Water Torture

Water Torture is a method of execution and persecution used by the Tokugawa Shogunate against Japanese Christians, in which victims are bound to stakes at the water's edge and left to die slowly as the tide rises and falls, a practice that embodies the regime's calculated cruelty and the profound silence of God in the face of suffering.

Method and Procedure

The water torture was a deliberately prolonged and public form of execution. Wooden stakes were fixed in the sea at the water's edge, and the Christians were bound to them. When the tide came in, the water would reach up to a certain mark, and then recede. The Christians gradually became utterly exhausted and after about a week they died in the most terrible agony. This method was designed not only to kill but to serve as a spectacle of terror, intended to deter other Christians from their faith. The authorities planned to let the people of the village as well as other peasants get a good view of this prolonged suffering so that they would never again approach the Christian faith.

Key Occurrences in the Novel

The most detailed account of the water torture in the novel is the martyrdom of Mokichi and Ichizo, two peasants from the village of Tomogi. On June 22nd, a procession brought them to the beach, where two trees made into the form of a cross were set at the water's edge. They were fastened to them, and when night came and the tide came in, their bodies would be immersed in the sea up to the chin. They did not die at once, but after two or even three days of utter physical and mental exhaustion they would cease to breathe. The rain fell unceasingly on the sea, and the sea which killed them surged on uncannily in silence. Mokichi, in his agony, sang a Christian hymn: "We're on our way, we're on our way to the temple of Paradise." After their death, the officials ordered their bodies to be burned to prevent the Christians from bringing home the remains for veneration, and the ashes were thrown into the sea.

Earlier, Kichijiro had described witnessing a similar spectacle in the village of Kurasaki in Hizen, where twenty-four Christians were subjected to the water punishment by the local daimyo. He recounted how the Christians were bound to stakes, and when the tide came in, the water would reach up to a certain mark, and then recede. The Christians gradually became utterly exhausted and after about a week they died in the most terrible agony.

Consequences and Significance

The water torture was part of a broader system of persecution that included the Edict of Expulsion (1614), the prohibition of fences and hedges between houses to enable surveillance, and a reward system for informers. The torture was a manifestation of the Tokugawa Shogunate's determination to eradicate Christianity, which it viewed as a foreign threat to its authority. For Sebastian Rodrigues, who witnessed the martyrdom of Mokichi and Ichizo from his hiding place on the mountain, the event became a profound crisis of faith. He could not bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore, and behind the depressing silence of this sea, he felt the silence of God—the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish, God remains with folded arms, silent. This experience contributed to his later apostasy. The water torture, like the pit torture and the fumie test, was a tool of the "swamp of Japan" that Inoue claimed would defeat Christianity, a method of forcing the weak to betray their faith through unbearable physical and psychological suffering.