KODAI KITA

《ロドリゴが歩いた道 (The Path Rodrigo Walked)》　2020 / video / 10:24min

江戸時代初期に房総半島の御宿海岸に漂着したメキシコ人、ドン・ロドリゴ（当時のヌエバ・エスパーニャ国のフィリピン諸島総督）が江戸に向かうまでの道中にどのようなことを考え、歩いたのかを史実とフィクションを織り交ぜながら制作した映像作品。

月出（市原市）の山の尾根沿いに残る山道「江戸道」をもし彼が歩いていたらと仮定して、メキシコ人アーティストの友人にドン・ロドリゴを演じてもらい、月出の山の中や御宿海岸で撮影をおこなった。

「ロドリゴが歩いた道」 映像台本 


– 西暦1609年9月30日、スペイン領フィリピンの総督の任務を終えたドン・ロドリゴ（スペイン系メキシコ人）ら373名を乗せた帆船サン・フランシスコ号がメキシコ（当時スペイン領）のアカプルコへ帰還途中、嵐に遭遇し、房総半島御宿沖の岩和田に座礁しました。御宿の村民たちは異国の漂流者たちの救助にあたり、衣服や食料を分け与えるなどして献身的に介抱し、 317名が一命をとりとめることができました。この出来事がきっかけで日本とスペイン・メキシコの交流が始まったと言われています。

ドン・ロドリゴは滞在していた御宿の寺院に船員たちを残し、使者に連れられ大多喜城で領主の本田忠朝に会いました。その後、幕府の了承を得てから江戸の将軍秀忠、駿河の大御所家康に謁見することになります。アカプルコまで帰還することができる船の新設費用の交渉や、日本でのキリスト教の布教などの目的があったと言われています。ロドリゴはかつてスペイン・マドリッドで日本から来西した天正少年使節団の護衛を担当していたことがありました。それから日本にいつか訪れてみたいと渇望しており、将軍や大御所に会えることに期待に胸を膨らませます。しかしこの時代の日本は、鎖国（海外との貿易規制）やキリシタン禁制を繰り返していたことで、異国人である自分たちがどのような処遇を受けるのかは正直なところわかりませんでした。

江戸と房総を結ぶ街道はいつかあり、本来ならば夷隅川や養老川などの川沿いの道を使うのが通常ですが、連日降り続いた雨によって水かさが増え、橋を渡ることが困難になったため、険しい尾根道の「江戸道」を選んだロドリゴ一行は大多喜から山越えの道を歩きます。旅の道中、先を急いでいたにもにもかかわらずロドリゴは、タスコ（メキシコ中部）の銀鉱山の長官を務めていた時期があったことからメキシコにはない房総半島の柔らかい土や地層、珍しい草木、道祖神の石碑などに興味を示し、その好奇心旺盛な行動によってお供とはぐれてしまうのでした。

お供とはぐれたロドリゴは一人、山中を歩きます。枯れ草で覆われた空き家や荒れ果てた田んぼを横目に歩き続け、自分がどこにいるのか皆目検討もつかなくなりますが、うっそうとした草木をかき分けると、目の前に突如シュロの群生の広場が現れます。遠く異国の地ジパングで遭難し目に映るもの全てが新鮮でしたが、尾根道の山中にあまりにも不自然に乱立するシュロの木々の光景が、ロドリゴにそっと何かを語りかけます。鳥や風によって飛来するシュロの植生と、日本に漂着した自身の数奇な運命を重ね合わせて、枝を一本切り取り、ロドリゴは再び江戸へと歩を進めます。
その道は果たして遠い故郷、メキシコに続いているのでしょうか。

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The Path Rodrigo Walked

On September 30, 1609, the ship San Francisco encountered a storm and ran aground at Iwada in the town of Onjuku on the Boso Peninsula. It was carrying 373 people, including Don Rodrigo, a Spanish-Mexican, returning to Acapulco from his duties as governor of the Spanish Philippines. The villagers from Onjuku rescued these castaways from foreign lands and dedicated themselves to giving clothes and food to save 317 lives. It is said that this historical event triggered the exchange between Japan, Spain and Mexico.

Don Rodrigo left the sailors he was staying with in the temple of Onjuku, to meet the lord Tadaasa Honda at Otaki Castle. After he gained the consent of the shogunate, he had an audience with Hidetada Shogun of Edo and his father, Ieyasu of Suruga. It is said that it was to negotiate the cost of building a new ship for his return to Acapulco as well as Christian missionary.
Between Edo and Boso there are a few connecting roads, but heavy rains raised the Yoro and Isumi rivers. Rodrigo and his party had to give up the most direct routes and they decided to walk the Edo Way, a ridge road, from Otaki and attempted to climb over the mountains instead.

Rodrigo once was a guard for the Tenshō embassy in Madrid, Spain. He was longing to visit Japan someday because the influential figures he met at his post deeply impressed him. However, during this era Japan had repeatedly closed its doors to foreign countries by restricting trade and banning Christians. With this in mind, he was not sure how foreigners including him would be treated.
Even though Rodrigo was in a hurry during his trip, he was interested in the soft soil, strata, rare plants and the monument of Dosojin at the Boso Peninsula on his way, things he hasn’ t seen before, even as the secretary of a silver mine in Taxco, Mexico. Eventually, through his curiosity and distraction, he was separated from his party.

Rodrigo started to wander alone in the mountains after he strayed from his group.
Walking about aimlessly, he stumbled upon an abandoned village where empty houses stood covered with dead grass next to desolated rice paddies. He was no longer able to determine where he was. When he cut through the thick undergrowth, suddenly a grove of windmill palms appeared in front of him.
Everything that was visible in the distant exotic land of Zipang where he lost, was fresh except the sight of palm trees too unnaturally overburdened in the mountains on the ridge spoke something softly to Rodrigo. Overcoming the vegetation of palms, birds flew overhead, the wind buffeted the palmtops, and his own fate swept him ashore in Japan. So Rodrigo cut off one frond, and he began to walk back to Edo again. “Is this the road that will take me back to Mexico, my distant home?” Rodrigo thought to himself.

1. Most of the “Edo way” was a road that led along mountain ridges, and it was an essential road for the ordinary people as a pilgrimage to the shrines and as a key route for transporting firewood, charcoal and wood. But nowadays the width of the road being so narrow, that it cannot be imagined that even a horse was able to pass, has only a few pedestrians nowadays. The stone monuments of Dosojin and Yamagami, and direction signposts remain on the actual path.  

2. The windmill palm (trachycarpus fortunei): The fruits ripen black in autumn and are scattered by birds. In Christianity, palms and date palms are depicted in religious paintings and mythological paintings as symbols of martyrdom. In Mexico, the first Sunday of Holy Week is called Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos) and people participate in the mass with a frond of palm and date palm. 

3. Zipang is an antiquated name for Japan.  

4. Rodrigo and his party who were provided with a galleon ship by Ieyasu, finally returned safely to the port of Acapulco, Mexico on November 13, 1610.