Year of the Cock

The Year of the Cock (the Ninth Year of Enpo, corresponding to 1681 in the Western calendar) is the year in which Sebastian Rodrigues, known in Japan as Okada San'emon, died after more than thirty years of captivity. It is the terminal point of a life that began in Portugal, crossed oceans, endured persecution, and ended in a guarded compound in Edo, where the former priest had been confined since his apostasy. The year is recorded in the diary of an officer at the Christian Residence, which notes that Rodrigues died of illness at a little later than half past four in the afternoon of the 25th day of the 7th month. He was sixty-four years old.

Death and Burial

Rodrigues fell ill at the beginning of the month and lost much of his appetite. Despite medical treatment by the prison doctor, Ishio Doteki, his condition worsened steadily. At his death, the money he had on hand amounted to thirteen ryo and three bu in small coins and five ryo in gold coins, totaling twenty-eight ryo and three bu. His belongings were sealed by the attendants and the Lord's Managers and placed in the godown on the 28th. The following day, six examiners arrived at the Mountain Villa to inspect the corpse: Inspectors Omura Yoemon and Murayama Kakudayu, and Assistant Inspectors Shimoyama Sohachiro, Nomura Rihe, Uchida Kanjuro, and Furukawa Kyuzaemon. In their presence, a statement was handed over recording that Rodrigues had been under the charge of Inoue Chikugonokami in the Year of the Ram thirty-odd years earlier, and had then come into residence in the Enclosed Building where he lived for thirty years until this Year of the Cock. The statement noted that except for this there was nothing unusual.

Cremation and Buddhist Rites

After examination, Rodrigues' corpse was sent on a vehicle to Muryoin Temple at Koishikawa, where a priest called Genshu conducted the cremation. The posthumous Buddhist name given to him was Myusen Joshin Shinshi. One ryo and two bu were paid for the funeral service and one hundred hiki as the cremation charge, all expenses paid out of the money Rodrigues had left. The corpse was constantly watched by three policemen until the cremation. The burial at a Buddhist temple, under a Buddhist name, completed the transformation that had begun on the morning when Rodrigues placed his foot on the fumie: the Portuguese priest who had crossed the sea to bring Christianity to Japan was laid to rest as a Japanese man, his Christian identity erased from the official record.

The Swamp's Final Victory

The Year of the Cock thus closes the narrative arc that began with Rodrigues' arrival in Japan full of missionary zeal. The officer's diary entry, with its bureaucratic precision—listing examiners, expenses, and the posthumous Buddhist name—stands in stark contrast to the spiritual anguish that marked Rodrigues' imprisonment and apostasy. The swamp of Japan, as Inoue and Ferreira had called it, had absorbed the foreign priest completely. Yet the diary also records that in the Fourth Year of Enpo, Kichijiro, Rodrigues' attendant, was found to possess an amulet-case containing an image with St. Paul and St. Peter on one side and Xavier and an angel on the other, suggesting that even in the Christian Residence, the faith had not entirely died. The Year of the Cock is the year of Rodrigues' death, but the silence that had so tormented him during his life continued unbroken after it.