Other Stylistic Types of Maria Kannons
The appearance of this Maria Kannon greatly differs from the Komori or Koyasu Kannons in this exhibit. It has a flat, bare chest, slightly raised masculine facial features, and a headdress crowned with a minature Amida Buddha (Jpn. 阿弥陀如来, Amida nyorai, Skt. Amitabha), which aligns this statue with historically older representations of Avalokitesvara/Kannon before the visual development of a feminine Guanyin (觀音, the Chinese reading of Avalokitesvara) in China.[1] Perhaps this Kannon was not originally created for dual Marian and Kannon worship, but adapted for such practice by the underground Christians that owned it.
[1] Marsha Smith Weidner, Patricia Ann Berger, Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Latter Days of the Law : Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850. (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas ; Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994), 152-153, 160.
This set of small Maria Kannon images was confiscated from a layperson in Nagasaki.[1] Their small size, all less than ten centimeters tall, reminds one of the “sleeve gods” (たもと神, tamoto kami) used by underground Christians in western Japan. Sleeve gods, like the medallions and rosaries that missionaries gave their Christian predecessors, could be stored in long kimono sleeves to hide them from confiscation or to have for easy access.[2] These Maria Kannons’ small size may have permitted an underground Christian to keep Maria and the Virgin Mary close to them whenever he or she needed them.
Authorities in Nagasaki in 1856 confiscated many Maria Kannon statues, including this figure, from Christian laymen in Urakami: a district in Nagasaki. A majority of the statues in the cache were White-Robbed or Koyasu Kannon,[1] but the appearance of this Kannon does not match the iconography of White-Robbed or Koyasu Kannon images. This Maria Kannon has a flat and exposed chest and it does not bear a child, atypical of most Maria Kannon images. However, whether or not an image resembled feminized, maternal Kannons did not affect its incorporation into underground Christian practice.
[1] Yoshikazu Uchiyama and Teiji Chizawa, Kirishitan no bijutsu (Hōbunkan ; 1961), 182.
The crosses on the chests of these Kannon statues distinguish them among other Kannon images and give them a distinctly Christian meaning. Even though both of the figures were used for Christian devotion in Japan, they may have not been Maria Kannon images. Rather, the creator may have intended to create Marian images that imitate Kannon.[1] The lack of a child in these Kannons’ arms, an element of most Maria Kannons, reduces the likelihood of their existence as Maria Kannons but does not entirely eliminate it.
[1] Yoshikazu Uchiyama and Teiji Chizawa, Kirishitan no bijutsu (Hōbunkan ; 1961), 185.