This is kind of a dumb chapter, but I include it for completion’s sake.
The Mystery Deepens
Looking back at the details of this worst bear attack in history, there are things that pique one’s interest. Not coincidence, but consistency.
While gathering information for this book, I found out that Tsuneo’s mother, Hasumi Chise, sometimes left her Rikibiru home to visit a residence in Kotanbetsu. Though she had already passed her eightieth birthday, her eyes and ears were sharp and she did not look her age. Even now what Chise said is burned into my mind.
“That very morning, the 9th of December, that Mayu died, I dreamt of Tsuneo, and he said, ‘Grandma Ōta looks like this now!’ and showed me a comb with all of the teeth missing but the two at the end.” Thinking of those words sends a chill up my spine.
As has already been said, all that had been left of Mayu was her legs, buried in snow beneath a fir tree. Many wild rumors have been thrown around regarding the incident, but this, I believe, is fact, and cannot be so shrugged off.
Another story was that Saitō Take, en route away from the site of the attacks, suddenly stopped and said, “My thighs are in season, bear, nice and plump!” She then rapped on her large thighs. There is also the story of Tani Keihachi swearing, “It’s definitely gonna show round about nine tonight, just you wait and see.” Finally, Miyamoto Yutarō, dropping by the Miyoke house, was rumored to have remarked, “All these women and children are sure to draw the bear! But don’t worry, he’ll be spending a lot of time on Saitō’s big old lady.”
This is not the end of the strange happenings. Tsuneo, who so far had not gone out with Ōta Kazuo, his adopted father, threw a fuss on the morning of the 9th, saying, “I wanna go with you!” It is impossible to avoid pity for this child, who may have sensed the unhappy deeds and tried to escape them.
There were three men total injured between the Saitō family, Miyoke family, and Hasumi family, and between those same families, four men killed. The wives of all three families were thirty-four years old, the year after the unlucky age of thirty-three, according to Buddhist tradition. The husbands of all three families, who were not at home, escaped harm, being either at group work on the frontier or having other business.
The husbands of the Saitō and Miyoke families were both forty-two, an unlucky year for men. What was even more unfortunate was that in order for these three houses to be chosen, the bear had to skip every other house. The Saitō and Miyoke houses, where the damage was unusually severe, had the exact same family composition, and both of their neighbors, who escaped destruction, were also the same. Furthermore, all of the men who were spared had names which ended in –rō, and the second oldest sons in both families were named Yūjirō. Between the five houses who suffered no losses or intrusions, there were two men named Tomikura. And Ōgawa Haruyoshi, whom we have yet to speak of, shares a name with the deceased Saitō Haruyoshi and died on the anniversary of the beginning of the tragedy (December 9th). At any rate, a strange coincidence!
It is thought that the world of spirits is something which cannot be understood through common sense or the power of science. Well then, dear reader, how do you explain so many coincidences?