Erased Faith: "The Last Kakure Kirishitan" — The People of Ikitsuki Island, Nagasaki

2018/08/30

"What on earth is this?" — In the spring of 2017, while taking a break from covering political affairs, I came across an out-of-print art book titled "Sacred Paintings of the Kakure Kirishitan," and the images left me speechless.

The sacred paintings were objects of worship among the Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) who have lived for many years on Ikitsuki, an island floating off the northwestern tip of Nagasaki Prefecture. I was surprised by the fact that such faith still persisted, but with the registration of the "Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region" for UNESCO World Heritage status scheduled for the following year, my interest began to grow.

When one thinks of sacred paintings, the deep-featured depictions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary by Da Vinci or Botticelli often come to mind, but on this island, it is different. They are flat and far from sophisticated. Furthermore, the man depicted in a piece titled "John the Baptist" actually has a "chonmage" (topknot) hairstyle. Having grown up in a Christian household with my own image of what a saint should look like, the sense of incongruity was twice as strong for me.

The first surprise I encountered upon actually visiting this remote island was the fact that a large fallen rock had been left abandoned for over a year on the path to a sacred site associated with martyrs.

In light of the theme of "Hidden Christian Heritage," this is a place that should receive the most attention, yet it is not being treated with care. Compared to the Oura Cathedral in Nagasaki, which was restored using nearly 100 million yen in public funds, there is a kind of "invisible disconnect."

However, I was overwhelmed by the "Oratio"—prayers mixed with Portuguese and Latin—offered to the sacred paintings. There are no textbooks for the Oratio, which lasts for 40 minutes, and the believers do not prioritize the meaning. It has been passed down orally for over 400 years, relying purely on "sound."

After the Meiji era, when the ban on Christianity was lifted, many believers "returned" to the Catholic Church, but the people of Ikitsuki chose the path of protecting the faith of the Oratio that their ancestors had maintained.

So, why do they not "return"? With what thoughts do they pray? Questions arose one after another, and I searched for clues.

While there is a fair amount of previous research, strangely, none of it records the "living voices" of the believers. This is not unrelated to the fact that researchers at Catholic research institutions have viewed Ikitsuki as heretical, which was the origin of why Ikitsuki's name was removed from the recent World Heritage listing.

The faith that supported the island is fading, but there are still those who protect it to the end. Their presence seemed to speak to us—who are on the verge of losing the place we return to—about the "meaning of prayer."

"Erased Faith: 'The Last Kakure Kirishitan' — The People of Ikitsuki Island, Nagasaki"

Shinji Hirono (Author)

Shogakukan

256 pages, 1,500 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.