Jesus in Japan

Nearly 2000 years ago, a traveller fled for his life from the Middle East, crossing Siberia and Alaska before living out his days in the snowbound hamlet of Shingo in northern Japan.

The tale is fanciful enough, but even more so when townspeople tell you the name of the visitor they say is buried here: Jesus Christ.

This strange historical theory is founded on a radical rewriting of the Christian traditions that say Jesus was crucified, resurrected three days later and then rose to heaven -- all in Jerusalem. It has its roots in shaky archeology and shadowy local customs that some say came from the Holy Land.

"If you put those traditions together with Christ's tomb ... I think it's really unexplainable," said Norihide Nagano, a tourist official in Shingo, about 600 kilometres north of Tokyo.

Many officials here disavow the theory, but nevertheless, some 10,000 people visit the Shingo burial site each year. Perhaps it's because the legend fits in with the fascination in Japan -- where fewer than one percent of the people are Christians -- with such trappings of Christianity as Christmas and church weddings.

The Jesus-in-Japan theory first emerged in the 1930s when researchers claimed to have found a "will of Christ" -- the original of which has since disappeared -- that indicated Jesus was buried in Shingo. Later a burial mound believed to fit the theory was found in the village.

According to the story, Christ came to Japan in his early 20s to study Japanese culture and religion, and then returned to Judea when he was 33 to spread word of the "sacred nation" of Japan. He was never crucified -- having switched places with his younger brother Isukiri -- and managed to flee across Siberia to Alaska and hence to Japan by boat.

In Shingo, Christ is said to have married, had three daughters and lived until the age of 106. Next to his burial mound is a second mound, supposedly containing -- in a macabre touch -- one of Isukiri's ears and the hair of St Mary. Each mound is marked with a plain wooden cross.

Townspeople are reluctant to profess much belief in the story, and Nagano, the tourist official, says people are sensitive about Christians' feelings.

But the town doesn't resist its fame -- or the tourism money it brings.

Since the early 1960s, the hamlet has held a "Christ festival" every June at the gravesite, where a sign declares the tomb "holy ground." In 1997, a small exhibition hall was built nearby.

The exhibits present the other half of the Jesus-in-Japan story: age-old Shingo customs that the villagers say substantiate the town's ancient link to the Middle East and Christianity.

Shown are clothes of traditional Japanese style adorned with Star of David emblems and a doll with a cross painted on its forehead, which officials say reflects an old village practice of painting crosses on children's brows.

One exhibit tells of a village chant that is meaningless in Japanese but supposedly is derived from an ancient Hebrew song. Visitors are told the town's former name, Herai, comes from the word "Hebrew". A photo shows a villager, now dead, who was supposedly descended from Christ.

Officials say they don't know of anyone ever having examined the contents of the grave. But townspeople say the evidence -- if not conclusive -- is at least compelling.

Mitsuru Takahashi, 49, who sells "Christ hometown sake" at his liquor store, said he wasn't sure that Jesus was buried in Shingo. "But," he added, "I wonder if there is someone great in that tomb, someone we should respect and praise."

Alternative theories about the grave are that it contains the body of a leader of the Ainu, an ancient Japanese people, or of a missionary who escaped to the remote village during a crackdown on Christians in Japan some 400 years ago.

Either way, tourist officials in Shingo insist that the grave has nothing to do with religion -- a view backed up by the nearest Catholic priest, in Towada, about 70 kilometres away.

Marcel Poliquin, 71, regards the legend with amusement.

"It's just a way of attracting tourists, making money," said the priest, a Quebec native who has been in Japan for 40 years. "I say it as a joke: Christ died in my parish!"