1587 to July 1639 · Japanese Clergy and Catechists (also listed under Martyrs; Saints and Blesseds)
Labels: TraditionUnverifiedDisputed · Citations in [brackets] link to the Sources list.
The story
The life of Petro Kasui Kibe
A readable life story, backed by the full record below. Small numbers lead to the notes, which name the sources and flag which details are Tradition, Unverified or Disputed. Boxes answer the questions readers tend to ask along the way.
In the summer of 1639, in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo, three Catholic priests were hung upside down in pits. Two of them gave in. The third, a 52-year-old Japanese Jesuit named Petro Kasui Kibe, would not. Hanging beside him in the same pit were two catechists, and he kept urging them to hold on, until the guards killed him. 1
By then he had travelled farther than almost any Japanese of his day. He had gone from Macau to Rome by way of India, Persia and Jerusalem, become a priest in Rome, and then spent ten years fighting his way back into a country that had shut its doors. Japanese writers call him "Japan's Marco Polo" and "the Kirishitan who walked the world". 2
Here is how it happened.
A boy from the Kunisaki coast
Kibe is a real place: a village on the north shore of the Kunisaki peninsula, which juts into the sea in today's Ōita Prefecture, in northeastern Kyushu. The Kibe family were local gentry there, part of a seafaring band called the Urabe who served the Ōtomo, the lords of the province of Bungo. Their roots go back at least to 1285. 3
Petro's father, Romano Kibe, was a relative and retainer of the lord of Kibe Castle. In 1585 he asked the Jesuits at Funai for a priest and a brother, and that year about 140 of his family and household were baptized. 5
Romano was trusted. The padres allowed him to baptize, pray and bury when no priest was present, and in 1589 he baptized the dying wife of the lord of Kibe himself. 6
Petro's mother was Maria Hata, from another local family of standing. 7
Petro was born in 1587, the very year the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the missionaries out of Japan. We know this from his own words, written in Rome years later: "I am called Petrus Kasui, son of Romanus Kibe and Maria Hata. I am now 33. My homeland is Urabe in the kingdom of Bungo." 8
Hard times came early. The Ōtomo lost their lands in 1593. In 1600 their heir tried to win them back, and Romano seems to have fought for him at the battle of Ishigakibaru near Beppu, where the head of the Kibe clan was killed. Local tradition says the family then hid at a spot in Imi still called Shōgatsu-yashiki, the "New Year house", where they ate radish at New Year instead of the usual rice cakes. 9
A catechist in dangerous times
That same year, aged 13, Petro went off to the Jesuit seminary, a boarding school for boys who might one day become priests. It was in Nagasaki at first and moved in 1601 to Arima, on the Shimabara peninsula. 10
He finished the six-year course in 1606 and hoped to join the Jesuits. They did not take him. Why, the sources do not say. 11
So he took the next path open to him and became a dōjuku: a lay catechist who lived with the priests, taught the faith and helped in their work. He shaved his head and took a new name, Kasui, often written with characters meaning "living water". 12
He also made a private vow that he would join the Society of Jesus one day, using a form of vow drawn up by a Jesuit named Nuno Mascarenhas. Remember that name. Years later he wrote: "The motive of my vocation was my own free will; fourteen years ago I made such a vow of my own accord." 14
For the next eight years he worked at the Jesuit house at Akizuki, in today's Fukuoka Prefecture, under the protection of a Christian lord, Kuroda Naoyuki. 15
Then, in 1614, the shogun's government banned Christianity everywhere in Japan. That March a leading Christian of Akizuki, Matthias Shichirōbei, was executed. Kibe dug the body out of the grave with his own hands, put it in a wooden box and carried it to the church of Todos os Santos in Nagasaki. He later swore that twenty days after the death, fresh blood still flowed from it. He also cut off one of the martyr's fingers as a relic. He would carry that finger halfway round the world. 16
Thrown out of Japan
In November 1614 the missionaries, many dōjuku and the Christian samurai Takayama Ukon were put on ships for Macau and Manila. 17
Kibe, it seems, did not go with them. By his own later testimony he hid around Arima and the port of Kuchinotsu. There he saw a field of wheat that people said had ripened overnight after a Korean Christian named Miguel was martyred. About March 1615 he slipped away to Manila, in the Philippines, with Matthias's finger. 18
In Manila he ran into his old Latin teacher, Diogo Yūki, who was ordained a priest there that year. Yūki wrote to the head of the Jesuits that many Japanese students were even thinking of going to Rome. 19
A closed door in Macau
Later in 1615 Kibe moved on to Macau, the Portuguese port on the south China coast where the exiled Jesuits now had their college. He hoped to study there and finally join the Society. 20
In 1616 he got his answer. He could be admitted to the Society, but he would not be ordained a priest. 21
He was not alone. In June 1616 a Jesuit in Macau reported that four senior Japanese preachers, discouraged, had asked to go to India to study. Kibe was probably one of them, along with two friends, Miguel Minoes and Mancio Konishi. 23
Alone across Asia
In the autumn of 1616 the three friends left Macau and sailed by way of Malacca, on the Malay Peninsula, to Goa, the Portuguese capital in India. At Goa they parted. Minoes and Konishi took ship for Europe. Kibe set out alone, overland. 25
His exact route is lost. The sources mention Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, then Persia (today's Iran), Baghdad and Damascus. A Jesuit history says simply that he "crossed Persia and came to Jerusalem". 27
It is often said that he walked to Rome. That is not quite true, since a good part of the trip was by sea. But the overland stretch through Persia and the Middle East was real, and nobody can say how much of it he did on foot. 28
Then comes one of the best finds in the whole story. On 2 April 1618 the Franciscan friars at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem wrote down the pilgrims they received that day. Eleventh of fourteen is "D. Petrus Japonensis": Lord Peter of Japan. A Japanese historian identifies him as Kibe, which makes him the first Japanese known to have visited Jerusalem. 29
That same day a group of French nobles were made Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Pilgrims like them normally went on to Rome, and Kibe may have travelled with them. One account says he went by ship to Venice. After that the trail goes cold until Rome. 31
Rome says yes
He reached Rome about May or June 1620, three and a half years after leaving Macau. He came to the Jesuit headquarters, the Gesù, with no papers or certificates of any kind. 32
He gave Mascarenhas the relic of Matthias Shichirōbei, the finger he had carried from Japan. 34
Then things moved fast. The register of ordinations in Rome records each step: the tonsure on 18 October 1620, minor orders on the next two days, subdeacon on 1 November at Santa Maria Maggiore, deacon on 8 November, and priest on Sunday 15 November 1620, in a small chapel in the sacristy of St. John Lateran, the pope's own cathedral. Four weeks, start to finish. 35
Five days later he entered the Jesuit novitiate of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. The house inventory lists everything he owned: a hat, his dōjuku's robe, a wool cloak, trousers, cloth drawers, shoes and a shirt. Under it is his signature: "I, Petro, acknowledge the above." Fourteen years after that first refusal, he was a Jesuit. 36
Rome in those years was full of great events, and he lived through them. Pope Paul V died and Gregory XV was elected in early 1621. Cardinal Bellarmine died in the very house where Kibe was a novice. And on 12 March 1622, at St. Peter's, Kibe and his old friend Minoes were there when Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and Francis Xavier, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Japan, were declared saints. 37
Soon after, he asked the head of the Jesuits, Father General Muzio Vitelleschi, to let him go home to Japan. The General said yes. 38
The long way back
He left Rome on 6 June 1622 with a few other novices bound for India. In Madrid he read the latest Jesuit letters from Japan and learned that the persecution had grown worse. He kept going. 40
In Portugal he finished his novitiate, made the full thirty days of the Spiritual Exercises, and took his vows as a Jesuit in Lisbon on 21 November 1622. 41
On 25 March 1623 he sailed from Lisbon with the India fleet. The voyage took fourteen months. The ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope in July, wintered at Mozambique, off East Africa, and lost many people to disease and bad water. He finally reached Goa on 28 May 1624. 42
Ten years at a locked door
The ships for Macau had already left Goa. So he went to Manila and on to Macau, arriving late in 1625, nine years after he had left it. 44
On the advice of the Jesuit Visitor, André Palmeiro, he tried another way in: Siam, today's Thailand, where Japanese ships still called. In February 1627 he sailed for Malacca. Near the Singapore Strait four Dutch ships captured his vessel. He wrote later: "I took only my breviary, my cloak and the fathers' letters and went ashore with the Portuguese." He wandered fourteen days through the forest to Malacca and nearly died of fever there. 45
He reached Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam, at the end of July 1627, and lodged with a good Christian in the Japanese quarter. For two years he tried every way to get aboard a ship for Japan. One account says he lived there disguised as a servant. Another says that for two years he rowed as an oarsman, barefoot and with his head shaved. Juan López, the Jesuit rector in Manila, summed it up: he tried for more than two years to cross to Japan, "but could not". 46
In July 1629 he sailed to Manila on the embassy ship of the Governor of Manila. There he met Fr. Miguel Matsuda, another Japanese Jesuit, born in Amakusa in 1578. With alms from devout people and help from the Jesuits, the two of them and a priest from Iyo named Jerónimo bought a boat and hired a Japanese captain and crew. 47
They left Manila on 2 March 1630 and anchored at Lubang, a small island about 160 kilometres from Manila, to wait for the right wind. They waited three months. Kibe said Mass every day in a little hut on the shore. The boat turned out to be holed by shipworm, so they patched it from the inside with boards. 48
From Lubang he wrote his last letters. In one he admitted, "I have lost hope in all my affairs." Yet in the same letter he wrote: "If the wind of God's grace blows, and trusting in it we raise the sail and it brings us safely to Japan, I will report to you in detail about our journey and the state of the Church in Japan." 49
About 20 June 1630 they sailed. A storm wrecked them in the Tokara islands, south of Kyushu. They got a small boat and, escorted by officials of Satsuma, reached the port of Bōnotsu, in today's Kagoshima Prefecture. At the guardhouse they passed themselves off as shipwrecked merchants and were let go. 50
It was July 1630. Kibe had been away fifteen or sixteen years, and had gone halfway round the world and back to get home. 51
Home, and hunted
He went to Nagasaki with Matsuda. Matsuda soon died, worn out in the mountains after the family hiding him turned him out. Nagasaki was in the middle of a fierce manhunt for Christians. 52
Then, in 1633, came terrible news. Cristóvão Ferreira gave up his faith after hours in the pit. 53
The story goes that Kibe, hiding in the hills near Nagasaki, came down into the city by night, found Ferreira and pleaded with him: "Father, let us go to the magistrate together. Take back your apostasy and die with me." Ferreira refused. 55
Tradition says he went on to Kyoto before heading north. 56
In Mizusawa the Christians had once gathered around a Christian samurai, Juan Gotō, until the lord Date Masamune turned against them. Kibe went by his old family name, Pedro Kibe. Few records survive of those years. Jesuit letters show only that he was still alive in 1636. 58
Betrayed
After the Shimabara rising of 1637 to 1638, the shogunate went after the last priests in earnest, with cash rewards for informers. The Sendai domain posted its own notice in January 1639, offering ten pieces of gold. 59
It worked. A former dōjuku named Chōzaburō went to the authorities. His written report still survives in the papers of the Date family: "At a place called Mizusawa in the Sendai domain, a man called Miyake Tōemon and his wife are both Christians. ... Because they gave lodging to Kibe, I believe they are of that religion." 60
How he was caught is told in several ways. The Japanese bishops' account says he let himself be taken in Sendai so that no harm would come to the family sheltering him. The Jesuits say a poor and hungry fellow believer sold him. In Mizusawa, the parish remembers that he was seized on a bridge beside the Kurusuba cemetery. These are traditions; no document of the time settles it. 61
By spring 1639 an official relay pass was ordering four prisoners sent from Sendai to Edo: Kibe; Martinho Shikimi, a Japanese Jesuit; Francisco de Barajas, a Franciscan; and Giovanni Battista Porro, an Italian Jesuit. 62
Before the shogun
He was taken to Edo in chains. One account notes that he walked the whole 91 ri, rather than being carried in a cage. He was locked in the Denmachō prison, whose site is now Jisshi Park in Nihonbashi Kodenmachō, in central Tokyo. 63
With Porro and Shikimi he was brought four times before the shogunate's senior officials. The questioning got nowhere. 64
Next they brought in Ferreira, now Sawano Chūan, to talk them round. Instead, Kibe urged Ferreira to come back to the faith. One writer says he called him "the stumbling block of the world" and "the shame of the Jesuits". 65
Then came a fifth hearing, with the most powerful man in Japan in the room. The shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu went to a residence of his senior councillor Sakai Tadakatsu to hear the three priests questioned on their religion. With him were the Zen priest Takuan and the sword master Yagyū Munenori. 66
The case then went to Inoue Masashige, the shogunate's chief official for Christian affairs. For ten days he argued with them at his residence. 68
Then the torture began. According to the record of Inoue's own office, his men went to the prison to torture the three priests. One account says there were ten sessions in all. 70
The pit
The last step was the pit, called ana-tsurushi. The prisoner was bound and hung head down into a hole in the ground, sometimes with a small cut at the temple, and fed a little so that he would last. 71
Kibe was hung in one pit with two dōjuku, and he would not stop encouraging them. Tradition remembers his words: "Bear it, you will go to heaven." 73
The plainest account comes from the other side, from Inoue's own record: "Kibe Peitoro did not apostatize. He was killed in the pit. Until then he was an obscure man; because two dōjuku were hung in the same pit with Kibe, and he kept encouraging them, Kibe was killed. After Kibe died, both dōjuku apostatized." 74
Accounts differ on how exactly they killed him. The Dutch trade chief François Caron heard from an interpreter just back from Edo about "the shaven-pate fellow called Kibe": small dry sticks were laid on his bare belly and slowly set alight, while he was questioned about his faith. A Jesuit in Macau heard that he was burned with red-hot plates. The Jesuits' website says a guard's spear. 75
He died in July 1639, aged 52, after nineteen years as a Jesuit. Church sources say he died in the Denmachō prison; another reading puts the pit on open ground near Matsuchiyama in Asakusa. Where he was buried, nobody knows. One writer suggests the temples Honryūji or Saihōji in Asakusa, but says himself that it cannot be known. 76
Remembered
News of his death reached Rome, and there was talk of beatifying him, but nothing could be investigated in closed Japan, and his name faded for three centuries. In 1959 the Jesuit historian Hubert Cieslik brought him back to light. 77
Today his home village has a memorial park at the foot of the old Kibe Castle hill, opened in 1963, with a bronze statue by Funakoshi Yasutake (1965), a chapel (1987) and a festival every autumn since 1967. In 1992 the people of Ōita even staged an opera about him, Petro Kibe: Korobi-mōsazu-sōrō, "he did not apostatize", the very words of Inoue's record. 78
On 24 November 2008, in the rain, more than 30,000 people filled the baseball stadium in Nagasaki as Petro Kibe and 187 companions were declared Blessed. His name heads the list. Their feast day is 1 July. In 2022 the Japanese Jesuits unveiled the first icon of him, by the Moscow iconographer Aleksandr Griaznov, in Kibe Hall at their residence in Tokyo. 79
The boy who was turned away in Nagasaki and told "no" in Macau became a priest in Rome, a pilgrim in Jerusalem, and the first name on the roll of Japan's Blessed.
The complete compendium: every fact, date, place and source on this page, with labels and inline citations.
Summary
2.1 Petro Kasui Kibe (1587 to 1639) was a Japanese catechist from the Kunisaki peninsula in Bungo who, when the Jesuits in exile in Macau would not train him for the priesthood, made his own way to Rome through India, the Middle East and Jerusalem, and was ordained there in 1620. [gonoi-2016 pp.29-31; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.9-11; sakurai-2024 pp.25-27]
2.2 He spent ten years trying to get back into a closed Japan, landed in Satsuma in 1630, worked in hiding in Nagasaki and the north, and was captured in the Sendai domain in 1639. In Edo he was questioned before the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu and died in the pit after refusing to give up his faith, while two older Jesuit priests arrested with him gave way. [gonoi-2016 pp.32-33; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.45-50, fn83; vatican-2008-litterae]
2.3 He heads the list of the 188 martyrs of Japan beatified in Nagasaki on 24 November 2008, and he is often called the first Japanese known to have visited Jerusalem. [vatican-2008-litterae; sakurai-2024 p.26]
Names and spellings
4.1 Petro, Pedro, Petrus and Peter are the same baptismal name. Our page title uses Petro Kasui Kibe, the form used by the Japanese Jesuits and the Japanese bishops. [jesuits-global; cbcj-kibe-web]
4.2 He signed himself "Petrus Casui Jap." in Latin letters and "ペトロ・カスイ" in Japanese translations of his letters. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16; cbcj-0701]
4.3 Kibe is the family and place name. Cieslik notes the village was also written 木部 and 木戸. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.3 fn5] Japanese shogunate and Sendai records call him 木部 or キベヘイトロ, "Kibe Peitoro", a garbled Pedro. [chozaburo-sonin via cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.42-43 fn69; kirishito-ki via gonoi-2016 fn56]
4.4 Kasui (Casui, Cassui) was the name he took when he became a dōjuku and had his head shaved. The characters 活水, "living water", are often given. [gonoi-2016 p.30] Gonoi suggests, as a possibility only, that he chose it with the Jesuit General Claudio Acquaviva in mind ("aqua viva", living water). [gonoi-2016 p.30] Anesaki Masaharu thought it was the northern clan name Kasai 葛西; Cieslik doubted this. [cieslik-1959-kasui fn17] Meaning Disputed. Kataoka records both proposals, 可水 and 活水 (after Acquaviva), and says the characters are unknown. [kataoka-2006 p.86 fn14]
4.5 His birth name is given as Kibe Shigekatsu 岐部茂勝. [oita-pref-1985; wiki-ja]Unverified (no early document seen).
4.6 Popular names (modern, not period names; keep them labelled as such): "Japan's Marco Polo" (日本のマルコ・ポーロ) and "the Kirishitan who walked the world" (世界を歩いたキリシタン), both given by Japanese Wikipedia as what he "is called" [wiki-ja]; 『世界を歩いた切支丹』 ("The Kirishitan who walked the world") is the title of Cieslik's 1971 book from Shunjūsha [kataoka-2006 p.86 fn16]; "the indomitable man who walked to Rome" (ローマまで歩いた不屈の人) is the title of the Bishops' Conference page [cbcj-kibe-web]; "the priest who walked the world" is used by the Kibe memorial park pages [cbcj-kibe-web; pauline-kibe-park]; "the indomitable padre who travelled the world" (世界を旅した不屈のバテレン) is the subtitle of the popular edition of the Ōita prefecture biography (Gonoi with Cieslik, 1997) [ndl-search-gonoi-1997]. We found no named author who coined "Japan's Marco Polo".
Life
5.1 A Kunisaki family in the Ōtomo world (1585 to 1600)
5.1.1 The Kibe were a landed family on the north coast of the Kunisaki peninsula, part of the seafaring Urabe group (浦辺衆) who served the Ōtomo lords of Bungo. Cieslik traced them in medieval records: a Kibe Saburō Narisue held 17 chō at Kibe-no-ura in the fief register of 1285, and Kibe Yamashiro-no-kami Shigezane, a counsellor of the Ōtomo, went as envoy to Korea and China in 1468. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.2-4]
5.1.2 His father Romano Kibe became a Christian in 1585. He asked the Jesuit college at Funai for a priest and a brother, and that year 144 members of his family and household were baptized. [gonoi-2016 p.29] Another account dates Romano's baptism at Funai to 1584 and gives the figure as 140. [takagi-2005] The Oita Diocese leaflet gives 1585. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Kataoka quotes the Jesuit letters behind this: in the annual letter of 3 September 1584 Francisco (Ōtomo Sōrin) asked for a brother to be sent to Urabe, and in Frois's letter of 20 August 1585 "a good man of Urabe" became a Christian and a priest and a brother baptized "about 140" of his kin. Kataoka identifies this man as Romano (an inference, not a name in the letter). [oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.91-93 via kataoka-2006 pp.76-77] 144 or about 140: Disputed.
5.1.3 Romano was a relative and retainer of the lord of Kibe Castle. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Cieslik reads the lord's name as Kibe Sakon-no-tayū Kazutatsu; Takagi writes 岐部左近大夫一辰 and says he was baptized at Nakatsu by Fr. Pedro Gómez at Easter 1587. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.5; takagi-2005] Cieslik could not identify Romano with certainty and suggested Kibe Kamon-no-suke Shigetada, a close friend of the lord who followed Ōtomo Yoshimune into exile in 1593. [cieslik-1959-kasui p.6 fn12]Unverified.
5.1.4 His mother was Maria Hata. Kasui himself wrote her name as "Maria Fata". The Kibe family papers name a Hata Bingo-no-kami, and Anesaki's guess that "Fata" was a garbled "Hana" is not supported. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.6-7, fn13] Japanese Wikipedia links her family to the Hata who served as Shinto priests of Usa Shrine. [wiki-ja]Unverified: we have not seen the source it relies on. Kataoka adds that the Kibe papers, still held by the Kibe family of Kunimi, include letters of Sōrin to Kibe Noto-no-kami and to Hata Bingo-no-kami dated one day apart, and reads this as showing that the two families were of equal rank. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.45, 51 via kataoka-2006 p.77] Inference.
5.1.5 Petro was born in 1587, the year Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued his edict expelling the missionaries. [gonoi-2016 p.29; vatican-2008-litterae] His own words, written in Rome in November 1620, are the main proof: "I am called Petrus Kasui, son of Romanus Kibe and Maria Hata. I am now 33. My homeland is Urabe in the kingdom of Bungo." [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.1, fn2, quoting ARSI Opp. NN. 68 f.40; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Some old European books give Imi or even Ōmura as his birthplace; Cieslik shows Ōmura is wrong. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.3, fn7]
5.1.6 He was baptized soon after birth at the church of Nakatsu in Buzen by Fr. Pedro Gómez of the Funai college. One writer gives the date as 29 March 1587 (Tenshō 15, 2nd month, 21st day). [takagi-2005] The place and day rest on that one writer and are Unverified.
5.1.7 In 1589 the ailing wife of the lord of Kibe was baptized and died a few days later; a Japanese writer says Romano and his wife baptized her. [cieslik-1959-kasui p.6 fn11, citing the annual letter of 1589; takagi-2005] The 1589 annual letter itself says the lady was baptized by her relative Kibe Romão, who had the padres' permission to baptize. [kataoka-2006 p.77] Cieslik 1959 also says Romano was allowed to baptize, pray and bury when no priest was present. [cieslik-1959 pp.188-189] This upgrades the claim from one writer to a cited letter.
5.1.8 The Ōtomo lost their domain in 1593. When Ōtomo Yoshimune tried to win it back in 1600, Romano seems to have fought with the Kibe clan head at the battle of Ishigakibaru near Beppu on 19 October 1600 [Keichō 5, 9th month, 13th day], two days before Sekigahara. The clan head was killed and Romano went home to Imi. [gonoi-2016 pp.29-30; takagi-2005] Gonoi writes "seems", so this is probable, not proven. A local place name, Shōgatsu-yashiki at Imi-Nakamura, recalls the Kibe family hiding there and eating radish instead of rice cakes at New Year. [gonoi-2016 pp.29-30]Tradition. Kataoka, citing Cieslik 1971, says the last lord of the castle, Kibe Sakon-dayū, died at Ishigakibaru in 1600 fighting for Ōtomo Yoshimune, and that Romano was of his clan. [kataoka-2006 p.76, citing Cieslik 1971 pp.208-209]
5.2 Seminary student and dōjuku (1600 to 1614)
5.2.1 In 1600, aged 13, Petro entered the Jesuit seminary (a school for boys who might become priests), then in Nagasaki near the Misaki church. [gonoi-2016 p.30; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Another account puts his entry in 1601, with his younger brother João, under the rector Fr. Francisco Calderón. [takagi-2005] In late 1601 the seminary moved to Arima, to the castle town of Hinoe in today's Kita-Arima, and he moved with it. [gonoi-2016 p.30; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] This is why the beatification letter and the Jesuits simply say he studied at Arima. [vatican-2008-litterae; jesuits-global]
5.2.2 He finished the six-year course in 1606. He hoped to enter the Jesuit novitiate, but was not admitted, and became a dōjuku instead: a lay catechist who lived with the priests, taught and assisted them. [gonoi-2016 p.30; jesuits-global] He made a private vow to enter the Society in the future, using a form of vow drawn up by Fr. Nuno Mascarenhas. In 1620 he recalled: "The motive of my vocation was my own free will; fourteen years ago I made such a vow of my own accord." [gonoi-2016 p.30, citing his 1620 report in oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.166-167; cieslik-1959-kasui fn19] Cieslik 1959 dates the permission for his private vow to Keichō 11 (1606), "when he was 19". [cieslik-1959 p.190] In his statement of November 1620 he says that "14 years ago" he made the vow of his own free choice, using a vow formula of Fr. Nuno Mascarenhas. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 orig. p.58, trans. pp.166-167, via kataoka-2006 p.76]
5.2.3 As a dōjuku he was sent to the Jesuit residence at Akizuki, under Fr. Gabriel de Matos, in the lands of the Christian lord Kuroda Naoyuki. The residence moved to Amagi in 1613. [gonoi-2016 p.30; tokyo-guide-2008 p.12] One account says Hakata or Akizuki. [takagi-2005]
5.2.4 In 1614 the shogunate banned Christianity across Japan. In March 1614 Matthias Shichirōbei, a leading Christian of Akizuki, was executed. In early April Kibe carried his body to the church of Todos os Santos in Nagasaki. [gonoi-2016 p.30; tokyo-guide-2008 p.12; sakurai-2024 p.24] He cut off one of the martyr's fingers as a relic and later carried it to Rome, where he gave it to Fr. Nuno Mascarenhas. [gonoi-2016 pp.30-31] Kibe's own sworn testimony, written in Rome between 1620 and 1622, says he dug Matthias's body from the grave with his own hands, put it in a wooden box and carried it to the Jesuits in Nagasaki; that twenty days after the martyrdom fresh blood flowed from it; and that he cut off a finger and gave it to Nuno Mascarenhas. [ARSI Jap.Sin.6 I f.133r; oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.106, via kataoka-2006 p.78] The flowing blood is his testimony: label Tradition. Matos's annual letter of 25 October 1614 says the body was buried at the Todos os Santos church on the edge of Nagasaki. [kataoka-2006 p.78, citing Cieslik 2000 p.262]
5.3 Exile: Kuchinotsu, Manila and Macau (1614 to 1616)
5.3.1 In November 1614 the missionaries, many dōjuku and Takayama Ukon were shipped out of Japan to Macau and Manila. [gonoi-2016 p.30; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.9-10] Older accounts put Kibe on the Macau ships that left on 7 and 8 November 1614. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.9-10, citing Bartoli; takagi-2005] Kataoka reads a 1614 report that the provincial took over 40 chosen dōjuku to Macau as including Kibe, so she has him leave with the Macau ships. [kataoka-2006 p.78] Cieslik 1959 also says he sailed for Macau, on one of five junks that left on 7 and 8 November (two for Manila, two for Macau, one for Siam). [cieslik-1959 p.190]Disputed with Gonoi; see 8.7.
5.3.2 Gonoi, using Kibe's own sworn testimony on relics, shows that he did not leave then. He was hiding around Arima or Kuchinotsu, where he saw the wheat said to have ripened overnight after the martyrdom of a Korean Christian named Miguel at Kuchinotsu on 22 November 1614. About March 1615 he sailed to Manila, carrying Shichirōbei's finger. [gonoi-2016 p.30, citing oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.106-107] Sakurai and the Oita leaflet also have him reach Macau by way of Manila in 1615. [sakurai-2024 p.24; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] We follow Gonoi, with the older version noted in 8.7.
5.3.3 In Manila he found Diogo Yūki, his old Latin teacher, who was ordained there in 1615 and wrote to the Jesuit General on 2 August 1615 that many Japanese students were even thinking of going to Rome. [gonoi-2016 pp.30-31]
5.3.4 Later in 1615 Kibe went on to Macau, hoping to study at the Jesuit college and enter the novitiate. [gonoi-2016 p.31] A course in Latin and theology for 53 Japanese students was started there about 1615 under Fr. Vicente Ribeiro. [takagi-2005] In 1616 he was told he could be admitted to the Society, but not ordained. [sakurai-2024 pp.24-25] The Japanese students met prejudice and money problems; the Jesuit provincial Valentim Carvalho limited their studies, and the course was closed. [gonoi-2016 p.31; tokyo-guide-2008 p.12; takagi-2005]
5.3.5 On 10 June 1616 Fr. Francisco Pires reported that four senior Japanese preachers, discouraged, had asked to go to India to study. Gonoi thinks Kibe was one of them, with Miguel Minoes and Mancio Konishi. [gonoi-2016 p.31, citing oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.135] A letter from Macau later warned Rome against these runaways. [cbcj-kibe-web; wiki-ja] The author and date of that warning are not yet confirmed. See 9.5. Kataoka also quotes Pires's letter (Macau, 10 June 1616, Jap.Sin.17 f.49r). [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.134 via kataoka-2006 p.79]
5.3.6 The warning to Rome came from the Visitor Francisco Vieira, writing from Macau on 10 January 1618: some dōjuku wanted to go to Europe and Rome to be ordained, and he urged Rome not to ordain them. [ARSI Jap.Sin.17 f.128r; oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.146, via kataoka-2006 p.79] This resolves 9.5. In Coimbra on 2 September 1620 Fr. Morejón wrote to Mascarenhas that two dōjuku there, already graduates in philosophy, were trying to get moral theology or entry to the Society; Kataoka takes them to be Minoes and Konishi. [kataoka-2006 p.79]
5.4 The road to Rome (1616 to 1620)
5.4.1 Kibe left Macau in the autumn of 1616 and went by sea by way of Malacca to Goa, the Portuguese capital in India. [gonoi-2016 pp.31-32; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] The Oita leaflet puts his arrival in Goa about May 1617. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] One older account has the three leave Macau in spring 1618 and land at Goa about May; this cannot be right if he was in Jerusalem in April 1618 (see 5.4.4). [takagi-2005]Disputed, resolved in favour of 1616 to 1617.
5.4.2 From Goa, Minoes and Konishi went on to Europe by sea. Kibe went alone, overland. [takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 p.31]
5.4.3 No document traces the whole route. [miura-2025-kibe-review, summarizing gonoi-2008] Gonoi names Hormuz and Persia. [gonoi-2016 p.31] Sakurai and the Oita leaflet name Baghdad and Damascus. [sakurai-2024 p.25; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] A Jesuit history quoted by Gonoi says he "crossed Persia and came to Jerusalem". [miura-2025-kibe-review] Gonoi's 2008 book leaves open whether he walked all the way from Goa or sailed to Muscat first and then went overland, perhaps working as a sailor. [miura-2025-kibe-review] Historians cannot say exactly how much of the journey he walked. A later Jesuit account in the Oita collection says that from Macau he went to India, "crossed Persia to Jerusalem, visited the holy places, then journeyed to Rome", probably the first Japanese to do so. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.235-236 via kataoka-2006 p.79] Cieslik 1959 says the same in outline: by caravan routes through Persia to Palestine. [cieslik-1959 p.191]
5.4.4 On 2 April 1618 the Franciscan register of pilgrims received at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem lists "D. Petrus Japonensis", Lord Peter of Japan, eleventh of fourteen pilgrims received that day. Sakurai identifies him as Kibe. [sakurai-2024 p.26, citing Navis peregrinorum, ed. Zimolong 1938] This is the only dated evidence for the Jerusalem visit. Japanese church sources often say he was the first Japanese in Jerusalem. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.10; jesuits-global; tokyo-guide-2008 p.13] The Oita Diocese leaflet and a 1985 Oita prefecture article date the visit to 1619. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; oita-pref-1985]Disputed; the 1618 register is the stronger evidence.
5.4.5 How he got from Jerusalem to Rome is not recorded. He may have gone with the group of French nobles received with him, who were made Knights of the Holy Sepulchre that day and would normally go on to Rome; Sakurai says this cannot be ruled out. [sakurai-2024 p.27] One account says he went by ship to Venice. [takagi-2005]Unverified.
5.5.1 He went to the Jesuit headquarters at the Gesù. [tokyo-guide-2008 p.13] He had no certificates. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.10-11] With help from Fr. Nuno Mascarenhas, the Jesuit Assistant, and reportedly from Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the diocese of Rome examined him and agreed to ordain him by a special arrangement. [gonoi-2016 p.31; takagi-2005] He gave Mascarenhas the relic of Matthias Shichirōbei. [gonoi-2016 p.31]
5.5.2 The register of ordinations of the Vicariate of Rome records every step. Tonsure on Sunday 18 October 1620; the minor orders of porter and lector on 19 and 20 October; subdeacon on Sunday 1 November, from Bishop Paul de Curte, in the sacristy of Santa Maria Maggiore; deacon on Sunday 8 November and priest on Sunday 15 November 1620, both at St. John Lateran, from Bishop Raffaele Inviziati (written "Raffael de Hiacynto" in Cieslik's reading). [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11, fn22; gonoi-2016 p.31; takagi-2005] Kataoka quotes the register (Cod. Ms Q12, ordinations 1618 to 1622): subdeacon on 1 November 1620 in the sacristy of Santa Maria Maggiore from Paulus de Curte, titular bishop "Iterium"; deacon on Sunday 8 November "in the small chapel in the sacristy of the Lateran church" from Raphael Iniciatus, titular bishop "of Hyacinth"; priest on Sunday 15 November "in the same place by the same bishop". [oita-shiryoshu-1995 orig. p.55, trans. p.162, via kataoka-2006 p.75] This upgrades the Takagi-only details of place and bishop.
5.5.3 The Oita leaflet, citing the same register, says the priestly ordination took place in the small chapel in the sacristy of the Lateran, and that the bishop was titular bishop "of Hyacinth" (ヒヤシント名義司教). [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; tokyo-guide-2008 p.14; takagi-2005] So "Hiacynto" is the bishop's title, not the name of a chapel. The often repeated "St. Hyacinth chapel" at the Lateran has no source. See 8.9. Now confirmed from the register as quoted by Kataoka (5.5.2). [kataoka-2006 p.75]
5.5.4 On 20 November 1620 he went to the Jesuit novitiate of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale and was received on 21 November. [takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 p.31; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11, fn23, citing Rom. 172 f.200] Several sources give only the 20th. [tokyo-guide-2008 p.14; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] The two dates are a day apart and probably describe arrival and formal admission. The novitiate inventory (ARSI Rom. 172 f.200r) lists, as no. 1099, "P. Pietro Casui, Japanese, 33, entered the novitiate of S. Andrea on 21 November 1620", with his belongings: a hat, a dōfuku (道服, the robe of a dōjuku), a wool cloak, trousers, cloth drawers, shoes and a shirt, and his signed line "I, Petro, acknowledge the above". [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.165 via kataoka-2006 p.75] Kataoka notes that he was accepted five days after his ordination and that the dōfuku shows his dōjuku status. [kataoka-2006 pp.76, 78] The novice register of 1623 gives "P. Petrus Casui, Japanese, 35, good health, admitted to the Society in Rome on 20 November 1620, second year of moral theology". [kataoka-2006 p.86 fn14]
5.5.5 As a novice he also studied moral theology at the Collegio Romano and is listed there in 1622 in his second year. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.12, fn25; gonoi-2016 p.32]
5.5.6 In Rome he lived through the death of Pope Paul V and the election of Gregory XV in early 1621, the death of John Berchmans on 13 August 1621 and, a month later, the death of Bellarmine in the novitiate house. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.12-13; takagi-2005]
5.5.7 On 12 March 1622 Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier were canonized at St. Peter's. Kibe attended, with Miguel Minoes. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.28; tokyo-guide-2008 p.13; jesuits-global] Our earlier draft marked this Unverified; it is now supported by Gonoi, though one writer only says he "probably" attended. [takagi-2005]
5.6 Portugal and the long voyage back to Asia (1622 to 1624)
5.6.1 He left Rome on 6 June 1622, before finishing his novitiate, with four (some say three) other novices bound for India. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.13, fn26-27; gonoi-2016 p.32; tokyo-guide-2008 p.14; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] The date "6 March 1622" in our older notes is wrong; see 8.2.
5.6.2 One account gives the route as Civitavecchia, Genoa, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Madrid; Cieslik thought he probably sailed to Barcelona and went overland through Madrid. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16] In Madrid he read Jesuit letters of 1621 from Japan and learned that the persecution had grown worse. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16, Kibe's letter; gonoi-2016 p.32]
5.6.3 He reached the Jesuit college at Évora on 7 September 1622, then finished his novitiate in Lisbon and took his vows on 21 November 1622, the feast of the Presentation of Mary. He made the full thirty-day Spiritual Exercises "in the Roman manner", which the Lisbon novice master allowed at his request. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16, quoting Kibe's letter to Fr. Oliver Pensa, Lisbon, 1 February 1623, Jap. Sin. 34 f.198; takagi-2005] The Oita leaflet says he entered the Lisbon novitiate on Monte Olivete about 15 September 1622. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] On the vow day see 8.10. [kataoka-2006 pp.79-80]
5.6.4 In that Lisbon letter of 1 February 1623 he reported that Hormuz had fallen to the Persians with English help, and that Date Masamune had turned against the Christians of Ōshū. He commended "Manciug" (Mancio) Konishi to Fr. Pensa. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16]
5.6.5 On 25 March 1623 he sailed from Lisbon with the India fleet, which also carried Patriarch Afonso Mendes, bound for Ethiopia, many Jesuits and the new Viceroy of India. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.28; takagi-2005; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] The Tokyo guide gives 24 March. [tokyo-guide-2008 p.14] The fleet passed Porto Santo on 3 April and the Cape of Good Hope on 25 July, reached Mozambique on 22 September 1623 and wintered there. [takagi-2005; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.19-24] Disease and bad water killed many on board. [gonoi-2016 p.32] Kataoka gives 24 March 1623 for the departure from Lisbon. [kataoka-2006 p.80] 24 or 25 March: Disputed (minor). Cieslik 1959 says the fleet had six ships, with nine priests on the São Francisco Xavier and seven on the Santa Isabel, and that we do not know which ship Kibe was on. [cieslik-1959 p.195]
5.7 Ten years at Japan's closed door (1624 to 1630)
5.7.1 The ships for Malacca and Macau had already left. About April 1625 he sailed from Goa on a ship for Manila and from there reached Macau in October or November 1625, nine years after he had left it with no guarantees. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.29; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Cieslik also has Manila before Macau. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.24] Kataoka narrows the arrival in Macau, by way of Manila, to between 1 September and 15 November 1625. [kataoka-2006 p.80]
5.7.2 Japan was closing. From 1625 the Nagasaki magistrate demanded passenger lists from the Macau ship, and from March 1626 Macau forbade missionaries to sail for Japan. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.29] Japan had broken off relations with Manila in 1624. [gonoi-2016 p.32]
5.7.3 On the advice of the Visitor André Palmeiro he tried Siam instead, where Japanese ships still traded. In February 1627 he sailed from Macau for Malacca. Near the Singapore Strait four Dutch ships captured his vessel. He escaped ashore, wandered fourteen days in the forest, reached Malacca and nearly died of fever. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.29; takagi-2005] In his letter to Mascarenhas he wrote that when four Dutch ships appeared near the Singapore Strait, "I took only my breviary, my cloak and the fathers' letters and went ashore with the Portuguese", and walked 14 days to Malacca. [kataoka-2006 p.80]
5.7.4 He left Malacca on 1 May 1627 and reached Ayutthaya at the end of July. [gonoi-2016 p.32; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.29-31, citing his letter of May 1630, Jap. Sin. 34 f.201] For two years he tried every means to board a Japanese red-seal ship home, but anyone who had lived abroad had to prove he was not a Christian. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.29; cbcj-0701] One account says he lived hidden in the Japanese town as a sailor, among about 40 Japanese Christian exiles. [takagi-2005]Unverified. He wrote that the capital was "Yudia" (Ayutthaya) and that he lodged with a good Christian in the Japanese town. Juan López says he spent over two years in Siam disguised in servant's clothes [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.213 via kataoka-2006 p.80], and Cardim's Fasciculus (Rome 1646) says that for two years he rowed barefoot with a shaven head as an oarsman and went to Manila as a slave [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.244 via kataoka-2006 p.80]. This confirms in substance Takagi's statement that he hid as a sailor or servant. Cardim's memorandum (Negombo, 15 August 1653) says he left Siam on the feast of the Visitation, 2 July 1629. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.248 via kataoka-2006 p.80] The original Spanish of López's report survives in print: "el Padre Pedro Cassui estuuo disfraçado en habito de firuiente mas de dos años en la corte de Sian para passar à Japon, mas no pudo" (Father Pedro Cassui was disguised as a servant for more than two years at the court of Siam in order to cross to Japan, but could not). [morejon-1631 f.53r, BSB scan 125] Where he spent the two years is Disputed: the CBCJ Japanese rendering of his 7 May 1630 letter says "about two years in Malacca" (およそ二年間、マラッカに滞在して) [cbcj-0701 p.1], but Cieslik's reading of the same letter, López's report and Gonoi all place the two years in Ayutthaya. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.29-31; morejon-1631 f.53r; gonoi-2016 p.32] We follow Ayutthaya; the Malacca wording may be a slip in the translation, which cannot be checked until the Latin (Jap.Sin.34 f.201) or Oita pp.205-209 is seen. Disputed.
5.7.5 On 2 July 1629 he left Ayutthaya on the embassy ship of the Governor of Manila and went to the Jesuit college in Manila. [gonoi-2016 p.32; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.29-31; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] There he met Fr. Miguel Matsuda, another Japanese Jesuit, and Fr. Antonio Cardim. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui fn44]
5.7.6 With alms from devout people and help from the Jesuit province, Kibe, Matsuda and a secular priest from Iyo, Jerónimo, bought a boat and hired a Japanese captain and crew. They left Manila on 2 March 1630 for Lubang Island, about 160 km away. [cbcj-0701; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.33-37; gonoi-2016 p.32] Cieslik thinks the priest from Iyo was João Jerónimo Jo (alias Torres), martyred at Nagasaki on 3 September 1632. [cieslik-1959-kasui fn55] They left Manila on 2 March 1630, bought a boat and hired Christian sailors. [kataoka-2006 pp.80-81] Kataoka notes that Pagès put the wreck and the landing in 1629; the letters show 1630. [kataoka-2006 p.81] Miguel Matsuda was born in Amakusa in 1578 and became a Jesuit in 1607. [kataoka-2006 fn37]
5.7.7 From Lubang he wrote at least two letters, on 7 May 1630 to Fr. Nuno Mascarenhas in Rome and on 12 June 1630 to the rector of the Manila college, Juan López. [gonoi-2016 pp.32-33 fn51-53; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.33-37] In the May letter he wrote, in a Japanese rendering: "If the wind of God's grace blows, and trusting in it we raise the sail and it brings us safely to Japan, I will report to you in detail about our journey and the state of the Church in Japan." [cbcj-0701, our translation from the Japanese] Kataoka summarizes both letters: the 7 May letter (Jap.Sin.34 ff.201r-v) says they were waiting for the weather, which usually turns about June [oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.205-209]; the 12 June letter to Juan López says they had been three months on Lubang, that he said Mass every day in a hut on the shore, that the worm-eaten boat had been patched with boards inside, and "we trust in God's will for a favourable wind", signed "Petrus Cassuinus" [oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.210-212]. It is his last surviving letter, printed in the appendix of Morejón's book of 1631 (Mexico) in Latin and Spanish. [kataoka-2006 pp.80-81] The 1630 annual letter of the Philippine province (Juan de Bueras, Manila, 29 June 1631) says Matsuda and Kasui entered Japan safely. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.221 via kataoka-2006 p.81] Third pass: the 12 June 1630 letter is now read in the original, in the open Bayerische Staatsbibliothek copy of Morejón's Relación (Mexico 1631). López introduces it as "vna carta que me escriuiò el Padre Pedro Cassui, antes de su partida, en latin" (a letter Fr. Pedro Cassui wrote to me in Latin before his departure). [morejon-1631 f.53v, scan 126] The Latin reads in part: "nos trimestri iam spatio, in quodam portu huius insulae Luban, in anchoris subsistere, sacrumque interea, domuncula in littore extructa, Dei beneficio quotidie celebrare" (for three months now we have been lying at anchor in a harbour of this island of Luban, and meanwhile, in a little house built on the shore, by God's favour we say Mass every day); the boat was found "vermium morsu perforatam" (holed by the bite of worms), so they decided to patch it with boards on the inside and test it as far as "Bulinaum" (Bolinao), and then go "rectà in Iaponiam" (straight to Japan) if it held. It is dated "Datis Luban 12. Iunij anno 1630" and signed "Petrus Cassuinus". [morejon-1631 f.54r, scan 127] López's Spanish version follows, signed "Pedro Cassui" ("Luban 12. de Iunio de 1630"). [morejon-1631 ff.54r-55r, scans 127-129] López adds that the beneficiado of Lubang, Martín de Ureta, came to Manila afterwards and told him he had repaired the boat so that it could sail straight to Japan without touching any island. [morejon-1631 f.55r, scan 129] Long s and u/v are normalized in these quotations; the English is ours. The May letter is available in a Japanese translation of a long extract, signed "一六三〇年五月七日 ルバング島にて … ペトロ・カスイ". [cbcj-0701 pp.1-2]
5.7.8 Shipworm holed the boat before departure and it was patched from inside. They sailed about 20 June 1630. [gonoi-2016 pp.32-33]
5.8 Back in Japan: Nagasaki (1630 to c.1633)
5.8.1 A storm wrecked them on the coast of the Shichitō islands (the Tokara chain) south of Kyushu. They got a small boat and, escorted by Satsuma officials, reached Bōnotsu. At the port guardhouse they passed as shipwrecked merchants and were released. It was about July 1630, and Kibe was home after fifteen or sixteen years. [gonoi-2016 p.33; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.37; sakurai-2024 pp.29-30; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020]
5.8.2 He went to Nagasaki with Matsuda. [gonoi-2016 p.33] Matsuda soon died, worn out in the mountains after his host turned him out. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.40] Nagasaki was in the middle of a fierce manhunt under the magistrate Takenaka Uneme. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.38-40; takagi-2005]
5.8.3 In 1633 the Jesuit vice-provincial Cristóvão Ferreira gave up his faith after hours in the pit. [cieslik-1959-kasui fn71; sakurai-2024 p.30] A letter of Fr. Manuel Dias, rector of the Macau college, says Kibe, then hiding in the hills near Nagasaki, came down into the city at night, found Ferreira and urged him: "Father, let us go to the magistrate together. Take back your apostasy and die with me." Ferreira refused. [cbcj-kibe-web] Gonoi dates the attempt to about 1635 and calls it a report ("伝えられる"). [gonoi-2016 p.33]Unverified as to place, date and wording.
5.8.4 He is said to have gone on to Kyoto before heading north. [gonoi-2016 p.33; tokyo-guide-2008 p.13]Unverified.
5.9 Underground in the north (c.1633 to 1639)
5.9.1 The Sendai domain had many Christians, gathered first around the Christian samurai Juan Gotō at Fukuwara in Mizusawa, until Date Masamune turned against them after 1620. [sakurai-2024 pp.30-31; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.40-43] Kibe reportedly decided to go north in 1631 after hearing about it from Fr. Diogo Yūki, and in October 1633 came by boat up the Kitakami river from Ishinomaki to Mizusawa. [takagi-2005]Unverified; this detail comes from one writer.
5.9.2 Few records survive of these years. Jesuit letters show he was alive in 1636. A rumour in Macau in 1638 that he had fled from Nagasaki to Satsuma was probably wrong. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.42, fn68, citing letters of Fr. Manuel Dias of 1636 and 1638] He went by his old family name, Pedro Kibe. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.42-43] Kataoka gives the two letters of Manuel Dias from Macau: 16 December 1636, reporting that Kibe had come to Nagasaki and urged Ferreira to retract (Dias doubts the report), and 3 December 1638, saying Kibe was alive with Porro and had moved from Nagasaki to Satsuma. [kataoka-2006 p.82]
5.9.3 Other priests still at work in the north were the Jesuits Giovanni Battista Porro, an Italian, and the Japanese Martinho Shikimi, and four Franciscans including Francisco de Barajas. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.40-41; takagi-2005]
5.10 Betrayal and arrest (1638 to 1639)
5.10.1 After the Shimabara rising of 1637 to 1638 the shogunate hunted the last missionaries. A general order of 20 October 1638 went to all lords, with money rewards for informers. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.45-47] The Sendai domain put up notice boards announcing the reward system on the 2nd day of the 12th month of Kan'ei 15 (early 1639). [takagi-2005] The Sendai domain issued its own notice on 18 January 1639, offering ten pieces of gold. [kataoka-2006 p.83]
5.10.2 A former dōjuku named Chōzaburō then denounced Kibe's hosts. His written report, now in the Date clan papers at the Miyagi Prefectural Library, reads in part: "At a place called Mizusawa in the Sendai domain, a man called Miyake Tōemon and his wife are both Christians. He is about fifty and has a son of about twenty. Because they gave lodging to Kibe, I believe they are of that religion. 13th day of the 2nd month." [chozaburo-sonin, in oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.1, cited by gonoi-2016 fn55; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.42-43 fn69; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Kataoka dates the report 17 March 1639 and notes that Mizusawa was the fief of Ishimoda Daizen, next to Gotō Juan's Miwake, where the mission of Fr. Angelis was based from 1615 until Juan was expelled in 1624. [kataoka-2006 p.82] Third pass: the Japanese original is printed on the open Tokyo Archdiocese site: "長三郎訴人 一仙台領水沢と申所ニ三宅藤衛門と申者夫婦共ニきりしたんニ而御座候｡ 年五十許ニ罷成候｡ 男子壱人年二十許ニ罷成候｡ 木部宿をいたし候｡ 故 宗門之儀ニ存候 二月十三日". [takagi-2005, no page reference; matches oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.1 as cited by gonoi-2016 p.37 fn55] Sakurai gives the same in paraphrase. [sakurai-2024 p.31] Cieslik names two older printings of the text: Kanno 『奥羽切支丹史』 (Morioka 1950) p.303 and Urakawa 『東北キリシタン史』 (Tokyo 1957) p.242. [cieslik-1959-kasui fn69] Not seen by us.
5.10.3 The report gives no year. Gonoi and Cieslik take it as Kan'ei 16, that is March 1639 (the 13th day of the 2nd month of Kan'ei 16 was 17 March 1639). [gonoi-2016 p.33; takagi-2005] The Tokyo guide dates the betrayal and arrest to March 1638. [tokyo-guide-2008 pp.13-14] One writer adds that Miyake had already been executed in 1624, which contradicts the report itself; this is probably a slip for 1639. [takagi-2005] See 8.5.
5.10.4 Where and when he was taken is uncertain. Porro gave himself up to the Sendai official Ishimoda Daizen in May 1639, and Gonoi says Kibe and Shikimi were taken soon after. [gonoi-2016 p.33; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.45-49] The Oita leaflet suggests late May to mid June 1639, with a question mark. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] The beatification letter says "early in 1639". [vatican-2008-litterae] Older sources say 1638. [esquerda-2008; tokyo-guide-2008 p.14] Some say Mizusawa, at Miyake's house [takagi-2005; tokyo-guide-2008 p.18]; others say Sendai. [cbcj-kibe-web; cbcj-kibe400] The Mizusawa parish says he was seized on the bridge beside the Kurusuba cemetery. [pauline-mizusawa; pauline-kurusuba]Tradition. The CBCJ says he chose to let himself be taken in Sendai so that no harm would come to his hosts. [cbcj-kibe-web] The Jesuits say a poor and hungry fellow believer sold him. [jesuits-global]Disputed. New evidence narrows the date: a relay pass (宿次手形, copy) in the Ishimoda papers at Tenri Central Library, dated Kan'ei 16 (year of the hare), 3rd month, 25th day, signed by three officials, orders that "these four prisoners summoned from Sendai to Edo" be sent on by relay. Kataoka identifies the four as Kibe, Shikimi, the Franciscan Barajas and Porro. [kataoka-2006 p.82] By our own conversion that day is 27 or 28 April 1639 (Japanese Wikipedia's 1639 table equates Kan'ei 16, 2nd month, 29th day with 2 April 1639; the length of the 2nd month decides the day). [wiki-ja-1639] If so, the arrests came before late April, and the Oita leaflet's "late May to mid June" is too late. Caron's "captured this summer" (2 November 1639) is looser [kataoka-2006 p.84], and the pass also sits badly with the May 1639 date for Porro's surrender given above. Lean: arrested in the Sendai domain in spring 1639, before late April. Still Disputed.
5.11 Edo: the shogun, Ferreira and Inoue (spring and summer 1639)
5.11.1 He was taken to Edo in chains, on foot. [takagi-2005, quoting a Jesuit report; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.45, quoting Bartoli] Takagi notes that he walked the 91 ri to Edo, not carried in a cage. [takagi-2005] He was held in the Denmachō (Kodenmachō) prison in Nihonbashi. [gonoi-2016 p.33; takagi-2005; tokyo-guide-2008 p.18]
5.11.2 With Porro and Shikimi he was examined four times by the shogunate's senior officials, probably in May or June 1639. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50, fn82; gonoi-2016 p.33] Gonoi places the four hearings inside the prison; Takagi places them at the Hyōjōsho, the high court at Tatsunokuchi. [gonoi-2016 p.33; takagi-2005] A record kept by an official of the Christian inquisition, the Sayō yoroku, notes that Kibe was brought before the court four times and the questioning reached no confession. [takagi-2005, quoting 査妖余録] The Kirishito-ki, as transcribed by Kataoka, says: "they appeared at the Hyōjōsho four times, but the examination was not concluded" (評定所へ四度出候へ共御穿鑿極リ不申). [kirishito-ki, oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.6, via kataoka-2006 p.83] This supports Takagi's Hyōjōsho for the four hearings, against "inside the prison".
5.11.3 The apostate Ferreira, now called Sawano Chūan, was brought in to persuade them. Kibe instead urged him to return to the faith. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50; sakurai-2024 p.31] One writer says he called Ferreira "the stumbling block of the world" and "the shame of the Jesuits". [takagi-2005]Unverified wording.
5.11.4 A fifth hearing took place at the residence of the senior councillor Sakai Tadakatsu at Tatsunokuchi, with the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu present. The Kirishito-ki names the Zen priest Takuan among those present; Takagi adds the sword master Yagyū Munenori and Kutsuki Tanetsuna. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50, fn82; gonoi-2016 p.33; takagi-2005; vatican-2008-litterae] The Kirishito-ki says the shogun went to the lower (suburban) residence of Sanuki-no-kami (Sakai Tadakatsu), 讃岐守下屋敷, where the three padres were questioned on their religion in the presence of Takuan, Yagyū Tajima and "other yoriai". [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83] So Yagyū is now confirmed from the Kirishito-ki; Kutsuki is not named. The text speaks of the lower residence, so Takagi's "at Tatsunokuchi" is Disputed (see 8.17). Anesaki dated the shogun's visits to the Sakai residence to the 11th and 25th of the 3rd month of Kan'ei 16 [anesaki-1976, via kataoka-2006 p.83], but this is hard to square with the relay pass of the 25th day of that month (5.10.4). Disputed.
5.11.5 The case was then handed to Inoue Masashige (Chikugo-no-kami), the chief official for Christian affairs, who spent ten days trying to argue them out of their faith. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50, fn83] Inoue's aim was apostasy, not death; Cieslik notes that with Porro and Shikimi "Inoue achieved his goal". [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] Takagi adds that the three were also tortured ten times in the prison under the Rusui Ōkubo Tadanari, with the prison keeper Ishide Tatewaki present. [takagi-2005]Unverified. The Kirishito-ki says that after two or three days Nakane Iki-no-kami came as the shogun's envoy and the case was given to Chikugo-no-kami (Inoue); the three were argued with for ten days at Inoue's residence; then Inoue sent his retainers to the prison (籠屋) to torture them, and the Jesuit Juan (Porro) and Martinho Ichizaemon (Shikimi) apostatized and said the nenbutsu. [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83] This confirms Takagi's envoy Nakane and the torture in the prison; it does not confirm "ten times" (perhaps a misreading of the ten days) or the names Ōkubo and Ishide, which stay Unverified.
5.12 The pit (July 1639)
5.12.1 The final step was the pit (anazuri or ana-tsurushi): the prisoner was bound and hung head down into a hole, sometimes with a cut at the temple to slow the bleeding, and fed a little so that he would last. A sign of the hand was enough to signal apostasy and be taken down. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.45-49]
5.12.2 Porro and Shikimi, both old and ill, gave way. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50, fn83; gonoi-2016 p.33] Takagi says they fainted and were counted as apostates. [takagi-2005, citing Sayō yoroku] They were not freed; Cieslik says they were held in prison until they died years later, "mentally and physically broken men" in Dutch eyes. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] The Kirishito-ki says they were then kept at Inoue's residence and both died of illness within a year or two (一両年). [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83; anesaki-1976 p.74 via kataoka-2006] This differs from Cieslik's "years later". Disputed (minor).
5.12.3 Kibe was hung in one pit with two dōjuku. Inoue's own record, preserved in the Kirishito-ki, says: "Kibe Peitoro did not apostatize. He was killed in the pit. Until then he was an obscure man; because two dōjuku were hung in the same pit with Kibe, and he kept encouraging them, Kibe was killed. After Kibe died, both dōjuku apostatized." [kirishito-ki in oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.7, quoted by gonoi-2016 fn56; cieslik-1959-kasui fn83; tokyo-guide-2008 p.13; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020]
5.12.4 That he died in the pit for refusing to apostatize is certain; the witness is the official in charge. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] How the guards finally killed him is Disputed. The Dutch factory chief François Caron, writing on 2 November 1639 from what an interpreter brought back from Edo, says a fire of small dry sticks was lit on his bare belly. [caron-diary via takagi-2005 and gonoi-2016 fn57] The Jesuit Antonio Rubino in Macau, reporting what Portuguese from Nagasaki said (Takagi names the captain Vasco Palha de Almeida), wrote that he died "with glowing plates placed all over his body" and was said to have been roasted alive. Cieslik advises caution about the glowing plates. [rubino-1639 via cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50 and takagi-2005] Gonoi writes that they killed him with red-hot metal [gonoi-2016 p.33]; the CBCJ says a red-hot iron bar was pressed on his belly [cbcj-kibe-web], or that his belly was burned with fire [cbcj-kibe400]. Cieslik writes that, because he kept encouraging the dōjuku, he "was killed by the guard soldiers", and the Jesuits' website says a guard's spear. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50; jesuits-global] The Kirishito-ki does not say how. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] See 8.4. Caron's diary for 2 November 1639 calls him "the shaven-pate fellow called Kibe", captured that summer in Masamune's lands and recently tortured to death in Edo: after all the tortures, small dry sticks were laid on his naked belly and slowly set alight, so that his entrails nearly burst out before he died, and all the while he was questioned about the faith. Kataoka judges the report credible because it came from the shogunate side. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.231 via kataoka-2006 p.84] Rubino's letter, which Kataoka dates Macau, 2 November 1639 (Jap.Sin.38 f.212r), says he endured red-hot plates applied to his whole body and was burned alive. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.232 via kataoka-2006 p.84] Takagi dates the Rubino letter 7 October 1639 [takagi-2005]; we lean to 2 November, the date with an archive reference. Disputed.
5.12.6 The pits for important prisoners were dug on open ground at Shin-Torigoe village near Matsuchiyama, between the Imado and San'ya bridges in Asakusa, according to the shogunate manual Shūmon sensaku-shiki as read by Takagi. [takagi-2005] The CBCJ leaflet for the 400th anniversary also places his pit near Matsuchiyama Shōden. [cbcj-kibe400] Other church sources say he died inside the Denmachō prison. [tokyo-guide-2008 p.18; cbcj-kibe-web; gonoi-2016 p.33; sakurai-2024 p.31]Disputed; see 8.6. For the Site page we choose the Denmachō prison; see 8.6.
5.12.7 Executed Christians were buried, not cremated. Takagi suggests Honryūji or Saihōji in Asakusa, but says nobody knows. [takagi-2005]Unverified.
5.13 Remembered (1639 to today)
5.13.1 News of his death reached Rome, and there was talk of his beatification, but nothing could be investigated in closed Japan and his name faded. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Bartoli's history of the Japan mission (1660) recorded his death. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.45]
5.13.2 The Jesuit historian Hubert Cieslik brought him back to notice with his Japanese articles of 1959 and his German study in Monumenta Nipponica vol. 15 (1959). [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; cieslik-1959-kasui]
5.13.3 In 1963 a memorial society was founded in Kunimi and a memorial park was laid out at the foot of the old Kibe Castle hill. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; sakurai-2024 p.31] On 24 September 1965 the society set up a bronze statue of Kibe by Funakoshi Yasutake. [oita-pref-1985; pauline-kibe-park] A memorial chapel followed in 1987. [sakurai-2024 p.31] A Kibe martyrdom festival has been held there every autumn since 1967. [pauline-kibe-park] In 1992 the people of Ōita staged an opera, "Petro Kibe: Korobi-mōsazu-sōrō". [sakurai-2024 p.31]
5.13.4 The cause of the 188 martyrs was opened in 1981 with the encouragement of Pope John Paul II. Historians approved on 7 December 2004, theologians on 5 May 2006 and the cardinals on 6 February 2007. [vatican-2008-litterae; esquerda-2008] The decree on martyrdom is dated 1 June 2007 in news reports and 1 June 2008 in the printed Apostolic Letter; see 8.8. [christiantoday-2008; vatican-2008-litterae] The decree on martyrdom was signed on 1 June 2007; see 8.8. [fides-2007; jcap-2007] Kataoka gives the history of the cause in Japan: a committee from 1986, Bishop Hirayama of Ōita as petitioner, 188 candidates from 11 dioceses (Kibe through the Ōita and Tokyo dioceses), a petition of all active bishops in February 2005, and a positio of over 600 pages. [kataoka-2006 pp.71-74] Her dates differ from the Apostolic Letter's (1981); both kept.
5.13.5 On 24 November 2008, at the Nagasaki Prefectural Baseball Stadium (Big N Stadium), Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, for Pope Benedict XVI, declared Petro Kibe and 187 companions Blessed. More than 30,000 people attended in the rain. [cbcj-2009-report; tokyo-news-259; vatican-2008-litterae] The Apostolic Letter fixed their feast on 1 July. [vatican-2008-litterae]
5.13.6 On 15 November 2020 the 400th anniversary of his ordination was marked, and the Oita diocese published a pilgrim leaflet. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; cbcj-kibe400] On 1 July 2022 the Japanese Jesuits unveiled the first icon of him, by the Moscow iconographer Aleksandr Griaznov, in Kibe Hall at the Jesuit residence in Tokyo. [jcap-2022; ucanews-2022]
Timeline
Each row gives the date, the event and the source. Japanese dates are converted as given by the source. Labels mark rows that are not firm.
6.11285
Kibe Saburō Narisue holds 17 chō at Kibe-no-ura in the Bungo fief register. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.2]
6.21585
Romano Kibe becomes a Christian; 144 of his family and household are baptized. [gonoi-2016 p.29] Takagi: 1584, 140 people. [takagi-2005]Disputed. The 1585 letter says "about 140". [kataoka-2006 pp.76-77]
6.719 October 1600 [Keichō 5, 9th month, 13th day]
battle of Ishigakibaru; Romano probably fights for Ōtomo Yoshimune. [gonoi-2016 p.29; takagi-2005] Probable.
6.81600
Petro, aged 13, enters the Jesuit seminary at Nagasaki. [gonoi-2016 p.30; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Takagi: c.1601, with his brother João. [takagi-2005] Kataoka notes that the 1617 annual letter names a martyr, Kibe Gozaemon João (岐部五左衛門ジョアン), presumed to be Petro's brother. [kataoka-2006 p.86 fn20]Unverified relation.
6.929 October 1601 [Keichō 6, 10th month, 4th day]
finishes the seminary; private vow to become a Jesuit; becomes a dōjuku. [gonoi-2016 p.30; takagi-2005]
6.11c.1606 to 1614
dōjuku at the Akizuki residence (moved to Amagi in 1613) under Fr. Gabriel de Matos. [gonoi-2016 p.30; takagi-2005]
6.12Early 1614 [Keichō 18, 12th month, 22nd day]
the shogunate orders the missionaries expelled. [takagi-2005]
6.13March 1614
execution of Matthias Shichirōbei at Akizuki. [gonoi-2016 p.30]
6.14Early April 1614
Kibe carries Shichirōbei's body to the Todos os Santos church, Nagasaki. [gonoi-2016 p.30; tokyo-guide-2008 p.12]
6.157 and 8 November 1614
the exile ships leave for Manila and Macau (Macau ships from Fukuda, 115 people). [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.9] The older view puts Kibe on them. Disputed. Cieslik 1959 and Kataoka have Kibe on the Macau ships. [cieslik-1959 p.190; kataoka-2006 p.78]Disputed.
6.1622 November 1614
martyrdom of the Korean Christian Miguel at Kuchinotsu; Kibe later testifies to the wheat relic, so he was still in Japan. [gonoi-2016 p.30]
leaves Macau; captured by Dutch ships near the Singapore Strait; 14 days ashore. [gonoi-2016 p.32; sakurai-2024 p.29] Takagi has him leave from Goa in January 1627. Disputed.
letter from Lubang to Fr. Juan López. [gonoi-2016 fn53] Latin original and Spanish version printed by López in Morejón's Relación, Mexico 1631. [morejon-1631 ff.53v-55r]
shogunate order to all lords to hunt Christians, with rewards. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.45]
6.63a3 December 1638
Dias in Macau writes that Kibe is alive with Porro and has moved to Satsuma. [kataoka-2006 p.82]
6.63b18 January 1639
Sendai domain notice offering ten gold pieces for a padre. [kataoka-2006 p.83]
6.6417 March 1639 [Kan'ei 16, 2nd month, 13th day]
Chōzaburō's report naming Miyake Tōemon as Kibe's host. [chozaburo-sonin via takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 p.33 fn55] Takagi takes this as the arrest date. Tokyo guide: March 1638. Disputed. Original text on the Tokyo Archdiocese site. [takagi-2005]
6.64aKan'ei 16, 3rd month, 25th day (27 or 28 April 1639 by our conversion [wiki-ja-1639])
relay pass for four prisoners sent from Sendai to Edo, identified by Kataoka as Kibe, Shikimi, Barajas and Porro. [kataoka-2006 p.82]
Each place gives English and Japanese names, what happened there, dates, coordinates where we can stand behind them, the source and the planned Site slug. Coordinates marked "approx., verify" are for well known landmarks and must be checked against a map before publishing. Where no coordinates are given, they are still to add. Existing Master Index slugs are kept; new slugs were added as Idea rows on 19 October 2026. Second pass, 19 Oct 2026: coordinates are now given for most places, each marked approx. with its map source (OSM is OpenStreetMap via Nominatim, with the object id; JA or EN Wikipedia where stated). Where the historic site is not mapped, the nearest modern marker is given and named as such.
Map: OpenStreetMap tiles via Leaflet. Points are approximate markers as given in the atlas; numbers match the cards below.
7.1 Japan: Bungo and Buzen
7.1.1Urabe, Kibe village浦辺・岐部
Urabe, Kibe village (浦辺・岐部), Kunimi-machi, Kunisaki. Birthplace and family seat. 1587. [gonoi-2016 p.29; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.1-3] Slug: urabe-kibe (new). Coordinates: 33.6545, 131.6287 (approx.; OSM way 59963587, result for 岐部, Kunimi-machi; area marker for the village).
7.1.2Kibe Castle site and Kibe memorial park岐部城跡・ペトロ・カスイ岐部記念公園
Kibe Castle site and Kibe memorial park (岐部城跡・ペトロ・カスイ岐部記念公園), Kunimi-machi Kibe 536. Park 1963, statue 1965, chapel 1987, festival each autumn. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; oita-pref-1985; sakurai-2024 p.31; pauline-kibe-park] Slug: kibe-kunisaki (existing); kibe-castle-site (new). Coordinates: 33.6646, 131.6255 (approx.; OSM node 14027791801 "岐部城"; nearest modern marker for the park, which lies by the castle hill).
Kibe Shrine (岐部神社). The shrine by the old harbour where sailors prayed. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.2] Slug: kibe-jinja (existing). Coordinates: 33.6685, 131.6291 (approx.; OSM node 6622948820 "岐部神社").
Taizōji (泰蔵寺). Zen temple with Kibe family tablets of the 16th century. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.2] Slug: taizoji-kibe (existing). Coordinates: to add (not found in OSM or Wikipedia; the only OSM 泰蔵寺 is in Yamagata, not this temple).
Imi-Nakamura, Shōgatsu-yashiki (伊美中村・正月屋敷). Where the family is said to have hidden after 1600, at the site of Enjōji. [gonoi-2016 pp.29-30]Tradition. Slug: imi-shogatsu-yashiki (new). Coordinates: 33.628, 131.589 (approx.; OSM way 59961930, Imi river; nearest modern marker only, the Shōgatsu-yashiki and Enjōji sites are not mapped).
Funai (府内), Ōita. Jesuit college; Romano's baptism by one account, 1584. [takagi-2005] Slug: oita-funai (existing). Coordinates: 33.2404, 131.6114 (approx.; OSM way 49106871, Ōita Jōshi Park, used as a modern marker for central Funai; the Jesuit college site is not mapped).
Nakatsu (中津), Buzen. Church where Petro was baptized, 1587. [takagi-2005]Unverified. Slug: nakatsu (new). Coordinates: 33.6066, 131.1864 (approx.; OSM node 1423861515, Nakatsu Castle, modern marker for the town; church site unknown).
Ishigakibaru (石垣原), Beppu. Battle of 19 October 1600. [gonoi-2016 pp.29-30; takagi-2005] Slug: ishigakibaru (new). Coordinates: 33.3091, 131.4730 (approx.; OSM node 14029818002, Jissōji, Beppu; nearest modern marker for the battlefield area, not an exact battle site).
Usa Shrine (宇佐神宮). Link to the Hata family claimed by one source. [wiki-ja]Unverified. Slug: usa-jingu (new). Coordinates: 33.5254, 131.3752 (approx.; OSM relation 10383499, Usa Jingū).
7.2.1Nagasaki seminary near the Misaki church長崎・岬の教会のセミナリオ
Nagasaki seminary near the Misaki church (長崎・岬の教会のセミナリオ). 1600 to 1601. [gonoi-2016 p.30] Slug: nagasaki-seminary-1600 (new). Coordinates: 32.7499, 129.8674 (approx.; OSM way 561130215, the former Nagasaki Prefectural Office building, which stands on the Misaki site; marker for the Misaki church area).
7.2.4Todos os Santos church, Nagasakiトードス・オス・サントス教会
Todos os Santos church, Nagasaki (トードス・オス・サントス教会). Shichirōbei's body brought there, April 1614. [gonoi-2016 p.30] Slug: todos-os-santos-nagasaki (new). Coordinates: 32.7548, 129.8891 (approx.; OSM way 728108357, Shuntokuji temple, Nagasaki, nearest modern marker for the Todos os Santos church site).
Kuchinotsu (口之津). Hiding place after November 1614; the Korean Miguel was martyred there on 22 November 1614. [gonoi-2016 p.30] Slug: kuchinotsu (new). Coordinates: 32.6105, 130.1858 (approx.; OSM way 1123057598, Kuchinotsu port green park, town marker).
Fukuda port (福田湊), Nagasaki. Exile ships left, 8 November 1614. [takagi-2005] Slug: fukuda-port (new). Coordinates: 32.742, 129.816 (approx.; OSM node 1423803981, result for 福田, Nagasaki; nearest modern marker, the old harbour is not mapped).
Manila (マニラ). 1615; 1625; 1629 to 1630. [gonoi-2016 pp.30-32; takagi-2005] Slug: manila (new). Coordinates: 14.5910, 120.9747 (approx.; OSM, Intramuros, the walled city where the Jesuit college stood).
Macau (マカオ). Jesuit college of Madre de Deus. 1615 to 1616; 1625 to 1627. [gonoi-2016 pp.31-32] Slug: macau (new). Coordinates: 22.1975, 113.5406 (approx.; EN Wikipedia, Ruins of St. Paul's, site of the Madre de Deus college church).
Ayutthaya, Japanese town (アユタヤ日本人町). July 1627 to 2 July 1629. [gonoi-2016 p.32; takagi-2005] Slug: ayutthaya-japanese-town (existing). Coordinates: 14.3327, 100.5774 (approx.; OSM, Japanese Village, Ayutthaya, the modern memorial on the old Japanese town site).
Lubang Island (ルバング島). March to June 1630; letters of 7 May and 12 June. [gonoi-2016 pp.32-33; cbcj-0701] Slug: lubang-island (existing). Coordinates: 13.767, 120.195 (approx.; OSM, Lubang Island, centre of the island; landing place unknown).
Damascus (ダマスカス). On the route. [sakurai-2024 p.25; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020]Unverified. Slug: damascus (new). Coordinates: 33.513, 36.310 (approx.; OSM, old city of Damascus).
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem (聖墳墓教会). Registered 2 April 1618. [sakurai-2024 p.26] Slug: holy-sepulchre-jerusalem (new). Coordinates: 31.7784, 35.2298 (approx.; OSM, Church of the Holy Sepulchre).
Santa Maria Maggiore (サンタ・マリア・マッジョーレ). Subdiaconate, 1 November 1620. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11] Slug: santa-maria-maggiore (existing). Coordinates: 41.8976, 12.4985 (approx.; OSM, Santa Maria Maggiore).
St. John Lateran (ラテラノ大聖堂). Diaconate and priesthood, 8 and 15 November 1620. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Slug: lateran-ordination-site (existing). Coordinates: 41.8858, 12.5056 (approx.; OSM, St. John Lateran).
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (聖アンドレア修練院). Novitiate, 1620 to 1622. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11; takagi-2005] Slug: sant-andrea-quirinale (existing). Coordinates: 41.9007, 12.4894 (approx.; OSM, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale; the novitiate house stood beside the church).
Collegio Romano (ローマ学院). Moral theology, 1621 to 1622. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.12; gonoi-2016 p.32] Slug: collegio-romano (existing). Coordinates: 41.8981, 12.4806 (approx.; OSM, Collegio Romano building, Piazza del Collegio Romano).
Civitavecchia, Genoa, Barcelona, Zaragoza (チヴィタヴェッキア、ジェノヴァ、バルセロナ、サラゴサ). Route, June to August 1622. [takagi-2005]Unverified. No slugs planned; covered in kibe-road-to-rome. Coordinates: Genoa 44.407, 8.934 (approx.; OSM); the other stops are not given coordinates.
Évora college (エヴォラ学院). 7 September 1622. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16] Slug: evora-college (existing). Coordinates: 38.5679, -7.9106 (approx.; OSM, University of Évora, Colégio do Espírito Santo area).
7.6.4Lisbon, novitiate of Monte Oliveteリスボン・モンテ・オリヴェテ修練院
Lisbon, novitiate of Monte Olivete (リスボン・モンテ・オリヴェテ修練院). Vows, 21 November 1622; sailed 25 March 1623. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16] Slug: lisbon-monte-olivete-novitiate (renamed 19 Oct 2026 in the Master Index from lisbon-sao-roque-novitiate, which named the professed house of São Roque, not the novitiate). Kataoka also calls it the Lisbon novitiate. [kataoka-2006 pp.79-80] Coordinates: 38.7181, -9.1502 (approx.; OSM, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Rua da Escola Politécnica, which occupies the site of the Cotovia novitiate per lisboa-cotovia-sources).
Cape of Good Hope (喜望峰). Rounded 25 July 1623. [takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.19-24] Slug: cape-of-good-hope (new). Coordinates: -34.357, 18.474 (approx.; OSM, Cape of Good Hope).
Mozambique Island (モザンビーク). Wintered, 22 September 1623 to 27 March 1624. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.19-24; takagi-2005] Slug: mozambique-1623 (existing). Coordinates: -15.038, 40.732 (approx.; OSM, Mozambique Island).
Miwake and Fukuwara (見分・福原), Mizusawa. Gotō Juan's lands; Fukuwara execution ground. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.42-43; takagi-2005] Slugs: miwake-mizusawa, fukuwara-mizusawa (existing). Coordinates: 39.120, 141.105 (approx.; OSM relation 1338190, result for 見分, Ōshū; area marker for Miwake; Fukuwara not mapped).
Kurusuba bridge (くるすば橋), Mizusawa. Arrest site by local tradition. [pauline-mizusawa]Tradition. Slug: kurusuba-bridge-mizusawa (existing). Coordinates: to add (not found in OSM; the only OSM 栗洲場 is in Aomori, not this site).
Sendai (仙台). Arrest place in some sources, 1639. [cbcj-kibe-web; cbcj-kibe400] Slug: sendai (new); sendai-hirosegawa (existing) is a different site. Coordinates: 38.268, 140.869 (approx.; OSM, Sendai city).
Denmachō prison (伝馬町牢屋敷), today Jisshi Park, Nihonbashi Kodenmachō, Chūō-ku. Prison, 1639; place of the torture in the Kirishito-ki [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83]; chosen as the death-place Site page (Disputed, see 8.6). The 2007 Kyoto diocesan bulletin captions the Jisshi Park site as where "Petro Kibe was martyred". [kyoto-jiho-356 p.1][tokyo-guide-2008 pp.18-19; takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 p.33] Slug: denmacho-prison (existing). Coordinates: 35.6910, 139.7779 (approx.; OSM node 11436156995, Jisshi Park; JA Wikipedia gives 35.6909, 139.7778 for the prison site).
Hyōjōsho at Tatsunokuchi (評定所・龍ノ口), Marunouchi 1-chōme. Four hearings, 1639. [takagi-2005] The Kirishito-ki confirms the four appearances at the Hyōjōsho. [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83] Slug: hyojosho-tatsunokuchi (renamed 19 Oct 2026 from hyojosho-ryugokuchi; 龍ノ口 is read Tatsunokuchi). Coordinates: 35.6824, 139.7622 (approx.; OSM node 257718001, Wadakura Gate; nearest modern marker, the Hyōjōsho stood opposite the gate at Tatsunokuchi per takagi-2005).
Sakai Tadakatsu's residence (酒井忠勝屋敷). Questioning before Iemitsu. Takagi places it at Tatsunokuchi [takagi-2005]; the Kirishito-ki says his lower residence (下屋敷) [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83]. Disputed. Slug: sakai-tadakatsu-residence (new). Coordinates: not given: the Kirishito-ki names Sakai's lower residence (下屋敷), whose 1639 location we have not identified (see 8.17); Takagi places the questioning at Tatsunokuchi, near Wadakura Gate (35.6824, 139.7622, OSM marker).
7.9.4Pit ground at Shin-Torigoe, near Matsuchiyama新鳥越村・待乳山付近
Pit ground at Shin-Torigoe, near Matsuchiyama (新鳥越村・待乳山付近), Asakusa 7-chōme, Taitō-ku. Death place in other sources; kept as the Disputed alternative, mentioned on the Denmachō page and on its own existing Site page. [takagi-2005; cbcj-kibe400] Slug: asakusa-pit-hanging-site (existing). Coordinates: 35.7174, 139.8030 (approx.; OSM node 1405093228, Matsuchiyama Shōden, nearest modern marker; the pit ground itself is not mapped).
Honryūji and Saihōji (本立寺・西方寺), Asakusa. Possible burial places. [takagi-2005]Unverified. No slug planned. Coordinates: not given: OSM has a 本立寺 at 35.7255, 139.7674 (node 5401315977, Yanaka), but we cannot confirm it is the temple Takagi means, and the 1639 site was elsewhere; Saihōji not found.
no coordinates
7.9.6Kibe Hall, Jesuit residence, Tokyo岐部ホール
Kibe Hall, Jesuit residence, Tokyo (岐部ホール). Icon unveiled 1 July 2022. [jcap-2022; ucanews-2022] Slug: kibe-hall-tokyo (new). Coordinates: 35.6842, 139.7319 (approx.; EN Wikipedia, Sophia University, Yotsuya; nearest modern marker, assuming Kibe Hall is in the Jesuit residence there, Unverified).
8.1 Feast day: 1 July or 4 July. Resolved: 1 July. The Apostolic Letter of 24 November 2008 sets the feast of the 188 martyrs "die prima mensis Iulii", and the Japanese bishops' office readings use 1 July. [vatican-2008-litterae; cbcj-0701] 4 July comes from a death date given by the Jesuits and Japanese Wikipedia, which English Wikipedia turned into a feast day. [jesuits-global; wiki-ja; wiki-en] Some Jesuit writing still calls 4 July his feast. [ucanews-2022] Say: feast 1 July; some Jesuit sources keep 4 July.
8.2 Date he left Rome: 6 March or 6 June 1622. Resolved: 6 June 1622. Cieslik, Gonoi, Takagi (Genna 8, 4th month, 27th day, which is 6 June 1622), the Tokyo guide and the Oita leaflet all give June. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.13; gonoi-2016 p.32; takagi-2005; tokyo-guide-2008 p.14; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] 6 March appears only in a Lisbon database summary and is probably a slip. [eve-lisbon] He was also in Rome for the canonization of 12 March 1622 (see 6.35), which fits June.
8.4 How he died. Disputed. Certain: he died in the pit without apostatizing, killed because he encouraged the two dōjuku hung with him. [kirishito-ki via gonoi-2016 fn56; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] The final means is reported differently: a slow fire of dry sticks on his belly (Caron's diary, 2 November 1639, from an interpreter's report) [takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 fn57]; glowing plates over his body, roasted alive (Rubino, from Portuguese hearsay) [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50]; a red-hot iron bar on his belly [cbcj-kibe-web]; burning firewood [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; sakurai-2024 p.31]; killed by the guards [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50]; a guard's spear [jesuits-global]; slow fire [esquerda-2008]. Suggested wording: "He was killed in the pit. A Dutch report of the time says the guards lit a fire on his belly." Cieslik's caution on the Rubino report should be quoted. Second pass: Caron's words and the archive reference are now cited from the Oita collection via Kataoka, and the Rubino letter is dated 2 November 1639 by Kataoka (7 October by Takagi). [kataoka-2006 p.84; takagi-2005]Disputed.
8.5 Date and place of arrest. Disputed. Chōzaburō's report is dated 13th day of the 2nd month with no year; read as Kan'ei 16 it is 17 March 1639. [takagi-2005; gonoi-2016 p.33] The Tokyo guide reads March 1638. [tokyo-guide-2008 pp.13-14] Cieslik and the beatification letter say spring or early 1639; the Oita leaflet late May to mid June 1639 with a question mark. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.45; vatican-2008-litterae; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Place: Mizusawa [takagi-2005; tokyo-guide-2008; sakurai-2024] or Sendai [cbcj-kibe-web; cbcj-kibe400]. Suggested: "arrested in the Sendai domain in spring 1639, probably at or near Mizusawa". Second pass: the relay pass of Kan'ei 16, 3rd month, 25th day (27 or 28 April 1639 by our conversion [wiki-ja-1639]) shows four prisoners already being sent from Sendai to Edo. [kataoka-2006 p.82] Lean: before late April 1639; the leaflet's late May to mid June is probably too late.
8.6 Place of death. Disputed: inside the Denmachō prison [tokyo-guide-2008 pp.18-19; cbcj-kibe-web; gonoi-2016 p.33; sakurai-2024 p.31] or at the pit ground at Shin-Torigoe near Matsuchiyama, Asakusa, where the shogunate manual says important prisoners were hung [takagi-2005; cbcj-kibe400]. Decision for the site (19 Oct 2026): the death-place Site page is denmacho-prison, with the dispute shown on it and asakusa-pit-hanging-site linked as the alternative. Why: the Kirishito-ki, the record of Inoue's own office, says the torture that broke Porro and Shikimi was done "in the prison" by Inoue's retainers and then that Kibe "did not apostatize and was hung to death", with no move to another place [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83]; four church and scholarly sources put his death in the prison; and the Asakusa reading rests on a later manual describing general practice "in Chikugo's time", not on Kibe's case [takagi-2005]. The Kirishito-ki does not name the place of the pit itself, so this is the better supported choice, not a proven fact.
8.7 Exile route, 1614 to 1615. Disputed. Older view: on the Macau ships of November 1614. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.9-10; takagi-2005] Gonoi's view, from Kibe's own relic testimony: stayed hidden, went to Manila about March 1615, then to Macau. [gonoi-2016 p.30; sakurai-2024 p.24; oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] We follow Gonoi. Check oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.106-107. Second pass: Kataoka and Cieslik 1959 both put him on the Macau ships of November 1614 (Kataoka among the 40 dōjuku taken by the provincial). [kataoka-2006 p.78; cieslik-1959 p.190] Gonoi's later reading of the relic testimony is not answered by them. Still Disputed; we keep Gonoi as the main text and show both. Third pass: no open source reproduces Oita pp.106-107 in the original or in full translation; only paraphrases (Gonoi, Kataoka) were found. Still uncovered, see 16.10.
8.8 Year of the decree on martyrdom. Resolved: 1 June 2007. Agenzia Fides reported on 5 June 2007 that Benedict XVI "signed a decree on June 1" recognizing the martyrdom, and the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific reported the same from Tokyo in 2007. [fides-2007; jcap-2007] The 2008 printed in the Apostolic Letter on vatican.va must be a slip. [vatican-2008-litterae] Kataoka (2006) quoted Bishop Mizobe expecting beatification perhaps in 2007. [kataoka-2006 p.71]
8.9 The "St. Hyacinth" chapel. Our older notes said he was ordained "in the chapel of St. Hyacinth" at the Lateran. The sources say the bishop was titular bishop "of Hyacinth", and the ordination was in a small chapel in the Lateran sacristy. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020; takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.11] Resolved: no St. Hyacinth chapel.
8.10 Date of vows: 21 November 1622 or 21 February 1623. Kibe's own letter says "on the day of the Presentation of Mary", 21 November, and Takagi agrees. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16; takagi-2005] The Oita leaflet says 21 February 1623. [oita-kibe-leaflet-2020] Lean 21 November 1622, his own words. Second pass: Kataoka says the Latin of the letter actually reads "in die Purificationis B. Mariae" (2 February), but argues for the Presentation, 21 November 1622, because the letter is dated 1 February 1623, before that feast, and he had been in Lisbon about two and a half months. [kataoka-2006 pp.79-80] Lean 21 November 1622; Disputed as to the wording.
8.11 Year of the Jerusalem visit: 1618 or 1619, and the date he left Macau and reached Goa. See 5.4. Lean 1618 (pilgrim register). [sakurai-2024 p.26]
8.12 Age. Resolved: the two numbers come from two documents. The novitiate inventory of 21 November 1620 says 33; the novice register of 1623 says 35. [kataoka-2006 pp.75, 86 fn14] Both fit a birth in 1587 or 1588. Most sources keep 1587.
8.13 His father and the lord of Kibe. Identity of Romano and the lord's name (Kazutatsu or Kazunobu). [cieslik-1959-kasui p.6 fn12; takagi-2005]
8.14 Miyake Tōemon's fate. Takagi says he was executed at Fukuwara in 1624, but the 1639 report speaks of him as living. [takagi-2005] Probably a slip; check.
8.15 Did he work in Kyoto, and when did he go north (1631 or 1633)? [gonoi-2016 p.33; takagi-2005]
8.17 Where the shogun questioned him. Takagi says Sakai Tadakatsu's residence at Tatsunokuchi [takagi-2005]; the Kirishito-ki says Sakai's lower residence (下屋敷) [kirishito-ki via kataoka-2006 p.83]. We have not identified where that lower residence stood in 1639. Disputed.
Claims to treat with care
9.1 "First Japanese to visit Jerusalem." Supported by the 1618 register as far as known, but write "the first Japanese known to have visited". [sakurai-2024 p.26]
9.2 "He walked to Rome." Much of the journey was by sea (Macau to Goa; probably part of the Gulf). No source traces the whole route on foot. [miura-2025-kibe-review; gonoi-2016 p.31] Write "travelled overland through Persia and the Middle East".
9.3 "The Jesuit General Acquaviva received him in Rome." Wrong: Acquaviva died in 1615. The General in 1620 was Muzio Vitelleschi. [jesuits-global for the claim; takagi-2005; cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.13]
9.4 "He was sold by a hungry believer" [jesuits-global] and "he chose to be arrested to spare his hosts" [cbcj-kibe-web]. Tradition; neither has a primary source we have seen.
9.5 The letter from Macau warning Rome against Kibe and his companions. Resolved: Visitor Francisco Vieira, Macau, 10 January 1618 (ARSI Jap.Sin.17 f.128r), urging Rome not to ordain the dōjuku who wanted to go there. [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.146 via kataoka-2006 p.79]
9.6 The words to Ferreira ("let us go to the magistrate together", "the shame of the Jesuits"). Reported speech in later letters and summaries. [cbcj-kibe-web; takagi-2005]Unverified wording; the appeal itself is supported. [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.50] Dias in Macau doubted the report in 1636. [kataoka-2006 p.82]
9.7 "Bear it, you will go to heaven" (耐えよ、天国にゆける) as his last words to the dōjuku. [oita-pref-1985]Tradition.
9.8 The burning of his belly: a report brought to the Dutch at second hand. [takagi-2005] Keep it, with its source named.
9.9 "Japan's Marco Polo" and similar titles are modern popular names, not historical. Keep them, labelled as popular names with who uses them (see 4.6).
9.10 Arrest at the Kurusuba bridge: local tradition. [pauline-mizusawa]
9.11 Jesuits Global gives 4 July and a spear; treat this site as a summary without sources. [jesuits-global]
11.4 Hubs: Open Questions hub (sections 8 and 9); Ships and Voyages (1623 India fleet; 1630 Lubang boat).
Dashed chips are planned pages (page coming).
Primary documents
12.1 Kibe's personal statement, Rome, November 1620 (ARSI Opp. NN. 68 f.40). [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF p.1 fn2; oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.166-167][ARSI Opp. NN. 68 f.40r; oita-shiryoshu-1995 orig. p.58, trans. pp.166-167, via kataoka-2006 p.76] Third pass: Japanese translation of the key line in gonoi-2016 p.30: "［イエズス会］入会の動機は、私の自由な決心である。すでに14年前に、自分から進んでそのような願を立てた。ポルトガル［関連事項担当］顧問マスカレニャス神父作成の誓願文を使った". [gonoi-2016 p.30, citing oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.166-167 in fn43] No open printing of the Latin found.
12.4 Letter, Lisbon, 1 February 1623, to Fr. Oliver Pensa (Jap. Sin. 34 f.198). [cieslik-1959-kasui PDF pp.13-16]
12.5 A travel report he says he wrote from Macau (lost or not found). [cieslik-1959-kasui p.21 fn37]
12.6 Letters from Lubang, 7 May 1630 (Jap. Sin. 34 f.201) and 12 June 1630. [cieslik-1959-kasui p.29 fn52; gonoi-2016 fn51-53; oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.202-211][oita-shiryoshu-1995 pp.205-212 via kataoka-2006 pp.80-81] Third pass: 7 May letter, Japanese translation of a long extract in cbcj-0701 pp.1-2 (Oita pp.205-209; Malacca or Ayutthaya Disputed, see 5.7.4); Gonoi quotes p.208: "私は自分の事柄すべてについて希望を失ってしまいました。" [gonoi-2016 p.32 fn52]. 12 June letter, Latin original and Spanish version: see 12.17. Oita pp.202-204 are cited by Gonoi only for one phrase, "あらゆる艱難、危険、死までも覚悟して" [gonoi-2016 p.37 fn54], and remain uncovered.
12.7 Jerusalem pilgrim register, 2 April 1618. [sakurai-2024 p.26]
12.8 Chōzaburō's report, 1639 (Date papers). [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.1; cieslik-1959-kasui p.42 fn69] Third pass: original text in takagi-2005 (quoted in 5.10.2); paraphrase in sakurai-2024 p.31; older printings Kanno 1950 p.303 and Urakawa 1957 p.242 per cieslik-1959-kasui fn69.
12.9 Kirishito-ki and Sayō yoroku (Inoue's office). [oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.7; takagi-2005] Text of the Kibe passage quoted in kataoka-2006 p.83 (Oita p.6). Third pass: Gonoi prints the passage from Oita p.7 in the original: "キベ々々イトロコロヒ不申候、ツルシ殺され候、是ハ其時分迄ハ不功者にて同宿二人キベと一ツ穴ニツルシ申候故、同宿共勧、キベを殺し申候由、キベ相果候てより後、両人の同宿共コロヒ申候ニ付、…。" [gonoi-2016 p.37 fn56] A non-academic website continues past Gonoi's ellipsis: "…両人の同宿共コロヒ申候ニ付、ツルシ場より上ケ籠屋江遣シ、久敷在命ニ而罷在候。" [biglobe-hsc-kibe]Unverified. Sakurai quotes it in modern form: 「キベヘイトロは転び申さず候。ツルシ殺され候。同宿ども勧め候ゆえ，キベを殺し申す候」. [sakurai-2024 p.31] Printed editions: Voss and Cieslik 1940 p.78 [voss-cieslik-1940, per cieslik-1959-kasui fn82-83]; 『吉利支丹文庫』 1926 [kirishitan-bunko-1926] and 『続々群書類従』 宗教部 (both named by Kotobank as printing the Kirishito-ki; not seen).
12.10 Caron's diary, 20 July and 2 November 1639. [takagi-2005; oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.231 via gonoi-2016][oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.231 via kataoka-2006 p.84] Third pass: Japanese translation of the 2 November entry in takagi-2005 (dated there 寛永16年10月7日), which names the Dutch interpreter Sadakata Riemon (貞方利右衛門) as the one who brought the news from Edo; Takagi also gives the 20 July entry. Full Japanese translation: Nagazumi 1970 (NDL premises only), see 15.2.15.
12.15 Relay pass for four prisoners from Sendai, Kan'ei 16, 3rd month, 25th day (Ishimoda papers, Tenri Central Library). [kataoka-2006 p.82]
12.16 Sendai domain reward notice, 18 January 1639. [kataoka-2006 p.83]
12.17 Morejón's Relación de los martyres del Japón del año de 1627 (Mexico 1631), printed by Juan López SJ, procurator of the Philippine province, ff.53r-55r: López's report on the Japanese priests trying to reach Japan, including Kibe's two years in Siam disguised as a servant (f.53r, scan 125); the preparations at Lubang in April and May 1630 and the worm-eaten boat (ff.53r-53v, scans 125-126); Kibe's Latin letter of 12 June 1630, signed "Petrus Cassuinus" (ff.53v-54r, scans 126-127); López's Spanish version, signed "Pedro Cassui" (ff.54r-55r, scans 127-129); and Martín de Ureta's report that the boat was repaired (f.55r, scan 129). Key lines are quoted in 5.7.4 and 5.7.7. [morejon-1631] This is the original-language text behind Oita pp.210-213 as cited by Kataoka. [kataoka-2006 pp.80-81] The book is foliated: the printed number (53, 54, 55) is on the recto only, so "p.53" in Cieslik's footnote is f.53r. [cieslik-1959-kasui fn56, fn58; BSB viewer labels]
Images wishlist
Show the images wishlist (10 items)
13.1 Funakoshi statue at Kibe park. Own photo or ask the memorial society. Modern artwork: the statue is copyright; Japan has no freedom of panorama for sculpture, so check before use.
13.2 Kibe coast and castle hill. Own photo or a Wikimedia Commons image under CC BY or CC BY-SA.
13.3 Griaznov icon, 2022. Copyright of the artist and the Jesuits; ask JCAP.
13.4 Beatification portrait by Mimaki (2008). Copyright; ask the Bishops' Conference.
13.5 Page of the Jerusalem register (Navis peregrinorum, 1938 edition). Check copyright of the edition; the 1618 text is public domain.
13.6 Kibe's signature from the 1623 letter (ARSI). Ask ARSI for reproduction rights.
13.7 Period maps of Goa, Macau and Rome (17th century). Public domain; Wikimedia Commons.
13.8 Jisshi Park and the Denmachō prison site; Matsuchiyama Shōden. Own photos.
13.9 St. John Lateran and Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. Wikimedia Commons, CC licences.
13.10 Route map of Kibe's journey. Make our own from the atlas; do not copy the park's map.
Further reading
14.1 Hubert Cieslik, "P. Pedro Kasui (1587-1639): Der letzte japanische Jesuit der Tokugawa-Zeit" (German), Monumenta Nipponica 15:1/2 (1959), pp.35-86. The basic study. (Listed as 1960 before 19 Oct 2026.)
14.2 Gonoi Takashi, ペトロ岐部カスイ, Kyōbunkan, 2008. Full biography.
14.3 Ōita Prefecture, ペトロ岐部カスイ資料集, 1995. Sources in Japanese translation.
14.4 Sakurai Yasuto, 2024. On the Jerusalem pilgrimage.
14.5 Tokyo Archdiocese, 江戸キリシタン巡礼ガイド, 2008. Edo sites.
14.6 Yūki Ryōgo (Diego Pacheco SJ), 『男四人、道一つ 殉教したイエズス会のニコラオ・ケイアン ジュリアン中浦 ディオゴ結城 ペトロ岐部』, Nagasaki: 日本二十六聖人記念館 (26 Martyrs Museum), April 2007 (CiNii Books lists 5 holding libraries). A lead, not read: whether it quotes the Oita collection is unknown. [yuki-2007]
14.7 Kataoka Rumiko, 「史料によるペトロ・カスイ岐部 殉教までの道のり」, 2006. Short, well sourced article that quotes the Oita collection page by page; the best way into that book.
14.9 CBCJ, 『ペトロ岐部と一八七殉教者』, 2007, 68 pp., ISBN 978-4-87750-133-4; Kibe chapter 「不退転の人、『転び申さず候』」. Short church book; not read. [cbcj-2007-booklet]
Sources
15.1 Primary and near-primary
15.1.1 oita-shiryoshu-1995: 大分県立先哲史料館編『ペトロ岐部カスイ資料集』(大分県先哲叢書), Ōita: Ōita Prefectural Board of Education, March 1995, not for sale. Extent: NDL gives ix, 131, 266 p.; Niigata University gives 59, 266, 131, ix p. and 5 plates, 22 cm (separate paginations for original texts and translations; portrait and chronology). NDL Bib ID 000002437878, JP no. 96000246 (https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002437878). Digitized by NDL: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13222253 (DOI 10.11501/13222253), status "library and individual transmission" (図書館・個人送信): readable at the NDL, at libraries in the NDL transmission service, and online by NDL-registered individual users (that service is for users resident in Japan, to verify). Not open on the web. Held by many libraries (CiNii lists about 100), including the Ōita, Saga and many other prefectural libraries and Niigata University. Page copies can be ordered from NDL by remote copy service or through a library. We have not seen the book; pages are cited "via" Gonoi or Kataoka. High.
15.1.2 vatican-2008-litterae: Apostolic Letter for the beatification of Petro Kibe and 187 companions, 24 November 2008, vatican.va (rc_seg-st_20081124_beato-kasui_lt). High.
15.1.3 kirishito-ki: 契利斯督記, via oita-shiryoshu-1995 and Voss and Cieslik's edition. High. Third pass: original text of the Kibe passage open in gonoi-2016 p.37 fn56; longer text on biglobe-hsc-kibe (Unverified); printed in voss-cieslik-1940 p.78 and kirishitan-bunko-1926 (both NDL digital, library and individual transmission only). Kotobank names 『続々群書類従』 宗教部 as a further printing; no NDL digital copy found.
15.1.4 chozaburo-sonin: Chōzaburō's report, Date papers, Miyagi Prefectural Library. High. Third pass: original text open on takagi-2005 (no page reference); older printings kanno-1974 (or the 1950 first edition) p.303 and urakawa-1957 p.242 per cieslik-1959-kasui fn69; the Ishimoda documents are discussed in tadano-1956.
15.1.5 caron-diary and rubino-1639: cited through takagi-2005, gonoi-2016 and cieslik-1959-kasui. Now also cited via kataoka-2006 p.84 (Oita pp.231-232). Third pass: Japanese translation of the 2 November 1639 Caron entry open on takagi-2005; full translation in nagazumi-1970 (NDL premises only).
15.1.6 ndl-dl-13222253: NDL Digital Collections record of the Oita collection (above). Access record only.
15.1.7 morejon-1631: Pedro Morejón SJ, Relación de los martyres del Japón del año de 1627, printed at the cost of Juan López SJ, Mexico: Juan Ruiz, 1631, 56 leaves (BSB: "56 S."; the book is foliated). Open scans: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/4 Jes. 166 s, https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10903546 (URN urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10903546-6), read 19 Oct 2026 through its full-text search and page images; Biblioteca Nacional de España, R/712, http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000256041 (not opened). Also in the Sophia Laures Kirishitan Bunko database (JL-1631-KB1-400-266). Kibe material on ff.53r-55r = BSB scans 125-129 (scan 127 checked against the image). High.
15.2 Studies
15.2.1 cieslik-1959-kasui (old slug cieslik-1960-kasui, renamed 19 Oct 2026): Hubert Cieslik SJ, "P. Pedro Kasui (1587-1639): Der letzte japanische Jesuit der Tokugawa-Zeit", Monumenta Nipponica 15:1/2 (April 1959), pp.35-86, DOI 10.2307/2382830 (JSTOR, paywalled; year from Crossref metadata for the DOI, issue dated April 1959). German. Our scan, English draft translation and footnote file. "PDF p." = page of our scan. High.
15.2.4 gonoi-2008: 五野井隆史『ペトロ岐部カスイ』, Kyōbunkan, 2008. Cited through miura-2025-kibe-review. Not read directly.
15.2.5 miura-2025-kibe-review: review of Gonoi 2008, 2025. Medium.
15.2.6 kataoka-2006: 片岡瑠美子「史料によるペトロ・カスイ岐部 殉教までの道のり」『純心人文研究』12, 2006, pp.71-87. Read 19 Oct 2026 by OCR of our scan (Japanese OCR on the box; text checked by reading). Quotes the Oita collection with page numbers. High.
15.2.7 cieslik-1959: H. チースリク「最後の日本人伴天連（上） ペドロ・岐部神父の生涯」, 1959, pp.187-205 (footer numbers; the page tops also carry a second sequence, 67-85; the journal name is not on our scan, to verify). Japanese forerunner of cieslik-1959-kasui. Read by OCR of vertical text, which is poor; cited only where the reading is clear. High as a source, low as our reading. 19 Oct 2026, third pass: dropped from further work at Ernest's request (no more OCR); the existing clear citations are kept as they are. Not to be confused with cieslik-1959-kasui, the German article of the same year.
15.2.8 anesaki-1976: 姉崎正治『切支丹宗門の迫害と潜伏』, 1976 reprint, cited via kataoka-2006. Not read directly.
15.2.9 kanno-1974: 菅野義之助『奥羽切支丹史』, 佼成出版社, 1974 (first edition Morioka, 1950). Prints Chōzaburō's report (p.303 of the 1950 edition per cieslik-1959-kasui fn69). NDL digital pid 12279212, library and individual transmission only; the 1950 edition was not found at NDL. Not read.
15.2.10 urakawa-1957: 浦川和三郎『東北キリシタン史』, 日本学術振興会, 1957 (reprint 巌南堂書店, 1968). Prints Chōzaburō's report (p.242 per cieslik-1959-kasui fn69). NDL digital pid 2941462 (1957) and 2941512 (1968), library and individual transmission only. Not read.
15.2.11 tadano-1956: 只野淳『仙台キリシタン史』 第1集 (1956) and 第2集 「石母田文書の解説」 (1962). On the Ishimoda documents. No NDL digital copy found. Not read.
15.2.12 voss-cieslik-1940: G. Voss and H. Cieslik, Kirishito-ki und Sayō-yoroku, Tokyo: Sophia University, 1940. Kibe passage p.78 per cieslik-1959-kasui fn82-83. NDL digital pid 1680663, library and individual transmission only. Not read.
15.2.13 kirishitan-bunko-1926: 『吉利支丹文庫』, 警醒社, 1926, which prints the Kirishito-ki (per Kotobank). NDL digital pid 1187625, library and individual transmission only. Not read.
15.2.14 anesaki-1925: 姉崎正治『切支丹宗門の迫害と潜伏』, 同文館, 1925 (original of anesaki-1976). NDL digital pid 971126 (also 971127, 1920473), open on the internet. Whether it prints the Kibe passage of the Kirishito-ki is not checked. Unverified.
15.2.15 nagazumi-1970: 永積洋子訳『平戸オランダ商館の日記』 第4輯 (November 1637 to June 1641), 岩波書店, 1970. Full Japanese translation of Caron's diary. NDL digital pid 12279538, NDL premises only. Not read.
15.2.16 gonoi-1997: 五野井隆史著, H. チースリク監修『ペトロ岐部カスイ』 (大分県先哲叢書), 大分県教育委員会, 1997, vi, 299, 17 p. NDL digital pid 14045084, NDL premises only. Probably quotes the Oita collection throughout. Not read.
15.2.17 cieslik-1971: H. チースリク『世界を歩いた切支丹』, 春秋社, 1971. NDL digital pid 12280498, library and individual transmission only. Cited via kataoka-2006. Not read.
15.2.18 matsunaga-1984: 松永伍一『ペトロ岐部 追放・潜入・殉教の道』, 中公新書, 1984. NDL digital pid 12280270, NDL premises only. Listed in sakurai-2024's bibliography. Not read.
15.2.19 ota-1996-review: 太田淑子, review of oita-shiryoshu-1995, 『日本歴史』 579, August 1996 (CiNii). Not open; not read. Our earlier notes say it names Cieslik as supervisor and Gonoi Takashi as editor of the collection; Unverified until the review or the book's colophon is seen.
15.2.20 yuki-2007: 結城了悟『男四人、道一つ』, 日本二十六聖人記念館, April 2007. Lead only, see 14.6.
15.3 Church publications
15.3.1 takagi-2005: 高木一雄「ペトロ・カスイ岐部神父の生涯」, Tokyo Kyōku News nos. 228 to 234, 2005 to 2006, https://tokyo.catholic.jp/history/martyrs/kibe/. Detailed, with many dates converted; few footnotes. Medium. Third pass: gives the original text of Chōzaburō's report and a Japanese translation of Caron's diary for 20 July and 2 November 1639 (no page references to the Oita collection).
15.3.2 tokyo-guide-2008: 『江戸キリシタン巡礼ガイド ヨハネ原主水とペトロ岐部』, Tokyo Archdiocese, 24 November 2008, Kibe pp.12-19. Medium.
15.3.4 cbcj-kibe400: CBCJ canonization committee leaflet for the 400th anniversary of ordination, 2020. Medium.
15.3.5 cbcj-0701: CBCJ office reading for 1 July, 2018. Medium. Third pass: the PDF is open at https://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/0701kibe188_dokusho.pdf. Its second reading is a Japanese translation of a long extract of the 7 May 1630 letter (pp.1-2), signed "一六三〇年五月七日 ルバング島にて … ペトロ・カスイ". It says "about two years in Malacca" where other sources have Ayutthaya; Disputed, see 5.7.4.
15.3.15 kyoto-jiho-356: 『京都教区時報』356, 1 July 2007, cover caption. Our scan, read by OCR. Medium.
15.3.16 cbcj-2007-booklet: 日本カトリック司教協議会 列聖列福特別委員会編『ペトロ岐部と一八七殉教者』, カトリック中央協議会, 28 September 2007, 68 pp. Source of the short quotation 「キベヘイトロはコロび申さず候。ツルシ殺され候」 used in later church texts. Not read. Medium.
15.4.6 eve-lisbon: Lisbon database entry. Low for this date.
15.4.7 wiki-ja-1639: Japanese Wikipedia, 「1639年」, calendar table and dated events with Kan'ei equivalents. Low to medium; used only for date conversion.
15.4.8 ndl-search-gonoi-1997: NDL Search record of 五野井隆史, H. チースリク『ペトロ岐部カスイ』(大分県先哲叢書), Ōita Prefectural Board of Education, 1997, and its popular edition 「世界を旅した不屈のバテレン」. Record only.
15.4.9 biglobe-hsc-kibe: "Historical Sight of Christianity", personal website, http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~laborer/hsc/cn14/cn18/pg148.html. Gives a longer text of the Kirishito-ki passage than Gonoi; cites gonoi-2008 and 関谷他『ペトロ岐部と187殉教者』 (ドン・ボスコ社, 2008). Low; Unverified until checked against oita-shiryoshu-1995 p.7 or voss-cieslik-1940.
Page record and research notes
Front matter (section 1)
Full person page, rebuilt 19 October 2026 (status: Draft, ready for Ernest's review). Second pass the same day: Kataoka 2006 and Cieslik 1959 (Japanese) read by OCR, Oita collection traced, coordinates filled, death site chosen, two slugs renamed. Third pass the same day (approved by Ernest): open substitutes for the Oita collection pages added (Morejón 1631 as a primary source; Takagi, Gonoi 2016, CBCJ 2018 and Sakurai 2024 for original texts or translations), print and NDL-restricted works listed with access notes, and the Cieslik Monumenta Nipponica slug corrected from cieslik-1960-kasui to cieslik-1959-kasui (vol. 15, no. 1/2, April 1959). The second-pass wording is kept unchanged in section 17 (Archive), and as a separate copy: "ARCHIVE Petro Kasui Kibe (kibe) - second pass, 19 Oct 2026, before third pass" (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-_zoiJwdKriIUta0yKL5VzgPts9OcqwgBDf5iHh23JQ/edit). Inside that archived text are the first-pass page and the draft of 18 October, also kept unchanged, with their own separate copies: "ARCHIVE Petro Kasui Kibe (kibe) - first rebuild, 19 Oct 2026, before second pass" (https://docs.google.com/document/d/10S-FJzyW8izWAs9PVVE3HuFZlAbJ2GpQNN6UUcLFnM4/edit) and "ARCHIVE Petro Kasui Kibe (kibe) - draft as of 18 Oct 2026, before full rebuild" (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_pxjRXZKqPRHPLAbKJPxdTSRMd6zgUZPGlpNnoL5nZE/edit).
Citation style: inline brackets give the source slug and page, for example [gonoi-2016 p.30]. Every slug is listed with its full citation and a reliability note in section 15. "PDF p." means the page of our scan. Labels follow the Style Guide: Tradition, Unverified, Disputed.
1.1 slug: kibe
1.2 title: Petro Kasui Kibe
1.3 also known as: Pedro Kasui Kibe; Peter Kasui Kibe; Pedro Kibe; Petrus Kasui; Petrus Casui Japonensis; P. Pedro Kasui; Kibe Pedro; "D. Petrus Japonensis" (Jerusalem register, 1618); Kibe Shigekatsu; Kibe Peitoro (キベヘイトロ, in shogunate records); popular names (modern, not period names; see 4.6): "Japan's Marco Polo" (日本のマルコ・ポーロ); "the Kirishitan who walked the world" (世界を歩いたキリシタン); "the priest who walked the world"
1.4 Japanese name kanji: ペトロ・カスイ岐部 (岐部茂勝); also written ペトロ岐部カスイ, ペドロ岐部カスイ; Kasui is sometimes given the characters 活水
1.5 Japanese name kana: ぺとろ・かすい・きべ (きべ しげかつ)
1.6 Japanese name romaji: Petoro Kasui Kibe (Kibe Shigekatsu)
1.7 type: person
1.8 category: Japanese Clergy and Catechists (also listed under Martyrs; Saints and Blesseds)
1.9 dates: 1587 to July 1639 (born 1587; died in Edo in the 6th month of Kan'ei 16, which fell in July 1639; the day 4 July is often given but is Unverified, see 8.3)
1.10 coordinates: not used for person pages; see the Atlas (section 7)
1.17 notes: Private. Rebuilt 19 Oct 2026 from Cieslik 1959 (Monumenta Nipponica 15; earlier listed here as "Cieslik 1960"), Gonoi 2016, Sakurai 2024, the Oita Diocese leaflet 2020, the Tokyo Archdiocese guide 2008 and web series by Takagi Kazuo, the 2008 Apostolic Letter, and CBCJ pages. Second pass 19 Oct 2026: Kataoka 2006 read in full by OCR on the box (it quotes the Oita Materials Collection 1995 with page numbers, so many Oita pages are now cited "via kataoka-2006"); Cieslik 1959 (Japanese) read by OCR, but the OCR of its vertical text is poor, so it is cited only where the reading is clear. The Oita collection itself is digitized by the National Diet Library but is not open on the web (see 15.1.1). Not yet read: Gonoi 2008. Mock page: /workspace/cj-mock/site/people/kibe.html. Full fact list: Petro Kibe - All Facts (Oct 2026), sections 9 and 10, added 19 Oct 2026. Third pass 19 Oct 2026: substitutes for Oita pages 1, 7, 166-167, 205-212 and 231 found in open sources and cited; Morejón 1631 read in the open Bayerische Staatsbibliothek copy; Cieslik 1959 (Japanese) dropped from further OCR work at Ernest's request, its existing clear citations kept. Still not seen directly: the Oita collection, Gonoi 2008, Gonoi 1997.
Gaps and questions for Ernest (section 16)
16.1 Can you check oita-shiryoshu-1995 (your copy) at pp.1, 7, 106-107, 166-167, 202-211 and 231? Those pages would settle the exile route, the death report and the Lubang letters. Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.2 The Kataoka 2006 and Cieslik 1959 scans could not be OCR'd on the box. Do you want them run through OCR elsewhere? Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.3 Decree on martyrdom: 2007 or 2008? Needs the Congregation's list. Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.4 Death place: should the Site page for the pit be Denmachō or Asakusa, or both with the dispute shown? Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.5 Master Index: "lisbon-sao-roque-novitiate" should probably be Monte Olivete; "hyojosho-ryugokuchi" should be read Tatsunokuchi. Rename? (Not changed.) Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.6 Coordinates are given only for well known landmarks, marked approx. Do you want me to fill the rest from maps? Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.7 Do you want the popular titles ("Japan's Marco Polo") on the page at all? Answered 19 Oct 2026, see 16.8.
16.8 Ernest's answers, 19 Oct 2026, and what was done: (1) Ernest does not own the Oita collection; it was traced to NDL (digitized, not open on the web) and to libraries, see 15.1.1; many cited pages are now read through Kataoka. (2) Death site: Denmachō chosen, see 8.6. (3) Slugs renamed after checking: lisbon-sao-roque-novitiate to lisbon-monte-olivete-novitiate and hyojosho-ryugokuchi to hyojosho-tatsunokuchi, old slugs kept in the notes. (4) Coordinates filled from maps, see section 7. (5) Popular names kept and labelled, see 4.6. (6) Kataoka 2006 and Cieslik 1959 read by OCR. Decree year resolved: 2007.
16.9 Still open: pages of the Oita collection not quoted by Kataoka (pp.1 and 202-204, and a direct check of p.106 for the 1614 to 1615 route); where Sakai's lower residence stood; Taizōji and Kurusuba coordinates; the exact Gregorian day of Kan'ei 16, 3rd month, 25th day (27 or 28 April); 140 or 144 baptized; a clean reading of Cieslik 1959 (the OCR is poor). Partly superseded 19 Oct 2026 by 16.10.
16.10 Third pass, 19 Oct 2026: open substitutes now cover Oita p.1 (original in takagi-2005), p.7 (original in gonoi-2016 p.37 fn56; longer text in biglobe-hsc-kibe, Unverified), pp.166-167 (Japanese translation of the key line in gonoi-2016 p.30), pp.205-209 (Japanese translation of a long extract in cbcj-0701; Malacca or Ayutthaya Disputed), pp.210-212 (Latin and Spanish originals in morejon-1631 ff.53v-55r) and p.231 (Japanese translation in takagi-2005). Still uncovered: pp.106-107 (Kibe's relic testimony and the 1614 to 1615 exile route; only paraphrases in gonoi-2016 p.30 and kataoka-2006 p.78) and pp.202-204 (only one phrase in gonoi-2016 fn54). These can only be read in the book itself: NDL pid 13222253, a library copy, or an NDL copy order. Other open items: whether anesaki-1925 (open at NDL) prints the Kirishito-ki passage; whether yuki-2007 quotes the Oita pages; the Latin of the 7 May letter (Jap.Sin.34 f.201).