Lafcadio Hearn

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Lafcadio Hearn, Koizumi Yakumo 小泉八雲
(1850-1904) (Koizumi Yagumo)
and Fujieda Daruma 藤枝だるま !!!


http://selfknowledge.com/196au.htm


Remember the death of Lafcardio Hearn on Sept. 26, 1904

By BURRITT SABIN

Most foreign residents with an interest in Japan besides partying or lining their pockets will likely have become aware of Hearn shortly after arriving here -- probably forming a picture of an early visitor who described a Japan that no longer exists.

Hearn occupies a more important position among the Japanese themselves. He is a writer who has contributed to the national oeuvre. Virtually any Japanese will have read his stories in their middle-school English textbooks, or perhaps even their Japanese readers (his "In a Cup of Tea" has been anthologized in translation). TV and movie versions of his "Yuki-Onna," "The Story of Mimi-nashi Hoichi," "Mujina" and other spectral tales tingle spines in ghostly August. And the intelligentsia opine that Hearn not only popularized old Japanese stories as literature, but also discovered the "Japanese soul" -- as if this had not already been revealed by the Manyoshu poets before the eighth century.

Much as Basho's haiku are etched in stone at the spots of their inspiration, Hearn's writings continue to validate his places of residence in Japan. Matsue (Shimane Prefecture), Kumamoto, Yaizu (Shizuoka Prefecture) and Tokyo have each held Hearn-related events in this centennial year of his passing on Sept. 26. Such validation helps pillar tourism, especially in Matsue, which alone had the foresight to preserve one of Hearn's homes.

Apropos Hearn's "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," Basil Hall Chamberlain, the Meiji Era Japanologist, wrote: "Never perhaps was scientific accuracy of detail married to such tender and exquisite brilliancy of style."

Three long and informative articles about Hearn from the Japan Times of 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Darumasan-Japan/message/459



Another article about Matsue and Hearn, Japan Times July 22, 2005

... in his adopted country, Lafcadio Hearn is lionized among writers in the English language with the same kind of reverence normally accorded to authors of the ilk of Melville and Shakespeare.

It's a little hard to go about Matsue and not be aware of its most famous former foreign resident. A Hearn Square awaits the visitor at the station. Images of the man abound in the city. His thoughts about Matsue are displayed everywhere on plaques. He is prominent in the souvenir shops. Visitors drink Hearn sake. They drink Hearn beer. One of the more atmospheric spots in town goes by the name of (surprise, surprise) Hearn-dori.



Hearn was certainly romantically inclined, and he saw the castle as a "veritable architectural dragon, made up of magnificent monstrosities -- a dragon moreover full of eyes set at all conceivable angles." Quite. A structure within the castle grounds that Hearn never did see, since it dates from 1903, the year before his death and long after his departure from Matsue, is the Local History Museum.

This building was constructed specially for the Meiji Emperor on the off chance that he might drop by for a visit. But he never did. Not seeing this elegant white structure, executed in that engaging East-meets-West style of a century ago, though, was very much the emperor's loss. Even if he had seen it, one building that the emperor would have been wholly indifferent to is the house where Hearn lived. Though Hearn spent just 15 months in this city [before Matsue's severe winters got the better of him and he moved to warmer Kumamoto] this was clearly the place in Japan that made the greatest impression on him.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fv20050722a1.htm

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Like all of Lafcadio Hearn's writings, "A Japanese Miscellany" is full of wandering musings, thoughts and observations of Japan freshly under the Meiji Restoration, when hints of old Japan could still be seen in the life of the people. All of the stories are fairly short, and reflect Hearn's love of folk magic, ghosts and moonlight themes.

In this book, Hearn writes about

"Otokichi's Daruma" , a tiny Buddhist god of luck.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/4925080385/104-6953735-8106340?v=glance


I have seen a picture of Otokichi and his Daruma on TV, but today, I finally could locate in the Internet.
Hearn's photo album showed a picture of Otokichi and his Daruma Collection on the shelf. Otokichi introduced him to the secret of painting one eye for Daruma and the next one when the wish was granted.

小泉八雲のエッセイ "音吉の達磨"、あの眼なし達磨が此の寺,群馬の名刹小林山達磨寺,で生まれ全国の民俗となった。
http://www.e-yubun.jp/arano.html


.. .. .. .. .. 「乙吉の達磨」
二階茶の間 The living room on the first floor.



Look at more pictures of this home :
http://www1.kinjo-u.ac.jp/~nakata/Nakata/Data/Tsusin/Hern/Hern5.htm

小泉八雲避暑の家


小泉八雲の小説に「乙吉の達磨」というのがある。　
『乙吉さん－子供たちが達磨さんの左の眼をたたきつぶしたのですか』　へい、へいと云って乙吉は、上等の鰹を俎板（まないた）の上に取り上げながら、気の毒そうに笑いを含んで云った。　『はじめから左の眼はございません』　『こんな風に作ってあったのですか』と、私は、また訪ねた…。　八雲はこどもの頃、友達の過失で左眼を失い義眼だった。　この山口乙吉（焼津城之越）の家に滞在していた時にこんな話がある。
明治三十四年の夏の話である。

Since Hearn suffered from bad eyes and had only one eye to see, he took a special interest in the custom of painting one eye for a Daruma. He was specially fond of this story he heard from Yamaguchi Otokichi in the town of Yaezu.
http://www.riyo.or.jp/library/etc_jin_08.html


About the Daruma Memorial Day
達磨忌
これは、深い名称だと思います。珠玉の名作「乙吉のだるま」で、だるまに対する深い愛着をつづり、そして自らもだるまのように片方の目が見えなかったヘルンをよく表現していると感じました。　
ただし「達磨忌」というのは達磨そのもの、すなわち達磨大師の忌日の名称でもあるそうなので、ヘルンの命日の呼称として使うのは支障があるのかもしれませんが...
http://www.lafcadiohearn.jp/jp/special/result.html
http://www.lafcadiohearn.jp/jp/index.shtml

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Fujieda Daruma and Lafcadio Hearn
藤枝だるまと小泉八雲と『乙吉の達磨』



三代目・作太郎が張子だるまを作り始めた明治30年以降、当時志太地区唯一のだるま作者だったこともあり、藤枝だるまは販路をのばし有名な虚空蔵尊のだるま市や清水寺のだるま市で売られた。　焼津の魚屋である山口乙吉は出回り始めた藤枝だるまを恐らく虚空蔵尊のだるま市で、明治31年に買ったと考えられている。　

そのだるまがたまたま乙吉の家に滞在していた文豪・小泉八雲(ラフカディオ・ハーン)の目に留まることになり、八雲はだるまに願掛けして目入れをする日本の風習を知ることになった。　八雲のこの時の体験は小説『乙吉の達磨』のなかに書かれることになった。　

八雲に愛された藤枝だるまは両びん(髪)が８の字に描かれていることが特徴で、これはだるまの「七転び八起き」の縁起に通じるものであるが、以後八雲にちなんで「八雲だるま」とか「乙吉だるま」とか呼ぱれ知られている。



The family of Ｏtokichi bought one of these Fujieda Daruma at a New Year Fair at the Shimizu Temple. It was a token for good luck in fishing at Yaezu, a port town. Hearn realized the character for EIGHT 八 painted for the eyebrows of Daruma (seven times down, eight times up) . Eight is used in the Japanese name of Hearn, eight clouds, Yakumo 八雲.
Later at Yaezu this Daruma was known as "Yakumo Daruma" or "Otokichi Daruma".

It is done to this day and on the following link you can even see how it is made.


http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~oyatiti/u_trial/daruma.html


Another Fujieda Papermachee Daruma
Because of the Lafcadio Hearn connection, this Daruma has become famous worldwide.



藤枝市で作られるだるまは、小泉八雲の「乙吉の達磨」で、藤枝だるまとして国際的にも知られるようになりました。「八雲だるま」は小泉八雲にちなんだ名称です。
Daruma with ears (mimitsuki Daruma)
Daruma like a pumpkin (kabocha Daruma) and our
Yakumo Daruma
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~SA9S-HND/agal-938-1.html

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Lafcadio Hearn and Haiku
by Cor van den Heuvel

In A Japanese Miscellany (1901), he says of the twentyeight dragonfly haiku he has just translated:

Of course these compositions make but slight appeal to aesthetic sentiment: they are merely curious for the most part. But they help us to understand something of the soul of the elder Japan. The people who could find delight, century after century, in watching the ways of insects, and in making such verses about them, must have comprehended, better than we, the simple pleasure of existence.

They could not, indeed, describe the magic of nature as our great Western poets have done; but they could feel the beauty of the world without its sorrow, and rejoice in the beauty, much after the manner of inquisitive and happy children.

A more positive and consistently expressed insight into the value of haiku is the following passage from an essay “Bits of Poetry” that appeared in Hearn’s In Ghostly Japan (1899):

The common artprinciple of the class of poems under present consideration is identical with the common principle of Japanese pictorial illustration. By the use of a few chosen words the composer of a short poem endeavors to do exactly what the painter endeavors to do with a few strokes of the brush—to evoke an image or a mood—to revive a sensation or emotion.

And the accomplishment of this purpose—by poet or by picturemaker—depends altogether upon capacity to suggest, and only to suggest. A Japanese artist would be condemned for attempting elaboration of detail in a sketch intended to recreate the memory of some landscape seen through the blue haze of a spring morning, or under the great blond light of an autumn afternoon. Not only would he be false to the traditions of his art: he would necessarily defeat his own end thereby.

In the same way a poet would be condemned for attempting any completeness of utterance in a very short poem: his object should be only to stir the imagination without satisfying it. So the term ittakkiri—meaning “all gone,” or “entirely vanished,” in the sense of “all told”—is contemptuously applied to verses in which the verse-maker has uttered his whole thought;—praise being reserved for compositions that leave in the mind the thrilling of a something unsaid.

Like the single stroke of a temple-bell, the perfect short poem should set murmuring and undulating, in the mind of the hearer, many a ghostly aftertone of long duration”
(pp. 313-14).

Read a long essay here:
http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/hearnandhaiku.html

Safekeep copy is here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Haiku-Essays/message/105

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More links about Hearn
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Darumasan-Japan/message/463

Search Google pictures gallery for Lafcadio Hearn portrait

Lafcadio Hearn forum, links & add URL

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Read stories from Hearn himself

My First Romance
Fuji-No-Yama, 1898 (ascent of Mount Fuji)
Kwaidan, 1904 (some traditional Japanese ghost stories)
The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hôïchi
Oshidori
Diplomacy
Yuki-onna (at Steve Trussel's Hearn home page)
Ubazakura (at Steve Brown's Hearn home page)
At a Railway Station, from Kokoro (1896), thanks to Steve Brown
Louisiana College has a good home page with a short biography.

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