Hidden Christian Women

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.

Vertical scroll, with a manuscript document mounted & inlaid on modern fine paper, entitled “Ko Kirishitan” 古切支丹 [“Classic Christians”].

Scroll (document: 302 x 423 mm.; scroll: 1120 x 540 mm.), fine silk-brocade boards, wooden core roller. Dewa Province: early Edo, copied after 1674.

“The principal decisions against Christianity were made in the years around 1614-1615…They had their origins in a number of political, economic, and administrative considerations. Uppermost among these was the bakufu’s need to know that samurai, and especially daimyo, believers would have no higher loyalty than the one they bore their Tokugawa overlord…An edict of 1614 again order[ed] all Christian missionaries out of the country. This marked the start of a general persecution. Now too began measures requiring all residents in Tokugawa-held territories to register as parishioners of Buddhist temples…In the mid-1680s, this directive was made nationwide and annual.”–Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: 2000), pp. 76-77.

This interesting document provides details of the lives of two secretly Christian women, Natsu 奈川 and her daughter Meme 免々. As residents of Tokugawa-controlled Iizuka village, Murayama gun county, Dewa province, in northern Japan, Meme and Natsu were persecuted. Meme died of natural causes at the age of 13 in October 1633 and was buried in the graveyard of the temple Tokimune Nanzenji in Teppō chō in Yamagata, Dewa province.

Natsu, the wife of the farmer Yoichiro, was registered as a Buddhist in 1647 in the “Kirishitan Shumon Cho” ledger maintained at the local temple. However, she clearly lived secretly as a Christian, and her deceit led to her imprisonment. She died on 28 November 1674 at the age of 68.

Fine condition, with some careful repairs. Preserved in an oldish wooden box.

Price: $3,950.00

Item ID: 11044