Chapter VI: Tanikō

IKENIYE

HATSUYUKI

HAKU RAKUTEN

NOTE ON TANIKŌ AND IKENIYE.

Both of these plays deal with the ruthless exactions of religion; in each the first part lends itself better to translation than the second. _Tanikō_ is still played; but _Ikeniye_, though printed by both Ōwada and Haga, has probably not been staged for many centuries.

The pilgrims of _Tanikō_ are _Yamabushi_, “mountaineers,” to whom reference has been made on page 33. They called themselves _Shu-genja_, “portent-workers,” and claimed to be the knight-errants of Buddhism. But their conduct seems to have differed little from that of the _Sōhei_ (armed monks) who poured down in hordes from Mount Hiyei to terrorize the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Some one in the _Genji Monogatari_ is said to have “collected a crowd of evil-looking Yamabushi, desperate, stick-at-nothing fellows.”

_Ikeniye_, the title of the second play, means “Pool Sacrifice,” but also “Living Sacrifice,” i. e. human sacrifice.

TANIKŌ

(THE VALLEY-HURLING)