torted Sanscrit sounds.

.THE CATALPA BOW

lmli'll.lT:, llliTj: oXd n?,?d,:..u.1{ of perenniar perirr"*:, T. f *::,u,::,:: H ;. *'r,ii ri,ri" i.fi ̂ t,ff: J;illil*tj:,^?r_,:? ,ho* .these disasters may be u'#ff." il;::i.H:, T: hu, simpry gi"." iil ;il,. ;riilJ 'i,1;,,1"1l"* i::t_T:l: pl:*in.n.". ,r."" i"r*l;;;"id #il"il.fiill?*l1 ll-. 11 las robbed,h. ;;ii'-ffiffi '"ffi:l

*:::tt ::,iT.'"* lJ...s!, ;il;ffiff ,l'i,l,ilH; ;fr:f:,.:l."yith .his shel, r.i, iro"_ri"g.J #;

""."i,r" ji

Mountain Oracles

\\'hen Mr Percival Lowell climbed Mt Ontake in Augustrliqr he found himself, at a spot just above the eighth sta$!,rlrc astonished witness of 'certain esoteric phenomena whichtrrrned out to be as unknown as they were peculiar'. Threeyoups men dressed in the white attire of the Ontake pilgrim\v(:retngaged in fervent prayer before a small shrine. Onerlren seated himself with his back to the shrine, his eyes, losed, and his hands clutching a gohei wand. A second mantlrt:ed him intoning formulae, 'tying his fingers into mystickrrotS accompanying each act with a gutteral grunt:;rr{gestive of intense exertion'. The third man stood andrvatched.

The man with the wand soon began to twitch convul-sively, every moment with increasing violence, until atl,,ngih he appeared to be in 'the full fury of a seemingly,uperhuman paroxism'. The throe subsided, giving place to;L iontinuorrt lt.*or, like a top when it settles at the apex ofits spin. The other man, in an archaic and reverent form of,peech, asked lvhat deity had descended' 'I am Hakkai',rire entlanced man replied. The interrogator then asked a

series of questions; what was the weather like at the summitof the mountain, how was the health of those at home, whatwould be the outcome of their pilgrimage ? To all thesecluestions the god replied briefly. At the end of the catechismtire medium was thumped smartly on the back until he

Opened his eyes, 'like one awaking from a profound sleep'.The trio then changed places. The interrogator moved

into the seat of the medium, the onlooker took the place of

the interrogator, while the medium retired to the post of

onlooker. The whole ritual was then repeated with scarcelyany variation; a similar entrancement, interview and

awakening.Once more the three men changed places, each now

taking up the position he had not yet occupied, and for a

thirdiirne the ritual was enacted. The party then put on their

rs d$-

'THE CATALPA BO\4I MOUNTAIN ORACLES

l)anoply of the mountain pilgrim, for the slopes of its destinedsummit. If its numbers are small, all the members may go.If unmanageably large, then lots may be drawn as to whoshall have the privilege. All are similarly attired: whitetrousers and jacket, with mystic signs stamped in red andlrlack on the back, a large conical straw hat, rosary, straw.sarrdals on the feet, and the long wooden pole called kon'

,gogue, on which may be branded the names of the mountainsthat its owner has climbed. These are the figures who maystill be seen in their thousands converging on the foothills oftheir mountains and wending their wLY, some lithely, somelaboriously, to the most holy spot on the summit.

All likewise boast a leader, usually known as sendatsrz. He itis who shepherds the flock up the ten stages which mark theroute to the summit, who decides where they shall sleep,supervises their worship at the sundry holy spots on the wvY,who leads the chorus of chanting by which they ease thepains and fatigues of their climb. He should combine, there-[bre, the qualities of scoutmaster, courier and mountainguide.

The ka dedicated to the worship of Mt Ontake however,differ in their traditional structure from the kA to be foundon the slopes of any other mountain.a In the first place theypossess among their officers the persons necessary to theconduct of ayorigitd sdance. Most prominent is the medium,known as naka<a or 'between seat'. Like the medium in thevillage oracles, he is usually an ordinary man with no pro-fessional pretensions, who has developed his powers oftrance through a rigorous course of g2o. He is brought to hisstate of trance by the maeza or 'front seat'. Like the inter-rogator in the village ritual, he summons the deity into themedium's body, questions him and eventually sends himaway. It is he who usually also fulfils the duties of sendatsufor the group, shepherding, supervising, paternally ad-monishing. Occasionally it is the nakaza who undertakesthese extra tasks, and occasionally, again, a third personwho plays no part in the ritual of the siance.

Four more figures make up the complement of officers ofthe Ontake ko. These are the shiten, named after the FourKings of Buddhist iconography, whose duty it is to mount

straw hats, seized their long lvooden poles and continuedtheir journey up rhe mouniain. Mr Lowe[ r"nr.q"".,tiyencountered them at various spots on the summit ..,gu.g"iil ul exactly similar ritual. Thl next day, having visitid".llthe shrines on the various volcanic peaks ..,d on the edge ofthe various volc.anic lakes, !h.y b"g"n theirjourney down themountain and back to their homes 35o miies away. Most ofthis distance they accomprished on fJJt, and while they *.r.on the mountain_they ati nothing and clrank onry ouater.,

The esoteric phenomena which so impressed Mr Lowell,and which afterwards stimurated. him to undertake furtherresearches into t\. trance practices of Japan,z were thelame yorigit| rituals which we saw iq the last chapter per-formed in village tcmpres and shrines. Here, though thecircumstances ur. ro*"*hat different, the uuri" procedure isthe same: a deity is called into the body of a medium andcajoled.-t9 speak. But the scance now comes,

^ot as a sea-

sonal village festival but as an cvent in a mountain pil-qrjmage. In order ro comnunicate with thc deity it.faithful must now climb the mountain where he resides. Norare the faitMul confined^to o particular vilagc or group of.villages. Believers in the ontake cult arc usual"ly members ofthc ko or pilgrim clubs, whose white-clad bands are insummer so prominent on the slopes of holy mountains.

These ,ta clubs can be found uil orr., Japan, dedicated toIt :*o:r{p of notable holy mountain* oi r.l.brated shrines.iVIt Fuji, Mt Hag-uro, Tatiyama, Akibasan, S.g.;i d;;;and Yudonosan all have their k6,which like cintake came froma-ll

.over J3pur, to- pay them ho*ug.. Likewise th" gr.utshrines of rse and Izumo have been since medieval times theobject of widespread ftd'worship.a

In their numbers and distiibution these ,ta clubs varyconsiderably. Some, scarcery larger than a family .or,..rr1consist of a mere dozen people; others may boast severalhundred members. some are confined to one village or toone particular quarter of a city; others may spread overseveral

'illages, or straggre over severar wards of a city. Alr,

however, have in .o--on the dedication to the yearrypilgrimage. once a year, between the middle of Jrrry aodthe middle of september, the crub will set out, in the full

sBo

THE CATALPA BOW

ilfr1-i:,:1?:iiiilfiLff::i: during the rituar and preventThe question at once pr.r.r,t, itser{ how did the onhkckd come to possess this iecuriar ,rr".r".". i lvrry did they,and no ko dediclr:g ,g any-othe, *r;;;;ir,, u..o*. urro"i_ated with the.l,,rigitd rituar',and why dJ ci"rrke, arone of altthe holy mountailrr, b.com. tt. ,..r,. orlin ,eur,ces ?5The history of the mo*ntain to r;;;;;;ent suppries theanswer. During the eighteenth .."r".y,

"ii'possibly earrier.the Kiso valrey at the "foot

of th. *o,'iil;;", inhabited bvenclaves of ascetics known ^

aaio.rr..r" *.r.urri.d out anannual ascent of Mt ontake, i" -irr.

j;;;. sixth month,preceded by u period of exceptiona[y ,;;;;. secrusion andpurgation' For as

-long as seventy-firr" duyr, in some caseseven a hundred days-before

Jh.: ;ilb;-fi. ascetics wererequired to isolate themselv", f.o* ,t. .i--unity in segre_gated huts. There they .oot.a their "r"-*"rgre food on aseparate Rure-lre, avoiding

4 i."i, ilrr, n""Itry and strongvegetables, and perfor*.t frequent cold water austeritiesand long sessions or *r.,t.. chanting. only after thisdauntingry rong period of rituar clcansing were they con-sidered fit to r.ifoot

"., ,rr. r.rry ground of the mountain.6For the rest of th. y.ut-rt.y mixed ;o;Ii""ely with thcvillage communities in ,f*

".ff.y., pgrforming for them thetasks usuarly expected of an ur.gii.. p;";;llr among theirmethods was theT origita ttr;;i. This ;ht;;;rd perform onrequest in private ho.rr.r, summoning

""d questioningdeities assoiiated with il.' mountain_OrTdriten, Marishit.n-ir,ro ti. body of u. *.d1:1it

Daijin,man known as ichi.

____ ""*/ s4 4 rrlcqtum, a youngTor,r'ards the end of the eighteenth century a notablechange in the guJt of ttr. ,rro.rntain *u, urr"ght about bytwo ascetics, Kakumei and r'rur,. E;;h l;;redited r'ithhaving brazed a new trail to the summit. Kakumei is said tohave opened the route from the v'rag;;iK^;awa in t785,Fukan to have done ,rr. **" L yru* Iater for the route onthe southern side of the

-r""oin f.o,,' ,r.. l."rret of oaa*.Through the influence .irlr."*.ir;;;;i.,ittug.,

in thevalley modified, their .ig;;; r,rl. .oi ,.rr*ry_nve da),s ofpreliminary seclusion to"a-;;. renient tweniy-sevcn days.

zBz

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

'"fhe ascent of the mountain thus became possible for manypeople to whom the prospect of two-and-a-half lunarmonths of isolation had proved too daunting. There quicklylormed round the two ascetic figures a number of ko, dedi-cated, as had been the older groups, to a yearly ritual ascentof the mountain. Into the activities of these fto- there naturallycrept other survivals from the former groups of d0ja, promi-nent among which was the practice of 2origit6. The kAtherefore counted among their members a medium and anascetic who, in the course of the annual ascent as well as atthe club's meetings during the rest of the year, wouldsummon the deities of the mountain and cause them tospeak. The tradition of the sCance, thus started, has persistedcver since.

Today Ontake kd are to be found in almost every provinceof Japan. From Aomori to Kyflshfl white-clad partiesconverge during the two climbing months on the little townof Kiso Fukushima at the foot of the mountain, and proceed upthe lower forested slopes by one of the two recognised routes.

Many ko have recently relaxed the strictness of disciplinetraditional to the Ontake cult. One which preserves the oldways more scrupulously than most, and provides us thereforewith a useful example of former procedure, is the k0 in thevillage of Kurogawa in the Kiso valley. When investigatedby Ikegami in rg57 this large k0 was found to numberamong its members no less than four nakaza andfour maeza.And this despite the exceptionally sevcre gld required in thetraining of both. On thirty consecutive nights during thecoldest part of the winter, the future nakaza must repair tothe river at nine o'clock and pour buckets of icy water overhis head and body. He must spend many hours of the restof the night learning by heart, and by the light of a singlecandle, a long succession of prayers and spells. Manycandidates gave up the struggle before the five successivewinters necessary to louse their powers of trance werecompleted. A similarly severe regime of 976 was necessary totlre training of the maeza: five consecutive winters of coldrvater and abstention were likewise required before he wasable to evoke a deity and persuad.e it to speak. Both theseoffices, however, when eventually achieved, carried with

zBg

THE CATALPA BO\AI

them the posthumous title of reijin, miraculous person. Themen who had accomplished these powers were believed to beapotheosised after death, and thiir souls to dwell on theslopes of the mountain. z

Those ,td which today preserve so carefully the traditionaldisciplines of the cult are co-paratively ,ur.. some indeedhave so relaxed their former sirictness ihut they possess nonakaza at all. No one of their members is prepar.a tt undergol\. :gy.r, glo ne-cessary to cultivate the capacity for tranJe.Mr watanabe, the genial patriarch of the Mitakekyd ,sect,,into which since the beginning of the Meiji period the variousontake ko have been loosely federated.,

"ars,rr.d me when I

first climbed the mountain in rq6r that iew katoday observedthe traditional precautions of pirrity. some negtected entirelythe usual preliminary purgatiln: they failed t6 avoid i*prrr!foods and neglected the cold water ablutions. others ob-serveda merely prefunctory couple of days before setting out.The older and more detailed requireme*ts of puritf-.r,oleather to be brought on to the rnountain, sandals to be ofstraw, purses of cloth, women altogether debarred-hadlong been forgotten. As a consequence of such laxity, thepractice of trance had inevitably di-ir,irh.d.

on the three occasions when I climbed Mt ontake,however, I found no shortage of trances.s

In the woodblock print of Mt ontake which appears inthe J'{ihon Meisan 4}rt, an illustrated guidebook'to themountainous districts of Japan published in r8o7, we areshown. a lofty- soaring peak, iowering numinously andprecipitously above the streams and farmhouses huddledbelow. No rival mountain is to be seen arrywhere near.It is. a single Hqh place, endued with divine symmetry andprecipitancy, a single ladder to heaven. e

Here we see the superiority of the painting over the photo-g-tupl: A painting shows us not the bbjective appearance ofthe thing but the manner in which it ii seen uv irr. painter.The anonymous artist whose sketches became tLe woodblockprints of the guidebook sarv Mt ontake not as it actuallvappears but as the image of an ideal holy mountain. HLpainted the mountain as he conceived the other world, theabode of numina, beautiful and perilous.

zB+

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

In fact Mt Ontake, seen from a distance' has little of thc

i;;;;tr. .ttd fearful symmetry of Mt Fuji or Mt lbuki'

Its summrt ,, ,qrrui ^"d'

jagged, any symmetrical tT:i

;,;.; p;tsessed. lr.u,ring torrg ifo disapptTtq in a successlon

,,i"rfit"ic e*plosiorr.tl tftJtt hut" left a circle of five craters'

cach filled with the green waters of a lake' In height it rises to

no more than ;,l3; ilt' Like other holy mountains in

.f apan, the routJs to the summit are divided into ten stages

,r,r'gair, each marked by ^

hut where rest and refreshment

rnay be had. pro,,i'io"' to th" huts are carried up on the

lracks of portert il; as gdriki, who may be seen plodding

rrpwards bo*.i;;;" "*it' immense loads of tinned fish'

bags of rice, .;; of beer, jars of bean paste and tea' or

,loirrir,g precipitately downwards' sure of foot with empty

loads.The rccognised routes both start from hamlets in thc

f;hiih;"oi"r.i and. Kurosawa. For many miles upwards

lrom these villages the old trackway is {a3ked on either side

by curiou, .t.rri,.' of carved megaliths' Like giant chessmen'

these stones ";;

coalesce in stiange throngs and clusters'

now d.windle t;;; t"tggti"g lines' B--ut atways' until the fifth

or sixth stage i, ,.utftl, '"hty

stand as silent guides to the

directionortr'.-otaroad.Allareinscribed,inornatecharac.ters d.ug orr, oiaf,..

'lo"t, with the posthumous name' ending

in reijin,of tfre u,ttti" they "**t*orate'

These multitudes

ofstonesareinfactmemorialsof formetmaezaarrdnakala,rvho climbed th. mountain many times, led bands of faithful

to the ,,r*-ii,';;t";. now believed' to dwell, apotheosised

and available to summons, on the slopes.of the mountain'

In their ro* ,iug., uottr routes wind up through forests

of pine ^rr.a

ffioti"ti"' H,ere there are waterfalls' under

which trr. fuiitnli -uy

stand" Shintaki' for example' on the

Odaki ,orlt.,"Jrop' af*" from a height it u concentrated

jet, in front of . du'k cave futl of inscribed stones' The force

of the water o', tf" bare head' of the believer is stunning'

Three Heart Sutras, I was told' is the longest anyone may

stand it. From the sixth stage tnl tatt trees diminish into the

.crawling'varietyofpinetree,haimatsu,whichspreadsitself

like a dark green bony lichen over many acres of mountain-

side. From ,fr. "igtt'h

sttg" the trees and all other vegetation

285

fff \

THE CATALPA BO\^/

cease. The mountain rears itself steeply upwards in a barrcrrwaste of lava rocks and cinders, ihe pith punctuated atintervals by stone images of the deities of ihe mountain.Furious figures from the esoteric Buddhist pantheon, withstiffiy erect hair and.stamping feet, may be seen side by sidewith bronze shintopigs, their backs trarrsfixe dby gohei wands.

on the summit the landscape is lunar. Two ihrin.r, on.with an antlered roof, the othei and altitudinally high.r onca stone enclosure surrounding a curious thro if ,ton.iyuq:r,-are s€parated by un..i of roose white ro.fr. Beyond$e higher shrine a precipice drops down several hundredfeet to- . 9ry crater, ringed with a collar of jagged ,o.k.Beyond this, another and larger crater, filled *i*iir,. greenwaters of a lake. on this water's edge stands a hut, whert thetorp is good, and a stone image of the dragon woman.An expanse of rock and waste tand to one side-of the lake,dotted with odd piles and pyramids of stones, is calejsainokawara, the dry river bed where dead children arebelieved to_ pass centuries making little piles of stones.

As on other mountains, the weather .hor,g., with startlingsuddenness. In a moment the landscape isllotted out in awhite mist, through which loom onry the grey and, eerieoutline of rocks, pyramids of stones and the antlered roof ofthe shrine. All distant sounds are deadened. There is onlfthe flapping of .a flag placed as an offering on a nearby pileof stones, or the indrawn breath and c"lapping hands ofsomeone in prayer by the lvater's edge. A m-oment later themist clears and the mountain bursti into strong sunshine,reve-aling the jagged hills and the green lake below.

^Almos-t anywhere along the route to this summit, in front

of one of the statues or inscribed megaliths, one is liable tocome across a group of crouching white figures. In theirmidst, with his back to the statue, stiffiy sits"a man with awhite- paper wand in his hands. strange'gasps and bursts ofsound may come from his mouth, to which the crouchingfigures reverently respond. sometimes his voice is resonaniarrd booming. sometimes it is a muttered gabble, so low thatthe man facing him must put his ear cloie to his mouth tohear what is said. The wand he holds is usually quivering.Sometimes it swishes back and forth like a flug.

MOUNTAIN ORACLDS

Such a sight always betokens a\ 01a sdance' One of the

tlcities of the mountain, Ontake Daijin, Hakkaizan Daijin,

o| ofre of the dragon deities from the lake, Hakuryfrsan or

Itytjin, has been laled into the party's nakala and induced

r,r'speak. Sometimes the utterance takes the form of a dia-

l,rg,-ie. The deity is asked what weather the party should

,.x!ect during tire next stage, where they should stay the

tbliowing niglt, whether all is well with their families at

lrome. ,{ "ilLg.

kO may ask about the coming rice harvest,

or the typhoois to be expected in the early autumn' A city

ko may'ask how prices may behave in the coming month.

Sometimes, howeier, there is '.o

dialogue; the deity thanks

rhe party for having taken the trouble to come, and delivers

iL general message of benediction and advice'

Such sdances ift.o take place at night in the huts. Many

times I have lain awake in the hut by the lake, listening to

[he sounds, from the room above, of constantly repeated

trances; the swish and' flap of the medium's wand, the mur-

mur of questions, the strangled groans in-which the divine

rrnswers are d.lirrered, .ttdthe sudden sharp 5fues{5*'['',,Hyun!, ,Shin !'*with which, again and-again in the course

,rf ih. night, the medium is entranced, restored and re-

r:ntranced.The most impressive trances, however, always took place

at Kengamine, the topmost shrine' Here among the^rocks

is a storie enclosure in which stands a curious cluster of stone

images. one, with an elongated face reminiscent of the

gr..:t heads on Easter Island, another,_ said to represent

Sukunabikona, carved. with a cloak of feathers. Two or three,

more conventionally clad in the tall hat and high collar of

court dress, represented various high-ranking deities.

The rocks ai the feet of these imiges are a favourite place

for parties to hold a sdance. When Lfirst reached this place,

in tlh. early afternoon of August 7th, f found the enclosure

filled with white figures and iire cold air resounding with the

clanging of bells lnd with loud, chanting of the Hann2a

Slzini2al Silence sudd'enly fell, and I Pry that one of the

parry, a muscular young- maIL with curly hair bound round

with a white towel, had-seated himself with his back to the

feathered image, a wand, of paper streamers in his hands. In

a86 287

THE CATALPA BOW

front of him crouched. a thin and intense young man, wrr,soon burst in fierce and vibrant tones i.,to it. u*;rryoshtn-g\,, pointing his hands meanwhile in stabbing mudrasat the medium's sorar prexus. The rest of the party crouchedround with bowed heads. The wand in the medium,s handssoon began to trembre, and his eyes turnei up into his headso that only the whites showea. He then burst into jerkyspeech. Much of what he said-.was inaudibr; mumbred, butcertain passages were not d.ifficult to understand. Thedivinity seemed to be proffering rather banal advice aboutthe party's jo_urney home. 'Be-carefur "oi

," srip on thes1e9R Rlaces', r heard \im say, and 'Take extra care near theeighth stage not to get rost in-the mist'. trre ihin young man,his head bowed, -id"

deferential noises ,,-..r. as a retainermight make on receiving the behests of his rord, while thccloyching company murmured from time to time a chorusof thanks for the ad.vice vouchsafed. The muscurar mediumat Iength ceased his utterance,,only to be s.ir.d by the thin*2r, vigorously thumped on the back, jerked in it "

j"i"";and shouted at in tharp monosyllablls. Flopping ;b";;under this treatment for two or thrle minutes rike a drunkenman, the medium eventually stretched himself a"a ,,."J"p.The sdance was over. The party burst into a finar H;;;;slingyo before trooping down the rong nryr,, of ,ton" ffiand away down the mountainside.

e

Their place was soon taken by another party, whosenakaza was a littre ord man. H" *us h.rp;-;p on to a rockat the feet of one of the_images, and-hardiy *u, the wand putinto his hands than his irinkted face *u, .oovursed inwrithing contortions. His mouth twisted sideways anddownwards, his eyes arternately ,.r.*.J- tightly shut oropened staring wide so that only the whites showed. Hebegay to gasp Lut words, but so low that his foilowers had toput their ears close to his mouth to hear *r,.i r," was saying.Finally he seized lolg of a young man, pummeted himvigorously on the_back, and feil fo"rw..d'in..t. when theypulled him to his feet he seemed to h'0.,.g"i".a conscious_

ness.The following morning I warked, up to the shrine againjust before sunrise. The rfy *u, arr.udy growing light, with

zBB

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

,r band of red to the east. All round the mountain lay a sea ofrlove-grey clouds tossed up into billows and waves, out,,1'which rose, like magic islands, the darker grey forms of,rther mountain peaks. As the sun rose above the bank of, louds the crowd gathered on the summit began to chant and, lap their hands, and in a moment the scene was transformed.'t'he grey air became brilliant and golden, and the mountainislands below turned blue, layer on layer, dark blue turningpaler the higher they rose from the clouds, as though a brush,lipped in ink on one side had painted them in a single sweep.

I-turned from this enchanted view to see inside the shrine,r scene of unexampled strangeness. In the dawning light the:;torre enclosure was thronged with people, and on every rock,irr every space between the images, sat a man in a trance.'l'hese were not mediums prophesying before a grouP, as Ilrird seen the day before. They appeared to be working in

1r:rirs. Each medium had standing over him a maeza, throughwhose shouts, mantras and mudras he was brought into atrance. I counted among the rocks and stone images seven, r[ these strange pairs working simultaneously.

One pair, poised on the edge of a precipitous slope downto the lakc, was particularly remarkable. The rnaeza stood,lose to the medium, twisting his hands with ferociousirrtensity into the nine mudras known as kuji, repeating as herlid so the nine accompanying magic syllables:

Rin- b2 o- t 6 - s ha-k ai-j in-r e t su- laf-znN !,\t the last syllable his voice rose to a sharp yell, while withtrvo fingers stiffiy outstretched he made the nine strokes oftlre gate, four vertical, five horizontal, through which no,'vil influences may pass.l0 He then thrust his fingers fiercelylirrwards towards the medium's stomach in the pointed,nord mudra, shouting meanwhile in sharp grunting tonesrhe syllables 'a-uN-A-uN !' These, the first and last letters ofrhe Sanscrit alphabet, are believed to encompass betweenthem the entire universe. He then passed into the LesserSpell of Fud6:

Nomaku samanda basarada!\rrd, several times repeated, the inevitable Hannya Shingyo-

The medium, a sickly-looking young man, responded by,yowing paler and paler, turning his eyes up into his head,

eBg

THE CATALPA BOW

and shaking the wand in his hands with increasing viorence.His utterance was eventualry d.erivered in so faint a voicethat the mae<a had to put iris ear close to trr. medium,smouth in order to hear. For a minute r was witness to thestrange spectacre of severar pairs of men seemingly .h;;;;together in close embrace on ih. craggy edge of thJi.;;tpl;The message delivered, the maeza restored the mediumto consciousness by puiling his.joints, pummeiling l.il ;;;'k;pointing the sword mudra at his stomach u"a gi,rir,g;;;;

loud roars ending w'ith the single sylrable ,**. Then, withcurious casualness, they both rose, stretched themserves andstrolled uyuy- None of the ray Japar.r. .ii*bers who hadmade their way up to the rh.ini to ,.. tn.l,rnrise took theslightest notice of them.I walked back to the hut by the rake, where r soon fcl intoa dose' I was woken by strange howls and wail, .o-i.,g fto;outside, and on looking out-of the windo* ,.* a trance ofgreat violence

lakjns place by rhe side of the lake. A womanin white was flingin[ herserf io and fro on the ground, in thethroes of what seemed to be an excru.ir;t* seizure. Hervoice rose to a-strangled shriek, while *i;h;.rific violenceshe lashed and flailed the grourrd with her white wand.A young marr appeared to bJ responding to t ., ,tri.k;;;;controlling the direction of hei

-o'.lrr.r,ir. a momentlater he himself gave a loud roar, pounded her on the backand jerked herjoints.

Ii,h great f.ro.itf rr.-,r... performedthe Nine Mudras and reciila tn. u..offiu.,r,.,* syllables.A moment later the women emerg.d, q,.rfut lnd smiling asthough from a refreshing sleep.The young men

'.ext turned his attention to anotherwoman in the party. scarcely had he poirrt.J his finge; ;,her in the sword mudra trrun she gave a roud shriek andbegan to writhe t_o and fro, dashing ri., ili;.kwards andforwards and flailils tlre ground w:ith r,., *ur,a. I heard theyoung man ask, 'who is it who has come ?' but h., ..piy *^an incomprehensible scream. She then g..,r. ,.rr.rut remark-able leaps, six or seven inches into theiir from a kneelingposition, and began to splutter forth *otJr. rt. o.,ty word Icould make out was. aris-at!, repeated over and. over again,which I took to be the deity thanking tr,r puriy for rraving290

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

r orrre. After a few minutes of such violent utterance theyoung man sent the deity away with the usual thumps ontlre back. It was astonishing to see the woman, after so;rgonising an expense of energy, come to herself as though:;lre had woken up from a quiet afternoon nap.

I approached the party, which I saw to consist of theyoung man and twelve women, oddly reminiscent of awitches' coven, and enquired what deity it might be thatlrad possessed the last woman. It was difficult to tell, theyoung man replied, but it seemed to be the dragon divinityl{yujin; this was a kitsui kamisama or severe deity, who mightrvell produce violent paroxisms if the kind we had just seen.IIis own name, he informed me, was Omomo Yoshio, andlre and his party had come all the way from Niigata.

Four years later, entirely by chance, and in the samer ocky place by the lake, I met Mr Omomo again. He hadgrown so considerably in stature that I scarcely recognisedlrim. He was both taller and larger. His party too had grown.It was no longer the odd coven of twelve women, but a morer:onventionally mixed group of some two dozen people. In at:ouple of hours' time, he informed me, the party would hold;Ln rze sdance at a place near the topmost shrine calledSanjflrokudoji, the Thirty-six Boys.

At the appointed time, therefore, I made my way to theplace. It lvas a peculiarly lunar spot, set among lava rocks,rvith a precipice dropping down on one side to invisibleclepths from which tails of cloud, like volcanic smoke, keptrnysteriously rising and vanishing. To the other side lay thetlat basin of a crater, ringed round with craggy rocks, andbeyond it a second crater, with a green lake and a patch ofrunmelted snow.

Against this unearthly background the party crouched<lown among the rocks, with Mr Omomo, a wand in hishands, prominently to the fore. For several minutes theyrecited loudly. Then, suddenly and without the slightestwarning, Mr Omomo whipped round to face the party.His face was scarcely recognisable. His eyes had disap-peared into his head, and the wand in his hands swished to:rnd fro. In a resonant booming voice, and in a high literaryspeech like the language of the NO plays, he began to speak.

29r

THE CATALPA BOW

There was no dialogue, fo, there was no m,aeza to bringMr omomo into his- trance and put questions to him,Instead, the divinity addressed ,u"h *"*b,, of the ho inturn, delivering warnings and advice. one by one .u.iiman or woman approached, prostrated himself before theentranced figure and for two or three minutes received *personal message.

The voice continued to 'esound.

among the rocks f<lrnearly half an hour. rt was the longest trance I had evcrwitnessed. Eventually by ,rrurs^g, and thumping Mromomo was restored to irimserf, ind the wand was with:o-: difficulty extracted fi'om his convulsively clutchedhands.

Puzzled at first T. t9 why he shourd havc changed fronrthe role of maega, which he had performed four y.ui, before,to that of nakaza' I soon realised that in an unusuar mannerhe combined in himself both rores at once. As a medium hcwas.incomparably more majestic and powerfur than thepassive and nondescript figuies so often seen. At the sametime he was his own *otzo. He had brought himself into histrance, and was clearly the undisputed reader of the party.^ I 9"q"ired what deity ir was that had spoken fo*o long.Gakkai Reijin, he replied, a form er sendatsrz of the ontaiecult who had died some twenty years before. Nearly alwaysthe deity who possessed him was Gakkai Reijin, for with thisspirit he stood in a relation of crose affinityi Fiis first .call,,seventeen years before, had p9.t a spontaneous wakingvision, overwhelmingly powerful, of the inscribed stone seiup to Gakkai Reijin at the fifth stage of the climb. At thattime he had never climbed Mr oniake and never heard ofGakkai Reijin. But a month or two later he had ma.de thepilgrimage and Io, there was the inscribed stone standingjust as he had seen it in his vision.

His ,to-, he told me, met for a sdance four times in everymonth, when usually it was Gakkai Reijin who app.ur.ito guide and instruct them. But Mt ontakJitselfth.y.ii-b.aonly once a year.

Another interesting frrd which I encountered in the hut bythe lake was composed entirely of actors and, musicians.Their leader lvas Yoshimura Ijur6, the greatest living

292

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

.xporert, I was told, of the nagauta style of chanting' whose

work had been honoured as a 'formless national treasure''

Sr:veral tall and good-looking young *tl in the party were

lris pupils. The plty', *or<i *us an ancient man of eighty-

l,,rrr with u torig beard but a physique .of .extraordinary';trength una .giiity, *ho had madi ttit climb no less than

liliy-Jne times.-The medium was the old man's daughter'

She was very accomplished and strong, tlty-t:ld me' taking

,,rrly thirty seconds to become ggsselsedi flgit deity was

llirkuryfrsan, a Jrugo" who lived in the third lake. He was

irrtallible, one of the young men assured me' especially in his

wcather forecasts. O"fy tit aty before he had warned them

r0 hurry as quickly us they could to the sixth hut or they

would get wet. S;;. .tot'gh, hardly were they safely inside

tle hut than it t.gun to"rui" heavily' Never' he declared

with great intensity]woutd-he dream of taking any important

,,tcf Tn his life *iinorrt first consulting Hakuryflsan. His

( :lrreer as anagauta chanter had been apPr?Ye.qby Hakuryfrsan'

,urd. so, *hri the right time came, would his bride'

Later I u.co-puii.a this party down.'o *t fourth stage

0lI the Kurosawa route. There und.er the Fudd waterfall,

they said, Hakurytsan would make his last appearance to

rlr.*. They all changed into white loincloths or kimonos

,rnd made their ;y io the place where three jets of water

li:ll from an embrasure hollowed out of the rock- The ancient

,,,o*g:'o, clad only in u loi"cloth, was the.nT' to stand here',l'he wate. spt^hed offhis head with such force, as he- stood

rvith his white beard reciting spells, that it seemed as though

:r halo of white ltgh;shone JU tont a him. The medium then

rrrck his place, standing under the jet of water looking wild

,rnd strang., ir., black- hair streaming {9*t over her wet

kimono and her eyes open and starin[' The old man stood

i' front of her ;;;"ti.,g und shouting, pointing his fingers

:rt her in the t,"UUi"g *,ritu*' When shi was fully entrance4

.ach member of the party came in turn to recerve a nnat

rre'ediction from Hakuryflsan. This was bestowed uv !h-'r.edium in the form of tirt'mps on the back and rubs with

lrcr rosary.Thewholepartythusblessed,themediumwasrestoredto

6erself, the puriy fhurrged into dry white clothes and set off

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THE CATALPA BOW

io lu"ir, previously bespoken, to catch the night train fromFukushima back to Toivo.I understood rft.r*r.ds tlat thc ontake curt is popularamong those whose ?rofession is the stage. A dancer ofincredible elegance, Takehara Han, told me that she useduntil she was ov:r fifty to make the crimb every summcr,she showed me photographs of herself taken in the course ofthe pilgrimage,

- and

-I marvelled, ,.-r*t.rirrg my ow'dirty and dishevelled appearance, to see how she had madcher white attire seem fife an elegant mod,e designed r*.r"lr;for herself, and how, on the most exhaustingly steep andcindery slopes near the summit, she never lost her d,ancer,limmaculate grace and poise.

In the small hours of the morning of August gth a magiubonfire known as shinkasai is lit on"the bari.n neck of landnear the summit. It is one of the principal annuar rituars or.the ontake cu.lt, and in 1963 we \Mere warned that the hutwas likely to be so crowded that night ;t,h pilgrims thatthe'e would be no space to lie do*"n. w. *orrd have todoze back-to-back irr- a sitting position. In fact thc crowdsproved less than on an ordiniry night, since the news of atyphoon threatened off the coast of (ydshi had discorr..geJpeople from making the climb. sleep *", ,.*.rtheless out or,the question, for alfnight long the sounds of flapping wands,jingling bells and buists ofchantirg ,,",u., ceased. Newparties arrived in the darkness and paid their respects witlrbells and mantras. to the irnage on the edge of the rake. Theparty ensconced in the room above possessed an indefati-gable medium, whose gutteral grunts ur,a ,*irtirrg wandcontinuecl uninterrupted' until past midnight._ At r.3o a.m.

" r*ru party sel out fromih" hrrt to walk tothe place of the fire. The moon had risen rrigr, in the sky,almost perfectly round, and so bright tr,ut *. could followrne rocky path round the mountain without needing anyother light. r saw our shadows fall, in single n., rurr,ura'i.uriiIong and black down the- rocky slope into the ravine, whirefar beJo.w the peak of Mikas uyu^u, a symmetricar cone likcone of the straw hats of trre ai*rful, ,o*. like an island out ofa sea of white mist.

lvhen rve reached the prace where the fire was to be lit,294

MOUNTAIN ORACLES

,Llready a great crowd of people were waiting, dressed.rrtirely in white. Three curious wooden circles, like anirrtricate latticed woodhenge, rose a little higher than a man,Lnd about ten feet across. I had examined them a few hours,'urlier, in daylight, and had seen that they were constructed.ntirely from the small slips of pine wood called gomagi, justIrig enough to accommodate a man's name, age and heart'srlcsire, written with a brush. Most of the wishes were stereo-ryped and impersonal: freedom from illness, harmony atIrome, prosperity in the family business. They had all, manythousands of them, been carried up the mountainside on theprevious day, and had been built into the circles by a team,,[-believers a few hours beficre.

Flaring torches lit up the three wooden rings and thewhite crowd of believers stretching up the hill behind, whilelrefore us reared a craggy hill crowned with a great block ofluva,like a fortress against the moontit sky. Further along theskyline rose the black and antlered silhouette of the shrine.

At two o'clock the patriarch of the sect, Mr Watanabe,:rppeared in front of the central circle. In a resounding voicelre read an invocation to the kami, making meanwhile lunges:rnd sweeps with a long sword. The crowd of believers on thelrillside broke into a chorus of chanting, ringing their bellsto the rhythm of the chant.

Two figures in white with long flaring torches then setlight to the middle ring. The delicate latticework burst intollames, and soon the whole intricate structure was marvel-Iously visible, every tiny slip of wood showing red andrlistinct against the black. The two other wooden circlesthen caught fire, and soon the flames leapt high into the sky,illuminating red and yellow the chanting crowd of peoplelrchind. For some ten minutes the flames burnt fiercely, thenrlied down into red flickering rings.

Several figures in white appeared and began to run'indeed scamper, round and round the dying circles. One ofttrem I recognised to be Mr Omomo. From my position onrhe hillside I could see the figures still running as the flamesrlied down to a glow, and the craggy landscape returned toils former lunar whiteness.

By way of postscript, I append some notes from my last

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THE CATALPA BO\^/

ascent ol the mountain, in August 1967. In four years thcmountain had suffered

^ devastating change. A largc

'd"riveway' or motor road had been carved out of thomountainside as far as the seventh stage, Tanohara. You nectlnot walk at all, we were told, before Tanohara, and thcreyou will find a comfortable hotel. What about the old road,we enquired. It is still there of course, they said, but no oneuses it now.

We set out to find the old road, and I saw at once thatwhat they had said rvas true. Up the hairpin bends of thenew road there roared a stream of traffic, taxis, cars, buselhired by kA, with straw hats and wooden poles projectingfrom the windows. A cloud of white dust hung like a pallover the track, obscuring the view of the mountain, thicklycoating the trees and plants on either side. Along this roadno one at all was actually walking.

Nor was a single white figure to be seen on the old road,when at length after some difficulty we found it. It led straightup the mountainside, out of the forest and over some highrolling hills covered with long grass and wild lilies. Anancient and deserted trackway it now seemed, green under-foot and flanked on either side with flowers and clusters ofinscribed stones. It was utterly quiet. No one seemed to havetrodden there for years, and the call of the hokek2d bird wasthe only sound to be heard. The pilgrims were a mile or soaway, whirled upwards in dust and noise.

At Tanohara, in place of the sprawling wooden hut in thcf,orest that I remembered from four years before, stood astreamlined concrete structure, in the midst of a concretecar park full of taxis and buses. Above this point everyonehad to walk. But even here were significant signs of change.We had not been going long before we encountered anenormous ftd from Kyoto, 4oo strong and led by a huge manreminiscent of a Kabuki actor or sumd wrestler. He stood ona rock at the side of the path, bellowing the rokkon shdjochant in a voice which seemed supernaturally resonant untilI saw that he was in fact shouting through a microphoneattached to a powerful loudspeaker. His huge flock movedslowly and ponderously upwards. They had no medium, wewere told. Their leader always told them what to do.

296

MOUNTAIN ORACLE S

'I'hat night we saw him again at the Shinkasai' itself also

,ignificantly changed' Gone.*?',the r1d-11l:nnt scene of

tirur yearc U.for",-ittl """ided' human voices rising in the

rrroonlit air, tlr.e;*r oi fir. fiercely burning, the pariarch

l,r.andishing his ,,"Jra before the iatticed flames. Instead,

,lominating the ,."*t, was the microphotg'. the blue flash

,,f cameras, the ,.rr.f.r* beam of the television searc6light'

llugely .*ptin.J, tf* voice of the actor-wrestler from

lr.yoto ..ur.I.rrl-y'thuttt"d, warning' admonishing' intro-

,lLrcing, explaining every. step of the iite to the crowd sur'

,.'unding him, u-, u r^dio cbmmentator explains a baseball

'ratch or an unfamiliar ceremony. Ruthlesslyhe had destroyed

rhe magi" ortr,"li,.. n.rore his magnified voice, its enchant-

rnent *ith.r.J into 'information" its powe-r and beauty

slrrivelled, into commonplace movements and sounds'

Very soon, i-*ut confid'ently !"ld' there rvould be a

tilCfdriqu" 'rop.*ot' io the top of the. mountain' No one

rvould then hir. to climb ut uil, and the.craters would be

rilled witrr teahouses, from whicir cheerful amplified mu{1

rvould banisll--io"tti"t"' Eventually the trances would

rlisappear and i;;;;k; would join ittt company of those

other erstwhile holy mountains- whtre only the odd name

or the od.d. inscribed stone sunives to remind the lay climber

that inthepasttheground"beneathhisfeetwascorrs ideredso holy that oniy tnJa"fy purified might tre ad there'

297