Storytime! Ooka and the Wasted Wisdom.

[Leigh]

'Cause I got time to kill -like, way too much time, since the Donnie pup wakes me up so early-, I thought I'd share one of the stories I'll be telling at my folk hero and fairy tale panel, since I haven't shared any of 'em here. One such folk hero was a real man from a privileged background, Ooka Tadasuke, Echizen no Kami, a proud and clever sort who was deeply devoted to the pursuit of justice for the majority of his life.

It's said Ooka-sama's wish to serve as a judge came when he was a young man, and a male cousin committed murder. At that time, it was custom for all male family members of an accused to be put under house arrest until the case was cleared. In Ooka-sama's case, it was for ten months. That certainly lit a fire in him, and through hard work, he became the leader of his family and a public servant, holding many jobs until he became a judge. And as a judge, it was Ooka-sama's ruling that every man, no matter who they were, where they came from, or how absurd the complaint, would have their time in court. He even allowed women to make unofficial complaints to him, something that technically wasn't legal at the time.

His rise to fame began when he had to make several unorthodox decisions in his cases, but what really got him noticed was a case involving a border dispute between farmers of the Yamada and Kishu fiefs. The Yamada claim was said to be the just one, but Yoshimume, Lord of Kishu, was so close to the shogun of the time that no one dared say Yamada was in the right.

Ooka-sama dared, and settled the case on its merits. Yoshimune was so impressed that when he became shogun five years later, he promoted Ooka-sama to the position of machi-bugyo -the magistrate- of Yedo/Edo/Oedo (the area that would later become Tokyo). The new position combined the duties of mayor, police chief, fire marshal, and of course judge.

While this wasn't the position he remained in for the rest of his life, the period of time he served as machi-bugyo was among the most well-known, and some of his cases and other stories -some real, some exaggerated or even completely made up thanks to the passage of time and other forms of folklore creeping into it- came from those years.

The most famous of his cases in Japan later earned him the nickname "Solomon in Kimono" in the USA back in the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, when some of Ooka-sama's stories were published in English. This's the one I'll relate to you now. ^n_n^

[puts on Granma's yukata and sits in a comfy chair] Mukashimukashi....

[Leigh]

Now it so happened in the days of old Yedo that Ooka -that august Solomon in kimono- was faced with a problem exactly like the one solved by his biblical counterpart. Two women each claimed to be the mother of one baby boy. Both women had just come to Yedo, and no witnesses could be found who could back up either claim. Ooka decided it wasn't worth the trouble to send to the country for possible witnesses. He reasoned that both women were so homely that only a natural son could love such a face, so he placed the baby between them, expecting him to crawl to his real mother. The spectators sucked in their breaths in admiration of the judge's wisdom.

Then the baby ignored both women and cried for the judge to pick him up. A titter of amusement ran through the spectators. Just a trace of redness in Ooka's ears showed how much this loss of face hurt his pride. Sad to relate, he was a man who took a most unseeing pride in surprising his court with ingenious solutions to problems. But, in the manner of lawyers right down to the present day, he tried to act as if the setback was a matter of small concern. He thought the matter over carefully and came up with a modification of Solomon's solution: instead of suggesting that the baby be cut in half so each woman could have an equal share, he decreed that they should each pull on one of the baby's arms. "I am sure providence will strengthen the real mother and she will win the tug-of-war," he said.

He expected that when the baby started crying, the real mother would stop pulling. The other would not, since e she was obviously very selfish or she would not be trying to steal the baby of another. There is no evidence to show if Ooka had heard of Solomon, or if he arrived at the similar solution independently. But if he hadn't, the women surely had: they reminded the embarrassed judge that this was an old trick.

Ooka's face kept its bland mask, but he could not stop the blood that rushed up to stain his ears a brick red. Finally he sighed. Calling a court attendant, he said, "Go down to the Ginza and buy me a bowl of goldfish, a handful of bamboo sticks, three pieces of wood with a red stripe on them, a magnifying glass, and a copy of the book 'How to Tell Fortunes in Ten Easy Lessons.'"

Another titter of amusement ran through the courtroom. All realized the judge was just stalling for time. Such a weird assortment of items could have absolutely no relation to the problem before the court. For the first time, Ooka was sorry that his vanity had led him to allow spectators in his court instead of holding private sessions as did his contemporaries.

Soon the attendant returned with the articles. Ooka laid them carefully on the mat. "Now it is obvious to me -as it is to all of you- that I cannot solve this case," he said gravely. "But it is just as obvious to me -as it isn't to you- that I will arrive at a just decision. Since this is true, I will use the articles -all of which are tools of fortunetellers- to peer into the future. There I will see what my decision will be. I shall then proceed to make it."

[Leigh]

A startled buzz ran through the room at this lack of logic from the usually logical judge. Ooka pretended not to hear, and old timers were starting to suspect that he was secretly enjoying their confusion. He took each of the fortunetelling objects and read them in the approved manner, occasionally referring to the book. He tolled the bamboo sticks to learn their secret; in the old Chinese manner, he counted the bubbles from the swimming goldfish and compared the number with a table of mystical figures in the book; he clapped the red-striped sticks together and listened intently to the secret told by their melodious echoes. Finally, he examined the women's palms with the magnifying glass to get details revealed by the fine lines. Because of their heavy hairdos, he could not read the bumps in their heads in accordance with the laws of phrenology, but he did feel of his own. This assured him that he was proceeding properly.

At last, he said softly: "Well, what do you know!" and repeated the entire ritual to reassure himself that he had not made a mistake somewhere. When finished, he said, "Some fortunetellers are fakes. Some, as you know, are not. Therefore, to be absolutely certain, I have resorted to all the accepted methods of foreseeing the future. They all check out the same. Thus, what I have seen must be the truth." He paused impressively, then continued. "I saw very clearly the real mother with her son as they will be twenty years from now. The boy had suffered an accident and was a helpless invalid. His mother was working in the rice fields to support him." Both women gasped in horror. Ooka looked at them sorrowfully and added, "And the woman I saw was-"

"Stop!" shouted one of the women. "Don't you dare say it was I! Children are supposed to take care of old folks, not the other way around!"

"Ah so?*" Ooka turned to the other woman. "And you?"

"I don't care, Honorable Honor!" she cried. "I will work for my child while there is a breath in my body, and then I will die happy knowing that I have served him."

"Then this really is your own true son! The other wanted him only for the selfish purpose of providing for her old age. Take the child with the court's sincere good wishes."

As the woman clasped the child to her, Ooka added as if it were an afterthought: "Oh, I did not finish the prophecy. The child recovered from the injury I saw. He became rich and famous. He, his mother, his fine wife and thirteen children lived happily together for many years."

Oddly enough, it happened just that way. Everybody was surprised except Ooka. "You know," he often said later, "if I hadn't been called to the law, I'd probably have made a pretty fair fortuneteller."


(*"Is that so?")