The Serpent :
(from Representation to Shared Awareness and Results)
　

　　　　 HATA　 Kohei

　My name is Hata Kohei. I don’t have anything particularly astonishing or frightening to tell you today; nor am I well-informed about the situation overseas. Nevertheless, there is something I am very anxious to say to you. You’ll find a fairly comprehensive outline of what I have in mind in my summary. But, to the extent that time allows, I would like to add some observations to that.

　Looking at the literary scene from a global perspective, I see the “serpent” or “dragon” as one of those unexplored subjects about which international collaboration has yet to bear fruit. The snake or dragon motif of occurs extensively in every corner of the world, going beyond the purely biological creature to make its mark on languages, myths, oral tradition, fables, poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. The snake is also expressed, implied, symbolized, worshipped, or abhorred in various shapes and forms all over the world. And yet for all this profusion of expressions and representations, we have so far failed to grasp the fundamental structure of the snake issue or coordinate its universal significance across national borders.

　The snake-dragon issue is related to human fear and hatred. All over the world – more than we imagine, perhaps – it lurks beneath the social surface as a wellspring of discrimination camouflaged as religious faith. We may in that sense regard it as a theme – a rather dangerous one – that has infused mankind and literature from the ancient past through to the present day.

　Judged a deep-rooted taboo and accordingly dismissed from the conscious mind, the snake/dragon now occurs in subtly different manifestations and contexts, and continues to inspire new works. Take bullying, for example, a close examination of which reveals a radlcal connection to the snake motif. Unfortunately, society and politics are still　 unable to come to grips with this.

　In the Asia-Pacific region the snake is especially prolific both as an image and as a biological creature. Throughout history, humans in this region have never been able to exclude it from their lives.

　Though my talk today is not based on systematic research, I would like to highlight the importance of this theme for literature and art. It lies coiled at the very heart of human society. I offer this address in the hope that P.E.N. will serve as a forum for the emergence of a shared recognition of this issue and its rich potential for contact and cooperation toward the eradication of the deep roots of human discrimination.

In a park I saw
　A shot snake.
Senseless death.

　This haiku is by Nakamura Kusatao. I will not go into the background of the poem, or say anything about the poet, but this poem has been playing on my mind lately. Without any explanation I showed it to students whom I taught until March at Tokyo Institute of Technology, and asked for their impressions. The students are around 20 years old. Many of them were at first struck by the contrast between “park” and “snake” . A park, they said, is a typically “artficial” place. A park can’t exist unless human beings create it. It represents “secondary nature.” A snake, on the other hand, is a creature that symbolizes “nature” itself, or prima1y nature; nature’s nushi or guardian spirit, so to speak.. That is nushi as in Okuni-nushi, a well-known mythical character. Between those two natures occurred the shooting, an act evidently perpetrated by man. The observation “senseless” – or, “repugnant” – is a matter of　 interpretation. Be that as it may, the snake (natural nature) carelessly blundered into the park (artificial nature) and was there “shot.”　 Of course, the notion of the snake infringing upon the artificial world comes from an arbitrarily human perspective. Perhaps it would be truer to say that man has infringed upon the snake by building parks. Either way, the fact remains that the snake is shot, which itself generates the condemnation of its “senselessness” or “repugnance” in the heart of the poet – and in the hearts of my students as　 well.

　Here I must confess to a personal oversight in the matter. It was my students who pointed this out to me. This haiku had struck me as very good, but I had not interpreted the park and the snake as representing two distinct modes of nature. In any case, I would like to introduce here two aspects of this problem.

　Consider, to start with, the dichotomy between “contrivance” and “nature.” According to my students, the park symbolizes artificial nature. To put it another way, it is a contrivance, a man-made creation. A contrivance means the creation of something interesting, something which gives us pleasure. Such creation is a spiritual activity. Contrivance applies not onIy to art. Human beings “contrive” in any number of fields. Doing so gives pleasure. To cite examples from Japanese culture, think of the “Kokin Wakashu” “The Tale of Genji”, the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, picture contests and poetry matches, verse-linking, Noh, Kabuki, the tea ceremony, woodblock prints, reading books, the Meiji Period creations of Masaoka Shiki and Higuchi Ichiyo – all are splendid examples of contrivance.

　But we absolutely must recognize one pomt: that very few works succeed on the strength of contrivance alone. Japanese creations have always joined love of nature to love of contrivance. “Nature”　 by itself is liable to result in something insipid, ordinary, dull, bland, and mediocre. It takes the spice of contrivance, of ingenious planning, of art, of technique, to make a work interesting.

　On the other hand, if the contrivance itself has something unnatural about it, it cannot last long anyway. It is apt to degenerate into tasteless pranks and artificiality.

　What is important is that the tense balance between the two ideas, “contrivance” and “nature,”　 has led Japanese creative writing throughout history to reflect Japanese tastes. Admitting a few exceptions, there are stil1 an overwhelming number of examples one could raise. It is no overstatement to say that works recognized as being well-balanced have been preserved to live on as objects of the Japanese people’s pride. They have been able to strike a balance, somehow, between a “park-like” idea and a “snake-like”　 thing, instead of suddenly shooting the snake and brushing its dead form aside. Speaking figuratively, these works have managed to achieve an intelligent compromise. “Contrivance and nature,” “natural contrivance”: this has been an operating principle, I think, of Japanese writing.

　Anyway, this is one point to which I called the attention of my students. It applies not only to creative writing but to lifestyle, to the arts and sciences, to worldly wisdom. The principle, I pointed out, shows up in every aspect of life.

　But the matter hardly ends there. I believe there is something else that we can read into Kusatao’s haiku. Many students expressed quite openly their feelings of hatred and disgust for the snake. A useless creature – “senseless”, “repugnant” – that deserved to die. Other students were critical of this stance, but I sensed that even they, deep inside, harbored similar feelings. And yet they regarded the snake as a symbol of nature ! What, then, do young college students mean when they say “nature” ? I felt strongly tempted to explore that question a little further. However, I will not dwell on it today.

　Let me make a confession. Ever since my very first book I have written often about snakes. Does that indicate I like snakes ?　 By no means !　 When I so much as see the Chinese character for “insect”　 which is the radical of the one for “snake,” I feel a little queasy. That arises from a certain trauma in my distant childhood. I hate snakes, I hate them, I can’t stand them ! There were snakes in the house I grew up in in Kyoto. During the war we were evacuated deep into the mountains of Tanba, which were full of snakes. Well !　 Not very many people like snakes after all – and therein, I think, lies the problem.

　Why are people so bothered by snakes ? Why the hatred ? There is no need to mention the Christian Bible. There is the Chinese Legend of the White Snake. The earliest tales were stories of pure love that existed between a snake and a human being. Gradually a change set in, and the snake came to play the role of bad guy. But the story itself continued to be very popular. And in Japan, there is the Dojoji series, in which the heroine, whose love turns into hate, becomes a snake and burns the man to death.

　This tale has been enormously popular since ancient times. It cannot be simply dismissed as a case of curiosity conquering fear. In Ueda Akinari’s “Jasei no In” (The snake’s lust), too, a snakegirl named Manago /Aiko is not merely an object of hatred. On the other hand, she is not exactly a figure of affection either. One thing is certain: the snake is an extraordinary creature that cannot be ignored. That is how it has reaffirmed its raison d’etre.

　Particularly noteworthy among modern Japanese writers who have written about snakes is Izumi Kyoka. Beginning long ago with “Hebi Kui” (Snake eating), which can be considered his debut piece, he often introduced snakes, either in the flesh, as a symbol, or as something akin to an illusion. At one point Kyoka went by the pseudonym Hakusuiro which was more than just a parody on his family name Izumi. (The character for “Izumi,” or “fountain,” is made up of two parts: the upper part means “white” and the lower part means “water,” and together those elements can be read “hakusui.” ) The sea and the water of ancient times, the people of the sea and the people of the water – these are reflected in many of Kyoka’s works like faint shadows that are nonetheless real. I suspect that the name Kyoka (mirror or reflection of frower), too, was deliberately chosen by the writer as an esthetic foil to mask the sadness he fe1t for the snake and the people of the snake, as well as a more fundamental deep-rooted sorrow. I think the study of the snake motif is one of the most important, unexplored themes in the study of Kyoka’s works.

　I wonder whether it would even be possible to write the history of human culture or human society without considering the snake – or the dragon. The significance these creatures have in human society and culture cannot be made light of, much less ignored. One does, however, note a tendency to pretend not to see them. There has to have been a reason for this. Particularly in Japan, perhaps because snakes played a part in the myths of the nation’s origin, taboos prevented the topic from being discussed in the open.

　Japan has lots of water – ponds, swamps, rivers, and of course the sea. It is a country whose mountains, valleys, fields and villages ooze with water. There is nowhere in Japan where snakes do not exist. Thus, most of the deities regarded as gods at old Japanese shrines – Izumo, Suwa, Kamo, Ise, Sumiyoshi, Hachiman, Yasaka, Kumano, Inari, Kifune, Kehi, Sata, Konpira, Itsukushima, Nio, Miwa, Kashima, Mishima, and Matsuo – are water gods, meaning gods in snake form. Moreover, most of these shrines have been sanctified and shut away, or else buried, strictly and with solemnity, in hazardous locations, in locations from which it is hoped that the gods will not come out into the open. In addition, a close look reveals that social discrimination, and isolation in the form of having to eat apart and cook meals over separate fires, originated with the few people appointed to tend to these gods or the bodies of the dead. So powerful was the taboo pertaining to the snake that it may even – no, did indeed – extend to the human beings associated with them. This custom of taboo and isolation has roots extending into the distant past.

　According to what the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki have to say about the mythological age of the gods, the origin of the Imperial Family itself cannot be considered apart from the snake, the dragon-snake, and from water-gods and sea-gods or mountain-gods and field-gods. The image of the snake-head biting its tail might be seen as expressing the structuralized discriminations within Japanese society: the nobility and the lowly, town and country, the pure and the unclean existed side by side but never mixed. Moreover, these structural discriminations were hereditary, and selfishly stayed fixed; nothing was done to amend them. Thus they have endured right through the history of Japan. Not that I would have you think this applies to Japanese history alone. That is one reason why I decided to talk about snakes today.

　What I am trying to say is that the world’s myths and legends concerning snakes and dragons are important, and can help us understand not only history but the intractable problems of the present and future. Once we recognize the snake as a useful research theme and proceed from the amassing of data to study, and from study to understanding, it may bring us to a deeper understanding of a problem like bullying, for example. It may also suggest fresh interpretations of the depths of consciousness and significance of many art forms, and open up rich new fields of unexplored territory.

　Again, this applies not only to Japan. In the Far East, theOrient, and Europe, as well as the countries of the South Seas, this is something that cannot be ignored. The snake – or the dragon – is present and has a serious connection with every field: agriculture, medicine, fishing, magic, and religion, as well as literature and the arts – and, as I was saying just now, with the structural dynamics and psychology of human relations. It may have started out as a dragon issue and petered out as a snake, or the image of the dragon may have been substituted intentionally to avoid mentioning the word snake. In either case, the root of the problem is the snake.

　Arai Hakuseki, an Edo Period statesman and distinguished scholar, argued that the present day Ibaraki prefecture is the so-called “Naka land of Ashihara.” Reading the description of the natura1 features of Hitachi – the old name of Ibaraki prefecture – one is struck by the fact that this is indeed “snake country.”　 There are, for example, “Naka-district” , and the Naka River. There is the legend of “Nkahiko and Nukahime.” Snakes are worshipped as “great gods.”　 The alternate reading in Japanese for the Chinese character for “snake” is “na”, and an alternate reading of the character for tokoro(place) – is “ka”. Hence the syllables “naka” and “naga” in family names resembling place-names have an association with snakes. With due apologies to people with those names – Nakagawa, Nagashima, Nakano, Nagayama, Nakatani, Nagaoka, Kawana, Yamana, Hamana and so on – all suggest places in which human beings coexisted with snakes. There are indeed many places like this.

　I think the analogical inference of the association of “naka”, “naga”, and “na”　 with snakes is well-grounded. As I’ve said, there are many rural districts throughout Japan whose names include the syllables “na”, “naka”, and “naga”. Other place names and also surnames with the same syllables are even more frequent. There may well have been a connection between this and the worship of the “long”(naga) insect – the snake or the dragon. For example, in Southeast Asia, it is by no means impossible to imagine a connection with the worship of the gods Naga, Nagulai and Anantanag, and ultimately even with the English word “snake.”

　Consider, too, the snake handle of the golden seal of the “Na land of Wa,”　 the old Chinese name for Japan. The party that conferred it upon Japan’s ancient rulers would have chosen the design after a thorough study of the recipient’s religious practices. This makes the interpretation of the connection between “na” and snakes less than extraordinary. The snake image figures also in Shinto religious rituals involving tug-of-war and bamboo-cutting. It is recognizable in chi-no-wa dipping, a ritual in which people walk through a suspended talismanic ring made of straw or grass, and in the thick Shinto straw festoons known as shimenawa. Fecund breeders, snakes inspired religious belief in an agricultural society, and the Shinto rituals are indicative of the ties between snakes and people.

　It goes without saying that the dragon is one of the most common figures in Chinese designs. Dragons protect palaces and graves; they are carved in stone, molded out of earth, etched on mirrors, and formed the great Chiu Lung Wall (the wall of nine dragons); they are found on bronzeware and jade ware, flags, swords, clothing, pottery, furniture, roofs, walls, and railways; they decorate everyday dinnerware – there is no end of examples of objects adorned with dragons down the ages through out China. Whether the representation is detailed or sketchy, whether the design is colorful or monochrome, the result offers a mysteriously flamboyant and lively impression. One can see it as well in the Nagasaki Kunchi festival, which originated in China. The Chinese dragon, with its richly powerful and spiritually uplifting nature, suggests a good omen portending an ascent to heaven.

　The basic dragon features – long scaly trunk, two horns, wings at the base of the forelegs, powerful dorsal fins leading to the tai1, extraordinary claws and so on – took shape for the most part during the Han Period. The fact that the dragon was an imaginary sacred beast evoked spilitual ease and peace of mind – resulting in the representation of the dragon as a creature of cheer and good fortune. In contrast, the snake crawling on the ground is an image of gloom. Among the four gods of direction, the dragon occupies the east where the sunrises. In one of the twelve styles of writing presented to the emperor, the dragon is used as a crest symbolizing the emperor. To me the charm of Ming and Ching porcelain lies in the dragon design, without which, I feel, they would be somewhat insipid.
　Somehow, in Japan, dragons failed to get ahead in life to that extent. To a Japanese mind, perhaps a dragon is only a snake that did well for itself. The Japanese do not surround themselves with objects adorned with dragon motifs. One talks about dragon palaces, but there are few instances of dragons themselves actually appearing, and when they do, as in the eight-headed monster serpent, they tend to take the form of a snake. One could of course mention the “dragon-snake” which is always the central figure of Izumo rituals. It is imagined as being something close to the true character of god, and kept at a respectful distance. The rope-weaving and thick festival pillars of Suwa are also supposed to be in the shape of a snake.

　In the Chinese national creation myth, the first clan in the so-called Three Rulers and Five Emperors Period went by a family name meaning “wind.” They are said to have had snake bodies and human heads. There are a number of creation myths of this kind involving snakes. If we consider the issue from a global perspective we will notice many more snake/dragon motifs. In representations of Mary, for example, we offen see Mary treading on a snake’s head. In the ancient pictures of the Orient, a singular dragon often makes an appearance. In Babylon, among the Hittites, and in Asia Minor too, there are expressions for snakes and dragons which overlap slightly. Many of these influenced the holy legends and statuary of the Christian world. The Garden of Eden had its snake, too.

　If snakes were simply abhorred creatures and nothing more, human beings could have ignored them and that would have been the end of it. But if they saw some significance in snakes, they had to give them expression. It is inevitable that snakes and dragons abound in the arts and as well as in our languages.

　But there has not been enough comparison and discussion of the issue. Within the Asia-Pacific region, for example, the subject is considered separately in isolation and treated with at best a kind of respectfu1 reserve. If this respectful reserve has fostered a troublesome history of human discrimination, that is a problem. It is a problem for those of us who wield a pen. It is not something we can afford to avert our eyes from. Talking about snakes is frightening, but I have always thought that it is something we must talk about. I would like to see a deeper interest in the issue spread among a wider range of people, a wish that has inspired me to talk about it today, if somewhat inadequately. Thank you for your kind attention.

Asia Pacific P.E.N. Conference (Tokyo 26th-28th November 1996)
　
　

(Hata Kohei　　 Novelist, born in 1935, at Kyoto City, studied at Doshisha University. Received the 5th Dazai Osamu Award in 1969. My works include “Winter Festival”, “Plegnant Lake”,”The First Love” etc…)