Echoes of Incense A Pilgrimage in Japan by Don Weiss

Chapter Twelve

The Ide's Farmhouse

Two days later, we walked through Tokushima City. It was a little warmer, but I had a sore throat and Phyllis' feet hurt, so neither of us were in good condition.

Suddenly a motorcycle stopped right in front of us. The driver pulled off his helmet. It was one of the priests from Temple Six. He asked how we were and gave us a thousand yen as o-settai.

After he left, I said to Phyllis, "How about some cake? The Washington Hotel is just ahead."She started laughing, and we walked to one of the fanciest hotels in the city. Just as we were about to go in the door, a young man stopped us, holding up a hand.

"Please, o-henro-san. I want to pray for your health. You cannot be happy without this."He said this slowly, using simple Japanese. It seemed to be a kind of o-settai, so of course I agreed with him. He told me to stand with my head bowed, eyes closed, hands in gassho. Then he prayed in a soft voice for two or three minutes. At the end, he told me to say, "Thank you, O-Sei-sama."Then he repeated this with Phyllis. I watched him. Both his hands were badly cut from some recent accident or operation. He made a series of five or six mudras over her head while Phyllis stood, head bowed, eyes closed. People walked around us on the sidewalk, looking at us as they went by.

When he finished, we thanked him and went in to spend the priest's o-settai on some fancy cakes. Our hats, walking sticks and packs surrounded us. I wondered how often henro came to the Washington Hotel cake shop. I think we looked a little out-of-place amidst the nicely dressed shoppers and business people at the other tables

It was a good day for o-settai. Every hour, someone stopped us and gave us each 100 yen. I spent most of mine on cough drops. I didn't feel very sick, but my throat hurt. Every time I swallowed, I grimaced in pain. After lunch, we were twice given o-settai of tangerines, but I couldn't eat any, the juice hurt my throat too much.

We got to Tatsueji at 4:00. Phyllis spent about an hour copying the Heart Sutra. For one of the characters, she wasn't sure of the correct order of the strokes, so she went to the temple office to ask the priests. A young priest told her one way, but one of the older priests said that was wrong. They got down a giant dictionary and looked. The young priest was right.

We spent the next night at a farmhouse in the tiny town of Ooi, in a deep valley between temples 20 and 21. The house belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Ide. We had met them at Temple 17 two days earlier. They invited us to stay with them and we were glad to do so. There used to be four inns in Ooi, but now there are none.

The characters used to write Ooi mean Big Well. The valley is deep, with steep sides thickly covered with cedars. Like most of the forests on Shikoku, these were young trees. In the past, it must have been a wild place, with animals to hunt, perhaps even bears, and no roads.

There was no road to Ooi until the 1920's. Before then, the only ways in and out of the village were by boat on the river or on foot over the mountains. To cross the river, everyone paid two sen for the ferry. The rest of the money in the village came from sending tangerines down the river to Anan City. When I asked what kind of boats they had, Ide-san smiled. "Do you like boats? Do you want to see my boat?"he asked. Of course I did, so he led me down through tangerine and kiwi orchards to the river.

The boat was very narrow and about seven meters long. We pulled it down into the water and he held it, telling me to step in carefully and sit very still. He stepped in after me and we pushed off with long poles.

It must have been very cold on the river, but I didn't notice. Though I lived in New York City as a boy, I spent almost every summer at a lake in the state of Maine. Most days, I went fishing in little boats. Now, when I sit in a small boat, with the sound and smell of water around me, the feelings of childhood come rushing back. There's a part of me that will always be a ten-year-old boy, floating on a lake, listening to the birds. If I live to be 90 like my father and I sit in a wooden boat, I'll still be ten.

We floated down the river a few hundred meters and landed on a small island, not much more than a rock a hundred meters by ten, rising eight or ten meters above the river. In the old days, the tangerine boats landed here to fill up with fruit and float to the city. Then they were poled back with any supplies the village didn't produce. In those days, several hundred people lived in the village. Only a few dozen remain, mostly old folks like the Ide's. Their children live in town and visit on Sundays and holidays.

We were standing on top of the rock ten meters above the surface of the river when Ide-san told me all this. I looked down at the river and asked him how high it was during a big typhoon. He held his hand up to his nose, made drowning sounds, and started laughing.

Back at the house, several neighbors sat in the living room, trying to talk with Phyllis, who doesn't know much Japanese. She was sitting next to Mrs. Ide.

"Oh, you foreign woman are all so beautiful,"Mrs. Ide said to Phyllis. I asked why, what did she mean? "So tall, so straight. Not like me, not like Japanese ladies, all bent over like a stick broken by a child."

"Did you ever drink milk when you were a little girl?"I asked.

"No, never,"she said. "But when I had children, every sen that I got, I bought milk so they could drink milk every day. Now my grandson gets milk every day with his school lunch, but my daughter gives him milk also, every day, with his breakfast and in the afternoon with his cake."

"My grandson, Oh! he's a funny little boy, but very smart. And the way he talks to me! 'Grandma' he says, 'You have an old head. Why do you stay in Ooi? Come and live in the city. Mother will take care of you.' But I won't go. I'll live here until I die."She didn't use the verb shinu ‹ die. Instead, she made a chopping gesture with one hand held flat like a headsman's ax. In ancient Japanese belief, still a part of Shinto and everyday life, death is a source of spiritual pollution so even the word is avoided.

The way she avoided using the word for death reminded me of one of the most fantastic characters I met in Japan. I had just walked in the gate of Temple 54, the first time I was there, a few months after I arrived in Japan. Next to the path, I saw a cart loaded with boxes and camping gear, covered with a blue plastic cloth. On the back was a sign that said "126 times."On top of the cart was a henro's hat.

In a few minutes, I met the henro who went with the cart. He was about 60 years old. His head was shaved like a priest. He wore a thick, black beard, a dirty, torn brown robe, and white jikatabi, rubber-soled slipper-socks. It was 9 a.m. He was drunk and happy.

Later, I asked two priests about him. They told me his name was Unkai (a priest's name). "He used to do good practice, sometimes,"one of the priests said, "but then he started drinking too much sake. He died."Like Mrs. Ide, the priest didn't use the verb shinu. He said nakunarimashita, "disappeared"or, "passed away".

The Ide's daughter-in-law came home from her job and immediately served each of us two pieces of cake with tea and coffee. The table was piled with bowls of fruit from their own trees and many bottles of beer and sake but I didn't have any. The fruit would hurt my throat and I don't like to drink alcohol when I'm sick. After a while, the neighbors went back to their own homes and the daughter-in-law got busy in the kitchen, so things slowed down.

Ide-san and I watched sumo on their large-screen TV and we all took our turns bathing in the fancy modern bath room built in a new part of their old house. They had planted a lot of kiwi vines about ten years before. Now, for the first time in their lives, they have lots of money. Three years before, they added the new part on the house and bought the TV. The following year, they took a vacation in Australia. Earlier this year, they went on a cruise from northern Japan to Vladivostok. Next year, I suggested, they could visit us in America. Ide-san laughed.

"America! Perhaps America. Kiwis sell for a good price now. Next year, perhaps, by the grace of God . . . "

Dinner was just us and the family ‹ the Ides, two of their sons, the daughter-in-law, and one grandson. Mostly we talked with the old couple, asking them about living in the valley before Japan became rich enough for farmers to own giant TVs and take cruises to Russia. In the glow of sitting there, my sore throat was forgotten and I sipped sake and poured for Ide-san, keeping his cup full, encouraging him to drink and talk.

"Now, you see, this place is almost dead, like me. But when I was a boy, Oh!, it was almost like a town. There were more than 100 children in the school ‹ now only 12. Maybe next year they will close the school and the children will have to take the bus to town.

"Every afternoon, the henro would come down from Kakurinji, Temple 20, and we would all run out to meet them. Each of the inns would send a maid out to say, 'Please, you are welcome to our inn!' But the inns sometimes got full. Then the families would send boys out to tell the henro, 'Please, come and stay with my family. It is o-settai. Please stay with us.'

"Of course, it was good to have henro stay in your house. Henro are holy, and it is good to give o-settai. Also, it was fun. The henro were from all over Japan, and they could tell us children stories about what it was like, living in Osaka and Tokyo, and what Kyoto looked like."

The party broke up early. By ten, Phyllis and I were in bed with lots of extra quilts piled on. As we lay there, she took a deep breath and said, "This is why I came to Japan."I wished I knew how to make more of the trip what she came to Japan for.

The next morning we climbed up to Temple 21, Tairyuji, Big Dragon Temple. The cold air bit at our cheeks and kept us walking quickly, our walking sticks tapping rapidly on the stones, straight up the mountain path to the temple. After praying and getting our stamps, we sat in the sun in front of the temple office, enjoying the scent of the cedars that grew thickly right up to the edge of the temple courtyard.

As we sat there, a familiar figure walked up to the office with her scroll. It was the girl of the family we had met at the big Daishi statue three days earlier. She was limping badly and smiled weakly when we asked how she was. She walked with us that afternoon and we all spent the night at the house of Doctor and Mrs. Ishikawa, who we had met at several International Association events.

The Ishikawa's were active in international events and both spoke excellent English. He ran his own hospital next to their house. He told us about his favorite kind of therapy for bedridden stroke victims ‹ folk dancing.

Most towns in Japan have a traditional dance done at an annual festival. The one in Tokushima City is famous all over Japan. Thousands of people dance, sing, eat, and especially drink for three days. It's the biggest party of the year in Tokushima.

Dr. Ishikawa used this Awa Dance as physical therapy. (Awa is the old name for Tokushima Prefecture. ) He told us he was trying to organize a team of stroke victims from all over Japan to perform the Awa Dance at the upcoming Awa Festival. He'd come up with a name for the team, a play on words using a local dialect expression meaning "don't do it"combined with the word for "bedridden.""Netakiri nararen."

The next morning, Dr. Ishikawa gave me some antibiotics for my sore throat. He and his wife came down to the street to wish us a safe trip. Our companion of the preceding day had left earlier. She took a bus to the next town and would take the train home that afternoon.

When we got to Temple 23, we had to squeeze past a crowd of tourists praying and buying good luck charms. The Honzon, Yakushi, is associated with protection from the years of danger, when a man is 41, 42, 51, 52, 60, and 61 and when a woman is 19, 30, 33, 37, 51 and 61. As at many temples dedicated to Yakushi, there was a staircase of 33 steps marked "Women"and one of 42 steps marked "Men."These are considered the years of greatest danger. On this day, a sunny Sunday, these staircases were crowded with people walking up slowly, dropping a one yen coin on each step. A few people used larger coins.

Our very good friend Kiyomi told us her father came here and dropped one yen coins on the men's stairs the year he turned 42. Later that year, he fell off a rock while fishing and spent some weeks in a hospital. Kiyomi taught him the American saying, "You get what you pay for."

While we were eating lunch that day, Shimada-san walked into the restaurant. She had found us by calling temples, asking about us. She took some pictures of us walking along the road, then took a bus to Yakuoji, where she took more pictures. Our inn was full, so she stayed at a national lodging house nearby. The next day she took the bus to Saba Daishi and stayed with us there. She said her daughter Kayoko wanted to walk with us for a day in Kochi. We said that would be great.

The next day was very pleasant, sunny, mild, with no wind. The road went along the sea and we walked slowly, stopping often to rest. We had only 19 kilometers to go. We felt that spring was really starting, although at noon it was only 13 degrees. It just seemed warmer.

That night, only eight other henro stayed at Saba Daishi's shukubo. At dinner, the head priest led us in a prayer and then gave us each a little advice. For the others, traveling by car, his advice was to think about how hard the pilgrimage is for people who walk. They should try very hard in their prayers, since they could get around the island so easily. We were the only walkers. His advice to us was a simple "Ganbatte Kudasai!!"For my students, I used to translate this as, "Go for it!"

The morning service was scheduled for 6:00, but at 4:30, the women next door were up, washing noisily at the sinks just down the hall. Over and over, they splashed water on their faces, talking loudly all the time. Over and over. Phyllis opened one eye, looked at her watch and said, "The hour of the porpoise!"

Two days later, the good weather ended. We were woken by the town chimes at 6:00 a.m. It was drizzling, and breezy when we started walking at 7:30. The rain continued all morning. We stopped twice, first for small bowls of ramen at 11:00 and then for a long lunch at 1:30. By then, we'd covered over 19 kilometers and had only nine kilometers to go.

During lunch, I reminded Phyllis of the second day of this trip, when it rained all day, and the third day, when it was so cold. I said I didn't have this hard a time in the winter. It never rained so much and I wasn't in such cold weather so long. I wanted to encourage her by showing her that she was having a hard time because she was doing something very hard, walking the pilgrimage in bad weather. She didn't take my comments the way I'd hoped. She said, "Great, just great. That's the sort of encouragement I need. Sure. Wonderful. Thanks a lot!"

When we came out after lunch, the light rain had changed to a downpour and the breeze had become a fierce, typhoon-like wind blowing stright out of the south. Our path led south, into the teeth of the wind. I tightened the chin strap on my straw hat, put my head down and started walking.

The wind tore at my hat and flattened my rain jacket against my body. I was like a sailboat trying to force its way into a storm with only a small motor and with my sails up. At every step, I could feel the wind holding up my body like a kite ready to tear out of a kid's hand and fly up. It was like pushing myself through water, walking in a deep swimming pool. When stronger gusts came along, I just had to stop and wait, I couldn't move forward. One gust was so powerful, I leaned forward till my head and shoulders were 30 cm. in front of my feet and just stood there, supported by the wind. I started laughing, it seemed so crazy.

Phyllis was walking slowly, so I waited while she caught up. Her face was set hard against the storm. I put my lips near her ear and shouted to be heard over the wind, "I never had wind like this in the winter, either."

She looked at me, her face falling apart. I thought she was going to cry.

"You never had cold like this. You never had rain like this. You never had wind like this,"she shouted. "I guess I went on the wrong pilgrimage."She walked off more quickly into the storm, at war with the weather, like Shakespeare's King Lear. I followed, feeling like Lear's Fool, with my head down, holding my hat.

Published by Don Weiss (henrodon@gmail.com) -- All rights reserved. You may read this electronic copy on the web or print it out for private reading but no part may be sold or included in any work for sale except for short excerpts used for review purposes.All photographs and maps are likewise copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission except for private, non-commercial use. Updated February 2, 1999.