Courtesy of Paulo de Cunha donation, Fundação Abel e João de Lacerda, Museu do Caramulo
The final portrayal of black men, however, is Africans wearing the higher-quality dandified clothing and shoes characteristic of the wealthy Portuguese. A lacquered writing box created by the Rin School of art is one example of this representation, and shows clearly that not all Africans were slaves or indentured workers; the man portrayed here is quite clearly rich and prosperous. He is a very tall and powerful-looking bald man, dressed in luxurious garb, a short cape casually draped upon one arm, and wearing silk slippers. Hanging from his waist are two European-style swords, one on either side of his body. From his great height, he is talking down to a Portuguese merchant and there are two young black boys in evidence. One boy is dressed in expensive-looking Portuguese clothing, carrying a stringed instrument, and the other in Japanese clothes, clearly a servant, carries the merchant’s cloak.
This is all evidence of a particular fascination the Japanese of the era had for markedly dark skin as evidenced by the public reaction—and Nobunaga’s forthcoming extreme favor toward Yasuke. The Portuguese merchant Jorge Alvarez once noted the Japanese would “travel fifteen leagues to see [black men] and would entertain them for three or four days.” Africans were rare but became very respected, and indeed popular, in Japan.
* * *
The proof, if needed, was now in Kyoto.
The notion of perhaps exploiting Yasuke’s exoticism to help draw spectators to the holy spectacle of relics and divine singing had clearly turned on Valignano. Crowd management, in whatever form he’d planned or expected, was quickly revealed to be impossible. There were too many people. And they kept coming. The initial flock of several hundred had already doubled in only a few blocks.
The Japanese explicitly relished anything exotic and new and nothing as exotic as this outrageous procession had occurred in Kyoto for centuries. Here, on a morning where tens of thousands of tourists were drinking and looking for something different to see, were Jesuits from the semifabled lands of the south, choirs singing in strange tongues, children dressed as angels and a giant with black skin.
But getting only a look, for any crowd this size, is rarely enough. They tore at Yasuke’s clothes and scratched his skin with gnarled peasant nails. One fearless woman reached out, shouting in joy, to yank away a piece of clothing as he passed. Not from hatred, but some odd form of affection mixed with a primeval trophy hunting; the urge for a souvenir of the moment when she’d crossed paths with the real live Daikokuten—the “black god of prosperity.”
Their march through town had grown into a genuine riot. Thousands of people now. Mostly those seeking the unique experience of partaking in a riot. They had little idea, or care, for why they were actually rioting, or who they were pursuing. For most, the chase itself was enough. The shouting and shouldering each other as one corporeal “happening.” The laughter and vulgarity and cheers. The spilled drinks and toppled food carts. The random punches and playful pokes. Some even breaking into genuine tears of excitement, while only those few at the very front truly knew who or what they were chasing.
Yasuke. Running mere steps ahead of the pressing mob of thousands. Running, by all later accounts, for his life. If he stopped, he knew they’d rip him into a thousand bloody trophies. His entourage and comrades now separated and spread over several blocks, no battle plan to follow, no orders to obey, this was surely a lone soldier’s worst nightmare.
He hurried directly behind several of Takayama’s warriors, who shouted warnings and cleared as much of a path as they could. Trying to get to their church in the center of Japan’s most crowded city, they shouted at confused bystanders and vendors; those all too easily jostled and even swept into the roiling human tsunami which followed. Deeply regretting, no doubt, that they’d left the horses at Takayama’s castle and decided to walk the last stretch for a more humble arrival.
The assigned guards, thankfully, soldiered on and kept at least the senior Jesuits from serious harm. Through the heaving streets and narrow alleys, past gilt shrines and walled temples. The shouts and murmurs of seven then eight hundred then thousands, the mob’s sound engulfed the regular city clamor of temple bells, chanting priests, merchant chatter, vendors hawking their wares, workshops, musicians, dancers and street entertainers. Shoving past those on foot, the procession drove aside porters with frames on their backs, peddlers with wheeled carts or tenbin poles draped over their shoulders, and the alms bowls of begging monks. All went flying, their owners groaning or shouting out with anger and despair. Those wealthy few carried within their two-man curtained, lacquered, bamboo-curtained palanquins found their vehicles crushed against the sides of the streets, their carriers holding on for dear life.
Trailing along this violent line, now spread over several blocks, were the rest of the entourage. Valignano, the other priests and brothers, accompanying samurai, servants and choir boys. Mixed and lost within the ever-growing throng. The Europeans’ outlandish garb and unwashed stale whiff, which normally allowed them a wide berth, was ignored by the ecstatic crush of those hemming them in—each of them secretly relieved that Yasuke, alone, had become the crowd’s primary focus.
The next side street spilled into a shrine courtyard and the head of the maelstrom, Yasuke, as well as a Takayama warrior and a teenage acolyte, burst through, the brief moment of open air giving the African warrior’s powerful legs and arms room to really work before a new flood of onlookers crushed close.
The rear of the shrine was walled with a flimsy-looking bamboo fence. It was either burst through the fence or be pulled apart by the crowd. Yasuke hoped it was as weak as it looked, kept his head down and smashed through the fence. The aged wood gave way in a shower of splinters and he was through. Yasuke charged onward, willing himself to be smaller, invisible, not so foreign-looking and obvious. In India, he’d encountered cities which seemed unending, alleys filled with people and animals. He’d fancied these Indian cities to have the most people he’d ever see in one place in his whole life.
With each frantic step he took in Kyoto, he was not so sure that was true anymore.
Kyoto had been the capital of Japan for almost a thousand years, and it had been among the largest, and most crowded, cities in the entire world. Before the hundred years of war, up to a half million people had thrived and labored in the city, a commercial metropolis larger than London, Paris, Moscow or medieval Rome. It was divided into two sections: the upper city to the north which was the province of the rich, powerful, divine and holy, and the lower city which was home to everyone else and where Yasuke now ran for his life.
When the African warrior arrived, the city was still recovering from the civil wars, during which it had been routinely fought over and often torched by the most powerful families and clans of the realm. With each round of destruction, more residents fled to other towns, or perished as “collateral damage” or as citizen members of the militias. By 1581, the population had reached around one hundred thousand again, its people coming from all over Japan and of all classes: laborers, artisans, samurai, beggars, aristocrats, hardened bandits, stoneworkers, blacksmiths, carpenters, dancers, weavers, pimps, tofu makers, cloth dyers, cooks, palanquin bearers, gunsmiths, prostitutes, diviners, sake brewers, soil carriers, doctors, moneylenders, water vendors, spies, apothecaries, entertainers, hawkers of locally manufactured goods and purveyors of fine wares such as ivory imported from as far away as Africa.
In a teeming mass, men and women peddled snacks, pickles, water, sake, sacred charms, dancing monkeys, brewed tea, dried fish, noodles, vegetables, tofu, sex, chirping cicadas in woven bamboo leaf cages, ear cleaning services, song birds and blessings through the streets. A more established merchant could invite patrons into his, or her, emporium where they might purchase polished rice, guns, swords, fine tea, lacquerware, fans, swords, silk products, clothes, wild animals, salt, oil, tools and implements for eve
rything from carpentry to the tea ceremony, and singular delicacies, rarities and artwork from China, Luzon, Korea, Siberia, Siam and the far northern reaches of the realm and beyond. The upper class and better sort of merchant were gradually reestablishing their households here as Lord Nobunaga consolidated power and restored stability. Their money brought economic renewal and Kyoto had again become a magnet for high-class exotic consumables from abroad, particularly silk, art and medicine.
While out-of-work laborers and recent immigrants begged for alms and lay sprawled on street corners, business was booming, especially construction. Old guilds were thriving again. Artisans and laborers had rebuilt Kyoto block by block, its buildings walled with pine, plaster, bamboo and paper, and roofed with ceramic tiles for the rich and wood shingles for the less well off.
Most Japanese towns of any size were either merchant or warrior cities. The capital of each domain, where a lord based his army and court, provided a ready market to attract merchants and service providers. The towns grew fat on the stipends of their warrior consumers. Modern-day Tokyo and Nagoya are good examples of this type of city. Merchant-run cities, such as Sakai (now all but swallowed by Osaka), were dominated by business cliques which served whole regions with services and products—but Kyoto was the exception.
Kyoto was a city built not for war or commerce, but for political and religious power. Home to the emperor and his spiritual influence and, for much of Japanese history, home of secular governments too. In an age when there was a very fine line, if any, between religion and politics, the two went hand in hand and attracted everyone regardless of faction or sect. Pure Land Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon Buddhism, Zen, Shinto. A Catholic church. Kyoto’s countless temples and shrines drew in hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, priests and studying acolytes. And its manors with their carefully manicured gardens once again housed Japan’s aristocracy, senior samurai and diplomatic players.
Despite the city’s recent renaissance, entire blocks once inhabited by sprawling estates remained barren and scarred. Vacant plots lay burned or blighted, with nothing more than the overgrown foundations of ancient mansions and once-venerable temples. Shoots of recovery were visible in land reclaimed by squatting smallholders or shanties. Lower Kyoto, aside from a few vast temple compounds, was ranged in blocks and consisted of mostly small buildings hedging in the streets and alleys, shops and houses wedged together with narrow frontages, enough for the doorway and perhaps a display of wares, no more. (Once inside, the buildings remained narrow but ran straight back quite a way to accommodate trade and living space.) Each block had gates which could be locked at night for security, and the well-organized residents’ committees kept the streets and communal facilities such as toilets and wells in good order.
While not yet again the metropolis it had once been, Kyoto’s proud inhabitants still believed their city was the center of the world, culturally and intellectually superior. It was a place of civilization and wonder, where people of quality from all across the empire appeared, national spectacles took place, and even the occasional Korean merchant, Chinese monk or southern islander garbed in exotic colorful attire could be found. It was a place well established and secure in its national prominence. And visitors like Valignano and Yasuke only confirmed its importance.
* * *
As they ran through the streets, Kyoto’s only Catholic mission, a tall pagoda-shaped building, appeared above the many canted roofs. Yasuke could finally see their goal, maybe only two or three blocks to the church now. Over the surrounding roofs, reedy tendrils of black smoke lifted from workshops making everything from ironware to sake. Yasuke, heaving from his run, at last inhaled properly and noticed, then tasted, the bitter odor of charcoal smoke from stoves, bath houses and forges as he fought to grab a quick breath.
Another two blocks and the Catholic church fully appeared before them.
Dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, Mary, and built only four years before with donations from Takayama Ukon and other wealthy local Catholics, it stood above the neighboring buildings, a substantial three-floored structure, richly decorated in the Japanese manner, roofed in grey clay kawara tiles with gently curving gables. Nothing at all like a European church or any of those built in Portuguese enclaves around the world. It had been built in a Japanese style deliberately to make potential converts feel more comfortable and to best integrate into the rest of Kyoto.
The Jesuit Church in Kyoto by Kano Soshu, c. 1578–87.
Courtesy of Kobe City Museum.
To the atypical church’s left was a large rice market where merchants traded from busy tables and carts. As Yasuke and the others entered the square, the crowd trailing closely behind, everyone in the market turned to see what the commotion was about. By the time Yasuke reached the compound which surrounded the church, the roar of the throng swept over the whole block.
Several burly Japanese guards in service to the Jesuits stood waiting at the doorway. “Kochira!” (Over here!), a Takayama warrior in the lead shouted, waving the entourage ahead, his whole face and shaved pate shiny with sweat from exertion and fear. Yasuke and the others squeezed through the opening, then stumbled across the wide courtyard to the main building. Several attendants from inside the church had already rushed to the compound door and helped drop the bars into place. The pursued, slowing down, hurried from the side door, past outbuildings and deeper into the church compound to the central tabernacle.
The interior was in shadow, a stark contrast to the bright sun outside—some light entered through the wood lattice and paper windows and a few wax candles in silver candlesticks, looking oddly out of place in this otherwise Japanese-style building. The far end of the matted room was dominated by the altar, and a simple crucifix, and while the ceiling was not as high as a church’s normally was, it was high enough even for Yasuke to stand up straight, a rarity in the last two years. Yasuke knew there were no real fortifications to help keep the clamoring crowd at bay, only a thin wooden wall topped with tiles. The gold rendering of Christ on the cross, forming the backdrop to the altar, stared down at them all, deep eyes full of compassion for their plight, starry in the fluttering candlelight. He would have to be their protection now. Yasuke perhaps dropped to his knees for a quick prayer of deliverance. By now, the rest of the party—those trapped farther back—had successfully pushed through the crowd and gotten into the compound also.
The superior of the Kyoto mission, Father Gnecchi Organtino, appeared. He was a thin, long-bearded European of maybe fifty, who calmly delivered orders as outside, the noise of the ever-growing mob hit the doors and walls around the courtyard, like something solid slamming against the bracings. The tatami on the church floor visibly quivered from the energy of the gathered horde, now numbering in the thousands.
Several Jesuit brothers and six more lay brothers appeared from various shadowed coves and raised walkways. Many of the Jesuits could not help first eyeing Yasuke’s enormous size with the same curiosity as the crowd outside even as they rushed to help hold the compound gates.
As the first stones fell over the walls, a shout of “Shutters!” came in Japanese and the wooden doors of the ground-floor windows were slid firmly closed. Others ran to those compound doors yet to be attacked, racing to prop several long benches and a pair of low tables against them.
Yasuke was no doubt frightened. Trapped, having allowed himself to be so cornered. The church was not built for siege, and the continued rocking of the outer walls and the sound of more and more roofing tiles being hit by stones and other missiles hinted the structure would not last long under sustained assult. Also, forbidden to carry weapons, not one of the missionaries was armed.
“We heard the sounds of people wounded by stones,” Fróis recorded later. “And, others dying.”
The outer wall started to give and planks split in two, several gleeful faces shifted and pushed into the gap, searching for a glance of
their quarry. More rocks thudded against the front walls. Something crashed upstairs, a rock hitting one of the windows, and then the lattice exploded into splinters. Outside, the crowd was unevenly chanting both to be let in and to let “him,” Yasuke, out.
“Everyone agreed that if we displayed the man, we could earn eight to ten thousand cruzados (Portuguese currency, and a huge amount of money—about a third of the mission budget for a year) in a short time,” joked Fróis later in his letters to Rome.
Outside, in front of the church compound, the mob stood shoulder to shoulder, spilling into adjoining alleys, and into the rice market—kids were on parents’ shoulders for safety and old people, less able to keep themselves upright, were being trodden underfoot.
Then, suddenly, the crowd was moving away from the church. And quickly too. Staggering, stumbling to escape. A second stampede began as half a dozen cavalry and a dozen lightly armed foot soldiers marched slowly into the center of the mob. The mounted soldiers parted the crowd with wooden staves, beating men and women alike. Their clothes bore the Oda mokkou crest, a black flower blooming with five dark petals, each petal lined in gold; the crest of Lord Nobunaga’s clan, the Oda.
The Oda soldiers shouted at those they passed, their words lost beneath the murmur of a retreating mob and the occasional scream of protest and agony as a staff hit home. Their horses pushed bodies aside, and human feet clad in straw sandals kicked out at any who got too close. Soon all that was left in the marketplace and around the walls were a few sorry trampled bodies. The silence was palpable, but shortly fists were again pounding at the church compound door. But they were different this time, somehow more assertive. Official.
This time, it was Nobunaga’s men.
Father Valignano and the other priests and brothers, their hearts still thumping, pulled themselves together, stood straight and assembled by the splintered gate, fingers laced together as if in prayer. Yasuke waited too. What else could this horrendous day bring?
Yasuke: In Search of the African Samurai Page 11