800s (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/ via http://ukiyo-e.org)

Driver Gragma (yokaitourbus "at" mail "dot" com)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yokaitourbus/

The Master List (Wakayama)
http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.jp/2015/08/6-g-master-list-wakayama.html

(religion) Japanese Whale Cults (鯨崇拝)
Site: Semi-Nagare Monument/Monument to Those Lost at Sea (漂流人紀念碑)
Nearest Station: (JR Line) Taiji Stn. (太地駅)
Google Map Search: NA

xxv. Memorials for Whales (鯨の供養碑) and People (人紀念碑) or Taiji (太地) Part 4

Location (Memorial Tower for Whales): Taiji (near JR Line Taiji Stn.), Wakayama Prefecture; about 3.5 hours from Osaka + a little under 40 min. walking time; or a 3 min. walk from Ebisu Shrine

Location (Semi-Nagare Monument): Taiji (near JR Line Taiji Stn.), Wakayama Prefecture; about 3.5 hours from Osaka + 45 min. walking time; or a 10 min. walk from either Ebisu Shrine or the Memorial Tower for Whales

Associated with: Japanese "whale cults"

What force leads a man to a life filled with danger,

High on seas or a mile underground?

It's when need is his master and poverty's no stranger.

And there's no other work to be found.

But she has come down to condemn that wild ocean.

For the murderous loss of her man.

His boat sailed out on Wednesday morning.

And it's feared she's gone down with all hands.

-Lament for the Fisherman's Wife

The producers of The Cove commented in the film's final narration that they couldn't understand why the people of Taiji would construct so many monuments to whales. It is perhaps because the pursuit of no other quarry could so mimic the fickleness of the gods in the way the traditional whale hunt symbolized the potential for great prosperity as well as the promise of ruin in the face of failure. What you have then is a people who show gratitude and awe in equal parts.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Taking a right at Ebisu Shrine, I followed the curving road, encountering more spectators and race volunteers. I soon arrived in front of Tomyo-ji Temple, where an excited photographer told me to get out of the way. I did so most obediently, and while we waited for the cyclists to whiz past, I watched as he argued with a spectator and made a woman reverse away in her car. I explained to him in Japanese that I had only really come to Taiji that day as a tourist, to which he replied in booming English: "GOOD TIMING!" Bikes having flown past, I was granted permission to move along and so headed up the stone fortification of Tomyo-ji.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Such fortifications are more appropriate under things that need defending, like castles. As it happens, Tomyo-ji now sits on the old foundation of Taiji Castle, and the graceful sloping stone walls remain. At the top besides the temple itself is some beautiful statuary and also a simple stone marker, which despite its height has been dubbed in English as the memorial "tower" for whales. In Meiwa 5 (1768), right at the height of traditional whaling, Hama Hachibei (a whaler) erected the monument using materials from his family grave plot. That century had been dotted with poor catches, not to mention a tsunami in 1707 that saw most of the buildings in Taiji destroyed and the series of events that led to the construction of the whale bone bridge at Zuikoji in 1756. Here at Tomyo-ji is erected a monument to pacify the souls of departed whales and to pray for their rebirth. The Buddhist monument to the far right of the whale memorial was also erected by descendants of Hachibei.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Far off the coast of Taiji on the morning of December 25, 1878, the exhausted whaling fleet was in trouble. Having finally secured the whales to the moso-bune, they found themselves not making much headway against the west wind. Realizing that their strength would give out before they made it back to shore, in desperation they cut the whales loose and fought the wind with all their remaining might.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Sawadayu and his boat were in much bigger trouble. They were caught in a current they did not have the energy to challenge and were getting further and further away from the fleet. Unable to resist the current, the 26 men aboard Sawadayu's boat battled hunger, dehydration and hypothermia out on the open sea for a week before they finally came upon a chain of islands. As they approached one of the islands' shores, the boat capsized, killing 18 of the 26 exhausted whalers. Only eight survived, Sawadayu being one of them.

I returned to the main road encircling Taiji Bay and made my way up the sloping incline. By this time rain had started to fall and my umbrella was tottering in the wind, doing its best to keep my camera dry. I came to a short flight of stairs along the incline that took me up to the Semi-Nagare Monument, the Hyoryubito-kinenhi (漂流人紀念碑), or "monument for those who drifted away." It honors the whalers who lost their lives in the tragedy.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

The island that Sawadayu and the other survivors washed up on was Kozushima, part of the Izu Islands chain, nearly 190 miles (a whopping 300 kilometers) from Taiji and administratively part of Tokyo prefecture. It was well into the new year when Sawadayu finally returned to Taiji with the other survivors of his boat. If they were saddened to report the deaths of their fellows, they were unprepared to learn the extent of the tragedy of the fleet as it had unfolded. One of the other boats landed ashore in Atawa (more than 20 miles north along the coast from Taiji), and the crew of another boat was picked up by a passing ship. The survivors were 13 men in all. Of the remaining 100 or so men, 12 died from starvation, while the others, unable to overcome the wind and current, drifted off into the ocean never to be seen or heard from again. Fathers and sons (including apprentices as young as 10), all the siblings from the same family were known to have been lost together. The culmination of several hundred years of Taiji whaling, the people, the boats, the equipment... nearly all washed away in a single tragedy.

Comments: It's a somber end to our journey, but I'm sucker for stone poles in the ground. Time to finish what we started.

Getting There

Take a right off the main road at Ebisu Shrine. Follow the curve of the road around and Tomyo-ji will appear on your right.

Map courtesy of Google Maps

To get to the Semi-Nagare Monument, get back on to the main road and turn right. The monument is a ways up the slope on the right.

Map courtesy of Google Maps

Driver Gragma (yokaitourbus "at" mail "dot" com)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yokaitourbus/

The Master List (Wakayama)
http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.jp/2015/08/6-g-master-list-wakayama.html

(religion) Japanese Whale Cults (鯨崇拝)
Site: Tomyo-ji Temple (東明寺)
Nearest Station: (JR Line) Taiji Stn. (太地駅)
Google Map Search: "Tomyoji Taiji"

(religion) Japanese Whale Cults (鯨崇拝)
Site: Semi-Nagare Monument/Monument to Those Lost at Sea (漂流人紀念碑)
Nearest Station: (JR Line) Taiji Stn. (太地駅)
Google Map Search: NA

xxiv. INTERMISSION: The Setsugeikyo (雪鯨橋) or "Whale Bridge" (くじら橋) of Zuikoji (瑞光寺)

Location: Higashiyodogawa Ward (near Hankyu Line Kami-Shinjo Stn.), Osaka City; about 12 min. from Osaka + a little under 10 min. walking time

 

Associated with: Japanese "whale cults"

 

One might be surprised to learn the many ways in which a downed whale could be utilized. C.W. Nicol again lays it out for us:

Meat, for human consumption, was the most valuable portion of the whale, but nothing was wasted. As in the West, blubber was rendered into oil, the uses of which were many indeed. Whale oil lighted the lamps of Japan too, but besides lamps, the oil was mixed with vinegar to make a highly effective pesticide for use in the rice paddies. This oil-vinegar mixture was perfectly biodegradable, and killed off only harmful pests, with no ill effects on the edible loaches and small clams that abounded in the rice paddies of Tokugawa Japan.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Oil-rich bones were sawed up and cooked. After this first cooking they were smashed into pieces by hammers and cooked again. These bones provided excellent fertilizer, and more oil. This fertilizer was of such great value that merchants came from distant parts of Japan to make bids for its purchase.

Sinews were carefully cut out from the bone and meat, and when dried they were sold to instrument makers, armor makers and so forth. The baleen (erroneously called 'whale bone' in the West) found even more uses than it did in fashion-conscious America and Europe. It was used in myriad ways, from the tips of fine fishing rods, to beautifully polished plates, and the springs that worked the mouths of the 'bunraku' puppets [and to birthing aids].

Even the entrails were cut, washed and boiled, and were used in miso soup, or broiled on charcoal. Absolutely nothing was wasted.

-Taiji, Winds of Change, C.W. Nicol

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Clearly a whale carcass has many uses. In the previous entry we saw a set of whale jawbones being used to make a simple torii in front of a shrine. However, much further north in Osaka city there is a temple with a bridge made out of whale bones.

Such a bridge is something you'd expect to cross over on your way to hell, but that would be failing to take into account the religious overtones of traditional whaling in Japan. As we discussed in the first entry, the appearance or arrival of the whale, depending on the circumstances and timing, could be seen as divine intervention.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Tanjuzenji was a traveling priest from an Osaka temple with a long history. Over the years the temple had burned down and undergone a few name changes, but since 1729, or for the last thirty years or so, it has gone by the name Zuikoji, the Temple of Light and Luster (half-assed translation mine). And so it happened that in 1754, Tanjuzenji traveled south and came to a village in Kii Province known as Taiji. The community was in bad shape after a series of poor catches, and the people of Taiji implored Tanjuzenji for his prayers to reverse their fortune. This posed a moral dilemma for the priest; he was compelled to live by the Buddhist precept to refrain from harming living things, which is essentially what he was being asked to pray for. Tanjuzenji refused.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

The suffering of the villagers, however, made him reconsider, and despite his turmoil he prayed that their fishing nets be filled. And with the prayers came the whales.

In gratitude, the whalers of Taiji gave 30 ryo of gold to Tenjuzenji's temple along with 18 whale bones (you're welcome). As "a symbol of the value of life" and as a memorial to the whales, the bones were used to construct a bridge. The name of this bridge is Setsugeikyo (雪鯨橋), a Chinese reading of the characters for Snow-Whale-Bridge. It's commonly known though as the Kujira-bashi, a simpler Japanese reading that just means "Whale Bridge."

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

The first bridge was constructed in 1756, or two years after Tenjuzenji's visit to Taiji. Because bones wear out quicker than more sturdier materials, the bridge has been reconstructed every 50 years or so (1829, 1873, 1923, destroyed during WWII, 1974 and 2006). An increase in visitors likely accounts for the shorter time between recent constructions, and though in the past the bridge was mostly skeletal, these days it's more stone than bone. Each time, the whale bones have been sent from Taiji, who continue to honor the life-saving prayers that delivered them from collapse.

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Comments: If you don't have a spare day to visit Taiji, or if spending seven hours on the train there and back doesn't appeal to you, a quick trip to Zuikoji will give you a feel for the sites to the south. These days it even has a whale bone torii. If you have a spare couple of hours one morning or afternoon, this site is very doable. It's "Taiji lite" if you will.

Getting There

Our destination is Kami-Shinjo Stn. on the Hankyu Line. If you're in the northern end of the city, the starting point on the Midosuji subway line is Umeda Stn. If you're in the south, it's Dobutsuen-mae Stn.

From Umeda:

Subway Umeda Stn. lies next to other stations, also called Umeda, operated by two train companies: Hankyu and Hanshin. From subway Umeda Stn. (or Osaka Stn. if you've come via JR), follow the signs directing you to the Hankyu Line. There are a few lines that leave from Hankyu Umeda, and Kami-Shinjo is on the Kyoto Line. You need to take a local, semi-express or rapid service bound for either Takatsuki-shi or Kyoto (Kawaramachi). It's only five stops from Umeda, so even a local will get you there in good time.

From Dobutsuen-mae:

Dobutsuen-mae is where the red Midosuji Line and brown Sakaisuji Line intersect. The Sakaisuji Line hasn't been featured all that much, but it's the line you might take to visit the zoo (Dobutsuen-mae) or Nipponbashi (Osaka's "Denden Town," not unlike Tokyo's Akihabara district). It extends up to Tenjimbashisuji Rokuchome, but some services conveniently hook in directly to the Hankyu Line. What you can do is take a train bound for Takatsuki-shi or Kawaramachi on the Sakaisuji Line, and it will take you directly to Kami-Shinjo in about 20 minutes. Be sure to look at the timetable and electronic display to see where the train is headed before boarding, and be careful not to get on a train bound for Kita-Senri, as that will actually switch lines one stop before Kami-Shinjo.

Getting Your Bearings at Kami-Shinjo Station

Kami-Shinjo Stn. is a long platform with exits at the far ends (north and south). Go out the south exit as that is closer to Zuikoji. Refer to the map below.

Map courtesy of Google Maps

The star on the map is where the whale bone torii is, which is basically the entrance to the temple. You can access it via one of two footpaths off the main road. You'll probably find it without too much trouble, but here is a close-up of the area near the temple.

Map courtesy of Google Maps

Photo Credit: Gragma's Yokai Tourbus

Driver Gragma (yokaitourbus "at" mail "dot" com)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yokaitourbus/

The Master List (Osaka)
http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.jp/2015/08/6-the-master-list-osaka.html

(religion) Japan Whale Cults (鯨崇拝)
Site: Zuiko-ji Temple (瑞光寺)
Nearest Station: (Hankyu Line) Kami-Shinjo Stn. (上新庄駅) or (Subway) Zuiko Yonchome Stn. (瑞光四丁目駅)
Google Map Search: "Zuiko-ji Temple Higashiyodogawa" - then to check you have the right location, "Zuikoji Park" should bring up the lot immediately next to the temple.