As I had thought to go to Sago, more than seven miles to the north, that same day, I became increasingly anxious and decided that I would try going to the meeting. The old man agreed to come along with me. More than twenty people sat on the wood floor inside the meeting hall while others crouched under the trees outside, talking in small groups. They appeared to be talking idly, but this was not the case. When I asked what was going on, I was told that when something is decided in the village, they will sometimes talk for days until everyone is satisfied. After gathering and hearing an explanation from the headman, the villagers talk things over in their respective community groups and take their conclusions to the headman. If an agreement is not reached, they return to their groups and discuss the matter further. Sometimes a person with other business to attend to will go home. But the headman and the representative, in their capacity as listeners, mediators, and unifiers, must remain.
Deliberations had continued in this manner for two days without concern for whether it was day or night. The previous night their talk had apparently lasted nearly until dawn. When a person became sleepy or had nothing more to say, they went home. It seems that the matter of my wanting to borrow old documents had been brought up in the morning, but when I arrived at the meeting a conclusion had yet to be reached. They had not been discussing the old documents from the morning until three in the afternoon. Other matters were being discussed but, in time, several people had brought up the matter of the documents.
I was not there at the time, but I was given a summary afterwards. The headman had introduced the matter, explaining that “a professor doing research on Tsushima for the Federation of Nine Academic Societies has come to investigate matters regarding Ina. He says that old official documents are necessary for him to learn about Ina’s past, and he has asked if we might loan them to him.” He then added, “We’ve never loaned them out before. Because this is the village’s important documentary evidence, we should all discuss it thoroughly.” The topic of discussion then shifted to another matter.
In time, an old man who was quite familiar with the old days told a story. “Long ago, the master of the house in the oldest and highest-ranked rural samurai family died, and his child, who was still quite young, took over. At this time an old man who was a relative of the family came along. After asking to be shown documents that authenticated the status of the family that had been passed down by the household, he took them. No matter how they pleaded with the old man to return the documents, he refused, and made as if his house was the oldest in the village.” Once a discussion of this and related matters had passed through the entire group, the subject was changed.
Village meeting hall in rural Okayama Prefecture.
January–February 1953.
After some time had passed the matter of the old documents was brought up once again, when someone said, “We’ve all heard that old documents were in the village’s register box, but this is the first time we’ve seen its contents. I haven’t heard tell of any good coming of having these papers, so if our showing them to a stranger might be of some help, why don’t we?” Then, for a time, there was talk of things that had been tucked away in people’s homes until someone had come along with an eye for their value, and the good things that had come of showing them. After a variety of other small talk, the conversation once again shifted to other matters.
It was upon such a scene that I arrived. The headman summed up what had transpired, and I thought that at this rate a conclusion would probably not be reached easily. After everyone had spoken their mind, an old man called out in quite a loud voice, “From the looks of him he doesn’t appear to be a bad person, so how about we make a decision?” Those who had been in discussion outside came to the window, and they all looked at me. I explained what was written in the old documents. In the old days, when a whale was caught, young women would put on beautiful kimonos and makeup and go to see it. Because it was wrong to do such a thing, a document had been drafted to stop such behavior. I told them of this and other documents. Then everyone talked for a while about the whale-hunting days. The talk seemed ever so leisurely and yet it evolved bit by bit. When they had talked for more than an hour, the old man who had brought me there asked the entire group, “What do you say? Since he’s gone to this trouble, how about we loan them to him?” Someone responded, “If you say so, I don’t think anyone will object.” At this the headman offered, “In that case, I will take responsibility.” Then and there I wrote up an IOU, and the headman read it aloud, asking, “Is this OK?” Voices came from the group saying “Yes, that will be fine.” The headman then took the documents that had been placed on the wood floor in front of him that morning and handed them to me. I thanked him and went outside, but the old man who had brought me there remained behind. I wonder how long the discussion continued after that.
An image of that village meeting is deeply engrained in my memory. This system of holding meetings is not something that began recently. In Ina the records of village agreements dated back nearly two hundred years. Those are the records that remain, but I expect there were village meetings even before that. An old man over seventy told me that when he was a child things were done much as they are now. The only difference was that long ago, if a person was hungry, they didn’t leave to eat. Rather, someone brought a box lunch from home, which was eaten while the conversation continued. If night came before the discussion had ended, some slept right there. Others talked until morning, and this carried on until a conclusion was reached. I was told that for the most part even the more difficult matters could be resolved in three days. This required patience but, at any rate, they didn’t push themselves. They discussed matters until everyone was satisfied. So when a conclusion was reached, it had to be strictly abided by. These were not discussions of theory. In considering something, people shared every relevant precedent they could think of.
Such deliberation was not unique to the village of Ina. In Chiromo, a village on the east coast of Tsushima that I visited some ten days later, when I asked if they could show me their old documents, representatives of the four villages along Chiromo Bay gathered and taught me deeply just how important meetings are. I learned that meetings of the representatives of these four villages have continued for more than four hundred years, ever since they began hunting dolphin together in the bay. When I said that I wanted to see their communally owned documents, the representative of Chiromo said, “Let’s send a messenger to the other representatives,” and I, thinking nothing of it, made do with a simple “Thank you.” As it would happen, the messenger had to go by rowboat to a representative’s house that was at the back end of the bay. It was two and a half miles one way. More than three hours passed from the time of my request until the messenger returned to tell us that he had contacted the representatives of the other three villages. When I spread out a map, I realized what trouble I had caused them.
Another hour passed, and the three representatives arrived by boat. Finely dressed in traditional haori [half-coats], they all carried fans. It being summer, they must have been hot, but it seemed that meetings of the representatives were stern affairs. They told me that they wanted to discuss things for a time, so I went to another house to make inquiries. At about nine at night I was called back to the representative’s house where the meeting was being held. I arrived to find the four representatives gathered in the front room. They had deliberated without eating dinner. The representative of Chiromo said, “We have decided that you cannot take the documents with you, but you can look at them for one full day.” The reason: the quantity of fish that had been caught in the communal nets was inscribed in the account books, and they couldn’t allow such information to leak out. This being quite reasonable I said, “That would be fine.” The representative of Chiromo cut the seal on the register box and opened the lid. Confirming the number of books inside, he handed them to me. Then dinner was brought out on small wooden tables, and as I had not eaten yet, I partook as well. These aging lacquered