Kuchinotsu: Arima's Christian Port

Kuchinotsu was the port of the Arima lords, west of Arima, the capital of the Takaku lands.¹ Ōmura Sumitada persuaded his brother, who ruled there, to open it to the Portuguese on the same terms as Yokoseura.¹⁰¹¹Br Luís de Almeida lodged with the town's governor, an acquaintance, who was baptized with his whole family a few days later.¹²Within weeks several hundred people had been baptized.¹²¹¹Fr Gaspar Vilela founded a church there in 1563.¹³

After the destruction of Yokoseura in 1564, Fr Cosme de Torres moved to the town, which became his headquarters for the rest of his life.¹³¹⁴That October the lord was reported as saying that "the port of Kuchinotsu was entirely Christian (there are about four hundred and fifty neophytes there)".¹⁴Easter 1566 there was the first Christian feast kept with solemn ceremony in Japan.¹⁵The first recorded Portuguese ship to call, under the nobleman Tristão Vaz da Veiga, arrived in 1567, and its coming drew Ōmura Sumitada to visit Torres at the port.¹⁶¹³

For years Kuchinotsu was the usual base of the mission's leaders.²Fr Francisco Cabral dated many of his letters to Rome there during his years as superior, between 1571 and 1580.²When new Jesuits arrived, the Christians of the town swam out and waded neck-deep to greet them, kissed their hands and bowed to the ground.¹⁷On St John's Day in June 1576, three Jesuits landed from Macao, and that year Almeida, working through a daily fever, baptized 8,000 people in less than four months.¹⁸The lord, Arima Yoshisada, sent there for the brother when he resolved to be baptized.¹⁸

After the lord's death his heir ordered the Christians back to the old gods, but the Christians of Kuchinotsu threatened to leave in a body, and a Jesuit was allowed to return.¹⁹Every Christian there, man and boy, sent word that they would stay Christian or go into exile.²⁰On July 25, 1579, Fr Alessandro Valignano first set foot in Japan at the port, aboard a ship commanded by Leonel de Brito.²¹Because pirates blocked the sea route to Bungo, the visitor called all the Fathers except those at Miyako to a consultation in the town.²²Portuguese ships still came at times, as in 1583, when a storm drove Captain André Feio there.²³

Half a league from Kuchinotsu, a high rock in the sea called Iua held a cave shrine that had drawn pilgrims for some three hundred years.³⁴It was reached by a narrow plank bridge hung on chains over a precipice.³When the old lord Dom Andrés was baptized, the monks hid their best images and books in the cave and broke the way in.²⁴In 1582 the Vice-Provincial, with Christians and the local lord, restored the bridge and found nearly a hundred statues.²⁵²⁴The stone images were broken, the wooden ones and the books burned, and the boys of the catechism dragged the smaller statues through the streets of the town.²⁶²⁵In those years new converts usually brought their own idols to be broken or burned before the church.²⁶

When persecution came, the Christians of Kuchinotsu answered as one.⁵Asked by the lord to name the leaders of the resistance, the town replied that in faith all were equal, and that the names of the leaders could not be sent "otherwise than by sending the names of all" (translated).⁵Almost every woman had a garment ready in which to be crucified, and many had signed in blood a promise to die for the faith.²⁷

In 1614 the town was governed by three Christian elders.²⁸Hasegawa Sahyōe threatened them with cut fingers and toes, branded foreheads, and the enslaving of their wives and children, with the young women sent to the brothels of Kyoto.²⁹He also promised freedom from taxes and great trading ships if they would only say that they renounced the faith.²⁹In reply the elders sent the governor a sheet signed by 112 heads of families, who would rather suffer torture or death.²⁹³⁰A hundred had signed in their own blood, and when four hundred more were allowed to swear, some burned their own flesh to test their courage.³¹³²

Late in November 1614 Hasegawa Sahyōe came to Kuchinotsu with more than a thousand soldiers and executioners, and the judge Mamiya Gonzaemon sailed over from Arima.⁶⁷Most families had already sent their wives and daughters to the mountains.⁷At dawn about seventy men, most of them heads of households, gathered at the site of the Jesuit church that the apostate lord had pulled down, carrying ropes to be bound with.³³³⁴Soldiers ringed the cemetery three deep, and the judge sat on a raised tomb while the Christians knelt and held out their ropes.³⁵They were called in five at a time, in the order of the list.³⁵

The Korean Peter Jinkurō, who had no house of his own, begged his host to name him head of the household so that he could be enrolled.³⁶Under torture his shoulder was split by a sword, and his head was cleft when he refused to renounce.³⁷Victims were hung face down under a stone so heavy that four men could hardly lift it.³⁸Others lost all twenty fingers and toes in eight blows, were branded on the forehead with a cross, or had their knee tendons cut.³⁹The elder Thomas Araki hung nearly two hours under the stone, strengthened by the memory of two martyrs hung head down for two days at Hakata, and he survived.⁴⁰⁴¹Peter Ichizaemon, who walked with a stick on ulcerated legs, told a woman, "my faith does not limp as my foot does" (translated).⁴²

George Akahoshi Tarobyoe, one of the three most famous swordsmen of Higo, came from Nagasaki to share their fate.⁴³He told the soldiers sent for him that he could easily kill four or five of them, but that Christ had taught him to defend the faith with his life.⁴⁴He was beheaded with his own sword as a mark of honour.⁴⁴

More than twenty Christians died on the spot or of their wounds, and the place became a venerated sanctuary.⁴⁵⁴⁶Some lingered for weeks, and Louis Hisazumi died in January 1615.⁴⁷⁴⁸Three of the tortured were still alive months later, among them Barnabas, born in Japan of a Chinese father, who had long served in the Jesuits' house.⁴⁹⁵⁰Later rebuked for his cruelty, the judge said he had acted on purpose to keep the victims few, since plain beheading would have cost the whole population.⁵¹

In the 1620s Kuchinotsu sheltered the head of the Jesuits in Japan.⁸Fr Francisco Pacheco, Provincial from 1622 and administrator of the diocese, chose the town because it was a seaside place convenient for messengers.⁸⁵²He lived there for about four years in the house of the brothers Mancio and Matthias Araki.⁵²⁵³A Bengali renegade in the lord's service betrayed him to the commander of Shimabara.⁵⁴In the winter of 1625 to 1626, three hundred soldiers surrounded the town and seized the Provincial with his companions, his hosts and their wives.⁵⁵⁵⁶

The town's magistrates declared the hosts innocent, said that they themselves had given the priests to hide, and offered to be bound in their place, but they were sent away.⁵⁷⁵⁸Three Christians were beheaded on the spot for their faith alone.⁵⁸⁵⁹One of them, Louis Akita, had once been an officer of the admiral Konishi Yukinaga.⁶⁰The Provincial was shut in a dungeon in the fortress of Shimabara.⁵⁶The town's long resistance broke in 1627: when six branded confessors were brought home the people knelt for their blessing, but the next morning, seeing them tied naked to stakes in the snow, almost the whole town gave way.⁶¹

Kuchinotsu was drawn into the great uprising from its first days.⁹After the rebels killed the deputy Hayashi, they sent a circular from village to village, south to the port and north to Arie, calling on all to rise, and the villages agreed.⁹The domain warehouse at the port alone held 5,000 koku of rice, and the rebels took all of it.⁶²