An Old Tale of O-Tengumatsu: The Origin of the Tengu Nose

Translation

“An Old Tale of O-Tengumatsu”
The Origin of the Tengu Nose
Text by Midori Takehiko
Illustrations by Sanjō Haruhiko

“Sorry, brother. Then I won’t stand on ceremony. There’s not much point telling you the origin of this tengu nose now, but it’ll serve as something to go with the sake. Since it’s a spring night, let me tell you the whole story over our cups.”

“You could say it was my own fault, and that would be the end of it. In our line of work, if you’re caught cheating, losing a finger is one of the gentler punishments. When my trick was exposed at a gambling den in Kurumazaka, Shitaya, Edo, I thought I was finished. The whole district belonged to Boss Nikichi, the bearded one. What we were playing that night wasn’t the ordinary chō-han game. It was a game amateurs rarely played, called Ōme-Kome. With three dice in a cup, four through six counted as ōme, the big numbers, and one through three as kome, the small numbers. Edo men call it Ōme, but up around Kamigata they apparently drop the character for ‘small’ and call the game by just the first three syllables, which produces a ridiculous expression that makes the women blush.

I’d substituted a cleverly rigged set of dice that came up small numbers almost every time, and whenever the bank came around to me I’d use them about every other throw.

The person who spotted me was Ogin, sitting beside Boss Nikichi. By nature she was a fearsome gambling woman. They said that among female gamblers nobody could touch her for skill. Across both thighs, all the way to the roots of her legs, she had brilliant red scattered maple leaves tattooed, which was why everyone called her Maple-Leaf Ogin. When she started losing, she’d let those maple leaves flash above her white calves. While the men stared into the maple grove and lost their wits, she’d seize the advantage. She’d caused no end of trouble for the other gamblers.

Somehow or other she’d become Boss Nikichi’s mistress. By then everyone treated her like the lady of the house. She counted the house’s cut from the games and ordered the underlings around with a tilt of her chin. She’d spent so much time among rough men that a fellow like me didn’t amount to a fart in her eyes.

I slipped my trick dice into the cup and was just about to open it with the call when a sharp voice said, “Wait.” I knew I’d botched it. I thrust my hand into the cup, trying to switch the dice back, but Ogin’s white hand came down over mine and pinned it there, cup and all.

My cheating dice had fooled people for years, but Ogin saw through them in an instant. After that, things followed the usual course.

They somehow patched up the game and kept it going, but first they stripped me of every coin I had, then the boys hauled me away and tossed me into the storehouse out back. There was no escaping. With the young men surrounding me, fighting would have accomplished nothing. So I thought, to hell with it, lay down, and I don’t know how long I slept.

Suddenly I was kicked so hard in the ribs I shot awake. Ogin was standing over me with five or six men behind her. She had those long, intensely sensual eyes that seemed to see clear through to the bottom of your belly, and she stared straight at me.

“You know what happens to a man who cheats, don’t you?”

I had nothing to say.

“Cheating our guests isn’t something you settle merely by cutting off a finger. You understand that much, don’t you?”

She kept pressing me. But I was a man. Squirming now wasn’t going to help. Boil me, roast me, do what you like, I thought. I sat there with a defiant cross-legged posture and glared back at her.

“Hmph. You’ve got some nerve. And looking at you, you’re a fairly handsome fellow. The trouble with me is that I dearly love tormenting a good-looking man like you, tormenting him until I’ve had my fill. Boss Nikichi knows that, and I volunteered to handle you myself.”

A woman so fair-skinned and handsome could say something that dreadful as though it were nothing. That chilled me even more. I’d told myself I was prepared for anything, yet my heart started pounding when I wondered what she intended to do.

She ordered the men to bind my wrists tightly with a thick rope. They threw the free end over a beam in the storehouse, one thick enough to put your arms around, and hauled me upward until I was hanging in midair. My toes must have been a foot or so above the floor.

“Nobody comes back in until I call. Understand?”

She sent the men out, slammed the heavy door, locked it from the inside, and leaned some junk boards against the lattice so nobody could peer in. Then she walked toward me.

“Now then, let’s get down to the punishment.”

With an expression I cannot read with certainty in the scan, she looked at my face. It was as though the prospect of punishing me delighted her. Slowly she undid my sash, peeled away my lined robe, unwound the cloth around my waist, and finally removed even my loincloth, leaving me stark naked.

“Well now. You’re plumper than you look. That’s a body worth tormenting. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. But you may find the weather a little rough, so brace yourself. Don’t blame me for hurting you. Blame that cheating disposition of yours.”

She examined my body carefully and slapped my backside five or six times. Then she transferred the flame to a candle whose exact printed description is unclear in the scan.

Her eyes glittered in the briefly brightened storehouse as she placed the candle beneath my dangling feet.

The heat crept upward from my feet until I couldn’t stand it. Still hanging in midair, I kicked, drew up my legs, spread them, and must have performed a strange tengu dance in the air. Ogin simply sat below with one knee raised, watching as though it were the finest entertainment in the world. I couldn’t take it. I screamed.

“Ho-ho, warmed up nicely, have you? It’s still early spring. Think of this as the kindness of a mother making sure you don’t catch cold. If you’re going to thrash around that much, I can arrange things so it isn’t so hot.”

She took thin cords from her sleeve, tied each ankle separately, then hauled my legs apart and fastened them to the storehouse wall until it felt as though my groin would split. I was spared the direct heat, but my legs were spread wide in the air and I could not move. The cords bit into my hands and feet until it felt as if they would tear away.

Ogin picked up what appears in the text to be a broken bow and gripped it in one hand.

“Young fellow, let’s see how many blows from this you can endure.”

That infuriated me. “Give me as many as you like. Beat me until you’ve had your fill, then hurry up and let me down!”

“Oh? As many as I like? What magnificent spirit. Very well, young master. I’ll take you at your word and beat you until I’m satisfied.”

I don’t know how many times that thing cracked against me. My whole body gradually went numb. Eventually I was so deadened that no matter how often she struck me it hardly registered. I felt as if I were drifting through clouds. Only the snapping sound of the bow against my flesh seemed to reach me from somewhere far away. The nerves that had known pain were already gone, and I floated half-conscious in the air.

At last even Ogin stopped, panting and breathing through her shoulders as she stared at me for a while. I remember that only dimly.

Then, for reasons I couldn’t understand, she took up the candle and brought it close to my body. I dimly remember my flesh writhing from the heat and the unpleasant smell of singed hair reaching my nose. After that, I don’t know what she did or what happened.

A bucketful of water struck my face and brought me around. At some point I’d been lowered and was lying stretched out on the storehouse floor.

My crotch burned and prickled fiercely. Apparently she’d amused herself with me even after I’d passed out. There was a strange heat around my belly and navel, my chest felt tight, and my whole body seemed swollen and feverish. Apparently I hadn’t been unconscious very long.

“Hmph. You’re more spineless than I expected. This was only the beginning. I’ll let you off for tonight, but there’s plenty of punishment waiting tomorrow. Rest while you can. Out of mercy I’ve even left you something to eat.”

She cruelly twisted my weakened arms behind my back and bound me. Then she rigged the rope so that my arms, neck, torso, and groin worked against one another: lowering my hands tightened my neck, while raising them pulled at my burned crotch. I couldn’t move an inch. My body bent forward, breathing itself hurt, my legs were bound together, and the rope was secured to the main pillar. Ogin flashed one white shin beneath her clothing, lightly kicked me in the head, and silently left.

Naked, I shivered as the spring night deepened, lowering my ice-cold body into darkness where I couldn’t see a foot ahead. A faint smell of pickled daikon made me turn my head. Right beside my face was a plate holding a large rice ball and a scrap of takuan. I had no appetite, and in that position I couldn’t have swallowed properly anyway.

Eventually I couldn’t hold my bladder any longer and pissed where I lay. The warmth ran over my body, then rapidly cooled, leaving half of me wet and cold.

Pitiful as I was, the exhaustion of the day must have overcome me. I woke to the sound of my own moaning in a nightmare. Pale morning sunlight was coming through the high window. Every bone in me felt as though it had been torn apart. I couldn’t believe I’d managed to sleep at all. The ropes had loosened slightly, but where they had bitten into me my hands and feet were white and cold like a corpse, without sensation.

One sleepy-eyed underling came in, set down two more rice balls and some takuan, and started to leave. Then he seemed to reconsider. He removed the ropes running through my crotch and around my neck and rebound my hands behind me instead. I lay there like a dead man, watching through half-closed eyes and letting him do as he pleased. He saw the urine I’d left, pinched his nose, and walked out.

Nobody looked in again until night. My spirit and body were utterly spent. Being tied with my hands behind me was easier than Ogin’s earlier arrangement, but I was still bound. I ate the tasteless rice like a dog, picking up the rice ball with my mouth.

I pissed again. There was no helping that. I disgusted myself, soaking my waist and unable even to wipe myself. The stink filled my nose. I became so miserable that being killed cleanly and quickly seemed almost easier.

At about the hour indicated by the distant bell striking five, Ogin appeared silently before me. She made an exaggerated face of disgust.

“What a charming feast you’ve prepared. Ah, I see. You didn’t like the rice balls I gave you, so you did this to spite me.”

“Do whatever you damn well like. See if you could endure this yourself. No matter how pretty you are, what comes out of you is the same as anybody else’s.”

That was my defiant answer.

“So you said it. Don’t make a fool of me. I’ll see to it that pretty mouth of yours never says such a thing again.”

She stormed out and returned with an underling named Hanji. Together they dragged me, still tied, to the great black pillar and wrapped me to it three and four times over until I couldn’t move.

“Hanji, feed our guest his feast.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“You idiot. Use that scoop lying there. Scoop up our guest’s feast and feed it to him. That’s what I’m telling you.”

Hanji tried to force my mouth open. The instant my jaws parted, Ogin jammed iron fire-tongs between my teeth. Hanji seized my lower jaw and tried to wrench my mouth open by force.

“If his mouth keeps moving, it’ll be troublesome. Put a brace inside.”

Hanji tried to push a short piece of wood into my pried-open mouth. No, I thought, even if it kills me I won’t let go. I clamped down with all my strength. Blood filled my mouth. Ignoring his startled scream, I somehow found the strength to bite off one of his fingers. Four or five men came running at the sound and beat me until my face was hardly recognizable. Then, cursing me, they forced the filthy “feast” into my mouth and rammed it down my throat with a stick.

“Ugh, filthy bastard. While we’re at it, let’s make him clean up.”

They held me down. Still bound behind the back, I was made to crawl and lick clean the filth stuck to the floorboards and another short passage that is unclear in the scan.

Through all of it Ogin stood without moving, calmly watching. She was a woman with remarkable nerve.

“This shit-eating bastard bit Hanji’s finger off. We could torment him forever and it still wouldn’t be enough. What shall we do with him, ma’am?”

“Leave the rest to me. Get out.”

At Ogin’s command the men reluctantly filed away.

“Heh-heh. Tasty, wasn’t it? Your throat must be dry. Let me give you some nice tea.”

She removed the ladder leading to the second-floor storeroom, laid it flat with a thud, placed me on my back upon it, and bound me to it hand and foot. She propped boxes under both ends so that the ladder stood four or five inches above the floor. She loosened and gathered my hair, tied it around a rung so tightly that my head and face could not move, and then said:

“Now then, I’m going to show you something people aren’t normally allowed to see. It would be sacrilege to keep your eyes open, you know.”

She tapped both my eyes with her fingertips. I had no idea what was coming and scarcely felt alive.

Her crimson chirimen undergarment opened before my eyes. Then I saw the dazzling scattered-maple tattoo I’d only heard rumors about. Ogin boldly straddled my face and raised herself over me. From the grotto among those scattered maple leaves came the sound of a warm spring bursting forth, and an instant later a bitter, salty-sour liquid poured over my mouth and nostrils with no possibility of escape.

The unmistakable smell of a woman filled my senses. I lay there helplessly and let it happen.

“Open your mouth. Open it.”

At the force in Ogin’s voice I opened my mouth without thinking.

The “good tea” poured in. I grimaced and choked, gulping helplessly, my Adam’s apple bobbing as I swallowed it into my stomach.

“There. Feel refreshed? We’ll leave the rest until tomorrow. That’s enough for tonight.”

Ogin quickly put herself back in order. With that alluring look in her eyes she smiled for no reason I could understand and left, her steps swaying, while I remained tied to the ladder. She had shown me another, deeply strange side of herself. I lay there like a dead man, terrified at what new torment this abnormal woman might devise next.

The heavy door sounded again and Hanji lumbered in.

“You bastard. You bit my finger off. Remember this. If the lady hadn’t stopped me, I’d have killed you.”

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and smashed my head against the ladder rungs again and again. Then he stood the ladder upright from the foot end, leaving me upside down. My consciousness faded.

When I came to again I could barely breathe. I had been laid back in the original position. Hanji must have beaten me, because my face was covered in blood from my nose and the inside of my nose throbbed and ached. He must even have ground a manure-stinking, worn straw sandal into my face. I wondered how distorted and filthy I looked.

Yet through the haze in my head I kept seeing Ogin’s seductive, mocking eyes. I hated myself for it, but after all the torment she had inflicted, visions of her white shins and the tattooed inner thighs with their scattered maples came back to me. It was a strange feeling.

When night came Ogin opened the heavy door and entered alone.

“Goodness, what happened to that face? Such a handsome man, ruined. Fire torment and water torment took a lot out of you, didn’t they? Tonight I’ll give you the finishing touch. I don’t mean kill you. I want to leave you a little souvenir so you’ll always remember me.”

Even after the ropes came off I had no strength to resist. I dropped from the ladder like a log. Ogin dragged me back to the great black pillar and bound me so tightly I could not move. Then she took a bundle of needles and an ink dish from her sleeve and jabbed experimentally at different parts of my body.

“Looks like you’re still sturdy enough. All right. Here we go.”

She crouched in front of me and began inserting the needle about an inch below my navel, repeatedly charging it with ink and rapidly tattooing some design. Blood welled up in little beads and she wiped it away with a damp cloth while continuing her work. Pain and suffering were no longer words large enough for that hellish torment. I sobbed and cried continuously.

“There. Finished. You want to see it, don’t you? Look closely.”

She took out a hand mirror and angled it so I could see the place she had just tattooed. There was the outline of a tengu’s face, its brows and eyes roughly tattooed across my lower abdomen.

“Your own magnificent nose will suit it perfectly. Ho-ho. I must say, I’ve done a fine job.”

I truly cried then. What had she done? I’d never be able to show myself to a woman again.

“When that nose of yours is in the proper condition for this tengu, it’ll complete the effect. I’d almost like to enter it in a tattoo exhibition. Now, I’d like to say my punishment is finished, but we still have the matter of Hanji’s finger. Since that fool Hanji is too clumsy to settle the account properly, I’ll do it for him. Ready?”

With a frightening smile, Ogin went around behind the pillar. My fingertips were already so numb I had almost no feeling. One after another she drove the tattoo needles into the spaces between my fingernails and the flesh. I could see the blood welling, yet whether from numbness or exhaustion I hardly felt the punctures. The roughly tattooed upper half of the tengu on my lower belly hurt far worse, sending waves of pain through me that nearly drove me insane.

Eventually the underlings came crowding back in.

“Look at this. He’s got himself a stylish tattoo. The women will squeal when they see it. While we’re at it, let’s tattoo ‘This Man Is a Cheat’ on his arm so he won’t be able to swindle anyone again.”

I dimly remember them laughing and shouting. They tattooed something like that on my right arm. Then, leaving the needles between nail and flesh, they threw one ragged yukata over my naked body, carried me away, and dumped me somewhere around Ueno Yamashita.

Even now I’m amazed I survived those three days.

I was practically a cripple. By luck, some kindly people took me in. My fingers eventually healed, though part of the sentence describing my recovery is difficult to read. I had had enough of Edo. I left Nihonbashi at the seventh hour and headed west along the Nakasendō.

At every post town, things were all right while it was still dark, but by evening I grew self-conscious and couldn’t manage to form an intimate relationship with a woman. If a tengu stared at them from down there, a timid woman might faint. But rumors travel. Somehow the women of the post stations heard about my tengu nose, and before long both the inn women and my own companions had started calling me O-Tengumatsu, Tengu-Nose Matsu.

There were even curious women who’d say, “Just once, I’d like to be prodded by that tengu nose.” Well, hell, if that was how things were going to be, I decided to turn it to my advantage. I’d be Matsu of the Tengu Nose, O-Tengumatsu. Once I took that attitude, things became easier. It isn’t exactly something to boast about, but I stopped hiding it. And that’s the extraordinary origin of my tengu nose.

As for Ogin, word on the wind says she found herself a good lover, took his hand, slipped away from Boss Nikichi, and has been hiding ever since. The boss is furious. They say that if he catches her he won’t let her off easily. If I ever meet that woman again myself, I’d certainly like to repay her kindness.

Cheating still leaves a man with an empty rice bowl, but ironically this tengu nose seems to have trained me into something of a ladies’ man. I almost feel I ought to thank that cheating episode for it.

If I ever meet the fellow involved again, I’ll have to thank him. A tengu among the autumn maples is practically a theatrical scene, but my tengu nose keeps begging to be lovingly nestled among Ogin’s scattered maple leaves.

This tengu nose caused another commotion around Suruga. That time it wasn’t cheating. There was trouble over a woman. And then, in Kamigata, I unexpectedly ran into Ogin again. But I’ll save what happened then for next time. Brother, I’ve certainly made you spend a lot on the drinks tonight.”

(End of Part One)