Conclusion

Kirishitan women leaders expressed their apostolate in hybrid terms, combining Jesuit Reformed Catholicism under the Portuguese padroado and Japanese ShintoBuddhist traditions. A gazer sees, on the imagined byōbu, the new vistas which these nuns, healers, catechists, and confrarian sisters created.1 Within each type of their apostolate, women articulated varied colors and shades, according to their specific backgrounds, locations, and contexts. These expressions and articulations developed over the course of the Christian Century, in relation to the rise and fall of the Jesuit mission. While the Jesuits rejected Shinto-Buddhist women leaders as witches, these priestesses and shamans pursued their vocation as seriously as did Kirishitan women apostles.