Kakemono

It was a great many years ago, but the stone Jizō stands there yet, just on the edge of the woods beyond the rice-fields. The blue cotton bib around his neck is new, the odd little piles of stones that balance on his shoulders, cuddle in his arms, or lie around his feet are larger, for kindly hearts have passed by since then, to pick up a stone and carry it to Jizō, who helps the souls of the little dead children crying naked on the banks of the Sai-no-Kawara, because the old hag Shozuka-no-Baba has taken their clothes away, and will not let them pass over into the happy land beyond, but keeps them piling stones on the banks of the Buddhist Styx, and crying bitterly.

And Jizō sits there by the roadside still, the same benevolent smile on his shaven face, still holding the pilgrim’s staff with its metal rings in one hand, and the jewel which brings all wisdom in the other. Only he has no nose. He lost it thirty years ago, the day little Dicky James came running up the road, his new hatchet clutched in his hand.

Now Dicky was the son of a missionary, and he had been brought up on good books and Sunday schools, and the night before he had been taken to hear the wonderful experiences of a “brother” from China, who had filled his little head full of “glorious martyrdom,” “sinful heathen,” “the overthrowing of idols,” and “the abomination of desolation,” which Dicky didn’t understand but thought meant the long stretch of muddy rice-fields down beyond Negishi. And that put Jizō into his head. And besides, there was the new hatchet.

All the morning he had played Red Indians, until, in an access of realism, he had almost brained the baby. The threatened loss of his hatchet and the great idea that was working in his head made him quiet and subdued all through dinner.

He was sorry about baby, “poor little martyr,” as his mother called her; and the idea grew and grew. Why shouldn’t he be a martyr too, and return to his family covered with glory? Then the thought of Jizō jumped into his head. He would go out, like the “brother” from China, into the “abomination of desolation,” and “overturn the idol” of the “sinful heathen.” Or, at least, if he couldn’t overturn it, the new hatchet would cut off its head, and Dicky’s fingers itched to try. He had no idea martyrdom was so interesting.

So, dinner over, Dicky seized his hatchet, and started off, away from the settlement, across the canal, up by the racecourse, and down the hill towards Negishi. Here he took to the shore, to avoid complications in the village; for Dicky was used to showing his Christian superiority by cuffing the heads of the heathen, and the boys of Negishi were his particular enemies. So the tide being out he kept to the shore until he was past the village, and the long stretch of rice-fields, nothing but solid ponds of black mud, each surrounded by a little, low, mud bank, came into sight.

“The abomination of desolation,” said Dicky.

And it did look like it. He went on along the narrow path towards the hills, with the wide stretch of muddy ponds on each side of him. They dwindled away gradually as Dicky went up the valley, dwindled away until they only looked like a kind of mud river running between the green hills. And there beyond the last one, on the edge of the hill, was Jizō. Jizō, with his broad smile and his funny little bib.

Dicky looked about him nervously; the great moment had come. No, there was no one in the rice-fields, and no one coming after him from the village; and Jizō’s smile was tempting. Up went the little hatchet and smash down with all Dicky’s strength. But Jizō’s head did not roll in the dust, as it ought to have done, so Dicky tried again. He was getting excited now. It was so beautiful to feel his dear hatchet coming down smash, smash, smash, and to know he was doing the “good work” at the same time.

Smash, smash! This time something had smashed, and Jizō’s stone nose lay at his feet. Dicky stooped to pick it up, exultant, and in the momentary pause heard angry voices among the fields, and feet coming swiftly up the road behind him. Then Dicky forgot all about “martyrdom” and ran as fast as he could go, across the bank of the rice-field in front of him, up the hill beyond, his hatchet clutched in one hand, and Jizō’s stone nose in the other.

It was the rice-field that saved him, because the men had to go round, but their shouts brought out the village, and the sight of Jizō, noseless, sent all the angry “heathen” up the hill in chase. I do not think they would have hurt him if they had caught him, for the Japanese are not fanatical, and they are very kind to children.

It was just this feeling that made them so angry now. To think that any one could injure Jizō; Jizō the friend of those in trouble, the comforter of women in travail, and the keeper of the baby souls crying naked on the dark banks of the Sai-no-Kawara. I do not think they would have hurt Dicky, but the whole village came out to see, and the men and boys ran up the hills around shouting:

“Nan des ka? Nan des ka? What is it? What is it?”

And Dicky in his terror ran until his little legs gave way under him, and panting he threw himself on the ground under the trees.

The shouts had died away a long while, and it was growing dark in the wood before Dicky stirred. It was darker still when at last he crept cautiously down the hill and over the rice-fields towards the stone statue of Jizō. He was very tired now, and very hungry, but the memory of the angry voices calling after him in the hills made him afraid to go back through the village, and by this time the tide was up. So Dicky sat down by the side of Jizō in the growing darkness and waited. And all his nurse’s stories of Jizō and the little children came into his mind. He looked up at Jizō, smiling still his large benevolent smile, and crept nearer.

It was quite dark that evening when they found Dicky, his head peacefully laid to sleep on Jizō’s feet, utterly worn out with the pangs and the excitement of his martyrdom, his little hatchet fallen on the ground, but one grubby fist fast clutching something that even in his sleep he held tight.

But Dicky’s taste for martyrdom had gone, and once, to his father’s horror, he was heard to declare that he “wished he was a heathen because he would like to say his prayers to Jizō.”

In the deepest depths of his pocket, next to his clasp-knife and his favourite ally taw, there lived for many years a small stone object that he sometimes took out and looked at when he was quite alone. And Dicky had serious doubts at times about the goodness of the martyrs, and the sinfulness of the heathen, while his ideas on idols underwent a radical change.

It is thirty years ago now. But the legend of the noseless Jizō and his fight with the Onigo (the devil in the shape of a child) is still told in the villages around Negishi.

The other day Richard heard it himself.