Kumano 33 Kannon Pilgrimage

     Kumano 33 Kannon Pilgrimage has been organized in Kumano City, Mihama-cho Town, and Kiho-cho Town in the southernmost part of Mie Prefecture.  It is unknown when and by whom it was organized.

     Historically speaking, Kumano has been rather a mysterious area.

     Kumano Pirates or Kumano Sea Forces were the most mysterious portion of Japanese pirates.

     Even during the Warring States Period in Japan, the sea forces under the direct control of the Mori Clan, the largest and strongest warlord along the Seto Inland Sea, were no match against Awa Sea Forces or Awa Pirates, much less against Murakami Pirates.  Both Murakami and Awa Pirates were said to have developed under the strong influence of Kumano Pirates.  Kumano Pirates were said to have commanded the Seto Inland Sea before the written history of Japanese piracy.  In addition, Kumano Pirates exported their personnels even to Eastern Provinces during the Warring States Period.

     Here, I’m going to talk about the history of Kumano Pirates in historical documents, which does not reveal their mysterious influence nor their strength, though.     

     The Japanese Archipelago has 34,600 kilometers of shoreline, which is shorter than America’s 56,700 kilometers but longer than Brazil’s 5,760 kilometers.  The islands are washed by the Black and Tsushima Currents from the south and by the Kuril Current from the north.

     The Black Current starts off Philippines, flows northward between the Formosa Island and the Ryukyu Islands, and, turning northeastward,  passes between the Ryukyu Islands and the Kyushu Island toward the south coasts of the Shikoku and Honshu Islands, transporting warm, tropical water.  The current brings not only tropical water but also fish, corals, seeds of tropical plants such as coconuts, blocks of dead aromatic trees, and culturally, sometimes even militarily, advanced alien people as well.

     Let me show 2 examples of exotic people who were brought about along the Black Current.

     Ugaya (?-?), whose ancestors had come from what was later called Takamagahara, was ruling Hyuga Province in the eastern coast of Kyushu Island.  He had been abandoned by his mother in his infancy, and raised by his aunt, his mother’s younger sister.  When he came of age, he married the aunt, and had 4 sons, Itsue, Inahi, Mikenu, and Sano.

     Inahi drowned himself in the eastern sea, where the Black Current ran, to see his mother.  Mikenu left eastward, that is, to the sea, for the land of the dead.  Itsuse left northward with his youngest brother, Sano.  The reason for the family breakdown is unknown and unknowable now.

     Itsuse first arrived at Usa in Buzen Province, and stayed at another place int the province for a year.  He moved on eastward along the Seto Inland sea to Aki Province, and stayed there for 7 years.  And then he moved to Kibi Province, and stayed there for 3 to 8 years.  He finally reached the eastern end of the Seto Inland sea only to get faced by Nagasune, who was hostile against him.  Itsuse was shot, flew, got to O Port in Ki Province, and died there.  He was buried in Mt. Kama near the port.

     Itsuse’s younger brother, Sano, continued their eastward quest, and arrived at Kumano.  Tempted by a local tribe, who had the token of a crow with 3 legs, he went upstream along Totsu river, crossed Yoshino River, beat his way through the bush, and reached Uda in Yamato Province.

     The 3-legged-crow tribe helped Sano rival other local tribes there, and successfully split one tribe.  Sano’s men committed an underhanded murder of another local tribe.  Sano also maneuvered pork-barrel politics against other tribes, and established his ruling in Iware.  He was later called Iware, related to his domain name.  Until the end of the World War II, the series of events was widely believed in Japan to have taken place more than 2 millennia before.

     Sano’s descendants eventually unified Yamato Province.  They even further continued the brothers’ eastward quest.  After Kumano, they reached Ise.  They built their advanced base at the southern end of the Ise Plains, Ise Shrine.  Next, they invaded Nobi Plains, and built another advanced base at the mouth of a river in Owari Prefecture, Atsuta Shrine.  They moved further east, got to an inland sea at the eastern end of the Kanto Plains, and built another advanced base at the southern shore of the sea, Katori Shrine.  Across the inland sea, at the northern shore, they also prepared another advanced logistics base, Kashima Shrine, to invade Northern Japan.

     2 districts in Kumano have another type of legend.  The both districts accepted Chinese boat people.  The refugees brought crop farming, fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, paper making, civil engineering, pottery, and medicine there.  That is, they brought civilization.  If the Chinese boat people were some of those who were led by Xu Fu (?278B.C.-?208B.C.) as is widely believed in 11 prefectures in Japan to have happened, the series of incidents occurred in 210s BC, more than 2 millennia ago.

     The widely-known written records of the Black Current can date back to the 18th century.

     During the Edo Period, with Pax Tokugawa established, the economy grew slowly but almost steadily.  The cultural level of the ordinary people was getting higher.  Even commoners could enjoy traveling.  The enthusiasm coupled with the higher literacy rate of commonalty brought the publication of guidebooks and travel essays flourishing.  We can find a couple of comments on the Black Current in the guidebooks.

     Furukawa Shoken (1726-1807) was a geographer in the latter half of the Edo Period.  He compiled topographies based on his own observation, and also integrated information based on hearsay into memorandums.  “The Memorandum of Hachijo” was a latter case, and was about the Izu Islands including Hachijo Island.  The memorandum was published in 1794, and he mentioned the Black Current in it.

     “The Black Current looks as if an ink stone were rubbed on the surface of the sea.  As hundreds of swirls are mysteriously flowing past, whoever sees the current feels just dazzled.”

     Tachibana Nankei (1753-1805) was a doctor of Chinese medicine in Kyoto, and made rounds of visits to various parts of Japan intermittently from 1782 to 1788.  He published travel essays from 1795 to 1798, which would be collectively called “Journey to the East and to the West” later.  In one of the essays, he recorded a scratch of hearsay information on the Black Current.

     “They say that about 5.5 hundred kilometers off the Izu Peninsula, there are desert islands in the south.  The sea around the islands is called the Black Current.  The current is tens of kilometers wide, and runs like a large river, raging and rolling.

     “Furthermore, if you sail out southeast off Awa and Kazusa Provinces too far, you are washed away east and shall never come back, as the current turns eastward away from our islands.”

     The exploration of older records of the current is yet to be done. 

     When I started looking into Kumano and then into the Black Current, I had a slight expectation that someone brought knacks and tricks to be successful pirates to Kumano.  The founders of the Yamato imperial central government might have brought some.  Drifted aliens and flotsam might have raised some motivation for precious products.  Sailing annual tax to Kumano Shrines might have helped develop water transportation skills.  However, it is clear now that piracy was not introduced from the outer world to Kumano.  Then, how did Kumano Sea People grew up to be pirates for themselves?

    In Japan, the right to obtain flotsams was largely acknowledged to belong to the finders.  Kumano might have been one of the best spots to find valuable flotsams from alien countries.  Did they just kept waiting for boats wrecked by chance?  The best way to increase the efficiency of the acquisition must have been to directly shipwreck boats.  Kumano Sea People must have had supremacy in shipwrecking skills to other sea people.  With the supremacy in their hands, they first made their way into the Kii Channel and the Kitan Strait, where tax rice was sent from Tosa and Awa Provinces, and then made their way into the Seto Inland Sea, where not only tax rice was shipped but also valuable imports from China and Korea were shipped even in the ancient times.

     What was the supremacy Kumano Sea People had?  That was never recorded in official historical documents.  Still, we can make a good guess.  What Kumano Sea People were good at, or what Kumano fishers are good at today, was, or is, dolphin drive hunting.  If you can drive dolphins into a bay or onto a beach, it is not so difficult to drive other boats into a bay or onto a beach, even if they had just stone arrowheads and their victims had more advanced iron arrowheads.  In the Seto Inland Sea, dolphin hunting didn’t flourish and the people there had no chance to train their boat hunting skills for them selves.