A was a likeness of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

onto which the religious authorities of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

of Japan required suspected

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

(

Kirishitan The Japanese term , from Portuguese ''cristão'' (cf. Kristang), meaning "Christian", referred to Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term for Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. ...

) to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of the outlawed

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

, otherwise they would be tortured or killed.

History

Fumi-e to Expose Christians by Tokugawa Shogunate

The use of ''fumi-e'' began with the persecution of Christians in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

in 1629. Inhabitants of Nagasaki, whether a commoner, Buddhist monk or samurai, all were required to tread on the icons which were brought house to house. Their use was officially abandoned when ports opened to foreigners on 13 April 1856, but some remained in use until Christian teaching was placed under formal protection during the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. The objects were also known as ''e-ita'' or ''ita-e'', while the forced test was called ''e-fumi''. The Japanese government used ''fumi-e'' to reveal practicing Christians and sympathizers. ''Fumi-e'' were pictures of the Virgin Mary and

. Government officials made suspected Christians trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Christians and were sent to Nagasaki. The policy of the Edo government was to turn them from their faith; however, if the Christians refused to change their religion, they were

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

d. As many of them still refused to abandon the religion, they were killed by the government. Executions sometimes took place at

Mount Unzen is an active volcanic group of several overlapping stratovolcanoes, near the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island. In 1792, the collapse of one of its several lava domes triggered a megatsunam ...

, where some were boiled in the hot springs. Execution for Christianity was unofficially abandoned by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1805. Eighteenth-century Europe was aware enough of ''e-fumi'' for authors of fiction to mention it when alluding to Japan, as in

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...

's '' Gulliver's Travels'' (1726), Oliver Goldsmith's '' The Citizen of the World'' (1760), and

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

's '' Candide'' (1759). Allegations published in Europe the late 17th and early 18th century that Dutch traders at

Dejima , in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, i ...

were required to undergo the ''fumi-e'' test are thought by modern scholars to be propaganda arising from the

Anglo-Dutch Wars The Anglo–Dutch Wars ( nl, Engels–Nederlandse Oorlogen) were a series of conflicts mainly fought between the Dutch Republic and England (later Great Britain) from mid-17th to late 18th century. The first three wars occurred in the second ...

. In modern Japanese literature, treading on the fumi-e is a pivotal plot element of the novel ''

Silence Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the c ...

'' by

Shūsaku Endō was a Japanese author who wrote from the rare perspective of a Japanese Catholic. Internationally, he is known for his 1966 historical fiction novel ''Silence'', which was adapted into a 2016 film of the same name by director Martin Scorsese. ...

. Several secretly practicing Christianity did ''fumi-e'' and then maintained their beliefs secretly ( Kakure Kirishitan); there were 20,000 secret Christians in Japan when Christianity was legalized again, down from 500,000 in Nagasaki during the height of Christian belief pre-''fumi-e''.

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

professor Mark Mullins concluded that "In that sense, the 'fumi-e''policies were effective."

Interpretations

Many theologians have tried to contemplate the role of the ''fumi-e'' to Japanese Christians, some seeing the treading of the ''fumi-e'' as a sign of the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University professor Simon Hill stated that if all of the ''fumi-e'' participants had instead chosen to be defiant and died, Christianity would not have continued in Japan; he stated "It is only because some made an existential decision to trample on the ''fumi-e'', ... that Christianity in Japan was able to survive."

Form

''Fumi-e'' were usually cast from bronze, but others were made of painted stone and some were woodblock prints. There are relatively few surviving ''fumi-e'', as most were simply thrown away or recycled for other uses. Some examples were displayed by the Smithsonian in their 2007 exhibition "Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fumi-E History of Christianity in Japan Anti-Christian sentiment in Asia Anti-Catholicism Edo period Persecution of Christians 1629 establishments in Japan 1620s establishments in Japan 1856 disestablishments Religious policy in Japan

History

Interpretations

Form

See also

References