Hizen

Hizen is a historical province in northwestern Kyushu, Japan, that serves as the primary setting for the novel's depiction of the Christian persecution and the cultural 'swamp' that absorbs and distorts foreign ideologies. It is the region where the central characters, including the fisherman Kichijiro, originate, and where the most brutal acts of martyrdom and apostasy occur, making it the geographical and symbolic heart of the novel's exploration of faith, suffering, and cultural conflict.

Geography and Origin

Hizen is the home province of Kichijiro, the weak-willed fisherman who becomes the betrayer of the priests. He is described as a fisherman from the district of Hizen near Nagasaki, and it is in the village of Kurasaki in Hizen that he witnessed the water torture of twenty-four Christians, an event that haunts him throughout the novel. This province, with its coastal villages and fishing communities, forms the backdrop for the underground Christian communities that Rodrigues and Garrpe seek to serve.

The Swamp of Japan

The novel repeatedly uses the metaphor of a 'swamp' to describe Japan, and Hizen, as the setting for the most intense persecution, becomes the embodiment of this swamp. 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. This is the spider's web that destroys the butterfly, leaving only the ugly skeleton. Inoue, the magistrate, tells Rodrigues that he was not defeated by him but by this swamp of Japan, a phrase that Ferreira also echoes, stating that the country is a more terrible swamp than one can imagine, where the roots of Christianity rot and wither.

Cultural and Religious Conflict

Hizen is the stage for the clash between Western Christianity and Japanese culture. The interpreter who debates with Rodrigues is a former seminarian from Hizen who learned Portuguese in the seminaries of Arima, Amakusa, and Omura, but who now argues that Christian doctrine is a foreign imposition that the Japanese do not want. He claims that the Japanese have their own religion and that the missionaries' 'selfish dream' has only caused bloodshed. This conflict is not merely political but deeply cultural, as the novel suggests that the Japanese cannot conceive of a God completely divorced from human experience, a point Ferreira makes when he says that the Japanese have never had the concept of God and never will.

Martyrdom and Suffering

The most harrowing scenes of martyrdom in the novel take place in Hizen. The water punishment of Mokichi and Ichizo, who are tied to stakes in the sea and left to drown, occurs on the beach of Tomogi in Hizen. The sea that kills them is described as silent and dark, and the silence of God in the face of their suffering becomes a central theological crisis for Rodrigues. The novel's exploration of the silence of God is directly tied to the landscape of Hizen, where the sea stretches out endlessly, melancholy and dark, and where the cries of the martyrs are met with an unrelenting silence.

The Persistence of Faith

Despite the persecution, Hizen is also where the faith persists in secret. The novel describes how the Christians of Tomogi, a village in Hizen, have maintained their faith for six years without a priest, creating their own organization for the administration of the sacraments. The villagers have kept the faith alive through a secret organization of Jiisama, Tossama, and Mideshi, and they continue to pray and teach their children. This persistence is a testament to the depth of the faith that has taken root, even as the novel questions whether that faith has been transformed into something different from the Christianity of the missionaries.

The Enduring Legacy

In the end, Hizen is not just a setting but a character in the novel, representing the inescapable reality of Japan that defeats the missionaries. The novel's final chapters, set in Nagasaki and Edo, show that the faith has been driven underground, but the 'swamp' of Japan has not been able to completely eradicate it. The crypto-Christians of Hizen and the surrounding islands continue to practice their faith in secret, and the novel suggests that this faith, though transformed, endures. The silence of God, which so torments Rodrigues, is ultimately answered not by a voice from heaven but by the persistence of the weak and the strong who continue to believe in the face of overwhelming suffering.