Sumi Deguchi (出口 すみ) (February 3, 1883March 31, 1952), also known as Sumiko Deguchi (出口 すみ子), was the Second Spiritual Leader of the Japanese new religious organization Oomoto. She was the daughter of Nao Deguchi, one of the two founders of Oomoto alongside Onisaburo Deguchi. She was also the mother of Naohi Deguchi, the Third Spiritual Leader.
Biography
Early life Sumi was born on February 3, 1883, in Ayabe, Kyoto. She was the 11th and the last child of Masagorō and Nao Deguchi.
Masagorō was a skillful carpenter with a good personality. However, being a heavy drinker and a spendthrift, he let go of the family's fields and properties one after another. Nao eked out a living by selling homemade sweet buns, which she learned to make during the service in her childhood. When Sumi was two years old, Masagorō was injured when he fell from the eaves of the house which he was building. Furthermore, his alcoholism caused paralysis. He became bedridden for about two years until his death in 1887.
Nao started scrap buying, which was the only profitable job that one could start with minimal cost. After Masagorō's death, while Nao worked outside, Sumi and her two-year-older sister Ryō stayed home. Despite living in poverty, Sumi grew up to be a cheerful, big-hearted, and mischievous child. When rain fell through a hole in the roof and formed a small pond in the ground, she placed small fish in it and enjoyed watching them swim. Acting like a tomboy, she got in the way of children going to school every morning. She often fought with older boys.
In Sumi's infancy, her brothers and sisters began to lead unusual lives. After Masagorō became bedridden, her eldest brother Takezō, a twenty-two-year-old apprentice carpenter, attempted suicide but failed. Sickly and spiritless by nature, he could not bear the pressure of having become, in place of his sick father, the head of the family obliged to support his family.
Her eldest sister Yone was a tender-hearted and beautiful girl who had worked hard since her childhood. In her late teens, she was forcibly married to a middle-aged yakuza named Shikazō Ōtsuki. Yone's character gradually deteriorated during her married life. For no apparent reason, she began to hate her mother Nao. In early 1892, at the age of thirty-six, Yone had a mental breakdown (in the Oomoto's doctrine, it is defined that she became divine-possessed). Most of the time, Yone was confined in ''zashikirō'', a latticed space built in the house. Yone died at the age of fifty-eight.
Her third sister Hisa started working at the age of five, peddling Nao's homemade sweet buns on her own. At the age of eleven, Hisa was sent to serve her relative for babysitting two babies and performing various farm chores. At the age of twenty-one, she married a rickshaw driver named Toranosuke Fukushima. Soon after her first daughter was born, Hisa went insane, (again, in the Oomoto's doctrine, it is defined that Hisa became divine-possessed.) Hisa's big sister (and Nao's second daughter) Koto brought a missionary of Konkōkyō from its Kameoka branch. Hearing the names of the gods to which the missionary prayed for Hisa's recovery, Hisa realized that those were the gods that she had seen in a delirious state. Hisa was then startled back to her senses. This occurrence made Hisa and Toranosuke devout followers of Konkōkyō.
Sumi's second brother Seikichi began peddling Nao's homemade sweet buns in place of Hisa at the age of eight. After Masagorō became bedridden, he became an apprentice to a paper maker. Sumi was fond of Seikichi, who was popular in the neighborhood for his looks and open-hearted personality. He was also a devoted son who followed whatever Nao told without complaint. In 1892, at the age of twenty, Seikichi was conscripted by the Imperial Guard of Japan. Before his enlisting and moving to Tokyo, Nao had him eat a sweet potato, which he liked. The last that they saw of him was when he was gladly eating the potato. In May 1895, the Imperial Guard was dispatched to Taiwan, which had been ceded to Japan as the result of the First Sino-Japanese War. Seikichi joined the dispatch, and it was reported, according to the record kept in Ayabe City Hall, that he was wounded in action (around that time, the Imperial Guard was quelling the local resistance) and died at a Taiwanese hospital in July. About thirty years later, during the 1920s, Onisaburo told Sumi about an encounter he had with a female chieftain of the Mongolian bandits, who claimed herself to be Seikichi's daughter. He also wrote about this encounter in the Special Edition of Reikai Monogatari.
Nao's divine possession In early 1892, the nine-year-old Sumi witnessed Nao in a state of divine possession for the first time. Returning from the house of Yone who had gone insane, Nao, in a thunderous and dignified voice, commanded Sumi to wake up, go to Yone's house, and order them to offer thirty-six candles to the god and pray. Sumi was terrified but obeyed the command. When she came back, Nao had returned to her usual self, and she thanked Sumi in her gentle voice.
About this divine possession, Sumi heard from Nao that it began some days ago when she entered a dream-like state. She met a supremely noble God and felt the magnificent force emanating from him and entering her belly. The force rose like a ball towards her throat, pushing open her mouth against her will and emitting a magnificent and loud voice. Too worried, Nao asked the God questions in her usual voice, and the God answered them in his manly and grave voice through her throat. Through those sessions, the God possessing Nao named Himself as Ushitora no Konjin and declared that he is the God which would reconstruct the entire world. Sumi later stated that in the beginning Nao was utterly bewildered by the sudden possession of the God with such a grandiose intention. The discreet Nao was worried that if what the God told her was false, it would cause trouble for people. However, through day and night sessions with the God, Nao came to learn that she had to endure the hardships as the result of the cause arisen in the age of the gods, and the God made her endure them so that she could become a divine medium. Thus, she gradually formed a firm resolution to save the world.
In a state of divine possession, Nao often woke up Sumi (and left Ryō asleep) even on freezing nights and ordered her to sprinkle salt, water or soil in certain spots of the neighborhood. According to the God, it was to cleanse the land where he should dwell but had been completely desecrated. Despite occasional anxieties, Sumi obeyed such orders because of her optimistic personality and the joy that she felt when she heard her mother's gentle voice after the errands.
Childhood In the early spring of 1892, because of their financial predicament, nine-year-old Sumi was sent to the house of her brother-in-law Toranosuke Fukushima and her big sister Hisa. Nao told her, "I know it is hard but this is an asceticism for you." At the Fukushima's, Sumi babysat, for a short period, their first daughter which died of illness before becoming two years old.
In the early summer of the same year, Sumi was sent to the house of another sister, Koto, who had married Shōzaburō Kuriyama. Sumi was severely abused by Koto, who was about twenty years older and had not lived together with her until then. Koto called Sumi a "burden" and gave various chores to her. Sumi babysat a fat three-year-old boy, carrying him on her back. She frequented a distant well to fetch water, several times a day and without wearing sandals. Koto chastised Sumi by beating her with a tobacco pipe and kicking her. The meals for Sumi were restricted and snacks were not given. One day, starving, Sumi dug out a potato from Shōzaburō's farm and ate it raw. One night Sumi thought about killing herself. However, she recalled Nao's word that this was something she must endure and refrained from suicide. Supposedly in the autumn of the same year, Sumi was taken again by Toranosuke Fukushima, who happened to see her and was shocked at how gauntly she had become.
In the autumn of the next year, 1893, Sumi was sent to serve at a wealthy and hard-working farmer's house in a village named Kisaichi. In the morning, she got up early to make and serve breakfast. In the daytime, she tended to cows, one of which was hard to tame. At night, she spun yarn and swept. In the spring of 1897, she finished her service in Kisaichi. She later regarded the hard labor there as the final asceticism of her girlhood.
Marriage with Onisaburo Deguchi While Sumi was working in Kisaichi, Nao continued scrap buying and, when asked, prayed to God to heal the sick. By this, the number of people who believed in her gradually increased around Ayabe. In November 1894, with the support of the missionaries of Konkōkyō, the first propagation office for Nao was established. In April 1897, Nao had an office enshrining solely Ushitora no Konjin.
Sumi was told by Nao to be an apprentice of the divine works, but that she had nothing special to do. In July 1899, Onisaburo Deguchi (At that time, he used his birth name, Kisaburō Ueda) visited Nao for the second time. Meeting him for the first time, Sumi had a strange impression of his unusual appearance, especially Ohaguro (blackened teeth).
The automatic writings by Nao's hand declared that Sumi and Onisaburo would be Nao's successors. Nao, who was illiterate, started delivering the divine messages through automatic writing in 1893. Prior to that, as she had shouted the messages against her will, she was regarded as insane and was once confined in zashikirō inside her own small house. She and the Oomoto followers called these automatic-written messages ''Ofudesaki''.
Sumi was told by Nao that she would marry Onisaburo and that they would perform the divine works together. Neither liking nor disliking him, Sumi just felt that Onisaburo was a gentle and warm person. On January 1, 1900, the sixteen-year-old Sumi and twenty-eight-year-old Onisaburo were married.
In 1900 and 1901, Ofudesaki demanded the divine missions in Oshima (another name, Kanmurijima) and Meshima (another name, Kutsujima), in Mount Kurama, in Moto-Ise, and in Izumo-taisha. Together with Onisaburo, Nao and some selected followers, Sumi fulfilled all the missions.
On March 7, 1902, nineteen-year-old Sumi gave birth to her first daughter Naohi, who later succeeded Sumi and became the Third Spiritual Leader of Oomoto. And by the age of thirty-five, she gave birth to two sons, who died prematurely, and five more daughters.
Hardships as daughter, wife, and mother Shortly after entering Ayabe, Onisaburo founded a new religious organization named Kinmei-kai, whose foundress was Nao and the chairman was himself. Soon it was renamed to Kinmei rei-gakkai.
Most of the executives of Kinmei rei-gakkai were the followers of Konkōkyō and intended to maintain its teaching and system. They confronted Onisaburo, who was assigned by Ofudesaki to bring the unique God of Oomoto, Ushitora no Konjin, into the world. The executives obstructed Onisaburo's activities. They took away the books which Onisaburo was reading, accusing him of studying foreign teachings. In his absence, they burned his manuscripts on teachings. Sumi later stated that various followers, such as an ambitious one who intended to take over Onisaburo's place, an arrogant one who disliked his special ability to see through things, and an ignorant one who did not understand his assignment, caused him great hardship. Onisaburo did not give up and wrote the manuscript at night, under the bed sheet and with a lamp light. While he was writing in the daytime, Sumi stood at the entrance and kept watch so that the executives would not see him.