Bear scare

Here's hoping that history doesn't repeat itself on Japan's most northerly island

Local residents of remote Rishiri Island found footprints on May 30 of a suspected brown bear on their shoreline, reports the Mainichi Shinbun. As a result, adds NHK, participants in a round-the-island race had to run their course festooned with bear-bells.

The brown bear "captured" on Rishiri in May 1912
(Photo courtesy of Rishiri town's board of education
and Mainichi Shinbun)

It's unlikely, though, that the bear - judging from its paw-print, a young male - was seeking out runners to eat. Instead, it was probably searching for a mate, this being the breeding season for brown bears.

To patrons of this blog, Rishiri is of interest as the island-peak that heads up the list of Fukada Kyūya's One Hundred Mountains of Japan. Hyakumeizan readers will already know that bears - or at least some of them - are capable of swimming the twenty or so kilometres between the Hokkaidō mainland and Rishiri, since the book tells us:

The island is too far from the mainland to harbour vipers or other snakes. Nor are there bears, unusually for a mountain of Hokkaidō. A brush fire at Teshio on the opposite shore did once prompt a bear to swim over the strait and take up temporary residence, but it has left no trace. Perhaps it swam back to the mainland.

The Mainichi article puts the kibosh on the latter speculation. In fact, says the newspaper, the bear that swam to Rishiri in May 1912 was "captured", as confirmed by the above photo provided by the island's educational authority. Alas, though, even that wording garnishes the truth. For - as Project Hyakumeizan can confirm from a personal inspection of the island's history book - the Meiji-era bear ended up being peppered full of shot by local hunters.

Let's hope that, this time, the lovelorn bear really can swim back to the mainland. Or, at the very least, travel back first-class on the ferry after being suitably tranquillised.

Related story

The last bear?

Women who devour the earth

The Hawaiian eruption highlights parallels between two powerful volcanic deities

Again, the New York Times demonstrates its unfailingness. Tuesday’s edition documents how the ongoing eruptions on Kilauea have prompted an upsurge in reverence for Madame Pele, Hawaii’s goddess of volcanoes. Now this is a topic that cannot fail to rivet the attention of any aspirant meizanologist.

Pele: painting by Herb Kane
at the Hawaii Volcanoes NP Visitor Center
Photo via flickr, courtesy Prayitno

Pele, also known as “the woman who devours the earth”, has been worshipped for centuries in the Native Hawaiian culture. And respect for the deity is growing, even though – or because – lava from her favourite volcano is currently devouring forests, houses and even a power station. According to the NYT, a retired schoolteacher who lost her home described it as “an offering for Pele”.

To folks who live underneath one, rites and oblations to appease a volcano have always made sense. In medieval Japan, such ceremonies were raised to a fine art. During Mt Fuji’s ninth-century eruptions, the authorities offered the Great God Asama a more commodious shrine (in what is now Fujinomiya). Then, in 859, they promoted him to the senior grade of the third court rank. And when that didn’t placate him, they censured the governor of Kai for neglecting the proper rituals and demanded an apology on the god’s behalf.

At that time, the deity of Mt Fuji was most definitely a guy. But, in later centuries, his role was taken over by a goddess, Konohanasakuya-hime, the Princess of the Flowering Cherry Tree. How this transgendering happened need not detain us; what’s interesting here are the obvious parallels between the Princess and Madame Pele.

Both deities are rather senior in their respective pantheons. “We believe in 40,000 gods, but Pele is in the highest echelon for obvious reasons,” says a hula teacher and lecturer on Hawaiian culture quoted in the NYT, adding that “Pele created Hawaii; she is that primordial force that exists within all landmasses. And she can be vengeful, so watch out.”

Konosakuya: Princess of the Flowering Cherry Tree
Nihonga painting by Dōmoto Inshō

For her part, Konosakuya is the wife of the god Ninigi (I’m relying on the usual online references here). Ninigi we’ve met before on this blog, as the deity who came down to earth on Takachiho, a volcano in Kyūshū, and founded the imperial line.

Like Pele, however, the Princess had to endure a troubled marriage, which may account for her volatile temperament. For she too can be somewhat vengeful: legend has her kicking over hapless Yatsu-ga-take because the older volcano had once presumed to be taller than Mt Fuji.

Intriguingly, Pele is said to be a shape-shifter who can easily appear in human form: “If you see her hitchhiking, pick her up. If you have a bottle of gin, even better. Pele, like her descendants, likes a little mischief,” suggests a Hawaiian evacuee, quoted in the NYT, who is waiting to see if the lava flow destroys her home.

This advice reminds me of an autumnal excursion to Mt Fuji. The official climbing season was long over; nobody was about. While sheltering from the bitter wind behind a boulder, we were overtaken by a little old lady, who was trotting up the mountain carrying a white shopping bag in each hand. As all the huts were closed, we couldn't imagine where she might be heading. And, since we weren't able to catch her up, we never found out.

You know, after reading that Times article, I rather regret that I didn’t immediately rush after her and offer to carry those shopping bags.

References

New York Times, "Madame Pele, Hawaii’s Goddess of Volcanoes, Awes Those Living in Lava’s Path", 21 May 2018 (print)

Shizuoka-Yamanashi Joint Council for Mount Fuji World Cultural Heritage Registration, Mt Fuji: the Wellspring of our Faith and Arts, Shogakukan, 2009

Reading Mt Fuji (2)

Review continued: revisiting the dancing maidens in a Mt Fuji anthology

Browsing through Chuo University’s new anthology of classical writing on Mt Fuji – as reviewed in the previous post – Project Hyakumeizan was delighted to find a translation of the Heian-era Record of Mt Fuji (Fujisanki). Indeed, this is probably the first full translation of the Record directly from the classical Japanese.

The dancing maidens of Mt Fuji: a modern rendition
Source: http://toki.moo.jp/gaten/gatten/401-450/gate448/gate448.html

It was in this essay that the scholar and statesman Miyako no Yoshika (834-879) gave the earliest known detailed description of Mt Fuji’s crater – suggesting that, by this time, somebody had actually climbed the mountain. Or at least had sent a drone up there to take a look.

Part of this essay’s charm is that it promiscuously mixes the natural and what we would call the supernatural. On the one hand, there are details that any Fuji climber will recognise: “The mountain is covered in white sand, which easily crumbles, making it nigh impossible for those wishing to ascend its peak to get beyond the base of this mountain.”

On the other hand, we read of a mysterious jewel tumbling down its slopes. And of a mystical apparition on the fifth day of the eleventh month of the seventeenth year of Jōgan (875):

The officials and people were celebrating a festival in accordance with an ancient rite when, as the day wore on towards noon, the sky cleared wonderfully. Looking up towards the mountain, they saw how two beautiful maidens robed in white were dancing above the summit, seemingly a foot or more above it. Several local people saw it; a very old man passed on the tale.

Miyako no Yoshika’s account obviously made an impression on those who came after him. In the same anthology is an excerpt from a diary of a Journey to the Eastern Lands (Tōkan Kikō), completed around 1242. The anonymous fifty-year old traveller gazes up at Mt Fuji from the Bay of Tago and notices that its peak stands out blue against the heavens.

Then he recalls the legend of the maidens dancing on the summit and composes a deft tanka:

Those white clouds drifting in the wind
Over the peak of Mount Fuji
Look like the sleeves of some heavenly maiden.

Alas, we modern mountaineers are too literal-minded. All we see when we look up at the summit are plumes of spindrift blown out by that fearsome Mt Fuji wind. But a browse through this anthology can fix that, by reminding us how the mountain was seen in past centuries.

The Bay of Tago, according to a note under the diary excerpt quoted above, corresponds to the southern parts of present-day Fuji City. I wonder if anybody has ever seen the dancing maidens from there.

Reading Mt Fuji (1)

Review: a new collection of classical writing about Japan’s top mountain.

“Reading works of literature dealing with Mt Fuji is thus essential for understanding the Japanese spirit.” Prefacing a new anthology about Japan’s top mountain, this statement strikes one as remarkably bold. Yet the claim might almost be justified, so compelling is the collection of classical poetry and prose that it introduces.

The Literature of Mt Fuji: Japanese Classical Literature is published by Chuo University. Owing to the generosity of the university and whichever government agency sponsored it, the text can be downloaded for free.

An especially big hand here for Columbia University’s Kristopher Lee Reeves and Ngo Vu Nhat Phuong, who did the fairly direct yet fluent English translations. These are presented with the original Japanese texts on facing pages. Thanks, guys!

The collection consists of poems and prose about Mt Fuji from the eighth-century Man’yōshū through to the seventeenth-century haiku poet, Bashō. Selections are arranged chronologically, within three thematic chapters. This helps readers to trace out the ways in which later writers echo and develop the thoughts of their predecessors.

For instance, here is Monk Saigyō’s famous waka, composed while travelling on a pilgrimage to the eastern provinces in about 1186:

風になびく富士の煙の空にきえてゆくへも知らぬわが思ひかな

kaze ni nabiku / fuji no keburi no / sora ni kiete / yukue mo shiranu / waga omoi kana

Just as smoke drifts on the winds over Mount Fuji
Only to vanish – whither no one knows –
So, too, does my soul wander on

A century later, the widowed Lady Nijō alludes to the same poem when she ponders the vanity of life:

How futile that that all these thoughts should be piled onto one like me who must vanish without a trace. Now, when the smoke atop Mt Fuji can no longer be seen, I wonder what – if anything – could be blown by the wind.

Saigyo contemplating Mt Fuji, painting by Hara Zaizen, c.18

The tone is not everywhere so elevated. We have a Saikaku (1642-1693) character dissing a former wife because she took an upturned bowl for a model of Mt Fuji. There is inept mensuration – “If I were to compare this with the mountains we have in the capital, I would say it is as large as twenty Mount Hiei’s piled atop one another, while its shape is something like one of those little mounds made for drying salt” (Ise Monogatari).

And there is the most shameless flattery, straight from some medieval politburo: “So brilliantly shimmered the peak! One could not help but think the God of Mount Fuji had come to wait upon the majestic presence of our lord, the Shogun” (Procession to Mt Fuji). Indeed, what’s striking about this anthology is the sheer medley of different voices. On this evidence, the Japanese spirit must be uproariously diverse.

Or, as the Hyakumeizan author put it, “Mt Fuji is there for everyone…” You could say the same about this anthology. As the introduction explains, the bilingual presentation was intended “to assist the teaching of works of classical Japanese literature in English”. But the ample and informative notes (again, thanks!) will help both literary scholars and general readers.

For meizanologists, this volume comes along like a proverbial London bus – you wait and wait, and then three roll up together. For years, it seemed, Mt Fuji lacked any English-language write-ups other than a hiking guidebook and some photo collections.

Then, all of a sudden, as if catalysed by the volcano’s accession to world heritage status, along came H Byron Earhart’s magisterial Mount Fuji: Icon of Japan and the Shizuoka-Yamanashi Joint Council’s Mt Fuji: The Wellspring of our Faith and Arts, complete with a foreword by former prime minister, Nakasone Yasuhiro.

And now, as if to complete a triple whammy, here comes this excellent literary anthology. By the way, Chuo University, how about following up with a second collection, to sample the Mt Fuji literature from the eighteenth century to the present? That too would be well worth waiting for.

Tripling the hundred mountain challenge

Korea and Taiwan too have honour rolls of their favourite one hundred summits.

If any yama-holic is reading this, perhaps sit down and pour yourself a stiff drink. Climbing the one hundred mountains of Japan is challenge enough, especially if you go about it by fair means. But what if you then set out to scale the hundred mountains of Korea? And, after that, the matching set in Taiwan?

Winter landscape (detail) by Sesshu

Turns out that mountain lists have been proliferating all over northeast Asia. Korea’s one hundred mountains were compiled in 2002 by the country’s Forest Service, a government agency, presumably to promote tourism. But a hiking organisation and a mountain goods company have put together other lists.

Understandably, the mountains in the official Korean list are all in South Korea. And most appear to be of modest stature. That can't be helped. For the sad fact is that all of the Korean mountains that top out above 2,000 metres – about one hundred of them – stand in the northern half of the peninsula.

The noises emanating from Panmunjon this week were encouraging. If they lead to an outbreak of peace, it might one day be possible to compile and climb a unified one hundred mountains of the Korean peninsula. Until then, however, the highest one, Mt Paektu, will be bestridden by the Supreme Leader alone.

While waiting for North Korea to open up, yama-holics would do well to consider the one hundred mountains of Taiwan. This list, like Japan’s Hyakumeizan, is completely unofficial. It was put together in the 1970s by a group of prominent Taiwanese mountaineers.

Known as the Baiyue (百嶽), the one hundred peaks are selected from among Taiwan’s roster of 260 peaks that top 3,000 metres. Actually, two of them turned out after a re-survey, to come in slightly under that height, but they kept their place in the list on the merit of their other qualities.

That’s an important point: the Baiyue are by no means all among the highest hundred mountains in Taiwan. Instead, they excel for their aesthetic qualities, including uniqueness, danger, beauty and prominence. This too makes them kith and kin to the Nihon Hyakumeizan, as curated in the late 1950s and early 1960s by a repurposed novelist.

The Hyakumeizan author, Fukada Kyūya, chose his mountains for their character, history and "extraordinary distinctiveness". And he would include a mountain only if he had climbed it himself. Height was a secondary consideration; ideally, a "Meizan" should top 1,500 metres, but two in the list - Tsukuba and Kaimon – do not.

The Nihon Hyakumeizan originated as a magazine series commissioned by Ohmori Hisao, then a young editor and today a doyen of Japan’s mountain literary scene. Later, the articles were collected into a book. Only then did the notion of actually climbing all these mountains take hold with the mountaineering public.

In Korea and Taiwan, things happened the other way round. The lists arrived first, and it may be that the definitive books about their one hundred mountains have yet to be written. But that’s OK too. As Thoreau said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

You know, the same might be said for the idea of actually climbing them all. Yama-holics, remember you read it here first ...

Images and ink (38)

Image: Mountain birch grove on Yake-dake, photo by Alpine Light & Structure

Ink: From the poem "Mountain woods" by Takamura Kōtarō, translated by Hiroaki Sato:

The framework of Japan, not any other country,
 exists sternly in mountain woods. 
Our country's reason for being in the world
must be based on this framework. 
Maple branches are burning in the hearth. 
Today I talked with a charcoal burner about dairy farming. 
May rain falls ceaselessly, 
in the quiet village which has finished rice-planting 
cuckoos are making chordal dots. 
The past is remote, and so is the future.

Brief idyll

How a visit to Kamikōchi, with some help from Mr and Mrs Weston, brought together two Taishō-era artists

Takamura Kotaro and Chieko

Readers of Nihon Hyakumeizan encounter the sculptor Takamura Kōtarō and his wife Chieko in Chapter 21. A poem by Takamura portrays the artist couple sitting on the slopes of Adatara-yama, a 1,700-metre mountain in Fukushima Prefecture. There’s hardly a hint in the Hyakumeizan chapter of the sad trajectory of Chieko’s life, which Takamura would later immortalise in a series of poems.

It turns out that mountains had earlier helped to bring Takamura and Chieko together. The story of their visit to Kamikōchi in the Japan Alps is described in a prose memoir of Chieko’s life that Takamura wrote two years after his bereavement. While staying in that mountain valley, the couple met several luminaries of Japan’s mountaineering and artistic scene, as Takamura records...

It was Chieko's pure, single-minded love that finally pulled me out of my go-for-broke mood of decadence and saved me. For the two months of August and September in the second year of Taishō, I stayed at the Shimizu-ya in Kamikōchi, Shinshu, and made fifty to sixty oil paintings for the Seikatsusha's exhibition that I held with Kishida Ryusei, Kimura Sohachi, and others at the Venus Club in Kanda that fall.

In those days, anybody who wanted to go to Kamikōchi used to start from Shimajima, go through Iwanadome, and over the Tokugō Pass; it was quite a distance. During that summer, staying in the same inn were Kubota Utsubo and Ibaragi Inokichi, as well as Mr and Mrs Weston who had just come to climb Hodaka.

View of Kamikochi, woodprint by Yoshida Hiroshi

As September began, Chieko came to visit me with painting materials. When notified of this, I went over the Tokugō Pass to meet her at Iwanadome. Leaving her luggage to her guide, she had climbed lightly dressed. The mountain people were surprised at what a good walker she was. I guided her, again crossing the Tokugō Pass, this time with her, to Shimizu-ya.

Her joy at the scenery in Kamikōchi was great. From then on we walked around, making drawings, with me carrying our art supplies on my shoulders. At the time she appeared to have some minor problem with her pleurae, but while on the mountains it didn't develop into anything serious. It was then that I saw her paintings for the first time. She had a considerably subjective view of nature that was in a way unique, and I thought that it would be interesting if she grew to be great.

Kamikochi was used as a pasture for horses and cattle from 1885 to 1934.

I painted everything I observed: Hodaka, Myōjin, Yaketake, Kasumizawa, Roppyakutake, the Azusa River. Even in her sickbed in later years Chieko would look at one of the self-portraits I did at the time. Once the Westons asked me if Chieko was my younger sister or my wife. When I said she was a friend of mine, they smiled with some incredulity.

Bridge over the Azusa River

If the Westons and the Takamuras had sought to change the subject, they might have talked about the bulls. In those days, cattle and horses were grazed at Kamikōchi over the summer. In The Playground of the Far East, Walter Weston describes how he and Mrs Weston met a "fierce monster" during their evening walk, which they escaped only by dashing for cover in different directions. Something similar happened to the Takamuras. The incident is recorded in one of the Chieko poems:

Ah, you are so frightened because
You saw what just passed
Like a spectre,
thundering through those black pines,
an avalanche in this zone of deep silence,
now completely gone,
that cattle herd on a mad run....

Soon, unfortunately, the couple had more to worry about than stampeding cows. Kōtarō takes up the story again:

About that time, with the headline "Love on the Mountain", a newspaper in Tokyo wrote with exaggeration about the two of us in Kamikōchi. It had probably expanded on a rumor from someone who had gone down the mountain. The article again grated on the nerves of our families.

Autumn scene in Kamikochi

On the first of October all of us on the mountain went down to Shimajima. The magnificence of the yellow leaves of the katsura trees that filled the bosom of the mountain at the Tokugō Pass was unforgettable. Chieko, too, often recalled it and talked about it.

The newspaper article worried Takamura’s parents, with the result that, a year later, he asked them to let him marry Chieko. This they did, allowing the couple to set up a household in Takamura's atelier. And after that, he records, "for a very long stretch of time we lived in poverty".

References

A brief history of imbecility: poetry and prose of Takamura Kōtarō, translated by Hiroaki Sato, University of Hawaii Press. All quotations in italics are translations by Hiroaki Sato.

Photos of the bridge and the horses grazing at Kamikochi are by courtesy of the Chubu Regional Forestry Office.