Santōka Taneda  Santōka was born in a village on the southwestern tip of Honshū, Japan’s main island, to a wealthy land-owning family. When he was eleven his mother committed suicide by throwing herself into the family well. Though the exact reason for her action is unknown, according to Santōka’s diaries his mother had finally reached the point where she could no longer live with her husband’s philandering. Following the incident, Santōka was raised by his grandmother. In 1902, he entered Waseda University in Tokyo as a student of literature. While there, he began drinking heavily, and in 1904, at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, he dropped out of school. The documented reason was “nervous breakdown,” which some believe to be a euphemism for frequent and severe drunkenness. By that time his father Takejirō was in such dire financial straits that he could barely afford to pay his son's tuition. In 1906, Taneda father and son sold off family land in order to open a "sake" brewery. In 1909 his father arranged for Santōka to marry Sato Sakino, a girl from a neighboring village. In his diaries, Santōka confesses that the sight of his mother's corpse being raised from her watery grave had forever tarnished his relationship with women. In 1910 Sakino gave birth to a son, Ken. In 1911, Santōka began publishing translations of Ivan Turgenev and Guy de Maupassant in the literary journal "Seinen" (青年, Youth) under the pen name Santōka (山頭火). The name is originally one of the list of "" (納音), i.e., labels given to a person's year of birth according to the Chinese sexegenary cycle, which are used for divination. However, the "natchin" Santōka is unrelated to the actual year in which the poet was born. The word Santōka can be understood in at least two different ways. The literal meaning is "Mountain-top Fire". However, it can also mean "Cremation-ground Fire," since "mountain-top" is a metaphor for cremation grounds in Japanese. It has been speculated that this choice of name could be related to the traumatic experience of the suicide of Santōka's mother.