The Sun That Lights The Graphical Interfaces		Português

NAO DEGUCHI
A Biography of the Foundress of Oomoto

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Chapter One

Poverty

       Meanwhile, the family debts grew and grew and eventually they had to sell their house and move into a rented accommodation. For a while they tried running a tavern, supplementing their income with selling rice cakes. Every night Nao would grind about eight quarts of rice in a stone mortar and pestle to provide rice flour for the cakes. All this with the young Ryôko strapped to her back and the infant Sumiko to her breast. Hisako and Seikichi would put the finished cakes into boxes and go out to peddle them on the streets.

Stone mortar in which Nao ground rice to make rice cakes.

        Meanwhile, the bibulous Masagorô was in his wine cups. Next to his sake he enjoyed the performance of skits and singing that wandering troupes of minstrels brought to the village. Nao would pack a lunch for him and he would absent himself from the domestic scene. One such group is said to have so fascinated him that he followed them around the town and into the outlying villages without returning home for twenty days.

       Through all the hard times Nao remained devoted to her husband, listening meekly to his every request however unreasonable. The harmony that prevailed in the household was the model of the neighborhood, and after Masagorô's death, Nao often remarked that her only regret was that she could never afford to keep a whole barrel of rice wine in the house for her husband.

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Disaster Strikes

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Typed on October 22, 1999

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Last modified on November 11, 1999

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Marcelo Ghelman