Hyakuman

百万 The Performer Hyakuman

1 Source and/or Related Material

Based on the rumor about the kusemai performer Hyakuman

2 Author

Zeami, adapted from Saga Monogurui, which Kannami is known to have performed

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Komparu, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

A man (waki) from Yoshino finds an orphaned child (kokata), whom he takes along to visit the temple Seiryōji in Saga (Kyoto) for a festival of ecstatic chanting of the Buddha’s name (Dai-Nembutsu). The man asks a passerby (ai) to entertain the child. The stranger manages an awkward Nembutsu chant, and this attracts the attention of a homeless (or “mad”) woman nearby, who comes over to correct his technique. The strange wandering woman weaves her own tale of woe into her sacred chanting, how she lost her only child, and at this the child suspects that she might be his long-lost mother. Through the man’s mediation, the child checks various details of the woman’s identity and realizes that he has found his mother at last.