Emperor of Japan

by Donald Keene

  The only disturbing events during the next few years were eclipses of the sun and moon, which regularly caused a suspension of all court events. Kōmei attended performances of bugaku and nō in the palace, gazed at the moon at appropriate times, and attended various rites and gatherings. Almost every one of his acts occurred on the prescribed day, the same day each year. Scarcely a personal matter except for a rare illness appears in the pages of the official chronicle. Outside the Gosho, fires and floods destroyed houses and bridges, and the emperor responded to each calamity by ordering prayers for the welfare of his people to be offered at the major shrines.

  The increasingly frequent appearance of foreign ships in Japanese waters caused consternation, but the most that Kōmei could do in response to the threat was to send messengers to the usual seven shrines and seven temples with instructions to pray for peace.

  Moments of happiness also appear in the official chronicle, as when Kōmei’s consort put on a maternity belt, followed two months later by the birth of his first child, a daughter. Thirteen days later a son was born to a concubine, but mother and infant died the same day, the first example of what became a familiar pattern of births and deaths in the imperial family during Kōmei’s reign. The fact that this son’s mother was not the emperor’s consort did not diminish the importance of his birth, nor did it lessen the emperor’s disappointment over his death, but he lived for so short a time that the usual command to show respect for the dead by abstaining from making noise within the capital was not issued.23

  The record of the events of the early years of Kōmei’s reign is hardly engrossing, but every so often the reader’s knowledge of later events lends interest to a seemingly matter-of-fact statement. For example, the entry for August 8, 1851, states that the emperor sent a messenger to Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (1835–1895) informing him of his consent to the marriage of his sister, Princess Kazunomiya (1846–1877), to the prince.24 She was only five at the time, and the marriage arrangement was based solely on dynastic considerations; but ten years later, when the shogun asked for her hand, this engagement would present a serious obstacle.

  Again, the official record for October 15, 1851, states laconically that a prince was born.25 Without prior knowledge of who was born on this day, it would take considerable reading in the pages that follow the bare announcement to realize that the newly born prince was the future emperor Meiji.

  Chapter 2

  The Record of the Emperor Kōmei supplies minimal information on the birth of the future emperor Meiji, but the Record of the Emperor Meiji is extraordinarily detailed from the moment when the gon no tenji, Nakayama Yoshiko (1835–1907), felt labor pains, beginning about eight in the morning.

  At once Yoshiko’s father, the acting major counselor Nakayama Tadayasu (1809–1888), sprang into action. In the hour of the serpent (9 to 11 A.M.) he sent for three court physicians and a midwife, who appeared promptly. He also informed in writing Chancellor Takatsukasa Masamichi (1789–1868), the court spokesmen (gisō),1 and the military liaison officers (buke densō)2 of the impending birth of an imperial child. Messages were relayed at once to other affected men and women officials in the palace. The baby was born about noon, halfway through the hour of the horse. Messages were again sent out. Emperor Kōmei received word while he was sitting in the north garden of his residential palace, admiring the chrysanthemums in the flower beds and drinking saké before lunch. It is reported that when he heard the news of the birth of a son, he looked exceptionally pleased and drank a considerable quantity of saké.3

  No sooner was the prince born than he and the placenta were wrapped in a ukeginu, a square piece of white lined silk. After the birth of the prince had been announced, all fires in the Nakayama house were extinguished. They were relit with fire taken from the house of Kawabata Dōki (1835–1902), a merchant whose family had for many years been the official purveyors of rice cakes to the palace. The extinguishing of household fires was probably in keeping with the belief that even fire was polluted by being in the same house where a birth had occurred. It is curious that the new fire came from a merchant’s house rather than from a shrine or the monastic retreat of some member of the imperial family, but the Kawabata family had enjoyed special status ever since the late Muromachi period, and fire from their house, known for its purity, was used in the palace kitchens.

  Before the birth, Nakayama Tadayasu had borrowed safe-delivery charms from various auspicious temples and individuals. He was now able to return them with thanks and presents. A court lady sent by the emperor to inspect the prince left with him a protective dagger and a sleeved coverlet (kaimaki). The baby would receive many other presents that though traditional, may appear bizarre to contemporary readers. First, however, was the ceremony of cutting, binding, and cauterizing the umbilical cord.4 The placenta was washed and placed in an earthenware vessel which, in turn, was placed in a bucket of unpainted wood, wrapped in white silk, and displayed on a stand in the next room along with a pair of knives, two blue stones, and two dried sardines.5 In front of them a lamp was kept burning day and night, and a screen was placed around them. The wooden bucket was decorated with designs in white paste showing pines, bamboos, cranes, and tortoises but not plum blossoms (usually associated with pines and bamboos in artistic compositions) because plum blossoms fall, an inauspicious association.

  After the umbilical cord had been cut, the baby was given his first bath. In keeping with the old custom, the water had been drawn from the Kamo River and was mixed with well water. For the next few days, until the baby was given swaddling clothes, he was dressed in an undershirt and a sleeveless coat. His bedding was laid on a katataka (a thick tatami that has been sliced in half on the bias, leaving one end much higher than the other) in the main room of the little house where he was born. A pillow was placed at the high end of the tatami to the east or to the south, and it was guarded by two papier-māché dogs facing each other. Between the two dogs were placed sixteen articles of cosmetics. Behind them was a stand on which the “protective dagger” the prince had received was placed along with an amagatsu doll6 also wrapped in white silk but with red silk pasted to the ends of its arms and its feet. In the tokonoma (alcove for hanging paintings) was another stand on which were placed two buckets of unpainted wood with designs in white. In one was a packet of rice and two silken cords looped into rosettes, and in the other were three blue stones and two hardheads.7 The grains of rice were wrapped in paper flecked with silver foil, and every time the prince was moved from one spot to another, these ornamental grains of rice were scattered to dispel evil spirits. The white silken cords were each about twelve feet long. Each time the prince sneezed, from the moment of his birth until his seventh night, a knot was made in a cord; it was believed that the more he sneezed, the longer he would live. To the east of his bedding stood two clothes racks, both draped with sashes of red and black silk flecked with gold leaf. At first, these were the only touches of color in the room. In accordance with custom, the baby’s clothes were white, decorated also in white with the usual felicitous designs of pines, bamboo, cranes, and tortoises. On the 101st day after the birth, the white would be replaced with colors.

  In the meantime, word was sent to Tsuchimikado Hareo (1827–1869), the chief of the Department of Yin-Yang, requesting him to appear as soon as possible. Before any major decision was made or after any important occurrence, an expert in yin-yang divination was summoned to interpret its meaning or prescribe the course of action to be taken. Tsuchimikado’s family were hereditary diviners for the imperial family, and their recommendations were always given great weight. When Nakayama Yoshiko’s delivery was approaching, Hareo had given elaborate instructions as to the direction in which the accouchement should take place, depending on the day of the month it actually occurred.

  There had been a scare when Yoshiko had run a high fever in her fifth month of pregnancy, but she had survived the danger to give birth safely. All the same, no chances could be taken at this stag
e, and Hareo’s advice was urgently needed. Unfortunately, he lived at some distance from the palace, and by the time he arrived the baby was already being fed. Hareo nevertheless gave the customary instructions exactly as if he had arrived on time: he announced how the umbilical cord should be cut, the bath prepared, and the baby washed. He gave supplemental instructions for removing the fetal hair, putting the baby in swaddling clothes, burying the placenta, and so on. The instructions were mainly for form’s sake, since most of his prescriptions had already been implemented. One matter remained to be decided, the site for burying the placenta. For reasons of direction, Tsuchimikado chose the Yoshida Shrine, east of the city. The approval of the palace was needed, and a messenger was sent. By the time approval was received, it was already dark.

  Meanwhile, Nakayama Tadayasu and his son Tadanaru (1832–1882) had reported to the military liaison officers that they had been polluted by the birth. Tadayasu reported this also to his colleagues at the palace offices where he worked. This, too, was for form’s sake. Far from being distressed by the pollution he had suffered, Tadayasu was ecstatic, as we can gather from his poem:

  ama terasu How marvelous that

  kami no mi-mago wo Today I rejoice, thinking,

  ware ya to no The holy grandson

  mono to yorokobu Of the gods that shine in heaven

  kyō no ayashiki Is none other than my own!

  The poem, though devoid of literary merit, perfectly expressed Tadayasu’s sentiments.

  Every conscious act performed during the following days followed the prescriptions of a yin-yang diviner, but these were not the sole considerations. On the seventh day after the infant’s birth, Tadayasu had a yin-yang diviner purify the chamber in which the birth had taken place. The official seventh-night service was about to be conducted when someone realized that it was exactly 100 nights since Princess Yoriko, the infant’s elder sister, had died, so the ceremony was postponed to the following night.

  The burial of the placenta was the next major consideration. This ritual generally took place within a day or two after the birth. Even before the baby was born, Nakayama Tadayasu had dug two holes in his property, but Tsuchimikado decided that neither was auspicious. His interpretation of geomantic signs led him to prefer the Yoshida Shrine, but in any case, the burial could not be carried out immediately. The three days after the birth belonged to the doyō period when digging in the earth was avoided for fear of a curse. The day after doyō ended, there was a change of season, also an unpropitious time for digging. Muikadare, the sixth day after the birth, when the infant’s downy hair was shaved and a name was bestowed, was also avoided, and the following day was the anniversary of Princess Yoriko’s death. Each of these events precluded the possibility of digging a hole in the ground, even though a team of men had already scouted the precincts of the shrine and decided on the proper spot. The burial of the placenta finally took place ten days after Meiji was born.

  As yet Kōmei had not laid eyes on his newly born son. We can imagine how eagerly he was awaiting the moment, but tradition was more important than the claims of paternal affection. Not until thirty days after the prince’s birth was he taken to the palace to see his father. Before he set out, a white line was drawn across the hairline of his forehead, then dotted with mascara. Under it was written in rouge the character for dog, an example of protective magic. Nakayama Yoshiko, the infant’s mother, carrying him in her arms, made the journey (a few hundred yards) in a palanquin. She took with her the special gifts she had received when first she put on a maternity belt and, later, when she had given birth.

  The palanquin set out for the palace about eleven in the morning. Two men cleared the way, and another ten attendants also preceded the palanquin which was borne by eight men. Four officers in formal attire walked beside the palanquin. Two court physicians and a majordomo, dressed in court costumes, followed. Other men, all wearing linen jackets, drew up the rear, and various dignitaries walked separately from the procession. If these people had been in the least desirous of arriving promptly at the palace, the journey from Nakayama’s house should not have taken more than ten minutes, but the procession followed the incredibly roundabout route prescribed by a yin-yang diviner. When they finally arrived, the emperor was waiting in his private apartments with his consort. They both gave dolls to the baby. The baby responded by presenting 100 pieces of gold and a box of fresh fish for the palace sanctuary (naishidokoro) and gifts of ten quires of fine paper, seaweed, dried bream, and a barrel of saké for the emperor. Other gifts followed. Then the infant declared that he wished to take up residence in his mother’s apartments. His great-grandmother, Tadayasu’s mother, moved there to serve him day and night.8

  At the end of the year, Tadayasu followed the Kyōto custom of a baby’s maternal grandfather giving him as his first New Year presents a buriburi and a gitchō. A buriburi, made of wood and shaped like a melon, was covered with auspicious drawings of cranes and tortoises and the like. Those with wheels were pulled with a string. The gitchō, also of wood, was about two feet long and shaped like a mallet. Two wooden balls went with the gitchō. These two items invariably were presented together as typical New Year gifts. Although they were originally toys, children were no longer allowed to play with them, perhaps because they had become too costly.

  The presents given to the baby prince, who by this time had acquired the name Sachinomiya (Prince Sachi), and those given in return were more or less the same kind of gifts that were exchanged in moderately affluent households in Kyōto at that time. Money was also given, but compared with the presents with which contemporary royal families in Europe feted the birth of their offspring, the celebration was austere.

  Sachinomiya also received dolls and toys, gifts more appropriate for a baby. From this time on, every milestone in Sachinomiya’s development was carefully recorded—his first use of chopsticks, his first sitting with crossed legs, his first experience of mosquito netting. The peaceful atmosphere in the palace did not last long, however. Six months later, in July 1853, an American fleet commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived in Japanese waters with the demand that documents brought from Washington be delivered to the Japanese government, the initial step in the process of opening the country after the long era of seclusion.

  Perry’s fleet first appeared in Japanese waters at dusk on May 26, 1853, when his ships entered the port of Naha in the Ryūkyū Islands. The political status of the Ryūkyūs was difficult for the Americans to understand. The islands were tributary to both the Japanese (more specifically, to the Satsuma domain) and the Chinese but had a king of their own. British, French, and American ships had been calling at the islands since the early years of the century, although they were forbidden to enter ports in the main islands of Japan. Up to now the foreign ships had generally appeared one at a time, but Perry’s fleet boasted five. Perry went ashore and proceeded to the Okinawan capital, Shuri, where he rented a house. Satisfied with his negotiations, he presented the islanders with agricultural tools and vegetable seeds and, in return, was given firewood, water, and food. The island had been all but opened to foreign ships.

  Perry’s fleet also visited the Ogasawara (or Bonin) Islands, whose only inhabitants were some thirty people of mixed ancestry—English, American, Portuguese, and Hawaiian. Perry purchased a tract of land on the main island from the American settlers, intending to build an office, a pier, and a coaling station. This accomplished, he returned to Naha preparatory to sailing to his main objective, Japan.

  None of these events was known in Kyōto, where life in the palace continued unruffled. On the fifth day of the fifth month, the little prince celebrated his first Boys’ Day. The traditional streamers were flown in his honor, and he was presented with martial toys—a helmet and a spear. He was now living in his grandfather’s house, and Kōmei, not having seen the prince in some time, was eager for another visit. The doctors he consulted were cautious, estimating that the best time for a visit would not b
e until after the boy’s birthday in the ninth month. However, if the emperor desired to see his son sooner, this was also permissible, providing he avoided the extreme heat of the sixth and seventh months.9 When Nakayama Tadayasu’s opinion was asked, he replied that Sachinomiya was exceptionally healthy. He was seen regularly by doctors, and they rarely found anything wrong with him. There was no reason why a meeting could not take place immediately. Accordingly, the boy was sent to the palace that day and was given playthings by the emperor and his consort.

  Three days later, on July 8, 1853, Perry’s fleet of four vessels entered the fortified harbor of Uraga, not far from Edo. An officer of the Uraga magistracy, Nakajima Saburōsuke, and the interpreter Hori Tatsunosuke10 proceeded to the Susquehanna, Perry’s flagship. At first the Americans would not let the Japanese aboard, but after Hori had negotiated (in English) with the officers, they were permitted to board the ship, where they displayed the order that all foreign ships calling at Japanese ports must be expelled. Perry (who did not meet the Japanese) sent word through his second in command that he had brought a letter from the president of the United States requesting a trade treaty but that he could show this document only to a high-ranking Japanese official.

  The following day Kayama Eizaemon, another officer of the magistracy pretending to be the magistrate himself, visited the American ship. He did not see Perry but instead the captain of the ship, Buchanan, and two other officers and informed them that Uraga was not a place where foreigners could be received, that state documents could not be accepted, and that the ships should proceed to Nagasaki. Buchanan replied that unless the Japanese government appointed a suitable official to receive the document, Perry would land, by force if necessary, and present the document to the shogun himself. Kayama promised to report this to the shogunate and to give a reply in three days.