Like seeing John Wayne downing some whiskeys before a shootout, Kamikaze pilots being offered a drink from their senior officer on the morning of their mission is a familiar scene that would strike a modern day Japanese as well as westerners as a natural “man thing to do”. Likewise the Germans would have popped in their mouths their Pervitin (Panzer Chocolate/Stuka Tablets) as their picker-upper before their death-defying act. But what seems obviously to be Sake was just water.
It is the Japanese version of the Last Rites called “Mizu-sakazuki (water cup)”. The Japanese version traces itself back to Buddah’s deathbed, where in thirst, he asked a disciple for a drink from a nearby stream. An ogre from a snowy mountain delivered this fresh water in a cup to let him die without thirst.
So in the old days, “to be at someone’s deathbed” was expressed as “to take someone’s death water (Shini Mizu wo Toru)” in Japanese. Most often this is done by wetting the lips of the deceased or soon-to-die with a wetted brush or a cotton wad wrapped around a chopstick. It is a ritual done to comfort a person at death.
There will also be an offering of a last meal with a generous helping of rice in a bowl with chopstick sticking upwards out of it. See this dance sequence again from the Chinese Nanking Massacre movie, and you will see the rice in bowls on both sides of the incense burner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1aLFfk_kqY
There you go, another western misinterpretation. The dance, referred to as Victory dance in the west, has nothing at all to do with celebrating victory, but all to do with sending the souls of the dead off. Of course what you see is a badly mixed up Chinese interpretation of the Japanese death rite, so things were not done that way, but at least they did get the spirit right.
Anyway, that bowl of rice normally would be shattered upon departure of the hearse to signify that it was the last meal. By the way, if you had ever horrified a Japanese guest or host by sticking your chopsticks vertically in the rice while excusing yourself to go to the toilet, you now know why that is a terrible thing to do.
All the forgoing requires someone to be at the deathbed, which the Tokko pilots did not have the luxury of. So they came up with a do-it-yourself version already several hundred years ago. In the Edo period when excessive taxes were starving all the farmers, and they were forced to make a petition to the authorities or staged a revolt, they would make a toast with water to show their resolve, as their actions were punishable by death anyway. So when death is imminent in the action you were about to launch, one would toast with water to help pass yourself into the next world. Like the 47 Samurai on the night they avenged their master, the pilots toasted the last sight of each other and shattered the cups, as they would drink no more in this life.
That was the correct way to go, but some superior officers wanted to see his men off on their last mission with some more substance than just form, and used Sake instead. Was it pure ignorance of tradition or did they think “Buddah should have asked for Sake. He would have gotten it anyway”?
It is the Japanese version of the Last Rites called “Mizu-sakazuki (water cup)”. The Japanese version traces itself back to Buddah’s deathbed, where in thirst, he asked a disciple for a drink from a nearby stream. An ogre from a snowy mountain delivered this fresh water in a cup to let him die without thirst.
So in the old days, “to be at someone’s deathbed” was expressed as “to take someone’s death water (Shini Mizu wo Toru)” in Japanese. Most often this is done by wetting the lips of the deceased or soon-to-die with a wetted brush or a cotton wad wrapped around a chopstick. It is a ritual done to comfort a person at death.
There will also be an offering of a last meal with a generous helping of rice in a bowl with chopstick sticking upwards out of it. See this dance sequence again from the Chinese Nanking Massacre movie, and you will see the rice in bowls on both sides of the incense burner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1aLFfk_kqY
There you go, another western misinterpretation. The dance, referred to as Victory dance in the west, has nothing at all to do with celebrating victory, but all to do with sending the souls of the dead off. Of course what you see is a badly mixed up Chinese interpretation of the Japanese death rite, so things were not done that way, but at least they did get the spirit right.
Anyway, that bowl of rice normally would be shattered upon departure of the hearse to signify that it was the last meal. By the way, if you had ever horrified a Japanese guest or host by sticking your chopsticks vertically in the rice while excusing yourself to go to the toilet, you now know why that is a terrible thing to do.
All the forgoing requires someone to be at the deathbed, which the Tokko pilots did not have the luxury of. So they came up with a do-it-yourself version already several hundred years ago. In the Edo period when excessive taxes were starving all the farmers, and they were forced to make a petition to the authorities or staged a revolt, they would make a toast with water to show their resolve, as their actions were punishable by death anyway. So when death is imminent in the action you were about to launch, one would toast with water to help pass yourself into the next world. Like the 47 Samurai on the night they avenged their master, the pilots toasted the last sight of each other and shattered the cups, as they would drink no more in this life.
That was the correct way to go, but some superior officers wanted to see his men off on their last mission with some more substance than just form, and used Sake instead. Was it pure ignorance of tradition or did they think “Buddah should have asked for Sake. He would have gotten it anyway”?
Comment