Description: Meticulously researched and drawing on original source materials written in eight different languages, this study fills a lacuna in the historiography of Christianity in Japan. Ward analyzes the experience of nuns, witches, catechists and sisters in sixteenth-century Japan, bringing to light how these women utilized resources from their traditional religions to new Christian adaptations and specific religio-social issues, creating unique hybrids of Catholicism and Buddhism, or rejecting the new religion.
Review Quotes: 'An amazingly learned, well-researched, and in-depth look at women's religious activities in the "Christian Century" in Japan, including leaders in the Zen Buddhist and Shinto traditions as well as the Japanese women who became Christian teachers and catechists. The book gives a human face to the story of cultural encounters and religious conversion, explores women's activities within and in opposition to Christianity from a global perspective, and offers a startling new explanation for the "closing" of Japan to the West.' Merry Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA 'A monumental achievement! Haruko Ward has revealed a century of forgotten lives and given voice and agency to religious leaders who have been absent too long from our histories. She has shown us, in all their variety and complexity, the female leaders who transgressed and transformed Japan's religious culture. This is more than a history of women or a history of religion. It is a book that will change the way that we think about a crucial and transitional age in the history of Japan.' D. Max Moerman, Columbia University, USA 'Haruko Ward's new book on the unique role played by women in evangelization in early modern Japan breaks new ground in the study of Christian missions in East Asia. Based on an extensive knowledge of primary sources in a number of languages, it is an impressive piece of original scholarship and will become an important reference work for further research.' M. Antoni J. Ãoeçerler, S.J., Campion Hall, Oxford, UK 'This very readable volume represents an extraordinary degree of scholarship, drawing on original sources in Portuguese, Japanese and Latin, with secondary material also in German, and working with theoretical and analytic tools from disciplines including history, feminism, theology and ethnology.' Parergon 'This work is a valuable contribution to the history of Christian missionary activity in Asia and to women's studies. It joins a growing n