Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (17) ——Fair and Even Cuts for and among Pirates (2)——

     Pirates’ being worried about their fairness or righteousness might sound funny, but some parts of Japanese piracy seemed to have developed from ancient Japanese maritime customs and practices. There seemed to have been maritime customs and practices that unmanned boats and washed-up goods should belong to those who lived there and found them, that is, sea people living around there. When young, I read an ancient pirate story. In the story, pirates captured all the crews and passengers of a boat and threw them into the sea. I found one part of the story very funny and even comical: One of the passengers, a priest, didn’t get drowned, and the pirates kept making the priest down into the sea with a stick. You can make a manned boat unmanned by removing its crews and passengers. That might be why, in a couple of pirate stories left, the pirates threw the crews and passengers into the sea. Meanwhile, you can get washed-up goods by making a boat run on the rocks, and that was not so difficult with lots of rapid straits and abundant reefs and rocks among the small islands between Aki and Iyo Provinces. The captain of the pirates in the story, incidentally, turned priest, impressed with the priest’s “immortality.” Another example of could-be expansion of ancient maritime customs and practices might have something to do with ordering boats to stop at certain religious spots. Boats sailing by off an important shrine used to be supposed to lower their sails to show their respects to the shrine. It means that they had to virtually stop sailing in front of the shrine. Mishima Shrine, the highest-ranking shrine in Iyo Province, is on one of islands which lie between Aki and Iyo Provinces in the Western Seto Inland Sea. Sea people living on those islands had good chances and reasons to stop any boat sailing through the area, and to demand offerings to the shrine, or some money for offerings. Shu-kou-ryo, literally charges for food and drink, which used to be charged to boats in medieval times might have started that way.