Sengoku Period

The Sengoku Period, or Warring States period, was a century of relentless civil strife among Japan's feudal lords (daimyos) that lasted from the mid-fifteenth century until the early seventeenth century. This era of political fragmentation and the subsequent unification of the country under the Tokugawa Shogunate form the essential historical backdrop for Shusaku Endo's novel Silence, providing the conditions under which Christianity first took root and the context for its eventual, brutal suppression.

Historical Context and the Arrival of Christianity

The missionary effort in Japan was initiated during the Sengoku Period, a time when Japan, torn by strife among the warring daimyos, had no strong central government. This distressful situation, however, was not without advantages for the missionaries, who, when persecuted in one fief, could quickly shake the dust off their feet and betake themselves elsewhere. The architects of Japan's eventual unification—Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu—were all on intimate terms with the Portuguese Jesuits, motivated partly by a desire for trade with the black ships from Macao, partly by a deep dislike of Buddhism, and partly by the fascination of these cultured foreigners with whom they could converse without fear of betrayal and loss of prestige. From 1570 until 1614, the missionaries held such a privileged position at the court of the Bakufu that their letters and reports are now the chief source of information for a period of history about which Japanese sources say little.

The Swamp of Japan and the Failure of Christianity

The novel's central thesis, articulated by the apostate priest Christovao Ferreira and the magistrate Inoue, is that Japan itself is a "swamp" that cannot absorb the type of Christianity that has been propagated in these islands. This metaphor is rooted in the historical experience of the Sengoku Period and its aftermath. The translator's preface explains that Japan is a swamp because it sucks up all sorts of ideologies, transforming them into itself and distorting them in the process. The novel suggests that the tree of Hellenised Christianity cannot simply be pulled out of Europe and planted in the swamp of a Japan that has a completely different cultural tradition; if such a thing is done, the fresh young sapling will wither and die. This idea is echoed by the interpreter who argues that Christian doctrine is something the Japanese do not want, as they have their own religion. The interpreter, a former student at the seminaries built in Arima and Amakusa and Omura during the Sengoku Period, embodies the resentment felt by some Japanese who were educated by the missionaries but ultimately rejected their faith, accusing Father Cabral of having nothing but contempt for everything Japanese.

The Persecution and the System of Control

Following the unification of Japan and the consolidation of Tokugawa power, the state's attitude toward Christianity shifted from tolerance to systematic extermination. The 1614 Edict of Expulsion declared that the Kirishitan band had come to Japan longing to disseminate an evil law and overthrow true doctrine, and that this was the germ of a great disaster that must be crushed. The persecution became increasingly ruthless, employing tortures like the "ana-tsurushi" or hanging in the pit, which quickly became the most effective means of inducing apostasy. The state also implemented a sophisticated system of surveillance and control, including a decree forbidding anyone to make a fence or hedge between his house and that of his neighbour, so that everyone could see into the house of his next-door neighbour and report any suspicious behaviour. A reward system was established, offering three hundred pieces of silver for informing on a priest, two hundred for a brother, and one hundred for a Christian. The novel depicts the execution of Christians, such as the beheading of the one-eyed man Chokichi, as a public spectacle designed to terrorize the population, and the annual fumie ceremony, where every household was forced to trample on an image of Christ or the Virgin Mary, became a routine act of state-enforced apostasy. The magistrate Inoue, who had himself once been baptized, explains that the roots of Christianity have been cut, and that the God whom the peasants of Goto and Ikitsuki secretly serve has gradually changed so as to be no longer like the Christian God at all, proving that the swamp of Japan has ultimately triumphed.