The collection

File A6 consists of archival documents carefully wrapped with washi 和紙 (Japanese paper), English language newspapers, etc., which were then all carefully wrapped together with a wrapper and tied together with a string. Damaged documents were handled much more carefully than other ones by, for example, wrapping them with paper. Under the string bundling all of the documents together were two cards upon which is written the content of the file.

The majority of the historical materials in this file are oaths relating to the Christian inquisition carried out in Kan'ei 12 (1635) that were submitted by Usuki Domain villages and residents to the Office of Religious Affairs. While there are slight variations, they are generally titled “Oath for Christian Inquisition.” These documents are in Japanese widely known as nanban seishi 南蛮誓詞 or “Southern Barbarian oaths.” There are a total of 364 items. There is also one document in which a village unit headman attests that people are not a Christian and one in which it is attested that a priest is not Christian. Such documents were called ukejō 請状.

There are twenty-two tsugi gami 継紙: sheets of paper comprised of several to dozens of glued together documents from a village or town. The number of documents in the tsugi gami for each village / town are as follows: Nakanogawa Village – 14, Yoshino-tsuji – 21, Irikita Village – 13, Tsukumi-hata Village / Matsukawa Village – 23, Utaise Village – 9, Kurono Village / Akano Village – 15, Kimoiri Village – 13, Kayoi Village – 20, Higashi Kōno Village – 10, 11, Kawarauchi Village – 11, Matsubara Village – 8, Suehiro Village – 32, Suguou Village – 15, Hosoeda Village – 14, Kugiono Village – 25, Ogawachi Village – 12, Tatamiya Town – 9, Sazuru Village – 12, Hetsugi-ichi Village – 2, Mieno Village / Tomuro Village – 10, name unknown – 1. There are two tsugi gami for Higashi Kōno Village, comprised of ten and eleven documents. The former set of documents is primarily regarding parishioners of Enpukuji, and this temple's attestation entitled “Attestation for Christian Inquisition” is found before nine oaths. The latter set of documents is primarily regarding parishioners of Myōrakuji. Enpukuji and Myōrakuji are both Zen sect temples. On these documents it is written that their priests were married. Thus, their attestation was deemed invalid, and the parishioners of these temples became parishioners of other temples (such as Usuki’s Kenshōin) and received documents attesting to this. There is an envelope upon which is written “Kan’ei 12 Higashi Kōno Village Unit Head Documents.” These documents were probably in this envelope.

In the file there are items from the following villages that are not grouped together: Yokoo Village – 2, Ashikari Village – 13, Mochimaru Village – 2, Kurasono Village – 1, Ōuchi Village – 1, Iejima Village – 21, Ichinoo Village – 15, Tawara Village 1, Yamaoku Village – 4, Tamarimizu Village – 1, unknown – 1. The aforementioned village unit headman attestation regarding Christianity is from Ichinoo Village and is not grouped together with another document. In it, we find information about the situation surrounding the persecution of Christians at the time: about a system for rewarding those who accused others of being Christian, how Christians should be investigated, and so on.

It appears that oaths from Kan’ei 12 are also included in other bags. While not included in A6, records of the Christian inquisitions for each village unit were made in Kan’ei 12 based on these submitted oaths. They are held at Salesian Pontifical University. There is a high chance that these documents were pasted together by the Office of Religious Affairs, which received them from village unit heads.

On the two cards in this file we find the following text: “Handwritten Documents Regarding the Oppression of the Japanese Catholic Church, Collected by Don Marega, Declarations Renouncing Christianity, No. 220–260, 1635, Small Group No. 4” (A6.1.1), and “Handwritten Documents Regarding the Oppression of the Japanese Catholic Church, Collected by Don Marega, No. 270–277, 326–340, 278–298, Year of 1635, Declarations Renouncing Christianity, Small Group No. 4” (A6.2.2.1.1). Almost all of the documents corresponding to the numbers (Marega Numbers) written on the card were in this group, however, we have not found nine items: 220–225, 228, 249, and 258. We also found historical materials with Marega Numbers spanning from 261 to 269 which are not written on the cards.