A Reader in Edo Period Travel 1901903230, 9781901903232

Table of contents :
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Road map of Edo Japan
Introduction
1. Kaibara Ekiken (1630—1714)
2. Nagakubo Sekisui (1717—1801)
3. Motoori Norinaga (1730—1801)
4. Veda Akinari (1734—1809)
5. Tachibana Nankei (1752—1805)
6. Furukawa Koshoken (1726—1807)
7. Sugae Masumi (1754—1829)
8. Takayama Hikokuro (1747—93)
9. Shiba Kokan (1747—1818)
10. Matsura Seizan (1760—1841)
11. Takizawa (Kyokutei) Bakin (1767—1848)
12. Hishiya Heishichi (Dates Unknown)
13. Tomimoto Shigetayu (Dates Unknown)
14. Watanabe Kazan (1793—1841)
15. Ono Keisan (1770—?)
16. Matsuura Takeshiro (1818—88)
Conclusion: Towards an Edo-Period Enlightenment
Bibliography
Glossary
Appendix I: Important Historical Dates
Appendix II: Edo-period Money and Measurements
Index

Citation preview

A READER IN

EDO~PERIOD

TRAVEL

EDO-PERIOD PROVINCES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Mutsu Rikuchu Ugo Rikuzen Uzen Iwaki Iwashiro Hitachi Shimotsuke Kozuke Shimosa Kazusa Awa Sagami Musashi Echigo Noto Etchu Kaga Echizen Wakasa Omi Mino Hida

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Shinano Kai Suruga Izu Totomi Mikawa Owari Iga Ise Shima Kii Yamato Izumi Kawachi Yamashiro Settsu Awaji Awa Tosa Iyo Sanuki Suo Nagato Aki

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

Bitchu Bingo Bizen Harima Mimasaka Tango Tanba Tajima Inaba Hoki Izumo Iwami Chikuzen Buzen Bungo Chikugo Hizen Higo Hyuga Satsuma Osumi Matsumae (Ezo)

A

READER IN EDO

PERIOD TRAVEL

HERBERTPLUTSCHOW

GLOBAL ORIENTAL

A READER IN EDO PERIOD TRAVEL by Herbert Plutschow First published in 2006 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP

UK

www.globa1orienta1.co.uk © Herbert P1utschow 2006

ISBN 1-901903-23-0 978-1-901903-23-2 [13-digit] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Plantin 10 on 11.5 point by Mark Heslington, Scarborough, NorthYorkshire Printed and bound in England by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

CONTENTS

[Plate section faces page 148] Edo-period Provinces Acknowledgements Road map of Edo Japan

Introduction

1. Travel Narrative

2. Travel and Thought 3. Edo-period Travel as an Institution

u tX Xt

1

1 10 21

Chapter 1.

Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714)

32

Chapter 2.

Nagakubo Sekisui (1717-1801)

46

Chapter 3.

Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801)

54

Chapter 4.

Veda Akinari (1734-1809)

69

Chapter 5.

Tachibana Nankei (1752-1805)

75

Chapter 6.

Furukawa Koshoken (1726-1807)

89

Chapter 7.

Sugae Masumi (1754-1829)

124

Chapter 8.

Takayama Hikokuro (1747-93)

185

Chapter 9.

Shiba Kokan (1747-1818)

199

Ekiken as a Philsopher 34; Ekiken as a Traveller and Travel Author 36; Nanyu Kiji (Account of a Journey to the South) 38

Nagasaki Koeki Nikki (Diary of an Official Journey to Nagasaki) 46 Sugagasa no Nikki (Sugagasa Diary) 57

Akiyama no Ki (Record of a Journey to Akiyama) 70 Toyu Ki (Journey to the East) 76; Saiyu Ki Oourney to the West) 78

Saiyu Zakki (Miscellaneous Notes on a Journey to the West) 89; T()Yu Zakki (Miscellaneous Notes on a Journey to the Northeast) 101 Sugae MaswniYurdn Ki (Sugae Masumi's Travelogue) 128

Hokkoku Kiko (Diary of a Journey to the Northern Provinces) 187 Seiyu Nikki (Diary of a Journey to the West) 204

Chapter 10. Matsura Seizan (1760-1841)

224

Chapter 11. Takizawa (Kyokutei) Bakin (1767-1848)

231

Kansei Kiko (Account of a Journey of the Kansei Period) 226 Kiryo Manroku (Complete Account of My Journey) 233

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Chapter 12. Hishiya Heishichi (Dates Unknown)

247

Chapter 13. Tomimoto Shigetayu (Dates Unknown)

261

Chapter 14. Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841)

282

Chapter 15. Ono Keisan (1770-?)

291

Chapter 16. Matsuura Takeshiro (1818-88)

298

Conclusion: Towards an Edo-Period Enlightenment

310

Bibliography

322

Glossary

328

Appendix I: Important Historical Dates Appendix II: Edo-period Money and Measurements

335 336

Index

338

Tsukushi Kiko (Account of a Journey to Tsukushi [Kyushu]) 248

Fudemakase (At the Fancy of My Brush) Books One and Two 262; Book Five Synopsis 278 Yuso Nikki (Diary of a Journey to Sagami [province]) 285 Toso Zakki (Miscellaneous Notes on a Pilgrimage) 292

Ishikari Nisshi (Ishikari Diary) 302; Shiribeshi Nisshi (Shiribeshi Diary) 303; Tokachi Nisshi (Tokachi Diary) 304; Teshio Nisshi (Teshio Diary) 307; Saiko Ezo Nisshi (Second Journey Ezo Diary) 307

ToYoshiko

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THIS PROJECT GREW out of my earlier studies of medieval Japanese travel literature as well as my articles on the subject of travel and pilgrimage in medieval Japanese literature. 1 These studies made me realize how much traditional travel rhetoric survived into Edo-period literature, and also demonstrated how much the vision and style changed in this period's travel literature, to become the expression of a Japanese modernity. I acknowledge with deep gratitude the help and encouragement I have received over the seven years this project had been in the making. Haga Toru and Kasaya Kazuhiko of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) have helped me organize a seminar on the subject of Edo-period travel in the autumn of 1996. I am also very grateful to Matsuda Kiyoshi of Kyoto University for having invited me to teach a seminar on Edoperiod travel at Kyoto University in 2001 and for having organized a symposium on Kimura Kenkado (1736-1802) and his Osaka salon. I also thank the University of California Pacific Rim Research Center for having funded an international symposium on this subject at UCLA's Lake Arrowhead Conference Center from 30 March to 1 April 2001 and for all the funding I have received from the UCLA Academic Senate Research Committee for editing and travel. I am grateful for the editorial help both Diane Riggs, a doctoral student at UCLA, and Iris Shah, Emeritus Professor of English, California State University, Northridge, have given me in this project. Paul Norbury of Global Oriental deserves special recognition for all his understanding and efforts. NOTE

1. 'L'offrande de poemes aux lieux sacres et les journaux de voyage du Moyen-age - un example de pratique religieuse atteste dans la litterature classique du Japon' (The offering of poems to sacred places and medieval Japanese travel diaries - an example of a religious practice found in the classical literature of Japan), Cahiers d'Etudes et des Documents sur les Religions du Japon, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes - Ve Section, I (1979), pp. 115-33, 'Space and travel - An interpretation of the travel poems of the Manyoshu,' in Nish and Charles Dunn, editors, European Studies on Japan (Tenderden, Kent: Paul Norbury Publications, 1979), pp. 272-82. Four Japanese Travel Diaries of the

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Middle Ages (Co-author), East Asian Papers, Cornell University, 1981. 'Japanese travel diaries of the middle ages,' Oriens Extremus, Heft 112 (1982) pp. 1-136. Tabi suru Nihonjin - Chusei Nihon Kiko Bungaku 0 saguru Qapanese Travellers - as seen through medieval Japanese travel diary literature) Musashino Shoin, Tokyo, 1984. 'Japanese Travel Diaries 10th - 19th Century,' Encyclopedia Nipponica, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1983. 'Kotodama. DerWortgeist in der japanischen Literature,' (Kotodama. The word soul in Japanese literature) Das Gold im wachs - Festschrift fur Thomas Immoos zum 70. Geburtstag. (Munchen: iudicium verlag, 1988), pp. 93-105. Chaos and Cosmos - Ritual in early and medieval Japanese literature, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990. 'Reiseberichte der spaten Tokugawa-Zeit, als Dokumente der japanischen Moderne, Minikomi, Akademischer Arbeitskreis Japan, Oesterreichische Japan-Wissenschaft und Kunst (No. 3, 1998) pp. 5-14. 'Medieval Japanese Travel Diaries,' Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 203 'Medieval Travel Writers' (Columbia S.C., 1999) pp. 177-85. 'Kenkado Jidai no Nihon Bunka - Tabi to Saron to hirakareta Chisei -' Kimura Kenkado Botsugo Nihyakunen Kinen Shinpojiumu, Kyoto University, 14 December 2001. THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE In the interests if simplicity, no diacritic marks are included in this volume, and Japanese words that have entered the English language, such as haiku, shogun and daimyo are not italicised, whereas others are.

ROAD MAP OF EDO JAPAN

:-

INTRODUCTION

THERE ARE three parts to this introduction. The first focuses on Edo-period travel literature in general, together with a discussion of some of the main characteristics of travel narrative and its study. The second part deals with the intellectual background of what I call a new travel writing and 'seeing' that developed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the third part discusses institutional aspects of Edo-period travel, including barriers (or check-points) and female travel. 1. TRAVEL NARRATIVE

Travel Texts and their Studies

The travel literature of the Edo period (1600-1868) has received little attention so far. Itasaka Yoko is the only Japanese scholar to have specialized in Edo-period travel and many of her studies of known and hitherto unknown travel accounts are pioneering ones. 1 Numerous studies of Edo-period travellers do exist, but they are treated not so much as travellers but as intellectuals, poets and artists, as is the case for Hayashi Razan (Doshun, 1583-1657), Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714), Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), Yoshida Shoin (1830-59), daimyos like Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829) who wrote eight accounts, Matsura Seizan (1760-1841), or artists like Ike no Taiga (1723-76), Tani Buncho (1763-1840), Shiba Kokan (1747-1818) and Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841), or poets and literati, such as Veda Akinari (1734-1809), Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) and Takizawa (Kyokutei) Bakin (1767-1848), priests such as Watarai Shigemasa and Noda Senkoin (1756-1835) and many others. Likewise, intellectuals such as Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769) and Hayashi Razan have been studied as intellectuals, but not as travellers. Matsuo Basho (1644-94) is a notable exception; he has been widely studied, not only as a haiku poet, but also as a travelling one. In this book, I shall do the contrary, that is, look at Edo-period travellers as travellers, realizing that this perspective may change, however slightly, the image we have of them as intellectuals, artists and poets. Haga Toru, in his acclaimed studies of Edo-period intellectuals and painters such as Hiraga Gennai (1728-79), Shiba Kokan and Watanabe Kazan, is a pioneering scholar of Edo-period travel whose publications have opened up

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new possibilities for studying such eclectic personalities as the ones listed above in an interdisciplinary frame, studying them as artists, poets, intellectuals and travellers, thereby breaking the strict boundaries of academic disciplines. It may seem strange to many of us that the folklorist Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), himself a traveller and prolific travel author was the first to publish collections of Edo-period travel accounts. He did so in his Kiko Bunshu of the collection Teikoku Bunko. This was perhaps the first such anthology after the Gunsho Ruiju and Zoku Gunsho Ruiju of the Edo period. To this were later added the Zoku Kiko Bunshu and Zokuzoku Kiko Bunshu, offering a wide range of Edo-period travel literature. Yanagita's contribution to the field of travel literature is that, in his choice of representative works, he included not only the purely literary, poetic travelogues, but also some, which fall out of the strict confines of orthodox 'literature'. Oto Tokihiko, a student ofYanagita's followed in his teacher's footsteps in publishing an annotated version of Furukawa Koshoken's Toyu Zakki. Japanese folklorists discovered in Edo-period travel accounts important documents for the study of folklore, religion, rural life, population, the economy and cultural values, e.g., Suzuki Bokushi's (1790-1842) Hokketsu Seppu and Sugai Masumi's (1754-1829) Yuran Ki. Another important collection of Edo-period travel texts are the three volumes on travel in the Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, a good source for travel texts compiled by historians and folklorists interested in local history and culture. Beyond the folklorists, we find a degree of interest in Edo-period travel among natural historians. Because many a traveller in the Edo period was a physician-herbalist, we discover among them an interest in natural resources and pharmacology, always combined in typical Confucian and or N eoConfucian manner with an interest in the taxonomy of natural phenomena and with an interest in local life and culture. I will investigate the important role such natural scientists as Kaibara Ekiken, Ino Jakusui, Tachibana Nankei, Furukawa Koshoken and Sugae Masumi played in the promotion of Edo-period travel. Of course, we should include in the list those merchant travellers - like Hishiya Heishichi - who wrote down their travel experiences for the sake of posterity. Despite these pioneering studies and anthologies, numerous Edo-period travel accounts are yet to be studied, let alone printed. Not even the most recent edition of the Kokusho Somokuroku, claiming to account for the titles and whereabouts of all extant Japanese documents, is complete, as we keep on discovering new travel accounts, which, hidden away in libraries, personal archives and storehouses, were discovered often by chance. It is estimated that the Edo period produced over two thousand travel accounts - over sixty about journeys to Ezo (the present island of Hokkaido) alone. Some villages, townships and local universities and colleges have started printing the travel accounts of prominent Edo-period members of their communities; an example of this is the multi-volumed publication by the Institute for Regional Studies of Matsuzaka University of the diaries ofTakegawa Chikusai (1826-82), a local merchant. There are similar endeavours being made in Niigata. Yaba Katsuyuki has recently compiled a volume of travel diaries about Shinano

INTRODUCTION

3

province (now Nagano prefecture), which includes fifteen travelogues. The university, Nara Joshi Daigaku, has also published on its website, Denshi Toshokan (Electronic Library), a series of Edo-period travel diaries entitled Edo Jidai Kiko Bunshu, including diaries written by women. Except for Basho, scholars have failed to fully realize the potential travel has in clarifying literary, artistic and intellectual, especially eclectic trends. I shall measure the importance of Motoori Norinaga's Sugagasa no Nikki, for example, to see how much it reflects his thoughts. A Reader in Edo-period Travel is an attempt to fill this gap and to promote the study of Edo-period travel literature as important historical, intellectual, literary and artistic documentation. It is also, as we shall see later, the kind of documentation that allows us to study how Japanese travellers saw and discovered their country and to gauge from such texts sufficient proof that there was a kind of Enlightenment in the second half of the Edo period, an Enlightenment based on conditions similar to those in Europe. Surprisingly, not even during the periods of intense Japanese nationalism did anyone come up with a study of how Edo-period travellers discovered their own country, and how they were breaking the narrow identity most Japanese drew from their villages, feudal domains or from their cities and occupations. The study of Edo-period travel literature has not fared much better in the West. Other than Basho's travelogues and Jippensha Ikku's Shank's Mare (Tokaidochu Hizakurige, 1801-22)2 and a German study with translation of Asai Ryoi's Tokaido Meisho Ki, and most recently, a German study of Sugae Masumi - originally a doctoral dissertation - there is only one short article on the subject written by Harold Bolitho. 3 With his Travellers of One Hundred Generations, Donald Keene is the notable exception. He introduces Japanese travel diaries from the Heian period (794-1185) until the end of the Edo period providing textual examples after a short biographical sketch. However few and sketchy, these Western publications are a welcome break in the tradition, which views pre-modern Japanese travel writing as 'secondary' literature. It is worth our while, albeit briefly, to examine the reasons behind the relatively little attention travel literature has received from Japanese scholars, since they are the ones who have the greatest stake in such writing. We can find at least one of the reasons in the delineations of academic disciplines before the advent of interdisciplinary study. When I started my research on medieval Japanese travel literature some thirty years ago, I found Japanese scholars interested in the combination of literature and religion in, say, medieval pilgrimage records only among non-mainstream scholars and relevant articles only in 'secondary' journals. One prominent Japanese scholar even condemned my endeavour as 'non-representative of Japanese literature', saying that travel literature is exceedingly dull and ought not be introduced to the West. Since I was more interested in studying travel literature from an anthropological point of view rather than from a literary one, I persisted in my endeavour. Another reason why travel literature has received so little attention is that, with few exceptions, it is not considered orthodox literature, especially not the realistic accounts I have selected for this book. Edo-period travel diaries are considered important documentation for history, geography and folklore, but

4

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remain secondary in these disciplines. To study the Edo period, however, familiarity with travel writing is essential. There is hardly any travel, whether official or private, which is left unrecorded. Many of these records have been lost but a substantial number are still extant.

The Style and Rhetoric of Travel Literature Asking ourselves what position writing about travel occupied in Edo-period literature, we must try to distinguish between what has been considered orthodox and non-orthodox writing. We must do so because it is only the contrast between the two that helps us clarify the positions our travellers assumed when they wrote or rewrote their travel accounts. We must try to answer the question: what was considered literary orthodoxy and in what way or ways some of our travellers complied, combined or broke with it. Orthodox travel writing was based on poetry, waka and kanshi (Chinese) poetry more than the later haiku, haikai and kyoka, the kind of poetry, in short, one finds by the thousands in the twenty-one chokusenshu, the imperial anthologies of poetry issued between 905 and 1433, or in the recently compiled Nihon Kanshi Kiko (1995). Developed in roughly the sixth and seventh centuries, waka poetry became the form of lyrical expression preferred by the emperors, nobles and all those who by allegiance or sheer necessity wanted to remain loyal to orthodox imperial culture. In the Edo period, too, we find travellers who loyally included waka in their travel accounts, composing them according to orthodox principles. The daimyo, or feudal lords, who had been ranked by the emperors felt they had to keep waka diaries during their sankin kotai (alternate attendance) journeys and praise the enlightened government. 4 Once they decided to keep such diaries, their travelogues became less realistic accounts of their travel experiences and observations as much as exercises in orthodox poetic rhetoric. Let me further elaborate on this point. Imperial poetic orthodoxy came with a tradition called utamakura, that is Japanese place names, including names of geographically remote places, which poets used semantically as ponds and as representations of certain moods. Utamakura place names became set traditions and poets used them in their poetry without ever having travelled to these places. What mattered to them was not the actual sight of the place, but how and in what context and moods previous generations of poets read these place names into their poetry. Stereotyped images and moods became permanently attached to these utamakura places. For this reason a place like Sodenoura (Sleeve Bay) could only be mentioned in connection with sadness or melancholy because sleeves in classical Japanese poetry were used to dry or hide one's tears. 5 If, say, in the thirteenth century, an official who was also a waka poet had to travel along the Tokaido road from Kyoto to Kamakura, the poems he would insert into his travelogue dictated that he only compose them at traditionally sanctioned utamakura places and that he do so according to the rhetorical traditions attached to those places and the poetry about them. At such places, he would allude to or quote portions (honkadorz) of the classical poems that made these places 'famous' (meisho). One cannot expect such a traveller-poet

INTRODUCTION

5

to try to discover new scenic beauty, nor to mention non-utamakura places along the way. One can expect even less that he offer a realistic account of what happened to him or that he criticize the road conditions, ferry and litter services, the food and accommodations, the hostility of locals, or the weather, or that he describe physical pain, such as calluses and cuts on his feet, indigestion, diarrhoea, or other ailments, a traveller at that time most likely experienced. If our traveller were a rebel and intent on introducing his own selection of what he considered the most beautiful sights along the road to Kamakura, we today would, of course, welcome such an endeavour and relish his travelogue as a break with the stagnating traditions, an expression of individual creativity, perhaps even, the work of a genius. The problem our traveller faced at that time, however, was the likelihood that no one was willing to preserve such an unorthodox travelogue for posterity. Unorthodox writing might be sponsored by new political power groups in times of political and social change but, during peaceful times, unorthodox art had little chance of surviving, however interesting its descriptions might be to us today. If our traveller was intent on keeping his diary within the orthodox imperial tradition, he had no other choice than to respect orthodox rhetoric and form. Whatever he experienced during his journey, his vision and observations were limited and stereotypical. Even at utamakura places, he ignored the actual sight in favour of the traditional images attached to the place. He tried to see the place not as it presented itself to his eyes, but through the eyes of one or other of the classical poets who, in most likelihood, had never travelled to the site themselves. Such was indeed the ambivalence between travelling and writing about it. Much pre-modern Japanese travel writing, therefore, was fiction; the fictional pleasures of sightseeing at utamakura places emphasized over the real hardships of travel and dislocation. What made ancient travel diaries 'literature' was precisely this kind of fiction. The utamakura tradition was so strong that many pre-modern travel diaries contained numerous quotations from classical poetry.6 When our thirteenthcentury traveller reached the Fuwa barrier (Fuwanoseki Sekigahara-cho Fuwa district, Gifu prefecture) along the Tozando road, he would describe the dilapidated condition of the barrier and, regardless of whether they were still there or not, mention the eaves of the barrier house, which, now in ruins, only let through the wind and the moonshine. In his poem he would have to refer back to Gokyogoku Sessho's (Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, 1169-1206) classical poem: 'The Fuwa BarrierlNow deserted/Only lets pass/ The autumn wind.' He might do the same at a place along the Tokaido called Utsunoyama (Utsuyatoge, Ake district, Shizuoka prefecture). Ever since Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), the hero of the Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise) passed through the area, it came to be connected in poetry and travel literature with ivy and maples covering the path and with an unexpected encounter with itinerant monks to whom Narihira had entrusted a love poem to be delivered in Kyoto. Such utamakura traditions were carried on into the modern period. Many Edo-period travellers, including amateurs of haiku, haikai and kyoka poetry, alluded to Gokyogoku Sessho when passing through the Fuwa barrier or to the Ise Monogatari when passing through Utsunoyama. 7 In the Edo period Ota

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Nanpo (also Shokusanjin, 1749-1823), a kyoka and kyoshi poet, described the barrier in a humerous style typical of his writing: He told me that this is where the Fuwa barrier once stood. There was a 'For Sale' sign in front of a shabby hut. Although it is not the Asuka river, it must be a lodging house as much exposed to the viscissitudes of time as are the rapids of the Asuka river. 8 Heishin Kiko (1616) referred to Ariwara no Narihira at Utsunoyama in the following passage:

When Ariwara no Narihira crossed this mountain he found ivy and maples burying the path. He met an itinerant monk to whom he entrusted a poem to be delivered in Kyoto, a famous story everyone knows. 9 According to the Kanshi Michi no Ki (1720): At Utsunoyama pass I met two itinerant monks but they were unlike the monks in the story of old. Narihira was riding on horseback whereas the monks were thin because they were always walking. These monks, however, looked fine and even a little corpulent and it did not seem that they were always feeding on dirt and leftovers. I did not compose a poem for them but is it a crime to try? So I composed one on the violets blooming along the mountain: I entrust My heart to you Violets, I want to sleep one night At Utsunoyama. 10 As is clear from these examples, utamakura retained its importance in Edoperiod travel writing. Edo-period poets continued to write travel diaries in the imperial traditions of poetry. In her Kaihen Shushiki (Seigen'in 1784), a journey from Kumamoto to Edo of 1782, written by Seigen'in Noriko the wife of Hosokawa Sokei, she tells of walking all the way from Fushimi to Uji to see the utamakura sights when she and her party were held back by bad weather. 11 However, there appeared in the Edo period a new generation of travellers who, though visiting the utamakura places, tried to see them differently, adding to them their own inspirations and literary allusions. Some of our travellerdiarists do indeed refer to utamakura, some even list the famous poems that had been composed about these places. Our travellers, however, differ from previous generations in that they unmistakenly did so at the actual site and not at home, describing the places realistically and avoiding imposing traditional images onto the places they were seeing with their own eyes. The female author of the travelogue entitled Tabi no Inochige, for example, complained not only about the lack of understanding the travel guides had about the utamakura places but also about the crowds that gathered and the drinking that went on at such places. Some, like Kaibara Ekiken, criticized the poets who composed poems about famous places without visiting them:

INTRODUCTION

7

Poets pretend to know all about the famous places without ever having visited them. However, there are many discrepancies between how the ancient poets described them in their poems and reality. One should be aware of this. 12 Ekiken emphasized not so much the lyrical qualities of poetry, but its utility and wrote his own accounts to describe what he had seen accurately. In his Fugaku Seppu (1802) Wakuda Joko praises the beauty of Mt Fuji but laments that many painters imitated previous paintings rather than painting realistically upon visiting the mountain themselves and seeing it with their own eyes. 'I understand why Okyo never painted it - because he wanted to be faithful to reality and because he was reluctant to copy from others.'13 An important characteristic of traditional travel literature is, as we have seen, the centrality of poetry. Poetry was so important that depending on the style of poetry the traveller had chosen, his vision became restricted by the rhetoric of that poetry. We have seen that in waka and its utamakura. We can make similar observations when we consider other forms of poetry. Ulaka was often a solitary composition even when composed during poem competitions and get-togethers. The consequence of this was that many poet-travellers wrote their diaries in a 'solitary' style, as if they were travelling alone, despite the fact that they travelled more often than not with assistants, guides and colleagues, a phenomenon also notable in, say, eighteenth-century England. In the renga (linked-verse) poetry, which became popular in the Kamakura (1185-1331) and especially the Muromachi (1331-1573) periods, the emphasis shifted to human relations. Although it is possible to compose a solitary renga called dokugin one can only do so by imagining one or more participants. In most cases, however, renga was composed by two, three, four, or even more poets. When prominent renga poets travelled, they were often asked by local groups to provide them with the inititial verse for a sequence they would compose later. Hence the frequent mention of such encounters by renga travellers such as Sogi (1421-1502) and Socho (1448-1532) in their travelogues. The role of poetry in travel literature becomes even more conspicuous when one considers the role of kyoka (humerous poetry) and kanshi (Chinese poetry). Asai Ryoi's Tokaido Meisho Ki (1661) is a humerous travel guide based on humorous poetry. At Hakone he wrote: Because this mountain pass is a very dangerous one, all travellers get so tired passing over it that they develop diarrhoea. Hakone appears in an old poem as follows: Climbing four ri From valley to valley And descending two ri, two ri This is Mt Hakone. 14 'Four ri' (shiri) also means 'ass' and 'two ri, two ri' (niriniri) is also onomatopeia for diarrhoea. The diary Chikusai (1626), written by a physician, is also a travel guide based on humour and humorous poetry. It is a precursor of the famous Tokaidochu Hizakurige (Shank's Mare, 1814) which is also a kind of prose extension of kyoka poetry. Why did Jippensha Ikku (1765-1831), the author of

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8

Tokaidochu Hizakurige, select this form of unorthodox parody rather than the orthodox waka? One reason was undoubtedly the attempt to free himself from the limitations of tradition, to bring the townspeople and local culture into the world of literature. The same can be said of Chinese poetry. A Japanese travel diary including kanshi is likely to describe, say, Mt Fuji as if it were a Chinese mountain. IS Inoue Tsujo (1660-1738) in her Kikka Nikki alluded to a poem by Li Po: There were two streams in the Tenryu [Heavenly Dragon] river, one of which we crossed by boat but, because the other was shallow, the boat stuck and we had to get off and push it on. After some labour, we came to a deeper area and crossed comfortably. Although I did not come up to the excellence of the poem, I composed the following: From the Heavenly Dragon River The dragons have left After they left The river split into two arms One deep, the other shallow We crossed the small arm on foot The deep one by boat. 16

Writing Motivations Few of our travellers revealed what prompted them to write their travelogues in the ways and styles they did. Those who did, however, provided important insights as to why travellers wrote about their travel experiences, in most cases, to be read. Motoori Norinaga and Sugae Masumi did so but when we read their diaries it is clear that their writings exceeded their original purpose. Masumi was not just writing about the shrines of the Northeast he wanted to visit. His writings have assumed a dimension the author had not planned nor anticipated. This is something that often happened to those travellers who happened to write historically and intellectually important accounts. In his Yuso Nikki, Watanabe Kazan reveals to us that he wrote his diary in the mornings at the inns: I went to bed drunk last night but someone must have covered me with a nightgown and pushed a pillow under my head. I woke up past four. While I was writing down what I had heard and seen yesterday under the lamp, it dawned. They served us tea with pickled plums, and I rinsed my mouth with it. Then they served us breakfast. 17 But he fails to tell us why he wrote in his diary and for whom. Noda Senkoin, the Yamabushi anchorite who wrote Pilgrimage to the Nine Peaks, wrote the entries in his diary while it was raining. On 16 January 1814, he wrote: 'It is raining. I stay on and write in my diary all day long.'18 And on 6 November: 'It is raining. There is nothing else for me to do during my stay than to write in my diary and to put my things in order.'19 On 25 March 1814, however, he revealed what may have been at least one of his reasons for keeping a diary: 'At night all the neighbours came to listen to me read from my diary,'20 something that he was often requested to do.

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All our travellers revised their diaries after they returned home. Our 'homeless' Sugae Masumi, however, did so during his lengthy stays. Some travellers had no time to write much while they were travelling. They took notes and wrote down their poems and added the circumstances later. In his Meika Tefuda, Motoori Norinaga complains that he only had time to record his poems but nothing else. 21 Let us not forget, that for practically all our travellers, travel writing was an exercise of furyu (elegance) as Bakin pointed out about his journey. Whatever brought them to travel, the opportunity to write about it was an attempt atfuryu. In their own ways, they wrote their accounts as literature. They all visited the utamakura places on their way, mentioned legends, composed poetry with the locals in the evenings, and observed and even participated in local festivals. Travel was for all of them an experience they wanted to share.

Travel and Politics

Not all travellers and travel-diary authors were solely motivated by travel and travel writing per se. Some had ulterior motives. The linked-verse poets Sogi and Socho had already been suspected of being spies; that is, they travelled to gather information for the benefit of one or other feudal authority. Basho's celebrated Oku no Hosomichi has also been seen in this light. It was safer in feudal Japan to use an itinerant monk or poet as an informant than a samurai. The same can be said of Furukawa Koshoken's journey to the Northeast and Ezo, which was sponsored by Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758-1829), a senior official of the shogunate, and we know that Koshoken met Sadanobu after his return from his Toyu Zakki journey. What attracted Sadanobu to Koshoken were Koshoken's acute travel observations, which had opened his eyes about the shortcomings of local daimyo administrations as manifested in Koshoken's earlier Sayu Zakki. Furukawa Koshoken travelled widely enough to be able to compare the conditions in various parts of Japan, and to become aware of ,bad' politics. He measured the poverty in one region of Japan against the well-being of another. Such contrasts were for Koshoken a political issue. Critical remarks against the daimyos abound in his travelogues. The same applies to Takayama Hikokuro whose relentless inquiries into the Great Famine of the Northeast can be read as a kind of political outcry. They fed his anti-feudal stance and demonstrated support for the imperial family. It is quite conceivable that Hikokuro was drawn to a centralized, anti-feudal emperorship as a solution to his nation's ills. This is also Yagi Kiyoharu's theory set out in his article entitled 'Juhasseiki Kohan ni okeru Tabi to Joho Nettowaaku - Tachibana Haruakira, Kamei Nan'en, Takayama Hikokuro no Koryu 0 megutte'.22 According to Yagi, both Kamei Nan'en (1743-1814), a Fukuoka-domain scholar influenced by the philosophy of Ogyu Sorai (a physician and Confucian scholar, 1666-1728), and Takayama Hikokuro tried to open schools, the former merged the domain's Southern and Northern Schools in February 1784 and the latter, advocated the reopening of the Imperial University and the Imperial University Office (Daigaku-ryo). Both Nan'en and Hikokuro befriended Tachibana Nankei (Haruakira) whose travel diaries we will investigate in this book, and

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who was given the imperial rank of Iwami-no-kami (Governor of Iwami [Province]) and a position in the Imperial Kitchen (Naizen-ryo). We know that Hikokuro met Nankei in Kyoto on several occasions. It is conceivable that both Nankei and Hikokuro supported the imperial government's efforts to revive the Imperial University as a step towards the restoration of the imperial ritsuryo government. We also know that Nankei and Nan'en met in Fukuoka. All three travelled to Satsuma province where they were expecting support for their cause. 23 It is conceivable that Nankei paved the way for Nan'en and Hikokuro's journeys to Satsuma province and that these journeys were inspired by the attempt to open new schools, possibly under a revived Imperial University Office. Nan'en and Hikokuro's fates were possibly related. Nan'en was put under house arrest in the autumn of 1792 and had to step down from his position as school headmaster. Hikokuro killed himself on 27 June 1793, on his way back from Satsuma. Unfortunately, we do not know the exact reasons for these tragic turns of event and can only conjecture according to what we know through historical documents and particularly their travel diaries. It is possible that some of our travellers travelled in a spirit of political activism. Both Koshoken and Hikokuro possessed a heightened sense of national ills. Koshoken, however, sought a solution not outside but inside the feudal system he affirmed. Hikokuro, however, sought it outside of feudalism. 2. TRAVEL AND THOUGHT

Scholarly Travel and Salons

The many journeys scholars undertook to visit other scholars were undoubtedly intellectually and culturally important. Though never the primary purpose of travel, as was described in travel accounts, it was nevertheless an important motivation for taking to the road. One example may not suffice to do justice to a complex topic; nevertheless, the salon the Osaka merchant Kimura Kenkado created and the attraction it had on our travellers may in and by itself indicate how important salons were for Edo-period intellectual travellers. Kimura Kenkado (1736-1802) of Osaka, a sake brewer and merchant, exemplifies the extent to which affluent merchants became interested in culture. Kenkado became literally a salon sponsoring poetry, painting, honzogaku pharmacology (he was one of Ranzan's disciples), and Western studies. Shiba Kokan paid him a visit twice, once on his way to Nagasaki, the second time, on his way back. Bakin also visited and mentioned him twice in his Kiryo Manroku (1802) and Tani Buncho painted his portrait. Even a daimyo became a fan of his: Matsura Seizan spent an evening at Kenkado's. When Seizan showed him some books, Kenkado is reported to have said: 'I want this, I want this, I want this!' and sold him some Chinese books. He also met with Matsudaira Sadanobu, the daimyo sponsor of Furukawa Koshoken. Kenkado also asked Satsuma agents to buy Chinese books for him through the Ryukyu. Kenkado was also interested in Ezo (present-day Hokkaido) and the Ainu and got his information from a minor Shiogama shrine official named Fujizuka Chimei. Kenkado had universal (hakubutsugaku) interests and accumulated a vast collection of curiosities, hence the nickname Monozuki (Curioso) given to him by many

INTRODUCTION

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friends and contemporaries. He was the proud owner of an exotic shell he had acquired from the Dutchman Hendrik Casper Romberg, Opperhoofd of the Dutch factory on Dejima (Nagasaki) between 1783 and 1785. He also corresponded with Isaac Titsingh (1745-1812), another Opperhoofd about a Dutch panacea. Even after Kenkado went out of business, he continued his cultural and intellectual vocation. Kenkado was an avid collector of curiosities. He acquired a Dutch microscope and lent it to his friend Aburaya Kichiuemon, a merchant representing the commercial interests of the Satsuma clan in Osaka, among others. Aburaya made a copy of the Dutch instrument, which many of his contemporaries including Nakai Riken (1732-1817) who wrote his Kenbiyo Ki (Records of a Miscroscope) considered superior. Kenkado took Shiba Kokan to Aburaya who served them sake and food. Many of the Dutch interpreters in Nagasaki, but also the major scholars of things Dutch, organized salons around themselves. Katsuragawa Hoshu (physician and Dutch scholar, 1756-1809) was notorious for his Dutch salon. When we read Takayama Hikokuro and Shiba Kokan's travel accounts, we note the many visits to scholars and fellow painters. Watanabe Kazan also travelled in the spirit of the haikai poetry salon network that existed along the road to Atsugi (Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa prefecture). Sugae Masumi's travels would perhaps have been impossible were it not for the support he received from local salons and their members eager to keep him for long periods of time and quite willing to finance the continuation of his journeys. Haga Yoshiaki and Suzuki Tsuneo, to mention only two, were not just random friends but shoya (a local official and, or, a village chief) who ran salons around such intellectual travellers as Masumi.

Botany, Encyclopaedias and a New 'Seeing of Things , The travelogues I have selected for this book represent, all in their own ways of course, a much more realistic observation and vision than was usually the case in pre-Edo travel literature. Because the term 'realism' involves not only relative qualities, but also difficult and complicated definitions, I will discuss later what I mean by 'realistic'. Let it suffice to say, at this point, that no observation nor vision can be fully realistic, simply because even people of the same generation and culture differ in the way they see things, not to mention the difference one discovers in the way people from different cultures and generations see their reality. I therefore prefer to apply the notion of 'new seeing' to the body of literature under consideration in this book. We are now confronted with the task of explaining how this 'new seeing' came about. Was it a deliberate break with tradition triggered by the social and political changes that occurred at the beginning of the Edo period? Or, can we explain this new kind of writing as a merger of prose styles, say, between realistic kanbun Chinese with the poetic language of wabun called wakan konko-tai that we discover in Kamo no Chomei's Hojo Ki (Ten-Foot-Square Hut) of 1212. The potential of this stylistic approach to explain our 'new seeing' is negligible. It is true that Kaibara Ekiken, Tachibana Nankei, Furukawa Koshoken and Shiba Kokan wrote their travelogues in the mixed Chinese-

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Japanese wakan konko-tai, but Kamo no Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga and Sugae Masumi wrote theirs in wabun Japanese. Therefore, we cannot simply reduce this 'new seeing' to a choice of prose style. The few Japanese scholars who deal with this kind of literature seem to agree that this new 'realistic' writing stems from Chinese honzogaku pharmacology and medicine. This does not seem too far-fetched when we realize that of course not all, but some healing practice presupposes and necessitates a more realistic approach to reality than, say, philosophy or religion. By this I do not mean to say that philosophy is by nature less concerned with reality than medicine, as it is quite conceivable and even historically evidenced that medical practice was more ideological in certain cultures and ages than statistically empirical. That is, traditional medicine continued to be applied despite poor statistical success. In the Chinese pharmacology and taxonomy that entered Japan at the start of the Edo period, however, we find both ideological and practical concerns, the latter applying especially to the study of botany. Botany opened the eyes of both Chinese and Japanese physicists to exact observation of natural processes and properties. Inspired by the work of Li Shizhen (1518-93) entitled Bencao Gangmu (Categories of Pharmacopeia), in Japanese Honzo Komoku, Edo-period herbalists went out in search of new botanical materia medica. Although Li's list of medical plants is classified according to Daoist taxonomy,24 it did encourage the Japanese to go out in search of new medicinal herbs and to classify them according to taxonomical criteria more appropriate to Japanese conditions and culture. As part of their endeavours they discovered not only new materia medica but also local culture and, as we shall see, a new Japan. Their concern was much more this-worldly than that of those travellers whose main concern remained in the traditional rhetoric of the utamakura. In view of all the traveller-diarists who were also practitioners of Chinese medicine, the combination of botany and 'new seeing' seems all the more appropriate. Kaibara Ekiken, Motoori Norinaga, Tachibana Nankei, Sugae Masumi and Furukawa Koshoken were all physicians. Inspired by Li Shizhen, Kaibara Ekiken in 1709 compiled his own sixteen-volumed Yamato Honzo, a list of Japanese flora and fauna. Unlike Li who wrote his Bencao Gangmu for intellectuals, Ekiken wrote his list in Japanese in order to inform the simple people, following the Confucian principle to write for the public good. Also, Ekiken deviated from Li's classification by listing plants according to his own observations and included non-medical plants. Many of Ekiken's travelogues preceded and undoubtedly inspired Yamato Honzo. Ekiken did not travel in search of, say, new plants or to classify known Japanese plants, but we do find in his writings an unprecedented concern for practical matters and realistic observations and a desire to inform people about real conditions. They also contain folkloric information as, for example, under konoshiro (gizzard shad, Clupanodon punctatus) in his Yamato Honzo: A long time ago, a step-mother falsely charged her step-son in order to get rid of him. The father believed her and ordered his servant to kill the boy. Knowing the boy was innocent, the servant took pity on him and, instead of burning the son, burned a konoshiro and let the son run away. This is why this fish is called konoshiro [child substitute].

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Kaibara Ekiken was perhaps the first to combine travel with science. For him, travel was like a modern laboratory, a space to observe, to listen, to dispel doubt, to know by comparison and to discover. He travelled much in the same spirit as European discoverers; travel for him opened his eyes to the unusual and his travelogues were a means to explain the unusual. Travel is knowledge. Rather than the 'restless spirit' Haga Toru discovered among Edo-period travellers, I think it was an unbounded curiosity that lured people along Japan's roads. 25 Honzogaku botany is relevant in the formation of Edo-period travel literature. It added a new dimension, developed out of ancient Chinese encyclopaedic compilations of knowledge and technology called leishu or classifying books. In order to explain how honzogaku pharmacopeia influenced travel, seeing and travel literature, we must explore the links between encyclopaedias and their systems of classification and the development of poxue (hakubutsugaku in Japanese) universal study and knowledge. The first Chinese encyclopaedias were attempts to preserve a body of ancient Chinese literature, called the Classics. They were thesauri used to educate officials and later, in the Tang dynasty (618-907), to prepare them for the state examinations, but also to be able to quote the classics, one of the important endeavours of Chinese literati officials. This endeavour culminated in the monumental Yongle Dadain which Ming-dynasty emperor Chengzu (r. 1403-24) had ordered 2,000 literati to compile in 1407. It consists of 22,877 chapters, containing the entire known body of Chinese classical literature, the largest encyclopaedia ever written. Quotation was an important oratory component and an efficient means to claim authority. The Peiwen Yunfu (Treasury of Rimes) ordered by Qin-dynasty emperor Kangxi (r. 1662-1722) and compiled by Zhang Yushu (1642-1711) and others contained 10,257 characters ranged under 106 rimes, quoting 700,000 literary expressions. Another important aim of these encyclopaedias was to preserve important knowledge for posterity, one of the imperial prerogatives of imperial China. Ming dynasty scholars began compiling specialized encyclopaedias, privately, that is without imperial sanction. These were technical encyclopaedias such as the SancaiTuhui compiled byWang Qi (c. 1535-1614) and his son Wang Siyi and finished in 1609. This was an illustrated encyclopaedia of the arts and sciences classified under the rubric of sancai (Three Powers), namely, Heaven, Earth and Man. Terashima Ryoan (dates unknown), a practitioner of Chinese medicine, created a Japanese version in 1714 under the title Ulakan Sanzai Zue (105 volumes). This was the first major Edo-period encyclopaedia. He, too, divided his encyclopaedia into Heaven, Man and Earth. Heaven was subdivided into: Calendar, Seasons and Man, and Man into: Ethics, Religion, Custom, Tools and Earth, and Earth into: Mountains, Water, Metals, Plants and Minerals. The most influential of these specialized, private encyclopaedias was Li Shizhen's Bencao Gangmu, which Hayashi Razan (1583-1657) promoted in Japan. Li Shizhen travelled widely and compiled this illustrated encyclopaedia of the natural sciences for medical use. It contains 1,892 entries of which 275 are on minerals, 444 on zoology and 1,094 on botany, classified according to new

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taxonomical systems and noted more than 2,000 drugs and 8,000 recipes. In addition to these are the Tiangong Kaiwu (Technical Encyclopaedia) by Song Yingxing (c.1590-c.1660) and Xu Guangqi (1562-1633)'sNongzheng Quanshu, an agricultural encyclopaedia including the hydrolic treatise of the Italian Jesuit, Sabatini de Ursis (1575-1620), as well as Chen Yuanlong's (1652-1736) Gezhi Jingyuan (1717-35) (Mirror of Scientific and Technological Sources) of the following Qin dynasty (1644-1911). Chinese encyclopaedias began centuries before some 'enlightened' eighteenth-century British and French began to study such universal knowledge and its classification. Chinese encyclopaedias in general, and honzogaku in particular, had expanded into a science of classification of natural and human phenomena and engendered a science called poxue, in Japanese, hakubutsugaku which translated, literally means universal knowledge. Classifying all that was known was an ancient Confucian endeavour aimed at both informing the public and pursued for moral self-cultivation. People engaged in botany, therefore, were also philosophers of sorts, interested in establishing universal laws from observable phenomena and classifying them according to such laws. From the Song dynasty on, Confucian and Neo-Confucian scholars became preoccupied with the classification of things. Inspired among others by Li Shizhen's Honzo Komoku, and Terashima Ryoan's ~kan Sanzai Zue, the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751) imposed practical policies and measures that changed Japan in multifaceted ways. This also brought about a change in Japanese travel literature. Yoshimune took Uemura Masakatsu (1695-1777) with him when he proceeded from his native Wakayama (Kii peninsula) to Edo to assume the position of shogun in 1716. Masakatsu had been in charge of the daimyo's medicinal garden at Wakayama. In 1720 Masakatsu opened a new, much larger garden in the Komaba district of Edo, but he had to entrust it to a disciple when the shogun ordered him to survey the natural resources of Japan. Masakatsu left Edo in 1720 for a journey around the country that would last thirty-four years. He transplanted into his Komaba garden many new plants he discovered during his travels. In 1740 Masakatsu submitted to the shogun his nine-volume Shoshu Saiyaku Ki, an account of his quest for medicinal herbs. The shogun's pharmacological policies spilled over into other feudal domains. Maeda Tsunanori (1643-1724), the fifth daimyo of the Kaga domain (now roughly Ishikawa prefecture), ordered Ino Jakusui (1656-1715), a man in charge of herbal medicine, to compile a list of materia medica entitled Shobutsu Ruisan, published in 1715. Jakusui set out to write 1,000 volumes but left only 362 when he died. The shogunal government ordered Jakusui's disciple Niwa Seihaku to complete the work. Unlike Ekiken whom he knew, Jakusui established a lasting pharmacological tradition. Niwa Seihaku and Matsuoka Jo'an (1668-1746) were his main, next-generation disciples. The most important herbalist in Jakusui's line of disciples was third-generation Ono Ranzan (1729-1810), Joan's disciple and perhaps the greatest botanist of the Edo period. 26 After the Six Dynasties (212-606) in China, honzogaku was combined with the exotic. Botanists were interested in strange, extraordinary natural

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phenomena, unusual mountain and rock formations and strange animals. This led Yoshimune to ask the Dutch to import Western horses and dogs and exotic animals, such as elephants, cassowary, peacocks, ostriches, turkeys, geese, praukees, Java sparrows and hill mynas. This fascination for the exotic led some travelling botanists to record strange local customs. This may have been behind the order the ninth shogun Ieshige (1711-61), Yoshimune's son, gave Masakatsu in 1755. More interested in exotic culture than pharmacology, the shogun asked Masakatsu to write about the 'strange' things he heard or saw during his journeys. The result of this was Masakatsu's Honcho Kiseki Dan (Stories about Strange Things in our Country). Among the strange things Masakatsu described was unusual sexual behaviour, which he had observed or heard about occurring in remote areas of Japan. Here are two examples. The first is about the so-called tsukiyaku-ita (menstruation planks) he found practised in Japan, especially in mountainous areas. This story comes from the Tango province (the northern portion of present Kyoto prefecture): There are many people who live off this trade. Women who sell these products in the villages, whenever they meet men along the way, offer themselves to them. Although they have had sex, they may not tell anyone about it. If such a relationship leaks out, however, then they banish the culprit to a place called yamaharai. Because of this strict ordinance, no one speaks about it. Therefore, it happens that young men and women proceed along this mountain path simply for the pleasure of sex. Sometimes they arrange to meet here. Afterwards, the man sends his partner a white kerchief and the woman a red kerchief to the man, which is why men and women gather many kerchiefs, just in case. This is the custom in this remote area. This is better than the unrestrained passion, which leads to geisha parties. Are eating, drinking and sexual passions a good custom?27 Masakatsu heard another strange story from Yamato province (roughly, present-day Nara prefecture): They told me that there is a custom here called 'sleeping together at the Totsugawa river'. Regardless of whether they are married, have children, or are servants, or travellers, they all sleep together and engage in [free] sex. It is an old custom to do this without regard to others and without jealousy. Therefore, it never happens that someone is killed out of jealousy, they said. Many come here from Kyoto and Osaka and make this remote mountain village a lively place. 28 Masakatsu described botany and local customs. As far as we can tell, he reported his facts faithfully; local stories were reported as 'realistically' as his description of flora and fauna. The Honcho Kiseki Dan inspired much Edoperiod travel literature, including U eda Akinari's Akiyama Ki and Tachibana Nankei's Saiyu Ki and Toyu Ki which continued, as we shall see later, to report strange things one witnessed or heard about during one's journeys. Another possible epigone of this kind of travel writing was by Motoori Norinaga's adopted son, Motoori Oohira (1756-1833) who in his Arima no Nikki reported the strange stories he heard at Arima spa. 29

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Beyond the biological information, Ono Ranzan's monumental Honzo Komoku Keimo also respected the exotic, which he sometimes linked to the supernatural. Like Kaibara Ekiken's Yamato Honzo, Ranzan included folkloric information in both his Kai (1759) and Honzo Komoku Keimo (48 volumes published between 1803 and 1806). In the former, Ranzan lists, for example, all the name variations of the kappa (a kind of aquatic half-human, half-fish). About the inugami (lit. dog god) he reports the following: An invisible small animal. The word is used to curse someone. Households suspected of such practice are called inugami-mochi (inugami households). This applies especially to matrilineal families. In Ehara village, Mima district, Tokushima province, the mother initiates the daughter to this word when the daughter turns fifteen. One often hears the word in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions. It is like seventy-five mice. It likes people and flock together when they cook something delicious. When people do not give them anything, the inugami make them loose their appetites. In Kagawa [province] people worship inugami at the Wakamiya shrines. 3o As we have seen Ranzan lists not only visible natural objects but also illdefined fantastic creatures. Another example is the tobyo: In the Chugoku region it is believed to be a kind of spirit that attaches itself to humans. It assumes the shape of a small snake or fox. It keeps many small snakes in the clay walls ... In Atetsu district, Okayama, it is a small snake that has a yellow line around its neck. It lives in nests of seventy-five. In the Nagato region it is believed to resemble the inugami, like a long insect, and lives in groups of one hundred. It does not attach itself to a house, but to people in such a way that nobody notices it. It is more stubborn than the inugami. In the Futami district (Aki province) men who are possessed by tobyo can cause calamities and cause women to debauche. However they may wish and however long they may try, neither men nor women can use the tobyo's power to inflict damage on others. 3 ! Shibue Chohaku, born in 1760 into a family of physicians, was another prominent herbalist and traveller. At the age of twenty, he inherited the family business and on 8 August 1779 was summoned to Edo castle to examine the health of shogun Ieharu. On 24 December 1793, he became official physician to the shogun and the next day he was appointed to head the medicinal garden of the shogun. This happened at a time when the government was putting much effort into the production of medicines and ordered botanical surveys of Koshu, Suruga, Izu and Totomi provinces and set aside new land for the garden. On 24 March 1800, Chohaku left Edo with a retinue ofthirty-four men for Ezo (the present island of Hokkaido) in search of new medicinal herbs, a journey he described in his Ezo Saiyaku Ki. He went as far as Akkeshi (Akeshicho, Akeshi district, Hokkaido). He returned to Edo on 27 September. He also wrote Ezo Soboku Shika about the plants he studied in Ezo. Sone Senshun, a botanist and physician of the Satsuma domain wrote the preface saying: 'No one has ever seen so many plants since the age of the gods.' He also wrote Ezo Kiko about his journeys on the island. His eight-volume account of his travels

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in Koshu (present Yamanashi prefecture) entitled Kanyu Kisho combines his botanical interests with sightseeing. He visited the temple Zenko-ji (Naganoshi) and the shrine Sakaori Tenjin and the ruins of Takeda Shingen's castle and climbed Mt Ontake (Ontake-san, Nagano prefecture) where he listed thirty-six different rocks. Chohaku was also interested in Dutch medicine and when in 1807 the Dutch presented a rare tree to the shogun, it was entrusted to the care of Chohaku. It whithered during the cold winter of 1809. The same year, Chohaku petitioned the government to purchase Schomel's Komo Kogyo Gakusho. Dutch interpreter Baba Sakujuro translated the part dealing with blowing glass and published it separately in three volumes under the title Seiyo Garasu Seiho Sho and submitted it to the shogun. In 1817, Chohaku petitioned the government to import Chinese sheep. He agreed and they were to be raised at his Sugamo plantation. He multiplied them to over three hundred. The wool gained from them was woven into garments. This was the result of a policy to replace Chinese silk with wool. Chohaku handed down the Sugamo plantation to his son Choan. As we learned from the above, Chinese pharmacology and the ways the Japanese continued and transformed the traditions, inspired a new way of seeing and a new travel writing. Travellers such as Ekiken and Masakatsu, among others, discovered Japanese folklore. Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) asserts that Japanese folklore originated in such honzogaku as described above. 32 Insofar as honzogaku came with illustrations, it may also have inspired travellers to sketch scenes and events on their way. This was also the case of many eighteenthcentury European travellers who had their travelogues illustrated. 33 Later, travel-diary illustrations developed into the Meisho Zue (Illustrated Travelogue). The above discussion on honzogaku and hakubutsugaku may have unduly neglected the impact Dutch science (rangaku) may also have had on this new Japanese 'seeing'. Truly, by relaxing the prohibition against the importation of Western books in 1720, Yoshimune promoted the study of the West. This was part of his practical policies. The resulting Rangaku, the School of Dutch (Western) Learning was influential in bringing the latest scientific and technological innovations of the West to Japan, but it also promoted Japanese science, including astronomy, geography, Western painting techniques, military technology and medicine. Dutch medicine, as Western medicine was called in Edo-period Japan, combined with existing Japanese pharmacology. The Swedish botanist Carl von Linne (1707-78) influenced the Japanese botanists through Linneus's Dutch disciples. Because of the impact Rene Descartes had on Linneus, it was partially through such channels that European philosophy reached the shores of Japan. 34 The relationship between travel and thought was an unstable one, some travellers like Kamo no Mabuchi, Furukawa Koshoken and perhaps even Shiba Kokan wrote their travellogues in the spirit of their intellectual commitments whatever these commitments may have been at the time they travelled. Others, such as Motoori Norinaga and especially Sugae Masumi, however, do so only sporadically. It is therefore difficult if not impossible to classify travel writing by schools of thought. Given the tendency towards hakubutsugaku we observe

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in many travellers, their wntmgs reflect a more or less strong eclecticism, combining in their travel writings more than a single thought or style.

Individualism and Realism

In Edo-period Japan, scientific investigation was, by and large, practical. Travellers did mention Confucian, and Neo-Confucian ideology in their prefaces as an attempt to legitimize their endeavours. But much of the travel observations and recordings were undertaken without much Confucian overarching structure, dramatic plot or thematic development. They were concerned with pragmatic results much more than theoretical taxonomy. Their observations were no longer limited to an overall scheme. The Japanese were writing in the zakki style of miscellanea much more than before. We shall see how much Edo-period travel accounts document the rise of individualism in Japan. And this, despite the reservations Confucianists harboured towards 'writing about oneself' or 'making public the private self'. Before Western influence, the Chinese wrote autobiographies for the emperor as a kind of self-apology or self-defence and testimony of loyalty. As was the case in Sugae Masumi's criticism of Furukawa Koshoken's Toyu Zakki, this problem was strongly tied to the dichotomy between private and public. In the Edo period, writing was still considered by many a public endeavour. Writers had to ask themselves constantly whether their own experiences and observations had sufficient public value. This was certainly Sugae Masumi's concern when he criticized the 'too personal' style of Furukawa Koshoken's writings. Masumi preferred to report and to describe in an objective I-less style. The personal - versus impersonal - style debate borders on maintaining or not the strict demarcations between the private and public realms. Though more often than not, in the public realm, only poetry was allowed a degree of sentimental lyricism, and then only in reference to the classics. Why then is there so much I-centred individualism in our travel writings? Did our travellers transgress the boundaries between the public and private, mixing them in unprecedented degrees? One may, of course, argue that a degree of individualism is proper to all diary writing and autobiography. Yet, many Japanese autobiographies remained public, describing the 'public self' rather than the private one. A plausible reason why we find such strong I-centredness among our travellers may be the very scientific, realistic observations we find in their writings. Scientific observation, one may argue, requires a degree of I-centredness and self-respect. As travellers increasingly observed 'reality' from their own perspective, travel literature tended to reflect their individual points of view, no longer sanctioned, as was the case in pre-Edo Japan, by set literary diction and rhetoric. This trend towards individualism is also apparent in Edo-period essay (zuihitsu) literature. During the Edo period, the realistic observations we discover in travel literature seem to be strongly related to what we can call individualism. Judging from this type ofliterature, it seems that realistic observation could not develop without the observer assuming a strong sense of self, placing himself in the centre of the observable world and speaking in the authoritative 'I'. Whether

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this is a universal phenomenon in human culture, or, whether this is a uniquely Japanese development, something I doubt, is beyond the scope of this book to argue. Let it suffice to say that English individualism developed as a result in part of political liberties and the bourgeois pursuit of self-interest, which one can also claim to apply to Edo-period Japan. We can see this individualism especially in Furukawa Koshoken and among our painters. Shiba Kokan was perhaps the most individualistic of all our painter-travellers. As we shall see later on in this book, he was an eccentric. But, such individualism is already apparent in Tani Buncho. In his Futokoro Nikki, the account of a journey from Edo (1 August 1807) to Shimokita peninsula on the northern tip of Honshu (22 September), we sense how much the traveller-author described the world around him with himself at the centre. 8 August. I left Koriyama and spent the next night at the inn-town Hatchome. I speedily left my inn. There was no rain and as I passed by Mt Asaka to the right, I composed: Shall I pass Asakayama In the light of the autumn wind? Asukayama, Cast your shape Onto the autumn water! I painted this scene. Mt Ikake's peak was hidden behind the clouds and the morning sun invisible. It was not until I reached Kinoshita that it revealed its peak. I painted this. As I entered Nihonmatsu, I ate the local delicacy: stone-fried tofu. I ate lunch at the inn. My feet were hurting. I tried to see Wakamatsuya Sauemon, an amateur poet, but he was not home. They said he had left for Edo. I also planned on paying a visit to Sekiguchi Soshuku, a doctor, but I did not go because I could not find a horse. I reached Yachome in the evening. My feet were hurting even more. My inn was the Fujikuraya. Today, it was warm and I dressed lightly. During the day it was hot but cool in the evening. I passed Kurozuka, which was to the right of the river Abukumagawa. Mt Adachi Taro was to my left. 35 We sense in this passage a strong notion of self, reinforced by his hurting feet, and careful self-centred observation of his surroundings. We find much more reference to the dangers that travel presented to the traveller personally than in any pre-Edo-period travel literature. This is undoubtedly because of the increased sense of self we discover among our travellers in the realistic style of Edo-period travel-writing. Such passages abound. Tansui described the dangers of travel during his passage to Sado island in his diary entitled Sado Nikki (1775), when during a storm the boatman warned: 'When the night is pitch black like this I do not know what the ocean is up to and to go on is even more dangerous. The boat is small and the waves big and there is no way to get the boat into the harbour,' he said sobbing in desperation. Something suddenly came to my mind on the boat and I

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shouted in an angry voice: 'You are an inexperienced skipper. Look at that cluster of three stars and steer in that direction and you cannot miss the land. Push on, push on!' I said, while drumming on the ship's side. He did not seem to understand but rowed at the rhythm of my beats. 36 Ota Nanpo was travelling along the Kiso road towards Edo in 1801 and reports that after he left Nojiri inn, his carriers slipped on the wet road at Kuranosaka and let the litter fall with Nanpo inside. 'There is no limit to such danger.'3? However I-centred they may be, most Edo-period travel accounts strangely fail to inform us about some of the basics of travel. For example, we do not know whether travellers carried a change of clothes with them, how often if at all they washed their garments, how many times a day they changed their straw shoes, how and where they relieved themselves. Among our travellers, only Matsuura Takeshiro writes about defecating, and this only because of his diarrhoea. We know through the Tokaidachu Hizakurige that farmers welcomed travellers urinating in their fields, but such information was also meant to feed the down-to-earth humour which characterizes the work. Travel historians tell us that indeed most Edo-period travellers did not carry any change of clothes but a string on which to hang the loin-cloths (jundashz) they did wash more or less regularly. It is interesting to note that they travelled wearing the same garments for weeks if not months while taking along their wooden folding pillows, folding candle stands, not to mention their medicine containers (inro), writing utensils and pipes with tobacco pouches and purses. Furukawa Koshoken reported about fellow travellers suffering from the cold in their summer clothes while they were waiting for the arrival of their warmer winter ones. Many wore straw hats to protect themselves from sun and rain, but it is unknown whether they were a permanent travelling accoutrement. On rainy days one could buy a straw raincoat or an oil-paper gappa, and, when it snowed, one could buy snow shoes and furs to keep oneself warm. What a traveller should carry with him was listed in the many available travel guides such as the Ryaka Yoshin Shu (Preparations for Travel, 1810). Our travellers rarely refer to their luggage carriers and though some like Furukawa Koshoken and Hishiya Heishichi do, they do not tell us that carrier services as well as horserenting were strictly local, going from tanya (baggage relay station) to tanya and never over large distances. These services were designed to enhance local economies. Realism in Edo-period travel writing poses the same problems as in other forms and genres of representation, Japanese or not, simply because none can ever claim to have grasped the ultimate 'relality'. Realism, therefore, is a matter of degree measured by and large on the basis of a limited understanding and seeing of reality that a new generation or group of intellectuals discover among, even blame on their predecessors. Realism is, therefore, a highly volatile concept as unstable as our 'seeing' or orientation is as we move from one generation to the next or from one way of 'seeing' to another. I, therefore, prefer qualifying our travellers to have opened up a new 'seeing', a kind of liberation from pervious 'seeing' restrictions and limitations. Of course, we can conceivably fall back to older forms of 'seeing', as observable in the numerous travellers who

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wrote according to traditional and orthodox style and rhetoric. What one can say in more definite terms about our travellers, is that their observations became more rational, pragmatic and more scientific, that is, less mythological, less religious and culturally less orthodox. Furthermore, the interest we find among our travellers in local culture or cultural idiosyncrasies also attests to the increasing willingness if not passion of the travellers to confront themselves with the constantly changing new realities that a movement through unfamiliar space entails. 3. EDO-PERIOD TRAVEL AS AN INSTITUTION

Edo-period travel developed not in isolation but within the socio-political, economic, intellectual and cultural totality of the country. In charge of governing Japan was a shogun who, in contrast to the emperors, was supposed to develop and impose practical solutions for the country. Edo-period Japan produced a number of intellectuals who advocated pragmatic solutions especially to economic problems. This was true of Ogyu Sorai 1666-1728) and Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725) both of whom left us travel diaries. 38 In the wake of the Great Tenmei Famine (1801-07), one of them, Honda Rimei (1743-1820) dreamed of making Japan into a second England, drawing its wealth from trade and recommended Japanese possession of Ezo and the Kurile islands. At that time, below the artisans and peasants, the merchants were at the bottom of the official social scale. After they helped build cities such as Edo, Osaka and the merchant quarters of Kyoto, and other feudal castle towns, they came to be known also as townsmen. Their commercial activities were much enhanced by a sophisticated money economy and a system of credit. As they grew into Japan's most affluent class, the townsmen created an urban culture that left its marks on the history of Japanese civilization. They created the pleasure quarters with their entertainment, theatres and art. They also sponsored philosophers, poets, painters, actors and created cultural salons and networks in both the cities and countryside. Supported by their affluence, the merchants engaged in the arts; many pursued the art of haikai poetry. Edo-period merchants developed networks that reached the most remote corners of the Japanese islands. They supplied land-locked areas with ocean fish and salt and carried local produce into parts of Japan where such could not be produced. We learn from our travel diaries about the rice transported to Osaka, the central rice market, which determined the value of rice according to supply and demand, from the Japan Sea side of the Northeast. We also learn how timber was floated down the Kiso region to the Pacific Ocean from where it was shipped to the cities. However, these merchant networks were not exclusively commercial; they were also cultural. Propelled by an increasing thirst for information and knowledge, the townsmen sought more objective, pragmatic information than the nobles who usually were reluctant to do anything not sanctioned by precedent. The merchants also built a publication industry to satisfy the increasing thirst for information and knowledge. The sale of books and itinerant libraries promoted reading and knowledge. Travel accounts were particularly in demand in the

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Edo period and Kaibara Ekiken, Tachibana Nankei and Furukawa Koshoken became best-sellers. Japan was increasingly becoming a nation tied together not only by martial power, but also through printed information and knowledge, which was only rivalled by enlightened Europe. We must understand Edo-period travel within the context of a feudal society. Feudalism restricted travel to officials and merchants and treated it more as a necessary evil than as freedom of movement guaranteed to all. In feudal society one belonged to the land and we know how much the feudal authorities discouraged the peasants from leaving their lands. One also belonged to a feudal territory administered by a daimyo or a shogunal official. In order to travel one had to possess a passport issued by the feudal authorities which was often not more than a letter of introduction. Village chiefs (shoya) also issued licences for local travel. From our travel accounts, we learn how much the feudal authorities restricted female travel. This was to prevent the wives of the daimyo from escaping from Edo where they were kept as hostages to ensure the loyalty of the daimyo to the shogun. The sankin kotai system of alternate attendance dictated that a daimyo had to reside in Edo for months, sometimes years, and when he was able to return to his home territory, he had to leave wives and children back in Edo as hostages. The strict checking on travelling women was a means to prevent such wives from escaping their hostage situation and joining their husbands in their home domains. I presume that the shogunal authorities uncovered such attempts, which prompted these strict controls. On the positive side, the sankin kotai system contributed significantly to the travel economy of the Edo period. A daimyo had to travel with a retinue appropriate to his income. The Maeda of Kaga province, one of the richest daimyo in the land, travelled with almost two thousand men. Koshoken described the parade of Date, the daimyo of Sendai: ' ... I have never seen such a splendid display.' Shogunal inspection tours were also comprised of numerous followers as we shall see in Koshoken's Toyu Zakki. Such display of local and shogunal power stimulated the economy. Money would pour into the villages along the highways. Travel facilities were built or improved, the roads repaired, bridges built or repaired, ferry services expanded. Litter-carriers, horse-lenders, luggage carriers, wayside tea parlours, straw shoe-makers and inns would profit from such travels. The merchants would supply these villages, inn-towns and travel facilities with the goods they needed to accommodate such large-scale travel. Such merchant activities started as soon as the itinerary and timing were announced. Merchant travel would also further boost the local economies. A number of feudal domains prohibited women from leaving their territory.39 The authoritative Onna Daigaku (Great Learning for Women, ca. 1716-36) falsely attributed to Kaibara Ekiken, recommended that husbands divorce their wives who like to go on pilgrimages and sightseeing journeys. Such obstacles abounded. As early as 1600 the widow of daimyo Maeda Toshiie (1538-99) ofKaga province wrote the Azumaji no Ki, a dairy about her journey from Fushimi to Edo where she would have to remain as a hostage to ensure the loyalty of her son. Female travel increased significantly during the popularity of the Ise pilgrim-

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ages. Towards the end of the Edo period, pilgrimages to Ise became literally a popular movement, allowing representative members of families and villages, townships and businesses, to take off on a pilgrimage to Ise. This 'mass' movement often included women and our traveller Hishiya Heishichi described two young female pilgrims on their way to Ise. How well do our travellers fit into the official social scale of the Edo period: samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants? One sometimes gets the impression that, as one moves down this scale, mobility, that is the freedom to travel, increases. But this poorly applies to our travellers. Merchants travelled mostly for commercial purposes. Even our Hishiya Heishichi travelled to solidify his commercial relationships and not, as his diary may suggest at first reading, for pleasure. As the chief administrators of the land, the samurai also travelled mostly on official errands, like Matsura Seizan. The freest of all travellers in the Edo-period were probably the yamabushi and the rokujurokubu itinerant monks, since many of them chose to live on the road. Our travellers do not fit into this scale because, even if practising healers, they were intellectuals and, of course, writers. It was intellectuals who travelled with ease given the support they got from local salons. It was they who enjoyed the most freedom, regardless of their social station. Physicians, artists and many other intellectuals did not fit into the social scale. Nor were they outcasts but simply people who fell between the cracks. It is as if the roads of Japan were outside the social stratification and as we learn from Watanabe Kazan, samurai, peasants, merchants and local amateurs mingled freely in the travellers' inns along the highways.

Passports and Barriers From our travel accounts we get the impression that it was easy to obtain a passport. But this was not always true. Sugae Masumi once had to go back to the inn he had stayed at the previous night in order to obtain the necessary documents he needed to pass a checkpoint. Takayama Hikokuro also tells us how difficult it was to pass through the Ikari barrier into the Tsugaru domain (now roughly Aomori prefecture). We learn from Masumi how lucky he was to be admitted to the Matsumae domain in southern Ezo. Had he and Hikokuro not been respectable poets of interest to local intellectuals and their salons, they might have been sent back. Cultural skills were seemingly sufficient proof to the barrier authorities that the traveller had good intentions, and we know of itinerant artists who had to demonstrate their skills in front of the barrier authorities in order to be let through. Shiba Kokan had to show off his painting ability. Furukawa Koshoken had to disguise himself as an itinerant monk to enter into Satsuma territory (now roughly Kagoshima prefecture) for fear of disease and unwanted spies. Itinerant priests (e.g. Yamabushi and Rokujurokubu) enjoyed a degree of free pilgrimages and, as Koshoken informs us, more often than not travelled for a living rather than as a religious pursuit. The noh play Ataka and its epigone, the kabuki play entitled Kanjincho give us an idea of how travellers were checked and the kind of documentation or skill they had to present to be admitted. We know also about the so-called ura-kaido, the back roads used by travellers to avoid the official checkpoints along the highways. Kanamori Atsuko has

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recently published a study of such practice and revealed that female pilgrims to the Ise and Konpira shrines and Zenko-ji temple and other destinations avoided the checkpoints. Some paid local guides to take them through the backroads. 4o In 1817, Kobayashi Kuzufuru and his wife were staying at Nojiri. They were on their way from Shinano province to pray to the Gochi Nyorai Buddhas at Imamachi (Kamietsu-shi, Nigata prefecture): When I asked at Waki Honjin, where we were staying, for a guide to take us along the backroad, I was told that there would be a guide for each group [of pilgrims] and asked if I wanted to join one of these groups. Thinking that, this way, the fees would be less, I asked to join a group and paid the fee of forty-eight man. They woke us up at the cry of the rooster and swallowed a chazuke as quickly as possible. The innkeeper was a nice man and when I paid one hundred man for the meal, he did not charge me for the sake and candle of the previous night and when I offered twelve man for the guide, he even lent me a lantern. Thus we left the inn. To the river Sekigawa it was downward for a ri and as we were walking, the stones rolled ahead of us. We extinguished our lanterns in order not to be seen when we reached the village of Kumasaka and tried not to use our staffs when crossing the bridge over Sekigawa. We slipped through the toll-bar and proceeded along the rice field ridges. It was dark and we did not know where we were headed and met a group of eight or nine people who had also slipped through the barrier and came upon the back of a house and reached the main road without incident. I gave the guide a tip of sixteen man. 41 On their way back, the Kobayashis had to brave the barrier once more from the other side. On the way they joined a group of four women and one man with a guide: We left next morning at 7 a.m. and arrived at Suginozawa. We rested a while and crossed the bridge over the Sekigawa. The bridge consisted of nothing more than a log lying across the river; we crossed in great fear, trying to balance ourselves as best we could. This river was the frontier between Echigo and Shinshu [Shinano] provinces. Therefore, the guide took us to the middle of the bridge and then went back. I thought he would take us as far as Kashihara and felt uneasy about proceeding without a guide. On the other side of the bridge was the village of Takizawa. It was a sparsely populated hamlet but we managed to ask someone about the way. 'This is not the main road. You should not be here. Go back the way you came!' He protested vehemently. We lost the courage to pass the barrier clandestinely from this side, but excusing ourselves profusely asked him to show the way. But he did not let us go. I asked why not? 'When pilgrims take this road they will not stay at Sekigawa or at Nojiri, which means that our inns and guides have no income. Usually nobody will blame you for taking this road but when there are many pilgrims on their way to the Zenkoji temple they remove the bridge over the Sekigawa.' He said ... We lowered our heads and pressed some money on him and he finally agreed to guide us. 'If I walk in front of you, they will think I am your guide, so I

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will walk behind you,' he said, looking around for anyone who might be suspicious. We passed through the fields and passed over a grassy hill, got lost in the woods and thus proceeded for a ri or so trying to duck out of sight and finally reached the village of Akagawa. Our guide came up from behind saying: 'Should anybody inquire, tell them that you stayed at Sekiyama and that you came by way of Tanigoshi!' And that was indeed what they asked us at the village Akagawa: 'What way did you take?' I replied as told and escaped from the tiger's mouth. We again joined the main road whereupon our guide demanded another one hundred mono I was much too tired to argue. 42 Such clandestine entry was severely punished when discovered and the cut-off heads of culprits displayed at the checkpoints were intended to instil fear. The well-polished weapons displayed at the barriers were also meant to intimidate travellers to make them obey the laws. Yet, like in other branches of government, the barrier officials closed an eye to their practice out of fear perhaps that, reporting such incidents to the local or national authorities might put their own administrative efficiency in doubt and their jobs on the line. During the Edo period women wrote an estimated 120-130 travel accounts. Travelling mainly because they had to and not because they wanted to, women complained about the checkpoints, the harsh treatment they were subjected to, uncomfortable palanquins, lack of hygiene, difficulty obtaining the tegata passes and, as was the case in Aoba Yamaji written by the daughter of the twelfth daimyo of Higo province, about luggage that had not yet arrived. 43 The checkpoints were formidable barriers for female travellers. Doi Ayako, who wrote the Tabi no Inochige, complains about the trouble passing the barriers and that women could be held back for days when their passes did not exactly correspond with their itinerary or identity. Thus Inoue Tsujo was held back because the pass she got at Nanba (present-day Osaka) said 'woman companion' instead of 'child' and she had to return to her previous night's inn to clarify the matter. 44 Female travellers also complained about the almost sadistic manner in which the barrier officials went about their duties; checking their hairdos and dress. Takejo, the female author of the Koshi Michi no Ki, a diary of a journey from Nagoya to Edo and back of 1720, was a shirabyoshi dancer and one of the female travellers who has left us a description of the Hakone barrier: At the hour of the Horse [11 a.m.-l p.m.] we arrived at the barrier. It was like a stockade along the mountain and, like the hole of an extracted nail, had only one exit. The bows, arrows and lances shining in the sun were an intimidating sight, making my arms and legs tremble and I must have offered a sad sight when they took off my straw hat, which protected my face from the sun, and my fan and saw my untidy sweaty face with my hair hanging down. Female puppet players, on the other hand, are treated as special and are able to pass without trouble at all. I do not know whether I should be happy or sad. Having passed over many passes today I dismissed my carrier and was walking painfully over the rocks. As I reached this place my feet were so sore I could hardly walk. 45

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Kisen'o, the author of the travel diary entitled Izu no Kuni Futokoro Nikki (1853), was a retainer of the Sakata family but, since there were many Sakata branches in Edo at that time, we do not know which Sakata Kisen'o was serving. He left Edo for the Izu peninsula and, on the 22nd, crossed the Hakone barrier. He was travelling in a palanquin. He, too, described how strictly women were checked at the barriers: I rested a while. They served us mochi in soup. After a while I left. It has often been said how hard it is to cross Mt Hakone and I think that this must be so but, now as I am riding a litter, it is like being carried on a wind-driven cloud. We descended to the edge of Ashinoyu, passed by Sainokawara and got near the Hakone barrier. Impressive weapons and travel accoutrements were placed in front of the barrier. Among the travellers were many carrying red yutan-covered chests attached to poles, and many with their long swords and packhorses bound to one another. The commotion was indescribable. I saw a card attached to a load that said: 'This person, Shibata Kimino, is charged by the District of Yamada in Ise to deliver this to the district headquarters in Edo.' There were entire families but, since it took them time to check the women, [other] travellers were held back at the barrier gate. As I was thus being held back and threatened by others, Nomura, the chief of the garrison who was also in charge of the horse relay, whom I knew, fortunately, came to where I was [waiting] and said: 'Travellers will not be cleared until the Hour of the Monkey [3-5 p.m.], ifthey begin checking the women.' And that he would try to give us special treatment. He went [back] to the checkpoint and whispering something into the barrier guard's ear came back to inform us that we would be cleared ahead as a special favour and that we should pass with haste. We were overjoyed and passed hastily, putting together all our equipment. Had that person not been there, then, we would have had to stay here overnight. We went to Nomura's house and rested a while. He offered us sake and a meal. We paid him some money and left.46 Another major hindrance to female travel was the fact that women were not admitted into temples and not all temples had special accommodations for women only the Nyonin-do (Women's Hall). Complaints about such lack of accommodation abound. 47

Lodging

After the barriers, the kinds of lodgings available to our travellers often occupy centre-stage of the new travel narrative. Individualists that they unmistakingly were, our travellers spent much ink to describe personal comfort or the lack thereof. Hence the attention they paid to travel accommodations. Lodging facilities also provided our travellers with the opportunity to exchange information with other travellers. As we shall see later, the roadside inns were also salons of sorts, and many an innkeeper was a poet, an amateur painter, or an intellectual, sponsoring one or more philosophical schools. Yamazaki Hokka (Toshiaki) was an eccentric. At the age of forty he built himself a coffin, lay in it and had his friends take the coffin to the temple Yofuku-ji in Nippori village (now a large graveyard area in Tokyo) and had

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them conduct a formal funeral ceremony for him. But when the temple priest recited the customary prayers before cremation, Hokka emerged from his coffin and started to dance. He offered his friends sake and food and they sang and danced together. He changed his name to Hokka (North Fire) indicating a kind of rebirth. Hokka wrote a travel diary entitled Cho no Asobi about a journey he undertook in 1738 from Edo to Matsushima. 'Possessed by the kami (deity or deities) and lured by the road gods .. .' he wrote at the beginning of his travel record. Whatever took him to Matsushima, he frequently alluded to Basho in his diary. Hokka left Edo on 2 March 1738. He first travelled to Koga station, then to Fujioka, a village where they were making suge hats and climbed Mt Iwafune. When he crossed the Nagano river, he stumbled over a rock and lost his straw sandal. He climbed Mt Ohira and proceeded to Muro no Yashima and, on the last day of March, reached Mt Nikko. On 1 April, he visited the temple Chusen-ji, then travelled on to Nasuno. For him it was like travelling from China to India. At the Shirakawa barrier he offered prayers to the barrier god (Sakai no Myojin). This was the boundary between Shimotsuke and Michinoku provinces. On the Shimotsuke side they had enshrined the deity Tamatsushima and the god Sumiyoshi on the Michinoku side, both deities revered by poets. He crossed the Abukuma river and, at Sugagawa station, conversed about Basho with others. After climbing Mt Asakayama, he stayed at a place called Motomiya. His innkeeper was a young man of only fourteen or fifteen. His mother, who was perhaps not more than forty, had been a widow for many years and took care of two babies left when the innkeeper's wife died: The innkeeper was only fourteen or fifteen and was on night-watch duty tonight. His mother was not yet forty and had to nurse a not-yet-two-yearold infant. She still looked young and one could not imagine that she had been a widow for so long. After I settled in that inn for the night, a blind monk beggar came and asked to be put up for the night. They accepted him, too. After we ate and drank, I shared a room with him. During the night a so-and-so from the village came and asked the innkeeper's mother to accommodate him, saying that, since her child was away, she must be too lonely to sleep alone. 'Although I am only a temporary caretaker, I am already accommodating two guests, which is enough to keep me from being lonely. We get a bad reputation if we accommodate such a young man in an inn run by a widow. I thank you for your concern, but please go home.' The young man replied: 'Do not worry about your reputation, but let me stay.' The widow tried hard to convince him but he would not listen and lay down to sleep. Both the monk and I were tired and dozed off. After midnight I heard a baby cry out loud and I woke up. I wondered what had happened. I asked in a loud voice: 'Has a mosquito bitten the baby? What is the matter?' Nobody replied and one could only hear the people huddling together. The monk woke up too and we inquired what had happened and were told that, profiting from the absence of her child, the young man had come here to have sex with her, but that, wanting to keep her chastity, the widow refused him. Is it customary in these barbaric parts of the Northeast to rape women? As the widow tried to keep away, the

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young man pushed her here and there so that the baby ended up loosing his mother's breast and was pushed out of the bed. Having lost its mother, one could hear it crawl around in the dark crying desperately. The young man had to give up his amorous adventure. Because of the commotion, the monk got angry and complained in a loud voice about the improper behaviour on account of which he was unable to sleep. He complained so many times, that it became funny. The young man's behaviour was improper indeed but, as we said this and that, as is to be expected in summer nights like these, the roosters cried early and the sky dawned. The young man had disappeared, none knows whither. For the widow, this must have been an unpleasant experience. She rearranged her hair and stilled her baby. Her face betrayed her shame and, ironically, she felt embarrassed even while she was preparing our breakfast. 48 Others like the author of Tabi no Fu complained about the dirty room, cavedin tatami mats, which did not cover the entire floor, the leaking roof, the noise, the ugly faces of those who had just got up, as well as about the salesmanship of those who pressed their mochi and sake on travellers at Mahari pass, shouting: 'If you do not eat this, you will face the ferocious features of Enma, the King of Hell' and about the cold noodles served even in wintertime. All this reminds us all too well of Basho's and Isabella Bird's (1831-1904) author of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880) complaints about the lice in the tatami mats that made much-needed sleep all too precarious. The Noeki Kiko is the account of a journey, which the author sent to his mother. He had been ordered to the Kiso river region, an area rich in timber, to find appropriate wood for the repair of the Ninomaru tower of Edo castle which had burned down in 1831. He recorded the following episode on 19 June 1838: Today we did not go into the mountains but were waiting for instructions from officials in Edo. A man called Hayashi Teinosuke, a low-ranked samurai of the Owari domain in charge of the Kiso region, told the following story to one of my retainers: 'In the area of Kashimo there lived a young couple with the husband's old mother. There was a travelling merchant who used to stay with them. (Whenever he travelled from Hida to Mino provinces he used to stay over at Kashimo and exchange his carriers and packhorses here. He and the deputy (gundaz) of Hida hired carriers and horses here). One day, when he was staying there, the young couple went to bed early in the evening and enjoyed sexual intercourse on the other side of the partition wall, preventing the merchant from sleeping. 'Country folks do strange things I do not understand,' he said laughing. The old mother got angry saying: 'A happy couple lets the offspring prosper. When I was young we did the same, which is why I had children. There is nothing better for young couples to do and I have always encouraged them to have sex day and night. It is you who accuse us of being simple country folk who are strange. I do not want to offer lodging not even for a single night to a man who does not respect the ways of mankind. Get out of here quickly!' She said cursing the man in an unbelievably loud voice. He excused himself as well as he could and was able to stay on that

INTRODUCTION

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night. In these parts, someone who stays in a house of the mother-in-law or the elder brother, the day of marriage, would have to sleep with the bride. This is a custom they call entrusting her to the God Ebisu and only after that is the couple allowed to sleep together.'49 The above are but scanty examples of what travellers had to expect and endure during their stays at countryside inns. In Europe, too, travellers wrote down their reactions to the welcome, quality of food, warmth of the mattresses, cleanliness and the innkeepers' scheme to 'fleece you of your money' as Tobias Smollett wrote in his Travels Through France and Italy . .. (1766).50 The above prefatory notes are not complete but meant to prepare the reader for the following texts and to enable him or her to read them in context. For those eager to get more background about the Edo period, I recommend George Sansom's classic Japan - A Short Cultural History. NOTES

1. She is currently a professor at Fukuoka Kyoiku Daigaku. 2. Other such works ofIkku's school were, e.g. Ou Ichiran Dochu Hizakurige (1848-50). 3. 'Travellers' Tales: Three Eighteenth-Century Travel Journals' Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (December 1990). 4. Date Yoshimura (Sendai) wrote four, his younger brother wrote two, Hotta Masaaki wrote two, Satake Yoshimasa wrote many (eight volumes between 1806 and 1814). Matsudaira Yoshinaga wrote twelve. Matsudaira Sadanobu wrote nine. Many daimyo wrote diaries about journeys to pay respect at the shogunal mausoleum at Nikko: Nikko Kiko, Michishiba no Tsuyu and Nikkoyama Kiko, etc. Matsura Seizan's Sankin Kotai diary included in the KashiYawa also contains homage to the shogun and the emperor. 5. Some traveller poets tried to add to the list of utamakura but had to do this negatively. Sogi (1421-1502) introduces the pine forest of Hakozaki in Kyushu in his Tsukushi Michi no Ki as a beautiful one, but adds that, because it is not a famous place, it does not attract him. Matsuo Basho mentions Ishinomaki in his celebrated Oku no Hosomichi, but uses fiction to justify such mention saying that he lost his way and arrived at Ishinomaki by chance and against his will. His companion Sora, however, makes it clear that Ishinomaki had been on Basho's itinerary from the start of the journey to the North. Sodenoura: Yamagata prefecture. 6. The Tokaido Meisho Ki quotes from the Fuboku TXakashu eighty-one times, thirty-four times from the Manyoshu, thirty-one times from the Zoku Kokin TXakashu, twenty-one times from the Shinkokin TXakashu, and twenty times from the Shui TXakashu. The same applies to quotations from historical works at places of historic interest. The Tokaido Meisho Zue quotes from the Azuma Kagami thirty-three times, eighteen times from the Taihei Ki and contains eleven quotations from the Engi Shiki, ten from the Heike Monogatari, and one can add many more works to the list. 7. Tokan Kiko (1242), Izayoi Nikki (1279-80), Kojima no Kuchizusami (1353), Fuji Kiko (1432), Fujikawa no Ki (1473), Azuma Michi no Ki (1533) allude to Gokyogoku Sessho at Fuwa barrier. 8. Jinju Kiko (1802), Zokuzoku Kiko Bunshu, Zokuzoku Teikoku Bunko, 37 (Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho Ruiju Kansei Kai, 1901) p. 655. The Kaigen Kiko (1801) about a journey along the Tokaido road, and the Jinju Kiko (1802) about the same journey along the Kiso road. Karuizawa Dochu Sugoroku (c. 1779-80) under the pseudonym: Yam ate no Bakahito. Asuka river: Takechi district, Nara prefecture. 9. Zoku Gunsho Ruiju, p. 1317. 10. Zoku Kiko Bunshu, p. 463, Kanto Kaido Ki (1622), Totomi-no-Kami Masakazu Kiko

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(1627), Kanshi Michi no Ki (1720) and the Koshi Tabi Nikki (1824) all refer to the Ise Monogatari at Utsunoyama. 11. Itasaka Yoko, 'Seigen'in Michiko no Kikobun' Kumamoto Tandai Ronshu, no. 53 (February, 1976) p. 13. 12. Shoshu Junran Ki. 13. Itasaka Yoko, 'Yama no Kiko' Gobun Kenkyu, no. 63 Gune, 1985). Itasaka mentions eighty-one accounts of journeys to mountains. 14. Annot. Asakura Haruhiko, Yoyo Bunko, 346 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1989) p. 122. 15. This is the case in Heishin Kiko (1616). 16. Nikki Kiko Shu, Tsukamoto Tetsuzo, ed., Yuhodo Bunko, 96 (1935) p. 286. This Chinese kanshi poem alludes to Li Po's: The phoenix which had once played on the Phoenix Platform They are all gone now and the desolate platform, Leaving only the river in its lonely course; The once flowery gardens of the palace ofWu Are now buried under the ghostly paths; What is left of Shin Dynasty's royal garments and offical hats Are these ancient hills. The Three Peaks soar into the blue sky through the clouds And the river splits into two at Hakuroshu; Chang-an is out of sight and the people live in fear Without the sun well hidden behind the floating clouds. 17. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 3 (Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1972) p. 234. 18. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 65. 19. p.100. 20. p.74. 21. Itasaka Yoko quotes this from a letter by Motoori Norinaga in 'Kinsei Kiko Bungaku no Yoso' Fukuoka Kfyoiku Daigaku Kiyo, no. 34 (February, 1985) p. 3. 22. Fukuoka Joshigakuin Daigaku Kiyo, no. 3 (February 1993). 23. Nan'en wrote Nanyu Kiko about his journey from Fukuoka to Satsuma and back. 24. Li Shizheng followed neo-Confucian taxonomy of flora and fauna as developed in the Song dynasty. He classified his materia medica according to the Five Elements (wuxing) and yin-yang priciples. Like his Song predecessors such as the Xinxiu Bancao (659) Li was also concerned about the correct names for things (zhengming). 25. In Ekiken Zenshu, 6 (Tokyo: Ekiken Zenshu Kankobu, 1911) p. 338. watanabe Kazan - Yasashii Tabibito, (Kyoto: Tankosha, 1974) p. 28. 26. Ono Ranzan authored the travel diaries entitled Yumo Ki (1801) and Ise Saiyaku Ki when he travelled to Ise province in search of herbs. 27. Kinsei Kiko Shusei, annotated by Itasaka Yoko (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai, 1991) pp.87-88. 28. p.56. 29. Itazaka Yoko believes that the Kairiku Sewa Nikki (1712) and the Hachijo Shima Hyoryu Ki (1746) the latter consisting of stories told by a ship owner, and other similar works possibly inspired by Masakatsu. P. 443. 30. Honzo Komoku Keimo, vol. 3 Toyo Bunko, vol. 540 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1991) pp. 189-190. 31. Ibid. 32. (Teihon-) Yanagita Kunio Shu, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963) pp. 451-452. 33. An example of this is Jerome Lalande's Journal d'un voyage en Angleterre (1763). 34. Carl Linneus (also Linne) wrote two travelogues about journeys to the Lapps: Iter Lapponicum (1732) and Iter Darlekarlikum (1734). 35. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 20 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) pp. 343-4. Adachi Taro: Adachi district, Fukushima prefecture.

INTRODUCTION

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36. Itasaka Yoko, 'Kinsei Kiko Bungaku no Yoso' Fukuoka K;;,!oiku Daigaku Kiyo, no. 34 (February, 1985) p. 6. 37. Jinjutsu Kiko, Kiko Bunshu, p. 750. 38. Ogyu Sorai wrote Kichu Kiko. 39. Such edicts are known for the Takamatsu, Kaga and Yonezawa clans. 40. Sekishonuke - Bdo no Onnatachi no Boken (Tokyo: Shobunsha, 2001). E.g., pp. 104-105, 107. This study discusses some thirty-nine travel or travel-related accounts, many for the first time. It also includes, pp. 284-99, a list of travelling expenses for pilgrims to the Ise shrines according to the Sangu Dochu Shoyo Ki. 41. Gochi Mode, p. 103. Chazuke is a broth with boiled rice in hot tea. 42. pp. 105-106. 43. Itasaka Yoko, 'Seigen'in Michiko no Kikobun' Kumamoto Tandai Ronshu, no. 53 (February 1976) p. 12. 44. Tokai Kiko 45. pp. 328-329. She even left us a confession of a casual sexual encounter at Hamamatsu. 46. p.908. 47. E.g. Azuma n 0 Yume, Tsukushi obi, Arakida Reiko's Hatsuushi no Nikki and Mokuzu. 48. (Kotel) Zokuzoku Kiko Bunshu (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1901), pp. 401-403. 49. Manuscript at Kokuritsu Kobunshokan (Tokyo), entry for 19 June 1838. 50. Tobias Smollett, Travels Through France and Italy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 43: About the Cheval Blanc Inn on the road to Nimes, he wrote: 'It is counted the best auberge in the place, tho' in fact it is the most wretched hovel, the habitation of darkness, dirt, and imposition. Here I was obliged to pay four livres for every person in my family, and two livres a meal for every person in my family, and two livres at night for every bed, though all in the same room.' p. 85.

CHAPTER

1

KAIBARA EKIKEN (1630-1714)

KAIBARA EKIKEN'S ANCESTORS were hereditary priests of the Kibitsu shrine near Okayama, but his grandfather served his domain as a samurai. During Oda Nobunaga's time (1534-82), he served the Takeda clan ofthe Kai province and after its demise, became a ronin (unemployed samurai) until he found employment, first in the Choshu domain, then with the Kuroda, the daimyo family of Chikuzen with its base in Hakata, Kyushu. His father was born in Choshu in 1597 and, after having studied medicine, became a clan doctor. He also served the merchant community of Hakata, so he was more in contact with townspeople than with other samurai. Ekiken was a precocious child who read avidly in his youth, acquiring considerable reading and writing skills. He was taught to some degree by his father and brother but also took responsibility for his own education. From his father, he learned medicine and developed a lifelong interest in healing and authored the Yojokun (Precepts of Health Care, 1713). His brother went to Kyoto to study medicine but also became interested in Confucianism and, after his return to Hakata, taught Ekiken about what he had learned from Kyoto's leading Confucian and Neo-Confucian philosophers. His brother was appointed official physician to the daimyo but seven years later, retired to the countryside to teach. His brother was influential in the formation of Ekiken's thought and Ekiken quotes his brother in his Yamato Zokkun (Precepts for Daily Life in Japan, 1687). When Ekiken was eighteen, he received a domain employment and was put in charge of accounts of clothes and supplies. He served his domain for over forty years, accompanying his lord to Edo on the sankin kotai a total of twelve times. He also accompanied his lord to Nagasaki to study coastal defence as the Fukuoka and Saga domains had been put in charge of Nagasaki's defences. This was in response to the discovery of a Portuguese priest and the arrival of a Portuguese ship, both of which had been strictly forbidden by the military government in the aftermath of the Shimabara uprising (1637-38). In Nagasaki he obtained Chinese books on Neo-Confucianism such as Zhuxi's Chin-ssu lu (Reflections on Things at Hand) and wrote a commentary on this

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33

entitled Kinshiroku Biko. Between 1650 and 1657, he lost his employment and became a ronin. He studied a while in Nagasaki until his father summoned him to Edo. In Edo, he continued studying and frequently met with the official bakufu (shogunal government) scholar Hayashi Gaho (1618-80). Upon his return to Fukuoka with his father in 1657, he was re-employed by the domain and assisted in the transformation of the domain's civil government. Later, Ekiken was sent to Kyoto by his domain to further his studies. He stayed there for the next seven years, meeting with Kyoto's leading scholars. Kyoto was a philosophical centre at that time and provided Ekiken with much intellectual stimulus and discussion. He met with Matsunaga Sekigo (1592-1657) a student of Fujiwara Seika (1561-1619) and teacher of Kinoshita Jun'an (1621-98). Seika died shortly afterwards, but Ekiken maintained a close friendship with Jun'an. Jun'an was interested in practical learning. While in Kyoto, Ekiken also attended Yamazaki Ansai's (1618-82) lectures. Interested in strict moral discipline, Ansai was more dogmatic than Jun'an, and Ekiken was critical of his thought. Some years later, he also met with Ito Jinsai (1627-1705) but criticized Jinsai's rejection of Zhuxi's Neo-Confucianism in favour of going back to the sources of Confucianism. Ekiken entertained wide interests and was equally drawn to Nakamura Tekisai's (1629-1702) knowledge of astronomy and botany. In 1666, Nakamura published a work on the classification of natural objects. Ekiken also knew the celebrated herbalist Ino Jakusui who promoted Ekiken's own interest in plants. Ino published a catalogue of natural products in 1692 and one on edible plants in 1696 and, in 1697, began a massive encyclopaedia of natural products, intending to fill a thousand volumes. This project was sponsored by the Maeda clan on Jun'an's recommendation. The encyclopaedia was left incomplete at Inao's death and completed in 1735 under the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune's orders. In 1709 Ekiken published his own Yamato Honzo (Plants of Japan). He classified Japanese plants according to thirty-five categories including birds, shells and fish, in all 1,550 objects. In this encyclopaedic work, Ekiken demonstrates his skills as an acute and careful observer, a talent he exploited equally in his travel literature. Both Ekiken, in 1672, and Inao, posthumously in 1717, published editions of the famous Ming compilation of Li Shi-zhen's Bencao Gangmu. Published in 1596, Hayashi Razan obtained a copy and submitted it to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), first shogun of the Edo period with commentary and translations into Japanese of Chinese botanic terms. In 1659, Ekiken became acquainted with Mukai Gensho (1609-77), a doctor and botanist and the founder of a Confucian academy in Nagasaki. Mukai Gensho was a scholar of medicine and astronomy and had a deep influence on Ekiken. Ekiken also developed a friendship with Miyazaki Yasusada (1623-97), well known for his book on agriculture, Nogyo Zensho, published in 1696. To compile this book, Miyazaki Yasusada had travelled to various provinces and talked to local farmers, studying local production and ways to improve it. Ekiken provided him with Chinese books on agriculture and was instrumental in publishing the Nogyo Zensho. At about this time, Ekiken began lecturing in Kyoto on Confucian and Neo-Confucian topics.

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In 1664, he was ordered back to his domain. Back in Fukuoka, Ekiken spent his time lecturing and conducting research on the history and topography of Chikuzen province and writing. He frequently lectured to the daimyo and his heir to encourage spiritual pursuits and foster political leadership. While in Edo, he was asked to lecture to the shogunal heir. He gave advice to the domain on taxes and took the view that it is better to reduce expenses in Edo rather than raise taxes and burden the farmers. In 1703, he published a theoretical treatise entitled Kunshikun (Precepts for the Nobles) encouraging wise and humane government. EKIKEN AS A PHILOSOPHER

The extent of Ekiken's interests was truly encyclopaedic: he was interested in ethics, manners, institutions, linguistics, medicine, botany, zoology, agriculture, production, taxonomy, food, sanitation, law, mathematics, music, military tactics, astronomy, geography, history, archaeology and genealogy. He published essays on etiquette, philology, Confucianism and NeoConfucianism, education, Chikuzen topography, the genealogy of the Kuroda clan, botany, travel and farming. He was a precursor of what was to become known later as poxue, the universal interests and knowledge the Japanese called hakubutsugaku. Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), the German physician and scholar who stayed in Nagasaki from 1823 to 1828, recognized Ekiken's remarkable knowledge and called him the Aristotle of Japan. Ekiken claimed that the Neo-Confucian universal principle (rz) and physical phenomena (kz) are not separate but innate. Strongly influenced by Mingdynasty scholars, he believed that each phenomenon contains a universal principle. Ekiken moved away from the Neo-Confucian principle of the heart to the principle of things. Phenomena are subject to rules governing heaven and earth and the universal principle underlies all phenomena determining their life and behaviour. Pursuing this line of thought, Ekiken tried to legitimize the pursuit of natural science. One should study things in nature rather than some abstract principle. According to his Daigi Roku, universal principle and phenomena are inseparable. Whereas Ekiken believed in a one-dimensional rilki relationship, Yamazaki Ansai maintained a two-dimensional rilki philosophy. Ekiken did not go so far as to reject the universal principle altogether, as Ogyu Sorai had done. He instead applied his understanding of universal principle to empirical rationalism. He found that morality was inseparable from things and is to be found in the empirical investigation of things. To research was to be a gentleman. He believed that empirical and religious elements form a unity. Ekiken was particularly influenced by Luo Qinshun's (1465-1547) idea of naturalistic monism, which he developed in his Kunzhi Ji (Painfully Acquired Knowledge). This text came to Japan via Korea and Yi Yulgok (1536-84). Luo's thought shifted the emphasis from the moral abstract sphere to the real and practical aspects of learning (Ch: shi xue Jap: jitsugaku). Ekiken was also drawn to the applied sciences. He believed that knowledge should be made useful to the public and should improve life. Ekiken called this an altruistic, selfless love for things; hence Ekiken's lifelong attempt to inform

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35

the public. He wrote numerous travel records and encyclopaedic compilations to educate the people. For him, this endeavour became a calling or 'way' (do, micht). Ekiken put into practice Zhuxi's Neo-Confucian philosophy of broad learning and wide experience, scepticism, fair and objective judgement and thorough investigation. He wrote in his preface to his Yamato Honzo: One should not blindly regard all one has heard as true and reject what others say merely because they disagree, nor should one be stubborn and refuse to admit mistakes. To have inadequate information, to be overly credulous about what one has seen and heard, to adhere rigidly to one's own interpretation, or to make a determination in a precipitate manner, all these four modes of thinking are erroneous. In his Taigiroku (Record of Serious Doubt, 1714), he wrote:

After one studies one has doubts, after one doubts one has questions, after one questions one can think, after one thinks one can understand. 1 The acquisition of knowledge proceeds from study to doubt and question, studying being the prerequisite for knowledge. Objective knowledge leads to inner knowledge. Ekiken advocated practical learning for the benefit of selfcultivation and selfless dedication to others. He had a deep respect for all forms of life. Ekiken advocated an altruistic love for all things. He followed the NeoConfucian principle of study as self-cultivation. The more one studies, the more one knows, the closer one comes to understanding the universal principle; hence the combination of outward concentration and inward realization. Ekiken remained within the Neo-Confucian confines by combining antiquarian and empirical study with an effort at self-cultivation. In Ekiken's time, natural science for its own sake was still inconceivable. It had to have a moral dimension and be pursued with a moral purpose. Ekiken was also drawn to Ogyu Sorai's emphasis on studying antiquity. This philosophy of a past golden age encouraged the study of Chinese antiquity and, later, under the Kokugaku (Native Learning) school, of Japanese antiquity. Rather than choosing one over the other, Ekiken synthesized the two into a system of thought, which sought the truth in both the past and the present. As an educator, Ekiken wrote many books on education (kunmono), not only for the benefit of the samurai but all classes. He was a lecturer to the domain lord, tutor to his heir and retainers and, as we have seen, researcher of various projects commissioned by the domain. Socially conscious as he was, Ekiken also emphasized the Confucian principle of ritual and etiquette (rez). He wrote about the Three Rites: Calligraphy (correspondence with his fellow humans), Eating and Drinking Tea, and all social arts. Etiquette creates ideal human relations, which benefit the orderly conduct and ultimately society. Ekiken sought universal knowledge, despite Ito Jinsai's view that universal knowledge is not a genuine Neo-Confucian pursuit. Ekiken rejected abstract philosophy and considered Ito Jinsai's hermeneutics as just one man's opinion.

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Eiken liked engaging others in philosophical debate, a kind of debate that became a commonplace among Edo-period intellectuals who represented certain schools ofthought. Thought became 'debatable', that is subject to verification through scientific proof or, like in ancient Greece and medieval Europe, to the logic of 'logos'. Scholarly debate contributed to the development of thought and to the intellectual modernity we observe in this period. EKIKEN AS A TRAVELLER AND TRAVEL AUTHOR

Ekiken travelled to Nagasaki in 1649 but left no record of his journey. Later, he went on two more official errands. On one of these occasions he described the Dutch in a sympathetic manner that one would not expect so soon after the shogunal government put into effect its quasi-seclusion policy: The Dutch are a more polite and law-abiding people than other foreigners. They bow each morning to their fathers and mothers at their beds. Even those who come to Nagasaki do not take concubines but instead gaze at the portraits of their wives that they brought along. They do not engage in homosexuality, which is strictly forbidden and severely punished when discovered. When they catch homosexuals they drown them in the ocean. There are no places in the world they do not reach on their boats. They always feed on bread wherever they go but also eat chicken, pork and beef. Their eating habits differ from the Japanese. They do not eat hot soups but drink milk with every meal. Their vegetables differ from the Japanese and they plant their own on Dejima island in Nagasaki. As a side dish, they eat something they call henruda like the Japanese eat mountain vegetables. They write horizontally in a script containing twenty-five symbols, which are like our hiragana script. Their swords are much thinner than the Japanese ones. Their birds, animals, plants and trees all differ from the ones one finds in China and Japan. Their medicine is also divided into surgery and internal medicine. After that, Ekiken described the Dutch ship in detail. 2 In 1684 (aged fifty-five), Ekiken went to Edo on an official errand. In the fourth month of the same year, he travelled from Edo to Osaka along the Tokaido and Mino roads, and then went to Takasago and home to Chikuzen province. In October of the same year he left home again to go to Edo via Osaka and Kyoto. The following year, Ekiken received permission to travel to Kyoto by the Kiso road. He left Edo on 15 March and went first to Nikko, then along the Kiso road to Tsuruga and Kyoto where he arrived on 3 April. In June, he left Kyoto for home via Itsukushima, often complaining of ill health. Ekiken wrote about these travels (1684-85) in a diary entitled Azumaji no Ki. 3 Three years after the Azumaji no Ki, in 1688, the same year Matsuo Basho wrote his celebrated Oku no Hosomichi, Ekiken took again to the road. On 25 January he left Kyoto for Tanba, Tango and Wakasa provinces and returned to Kyoto on 2 March. These travels resulted in the Tanba, Tango and ~kasa Kiko (manuscript at Kyoto University Library), which was later included in the Kishi Kiko (Tenri University copy). He left Kyoto again on 10 February 1689 for Wakanoura, Yoshino, Chihaya castle and returned to Kyoto on 23 February

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37

1689. This resulted in his Nanyu KiJi. Two days later, on 26 February he departed towards Settsu province, Kinryu-ji temple, Kosobe and Ise-dera temple to return to Kyoto on the 27th. This resulted in his Shimagami Kiko. He was sixty years old. In 1691, Ekiken wrote Koto Kiko about a trip from Kyoto to Lake Biwa, Mt Daigo, Seta, Ishiyama temple, Yasu river, Mt Hachiman, Chomyo-ji temple, Azuchi castle, Otsu, Mii-dera temple, and back to Kyoto. The following year (1692) Ekiken wrote the Jinshin Kiko about a trip in which he went by boat from Arata in Chikuzen province to Murotsu in Harima province, on land to Himeji, Hyogo and again by boat to Osaka, Kuho-ji temple, Yao, Mt Ikoma, Tatsuta river, Kyoto, Iga, Ise, Mt Monobe, Mt Fuji, Kamakura and Edo. 4 Two years after writing the Jinshin Kiko, he wrote the KumanoJi no Ki, not about a journey he undertook in reality but on the basis of secondary sources. The same year he wrote the Fukoku Kiko, included in volume three of the Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, based on the most reliable copy now in the Kokura City Library. In 1698 he went to Arima spa with his family and produced the Boin Shunyu Ki. Ekiken wrote his diaries in Japanese (wabun), which he considered a more understandable and appropriate style for his Japanese readers than kanbun Chinese. Ekiken seems to have been driven by a passion to inform and be 'useful' as advocated by the philosophy of Zhuxi. In his AzumaJi no Ki he wrote a detailed account of why he wanted to travel: In spring of last year, I travelled to the east of Musashi province at the lord's behest and I returned home on the Day of Tango [5 May]. In the winter of the same year, the lord dispatched me again to the same place and I returned in the month of March with spring as my companion. After that I got permission to leisurely travel in the region of the Tosando. As I travelled, I noted down the distances I had covered as I always do, and described the famous and historical places, the notable sights and either the important shrines and temples, or the old battlefields and military strongholds, according to what I had learned from the local people. I noted down these things and my notes gradually became a book. I wanted to use it as a souvenir for later and for the benefit of people who had not yet travelled in these areas, as the saying goes: 'It is a pleasure to transmit what others say.' I noted down these things in the vernacular language, leaving the style up to my brush. The ancients had always sought out the famous places and the beautiful sights, but the pursuit of this pleasure is even more difficult than to get rich and famous. It is said that the creator does not let ordinary people see the beautiful mountains and rivers he had created and is cherishing. By what great fortune then do I have the rare chance to see such places? Is it by god's or the lord's grace? I will certainly never forget their favour. I merely noted down what I was told by the local people and horsemen along the way and there must be many shortcomings and I welcome the comments from those who know better than me the geography of each place. 5

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Availing himself of the improved roads and roadside facilities promoted by the Tokugawa shogunal government, Ekiken travelled in relative safety and comfort. Relative, that is, to the preceding Warring States (1467-1573) and Azuchi-Momoyama (1568-98) periods. This was also, as I have noted above, the beginning of printed books and their distribution, which was a response to an increasing thirst for information and knowledge. No doubt, Ekiken wrote to be read. Hence his diaries provide basic information about roads, distances, dangers and roadside facilities, which could be used as travel guides, or for 'armchair travel' for readers who were unable economically, legally or physically to travel. From among his various travel records, I have selected a portion of his Kishi Kika entitled 'Nanyu Kiji', an account of a journey he undertook in 1689 to Kawachi, Izumi, Kii and Yamato provinces, because it is the most personal among all his travel accounts. NANYU KJJI (ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH)

Ekiken left Kyoto on 2 October and crossed Shimo Toba to the south of the city to visit Yodo (a town more than three ri from Kyoto). He says: 'I went to see Mizudare Myojin, Oarakinomori. I saw Imoarai. I crossed the Ohashi [Big Bridge] (spanning from east to west, but leaning slightly to the north) and passed Mizuno village (a town south of Yodo Ohashi and near Yawata. A famous site) I passed Yawata (four and a half ri from Kyoto's Ichijo street).' Then he reached Horagatoge pass: Horagatoge is more than half a ri to the southeast of Hachiman. A camphor tree stands on the top, marking the frontier between Yamashiro and Kawachi [provinces]. (They call it Horagatoge, but there is no hora [cave]. There is a place, which looks like a cave just south of the pass. Rather than a pass, it is a hill). There is a place dedicated to [the deity] Hachiman below the pass and, one ri from there, one comes to a grave. From here, all over Kawachi province, one ri is forty-eight cho. Tanokuchimura (Kawachi province, Katano district) ... I did not take the main road from Kozu no Chaya [Kozu Teahouse] (one ri from Yawata and over five ri from Kyoto) and I passed the village Nashizukuri to the east and reached Kisaichi. I wanted to see the mountain Shishikutsu and Iwafune, about thirty cho from Kozu. 6 At the time Ekiken travelled, one could never be certain whether one would find appropriate accomodation the next evening or not: Tonight I stayed at the house of Nizaemon, the shoya ofKisaichi. Since this is a not-much-travelled area, the villagers are suspicious of travellers and refuse to lodge them, but Nizaemon was a compassionate man and accommodated me. He offered me a splendid meal consisting of many delicacies and treated me well. His younger brother was a priest who lived off his elder brother. He was gravely ill at the time and was nursed at Nizaemon's house. Nizaemon had me pass the night in the priestly quarters. Nizaemon was thirty-five or six this year. He was a talented and learned man. His house was a rich one. 7

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On the 11th, Ekiken climbed up to Shishikutsu (Lion Cave) which had a temple built by Priest Gyogi (668-749) at the behest of Emperor Shomu (701-56): It is a very hallowed place, two flights of stairs high. The Buddha's hall is a splendid one. There are many big and strangely shaped rocks on this mountain and, to my great fortune, many cherry trees, all in full bloom. One could see Osaka, Amagasaki, Takatsuki and Maki. With the Amanokawa flowing below, it offered a beautiful sight indeed. 8 The following was just after Ekiken visited Kusunoki Masatsura's (1326-48) grave. At present Daito-shi the Yamato river created the pond Fuko no Ike, which was eventually filled in, and the village here described was submerged. The pond was more of a lake, one ri, or half a ri east-west or, according to other accounts, three ri north-south. There is an island with a village called Manga: There are seventy or eighty fishing households on Manga island, but only a few fields. This island is twenty cha from north to south and five or six cha from east to west. Such fish as carp, roach, weI, hasu, wataka, shrimp, eel and tsuga abound in the pond. There are many fishing boats. Also, there are many water chestnuts. They make dumplings out of them or cook them into porridge, or they make them into cakes. Or, they sell them for income. They have set aside a special day to gather water chestnuts. They determine beforehand what group goes where; it is forbidden for anybody to pick them up individually. The water chestnuts are not taxed. They catch river fish every day and sell it to Osaka merchants. Or, the fishermen travel in their boats to tend their fields on land. Goku village [present Gokuden, Daitoshi, Osaka-fu] lies to the east of the pond. It is linked to the coast. This territory once belonged to the Hiraoka Myojin shrine. Here, too, there are many fishermen. Many lotuses grow in that area. They pick them up and sell them for income. 9 After that, Ekiken proceeded along the foot of Mt Iimori, Mt Shibi, Matsubara, Itabashi, Mt Hiraoka, Shonichisan Joko-ji temple and Yao, visiting many temples along the way. At Atobe village he reports: There is the pond where they washed Minister Moriya's [cut-off] head. The Kubizuka and Mukurozuka, the two graves where his head and body were buried, are to the east. The Kubizuka covered with pines lies to the north whereas the Mukurozuka, only covered with springtime grasses, is south. I could not bear looking at the place where [Mononobe] Moriya [d. 587] lost his life. The battle between Moriya and Shotoku Taishi [574-622] took place here. It is now a grassy field. 10 In the earlier Nanyu Kika version, Ekiken had added the following moral judgement of the event: Minister Moriya respected the gods of this country. In order to protect Japan from the Western gods [Buddhas], he became the object of Prince Umayado [Shotoku Taishi] 's hatred and, unjustly accused of insubordination, he was killed here. 11

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Ekiken was one of the pioneers to study the imperial tombs in central Japan: South of the temple [Gorin-ji], there is an imperial tomb on a hill surrounded by a wide and deep moat. It is a large tomb like Emperor Nintoku's tomb in Sakai. The villagers say it is Emperor Hansei's tomb. Ekiken preceded Motoori Norinaga trying to identify tombs with early emperors by verifying the tombs's locations in ancient sources: Others say it is Emperor Richu's. Taking the Engi Shiki and the Nihongi into account, Emperor Richu's tomb is 'the tomb to the south of Mimihara of Mozuno'. Therefore there can be no doubt that the tomb is south of Nintoku's tomb, which is east of Sakai. In the Nihongi, under the fifth year of the reign of Emperor Ingyo, it says that Emperor Hansei's tomb is 'the tomb to the north of Mimihara'. In the Engi Shiki, too, it says that Emperor Hansei's tomb is 'the tomb north of Mimihara of Mozu' which corresponds to the tomb of Tadagaike at Sakai. Therefore it is unclear which emperor is buried in this tomb. Since, according to the Engi Shiki, Emperor Yuryaku's tomb is in Kawachi province, Tajihi district, Takawashihara, it may be that this is Emperor Yuryaku's tomb. Now this area is part of the Tannan district. In the past, however, Tannan and Tanhoku were yet undivided and both called Tajihi. The Engi Shiki concurs that Emperor Nintoku was buried in the Sakamoto tomb of Haniu, Tajihi district. But, because there is no mountain around the tomb at Fujiidera, it could not have possibly been called Sakamoto [Below the Slope]. This is according to the Shoryo Shiki [of the Engi Shikz1. These are the only two tombs in Tajihi. 12 At Fukuden and Ono, Ekiken found large tobacco plantations. 'In this area they only plant tobacco in the fields. Local farmers told him that: 'If we plant every year, the tobacco is not good.' So they let the fields go fallow and plant every three years.' 13 On the 13th, Ekiken went to see Amanosan Kongo-ji, a temple founded by the monk Gyogi and enlarged by Kobo Daishi (774-835). It had one hundred priestly quarters in the past, but in the middle ages (roughly 1185-1600) it shrunk to seventy and now there are sixty with an income of three hundred bushels (koku) of rice. The temple was eight ri from Osaka and four-and-a-half from Sakai and twenty-one ri from Kyoto and was located on the way from Izumi to Kawachi province. 14 From there Ekiken visited the temple Kumedera 'which has many old documents' before reaching Sano Ichiba (Izumi province) a place of one thousand houses, all of them tile-roofed, and many rich merchants, many of whom own cargo boats. For Ekiken, Izumi province [roughly Osaka prefecture] was a fertile and rich area. Izumi is a fertile region and the farmers work hard and know well how to grow their crops. Therefore, they harvested much more wheat and nappa cabbage than do other provinces and the crops are more beautiful. The plants grow so closely together that the fields look like a thick reed plain. There is no garbage in the fields and the ridges are straight as if built by

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carpenters with their precision instruments. I wish I could show this to the peasants of other provinces. 15 Ekiken attributed the fertility to the fine fields and hard labour. From there Ekiken went by way of Fukiage and Toshogu shrine to the Wakanoura bay: The sight this bay offers surpasses what I had heard of it and it has impressed me deeply. As I was concentrating too much on the view, I hurt my foot on the beach and was unable to walk for quite a time. I managed to return to the road in great pain. 16 After that he went to the Tamatsushima shrine, a sanctuary steeped in the history of poetry, to offer his prayers. Then he mentioned the so-called 'Eight Views ofWakanoura Bay' and the poems composed about it.17 About Kimiidera, a temple he reached a short while later, he wrote: Among the three famous sights of Japan I have seen, Matsushima, Itsukushima in Aki [province] and Amanohashidate in Tango [province], are, of course, beautiful, but they do not come up to the misty scene of this bay. I have seen many beautiful sights in the provinces, but I have never seen anything like this. 18 Whatever took him to these parts of Japan, Ekiken wanted to see the famous sights: For a long time I have cherished the desire to visit Kumano, but, because I was an official and it would have taken me too long, I could not travel as I pleased and I regretted this very much. People who have been there told me: 'Among the famous sights of Japan, there is none like Kumano. You can miss seeing Mt Fuji, but not Kumano.'19 Kumano is no longer considered one of the famous sights of Japan, but it was in Ekiken's time. From Wakayama he travelled up the Ki river towards Mt Koya and Yoshino. About Negoro, a temple Ekiken reached on the 16th, he wrote: ' ... a temple which has declined greatly after (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi (1537-98) destroyed it ... It is not at all like what I had heard about it.'2o From there Ekiken passed Yokaichi village (one ri from Negoro) and reached Oi village: In Higashi Oi village there lived a rich merchant called Mori Kyuzaemon, the half-brother of an old friend of mine from my village, which is why I know his name. Since I happened to pass by, I decided to inquire about his health and I approached his house with the intention of leaving soon. But when he came out, as is customary among people living in the countryside, he invited me in and entertained me and I spent half a day with him. I missed the chance to see the Shoryo-e [celebration] of the Tenno-ji on the twenty-second and the opportunity to watch the gagaku musicians and bugaku dances. I finally left when the sun was already about to sink in the west and I was guided to Kokawa-dera temple by Kyuzaemon's servant. 21

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Ekiken also climbed Mt Koya: The Memyo bridge is three or four shaku wide and the river beneath the bridge is very shallow. They called it by this name, but, because it was near Kobo Daishi's grave, it should be Mumyo bridge. They claim that people with a bad karma cannot cross this bridge. They say that when the late Hon'ami Koetsu [1558-1637] came to Mt Koya was he unable to cross. Only after he tried seven times he was able to cross. If the Buddhas and bodhisattvas had really said this, then we should all believe it, but it is because people are ignorant, that they believe when someone comes up with bad karma they cannot cross the bridge. Since there are many who do not believe in lies or in what others say, when they hear something like this, they think that even the true teachings of the Buddha are lies, which is lamentable. 22 On Mt Koya, Ekiken was surprised to hear about the toilets and the nuisance they were causing: Someone told me jokingly that all toilets in the Koya mountains are built over the rivers, which is why they are called kawaya [river huts]. This must be unpleasant for the people who draw their water further downriver. 23 From Mt Koya, Ekiken traveled to Yoshino. He reached Yoshino just in time to see the blossoms 'the beauty of which is indescribable. If one were to force a metaphor, it would have to be snow at dawn ... I don't think there is in China a place as beautiful as this.24 Later on, at the end of this portion he wrote this about the famous sights: I have never seen so many blossoms anywhere else and, though Yoshino is known for its abundant blossoms, there is no like place like this where tens of thousands of trees grow so densely for several chao However, people from Kyoto seldom come to see them. Maybe this is because people nowadays prefer peach blossoms to cherry blossoms and think it is not worth sightseeing in these parts. 25 From there Ekiken aimed for Mt Kongo In the following passage, Ekiken is particularly I-centred, making it one of the most personal and appealing passages in his account: I gradually went up a gentle but even slope and reached Takama. This area was steep but wide and has many villages. It was thirty cha from Takama to the summit. Many cherries were growing at Takama. It is a place celebrated for its woodthrush. Big shrines [Takama Hiko] and the temple Takama-dera, stand there. From there the road was very steep and rugged. There were many dangerous places and a high cliff. It is impossible for a horse to pass. One could not even ride on a bamboo litter. From there one had a good view over Yamato province. I barely made it to the top. The Katsuragi shrine stood on the summit. It was a large shrine with a hall dedicated to En no Gyoja [legendary seventh-eighth centuries] founder of the Yamabushi (Shugendo sect of Buddhism). Going down two cha to the west, one comes to the temple Kongosan Tenporin-ji founded by En no Ozuno [Gyoja]. This is where the yamabushi [mountain ascetics] practice

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austerities during their mountain pilgrimages. There are six priestly quarters, all pretty and tall and built like ordinary houses. The peasants of Yamato and Kawachi [provinces] revere this deity. They dig up a piece of earth from under the shrine and take it home. They spread the earth over their fields and hope that the crops will grow undisturbed by noxious insects. The pilgrims are many and they all find lodging in the guesthouse. If you are not a danna sponsor, they offer no accommodation; only the Jizo-in, which has no danna, lodges travellers. They do so in a manner similar to regular inns of inn-towns or relay stations ... The shrine stands on the summit of Mt Kongo and belongs to the Yamato province. The temple below to the west belongs to the Kawachi province. A stone Fudo stands slightly west of the shrine. It marks the boundary between Yamato and Kawachi provinces. One could look down over Yamato and Kawachi and I heard that it is a beautiful view in clear weather. I was tired after climbing the steep path from Yamato. The wind that was blowing so fiercely made it even harder on me. I lodged at the temple hall Kongosan Jizo-in. The mountain was high and the wind blew all the more. This night I heard nothing else than the pouring rain and the roaring wind. Next day was the 21st. Though dawn broke, there was a dense fog and a white cloud enveloped the summit. The fog swept into the building and they lowered the shutters to keep it out. I waited until the clouds dissipated and descended one hour into the Hour of the Dragon [7-9 a.m.]. There was still a thick fog and one could hardly see ten shaku ahead. I could not see anything despite what I had heard about the scenic view from the mountain. As I went down the slope, the clouds gradually cleared. From the bottom I saw that the wind of yesterday had swept the clouds away. Only on the summit did it seem to rain on. 26 At the end of his travelogue, Ekiken wrote about his purpose for travelling: This journey of mine led me to see so many old, famous places that I would not be able to count them all. Among them were eye-catching sights such as Wakanoura, the cherries of Yoshino, the mist of Mt Otoko, the plums of Fushimi, which, of course, I had seen before. The blossoms of Higashiyama [Eastern Mountain Range] always give me the feeling of seeing them for the first time. Though they are the celebrated blossoms of Kyoto, they are especially fresh when one sees them. I feel it is a shame not to share the pleasures and awe of seeing the scenic beauty of such mountains and rivers that creation has given us. I wrote this so that others can share in it despite my unskilled brush. 27 From all of this we get the distinct impression that Ekiken wanted to take his readers to see the famous scenic sights of central Japan and let them see these sights through his eyes. He also wanted to guide them to the major sacred sites and to convey to them a fresh and unbiased description. D Interest in local history is a no less an important feature of Ekiken's travel records. For Ekiken, travel was not just movement in space from one place to

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the next, covering a certain distance, nor was it just travelling from one inn to the next. Travel was also a movement back in time and history. Whenever possible, Ekiken recounts what the locals tell him but more often he quotes what the histories say about the events that happened here and there along the highways. Local history is part of what a traveller must discover. This is why travel was in a way a journey of discovery of local history and geography. For Ekiken, history sustained geography and vice-versa. Ekiken quotes from an array of literary and historical sources, the sheer number of which is staggering given the lack of public libraries at that time. In addition to the objective and practical information he offered to his readers, Ekiken also inserted a personal note into his account. He combined information with personal reactions. We discover the 'I' at the centre of the world he visited and observed. This applies particularly to the Nanyu Kiji. Objective, impersonal description is interspersed with subjective reaction. In Ekiken's writings, the 'I' starts intruding into 'public' writing, that is, to-bepublished writing. Ekiken's reactions to landscape, combined with a critical mind, pioneers later travel authors and philosophers such as Furukawa Koshoken and Motoori Norinaga. Norinaga and Ota Nanpo liked Ekiken's travel accounts. Ekiken heralded, what I am tempted to call, the Japanese enlightenment movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. NOTES

1. llimalO Honzo in Ekiken Zenshu, 6 (Tokyo: Ekiken Zenshu Kankobu, 1911) p. 2. Taigiroku in Kaibara Ekiken, Muro Kyuso Nihon Shiso Taikei, 34. Araki Kengo et aI., annot. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970) p. 10. 2. This text can be found in Itasaka Yoko, 'Kyushu Kiko Shoko' Genbun Kenkyu, no, 62 (December 1986) pp. 23-4. 3. This includes the following sections: 'Tokaido', 'Minoji', 'Banshu, Takasago yori Muro made', 'Tozando, Kisoji Akasaka made', 'Edo yori Nikkoji', 'Nikko yori Kurakano', 'Sekigahara yori Tsuruga', 'Tsuruga yori Jokyo', 'Itsukushima Ki'. 4. We understand from the above that Ekiken wrote numerous travel records, some of which contain diaries he had originally written separately. His Kishi Kiko includes his Seihoku Kiko Qourney to the Northwest) and Nanyu Kiko Qourney to the South), and his Azumaji no Ki contains nine separately written accounts. Later in his life, Ekiken rewrote many of his diaries and put them together under different titles. His Kisoji no Ki was included in the Azumaji no Ki under the sections 'Tozando' and 'Minoji'. The Shoshu Junran Ki published in 1713, which included the Seihoku Kiko, was published with the Kishi Kiko under 'Tanba, Tango, Wakasa Kiko' and the Nanyu Kiko was published with the 'Nanyu Kiji' of the Kishi Kiko. Similarly, the Azumaji no Ki included in the Zoku Shoshu Junran Ki was included with revisions in the Azumaji no Ki under 'Sekigahara yori Tsuruga', 'Tsuruga yori Jokyo' and, the latter half, into the Kishi Kiko under 'Shimagami Kiko' and into the Azumaji no Ki under 'Banshu, Takasago yori to Muro'. The Nikko Meisho Ki published in 1717 combined 'Edo yori Nikkoji' and 'Nikko yori Kuragano'. The Azumaji no Ki published in 1714 consisted of 'Tokaido' and 'Minoji' sections of the older Azumaji no Ki with revision made by the publisher Ryushiken. See on this, Itasaka Yoko, 'Ekiken no Kikobun - sono Sosaku Jokyo to koko no Sakuhin ni tsuite -' Fukuoka K;;,!oiku Daigaku Kiyo, no. 35 (February 1972). 5. Azumaji no Ki in Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 98, annotated by Itazaka

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Yoko, et al. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991) pp. 100-101 'Azumaji no Ki no ushiro ni shirusu'. 6. pp. 125-6. Parenthesis in indented, quoted text indicates small-type explanations in the original. 7. p. 126. Shaya was a kind of village chief appointed by the daimyo to collect taxes and keep order. The shaya also accommodated travellers and issued travel passes. In the Northeast (Tohoku) the shaya were also referred to as the nanushi. 8. pp. 126-7. The cave is now located at Katano-shi, Osaka prefecture. 9. pp. 129-30. 10. p. 132. Atobe: Yao-shi, Osaka prefecture. 11. Kika Bunshu, Teikoku Bunko, vol. 22, ed. by Yanagita Kunio (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1930) p. 135. 12. p. 133. Engi Shiki (Procedures of the Engi Era) started in 905; Nihangi also Nihan Shaki (720) the first of]apan's Six National Histories; Nintoku: 16th emperor; Hansei: 18th emperor; Richu: 17th emperor; Ingyo: 19th emperor; Yuryaku: 20th emperor, all undatable. 13. p. 134. Ono: Sayama-cho, Osaka prefecture. 14. pp. 134-5. Gyogi (Gyoki) bore the title of basatsu (bodhisattva). 15. p. 136. 16. p. 140. 17. p. 142. 18. p.141. 19. p.142. 20. pp. 143-4. 21. p. 144. Gagaku and Bugaku are originally continental dances, mainly from China. Shoryo-e: celebration in honour of Prince Shotoku Taishio. Higashi Oi-mura: Uchidacho, Naka district, Wakagama prefecture. 22. p.147. 23. p. 148. The Kika Bunshu version differs from the Kishi Kika one: All the temples in the mountains build their toilets overhanging the rivers in the mountains of Koya. This is why they write kawaya [toilet] with the character 'river' rather than 'excrement'. This is bad for the people who draw their water further downriver, they drink wastewater. The same happens at Mt Hiko in Buzen province. (p. 150) 24. 25. 26. 27.

pp.150-1. pp. 162-3. pp.151-3. p. 163.

CHAPTER

2

NAGAKUBO SEKISUI (1717-1801 )

NAGAKUBO SEKISUI, a samurai of the Mito clan, is considered one of the precursors of the Mito school that played an important intellectual role before and during the Meiji restoration of 1868. He was born in Akahama village into a family of well-to-do farmers. He studied geography and caught the attention of Mito-domain officials and was given a stipend for seven people and samurai status. In his preface of the Kaisei Kiko Bunshu (1930), Yanagita Kunio calls him the founder of Japanese geography.! He was the first to draw a map of Japan in 1775 called Nippon Yochi Rotei Zenzu with latitudes and longitudes. He was also the author of a world map entitled Kaisei Chikyu Bankoku Zenzu which he had copied from Matteo Ricci's map. He was a well-respected scholar often quoted or mentioned by contemporary and later Edo-period travellers. Furukawa Koshoken and Sugae Masumi held him in great esteem. He was an advocate of rational, scientific thinking, which, depending on scholarly orientation, led to the great works on Japanese physical, economic, cultural and social geography and folklore we encounter in the travellers discussed in this book. In 1767, a Chinese junk brought back to Nagasaki the five-man crew of a Japanese ship which, driven off course from Choshi bay, Hitachi province, in 1765, had become stranded in Annam (Vietnam). Sekisui was asked to proceed to Nagasaki, where he would assist in the interrogation and repatriation of the castaways to his native Hitachi. Sekisui was fifty-one at that time. He recorded his conversations with the castaways in his two-volume Annan Ki (Records of Annan).2 Sekisui kept a travel diary entitled Nagasaki Koeki Nikki he wrote in 1767 about his journey to Nagasaki. NAGASAKI KOEKI NIKKI (DIARY OF AN OFFICIAL JOURNEY TO NAGASAKI)

Sekisui left on 1 September and, travelling at the speed required of an official, he covered the distance between Mito to Seto (near Nagoya) in merely ten days. He travelled too fast to study much physical and cultural geography. However, we do get glimpses of the critical spirit we rediscover in Furukawa

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Koshoken and Sugae Masumi. At Yugyo-ji temple in Fujisawa (6 September), he casts doubt upon the legend of Oguri Hangan. 3 Also, he does not believe in the legend that Mt Fuji came into being in a one-night eruption during the reign of Emperor Korei (7th emperor according to the Nihon Shoki chronology).4 In such observation, we discover the scientist in Nagakubo Sekisui. At Utsunoyama, a famous place for poetry, on 9 September, he mentions linked-verse poet Socho (1448-1532) and alludes to the Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise) of the mid-Heian period (794-1185). He finds the so-often-sung narrow road overgrown with ivy in the mountains, at a distance from the teahouse and left his own Chinese-style poem as countless previous travellers have done: The autumn wind comes blowing over a thousand leagues And pounds on my clothes here and there; In the twilight, a traveller on the path overgrown with ivy, Is disappearing in the fog. 5 As we have learned above, the 'path overgrown with ivy' is a poetic stereotype that generations of poets have used in connection with the place since the Tales of Ise. Yet, he saw the place not only through traditional poetry and poetic rhetoric but also mentioned its present features, for example, that they sell judango dumplings as the local product. 6 On 16 September near the Seta bridge spanning the Uji river at the southern end of Lake Biwa, he came upon the Ryujin shrine offering splendid scenery, but he added realistically that the so-called Eight Views of Omi (province) were not the only pretty ones. 7 At the site of the Ichinotani battle (1184, today Kobe city), he wrote three poems in memory of the battle and of Taira no Atsumori (1169-84), a young noble warrior who lost his life there. 8 At Itsukushima he was shown a calligraphy by Ono no Tofu (894-966), but he did not believe it. 9 At Dannoura, the site of the last battle between the Minamoto (Genji) and the Taira (Heike or Heishi) clans in 1185, Sekisui again left a poem, but it described his own observations rather than following a traditional poetic imagery: There was someone selling old Heike crabs and I composed a gosekku poem on the title: 'Heike Crabs' The emperor's grave is a dreamlike place The fireflies have illuminated for twenty-four years. These small crabs Must be the only things left With the Heike name. 10 Just before Sekisui reached Nagasaki, he passed through an area where pigs and goats were bred. 'I was told that they sell them to the Chinese in Nagasaki who slaughter them for food.'!! Nagasaki was the only place where one could eat pork in the Edo period. In the rest of Japan, meat consumption other than for medical purposes was prohibited, except fowl, the meat of wild animals (game) such as bear, deer and boar as well as fish.

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Sekisui arrived in Nagasaki on 12 October at about 2 p.m. He stayed with merchant Iseya Rizaemon at Sakuramachi. Sekisui's two companions were housed at Tanaka Kikuzaemon, an otona (head) of Sakuramachi, a Nagasaki ward, and the other nearby at Katoji, a kumigashira (chief fireman). Officials and interpreters, including Takao Kazaemon, the overseer of the interpreters, came from the magistrate's residence to greet them. Next morning Sekisui sent Kazaemon a name card with a poem asking for an introduction to a local Chinese scholar with whom to correspond. The same day, the castaways were interrogated at the magistrate's. That evening Sekisui heard about Kumashiro Tarozaemon, a local scholar of repute. Since he had not yet heard from Takao, he sent Kumashiro a Chinese poem next morning. On the 14th, he was invited to a reception at the magistrate's after which he visited the Dutch settlement on Dejima island: The flagpole standing at the gate reminded me of the flagpoles of Zen temples. All the buildings were two-storeyed. I saw the Dutch looking out of the windows and noticed their flashing eyes and their rust-red eyebrows. Their facial features differed much from ours. I saw women near them and was told that these were heathen [Maruyama district] pleasure girls. We all entered from the kitchen and, as we climbed upstairs, the Dutch came out to greet us and guided us in. Their facial skin was very white. They shaved their beards and wore black wigs. Their dress reminded me of our momohiki trousers. They were wearing buttoned gloves and socks. Their sleeveless coats were buttoned in front but open beneath their waste. They reminded me of our karuwaza [working dress]. Their dress was all made of woollen cloth. An instrument to measure the seasons, we were told, was hanging on the wall. This clock consisted of two glass tubes filled with water [thermometers]. Something was written on the board, but I could not read it. The Dutch hung many paintings about their home country on the four walls as permanent fixtures. 12 They were covered with glass and looked transparent. Their frames were very pretty. The paintings depicted various landscapes and people. Despite the fine brushwork, they were painted sloppily; there were no details. Big mirrors all made of glass were hanging on the walls and mirrored the people in the room. The ceiling was beautifully decorated. The residence was two-storeyed, floored with tatami mats like in our country. In the middle stood a table with an array of flasks containing famous alcoholic beverages, they said. One of them contained many dragon shells in a medicinal liquid. They looked like moving fish scales. Many chairs stood around the table. The captain and his secretaries always sit on chairs. Rudolf Reutman, who served as secretary at that time, came in and exchanged lengthy greetings with our leader, bowing deeply. He came with many interpreters, among them Nishiki Saburo, with whom he conversed in Dutch. The secretary bowed his head on the floor, then stood up again and sat down on the chair and pulled the table towards him. He then took the brush and wrote seven or eight pages with letters shaped like clouds. He began writing from the left and proceeded horizontally to the right. If it were not for the interpreters I would not have known what it said. The paper was like the one we use for official purposes in this country. The brush was the stalk of a bird feather and looked like

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our stone brushes. They make a cut at the end and immerse it in a black liquid [ink]. The red-haired one brought out various kinds of dried biscuits and offered us tea and wine (colour: blackish red), anise (taste: sweet and bitter containing gold dust) and a brandy wine called Pusoro (colour: whitish tasting like millet brandy). The food consisted of Cochin fruit, honey, meat seasoned in nutmeg and liquor served in a glass cup. After a while we climbed down the stairs, then climbed a tower, which stood in the flower garden. There was a kind of reception room which had a six shaku wide and one jo long high-legged table. It was covered with a woollen mat and had four holes in the corners. I asked the interpreter what this was. He explained that it was a place where the Dutch play with bowls [billiards] for money. We went down to the kitchen and saw pigs and cows suspended by their tails emitting a terrible raw smell. Four of five black slaves, including one child, stood in front of the stove. I asked him about his age but he did not understand me. When I made a gesture with my fingers, he lowered his head and retreated. He seemed about ten. His facial colour was a light black. His hair was bound together with a red cotton ribbon. 13 After that, Sekisui was taken to the pasturage where four or five pigs and seventeen or eighteen cows were pasturing. Sekisui noted that the Dutch cows were much smaller than the Japanese ones, their horns shorter and their ears larger and that they differed in shape too. But there were also cows larger than the Japanese ones. He then listed the names of the Dutch, their functions and ages and describes what he had learned in Nagasaki about the Dutch ships, when they arrive and when they leave, and about their crew. Finally, he recounted the history of Dejima and its lease. After Dejima, Sekisui visited Chinatown: From there we went to Chinatown near Juzen-ji temple and as we entered the great gate, there was a sudden shower. We took shelter in a house in front of the gate and waited until the sky cleared. Just at that time, about ten Chinese were strolling about, joking and talking. One of the men, however, mixed Chinese and Japanese words in his conversation. They looked distinguished with faces no different from ours. But this man's hair was shaved off, leaving only a round strand of hair, about two sun, at the top of his head and dividing it into three pigtails. It was bound together with something looking like a haori belt and he let it fall to the back of this head. He wore a hat made of cloth that looked like a helmet without earflaps. On the top of the hat, there was a bushel of scarlet hair, reminding one of our shojo dolls. I4 The hair was bundled at the base with something like a red silk band and the hair fell freely over the hat. His coat was bottomed together in front and looked like a hangappa (a kind of short coat). The skirt came in one, unbuttoned piece and it seemed as if they put it on from front to back. Like the Tartars, all Qin-dynasty people, from courtiers to low officials, do not wear hats to denote rank as we do in Japan. This is their custom. IS After a while, the rain stopped. Sekisui and his companions passed through the middle gate, offered their respects at the Shishindo (Chinese temple dedicated to Guan Yu, a brave general of the Three Kingdoms) and, from there climbed upstairs from the side of the kitchen and entered the building:

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Two or three Chinese came out, paid their respects and guided us in. The reception room was covered with a red carpet. Our interpreter was Takao Kazaemon and his son Hyouemon. They said something in Chinese to a Chinese servant after which they brought us tea, the taste of which was very light. Then they brought us manto (Chinese filled bread), kasutera [castilla], leechee piled up on a tray and displayed about thirty dishes in the middle of the room, which seemed customary in that country. 16 This passage comes with sketches of the Chinese with details about their hairstyle and dress. After that, Sekisui went to see the Chinese junks in the harbour. Then, on the 15th, he went to see Yabee, the kumigashira of Sakuramachi who introduced him to his father Hyodayu. Sekisui informed Hyodayu about the castaways and Hyodayu showed him a copy of a Ming map on which Sekisui pointed out a number of mistakes. They gave him Dutch pastry and a Chinese calligraphy as a farewell gift. 17 In Sakuramachi, there is a shop called Karamonoya [Chinese Things Shop], which had many Chinese books. He went with Yusuke and looked at various books written in Chinese: Er wang, Yu Shinan, Ouynag Xun, Chu, Suiliang, Zhang, Xu, Yan, Zhengin, Huaisu, Liu, Gongquan, Dong po, Yanzhang, Songxue, Qichang, Yunming, Zhengzhong. They were all printed on the outside and the wormholes were repaired, Sekisui noticed. The covers were decorated and very valuable. There were many other Chinese books. In the meantime, Yusuke had sat down behind like a lowly servant. Sekisui called him and had him read the calligraphy of a handwritten book while the other people were watching in wonder. Sekisui bought commentaries of the Four Classics [Daxue, Zhong yong" Lun yu and Mengzi] and the Five Classics [Wu Jing] (Book of Changes, Shi Jing, Spring and Autumns Annals) in a cloth-covered box.lS Back at his inn, he met Takao Kazaemon who had a special relationship with the Mito clan; his grandfather had accompanied the Chinese Shu Shunshui to Mito and received a gift of salted salmon ever since. 19 On the 16th, Sekisui visited the temples and shrines including the Fukusaiji, the temple of the Chinese of Zhang Zhou and their burial ground, and the Kofuku-ji founded by a Chinese monk from Nanjing. Then he visited the Seido dedicated to the Ten Wise Emperors of China and the place where the commercial transactions took place between the Japanese and Chinese merchants. Back in his inn, he found Chinese books and calligraphy that had been brought to him as gifts. He wrote farewell letters all night. 2o Sekisui described in some detail the city's history, the number of machi (wards), bridges, boats and its population and administration. Whereas his contemporaries and followers counted the houses to indicate the size of a village or town, Sekisui mentioned the population. 'It has a kokudaka income of three thousand koku (bushels of rice) and 1165 houses and an adult population of 52,702.'21 He also listed what Nagasaki produces: glass, clocks, astronomical instruments, surgical tools, Chinese-style boats, stone bridges, potatoes, Chinese and Dutch food:

NAGAKUBO SEKISUI (1717-1801)

I heard the details about the Dutch ships' arrival and departure. From Nagasaki to Holland the distance is thirteen thousand rio It is northwest of East India and a cold country. The head of state is called komupania [EastIndia Company]. The county's inhabitants are white-skinned and red-haired. They live off trade with all other countries. They go from one unknown country to the next, making profit and annexing these countries for themselves. They did this with Jagatara Uakarta] island, which lies straight south of Annam. It is about three thousand four hundred ri from Nagasaki. They conquered the island some time in the past and built a fortress on it and appointed a representative called Zeneraru [General] who oversees the commercial goods sent each year from his country. He sends trading ships to the islands east ofJagatara and trades widely, leaving out no island, however remote. The Zeneraru sends his commercial ledgers home every five years. The ships in Nagasaki all come from, and return to Jagatara. The ships are fourteenjo, five shaku long and threejo, eight shaku wide. They are three jo, five shaku high. The mast measures fourteen jo and the ventilating chimney is three jo, five shaku. The flagpole is three jo and five shaku. The ship counts eighteen masts and thirty-six cannons. It has a crew exceeding one hundred. There are no oars. When they come in or leave port, instead of rowing, they empty fire the cannons twice, one to the left, then the other from the right of the ship. The incoming and outgoing ships are then towed zig-zag by the towing boats. After leaving Dejima, it is towed out, as far as the entrance of the bay. The ship then shoots more than two hundred rounds. This is like an earthquake hitting all ofNagasaki and causes the tools in the houses to rattle. Initially, the Dutch were pirates who conquered weak countries and made them into new red-haired colonies. This is why our country took precautions and ordered the daimyo to provide two to three thousand mounted warriors to guard the coast against incoming and outgoing ships. The ships always set sail on 20 September. On that day, the daimyo officials accompany the ship till Yaguchi and the karo [chief officer] remains there for three or four days and will not come back [to Nagasaki] until the ship has disappeared from the telescope at Okinoshima island and has received the island's signal. 22 Sekisui also described the defences against the Dutch: The [present] karo are: Kuroda, holder of Fukabori castle and Nabeshima of Fukuoka, holder of the Isahaya castle. They continue to look out for any [eventual] ship and place cannons at seven [strategic] places. Those placed at the pier are on an eight or nine-shaku-high platform each of which carries two cannons. The cannon tubes are about two shaku long and cast in copper, and look like temple bells lying on their sides. The diameter of the cannons' mouths is five or six sun. The gunpowder is in paper bags of which fifteen are used to shoot. The stone balls are made of tufa and weigh about eight to of beans. They are pushed in with a pole. Sometimes when the cannon is fired, the kitchen stoves split and people have died of it. The cannons are called 'nation smiter' and are there to intimidate the foreigners, but have never been fired so far. Even when the Dutch fire their cannons with empty rounds, they roar like thunder, but these would sound ten times louder. 23

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The Suwa shrine's major festival takes place on 9 September. Eleven machi (ward or town district) organize it each year, Sekisui informes us. It takes seven years until all the eighty wards have had their turn. All Maruyama and Yoriai pleasure girls parade, pulling a richly decorated float. Nagasaki residents dressed in Dutch style, dance what they call Dutch Dance. There are also other dances. One Dutch and one Chinese present their acrobatics on horseback. The horses are selected from among six Japanese horses from Nagasaki's Rokuninshu officials. 24 All the Chinese and Dutch are allowed into the city on this day. The Dutch wear formal dress with long sleeves and the Chinese wear dress decorated with lace. On the Japanese side, old and young dress their best. For the Nagasakians, this is their finest and most prosperous festival, Sekisui reports. 25 Sekisui sketched the bridge Megane-bashi and his host brought him farewell gifts from Takao Kazaemon. It came with a Japanese poem and a (Chinese) farewell poem. Then there were four or five Chinese books and Chinese calligraphy. Kazaemon's son Hyouemon sang him a farewell song. They had dinner with two Chinese who also sang songs. Next morning, at the cries of the roosters, Nagakubo Sekisui left Nagasaki. D Nagakubo Sekisui's diary is a testimony to the kind of 'realistic' writing we find among our eighteenth-century travellers. Although the journey was official in nature and purpose, Sekisui did not write it in official Chinese style, though he may have written it to be read by the officials of the Mito clan. In style it is a personal, though by no means a poetic diary. It is based on accurate observations about the Dutch and the Chinese and about his personal encounters with Nagasaki officials and interpreters. We discover a scientist interested in world geography and cartography, especially when he mentions the distances the Dutch have to cover to reach Nagasaki. As a geographer, Sekisui was a rational empiricist; we discover no other intellectual commitments in his travelogue. But his geography is not limited to physical geography; like Kaibara Ekiken he is paying attention to historical geography, as demonstrated by his interest in the stone inscription at Taga fort (Shiogama shrine, Fukushima prefecture), which he asked Koshoken to investigate. 26 NOTES

1. Teikoku Bunko, vol. 22, Yanagita Kunio, ed. (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1930) p. 4. 2. Ch. Annam, the area of present-day Vietnam. 3. When his father was killed by Ashikaga Mochiuji (1398-1439), the governor of the Kanto, he was saved by his lover Terute-hime and escaped into the temple Yugyo-ji. A legendary hero ofjoruri ballads and sekkyo-bushi (stories recited on the shamisen). Kiko Bunshu, op.cit., p. 222. 4. pp. 223-4. 5. p.225. 6. p.226. 7. p.228.

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8. p.231. 9. p. 251. Ono no Tofu (894-966) was a famous calligrapher, considered one of the three best of his generation. 10. p. 233. Heike crabs with human faces, believed to be reincarnations of the fallen Heike, a twelfth-century military clan, are found in this area. The grave is Emperor Antoku's (1180-85) who died here. 11. p.236. 12. Sekisui wanted to distinguish these with the seasonal display of paintings in Japanese homes. 13. pp.237-8. 14. Depicting Chinese creatures with a dog or monkey-like body, a human face with long hair, speaking in a high-pitched, child-like voice. The shojo understand human language and like sake. 15. p.240. 16. p. 241. Kasutera, still a popular local cake, was baked according to a SpanishPortuguese recipe. 17. p.242. 18. p.242. 19. p.243. 20. pp. 243-4. 21. p.244. 22. p.245. 23. pp. 245-6. 24. The Rokuninshu are shogunal officials also known as Wakadoshiyori 25. p.246. 26. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 575.

CHAPTER

3

MOTOORI NORINAGA (1730-1801 )

MOTOORI NORINAGA was influenced deeply by the trends of his time. When he was born, various schools of thought flourished around the varying philosophies that had become popular especially among the intellectuals. These philosophies and the schools which represented them competed with each other. Intellectual salons mushroomed in both the cities and the countryside. Printing and the flourishing publication business helped intellectuals disseminate their philosophies throughout the nation. The Tokugawa shogunal government established Confucianism as its official ideology, but many other schools ofthought came to be represented in Japan. With its emphasis on NeoConfucianism or Shushigaku, (Xuxi School) as it was called in Japan, led Japanese intellectuals to reevaluate Japan's own sources, especially after the Manchus established a non-Chinese dynasty, the Qin, in China in 1644. Kada no Azumamaro (1669-1736) and Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769) were studying the Manyoshu Uapan's first anthology of poetry compiled in the mideighth century) and other ancient sources as vestiges of a golden age yet unpolluted by foreign thought and religion. But many of the Tokugawa period intellectuals embraced an eclectic mix of Chinese and Japanese thought and even those, like Motoori Norinaga who eventually challenged the authority of Chinese studies, ended up using Chinese philosophy and terminology to enhance their own ideological agenda. Motoori Norinaga advocated a return to the golden age of Japan, practised Chinese medicine, Confucian filial piety and prayed at Buddhist temples and begged to be buried in a Buddhist grave. Even his basic philosophy of a primordial golden age, which was increasingly corrupted as time wore on, is derived from Chinese ideas. An important influence in Norinaga's time was the Confucian and NeoConfucian emphasis on moral formation or self-cultivation and intellectual authority through the study of the classics. Yet, Japanese thinkers of the time utilized Neo-Confucianism to deal pragmatically with urgent, imminent problems and a concern for present-day political issues. Motoori Norinaga was born in 1730 into a family of'Ise Merchants' who flourished as wholesalers of cotton goods. He had an adopted elder brother

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who eventually took over his father's business leaving Norinaga free to pursue his own career, even to adopt the name Motoori from the warrior ancestor Motoori Takahide (d. 1591). Norinaga was born into a period of profound change. The shogun was the innovative Yoshimune, a liberal and a pragmatist who, to enhance practical knowledge, allowed the importation of Western books and sought to exploit Japan's natural resources. His parents practised Pure Land Buddhism and recited the nenbutsu ('Hail Amida Buddha'), and worshipped the Shinto deity Amaterasu whose shrine, the Naiku or Inner Shrine at Ise was close to Matsuzaka. They also revered the deity Mikumari (a watershed deity) in Yoshino to whom they prayed for a son. In 1748, after their elder son had a son, another family adopted Norinaga, but this adoption failed and in 1750 he returned to his native family. Soon after, Norinaga's mother sent him to Kyoto to study medicine. Norinaga took this as an opportunity to acquaint himself with the philosophical debate that pervaded the capital. N orinaga stayed in Kyoto for over five years studying Chinese medicine under Hori Genko (1686-1754) and, after Genko's death, under Takekawa Kojun (1725-80). He also studied Chinese classics in Hori Keizan's school, a school of Neo-Confucianism advocating a return to the Confucian and the Japanese classics. It was through Keizan that Norinaga acquainted himself with Ogyu Sorai's thought and with Keichu's (1640-1701) study of the Manyoshu. In 1757, Norinaga established himself as a physician in his native Matsuzaka. He also participated in a local poetic salon and continued his studies of the Japanese classics. The following year he began lecturing at the request of the salon members. He first lectured about Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) and the following year, he gave lectures on the Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise), Tosa Nikki (Tosa Diary) and Makura no Soshi (Pillow Book). Soon after, he took an interest in the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matter), which was to become perhaps his most important lifework. However much he dedicated himself to the study of Japanese literature, Norinaga continued to study the Confucian classics and Ogyu Sorai's 'Rule by Rites and Music'. In 1762, he married but soon divorced his wife and married someone else. His second wife was the daughter of a physician who bore him five children. On 25 May 1763 he met with Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769), a scholar of the Manyoshu and one of the founders of Kokugaku who happened to stay in a Matsuzaka inn and Norinaga became one of his disciples. Although they only met once and for a relatively short time, Mabuchi continued to teach Norinaga by correspondence. It was also around this time that Norinaga developed his theory of mono no aware - translated by some as 'pathos of things' - as the underlying principle of classical Japanese literature and poetry. In this concept, he saw not only a simple aesthetic but also a way of life, a philosophy of sorts. According to Norinaga, mono no aware comes from a deep feeling one experiences in an intimate relation to things and events, a feeling so deep and strong as to propel artistic creation. For him poetry was not a service to the government or a moral self-cultivation, but existed for its own sake, independent of moral or political concerns. It was partly through this concept that Norinaga discovered the ideal and unrestrained spontaneity of ancient Japanese literature. This spontaneity

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was for him beyond the moralistic duality of good and evil. Good and evil are natural products of men who are acting in harmony with good or evil deities. It was through Mabuchi that Norinaga began one of his greatest life achievements: a thorough study of the KoJiki begun in 1764. Mabuchi had taught that the KoJiki was a 'truer' book than the Nihon Shoki (also Nihongt), which was written in Chinese prose according to Chinese historiographical principles. Norinaga undertook this monumental task in an effort to discover Japan's divine age, its true identity in an age ofthe kami (deity) yet pure and undefiled when man acted in accordance with the deities. In the KoJiki, N orinaga discovered an age where the deities dominated all and things were all sacred. He also discovered through his studies that the emperors, who had ruled in an unbroken line, are the sole legitimate rulers, suggesting that the ruling warriors had usurped the sacred imperial prerogatives. He urged the shogunal government to pay a greater respect to the deities, reminding them that is was only through their grace they were able to rule over Japan. He also called for a greater state contribution for the upkeep of Shinto shrines. He rejected the notion of Buddhist paradise and believed in a KoJiki-type underworld of all the dead. As Norinaga's fame as a scholar of native learning grew, the number of his disciples increased from forty-five in 1774 to almost five hundred by 1800. In 1787, Tokugawa Harusada (1728-89), the lord ofKii province, asked Norinaga for his views on politics and economics. This was a break with the precedent of seeking such advice only from official Confucian scholars. Norinaga therefore began to travel and to lecture. Between 1789 and 1801 alone, Norinaga undertook eight major journeys. In 1799, he lectured to the lord of Kii on the GenJi Monogatari. In 1801 he stayed in Kyoto for about seventy days lecturing, meeting visitors, holding poetry parties and visiting shrines and temples. In 1798, Norinaga completed his study of the KoJiki (KoJiki Den) about three years before he died. Norinaga undertook thirteen journeys during his lifetime, twice to Yoshino, four times to Kyoto, twice to lecture at Wakayama castle and three times at Nagoya castle, held by another prominent branch of the Tokugawa. Yet, by far his most inspiring journey was the one he undertook out of his own initiative in 1772. In 1772, Norinaga went from his native Matsuzaka to Yoshino to visit the Mikumari shrine during the cherry blossom season and to visit the famous places of classical poetry. His chief motivation, however, seems to have been the investigation of the imperial tombs on the Yamato plain, an endeavour closely knit to his study of the KoJiki. Strangely perhaps, N orinaga refers more often to the Engi Shiki and the Nihon Shoki than to his beloved KoJiki. He kept a detailed diary of his journey and investigations and gave it the title Sugagasa no Nikki. Motoori Norinaga, aged forty, left his home in Matsuzaka near Ise on 3 March 1772 before dawn. Six disciples including his adopted son Ohira accompanied him. Motoori Ohira later wrote an account of the journey called the Ebukuro Nikki.

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SUGAGASA NO NIKKI (SUGAGASA DIARY)

During the first day of his journey, just after passing the village of Tsuyajo (presently Nakahara, Ichishi district, Mie prefecture) he came upon the village Miyako, the alleged site of the following poem composed by the Ise Virgin on her way back to the capital Kyoto, when she and her female companions took separate ways: Sad to see you go Separate ways To our beloved capital, When again can we drink? The waters of the Well of Forgetting [Wasurei]?! Motoori discussed this site with a critical mind typical of his scholarship and his respect for historical accuracy: Now a stone inscription marks the site where she had composed this poem. They had first thought that she had composed this somewhere else, but recently, a man from my village examined this and realized that this was indeed the correct place. In reality, however, the foreword to this poem in the Senzaishu says that the Ise Virgin's party on their way back to the capital composed this poem. In the old records it says that the Ise Virgin and her companions went separate ways from the Ichishi temporary dwelling near the village of Miyako which is why the poem begins with the line: 'Going separate ways to the capital,' using the name of the village Miyako [capital] as a pun. He knew that indeed it said that this poem was composed while the Ise Virgin was on her way back to the capital. All old books indicated that, when the Ise Virgin was on her way back to the capital, she noticed that there were two ways to proceed from her temporary dwelling at Ichishi. She and her ladies-in-waiting took separate ways, which is why she composed this poem based on the name of the village. I had my doubts about this and wished to see this place for quite some time and went to see it despite the fact that it was out of my way. There was indeed an old well, which, despite the many droughts of the past has never dried out. It was an auspicious purewater well. However, there was no old legend told about this well and it seemed that after all this was not the Well of Forgetting and that the attribution was doubtful. I wanted to ask more about it but, because I had no more time, I had to pursue my journey and left. 2 The place Nabari reminded Norinaga of the Manyoshu poem: My wife, Where may she now be travelling? Is it that she is crossing Mt Nabari today? The husband of a wife who accompanied the emperor on his journey to Ise province composed this poem. Norinaga thought, 'this must be the road' along which she was travelling. 3 On the 6th, Norinaga wanted to visit Muro (Muro-ji temple), but there was no road sign and he did not proceed out of fear that he might get lost. He

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wanted to go to Hase (Hase-dera temple, Nara prefecture), but the rain had soaked the road and his feet were hurting and weary. So, he abandoned his plans. 4 Norinaga wanted to reach Hase that day but the road was bad because of the rain and his feet hurt, so he stayed at Haibara (Haibara-cho, Nara prefecture) . On the 7th, the rain had stopped and the clouds thinned. Since it had rained for days, the road ahead was bad and, inquiring whether the road across the mountains was safe, all sat in the litters and left. Norinaga's litter was poorly built and uncomfortable. It was too narrow for him and he could not move: My back hurt and the cold morning breeze from the valley was blowing in. I felt wretched but decided to endure the pains of travel and felt it was still better riding on a palanquin than creeping up the path on foot. 5 His historical interest in poetry was thus a motivating factor in Norinaga's journey. Once he reached the Yamato [Nara] plain, despite his strong interest in the imperial tombs, he continued to mention the association of places with poetry. At Yonabari, on the 7th, for example, he discussed the reading of the place name in the following manner: I came to Yonabari, a place I wanted to look at carefully, because it was mentioned in old documents. I asked my carriers about the Ikai hill and about the imperial tomb (according to the Manyoshu and the Engi Shiki, the Ikari hill tomb called Misasagi was the tomb of Emperor Konin's mother), but they did not know about the tomb. I asked a villager, but, much to my regret, he did not know either. According to the Manyoshu this Yonabari was read Funabari, but I doubted this very much, because the characters can hardly be read that way and besides the present villagers all agree on Yonabari. 6 'It may seem trivial,' Norinaga adds, 'to write about such matters in a diary. Nevertheless, I am adding this while writing about other things.' At Hase, Norinaga wanted to find the whereabouts of a shrine called Hase no Yamanokuchi nimasu Kami no Yashiro. But he gave up, thinking that no one would know and complained that once famous shrines are now called Hachiman Tenjin or Gozu Tenno. 7 After passing the villages Izumo and Kurozaki (Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture), Norinaga remembered that this must be the place where (Emperor Yuryaku's) Asakura palace and (Emperor Buretsu's) Namiki palace were located. Norinaga wanted to find out: At all houses of Kurozaki they were selling home-made manju (a bun with sweet pean paste). In order to find out about these places, I approached the house of an old man and ordered a manju. While I was eating, I asked him about these places. He answered: 'People ask me frequently about these old capitals, but there is no place that has a reliable oral tradition indicating where they were located.' 'Where is Mt Takamato?' I asked. He replied: 'Behind here.' It was to the south of this village; it was quite a mountain of which one could only see the peak. He said that it was called

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MtTokama. The real MtTakamato must be in Kasuga and the reason why a mountain of this name also exists here must be that the name resembles MtTokama or, perhaps, the villagers distorted it to MtTakamato, or something like it. 8 AtTamunomine (Tonomine, Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture), Norinaga rested in a house and inquired about that capital's (Emperor Sujun's Kurahashi no Shibagaki) whereabouts. 'He told me that in the village there was a temple called Kinpuku-ji and that the capital was there. He had his son of twelve or thirteen guide me there.' Norinaga had wanted to make further inquiries at the temple, but the priest had passed away. He found nothing to suggest that there once was such a capital at this place. Norinaga returned to the house to ask about the tomb of Emperor Sujun. He was told that, about five cho to the southeast, in a place called Kurahashi, there was a mountain called Mt Misasagi (Tomb) overgrown with trees, that had three caves fifty or sixty ken deep. Norinaga finally decided not to pursue this lead. The mountain called Mt Otowa that stood to the east of here seemed a tall one. According to the old songs about Mt Kurahashi, it must be a tall, very tall mountain. So, 1 felt that Mt Otowa must have been Mt Kurahashi. 9 The old man had told Norinaga that, what seemed to be a forest high up on a mountain above Orii village was the place from where Emperor Yomei had ruled. Though Norinaga felt he mistook it for another place, he climbed it to investigate and found a small shrine called Kasuga inside the forest. A little downhill there was a mountain temple. 'I went there and asked the priest whether or not this was an imperial tomb, but he told me that Yomei's tomb was at Nakada village which cast serious doubts on what the old man had said.' However, in Norinaga's eyes, this presence of the forest was significant. 'The Kurahashi Orii God must have been put to rest in this forest,' he wrote. 10 On the 8th, Norinaga proceeded towards Yoshino. When he reached Yoshino, the cherry blossoms had already passed their prime. On his way, he remembered Mt Mifune, recorded in the Manyoshu to be above a waterfall. But, unable to find the waterfall, Norinaga concluded: 'This is another of these groundless names.'11 Norinaga visited the temples and shrines of Yoshino, but left the Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-89), brother of Minamoto no Yoritomo, first shogun of the Kamakura period, legend unmentioned and Saigyo's poem as 'unworthy'. Ten cho from Zao-do there was a Komori no Kami shrine. Norinaga prayed silently and more fervently than at any other shrine: Grieving that he had no children my father came all the way to pray to this god a long time ago. It heeded his prayers and before long my mother became pregnant. My father rejoiced that the god had blessed him, and prayed intensely again to have a son. The result was my birth. My father pledged to return to the shrine in thirteen years with me at the age of thirteen, but my father died when 1 was eleven. Therefore, my mother carried out his pledge and undertook the journey, but she, too, passed away like a dream:

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I remember My mother's tears More profuse than the offerings Lying at the god's fence. 12 At Mikumari shrine, Norinaga asked himself why the place was not called Mizuwake (Watershed) instead of Mikumari. He thought that the answer to this question lay in medieval texts where it said Mt Mikomori (Child Protect).13 Norinaga's fascination for names and their etymology did not stop at place names. Norinaga often enquired about names, locations and legends with local villagers but was disappointed more often than not. Norinaga left Yoshino on the 10th, visited the temples Nyoirin-ji with its tomb of Emperor Godaigo (1288-1339) and Tsubosaka Kannon, pursuing his vocational attempt to match ancient texts with the geographic reality he confronted. At the foot of Mt Takatori he heard that Hinokuma was located in this area. Norinaga sought out this place and at the site found the ruins of a thirteen-storied stone pagoda. He heard of a man who died as a result of contact with a curse embedded in some of the stones he had used for his garden. 14 Asking a local priest, Norinaga learned that the ruins marked the site of Emperor Senka's palace. To commemorate the site, they had built a small temple, but it burned down. One can still find many old tiles. Taking this hermitage as the vestige of an old temple, Norinaga asked the priest about its name. Doko-ji, Norinaga was told: How is it written? I asked, but the priest shook his head, saying he was illiterate and that he does not know how to write the temple's name. I lost interest in any further inquiry. How is it possible that there are priests in this world who do not even know how to write the names of their own temples? Even if one is illiterate, how about learning at least this, to be able to inform the people who want to know. How can one expect them to know and talk about the classics?15 Norinaga proceeded along with his companion, enquiring here and there about places, including two rivers, but none could tell him anything about them. Then, Norinaga came upon the village Hirata. Asking about the tomb, Norinaga saw a crumbled mound on one side of a fairly tall hill covered with three or four pines. They said that this was Emperor Monmu's tomb. Later, Norinaga proceeded along the rice field ridges and came upon a tomb. Norinaga rushed up the hill and saw a dolmen. 'To the south, there was a twoshaku entrance. I went to see. It was like a rock cave, narrow on the inside, fallen earth covering the ground. I entered part way into the cave. On top was a one-jo flat, large slab looking like the lid of something. One jo, four or five shaku further inside, a wider path led to a chamber.' Norinaga was told that recently they removed the rocks to build the Takatori castle, a heartless thing for the warriors to do, according to Norinaga. 'What a wretched thing it is to dig up the tombs of our emperors. There was a fireplace in the middle of the chamber, indicating that many beggars had been dwelling there.'16 It was said that this is Emperor Buretsu's tomb, but Norinaga did not agree.

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For him, it must be somewhere else and he asked people here and there and could not understand why they all told him the same. All the imperial tombs in Hinokuma are mentioned in the Engi Shiki, for example: 'The tomb of Hinokuma no Sakai is Emperor Jomei's who ruled from his palace at Shikishima, or the tomb of Ouchi, the emperor who ruled from his palace at Asuka Kiyomihara (Tenmu), or the emperor who ruled from Fujiwara no Miya Gito), or, the tomb at Ako Hill was that of the emperor who ruled from that palace (Tenmu).'17 For Norinaga, all these tombs must be somewhere, but none knew where exactly they were. If they are wrong in claiming that this is Buretsu's tomb, this would mean that the local traditions are unreliable. Norinaga criticized Nabika so-and-so (a mid-Edo period Confucian scholar and geographer) who wrote a gazetteer of the Five Home Provinces entitled Gokinai Shi and published it. Nabika recorded in detail what the elders had told him. He recorded accurately what sights are in each village and identified which were ordinary tombs and which were imperial tombs. But according to Norinaga's own account, Nabika did not realize that local opinion was unreliable, 'believing that the villagers had correctly transmitted the traditions, as if they were recent events'. In this way, Nabika made many mistakes 'which is what happens now to me as well and however thoroughly I inquire, I cannot get a satisfactory answer. However detailed the information, how can I be certain so that I can convey the true facts?' 18 From there Norinaga visited the village Oka (Asuka-mura, Nara prefecture). 'Is this Oka of Asuka mentioned in the Nihon Shokl?' Norinaga asks himself. 'If this is true, then the Okamoto capital [of three emperors: Yomei, Kogyoku and Saimei] cannot be far away. And since the Kiyomihara capital is to the south, the remains of it cannot be far away either.,19 Norinaga then proceeded to Asuka and visited the temple Asuka-dera that had shrunk to a mere temporary hall housing the Giant Buddha (Daibutsu). Other than that, not even the gate was left. Nevertheless, Norinaga was impressed: 'It looks solemn', he wrote, but he doubted the antiquity of a portrait of Shotoku Taishi, which he wrote: 'looks recent'. 20 Then he turned his attention to the Asuka shrine. He visited the well of Asukai and the temples Ohara-dera, also called Togen-ji, which, according to the priest, marked the place from where Empress Jito ruled the nation. But, according to the critical mind of Norinaga, the Ohara-dera and the Ohara located near Mt Kagu (Kaguyama) were not the same. He referred to a Manyoshu poem claiming that Empress Jito ruled from Fujiwara: 21 The priest told me that this temple marks the site from where Empress Jito ruled. I did not believe that Ohara, which could be seen nearby along the mountain to the south, corresponded to Fujiwara. Empress Jito's Fujiwara capital was not here but rather, according to the Manyoshu, was near the mountain called Kaguyama. Ohara had also once been near Kaguyama and the Fujiwara capital must have been there. As I was looking out now, Kaguyama was far off. I hope I am not mistaken, but the Fujiwara village corresponds to this Ohara, but the Fujiwara capital was separate, located at Kaguyama. 22

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After that, Norinaga proceeded to the village Kamiyatori (Upper Yatori), noting that: 'If this were written Yatsuri [Asuka-mura], it would correspond to the Chikatsuasuka capital ofthe emperor Kenso [23rd emperor] at Yatsuri.' He noted that the Hosotani river in front of the valley was mentioned in the Manyoshu. Wisely, Norinaga realized that place names sometimes moved and changed in both pronunciation and writing according to the shifting dialects. He carefully consulted the ancient records and place name readings and was critical of the unstable oral traditions. At Abe village (Sakurai-shi), one ri from Oka, Norinaga mentioned the bodhisattva Monju, 'a Buddha famous throughout the country'. Once again, Norinaga found a cave the height and length of which was about seven shaku and its depth four or five shaku. He found still other caves at the temple's Oku no In. One cave was approximately two jo deep with a well in the middle and another was four or five cho away on a high place. Norinaga entered it: Inside, it was high and wide with a six shaku-high and wide slab. Further inside it was nine shaku high. Although a roof covered it, it let in light and one could see faintly. I went around the chamber further back, but it was too dark for me to see. There was a place, which seemed like an entrance, but it was covered with a wall. At the rear end I found a one-shaku or more crack in the wall. The villagers told Norinaga that the magician Abe no Seimei (921-1005) had buried his treasures there, but that robbers had discovered and removed them. It was clear to Norinaga that the two caves at the Monju temple had been burial places of once powerful people provided with stone chambers. Norinaga investigated the sites and concluded correctly that these chambers had been built with very large slabs, and that they 'placed the coffin inside and, at the end, covered the chamber with a roof slab, placing haniwa (clay figurines) around it. But in a later age, they carried off the dirt, removed the slabs, and robbed the coffins of their contents, leaving only the rocks.,23 After this, Norinaga went to a cave on top of a tomb said to be Empress Suiko's tomb. Norinaga went inside and found a chamber the size of eight tatami mats. Norinaga was told about another tomb about ten cho from Oka at a place called Sakatamura, the site of Emperor Yomei's palace. It was called Miyakozuka. Here, too, there is a large slab slightly visible, he was told. Back in Abe, N orinaga criticizes the belief that the tomb had anything to do with Abe no Seimei. 'They associated Abe no Seimei with the name of the village.'24 From there, Norinaga travelled towards Mt Kagu. He passed the village Kibi and visited the grave of Kibi no Otodo (Sakurai-shi) but noticed that the gravestone was new. Norinaga decided to climb Mt Kagu despite its sacredness, and found on top a group of five or six locals drinking sake on the grass while two or three girls were gathering bracken. Norinaga was wondering why people climb the mountain just to have a drink. They told him stories about the mountain but none he did not already know. The mountain top offered a clear, unhindered view of the surrounding mountains: Mt Unebi, Mt Kongo, Mt Kazuragi, Mt Nijo, Mt Ikoma and Mt Miminashi. Norinaga correctly noted that the name Kongo came from the fact that they had built the

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temple Kongo-ji and that it had been part of the twin-peaked Mt Kazuragi before. 25 In the Asuka region, Norinaga came upon a pond called Tsurugi. It had a hill in the middle. This was for Norinaga sufficient proof that this was a tomb: I asked the old man of the village. He told me that it was the tomb of the eighteenth emperor but he did not remember the name. When, after some reflection, I suggested that it was the tomb of the eighth Emperor Kogen, he said: 'Yes, yes!' and nodded. I tried to ask something but ended up providing the answer. How strange!26 After Karu (Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture), Norinaga found a round tomb. He had heard that at the southern end there was a cave called Tsukaana (Tomb Cave). He went to see. The entrance was very narrow but it was spacious inside and deep, but it was too dark to see anything. On the ground there was a pool of water which, from what one could hear, flowed out to the rear. 'I asked what kind oftomb this is. My guide replied: "I do not know.'" Norinaga conjectured that it may be Emperor Senka's tomb because he associated the village Mise (Kashihara-shi) at the foot of the tomb with the Musa shrine: I walked around the place on what can scarcely be called a road the entire day and was exhausted, but I still wanted to enquire about the nearby places and summoned my innkeeper. He seemed to be in his fifties and his bearded face had something base about it, but his facial expression and voice revealed a gentleman. I asked him: Are there any famous old places here?' Before he replied he put on a big smile. 'On a hill to the east of here there is a tomb cave.' 'Whose tomb is it?' 'Kobo Daishi dug it in the times of Shotoku Taishi.' Norinaga became curious and stubbornly inquired further: 'That must be a hollow palce; how deep is it?' 'There is no end to it. It goes as far as the Samusa [Sarusawa] pond in Nara.' 'Where is the Somogo pond?' 'Near the gate of the temple Kofuku-ji. How come you do not know a place so famous?' Everybody laughed. After he talked about Mt Unebi and mentioned Empress Jingu (wife of Emperor Chuai, 19th emperor) calling her 'Jinnikun' which was funnier than all else. The innkeeper now realized that when he says Jinnikun he will become the laughing stock. 27 Norinaga left Mise on the 12th and visited the temple Kume-dera 'a good temple even now' he wrote, and proceeded towards Mt Unebi: As I walked on a road that passed along the mountains and turned a little to the west, there was the village Unebi. This was at the southeastern foot of the mountain. As I entered this village, about half a cho to the right, there was a grove with a shrine in the middle. They said that this was the tomb of Emperor Itoku, which is not, as I had expected, to the south of this mountain, up the Manago valley. Also, it did not look like an imperial tomb, so I doubted this greatly and asked a village elder in detail about it. He told me that he did not know whether it was indeed an emperor's tomb, but that that grove was named SO.28

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At the village of Yoshida (Kashihara-shi), he thought that Emperor Itoku's tomb must be at the Masago pond at Mt Manago, but none knew for sure. But, when he asked about Emperor Annei's tomb, the old man knew it in detail: 29 Since the military government in Edo had begun investigating the tombs, once in twenty years the government will surely order such investigations to take place, and many people come from Kyoto and stay in these villages to investigate the tombs in detail. They place placards and fence the tombs in an effort to save the old sites from oblivion, which is a good policy indeed, but the lowly people have no interest in such matters and only follow the rich farmers and complain about the trouble these strangers cause to the villages which have these tombs. The villagers do not benefit from such endeavours and find them bothersome. Therefore, they hide the tombs from outsiders saying: 'There is no such place in this village.' This only adds to the sad state of these remains and seriously hinders the investigations. Therefore, the places, which have such tombs should be treated separately so that after these tombs have been repaired they can take pride in them and protect them. This old man also told me about Nabika's investigations. 30 The old man then guided Norinaga to a high hill west of Mt Unebi. Norinaga noticed that in the many tombs, the earth on top of the chambers was eroded and the slabs were in view, as in the case of the tomb at Abe village. The old man told him that the tombs were surrounded by moats, but that now they had become fields and bamboo groves and that nothing remains suggesting the former existence of anything like a moat: 3 ! There will surely be people who will blame me for running after tombs like a crazy man and for writing so much about them. But, what else is there but tombs that have remained from the remote past? Tombs are a precious heritage. Many of the tombs at Mt Unebi are genuinely old and I have long desired to see and study them in detail. However, there are many tombs that look alike and show nothing distinctive. Thus, except the few antiquarians like myself, there are few who go out of their way to see them and who would find anything about them that would interest them. 32 At Jimyoji village, he found a big tomb the villagers called Suizei Tomb. It was along the northwestern foot of Mt Unebi. Then, one cho east of Shijo village and five or six cho away from Mt Unebi towards the northeast, there was, in the middle of a field, a small mound with one pine standing on top of it. Village tradition has it that this was Emperor Jinmu's tomb. 'However, it does not look like an imperial tomb at all.' Norinaga remarks, taking the Kojiki into account. Since Emperor Suizei and Annei's tombs were much larger than Jinmu's, whom Norinaga believed to have been more powerful, he adds: 'I cannot believe it at all.' Here we get a glimpse of how ideology prevented Norinaga from ascertaining the truth through a critical and unbiased observation of the geography and reading of the ancient text. As the founding father of the Japanese nation, Jinmu's tomb must be the largest, he thought: 33

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As I struggled to understand this, I thought that Suizei's tomb was in fact Jinmu's tomb just as Emperor Seimu's tomb initially had been mistaken for Empress Jingu's tomb. I thought that the tomb had probably been attributed to Suizei from the very past. The tombs in this area all belong to Mt Unebi and since Suizei's tomb is also in this area, this was attributed to Suizei. Every record says that Suizei's tomb is on top ofTsukida hill that is not even near this mountain. According to the Jinmyo Cho there is a shrine atTsukida (Tsukida nimasu Jinja), which is the most likely location of Suizei's tomb. Perhaps they mistakenly thought that this tomb was in Takechi district, whereas in fact it was in the lower Katsuragi district. 34 N orinaga warns that one must study the old texts before one can determine the location of Jinmu's tomb. 'According to the Nihongi, Jinmu's tomb is to the northeast of this mountain and the Engi Shiki says the same. Suizei's tomb is also in the northeast. Although this is not certain, in the Kojiki it says that it lies to the north of the mountain. Also it says that the tomb Mihoto Inoue is to the west of the mountain, but to the south according to the Nihongi. Should it therefore not be in the northeast?'35 Norinaga blindly believed in the accuracy of the ancient texts and would not even consider the possible absence of a large tomb for a founding emperor as important as Jinmu, let alone the possibility that Jinmu was a mythical rather than an historical emperor. According to Norinaga's analysis, the authority ofthe text prevailed over geographic reality. Norinaga left Shijo village (Kashihara-shi) and returned to Yagi (Kashiharashi) by way of Imai village. He decided to abandon his plans to visit Taima, Tatsuta and Nara and to go home instead. On his way back, he visited the temples at Hase and Miwa (Omiwa), the site of Emperor Jomei's palace and visitedTage village (Misugi-mura, Mie prefecture), the home of his family ancestors.

D Norinaga's journey into the Yamato plain was a critical rediscovery ofthe past, a kind of archaeological investigative tour. But, on his way, Norinaga realized how little he could find out about the past and that it had to be rediscovered from the beginning, using such ancient texts as the Nihon Shoki, the Engi Shiki, and the Manyoshu. It may be worthwhile citing one or two passages from Kamo no Mabuchi's travelogue entitled Tabi no Nagusa in order to weigh how much and what kind of scientific investigation Norinaga borrowed from his teacher Mabuchi. Like Norinaga's Sugagasa no Nikki, Mabuchi's journey along the Tokaido to his native Okabe (Shizuaka prefecture) was a journey into the past. At Sayo No Nakayama (Kakegawa-shi, Shizuaka prefecture), a famous place in poetry, Mabuchi investigates the correct reading of the place name: Saya no Nakayama got its name from being located in the Saya district. Nowadays they say Sayo instead of Saya. In the Nihon Shoki, under Yoro 6 [722] it says: ... 'Saya District .. .' and in the Engi Shiki, it [also] says'Saya District'. This led Mabuchi to conclude: 'Sayo no Nakayama is a mistake which should be corrected.'36 There are two scholarly orientations at work here, one is the

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Confucian concern for the correctness of names. The other, also discovered in Norinaga's travelogue, is investigating history on the basis of ancient, 'authoritative' texts. Throughout his travel diary, Mabuchi was fascinated by what historical 'truth' he could gauge from ancient sources. But Mabuchi's concern for correct reading did not limit itself to toponyms; he was even more concerned about the names of shrines, that is of the local deities. At Niisaka no Shuku: There is a shrine at the end of the inn-town called Hachiman Shrine nowadays. In the Engi Shiki it says: 'Saya District, Kotonomachi Shrine.' The shrine was given Junior Fifth Rank and was recorded as Kotonomama no Yashiro [Shrine] as early as the reign of Emperor Nintoku. In Sei Shonagon's account [Pillow Book] it says: 'Kotonomama no Myojin. How comforting just to hear its name ... ' Hence, 'Kotonomachi must be a mistake. Kamo no Chomei also recorded it as Kotonomama no Yashiro located the entry of Saya no Nakayama.' And this must have been the current name until that time. The Ulamyo Sho mentions an area called Yamaguchi in this district. Since it is still called that today, it matches [the location of the shrine]. This shrine was the province's Ichinomiya, but, under Suchi District it says that Okuni no Yashiro was the original Ichinomiya, but in the foreword of a poem composed by Sagami[-nokami] it says that this was the Ichinomiya. However this may be, hearing about it from worshippers I met there, they all said Kotonomama Shrine, which makes this an appropriate place for me to offer a prayer on my way. 37 Norinaga applied the same critical mind to his journey as his teacher Mabuchi and, in line with his teacher, he relied much on the authority of ancient texts. Norinaga applied the same investigative spirit to his Mabuchi-inspired study of the Kojiki. He was driven by the desire to rediscover Japan's past, especially its imperial past, which he conceived of as Japan's golden age. His critical mind added a strong personal flavour to the diary. In BookTwelve of his Tamakatsura (1793-1801, a collection of essays), entitled 'Warekara', Norinaga advocated that one should see with one's own eyes when investigating the truth of something. In his Sugagasa no Nikki, however, Norinaga seems to superimpose text over direct observation, thus deviating from his rational approach in favour of an ideological one. This diary may mark the breaking point between his rational empiricism and the strict ideology of his later life. The written style of his diary does not follow a traditional rhetoric, but is rather a testimony to the School of Native Learning (Kokugaku) that he helped establish. A break with traditional rhetoric probably prompted him to add the following excuse to the above passage: In this diary, generally speaking, I faithfully noted down what the ignorant villagers had told me and because of this there are mistakes and I wrote down things I misunderstood, realizing only later how much I mixed truth with untruths. I felt sad at my inadequacies and to have misled my readers. I know I should not write this here, but this is what just came to my mind. 38

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NOTES

1. Senzail¥f1kashu, 8. Poem no, 507. (Shinpen) Nihon Kagaku Taikei, 1, Choku senshu Hen, Kashu (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1987) p. 196. 2. Kinsei Kabunshu, part 2, Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, 68 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997) pp. 160-1. The Ise Virgin (Saigu) was selected from among the young female members ofthe imperial family to represent the family at the Ise shrine (Naiku). The selected girl had to undergo a three-year purification at the shrine Nonomiya near Kyoto before proceeding to Ise. 3. p. 164. Nabari: Nabari district, Mie prefecture. 4. p. 166. 5. p.167. 6. p. 167-8. Yonabari: Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture. 7. p. 171. Hachiman is a synchretic deity, possibly of Korean origin, claimed by the Minamoto family as their ancestral deity. Gozu Tenno is also a synchretic deity, also possibly of Korean origin, worshipped to prevent epidemics. 8. p. 172. 21st Emperor Yuraku's palace recorded as 'Hase no Asuka no Miya' is located at Iwasaka, Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture. Buretsu's palace recorded as 'Hase no Namikino Miya' is located at Izumo, Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture. According to the Nihon Shoki, Buretsu died in 506. 9. pp. 173-4. Sujun's palace recorded as 'Kurahashi no Shibagaki no Miya' is located at Kurahashi, Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture. According to the Nihon Shoki, Sujun died in 592. 10. p. 174. Yomei's palace recorded as 'Iware no Ikenobe no Namitsuki ni Miya' is located in Abe, Sakurai-shi, Nara prefecture. Yomei died ca. end of 6th century. 11. p. 180. 12. p. 183. Komori means 'Child Protect'. 13. p. 186. 14. p.204. 15. pp. 204-5. Senka's palace recorded as 'Hinokuma no Iorino no Miya' is located at Asuka-mura, Takechi district, Nara prefecture. According to the Nihon Shoki, Senka's dates are 457-539. 16. pp. 206-7. Monmu's tomb recorded as 'Hinokuma no Ako no Okanoe no Misasagi' is located at Asuka-mura, Takechi district, Nara prefecture. Monmu's dates are 683-707. 17. p. 207. Buretsu's tomb recorded as 'Kataoka no Iwatsuki no Oka no Kinuto no Misasagi' is located at Kashihara-shi Kita, Katsuragi district, Nara prefecture. Jomei's tomb recorded as 'Hinokuma no Sakai no Misasagi' is located at Asuka-mura, Takechi district, Nara prefecture. Jomei died in 641. Jomei's palace recorded as 'Asuka no Okamoto no Miya' is located at Asuka-mura, Takachi district, Nara prefecture. Kiyomigahara was the location of both Tenmu's (d. 686) and Jito's (645-702) palaces. 18. pp.207-8. 19. pp. 208-9. Kogyoku's palace recorded as 'Asuka no Itabuki no Miya' is located at Asuka-mura, Takechi district, Nara prefecture. Saimei's palace is the same as Kogyoku's. Saimei ruled twice, the second time under the name Kogyoku (594-661). 20. p.210. 21. p. 211. Ohara-dera: also called Nakatomi-dera and later Fujiwara-dera. 22. pp. 211-12. Fujiwara: Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. Kaguyama: Kashihara-shi, N ara prefecture. 23. p.213. 24. p.214. 25. pp.214-17. 26. p. 221. Kogen's tomb recorded as 'Tsurugi no Ike no Shimanoe no Misasagi' is located at Ishikawa-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. Kogen's dates are 718-70.

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27. p. 223. Senka's tomb recorded as 'Musa no Tsukisakanoe no Misasagi' is located at Toriya-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. 28. pp. 223-4. 4th Emperor Itoku's tomb recorded as 'Unebiyama no Minami no Masago no Taninoe no Misasagi' is located at Ikejiri-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. 29. This is probably the same old man he met for the first time in the Hirokuma area. p. 204. 3rd Emperor Annei's tomb recorded as 'Unebiyama no Hitsujisaru no Mihodo no Inoe no Misasagi' is located at Yoshida-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. 30. pp. 225-6. 31. pp.226-7. 32. p.227. 33. pp. 227-8. 2nd Emperor Suizei's tomb recorded as 'Tsukita no Okanoe no Misasagi' is located at Shijo-cho, Kashihara-shi, Nara prefecture. No tomb of 1st Emperor Jinmu has ever been located with certainty. The present one in Kashihara-shi is a Meiji-period construction. 34. pp. 228-9. ]inmyo Cho is a list of ancient emperors taken from the Engi Shiki. It also list the 3132 shrines o[Japan and their festivals. 35. p.229. 36. Nikki Kiko Shu, Yuhodo Bunko (Tokyo: Yuhodo Shoten, 1935) pp. 380-1. 37. p. 381. 'Kotonomama' means literally 'As Is' and by extension that the deity makes prayers come true. Ichinomiya (lit. First Shrine), Ninomiya (Second Shrine) were official provincial shrines. Sagami-no-kami was a Heian-period poet. Kamo no Chomei (1155?-1216) was a poet, biwa player and the recluse-author of the Hojo Ki (Ten-Foot Square Hut, also Account of my Hut). 38. p.205.

CHAPTER

4

UEDA AKINARI ( 1734-1809)

UEDA AKINARI WAS BORN in Sonezaki, Osaka, the son of a prostitute and an unknown father. Abandoned at the age of four, he was adopted by Ueda Shigesuke, an oil and paper merchant who ran a shop called Shimaya. With the increasing demand for paper from over one thousand brokerage and exchange agencies this was a prosperous business. A year later, Akinari contacted smallpox and appeared to be fated to an early death. His parents prayed at the Inari shrine (now Kawaguchi shrine), and miraculously he recovered, but the disease left his hands crippled. In school, Akinari received a solid education in the Chinese classics and began his literary career at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two as a haiku poet. Akinari wanted to become a writer. Taking Ihara Saikaku (1642-93) and Ejima Kiseki (1667-1736) as his examples, Akinari wrote his first book Shodo Kikimimi Sekenzaru (Worldly Apes) and Seken Tekake Katagi (Worldly Mistresses) at the age of thirty. Like Sugae Masumi, Akinari was drawn to the Kokugaku (School of Native Learning) of Kamo Mabuchi and Kato Umaki (1721-77), and studied the Genji Monogatari and the Manyoshu poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, but he also studied Confucianism and Buddhism. Like Masumi, but unlike Motoori Norinaga, he refused to adhere to anyone school ofthought. Upon his uncle's death, Akinari inherited the business of his adoptive father and ran it successfully for ten years. When it burned down in a conflagration, however, he did not try to rebuild it. Akinari was now thirty-eight. He studied medicine under Teisho (1718-94), but little is known about the way he practised it. Like Motoori Norinaga, Tachibana Nankei, and others, he became better known as a writer than as a physician. He wrote his celebrated Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moon and Rain) in 1768 (published in 1776), including tales of the supernatural. Towards the end of his life, he retired to write and practise tea. The Harusame Monogatari (Tales of Spring Rain), his other great work, was published after his death. He married but apparently had no children and took no disciples. In 1785, a dispute arose among Mabuchi's disciples, notably between Akinari and Motoori Norinaga. It was in fact a clash of personalities, one a

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liberal pragmatist, the other a closed-minded dogmatist. Like the Chinese NeoConfucianists, Motoori regarded the past as the golden age, which came to be corrupted by Chinese thought and the passage of time. This philosophical standpoint viewed the world as regressing from a bad situation to a worse one. Motoori applied this approach to his study of Japan, trying to restore Japan's golden age when it was yet uncorrupted by foreign (Chinese) culture. More specifically the dispute was about the Japanese sound 'n' which Motoori despised as originally foreign and therefore inappropriate. Akinari, however, maintained that 'n' had always been an integral Japanese sound. Akinari also rejected Motoori's belief in the absolute truth of the imperial myths and ridiculed Motoori's claim that, because Japan was the birthplace of the sun, all other nations should pay her tribute. He accused Motoori of being 'the spirit of backwoods naif'. From about 1776 Akinari suffered from painful feet, so in the autumn of 1779, he went to the Kinosaki spa (north of present Hyogo prefecture) with his wife. He had been there once before, many years ago, and reminisced about the sights that had impressed him. They left Osaka on 2 September. He wrote about this journey in his travel diary entitled Akiyama no Ki. Akinari wrote this diary in the classical style using such epithets as tamahoko for 'road' and inserting waka poems into his text. AKIYAMA NO KI (RECORD OF A JOURNEY TO AKIYAMA)

At Sum a bay (Suma-ku, Kobe-shi), Akinari discussed the Tale of Genji and profited from passing though an important place in the Tales to expose his theory of the Tales. When they walked along Suma beach, he struck up a conversation about the Tale of Genji with an itinerant priest. The priest claimed that the Tales, should not be regarded as historical truth but as sinful, deceptive fiction: 'that woman called Shikibu fell into hell for having created such a groundless story, an eternal hell of suffering. In China, too, a man called Lo Guanzhung (fourteenth century) sinned deeply by creating such stories and was punished with three generations of worthless children.' As a Buddhist priest, he maintained that Murasaki Shikibu had been condemned to hell for having created such lies, just as Lo had been condemned to warn posterity of the dangers of fiction. Akinari rejected this interpretation, arguing that the bodhisattva Kannon had helped her create the Tales as an allegory of Buddhist teachings. '... according to another version, she was inspired by Buddhist teachings to write her story as a wise admonition of what may happen to us in the real world'. Far from condemning Murasaki, Akinari praised the quality of the work, but said that it depicts a world doomed in the end to failure. He argued that there is no historical truth to be found in the Tales, and one should read it for entertainment only. For him fiction is not reality; rather, through art, fiction improves reality. 'This tale clarifies for us what is otherwise invisible and helps us understand what happens.'! On their way, Akinari and his wife visited the Sonezaki shrine in the middle of the Niiname-sai (Harvest) festival. He witnessed a ritual sumo wrestling match. People thronged to the sight and some climbed trees and adults carried

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their children on their shoulders to see the proceedings. 'People lined up tightly like an impenetrable rock. Some children were crying because they were nearly crushed. It was as dangerous and as deafening as a moving mountain.' That night they stayed at Amegasaki where an initiation ceremony next door kept them from sleeping. 'Like frogs in the rain,' Akinari wrote. 2 Next day, despite their lack of sleep, they enjoyed the autumn flowers. They stayed in a lonely hamlet called Yakata (Ichikawa-chi), Hyogo prefecture), ate porridge and slept in a room exposed to the mountain wind that was blowing in through the cracks in the wall. 'One could see the moon through the cracks.'3 Next day, they entered Tamba province and seven days after leaving Kyoto, they reached Kinosaki. The inn was still the same as before but the people he had met were no longer there. Only the innkeeper said he remembered him but he had grown so old and half of his hair had turned white. 'He, too, looked at me as if I were a complete stranger.' They talked about the past. He gave Akinari the same room he had occupied previously.'4 In October, they passed Mt Kashima and the bay of Sasanoura. On the night of the 11 th, the weather failed to get any better than the day before so to overcome their boredom they told each other stories. A villager came and told the following story he had just heard: This is a story I heard on a pilgrimage to the Takeno beach [Kinosaki district, Hyogo prefecture] yesterday. An extremely poor but evil-tempered man who spent most of his time at his house had a young daughter. A local man who worked for one of the villagers became intimate with his daughter and visited her from time to time. Her father learned what was afoot and prohibited them from meeting again. There was nothing they could do. She was unable to forget her lover, and hoped to meet him despite the steep mountain path that separated them. When the moon was hazy one spring night, having given her mother an excuse, she left in secret and despite difficulties, reached her lover's place in two hours. The man was overjoyed and they slept together. The night was short and they had not enough time to say all they had wanted. She got up to leave. The man felt uneasy about letting the girl go alone and followed her. But, since there were mountains separating his place from hers, he could not accompany her all the way. They separated at the pass and she returned home. They met from time to time in this fashion, a heartbreaking love affair indeed. One night during the rainy season when it did not rain she wanted to go by the same way over the mountain. But as she was about to cross the pass, the grass was so tall and thick and the wind so strong that she lost her way and found herself in front of a rock. She stood up despite her fear and looking in front of her, cried out: 'Oh no, how terrible!' There was a god with a large mouth known as Iguchi no Magami [Large Mouth Real God]. However loud she shouted, she was too far away for anyone to hear her. She shuddered and moved back, crouching. The god looked at her as if it was about to devour her and she realized that this would be the end of her life. So she prostrated herself before the god and, rubbing her face with her hands, said in a desperately sad voice: 'Hear me, oh god! There is nothing more precious than life in this world. The only thing more important for me than life is the joy of meeting the man I love. Though I am a fish-

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erman's daughter, I am just a weak woman. I did not know that I was trespassing, whether it was day or night. I do not fear for my life, but it is too sad to die away from home. I promise to come again on my way back from my lover. Just give me a little time. I will come back before dawn. There is no other way, I would not think of deceiving you, knowing that you are a real god and that I cannot escape your wrath.' She supplicated the god as if presenting a petition to a daimyo, and wept bitterly. As if he heard her, the god let her go and gave no sign that he intended to devour her. 'You are indeed a mighty god and I will worship you.' So saying she crawled away and safely passed this place as if she were escaping from a tiger's mouth, as the saying goes. She at last met her lover but did not tell him what had happened for fear that he would want to protect her and that, breaking her pledge to the god, they might both be eaten, which would be exceedingly sad. She decided to part from him in a light-hearted manner although they were not to meet again [soon]. Thinking that this would be the last time, she wept bitterly. The man asked why but she remained steadfast and did not tell him. She only said that she would not come for a while, because her mother was suspicious. She could not restrain her tears. How could the man possibly have known what had happened. It was cruel. Although the Milky Way was wide from one side to the other, why would anyone want to tear our relationship apart? They parted, consoling each other saying that they were not living that far apart. The nobles of the capital would have expressed their sadness by exchanging poetry, but they did not know how to compose poetry. She left before daybreak. The girl said with tears in her eyes, 'I will come and see you in my dream tonight. I will come crying,' and almost fainted. When she reached the pass, it darkened around her eyes and she could not see, but there was no one to ask the way. Although she did not know where she was, she was glad to be alive and speedily climbed down the mountain. After some time her fear diminished, she became restless and one night she left again. Perhaps she had learned it from someone. She fashioned a tray on which she arranged various offerings and went up the pass carrying it on her back. She purified the rock on the pass and placed the tray like an offertory table and displayed her offerings neatly on it. Facing the rock, she rubbed her hands and bent down against the dirt and as if pleading to herself, she said: 'My great god, I beseech thee. Please hear me. What I am offering you now is not a treasure I received from my parents, but the life you have given me. With what else can I repay the grace you gave me the other night? I am poor, so what I can offer may seem little, but this food is the purest I can offer you. It comes from my heart. Please open your heart and hear my prayers.' And for a thousand times she bowed her head. Then she crossed this pass and, when she reached this place on her way back home before dawn, all her offerings except her basket had vanished. She realized the god had accepted her offerings and she came back again that night with fresh courage. From then on, whenever she went to her lover, she brought all she could and offered it to the god. Next morning, as always, there was nothing left, only the empty basket lying around. On this side of Take no beach, in a village called Matsumoto, there lived a widowed woodcutter. He had an eye on the girl. Sometimes he came to

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visit, but she wanted to remain faithful to her lover and never gave in to his advances. The woodcutter was so frustrated that, when he learned that she often ventured over the pass to her lover's place, he decided to wait for her one night, hiding himself behind the rock. Unawares, the girl came with her regular offerings and was suddenly caught by the woodcutter. 'How much longer do you want me to wait for an answer? I can no longer stand it. I want to know tonight, even if I have to force you. You can cry as much as you please. No one can hear you here. I have your parents' approval; they told me you have no other man. This is why I was waiting for you to come.' 'You are too late. I cannot commit myself now. Please let me go!' she cried. He threatened her with a terrible look in his eyes and held her tight, saying, 'Like a barrier guard who won't let anyone pass, I won't move from here this evening until I have an answer from you. I am determined and do not mind if! should die.' She said: 'Even in death I will not become your wife. My god, my god, please revenge my death!' She cried. But the woodcutter had no regards for her feelings. She struggled to convince him to let her go when from the ridge one heard something coming. Something bit so strongly into the woodcutter's calf that the flesh was opened to the bone. The woodcutter shrieked in pain and fell. The girl said: 'My god, my god!' And ran down the mountain while the woodcutter was completely devoured. 5 After that Akinari came to Amanohashidate (Kyoto prefecture), a famous place that appeared in the ancient myths. People I have never met before guided me there. The road was overgrown and we had to push our way through. From the peak of Afuchi [Ouchi], one had a clear view over the Yosa sea. At Iwataki bay, we borrowed a small boat, rowed across and walked along the tongue of land of Amanohashidate telling each other stories. Amanohashidate appears in the Fudoki in the Yosa district, Hayashi village. It is 2,229 jo long and more than ten jo wide, it says. According to myth, when Izanagi and Izanami went onto the heavenly bridge and Izanagi stirred up the bottom of the ocean with his sword, he created this country. The heavenly bridge then fell on earth and became Amanohashidate. But, now, when one looks at the tongue of land, it does not appear that the myth is true. This is man-made, perhaps it is like a modern wharf? Someone who loved telling stories of old must have made this story up to mislead the people. Anybody in his right mind can see that they piled up stones to create a lagoon and to make a profit for the province. In addition, it says that Ama no Manai is also here but, since I do not believe in fairy tales, I did not go to see that place. He recalled having been here twenty years ago and is thankful that he lived long enough to see it again. This evening we stayed at Miyazu. We crossed over Mt Fukau, this province's highest mountain, while the moon of dawn was still guarding the night. We made our way, struggling against the rain. Even though I was riding on a [roofed] litter, I got soaked. But, by the time we reached the peak, the wind had cleared the sky. Melancholy changed into a feeling of

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cold and we went down again. This was Mt Oeyama where, they say, a demon had lived once upon a time. The porter said that the demon lived beyond layers and layers of mountains, on a high overgrown mountain. It sometimes assumed human shape, instilling fear among the people. The brave Minamoto no Yorimitsu put an end to him, but I did not feel like paying any attention to this and decided that it was not worth noting it down. 6 D According to this diary, Akinari was both a traditionalist - he wrote it in an archaic literary style - and a sceptic. He did not believe in the divine creation of Amanohashidate nor in the legend of the Oeyama demon, who made his way into Kyoto to steal beautiful maidens. Of particular interest in this diary are his views of the Tale of Genji and the Takeno legend. His encounter with a priest at Sum a bay where Prince Genji had been living in exile was probably a fictional one allowing Ekiken to jot down his views of the Tale. Akinari was a superb storyteller as he demonstrated again in his Ugetsu Monogatari, which contains Japanese and Chinese tales. NOTES

1. 'Akiyama no Ki' in 'Tsuzurabumi' Kinsei Kabun Shu, Shin Nihon Katen Bungaku Taikei, vol. 68 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997) pp. 389-93cf. 2. p.394. 3. p.395. 4. pp. 399-400. 5. pp.406-11. 6. pp. 414-15. Miyazu: Kyoto prefecture. Mt Oeyama: Kyoto prefecture. Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021).

CHAPTER

5

TACHIBANA NANKEI (1752-1805)

TACHIBANA NANKEI was born Miyagawa Haruteru, the son of a samurai family. The Miyagawa assumed their name from the territory assigned to them originally by Sasaki Kyogoku (1306-73), a follower of the Ashikaga (Muromachi) shogunal government, assigned to the Hida district (Oita prefecture). Later, Miyagawa Yasumoto moved to Ise to serve the Todo clan. Nankei was Yasumoto's fifth descendent. Nankei went to Kyoto to study Chinese medicine and after finishing his studies, was appointed physician to the imperial court and given the ritsuryo title, Iwami-no-suke (Vice-Governor of Iwami Province). In his capacity as a court physician, Nankei wrote a number of books on medicine. He was also interested in poetry and wrote two books, one about Chinese, the other about Japanese poetry. His Hokuso Sadan, published in 1825, made him a famous author of essays. In the autumn of 1782, Nankei left Kyoto to travel in Kyushu. On his way there he took the Sanyo road, returning by way of Shikoku island. Saiyu Ki is a diary of this journey. Two years later, Nankei left Kyoto again, this time to see Edo and the Northeast. He returned in the spring of 1786 via the Japan Sea coast to write his second famous travel record, the Toyu Ki. Both diaries lumped together bear the title of Tozai Yuki with Toyu Ki coming first. Like Kaibara Ekiken, Motoori Norinaga and Veda Akinari before him, he was now much better known as an author than as a physician. Nankei was inspired by the work of an earlier traveller, Momoi Tou (known as Soji, d. 1794), a wealthy Kyoto merchant, whose brother owned the propserous Yorozuya. Backed by his brother's success, Tou decided to travel as well. With thirty ryo in his purse, he left for Kyushu and the Northeast, dressed as a rokujurokubu itinerant monk.! Nankei referred to Soji as his friend and frequently alludes to Soji's records of his travel, Kyuai Zuihitsu of 1804. When Nankei reached the age of fifty, he retired to Fushimi (present Fushimi-ku, Kyoto) and died three years later. Nankei took to the road in order to study climate and customs and to look for materia medica. In the Saiyu ki, he assures us that he only wrote about what

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he actually experienced to avoid making mistakes. He also sought to deepen his medical knowledge, especially concerning local diseases and made his visits to the famous places as an excuse to compose poetry. Like Sugae Masumi and Furukawa Koshoken, Nankei's motivation for travel combined scientific and cultural interests. Tou accompanied him on his journeys. There seems to be no geographic coherence in his travel diaries, except that the Saiyu Ki includes episodes taken from Western Japan, whereas the Toyu Ki contains episodes of Eastern Japan. Within these broad geographical categories, there is no geographic consistency and no traceable itinerary. Like Uemura Masakatsu's revised travelogue, these diaries consist of randomly selected episodes, many of which emphasize the exotic. The only apparent pattern is Nankei's attention to famous places: Shiogama, Oyashirazu, Akoyanomatsu, Kinkazan, Hiraizumi, Matsushima and Togakushi to mention only a few that appear in his Toyu Ki. In his preface to the TozaiYuki Nankei comments that a prospective traveller must first of all be healthy and know the old literature. If one does not know the literature, there is no way to record it. For example: People such as governors and their assistants who travelled under the old system of government administration, composed poems at places they visited. These poems came to be known as utamakura. As time passed, however, many of these poetic records of towns and villages and notable locations of the provinces fell into oblivion. Similarly, for unknown reasons, the Fudoki [geographical surveys ordered in 713] of the provinces have mostly been forgotten. From the middle period on, N oin and Saigyo are said to have travelled great distances, but their records lack detail. Later, Priest Sogi also recorded the famous places he visited but even their landscapes remain unclear. Of course, this is also true for the local cultures and human feelings. And there are those who will say that the child who lives in the mountains of Kumano knows of no rice and that ghosts appear in the snowy reaches of Etchu [present Toyama prefecture]. Where are those who have been and know the remote corners of Japan?2 TOYU KI (JOURNEY TO THE EAST)

Twenty or thirty years ago, Nankei heard from the old people when he was staying at Minmaya that Matsumae was flooded by a tsunami. The old people told him that the deities and Buddhas had sent warnings but that the foolish people did not heed them and all those who lived near the beach died.

Matsumae Tsunami [The Matsumae Tsunami}

The wind was still at that time and the rain clouds had moved away into the distance, but for no apparent reason, the sky clouded again. Now and then there was light appearing at night. It flew east to west in the empty sky. As time passed, this light intensified and four or five days before the tsumani, the gods flew over the empty sky even in daytime. One god rode a horse, wearing a formal dress and hat. Another rode on a dragon, which was flying on a cloud. Still another god, dressed completely in white, rode

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on an animal like an elephant or rhinoceros. Some were very large and appeared in red, some in blue, but there were also small ones. The sky was filled with these strange-looking Buddhas and deities and they all flew from east to west. We all went out to watch them. Thankful for their appearance, we prayed to them every day. It was strange to be praying to visible gods. Four or five days passed like this and, one evening, when I looked out toward the open sea, there was something white like a snow mountain. I said: 'Look out! There is again something mysterious in the middle of the ocean.' This thing came nearer and nearer and it seemed as if it would spill over the entire island. Then a huge wave came. This was a tsunami. 'Run quickly!' Old and young, men and women, all struggling to be first, ran in utter confusion. But in no time at all it came, swallowing all the houses, the fields, the trees and plants as well as the animals. No one living in villages along the shore survived. I saw this from a distance. This wave came in over thousands of ri over the ocean. It was high as a cloud and until it came near the shore, it did not even look like a wave. It came in once and retreated once. Noone could tell what caused this. All the people said to each other in fear that the reason why the gods were flying in the clouds at the beginning was to tell the people that something terrible was afoot. 3 Nankei was unable to explain such phenomena rationally and ended his report simply by warning later generations that something like that may happen again. The following is a detailed account of the currents of the Tsugaru strait and the dangers of the crossing, Nankei, like above reported second-hand.

Minmaya This crossing is not easy. There are three ocean currents which flow like a big river. The southern current is called Tappi, the next is called Middle Current and the one to the north, Shirakami [White God]. They are all very wide and are powerful enough to carry you for fifty rio These currents flow northwest to southeast day and night. They remain the same regardless of tide or ebb and are like giant dragons lying in the ocean. On the sea between Hakodate in Matsumae [Southern Hokkaido] and Okoppe in Nanbu [province, present Iwate prefecture], these currents become one and float even more swiftly to the east. They say that these currents are caused by big rocks lying in front of both Minmaya and Matsumae on the bottom of the ocean. The boats bound for Matsumae wait for a steady but strong wind, then they untie their sails entirely and when they reach the currents, the skippers throw straw into the ocean, which passes by at the speed of an arrow, they say. When the wind abates even slightly, they are at the mercy of the currents, which take them fifty ri away in a blink of the eye. In the open sea, they reach an area where the currents are weaker and they slow down the boats. Before one reaches the fifty-ri point, the boats cannot be stopped by human force. As I said before, the currents constantly move from the west to the east. The reason for this is difficult to explain. Because of this I waited a while at Minmaya hoping to be able to cross over to Matsumae, but there was no favourable wind and so I gave up. There are times when a tail wind blows every day and sometimes there

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is no such wind for twenty or thirty days. Because of this, they said, many boats have been lost in the crossing. 4 Of particular interest here are Nankei's comments that, for a safe crossing, a strong wind is needed lest the boats are carried away by the ocean currents. Nankei also referred to Lake Suwa as a beautiful sight. He mentioned that one can see Mt Fuji from the lake and tells of the lake's Seven Mysteries.

Suwako [Lake SuwaJ

The most mysterious thing is that when the lake freezes in winter, the ice is several shaku thick and flat like a metal sheet. From December until February, people and horses cross the lake freely without fear. It usually is three ri from Shimosuwa to Kamisuwa, but across the frozen lake it is only one rio I asked if no one has ever fallen through the cracks. They told me that at the start of winter there is the so-called God's Crossing. After that the ice never cracks. In spring there is another God's Crossing. Although the ice is still thick enough then, none crosses out of fear. I asked what this God's Crossing was all about. One night, at the beginning of winter, the lake makes a big sound like that of a rattling cart. Next morning one could see a single fissure on the ice as if someone had dragged a big rock or log over the ice. After that, people and horses could pass without fear. The same thing happens at the end of February. After that, no one dares to cross. There is a story about this. The Suwa deity has a fox as his companion. The fox can hear what happens inside the ice. Therefore the one who does the God's Crossing is none other than the fox who serves the god. 5

Between Nihonmatsu and Shirakawa at all the stations and houses they use Emperor Han Wen Di as a protective deity and write his name on a placard. Nankei found that unusual and discovered the following:

Kan Buntei [Han wen DiJ

I found this placard strange and it caught my attention. Curious, I enquired from house to house and found out that one house in ten or twenty had such a placard. I went into one of these houses and inquired about the shrine. They told me that every year a priest from the area of Mt Nikko comes and distributes them. I asked what shrine it was [which issued them], but the peasant wife did not know the details. How was it possible for Emperor Wen Di to be worshipped [in Japan]? I asked about the shrine's name and of what villages it was the tutelary. There must be a deeper reason. Nevertheless, Wen Di was one of China's most saintly and benevolent and generous emperors. They worship him in China and brought him over to Japan where he became the protective deity of peasant houses. This was because of his virtues. 6 SAIYU KI (JOURNEY TO THE WEsn

One of the most interesting and human episodes of the Saiyu Ki is the following. Something that travellers must have observed here and there, but which usually fails to appear in the travelogues.

TACHIBANA NANKEI (1752-1805)

Nagae no Ryohaku [Passing the Night at NagaeJ

When I finished sightseeing around Omura castle in Hizen province. I hired a boat and crossed over to a place called Nagae but, because it had become dark inside the boat, my guide suggested that we seek lodging. The skipper knew someone and took us to a place near the river bank. It was a very poor and dirty inn, but it was just for one night and the innkeeper and his wife served us as best they could. I was satisfied. I washed my hands and feet and made myself comfortable. I had dinner and rested. This house faced south and had a view of a big river, and offered an interesting view over the sea. The moon of the twentieth day of the sixth month came out over the sea and the ripples made it seem as if it were scattering silver leaves. The cool sea breeze only added to the charm of the sight. Right then, the innkeeper's eleven or twelve-year-old son was hit on the head by a neighbour's boy and the innkeeper retaliated by hitting the other boy also on the head. In anger, the boy's father again beat the innkeeper's son and this escalated into a fight between the fathers. The innkeeper delivered him a strong blow and came back home. In the meantime many boys gathered near the neighbour's place and pledged revenge. They pushed their way into the innkeeper's small garden. The innkeeper's son also gathered boys from the neighbourhood and the two parties shouted blasphemies at each other, causing an uproar which is hard to describe. Not knowing what was afoot, the peasants came to see what was happening and a big crowd assembled and dozens, perhaps hundreds, crammed the small house and my room so that there was no more space for me to sit down. Both sides cursed each other and some men came with sticks and kitchen knives, about to engage each other in a bloody quarrel. I rushed out fearing that I might become the innocent victim of a blow and sustain injury. My guide knew of no other accommodation. The quarrel had become increasingly violent and there was nothing for me to do but to watch from the side. An old man came forth and said: 'You traveller must feel helpless. Do you see my boat over there? Get on it quickly and pass the night there.' He said this in a friendly manner and offered us tobacco. This gave me the strength to get aboard. It was very small like a fishing boat and was partially covered by a roof made of reed. The moon shone clearly and a cool evening breeze was blowing from the sea and the unbound craft was at the mercy of the ebb. I felt uneasy but the beauty of the sight comforted my heart and, as we were floating away from shore I noted down many poems. The fight went on unabated on shore, but we were at a safe distance. Nevertheless, I did not feel like sleeping and passed the time watching the moon and the quarrel. As we approached dawn, the fog became dense and the breeze cold. I wished I had a sliding door to keep me warm but there was of course no such thing. I drew myself underneath the reed and lay down but was unable to close my eyes. Before long, the short summer night lightened up and one could hear the cries of the birds flying over the red clouds above the mountain edge. I bound my straw sandals and left the boat without having eaten anything. As is usually the case in boat trips, all of this was not without a certain charm. 7

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80

Many episodes contain a kind of human quality that appears increasingly in our travelogues and culminates in Watanabe Kazan's so amazingly sympathetic Yuso Nikki. Nankei recorded the following episode when he travelled in Higo province in Kyushu:

Kikin [The Famine}

The harvests were bad in recent years, but this was not the worst. In the autumn of 1782, Kyushu was stricken by a famine, which caused the people many hardships. Especially in Higo [province] the fields turned black and the crops dried out or withered. They say that an overpopulation of insects had caused this situation. This was the reason why the price of rice went higher and higher every day. I was in Satsuma province that year and one bushel of rice had already risen to ten monme. Usually, Kyushu has a rich rice harvest and rice is much cheaper here than in Kyoto, but the situation then was unspeakably bad. Towards the end of winter, gangs of robbers rampaged through the provinces of Kyushu and it was very dangerous to travel. It happened that someone shot a traveller to death from behind a tree and stole his clothes and his money. For me, too, it became impossible to travel in the winter and I passed the New Year in Satsuma. When I set out again in the spring to see the provinces, the price of rice had jumped even more. On my way, I had to pay about one hundred and forty mon for [a bowl] of white rice. In the castle towns people were eating wheat or barley or Ryukyu potatoes or radishes instead of rice. In villages and other places, people went into the mountains and dug out arrow root to eat, but after a while, they had dug up all there was and they ended up digging up ikema roots and ate them. When that too became scarce, they dug up what is called sumira and ate its roots. They ground the arrowroots and ikema, wetted them down and let them dry in the garden, repeating this several times. Then they kneaded them into balls and boiled them in saltwater and ate them. When salt also became expensive and unaffordable, the people went to the beach and brought seawater and boiled the ikema in the seawater and ate them. Sumira is a plant that resembles daffodils. When they had gathered enough roots, they put them in a cauldron and boiled them, changing the water every three days and three nights and then ate them. If they do not boil them for a long time, they were too hard to eat. After boiling them for three days, they became soft. They were a little sweet but the core was still hard. I tasted it once. I liked the first bite, but when I chewed again it filled my mouth and I could not swallow it. I was choking in a manner that is beyond description. I was tired from a whole day's journey and I rested for a while in a clean farmhouse. There was a woman there and I asked her: 'Why are you alone?' She answered: 'My husband, my son and his wife and daughter, they all left at four in the morning to dig up sumira.' 'Well, they left early indeed,' I said. She replied: 'There are no sumira to be found unless you go eight ri deep into the mountains. They have already dug up all there is to eat in the nearby mountains and there is none left. To find sumira roots, one must go over eight ri deep into the mountains, despite the dangers. One must cover sixteen ri both ways, most of it in the mountains. They won't be back

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before ten at night. Even at four in the morning, it is too late. These days people have nothing to eat and not enough strength for the trip.' 'How many sumira do you dig up?' I asked. 'Not even enough for two days,' she replied. What a waste to leave in the dark of night and brave the dangerous mountains for sixteen ri, travelling until late at night and to boil for three days and nights the dug-up roots that hardly pass one's throat just to live. If even the people of such a big house must do this, how much harder it must be for the poorer families, let alone the elderly, the children, or the widows who have to support their families. How do they survive? Even the thought of it made me sick. Again, when I travelled through a certain province, I walked [for a while] with a rokujurokubu pilgrim. He was in tears as he told me the following: 'A while ago I practised austerities in the mountains and sought to rest in a peasant's house. There was an old man with his daughter, but they refused to accommodate me. I kept on begging and they said: 'There is nothing to eat.' 'I have some food,' I said, so they finally let me in. Both of them had no strength left in them and it seemed they had been sick for quite some time. I asked: 'How do you feel?' Both told me, weeping: 'We have not had anything to eat for days. My wife died of hunger about ten days ago and my son died four or five days ago. He fed us a bit every day saying that we were his parents and we were able to survive until now.' I was shocked and said: 'What you say fills me with sorrow. I realize what you have been through. Please eat this fried rice,' and offered it to them. The old man wanted to give it all to his daughter and the daughter to the old man. 'Why would anyone in your situation give it all to the other? If this is not enough, I have one kin more in this bag. Please have your fill,' I insisted. The old man said: 'I will never forget your kindness as long as I live, but if I eat all of it now, there will be nothing left to eat tomorrow. It is like prolonging our sufferings indefinitely. I want to die, the sooner the better.' The daughter added: 'Because I am still young, chances are that tomorrow the lord will bless us with enough food to survive. By eating a little at a time, I will live for at least one more day. The old man only wishes to follow his wife and son into death.' So saying, both were still reluctant to eat. I could not bear seeing and hearing this any longer and forgot all about my own hunger. I consoled them as well as I could, put some rice into the mouth of the girl and left the rest. I departed early in the morning. 'I have been on pilgrimages for many years but I have never been through such a wretched experience,' he told me. It broke my heart hearing this. To think of it, we should all be thankful for all the rice, soup, and vegetables we are able to eat. To eat too much is ignoring the divine blessings. The following year brought no relief. In the spring and summer of 1784, after I had returned to Kyoto, the famine continued unabated and, as far as I could tell, causing terrible suffering in the northeast. I experienced in the western provinces directly what a famine is all about and realized what people go through. If only one single provincial lord would have shown at least some compassion, his blessings would have touched even the poorest, but there were none who had compassion. 8 The following episode is from Noshiroko (Higashi Ichiki), Satsuma province, a place where the lord of Satsuma settled Korean potters who had been

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brought to Japan against their will during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's wars against Korea and China, 1592, 1598:

Korai no Shison [Korean Descendents} Seven ri west of the castle town of Kagoshima in Satsuma province, there

is a place called Noshiroko. It is entirely inhabited by Koreans. These were descendents from Koreans - men, women, young and old, all from one district - whom the former lord of Satsuma resettled in his domain at the time ofTaiko Hideyoshi's Korean campaign. The lord settled them all in one district. The descendents of these Koreans still flourish. They have preserved Korean customs, dress and language and have continued to flourish as Koreans. Their numbers have reached several hundreds of households. When they were forcefully settled, there were seventeen family names: Shin, Lee, Park, Hen, Tei, Lim, Sha, Kang, Chin, Sai, Ro, Shin, Kim, Pak, Tei, Ka, and Shu. I had long harboured the desire to see these Koreans, but they did not accommodate people from other provinces like me. People warned me that I should not proceed without permission. Consequently, I abandoned my plan, but after some time had elapsed, I had the chance to meet with the head of N oshiroko, Machida Kenmotsu. He wrote me a letter of introduction and I was able to go. As the guest of the village head, the shoya of Noshiroko welcomed me politely. He accommodated me in his house and served me sake and food. When I first met the master of the house, I asked his name. He told me it was Shin Pochun. I asked how he wrote his name and said: 'Yours is a very uncommon name. The surname Shin does not even exist in China. Is it a Korean traditional name?' 'Yes, indeed. After coming to Japan, the name['s character] was changed from r:p to {$. After my ancestors came over and had an audience with the lord, the master of ceremony introduced him as Monkey so-and-so. This was not the place to contest this reading of the character, so he let it be. This was because the character r:p stood for Monkey as one of the zodiacal signs and the official misread the character as it was written on the list of names. At the New Year reception the following year, the master of ceremony introduced him again as Monkey. After that he told him that it was so-and-so Shin. But when another replaced the master of ceremonies the next year, it was back to Monkey. Anyway, because Monkey sounds bad in people's ears, we added the man radical to the character in order not to have it pronounced again as Monkey. In this way we changed the writing of our surname.' 'Well, that is really unusual.' I said clapping my hands. I asked him: 'How many generations is it since your ancestors came over?' He replied: 'I am the fifth generation, but, among the aged members of this community, there are also fourth generation. Among the young, however, there are also eighth generation.' 'Though Korea is your home country, there is probably no one who remembers it.' I asked. He replied: 'There is a saying that one never forgets home. We have had the fortune to live here for almost two hundred years and have acquired the Japanese language and speak it no differently from native Japanese. Only our way of dressing and hairstyle are still Korean. Other than that, there is nothing that reminds us of Korea. Because we no longer receive news from Korea, we have forgotten everything, but we

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remember it on certain occasions. Though we could go back to Korea now, we do not out of the obligation we feel towards the lord who lets us live here.' I sympathized with him. Then I said: 'As shoya, you must have a list of the inhabitants of this village. Please show it to me. He showed it to me and I saw that everyone in the district had names such as Kin Keizan or Haku [Park] Koki. I had never seen such uniformity. Among them were many names I could not understand [written only in the syllabary]. This was probably because they were illiterate peasants. As our conversation came to an end, someone took me to the guesthouse. He introduced himself as Boku [Park] Yoshin and his son was Boku Yoan. His wife's name was Roshin for which there were no characters. These were simple folks indeed. In the evening, Shin Shukin came to the guesthouse to offer me greetings from the goningumi. I had him stay and talked a while and I learned many rare things from him. The next day, my guide took me to the factory and kiln where they massproduce the Korai-yaki [Korean pottery]. Half of the villagers worked as potters. They made the pottery according to a method they had brought from Korea. They produced excellent pottery that did not differ from those imported from Korea. It did not seem made in Japan. The best quality was reserved for the lord and it was strictly prohibited to buy and sell it [privately]. The lord uses them as gifts, saying that they were genuinely Korean. Ordinary people from this as well as from other provinces had, therefore, no means to obtain it. I asked my guide if I could have one, but I was unable to get a piece of white porcelain and it was only after some difficulty that I was able to get a small but good quality black saucer. They only gave it to me because I had come from afar and on condition I kept it a secret. I carried it all the way back home and still cherish it. The other pottery was of inferior quality. They were thick, light black and heat resistant. Among these low-quality ware, they produced many clay bottles and sold them in great numbers to the peasants of the three provinces; Satsuma, Osumi and Hyuga. They sold them as far as Osaka because Satsuma ware was held in high esteem. In Satsuma they called it choka or Hanoshiro pottery. Choka were clay bottles made for tea producers, and this word is from Satsuma dialect. If you said dobin [clay bottle], none would understand you. After that, I toured the district and saw many places before I started on my way back home. According to Noshiroko custom, they let their hair grow and bind it together on top of their heads, very much like the kushimaki style of the Kyoto women. At ceremonial occasions, they covered their head with a hat called mankin. It was made of horse-tail hair plaited like a net. It was open at the bottom and had to be attached over the ears to the left and right by tin or brass pins that look like tree leaves. The hat covered from the forehead to the neck. There were high and low ones; the high ones were called komankin. These were reserved for high officials. They wore light blue silk clothing with wide sleeves like our priests, the upper skirt being divided. They first put on a skirt and then the main garment above that. They tie it with a red narrow round belt. The underwear is the usual Japanese style but the shoulders and sleeves are wide and many tie their belts in front. For formal occasions, the women divide their hair into two strands and bind

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them on top. Ordinary women bind their hair like the kushimaki. When I saw them in such dress and hairstyles chasing off the birds or tilling the fields, I felt as if I were indeed in China and not in Japan. I cannot but appreciate Satsuma's generosity to give them so much land and letting them keep their ways. When Satsuma needs a Korean interpreter, they choose someone of this village. When I was there, the ordinary people all spoke Japanese, but there were also some who spoke Korean and the Korean interpreters were chosen from among them. Because foreign ships were stranded each year on the shores of Satsuma, they had interpreters fluent in various languages and it was only natural that their Korean interpreters should be someone from this village. 9 This episode, too, bears witness of the humanism that pervades our travelogues. We find no trace of the kind of prejudice the Meiji, Taisho and Showa-period Japanese harboured against Koreans, especially the Koreans who lived in Japan. We discover here nothing but respect and admiration. After that, Nankei describes the Ryukyu and the Satsuma administration of the islands. The following episode seems unrelated to travel and we cannot know to what particular place during his journey it is related. But it is an important document, revealing how the introduction of Western instruments changed the way of seeing, engendering a new reality.

Kiki [WOndrous Instruments}

When it comes to technical skills there is no country better than Holland. Twenty or thirty years ago it brought to Japan a machine called erekiteru. It is a machine they say jolts the body. It is about three-shaku in size and has a drum inside a box. A two or three-ken long chain comes out of the box and is attached to a chair. One sits on that chair and when one turns that drum inside the box then electricity is conducted to the chair and jolts the person sitting on it. When one holds a paper strip near that person then that strip starts moving around. When another person holds the hand of the sitting person then it produces a sound like flowing oil and produces a burning feeling. One cannot believe what this machine can do unless one sees it in front of one's eyes. There is also a microscope called mushimegane. Just by looking through it at a drop of water at the point of a needle one discovers various strangelooking living insects one has never before seen in what seems [to the naked eye] to be clear water. In case it is sea water, one sees sextagonal living creatures swarming together inside and when looking at a drop of oil, one realizes it consists of multiple round things. In case of water, one realizes it consists of an assembly of triangular things. Besides, when one looks at a drop of alcohol, one sees swarms of various insects. When I saw this once, I felt I could never drink another drop of alcohol. Truly, it says in the Kegon Sutra that the Buddha instructed that one must filter the water before drinking it. However, even if one had the eyes of a god, there is no way filtering out all living things. What he seemed to have wanted, therefore, is to filter out the living things visible by the naked eye before drinking. Hence this microscope is a kind of divine eye. None would

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believe how many living creatures are in a drop of clear water but if one looks through a microscope one fully realizes there are. Moreover, there are probably tiny living things not even a microscope can detect and however one may [one day] discover them, there may always be even smaller ones. Likewise, there is no limit to the large objects either. Pursuing this kind of thinking further, our lives in the universe are like drops of water and who knows how many millions or billions of worlds like the one we inhabit exist and who can tell us there is not someone out there looking at us through a microscope. To think about all that which we cannot see with our naked eyes, this means we cannot rely just on the intelligence nature has given us. Therefore, foreigners devised an instrument which can apprehend what is beyond the abilities the heavens have given us. This is truly wondrous. There is also what is called a telescope, an instrument through which one can see as far as the sun, the moon and the stars and see the real shape of the sun and the moon. When one looks at the stars and at Venus, one sees on it canals like on the moon. When one looks at Saturn, one sees it has three horizontal rings and a slant ring around Jupiter so much so that the star seems elongated. When one looks at the white spots in the Milky Way, one sees clusters of small stars so distinctly one can count them. Recently, Iwahashi Zenbee of Izumi [province] reproduced such a telescope, which is superior to the one from Holland. I have one, too, at my home. There is also what is called a peephole. One drills a hole through one's high wall and is able to see what is going on outside. Then there is an instrument with which one can see far away at night. There are many other such wondrous tools which are brought over every year and which amaze our eyes and ears. If you do not see them yourselves, you won't believe even if I tell you. Holland is the farthest among all nations, which relate to Japan. It is more than ten thousand ri away, in a northwesterly direction. The chief of the Dutch who come hither is called kabitan [captain], the most recent ones being Isaa Tetsushinki [Isaac Titsingh] and Henderiki Kasufuru Ronherge [Hendrik Casper Romberg] who was relieved this year. The Dutch eat mainly meat and not the five crops. They eat some buckwheat flour. Therefore the average lifespan is shorter than that of Japan and a person in his forties or fifties is considered old. Their priority is to pursue new knowledge. This is why in astronomy they build such instruments as mentioned above to study reality and finally to gain superiority over other countries in the world. They build superior ships and with their knowledge of geography, they venture out into the oceans and go around the world and there is no place in the world they do not know. Their knowledge of the world is superior to all other countries. Looking at the world maps brought by the Dutch to Nagasaki, they differ from our woodblock maps; they are much more detailed about the various countries. I wonder how they draw such maps. They circumnavigate the globe, sailing out to the east and returning from the west. But because the climate does not sustain life in the north and south, one cannot go and see. Therefore their maps of the polar regions under the North Stars and South Stars give only rough outlines. In Holland one cultivates a skill over one's lifetime, then transmits the know-how to one's sons, entrusting to their grandchildren the

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problems they could not resolve. Thus, over two or three generations, they start building wondrous instruments. The Dutch differ much from the Japanese but their character is not inferior to anyone else's. They navigate tens of thousands of ri over the oceans with only a small crew and touch upon all countries. They hold black servants they call kurosu. They also have what they call matarosu among whom are foreigners whom they buy to serve the Dutch until the end of their lives. These matarosu are excellent swimmers and climb up the masts with ease. Their bodies are all black as the saying goes. But it is not as if one were to paint their bodies in black lacquer. Looking at all the various peoples, there is none as different as the Chinese in dress and language. But in their emotions and taste they differ little from the Japanese. Even if we were to dress like the Chinese and learn their language, we would still not be able to understand them however much we may mingle with them. The Ryukyuans dress like the Japanese and we understand each other's language. However, their overly hot temperament differs much from the Japanese. The Dutch are stubborn but not hot-tempered and, compared to us the Japanese would seem mild-tempered. Why this difference? This seems to come from the differences between cold and temperate climates. China lies at about the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth parallel counting from the North Pole and, like Japan, has four seasons. The Chinese like the Japanese people, birds, animals, plants and trees live in wet climates, which do not change [much]. The Ryukyu are near southern China and have no snow or ice. Temperate climates make people soft because the climate, too, is gentle. Because Holland is a northern country, it has no summer. The cold makes things harder and stronger. Though we may be separated east from west by thousands of ri, if the climates are the same, the vegetation is similar, too. A mere difference of anywhere between four or five hundred ri to one thousand ri north or south, the climate differs much. The climates on earth change according to the moisture and the vegetation varies accordingly, including men's character, it seems. Even in Japan, things change in merely one or two hundred ri and the vegetation in the south differs from that of the north and the people's character is also different. Moreover, when one thinks in universal terms, it is to be expected that over distances of thousands of ri one understands by and large the climates and vegetations of wherever one happens to be. lo It amazes me to discover in this episode how much an eighteenth-century glimpse through a microscope and telescope was able to change so radically and fundamentally Nankei's understanding of the universe and his outlook on life. There is no doubt that we deal here with a very intelligent and sensitive eighteenth-century Japanese. When Nankei was travelling in Kyushu, he came upon Shimabara, the site of a Christian rebellion in the years 1637-38:

Efumi [Picture Trampling]

When I passed through the Shimabara domain in Hizen [province], there were checkpoints, here and there. There one had to renew one's passport and use an additional one issued by the checkpoint indicating from where

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to where one was going and where one planned on passing the night. Should one change one's itinerary and be unable to reach the inn one had indicated, either because one took one's time or fell ill on the way, then, wherever one stays, the innkeeper will have to issue a new passport. The reason for these formalities was Ama no Shiro's Amakusa uprising. They wanted to check on the ronin and especially the Christians. In Shimabara castletown there is a yearly interrogation where people have to trample over a [Christian] image. The officials carry around crucifixes and at each house, men and women, old and young had to swear they were not Christians and trample on the image as a token of proof. Someone who was still a Christian at heart, he or she would not be able to step on the image, whereupon such a person would be interrogated. During the Amakusa uprising, all locals were Christians, but the officials suspected that though they later recanted and assumed the correct religion, there were still some who continued to worship [the Christian religion] in their hearts. This is why, they said, the interrogations were more severe here than in other provinces. I was wondering whether there were still such Christians. Last year, when a peasant tilled his field, two clay puppets came to the surface. Thinking that his children may use them as toys, he took them home and displayed them on the shelf. When that peasant happened to be away from home, these puppets began to dance all by themselves. The children saw this and told their father after he came back home, telling him that they wanted the puppets. The peasant was greatly surprised and watched them carefully. He realized that the puppets at times moved on their own. He was afraid that these might be puppets belonging to the Christians from a long time ago, and immediately buried them again in the field where he had originally found them. He wondered whether badgers or foxes had bewitched them or whether they were old Christian objects. All the people asked themselves such questions and all were afraid. 11 D We detect in the above episodes, especially in 'Famine', the kind of warmhearted, compassionate humanist we have also seen in our other travellers. Of particular interest are his comments on the famine, accusing the local daimyo in no uncertain terms of lack of compassion, suggesting that, had there been compassion, the sufferings could have been prevented. Nankei is very close to Hikokuro in this respect and one wonders whether this is a coincidence or the result of a lingering disappointment with the feudal system and a commitment to an imperial agenda, that he fails to specify. Conceivably, both Hikokuro and Nankei feared shogunal censorship. Bakin's literary career teaches us about the severity of the censorship and of the fate of artists affected by it. 'Nagae no Ryohaku' is perhaps the most travelogue-like episode in Nankei's works. It is a highly personal account of a village dispute and how it affected him as a traveller. The episode of the Korean potters is particularly moving. Needless to say, it is devoid of any condescendence. It is full of sympathy and admiration for the Koreans. Nankei is thankful to the local daimyo for having accommodated these Koreans.

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From 'Tsunami' and the divine warnings one may get the impression Nankei is drawn towards the supernatural. But in his 'Kiki' and 'Minmaya' he displays his scientific interests and, like Shiba Kokan, his inclination to teach his contemporaries a new 'seeing' and understanding of things. 'Kiki' is an extraordinary and objective account of Dutch ingenuity. Through the global perspective Nankei adopted in this episode, it also introduced a new way of understanding the world and the universe. It is amazing how Nankei was able to draw such universal understanding from two instruments, the microscope and the telescope. These instruments brought about new ways of seeing and thinking about life and the world. Similar East-West climates but much differing North-South ones, also introduces a new global thinking to Japan. NOTES

1. Pilgrims who travel to the sixty-six sacred places around Japan donating portions of the Lotus Sutra they had copied single-handedly. 2. Tozai Yuki, Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 20 (Tokyo, San'ichi Shobo, 1972) pp. 5-6. Noin (988-?), Saigyo (1118-90) and Sogi (1421-1502) were celebrated itinerant poets. 3. pp.16-17. 4. pp. 56-7. Minmaya: Aomori prefecture. 5. p. 66. Suwako (Lake Suwa): Nagano prefecture. Shimosuwa (Lower Suwa); Kamisuwa (Upper Suwa). 6. p. 73. For more on the worship of Chinese emperors in Japan, see Toyu Ki, episode entitled 'The Sobu Shrine'. 7. p. 97. Nagae: Nagaya-cho, Sonogi district, Nagasaki prefecture. 8. pp. 137-9. Ikema: Cynanchum candatum. Sumira: Viola mandshuria. 9. pp. 143-5. Mankin: Kor. man'gon. Komakin: Kor. Koman'gon. 10. pp. 150-2. 11. This episode is missing from the Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei version but is included in the Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei vol. 98 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991) version. See pp. 368-9 version.

CHAPTER

6

FURUKAWA KOSHOKEN ( 1726-1807)

FURUKAWA KOSHOKEN was born in 1726 into a family of physicians, whose business was selling herbal medicine. Koshoken spent his early years in Shinbon village in the Kibi district of Bitchu province (now the town of Mikibi in Okayama prefecture). The Koshoken Zakki, a biographical note quoted in the Okayama Kenshi,l describes himself as a rebellious youth, often mingling with children of the lower classes. He created his pen-name, Koshoken, from an old pine that stood in his garden. At age thirty-two, he allegedly went to Nagasaki to study Dutch medicine but his travelogue Saiyu Zakki strongly suggests that he went there for the first time in 1783. Koshoken studied his family's trade but he was also interested in other fields of knowledge, and typical of other young people of the era, worked to acquire a universal, encyclopaedic knowledge (hakubutsugaku). He went to Edo and studied geography under Nagakubo Sekisui and, in 1796, after his return from his lengthy journeys, served the Okada clan and was given samurai status with a stipend for two. He died on 10 November 1807 at the age of eighty-two and was buried at the temple Rensho-ji in Okada village. His first lengthy journey was at the age of fifty-eight when he toured Kyushu, including Nagasaki. This journey is described in Saiyu Zakki of 1783. According to the preface, he lost some of his manuscripts when his house was flooded after his return. He was able to retrieve only seven volumes to which he added portions from memory. The entire portion of his journey from Arita to Nagoya, both in Kyushu, was apparently lost. SAIYU ZAKKI (MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON A JOURNEY TO THE WEST)

Koshoken left on this journey to Kyushu in March of 1783. His starting point was Sono no Sato (Sono village) in Bitchu province (the western portion of present Okayama prefecture) and he proceeded west towards Kyushu. On 7 March he reached the frontier between Bitchu and Bingo provinces. As always when describing his journey, he informed his readers about the political geography, indicating the domains through which he was travelling, the domain's

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income and the names of the local lords. He referred to local history learned through his readings of the classics or from local accounts. On 8 March he visited the Kibitsu shrine, the tutelary shrine of his home province. At Ichinotsu he counted more than ten thousand houses - 'needless to say, a prosperous place', he wrote. 2 As Koshoken travelled on, he often compared unfamiliar places with his home province, which served as his standard of judgement. At the start of his diary, Koshoken's writing displays a scepticism and pragmatism uncommon in his generation. At Jodo-ji, a temple founded by ex-emperor Goshirakawa (1127-92) and enlarged by the shogun Ashikaga no Takauji (1305-58), he remarked: 'I do not know how this was in the past but nowadays when the entire nation from corner to corner is Buddhist, there are people who, without having entered the priesthood, pretend to be monks, make themselves comfortable and live off the people. Is this not despicable?'3 At Ondonose he is told that the wake of the waves during the tide are called 'Kiyomori's gaze' (Kiyomori no nirami), 'a silly story, indeed!' He writes: 'The village claims to have Kiyomori's grave. The character and customs of the people and their language are slightly inferior to that of the Three Bi, I thought.'4 On 16 April, he took the boat to go to Itsukushima island, admiring the scenic beauty of the Inland Sea on the way. He gives us many details about the island, the Itsukushima shrine and the local temples, as well as an account of the shrine's treasures, history and legends. On Itsukushima, the steam bath at the Omoto Myojin shrine about two cho west of the main shrine cought his attention. Said to have been built by Kobo Daishi, it was a clay room big enough to accommodate about five people. They burn four or five bundles of pine needles, before they carry the fire outside and close the entrance after the sick had entered. The people sweat under the intense heat and, when they feel uncomfortable, they run out to cool off. This, Koshoken learned, offers an effective cure for colic, chills, headaches and palsy, and especially for lower back pain. He added in his typical sarcasm: 'There are indeed many ways to cure the sick in this world!' and adds a sketch. s Koshoken often describes local festivals and how people worship. At Itsukushima, he described an ancient festival, which the people call Shimameguri (Island Circumnavigation): People spend five ryo, ten ryo or fifteen ryo, depending on what they can spend, decorate a boat and with many shrine priests and shrine maidens on board, row it to the Seven Bays and Seven Ebisu shrines. They perform what is called Yabuseki on their way. They prepare three large rice balls, place them onto a tray and float it out. When the crows from Mt Misen fly hither to pick them up, that means that the deities have granted their wishes and they joyfully jump up and down on the boat. When no crow flies hither and the rice balls float out into the ocean then they crouch and change boats on the way and do this as long as it takes for the crows to come. 6 Koshoken did not believe in the mystery of birds picking up floating food. Wherever there are many birds, when they see food they come for it. To say that this is mysterious and to spend much money on something like this is

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laughable and stupid. But one can respect this as an old custom. [Considering that] near the capital many old customs have vanished, this may in fact be preferable to the modern garish festivals.? On 20 April, he arrived at Iwakuni where he viewed the famous bridge. He wrote about how it was built, discounting the speculations about its origin that typify such public works in popular stories. On the 23rd at Murozumi, believed to be the birthplace of the female poet Koshikibu (d. 1025) and the place where Murasaki Shikibu had a meal, admired the scenic beauty of the place: 'I am an unskilled painter and unable to do justice to this scenery.' At Hirao, oneand-a-half ri from Murozumi he commented: 'There is a pine forest along the shore much more impressive than the one at Sum a Akashi. Tens of thousands oflarge pines grow along the white sand, their roots sticking out here and there. It is indescribable. Nobody seems to pay attention to such beautiful scenery especially when it is in such a remote place along the spacious Inland Sea.'s Koshoken was sensitive to natural beauty regardless of whether or not such a place appears in classical literature. On the 27th, he reached Miyanoichi and at Akama barrier recalled the Taira who perished together with the child-emperor Antoku (1178-85) at the onslaught of the Minamoto troops. 9 He inspected many ancient documents preserved at the temple Amida-ji, including two volumes of the Nagato (also Amidaji) version ofthe Heike Monogatari (Tales of the Heike). At Inaga village he described the pleasure girls, allegedly the descendants of the ancient court ladies of the Taira clan: Someone claimed that Emperor Antoku was in fact a female empress who did not drown during this battle and that all subsequent emperors descended from her. I don't know the truth ofthis. They say that [at Inarimachi pleasure quarter] many court ladies who had no other choice than to follow the Heike to their doom, passed the rest of their lives as prostitutes and their elegance has survived in this village. The pleasure girls sit on a higher cushion than their guests, a custom one cannot find in any other parts of Japan. Also, during the anniversaries of Antoku's death, the girls wear court dress and conduct the rites, they say. I don't know these things in detail and only report what the locals told me. I also heard that there are even pleasure houses, which treasure the original court dresses, but no one knows the details. Sometimes, on request, the girls gather to perform plays for their guests. Even now, the girls sympathize with the Heike and refuse to perform plays, which portray the Heike as villains. A local person told me this.lo After he arrived in Kyushu, Koshoken went to the Hayatomo shrine at Mojigaseki [Moji barrier]. He did not give much credence to the story he heard from a local person claiming that during the festival, the priest of Myojin shrine dives to the bottom of the ocean with his torch to gather wakame seaweed. His informant told him that in the past none had ever seen the priest entering the ocean because if you look at it you will go blind. 'A groundless story', Koshoken noted. 11 Koshoken found the dialect increasingly difficult to understand and noted

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that the supplies were insufficient compared to his native Chugoku region. At Sugawa waterfall he heard about a dragon inhabiting a pool under a waterfall worshipped to bring about rain. 'Are dragons truly causing rain?' He asks himself. 'I cannot believe it.'12 At Ohashi, on 3 May, he heard about a dragon that lived in a cave on Mt Nuki and harassed the people, but was killed by Emperor Ojin. 'Such stories exist in all provinces and are untrustworthy, but one cannot entirely discard them.'13 Koshoken was referring here to the cultural importance of local legends. At Kaminoshima, offshore from Kanda (Miyako district, Fukuoka prefecture), an island inhabited by many fishermen, Koshoken mentioned another unbelievable story: 'Four years ago a dragon flew up to heaven and pulled up more than thirty fishermen's houses and many died, a villager told me. He told me the story as if it were true.,14 On 11 May, Koshoken travelled south from northern Kyushu to Mt Hiko and the shrine Usa Hachimangu: Bungo province is larger than Buzen, but the customs are uncouth and bad. Since I entered this province, I have not seen a single farming house I thought was decent and there is not one single clay storehouse in sight. There are no persimmons, no mandarin oranges, no kumquats nor any citrons. The character of the people and their language is quite inferior to the Chugoku region. When they go into the mountains, they go barefoot and go directly into their houses without even washing their feet when they return. They do not eat rice; millet is their main staple. The same is true for even the temple priests and village chiefs who eat rice only during the gosekku festivals. 15 Koshoken added that by observing these things one can deduce the quality of people's customs. The merchants who travel from Suwo and Nagato to Higo, Hyuga and Osumi [provinces], often joke, saying to each other in the inns: 'Let's hurry back to Japan! And have a good laugh.' Generally, Koshoken did not feel that the language and customs in the castle towns were inferior, but he was critical of the countryside where people had not yet risen to what he considered to be standards of decency: 'In this province all are unlearned and there is no one worth visiting.' In Yamamoto he learned that there is an astronomer who had studied with the Dutch: 'But I am not an expert in astronomy and do not intend to start studying it now and decided not to pay him a visit.'16 Koshoken was travelling from the Saga barrier to Hikoyama (Mt Hiko), which he reached on 11 May. At Usuki castle, five ri from Saga barrier, he mentioned a secret book on strategy entitled Shuzu Goketsu, containing copied maps of provincial castles: So I took it along to compare it with what I saw in each region. I cannot speak of what is inside the castles, but the hills on which these castles stand and their shape are very accurate. Here and there, are small mistakes in the directions and, in some cases, there are big mistakes. As for this U suki castle, there are many moats on the castle's outside, but it misses most of

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the landscape. I do not pretend to know much about strategy but I concluded that, in case of an emergency, it may be beneficial to indicate the geography of this castle up to three or five ri square. To the east of it there is a cut and in the west, at several ri, a steep slope. In the south there is a river and a straight road and in the north an escape road. It may also be beneficial to indicate how deep or shallow the ocean is at the beach, or the tide, or where the rocks are on the seabed and what winds are favourable or unfavourable for the boats to arrive. But present-day military strategy fails to take the geography into account and solely relies on such theory as castle defence and maps of battlefields. 17 Koshoken concluded: 'One gets to know the gist of geography simply through actual observation. I happened to meet strategists here and there and heard them talk about geography, but have yet to meet one who is knowledgeable about geography.>l8 After leaving Usuki, Koshoken criticized the Buddhist priesthood: After Usuki, there were the old remains of good temples, such as the Gekko-ji and Tafuku-ji. At Tafuku-ji they give you a charm called buppan [Buddha's judgement]. There is no other charm like this in Japan they say; anyone who possesses one will be free of trouble in this world. And it is a passport to paradise after death. In Kyushu they make a big fuss about this charm. This charm is nonsenseP9 Upon entering Hyuga province at the start of June, Koshoken wrote: 'Whoever you ask, nobody knows where the frontier is.' 'The character of the people and their language is bad. I thought Higo was an inferior province, but now I think Hyuga is worse; it is a lower than low province.' He noticed that in the summer all people go naked. Only the women wore a dyed cotton loincloth. Boys and girls go naked. 'They are binding their tobacco pouches and handkerchief containers around their loincloths. When I first saw such people, perhaps because I was not used to it, I was shocked.'The women feel absolutely no shame in being naked, he observed. 2o Koshoken was sceptical of legends and myths. At Kirishima, he did not believe in the Sakahoko myth according to which the gods placed a lance with an inscription upside-down, so far away from human habitation that none can see it. The rational Koshoken wrote: 'There is no reason to place a lance in such a place. It is nothing but a legend that the heavenly deities have placed it there. Even in the age of the gods, there is no reason to place a lance several jo long on a rock inaccessible to people. And how many would have cast and used such a lance, larger than the Blue-Dragon Sword of (Chinese hero) Kan Yu (Kuan Yu) who lived during the Three Kingdoms (230-280). According to my opinion, there is a rock looking like a lance because there are rocks that resemble man-made objects. They merely added a story onto such a rock and spread it in this world, a story only waiting to be killed by a wise man.'21 When entering Satsuma province, he remarked, officials inspected all the traveller's belongings and requested that they carry at least three bu, something they call misegane (show-money). Koshoken also learned that they do not admit anybody during an epidemic. But for someone who wants to tour all of this

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province as an ordinary traveller, Koshoken learned, it was easier to do it under the disguise of an itinerant monk. So, Koshoken disguised himself as a monk and the barrier officials let him through without trouble. They checked Koshoken's credentials and gave him a pass to be presented at each shoya. Koshoken also got a form to indicate when he stayed where, what year, what month, what day and what time. 22 Koshoken described his visit to Kagoshima, the centre of Satsuma province and, on 17 June, mentioned the 1 September 1779 eruption of the volcano Sakurajima. On the 19th he visited the residence of the king of the Ryukyu islands which he wanted to see but was not admitted. While in Kagoshima, Koshoken's interest shifted to the Ryukyu islands. He saw the Ryukyukan building used for trading Ryukyu goods. 'Among the Ryukyuans who come to Kagoshima, there are people who are good at studying the classics, learning the arts and composing poetry.'23 He reported in his diary what he learned in Kagoshima about the Ryukyu islands and how they were administered. As always, he was judgemental about local customs. He wrote about the southwestern extremity of Satsuma: 'Because of its remoteness, the customs of the women are very base. They talk in a high-pitched voice, which is very difficult to understand. People who are below the middle rank often make me laugh.'24 But he praised the Satsuma potatoes, which help prevent famines. From Kagoshima, Koshoken travelled to Bonotsu on Satsuma peninsula. He complained about the lack of uniform measurements from one area to another in Japan: In Japan, one customarily says that from this to that place by boat is eighteen ri, regardless of the real ocean distance. Is this national custom not exceedingly unreasonable? Of course, a more exact measuring of distance may be unnecessary in one's daily life and therefore one approximates but I hope the ocean and land distances will be measured more exactly. Everyone knows that thirty-six cho makes one ri but, in most provinces, the roads are measured differently. In many, one ri is anywhere between fifty and one hundred cho. Therefore, in many places they say it is one ri from here to any other village. When I compared actual distances with the Dochu Kotei Saiken Ki, a recently published travel guide I took along for reference, there were many big mistakes. They are either biased, trying to make a big country out of a chain of islands that is Japan, or perhaps out of fear that China, the world's most civilized country, may otherwise attack, they shorten the distances to make Japan look small and insignificant. Or, they present Japan smaller than it is and shorten the distances, making a one-hundred-ri territory into a fifty-ri one. This is unreasonable and the result of not paying attention to measurements, just presenting distances as one pleases without principles. What is there to add to such stupidity?25 Then, travelling between Ichiku and Ijuin in Satsuma province, Koshoken came upon Noshiro (presently, Noshirogawa, west ofIjuin), the same village of Korean potters Nankei mentioned in his Saiyu Ki: I had heard that there lived many descendents of Koreans and, looking forward to seeing the strange things and traditions I had heard about, I

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went there from Kawachi to have a good look, the place being only one day away from Kawachi. I was told in great detail that, Hideyoshi left more than ten Korean men and women in the care of the lord of Satsuma during his Korean campaign. The lord of Satsuma settled them in Kawauchi. How was it possible for them to proliferate to the extent that now more than one thousand five hundred descendents of these Koreans live there? They bind their hair together in a topknot very much like the Ryukyuans and secure it with a hairpin. If you look at them closely, they are tall and have slender faces and look distinguished. From the time they came, they were prohibited from intermarrying with the Japanese. Although they shave their heads, they do not shave their heads in moon-shape Japanese fashion. Even though they have lived in Japan for five or seven generations and have assimilated eighty or ninety per cent, they are not allowed to shave their hair in the Japanese fashion despite repeated petitions to the lord of Satsuma. To this day, there is an official interpreter who receives a twoperson pay. As a tradition, they dance a Korean dance in front of the lord whenever he passes the village on his way to or from service in Edo. This area is exempt from service and there are five leading families. These families have preserved their traditional Korean dress and they wear this dress when the lord comes. They make a living by producing vessels called Satsuma-yaki (many ofthem are sold in other provinces). Collateral families of these Koreans also live in Kanoya village. To this day, they mix Korean with Japanese, using the word 'aba' for mother and 'muma' for father. There were many other words I could not understand. 26 Upon leaving Satsuma at Fukuro village (today, Oaza Fukuro, Minamatashi) at the end of June, Koshoken reported that, unlike Satsuma, the Higo authorities do not check travellers, hence the custom for merchants bound for Satsuma to go unchecked via the back roads. On his way to Minamata, he went out of his way to witness a peculiar rain-making ritual. He had heard from a local person that the villagers were sacrificing a human to the dragon god. 'I thought this was unusual enough for me to go and have a look.' Koshoken wrote: They had built a hut facing the ocean, fashioned a straw woman about one jo in size and wrapped her in a paper kimono with large, long, red patterned sleeves. Her unkempt hair made of blackened hemp thread stuck out behind. Village officials, priests and shrine girls and several hundred spectators had gathered. A person who seemed to be the chief priest took out a volume from a worn Chinese chest and, facing the ocean, recited in a loud voice. However untrustworthy, this saimon prayer seemed to be an old text written in hiragana. Then, at the beat of the drum, all tuned in: 'Dragon God, Dragon King and all other Gods, hear us! We beseech thee! Abate the sea breeze! We have offered you a girl since the age of the gods. Give us rain! Make the rain fall! Trees and plants cannot grow without rain. Even the people cannot live without it. Give us rain! We offer you this precious girl, we offer her to you.'27 In this way they continued to pray, taking turns, Koshoken observed, until it rains. When it rains, then they float the puppet out into the ocean. A local told

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Koshoken that some two hundred years ago, they gathered all the girls of dozens of villages and selected one by lottery and drowned her in the ocean, much the same way as what they now do with the puppet. 'In these remote parts there are many strange things they do according to ancient tradition.' Koshoken wanted a villager to help him note down the priest's entire saiman prayer but there was not enough time. He recorded all he was able to understand and noted it in his diary so that 'people who read this may have a good laugh'.28 The village Hinaku (today southern Yashiro-shi) had a tea-house used by the lord of Kumamoto, and a spa. It was between Hitoyoshi and Yashiro on the way to Kumamoto. Koshoken records: The dialect is slightly better than the Satsuma dialect but one can see on the road women who go naked, a custom one must consider as uncivilized. When people address themselves to each other, whereas in the Kamigata, Chugoku and Saikoku [Shikoku] regions they say ai or hey in Higo, all, whether rich or poor, say nai, nai and, in reply, refer to themselves as adama. The pleasure girls are called gibushi which are all words I never heard before. 29 In Higo province, Koshoken remarked, 'the inns accommodated all, itinerant monks, monkey-tamers, even diviners for a firewood fee of twenty-four copper coins'. In both Satsuma and Higo they will lodge even outcasts, Koshoken noticed, on condition that they pay a firewood fee, a custom, 'one cannot observe in a any other province'.3o In Kyushu, Koshoken ceased to indicate the dates. So we do not know when he reached Kumamoto. He found the town an ugly one, where splendid houses mix with poor grass-thatched ones and he found the streets deserted. He had nothing good to say about the people's character nor about their dialect. 3 ! From Kumamoto, Koshoken traveled to Mt Aso which at that time was still an active volcano. There he found the homes poorly made. He noticed numerous abandoned houses and the road was lonely with only a few teahouses. He considered all volcanoes sulphurous which explains the odour they emit. He knew that there was nothing mysterious about volcanoes, that they were created by flowing lava and, that the higher the cone of the volcano becomes, the less likely it is it will erupt again: But there is no end to the fabrications of the creative. Silly people always try to find an explanation for what happens in heaven and on earth and when they find such an explanation, they act as if they understand everything and as if it is the universal law of nature but, in fact, it is nothing but an understanding we impose on things ourselves. He saw from a distance that the mountain was spewing smoke with a tremendous energy. The famine in recent years had claimed many victims. A local person told him that four years before the earth shook and instead of smoke, the mountain spewed out an enormous amount of ash, which covered the earth to a depth of five or six sun:

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It roared like thunder inside the mountain and the villagers around Mt Aso assembled here and there to discuss what to do and whether it would not be better to escape. They fervently deliberated for days, discussing what to do and decided finally that it was too painful for them to abandon their homes to go elsewhere, and that they might as well die at the place where they had spent their busy lives. In the meantime, the mountain quieted down and they felt safe again. But all the cows and horses in the villages near the mountain perished because they ate the grasses that had been covered by the ash, he said. 32

Koshoken's interests were universal. He was concerned about agricultural production and often during his journey sketched agricultural tools that differed from those of other parts of Japan. In Chikugo province he noted: In Chikugo the mountains are few and the land is mostly flat. One sees many forests yielding plenty of firewood. The rivers are limpid and the climate one of the best. However, there is not a single rich farming house in sight, however far one looks. Six or seven out of ten go naked in the summer, that is, men and women and the women do not feel any shame. Though living conditions are better here than in Higo, the dialect and customs are equally [low] but, as the saying goes: 'For flowers it is best to bloom in Yoshino. Likewise, for a human it is best to be a samurai.' This is true because villages near castles differ little from the Chugoku region, whereas villages in other areas are much inferior. 33

Koshoken went on to observe that: 'In these parts, they [the peasants] spread mats over six shaku from corner to corner and place crops on it to dry. But when it starts to rain, one man cannot bring it all in. It needs two to carry it away. As in all matters, it is not good to complicate things.'34 Back in Saga province, he discussed local law, subjecting it to the same critical analysis he applied to myths, legends and measurements: Touring the provinces and observing local customs, I realized that provincial, family and village law punish innocent people. Provincial and family law differs from national law and is an arbitrary, private law. When people have a disagreement, or break private law, they become guilty locally, but making people guilty under provincial and family law does not make them guilty under national law. This is an arbitrary law intended to trap people in the so-called Mencius trap and those who make national and family laws are also guilty. They are people who have no respect for precious human life. 35 From Saga, Koshoken proceeded towards Nagasaki, passing through the Omura domain. As an herbalist by profession, Koshoken was interested in local disease prevention. In Omura, which he considered to be a rich region, he observed the following: In the Omura domain, there are villages, they say, which have never experienced a smallpox epidemic. I doubted this and, upon investigating, found out that this was indeed true. Even if a single person contacts the disease, he or she is sent with a nurse to a mountain two or three ri away. If the

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person recovers, then he or she is allowed to return but if the person dies, they are buried on the mountain according to village law. If there are smallpox patients in Omura, they send nurses from Isahaya as day labourers. But, because this was deemed inhuman and because they did not give them medicine seven or eight out of ten patients died. In Omura, many people died during smallpox epidemics in recent years. Despite the cold, they were abandoned on the mountain without medicine and insufficient food. The nurses simply accompany them like officials. Therefore, the patients had little chance for getting better and often died. 36 Koshoken condemned the custom as exceedingly inhuman, causing people to forget the bonds between father and son, older brother and younger brother. If the lord had virtuous advisers, he concluded, he would end this practice. Before Koshoken reached Nagasaki, he had to pass over the steep Himi pass. There was a tea-house on top. Disguised as an itinerant monk, Koshoken was admitted through the intervention of a fellow itinerant from Nagasaki called Tokaibo, a compassionate man, he noted. But there were thirty-four other priests staying there all sharing the same room. Among the sixty or seventy who assembled there he commented: There is not a single one who travelled for religious purposes or because they wanted to see the famous sights, but they only travel to eat. This is why they are all stupid and ignorant and there was nothing to tell them, nor anything worth hearing from them ... I lay down in my corner remembering the old verse: 'Like a slumbering sea cucumber among men who wag their tails.>37 For Koshoken, Nagasaki was an exotic place, a window open to the outside world. Intellectually alert and naturally curious, he acquired knowledge about foreign countries, especially the Dutch. Koshoken had been impressed by the story that a man named Hagino had recently managed to fire a missile at Sakai bay, but in Nagasaki, Koshoken realized that the Dutch had superior cannons than the Japanese: If one compared the intensity of the bang, the difference is like between a

full-size bell and a half-size bell. At five ri, the Japanese cannons can no longer be heard but the Dutch ones can be heard from a distance of seven ri, from Nagasaki to Isahaya. On the open sea, where there are no mountains, one can hear them over twenty ri and when one hears the cannons in Nagasaki and its adjacent bays, one knows that a Dutch ship is approaching from the open sea. 38

Later, Koshoken met with interpreter Yoshio so-and-so who told him that the Dutch had superior powder and superior cannons. After that Koshoken described Nagasaki's Chinatown. 'Whoever I saw there, looked more elegant than the Japanese.' The Chinese, he observed, shave their foreheads, leaving a round area of unshaven top hair (called mawari-bozu in Japan), plait the hair in three streaks, which are allowed to fall to the back. On top of this, they wear a kerchief around their heads like a hat. They wear different garments, 'but I could not fathom whether different rank was indicated by differing dress, or whether this was ordinary, everyday dress'.39

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Koshoken was particularly interested in the pleasure girls licensed to entertain the Chinese in Chinatown: The pleasure girls, who are licensed to serve in Chinatown, sit down on a bench in front of the gate and wait until the guard inside the gate gives them the signal to enter. Upon entering it is the custom to check their dress by passing their hands slightly over their kimono, a groundless custom, it seemed to me. I saw the girls change their dress after they entered the gate and put on a belt before they quickly proceed to the Chinese quarters. Before they pass the gate, they wear a simple everyday kimono and obi belt. When the five or seven girls walk in all their beauty, the lower Chinese officials, all at once, come out of their doors to the left and right and shout their praises at them. The girls either laugh or say 'chinpun', 'chinpun'. I heard this later, but these lower officials could not afford pleasure girls and they teased them out of envy. 40 Then Koshoken went to Umegasaki where twelve Chinese junks were moored in the harbour, and then to Dejima to see the Dutch headquarters. He noticed that the Nagasakians who live in the vicinity of Dejima knew some Dutch and that six or seven out of ten Dutchmen and their black servants understood some Japanese. He also mentioned that the women, who play with their children on the bridge to Dejima, shout in Dutch: 'I love you.' He then described in detail the physical appearance of the Dutch, before drawing attention to the Japanese pleasure girls who serve the Dutch: The Dutch have white skin. Their eyes and noses differ much from the Japanese and Chinese. Their eyebrows, too, are reddish and many of their features lack elegance. They shave their hair and wear black wigs. The garments they wear are made of the best fabric. The head of the Dutch is called 'kapitan', their secretary, 'tomotori' [kontoor?], their chief cook 'konhanya' [kompania], the cooks 'kurosu' [coeck] and their servants 'makurasu' [matroos]. Their slaves (kuronbo) are small and slender, their hair colour black and their noses flat. 41 Koshoken then turned his attention to the women who serve the Dutch: Twenty-five girls are licensed to serve the Dutch and twenty-five serve the Chinese every day. It causes quite a stir, when fifty pleasure girls, each accompanied by a servant, proceed to their destination. The lower officials at the gate inspect the girls' dress when they enter and leave the gate. This practice, determined by the law, is called saguri. But, since they do this every day, they have simplified the procedures and just pass their hands gently over their kimonos. The girls strongly dislike serving the Dutch because they think it gives them a bad reputation, but the officials force them. The girls who serve the Dutch are selected from among the most beautiful in Maruyama. Of course, this was because, when they like them, the Dutch give them expensive presents. However, when the appointed girl has a good customer in Maruyama, they pay to send a substitute to the Dutchmen's place. If a girl behaves badly at the Dutch headquarters, they strip off her dress and smear black ink all over her naked body and chase her out of the gate. A local told me that this might happen once every five

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or ten years. Reluctant to return all the way to Maruyama naked, the girl runs into the nearest house to borrow something to wear and returns at night. 42 Koshoken visited Yoshio Kosaku (Kogyu, 1724-1800) at his house built in a Western style. Kosaku told Koshoken that in his opinion the Dutch were deeply compassionate and that, when they leave Japan, they continue to cry for twenty, even fifty days. He also told him that before the Dutch leave they give something they had treasured most as a memento. Kosaku's house was filled with Dutch things. Koshoken was not impressed with all he saw in Nagasaki. He severely criticized local custom and the people's character as he had done so many times during his journey hither: I had a close look at Nagasaki customs and concluded that it was an inhuman place. From the past, people who came here from other provinces are proud to steal from others and do this without remorse. In the past there was contraband. Even those who were too highly placed to buy contraband goods became rich by selling cheap goods throughout Nagasaki for almost nothing because when Dutch ships arrived, the goods were stolen and many flooded the market. Few are those who try to gain their money honestly by dedicating themselves to their family business. It became customary to envy those who enriched themselves illicitly and people's character has deteriorated seriously, it seems.43 Koshoken observed Nagasaki in ways that none of his contemporaries nor successors did. We can gauge the reason for this in the following passage: Most houses among the more than ten thousand in town, are poor houses and there are no rich houses. Chinese and Dutch boats arrive here yearly and the place prospers. How is it possible then that there are no rich houses? This is because they gain their money immorally and it seems as if the money is flying away to other provinces. I heard that this place does not prosper because of recent wasteful government regulations. This is the problem with this place. The bad customs of this place will not enhance our reputation in foreign countries and such customs are a disgrace for our country that I wish to correct. 44 Koshoken was suggesting, in fact, that the riches gained by illicit trade had to be hidden and did not benefit the local economy. Koshoken arrived in Nagasaki on 17 July and left on 2 August. He took the boat to Shimabara, noting details about the Shimabara uprising and the war to suppress Christianity. From there he proceeded to Nagoya to visit the remains of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean campaign of 1592 and 1598 headquarters and criticized Hideyoshi in a manner seldom encountered among his contemporaries: 'Lord Hideyoshi ordered his generals to attack Korea without regards for the lives of his troops. How can we justify it despite diverging opinions? Someone said that to order the destruction of Korea and the conquest of Beijing and the defeat of Qin is an extremely courageous and bold plan. But, to me, it is nothing more than ignorance of the geography.'45

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Lord Hideyoshi sent a large army to subdue a small country like Korea. This campaign did not bring any results, but caused many people to die indiscriminately. Later generations will laugh at this. It was arrogant of me, a lowly person, to place judgement on our leaders and this will surely make people laugh, but, I do so because no one has argued things from a geographical point of view. 46 Koshoken was critical of any military venture into unknown territory. Not knowing the geography of the battlefield was for him like groping in the dark. On his way home, Koshoken visited Dazaifu, a town of more than three hundred houses offering a poor view. 'If it were not for the Tenmangu shrine, this place is not worth a visit. It is an extremely shabby place.' Furukawa Koshoken closed his diary at Shimonoseki where he arrived on 2 September. On 11 September he took a boat to go home. 47

TOYU ZAKKI (MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON A JOURNEY TO THE NORTHEAST)

Shogunal Inspections Tours (Junkenshi)

Koshoken was sixty-seven when he left on his second major journey. This took place in 1788 when he accompanied a shogunal inspection tour to the Northeast and Ezo led by an official (hatamoto) recorded as Fujisawa Yonin Sukenaga with an income of one thousand five hundred koku. Nagakubo Sekisui recommended Koshoken to the shogunal government. The government needed to be informed about the provinces to determine its policies. Shogunal inspection tours have had a long history. Inspection tours started in China and were adopted by the Tokugawa military government. The third shogun, Iemitsu (1603-51), ordered the first inspection tour of the Kanto (area of present Tokyo) and Kamigata (roughly the Kyoto, Osaka regions). Under the fourth shogun, Ietsuna (1639-80), another inspection tour was taken of the Kanto (1664) and in 1667 of other areas. In 1681, the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) ordered a tour of the Kinai (Home Provinces), then of northern Japan, Shikoku and Central Japan and the east. After Tsunayoshi, it became a customary practice for each shogun to send out inspectors at the beginning of their office. Between 1633 and 1838, the shogunal government sent nine inspection tours to the Northeast. The last one was in 1838, under the twelfth shogun, Ieyoshi (1792-1853). The government sent the following instructions to the daimyo whose territories the inspectors were supposed to visit: 1. Repair roads and bridges. 2. Do not clean the roads as it interferes with agricultural work. 3. Do not offer gifts to the inspectors. 4. All things needed by the inspectors must be purchased locally at current prices. 5. No new lodgings or tea facilities may be built. 6. Should the inspectors need additional men and horsepower, they must acquire such at current local prices. These ordinances also stipulated that lodging must be minimal with room, bath and toilet and cooking tools. According to the 1760 ordinance, when there was no adequate or sufficient lodging, they were to use temples or available lodging in neighbouring villages. The inspectors had the right to hire guides when needed. It also stipulated that none should be sent

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from afar to welcome the inspectors and that no member of the inspectors' party may purchase goods in one province and sell them in another for profit. The purchase of clothing was strictly forbidden. According to the 1681 ordinance, inspectors were not supposed to draw maps or conduct a census of men and horses. Thus, the government wanted the people to show themselves to the inspectors as they are without imposing additional hardships on them. Inspection tours sometimes involved the deployment of one thousand five hundred to two thousand men. Koshoken's party included one hundred and seven members. The chief inspector Fujisawa Yonin 48 had a retinue of forty-four men, Vice Inspector Kawaguchi Kyusue Tsunehisa (2,800 koku) had forty-one and Vice Inspector Mieda Jubee Morimitsu (1,000 koku) had thirty-two including Koshoken. According to a note in Koshoken's diary, the members of the inspection tour were undersupplied and underpaid. These tours were unpopular among government officials. An inspector bound for Satsuma died on the way, another in a Shinagawa inn, a day before returning home to Edo. Some, like Mieda and Fujisawa, were accused of irregularities and were reprimanded after their return to Edo. Travel was slow. The inspectors covered only a quarter of the usual daily distances. They had to travel along predetermined roads to predetermined places. Travel was extremely restricted. Many had to pay for their own upkeep and comfort. The inspectors had little interest in the local daimyo; they were much more concerned about the people and how they lived. Despite these ordinances, inspection tours caused the local daimyo much hardship and expense. Sugae Masumi mentioned the inspection tour in which Furukawa Koshoken was a participant. In 'Iwate no Yama', on the first day of July 1788, Masumi writes the following: In the villages Imoda [Tamayama] and Kawaguchi [Iwate-cho] people were busy preparing for the arrival of the inspectors from the province of Musashi [Edo]. They dug out rocks and weeded the roads, cut down or trimmed trees. They were carrying spades and large and small sickles and smoothed the road with tools looking like bamboo dustpans. Looking closely they all had some symbols tatooed on their foreheads as signs of some punishment. These symbols looked even darker because of the sweat that ran down their faces. They seemed to suffer under the heat. 49 Koshoken's party crossed to Ezo island and this caused the Tsugaru domain considerable hardship. According to Masumi, they cleaned the soot in all the lodges. 'This was not at all an easy task.' It was for many villages a task that involved practically the entire adult population. Saying, 'come here!' There was no end to the cleaning-up. Masumi reports of houses putting on a new thatch onto their roofs and new paper onto their sliding doors. 'All houses were busy.'50 Recommended by the retired daimyo and former Senior Adviser Matsudaira Sadanobu (Shirakawa Rakuo, 1758-1829), in 1793, the government appointed Koshoken to undertake a survey of Musashi province. Koshoken had met Sadanobu in 1789 and presented to him his Saiyu Zakki. Sadanobu must have been impressed by Koshoken's ability to observe and write. His survey began

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on 21 February 1794 and ended after the middle of August. In 1794, at the end of the inspection tour he submitted to the government the five-volumed gazeteer Shishin Chimei Roku with two maps. The following year, the Okada domain awarded him samurai status (the right to a surname and to wear two swords). In 1797, the government appointed him assistant to the inspector Mikawaguchi Terumasa during a survey of the coast of Kojima, Bizen province. D Koshoken left Edo with the three inspectors on 6 May 1787 to tour the Northeast and Ezo. The journey was to take over six months. They went north on the Oshu road. At the Bokawa [also Nakada] barrier at the Tone river, he reported on how strictly the women were checked at the barrier, but noted that there were ways to avoid the barrier by taking the back roads. 51 Crossing the frontier between Shimosa and Shimotsuke provinces, he saw Mt Tsukuba, Mt Nikko and Mt Fuji and recounted the history of historically significant places. As he proceeded north, the local dialects became increasingly difficult to understand. The Lord of Sendai was also on the road returning to his home province from service in Edo. Koshoken complained about the lord's lack of respect towards the inspectors. 52 As a geographer, Koshoken was keenly interested in rivers. North of the mountains, they came upon the river Hokine that had a ferry service. 'It comes out of the Hokine mountains and flows into Hitachi province. In some travel diaries it is called Hashita river which is a mistake.'53 Otawara, the domain of Lord Otawara (more than 11,400 koku), one of the seven famous mounted warriors of Nasu was one ri from there. From Otawara to Nabekake it was three rio At Nasu he wrote about Nasu no Yoichi's descendents and about the following legend: There are many ghost stories and false views about the Zassho rock of Nasunonohara. Once upon a time, Tamaso, Emperor Konoe's favourite concubine became a fox and hid in Nasunonohara but was shot dead by Miura-no-suke after the Emperor ordered the local warriors Miura-no-suke Yoshiaki, Chiba-no-sukeTsunetane and Kazusa-no-suke Hirotsune to hunt it down. The spirit of the slain animal turned into a rock, called Zassho Iwa and anyone, animal or human, who touched it died. These calamities ceased only when, during the time of Emperor Gofukakusa, the celebrated monk Gen'o came here, recited a gatha (I omit the text) and hitting the rock with an iron rod it split instantly and the spirit vanished. There were no more calamities after this. 54 Koshoken also reported the other version of the story: Upon his arrival in this region, a native told Priest Gen'o about the rock. Wanting to relieve the people from the curse, Gen'o approached the rock, recited a gatha, took his staff and, hitting it against the rock, it split into three and freed the spirit. Impressed by the priest's virtues, Hojo Tokiyori awarded him the district of Atsushio in Oshu. Therefore, the priest built the Shigen-ji temple in Aizu, it is said.

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The sceptical Koshoken added: 'I have never believed in such stories.' As a scientist, he suggested, to the contrary, that people died because the rock was volcanic (sulphurous). 'There are many mountains with poisonous rocks in all provinces. That Tamaso became a fox and that the fox turned into a rock, is this not a false story that deserves no attention?,55 Koshoken was particularly critical of hearsay. He had taken along the most recent and authoritative maps and written guides but as he proceeded on his journey, he found many mistakes. He commented on the ~kan Sanzai Zue that there are many mistakes because the author recorded hearsay as fact. 'One hundred hearsays do not come up to one look. If you do not actually look at places, you do not know how they 100k.'56 As Koshoken travelled north farther and farther away from Edo, he noticed that things are in short supply; people were poor and their customs and language inferior to those ofEdo. At Shirakawa, for example: 'Supplies are rare in these parts and fish is a very rare commodity. The people and their language are inferior and their houses poorly built.' He also had good things to say about Shirakawa. Whereas many people starved to death in the Northeast in the Tenmei famine (1782-87), a local told him: 'In the Shirakawa domain not even one starved. This was because there was a wise lord who cared for his people. So, even the poor households had enough to survive and maintained their sense of respect for each other.'57 Koshoken reported on the respect the locals have for their lord. The inspectors left Shirakawa on the 12th. The weather was cold and snow covered the mountains. On the 13th, they passed the night at Fukura. The next day, Koshoken complained that, 'the locals speak a hard-to-understand language and they cannot at all understand what we say'. 58 He also noticed the poor physical condition of the people. Two ri and seven cho from Ouchimura, in the Aizu region, Koshoken and his party came to Kuratani village and three ri later, to Tajima (Minami Aizu district, Fukushima prefecture) where they stayed for the night: We found ourselves deep in the mountains and both the people and their dialect were extremely vulgar, and there were no ocean fish to be found, only freshwater fish from the river such as akahara and kajika that I had never seen before. People here had never heard of a carp or an eel. Salt is scarce and, when the prices are high, one sho costs as much as two hundred mono The food is exceedingly poor; all people eat mountain yam and bean curd. The flavour of the miso and soya sauce was painfully bitter. My followers complained that, should this go on for ten or twenty more days, they would be in serious trouble. Only half of what the local people said to us or we said to them was understood and even in our inns we misunderstood each other so often that we had a good laugh. But there was nothing we could do. When you ordered chazuke they brought you porridge. Therefore, at each inn we went to the kitchen to check. One ofKoshoken's companions laughed, saying: 'When I tell this to my friends back home in Edo, who will believe it?'59

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Koshoken compared the poverty he observed with what he had seen in Kyushu: When I travelled in Hyuga and Osumi [provinces] two years ago, I saw people who did not eat rice, only barley and wheat as their main staple. I thought that these were the poorest provinces, but in contrast, in this area there is plenty of rice, but nothing else; it is worse than Satsuma and Osumi, not to mention the Kamigata and Chugoku regions. The many women who came out to see the inspectors were wearing short blue sleeves and towels around their heads as if they were hats. Their shrill voices, we all noticed with interest, reminded us of the simple people Tosa [school] painters often paint. 6o On the 17th, they reached Tajima. The women's demeanour in this area seemed even worse to Koshoken. The dark-skinned women leave their eyebrows unshaven until they are forty and they do not blacken their teeth. 'The peasants were so selfish and discourteous that we had to scold them frequently. Where else in the imperial domains would the peasants behave so selfishly?' Koshoken wrote. 61 During his journey, Koshoken also gained insight into local society. At Aizu he noticed that the shoya are called nanushi (a person allowed to carry a surname) and that their income is one ryo, one bu, or three ryo, or three ryo, two bu, depending on the village budget. Below that, there are the kumigashira and the goningumi. The chief kumigashira is also called korigashira (district chief), who resembles the daishoya (chief shoya) of other provinces. With an income of 55000 koku, the Aizu domain maintains nineteen korigashira who receive their income directly from the lord of Aizu and are allowed to carry swords. This was because only ancient families, however poor, were eligible to become korigashira, nanushi or kumigashira. When they cannot find one from among the villagers, Koshoken reported, they appoint one from a neighbouring village and never appoint someone without the appropriate family background. Even if one is poor but from an ancient family, one is eligible. 'Though this is a remote area, it tries not to abandon ancient customs.'62 From there the inspectors moved further north. On the 19th, the inspectors left Furumachi (Minami-Aizu district, Fukushima prefecture), 'a cold place where people wear cotton-packed dress all year round'. Between Yanatori and Fuzawa, they had to travel along a dangerous stretch of road, unnegotiable on horseback but used by woodcutters. Koshoken must have encountered such woodcutters and noticed that they carried seven or eight fried rice dumplings in a bag at their belts, wore short straw raincoats and carried long axes and ran around the steep path 'as if it were nothing'. One of Koshoken's companions remarked: 'One should have such people on the battlefield.' Koshoken did not quite agree because he noticed that these men were used to carrying heavy loads on their backs but unable to carry anything on their shoulders. 'One needs between seven, eight even ten men to carry a single litter and even at that they sweat profusely and suffer under the weight. One can only say, they are useless.'63 On the 21st, the inspectors stayed at Otani village (Mishima-cho, Onuma district, Fukushima prefecture). Koshoken rode across the Bijokaeri pass

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(Showa-mura, Fukushima prefecture) on the back of a cow which he said was more comfortable than a horse and more stable on a steep mountain road. On 23 May the inspectors' party spent the night at Takata. The following day Koshoken again reported on the lack of supplies and that, other than wax and lacquer they produced nothing. In their short trousers and unshaved eyebrows and unkempt hair, the women in this mountainous region looked ugly to him. 'When I saw such lowly women in Hyuga and Osumi provinces, when I travelled to Kyushu, I doubted that such women existed elsewhere in Japan but these women are equally low.' Comparing the Kyushu provinces with this region, Koshoken notes that in Hyuga and Osumi there was plenty of fish but little rice whereas in these parts there is plenty of rice but no fish. 'They bring salted fish from Echigo - a distance of over thirty ri to the west, but the ordinary peasant cannot afford it and even when the lord of Aizu is at home, he eats fresh fish only rarely.'64 After leaving Sukagawa station on the 28th, Koshoken saw a prayer-wheel called Bodai-guruma, a device, he noted, one encounters frequently in the north, but he did not believe that such devices are effective. After leaving Ononiimachi (Ono-cho, Tamura district, Fukushima prefecture) on the 29th, Koshoken mentioned Kitabatake Akiie's (1318-38) castle at Yoshiterugatana, which he had built while he was governor. Sekisui had asked Koshoken to check its whereabouts but, upon inquiry, no one knew anything about it. 'After hundreds of years any old site will vanish leaving only a number of unbelievable stories.'65 Later on in his diary, after Yuatsumi spa, Koshoken quoted his teacher Sekisui saying 'one cannot believe in stories they tell us about the famous and historical places.'66 Near the river Abukumagawa there was a famous place called Adachigahara, and a temple called Kannon-do in a village called Kurozuka, a place where a demon once lived. The guide told Koshoken that once upon a time, an evil old hag lived along the old road and lodged travellers only to kill them and steal their belongings. Koshoken sarcastically remarks: Demons even exist today. Demons are greedy people who kill others to steal their money. They are all demons. Or corrupt local officials [jito] who extract money illegally from the peasants and when discovered in their illegal extortion, accuse the peasants of belonging to gangs and kill innocent people. These, too, are a kind of demon and this has not changed. Demons are not limited to Adachigahara. 67 Koshoken did not believe in legendary demons, but saw them rather among his unworthy contemporaries. On 2 June, the inspectors stayed at Fukushima. The eta (outcast) here, Koshoken wrote, presented themselves to the inspectors wearing a black kerchief wrapped around their heads and bowing along the road. 'We were not used to seeing this and found it strange. The ashigaru who cleared the road for us did not order them to bow [as is usual], but told them in a low voice: "Quietly, quietly!" Many things happen that one does not hear about in Edo, but some of them are interesting,' added Koshoken. 68 At Matsuda village, between Iino and Kotsunagi (both Fukushima), there

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was a shrine dedicated to Akugenta (Minamoto) Yoshihira (Yoshitomo's son, 1141-60). The priest, called Miura Sakyo, claimed that Yoshihira's armour flew over the sky and landed on a pine, shining brightly. The people buried the armour at the foot of the pine and worshipped it; hence its name Yoroimatsu [Armour Pine]. For Koshoken this was another unbelievable story. 'There are many such groundless stories in the provinces,' he wrote, explaining that they brought Yoshihira's armour here to be worshipped. The priest invited the inspectors to drink sake and claimed that the shrine secured peace in the nation and good luck for the warriors and long life for their talented sons. 'Good Fortune to the Inspectors, Good Fortune to the Inspectors,' he prayed sweating profusely. 'We of course had never seen such a thing and had a big laugh. Fujisawa Yonin said that getting good fortune from Yoshihira was the last thing he wanted and we all laughed again.'69 Upon leaving Tsunagi (presently in Yonezawa-shi) on the 8th, Koshoken reported that though the inspectors were treated very well, they did cause trouble. At the town entrances in the Yonezawa domain, the officials would welcome the inspectors 'waiting in the rain without protection, having closed the houses to hide the dirt. The innkeepers began cleaning their inns or resting places a week before they expected the inspectors' party to arrive.'7o In the Yonezawa domain, the lower officials were so polite that even the inspectors greeted them politely. For Koshoken, such politeness was a sign of Confucian civility and decorum, indicating that the domain was well governed. On the 11 th, they left Shirako station and, after four-and-a-half ri, arrived at Oguni (Atsumi-cho, Yamagata prefecture). On the way they had to negotiate the steep passes of Sakura and Kurosawa. It was cold, but Koshoken had enough warm clothes. Many of his companions got sick and he dispensed medicines. Koshoken was thankful to be healthy. Oguni was a sizeable town counting about seven hundred houses and included some pleasure houses. The river Yokogawa flowed through the town towards the ocean in Echigo province. The river abounded in trout and dace, which were delicacies. The locals called the trout yamabe or iwana. Koshoken was always interested in local language. After Oguni, at Yokogawa, he observed that the people always added ata at the end of their sentences. Gojunkensama otsuki ata (the inspectors have arrived), kaeri ata [they are leaving], yuki ata (they are going), iraremosanai ata (they cannot stay). 71 In the local speech, they add mosu [to say] to all they say. Gojunkensama gochaku atta [The inspector has come],yukimoshita [he went], kaeriata (he returned), oraremosanaiata (he is not here), they say. When they see a snake devouring a frog, they say: hebi ga koru 0 gunnomi moshita. For father they say gamo, for mother aba, for elder brother sena, sasaosu for a woman's make-up - all unfamiliar but interesting words to US. 72 They left on the 12th. As always, Koshoken carefully indicated the distances and sometimes mentioned exotic plants. That day he found some mushrooms along the way and gave them to the innkeeper in the hope that he would cook them. The innkeeper however told them that they were all inedible. On the 14th, the inspectors reached the castle town Yonezawa. In Yonezawa Koshoken

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met a town elder Watanabe Kyubee, to whom he showed a map of northern Japan. Kyubee, a person with some education, was so overjoyed that he sent Koshoken a gift of medicine against diarrhoea and something to keep snakes away. 73 The inspectors left Yonezawa on the 15th. At the Hachiman shrine of Akutsu village, a guide told Koshoken that the shrine had been a large one with an income from the government of three thousand five hundred koku but that in 1615 the shrine's Buddhist priest quarrelled with the Shinto priest and the tribunal sided with the latter. Very angered, the Buddhist priest burnt the government licence and ran away to another province. After that the government annulled the shrine's income. Only after many appeals did the bakufu allow the shrine to receive the meagre income of fifty tawara bags of reserve rice okuramai (also chigyomai). 'Each province has its stupid monks' Koshoken concluded. 74 In reference to the rivers Shinanogawa, Omonogawa, Kitakamigawa and Abukumagawa which had not yet been accurately mapped, Koshoken wrote: 'I always liked geography, however I do not yet know enough. The reader should not believe in all I write.'75 Japanese geography was still in its infancy at the time Koshoken travelled. Koshoken regretted the disappearance of the old famous places. At Kisagata, he quoted classical poems about the famous sight he said he always wanted to see. He found the region poor, something he tended to attribute to local customs and the character of the locals. 'When the place is rich, then the people's character and language are good. As they say, poverty is an obstacle in everything, but, in poor places everything looks poor even the character of the people.' Here the eta outcasts lived side by side with the peasants 'something that does not occur in other parts of Japan'. 76 He found the eta town of Honjo pretty and their leather goods shops prosperous. Later on in his journey, at Kariwano, Koshoken visited another eta village. 'They all came to see the inspectors including one who seemed to be their leader wearing hakama trousers. They looked better than the carriers we have had so far, something unthinkable in other parts of Japan.'77 On 4 July, at Oguri village, Koshoken deplored the poverty of the people and their language but noted with interest the way they greeted the inspectors: 'Among the people who came from various places to see the inspectors, some come one after another, some were carrying rosaries and prostrated themselves folding their hands.' The locals looked upon the inspectors as if they were visiting deities. 78 Between Oguri and Oikata Ouchi-mura (both Yuri district, Akita prefecture), Koshoken noticed that the people were using tools different from those used in other parts of Japan and that both the dialect and the character of the people was bad. He found that even among the shoya nanushi some were illiterate and unable to even write the names of their districts and villages. He also considered their language incomprehensible. 79 He complained that they did not know how to treat samurai with respect and that they stand in front of the inspectors shouting 'bow!' 'Some are naked and stretch out their buttocks when bowing, while others watched the inspectors lying inside their houses with only their feet showing in front.'8o

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On 6 July, the inspectors left Yuzawa station and stayed overnight at Yokote. In this area Koshoken noticed that the fields were as fertile as those in the central part of Japan, but that the people were poorer. He inquired about it and was told that the local lord imposed heavy taxes on horses, which was the main source of income. Koshoken had the impression that the local lord was silencing those who might report complaints about local conditions and bad daimyo policy to the inspectors: It moves the heart of any considerate person to see these peasants who

have carried our luggage over large distances, seeing off the inspectors with envy in their eyes and their mouths shut from any complaints they may want to deliver to the inspectors by officials ordered by other officials who were ordered by the daimyo.81

Koshoken found the area as poor as the Aso district of Higo province in Kyushu. At the foot of Mt Chokai, Koshoken noticed that despite the fertility of the fields, the peasant houses looked exceedingly poor and destitute. He asked the porter who said that if the price of a horse is two ryo, one goes to the lord and that when goods are sold, the lord levies half of the price in taxes. He said this as if to petition the inspectors but the lord sent officials to silence the peasants. 'Seeing him loading the heavy load on his shoulders to carry the inspectors' luggage to a far-away place and looking at the inspectors with hatred in his eyes, would move any decent and compassionate person.'82 At Kariwano (Senhoku district, Akita prefecture), Koshoken inquired about the local famous places, mountains and rivers and about the inspectors' itinerary, but none could answer. Koshoken could not understand the language. 'They laugh as if they did not understand you and so all end up laughing.' Koshoken failed to mention it here, but it was clear to him, judging from other places, that the daimyo silenced them, warning that they should feign ignorance in all circumstances. 83 Koshoken complained about the luggage carriers. 'They need five or six to carry one piece of luggage, but the strong carriers force the weaker ones to carry it all and, though they themselves carry nothing, the stronger boss around the weaker ones with an air of superiority and have the weak ones carry the heavy pieces.' When Kimura Kaneji and Koizumi Shigeshichi, assistants to the inspector, saw this, they jumped off their horses and, to the joy of everyone, kicked the carriers they thought were the strong ones so that they fell to the ground. 84 Koshoken and his fellow companions were surprised to see the customs change so much from place to place, even in the same province. The inspectors left Kubota (Akita) on the 10th. Sometimes Koshoken entered farmhouses on the way to look for unusual tools. If he found one, he would describe and sketch it.85 On the 11th, they passed the night at Noshiro bay. The language in these parts was impossible to understand. 'Even asking our horsemen about the name of a place or of a flower, or about our itinerary, we only understood each other on rare occasions. They just laugh and say nothing.' At Hachironuma lagoon, he complains again about all the false stories that abound about this place. 'I do not believe in them, so I do not note them

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down.' He heard that a large melon only costs three sen so, convinced that the growers cannot make a profit, he asked the carriers why they were so cheap. The carrier told him that the price of rice had fallen so low (27 sen for one sho) that the people cannot make a living by growing rice alone. Koshoken concluded that this was because locals did not know the value of money. He found the locals lacking any knowledge of duty and decorum. Koshoken discovered in them the true Emishi barbarians of the past. He learned that they do not cremate, but bury the dead and that the people live on dirt floors. 'During the sixty-six years of my life, I have never experienced such remoteness, such pitiful lives. I was utterly disgusted. By telling this to myoId friends back home, I wish I could humble all the arrogant.'86 The man who was supposed to guide Lord Mieda this day, was the incarnation of elegance. His face looked like that ofTarokaja. He was waiting for us at the roadside with his big smile wearing a kamishimo he had outgrown. He approached the [inspector's] palanquin and greeted them saying: 'godaigi' [I am extremely honoured]. He was walking at the side of the palanquin and, thinking that this was strange, the inspector asked his name. The guide replied 'suke, suke'. Then, when the inspector asked him about his itinerary and meals, he always replied with a loud laugh. When he asked him: 'who is your lord?' He said he did not know. 'What is the name of your Jito?' He asked him, but he said he did not know. Asking him about the daimyo, he said: 'Let me think, let me think! It's Hihii, Hihii.' Tanimura Kibee remarked that he had never heard of a Hihii, Hihii and that he probably does not know the inspectors' names either. The guide said: 'I don't know at all.' We all had a big laugh. If I tell my friends after my return home, that we had met such a person who did not know either the gods nor the buddhas guide the inspector, none would believe me. 87 There is another similar passage in Koshoken's diary a little later: The inspector asked today's guide about the name of the villages and the bays, but he only hissed with a smile on his face as answer. When someone near him told him to reply quickly, he said he did not know. The inspector laughed asking why we need such a guide, but no one was able to answer. When the inspector asked how many ri it was to the next rest, the guide said: 'You will find out soon!' We all laughed embarrassing our guide greatly. We inquired why we need such a guide and were told that the fishermen living along these beaches are unfit to guide us and that our guides were hired from other parts, which is why they are so ignorant. But they are chosen from amongst the most intelligent and eloquent people of the vicinity, hence the guide you have today. 88 The party left Noshiro on the 12th. Here, too, Koshoken found the houses poor and the dialect incomprehensible. They were able to communicate in only two or three cases out of ten. When Koshoken heard that after Hiageba the locals call the area Akita, he noted: 'Although this is inconsistent with the old maps, this may be the original Akita [Fort]. I need to check this thoroughly.'89 They reached Odate on the 13th. There, Koshoken was critical of the agricultural methods the peasants used: 'The stupid farmers invite their own poverty.'

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The party left Odate on the 14th, crossed the Ikari barrier, a checkpoint he found more lax than the one at Hakone. 9o He found the area extremely poor. On the way to Hirosaki, Koshoken mentioned the legend of Mt Iwaki: At Mt Iwaki, there was a small shrine called Gongen. It was unclear who this deity was. Legend has it that in the years 1081-84, there was a man called Iwaki Hangan Masauji who, while in Kyoto, became a victim of an intrigue and was sent into exile in a western province. Masauji had two children, an elder daughter, Anju-hime and a younger brother, Zushiomaru. With the intention of joining their father in exile, they travelled with their mother but in Echigo [province] they fell into the hands of slave traders. The mother was sold to Sado [island] and the brother and sister to Yura harbour in Tango province where Sansho-dayu bought them as slaves. In order to join his father, Zushio-maru ran away and hid from his pursuers in a certain temple. Accusing Anju-hime of having hidden her brother, Sansho-dayu and his son killed her in anger. Later, Zushio-maru was reinstated in his father's former position and put Sansho-dayu and his son, as well as the slave traders to death. From that time on, Zushio and his sister began to be worshipped at this mountain as Iwaki Gongen. This was the reason why, someone said, that if they let people from Tango [province] into Tsugaru [province], there would be calamities and that not even one person from Tango has been admitted. I heard this before from Sekisui, but thought that it was an unbelievable story. Koshoken reported that, one of the samurai appointed to accompany the inspectors was from Tango but, upon the lord ofTsugaru's intervention, he was dropped. 91 Like all the sacred mountains of Japan, Mt Iwaki was off-limits for women. 'Why do they prohibit women, when, on the other hand, they worship Anjuhime?' Koshoken asked himself. For him, there were no kami nor Buddhas who hated women. There were stories that if a woman steps onto the mountain it will crumble like a castle or a nation but such stories made no sense to him. 'Surely it is a frustrating ordinance for women,' he noted. He admired the sight of the mountain. 'It is very different from the sights people usually like.'92 They left Hirosaki on the 16th. After Aburakawa, they saw many abandoned fields and the inspectors wanted to know why. They were told that six years before all the fields had withered during a drought. Koshoken noticed that the Tsugaru clan disliked outsiders and controlled access of strangers. Everyone was inspected thoroughly at the barriers. Probably the domain officials did not want the famine situation to be divulged. Koshoken must have felt it strange that in a domain rich in minerals and rice, people were so poor. Probably, Koshoken opined, the wealth was concentrated in the local government and the daimyo's Edo residence. Here, Koshoken lamented the lack of preparation for the inspectors. Though they knew it a year ago, Koshoken reported, the local officials were ill prepared for the inspectors. 'When I talk about this after my return home, not even one will believe me.'93 It was in this area that Koshoken began to severely criticize Hayashi Shihei's (1738-93) Sankoku Tsuran Zusetsu:

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Hayashi Shihei from Sendai in Oshu left us a detailed description of Ezo and thousands of ri of foreign islands to the north. He drew maps of the lands and islands even indicating the exact ocean distances. Entitled Sankoku Tsuran Zusetsu, this account was published in the Eastern Capital [Edo] and circulated widely. I thought that, since Matsumae lies just on the other side of Oshu, it would be fairly detailed. So, I took it along on my journey. However, when I compared it with what I saw in Tsugaru and Nanbu, I found that it differed greatly. Hayashi Shihei did not know the geography of his country, let alone that of other distant lands. Moreover, he wrote at the beginning, there is plenty of gold and gold dust in Ezo and, later on, about a queen of Muscovy who, having conquered all the lands and islands to the north, was about to take over Ezo. He warned that the Japanese should take appropriate precautions. I am convinced that his is a greatly mistaken view. He fails to quote any writings or anybody's opinion and writes as if it were all his own. It is regrettable that such a groundless theory spreads like dogs howling one after the other. One should not believe in anyone whose views depend on the Tsuran Zusetsu. It is enough to look at a road map to know roughly about the northern lands. Why would one need anything more detailed? I dislike people, who neglect what is nearby in favour of something that is far away. I copied a map that the lord of Matsumae had drawn and given to the inspectors and, as I compared it with my own progress, I corrected the mistakes. Even without having ever been in Ezo, I would ask people who frequently go to Soya or Akkeshi and summon the sailors who sail to distant areas. I would learn from them about compass directions and what wind would take your boat where. Because, when one verifies the distances to the nearest points on the islands, the maps of old do not correspond to the compass. Therefore, I am adding maps according to the compass and my own observations. Because it includes places I had never visited before, there will be discrepancies. I will include a map elsewhere and will only draw here a rough outline of Ezo so that the reader will know how it looks in genera1. 94 On 2 August, between Fukushima and Shiriuchi on Ezo, Koshoken again criticized Shihei: 'In the Sankoku Tsuran of Hayashi Shihei of Sendai, it says that there is a ten-ri-square mountain overgrown with cypresses in the Kaminokuni region, but he failed to report that the entire area is mountainous. This is strange.'95 And in the area of Hekerechi, on the 4th: Looking at Hayashi Shihei's map of Ezo, there are big discrepancies. This may seem like a blasphemy, but how was it possible for Hayashi Shihei to come up with such an inaccurate map? It is totally unbelievable. Did he draw his map according to what someone around here had told him? He is someone who published lies. 96 Later on, at Kuroishi on Ezo, Koshoken observed Mt Komagatake as a smoking and not a dormant volcano as Shihei had described: 97 Compare my map with Hayashi Shihei's map! There are huge discrepancies. He says that in Ezo gold dust can be found over dozens of ri and that

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there are many mountains containing gold. All this is completely false. There is no place in Ezo out of reach of the Matsumae merchants and of the boats of other areas. If there were indeed gold dust, would they let it lie around? Would not the Ainu, too, gather it and use it to buy Japanese goods? This is proof that Hayashi's observations are unfounded. He published groundless information and he must have done so on purpose. A wise person should not believe in this, but when one dog howls a lie then the simple-minded will all believe that it is real. I have heard in Matsumae that many came to Ezo from afar to search for the gold described in his book. If that is indeed so, then should not Hayashi Shihei be punished?98 On the 19th, the inspectors reached Minmaya the port from which they were scheduled to cross the strait to Ezo. That day the winds were unfavourable and the party had to wait a day for the weather to improve. The Tsugaru domain had to supply one hundred boats for the inspector's party. Each boat had a large supply of buckets for the seasick. They offered sake for the boat spirits and sang boat songs and a prayer recited at the beat of a drum: 'God of the boat, we rely on Thee!' When the inspectors arrived in Matsumae, on the other side of the strait, the local officials and local people who, in Koshoken's eyes, were standing there like one thousand Buddhas greeting them. This was a big spectacle. The houses in which the inspectors were lodged equalled the Edo residences of government officials [hatamoto] who had an income of more than five hundred koku. 99 Looking at the people, their customs and dress, Koshoken concluded that they were as well off as the people in central Japan. Koshoken and his companions were surprised that, after travelling through such poor provinces as Akita and Tsugaru, they would encounter such a rich a prosperous place after only crossing a narrow stretch of ocean: 100 They said that in Matsumae they thatched their roofs with konbu kelp and that it was an exceedingly bad place. We thought that because this was outside Japan, the people and their language would be very inferior. We did not imagine finding such a good town and were stunned. He noted that even [Arai] Hakuseki's Ezo Shi contained mistakes and concluded: 'If one does not go and see a place with one's own eyes, one cannot know its geography and the customs.'101 Koshoken described the town administration and on the 21st they left for Esashi. The lord of Matsumae had sent rifled guards to protect the inspectors from bears. Esashi had some one thousand six hundred houses, all rich: We arrived at Esashi bay where there was a good town with more than one thousand six hundred houses. Even at the edge of town there were no poor houses in sight. One after the other, the warehouses were lined up along the beach and I counted about fifty large and small boats serving this area from various parts of Japan. I entered the town and found kimono and sake shops, wholesalers and shops selling miscellanea and, as in the Kamigata, there seemed to have been no shortage of things ... the people and their dialect were decent and they behaved in an urbane manner. I

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heard that the merchants from Omi and Echizen established most of the shops and many of the things sold therein came from the Kamigata. 102 On the 24th, it rained heavily and because the river had washed away the pontoon bridge, the party had to stay on in Esashi bay. The rich houses with tiled roofs and mud walls stunned Koshoken. Fourteen Ainu presented themselves to the inspectors according to Ainu custom and courtesy. The men and women came separately, all in a line holding their hands. They walked sidewards into the courtyard with their heads low: The men sat down on a straw mat, folded their arms on their upper legs and sat without bowing. The Ainu women sat down together on the sand with one leg bent upward. Their hair resembled that of a bear. One was wearing a dress made of Japanese silk fabric patched with five-coloured threads, an embroidered kosode worn on formal occasions and resewn in Ainu fashion. Another who looked over fifty was wearing a gunnaiJima; all the others were wearing used Japanese dress. Among them were some who were wearing Ainu dress called atsushi looking as if made of tree bark and resembling Japanese linen. 103 After that, Koshoken described in detail the women's dress, hair-styles, face and eye colour and the ornaments and jewels they bury with the dead, customs, tools, music, dances, as well as their religion. Then they displayed their arrowshooting skills and Koshoken described their weapons in detail. 'The age of the gods in Japan must have been like this when there were no kings, no jito and no overlord. Since they are a valiant people like our Emperor Jinmu, they will soon become a country and catch up with us and become equal to the Chinese.,104 The inspectors offered the Ezo sake and watched them perform on musical instruments. Koshoken questioned innkeeper Hyoemon about the area, but he was even more secretive than the daimyo and the officials and did not say much, as if his mouth was sealed. But eventually Hyoemon did reveal some of the local secrets. 'Because village chiefs were under instruction to chase off uncommissioned Ezo, no Ezo lived here, but those who came to the bays of this area to help in fishing were allowed to live there. So, despite the lord of Matsumae's instructions not to let Ezo settle permanently, many Ezo did live there.,105 The simplicity and sincerity of the Ainu impressed Koshoken deeply: The Ezo are an honest people, who do not lie and they never accept anything without giving something in return and they never give anything without receiving something. An Ainu without status is an unworthy man who dabbles and does not know how to fish, like the Japanese who cheats and steals and squanders his money on the pleasure girlS. 106 Koshoken then studied the local boats and criticized what Hayashi Shihei had reported about Ainu boats. Koshoken did not see the Ainu as an underdeveloped people, inferior to the Japanese. They traded with the Russians and had Japanese swords, he noticed. 'Unlike Hayashi Shihei, I do not draw things from hearsay but only what I see in front of my eyes.' He sketched the tools and accoutrements and later the

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bows and arrows as well as the their fishing boats and tools. These sketches 'differ greatly from those of the Sankoku Tsuran Zusetsu and Hakuseki's Ezo Shi,' he wrote. 107 Koshoken then mentioned the bodily odour he attributed to the fact that unlike the Japanese, the Ainu eat meat. Aware of the effect their bodily odour produced on the Japanese, the Ezo hesitated to approach Koshoken, at Kuroishi the Ainu offer the inspectors bear meat. Koshoken also observed that the Ainu traded with the Tartars (tribes living in the Amur river estuary) and the Manchus. He mentioned the Ezo-nishiki and the fact that the Ainu were wearing Chinese dress acquired through trade over Sakhalin. Koshoken observed the taboo against peeping into a house through the window, and explained Ainu funerals as follows: Whenever someone dies in the house, they take the body out of the window and bury it in the mountains and, on the way back, they bind grass along the road and never go back to the gravesite. They do not worship the dead. Whenever their mothers or fathers die, they burn the house and move elsewhere. Death is a taboo word for them. When they die they think it cannot be helped and that, while alive, they must [therefore] treat each other well and that it is worthless to treat them well after they have died. Koshoken had already written about Ainu funerals: When a mother or father dies, they mourn deeply, make an umbrella with tree bark and, in order not to see the light of day, use the umbrella whenever they leave their house. They carry the umbrella for three years. When someone dies of an accident or drowns, then they all assemble and weep aloud so that their voices can be heard from afar. 109 Koshoken observed that the Ainu have between three to five wives who are not jealous of each other and live in separate quarters and are charged with the upbringing of their children: Adultery is unheard of in Ezo and when it does happen, the Ainu do not punish the man but beat the woman to death and throw her into the ocean. In Japan adulteresses go unpunished which is why the customs have deteriorated and people, rich and poor alike, feel no remorse. Most are pardoned and forget it as something unimportant. Are not the Ainu superior to US?IIO Kokoshen commented on the Ainu language at several occasions: One cannot understand their language, which sounds like chinpunkanpun, but this is because the Japanese are not used to hearing it. It is like the Chinese who would not understand Japanese, which is an incomprehensible chinpunkanpun to them, too. We must not look down on the Ezo language. 108 Koshoken listed Ainu vocabulary in the katakana syllabary. 'The pronunciation differs from Japanese and they do not understand you if you pronounce them according to Japanese sounds.' At Kuroishi, Koshoken gathered a group

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of Ainu and had them say something to familiarize himself with their language, but they only mumbled courtesies. 'As we laughed and praised them, they also listened to our talk and they, too, seemed to find us funny and laughed loudly.' 111 Koshoken regretted that in their trade with the Japanese, the Ainu do not get a fair deal. 'Is there such a foolish country giving away a brocaded garment for some sake?' Chouemon, one of Koshoken's companions remarked that the Ainu are wiser than the Japanese because they buy sake, which is good for you, and not, as the Japanese do, buy Korean ginseng at exorbitant prices. 112 The Ezo are sincere and believe what others tell them. Though it may be without evil intent, the people of Matsumae sometimes cheat them, which is why these days the Ezo have become more sophisticated traders. They do not deceive and inspect the Uapanese] goods well, turning them around to see if they are all right. They do the same with old Japanese clothes. 113 However simple-minded they may be, Koshoken noted, they treat their mothers and fathers well and, even in trivial matters, they listen to their fathers and mothers. They know that their parents will not come back when they die, which is natural. Therefore, Koshoken observed, if they do not treat them well while they are alive, then they cannot amend it after they have died. 'They do not practise memorial services like the Japanese and when their fathers and mothers die, all the relatives assemble and cut the unfilial son's forehead with a knife called egushi saying that he had done them injustice while they were alive. The relatives become very angry at him.' People may look down upon such silly customs as burning the houses of unfilial sons, making cuts into their foreheads or smashing in their windows. But, to think of it, rather than to fulfil their filial duties towards their parents while they are still alive, the promiscuous Japanese who shave their faces neglect it by claiming that life is short and the afterlife long. The Ezo who let their moustaches grow, are in fact superior. 114 During quarrels, Koshoken continued, one puts the culprit to shame and silence by saying: 'Your father also did something like that.' When an Ezo is wronged, the culprit is beaten on the head with a mallet and, even if he makes amends, the victim will never forget it and will tell his children and grandchildren and, when members of the same family wrong them, they will seek revenge. 115 In this way, Koshoken observed, they try to avoid harming and to respect each other. Koshoken was invited to a farewell party the lord of Matsumae offered his guests. He reported his fellows as saying that the lord of Matsumae is a true island lord who spends only one hundred days in Edo every five years, much too short, the report implied, for a lord so rich. 116 When the inspectors left Ezo on the 20th, the lord of Matsumae sent over one hundred boats to see them off. After a smooth crossing, the party arrived

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at Minmaya on the 21st. Back on the main island, the contrast of a rich Ezo with a poor Tsugaru shocked Koshoken: As Tsugaru's foremost port, Minmaya once boasted three thousand houses and was a prosperous place, but this is no longer the case. Perhaps that is how it had once been. Now it scarcely counts one thousand poor-looking houses; no comparison with the town below Matsumae castle and Esashi or Hakodate. 117 Koshoken correctly attributed this to the recent earthquake and famine, which devastated the city and cost many lives. The inspectors visited the priest of the Uto shrine, a famous place celebrated in poetry, histories, in the Noh theatre, but no one knew anything about this. Koshoken concluded from this that real observation is much more valuable than one hundred reports from hearsay. The shrine had shrunk to a mere trifle of what it had once been and the priest's family knew nothing about its traditions. By 23 August they had returned to Aomori and travelled on to Kominato and Nobechi. On the 26th, they stayed at the foot of Mt Osore. Koshoken criticized the theory that the mountain is a volcano. He asked around, but no one could tell him when the mountain had erupted. Next day at Tanabu: Though Japan is a small country, people write stories about places they have never visited; this is why there are so many mistakes. This mountain [Mt Osore] is not an exception. I have travelled through many provinces and verified the truth of things and found that it was always the Buddhist and Shinto priests who invented mysterious stories. They are all groundless. The people who like supernatural stories add on to them, and those who have not heard nor seen any of this, take it as true stories and even include them in print as well. Even in my travel accounts there are mistakes and the reader must judge. But I always investigate the truth of the strange and mysterious stories they tell about places, and going there yourself to see with your own eyes is truer than what is being said about them. I do not know about China, but in Japan Buddhist priests, deceiving the simple-minded people, propagate false stories. It makes me sad to see that such is the custom of our country. 118 On the 28th, after they left Tanabu (now Mutsu-shi), they came to a place called Odanosawa (Higashidori-mura, Shimokita district, Aomori prefecture), a place where, in Koshoken's words, 'tigers would live were this in China'.119 The members of the inspectors' party were hungry but there was no food. On the map of Japan Koshoken had with him, there was a lagoon whereas in reality it was only a pond. It rained. The place looked to Koshoken like Jagatara Qakarta, Indonesia). The road along the rocky shore was dangerous. They asked themselves why the inspectors had to come to such a place where there was nothing to inspect. Eventually, they came out onto a flat beach and noticed that parts of ships wrecked over the years lay scattered on the beach. Everything from masts to metal reinforced boxes and rice tubs had been washed up onto the beach by the waves. 'It was a sad sight.'120 Koshoken asked why no one picks them up and was told that, people believe that picking them up will bring misfortune to the families of the drowned.

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This reminded Koshoken of events that happened in Izu province. At midnight during a storm, in order to steal the cargo, robbers placed a mast with sail and torches at the beach so that another ship would shipwreck against a rock. 'They rejoiced and looted without regard for the dead. How different these people, who leave things untouched, were from the Izu robbers.'12l People here are mostly poor, Koshoken noticed, and the women do not decorate their hair with ornamental pins, but go around dishevelled so that they hardly look human, but in their hearts they were not at all bad. Their language is confused and they cannot count beyond twenty or thirty. In addition to the one provided by the daimyo to help us in the castle town, therefore, the inspector appointed two or three extra interpreters from Morioka castle town, just in case it was difficult to communicate in the Nanbu area, but even they could not understand this language. 'We were sometimes shocked at what we encountered and questioned the mysterious fate that brought us here. On the other hand, we were looking forward to telling our friends back home about our experiences.'122 On September 1, after they had left Ichikawa (Hachinohe-shi) on their way to Sannohe, they were told that the distance to the first resting place was short. Therefore everybody ate little. But the distance was false and proved to be much longer. All became hungry, especially those walking behind. They were angry and blamed it on the guides. 'It was quite funny but, I, too, was too hungry to laugh.'123 On the 3rd, they left Sekimura (Tago-cho, Miyagi prefecture) for Oyu (Towada-cho, Akita prefecture). Koshoken praised the local horses. Oyu was a spa good for colic. At Lake Towada there was a small shrine dedicated to Seiryu [Blue Dragon] Gongen, which stood near the shore. Koshoken tells us the story of this shrine. 'Angry at his wife, a monk drowned himself in the lake and turned into an evil snake and killed his wife and her relatives.' Therefore, they built a shrine called Gongen to appease his spirit and, because of this, the lake was fishless and contained no life. Koshoken was told that each summer people came here to worship, but that no one dares approach the water. Koshoken found, however, that many sulphurous hot springs enter the lake. This was for him a more likely reason for the absence of all life in the lake. 124 On the 4th, at Hanawa, it was a hot day. They anticipated covering five-anda-half ri that day. So, Inspector Mieda demanded a moxa treatment. 'They called the innkeeper and asked him for some incense. He said: 'yes, sir', and went to the kitchen, but did not bring any for quite a while. They urged him to bring it quickly, unable to understand the reason for this delay and thought that, perhaps, he sent someone to fetch the incense elsewhere, or that there was no incense in this remote place. But then a priest came in with incense on a tray and presented it to the inspector, saying: 'I was told a moment ago to bring incense. So I brought some at once.' They were all dumbfounded and speechless, but could not withhold their laughter and burst out laughing in front of the priest. They thanked him and sent him back. 'All of us including the inspector almost died of laughter.' The priest thought that the incense was needed because someone had died and the innkeeper did not explain the situation to him. Incense was not used in this area for any other purpose.'125

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At Nishikizuka, someone told Koshoken the story of the place name: In the past, when a man liked a girl, he stuck a decorated stick one shaku long in front of her house. If the girl liked him, she took the stick inside the house. In case she did not like him, she left it outside untouched. This was a traditional custom. No one knows when it first started. There was a man in this village. He liked a girl and came night after night to place a stick at her gate, but the girl did not like him and never took it in. After a while, there were so many sticks, they became a mound. That is why this place is called Nishikizuka [Brocade Mound]. 126 According to Koshoken, most villagers in this area were illiterate. Therefore, he concluded, the men place sticks rather than expressing their feelings in writing. They departed from Hanawa on the 6th. Koshoken complained about the food: 'We could not even get enough of those foods we liked best: broiled miso and chazuke.' Accordingly, they only ate fried rice. They were looking forward to the food they would serve at the inspectors' party in Morioka. 'But when we saw the dishes that evening, there was fried tofu and two mudfish. We could not believe it.' 'One can only expect strange things from strange places.'127 Koshoken once more took up the problem of distances while in Morioka. He has consulted many maps but found that they indicated mistaken distances. 'This was because this land was bigger than one presumed.' He found that there are neither maps nor written guides with correct distances. The locals knew even less. 'When I went to Higo province in Kyushu, I was shocked at the remoteness of the place, but the people were not stupid. In Nanbu, however, the lower-class people are not only simple-minded, they are surprisingly stupid.'128 He compared them to the ancient Ezo. From there they proceeded to Tayama, Johoji and Numakunai. At the Kinseigu Shrine there were two rocks that caught Koshoken's attention. One had the shape of a phallus the other of a vagina. 'The priest was stupid and what he told us was silly.' The priest claimed that an empress gave them to the shrine, but Koshoken took them as simple dosojin road deities. Koshoken laughed at the name Nanbu no Fuji eMt Fuji of Nanbu province) and criticized the appelation of 'Fuji' to mountains other than Mt Fuji. 'One can only laugh at the erroneous views of people who know nothing about geography.'129 On 9 September, the inspectors left Morioka and, on the 14th, they entered the Sendai domain. The leaves were turning multicolored; it was autumn now. The party travelled to Chuson-ji, a temple steeped in history and poetry. Then they continued to Ichinoseki and on the 23rd stayed at Wakayanagi. After Yanaizu on the 25th, Koshoken noted a marked improvement in the language. From here on, the journey back to Edo assumed the character of sightseeing famous places: Kinkazan, Matsushima, Sendai, Taga castle and Shiogama, Takekuma and Kasashima. Koshoken mentioned their history and poetry. On 18 October, Koshoken's friends came to greet him back at Senju to the north of Edo. Koshoken was grateful to be back alive and thanked his lord for giving him the opportunity to travel to distant places and study their geography. After his return, Matsudaira Sadanobu summoned Koshoken many times to

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his residence and read his diary. Koshoken commented that this was 'the highest honour I have received in my life'. 130

D Koshoken's Toyu Zakki was not published until after his death. This was presumably because of the embarrassing information it contained about the feudal domains of the Northeast. The oldest manuscripts (Tokyo University and Hakodate Municipal Library) are less critical of Hayashi Shihei and do not include Koshoken's reaction against Shihei's fear of a Russian invasion. Koshoken probably added some of his critical remarks only later when he revised his manuscripts. Sixty-four handwritten copies exist today of the Toyu Zakki indicating how much later generations of travellers and inspectors cherished this text. These copies do differ from each other, not so much because of arbitrary additions by later copiers, but because Koshoken himself revised his text often. The above two travelogues are testimonies to the kind of rationalism that took hold in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Koshoken rejected the supernatural world outright and told his readers that there is always a rational explanation to what is believed to be 'divine intervention'. Koshoken likened the way a myth or legend spreads to a dog's barking which all others dogs follow. Like some of his contemporaries who began thinking in terms no longer of a single feudal domain, but of the nation as a whole, Koshoken advocates uniformity of laws and measurements. He represented those Japanese intellectuals who were discovering or rediscovering Japan. However subtly, Japan began to occupy centre stage. Koshoken was an enlightened humanist in that he placed man higher than the state. Able to observe much about the Ainu in a short time, he was an astute observer and very much ahead of his time. We find no derogatory remarks about Ainu inferiority vis-a-vis the more civilized Japanese. On the contrary, Koshoken criticized his countrymen for taking advantage of the Ainu not because one culture was superior to the other, but to profit from the cultural differences. Also, Koshoken nowhere suggested that the Ainu should be 'japanized', a policy the Meiji government adopted later. NOTES

1. Vol. 8, Kinsei, 3 (Okayama: Sanyo Shinbunsha, 1987) p. 619. 2. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 331. 3. p.331. 4. p. 332. Taira no Kiyomori (1118-81), leader of a warrior clan named Taira. Three Bi: Bizen, Bitchu, Bingo provinces. 5. pp. 332-3. 6. p. 333. This ritual is still being performed as a tradition. 7. p.333. 8. p. 334. Murasaki Shikibu (975?-1016?) authoress of the Genji Monogatori (Tale of Genii).

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9. Akama barrier was an important check-point controlling traffic between Honshu and Kyushu. 10. p.335. 11. p.336. 12. p. 341. Chugoku here refers to the provinces of western Honshu. 13. p.341. 14. p.342. 15. p. 344. Gosekku festivals take place 7 January,S March, 7 July and 9 September each year. 16. p.344. 17. p.351. 18. p.352. 19. p. 352. Both Gekko-ji and Takufu-ji are Zen temples. 20. p.353. 21. p.355. 22. p.355. 23. p.359. 24. p.360. 25. p. 361. Dochu Kotei Saiken Ki, also Dainihon Koken Junro Meisaiki by Yamazaki Kyusaku, publ. in 1850. 26. p.363. 27. p.366. 28. pp. 366, 367. 29. p.368. 30. p.368. 31. p.370. 32. p.371. 33. p.375. 34. p.375. 35. p.377. 36. p.378. 37. p.379. 38. p.380. 39. p.381. 40. p.381. 41. p.382. 42. p.382. 43. p.382. 44. p.383. 45. p.388. 46. p.388. 47. p.392. 48. Yonin is not a personal name, but a rank indicating his status as a close shogunal retainer. 49. Sugae MasumiYuran Ki, vol. 2, pp. 90-91. 50. p. 123. The Tsugaru domain had to provide thirty towing boats for the three escort boats and the three main gochiso ships. There were in all one hundred boats. Toyu Zakki, Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 501. 51. Toyu Zakki, Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 442. 52. p.443. 53. p.444. 54. p.444. Emperor Konoe (1139-55), Miura Yoshiaki (l092-1180), Chiba Tsunetane (1118-1201), N asuno Yoichi: fought on the side of Minamoto Yoshitsune in

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1185. Emperor Gofukakusa (1243-1304). Gen'o: fourteenth-century monk who founded the temple Senkei-ji at Nasu. 55. p. 445. Oshu, was another name for Mutsu province (present-day Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori prefectures). Hojo Tokiyori (1227-83). 56. p.445. 57. p.448. 58. p.448. 59. p. 449. Akahara: a kind of sardine; kajika: bullhead; miso: bean paste; chasuke: rice in tea. 60. p.449. 61. p.449. 62. p.449. 63. pp. 450-1. 64. p.455. 65. pp. 456. Kitabatake Aldie was nominated Governor of Mutsu in 1333. 66. p.480. 67. p.456. 68. p. 459. Ashigaru are low-ranked samurai foot warriors. 69. p.459. 70. p.464. 71. p.466. 72. p.466. 73. p.468. 74. p. 468. Tawara is a unit of measurement usually used for salt or charcoal. 75. p.481. 76. p.483. 77. p.489. 78. p.484. 79. p.484. 80. p.485. 81. p.488. 82. p.488. 83. p.488. 84. p.489. 85. For example on p. 491. 86. p.491. 87. p. 492. Kamishimo: formal samurai dress. 88. p.498. 89. p.494. 90. p.495. 91. p. 496. elr 92. pp.496-7. 93. p.498. 94. p.499. 95. p.515. 96. p.517. 97. p.518. 98. pp.517-18. 99. p.502. 100. p. 503. 101. p. 502. 102. p.507. 103. p. 508. Gunnaijima refers to the lining of haori coats and beddings. 104. p. 511. Emperor Jinmu is the legendary first emperor, dates unknown.

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105. p.512. 106. p.512. 107. p. 520. Koshoken's critical remarks of Hayashi Shihei are the subject of Itasaka Yoko's article: 'Koshoken no Hayashi Shihei Hihan' Kinsei Bungei, no. 31 (September 1979). Itasaka notes that the Nanki-bon version of the Toyu Zakki is less critical than the version printed in the Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei. lOS. p. 527. Chinpunkanpun is Sino-Japanese meaning incomprehensible. Matsumae Hironaga, a high official of the Matsumae domain, also reports on how much the Ainu grieve over the dead: 'They let the hair oftheir children grow until it reaches their shoulders. To shave off their beards is a taboo. The Ainu look upon a long beard as something beautiful.' Nihon Shomin Seiaktsu Shiryo Shusei, p. 263. 109. p.527. 110. p. 52S. 111. p. 529. 112. p.530. 113. p.532. 114. p.532. 115. p. 532. 116. p. 53S. 117. p.540. lIS. p.544. 119. p.544. 120. p. 545. 121. p. 546. 122. p. 546. 123. p.547. 124. p. 550. 125. p. 550. 126. p. 551. See also p. 139. 127. p.552. 12S. p. 552. 129. pp. 553-554. 130. p.591.

CHAPTER

7

SUGAE MASUMI (1754-1829)

ON HIS GRAVESTONE in Akita it says that Sugae Masumi died in 1829 at the age of seventy-seven (by Western reckoning, seventy-six years old), from which we can calculate that he was born in 1754. The engraved poem suggests that he was born in Yodomi district of Mikawa province, in the vicinity of the present-day city of Toyohashi. At the time of his birth, his name was Shirai Hidezo. He later changed Hidezo to Hideo and in 1810, when he settled permanently in Akita, he changed his entire name to Sugae Masumi. The surname Shirai that his grandfather had used came from Shirai Tayu, a disciple ofSugawara no Michizane (845-903), whom Masumi worshipped as his family ancestor. As a young man, he became the disciple ofUeda Yoshie who was a disciple of Kamo no Mabuchi. Yoshie had family ties with Mabuchi and Mabuchi often came to visit Yoshie because they both lived in the same area. Masumi and Yoshie maintained what was to become a sizeable correspondence. Masumi also studied pharmacology under Asai Tonan (1706-82). Tonan was a disciple of the celebrated Kyoto herbalist Matsuoka Jo'an, author of the Yoyaku Suchi. Jo'an had studied under Ino Jakusui. This explains Masumi's interest in medicinal herbs and his activities as an herbalist, especially in the years 1796-1800. Jittoku Zukin was the name Masumi used as a herbal healer. Although Masumi showed interest in exotic plants during his travels, he rarely referred to himself as an herbalist. In his 'Kubota no Ochibo', however, Masumi described in detail a herb that induced sleep. This herb had been planted by Watanabe Shun'an, a disciple of Ono Ranzan. Masumi described Shun'an as 'a person excelling in hakubutsu.' The Okuni Nikki, the official Tsugaru diary, records that Masumi was commissioned by the Tsugaru clan to survey local herbs (Okuni Nikki: 18). This explains why he travelled so extensively through the Tsugaru domain. This assignment took him four years (1796-1800). In Akita, Masumi produced a medicine called Kinka Koyu, distributed by the merchant Toriya Nagaoki and sold continuously until 1939. As a herbalist, Masumi drew from the tradition of Li Shizhen whose work, Pencao Gangmu (Honzo Komoku), was widely read and discussed during the Genroku period

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(1688-1704), especially among doctors. 1 Masumi also became involved in the kind of Chinese botany that Kaibara Ekiken and Ino Jakusui had introduced. Sugae Masumi was also an accomplished painter. Exact observation in writing was not enough; he supplemented it with sketches of landscapes, local custom and tools. He drew in a style reminiscent of the Shokoku Meisho Zue (Sketches of the Famous Places around Japan) published in the years 1804-18, and the Nanga and literati schools. In Ezo, he met Kakizaki Hakyo (Hirotoshi, 1764-1826), the celebrated painter of the school of Maruyama Okyo (1733-95) and senior official of the Matsumae domain, but, as far as we can tell from reading his diaries, he did not seek out local painters during his travels. Masumi was a poet, perhaps not recognized as one of the leading ones, not even one who belonged to any particular school of poetry like Basho, but in the Northeast he was respected for his knowledge of poetry and exchanged poems with locals and taught poetry during some of his extended stays with local families. Masumi's interest in poetry was likely to have been inspired by his affiliation with Kokugaku, especially Shinto scholars. Sugae Masumi loved geography and travel and before he began writing about his journeys, he had visited Mino, Totomi, Suruga, Izu, Sagami and Kai provinces. During his journey to Mino and along the Kiso road in May 1782, he climbed MtTenashi where the poet Saigyo is believed to have lived for three years. In the Mitake village of Shinano province, he sketched the fenced off area where children struck by measles were placed under quarantine. Then, in the spring of 1783, aged thirty, he left home and travelled for eighteen years in the Northeast and Ezo before settling down in Akita at the age of forty-eight. It is unclear what drew him to the Tohoku (Northeast). He may have hoped to discover in that remote area the kind of simple, untainted life idealized by Kokugaku thought. He combined this intellectual, Utopian motif with his more practical interest in medicinal herbs, which he used to cover his expenses. Like Motoori Norinaga, he combined medicine with scholarship and literary pursuits. He revealed little about what drove him to spend over forty years travelling. He wrote that he intended to visit all the shikinai (mentioned in the Engi Shikz) shrines in Japan 'to pray to the deities of all Japan'. It is clear that he believed in the divine. At the Udo shrine in Aomori he requested a divination for the safest time to cross the strait to Ezo. Since the divination declared that he should wait for three years he continued his travels in the Northeast for another three years adding to the enormous volume of his travel writings. In his Funpoko collection of drawings, Masumi revealed further that he wanted: 'to observe strange tools and strange customs' suggesting that no single purpose drove him to spend most of his life on the road; it was probably various motives that made him choose the life of a traveller. It may also be that his interest in the areas that he travelled through prevented him from returning home and kept him on the road almost until the end of his life. As was customary at that time, Masumi carried letters of introduction and met many people on his way, and was welcomed everywhere as a scholar. It is likely that he supported himself by visiting one scholar after another, including numerous amateur scholars he found sometimes in the most remote villages. He seemed to have avoided areas where there was no interest in someone like him.

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Masumi often retraced routes he had already travelled and visited people he had visited before. In snowy winters, he stayed on in the same village for weeks and sometimes, months. After August 1801, the nature of his travels changed; he was supported mainly by merchants, and stayed for a while with a merchant at Noshiro. In 1802, he visited many mines, as is clear when reading his 'Shigeki Yamamoto'. Hiraga Gennai (1728-79) also visited Akita a few years before Masumi to study the silver mines in Akita. Perhaps Masumi did the same in Tsugaru. Masumi visited a lead mine and a silver mine. Since lead was used for the extraction of silver one can speculate that Masumi knew how to use lead to extract the silver, and that he and Gennai may have introduced this technology to these areas. Money is never mentioned in his diaries. Masumi benefited from being a scholar and, practically speaking, rarely needed money. He sometimes stayed in the same place for weeks, months, even years, often with shoya, doctors, shrine and Buddhist priests, and with rich merchants. He was active in local poetry circles. He also saw patients and administered medicines. Many villages welcomed travellers as 'beneficial persons' (medetasht). Masumi wanted to visit the most remote places. He used the merchant network to travel, for example, from Fukaura to Noshiro and sometimes he used a guide. According to his 'Oku no Teburi' he sometimes did his own cooking. Masumi often stayed at one place for extended periods of time or used the place he was staying as a basis for excursions into the vicinity. He stayed at Motoseba (Shiojiri) for more than a year. There Masumi lectured on classical literature to the future doctor, Sanmizo Masakazu, who described Masumi in his diary as an expert in Kokugaku and folklore. Masumi stayed in Ezo from July 1788 until October 1792 and then stayed in Tsugaru until 1801. From a July 1826 document we know that when Masumi was staying with a person called Senboku all the local people contributed to his expenses. 2 Acute and unbiased observation characterizes Sugae Masumi's travel accounts. We can find in his writings an unprecedented wealth of information about the lifestyles of people from all walks of life: fishermen, peasants, woodcutters, horse breeders and the Ainu. These various types of people are described objectively and with a love for all living things. Despite his Kokugaku background, he seems to be equally drawn to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and treats their widespread interdependence without prejudice. Perhaps it is best to describe Masumi as an eclectic and pragmatist who preferred objective, empirical observation to any specific ideological commitment. Examples of travellers who combined various schools of thought without exclusive commitments to any particular one, are common in the eighteenth century. Like Norinaga, he combined medicine with scholarship. Masumi died in July 1829, at the age of seventy-six at the home of the shrine priest, Suzuki. His bones were buried in Akita in the grave of a Kokugaku scholar. What kept him in Akita for almost thirty years is unclear. Maybe he was not allowed to return home because of his extensive knowledge of the area around Akita.

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About his style of writing, Masumi wrote what so many had written before him: 'at the fancy of my brush'. This statement may have many meanings among authors, but in Masumi's case, it is clear; it warns the reader that he is not writing according to traditional form and rhetoric but rather in an unorthodox free style. And he did indeed write freely. Masumi wrote over fifty volumes, not counting the volumes supposedly lost, nor the thirty-volume gazetteer he wrote after he had settled down in Akita. 3 Wherever he went, he always carried a bundle of thin Mino (province) paper with him. He also edited existing notes, all of which, in the end, must have amounted to a sizable and perhaps even bothersome load. Since he did not have a permanent home and had no wife and children, he was unable to send his notes to the care of his family. In December 1822, he donated his writing to the Meitokukan, the official school of the Akita domain. They are now preserved in the Akita Municipal Library. What he did not donate were ten volumes on his journey to the famous places of Mutsu province which he deemed uninteresting, and nine volumes of essays (Fude no Manimani) as well as ten volumes of notes he considered too personal. These eventually passed into private hands. Masumi was well aware of Furukawa Koshoken's writings. He copied a portion of the Toyu Zakki and in his 'Kubota no Ochibo' criticized Koshoken, commenting that because writing lasts a thousand years, one should not write in a personal vein. 3 Koshoken was freer to write what he wanted because he did not have to fear that a barrier guard would take away his manuscripts. Koshoken went as far as to criticize local leaders, whereas Masumi did not dare write about people of higher status. Portions of his diaries are lost and all diaries from the year 1800 on are missing, which accounts for the disjointed itineraries. Many places he must surely have passed by were omitted from his diaries. Why? Maybe the local leaders of the domains did not want the outside world to know about the local poverty Masumi was describing. We know that his dairy entitled 'Oda no Yamamoto' was confiscated. We also know that the Tsugaru officials took out unsuitable pages from his 'Nishiki no Hama'. Therefore, the diary is not continuous and has unlinked parts. Masumi later tried to recall the lost parts and thus eliminate the gaps as best he could after so many years had elapsed, hence the disjointed impression some of his diaries leave on the reader. Also, because the Tsugaru and Nanbu domains were not on friendly terms, Tsugaru officials may have suspected Masumi was a Nanbu spy and confiscated some of his diaries as potentially dangerous documents. Also, portions of his diary 'Koshi no Nagahama' between Shinano and Echigo are missing. Only two pages are extant and the diary continues from 30 June 1784 where he wrote about things that would not arouse official suspicion. A portion of his diary before Morioka is lost and so is the portion describing the area between Yuzawa and Akita and U go province frontier. The Tsugaru domain did not confiscate his 'Sotogahama Kaze' because he avoided the barrier and travelled over the mountains. 'Sotogahama Kisho' and 'Sumika no Yama' are incoherent. More than half a year is lacking from the latter. 'Yuki no Matsushima', 'Hana no Matsushima' and 'Tsuki no Matsushima' are also missing. He probably left them with someone in or around Sendai and they have not yet been recovered or are permanently lost.

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While in Akita, he also worked for an Akita gazetteer. There was a movement at that time to revive the Fudoki gazetteers originally ordered by Empress Genmei in 713 - partly generated by the shogunal government wanting to know more about the domains. The Shinpen Musashino Fudoki and the Zoku Kii no Kuni Fudoki were such new and much more detailed Fudoki than the extant ones from 713. Ekiken was working on one such gazetteer, the Chikuzen no Kuni Fudoki, as we have seen. The Aki and Choshu domains also compiled new Fudoki by questioning the local shoya. Masumi, however, did not edit shoya reports but wrote all of them himself. He petitioned the Akita domain to write a domain gazetteer but the officials were not ready to entrust a local gazetteer to an outsider, much less to someone ready to draw the information from his own diary. The Akita domain had employed him as a physician. Masumi waited ten years until 1813, when he finally received permission to begin an Akita gazetteer. 4 At the age of seventy-three, he toured the domain extensively for a year to prepare materials for his gazetteer. He also went to places to draw sketches. Masumi did not write critically, unlike Koshoken or Noda Senkoin (Shigesuke), the yamabushi author of Nihon Gubu Shugyo Nikki (Pilgrimage to the Nine Peaks) of 1812. He wanted to inform objectively and wrote in a readable style, including his sketches. When the Meitokukan, the Akita academy to which he had bequeathed portions of his diaries, lost support at the start of the Meiji period (1868-1912), Tsuji Heikichi, a wealthy man, bought some of Masumi's manuscripts (now at Odate library). They were written on very thin Mino paper for ease of travel. As far as we can tell from his writings, Masumi wrote his diaries on the basis of notes he jotted down at the inns.

SUGAE MASUMI YURAN KI (SUGAE MASUMI'S TRAVELOGUE)

'Ina no Nakamichi'

Sugae Masumi parted from his parents at the end of February 1783. He was twenty-nine (thirty according to the traditional way of counting the years of one's age). He lost the first part of his diary upon entering Shinano province. In the middle of March he reached !ida in Shinano province and travelled north along the Tenryu river towards Shiojiri. On 13 April he was staying at the house of a certain Ikegami who, next morning, invited Masumi and others to view the blossoms. This cheered him up from his tiring journey. They went to a small shrine where yellow roses bloomed in such abundance that the entire mountain looked golden. Masumi asked what kind of god was being worshipped at this shrine and someone told him: It is a god called Aragami, the tutelary deity of Haramachi village. A long time ago, there was a woman who was executed for a minor offence and her remains were buried here. Even when she was still alive, she harboured a deep grudge against her husband. After she died her spirit was restless and caused harm. Therefore, the people feared her spirit and worshipped it as a god. s

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Masumi stayed with Ikegami from 1 to 15 April. He took up local history and described salt-making at Kashio and witnessed an exorcism. After he left on the 15th, he saw women carrying mulberry leaves for the silkworms. After crossing the stream of the river Matsukawa, he entered the inn-town of Katagiri (Nakagawa village, Nagano prefecture, Kamiina district). There, a traveller told him the following story: In the Ina district, there is a kind offox [kuda] that attaches itself to people as a ghost and causes them to lose their minds. Initially, this madness seemed like an ordinary disease, fever rises and one feels a burning sensation as if burning charcoal had been placed in one's body and one's facial looks change into something fearful. This fox has a strange power over people and, like a god, cannot be seen. Sometimes dogs or cats eat it. In its shape, it resembles a squirrel or a flying squirrel. It is dark-coloured and has a long tail and its claws are as if needles had been inserted there. They are small but are uncanny animals. When one offers food to a person believed to be possessed by a ghost, however little it may be, their eyes are bloodshot, their head shakes, they get spasms and speak quickly. These are the symptoms of ghost possession. But if a truly sick person eats the same food as the possessed person, there is no problem, except for the salty taste on one's tongue. Recently, a fox possessed a local woman. She had spasms and threw herself to the ground, crying and yelling to the point of losing her voice. They brought a yamabushi. He installed a shamanness [yorimasht] in the home of the sick person and prayed and prayed to bring down the spirit into the shamaness. She was holding a wand of white paper strips in both hands and looked like a living statue of the Buddha Fudo Myoo [Acalanatha]. He loudly chanted the sutra and blew his Cochin shell and shook his bell and rubbed his rosary. Then he thrust something like spikes around the woman leaving no gap and unsheathing his sword, he slashed around her so that it seemed he would cut her down at any moment. When he commanded the spirit to leave, the shamaness's tears flowed down profusely and she lay down. I was wondering what would happen next and peeped in through the cracks in the wall and saw how the possessed woman got up slowly, holding up her long black hair with her arm and she laughed a shrill laugh and, in a quick voice, requested that cold water be sprayed over her sick body. I was overcome by a hair-raising horror. This Ajari so-and-so probably had more power and virtue than anyone else in the country. I walked behind a person who said that the spirit had left before long and that there are similar foxes in Kyushu. 6 Masumi stayed at a doctor's house and, the next morning, continued north to Iijima and Ina. On 5 May, as Masumi was travelling on, he passed over an earthen bridge and reached Toshima village (Ina-shi, Nagano prefecture). The village chief told him to lodge that night at the house of Iijima so-and-so. He did as told and went there: 'Oh, that was a scary bridge crossing because of the swift current,' Masumi said. Iijima replied: 'Indeed! Three days ago, on his way home, in the evening, a ten-year-old boy was riding on a horse and dragging his pony. On the bridge, the pony was seeking the nipples of its mother and stuck its

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neck underneath her belly. The mother horse jumped up and missed its footing and, in the middle of the bridge, fell into the swift current together with its rider and was swept far down river. The girl behind saw what happened from a distance and, dismounting the horse she had been riding, came running, but it was too late to lend a hand and cried out for help as loud as she could. As the people assembled, the horse jumped out from a shallow place far downriver onto a high cliff, but the boy was swallowed by the swift waves and was no longer seen. How terrible! Many people searched for him together at the river's lower course, but without avail. His mother came running saying that a sea monster in the ocean of Totomi [province] must have swallowed him and collapsed on the bank and wept, banging her head against a rock. But it was hopeless. Yesterday, rafters found his dead body washed up against a bamboo dam. There were only bones left which they brought back here. 7 A few days later, the weather was fine and, as he heard the rice-planting songs nearby, Masumi wanted to see the rice-planting ceremonies. He saw people who had nothing to do with the rice planting, including newly-married wives and husbands going down into the rice fields to join and help those who were transplanting the seedlings: The men who were flattening the surface and many otome girls were singling out one or the other of the newly-wed couples and were throwing mud at them. They were aiming in particular at those who tried to get away running over the ridges and paths between the rice fields. The people of the neighbouring fields also joined in and shouted: 'Let's get that husband, don't let that wife get away!'Their hats and dress were covered and soaked with mud, the wives ran into the small hut, crying under their umbrella hats and declaring in bitter voices, that this was surely the last time they would participate in the rice planting. The husbands, on their part, climbed over the tree branches onto the roof of the warehouse: 'We are about to die. That's enough! The festival is now over, isn't it?' and watched the girls go home. 8 Masumi left Toshima on the 23rd. The swells of the river had swept away the bridge and he had to cross on a ferry. On the other side, Masumi reported a kind of free sex 'like the zakone of Ohara' when men were free to seek young girls of the lower classes. 9 He reached Shiojiri at the Kiso river on the 24th and stayed with a monk he knew. He often sought out local doctors during his travels, indicating his professional interest in medicine. On 28 June he met Kani Nagamichi who had taught Masumi about the medicinal properties of peonies forty years before. lo Masumi must have entrusted his diaries to Nagamichi because his descendents, the Kumagai, came up with four volumes. Later, at Imoi village near Nagano, he called upon Yamamoto Seishin, a herbalist. On the 7th during the Tanabata, he saw the girls making many boy and girl dolls. They attached them underneath the roofs so that they fluttered in the autumn breeze. Masumi drew a sketch of this. 11 At Tanabata, the people of Shiojiri passed the night watching the stars. On the 25th, Masumi reached Matsumoto. He sought out a local doctor but unable to find him, visited

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another acquaintance. On the 30th, he left the Kani to climb Mt Obasute but decided to write about it in a separate travel diary entitled Wagakokoro. 12 Wherever he travelled Masumi would always visit the local shrines, talk to the priests and listen to them recount their history. He reports that a rope used to erect the poles in the Onbashira ritual snapped once, and many died or sustained injuries. The innkeeper told him this happened because they did not wait the full seven years before performing the ritual, and instead attempted it during the sixth year since the last ritual. 13 At the start of the next chapter entitled 'Kumeji no Hashi', he wrote about his travels as follows: I was travelling here and there to pray at the old shrines and visit all the famous historical places and, after the rainy season had cleared, I came to Chikuma district in Shinano province. But when I wanted to visit myoId friends, there were many who had left the earth all too early and I managed to meet only one or twO. 14 It was 1784, towards the end of June, when Kani Nagamichi, the doctor with whom Masumi had been staying in Matsumoto, encouraged him to stay a while longer to regain his strength. Masumi obliged and enjoyed the doctor's hospitality for a while. But eventually the road beckoned Masumi again. The doctor's mother reminded him not to forget his parents. Given her age, she knew she would never see Masumi again. Hence such partings were always heartbreaking. IS He first went to a waterfall used for rainmaking prayers. On 14 June Masumi reports that the price of rice fell from a hundred and fifty bu to seventy bu per shoo On the 15th, Masumi's itinerary took him into the mountains where the trees were changing colour. He had to cross a bridge which was so dangerous that 'it would have cost me my life if I made the slightest false step' but though his aged guide supported him he did not make it across and turned back. 16 On the 16th, Masumi was staying with a rich person named Ito and went to see the site of the legend of the two monks:

I heard that, at the foot of Mt Asama, too, there are the graves of two monks and as I listened to Ito's story, night fell. At each gate they lit torches but some houses float large bundles of burning straw down the Ogawa river. This is how each year they worship the spirits of those who have died through drowning. When the bell tolls reminding the people that it is time to go to sleep, the girls disguise themselves as boys and the boys as girls. They dance with their sedge hats or their white kerchiefs bound around their heads. I did not know what they were singing but their loud songs continued until daybreak. 17 A few days later Masumi reached Imoi (Nagano-shi) and stayed with a doctor. When he visited the Zenko-ji next day, on the 24th, he heard the 'Namu Amida Butsu' prayers 'sounding as though they came from the lungs of a whale'.18 On the 26th he climbed Mt Togakushi as far as the Okunoin deep in the mountains. He came to a shrine dedicated to the dragon deity who 'helps anyone with a toothache who pledges never to eat any more pears' and to a

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place where once a demon called Momiji [Maple] lived. Shogun Taira no Koremochi (tenth to eleventh century) killed the demon by offering it sake he had heated with crimson leaves. Masumi reports on the festivals held each year in honour of Koremochi and the demon. On the way down the mountain Masumi lost his way and almost ran into a bear with a cub. 'I was horrified as if my soul was parting from my body.'19 In Shisari (Nagano-shi) Masumi entered a house to rest when a child of two came crawling towards him. 'I wanted to give him something, but he crawled back and began to cry.' His mother told him that the child was shy unlike his dead brother. 'Now, he is the only child I have,' she said and spoiled him dearly. Masumi asked her about the child's name. She pointed to a small pine in the courtyard, a gesture Masumi interpreted to mean Matsu [Pine]. 20 Later, Masumi went to the Karita shrine, which had phallic stones and a painting showing a man making love to a woman. The priest told Masumi 'praying to them guarantees a speedy recovery of all illnesses below the waist'. There were also loin bands and gohei with prayers written on them, which the worshippers had offered to the shrine. 21 That evening the innkeeper told Masumi about Mt Asama's eruption and that the village was saved thanks to their prayers to the gods and the Buddhas. Masumi's volume entitled 'Akita no Karine' begins at Nezu barrier (Nezugaseki, Yamagata prefecture) on 11 September 1784. He noticed that in this area the people add a 'sa' to all they say. For 'ka to' they say 'ka sa to'.22 He reached Tsuruoka on the 19th, on the day that the villagers celebrated the Naka no Sekku (9, 19,29 September) and heard the following story: Because the wind had abated, I was about to leave, but it blew again violently. The old man who was cooking said that the other day a fishing boat with a crew of three capsized off Kamo, and two of the fishermen drowned. It is because of this, he said, that the wind was blowing. 23 On 20 September, Masumi decided to climb Mt Haguro. After Mt Togakushi, this was the second of the sacred mountains of the Shugendo sect of the itinerant yamabushi monks that he visited. At that time, pilgrims had to observe the taboo of opening their belts for one hundred days. Mt Haguro was one of the Three Sacred Mountains of Dewa. Someone said that High-priest Gyoson's (1057-1135) grave was nearby. Masumi asked him to take him there but the man had forgotten where it was, perhaps because he was too old to remember. Masumi reported that he had heard that during an epidemic a long time ago, the people on both the top and the foot of the mountain were all affected: At that time, Gyoson put peaches into the water and prayed and offered the water to the sick. Their fever went down at once and they all got well. The river called Momo Kiyomizu [Peach Pure River] is still flowing. Gyoson, he said, died here. I could not find out where the grave was located, so I inscribed a poem onto a tree near the road. However much ever They tell the legend Of the flower's perfume

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That fills the world, There is none to ask Where it is.24 There was another waterfall attracting Masumi's attention. Masumi told the story of Fujimatsu, a beautiful boy who, following the death of his mother, came here with the intention of becoming a monk. Many monks however vied for him and he died. He climbed down the mountain and eventually reached the river Mogamigawa. Masumi called on the passing boats to ferry him across the river but no one paid attention to him. At last a boat took him to the opposite shore, where he met a shamaness who delivered oracles to the tune of her catalpa bow. 25 On the 25th, Masumi had his passport checked at a barrier near Sakata. On the 27th he admired the landscape at Kisagata despite the scenic changes caused by an earthquake. He quoted the poem that Priest Noin (988-?) had composed here, thus giving the name Noin island to one of the many islets. 26 On the 29th the bad weather kept him confined to his inn. He heard a drunk pleasure girl weeping in the next room. He listed the names given to the local pleasure girls who were called Kaminaga. Komokori are those who sneak into your room late at night, and Nabe those who pass the entire night with you. He came to a place where they were selling fish called hatahata (sandfish), which they catch when the sea is rough and when it thunders. The fish are named after the word for thunder god, hatahatagami. On 10 October two medicine merchants guided Masumi through an unmarked road, but later, he lost his way but guided himself by the smoke rising from a house downhill. 27 Around this time, Masumi entered the Akita domain and on the 11 th arrived at the village of Nishimonai (U go-machi, Akita prefecture). In the evening the wind abated but the rain was pouring. The pillars [of the house] were rotting and the roof was in disrepair and Masumi could not escape from the rain that was leaking everywhere. 'I moved my bedding away from the leak, put on my straw raincoat, lit the torches and drew myself near the dying fire. The wind was again blowing fiercely and shaking the house. I could hear the men who got up and shouted: "Wind abate!" '28 When the old woman of the house saw Masumi wearing a straw raincoat she said jokingly: 'Why not wear shoes and a hat?' Next morning, when Masumi got up, it hailed. Masumi stayed at the house for three or four days. The snow fell unabated and it was impossible for him to go out in this snowstorm: But I wanted to see the market. I pulled on the straw shoes they had provided for all of us, and the straw trousers and ventured out into the snow but I reentered the house saying: 'It is so cold. It is hard to believe.' I added willow branches to the fire and blew my blue nose into the hagashi that were lying scattered around. I untied my belt to let the fire warm me up, something they call senaaburi, haraaburi. The old woman entered. 'It is cold in this snow. Let's stir up the fire!' And we spent the whole night around the fire. ~rashi means boy and merashi, girl.'29 Masumi was particularly interested in the local dialect: While it was still dark outside, someone said: 'Oji, get up!' (The younger brother was called aji and the younger sister aba and for: 'it's still dark

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outside' they say: 'it seems the rats have eaten our keshine (rice). Ane, where are you sleeping? (Ane is the master's wife. Here, people do not call each other by their names. Instead they refer to others as 'someone's kaka' (mother) or 'someone's toto' (father).3o Masumi crossed the Omono river and entered Kubota, presently the city of Akita. He described the huts children build from the snow they shovel down the roofs. Here he ended his volume entitled 'Akita no Karine' and started on a new volume 'Ono no Furusato', which starts on January 1785. Masumi spent the New Year of 1785 at the village Yanagita (Yuzawa-shi, Akita prefecture). Because of the snow, Masumi was unable to travel and he stayed here until April. This gave him the opportunity to observe the New Year's festivities in detail. In Yanagita the villagers attach millet mochi cakes at the gate posts and offer as many flat mochi as there are men in the household. Masumi observed that they scoop fresh New Year's water and everyone in the household must drink it - beginning with the youngest children. Then they burn old ok era roots and wave the smoke towards themselves in order to breathe it in - believing that it protects them against epidemics. Thunder at New Years predicts a good harvest and makes everyone happy. On the 6th they prepare the nanakusa (seven vegetables of spring) and, next day, eat them mixed with New Year's porridge. Then they go from house to house and exchange greetings. On the 8th they chase off the deities who bring illnesses and clean the house from corner to corner and burn incense. Then they bind straw ropes, a magic to keep away robbers. On the 14th they prepare the Koshogatsu (lit. Small New Year, also Women's New Year) in the morning and purify their houses. On the 15th they shape mochi into dogs, cats, flowers, crimson leaves and give them to the children who go from house to house playing their flutes. While the adults divine the year, the girls fry their mochi in the fire and select a partner by a mochi lottery and pass the night with the chosen one. On the 20th there is a ritual the locals call Yaito no sue-hajime. They place moxa on a konbu kelp, light one and place it on someone's head, Masumi reported. 31 7 February was higan day dedicated to the dead. They hang a willow branch at each miko (shamaness, priestess) house. This is why everyone knows where the miko live and they can ask them to summon the spirits of the dead. They come to hear the shamans' voices and weep. On the 20th there is a wedding ceremony. They place two tips of a wax tree wrapped in paper onto a tray, the bride's family doing the same. Then they visit each other's house and take one branch and combine it with the one left at their own house. Then they put on the bride's shoulder a coarsely woven band she will use later to carry her baby. Then the two families exchange two bundles of fern bracken and place the bride's bundle on top of the groom's and not the other way as is customary. Ashamed, the groom disputed this arrangement. After that, they put away the bundles and save this bracken to use later as chopsticks to gather the bones when one of them dies. 32 Proceeding along the road in the middle of the village on 6 March, Masumi came upon a small straw-thatched house where a man was eavesdropping on what was being said inside. 'I wondered what was going on and asked.' He told

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Masumi that a clairvoyant miko was plucking her catalpa bow and spoke the words of the dead as if they were present and predicted the future as if it were written on the palm of her hand, and moved the people to tears. 33 When Masumi reached Qno village (Akita prefecture), the alleged birthplace of the celebrated ninth-century beauty called Qno no Komachi. There was a yamabushi temple called Kinteizan Kakugen-in: The priest told me about the temple's origins saying that thirty-eight generations ago, Tendai-school Priest Enmyobo came here from the capital with [Qno no] Yoshizane and settled down. He said: 'A messenger of the governor ofTsugaru once happened to stay at my house and asked: "What do you have there hanging from the beam?" I replied: "I don't know what it is but it has been like this wrapped in paper and bound together with a string.' 'Even if it is a secret, I will not tell anyone. Show me what is inside!' He begged insistently. I cut the string with a sickle and opened it and found inside an old kind of koto, made from a single block. The messenger thought that this must be an old heirloom of the Qno, or Qno's daughter may have used it and he said: 'Please give me this koto ifpossible!' It is said that he bought it with a large amount of gold. 34 Then Masumi went to the Kumano shrine allegedly built by Yoshizane that had a Waka [Poetry] shrine. A villager said: Qno no Komachi was sub-nine years old when she was taken to the capital. When she came back later in her life, she planted a peony, which is on a mound in the middle of a rice field. 'Come, I'll show it to you!' So saying he guided me there. A fence surrounded the mound where a peony was about to bloom. In the past there were ninety-nine of these. Their colour was a light red differing slightly from other peonies. 'The people will not transplant the rice unless they bloom. When you break even a small branch, clouds will gather and it will rain immediately. This is indeed Komachi praying for rain,' he said. The number ninety-nine refers to the ninety-nine poems she allegedly composed. 35 Masumi continued to write down what the villager told him. 'Inside the field, there was a place called Futatsumori (Two Shrines) that harkens back to the times when this place was called Yasojima, an old utamakura place (exact location unknown) of Dewa province. In the past, the Qmonogawa river flowed through here. When she was old, Qno no Komachi lived a while in Iwaya, he said and there is a poem she allegedly composed there. Futatsumori is where Qno no Komachi built a tomb for the Lesser Captain of Fukakusa side by side with the one she had already built for herself, saying: "When I part from this world, please bury me here without fail," and died.' The villager told Masumi another version of the story, one claiming that Qno no Komachi was the child of a deer. When a woman of unequalled beauty passed the night with Yoshizane, she became pregnant. After she gave birth, she changed her shape to that of a deer: Another tradition has it that Komachi was kidnapped when she was young, and taken to the present capital of Mutsu [Miyako] and lived there. Not knowing that such a beauty was living there, Yoshizane came and fell

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in love with this unworldly beauty and pledged to take care of her in the future. And it was only later that he realized that she was his own child. Komachi felt sad and wept but there was nothing she could do. Thinking that she bore the responsibility for crimes she had committed in her past life, she never married. This reminded Masumi of her poem: More terrifying Even than death, Is being separated From Miyakojimabe (Kokinshu) The story Masumi heard about this poem was that when the grave at Yasojima once moved with a thunderous noise, Komachi appeared and composed this poem only to disappear immediately after. He also said that sometimes in the evening a beautiful woman came along the road and that no one could figure out where she was going. Futatsumori refers to the two graves she had built at Yasojima. Yachusan Ono-dera of the Nonaka village is a temple that has a long history. The main image, a Thousand-armed Kannon, is the work of Jocho (?-lOS7) and has survived until now. Jigaku Daishi (Ennin, 794-864) gathered all the papers Komachi had written and, after she died, fashioned a statue out of them, representing her in death. This has also survived and is called by the people the Hag of Hell. Masumi rested a while in a house whose owner told him that in a certain year there was a long drought and everything had withered, including the rice, whereupon the people went to purify the peony and pray, reciting the poem: It must be the law of nature That after the sun Has shone long enough, It will rain again. And the rain poured at once, because the poem was effective. Therefore, he said, the people decided to worship Komachi at this place. 'Before they visited this place to worship, beautiful wives and girls gathered to sing songs and drink sake and have a good time. So in no time the sky clouded up and rain fell and everyone ran home. So much rain fell that the water filled the fields and the crops were waving as if tossed by ocean waves and no one could tell when the rain would stop. There was nothing else to do, but to pray to another god, saying: 'Komachi has no pity for us,' and the rain stopped. There are so many legends about Komachi; one cannot count them all, Masumi wrote. 36 Masumi had heard these local legends about Komachi while staying in the Ogachi district (Akita prefecture). On the 26th, Masumi was at Shioyuhiko shrine on Mt Kamuro, a mountain neat Mt Chokai when he saw a beautiful girl wearing a thick, light blue linen dress, walking with an old man. The people said: 'This must be a girl from Ono. Oh, how pretty she is!' 'As a vestige of

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Komachi, Ono village has always produced beautiful girls but I have never seen such a beauty,' a half-drunk local man named Sasaki said to Masumi in a choking voice. On the 28th Masumi reported, in all villages the people worshipped phallic deities called Sainokami. The day before, on the 25th there was a marriage ceremony at the village of Shinkanetani. Masumi was on his way to Yanagita. The groom had to carry his bride into a temporary hut called koyado where they prepared to enter his house. 'The bride carried two sticks wrapped in five-coloured paper symbolizing the unity of heaven and earth.'3? Here ends Masumi's volume 'Ono no Furusato' and another volume 'Sotogahamakaze' begins on 3 August 1885. Perhaps Masumi lost his diary covering the period from May to August, because it is unlikely that he left this portion out. Masumi was at the frontier between Dewa and Mutsu provinces and he had to pass a checkpoint. He entered a straw sandal shop to buy new shoes. The shopkeeper was an old man sitting on a sled with his legs stretched out, stirring up the fire. He explained to Masumi that it was customary in this region to wear snowshoes until the rice plants grow ears of grain. Masumi came to Fukaura (Aomori prefecture), where he saw the boats struggling to brave the waves. He sought shelter in a house along the beach but was refused at first and admitted only after insisting. The owners of the house excused themselves saying that the strong winds might cause the house to collapse. 38 On the 7th at Kanegasawa there was a big uproar: 'Yesterday, did you see the boat that capsized?' And: 'In the other bay, too, a boat sank and many people perished.' 'As if this were not enough, the storm flattened the rice plants that were ready for the harvest and they turned white. There was also damage in other fields.' The men moaned and the women wailed, lamenting their harsh lives, damaged fields and perished boats. The people who had assembled there also said that this exceeded their sufferings during the famine a year ago. 'What sins have we committed in our previous lives to deserve this fate?' and they all cried so loud that it echoed. 39 On the 7th, Masumi was unable to cross the river because of the high water level and he only went as far as Kanaigasawa where he stayed in the house of a man called Ono who treated him well. Next day he tried again to cross the river, something he managed only with the help of two travellers who held each other's hands. As he arrived at Ajigasawa he learned that some other boats had been lost. On the 9th he had a cold and rested in his inn.40 On the 10th Masumi was pushing his way through the small paths ofUnoki and Tokomae villages. Patches of snow were still lying on the ground and many skeletons were lying around in the grass, or they were heaped up. In the holes where the cranes had tumbled down, ominaeshi [patrinia scabiosaefolia] were faintly blooming: I did not dare look closely and I muttered to myself: 'How wretched, how wretched!' The person behind me heard this and said: 'Look at this! All these are the bones of people who died in the famine. From the Third Year

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ofTenmei [1783] until the spring of the Fourth [1784], many collapsed in the snow and were lying there until they breathed their last. As more and more people collapsed here, their bodies blocked the road and the travellers tried not to step on them but, in the evening or at night, they would often step inadvertently on skeletons breaking the bones or step into a putrefied stomach. You cannot image the stench. In order to survive, people caught horses and tied them round their neck and dragged them to the crossbeams of their houses and killed them by stabbing them in the abdomen with a knife or short sword. They collected the dropping blood and cooked it with this or that root. The way they killed the wild horses later was to pour boiling water into the horses' ears or to strangle them to death by tightening ropes around their necks. Then they cut out the bones and burnt them together with wood in open fires. They also ate stray chickens and dogs. When such sources of food became exhausted, they stabbed their own children or sickly members of their families or people about to die of illness, although they were still breathing. Or, they cut off pieces of flesh from their own breasts in order to still their hunger. Those who were caught eating human flesh were arrested and executed. The people who had eaten human flesh had a strange shine in their eyes, like wolves, and the faces of those who ate horsemeat turned black. Many of them are still alive, and live in various villages.'41 In the town ofYasukata (Aomori-shi) on the 17th, Masumi went straight to the Uto shrine and had the priest divine for him when he should cross over to Ezo. Masumi wanted the deity to tell him when he could go and see the Ainu and cross the ocean safely and wrote down 'ten days' and 'three years'. The lot fell on 'three years'. 'Well, if this is so, I will abide by it.' Masumi then decided to travel to Morioka and Hiraizumi to avoid the famine ravaging the area. In Aomori he saw people moving south with all their belongings. They told him they were moving to a place with a better harvest. When he stayed that evening in N eta inn town, the innkeeper told him: 'Life will be hard until the end of this year too. Last year and the year before the people of this village survived by eating horses. We have over eighty houses but only seven or eight, including us, did not feed on horsemeat. When they abandoned the dead horses in the snow, crowds of women with disheveled hair came running with their vegetable and fish knives and competed over the best parts, tore them off and took the bloody pieces home not minding the blood staining their arms. The dogs were gnawing at the heads of people who died of starvation at the roadsides, barking with their bloodstained muzzles, something frightful beyond words. This year's harvest was even worse than last year's, but now there are no more horses or cows to eat. We will have to eat boiled arrowroots and thistle leaves or ominaeshi, he said, with tears in his eyes. 42 Masumi went back to Hirosaki and came to the Ikari barrier, the checkpoint controlling traffic into the Tsugaru domain from Akita. Masumi had been travelling that day with a ship owner who had lost his ship and upon explaining the circumstances, the barrier guard let him through. Masumi told him where he was coming from but he had no passport. The guard did not let him pass and

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he had to go back to Hirosaki to get permission. He finally passed the barrier on the 22nd. 43 Just after passing the barrier, on the 23rd, he caught sight of a stupa dedicated to the unknown dead of the famine, which stood at the side of the road on which he travelled. It had a golden wheel one could turn as a prayer for those who died during the famine. It also marked the place where their corpses were buried. A beggar said in tears, as if speaking to himself: 'How sad that everyone in my family has come to this. This world is a terrible place,' he said wiping off his tears with the sleeves of his under dress. Masumi approached him and asked: 'Why?' He replied: 'We ate horses and humans and barely kept ourselves alive. This year, too, the crops did not ripen (kagamazu, a local term for 'not ripen') and I became a hoido (local word for beggar).' He said. I asked him whether it is true that people ate horses and humans. He said: 'We also ate humans. Human ears and noses tasted particularly good. But there was nothing more delicious than horsemeat. We stamped them into mochi. Since these were things one should not eat, we hid it from others and did not tell anyone. Even now, it happens that we cannot even get a maid or a servant, because they say that we are polluted. So we all hide the truth. I tell you all of this, because I believe that confessing this to a venerable pilgrim [like yourself] will efface my sins.' He told him and, hearing that this beggar was on his way to Akita, Masumi gave him some coins and left.44 Masumi ended this volume at Ichisato village (Odate-shi), Akita prefecture. The part of town on the other side of the river had completely burnt down and he passed the night in a temporary hut. He could watch the moon through the cracks in the wall. 'My wish to sleep outside in the grass has finally come true', he wrote somewhat sarcastically.45 Masumi's volume 'Kyo no Sebanuno' begins on 26 August with the cries of the geese flying through the fog. On the 27th he came to Furukawa (Towada, Aomori prefecture) right at the time of the harvest. Masumi heard the legend of a beautiful hard-working weaver who produced beautiful fabrics: The men were vying for her and placed their poles at the gate of her house. A man who was selling spindle tree [mayumt] branches at the market placed a beautiful branch at her gate and the girl wanted to take it in as a sign that she had chosen him over the others. But the old man who raised her prevented it saying there must be a better match for her, and the branches he placed night after night withered away. He did manage to talk to her through the window. The old man found out and he kept vigil at night and did not let the girl leave the house to sell her fabrics. The man tried his best to approach the girl but without avail. He gave up and hung himself in the forest. The girl refused to take any food and died too. The old man regretted what he had done and decided to bury them in the same grave, called Nishikizuka [Brocade Grave], and to build a temple in their memory. The locals sometimes heard the loom down in the grave and saw a beautiful girl weaving but these visions ceased when a sceptical samurai dug up the grave. 46

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On 5 September, Masumi was staying in an inn where the wind was blowing through the cracks and he was unable to close his eyes until the innkeeper pushed down the cover so that Masumi would be warmer. Masumi described his arrival in Ichinohe (Iwate prefecture): Here I asked to be put up for the night. But, the housewife said that they did not have a grain of rice and that they could not accommodate anyone and made no sign that she would change her mind. But I insisted saying that my feet cannot go on after such a lengthy journey and that it did not matter if! got nothing to eat that evening. She said: 'Well then, come in!' And served me millet and peaches seasoned in salt. The people of the house only ate millet. She lamented that this year again the harvest had been meager and that one never knows what to expect from life on earth. She gave me a wooden rice measure as a pillow. As I lay down, the wind was blowing so violently that I woke up from my dream about home. 47 There was some noise and Masumi woke up again. It was still night: The old innkeeper was frying something over the fire. I raised my head to see and saw sickles and axes with blades shining like snow lying at the board of the hearth. I feared to lose my life in this annex or to be forced to give away all my money or to have my clothes stolen. I was wondering what to do if something like that was to happen and I grasped my pocketknife and held my breath. As if he were aware of my fear, the old innkeeper was smoothing his hair and checked the room from corner to corner with his flashing eyes and shook his hair. As if this was not already frightful enough, I realized someone was outside and, violently pushing aside the door two rough men came in and stepped right into the hearth. They wore a kerchief around their heads and a straw raincoat and were carrying a broad-bladed ax around their necks and gaiters made of bulrush. 'Who is sleeping here?' 'A traveller.' 'Is he alone?' The innkeeper did not reply. It was still before dawn and I felt increasingly uneasy and could find no words to describe my fright. The old man shouted: 'Come here brothers!' But there was no answer. Then he grasped two thick sticks and beat the floor two or three times so much that the planks jumped up. 'Brothers get up!' The young men got up and clapped their hands, put on their gaiters and all wearing the same went out the gate singing. I was in shock because I did not know what all of this meant. Masumi, too, got up and upon inquiry was told that these men went into the mountains. Since it was still dark outside, he lay down again pondering whether one should be so suspicious of others. 'I was ashamed to realize that it was one's own mind which created the devils and the Buddhas.' Masumi enjoyed breakfast with these men but only ate a little chestnut rice coloured like ominaeshi. 48 When he heard that the gods of Mt Ganshu (Iwate) were Zushio and Anju he noted: 'I wish I could ask someone whether this is true.' 'Kasumu Komagata' begins in Tokuoka (Izawa-shi, Iwate prefecture) where Masumi was passing the New Year in Murakami Yoshikazu's house. It was now 1 January 1786: The people gave coins to the visiting children saying: 'this is for the horse'. When they only gave little money they said: 'This is for a thin horse.' The

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people divined the year according to the direction that thunder is supposed to rumble at New Year. This year the thunder came from a good direction predicting a good harvest and the people were happily celebrating. 49 On the 3rd, they let the horses go free in the snow. On the 6th the weather was as fine as yesterday's and the sky, too, was hazy and the mountains in the distance, slightly overcast. This evening was the night before the start of spring called Setsubun (Spring Equinox). 'Let the blossoms bloom in heaven and let them grow on earth; bring in good fortune and out with the devils!,5o They sang this while throwing beans and the custom of predicting the year's weather by the ashes from the fire used in boiling the beans, was like that of other provinces. One places twelve beans near the fire in the hearth and predicts each month's weather by their roasted crust. On the 7th, they ate porridge with beans to ward off disease. The 11 th was called Hadate, the first day of work for rich and poor. They brought their ploughs and hoes out onto the snow and acted as if they were plowing the earth. By spreading pampas grass and straw they made a large area in the snow look like a rice field and mimicked the plowing of the earth and the planting of rice. They deliberately said: 'Oh, I am tired!'Then they sang rice-planting songs and pretended, saying: 'How are the seedlings?' Unlike the merchants, they did not display their new accounting books and open their storehouses (kurabirakz). The Hadate was a ritual imitation of the agricultural cycle and a means to predict the harvest. During this kurabiraki, they place zoni (broth with boiled mochi and vegetables) in front of the storehouses. They did so to pray for increased family prosperity. The new accounting books, used for the first time on that day, were displayed at the altars for all to see. 51 On the 15th, shortly after dinner was over, young boys and girls carrying white powder in the palms of their hands went from house to house to powder everyone's face. They call this 'hana 0 kakeru' (putting on a flower). So doing, the flowers will grow on the rice, they say. When they see that the people try to avoid them, they comfort them saying: 'No, don't worry! There is someone I need to see here.' 'Well then show me what you are carrying in the palm of your hand!' And there is much commotion about this 'flower' both in the houses and outside. As there is not enough white powder available, these days, people dig out white earth from the mountains and go around offering it for three or four days saying: 'Hana oshiroi yo) hana oshiroi yo' (The flowers are white, the flowers are white). 52 Then, people soak the white earth in water and keep it to be smeared on people. A stern-looking man was sitting quite unaware, talking earnestly to someone, when a boy approached him from behind and made a small white mark on the man's shaven forehead and ran away while everyone laughed. Also, there were women who put a thick layer of white powder on their faces, contrasting with the rouge they had applied to their lips and the black on their teeth. But even they could not escape from being targeted. It was like more snow falling on an already snow-covered garden. It was funny. 53 On the 15th, Masumi heard a legend explaining why the people stick a post with a gourd into the snow.

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A long time ago there was a man who revered Shinto over all other religions and believed there was nothing like it anywhere in the world. He worshipped the deities every day and dearly cared for his mother and father and helped them in the fields and in all other chores. Among his neighbours, there was a man who recited the sutras tirelessly all day long and esteemed Buddha's teaching above all else. Whenever they met, they always argued. One day they decided: 'Well then, let us each one of us, build a rice field this year. The one that yields more rice will indicate which religion is the better one.' So they agreed. The filial man tilled the earth from morning till evening without even taking a rest. The rice he planted grew tall and he was blessed with an abundant harvest in the autumn and added to his family's well-being. The man who esteemed Buddha's teachings did not build his field and passed his days reciting the sutras, burning incense and offering flowers to the Buddha. In the autumn, this man strew yugao seeds all over his field and they grew letting nothing else grow between. They produced white flowers and yielded many gourds. Seeing this, the man said: 'This must be the Buddha's gift. Let us eat this and sustain our lives.' So saying, he beat the gourds open and noticed that each one was filled with rice. The people could not believe it. They realized that both the kami and the Buddha bless the truthful and the two men stopped disputing over the merits of their religion. To commemorate this event, up to this date, people decorate their fields with gourds and straw sandals at the beginning of work ofthe New Year. 54 Masumi had informed Suzuki Tsuneo (1746-1809), a shoya of Maezawa, that he was coming and Tsuneo came all the way to Maezawa (Izawa district, Iwate prefecture) to greet Masumi. 55 Then they both went to Hiraizumi to see the temple Chuson-ji and the dengaku, uba-mai, sarugaku and ennen they were performing at that time. Masumi described these dances in detail and for the Ennen he even noted the songs. This also provided Masumi with an opportunity to describe the temple buildings, their treasures and their history. He tells us the story of Priest Ennin Oigaku Daishi) who, on his pilgrimage to the Northeast saw white hair lying around. He followed the hair and came into the mountains where suddenly an old man riding on a white deer appeared to him revealing that he was the protective deity of this mountain. Masumi's detailed description of the temples and temple procedures are some of the most extensive in his diary and attest to the fact that Masumi's interest in Shinto was not exclusive. They stayed in Hiraizumi until the 22nd. 56 Then they proceeded to the Motsu-ji. On 6 February Masumi saw a biwa-hoshi play Soga, Yashima, Niko Monogatari, Yudonoyama no Honji and Chiyo Hoko, a comic tale for women. 57 Back in Tokuoka, on the 14th, the sky was clear and sunny, and many children assembled, trampled down the snow and spread out straw: They placed mats on the ground and played. They played the flute and drummed on big and small drums and beat the gongs and tried to imitate the deer dance, the rice-planting dance and danced the nenbutsu dance wearing on their heads a box lid, and then a sword dance. The boys who danced the latter wore fearful masks and hakama trousers and tucked up their sleeves and kept their hair uncombed, carried a war fan in their hands

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and a long sheath in their belts and brandished a naked sword. This sword dance is called Takadate Mokke, the story of which goes back to the fall of the Takadate fortress a long time ago, when many ghosts appeared with the same fearful look. Assuming the shape of evil spirits, they chanted the nenbutsu to soothe these evil ghosts every year in the Bon season. Despite differences, this dance resembles the one at Saigatani in Totomi province called Nenbutsu Bon Kuyo. It is strange that the boys do this here as part of their spring festival [haru-asobi] .'58 The next day, they all went to the temple to celebrate the anniversary of Buddha's death, beginning two weeks of religious observances every day. On the 21st, still in the higan season, two blind priests both called !chi took out their three stringed instruments, but the children urged them to tell them stories instead of playing the joruri. The innkeeper's wife suggested they recite Biwa no Surusu. They began: A long time ago, a very long time ago, there was a beautiful girl. Hearing about her, a [blind] biwa-hoshi priest stayed at her house and said to her mother: 'My family has as much gold as the size of a cow. Give me your daughter and she will be rich all her life.' The mother replied: 'Well, in that case, please recite Yashima or Akutama all night long. Then in the morning our daughter will be yours with a good measure of rice.' The happy priest played his biwa all night long without interruption so much that the strings were about to snap and the instrument about to split and then he claimed the girl. The mother wanted him to have breakfast so that in the meantime she could arrange her daughter's hair. Then she had her daughter carry a measure of rice on her back, the monk took her by the hand and they left. The rice was heavy and she asked him to rest near a river. Even though it was her parents' wish, she did not want to wed a blind man and, rather than live an unhappy life, she pretended to drown herself by throwing the rice container (surusu) into the river with a splash and hid behind a rock holding her breath. The monk wept bitterly over the loss and decided to part from life and threw himself into the river. He sank immediately but his biwa and her rice container floated downriver together as if clinging to each other. 59 On the 22nd, Suzuki Tsuneo had to go to Sendai on urgent business and provided Masumi who wanted to see Matsushima, with a horse. 6o Masumi's next volume 'Hashiwa no Wakaba' starts in the second half of the month of March, 1786, when he was staying in the village of Ohara (Daito-cho, Iwate prefecture). The rivers had flooded and destroyed the bridges and Masumi had to make a detour. On his way, Masumi saw an old man spreading rice ears onto a hemp field. Masumi asked what for and was told: 'to ward off noxious insects'. On 4 April the children were flying their kites and engaged each other in sumo wrestling under the blooming cherry trees. Masumi felt that spring had finally arrived. 61 On the 5th, while Masumi was staying at Haga Keimei's (1752-1804) house, in the early morning, the children, all drenched in morning dew and their hands filled with branches of blooming cherries said that they picked them today as souvenirs:

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'The cherry trees must be in full bloom. Let us go and have a look!' 'Prepare a lunch and fill the gourds with some sake and don't forget the iron kettle!' he ordered. They left the house and, while admiring the high mountains called Tsurugamine, Kamegamine and Mt Kamakura, in the distance, they arrived at the Hachiman shrine. When they offered nusa, we noticed the cherry branches that had already been offered to the shrine. Also, near the shrine were some half-blooming cherry trees. They walked around and returned. As the long spring day came to an end, it started to drizzle. 62 On 8 April, when evening falls, everyone shouts blasphemies at or tease each other; they joke and laugh and naked men compete as to who will be the first to grasp a holy bag. Some time ago, a man's testicles were torn off during the shuffle and since then the men wear loin bands (jundosht). Masumi saw an old house with two strings of coins hanging from it. Children and old men were guarding the house because, should the money be stolen, they have to restore it with interest. After that Masumi returned to Suzuki Tsuneo's house. 63 Four days later, Masumi saw an unusual wedding in a mountain village. He saw how they applied the haguro (teeth blackening) to the bride, how they arranged her hair and applied the make-up and how they bound a white and red band around her head. They placed her on a horse but, near the groom's house, a strong man carried her on his shoulders. The bride was carrying a bundle of chopsticks called moriki (after her death her bones will be picked up with these chopsticks). At the gate they spread a suga mat and young men compete with knives in their hands as to which mat (the bride's or the groom's) should be on top of the other. But an old man stops the fighting. Then the bride puts on her husband's trousers, wearing the back in front. 64 On 9 May, Masumi returned to Suzuki's house at Mukairi (Maesawa-chos, Iwate prefecture). SuzukiTsuneo said: 'At a mountain village called Kurodasuke (present-day Mizusawa-shi) there is an old woman who just turned one hundred years old. Let us go and congratulate her. We will bring her some sake and food with us. Let us go together!' So they set out together, crossed the Kitakami river by boat and proceeded to the Esashi district. A person called Yukimichi also came along. When they reached the old woman's house, there was her fifty-year-old grandson smoothing his worn-out trousers: 'You came from afar,' he said to greet us. They then put the sake and food they had brought along in front of the jubilee. She was about to plait a flax rope but stopped and bowed. She could hear well and her eyes were clear and she still had some black hair and all her blackened teeth left. She looked seventy or eighty but surely not like a centenarian. This was such a rare thing that even the lord should send gifts. Masumi offered sake to the old woman and to all the others who, one after the other, had gathered around her to get a drink. This old woman moved into this house at the age of thirteen as a bride and now she has a child who is approaching the age of eighty and a grandson who is fifty. Her numerous relatives crammed the room and as the sake made its rounds they got drunk and even her grandson opened an umbrella and sang and danced with a fan in his hand, encouraged by the songs of the others.

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Thus the day came to an end and they were on their way back and, after quite a distance, arrived at Suzuki's house. 65 There, Masumi heard a biwa-hoshi recite stories of Yoshitsune and his loyal henchman, the monk Benkei. On the 25th, Masumi saw a rice-planting festival and, as he walked along the ridges between the rice fields, saw numerous sedge hats shimmering whitish on the spacious fields. The rice-planting season begins when the ominaeshi are blooming in the shade of the wood, and they were therefore called shodome (rice planting girl) flowers. 66 On the 26th, from morning onwards, it rained heavily: The brides who married into the village last year threw mud at the girls who work in the fields, covering them with so much mud that, under the weight, they could hardly move anymore. The brides laughed and saying that they needed even more blessings, continued to throw mud at the girls who, unable to escape, shouted and yelled so loudly, one could hear them everywhere. Only the young girls who cooked the rice and those who were tending the silk worms, stayed at home. The rice-planting girls had been standing in the fields since before dawn and soaked with the daylong rains came back home with fireflies glowing on their sleeves. Even after they came home, they were so unimaginably busy they could not get much sleep during these short summer nights and were unable to dream out their dreams. When it rains during the day set aside for the transplanting of the rice seedlings into the rice fields, it is taken as a sign of a good harvest and the girls are happy to be drenched by the rain. The rain that day was sign that the harvest would be a good one. 67 On the 29th, they went to visit Chiba Michitoshi. Masumi noticed that the local dialect was unusual. For example, people say gongo for old woman, gongo-hime for a woman in her forties, and himego for a young woman. Masumi was enjoying the koutamai, a local drinking custom he describes as follows: One person holds a sake cup in his left hand and an open fan in his right hand and sings: 'The sake is the best and the cup is a jewel and many want to offer sake but only one can.' Then suddenly he offers his cup to someone, taking him off-guard. The man is embarrassed, scratches his head and receives the cup and drinks. When he is offered the cup the second time he has to sing. 68 On the 14th, Masumi happened to enter a sake shop where many men were drinking nigorizake (unrefined sake). One sang in a nasal voice and another looked like a vermilion Nio (a ferocious-looking Buddhist guardian deity). He said in a drunken voice: 'Life is hard. 1 want more sake but have no money. 1 spent it all. The old man in the back scolded him shouting: 'You fool! You are a despicable fellow. 1 have a coin left. Let's use it and have some more to drink!' The shop girl said: 'I need more money. One piece will not do it.' But she brought some sake. Many were already snoring with their heads on their knees. 69

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Masumi's next book entitled 'Iwate no Yama' begins two years later, also in June, when Masumi's three-year waiting period to cross to Ezo had drawn to a close. He wanted to cross the strait but now, in June, the waves were too high to cross he was told. It was now June 1788 and he was ready to say goodbye to Suzuki Tsuneo whose hospitality he had enjoyed for so long. The parting from Suzuki and his family and friends was heartbreaking. 7o On the 22nd, while on the way he heard about the yearly pilgrimage to the Eleven-faced Kannon of Kodashiro (Esashi-shi, Iwate prefecture), which took place on the 16th. Many girls and boys make this pilgrimage together, he was told, and, on their way back home, the boys choose a partner and pass the night anywhere, be it under a pine or near the temple. In the midst of the fields there were two or three houses decorated with the dried heads of codfish or salmon or with wooden fish heads. Upon inquiry, the locals told him that, while an inhabitant was on a pilgrimage to Ise, this was to prevent begging priests or beggars or people with diseases to enter. At Kuroishi (Kitakami-shi) on the 26th, he noticed straw puppets hanging from every gate. They were holding bows and arrows, swords and mochi hung around their necks like bells. This was to prevent people from catching cold. Before hanging them around the puppets' necks, the inhabitants rub their bodies with these mochi. In the next village they make a demon out of paper, paint it red and hang them on their roofs. When Masumi reached Morioka that day, they were just about to exchange the boats of the pontoon bridge across the Kitakami river. They placed more than twenty small boats side by side and connected them with a chain drawn from one shore to the other. As soon as they placed planks thick enough to support a horse onto the boats, people crossed the pontoon one after the other. Among them were a blind man and a blind woman looking like biwa-hoshi holding each other's hands. The woman was an itako (shamaness). Masumi asked why they used the word itako (for shamaness) but nobody knew the origin of the word. This shamaness calls down unto her the deities and prays and, holding a rosary, predicts the future or, she calls down a fearful spirit and delivers an oracle by lending her body to the spirit which is called itaku [lending a body to a deity] which is perhaps why she is called itako. 71 'Sotogahamazutai' begins on 6 July 1788. At Karibasawa (Hiranai-machi, Aomori prefecture) Masumi gets a new passport from the tanya. The passport said who he was and where he was from and whether he had a change of clothes and swords. It indicated his destination and included a petition to let him through. Masumi proceeded north through Aomori (7 July) towards Minmaya. On the 10th, Masumi reached the area of Minmaya and passed the night sleepless in a simple, sultry hut. 72 On the 11 th, Masumi could see in the distance, over the waves, the island of Ezo. He left as the rays of the morning sun crossed the strait and arrived at Minmaya bay. They had rigged three big ships for the government inspectors. They were tied to each other near the shore and their bows and sterns were beautifully decorated.

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Masumi climbed up a mountain path from the vicinity of Minmaya rock and reached a temple hall dedicated to Kannon. The story of this Kannon is as follows: A long time ago, a person by the name of Ashiba, a native of Echizen province, dreamed about Kannon who told him: 'I have lived here long enough. I wish to be transferred to Minmaya in Mutsu province to protect the boats bound for Ezo, to serve as the protector of the bay.' Ashiba was surprised and wanted to transfer the Kannon statue as quickly as he could to Minmaya Bay. He found that there was no post boat bound for that area and the days and months passed until he heard of a man called Hisasue of that province, who was leaving on a large boat for Tsugaru with a cargo of timber cut by woodcutters of Hihara and destined to be used in the building of a shrine. Ashiba entrusted the statue to Hisasue who delivered it safely to Ito Gorobee. Gorobee was a boat tanya with whom Masumi used to stay when in that area and he told him the following story. Ito belonged to the sect of the Eastern Temple (Higashi Hongan-ji of the True Pure Land school of Buddhism) and not to any other sect: At first he refused to worship the statue and, shut it up in a Chinese chest until, months and years later, a priest called Enku [1632-95] arrived from Ashiba in Echizen with the intention of undergoing austerities on the island of Ezo. He, too, was following the instructions received in a dream as he ventured into Mutsu and arrived at Minmaya harbour. Quite by chance, without knowing that the Kannon was there, he happened to stay in Ito's house. He asked the master about the whereabouts of the Kannon of his dream, whereupon the master replied: 'It is in my house.' Enku was overjoyed by this coincidence and suggested they build a hall for the Kannon and worship it. In order to do so, he cleared a mountain above the beach of Minmaya rock and installed the Kannon statue. The size of this Kannon was one sun, two bu and it was made of silver which Minamoto no Yoshitsune had offered from his helmet as thanksgiving for victory in battle. A letter saying that the statue should be given to Ashiba bore Yoshitsune's seal. Enku carved another Kannon statue with a sickle, placed the silver statue into the torso of the one he had just carved and explained this in a letter he attached to the one by Yoshitsune, both of which are to this day in the possession of Ito. He kept this a secret, which is why almost no one living at the bay knew of it. He only showed it to a priest who had lived here for a long time and was a good friend of him. This priest told someone that, when he saw it, Yoshitsune's letter was old and written on thick paper and Enku's newer, but that both had wormholes, which made reading difficult at places. When, one year, Ito unwrapped Enku's Kannon so that people could worship it, torrential rain fell, huge waves spilled against the shore and bolts fell from the sky, which he interpreted as the Kannon's curse and enwrapped it again quickly. Since then, no one has prayed to it except the resident priest. 73 Masumi noticed that in Utetsu bay the people descended from the Ainu and their language differed greatly from the neighbouring bays. They had begun to

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shave their faces and the women stopped tattooing themselves only recently 'so that they differ no more from the Japanese'. 74The inn where he was staying was also run by an Ainu descendent. On the 13th, while the people were celebrating bon, Masumi had to board a boat at a moment's notice because the wind conditions had to be perfect for the crossing. He first boarded a relay boat and then a big sailing boat in the offing. He was finally on his way to Ezo island. The hull of the boat splashing onto mountains of waves sounded like thunder to Masumi, who comments: 'I was barely alive.' 'The waves came splashing down like a waterfall.' Masumi offered nusa and composed a poem to the sea god and arrived safely in EZO.75 Here ends 'Sotagahamazutai' and 'Emishi no Saeki' starts on 19 April 1789. Masumi was now on Ezo Island. He complained about the travel restrictions but noticed that being disguised as a yamabushi pilgrim meant that his travel was less restricted. 76 He saw a garment made in Ezo (Ezo-ori) which was meant to last a century.77 On the 21 st of the month Masumi's innkeeper gave him konbu kelp to put between his feet and sandals in order to alleviate the pain he had been experiencing in his feet. 78 The next day, Masumi was staying with a priest who took him to the beach. There he saw an Ainu of about thirty with a boy (hekachz) of about seven or eight. The boy was collecting utsugi (Deutzia crenata, a kind of Japanese sunflower) on the cliff and fashioning it into a bow. Masumi describes the boy as dark-skinned like a Japanese fisherman, with round eyes and a red string around his ears. The father pierced the boy's ears with a needle tied to the red string. The other boys screamed and jumped around when they saw the blood running from his ears. Whenever he could, Masumi noted down Ainu words. 79 On the 23rd, Masumi was in Kaminokuni. The temple priest said: 'You must be tired from your journey. How about staying here today to enjoy the cherry blossoms?' Masumi was happy to hear that and stayed on, exchanging stories with the people. He noted that as soon as one exited the temple at Kaminokuni, there was a shrine. 'What deity is worshipped here?' he asked, and was told, 'The herring deity.' When Masumi enquired further about this deity, the temple priest told him the following story: A hundred years ago an eminent yamabushi named Okura Hoin Shukai built a hermitage at the beach and reverently performed religious rites. However, one year, the herring failed to come as usual and the catch was bad. The priest heard about the bay people's worries. He told them: 'If your hearts are pure, then I will convey your worries to the deity and ask it to supply the herring you need.' Hearing this, the bay people said to each other: 'We are past the middle of May. If this were the herring season, we could hope to catch some, but now we are fifty days late and however much we pray we will get no herring.' The priest smiled and said: 'If the herring come during their normal season, no one would say that this was because of your prayers. Prayers are heard especially during extraordinary times such as these. My prayers are not just routine ones. I will offer my life so that the deity looks upon your lives with pity. Let us all unite and pray to the heavens. If our prayers should bring the desired results, then I

CHAPTERS

Tachibana N ankei, Saiyu Ki: Telescope

CHAPTER 6

Furukawa Koshoken, Toyu Zakld: Ainu Bear Festival

CHAPTER 7

Sugae Maswni Yumn Ki 'Iwate no Yama' (Warding otf deities causing epidemics)

Sugde Maswni, Yumn Ki 'Ina no Nakamichi' (Tanabata dolls)

Sugae Maswni Yumn Ki 'Kumeji no Hashi' (Kumeji

bridge)

CHAPTER 7

Sugae Maswni Yuran Ki 'Kumeji no Hashi' (Ferry at Kagamidai)

Sugae Maswni Yumn Ki 'Emishi no Saeki' (Doll cut in half hanging upside-down as rain-bringing magic. When it rains the dolls are united and hung upright)

Sugae Maswni Yurdn Ki 'Ezo no Teburi' (Ainu village)

CHAPTER 7 Sugae Maswni Yuron Ki 'Ezo no Teburi' (Ainu

fishing)

Sugde Masumi Yurdn Ki 'Ezo no Teburi' (Ainu harpoons)

CHAPTER 7

Sugae Maswni Yuran Ki 'Tsugaru no Tsuto' (New Year rice planting ritual)

Sugae Maswni Yuran Ki 'Yuki no Michinoku, Yuki no Dewaji' (Hatahata fishing)

Sugde Masumi Yuran Ki 'Yuki no Michinoku, Yuki no Dewaji' (Selling New Year's decorations at the New Year's market)

Sugae Maswni Yuran Ki 'Hio no Muragimi' (Ice fishing)

CHAPT ER 9

Shiba Kokan, Seiyu Nikki: Meeting the Dutch on Dejima island, Nagasak i

Shiba Kokan, Seiyu Nikki: Nagasak i Chinese

CHAPTER 9

Shiba Kakan, Seiyu Nikki: Whaling at Itsuki islands

Shiba Kakan, Seiyu Nikki: Resting at Saigawa

CHAPTER 9

Shiba Kakan, Seiyu Nikki: Staying at Shimada village

CHAPTER 11

Eakin, Kiryo Manroku: Ihara Saikaku's grave with measurements

Eakin, Kiryo Manroku (Mechanical dolls from the Noh play Takasago)

CHAPTER 12

Hishiya Heisichi, Tsukushi Kika Banquet in Nagasaki

Hishiya Heisichi, Tsukushi Kika Cooling off at Yoshiwa village (presently Hiroshima Prefecture)

CHAPTER 14

Watanabe Kazan, Yuso Nikki: Sketches along the way

Watanabe Kazan: Yuso Nikki: Sketches along the way

CHAPTER 16

Matsuura Takeshiro, 'Shiribeshi Nisshi' (Ainu killing a bear)

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want the bay people to bring me some of the herring caught. I will use this to repair the temple.' Hearing this the bay people promised: 'We will do as you say, without fail.' However, in every place there is always a crank. One such crank said: 'Do you realize what date it is today? We are at the end of May, sixty days after the time when the herring are due. We will not be able to catch a single stinking herring. I don't believe in the empty prayers of this hedge-priest. What good will the prayers of this contemptible monk do?' He said this with his mouth wide open, sneering at them. The people were taken aback saying: 'Don't say such a thing! No one can fathom heaven's blessings and the powers of the deities. If we can't catch any herring this year, how are we going to survive? How can we cope with the lamentations of our parents, wives and children? You, too, should pray with the rest of us.' The man ignored these admonitions and continued his abuses and spoil-sport attitude. The monk first purified his body and heart and hung a seven-fold sacred rope, and set up a five-coloured wand. He loudly rubbed the beads of his rosary and shook his bell reverently. He prayed day and night without interruption and without eating. Before the seventh day was over, a flock of albatrosses flew from the offing and seagulls filled the beach. Whales, spouting seawater into the air, stirred up the ocean while foraging for food. As had always been the case, this was proof that the herring had come. So many had come that the ocean surface turned white and there was no part of the bay that was not filled with them. The fishermen were able to catch more than was usual. 'Ah, his prayers have rescued us. The monk must be either a kami or a Buddha to bring about such a miracle,' the people said joyfully after they had fished so much so that their voices seemed to echo in the sea breeze. Even the strange man had a good catch of herring but he gave nothing to the priest in return and when the people saw this, they were disgusted and vilified him. 'Why don't you show your gratitude towards the priest right away? How is it possible not to repay him for the miracle he produced? You must act at once!' suggested one man with tears in his eyes. But the strange man said: 'It was simply that the fishing season was late this year and the herring arrived naturally. It certainly was not because of that lazy priest's prayers. I am in no way indebted to him.' Whether or not Shukai had heard the man's selfish reasoning, they began quarrelling, but the strange man did not give in. The other bay people pushed the strange man to quickly pay his share of herring to the priest and negotiated with him. Upon their insistence, he finally delivered a few herring, reassuring the priest at least a little. However, the strange man unabatedly criticized the priest grumbling: 'I doubt that lazy priest can even count the herring he got.' And: 'I knew all along the priest did not know how many he's got. As I had expected, he does not know how to count.' In order to let it be known that the priest was greedy, he selected bad herring and sent him three or four bundles. This again led to an unprecedented quarrel, the priest becoming increasingly furious. The people were no longer able to contain the two men. In the end, the priest and the man grasped poles and started hitting each other. The people were unable to

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stop the fight. The priest was hit in the face and lost his breath, then collapsed and died. Three or four days passed before the strange man himself fell ill and died. Only a few days later, his wife and children also died one after another. Witnessing this miraculous retribution in front of their eyes, the people stood in hair-raising fear, and they worshipped the priest in a Wakamiya [Young] shrine calling the deity 'Herring Deity'. To purify the strange man's soul from the sins he had committed in his life, each New Year they caught two or three herring washed ashore at the site of the priest's former hermitage and presented the so-called Okura Herring to the local lord at the New Year. However, during the last ten years, the waves no longer washed any herring onto the beach and the herring catch ceased altogether. 80 On the 25th, Masumi went to Esashi and from there to Taisei village where he arrived on the 29th. Masumi noticed there was a hut called fuu or takakura adjacent to the house. It came with pillars and crossbeams arranged like a shelf and roofed with miscanthus. 'In it they store millet and other crops, as well as dried codfish, herring and salmon. There was a hut like this at the corner of every house.' The hekachi (Ainu language for boy or boys) gathered knotweed about a foot in size and threw it at each other, holding the sharp-edged lances about six shaku long with which they were trying to catch the knotweed. They call this game hanaritsuki, an imitation of the way adults throw hooks at fish. 81 On the 30th, Masumi climbed Mt Ota (Ota Gongen) a place of Shugendo (yamabushz) practice. He saw one of Enku's Buddha carvings in a cave. That night he stayed in a fisherman's house at the foot of Mt Ota but the waves were too loud for him to sleep. Also, Masumi heard the foxes trying to catch an owl and the constant fluttering of its wings only added to the disturbing noise. 82 On 3 May, he came to Hiratanai. During the fishing season, he was told, there are seven animal names which must be replaced with taboo names. So, for example, deer are referred to as 'things that have horns' (tsuno aru mono), herring are called 'fancy things' (komamono), whales are called emisu and trout, 'summer things' (natsumono), snakes, 'long things' (nagai mono), foxes 'rice gods' (inarz), bear (chiguma) 'mountain people' (yama no hito) or 'mountain fathers' (yama no oyajz), calling them euphemistically to avoid the taboo. Those who broke the rules, however inadvertently and regardless of whether men or women, were punished. They tied a large rope around their wastes and many assembled to pull them around. Some are tossed into the ocean so that they almost drown. In order to avoid the ordeal, they buy sake for everyone and apologize by rubbing their foreheads in the sand. When a person dies during the sardine catch, the people say they are too busy to conduct a proper burial. Only at the end of June or July do they proceed to bury the dead in proper fashion. As the man was telling this, a stray dog bumped into the rear door, barking loudly. He said perhaps a bear had come and, when Masumi asked him whether it is common for bears to approach houses, he replied: 'Recently a bear entered into this storehouse and devoured an entire barrel filled with herring roe and drank all the sea water. Its stomach must have swelled because his back

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cracked open and it vomited chunks of meat and died on the beach. These days they even eat our horses which graze in the pastures.' As he was telling these stories, the night advanced and the noise of the waves quieted down and it started to rain. Masumi told them that he wanted to get up at dawn. The master's wife said: 'Spread straw near the pillar and go to sleep.' She claimed that sleeping on straw near the pillar was a magical means not to oversleep.83 Next day, Masumi went to a spa but when they arrived, an old man said: 'An ignorant traveller should not inadvertently enter the spa because there is a tall being with a wide mouth called Big Man who assumes the shape of an ordinary traveller and tears off one's limbs. Such beings live indeed in these mountains and one may not say 'Big Man' or shishi (bear). 84 A girl whispered into Masumi's ears: 'I heard Big Man uproots trees and throws rocks.' After sunset they made a big fire and Masumi tried to sleep, but in order to keep wild animals away, the fire was made to crack loudly. The splashing of a nearby waterfall was also too noisy for him to sleep. On the 7th, at Kumaishi, it continued to rain. The children made what they called the terotero-bozu paper puppets. They cut the puppet head-on into two parts of equal size and bind them together in mid-body. They hang them upsidedown from a tree and pray for the rain to stop. If their prayers are heeded, then they bind the puppets together making them one and offer them food. This is an unusual custom even for local people who live with the Ainu. According to Masumi, it was indeed thanks to this prayer that the rain stopped. 85 On the 8th, Masumi decided to stay on in Kumaishi; he had a headache and did not feel well. He did manage to go to a temple-like hut called Monsho-an and visited Jissan Shonin, a monk who was originally from the Taga district, Hitachi province. The priest told him the following story of the temple's origin: Kashiiwa Hoju, the sixth-generation head-priest of the temple Hodo-ji of Fukuyama [Matsumae], was a respected priest but he had a weakness for women. When someone reported his behaviour to the authorities, he was sentenced to a remote exile and sent far away to this bay. This is the hermitage he built. Here he practised Buddhist austerities but the crime he had been accused of became heavier and heavier and in the end it was decided that he should pay with his life. His executioner came to arrest him. The priest felt that this was an unpardonable injustice and that he was about to be executed for a crime he did not commit. Therefore, he decided to use a curse he borrowed from the Hannya Shiri sutra, saying: 'Though 1 may lose my life, my soul will fly up to the heavens and from there back to earth where it will seek revenge.' His head was supposed to be displayed to the public at Fukuyama. The executioner rested at a temple in Esashi on his way to Fukuyama and the room where he had put down the head caught on fire and the temple burned down. Such calamities caused by the priest's soul continued to cause havoc so that they conducted special prayers here and there and these calamities have now completely subsided. 86 When Masumi went to see a small shrine between Tomarigawa and Ainuma beach on the 11 th, a girl came running and said: 'The innkeeper said he wants

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you to see something. Please come back!' Masumi asked her what was so important that he must see it. 'They are throwing their nets in the offing. You must see it. They will cook fresh fish for you.' Masumi appreciated the innkeeper's concern for him and he promised the girl that he would come back and stay there again in the evening. On the 17th, Masumi saw a Jizo carved by Enku in a cave. This carving was thought to be effective in healing eye disease. 87 On the 26th it was hot, and he wanted to travel along the beach but was told to take the mountain road because the beaches were too dangerous and falling rocks had already killed people. 88 Masumi reached Aidomari and rested at a merchant's house. A man came up to him saying: 'It's hot, it's hot.' He put down his baggage onto a mat called noma, pulled off his robe from one shoulder, sat down, stretched out his legs and drank sake. Masumi asked him where he was going and he said: 'I have stayed in a herring hut and celebrated the end of the fishing season and now I am on my way home.' Speaking only of his own activities he continued to sip his sake. Asking him what he had done, Masumi was told he had broken a name taboo and was severely punished for it: Listen! There is a custom called natsubo according to which the fishermen bury the herring they had caught in the sand. As usual, this year, too, the herring came swimming from Tsugaru but, when I came out of my temporary shelter called roka to dig holes in the sand, I said: 'What will happen if the foxes dig into the sand and eat all the buried herring?' I asked this, unaware that I was breaking a taboo. The waiting fishermen quickly interrupted me, saying: 'You just broke a taboo. We'll be in trouble.' So saying, they wrapped me like freshly caught fish in a net called atoami and dragged me along the rocky shore, accompanied by the shouts of the other fishermen, and let the waves spill over me. Though I was only a newcomer, I was barely alive, and however I apologized, they did not pay any attention to me, threw me into the ocean and I almost died. Even seasoned fishermen, who come every year, sometimes forget the taboos or the young fishermen intentionally test you saying: 'What is it that sprays on the ocean?' [whale] 'What is it that lives in the mountains and has horns?' [deer] 'What is it that lives in the thickets?' [snake], they ask trying to trap one another to break the taboo. How can a newcomer like me know this? There is no more bustling place than this when they fish for herring, but even a centenarian would say that a year like this when no herring appeared is unheard of. 89 After that, Masumi came to the village Otobe, a name meaning 'Buttock' Oap. shin) in the Ainu language. On the 27th, because of the weather, the innkeeper urged Masumi to stay another night. The innkeeper's wife said: 'What shall I cook for you? Have some of our obayuri,' she said, offering him toretsufu (turep) roots that had been boiled and then fried. That day Masumi encountered an old woman outside. She threw off her walking stick and put down the inscribed stone she was carrying in a way to suggest she did not see well. She said: 'How sad, how very sad!' and wept. Masumi asked what the inscription was about. She wiped off her tears and said:

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Fifty years ago in July, it rained ashes from the dark sky. One had to use a lamp even during the day and wear a straw hat outside. Someone said: 'In five days there will be a tsunami, a terrible one.' But the people paid no attention thinking that he had lost his wits. Then in the evening of the 19th, while the people were dancing the Bon dances and waiting for the moon at the beach, there was a big roar. I thought it was an earthquake and those who were asleep got up and rushed outside. Just at that moment a huge wave came in. 'Tsunami!' they shouted and ran up the hill as quickly as their feet would carry them, weeping all the way. A while later, they reached the top. When dawn broke they realized that their houses had all been swept away and many people had perished, including my father who lay buried in the sand with only his feet sticking out. There was no one to help me dig out the corpse and I could do nothing else but weep. They rumoured that in five days there would be another tsunami and, indeed, during the night of the 25th, there was another slightly smaller one. It caused a terrible uproar. I made this stupa to pray for my father who died fifty years ago and found a boat to bring it here today. When I think that this is my father's stupa, I remember how I felt then and let my tears flow freely. She said and recited: 'Namu Amida Butsu' with folded hands. 9o After that, on the 28th, Masumi took the hot baths and heard a twohundred-year-old story of a sick girl who was saved by the deity of the spa (the Buddha Yakushi).91 On 1 June there was the usual hagatame (teeth-hardening) and Masumi was offered specially hard hagatame-mochi at the inn. Next day, Masumi left Kaminokuni. His skipper told Masumi that a priest friend of his had drowned. He composed a number of poems in his memory and threw them into the ocean. The sea was very rough and they pulled down the sails just in time. Masumi was seasick. The boat became stranded on the beach so Masumi got off and rested a while on the shore. Soon he heard a horse approaching. 'Where are you going?' the rider asked him. 'Are you tired from your journey?' he asked Masumi with visible concern. 'I am only resting a while on the beach because I got seasick and have a headache.' 'Well then, get on my horse! I will take you to the next village. Get on at once!' Masumi picked up his luggage and got on the horse. 'I felt he was truly a compassionate man.' In the village Masumi rested in a house and as the day came to an end, decided to stay overnight. 92 Despite his fever, Masumi left on the 30th and reached Fukuyama (Matsumae) at noon. Here ends 'Emishi no Saeki' and his next volume entitled 'Ezo no Teburi' starts on 24 May 1791, at Matsumae. That day Masumi was supposed to leave via a boat carrying a load of konbu kelp but the wind kept the boat in port and Masumi spent the night in the house of a fisherman. 93 Next day, the weather was even worse and Masumi decided to proceed on foot. On his way, he saw a shrine gate on a cliff. It was the gate to the shrine Sogo Myoshin, a sea deity for the area. Masumi records the story of the shrine: A long time ago a big boat was about to capsize and the captain prayed to the heavens saying: 'Save my life and save me from this calamity! If you are causing this by your anger, I will appease and worship you.' He prayed,

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clapping his hands over the stormy ocean and weeping bitterly with head bent down. Then a big wani [Chinese alligator] appeared through waves and the sea calmed down. When the boat was safely beached they bound some grass to mark site. Here they built a shrine. Recently, the shrine had fallen into the during a storm, but the people rebuilt it.

his the the sea

Masumi was travelling to Mt Usu partly by boat and partly by walking. On the way Masumi observed the Ainu in their villages, noting their language and customs. At Matsuyagasaki, Masumi saw smoke rising. Seeing the place from which the smoke rose, Masumi saw an Ainu with white hair and beard who was over eighty years old. Masumi was able to communicate somewhat by gestures. The Ainu was drying fish laid on the rock. 'It was indescribably smelly.' He saw an Ainu woman carrying a load with a band bound around her forehead saying: 'Chiramande poronokai kotan,' a warning that there were bears in the region. Plagued by lice, Masumi noticed, the Ainu prefer to sleep on the beach. 94 On the 3rd, Masumi stayed in the house of an Ainu named Useppe at Shirarika (Yakumo-cho). His description of the house shows what an acute observer he was: The roof was thatched with bundles of straw and from the outside the house looked miserable. Inside, however, it looked roomy. The kitchen was on sand surrounded by a straw mat and appeared clean. The main room (sekka) to the side was built on stilts. There were three such rooms. The left one (shigewishosemu) was the women's quarter, the middle (rurukewishosemu) was the guest room, also built on stilts, and covered with a new, nicely patterned straw mat (shitarahe). They guided me into this room. Each of these rooms had windows open to the outside letting the evening breeze enter freely and cooling the room to a comfortable temperature. Being high above ground, the room was free of lice. In comfort, this was a better house than those the Shamo build. In the corner called the takara there were gold-and-silver-plaited containers piled upon each other. One of these containers was called kiraushibachi and had hornlike handles. Another was called ichinkeshintoko (ichinke means turtle and is octagonal like a turtle head and shintoko means bucket). There was also the so-called kemaushintoko, the sacred sake container used during the festivals as an offering to the gods, an old custom, I imagine. There was also a large vermilion container with a whirlpool design called sakekarushintoko used to brew sake. Gourd-like bags filled with fish oil were hanging from the crossbeams, one, the stomach (bisewz) ofa sea lion (witashibe) and the other, the stomach of a codfish (erekuchz). On the pillars hung bundles of dried grass roots called buwi [Hibiscus syriacus] and hacked bukusha [Fuchsia hybrida] (a kind of garlic) with buds of toretsuJu Uapanese: oubayurz) [Lilium cordatum] kneaded into the shape of an offertory rice cake (taretsuJu are made of tsunbauri or oubayuri and is called different names according to local dialect). The Ainu call this plant ayoro (a kind of dumpling), kneaded with taretsuJu. They put them in large containers (shintako) or small containers (niyatasu) and eat them in the morning and evening. They also eat dried deer meat (tannu). The smell of the bukusha and the oil was unbearable.

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Behind the roof where these treasures stood were numerous dolphin heads called tannushaba pierced by long skewers called kanuhera. But there were also dolphin bones called tannuhera and the fins of other fish on the skewers from which tree shavings were hanging. Masumi gave some rice to the woman and she boiled it in the water she brought from a round bucket saying tanwakkaeiwange which Matsumi surmised meant that this was special water. Swords were hanging on the wall in the men's quarters. The women were eating raw fish meat cut into pieces with a knife they call ebira. The sky began to darken and they lit a lamp and said amamuebe meaning that dinner was ready. It consisted of a porridge with chestnuts, millet with bue and bukusha with herbs and some kinabo oil. In the Shamo language they called this arayu. The Ainu ate this with a small spoon called barabashu. After dinner, they went to bed but told each other stories until late at night, including a funny one about someone who fell down from his sekka. When the lamp burned out, someone stirred it up again making a sound as if he were munching something. Masumi could not sleep until dawn. 95 On the 4th, Masumi reached Monbetsu where he met an Ainu reported to be one hundred and thirty years old and he heard about another Ainu who was believed to be one hundred and forty years 01d. 96 On the 6th the waves were too high for the boat to leave. At night, the Ainu assembled and recited the Yukari myth, a custom that attracted Masumi's curiosity: They lie upside down on a pillow filled with burned grass, Masumi observed, stretching out their left legs. Placing their right leg on their left thigh and supporting their heads with the left hand or raising up their heads, they beat their breasts with their right hands or beat their sides with their elbows. Their voices sounded like groaning beasts and one only heard them singing something like uu. However, many Ainu who wanted to listen lined up, took out their one-shaku-Iong pipe holders and beat planks or boards to give the rhythm. In unison they all shouted hao, hao. They began reciting again but this time in a different voice resembling that of a chirping bird or the cries of an ouzel. As they sang quicker, the auditors beat the rhythm faster. .. The women who came out of their houses to listen seemed deeply moved, as I saw them clearly in the evening sun, crouching and hiding their faces behind their sleeves and wiping off their tears. 97 Next day, Masumi came to an Ainu village of about eighty houses. He heard someone playa stringed instrument but was not familiar with this type. He was told it was a kuchibiwa (mouth lute) called mukunri in Ainu. It was five or six sun long and looked like a needle used for making fishing nets. A string was stretched between the joints. The women held it in their mouths and holding the other end up, plucked it with their rights hand mumbling something with their mouths. 'The sound I heard here and there from these instruments is beyond description. One sang something into the instrument then another replied doing the same.' Masumi saw this as a way to communicate great secrets.

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Masumi also respected the Ainu healing traditions which he considered as 'much better than an incompetent Japanese physician'. When they catch cold, Masumi noticed, they go into the mountains to avoid transmitting it to others. Then Masumi talked about the Ainu bear festival and noticed something crucial, namely that the bear is killed when the people have grown attached to it. 98 Masumi travelled to Muroran and then on to Mt U su, where he arrived on 10 June. Here ends 'Ezo no Teburi' Masumi stayed in Ezo between July 1788 and October 1792. 'Boku no Fuyugare' starts on 6 October 1792 when Masumi left Ezo. On the boat people were talking about the Russians, the so-called Red Ezo. The story is that in 1792 a boat from Ise with many passengers was driven by a storm to Kamchatka, a distant land belonging to the Red Ezo. The stranded passengers lived ten years among the Red Ezo, but many of them either died or fell ill. To repatriate the survivors, a Russian ship with a crew of forty arrived in Kiitappu (Nemuro) of Ezo and presented tribute to the kuni-no-kami (governor). They said that this is what they had heard. They said that this was without precedent and the officials could not work out whether this was for good or ill: 99 A person I met on the road told me that Takeuchi Kiuemon, an inhabitant of this Sai bay, was a castaway on an island inhabited by red people. He lived among them and had children but was returned this year by people from Kamusakka [Kamchatka]. 100 The crossing was so smooth that even the skipper was surprised and offered sake to his passengers. Masumi arrived safely on the western shore of Shimokita peninsula at Okoppe. Masumi made Tanabe (Mutsu-shi, Aomori prefecture) his base for climbing Mt Osore and visiting the vicinity. Masumi transcribed the place names he heard according to local dialects, for example, for Osorezan (Mt Osore) he heard Usore or Osori. 101 There he heard two priests and a pleasure girl play the koto for the pilgrims to the Hells. On 30 October Masumi stayed overnight in a temple on Mt Osore. When he entered the precincts, a monk came out with a torch and greeted him: 'You must be tired after having braved the snow. Isn't this a cold place? We cannot offer you very much at this simple mountain temple ... ' He carried in firewood and stirred up the fire in the hearth and Masumi warmed himself and heard the drops from the melting snow on the roof. Masumi enjoyed his dinner and went to sleep but he heard a strange sound. The monk told him that flying squirrels came in looking for mice. 102 Next morning, after he went to a nearby spa to wash his face, Masumi toured the one hundred-and-thirty-six hells (same number at Mt Tate): places where the sulphur springs emerged. On 20 October, at Tanabe, Masumi heard a priest of over seventy reciting in a loud voice something he had never before heard. The priest was wearing a white linen bag over his shoulders: He looked very senile and I thought he must be mad. He sprinkled water from a gourd into the air, while reciting something incomprehensible. That yamabushi must have been born somewhere, but he had no fixed place to

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live, and roamed around as pleased his fancy. By leading such a life, he is said to have the ability of knowing when people were born and when they will die as if it were written on the palm of his hand. When he comes to a house, they give him coins or rice and when he thinks it is too much he returns the surplus to them. He was such an unusual yamabushi. People call him arisama, meaning a shaman. 103 After a visit to Togen-ji temple, Masumi thought of returning to Tanabe but he was caught in a blizzard. There was an old woman who was clearing the snow. She asked him where he was going in such weather and Masumi recognized in her the old woman who had guided him the other day. The old woman said to him: Although my house may be a shabby place, rather than continuing in this snowstorm, pass the night at my house! I will cook you some millet for dinner and, if you like sake, I'll serve you some sake brewed from millet. Also, I may have some buckwheat mochi left. Though my house is small, I'll spread out a millet straw mat and a sedge mat to protect you from the cold. Moved by her sincerity, Masumi accepted her hospitality. After the meal was over, they were sitting along the hearth and, as the night advanced, she said: 'Eat this!' and offered Masumi millet mochi, roasted in the fire and piled onto a tray. Masumi did not want any and she said: 'Though this is a dirty place and the futon is too thin, please keep yourself warm,' and urged him to rest. The rooster at dawn woke him up from his dreams. 'I hardly slept at all in this cold and watched through the cracks how the day was greying outside.'lo4 On 25 November, Masumi reported the following from Tanabe: There were men and women outside the pauwlownia fence who had not seen each other in a while. I heard them exchange greetings and they asked how everybody was. I also heard them asking: 'How has the three-year husband in your house been doing since [I last saw you]?' 'The three-year husband of my house has taken a concubine and the wife is cranky and quarrels all the time.' It is the local custom for a young married couple to live for three or five years (called sannen-muko or gonen-muko) in the bride's household if its male heir is still too young. They thus wait until the heir comes of age and, when the appointed period is over, then the girl moves into her husband's family. People call this ushiroyomi. 105 On 28 December, Masumi was still in Tanabe. The priests were blowing their conch shells to announce the hour of noon, when an earthquake strong enough to flatten a house shook and all the people ran onto the snow barefoot and shouted as loud as they could: 'manzairaku, manzairaku.' The houses rocked like boats about to capsize but, as the earth shook and shrieked and pushed up the snow from beneath, the shaking ceased. The people did not even have a moment of relief because of new shocks, which trembled for a day and a night. Why did this happen?106 On the 29th, too, the earth shook from time to time and people felt increasingly uneasy and were only thinking about how to escape. 'Maki no Fuyugare' ends on the 30th. 'Oku no Uraura' begins on 4 January 1793. Portions of his diary must be lost

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because there is nothing covering the first three months of 1793. On 1 April Masumi was still in Tanabe and, as always in this season, he was attracted by the cherry blossoms. 107 On 12 May, Masumi was walking along the beach where people were picking up asara clams and came to Kawauchi village: In the pine grove stood the gate of a shrine dedicated to Kannon. This shrine deity was worshipped by an ubasoku [lay priest] as a Shinto deity. In front of his hut stood a cherry tree in full bloom. It was splendid. In the village was a large river [Kawauchi river]. I got onto a boat that looked like the lid of a Chinese chest. The skipper told me that he had recently been cast away to China and returned by working as an oarsman on a big boat. As punishment for having caused his ship to go astray, he was forbidden for a time to get onto a large boat regardless of the dirty job he would be doing there. Therefore, he ran a river boat but did not make enough money to eke out a living and complained that he could not even afford to smoke, nor to take care of his aged mother. 108 On 7 June, Masumi reported again what he had heard locally about the arrival of some Russians: A person from the village told me that a Russian ship from Kamusakka [Kamchatka] and destined for Fukuyama in Matsumae, moored at Nemoro [Nemuro] along the shore of Akkeshi last year. When it left Nemoro, it lost its way because of thick fog and approached Iwaya bay in Nanbu [Torimura, Shimokita district]. The children at the bay were startled when they saw the Russians who asked them questions they did not understand. They ran to report this to the bay supervisor, screaming that tall, strange-looking men had come. The supervisor and his secretary went down to the bay to inquire, but they could not understand the Russian's language. Through an interpreter, they realized that these were the socalled Red Ezo and immediately called in the local official. The officials gathered but the Russians had already returned on their cow-skin rescue boats to their ship because the wind had filled their sails and they quickly disappeared in the fog. This happened yesterday, he said, and the people were talking about nothing else. 109 This was Laxman's expedition sent by Catherine the Great of Russia to Japan to open trade. Laxman arrived in Nemuro on 16 September, 1792 to repatriate Iseya Kodayu and Kyusuke, the above-mentioned fisherman of Sai bay who had taught Japanese in Irkutsk. Kyusuke's son by a Russian wife was also on board to serve as an interpreter. In his essay 'Fude no Manimani' Masumi mentioned the Bon-odori Kyusuke introduced to Sai bay. He had taught it to his children in Russia during the Bon and included the words: 'If you marry, marry a Japanese girl with dark eyes and black hair, sahara, sahara.' 'Sahara' stood for the Russian word 'sugar'. In 1778 a Russian boat, which descended upon the Nemuro region to trade, also had an interpreter who had studied Japanese in Irkutsk. llo The 23rd was the day of the Jizo-e (festval dedicated to the bodhisattva Ksitigharba) when people would call back their dead relatives. Just before

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Masumi left Mt Osore, as it dawned, many people lined up and, rubbing their rosaries, recited: 'Namu Karadasan no Enmei Jizo Bosatsu, if you are at the Six Fork crossroad, then save me from the pains of hell and bring me joy, you who have pledged to alleviate us from the Ten Afflictions.' So reciting, they prostrated themselves so that their foreheads touched the ground and, unaware that their hats had fallen off, they recited the names oftheir [dead] children and grandchildren. Those who had dozed off in the night, leaning against the pillars and at the gate, gathered after the sun had risen, and the virtuous priest of Entsu-ji took a hossu (a priest's horse-hair flapper) and recited a sutra as he made his tour from Karadasan to all corners of hell. When he came to this altar, all assembled. After that all went home, and we, too, after they had brought us a horse from Tanabe in the early afternoon. III 'Oku no Uraura' ended on the 25th and 'Maki no Asatsuyu' starts on 1 July 1793 and Masumi was still in Tanabe. It was now the Bon season and Masumi saw the numerous lamps hanging from the roofs 'like fireflies'112 and heard people saying: 'Dance, dance so that we will have a good harvest! >1 13 On the 6th he heard the following story: ... I saw a woman of more than twenty years with her head wrapped in a kerchief. She was wearing a dirty kimono, which did not even reach her shins. She was walking in a humble posture. That woman came here with a native of Dewa province, but she had an affair with another at Oaida [horse] breeding ground. The man from Dewa decided to kill her with a sword. Since he was a merchant he did not have his own sword and therefore tried to borrow one from someone but he could not find anyone willing to lend it to kill a person. So he decided to throw her into the ocean and dragged her by the hair to the beach. The people who saw this, said: 'She is a mean woman but you must not kill her,' and many tried to stop him. Nevertheless, he dragged her into the ocean, pressed her head against the rocks, beat off her hair with a stone, tore off her dress leaving only her loincloth, but let her live. 114 'MaId no Asatsuyu' ends on 25 September and 'Abuchi no MaId' starts on 16 October 1793 at Ohata, Shimokita peninsula, with the report of an Ainu uprising. In the evening of 16 October, at the village of Ohata, Shimokita district (Aomori prefecture), there was a small gathering at which a person called Kitamura Denshichi told the following story: Some time ago, angry at the unjust treatment by the Japanese, the Ezo rose up on Kunashiri island and the uprising spread to Nemuro. They killed more than seventeen Japanese with poisoned arrows. Maybe because I had good relations with the Ezo over the years, they did not touch me and took me back by boat. Again, during another year, near the beach, a bear attacked me three times and inflicted serious injury upon my body and I had to pass the night in a ravine. When I boarded a boat, the oars broke and the boat cracked so I pulled myself up a wooden board and, driven off by the currents, I rode for three or four days on the waves letting the fish

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bite my hands and feet. Again, I was lucky enough to come back safely, but I felt that there couldn't be anything more fearful than this. The powers of the Buddhas and deities had saved me,' he said and returned home. 115 On 27 November, Masumi left Tanabe, having paid his respects to the Tatehachiman deity. On the way Masumi visited the shonin (saintly priest) of Enryu-ji temple and, while talking with him, the snow began blowing more and more and he hesitated about leaving. The old man of the house came in and insisted: 'If you leave today, you will freeze. Stay here tonight and warm yourself at the fire and sleep on the sedge mat and leave early next morning. The road ahead of you is very bad and take care when climbing over the slope on your horse.' After everyone had gone to sleep late at night, one could faintly hear the sound of the waves and Masumi heard the old man whisper: 'The sound of the waves, is it from the east or west? If it comes from the east, the weather will be fine, if from the west, then there will be much wind and snow.' Then, clearing his throat, he recited 'Namu Amida ButsU.'116 On the 11 th Masumi reported another earthquake: We talked all night, waiting for the first dawn of kanoe-saru day in the year until a rooster perching on the beam reminded us to go to sleep. Right at that time, the earth shook violently and the people prayed in unison: 'Manzairaku, manzairaku'. All the people who were practising abstinence that night spread their straw mats in their gardens and, bowing three times, prayed towards the west. Then they went to sleep.117 On the 7th, Masumi was at Muronokubo, west ofTakahoko lagoon on his way to Nobechi but the snow was so deep, he could not find the road. So he tried to return to Obuchi village. The lagoon froze periodically. He saw a man pulling straw over the ice to build a shelter. liS Shortly after, Masumi described a scene, which must have moved him so much, he could not leave it unmentioned: I entered this village near Idedo beach, rested and left it, riding on a different cow. The road ahead of me was very dark and snow fell as if the clouds spewed it out all over and one could not see ahead but, because the old cow knew the way like a horse, I let it find the way. The cow driver who followed us disappeared in the snow that covered the entire area. My eyes were blinded and cold, we trotted on, and I heard the cries of the beach plovers mingling with the sound of the waves. Then it cleared. A solitary eagle was flying near a place called Takaishi. The wind blown down from its wings seemed even colder and then it snowed again. The driver drove the cow to the front of the Taki no Myojin shrine. We rode over an area covered with ice. It looked like a polished mirror. The cow could hardly stand upright let alone walk. It fell many times and, finally, it could no longer get up. The driver grieved: 'If we leave it like this, its thighs will split and it will die.' Unable to ride, we were stranded, so I prayed and prayed to the gods hoping that my prayers would save the cow's life, and, as if the gods heard my plea, we were able to pull the cow up from the ice. 'I've done it!' 'I'm glad,' I said to myself and, as I wiped off my sweat under the wintry sky, I felt as if I had come back to life. From here on it was smooth

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going and, talking with the driver, we safely reached Tomari bay [Rokkasho village, Aomori prefecture]. 119 'Obuchi no Maki' ends on 29 June and 'Oku no Teburi' starts 1 January 1794. Masumi was passing the New Year at Tanabe: Today was the second day of the [lunar] calendar. Because it was customary to celebrate the first sun and the first moon at the beginning of the year, people get up after two in the morning and put on their linen kamishimo [ceremonial dress]. Many assemble with their torches and go from shrine to shrine paying their respects. It was also interesting to see how old and young men and women competed in filling their buckets with 'young water' [wakamizu] at the river. 120 On the 15th, he saw boys praying to a Michizane doll at the edge of a house, whereas the girls were engaged in the Hina-matsuri and imitated the riceplanting festival. 121 N ext day was the day the locals eat rice porridge to celebrate the start of the rice-planting season and the 20th was the day to remove all mochi from the house altars and to eat them in a communal feast. On 1 February people who had been in a yakudoshi (bad-luck) year declared that the bad year had ended and celebrated. 122 On 4 March, Masumi read a list (mannincho) of people who had died in natural calamities from 1660 on. He noted unusual names on the list: Onakon, Airashiko, Yoteko, Metsurashiko, Kodeko, Ohokamon, Sensai, Emishi, Misokako, Shogatsuko, Sangatsuko, Neneko, Chomyoko, Megoko, Chijoko, etc. On the 16th Masumi learned how many skeletons were found after a tsunami had washed away the houses. Since they were all buried uspide down, Masumi concluded, that the Ezo must have buried them. 123 'Tsugaru no Oku' starts on 22 March 1795 at the Makado barrier (Nobeji village, Aomori prefecture). On 26 April Masumi was checked at the Makado barrier and, travelling along the coast of Natsudomari peninsula, reached the other side of the peninsula. 124 He stayed in this area from 22 March until 29 November and from 1 January 1796 until 3 April. Here he heard the story of a local shrine: A long time ago, at the start of the Bunji Era [1185], there lived a beautiful girl at this bay. She was a friend of the chief boatman from another province who came here every year to transport miyagi wood [used to build shrines]. Then they became so close that, in the end, they planned to get married. When the man went back home, the girl said to him: 'I heard that the people of the capital apply camellia oil to their hair to make it shine like camellia leaves. Even though I am the daughter of a poor fisherman, I wish I could put on some of this oil on my comb. If you think that I am worth it, please bring me some camellia seeds when you come next year, so that I can put some on my hair,' she said with tears in her eyes as they parted. The following year she was waiting all year long but saw no sign ofthe boat. The next year, too, she waited in vain. Because the skipper did not come two years in a row, the girl was wondering if the man might have fallen in love with another. She began hating the man who broke his

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promise and drowned herself in the ocean. The bay people found her body as it washed ashore and, deeply saddened, they buried her at a place called Yokomine and planted a tree on her grave. Just at that time, the skipper came rowing after an absence ofthree years. 'My work did not allow me to come here for two or three years. How is my girl?' he asked and, hearing from the bay people what had happened, the skipper could not believe it. Hardly able to keep himself on his feet he shed tears of blood. He said that there was nothing else he could do but to visit her grave. He climbed Yokomine and pressing his forehead against her grave, he begged her pardon in a loud voice as if she were still alive. He planted the camellia seeds he had brought around her grave. 'Your hair will rot under the moss and however much you may want to put it on, it will no longer shine,' he said. He wept bitterly and rowed off in his boat. All the camellia grew thick like a forest producing beautiful flowers and once, when someone broke off a branch, a beautiful girl appeared saying that one should not break off the flowers. The fisherman regretted what he did and stopped fishing and working in the mountains. He passed the rest of his life worshipping her spirit as a god. Later, however, they transferred the shrine to another place. 125 From there Masumi travelled to Aomori. The day was coming to a close and it started to rain, but there was no inn in the area. So, Masumi went along the river deep into the mountains and reached a village called Tayama [present-day Aomori-shi], consisting of about eight houses. He was invited to stay in an old house, which was about to cave in because of its age. The owner said it would be rebuilt because it was leaning and had cracked walls. In the guest room, the floor had some new planks and others were torn off and left unreplaced. They placed Masumi's bedding on the higher tokonoma and covered it with what looked like a piece of sleeveless garment: 126 I tried to sleep under it but the cold kept me awake. After midnight the wind howled blowing snow through the cracks in the walls and floor onto my pillow and feet. I pulled up my head and composed this poem: Unable to sleep, The snowstorm Blowing through the cracks Into my thin bedcover. I managed to sleep a while and dreamed about the wind scattering the leaves of the ginko tree I had seen the previous day. It looked like gold falling from the sky. There was nobody whom I could have asked about the location or the name of the place and I remembered the poem: 'There is a verse that says: 'This must be the Kogane [Little Gold] Mountain of Michinoku,' and a loud voice saying: 'Indeed!' echoed in my ears. I startled, and woke up only to hear a rooster cry. It was already morning and so bitterly cold, I could hardly endure it. I stepped down from the tokonoma and moved closer to the hearth. A young man was sitting there with his belt untied, rekindling the fire and warming his stomach. 'I am sure you got up because you could not sleep in this cold,' he said, adding some firewood. My frozen body seemed to melt somewhat. I got sleepy again and felt comfortable enough to continue my dreams. 127

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On the 19th, Masumi wrote about what led him to undertake such a lengthy journey: Intending to visit all the shikinai shrines in Japan, I travelled through all the places of Michinoku through bays and over mountains but I would have never thought that I would ever come to Kogane shrine. I wept tears of happiness. First, I washed my hands and, though I came from far away, took the nusa and wrote on it: This is indeed The Kogane Mountain in Oda I dreamed about in A dream so dear to me. 128 Masumi wanted to leave on the 20th but the owner of the house where he was staying told him that it was too dangerous to travel alone in the snow. In this section of his diary, Masumi visited his acquaintances. On the 23rd he went to see Monai Shigetoshi (1736-1804), a Tsugaru samurai and Norifusa (1769-1839), a samurai and Shinto scholar ofthe Kikkawa school of Shintoism, who was running a private Shingaku school and, in 1809, became a priest of Takateru shrine. At Takegahara (Namioka-machi, Aomori prefecture) he visited poet Mayama Sukemasa (1763-1825).129 At Takegahana Masumi entered a house surrounded by a fence. Ritsuko the owner's wife said in surprise: 'We have not seen you for quite a while.' And they were both happy to see each other again. Ritsuko's husband had gone to Musashi province and she took care of the house. Ritsuko and her mother-inlaw encouraged Masumi to stay overnight but he travelled on towards Takatate. In Takatate Masumi sought shelter in a small house. Here too the owner encouraged Masumi to stay on warning him of the snow. 'But I do not know what I should have you put on to sleep. We have something to eat but you may be unable to sleep because of the cold.' They had him sleep on a coarse sedge mat near the burning hearth and covered him with a mugwort mat and placed a screen around his pillow. He heard the couple say: 'Who is this man to lose his way in this remote mountain village in the snow. When his relatives hear that he is sleeping in such a beggar's hut, they would surely be uneasy.' They said with tears in their eyes and with a sigh. 130 On 2 November, at Nisoshi (Kuroishi-shi, Aomori prefecture), looking for a house in which to rest, Masumi came near a snow-buried house with windows covered with paper on which the children had practised writing. He heard someone saying: 'I have met you before. Come here!' It was Tateyama Yohaku, a doctor with whom he had spoken along the way the day before. 'It snowed all day today and the wind was blowing. I was afraid you would lose your way again.' He invited Masumi to join him and other guests he expected that day for the Ubusuna (festival dedicated to the local deity). He served Masumi hatahata sandfish and hizunamasu (ground salmon head with radish). He told Masumi that no one in this village ever died on the second day of the month, which is why this day was a festive day. 'A man who was supposed to die on the first held out until the rooster announced the second.'131 On the 15th, Masumi visited a building called Keikonkan, which had many

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books on medicine. It had been planned by the former daimyo, who had to abandon the project because of a lack of funds, but it was finished by the present daimyo. At Katsuno, Masumi heard about an ancient custom. When a bride comes riding into the village, the villagers assemble and have her get off the horse onto a mat. If she was pretty all the villagers would praise her, but if she was ugly they would curse her. 132 After that Masumi moved to Aomori and by 15 January 1796 he was in Hiranai to see the rice-planting festival. On 1 February the villagers performed the ritual of scooping up fresh water. Someone was decorating the pine at the house with a shimenawa rope. Then they drank miki and, somewhat intoxicated, were shouting as if they were about to dance the Shakushimai, a dance mimicking the production of a ladle. 133 Then he went with Monai Shigeto (?1837) to Momozawa (Iwate-cho) and climbed Mt Iwaki, visiting the many temples and shrines on the way. 'Sumika no Yama' starts in April 1798, during the cherry blossom season. Masumi wanted to see the blossoms and visited several villages and shrines known for the beauty of the blossoms, reported on the excavations of Jomon artifacts and bones and saw the Yokotaki falls. Having reached Miyata, at the foot of Mt Azuma, Masumi asked a villager about a dilapidated temple where they had found Korean tiles, but it was now inhabited only by badgers: 'The temple you're talking about is in a wooded area at the foot of the mountains. Strange people live there and not even the most determined monk would ever live there.' Once there was a yamabushi who said: 'I plan on restoring the temple in the future. It's already evening. Let me pass the night at the dilapidated temple.' But all his companions stopped him saying: 'Though you have forsaken the mundane world and do not cling to life, what shall we do if we are caught by the demons?' [Nevertheless] he reached the foot of the mountain. Pampas grass had overgrown the place and the miscanthus grew high and a thin streak of smoke was rising from the cracks in the gate closed by ivy and goose grass. This, too, was eerie. He thought that this must be from one of our fellow travellers and shouted a greeting. He then saw a small pan resting on a wooden plank, with rice boiling in it and a boy in red trousers treading the high grasses of the courtyard, carrying a sickle in his right hand and grasping a turnip with his left. He prostrated himself in front of the priest and greeted him: 'You are most welcome.' He put the vegetable into the broth and arranged the boiled rice and offered it to the priest. Though the priest was suspicious, he was hungry enough to eat and, by the time he finished his meal, it was evening. 'You must be tired.' So saying, the boy spread out a clean, soft and thickly padded Juton and had the priest sleep near the hojo (abbot's quarters). The priest could not close his eyes thinking that this boy could not be real and decided to look around. He noticed a light beyond the sliding doors and it seemed to him as if someone was looking at something. He wondered and saw the boy take out a bundle ofletters from a box. The boy was opening them and discarded them, repeating this again and again. Sometimes he laughed and sometimes was sad, lamenting and even

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weeping loudly. In the meantime the autumn night deepened and, pretending to be asleep, the priest stole to the front of the Buddha and silently recited a sutra. Just then, suddenly, the sliding doors were pushed open and what had been a flowery boy a moment before changed into a man-eating demon, seven feet tall, his face like that of the King of Hell [Asura]. 'This monk will not get away.' He grasped the vacated futon and left. In the meantime one could see through the crack that the sky was dawning. The priest continued to recite the sutra, this time in a loud voice. When he was about to leave, the boy came to tell him that breakfast was ready. As the priest approached the lively fire in the hearth, the boy bowed in front of him saying: 'I am deeply sorry for the way I treated you last night.' The priest replied: 'What are you saying? I slept well after a long day's journey. I am unaware of anything that happened during the night.' 'Well, that is not so. Don't pretend not to know.' He was laughing and was seemingly ashamed. The priest said: ' I have something to ask you. Please listen carefully.' 'I will do whatever you ask me.' 'Well then, can I have your letter-box for a while?' The boy replied: 'How can I part, even for a moment, from the box which to me is more precious than my life?' He said. 'Just for a short while.' The priest kept on begging, but the boy opened the box and threw all the letters into the fire. The boy was startled and said: 'Ah' and disappeared. The priest then went to the graveyard in the rear of the temple and, guided by the trampled-down grass, found the boy's grave. He recited a sutra and returned. 134 On 20 April, near Aomori bay, Masumi found an old thickly-wooded place called Myoken forest and near the temple hall was what was left of a shrine called Igashino. The shrine priest Abo so-and-so said: 'Nobody knows what deity dwells here, but I have an old illustration with a record of it. It says that the spirit of Shogun Tamura or that of an Ezo is being worshipped here: 135 They say that there was once a Tendai temple called Hokuto-ji. The shrine priest Abo so-and-so has a lion mask held in his family for generations and seven other old masks. Shrine priest Abo Yasumasa said: 'When Tamuramaro became shogun of Ezo and was about to launch his attack, many of his warriors put on masks and performed a ritual dance in honour of the Seven North Stars which explains the seven masks. But they say that there were originally twelve masks. In order to hide them from the people, they hid them deep in a Chinese box. Since the time of their distant ancestors, none has seen them.'136 Masumi reached Nyui (Hirosaki) on 20 May after walking between the rice fields. Looking from between the trees at the shape of the emerging clouds, Mt Iwaki offered an indescribable view. It was exactly like looking at Mt Fuji from Kuniyoshihara in Sagami province: The fresh green of the seedlings that had newly been transplanted on the wide fields, gave my eyes a fresh feeling. I climbed a small hill and glanced over this landscape ... Purely white water emerged from the Nyui well every day. The taste of the water was sweet and said to be effective for women who have a breast disease or who suffer from a paucity of mother's milk. 137

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Masumi reported the story he heard in this area about a demon who had allegedly lived here: In a field of the village called Hiratamori, there are graves called Hamori, Hashimori and Tsurugimori. Only Hashimori can still be discerned at the edge of the field, outside the village, but its origin is unknown. Legend has it that a demon once lived here, but they subdued it and, smashing its head, cut off its teeth and buried them in a grave called Hamori [Tooth Mound], they say. The sword by which the demon was slain was also buried in a mound near Hamori. 'Here it is!' someone told me. We went along the ridge to have a look at Hamori. To bring about rain, they used to open the tomb and unearth the teeth so that it would rain. Because there was a drought right then and people wanted rain, they had already unearthed the teeth. They were about the size of a cow's teeth and only slightly different; perhaps what people call dragon's teeth. They unearthed many of them. 138

'Sotohama Kisho' starts on 1 June 1796 at Hirosaki when Masumi was staying with an acquaintance called Nakai Shirokoma, a merchant, possibly a medicine merchant (dates unknown) with whom he stayed on several occasions. On 18 June, as the sun sank, Masumi came upon the village of Kawakura (present-day Kanaki-cho, Aomori prefecture) and entered a forest called Kannon: There were statues of Mida [Amida], Yakushi and Kannon probably carved by the woodcutters with an axe. They worship them like Shinto deities by offering nusa and spanning a shimenawa. In Michinoku, all these Buddhas are worshipped like Shinto gods but this also is typical of all Japanese religion. 139 On 6 July, Masumi was climbing down the slope and came upon Funaoka, Tokomae (Tokomai) and Odate (all present-day Morita village): The people carried many effigies representing men and insects. They were conducting a ritual called mushiokuri [expelling noxious insects]. The banners made of paper fluttered in the wind while they were zigzagging and playing drums, flutes, and cymbals and blowing Cochin shells. They walked merrily, teasing and dancing around the rice field and, in the end, they brandished their swords as if to cut someone down.140 'Sotogahama Kisho' ends on 23 July. 'Yuki no Morotake' starts on 23 October 1796. On the 28th Masumi came upon a horse shrine with an itako shamaness who, possessed by the god, would tell why a horse was sick. The same day Masumi reported a story of how the villagers managed to have their taxes lowered during the famine years. At first the villagers offered the tax official a banquet but he would not change his mind. Then a beautiful girl made him sing and he lowered the taxes. 141 Near Taya, Masumi was deep in the mountains. He was interested in the many waterfalls and woodcutters he encountered. He heard a tremendous roar echoing against the mountains and in the valleys: I was wondering what this was as I was lying more dead than alive in my cold sweat. This is the sound the waterfall makes to announce the coming

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of rain or snow. A god lives on a sacred peak deep in the mountains and on the upper course of the river. He gets angry when someone urinates or defecates in his territory and the woodcutters have to worship him and keep themselves pure. Otherwise the god will not allow anyone to live above the falls. The cries of the monkeys also kept Masumi from sleeping.142 'Tsugaru no Ochi' starts on 1 January 1797 at Ochi (Fukaura, Aomori prefecture) In his role as toshi-otoko (New Year Man), the owner of the house where Masumi was staying got up early in the morning without waking anybody to fetch fresh water in a bucket decorated with pine needles. 143 Then Masumi visited the local shrines. That same day they celebrated a nori-hajime (first boat-ride of the year) by getting on a decorated boat that was moored in the harbour. 144 Late at night people got up to eat fruit and drink the obukucha (lit. Great Fortune Tea containing konbu and pickled plums). Next day, they surrounded all houses regardless of whether they were rich or poor with a rope. The children go around greeting and receiving gifts of money. 145 On the 7th, they ate the nanakusa (seven herbs) rice porridge. And the following day they went to the beach to pick up seaweed singing: 'It is a cold morning, but not as bad as last year.' In the evening ofthe 14th they fried mochi with fish fins on long skewers, which they would stick on the windows or doors. When the festival was over they threw it out of the windows for the mice. On the 15th they ate red porridge (made with red beans) and the next day white porridge. On the 21st the girls gathered to eat snacks and drink sake and to sing while the boys were doing the medashi celebrations. 146 On 20 February, there were Buddhist ceremonies and on 16 March the people began their work in the fields with a ceremonial 'taking down the sickles' (kuwa-oroshz). On 8 April they placed many dolls on small boats which the priest floats out into the ocean at the sound of the drums. Two days later the boats left for the first time and the people, including the pleasure girls, called out to the boats until they were out of sight. On 1 May Masumi prepared to leave Fukaura. 147 On the 27th, as Masumi came into Fujizaki, there was a shrine called Fukuda no Kami: Asking about its origins, I was told that near Kuroishi, at a place called Sakaimatsu there was a dam called Sekihachimura that divided the river into eight canals to bring water to the rice fields. They built a guard's hut there and had a samurai guard it. However, it was swept away during a flood and could no longer be supervised all the time. Saying that a hitobashira [human] sacrifice may be effective, a samurai called Sekihachi Tarozaemon prayed to the heavens and pledged to the earth. On 14 April of the year 14 of Keicho (1609) he placed himself at the edge of the pond, stuck a sword-like stake into the ground and pointed it toward his stomach. Saying 'Saa, thrust!' he stabbed himself and was buried together with the stake. Then the villagers built a bank at that place and planted willow trees along it. After this there were no longer any floods and it was easy to draw water into the spacious rice fields. They worshipped

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Tarozaemon's spirit as a kami [god] called Sekihachi Myojin, which they also called the Fukuda deity or simply Sekigami [Dam God] .148 At that time the local daimyo offered the shrine five thousand kari of rice fields which, in the Keicho and Genna eras (1596-1624), corresponded to what is now ten thousand kari (bundle, also sokugan), capable of sustaining fifty officials for a year. For unknown reasons, these fields were confiscated and the shrine declined. Also, during heavy rains, the dam crumbled and although they tried to repair it, the dam no longer held in the water as well as before. The peasants were uneasy about this and presented a petition to the lord threatening the curse of the unappeased deity. They had him restore the fields to Sekihachi's descendants and, in the second year of Shoho (1645) the shrine was rebuilt. Hidden in the shrine's inner sanctuary, there is a puppet said to have been carved byTarozaemon himself. His descendant Sakihachi Yoshimiya became the priest and built a house beside the shrine and lived there. 149 'Tsugaru no Ochi' ends with the Tsugaru domain inviting Masumi to gather medicinal herbs in the mountains. ISO In the summer of 1797, Masumi had searched Mt Tsugaru for medicinal herbs and transplanted them in the domain's medicinal gardens. In recompense, the domain paid his travel expenses for which he was grateful. Masumi went gathering medicinal herbs with official domain doctor Osanai Gentei and Yamazaki N agasada (or Eitai, 177 8-1815).151 This suggests that Masumi was a respected herbalist in the Tsugaru domain. In 1794 the domain had prohibited the importation of medicines from other parts of Japan, a move that encouraged the local supply of medicines. Masumi went gathering herbs for about two years. 'Tsugaru no Tsuto' starts on 1 January 1799 at Hiranai on the foot of Mt Hikinokoshi. On the 2nd, Masumi observed, the brides and grooms come visit their native families, something custom dictates they must do for three years after marriage (hatsu-yome, hatsu-muko).IS2 On the 3rd they go back to their new families. Before they used to stay seven nights, Masumi reported. 1S3 Masumi sketched an interesting New Year ritual rice-planting. The mochi the brides and grooms bring are wrapped and eaten on 1 June, half a year later, in the hagatame ceremony. 154 'Tsugaru no Tsuto' ends on the 20th. 'Sotogahama Kisho' starts in June 1798 when Masumi went gathering medicinal herbs to pay for his travel expenses. The head doctor of the Tsugaru domain sent Yamazaki Nagasada to Masumi to invite him to gather medicinal herbs. 'I was ordered to search the mountains near Akita this spring and have come all this way to ask you to come along. Please do come along!' Nagasada insisted. 155 Masumi agreed and they left Kominato (Hiranai) in March 1798. After having travelled in Tsugaru, Masumi spent the remainder of his life in Ugo province. His 'Yuki no Michioku no Dewaji' is about his journey south along the coast from Fukaura to Tanabe (Akita) which he undertook in the autumn of 1801. In the autumn of 1804, Masumi was again in Fukaura (Aomori prefecture) and climbed to the Konohanasakuya Hime shrine in snowy weather: More than sixty men and women, young and old, came towards me and they all greeted me. 'Please come again! Don't eat spoiled food. Try not to

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fall off your horse. Keep yourself warm and be safe! We will pick up pebbles and cleanse them mornings and evenings. Farewell!'156 On his way, Masumi explained that it was a local custom to pick up pebbles and wash them as a prayer for a traveller's safe journey, a custom recorded as early as the Nihon Shoki and the Manyoshu. The same day Masumi heard about a place called Mitaki waterfall where a deity dwells. It is said that if one plays the flute for the deity all night long without sleeping at the beach where the waterfall splashes down, one gets to playa mysterious but interesting tune and becomes an expert flute payer. Those who want to play the sarugaku or the kagura flute of the shrine priests, or even the child's grass cutter's flute, they all come here to play to the god; hence the name Fuetaki (Flute Fall). The barrier guard questioned Masumi about which inns he was planning to stay in. If Masumi did not know, he would have had to present a kimoiri (sponsor's) certificate. On the 7th, he entered Dewa province crossing the barrier shrine Sakai Myojin to whom he offered nusa. 157 Reading Masumi's account, one realizes how many legends abound in the Northeast about Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, Priest Ennin, the Three Fujiwara, the Abe, Miura, Akita, Ando and others. Also, because this was horse-breeding territory, there were a number of horse shrines. At Noshiro (Akita prefecture), Masumi went to pray at the Masuminoe shrine, his namesake shrine. The locals told him that this was the tutelary deity of Akita bay and the god of the conquest of Ezo. It stands where the Yoneshiro and Omono rivers once joined on their way towards the ocean. Even Sakanoue Tamuramaro offered his prayers here. An earthquake separated the two rivers and a tsunami wave transported the shrine to a sandbank called Nakashima (Middle Island) Hachiman or Ezomuke (Ezo-conquering) Hachiman. Then the bay people rebuilt it at Noshiro bay, combined with the temple Hannya-ji. Three deities were worshipped there including Sukunahiko and Emperor Ojin, the later deity Hachiman: 158 There was a pond with a small island in the middle and a shrine built upon it. This is what happened recently. A boatman of Mega [Himeji] ofHarima province falsely promised a pleasure girl of Noshiro that he would marry her: 'I'll take you to Harima. Come! Let's get on board before anyone can see us! We'll row out to the big ship.' So saying, he absconded with the girl in the middle of the night and made her board his small relay boat. He then strangled her on the small boat, attached a weight onto her dead body and threw her overboard at the harbour's mouth without anybody noticing it. Because of this man's crime, a storm arose and high waves splashed against the beach causing a big boat with its many passengers to capsize. Everyone drowned, they said. Even now, when a Harima boat is anchored here in windless weather, the waves swell and a sea monster appears as if in agony, blocking the entrance to the harbour all by itself so that the boats from other provinces can no longer enter. So, in order to prevent the pleasure girl's ghost from wreaking havoc, the people decided to worship the girl's spirit and built a small shrine at the beach. But sometimes big waves came and washed it away so they transferred her to the middle of a pond together with another, older local deity as a dragon deity. Whenever

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the harbour entrance is blocked by big waves, the tanya in charge of shipping and other officials declare: 'There must be a Harima boat approaching. Chase it away!' This strictly enforced custom of the bay reminds one of similar taboos against Tango [province] boats in various Tsugaru bays.159 Masumi left Noshiro on the 12th. He heard the story of Nagao Suetatsu, a doctor who lived in the 1670s who had the idea to plant trees to create a windbreak. 'He thought deeply about all things and possessed an unusual mind.' He built his house in a hole in the ground and, in winter, wore a garment made of pampas grass and 'lived like a hermit hiding in town'.160 Hearing that someone was gravely ill, he tried to cross a frozen river by sled despite warnings and drowned. 'If I do not go, the patient will die,' he said. 161 Masumi wept when he heard this story. In mid-December, Masumi reached Kubota (Akita-shi). On the 29th, he saw a year-end market and recorded some of the items on sale: vegetables and fish, kitchen ware, offerings to the gods, barrels, buckets, sandals, musical instruments, mirrors, combs, hairpins, needles, mats, seaweed, chestnuts and mandarin oranges. 162 'Yuki no Michinoku' ends on the 30th in Akita. 'Shigeki Yamamoto' begins on 8 March 1802 in northern Ugo province (Akita prefecture) in the mountainous area of Kidoishi. On the 9th he climbed Mt Nanakura and the following day Mt Takaiwa (Futatsui-machi, Yamamoto district), all of them considered to be Shugendo mountains. Masumi had a look at the lion head of Gongen no Iwaya. A long time ago, woodcutters carved this as a prayer for protection but their descendants abandoned it. Then an evil spirit possessed them and made them delirious. Their families consulted a miko who revealed that this was caused by the lion head that resented being exposed to the rains. When the woodcutters placed the lion head in a cave they recovered from their illness. 163 In this portion of his diaries, Masumi turned away from a date-based diary to gazetteer writing, based on specific places and regions. As places became more important, he often skipped dates. Also, he travelled from a 'base' and visited the same places again and again. Masumi's interests were not limited to the useful aspects of nature, but he accepted reality with all its variety. Masumi often stayed weeks and months in places, encouraged to do so 'by the compassion of the locals' as he described it. Also, he found much scenic beauty in untouched, pristine nature, something the medieval travel diarists shunned in favour of 'cultured' utamakura nature. Masumi had an encyclopaedic interest in local plants. Masumi knew that nai place names one frequently encountered in the Northeast came from the Ainu language. Masumi noted again that the Buddhas are worshipped here like Shinto kami. Being a doctor by profession, Masumi continued to look up virtuous healers. 'Yuki no Akitane' starting on 16 October 1802 covers Masumi's travels in the area of Odate. There on 20 December he heard about the legend of Doctor Santetsu who was Chiba Kazusa-no-suke so-and-so, a samurai who settled in Junisho (Odate-shi, Akita prefecture) and became a healer. He was a brave but compassionate man. Caring deeply for his patients, he gave them the right medicines. He always wore high geta sandals and bathed in the Otaki falls summer and winter: 164

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In the autumn of a certain year, there was a bad harvest and all the people suffered and lamented. In the middle of October, when the new snow made the roads narrow, Santetsu came to Otaki village and stopped the transport of taxed rice which was loaded onto the pack-horses and was due to be delivered to the twelve official outposts. The pack-horses were walking along the snowy road in a way to make it look narrow. He declared in a loud voice: 'The lord instructs you to stop. Stop here!' he said, stopping the transport and handing them a forged document. He then distributed the rice to the poor, committing this crime all by himself. Santetsu was finally caught, thrown into prison and beheaded. His last wish was to bury his body in Ezogamori. Respecting his wishes, the people buried him there in a grave. But, because his spirit was still restless and caused calamities, they built a shrine for him and worshipped him as Santetsu no Mitama. When someone gets sick, he or she climbs the mountain [Mt Santetsu, 393m] and stays there abstaining and praying. The deity especially helps people affected by the wara-hayami epidemic. At the anniversary of Santetsu's death on 17 June, many people come to offer their prayers here. 165 Here ends 'Yuki no Akitare' and 'Susuki no Deyu' starts on 1 January 1803 at Otaki [present-day Odate-shi]. It was New Year's day. Masumi showed his usual interest in folk practices, plants, disease, waterfalls, and local language. People ate awasemochi (miso and mochz) to strengthen their teeth. It was customary in this village to make two awase-mochi rice cakes in the early morning and to stick them together with miso paste.

On the 7th, Masumi reported, that the villagers carried effigies of the Field God and Year God from house to house and the owners gave the carriers coins or rice. On the 15th they did the Taue-hajime, a ritualized rice-planting event. Two days later Masumi observed the oshirasama, puppets often used in the northeast as substitutes for New Year deities. There was a blind miko predicting the year by manipulating a pair of oshirasama puppets, saying: 'You will suffer a fire [terashi] at this time. Pray fervently to your ujigami [family deity]!' Terashi is the deity of fire. On the 19th, the young girls got together at a preselected house in the village and worshipped the deity Orihime, eating grilled mochi and drinking sake. The men did the same with natako-mochi. Then they danced and sang. 166 Masumi spent springtime in this area. When tilling their fields and planting rice, they offered nigorizake called Yasarasake (Eight-cup sake) to the heads of the households. They explained this custom according to the legend of the eight-headed dragon ofIzumo. On 7 March the people made nanukamiso with beans and hot water from the spa. 167 Still in the same area, Masumi reported on another local custom he believed to be ancient: The wife of a husband, who has left on a trip, washes two stones enthusiastically at the well. Every morning she washes them in water and places them on top of the straw sandals facing the altar. In the evening she scrubs them with salt. This is calledyasumaseru. She places them side by side with

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miki on the altar. She does this every day. When she expects him to return, she places the sandals in reverse position and puts the stones in front of them. There are local variations to this custom, which must be quite an old one.!68 On 1 May, Masumi went to see Takeda Narichika, a doctor, who suggested that they go and see a nearby waterfall: Along the road, I noticed something they call tomosu. After they finish cremating a dead body, they erect three poles bound together, called mimagari and bind old sickles on it. They also make wooden bows and arrows and attach them drawn to the full. This is magic aimed at sending suspicious demons to the underworld. This must be a very old custom. 169 Next day, Masumi went to the Shiraito waterfall with innkeeper Okawa. The pool at the foot of the waterfall seemed bottomless to Masumi. He heard the legend of a constantly weaving woman living at the bottom of the pool. The people worshipped her as the water deity. 'Deep at night when all are asleep, one can hear the sound of a loom from the bottom,' they told Masumi. !70 Masumi observed the rice-planting festivities with men and women throwing mud at each other regardless of their status. Then he climbed Mt Okuzo and reported on the mines and the miners. He was told that miners working in gold mines rarely live over the age of forty. Whereas the ordinary yakudoshi (unlucky year) is forty-two, for miners it is thirty-two. Women who lose their husbands while still young marry as often as seven or eight times.!7! 'Migae no Yosoi' starts on 3 July 1805 at Odate. On the 10th, Masumi saw a blind itako shamaness helping a sick person. She sat on a bucket, plucked on her bow and entered a trance (kamikakarz) in order to reveal the source of the patient's sickness. !72 On 15 August he came across a hunter's village where the village chief claimed to descend from the deity Hikohohodemi-no-mikoto. In this area Masumi noted with interest that certain words had become taboo: for example, wild animals were called sachinomi and the word kome for rice had become taboo, instead the euphemization, kusanomi was used. 173 Masumi frequently misunderstood certain words. When he heard the word atsui he thought it meant 'hot', but it meant 'strong' (tea). Kowai meant 'tired' here. 174 'Ogara no Taki' began in March 1807. On the 20th Masumi heard boys and girls singing to the beat of saucers. They celebrated the so-called Yamafumi, ritual of gathering vegetables (aomono). The eight-year-old girls were wearing light clothes but 'danced without shame' .175 People gathered tsutsuji leaves and munched them with sake. At Yamaya village they surrounded their houses in shimenawa ropes to protect themselves against disease.!76 On 27 June, when Masumi crossed from the Akita domain into the Nanbu domain at Koyukizawa he caught sight of two large wooden dolls painted red standing under a roof. They represented samurai brandishing swords. This was to ward off disease. 177 While writing volume 5, Masumi lived mainly near Akita, but travelled around Hachiro lagoon or Oga peninsula about which he left us four diaries. In January, 1809 he left Noshiro and travelled to Hachirogata village. This portion of his diary was lost when, in 1965, the temple Jofuku-in burnt down.

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Later he stayed at Gojonome to investigate the vicinity. He concentrated on specific places and tools and studied them in depth. He describes the local Bon with its odori and bangaku dances (called asobz). In his 'Hina no Asobi' there are two sketches drawn by Igarashi Ranji, a haiga painter, dating to the time when Masumi was rewriting his diaries in Akita. Masumi believed the Bonodori of Akita goes back to the Warring States period (1467-1568). He saw in bangaku a precursor of sarugaku and the noh theatre. It was here that he changed his name from Shirai Masumi to Sugae Masumi. Masumi was travelling along the southern coat of the Oga peninsula, climbed Mt Honzan, then visited the temple Nisshaku-ji on Mt Shinzan. 178 From 1 June till the Kamiwaza ritual on the 7th, the shrine priests and village heads perform kagura every day. On the 6th there is also a bamboo cutting ritual: The priest goes to Wakimoto village [Oga-shi] and cuts five thin bamboo to make them into arrows. He submerges them into seawater and brings them back. On the 7th, they bring steamed white rice called tamagame in eight cypress buckets and four men each carry two of these tsuruoke buckets on their shoulders. Then they bring a sake called hachishibori to the shrine, probably in imitation of Susano'o's killing of the eight-headed dragon ... The priest brings these seven offerings and takes them to the village square. Then the priest offers these seven offerings to the deity. Then, the kagura starts. They repeatedly sing the song: 'In Izumo of the Eight Clouds, an eight-fold fence I build around my wife, oh that eightfold fence.' And then they begin carrying the portable shrine in a zig-zag route along the streets. Five rough men with dishevelled hair carrying their hoods on their back, begin throwing out water, a custom called makomoshiki. Maybe they do this in imitation of the mushiro-michi. A man called Kotohinushi riding on a black cow wears an eboshi hat and a hunting dress and his entire face is smeared with charcoal. He is holding sharp arrows in one hand and a bow obliquely in his other hand and carries a totsuka sword with a five-shaku nose block at his belt. A man wearing a woven bamboo hat on his head was pulling a cow with a five-shaku-long rope attached to the cow's nose. The five leaders walk to the left and right of the cowman. The man riding on the cow gravely assumes the role of Susano'o. The floats are decorated with flowers. Two clapper performers dance the chagura dance and two men wave their two broad lances at each other while the two banner men do the same. They wave to the rhythm of a large drum played by two people and to the flutes blown by two others, two kamiko and the shishi-gashira. They perform the killing of the dragon to the rhythm of the Kumo [spider] dance accompanied by the drum and flutes. Also, there are four village heads and boys wearing eboshi hats shaped in the character 'great'. They reverently carry the tamagame. After that the portable shrine passes by, carried by two men. Inada-hime's comb is on it. It is bound together with five fresh bamboo poles to which they attach paper strips. This covers the entire shrine. It looks like a silk umbrella made with black bamboo. The main officiating shrine priest wears formal ritual dress and waves a seven shaku long wand called osashibo. On the lake, people from Funakoshi bay row their boats tied together; some are decorated in the yakatayama

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style and are very colourful. At the bow of the boat on which three shrine officials and two pleasure girls ride, there are two masts to which a threeshaku-Iong crossbeam is attached. The stern mast has white strips, the bow one, red ones and nets hanging on these crossbeams. A man wearing red armbands and gaiters and headbands woven in mixed red and white thread with a mask-like black net around his face. He climbs up two straw ropes and is tossed by the waves as ifhe were stumbling over the eight mountains and eight valleys to drink the eight-turtle sake. He rows the boat around while lying on his back. This is his imitation of the eight-headed dragon. Because it looks very much like a spider weaving a web, the locals call it Kuma dance. When this dance is over, until the next performers appear, the old people and the sons adopted by people of other villages, must come back to participate in the Kuma dance. When this is over, the village chief rewards the Kuma dancers with two bundles of red and white paper. The portable shrine is put to rest below an old shrine surrounded by pines and cedars. The man riding on the cow, unsheathes his totsuka sword and shoots an arrow, pretending to kill the dragon at Hinokawa river. When this is done, the man who represents the spider changes into a kamishima (ceremonial dress), comes off his boat and mingles with the crowd on shore. The people now begin to shuffle and push each other in what is called neri. After the Kuma dance is over, the boats with their numerous onlookers all disperse each in its own direction on the surface of the lake. On the 8th the five slender bamboo poles are placed at the shrine and a purification takes place. At night they sharpen the bamboo on the bottom ends and divine the next year's five ritual leaders. Late at night when all are asleep, the new leaders take the five bamboos to their houses and display them at their gates. They knock at the gates, shouting: 'I have been chosen as one of the next leaders.' The people then get up and purify the inside and outside of their houses with salt. The steamed Yatsu na Tamagame (Eight Sacred Rice) is put deep in the shrine and left untouched until 13 December by which time it turns completely into malt. The priest uses this malt to brew nigarizake, which is offered to the deity on the 17th. Then the newly chosen leaders get together with the former ones, the village elders as well as with the village chief and hold a thanksgiving banquet and drink the sacred miki. They say that after the ritual, the buried misa changes its taste and becomes inedible. The man who plays the part of the god Ashinazuchi (Oyamatsu) says: 'It's good misa.' Whereupon the old woman representing Tenazuchi says: 'It's ninety days old misa,' counting the number of days between 25 February and 25 May. 179 With such attention to minute detail, Masumi was the best observer of local custom in his generation. The following is about the hatahata fishing in the Akita region: Every year, when, around October, thunder rolls into shore from the offing, people say that today the torimatsu fishing season has begun and that they are waiting for the hatahata [sandfish] fish to come. They throw in their fishing nets, an activity they call iwatsume. Around that time the fishermen build many sheds (naya) along the beach. The head fisherman

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is called Muragimi. Many fishermen fish on one boat, each with his own net. This is a very old fishing custom called abiki in Matsumae and tara no hirekuu in Tsugaru. This means that they put all the caught fish into a common pool. But, as a mark of ownership, each bites into the tail of the fish leaving his teeth marks. They call this kuu. Each year, at the start of this season, thundershowers are frequent. The people call the thunder hatagami which probably means 'thunder god'. The eggs they extract from the fish are called buriko (thunder children). Mixed with the milt of male fish and soaked in seawater, the eggs harden and become like jewels. The people tie twenty of them together with a string like a rosary. They call this tsunagi buriko. They also gather the eggs attached to the seaweed washed onto the rocky beach and tie them into tsunagiburi. 180 Like Nankei, Masumi was interested in knowing more about Mt Akagami and its shrine dedicated the Han-dynasty emperor Wen Di on Oga peninsula: It is said that Mt Akagami is the grave of [Chinese] Emperor Wen Di ... Why did Emperor Keiko install Emperor Wu Di after having cleared this mountain? It is said that the emperor Wen was a Daoist wizard, but this theory is doubtful. I believe that it was at the beginning of the Yoro era [717 CE]. Over one thousand one hundred people from Bokkai and Tetsuri came to pay tribute to our emperor. They came first to Dewa province and, upon receiving new clothing and food, left again [in 716, according to the Nihon Shoki, 1799 persons settled in Musashi province, Korai district]. Is it not the deity worshipped by the Tetsuri people? In the same mountain, there is the grave of Xu Fu of Qin who came with more than five hundred children during the reign of Emperor Sujin [10th emperor] to avoid the turmoil in China and to search for the elixir of life. In a village called Obota, there is the grave of Su Wu who went to the Xiung Nu [Huns] as envoy of the Han dynasty [100BCE]. A long time ago, many foreigners landed in Japan, for example, Chinese boats in the Koshi provinces and from Mimana to bring tribute. It was probably these foreigners who worshipped such deities [as Wen Di] .181 Masumi mentioned the Mt Akagami legend over and over again during his detailed record of Oga peninsula. Mt Akagami (now called Honzan) consists of two peaks; Shinzan (S71m) and Honzan (716m). Honzan and Shinzan were believed to be the gongen (avatara) of Wen Di. Many foreigners came to Japan to settle in Dewa province, attracted, according to Masumi, by the benevolence of the emperor. They worshipped Wen Di. Masumi quoted from an old Koboji temple document which claims that Takeshiuchi no Sukune (legendary minister who served under five emperors) climbed this mountain and met the wizard Wen Di. While Masumi was staying for two months (1 July - 1 September) at Sannai in Akita, east of Hachiro lagoon, he met priest Eisho of the temple Kongo-ji who told him the temple's history: The founder of this temple was a Shinto priest. He had an exceptionally beautiful wife but the owner of the Sunazawa inn loved her dearly and [to get her] he accused the priest of a crime he had not committed. When the priest was put to death for the crime, the innkeeper forced the priest's wife

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to become his concubine. One night she grabbed her dagger from her pillow and stabbed the innkeeper with the words: 'The time for revenge of the death of my husband has come. Know what you did!' She ran away to Oga peninsula. There, she married a yamabushi called Konzobo Eisho and restored her husband's family. The Sunazawa inn consequently went out of business. Konzobo's priestly charisma became well known. This was because his son Sankoin Shoshin chose to undergo austerities by placing himself underneath a waterfall. Despite the icy water, he did not falter. 182 On 13 July 1809, Masumi described in detail the Bon-dances in that area: To prepare the Hokai [Festival of Souls] scheduled to take place on the 13th, there is Bon-dancing from the evening of the 12th. These Bondances include various performances such as Anekomosa, Sodeko Odori, Barabara Odori, Chirashi Odori, Miashi, Uchikomi and Sankatsu. The lyrics and dances are quite old. 'Sankatsu' is danced to music without words. The drummers beat two or three drums they carryon their shoulders and, when entering the next village, they sing: 'We are coming from afar. Don't be afraid! Excuse us for singing out of tune!' Hearing this, the girl dancers of the village sing all at once: 'You are asking us to dance impromptu, we will dance out of tune. Excuse us!' And: 'Hear our song, hear our tune! Our tune is out of rhythm. Pardon us!'. They sing in reply. 'However the double cherry blossoms may laugh at the single cherry blossoms, doubles and singles, they are all in full bloom.' 'Like the lovely early-blooming rice flowers of Kitano, the precocious girls become pregnant twice when the men come to visit ... ' 'When will our hearts clear up, under a cloudless sky?' 'If you drink some sake, look what's inside. There is a written message even in the sake.' There are also kyogen [humorous] songs such as: 'Should you die, grandmother, die in June, and let yourself be guided to the next world by the horseflies, and the bees will beat the gong, and the fireflies will illuminate your path.>l83 On 15 April 1810, Masumi was at Kitaura along the northern shore of Oga peninsula. On this trip he travelled on the peninsula for almost four months. He had previously visited here on 14 August 1804 and had stayed five weeks. At Hiyoshi shrine, built by the skillful carpenters of Hida province, he saw a painting of the thirty-six immortal poets. The priest of Hiyoshi shrine told him the story of his family: A long time ago, living in the bay, there was a fisherman called Kaneno Oga-no-suke. One day he climbed Mt Wakide, now called Mt Shinsan. The mountain deity appeared to him saying: 'If you worship me at the top of this mountain, I will look after you and see to it that your descendants will prosper. But, first, you must pacify the Ezo who live in these parts and become the ruler ofthe island [peninsula]. Should you decide to live in the capital, I, too, will dwell in the capital. Should you settle on this land, I, too, will dwell here protecting and blessing this land.' So saying he turned all red and rose up and separated the clouds on the peak. His eyes flashed and shed light upon the summit of Mt Wakide. Therefore, this mountain is also called Akagamigatake [Red Hair Peak]. Oga-no-suke stood in awe, went straight to the Tanikawa river and washed his hands, peeled off tree

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bark and made it into a wand. Then he picked up herbs from the mountain and made them into a blue wand. He gathered wisteria flowers and offered them to the deity. He named the place he did this Hanatoriyama [Pick Flower Mountain], which was near Mt Furutake. This is why wisteria flowers are still being offered during the festival in honour of the Hiyoshi deity. Faithful to the Deity's will, Oga-no-suke battled the Ezo and presented to the deity the poisonous arrows and the bows he took from the enemy. The enemy was numerous, however, and he was almost killed. Suddenly, the clouds drew together and it thundered violently. Bolts struck the earth here and there and many Ezo perished. Just as suddenly the sky cleared up. Oga-no-suke believed that the deity had saved him and he worshipped it hundreds of times at the peak. Later, the attendant of the Koya Shuku (a Yamabushilodge) ofSomekawa village built a shrine named Akahige Daimyojin in honour of the deity. Many years later, the nobleman Fujiwara Motohisa built a shrine on the summit of the mountain, which is now Motoyama no Mine. Again, many years later, shogun Abe Sadato (1019-62) started a war (Former Nine Years War, 1053-62). Kaneno Ogano-suke offered a norito as a prayer for victory, but Sadato was killed on 12 December of the year 1062. Oga-no-suke took Sadato's daughter and mother under his protection and returned home shedding tears of sadness. He then married the daughter and built a splendid house, but his wife was in poor health and on 13 December she died. For Oga-no-suke her death was like losing a light in the darkness. He organized a memorial service for her and Sadato on 6 January of the following year and henceforth worshipped Sadato's and his wife's spirits together at the Akagami shrine. Ten years later, Oga-no-suke died on 1 July of the year 1077. 184 Masumi also described the local dialect of the Oga peninsula: The villages of Kamo, Aosa and Buraku were one continuous row of houses with only a Jizo temple as a division marker. When I entered one of these houses, a young girl who was the caretaker, said: 'Please enter! The whole family has gone to the cemetery.' The local language is rough and, all the time, one heard such words as: mukatsura [ugly face], ketsu [ass], dosu [pock-marked face], dami [fool], ihai [posthumous name], yamai [sick] used to blaspheme and curse one another. So, I was surprised at such gentle speech. Everybody spends the night at the beach, clad in a thick garment called shinpo or, also, dozatsuzure, a patched garnment sewn together with pieces of thick hemp. This resembles the Ezo custom of sleeping at the beach, covering oneself with thick garments and listening to the waves. I had heard an old man complain about the fleas and mosquitoes that kept him from sleeping. It would have been better for me to sleep on the cool beach rather than to pass a sleepless night watching the moon through the window. 185 On 17 July 1810, Masumi continued his list of local speech: I came down upon Monzen bay and stayed overnight. Here, old men are called jigane (scrap iron) probably deriving from mukogane. For me, this sounded very interesting. Metal that has lost its use is called furugane (scrap metal) but, in this area, they call itjigane. They use the same word

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for old men who are no longer useful to society. There is no such word as jiigane, I heard someone exclaim which made me laugh. At the call of the wind bikiya, a girl who was nearly ten years old and a man over twenty came. They don't call people by their names, a custom that resembles the ani and oji of Dewa and Mutsu provinces. In the area of Tanabe, they say niga instead of ubugo [baby] and call even adult girls niga. Not only on this island [Oga], they compare a nursing child to a biki, hence the name biki [toad] .186 On 14 July 1812, Masumi described an observance the locals call Zuda no Wara which had taken place on the 13th. People eat so much steamed rice (okowa) and other things that they say: 'I am full. My stomach hurts,' all pretending to suffer from a stomach-ache: 187 In the west there is a village called Koya and in the east there is a village called Kayaoka. Walking along the edge of the rice fields between these villages, I heard that from the end of May this year not a drop of rain had fallen. The rice fields dried out and cracked, and all the plants withered away. These villages were drawing their water from the river to the fields and eked out a living from whatever grew on these fields. As the water level dropped, however, a dispute over water rights erupted and escalated into a tumult. 'If it does not rain within ten days, we will starve. Even secondary food sources such as melons, eggplants and cowpeas have withered. What shall we eat? If only it would rain.' So saying, the men and women prayed for rain as if they were thirsty birds looking up painfully to the sky from which the sun was shining and looking down to the earth while telling each other their fears. They came and went in groups. I composed a poem expressing my sympathy with the people who suffered from the drought. Without the blessing Of rain, All crops and vegetables Will dry to waste. 188 How and when Masumi was able to record in such detail is a puzzling question, especially when it comes to recording legends that included reported speech. How accurately he reported them is unknown, but, unlike the Grimm brothers, he recorded them at the source, locally and not, as the Grimms did, in a comfortable city apartment. As she grew older, the mother of Heisuke of Terauchi village became strange and ill-tempered and harassed everybody. The people called her 'the witch'. She said: 'I'll climb Mt Taihei and become the wife of Sankichi [the demon] who dwells there.' And, without preparation, as if she was going to drink her morning tea at the neighbour's, she left her house in a casual manner and disappeared. For three or four days, nobody knew where she had gone and people whispered to each other: 'Heisuke's mother has become the wife of Sankichi of Mt Taihei.' Pilgrims to the sacred mountain had reported seeing her with two growing horns and dishevelled hair and that, though she was a tall woman, she was flying around the valleys and mountains like a bird. 'This is a horrible woman

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who makes your hair stand up on end.' Everyone spoke as if they had seen her. Distressed at hearing these stories, Heisuke shed bitter tears. He said: 'Whether she has indeed become Sankichi's wife or regardless of whether she has turned into a demon, she is still my mother. Even though I may die, I will climb Mt Taihei and look for her.' When the others noticed that Heisuke had left unaccompanied, they were shocked and did not want him to go alone. Seven or eight of them carried a pan and rice, caught up with him and they all went into the mountains together. They looked for her all day and, at nightfall, they waved their torches and beat gongs and blew the co chin shells for a whole day, but without avail. Exhausted, they rested in a woman's temple and, during the meal, Heisuke said: 'I know a place where good mizuna cabbage is growing. I'll get some. I'll be back soon.' So saying, he entered deep into the rocky valley. His followers waited and waited and, as it became late, they said jokingly: 'Heisuke, too, must have been led astray by Sankichi and both he and his mother have become demons.' And they waited longer, but Heisuke did not return. They felt it strange and began searching around by calling out his name, but they heard only their own echoes and found no sign of him. They looked for him deep in the valley and discovered that Heisuke had fallen into a side valley near a place called Dabinosawa. 'How could this happen?' they said in shock and climbed down to the foot of the mountain. They made a stretcher, took it to the site and laid the body on it and secured it with a rope. They barely made it out of the valley. They climbed down the mountain and, shedding tears, carried it to Terauchi. Thirty-seven days later, the mother whose whereabouts had remained unknown, came back from her pilgrimage to Mt Haguro bringing many gifts for her son. Hearing how her son had fared, she cried tears of blood. This was because the mother had said something stupid, which led to the rumours that she had become a demon. These rumours also caused a young man to lose his life. The valley where he lost his life was henceforth renamed Terauchigasawa. 189 Masumi was travelling east of Kubota towards MtTaihei when someone told him the following strange story: In this region, about fifty years ago at the beginning of July, a woodcutter saw a man looking like a woodsman going deep into the mountains carrying such things as a bucket, a wooden bowl, a plank and a small drum on his back. The woodcutter followed this strange man for quite a distance, until he came to a large house in the middle of the mountains. The woman of the house who had three children looked as if she were past her prime. The eldest son seemed to be a fine young man but the second son was bedridden and the last child was a girl. The second was paralyzed and seemed to have no bones in his body; he could only stand up by pressing his forehead against the straw mat. To feed him, his mother lifted him up with her arms. They were suspicious of the woodcutter until he explained: 'I lost my way and followed the scent of a kitchen fire thinking that perhaps I would find a human habitation.'The master replied kindly: 'I understand. If you come again this way looking for wood, please visit us.' The woodcutter then went back home and came again another day to this mountain house. They served him mochi made from ground nuts of the chestnut tree and pickled Rodger's bronze leaves. Having been treated so well, the wood-

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cutter came quite often over the years. One year, in spring, a fire burnt down the woodman's house and the helpless son perished in the fire. But then a strange thing happened. The daughter's body became like her dead brother's and her legs and arms became so soft she could no longer get up. The parents cursed their fate. There is a saying: 'Mountain demons pull out the bones of people.' And the people said that this might be what has happened. The master is said to have descended from a well-known family who came to live here in order to avoid war. I heard that the woodman's descendants are still living there. 190

D In the spring of 1813, the Akita domain asked Masumi to produce a local gazetteer. He probably rewrote his diaries with the intention of using them for his gazetteer, but he also relied on the K;yoho Gunyu Ki (also, Rokugun Gunyu Kz) compiled in the years 1716-36 by Okami Tomochika, grandfather of Tomoyasu (1762-1833), the celebrated Akita agriculturalist. He could not finish it because the daimyo that had commissioned the work died. Naka Michihiro (1748-1817), the author of Akita Fuzoku Toijo-gotae of 1817, and Kamada Masayaka (1773-1841) had also died. It was Masayaka's adopted son Magoroku (Ishii Tadayuki) who, between 1863 and1895, published the first biography of Masumi, entitled ftoen Chawa. Having been written at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Masumi's detailed account of life and culture in the Northeast and Ezo is without doubt an extraordinary and unique achievement. It is in fact unparalleled in its scope and depth in the world at that time. Ironically, Masumi's work lay dormant until rediscovered at the end of the nineteenth century. We find in Masumi's numerous diaries a wealth of information about people of all trades, their religion and culture, their food, dress, economy and social structure. We discover in his diaries the same kind of fascination for the extraordinary, the exotic and a respect for cultural diversity we find in our other travellers. Masumi was a superb observer. He tirelessly noted down an amazing amount of information about what traditional aristocrats looked down upon as uninteresting, uncouth and irrelevant. But the ways of seeing and thinking changed considerably during the Edo period. Remote 'primitive' culture and life-styles were gradually integrated into the national culture. At least that is perhaps Masumi's chief contribution - the recording of however diverse local culture as a national culture. Such efforts are also on record for Europe but, from what I have read, I have not been able to discover anything like Masumi's thorough survey of the Northeast in contemporary European travel literature and folklore. NOTES

1. The Honzo Komoku, finished in 1592, was reprinted in Japan in 1637. It contains about two thousand medicinal herbs.

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2. Taguchi Masaki, ed., Sugae Masumi Tokuhon, vol. 4 (Akita: Mumeisha Shupp an, 2000) pp. 240-1. 3. Sugae Masumi Zenshu, vol. 10, ed. by Uchida Takeshi and Miyamoto Tsuneichi (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1974), p. 396. 4. The gazetteer consists of three works entitled: Yuki no Dewaji, Tsuki no Dewaji and Hana no Dewaji. 5. Sugae MasumiYuran Ki, vol. 1, Toyo Bunko vol. 54 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1980) p. 6. 6. pp. 7-8. Ajari: acarya, a Buddhist title. 7. pp. 10-11. 8. pp. 11-12. 9. p.13. 10. p. 15. Shiojiri: Nagano prefecture. 11. pp. 18-19. Tanabata: gosekku festival of 7 July. 12. p. 23. Mt Obasute: Nagano prefecture. 13. p. 25. Onbashira: erecting seven tall logs is still performed every seven years at Suwa shrine. 14. p.51. 15. p. 52. 16. p. 58. 17. p. 60. Two Monks: At Kotani village there is a tomb of two monks who composed a poem inspired by Saigyo. 18. p. 66. 19. p.70. 20. p. 71. Matsu: name given to children as a prayer for long life. 21. p. 71. 22. p.79. 23. p.82. 24. p. 84. Gyoson: Tendai-school priest and, later, high priest of the Onjo-ji (Miidera). Known for his austerities in the mountains of Kumano and as a poet. 25. p. 85. Azusa-miko. 26. p. 90. Sakata: Yamagata prefecture. Kisagata: a famous utamakura place. 27. p.96. 28. p.97. 29. pp. 97-8. 30. p.98. 32. p. 122. 33. p. 123. 34. p. 131. Koto: musical instrument. 35. p. 132. 36. pp. 132-4. 37. p.137. 38. p. 154. 39. pp. 155-6. 40. p. 156. 41. pp.156-7. 42. pp. 165-6. 43. p. 167. 44. pp. 167-8. 45. p. 168. 46. pp. 179-81. 47. p.187. 48. pp. 187-8. 49. Sugae MasumiYuran Ki, vol. 2, Toyo Bunko, 68, 12th printing, 1980, p. 3. 50. p.4.

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51. p.5. 52. p.8. 53. p.8. 54. p.8. 55. Suzuki Tsuneo kept a diary entitled Rakuzantei Nikki which mentions Masumi. The diary is in the possession ofTsuneo's descendant Suzuki Hisayoshi. 56. pp. 12-24. 57. p. 27. Yashima and Niko Monogatari are plays about Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-89) performed here in the so-called Oku Joruri fashion. Biwa-hoshi, blind itinerant monks who recited such stories as Heike Monogatori (tales of the Heike), accompanying themselves on a five-stringed lute called a biwa. 58. p.28. 59. pp. 28-9. '!chi': a name encountered among biwa-hoshi and other itinerant artists. 60. p. 30. Tsuneo was a shoya under the jurisdiction of the Sendai domain. 61. pp.45-6. 62. p. 47. Haga Keimei is a shoya of Ohara and an amateur of haikai and waka poetry. Nusa is a kind of paper gained from tree bark or hemp, which is offered to the kami. 63. p.51. 64. pp. 57-8. 65. pp. 60-1. 66. p.62. 67. p. 62. 68. p.63. 69. p. 66. 70. pp. 78-80. 71. pp. 88-9. 72. p. 101. 73. pp. 121-3. Enku: a celebrated monk and sculptor. 74. p.213. 75. pp. 126-7. 76. Sugae MasumiYuran Ki, vol. 2, p. 134. 77. pp. 136-7. 78. p. 139. 79. p. 140. 80. pp. 142-5. 81. pp. 152-3. 82. pp. 154-5. 83. p. 160. 84. pp.161-2. 85. p. 164. 86. pp. 165-6. 87. p. 169. 88. p. 173. 89. p.174. 90. pp. 175-6. Amida: the Buddha Amitabha. 91. p. 177. Yakushi: the Buddha Bhaisajyaguru. 92. pp. 185-6. 93. p. 198. 94. p.213. 95. pp. 220-2. Shamo: Ainu name for the Japanese. 96. pp. 225-6. 97. pp.229-31. 98. p.239. 99. Vol. 3, p. 4.

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100. p. 8. 101. p. 10. 102. p. 14. 103. p. 18. 104. pp. 22-3. Futon: Japanese mattress. 105. pp. 23-4. 106. p. 24. Manzairaku is a prayer for long life. 107. p.32. 108. p.44. 109. pp. 52-3. 110. When Laxman came, Matsudaira Sadanobu, a shogunal 'elder' ordered the Lord of Matsumae to return to Ezo at once and ordered samurai from the Nanbu and Tsugaru domains to reinforce the defences of southern Ezo. From Nemuro where he repatriated Kodayu, Laxman sailed to Hakodate and Fukuyama where he arrived on 20 June. Refusing to open trade relations, Laxman sailed back to Okhotsk. Kodayu was sent to Edo where he underwent rigorous interrogation about his experiences in Russia. These reports were never published but we find excerpts in the Dutch scholar Katsuragawa Hoshu's Hokusa Bunryaku (a book on world geography published in August, 1794). Masumi wrote what he heard in the Northeast about these Russians in his work, 'Kataibukuro,' that he wrote in Akita in ca. 1816. 111. p. 54. 112. p. 60 Guly 7). 113. pp. 63-5. 114. p.70. 115. p. 78. 116. pp. 79-81. 117. p. 83. 118. p.90. 119. pp. 90-1. 120. p. 97. Kamishimo: ceremonial dress. 121. p. 99. Michizane Doll: Doll representing the statesman Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) who, after his tragic death, was worshipped as the deity Tenjin. Hinamatsuri: the gosekku festival of 3 March, also Girl's festival. 122. p.101. 123. pp.106-107. 124. p. 114. 125. pp. 116-7. 126. p. 122. Tokonoma: elevated recess or niche one finds in Japanese reception rooms. 127. p.122. 128. p. 123. 129. p. 123. Shingaku: a Shinto school. 130. p.127. 131. p.128. 132. p. 135. 133. p.137. 134. pp. 161-5. Miyata: Aomori prefecture. 135. p. 165. 136. p. 170. Sakanoue no Tamuramara (758-811): general sent in 794 to subdue the Ezo of the Northeast. 137. p. 181. 138. p. 182. 139. p. 195. Kannon: Avolokitesvara. 140. p. 212. 141. pp.230-1.

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142. pp. 237-8. A ritual called wakamizu-kumi or wakamizu-mukae. 143. p. 245. 144. p. 246. 145. pp. 248-9. 146. p. 249. Medashi: 20 January, young people assemble to eat, drink and to divine the year. 147. p.250. 148. p.261. 149. pp.261-2. ISO. p.263. 151. Eitai was an adolescent at that time and Masumi probably taught him the basics of botany. Masumi had met Eitai's father Akisada (1747-1805) on 15 March 1796. Akisada was impressed by Masumi's knowledge of materia medica. 152. pp. 267-268. 153. p. 269. 154. p.275. 155. pp. 279-80. 156. Vol. 4, p. 3. 157. p.7. 158. pp. 19-20. 159. p. 20. 160. p. 22. 161. pp.22-3. 162. pp. 28-30. 163. pp.42-3. 164. p. 75. 165. pp. 75-6. Wara-hayami: hay fever? 166. p. 83. 167. p.87. 168. p. 89. 169. pp. 95-6. 170. pp. 95-6. 171. p.l00. 172. p. 129. 173. p. 143. Hikohohodemi: son of Ninigi, the son of the first emperor Jinmu. 174. p.147. 175. p. 188. 176. p. 189. 177. p.199. 178. Vol. 5, p. 9. 179. pp. 8-12. 180. p.19. 181. pp. 24-5. Keiko is a legendary emperor credited with the subjugation of the Ezo aborigines of the Northeast. Emperor Sujin: legendary emperor. 182. p.46. 183. p.47. 184. p. 82. 185. pp.l03-104. 186. p. 108. Jigane is old iron that can no longer serve any useful purpose. 187. p.159. 188. p. 160. 189. pp. 168-70. 190. p.176.

CHAPTERS

TAKAYAMA HIKOKURO (1747-93)

To MOST JAPANESE, Takayama Hikokuro is known as a loyalist whose statue at Kyoto's Sanjo bridge shows him bowing towards the Imperial Palace. His Kyoto diary I«yoto Nikki proves that during his stay in Kyoto between 16 October 1782 and 18 July 1783 he bowed to the Imperial Palace on at least two occasions, on 27 November 1782 and 7 April 1783. Hikokuro was born on 8 May 1747, during the time of the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, at Hosoya, Sawano village, Nitta district, Kozuke province (Gunma prefecture) into a family of local samurai (goshz). In 1764, at the age of eighteen, he left home to study in Kyoto. This was a time of intense philosophical debates among the members of varying schools of thought: Confucians, NeoConfucians, Native Learning (Kokugaku) and the pragmatists. In 1760, Kamo no Mabuchi wrote his study of the Manyoshu (Manyoshu Ko), and in July 1763, Hiraga Gennai published his Butsurui Hinchoku, an encyclopaedia of plants of Japanese and foreign origin compiled in 1763). We know from Kan Chazan (1748-1827), a writer of Chinese poetry, that Hikokuro was an ardent imperial loyalist. Here is the record of a visit Hikokuro paid Kan Chazan and the impression he left: Hikokuro is a man from Nitta, Kozuke [province]. He visited when he was barely twenty and stayed the night. All he talked about was how regretful it is for the Way of the Emperors to have declined and, at times, became so excited about it that tears were flowing down from his eyes. He knew by heart all the taboo names ofthe emperors and made no mistakes [when he listed them]. If it were a turbulent time he would travel around the country to practise the Way of the Samurai, but now, during peaceful times, he travelled to visit men of virtue and learning. When he was young he was determined to travel the more than sixty provinces to educate himself and, despite the cold in the winter, was sleeping outside wearing not more than one layer of clothing but never caught a cold. 'This is why I began travelling,' he said. 1 What we know about his life and activities is sketchy. He was a man of wide interests: Shinto, Confucianism, Dutch studies, imperial family, but, from the

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available documents, even from his diary, one cannot draw a coherent portrait of him. In 1765, Hikokuro lost his mother, aged forty, and in July 1769 his father, aged fifty-three. 1769 was the year Ueda Akinari wrote his Ugetsu Monogatari. Travel had become popular, and massive numbers of people went on kage-mairi (thanksgiving) pilgrimages to the Ise shrines. This was the year Maeno Ryotaku (1723-1803), whom he met later in Edo, performed the first autopsy on a beheaded criminal. In February 1773 he travelled to Omi province to visit the scholar Fujiki Shoin, and the following month to Echizen province to visit the grave of Nitta Yoshisada (?-1338), a loyalist warrior of the Nanbokucho period (1336-92) from whom he claimed descent. Then next year, in March, he travelled along the Tokaido to tour the Home Provinces (the Kansai region centred on Kyoto, Nara and Osaka). In February 1775 he left Kyoto to travel to the North. This was the year Nagakubo Sekisui published his Nihon Okuchi Rotei Zenzu, a road map of northern Japan. In March of the following year (1776) he left home to visit, among others, the place where the scholar Kumazawa Banzan (1619-91), a celebrated Confucianist, had lived. After that, he settled for a while in Edo at the age of thirty and limited himself to a few local excursions; he climbed Mt Oyama and visited a paragon of filial piety in Odawara. In 1777, he toured his native Kozuke and Musashi provinces and, as always, sought out prominent scholars. In October he returned home to perform memorial services for his father the following month and worked on his collection of stories about filial piety. He was now thirty-three. In 1779 he returned to Edo. In 1781 he met Nagakubo Sekisui in Edo, and in May sought out scholars in the western regions of Japan's main island, Honshu. News of an uprising in his home province prompted him to make preparations to return home, but before he could leave, he learned that the upheaval had ended, so he remained in Edo. In October 1782 he went to Kyoto and stayed in the house of Ko Fuyo (1722-84), a celebrated painter of flowers and birds. He soon became involved in a movement for the reconstruction of the Imperial University. He remained in Kyoto, where he saw the Imperial Palace and the Sechie ceremony.2 During this year Kudo Heisuke (1734-1800) published his book about the Russians, Akaezo Fuzetsu Ko, and Otsuki Gentaku (17571827) wrote his Rangaku Kaitei. A severe famine hit the Northeast, affecting the region for several years. After a journey to the East, he returned to Kyoto in 1784 via the Kiso road and, in November, heard a lecture on Shinto at the residence of the Yoshida family. In 1785, the famine continued to ravage the Northeast. Hayashi Shihei wrote his Sankoku Tsuran Zusetsu and Shihei's Kaikoku Heidan appeared in print. The Kanto and Northeast had another bad harvest. Mogami Tokunai (1755-1836) explored the Kurile islands, and the following year Motoori Norinaga wrote his Tamakushige, a political commentary which Norinaga dedicated to the regional lord. In October 1789, he left for Edo to seek out friends and met with Maeno Ryotaku, a physician and scholar of Dutch Learning and one of the translators of the Dutch book Tafel Anatomia (Kaitai Shinsho). In 1790 he left on a journey to the Northeast which he described in his Hokkoku Kiko. He sent his wife and their third daughter back to her family and entrusted his other three children to a friend. After his return from the Northeast, he viewed the Sento

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palace of the retired emperors. In the 7th month he left Kyoto for a journey to western Japan. He reached Shimonoseki during the 9th month and crossed over to Kyushu. He toured Chikuzen and Chikugo provinces and visited Kumamoto. He passed the New Year's holidays at the home of Yabu Kozan (1735-1802), a Neo-Confucian scholar. He passed the New Year in Kyushu visiting Kagoshima and discussed philosophy with local scholars. In 1792 he travelled to Higo and in June stayed with Mori Kazen (1754-1806) a scholar of Dutch studies. On 27 June he committed suicide. Hayashi Shihei, who had been put under house arrest, died the same year. During that same year Catherine the Great of Russia sent Adam Erikovich (Kirillovich) Laxman to Japan to repatriate Daikokuya Kodaiyu, who had been shipwrecked and taken to Irkutsk and St Petersburg. Most of what we know about Takayama Hikokuro comes from the diaries he kept between the ages of twenty-seven and forty-seven. He passed most of his life travelling, exploring and discussing philosophy with his friends. He was a staunch individualist, who was known as one of the Three Eccentrics of the Kansei era (1789-1801). He lived in a time when individualism was developing, as is clear from other travel and essay authors and such daimyo as Matsura Seizan (1760-1841). This reputation for eccentricity produced many strange legends. One wonders how he financed his journeys, since travelling in Japan at that time was expensive. One had to pay for carriers, inns and food, road tolls, supplies and for passports. He used some money from his father's estate, but often borrowed money from friends and sponsors, particularly the Kyoto merchant Omura Hikotaro (1636-89). He also pawned his belongings, including his swords. It is quite likely that he died with considerable debts. HOKKOKU KIKO (DIARY OF A JOURNEY TO THE NORTHERN PROVINCES)

Hikokuro left Edobashi bridge before dawn on 7 June 1790 by boat to begin his journey to the North. His first destination was Mito, by way of the Boso peninsula. He admired the morning scenery, including the view of Mt Fuji. He composed numerous poems along the way under his penname Masayuki, or quoted famous poems about the renowned places he happened to pass. He was sensitive to demographic changes early on in his travelogue. For example, at Togawa: Until twenty years ago this place was called Senken [Thousand Houses] and there were more than seven hundred houses, but now a mere ten remain. They said that at least five or six and a maximum of fifty people inhabited the houses. There were about twenty houses with fifty inhabitants, but now only the foundation stones remain. 3 Hikokuro did not elaborate about what had caused such shrinkage. He then visited the Kashima shrine and proceeded overland to Mito. He reached Mito on the 30th. On 1 July, he visited Fujita Kumanosuke Kazumasa (also Yukoku, 177 4-1826), one of the founders of the Mito school of philosophy. Hikokuro left Mito on 2 July, after sending ten farewell poems to Kazumasa,

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and he was on his way to Ota, Fukushima and Yonezawa. On the 4th he met Tachikawa Sashiro, a friend of N agakubo Sekisui. Particularly apparent in this portion of the diary is Hikokuro's interest in local stories about filial piety. He visited the recipients of special awards for filial piety, or if they were deceased, he would visit their descendants. He quoted the letters of recognition they had received. Between Mito and Yonezawa alone, he mentioned seven such saints of filial piety. He reached Yonezawa on 22 July. From Yonezawa, Hikokuro journeyed to Yamagata, climbed Mt Yudono and Mt Gassan, two of the Three Sacred Mountains of Dewa province, then descended towards Sakata, admired the scenery of Kisagata and travelled to Akita. On the way he visited a person honoured for filial piety. In his diary he mentioned the thirty man he had to pay for a travel document at Sakata. One could not pass the check-points at that time without proper documentation, which included a letter of recommendation or an itinerary signed by a shoya. He could only pass the check-points upon presentation of such documents. In Onomura, he mentioned one of the stories of exceptional filial piety, which took place during the great famine of the Northeast (1783-87): There were filial children living in the area of Onomura. During the famine eight years ago many robbers entered their house and bound their mother and father. When the ringleader cursed her brother, the fifteenyear-old daughter came with a dagger in her hand and stabbed one of the robbers to death, freeing her thirteen-year-old brother who then killed the ringleader. This scared the robbers away. The children were both praised by the lord [daimyo] and received a stipend for exceptional filial piety.... 4 On the 20th, he passed near Oga Peninsula towards Noshiro and from there turned inland towards Odate, where he arrived on the 23rd. At Odate he reported the rising cost of rice during the famine: During the famine years, one koku of rice cost seventeen kan. Now, when there is a good harvest it amounts to two kan seven hundred man. One bu of gold yields one kan, four hundred and fifty man. Until this spring, one koku of rice was two kan, seven hundred mon. 5 Hikokuro left Odate on 25 August for Hirosaki, Aomori and Minmaya, at the northern tip of the Tsugaru peninsula. During this portion of his journey, Hikokuro shifted his attention to the famine and its aftermath. At Ikari barrier he noted: Before the famine, Ikarigaseki counted over one hundred and fifty houses, but now there are a mere one hundred. During the famine of the Genroku period [1688-1704], sixty man bought five go of rice. In the years 1781-83, of the famine, two go and five shaku of rice cost sixty mon. 6 He reached Hirosaki on the 27th. Between Hirosaki and Aomori he reported: Fifteen or sixteen cho from N amioka, one comes to the village Gohonmatsu that had contained thirty-six houses before the famine, but many people died and now only six remain .... One ri and a half to the east

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from Namioka one comes to Karesawa village, which once had thirty-three houses, but only four are left. But some people came back and now there are eleven, I am told. During the famine, I heard, people ate horses and dogs. Over two hundred and forty people lived here formerly whereas now there are fewer than forty survivors. 7 He left Namioka on the 28th for Aomori, where he noted that over an area of seven or eight cho there were more than three hundred houses before the famine, but afterwards not even one hundred were left. In all of Aomori: ... there were four thousand houses before the famine but not even one thousand houses were left afterwards. There were three fires during the famine years, and also many people starved and died of epidemics or scattered to other areas. But in recent years they have increased again to close to two thousand. 8 Leaving Aomori on the 29th, and passing through Yasukata village, he reported that more than five cho of fields have withered and no houses remain, only a rice storehouse. At Ohama he counted about one hundred houses, but was told that there were more than two hundred before the famine. Ushimatsube village was all wasteland and at Kanita, six ri from Aomori: . .. there were one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty houses before the famine. Now there are seventy. In Tsugaru only one quarter or one fifth remain of what there was before. The cultivated fields have shrunk to one quarter or one fifth their former area. 9 At the start of September, Hikokuro travelled north on the Tsugaru peninsula towards Minmaya. At Sunagamori, he was told that there had been four houses but, during the famine, it shrank by two. 'This was because the people did not know how to fish. The fishermen did not suffer as much as the peasants.' Hikokuro remarked. At Imabetsu, an inntown, on 2 September ' ... there are fifty-three houses. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, there were three hundred; it had been a prosperous place even with pleasure houses but, after the famine, it declined ... >10 Hikokuro reached Minmaya on the 2nd. There he met someone whose brother (aged twenty-five) was killed the year before during an Ainu uprising. On the 4th, at Utetsu, someone told him that a foreign ship seeking help had arrived at Sukki in Ezo five or six years before. But no one responded. Then they asked the Ezo for help. (In return) they gave the Ezo a bottle of brandy (vodka) and a glass. Then they left. Seen from a distance, the man reported, it was clear that the ship was a man-of-war. Hikokuro had planned on crossing the strait to Ezo, but a local informed him that there were no boats, that it was too cold on the island and that it was forbidden to discuss the Ainu uprising. He advised Hikokuro to wait till next spring for warmer weather. Hikokuro then decided to turn back to Aomori, and, from there, to Hachinohe, Hanamaki and Morioka. Hikokuro had to pass a barrier about two ri from Aomori. 'The barrier guard asked for my passport

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or money. I replied that it was strange that one can buy a pass with money.' 'Buying a pass, isn't this obscuring something one should clarify?' The official asked: 'Don't you have proof of where you're going?' Hikokuro answered: 'You can call a pilgrim a traveller, but I travel for different purposes. I have never heard of a samurai being asked to present a document like a pilgrim.' Finally, Hikokuro asked him why he did not request his samurai credentials. 'He told me to present them. They merely said 'Takayama Hikokuro.' The barrier guard finally gave in and wrote him a pass. 'When I left, the moon was shining and I enjoyed the beauty of the mountains in front and of the ocean behind. I thanked him and passed through the gate.>! 1 After going one ri and twenty-one cho, Hikokuro came to Yunosaka, a once popular spa. 'Before there were over sixty houses, but now only thirty are left.,12 He passed the night at an inn-town called Asamushi. On 10 September at Toyamura, about one ri from Asamushi, Hikokuro reports: All women were gone to sell fish and only at the shoya was there a woman. Because of the famine, the village was reduced to one third. 13 At a distance of about half a ri there was Nakano village with five houses: They piled up the bones of those who had starved outside the village and after conditions had returned to normal, they buried them in one place and erected a stupa at the site. But now, if you look at the site, there are many stupas, one for each grave. 14 Hikokuro learned that the village had shrunk to a quarter of its former size as elsewhere in Tsugaru province. Furthermore, about half a ri to the east was a village called Yamaguchi with twenty-six houses. They said that before the famine, there were about seventy. Another half a ri from there lay Fujisawa village, with twenty-five or twenty-six houses. At the exit of Kominato there was a ten-ken or so bridge made of planks and after that, there were no more houses in sight. Before the famine there was a village, but they had all starved and the village had disappeared. IS Hikokuro was forced by local law to hire a guide. This was how the Tsugaru authorities discouraged unwanted travellers from reporting about the living conditions in the domain. On the 11 th, Hikokuro reached a village which had ten houses before the famine; now there were only two. Southeast of Nobechi, before the famine, there were six houses and now only two ... 16. At the village Tsubomura there were fourteen or fifteen houses, whereas, originally, there were more than thirty. At Nanae there were more than two hundred houses whereas there had been more than three hundred. Near Tsubomura was a village called Tenman Tatemura. Before the famine, it had contained one hundred and eighteen houses and now only eighteen. On the 12th, he mentioned Denpoji village, which had eight hundred houses, of which only two hundred were left. 'There were one hundred and twenty houses, but now only thirty-two and, along the road, only three, whereas before there were seven.'I? On 13 September, Hikokuro stayed at the shoya's house in Tashiro village (Aomori prefecture):

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At Tashiro village previously there were one hundred and twenty houses and now there are thirty-two and only three accommodated travellers, whereas, I was told, there had been seven before. During the famine year, people collapsed along the road and the horse traffic to Hachinohe ceased altogether. At Hachinohe they dug four holes in the ground to bury the dead but, when these holes were filled, they buried many of the dead in the riverbanks. They ate everything from grass to chicken, dogs, cows and horses and, in the end, even humans. Not even one in a hundred, perhaps one in a thousand or ten thousand survived, and those lived only by eating human flesh. Even in Hachinohe, which had produced close to twenty thousand bushels of rice, sixty thousand people died of hunger. I heard that even now one may stumble upon a skeleton along the roads and that if you look inside the deserted houses you can see skeletons lying all about. The lord did what he could and gave away one sho [1.8 litre] of rice to each person but when even members of his own family died of hunger, he decreed that one sho of rice should be given every six days. The price of one sho of rice mounted to three hundred and thirty-two mon. Tonight I wrapped myself again in a straw mat to sleep. IS On the 14th, travelling in the same area, Hikokuro noted at Daidokuchi village that there were three houses where before there had been five or six. At Sasawatari, there were now five or six, but ten before the famine. While staying at an inn near Kanekozawa, a village that had shrunk by half, Hikokuro met Murakami, a shrine priest of Hachinohe and a man from Kujinohama. They told him that: During the famine there was no more grass or animals to eat. The parents ate their dead children, or the children, their dead parents. Despite the lord's death penalty for anybody caught in the act of cannibalism, there are people who survived by it and some of them are still alive today. Twenty ri to the west from here, near Karumai, there is a place called Osawa. The officials had heard that the villagers were eating human flesh. They sent police to arrest them and found twelve corpses preserved in straw bales in a house. In another they found two and yet another, five. The ten survivors, five in each house, confronted the police but they were all cut down and were left unburied in these houses. In Hachinohe, someone lost a grandchild. Two men came to claim the dead body. The parents agreed fearing that if they refused, the men would use violence. The two then dug up the dead body from the grave and ate it. Of the two, one died and the other is still alive. His face expresses regret for what he had done, Murakami told me. No one knows how many people survived because they ate human flesh. The innkeeper said that the people who tasted human flesh had told him that there was nothing that surpasses the taste of human flesh nurtured by the five crops. That night I slept on a mat woven with kutsuchie. I9 On the 16th, at the village Kosodemura (Aomori prefecture), he heard from shoya Mitsuuemon that there had been over twenty houses in this area, all of fishermen and that during the famine years only two or three vanished. 'The houses were all dirty and the people spoke a language so base I cannot describe it.'2o

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During the famine there were only two families at Ono village the Nakashoya and the sake brewer who refrained from eating human flesh. All others did. When Kotaro died at the age of seventeen, twenty-one or twenty-two villagers went to his parents claiming him as food. Fearing that if they said no, there would be violence, the parents finally gave in. The villagers borrowed a shovel from the parents, unburied the corpse, wrapped it in straw and carried it here horizontally. They fixed his fingers on skewers, made a fire and roasted them in full view of the mother and younger brother of the deceased. They went back home to report to the father what had happened, but he consoled them saying that this will keep the people from robbing their house at night. The father told this to Kansuke, the innkeeper: When the people of Yo kama chi threw their dead bodies into the river, a traveller saw a seventeen-year-old girl from the neighbouring village trying to cut off pieces of flesh with a small knife but when she noticed the observer, she ran away in shame. 21 Hikokuro heard that the girl is now married and lives a peaceful life. Kansuke said: 'I went around to have a look at the villages and noticed that people had dug holes like wells at the gravesites suggesting that cannibalism had taken place. It was horrible.' Today, I went to bed but got up again because of the cold. I moved closer to the fire and finally slept: Without enough time to sleep I hurry on my journey As the days grow shorter At autumn's end. 22 On the 19th, Hikokuro visited the amber mines at Mt Kohaku (lit. Amber). To judge from his diary, Hikokuro displayed considerable interest in the amber mines in the mountain. He went there with four companions and noticed that the stream emerging from the mountain was red. At the mines, he was told that the amount of amber has shrunk and that extraction now yielded only one ryo a year. Hikokuro's visit to these amber mines may have had practical aims, but his interest in mining was overshadowed by the bleak reality that surrounded him in the Northeast. Hikokuro asked Heisuke, the innkeeper Kichisaburo had assigned to him about the famine years. Heisuke told him that the price of rice, one sho rose up to four hundred bu and ground millet one hundred bu for one sho, and one hundred eighty bu, or two hundred bu for a sho of beans. Heisuke said: Many threw their newborn babies into the river and they abandoned the corpses in the mountains among the trees or beyond the fields or threw them into the river after they had died. People ate boar, deer, dogs, cats, cows, horses and even human flesh. When their parents died, the children buried them but, when this was too much, they left them unburied or dug out the buried ones and ate them. People even ate the corpses abandoned

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in the mountains and beyond the fields. They ate them boiled, fried or raw. When you ask them now, they say that horsemeat tastes better than boar or deer and that human flesh tastes better than horse. There were even those who killed their own children and ate them like demons. In this village alone about twenty houses vanished, because all died and only half the population survived. There are also villages of ten or fewer houses where not a single person survived. When they fried human flesh, the fat made the flames leap high; there is no fat more flammable. From about August of 1783, I happened to go frequently to Sendai and Miyako, staying with parents who have children or with children who have parents. Until September or October, they dug up bracken to keep alive. The feeble ones among them were the first to die around September. By October, some strangled their children and either left them or threw them into the river and scattered. In 1783 from January till February or March, many starved and by April when it was time to harvest the wheat, people could hardly gather the strength to grasp their sickles. Then they ate too much and died. From April and May, an epidemic spread and until July many died. In August and September, there was a good harvest of various crops and the nuts were plenty, but no one was left to eat them, only those few who survived. They ate their heart's fill for the first time in a long while and suddenly took on weight. Until then, people stole cows and horses to eat and some even stole human corpses. Those who tried to protect their cattle lost their houses because others burnt them down to steal the cattle. 23 Twenty-two or three houses were robbed in the valley, but in areas where the houses were built closely together, the inhabitants protected themselves against the robbers and theft was rare, Hikokuro was told: There is nothing more fearful than times offamine. In this village, the girls who got married and moved elsewhere were all sent back to their families. I had two brides in my family and sent none of them back. I survived thanks to my two good sons; bad sons abandoned their parents and let them die of hunger. Parents usually kept their children away from guns but, during the famine, the children grasped the muskets and shot deer for food and sold them for two to four kan a piece. That year there was plenty of deer as if the deities had sent them. There were deer that bore red marks around their necks, indicating they had been bound, I heard. I was wondering whether they brought them from Nara or perhaps even from another country, because this was highly unusual. Now, the number of deer has diminished drastically. Of those who stilled their hunger by eating human flesh, seven out of ten died. There is no house where there was not at least one person who died. In my family, a baby died from lack of his mother's milk and my daughter who had married into another family, was sent back and died after she bore a child. They all died because they had not enough to eat. Fearing that such a famine may come again, people gathered oak nuts, which taste second only to chestnuts and preserved them. Only in the shoya's and sake brewer's family none died. The sake brewer fed twenty people for seven or ten years, but they ran away after the harvest forgetting their duty towards his family. In the year 1783, people paid their taxes until June but in 1784 they did not pay the entire year but

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were ordered to repay during the next ten years. A rich man of Hachinohe village was told by the lord to build two huts near the mountain, three ken by seven to eight ken in size, and to offer rice gruel to hungry people. But the beggars increased to such an extent that he had to stop. Whereupon the strong ones killed the weak for food or they brought horses and cooked them in these huts but not many survived and the huts were later burnt down. Upon inspection, one could see heaps of human and horse bones in the ashes. Heisuke continued his dismal account of the famine: In 1783, around August, a horse breeder told me that he saw today a twenty-year-old beggar plunging his teeth into a child's hand. When I heard this my hair stood on end. The following year, at New Year, there were people who ate human flesh. Women ceased digging up roots and gathering herbs out of fear [of getting killed or eaten]. Kyuuemon, my younger brother, told me that two or three years before the famine he had learned how to shoot a gun, but he had not succeeded at that time to hunt down a wild animal. During the famine years, however, this skill served him well. He hunted deer and fed himself and his parents. Because there was less snow on the beach than in the mountains, he hunted deer at the beach and had his father carry the deer on horseback. Afraid that someone might steal the horse and deer on the way, he accompanied his father home and only then went back to hunt. Once he was hunting deer at a place called Saburai beach about twenty ri east of here where he saw an assembly of hungry people about to bite off the thigh of a dead man and throw it into the fire. He had heard the story of a villager who went to the house of a person who had died of starvation and demanded the corpse. He promised that he would deliver his own dead mother in return when she had died of starvation. Hunters were making money on the hungry that year. The price of a deer rose from two to four kan, and the skin alone to four or five hundred mono Only one out of three or four hundred was able to hunt down a deer. 24 In the evening of the 24th, Hikokuro was staying with Gohyoe, a village official (kumigashira). He heard from him that, at a famine-stricken place called Nitta, a younger brother ate the flesh of his elder brother. 25 At Tamagawa (Iwate prefecture), a village Hikokuro happened to pass through, on 21 September, he was told there had been about twenty houses, but now only four or five remained. Bachizuka village counted about twenty houses of which only seven were left.26 From there Hikokuro travelled five ri westward and rested in the house of Kotaro who served him tea. Kotaro told him that during the famine years most people died except the jito (local official). At the place where he passed the night, he heard: 'There were over fifty houses at this place, but the famine reduced them to about twenty.' Hikokuro complained about the poverty of the houses in the Nanbu domain, saying that the toilet is right at the entrance and that one enters the houses with one's shoes on. The children do not wash their hands even if there is shit on them. They just throw it into the hearth. 27

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At Fukuoka (lwate prefecture) he was told that the number of houses declined somewhat during the famine years but that the number of houses had returned to pre-famine numbers because people had moved there from other areas: During the famine years they let all the old and weak horses roam free but the people of Hachinohe domain caught and ate them all or later on they bought and ate them. They also came at night with their spears and stabbed the horses from outside the enclosure and stole them away.28 After he arrived at his inn in Oyu (now Kazuno-shi, Akita prefecture) on the 25th, he noticed that the people were practising filial piety with the children. Their mother ate millet and only the grandmother and the husband's mother ate white rice. 29 Hikokuro was particularly drawn to such filial practice. On the 24th Hikokuro reached the village Furukawa, one and a half ri from Oyu, and stayed with Kurozawa Hyonosho. Hyonosho was forbidden by law to accommodate travellers, but Hikokuro's poem did the job and he was finally admitted. Hyonosho revealed his samurai background and told Hikokuro about a dream he had during the night of the 23rd: 'Two pine trees were moving towards me but did not cause any pain or fright.' He had the dream analysed and was told it meant the arrival of someone like an official. When he saw Hikokuro, Hyonosho thought he was the foretold official visitor. When Hikokuro enquired about the legend of the Nishizuka Grave, Hyonosho told him the following story: A long time ago, about ten cho to the west of here, there was a place called Ashidahara. There was a market there every day. A sixty-year-old peasant of that area and his wife had a beautiful daughter and the place where they lived came to be known as Semanosato [Crowded Village] of Furukawa. She was good at weaving and wove bird's feathers into her fabric and produced indescribably beautiful things. She took her work everyday to Ashidahara to sell them. The people who saw this called it true brocade and felt that she was not human, but divine. At that time, there was a man who lived in Hirogawara who dyed brocade and brought it to the market to sell. He fell in love with her at first sight and asked her to become his wife. The girl wept bitterly and told him: 'I have parents and if I did something against their will my reputation would suffer.' Rather than sell his brocade, the man placed it every night in front of her gate ... He did this for three years, but her parents did not give in and she did not dare touch the brocade. Both the girl and the man felt so sad that they got sick. The road the man was taking was called Sema no Hosomichi [Narrow Road of Sema]. It was to the east of Furukawa and is still there and is said to be free of dew and frost. When the man went back home, he was always wiping off his tears at a river called Namidagawa [Tear River], which is still flowing. The girl was the first to die of illness. The man heard about her death and, having lost all will to live on, died too, Her parents regretted what they had done and buried both the girl and the man together with the one thousand rolls of brocade in a single grave. This is the Nishikizuka [Brocade Grave]. After that, a villager heard the sound of a loom at that

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place. He went to see, but at first saw nothing. Then looking from about one-and-a-half cho away from the grave towards the southeast, he saw a beautiful girl weaving at the grave. Hence they called this place Monomigasaka [Ghost Slope]. Later, during the reign of Emperor Junna [r. 823-33] they changed the name to Nishikizuka and built a temple called Nishikiyama Kannon-ji. 3o Hikokuro went on telling the history of the grave and the visions Priest Jigaku Daishi (Ennin, 794-864) had of both lovers. At Kuchiwaki, in the same area, still on the 27th, he was told the following story about the famine years: During the famine, there were many poor robbers. In this village an adopted son brought back home radishes he had stolen. But the owner of the radish field came after him, entered the house and killed the adopted son's foster parents and ate certain parts of their bodies. The adopted son who had hidden in the area did not come to the parents' rescue. Later, the field owner also died of hunger. To prevent people from stealing in the fields and from being killed, [a man called] Kurosawa lent his house to the hungry but they all died. During the famine one sho of rice in this area cost two hundred and fifty or sixty mon; now it costs only sixteen mon. 3 ! Furukawa village lost thirty houses to the famine. Now fifteen are left and at Yoneshirakawa, two ri from Hanawa (Iwate prefecture), Hikokuro reports: 'Initially it had more than thirty houses, and now only seventeen.'32 On September 29 Hikokuro criticized the officials' management of the crisis. He wrote that the daimyo levied higher and higher taxes on everything from agriculture, horse breeding, sake brewing and timber: In Kazuno district, which yields twenty-three thousand bushels, there are six thousand seven hundred or six thousand eight hundred horses. Between Ichinohe and Shichinohe, there are seven daikan officials. Each has an income of between seven or eight thousand to ten thousand bushels, not to mention the [additional] income from the horses. They even levy a tax on the lacquer [wax] trees. In the past the tax was three mon which rose to eighteen mon and is now over thirty mono Many face hardships and cut down many trees [to make ends meet]. When the officials suspected that people were keeping undeclared horses, the owners chased the horses into the snow or they killed them or bound them somewhere up the mountains so that they all died. It is the fault of the horse tax that one does not know how many tens of thousands of horses perished. 33 Hikokuro reported that even in areas where not one grain was left, the officials confiscated the houses of those who could not pay their taxes. Every day, two ashigaru pushed their way into farmers' houses and levied a yearly tax of two hundred mon per person. If they had no money, they took their kettles away. They even taxed the dead. Therefore, the people starved. Hikokuro goes on to explain how people borrowed money from the merchants: Fields have turned into wastelands after the famine and the peasants who were still farming had to pay the taxes of those who no longer did. The

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emergency rice was destined to help the people stay alive, but they forced the survivors to pay back even that. After all the emergency rice put aside over the years had been exhausted during the famine years, they told the daikan to tell the [shogunal] officials who had inquired about the farmers helping each other out. In the Hanamaki area, more than seventy households ran away because of the oppressive tax policies. 34 In Shinagamori, still in the same area, there were four houses but, in the year of the famine, the people of two of them perished because, Hikokuro was told, they did not know how to hunt. People who possessed hunting skills survived. 35 On 3 October, Hikokuro reached Morioka. From there he proceeded to Sendai where he arrived on 4 November. As before, he records distances, exchange rates, local history, legends and myths, price hikes during the famine years and stories oflocal filial piety paragons. He went by way of Hiraizumi and the temple Chuson-ji always composing poems along his way at famous places or after human encounters. In Sendai, he visited Hayashi Shihei and inspected a Dutch book entitled Zeokaraahi (Geography). He praised the daimyo's policies during the famine although for the Kurokawa district he reports that as many as five hundred people had starved but that many had kept themselves alive. From Sendai he went by way of Nikko, Suwa, and took the Kiso road to Kyoto. Having heard of the imminent transfer of the emperor to his newly constructed palace, he decided to see the ceremonies. He hurried so much that he even neglected visiting his own home, but unfortunately missed the ceremonies by three days.

D Takayama Hikokuro's interests and his manner of observation are already apparent in the early pages of his diary. He describes the landscape and mentions the sacred places, citing temple and shrine inscriptions. He mentions local legends and myths, as well as local history, battles, and historical personalities, often quoting from written sources. He counts the number of houses in the villages and townships he visited and carefully noted down directions and distances and describes the condition of the road as well as the quality of the food and the inns he visits. He puts himself squarely at the centre of his observations, combining personal experiences with factual information. He never leaves a temple or shrine unmentioned along the way. He is refused lodging three times but each time he manages to be admitted after presenting a poem. As we learn through Sugae Masumi's diaries, literary skills served as a valuable passport even in the most remote areas of Japan. Hikokuro described the living hell one famine had created and criticized the political system which failed to alleviate it. We can gauge from his travelogue that Hikokuro was highly critical of the government's handling of the crisis. The sheer amount of attention he paid to detailed demographic statistics suggests that Hikokuro did not believe in the feudal system. We can sense here one of the reasons why Hikokuro was drawn to the imperial family. Perhaps without saying it, he felt that the emperor was the only leader who could have

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prevented such a disaster as the Great Famine of the Northeast, the tragic proportions of which led him to think about the inadequacies of the feudal system. Hikokuro may have enumerated these tragic statistics only to draw attention to the feudal system's shortcomings and to advocate a return to a centralized system of government under the emperors, hence this tendency to note down the most dramatic and tragic events. NOTES

1. Fude no Susabi, Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei, 1 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1975) p. 122 ff. 2. A banquet offered by the emperor to his officials with music and dances. 3. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol, 3 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1972) p. 136. 4. August 19. p. 165. 5. p. 166. 6. p.167. 7. p. 168. 8. p.168. 9. p.169. 10. p. 170. 11. September 9. p. 172. 12. p. 173. 13. p. 173. 14. p. 173. 15. p. 173. 16. pp. 173-4. 17. p.174. 18. p. 175. Burying the dead in the river banks was an ancient means to prevent the river from flooding. 19. p. 175. Kutsuchie may be the name of a plant in the local dialect. It is unknown in this form. 20. p. 176. 21. p. 177. 22. p. 177. Yokamachi: Aomori prefecture. 23. p. 179. 24. p. 179. 25. pp. 182-3. 26. p. 180. 27. p. 180. 28. p.181. 29. p. 183. 30. p. 184. A similar legend appears in the Manyushu and formed the basis for the Noh play Motomezuka and Mori Ogai's Ikutagawa. This version differs somewhat from Koshoken's and Masumi's which are less detailed. 31. p. 185. See also Sugae Masumi's version of this legend. 32. pp. 185-6. 33. p. 187. 34. p. 187. 35. p. 196.

CHAPTER

9

SHIBAKOKAN (1747-1818)

SHIBA KOKAN was born in Edo in 1747. His father was a townsman, possible artisan and swordsmith. Kokan's childhood name was Ando Kiichiro, but, as was common among artists and intellectuals at that time, he changed his name frequently during his career. Kokan liked to draw from early childhood. He often showed his uncle, an amateur painter, the drawings he had made, one on a piece of porcelain, the others of Daruma (Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen school of Buddhism). 1 Before he died in 1761, Kokan's father enrolled him in one of the branches of the official Kano school of painting. Kokan soon tired of the school's mannerisms and lack of creativity. In 1762, he quit and joined So Shiseki (1715-86), a master of the nanga Chinese Bird and Flower style and a follower of Shen Nanping, (dates unknown) a Chinese painter who lived in Nagasaki 1731-33. He also dabbled in the ukiyo style of Suzuki Harunobu (1725?-1770). Kokan is as eclectic as Tani Buncho (1763-1840), Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). He also studied Chinese classics and poetry. He chose Shiba (the Chinese name Ssu-ma) and his name Kokan, combining the Chinese Han dynasty and Edo, as his penname for Chinese poetry and eventually as his nom d'artiste. After leaving home, Kokan lived in the Shiba Shinsenza district of Edo painters and sold his paintings as a means of eking a meagre living. His paintings were sold in shops and street stalls. As he became known as a skilful artist, he was often called upon by wealthy patrons to demonstrate his skills by improvization and painting quickly on themes chosen by his patrons. The Manpachiro restaurant in Yanagibashi exhibited one of his works. In 1781, Goto Magobei, a retainer of the lord of Sendai, summoned Kokan to a painting demonstration. This is how Kokan described the event in his Shunparo Hikki: One day, Goto Magobee, a painter of the lord of Sendai, paid me a visit and asked me to paint something directly onto the table. I painted a plum in black ink and explained the technique while I was painting. When I

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finished painting a flower, he was surprised, looking at a flower, which for him seemed to be alive and admired my technique. After this, the Lord of Sendai asked Kokan to paint a picture of one of his wives and other drawings, which lasted an entire day. 2 Kokan was twenty-nine at that time. He remained single until his mother's death in 1781, when he was thirty-four. In his diary he wrote that it was filial piety that prevented him from marrying earlier. Even after his mother's death, he intended to remain single and spend his days travelling. His wife had little interest in Kokan's painting and he divorced her. He had one daughter. He married her off but her husband died, so he married her again but disliked her second husband so much that he referred to him as a man: ' ... I have never heard of, not even in Holland.' Apparently, he had problems with his daughter whom he accused of lack of filial piety. Times had changed. Kokan was an individualist who refused to go along with the main stream and with the dominant philosophical schools. I have selected from his writings a number of passages which best represent the kind of man he was. He criticized the lack of interest among his countrymen in natural science, astronomy and geography, calling them shallow and unwise: In the heavens there is nothing that does not move: the sun, the five stars [planets], the earth, the moon, they all move and do not rest not even for a moment. And so it is with humans. They run around like objects in the sky. They see things with their eyes, hear things with their ears and apprehend them with their nerves. They desire things, sex and food and none, regardless of whether he is poor or rich, will stop such desire. 3

Kokan criticizes his countrymen's backwardness with the same critical spirit as Furukawa Koshoken. 'See with your own eyes and think!' Kokan advised his countrymen: The people of my country, Japan, do not study physics. Calling it elegance, they do not write the truth but express the feelings of an unstable woman using ornate language. 4 Like Koshoken, Kokan must be considered a member of an enlightened and rational group of intellectuals to which all other travellers discussed in this study have belonged. He was also critical of Buddhists, claiming that: ... Buddhism contributes little to the way the country is run but none is able to abolish it, we are like rebels groping in the darkness. 5 Kokan dismisses the Buddhist priests as useless, idle and mostly unenlightened and works of Buddhist literature as 'stupid things'. Kokan does credit the Confucians with their knowledge of Chinese characters and their ability to read difficult Chinese texts, but when it comes to the Confucianists' attempt to impart their wisdom to the simple-minded, Kokan claims that Confucianists do not have a monopoly on wisdom but that wisdom has to come from the man himself. 6 For him such teachings only create the illusion of wisdom: 'Any fool who thinks he is wise does not realize that he is a foo1.'7 Kokan himself found little in the Confucian classics that explained what he wanted to know about man. 8

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Kokan admired the West for its scientific and technological achievements and its advances in astronomy and geography: The people of Holland study astronomy and geography and sail over the oceans. They use the telescope to measure the distances between the sun, moon and five stars. They use the microscope to observe small insects invisible to the eye ... All these insects have eyes, noses, ears, feet and hearts. They realize that all are the same as man regardless of whether they are bigger or smaller. But what is beyond, man cannot see. He cannot go back seven hundred million years to the time the earth was formed; also he cannot see the future when the earth will end ... He who thinks he lives long is but a cicada in the autumn who will not know about spring, or a plant that lives in the morning but withers in the evening. 9 Kokan was also critical of his country's isolationist policy and, as a global thinker of sorts, wanted to see his country as part of a larger world. He rejected Japan's insularity and regretted that it did not barter with the Russians now that the prices and the profits the samurai draw from their crops are low. 10 Tanuma Okitsugu (1719-88), an elder government councillor, encouraged Dutch studies to present possible solutions to Japan's problems and advocated the colonization of Ezo, opening the island to foreign trade. Yet, not even Tanuma was willing to openly defy the shogunal government's isolationist policy which had become its political mainstay. Kokan predicted that an internal uprising in Japan was inevitable and that it should open to foreign influence to prevent colonization. Kokan was much ahead of his time and predicted events that were to happen half a century after his death. Tanuma's successor Matsudaira Sadanobu tried hard to maintain Japan on its course and saw no benefits in opening up Japan to foreign intercourse. Kokan severely criticized Sadanobu for failing to realize the advantages to foreign trade. He escaped censorship by pure luck or thanks to his low-class status. Quite a different fate would await Watanabe Kazan who advocated an end to Japan's isolationist policy. As an elder of the Tawara clan and a person of considerable and potentially dangerous influence, this was an opinion the government was unwilling to accept. Kokan is noted for his adaptation of Western techniques of painting. He criticized Japanese traditional painting for its lack of creativity. 'Everyone, whatever station in life, enjoys pictures ... Today's styles of painting, both Chinese and Japanese, originated in China ... Japan has never invented anything .. .'11 Kokan saw in Western painting a way to break Japan's stifling artistic traditions and to introduce a greater freedom and creativity than had been possible hitherto. In his Seiyoga Dan (1799), Kokan expressed his support of Western-style painting: The art of the European countries copies reality [shashin], however the techniques may differ. Japanese and Chinese painters depict the mysterious, something we should not learn from them nor imitate. 12 As an example of Western realism, Kokan mentions the depiction of hair in portraits of humans and animals. He also compares painting with medical practice:

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The doctor uses medicine to cure illness. The medicine is a powder. The doctor is the brush and the illness is the painting. The doctor tries to cure the illness with good medicine as if he did not know what caused the illness. The same applies to painting. Western painting solely aims at grasping the meaning of creation. Japanese and Chinese paintings are playthings and devoid of purpose ... Concerning Western painting; by applying thick and thin paint, the painter creates light and dark, concave and convex, distance, depth and shallowness in order to copy reality. Kokan compares painting with the written word, concluding that painting preserves reality better than language: 'One describes things in words, but words cannot transmit reality as well as a painting.' 'Words loose their reality over time, but this is not so in painting without which one cannot know the truth of things.' 13 For Kokan, art had a didactic, pedagogical purpose; it had to teach the viewer how to see and understand reality in ways the viewer was not used to. Elsewhere Kokan writes that realistic painting is more effective in conveying accurate information than written language: 'Pictures that are intended to give information, because of the vast amount of accurate detail they contain, are far more effective than simple words of description.'14 In Nagasaki, Kokan was amazed by the chiaroscuro technique of Western painting and the illusion of realism it provided. Otsuki Gentaku (1757-1827), a practitioner of Dutch medicine, assisted Kokan in translating a book by the Dutchman 'Boisu' (Egbert Buys) in order to make copperplates. Is For him copperplates were able to render reality much more accurately than the impressionistic woodblocks. His first copperplate dates to 1783 when he was thirty-six. It was a landscape of the Sumida River seen from Mimeguri, presently at the Kobe Municipal Museum of Art. Kokan was not the first and not the only Japanese painter interested in Western painting. Hiraga Gennai, Kokan's Rangaku (Dutch Study) acquaintance taught Western painting to Odano Naotake (1749-80), a samurai of the Akita domain, when he visited Naotake at Kakunodate (now Akita prefecture). Daimyo Satake Shozan was also interested in Western painting. In 1774, Naotake illustrated Otsuki Gentaku's Rangaku Kotohajime (Dawn of Dutch Studies) and Hiraga Gennai's Kaitai Shinsho (New Book on Anatomy). The daimyo sent Naotake to Edo to further his studies ofWestern painting. Naotake lived five years in Edo and met Kokan and influenced Kokan's painting. But Kokan makes no mention of him. Kokan's links to the Dutch study movement is not always sufficiently clear. He claimed that in Nagasaki Isaac Titsingh (?-1812, who served as opperhoofd on Dejima) had given him a book entitled Konst Schilderboek (Illustrated book on Painting). Titsingh was in Edo in 1780 or, possibly in 1782, but when Kokan visited Nagasaki in 1788, Titsingh was no longer there. His Dutch contacts in Nagasaki were opperhoofd (director) Hendrik Casper Romberg and surgeon J. A. Stutzer. Kokan does not mention Titsingh in his travel diary. Probably Kokan obtained the book from Gennai. Kokan was friendly with Tani Buncho who copied a Dutch work of Will em Frederik van Royen

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Kokan wanted to retire to Kyoto and put his house in Edo up for sale. In 1812 his friends gave him a farewell dinner at a restaurant in Shinagawa. He arrived in Kyoto on 11 May. However, the same year, he decided to return to Edo where he had many friends. His house had not yet been sold. In August of 1813, he moved to Kamakura where he became a disciple of the Zen priest Seisetsu and received the Buddhist name, Togen. Soon after his arrival he wrote his own obituary and sent it off to his friends and acquaintances, as if he had already died and hid in Atami and later in Edo's Azabu district. Many people sent money and gifts, not realizing that he was still alive. In this way, Kokan tried to rid himself of unwanted friends and to live alone and paint. He only associated with like-minded people. He died on 19 November 1818 and was buried at Jingen-ji temple in Edo. He continued painting until he breathed his last. Kokan's journey to Nagasaki in 1788 was the highlight of his life. He undertook this journey in mid-life, at the age of forty-one. During the nearly one year this journey took him, Kokan kept a diary and drew numerous sketches. He published his diary in 1794 under the title Saiyu Ryodan. Due to the book's success, it was reprinted in 1803 under the title Gazu Saiyudan (Illustrated Account of a Journey to the West). In 1815, he entirely rewrote the book and entitled his new version Saiyu Nikki. The later version is quite different from the first version. It is an integrated journal including Kokan's thoughts and impressions as well as his activities and encounters. Kokan's diary is highly individualistic and includes frank and uninhibited entries about women and drinking. He frequently criticizes the quality oflocal entertainment, prices, and the dress and accomplishments of the pleasure girls. Kokan suffered from frequent hangovers. He enjoyed eating meat (pork, venison, rabbit, raw beef and chicken) in spite of the Buddhist injunctions against the consumption of meat. Like Sugae Masumi before him, Kokan recorded local dialects and habits, rare plants, objects and tools, as well as inscriptions. When Kokan left Edo on 28 May 1788, travel was still restricted. Barriers prevented peasants from abandoning their land and also prevented women from flocking into Edo, or for those who were forced to live in Edo under the terms of the sankin kotai hostage system, to leave Edo. 16 A traveller needed introductions to pass the barriers. There were also physical hindrances to travel. When rivers flooded during bad weather, or when mud-slides or falling rocks buried the roads, when bridges were torn away, travellers often had to wait for days. But according to his diary, Kokan travelled freely. He even made money selling his paintings along the way, profiting from his reputation as a painter. He was welcome everywhere. For example, on 19 September 1788 he writes: A petty official of the town magistrate arrived and told me to submit a report of my business. I wrote that I was paying a courtesy call, that I was on my way to Nagasaki in order to improve my painting, and that I would take great pleasure in presenting him with a painting on silk. 17 'From then on the clan financed my stay, and three luxurious meals including soup and sake were provided each day.'

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Kokan took a man of about twenty along but he 'did some outrageous things' and Kokan dismissed him. He hired another man named Benki, the sixteenyear-old son of an acquaintance with whom he had been staying on 21 June. IS To handle his baggage, he hired local carriers. Whenever possible, he went by boat and occasionally by palanquin. He also delivered lectures on Holland and world geography on the way, demonstrated foreign inventions such as magnifying glasses, his camera obscura, copperplate etchings and demonstrated their use to people of all classes even pleasure girls. He offered painting demonstrations and painted along the way to pay for his travel expenses. He sketched the scenes that impressed him on his journey so that he could make copperplates later. Some examples of these are his View of Itsukushima, and Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni, and Nagasaki Harbour. SEIYU NIKKI (DIARY OF A JOURNEY TO THE WEST)

Shiba Kokan left his home on 23 April 1788 and reached Atami on the 29th. It was raining that morning but the weather cleared around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. At a tea pavilion, Ippekiro, at Imai Handayu, Kokan took out his paintings and the Dutch instruments and books he brought along and showed them to the people, but there was no one who could understand them. 'The onlookers crammed around like a mountain,' he wrote. 19 On the 4th, Kokan had his companion he called Yongeru [YongerJ, a word meaning young man in Dutch, draw pictures and they amused themselves. On the 7th, the weather was good so Kokan and his companion determined to climb up Mt Higane Uikkoku pass) inviting a lady staying at the same inn and her companions to join them. All together their party was about seven or eight people. They climbed two ri up to the pass and found a hall containing a Jizo. 'The monk ate meat and had a wife.' On the 12th, Kokan met the lord of Otawara Hida-no-kami, the caretaker of Sunpu castle at Shizuoka, in a reception building outside the castle. They talked about various things. On the 14th, in the early afternoon he visited Lord Otawara again, this time to make some impromptu drawings. He stayed until midnight. 2o Kokan planned on leaving Sunpu on the 15th but the Abe river was swelling and he stayed on because the ferry services had stopped. Around noon three retainers of Lord Otawara came and they served him sake and snacks. It was extremely cold on the 21 st and Kokan wore a kosode with cotton padding. A number of people from the vicinity came and asked him about Holland and various other things. At two in the afternoon he went to visit Lord Otawara. On the 22nd, Kokan was still in Sunpu. At about ten he left his inn to visit Gen'an, a local haikai poet and they both went to see Konishi at his retreat. They tasted his eggplants fried in kaya oil. On the 28th, Kokan climbed Mt Kunoyama with Gen'an and enjoyed the view over the ocean and the mountains, including Mt Fuji: To the left was Numazu and, in the vicinity of Ejiri, the mountains followed one another. Also, in the middle of the ocean towards the right

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the Miho peninsula juts out in three streaks, and the village below was Shimizu harbour. There were more than one thousand houses and many boats moored in the harbour. The fishing boats were as small and numerous as tree leaves; it was truly one of the great scenes of the country. When Sesshu crossed over to China a long time ago, he painted this scene as seen from here. He called his painting' Mt Fuji seen from China'. Below us was a bridge called Fujimi-bashi offering the most breathtaking view of Mt Fuji in the country. Night fell and I returned after eight.21 On 3 June, still at Sunpu (Shizuoka), Kokan went with Gen'an to the pleasure quarters. They climbed up to a teahouse 'called something ya' and summoned two young girls: They were medium beauties. They served us sake and food. They brought us dried shirasu called 'tatami iwashi' [flattened dried sardines] fried in soya sauce and served on an inks tone lid. All other dishes were of the same kind. As the night fell, the pleasure girls said: 'Let's go for a bit of a walk!' Though we met them for the first time, they took us by our hands to see the stalls. It was truly out of the ordinary. Upstairs there were verandahs with railings. We left our shoes there. The tat ami mats were dirty. Because the tea-house did not serve any sake, the sake had to be brought from another place. There was a strong man who was walking around boisterously with a towel of bleached cotton around his head. One only needed to offer him sake and he would join you in your room with his drum. Also, there was a man who called himself Shuraku who sponsored the place at that time. The stall lattices looked so much like Edo's Yoshiwara that it seemed almost as if Yoshiwara was imitating this place. The way the prostitutes were lined up at the stalls, however, differed somewhat from the Yoshiwara. The lattice was horizontal and, after pushing aside the entrance blinds, one could see the stalls lined up at the side. The lined-up women were wearing Yoshiwara-style uchikake coat. After dark it was raining and windy. We stayed overnight and returned next morning. 22 On the 6th, Kokan decided to leave Sunpu early the next day and went to Lord Otawara to bid him farewell. 'He served me sake and I received money. The innkeeper Shozo also sent me money for a painting I had done for him.'23 In Fuchu, a township of ninety-six cho, Kokan noticed that both the men and the women spoke a language different from that of Edo, the difference being most prominent in the women's language. 'All the women had dark skin and were vulgar. If by chance one encountered a white-skinned woman, she was surely a native of another province.'24 On 21 June, at Fujieda (Shizuoka prefecture), Kokan stayed at Konishi Shobee's place, an extremely dirty place where numerous lice jumped out of the tat ami mats and Kokan could not sleep all that night. 'I was eaten up by lice.'25 Shobee's sixteen-year-old son Benki was to be Kokan's companion and helper from Fujieda to Nagasaki and back. Still at Fujieda on the 24th, Kokan was staying with Otsuka Jinbee, a wealthy local man. Kokan explained to Jinbee's elder and younger brothers that 'Dutch-style painting uses oil paint which allows the painter to represent the

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light falling on things more realistically.' He promised to draw such a painting. 26 While staying on in the Fuchu region, Kokan abandoned his plans to travel to Nagasaki for a while and had his oil paintings, his world map painting and other Dutch things sent back to Edo. When he decided to proceed as planned, however, he asked to have his things sent back to him. He painted a bust of a foreigner called Paulius [St Paul] for Jinbee's two brothers. 'The curly beard was truly as if it were of a living person, and it produced wonder among the observers.' Also, he explained about the world on the basis of his world map. 'This was the first time the listeners had ever heard such a talk and they were deeply impressed.'27 Kokan left Kakegawa (Shizuoka prefecture) on 27 June, passed Mori, an inn town, crossed the Otagawa river and stayed in a house called Wanya. High upon the mountains, he came upon a Zen temple Shuyo-ji which had a Kannon (AvalokiteSvara) as its main image. After he descended the mountain, he reached a place called Tokura. Half a ri from there he came upon the river Saigawa, where he rested and had lunch: I took out the bale I wore at my belt and while eating the rice balls, I had a look around; an old lady was there alone and said: 'What province are you from?' I replied: 'From Edo.' The old lady said something like this: 'Is that true, is that true. Oh, what good fortune! I hear Edo is a good place. Please, allow me to talk about this place. There is not a grain of rice. We eat millet and wheat. What is more, we have a shortage of salt and it is hard to get miso and none has even seen a fresh fish. During daytime people take turns in chasing away the monkeys and the boars at night. As you see, there is a fence surrounding the fields. The monkeys jump over it and ravage the millet and wheat. Kokan gave the remaining rice balls to the child who was about four or five. 'It was truly as happy as if I had given it a manju.'28 He had hired a twenty-three-year-old woman to carry his baggage: She was a woman who carried things on her back bound around her forehead. I found her looks suitable and, if she were well dressed and made up, I would have called her a beauty, but I felt pity for her that she was born in the mountains and had been forced to do this kind of work. 29 Kokan arrived at Kumamura deep in the mountains on the 29th. As day changed into evening, he stayed in the house of shoya Kumamura Magouemon: This home had no sliding doors and, even at night, there were no lanterns. They used pine joints for light. I went to sleep but the voices scaring the boars away woke me up in the middle of the night. Since I was born in Edo this was the first time for me to be deep in the mountains and, because of this, it all seemed so strange to me. 30 The mountains around Mt Horai were misty. He heard some people approach him and they started a conversation. They told Kokan that a year ago a wild animal had attacked and eaten a boy, but they did not know what kind of animal it was: 3l

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And, again: 'What kind ofa place is Edo?' he [my carrier] asked. I took out of my luggage the peeping glasses I had made and showed him the view of Ryogoku bridge and Edo bridge. He did not believe that what he saw was real and I said jokingly: 'I did not show it to you free-of-charge, it costs thirty-two man per person.' He took me seriously and tried to come up with the money. This is how pure and simple the people of the mountains are. 32 On the 20th, he stayed in an inn called Tachibanaya at a spa called Yunoyama (Mie prefecture) and heard the following story: One time, the owner of the Tachibanaya guided a monk dressed in Buddhist garments to see the Aotaki falls. The mountain road was winding over the high cliffs on one side and the deep valley on the other side. A bear approached the travellers from the opposite side. [At first] neither traveller nor bear were aware of each other. When, after a curve, they bumped into each other unawares, the priest, who was first overcome by fear, fell backwards and his sleeves turned over. The bear did not at first notice the travellers, but when it unexpectedly did, it stood up like a man and raising both front paws, turned on his back and fell into the ravine. The two travellers ran home without looking back and so they missed seeing the waterfall. Later, there was a traveller's inn called Edoya. On the way back from Shimokomono, the innkeeper had perhaps a drink too many and, in that one-ri square field, three wolves emerged and assaulted him. Probably because he was drunk, he carried at his belt a staff made of oak and with this staff, he killed all three animals. 'Sake gives one tremendous strength,' he said. The innkeeper continued: 'One of my men went to work in the mountains and, on his way back, he carried a load of wood on his back, and noticed a wolf was following him. He went on throwing stones and finally returned to the inn. After that he left in the evening to Shimokomono on some urgent business. That wolf was waiting for him on a rock in the valley stream. He could not proceed and came home.' He said. People say that wolves hate to lose. 33 On 23 July, Kokan was still at Yunoyama (Mie prefecture). There was rain and wind all day beginning in the morning. The mountains spewed out clouds and there was no sign that the weather would soon improve. Kokan wanted to go back, but they did not let him go, saying that yesterday a local person lost his way, fell into the valley stream and died. They warned Kokan: The stones you used to cross over the river on your way here are now under water. If you slip and fall then you will be at the mercy of the swift current that will crush you against the rocks. You will die instantly. But Kokan insisted on continuing his travel and, with the help of eight men, was able to cross the rapids of the river. 'It was truly dangerous putting my life at stake. I thus crossed the three valley streams and sent the men back.'34 Two days later, Kokan arrived at the Suwa festival at Yokkaichi (Mie prefecture). He noted that the floats were similar to those used in the Gion-matsuri at Kyoto. In the evening Kokan went to see a float of paper lanterns with a local

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friend who brought along a pleasure girl he had met some time before in Yunoyama, as well as eighteen young girls from the vicinity: They were beautiful girls who spoke an elegant language, their hair bound in Kyoto style. It was like the shimadakuzushi with more twists in the back but few in the front. They wore ornamental hairpins in front and let their back hair stick out somewhat. They looked better than Edo women. 35 Kokan left on 5 August in the morning and crossed the river Miyagawa. On the other side was Yamada (Ise) with its houses lined up in a row, each one with a tiled roof. Because people came here from all over the country, it was a prosperous place, Kokan observed. Kokan first visited the Gekku (Outer shrine) and then went to Jakusho-ji at Nakanojizo to visit the monk-painter Gessen: Gessen came out and said to me: 'Who are you?' Kokan answered, 'I am from the Eastern Capital [Edo]. My name is Shiba Kokan. Don't you know my name?' He said: 'I have never even heard of you.' Kokan showed him his various paintings including the Dutch style portrait of Saint Paul with a curly beard. He looked at it and, instead of greeting me, said: 'First visit the Naiku (Inner Shrine), then come and stay with me. Please feel at home.' Kokan did as he was told and stayed with him. He served him a very unusual meal, saying: 'Here is the sake. Here is the food.' He expected Kokan to paint a Dutch-style painting but, because Dutch-style paintings had to be done in oil, he could not finish it in time. Kokan remarks: 'It was not [as easy] as his [Gessen's] careless drawings.'36 Gessen invited Kokan to have dinner with him, but, 'he offered no food, only sake.' At four in the morning, Kokan was finally able to get some sleep. 'I want to see your oil painting tomorrow,' Gessen said, but Kokan refused, saying that he wanted to go and see Futamigaura. Gessen was very angry that Kokan sneeked away from him in this manner. 37 Kokan was at Futamigaura on 7 August and took a boat tour ofToba. Then in Kongosaka he visited Morishima Heishira with a letter of introduction from the tea man he had been staying with in Tsu, but at the gate, Kokan noticed a message which said: 'Confucians, scholars, people with false names and beggars are not welcome.' Kokan refused to enter. 38 At Hino Okamoto (Shiga prefecture) there lived a man called Nakai Genzaemon, a pharmacist who had accumulated a wealth of three hundred thousand ryo within one generation, As an old man of seventy-six or seven, Genzaemon was living in retirement. His son was in his forties and ran a shop in Sendai, but although he had promised to meet Kokan when he arrived in Hino, the son had not yet returned. Instead, Genzaemon came out to greet Kokan, asking, 'Where are you from?' Kokan replied: 'I am from Edo, and I am an old friend of your son Kashichi. I am presently travelling towards Nagasaki and I promised your son that, on my way to Kyoto, I would visit him at Hino. Hasn't your son come back yet?' Kokan asked. 'If that is so, please come in,' said Genzaemon. This old man did not seem at all like a man of taste to Kokan and he regretted having sought him out. But when Genzemon guided him to the inner room, Kokan saw that it was new and quite attractive. Genzaemon first served him good tea with cakes, followed by chazuke. After Kashichi's

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younger brother arrived Kokan took out the things he had brought along to show them, including the peeping box. They admired it all and the old man was extremely pleased. The old woman also came in and they talked. Then they served a meal consisting of fish soup, fried fish served in a bowl, and hira (Alichaelaganta), all carefully prepared. The cover under which Kokan slept was brocaded, the mosquito net was a mix of blue and yellow silk and the hemp crepe cotton. 39 On 10 August, Kokan reported, his copperplate and peeping box were exceedingly in demand, because the locals had never seen anything like them. Also, they wanted Kokan to have a look at their paintings and brought them out one after the other from where they had been stored in the house. Kokan found some good ones among them.40 On the 11 th, Kokan finished two sheets of landscape paintings for sliding doors and a flower and bird painting for a screen. They served him tea and cakes. As the day grew dark, they lit the stone lanterns in the garden and brought in water with a fireman's pump. And then a middle-aged woman, who had come here to work as a servant after the great fire of Kyoto, played the koto for them. Kokan took out his world map and showed and explained it to the people who came. Among them was a thirty-six or seven-year-old woman who was sitting beside him and listened to his talk: She moved nearer and said: 'Hearing what you just said, I now know where India, the Buddha's birthplace, is located. Please tell me where is paradise? I wish to go to paradise in my living body. If I go after death it will all be like a dream. I want to go while I am still alive. Please tell me where paradise is.' There were numerous adherents of Pure Land [school] believers here including people in this house who all wanted to go to paradise, but how to get there in a living body would be very difficult question even for a priest, I told her: 'One cannot go to paradise while still alive. The reason for this is that the world is round, as you can see on this map, and heaven is beyond it. There are many worlds like this in the heavens. The spaces between these worlds are all heaven. One cannot live nor walk there. To jump up to paradise one would have to be a god.' The lady fully agreed, adding: 'This means we have to rely on the Buddha Amida.' She offered Kokan some packs of cakes and nishime fried vegetables. This lady had married a local man and became a member of this family, but she was now a widow. The only hope left to her was to go to paradise, Kokan remarked. 41 From there Kokan travelled towards Kyoto via the Gamo district (now Shiga prefecture) and the temple Sekito-ji in Minakuchi and reached the Ishiyama temple on the 15th. Kokan found lodging at Ishiyama's Yamashita inn and went to see the Ishiyama-dera. Back at his inn, Kokan ordered sake. A sixteen-year-old girl came in to serve him. Kokan told her many stories but he noticed with surprise that she did not smile even once. This was because here they speak a different dialect than the one used by easterners. This was still Omi province but close to Kyoto. Therefore they speak in the Kyoto dialect.

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She served him a fish called ugohi Oapanese dace) and hasu (Piscivorus chub), all from Lake Biwa. 42 Kokan travelled on from Ishiyama to Zeze, Miidera, Fushimi and, downriver, to Osaka. On the 17th, he went sightseeing in Dotonbori and, in Shinmachi, rested at the Yoshidaya, one of the top entertainment establishments of Osaka: In the pleasure house a young girl called Nakai came into the room to entertain wearing an apron made of purple silk crepe. I had summoned several geiko girls and that saved us from being entertained by a taiyu [chief courtesan]. I summoned the taiyu again and she came with a twenty-five or six-year-old girl and charged only a small sum. The tayu came in from behind the tsuitate room divider wearing a dress with a cage-bird design. She took a sake cup with her hands and pretended to drink in front of the guests and left. In the meantime I was able to select a girl to my liking, something one cannot do in Edo. 43

Kokan returned to his inn in the evening and went to a glass manufacturer. Later, he went to a teahouse at Dotonbori and saw a painting by Maruyama Okyo and summoned two geiko. On the 18th, he paid a visit to Kimura Kenkado (1736-1802), a sake brewer and merchant and sponsor of the arts and of knowledge. Kenkado could not believe that Kokan's copperplate was 'made in Japan'. 44 In the evening of 19 August, Kokan went to Dotonbori again, this time, to a teahouse called Takeya, which was next to the theatre, and summoned two geiko, one called Koume and the other Oasa. They served Kokan sake and several dishes. Their shamisen songs were Osaka-style, something new to Kokan. An amateur pleasure girl arrived. They call them shiroto (amateur). As in the Fukagawa district of Edo she was wearing her belt like an ordinary woman. The elongated faces of the geiko with their long straight noses looked very different from the women in Edo: The woman seemed to be twenty-one or two and her name was Mura. She wore a bright satin kimono; her obi belt was white satin with a black embroidered design. As always kimono colours follow the fashion of the time. The geiko wore two layers of silk dyed in pale blue with an overall pattern - the tsumaagari design covering even her neckband. The obi was scarlet satin with gold threads. From the back downwards she wore an unusual colour. All the men and women were rather small; and in their customs, they differed much from those of the Eastern Capita1. 45 Kokan and a friend went to the Takeya in Dotonbori again and were entertained by the already mentioned pleasure-girl, Mura. They also summoned the geiko Koume and Oasa and drank a lot. They stayed the night there. Mura was a native of Osaka but had no parents nor brothers and sisters. When her duties were over, she said: 'If you give me thirty ryo, I can free myself from my duties and come with you anywhere, Edo or Nagasaki,' an unusual statement by such a girl according to Kokan. 46 On the 24th, Kokan summoned a masseur who informed him about pleasure-girl fees:

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A party with an amateur pleasure-girl at Horie costs two monme. Two parties are three monme. At Dotonbori, the entertainment hana fees alone cost three monme and eight bu. At Shinmachi, pleasure houses are called Rokuji, and cost sixty-four bu for hana. 'You can stay with her until a third of an incense stick burns to the bottom,' he said. Both places charge you extra for all the extra jobs and even charge you for the candles. When you pay them in full they give you a twenty per cent discount. This is local custom. 47 On his way back from Junkei-cho's night market next day, Kokan had a look at the Rokuji brothel, which was like the latticed quarters ofYoshiwara in Edo. The women wore an uchikake of red material and, though they had pretty faces, they were truly imitations ofYoshiwara, which made Kokan laugh.48 From Osaka, Kokan proceeded along the Inland Sea, partly on the Sanyo road and partly in a boat. He reached Onomichi on the 16th and Hiroshima on the 17th. On the 18th, Kokan was on Miyajima island and on the 21st at Iwakuni. On the 28th, Kokan stayed overnight at Shimada village in the area of Iwakuni (Yamaguchi prefecture): As there were no travellers, there were no inns. The shoya told us where we could pass the night. Unlike what one would expect from a town [this size], our house was a poor place more likely to be inhabited by a dirty peasant. It measured not more than three mats, and was like a storage room for straw bags and mats. We first had to clean the place and I beat the tatami mats with a stick and my servant Benld blew off the dust with his straw hat and we were at last able to sit down. There was a market, a theatre and pleasure girls. There were two women in the house. One had her back bent as if she were crawling on her nose and the other had drooping eyelids. They prepared our meals but we could not eat at all because the lamps were too dim. So, as we always did at such times, we drank sake to alleviate our hearts. While we were wondering how dirty our mattresses and covers would be, a woman dressed in a faded purple robe passed by on the other side and we asked the old woman: 'Who is that?' She replied: 'That's a pleasure girl.' So I said, 'So, let's go to the pleasure house and have fun. Where is it?' There is no pleasure house. You have to summon her here. Her fees [agedaz1 are seventeen monme, she told us. I had a big laugh and abandoned the idea. I decided to go and see the plays. They were puppet plays, the stage consisting of straw mats spread out in a field. There were only a few spectators. It was very cold. During the plays they were selling noodles. I had some and, leaving the plays, walked to the right. I saw an abandoned house with a bamboo grid behind which there were four or five pleasure girls lined up. They were all wearing red kimonos. There were no customers to look at them through the grid. I stood still in the middle of the road and approached the grid to have a look, but preferred to return to our dirty inn. I drank enough sake to fall asleep but, after a short slumber, woke up again. I heard the voices of people passing by outside. The plays were over and the spectators were walking back home. After a while one could hear the roosters and the passing crows and the dawn came. I realized the kind of bed I was in: the

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bed cover was as thick as a shutter and stiff like starch. That woman with falling eyelids and the old hag served us the food they prepared while frequently blowing their noses into their hands. 49 On 3 October, the weather was clear but windy. In order to cross over to Kyushu, Kokan had reserved a seat on a passenger boat, which like all ferries was a small one. It was scheduled to leave about ten a.m. but a strong westerly wind was blowing and they delayed the boat's departure. To overcome his boredom, Kokan took out his pipe and drank sake and gave the rest to his fellow passengers. They complained to one another: 'Isn't the boat leaving yet? Isn't the boat leaving yet?' When, at last, the boat left the west wind had increased its fury and the big waves rolling in from the offing, began to spill over into the boat. When the boat was west of Kokura and slightly south of Dairi the wind gained strength and was strong enough to bend the sails and the boat leaned sidewards, so that the waves spilled in. People who were in the cabin were soaked as if they had just came out of the bath and all vomited as if about to die. The boat was about to capsize. Kokan and one of the passengers, who looked like an express messenger in his fifties, climbed up to the roof of the cabin and sat facing each other: Because the waves sprayed over my head, I put on an oilpaper raincoat and I kept my eyes fixed on the waves splashing up in order to draw a realistic sketch. I began to feel the effects of the sake but I did not become seasick at all. I realized how sake makes a man extremely careless and that one should not drink it. We covered at last a ri-and-a-half and arrived in Dairi within the hour. Only three crew members managed the boat and shouted: 'Lower the sails, lower the sails!' But because ofthe force ofthe wind, they did not come down at all. There were only these three men to scoop up all the water that had entered the boat. The passengers were like dead men; we were truly lucky to be alive. We climbed up to the shore and felt like human beings again. 50 In Dairi, there was a town with a noodle shop. Kokan ordered hot saba noddles to warm himself, but realized that there were only a few saba noodles floating on the surface of a bowl filled with cold water. He said: 'I will not eat this. You must serve this hot,' and ate it only after they had warmed it Up.51 Omura, the lord of Hizen, was staying in his headquarters at Kokura. Kokan changed his clothes and announced his presence to Omura's close retainers and a meeting was quickly arranged. 'With this wind, it must have been very bad for you to cross over here.' The lord said. The place offered an unusual sight and Kokan's servant Benki asked: 'Are we already in China?'52 Kokan reached the Dazaifu on 6 October and, after an eventless journey, arrived on the 19th in Nagasaki. He saw seven or eight Chinese junks moored in the harbour but the Dutch boat had left for Kosaki and was hidden from view by the mountains. He could see the Dutch outpost with its flag but Chinatown was not visible. He briefly describes the city and refers to its history. Kokan sought out the interpreters Yoshio Kosaku (1724-1800) and Motoki Einoshin (1735-94) and met them in the evening. A Dutch-style room on the second floor impressed Kokan. English mirrors were hanging side by side

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under the ranma (transom) with chairs standing underneath. Beside these, there were many strange Dutch objects. Kosaku offered Kokan sake and food and Kokan returned to his inn at midnight. 53 On the 19th, the weather was fine and Kokan was comfortable wearing a cotton-stuffed kosode. In the afternoon he went to see Kyogoku Sukegoro at Sakaya-machi. The master came out and said: My grandfather was a Chinese citizen of the Ming dynasty. When the Ming dynasty fell [in 1644] in a rebellion started by foreigners [Manchus], he came to Nagasaki in Japan to avoid the war. His family name was Wei and he was from a place called Julu. There were things in my house that he had brought over from China and he also built the house in Chinese style. I would have liked to show them to you but I lost them in a fire and nothing is left to me, as you can see.' He explained with tears in his eyes. I understood how poor he had become. 54 On the 21st, Kokan enjoyed the typical Nagasaki shippoku cuisine and in the evening went to Maruyama with an otona town official. They summoned first a tayu named Handayu and then the official ordered another tayu whose name was Koshikibu. They wore a crested crepe dress and an uchikake embroidered in a design with gold thread. Their hair was arranged in Edo style. Their underwear was cotton on the outside but silk on the inside, the same as her cushioned nightgown, juton. For a fee [agedaz1 of twenty-five monme the men were served sake and various dishes. They did not request extra services. Out of the twenty-five, the food alone cost ten monme, they said. If one summons a tayu to one's inn, it costs fifteen monme per day. Both of the tayu were born in the vicinity of Nagasaki and both of them were beautiful. The owner of the house came from Osaka and settled here, they explained. Kokan drew five or six sketches for the owner. He commented that the pleasure girls all came to see me painting. The tayu who was in charge of me asked me: 'I am told that I very much look like the Edo actor Roko (Segawa Kikunojo). Is this true?' After having had a good look at her, I found her resemblance indeed striking. Kokan passed the night there. 55 In the afternoon of the 22nd, Kokan paid a visit to Yoshijima Sajuro, a Chinese interpreter who lived in Motodaiku-machi. Sajuro offered sake and soup and Kokan showed him his peeping box. He said that all the Chinese who were coming here on their junks these days were trading privately: All of them come from Suzhou, which is like our Osaka. Nanjing is the most prosperous place in China. First the Fan family was given licence to trade overseas, then the Wang and now it is the Qian together with a dozen other families who all trade on their own. They run five or six junks and export as much as one hundred thousand kin of copper. They import products from the Guangdong region, especially medicine and ground sugar. Sometimes, they also import gold and silver. Cheng Chicheng has engaged in this trade for fifteen years now, he said. 56 On the 23rd, Kokan went to Umegasaki to have a look at the Chinese junks, and the next day prepared his visit to the Dutch headquarters on Dejima island. It was forbidden, Kokan informs us, to enter either the Dutch or the

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Chinese quarters without special permission. Kokan, therefore, went to see Katsuki Ribee, a lower official of the Edo office in Nagasaki to talk to him about the possibility of gaining access to Dutch Dejima. 'No one was willing to help me because they thought I was spying for lord Shirakawa [Matsuda ira Sadanobu].' But Kokan knew that the merchants belonging to the Edo office in Nagasaki could enter the premises wearing silk kosode and a short sword. 57 He had been told before on 17 October that, in order to enter Dejima in an non-official capacity, he would have to shave his head, pretending he was a carrier. Kokan decided to adopt the name Kosuke and to enter as a carrier. 58 On the 25th, Kokan received a gate pass from the Edo office and Katsuki Ribee and two people from Nagasaki came to escort him: At the gate I flattened my dress because it was prohibited to take anything inside. I proceeded for a while and was greeted by the physician Stutzer whom I had met last year at the Nagasakiya at Koku-cho in Edo. At that time I had firmly promised to visit him in Nagasaki. So when he saw me he put on a smile and took me to the stables where we would be alone. On the way he talked about something but I could not understand. I only understood the word: 'tikenen, tikenen' (tekening) which meant the map of Marunouchi Mitsuke that he wanted. After that he said: 'Mineeru komu kaamoru, mineeru komu kaamoru,' the meaning of which I grasped. 'Mineeru' (Meneer) meant 'you', 'kaamoru' (kamer) meant 'room'. 'Komu, komu' (kom) meant 'come, come'. I therefore followed him and we went upstairs with our shoes on. The floor was covered with dirty tatamis on which we all stood without sitting down. We sat on chairs and he placed a cup filled with sake on what seemed to me a Chinese tray decorated with candlesticks and other things all made of glass and silver. A red and white parrot-like bird about the size of a pigeon was flying around freely. It loved to sit on people's hands, picking at their faces and pushing its head into people's mouths. This bird belonged to a species of parakeet. After a while it disappeared. Once again, he offered me sake, which was like doburoku [unfiltered sake] and tasted like vinegar. I said: 'Bitter, bitter.' He said: 'Kusuri, kusuri' (medicine). So saying he pointed to the small eggs inside. 'Kusuri, kusuri' was Japanese. Afterwards, we went outside and back to the room of the interpreters where I met Kosaku. At Kosaku's request we went to the Kapitan's quarters under the guidance of Tokutaro and Matsujuro. We walked up the stairs from the dirt outside. The stairways went up from three sides. Upstairs there was a corridor; Matsujuro was the first to enter the room and we all followed without taking off our shoes. A black servant came to our side. Matsujuro said: 'Draw an exact sketch of this.' The black man was not a Dutchman but from Java, a Dutch outpost in the direction of India or someone from tropical Monomotaapa [Monomotapa], southeast of the African continent. This was why his hair was black and curly like whirlpools. His features, eyes, nose were very different. He was wearing something like a kesa [Buddhist gown] over his naked body in the summer but now, as this was winter, he was given a tight-sleeved outfit from Holland, below which we was wearing something shaped like Japanese under-trousers and had on snow shoes. On his belt he was carrying a

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Japanese tobacco pouch. His head was wrapped in a red cotton Bengal bag; he had no beard. He spoke an Indian language that the Dutchmen did not understand. He was exceedingly dirty. From there we proceeded to the Kapitan's room. It was the size of twenty tatami and surrounded by ranma under which hung framed glass paintings. The chairs were lined up beneath on the floor and beside each chair was a spittoon about two shaku high made of silver; they looked like flower vases. A kind of wool rug with embroidered flowers was thrown over the tatami mats and in the middle of the ceiling a crystal chandelier hung down. The other room was something like a study separated with a lowered curtain. The windows were all made of glass. The Kapitan came out with a long pipe in his hand and greeted us. Using Matsujuro as his interpreter, he said: 'Isn't this splendid?' He bragged about his hometown. He must have said this because the Japanese leave their rooms undecorated according to the extreme simplicity of the country. After that I said: 'We can't believe our eyes.' Afterwards two blacks came standing at our side with flasks and gold-plated cups placed on a silver and gold-plated tray. They drink an alcohol called anis wijn [anis wine] from these cups. This was an alcohol made from fennel. It was so strong as to produce quite a punch. This Kapitan had already been in Edo five times and we knew each other. His name was Johannes Caspar Ronberg [Hendrik Casper Romberg]. The other [second] Kapitan, also living in a two-storeyed house, was absent. Along the path was a flower garden and a bridge spanned the pond. On top there was a cooling place [loft]. We proceeded through the entrance into the reception room and from there had a look at the billiards room. Billiards was a game like go and sugoroku. The billiardboard was a table four by seven shaku covered with woollen cloth. They played this game by hitting balls with a stick similar to a horsewhip. In the four corners there were holes for the balls to fall into and one had to try to shoot the balls down the holes. The [second] Kapitan had just arrived for the first time that year and was not very friendly. 59 After they left Dejima, Kokan's three companions who were all Nagasakians but had never seen a Dutchman because as a rule, one was not allowed access to the Dutch quarters on Dejima, were all terrified when they were watching Kokan talk to the Dutchman. When they realized that he knew the Kapitan, they put their heads together asking: 'Who is that?'60 The people of Nagasaki were used to seeing Chinese but had not seen the Dutch because even when the Dutch visit temples, they are carried in (closed) palanquins. Therefore, those who have never seen a Dutchman, to this day speak of the Dutch as a strange people. The daimyo from western Japan and the vicinity of Nagasaki would come to Dejima at least once in their lifetimes, but others could not. The weather on the 26th was somewhat rainy. Kokan went to the Goshin-ji temple in Inasa on the other side of the bay to see the Chinese and Dutch graveyards. The dead were all buried in a lying position. 'Dutchman Durrkoop's grave had a tombstone resembling a kamaboko fish-cake with some gold-plated Dutch letters and, on top of that, a sand clock carved in it. This sand clock came from the custom of adding water-clocks to graves.'61 Kokan returned to his inn and ate raw beef, which tasted to him like duck.

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This was the season before the Dutch ships left the harbour, so they would kill many cows and salt the meat. They are all red [Dutch] cows. They kill them by hitting their foreheads with a hammer or by binding their legs together, turning them aside and cutting their throats. After that, they drag them onto carts with their hind feet bound so that water emerges from their mouths. Then they skin them from the feet upwards. Then they salt all the meat. In their country people consider beef as their most precious dish and the lower classes eat bread, which is made of wheat. Located in a cold climate, the country cannot grow rice, Kokan observed. 62 About eight o'clock in the morning, on the 27th, Kokan disguised himself as the carrier of Yoshio's son Sadanosuke, a Dutch interpreter, and they boarded a small boat, used to carry cargo to the Dutch ship at the harbour. They approached the ship, which was moored about one ri in the offing at Kosaki. The hull measured about two ;"0 in height and it was very difficult to climb up the rope ladder. 'Looking down from the deck was like looking down from the roof [of a house]. This large boat is hard to describe in words.' Kokan described the ship in detail and informs his readers that the ships that come every year are never the same: A yellow lion was painted on the front. The men who worked on the ship were called matros. They came from Holland. Their dress was the same as other Dutchmen. Even in cold weather they do not wear shoes but go barefoot, probably because they had to move along the sail rigs. They do not disembark but live only on the ship. These sailors crossed over from the net onto the sail rigs with great ease and were good swimmers. The blacks did not possess these skills at all. The canons are fired once a day, or two or three times every day and when there is something to celebrate. This is similar to the Japanese custom of purifying with fireworks. The Nagasakians were wrong in thinking that the Dutch fired their cannons only as a sign for the ship to leave. 63 After eight in the morning on the 28th, Kokan boarded a roofed boat in the harbour together with a Chinese interpreter, Kiyokawa Eizaemon, and an assistant interpreter, Yoshijima Sajuro, who took about sixty Chinese on a pilgrimage to the Goshin-ji temple in Inasa. When the boat arrived on the opposite shore, we were welcomed by the people that the temple had hired to blow flutes and beat drums. They guided us to the temple, playing their musical instruments. The social standing of these musicians was very low; they were not even wearing a haori. Their rhythm was out of tune and the music sounded affected. They stopped playing when we reached the temple gate; they were truly like candy vendors. There were many lower officials. About ten Chinese were higher ranked and called Sento [Captain]. All others were lower officials who called their superiors Sento. I became acquainted with a man named So Keitei [Song Jinting] who was in his fifties and had a small beard; none of the other men had a beard. There was also a man called Xi Hu [Fei Qinhu] who was in his forties and corpulent, but his facial expression suggested a clever mind. When I showed them my peeping box and copperplate print I had made, they showed keen interest. They sat us at

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Chinese tables, four people per table, and we had lunch together. The head-priest had invited many Chinese to ask them for donations. The Chinese said: 'We regret that your temple had to suffer great damage. We were going to offer you three bags of white sugar but, since your conduct [as a Buddhist priest] is not correct, we have decided against it.' This was said to the head priest via an interpreter. The priest lowered his head in embarrassment. As is the case in all Nagasaki temples, the priests have concubines and eat meat, which was the likely reason why the Chinese said this. Since the Chinese graveyard was at this temple, the Chinese offered a certain sum of money and sugar every year. The Chinese burnt fake paper money in front of the graves. They called the trays on which they did this chupoi. When they looked through their glasses, they say kankan [100k].64 On the last day of the month, Kokan went to a glass manufacturing shop called Tamaya. It produced glass sheets, following a traditional way of manufacturing. The owner offered him sake, soup and a wooden tray filled with food. He placed the tray in front of him, saying: 'Please help yourself freely.' After he said this Kokan ate but was told that it was very impolite to eat the dishes on the tray. One had to give it back to the host saying: 'You have it!'The host then must reply: 'If that is so, I will.' Kokan discovered that according to Nagasaki courtesy this dish is meant for the host. After that, Kokan also went to the Suwa shrine and bought Nagasaki prints. 65 In the evening on 3 November, Kokan heard several cannon shots echoing against the mountains and compared the flashes with lightning. As the sound of the canons grew increasingly distant, Kosaku said: 'The Dutch ship is leaving tonight.' The ship had been waiting for an easterly wind. 66 On the 5th, Kokan visited Kosaku and rested in Kosaku's Dutch-style second-floor room. Next day, he had a look at Kosaku's all-Dutch kitchen, and was served mutton and small fowl with butter. The vegetables were fried in mutton grease and soya sauce. 67 On the 7th, Kokan sent part of his luggage to Edo. The following day he painted for the Nagasaki Edo office and had pork for dinner. On the 9th, Kokan sent off the paintings to the people who had commissioned them. There was a boy about four-years-old who called Kosaku 'uncle'. He had heard that he was a child of Kosaku and his concubine. The child spoke Dutch well and called beef 'kuubaisu' (kuhbeis) and horse 'paarudo' (paard). When Kokan gave him a Satsuma potato he said, 'rekeru, rekeru,' (lekker, lekker) and ate it. 'Reekeru' (lekker) means delicious, Kokan reports. This boy has now succeeded Kosaku. 68 On the 12th, Kokan painted his famous portrait of Kosaku, representing him as an 'Engel' (angel) blowing the flute. He wrote Kosaku's name in Roman letters. He left Kosaku's house on the 14th. At eight o'clock in the morning on the 15th, Kokan left by boat to go to Hirado. The wind was strong and the waves high. It snowed and rained. The boat was small and Kokan had to sit on a straw mat and was not supposed to get up. 'I borrowed a dirty coverlet from the boatman and pulled it over me and slept but the snow was blowing over my nose and into my mat, piling up under-

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neath. The only good thing about such hardships is that they become the subject of talk (later on).'69 On the 25th, Kokan was in Hirado and climbed Mt Shiratake to enjoy the view over the coastal islands. In the evening he visited the local pleasure quarters, half a ri from the foot of the castle. There were twenty pleasure girls and sixty to seventy cheap prostitutes costing seventeen monme, not including extras. Kokan's two companions took him to a house called Azukishimaya: We first went upstairs and saw that, with the many things that stood there, it looked more like a storage than a reception room. But there was only one such establishment there. My companions recommended that I summon pleasure girls [which I did]. They came wearing crepe robes with a design and red lining. Their obi were made with a fabric that looked like damask. As I explored a bit underneath by rolling up their skirts, I found out that they wore this on top of an awase-kosode. Their hair was done in Osaka style, which seemed strange. The owner's wife, twenty-one or twenty-two years old, had white skin but huge black moles. The moles were called aza in this province. She played the shamisen for us, first the Edo tune Itako Sawagi, here called Yonyana-bushi. 'I am a traveller passing nearby and fell in love with a girl and adopted her.' 'The wisteria hanging down the pine, it's a splendid thing. If that flower were a girl you could not turn your eyes from her, yonyana, yonyana.' This wife wore a padded cotton dress with a feed apron dyed with a pattern of flax leaves; her obi, too, was cotton. My two companions found this strange and must have been thinking: 'It must have been this way two hundred years ago.' One ken from there was the bedroom. The bedding was made of cotton; it looked new and comfortable. My love girl was born in the area of Nagasaki. Her name was Kuninoe. She said: 'It is wonderful to have met someone from Edo.' How lucky to be a pleasure girl And to find such a good man In such a short time The names of the two pleasure girls of my companions were Matsukaze and Futaba, uninteresting names, indeed. 7o On 4 December, Kokan crossed over to the Itsuki islands. After walking a while, he saw a house built against a rock, which was the house of the wet nurse of the local chief, Ekitomi Matanosuke. They dropped in when the old woman was about to eat her meal: We talked about many things but hearing something funny, she spouted all the rice she had in her mouth all over the tray. Matanosuke asked her: 'Why did you do that?' She replied: 'The dialect the person from Edo speaks is so funny.7! When Kokan woke up in the morning of the 16th they brought the news that the whales were coming: I swore I would not board a whaling boat, but they kept on insisting, 'Never mind!' I poured water on my rice and ate a bowlful and boarded the boat.' With only a bowl of rice since morning, Kokan felt weak and

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seasick, but the boat moved swiftly as if, with its eight-cho stern and driven by the shouts of ariya, ariya, ariya it were flying on the surface of the water. Kokan felt worse and lay down inside the curled hawser attached to the bow. After a while Kokan lifted his head and saw whales spouting from between the waves 'as if they were dancing before diving to the bottom of the sea again'. Seven or eight boats surrounded it. The ship owner Matanosuke said: 'We caught a whale, we caught a whale.' Kokan vomited and felt better and watched a boat pulling up near the whale's back as if it wanted to ride on its back, drawing on a rope attached to a harpoon. We were a mere two or three ken away from the whale. Seventeen harpoons stuck in its body hence the seventeen boats that were pulling it. The whale gradually lost its strength. It was no longer spouting, only breathing. Then they stabbed the whale with swords several times from three boats lined up on each side. When the whale grew much weaker, the head fisher climbed up to the spouting nostril with a sword and rope, cut a hole in the nostril and slid the rope through the hole. In the meantime the whale continued to dive only to appear again. Another fisherman jumped into the water and swam around the whale's belly and attached it. Needless to say this job was very dangerous. Then they pulled the whale using two boats attached to each other with a pole. The whale was not yet dead and kept on flipping its fins, propelling itself forwards as if keeping pace with the boat. They finally reached the shore. This [kind of fishing] was called mosso. In case the whale dies in the open sea and sinks, this is called shimori. When this happens, it is difficult to bring it ashore alive. 'We have caught this whale to show it to you, Sensei,' they said. 72 At four the next morning, Kokan heard dozens of people carrying torches to light up the work of slicing up the whale. They climbed up the whale's back, and cut it into pieces using a long sword. First they cut off both jaws and then the top of the head. Then they cut off the tail and the back and sliced off both side fins. They loaded each piece onto a cart, then they cut the belly open to the skeleton and carried the pieces to the storehouse. There were three storehouses: one for the flesh, one for the bones and one for the intestines. There was, in addition, a carpenter's hut, a smithy, a barrel-maker and a shipbuilder. In the storehouse dozens of men cut the whale's flesh and bones into smaller portions and placed them into big cauldrons and boiled them for oil. There were seventeen cauldrons with pipes in front to conduct the oil into an earthen storehouse. A whale of ten ken or more produces two hundred barrels of oil that yields four hundred ryo of money, Kokan was told. None of the whale carcass is wasted. The bones are ground and put into sugar, they said. The intestines are used for Chinese-style bows and musical strings. The gills inside the mouth - they called them filet of the whale - are used for various products. The only thing they discard are the ear bones, which are between six or seven sun and look like mantis crabs. 'I picked up a few to take them home.>73 From Itsuki islands, Kokan returned back towards Edo. On his way back to Edo, he visited the Akama barrier, and on 20 January, was waiting for his boat to sail. It was cold and hail was falling. There was no wind and the boat could not leave. It was snowing and cold:

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At about four in the afternoon, I went aboard again and, when I was about to fall asleep under the dirty futon I had borrowed, I heard a woman's voice. I asked the captain: 'Who is that?' 'A boat prostitute,' he said. To summon one on the boat cost two hundred man, he said. I recalled the line: 'She may be from the same hometown as 1.' Both Chinese and Japanese share such feelings. I said that this was highly unusual, and slept a while. When I woke up, dawn had already arrived. 74 On 4 February, at ten o'clock, the lord (Kinoshita of Bichu) went hunting and Kokan went along. They bagged one deer but three got away. They entered deeper into the mountains. A deer appeared at the edge of a pond but disappeared back into the mountain to the back. At that moment the muskets fired like rain. The deer was hit and hid in a thicket. 'I ran and tore off the deer's ear and sucked the blood, shocking everyone. I did this because they say that fresh blood of deer is an elixir.' On the way back, as they passed through the fields, the head of the group spoke about Kokan, saying: 'That's Kokan from Edo. He cut off an ear from a deer and sucked its blood. He is a dreadful man.'7S In Osaka on his way home he painted the harbour for Kimura Kenkado. He used Western paper with pen and ink, material Kokan may have obtained in Nagasaki. On 11 March, Kokan was back at Kyoto where he went sightseeing at the Kitano shrine and, the next day, the Gion shrine. On the 11 th, in the evening, Fushimi Rokuuemon came and they had carp, roach, eels and sake at Sanjo with a girl playing the shamisen. From there they went to a place called Shinchi. He again summoned his favourite pleasure girl and went to Shimabara with her and the wife of the tea-house owner: We entered an establishment called Sumitoku through the front entrance. There was a reception room in shain style illuminated with dozens of candles; it was like daylight. The owner, a woman, accompanied by eight or nine people, four girls and a blind girl came in. We then hired a tayu. Thirty people including the tayu called Tamanoi were serving us. We returned at about two in the morning. 76 On the 26th, Kokan left Kyoto on the Tokaido road, to Otsu, Kusatsu and stayed at Ishibe (Shiga prefecture): I left Ishibe past six in the morning and reached Minakuchi. The Dutch had stayed here last night on their way back from Edo and were about to leave. I met Yoshio Kosaku who told me that the luggage I had sent from Nagasaki had arrived well in Edo, and I was relieved. I met the Dutchman Caspar Ronberg. 'Gesonde Rijset!' he said as we parted. This was Ronberg's fifth journey to Edo and, as he said, his last during his present stay in Japan. I later heard that he became [Governor] General of India and Bengal. 77 From there, Kokan travelled via Nagoya and the Kiso road and Lake Suwa to Edo. He arrived home on 13 April at 2p.m. One of his last remarks in the diary was a sarcastic reference to his servant Benki who, in Kokan's eyes, was 'like a fly on the buttocks of a famous horse'. 78

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Kokan had stayed in Nagasaki for a little more than one month. He had hoped to find an expert in Western painting and he visited Araki Gen'yu (1728-94), the government's Foreign Art Inspector, but Kokan was ummpressed. ' ... [he] is not a good artist,' he wrote in his diary.79 D We learned how much Kokan was a fierce individualist, an eccentric of sorts, who wrote his diary as if he were the centre of the world. We also learn about his activities and priorities along the way. Kokan was a painter but also an acute observer. His report on whale hunting at Itsuki islands parallels that of his sketches. One cannot say his diary is centred upon his sketches, since he did not sketch all the events and landscapes he described, but they are important additions to the text. We also get to appreciate Kokan as a human being unrestrained by etiquette and public morality. He was a kind of bon-vivant, unashamed to pursue his own interests. Kokan was also a good teacher intent on imparting a new way of seeing things to his contemporaries, hence his demonstrations with his camera obscura and his explanations of his world map. Like Furukawa Koshoken, Kokan displayed no particular interest or preference in religion. But his critical mind did not raise the kind of anger at ignorance as was the case with Furukawa Koshoken. Ignorance engendered in him irony and sarcasm. He was a down-to-earth man who cultivated his art and himself. He had an artist's esteem for himself. As a free painter who adhered to no particular school, he knew full well how much his art depended on himself and his own inspiration and creativity. Thus, there was a certain selfcentredness and wit in his observations and the way he wrote about his experiences. Kokan's travelogue is a testimony to the rise of individualism among traders in eighteenth and nineteenth-century travel writing. IfHikokuro and Bakin were eccentric, then Kokan, too, would have to be considered under this category. NOTES

1. Shunparo Hikki, Shiba Kokan Zenshu, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yasaka Shobo, 1993) p. 50. 2. pp.61-2. 3. pp.53-4. 4. p.70. 5. p.70. 6. p.99. 7. p.41. 8. p.58. 9. Vol. 3, p. 4. 10. Vol. 2, p. 95. 11. Shumapro Hikki (1811) in Nihon Zuihitsu Taikei, vol. 1, p. 412. See also Calvin French, Shiba Kokan - Artist, Innovator, and Pioneer in the westernization of Japan (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1979) p. 3. 12. Seiyo Gadan, Shiba Kokan Zenshu, vol. 3, p. 410. See also Calvin French in Appendix III, p. 171.

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13. pp.140-1. 14. p. 172. 15. For more details on this, see Calvin French, pp. 42-3 and p. 173. 16. Sankin Kotai, usually translated as 'alternate attendance' forced all daimyo to reside alternatively in Edo and in their home territories and, in the latter case, to leave their wives and children in Edo as hostages. 17. Kokan Seiyu Nikki, annot. by Haga Toru, et.al., Toyo Bunko, 461 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1986) p. 81 18. p.26. 19. p.4 20. p. 15. 21. pp. 18-19. Sesshu (1420-1506), Zen monk and painter of Chinese and Japanese landscapes. 22. pp. 19-22. 23. p.22. 24. p.25. 25. p.26. 26. p.27. 27. p.27. 28. p.34. 29. p.35. 30. p.35. 31. p.35. 32. pp. 35-6. 33. pp. 45-50. 34. p.47. 35. p.48. 36. pp. 52-3. 37. pp. 53-4. 38. p.57. 39. pp. 58-9. 40. p. 59. 41. pp. 60-1. 42. p.68. 43. p. 69. Tayu is the highest rank among the female entertainers. 44. p.70. 45. p.71. 46. p.71. 47. pp.72-3. 48. p.73. 49. pp. 90-3. 50. p.95. 51. pp.95-6. 52. p.96. 53. pp.104-105. 54. p. 107. Wei's full name was Wei Yuanyan, a Ming-dynasty official. 55. p. 108. 56. pp.108-109. 57. p. 109. 58. p. 106. 59. pp. 109-16. Go: a Japanese strategy game played with white and black stones on a board. Suguroku: a board game in which pieces are advanced by throwing dice. 60. p. 116. 61. p. 117.

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62. p. 117. 63. p. 118. 64. pp.118-19. 65. pp. 119-20. 66. p. 121. 67. p. 122. 68. p. 123. The boy is the later interpreter Yoshio Gonnosuke. 69. p. 125. 70. p. 132. Awase-kosode: kosode fitting the rest of the dress. 71. p. 137. 72. pp.151-2. 73. pp. 152-3. 74. p.180 75. pp. 183-4. 76. p. 196. Shoin: large reception room covered with tatami mats. It comes with splitlevel shelves and a tokonoma recess. 77. pp.204-205. 78. p.208. 79. p.l07.

CHAPTER

10

MATSURA SEIZAN ( 1760- 1841 )

MATSURA SEIZAN succeeded his father, Masanobu, as the thirty-fourth daimyo of the Hirado clan in northern Kyushu. Interested in scholarship, he established a school at Hirado and planned on compiling a history of his domain. Encouraged by his friend Hayashi Jussai (1768-1841), a Confucianist of the shogunal government, he wrote one hundred and seventy-eight volumes of essays entitled Kasshi Yawa, which he started on 17 November 1821, the night of the kasshi day according to the zodiacal calendar. This monumental work contains episodes about the shoguns, daimyo, antiques, Chinese classics, the arts, customs, religion, strange stories and foreign relations. Of particular historical interest are his observations about the Oshio Heihachiro uprising as a result ofthe Osaka famine (began 19 February 1837). KasshiYawa is the result of Seizan's wide interests, which are truly in the line of the encyclopaedic hakubutsugaku and is a valuable document to gauge the rise of individualism in Japan. During his relatively long life, Seizan accumulated a formidable collection of curiosities and books. Called a ranpeki (Holland-crazy) daimyo like Shimazu Shigehide 1745-1833) of Satsuma and Kutsuki Masatsuna (1750-1802) of Fukuchiyama, he corresponded with Isaac Titsingh, the chief of the Dutch outpost in Nagasaki. Seizan, too, ordered Dutch books through the Dutch and had some of them translated at his expense. He is noted for having lent out his books to interested scholars. Among his Dutch book collection we find world maps, maps of the Dutch itinerary from Holland to Japan, a book of foreign flags, a Chinese Bible, books on art and almanacs. Comparing the waka-based travelogue entitled Enpa Kika (1676) of his grandfather's sankin katai journey to Edo, Seizan's Kansei Kika of 1800 is a testimony to how much had changed in the ways they perceived reality between the two generations. The sankin katai system of alternate attendance was instituted early on in the Edo period. This created a kind of semi-centralized feudal system intended to avoid the weaknesses that had plagued previous shogunal governments, namely by ensuring that the daimyo and shoguns maintain personal relations in each

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generation. Upon the terms of this system, all daimyo had to build residences in Edo and be in attendance each year or every other year depending on the fief's distance from Edo. Furukawa Koshoken informs us that the daimyo of Matsumae (Ezo) spent only one hundred days every five years in Edo.! In 1635 the government determined the period the outer daimyo (tozama) had to serve in Edo and in 1642 it issued a similar ordinance for the related (judaz) daimyo. Residing in Edo for six months every year was not uncommon. Seizan's grandfather the author of the above-mentioned Enpo Kiko left Edo on 18 March, reached Hirado on 12 April and left Hirado again on 18 October to arrive in Edo on 23 November. During the periods that the daimyo were in residence in their home territories, the law determined that their wives and children had to stay on in Edo. The sankin kotai system burdened the daimyo's finances and reduced many - Watanabe Kazan's Tahara domain is a case in point - to poverty. In October, 1721, in order to alleviate the financial burden, the government decided that a daimyo with an income of two hundred thousand koku of rice should not exceed a retinue of fifteen to twenty mounted warriors, one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty foot warriors (ashigaru) and two hundred and fifty to three hundred personal attendants. The daimyo of Kaga (presentday Ishikawa prefecture, income: one million) sometimes travelled with a following of as many as two thousand five hundred, e.g. Satsuma in 1635 had one thousand two hundred and, Higo in 1654 had two thousand seven hundred. These were later reduced to five or six hundred. As one might imagine, the costs of moving to and from Edo were staggering. In 1831 the Kii branch of the Tokugawa clan paid twenty-one thousand ryo for their Edo residence, one of the largest, and thirteen thousand ryo for the sankin kotai. Their residence in Edo in 1768 cost the daimyo of Matsue 34,953 ryo and his journey to and from Edo, 5,470 ryo. On average, the journeys cost the land-holding daimyo three to five thousand ryo and one thousand ryo for middle and low-income daimyo. One would think that travel would become faster as we approach the end of the Edo period. But this was not the case. It took the Hirado daimyo between twenty-five and thirty-six days in the seventeenth century, but by Seizan's time it took forty-six days. The reason for this was that the daimyo were encouraged to take the road rather than the boats through the Inland Sea. Seizan complained in his diary about the extra days and expenses his journey required. Also, it took longer if a daimyo was allowed to spend a day or two in Kyoto. Normally the daimyo had to proceed from Osaka to Fushimi on a river boat and then directly to Otsu along the Yamashina road, avoiding Kyoto. As we shall see in Seizan's journal, the sankin kotai allowed the daimyo a degree of free intercourse with locals. Seizan met scholars and merchants, conversed with his innkeepers and even with local children. This was also an important occasion for the daimyo to make friends among their collegues on their way, if they happened to be in residence.

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KANSEI KIKO (ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY OF THE KANSEI PERIOD)

After being sick for three years, Seizan finally felt better and, in October, 1800 left his domain for Edo to fulfil his sankin kotai duties. In order to write his travelogue, he took along a bundle of paper. Writing a diary on an official journey was for him, as it was for many daimyos, an occasion to express his gratitude to the shogun and his administration for the peace in the land. Seizan wrote at the start of his diary: 'I had wanted to serve the shogun for forty years now.' For him the sankin kotai was an honour. Surely, if it were a burden, he would not have dared confessing to it in his diary. People he knew from his childhood and with whom he grew up accompanied Seizan on his journey. He also remembered the wisdom his teachers had imparted to him: 'The worst one can do is to forget what one owes one's people, however good your intentions may be.'2 On the 14th, he left Sasa and reached Sasebo at noon and rested in the house of a shoya. The fishing tanya of the village Hayaki showed him the hand of a kappa (a legendary, aquatic creature, half human, half fish). 'It was not the whole hand, but only the bones of the tip without skin. It resembled a monkey paw. There were four long fingers and three muscles. The claws resembled those of a dog.' 'How did you catch it?', Seizan asked. 'We have had it since the time of my grandfather and I do not know how he got it' replied the shoya. 3 On the 15th, Seizan pondered political problems. He was unwilling 'to burden the people by overspending'. 'Politics that do not consider the people's well-being are not acceptable.' What led him into such a political monologue was what he saw along the road as he entered into the Saga domain. Seizan observed that the road was in poor condition despite the dry weather. 'The mud is so deep, your feet sink in.' 'They hastily patched up the road just for me', applying a new layer of earth which turned into mud. For him, these road repairs were a wasted effort. 'The rain washed away the pebbles and the earth, which made the going difficult.' Seizan felt bad at having caused the local people so much hardship. On the 16th, inside his litter, Seizan was reading the story of how, through heaven's grace and the support of the people, a good Chinese emperor overthrew a bad one. 4 On the 18th he left his inn in the morning when the sky was still dark and when dawn broke, he descended from his litter to admire the multicoloured autumn foliage. Back from his brief excursion, he mounted his litter again. On the 19th he inspected a place where they were breeding falcons and met ten monkey performers. He asked them why they had their monkeys dance and was told that this was a prayer against epidemics. Humanist that he was, Seizan pitied the monkeys.5 On the 20th he passed the night at Kokura where Seizan composed poems in Chinese. The next day Seizan crossed the strait between Moji and Akamagaseki (Akama Barrier). On the way, he inquired about local fishing and in the evening composed more Chinese poems. The next day he heard the news that a Chinese merchant and his Japanese mistress had committed a double suicide in Nagasaki. His innkeeper that evening showed Seizan, very interested in strange stones, a rock called Manju. Seizan ended up having a sizable stone collection, himself. The weather was growing colder and he was freezing in his litter and felt hungry. But he

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knew he had to restrain himself because of the virtues people required at that time of their leaders. The house where he stayed the night before was in dire need of repair, Seizan wrote. The sliding doors no longer fitted and the sea breeze was blowing in and, worse perhaps, the frost was falling down upon him from the ceiling. He found little sleep that night. 'Quite uncomfortable myself, how much more must my followers be suffering not least out of concern for me.' He told them: 'Keep yourselves warm and do not worry about me!' At Toyama he stayed in the house of a merchant. 6 On the 27th, Seizan took to the road before dawn and reached Kusatsu at sunrise. He heard the beat of a drum and asked what it meant. 'It means that the fishermen at Miyajima have caught herring and it is the custom to beat the drum to call in the fish merchants on their boats.' The next day, he found the local brackens tasted much better than at home or in Edo. 7 On the 29th at Imazu he stayed at a shoya's house located on a hill. Because of the crowd of people who stood in front to greet him, he asked how many people were living in this house. The master Hohei is over forty and his wife is also over forty. The master's mistress is about thirty and from Kyoto. His adopted son Zaita is twentythree and his wife, Hohei's daughter, is twenty-two. Her younger sister is eleven and her younger brother Yasokichi is eight. His younger sister, the mistress's daughter, is two. The local tax collector Kanzo is over thirty and I do not know exactly how old his wife is. His son Shojiro is ten. Then there are three female and three male servants, twenty persons in all. 8 'Congratulations on your prosperous family!' responded Seizan. That day Seizan stayed in an inn at Nanokaichi in Bitchu province. He was bored and asked if there was anything here that could cheer him up. He saw two or three boys engaging each other in sumo wrestling matches. Seizan called them into the garden of his inn. 'They were poor but looked clever.' Seizan said to them: 'Show me how well you can wrestle! 'While watching them, the sky grew darker and Seizan stopped them out of fear that they might slide and bump into one of the rocks. He asked them to tell him stories. He heard that there was a Gion festival. Seizan asked what kind of displays there were. The boys mentioned a oyumi and a koyumi. Not knowing what that was, Seizan asked them to clarify. The boys told him there were many big bows and small bows. Seizan was ashamed he did not understand oyumi and koyumi. He asked them how these bows were decorated. The boys said like tiger tails. Seizan again failed to grasp what that meant. They told him that they wrapped arrows in paper with a tiger skin design. 'Other than the arrows, what is there?' 'Armoured men come.' 'What kind of armor do they wear?' 'Something broad lies on their shoulders, left and right, and over their upper bodies in front and back and over their waists.' 'Anything else?' 'They are wearing a horo over their heads.' 'They are like lampions carried upside down.' Seizan realized that these children did not know the correct word for armour and described them in simple words such as yoroi (armour) and horo lampion. Seizan recorded these children's names in his diary. 9 On the 4th of the following month, Seizan reached Aritoshi in Harima

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province. Since this was near the Ako domain, he asked his innkeeper, after dark, what they knew locally about the forty-seven ronin. The innkeeper was seemingly hesitant to talk about it to a daimyo and pretended ignorance. But he did bring out a book with the drawings and letters of some of the ronin, including one by their leader Oishi Yoshio (Kuranosuke). Seizan remarked: 'Someone maintains that Oishi acted as he did solely to seek personal fame. Is this true?' The innkeeper replied: 'If he were driven by personal fame alone, the revenge would not have worked out so well. He did it out of loyalty and not to become famous posthumously.'lD On the 8th, Seizan reached Osaka where he met with Kien, Seizan's teacher. The following day Seizan went to Kyoto and met with Koishi Genshun, a doctor and scholar at the Hirado clan headquarters. lIOn the 10th he was back in Osaka and took the river boat up to Fushimi, the usual route for a sankin kotai daimyo, many of whom were not allowed to visit the imperial Kyoto. A strong wind was blowing: 'The river waves were no different from ocean waves.' That day Genshun examined Seizan's health. Seizan showed him an inks tone made of wood he had inherited from his father. Genshun wanted to have it. The doctor gave Seizan a tea bowl made by Raku Kichizaemon in return. 12 On the 12th, Seizan rested at the temple Shin'on-ji. (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi had built it as a castle, of which only the walls remained. But many of the castle wall rocks had been stolen. Seizan concluded: 'They all want money.' At Otsu, Seizan inquired about Hashirii, a famous place, but there was no one to ask. 'The only thing that consoled me was the pretty girl of the tea-house.' He arrived at Kusatsu early in the morning. He rested a while in a shop selling mochi. The shopkeeper was a man of taste and Seizan recorded the keeper's family history. That day he went to a large pharmacy and asked questions about medicine. He heard that the shop's average yearly income amounted to seven to eight hundred and sometimes even to one thousand ryo. Seizan had been sick for three years and had a keen interest in medicine. 13 At Fuwa barrier, a famous place in poetry, Seizan composed the following: Replacing the thatch, The moon shines in Through the rotted-away eaves As if it were indeed The barrier guard of Fuwa. 14 Then he mentioned the famous battles that took place here; the Jinshin war of 672 and the battle of Sekigahara of September 1600, fought between two contenders to the throne, Prince Otomo and the later Emperor Tenmu and between Ishida Mitsunari of the western army and Tokugawa Ieyasu of the eastern army. Seizan realized that this was indeed a place where the history of his country was determined. He was told that during the Sekigahara battle they threw the bodies of the dead into the Fujikawa river which turned red. On the 18th, while crossing over the Yahagi bridge (Yahagi, Aichi prefecture), Seizan asked about the amount of water the river carried. He heard that in the summer the peasants drew water to their rice fields and that there was more water in the winter. While proceeding along the coast the next day, Seizan

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noticed the many small huts lined up at the beach. He thought at first that these were toilettes but he was wrong. These were huts where menstruating women had to cook for themselves for eight or ten days each month. He was told that menstruating women may not cook at home because they may not kindle the kitchen fire. For all other activities, however, they were allowed to work at home. IS At Abekawa (Shizuoka prefecture) he went to see the brothels and left us detailed accounts of the pleasure girls, their dress, hair-styles, their fees. He even recorded their names. He saw Mt Fuji that day. At sunset the mountain seemed to him 'like the Buddha's halo'. The next day Mt Fuji again caught his attention. Girls along the road were selling so-called White Mt Fuji Sake, which they advertised in their peculiar voices. 16 At Honkaku-ji temple, Seizan inquired about the thefts and heard that they blank shot their muskets twice every night to scare off robbers. He reached Odawara on the 15th and inquired about local fishing. 'There are four or five fishermen per boat and as many as two, three or even four hundred fishermen go out to sea in one day and, in the autumn, about fourteen or fifteen.,I? On the 26th, Seizan was busy preparing for his formal entry into Edo and had his hair arranged. He passed the last night of his journey at Shinagawa. He was happy to have reached Edo in good health and attributed this good luck to providence. Upon entering, he noted: 'Loyalty will guide me to the Western Paradise.' 18

D Reading his diary, we acquaint ourselves with a daimyo of very wide interests but also one with a great sense of humanity. Seizan had an encyclopaedic interest in everything. We also get to know him as an individual. One wonders whether he was unique or if there were other daimyo like Seizan. Shimazu Nariakira (1809-58) is also known as an open-minded daimyo though of a later generation.

NOTES

1. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 3, Toyu Zakki, p. 538. 2. Kasshi Yawa Zokuhen, vol. 7, Toyo Buncho, 396, ed. by Nakamuro Yukihiko and Nakamo Mitsutashi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1981), p. 70. 3. pp.70-1. 4. p.71. 5. p.73. 6. p.74. 7. pp.78-9. 8. p.80. 9. pp.80-1. 10. p.83. 11. p.86.

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12. p. 88. Raku Kichizaemon was the 5th descendant of Chojiro, the founder of the celebrated Raku kiln in Kyoto. 13. pp. 89-90. 14. p.93. 15. pp.96-7. 16. p. 101. 17. pp.l02-103. 18. p. 106.

CHAPTER

11

TAKIZAWA (KYOKUTEI) BAKIN (1767-1848)

TAKIZAWA BAKIN was born on 4 July 1767 in Edo, the son of a samurai. His father served at lord Matsudaira Nobunari's (1764-1800) Edo residence at a low income and constantly struggled to make ends meet. When his father died on 25 April 1775, Bakin was only seven years old. The family stipend was cut in half, far too meager for his mother to take care of her five children. After Bakin's elder brother Rabun (1759-98) quit serving his lord and became a ronin, Nobunari appointed Bakin to head the family with a stipend of two-anda-half ryo and an income of rice enough to feed two. But this stipend, too, was too little to feed, much less to clothe, his entire family, his mother and three sisters. Later, Nobunari again employed Rabun, but on 11 November 1780, it was Bakin's turn to savour the freedom and poverty of a ronin existence. Rabun's appointment did not last either and he died in 1798, shortly after he had got a job serving Akihiro (d. 1834) the lord Matsumae on Ezo as a clan physician (he had studied medicine as a ronin). They kept offering Bakin samurai positions but he kept none for long. He tried his luck studying medicine for a while, but quit before acquiring enough knowledge or experience to practise. Later, like Sugae Masumi, he and his son Sohaku (born 13 February 1798) marketed medicines. From the above, one gets the impression that Bakin was unstable. We must not forget, however, that he lived in changing times, especially difficult for the low-ranked, non-farming samurai. Crop failures and excess harvests strained the rice-based economy and inflation created particularly harsh living conditions for the samurai. The sumptuary policies of Matsudaira Sadanobu and later Mizuno Tadakuni (1794-1851), both head officials in the shogunal government, affected Bakin to varying degrees, but offered no permanent solution to Japan's economic ills. It was writing perhaps more than anything else, which gave Bakin's character and career some stability and a degree of economic prosperity. As the son of a samurai, Bakin was given a solid education in the Confucian

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classics, called the Four Books and Five Classics. As a young man, Bakin may have been drawn to an eclectic, unorthodox Confucianism such as the one his teacher Kameda Bosai (1752-1826) had advocated, but Sadanobu banned Bosai's work as heretical. Later on in his life, Bakin turned more orthodox. Generally, however, Confucianism formed Bakin's character, the characters of his novels and stories, his conservative political views and, perhaps most importantly, his constant efforts to restore his family. Driven by such Confucian values as loyalty, filial piety and self-sacrifice for a worthy cause, the characters in his perhaps most representative novel entitled Satomi Hakken Den (Eight Dogs) which he wrote between the years 1814 and 1842, represent his own Confucian-inspired efforts to restore his family. Bakin started his literary career as a haikai poet and in 1887 compiled a haikai collection entitled Haikai Kobunko. Bakin's literary career, however, took a turn when, one day in 1790, he paid Santo Kyoden (1761-1816) a visit, showing him a story based on comic pantomimes called Mibu K[yogen that he had written. Kyoden was a writer of humorous sharebon, parodies of society, but also ran a tobacco shop. Kyoden helped Bakin publish his story. But after this publication in 1791, the Kansei reform (1787-93) - banishing the works of Kyoden, Shikitei Sanba (1776-1822) and Jippensha Ikku made it impossible for Bakin to continue writing sharebon. Turning to more 'serious' writing, Bakin became Kyoden's ghost-writer and for a while lived with Kyoden. From 1792 on, however, Bakin signed his own stories. In 1792, Bakin married a widow three years his senior. Her first husband had run a shoe (geta) shop. She had money and property. This was for both a convenient rather than a love marriage and despite sporadic fits of hysteria and insults from his wife, the marriage lasted and was blessed with four children. Bakin installed himself in his wife's house at Edo's Iidamachi, taking care as best he could of her geta business but continued to write. He maintained the geta shop until 1795, the year he decided to give it up and to supplement his income from his writing with the money he made from teaching calligraphy. He offered calligraphy classes to neighbourhood children, including his own, until 1806. From that year on, Bakin and Kyoden became two of Japan's first professional writers. What made this possible economically, were the vast amounts of money such publishers as Tsutaya - Bakin lived with him a while - Tsuruya and Hachimonjiya were making from the growing reading population. In 1795, two years into Bakin's marriage, Kyoden asked him to write a sequel. In 1797, Bakin produced Muhitsu Setsuyo Nitaji-zukushi, a humorous kibyoshi book, which brought him fame not only in Edo but also in Osaka and Kyoto. In 1795, Bakin wrote eleven stories and from then until 1802 averaged ten a year. He commissioned in 1805 to produce a Japanese translation of Suiko Den (Ch. Shui-hu hou-chuan, water Margin) of which he copied the contents in Nagoya during his journey to Osaka. From 1808 on he wrote long stories called yomihon, a kind of historical novel a la Sir Walter Scott ending in the victory of good over evil (kanzen choaku). Inspired by water Margin, he started writing his Satomi Hakken Den, a work, which took him almost thirty years to complete. This monumental work treats events of the years 1441-84 when

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Japan was engulfed in civil war. Eight dogs all representing Confucian virtues help the hero Satomi to restore his family. Bakin wrote the final episodes of his Eight Dogs as a blind man. The Eight Dogs testifies to Bakin's rich imagination, his Chinese and Japanese learning and his literary talent. Bakin associated with a number of writers and painters: Watanabe Kazan, Tani Buncho, Suzuki Bokushi (1779-1842) and Sugita Genpaku. Bakin, however, did not have many lasting friends. The samurai Bakin and Kyoden, the merchant, eventually estranged. Whereas Bakin increasingly tended towards writing as a moral tool, Kyoden viewed literature as an entertainment. As he grew older, Bakin isolated himself more and more, but he maintained a close friendship with Watanabe Kazan who had illustrated a number of Bakin's publications, and painted a portrait of his son, Kinrei, before he died on 8 May 1835 at the age of thirty-eight. Kazan committed suicide over criticism he had expressed over the way the shogunal government handled the Morrison Affair. Bakin regretted Kazan's untimely death. According to Bakin's interpretation, Kazan sacrificed himself in order not to become an embarrassment to his lord. Politically, Bakin was a conservative, believing in the ultimate viability of the feudal system and its Confucian values. But, as one can observe among many Confucian writers at that time, his passion for family restoration could also be interpreted as an invitation to restore the emperor. Bakin died a lonely death on 1 December 1848 and his death went unnoticed. He had been suffering from chest pains and had difficulty breathing for a while. Before he died he composed the following death poem: Having done all I could In this world, I give back What remains of me: A puppet soiled by mud and rain. During his life, Bakin did not travel much, certainly not as much as Furukawa Koshoken or Sugae Masumi, not even as much as his friend Watanabe Kazan. His major journey took him to Osaka in 1802. The resulting travelogue Kiryo Manroku came early in his literary career. In 1802 Bakin was still writing gesaku and much of this travelogue seems to have been inspired by Ejima Kiseki's hyoban ki (gossip and reputation of actors and pleasure girls). This journey also provided Bakin with the chance to display his skills as a poet of kyoshi, haikai and kyoku poetry and, among other purposes he may have had, to test his literary talent and style. He carried a letter of introduction by Ota Nanpo (also, Shokusanjin, 1749-1823), a poet of kyoka and kyoshi and the author of sharebon. Kyoden saw him off. He first travelled with a servant but on 11 July he sent him back from Nagoya. He preferred to travel alone. KfRYO MANROKU (COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF MY JOURNEY)

Bakin left Edo on 9 May 1802. His destination was the Kyoto-Osaka area. When he reached the foot of Mt Fuji, the mountain was shrouded in the mist of the May rains. He composed this kyoku:

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No Fuji, No verse, Only the May rains. 1 He did see the still, snow-covered peak of Fuji later on in Shizuoka and again at the temple Ryuge-ji in Ono. At Utsunoyama (Mt Utsu) people were selling ten sweet dumplings called todango strung together with a hemp string and he heard about its origins from a local seller: Below the pass there is a Jizo Bodhisattva. This bodhisattva revealed in a person's dream that if children eat these dumplings they will be free from all illness. 2 Between Okabe and Shimada the road was crowded with travelling daimyo and their retinue. Bakin found Shimada a prosperous place and felt at home. He stayed with Genroku, a local merchant who ordered food from an inn, which lodged a daimyo. At Kakegawa Bakin visited an acquaintance called Daisuke of the Matsukaze-tei, an entertainment outfit, which Bakin called 'the best place in all ofTotomi province'. Daisuke collected books and his collection amounted to hundreds. 'He also liked to entertain.' The books were by waka and kanshi poets and Confucian scholars. He possessed fans on which dozens of famous poets had written their verses. Daisuke's son travelled to Edo, Osaka and Ise to buy books, staying as long as half a year in a single place. It took Daisuke three years to develop his collection. ' He was not the kind of man one is likely to find in the countryside,' Bakin observed. 3 Crossing the so-called Forty-eight Rapids (Shijuhasse) of the river Kakegawa, Bakin counted twenty-seven, but was told that, after several days of rain, they could increase to as many as fifty. There was no bridge and Bakin had to wade across all of these rapids. There was little food along the road and the inns at Inui were in dire need of repair but at the bottom of the mountain there were several very pretty inns. 'I could not believe my eyes to find such pretty inns in these mountains.,4 'They had installed the deity Shoki at each gate,' Bakin observed while travelling through Totomi province. Shoki was a deity who protected the people from epidemics. For him, the local dialect differed enough from the language of Edo to deserve attention. 'They say yukazu instead of yuku beki (you must go) and kuwazu instead of kuruau beki (you must eat).'5 In Yoshida (present-day Toyohashi), Bakin saw the fireworks called Ozutsu (Tezutsu) supposed to be the best in the country. The drums measured ten shaku and they ignited them on tall towers. 6 'Despite all the sparks that fall from the sky, people are not afraid that they may cause a fire and believe themselves to be protected by the ujigami.'7 People protected themselves from the sparks by carrying wet mats over their heads. Bakin noticed that all the pleasure girls in this town came from the Ise-speaking district. 'They play the shamisen while the kamuro did the singing. I had a good laugh.' All the local women seemed ugly to him, 'they look like the goddess of death, Kokuan Tennyo,' but later, at Okazaki, he found his maid 'rather pretty-faced' and 'her reputation better than her price' . Again, he noted the local dialect:

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To say konya wa tsugo ga warui [tonight I cannot come] they say: tsumori ga warui. In Gion they say narimasenu and in Osaka akede gozaimasu. 8 Bakin went to see plays at Okazaki but was not allowed to have his maid beside him. 'Everything leaves something to be desired.'9 In that area he observed how thin Mino paper stretched across a hole in a plank, reflected water and plants ten ken away, even the colours, but that the reflection was upside-down: 'Somewhat like a Dutch glass mirror.' 'To think of it,' he notes, 'this is caused by the sunlight which is why it works best in daylight.'l0 The Nagoya dialect commanded his attention. Bakin stated: Instead of suru they say seru, ko osseru, do seru nani iwasseru. Also, they do not say hito but jin for man. Kano jin ga kisasseru [that person comes], yoi jin de ya [a good person!]. They do not say yoi hito ... 11 He found the Nagoya women pretty but their waists, too large. 'In Nagoya, women, however beautiful, have big waists. Not one is slender. This must be a local characteristic.' He admired Nagoya food and sake and noticed that in the drinking establishments, girls serve downstairs and boys upstairs, 'a strictlyenforced local regulation' .12 While watching a play in Nagoya, a fourteen-year-old boy came selling tea and cakes: Cha iran ka? Kashi iran ka? (Don't you want a cup of tea, don't you want a cake?) 13 Bakin went to the Tennosai festival and saw dozens of naked men sticking up their backs and lying upside-down, imitating the soramame (horse beans) which made people laugh. 14 Before he reached Kyoto, Bakin encountered a flood that caused many to drown: I left Minakuchi on 3 July and arrived at Ishibe. On my way I saw broken banks and flattened fields and fallen pines here and there along the road which was so uneven one could not walk straight ... Either, people were wailing along the road about the houses they had lost in the flood, or they were assembled at the beat of the drums to repair the banks and to collect the drowned. The sight of these corpses hurt my soul. I crossed the river Yokota and walked for about twenty cho when I saw a man pulling a cow along the rice-field ridge. It was covered with mud, hungry and emitted desolate cries. The keeper said: 'This cow is from a place called Hatebo where the flood has not yet receded and there is [therefore] no fodder. I know someone in Ishibe and am on my way there to leave the cow with him for a while.' When I saw this cow, I could think of nothing but the benevolent king Hui [396?-319BCE] of Liang. I arrived at Ishibe after a short while and heard about the houses washed away and the people drowned at Kusatsu because of the flood and that travellers no longer come, that they now pass the night at Ishibe. Next morning I hired a guide. He took me along a narrow path to Kusatsu and I realized more and more as I went along, the alarming extent of broken banks and houses washed away along the way. At the entrance to the Kusatsu relay station, the officials from Zeze were stopping all travellers. To see the damage, we therefore proceeded left of the entrance and walked between the fields for about fifteen cho. The

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water was so high it reached my thighs. I pushed on, testing the depth with my walking stick. Sometimes it was deeper, sometimes, shallower. I informed the people behind in a loud voice and we barely made it to Ubagamochi. From there it was a solid road. Eight or nine houses along the front road from the tanya had been swept away. Along the back road, there were many more, and forty to fifty people had drowned. They piled up the corpses in heaps. This was not all. At Moriyama, Hikone also, the floods swept away houses and caused people to drown. The man who carried my luggage, told me he had been clinging to an overhang but the water carried him away about ten cho into the second floor of a friend's house. He climbed out at once and saved his life, he said. 15 The flood caused a mudslide at Ausaka pass, which was closed for two days. Even Kyoto sustained damage and makeshift bridges were swept away including the tea-house benches in the dry bed of the Kamo river. When Bakin finally reached Osaka, he reminisced about the flood: I arrived in Osaka on the morning of 3 August. Until then I feared for my life in ways difficult to describe. All travel is melancholy but when you travel alone and encounter such changes in the heavens, then you are in fear day and night, because the road you are supposed to take is no longer there and when you go back, the crossroads are gone. Because I am on a long journey, having left my child at home, one day seems as long as three autumns. I can not forget my child, not even at night, and there is no moment I do not think of him. Even a pilgrimage is an exercise of furyu [elegance] and one always wants to exchange emotions whether on an official errand or a military venture. I only travel for furyu but, for whose sake am I doing this? This may be difficult for others to understand who do not have children. The ancients wanted to forsake the mundane world but sought furyu in this world. An old father who has a young child should not venture across mountains and rivers. All pleasures should be free of fear. So, when you are worried, what pleasure can there be? Childless men might say that one's happiest days are those when they forget all about their wives and children. You can forget your wife, but forgetting your child is another matter. Whenever you eat a delicacy, you remember your child and whenever you see a splendid dress, you think of your child. We should always love our fellow humans. Along the way, Bakin often mentions the famous utamakura places: Utsunoyama, Shigitatsusawa, Kagamiyama, and so on. At the temple Mii-dera he referred to the famous temple bell and the legend about the strong priest Benkei. The legend says, he found the stolen bell at Mii-dera and dragged it up Mt Hiei to reinstall it where it was before, but the rope broke and the bell rolled back down into the lake and cracked. 'To think of it,' Bakin wrote, 'it lay under water and cracked naturally.'16 In Kyoto, Bakin mentions Lord Itakura who, out of sheer courtesy, never spoke to any lady he happened to come across whenever he travelled along the streets of Kyoto. But one day when he came across a lady riding in her litter, he stopped his horse and asked her whose wife she was. Her follower said

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respectfully: 'She is a tayu.' Itakura remarked in frustration: 'It is because they have placed the brothels in the midst of the city that I made such a mistake.' Therefore, he petitioned his superiors and had the brothels removed to the outskirts. 17 Bakin then takes up the legend of Yoshino, a high-ranking pleasure girl known for her intelligence and knowledge. 'She was versed in waka, kemari [court football] and the tea ceremony.' When he visited Shimabara pleasure quarters, he noticed that they had declined in favour of those of Gion 'because Shimabara was too far away for the people of Kyoto' .18 Bakin always comments on the quality of the pleasure quarters and the skills and beauty of the female entertainers. He lists prices, and local idiosyncrasies in dress and hair-styles. We learn from him that there was a kind of market for each girl, prices rising or falling according to their reputation. In Kyoto, he noticed, they do not say joro but jochu and that lower-ranked girls were not called oyama nor geisha, but geiko. He also compared the girls and found the tayu [chief courtesan] in Kyoto'S Shimabara district less pretty than the one in Edo. 'In both Kyoto and Osaka most girls have round faces. Kyoto girls are thinner and the Osaka ones more stoutly built, but their facial beauty, superior.' He noted that the prices of the Kyoto girls depended on their market value: A good-looking and well-reputed one costs twenty or thirty ryo makura-kin [pillow fee]. It is three to five ryo for an ugly one. There are none for less than three ryo. One pays a ten-ryo deposit and the rest when the girl agrees to spend the night with you. There is a market: 'She is worth so-and-so much.'19 Bakin discussed the Gion district dialect. What in Edo is called tsuya [complexion] is called abura [lit. grease] in Gion. Fudan kuru [to come frequently] or joju kuru, in Gion, becomes itsushiku ni oideru. Mairu [come] is sanjiru, yoi koto is erai or kaina. All women add na to their sentences. 20 In the Ponto-cho district of Kyoto, Bakin notices, one can hire a pleasure girl for a whole month for the price of two bu, including food and drink and needlework and all the nights. 21 Bakin had much good to say about Kyotoites. People, he observed, do not quarrel in the streets and do not curse each other: There are three good things in Kyoto: the girls, the water of the Kamo river, and the temples and shrines. There are three bad things: their stinginess, the food and the boats not being on time. 22 Bakin criticized the Kyoto Bon as 'simple, consisting merely of a table as an altar with only meager offerings'. The famous Kyoto Bon Odori could not be performed that year because of the floods. On 15 July, Bakin wrote, the people were allowed to enter the Imperial Palace to see the lampions lined up at the Seiryo-den and the gate of the Shishin-den was open, too, and had a teahouse in front of it. Some of the lampions came with puppets telling a story. Bakin went sightseeing inside and outside of Kyoto. 'Because of the floods,

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the third stage of the Uji bridge fell into the river and the Tsuen teahouse was under water.' Even the temple Byodo-in was flooded and the Hashihime shrine was gone. 23 In Arashiyama, too, the Togetsu bridge had been torn off by the river which had to be crossed by boat: At each Kyoto house, in front of the toilet, stands a barrel used for urinating. Even the women use it. Even the wealthy women relieve themselves there in a standing position. Neither rich nor poor use paper, only the pleasure girls. When there are two or three women and one urinates at the roadside, she does it standing with her back towards the road. They are not ashamed and no one laughs at them.24 Bakin left Kyoto on 21 July and took the boat from Fushimi to Osaka. He saw how much of the embankment and how many bridges had been destroyed during the floods. He told of people trying to gain higher grounds to save their lives, of crying children and houses floating away on the river with their candles still burning: Five or six elderly people and children tried to climb clinging onto the roots of tall trees but some of the roots tore lose and they were washed away. Some placed their children in bamboo baskets and hung them high up in the trees. However, this may have saved some lives, but only two out of ten went unscathed. The authorities sent boats to fish the people out of the river. Nevertheless, the river kept swelling and the boats could not reach everyone. The authorities built dozens of temporary shelters at Kyobashi bridge and converted the theatre stalls of Dotonbori into emergency shelters. They fed them from the storehouses. The rich merchants of Nanba also contributed to the relief efforts. Among the big and small houses not one remained undamaged. Water flooded the houses in the Hakkenke area and many bridges were lost. Only after twenty days did the flood recede. 25 A thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy came in his small boat and floated a bucket on the river begging for money. The travellers were moved to tears and, although wetting their sleeves, threw money into the bucket the boy would pick up further downriver. In one night there were dozens of such boats. 26 During his stay in Kyoto and Osaka, Bakin tells us stories of successful people, including the celebrated book publisher Hachimonjiya Jisho: Jisho was an illiterate commoner but there was in Kyoto a man called Nanrei who wrote gesaku works and published them under the name of Jisho [Laugh at Yourself], which was the first time this name was used. Another writer whose name I have forgotten (perhaps Kiseki) also published under the name Jisho. Therefore Jisho is not a single author but refers simply to someone who can write gesaku. At that time there was a prosperous man named Hachimonjiya. Totally dedicated to his business, his sole objective was success by whatever it took. He published a book about the reputation of actors using the name Jisho. Unable to read or write, his success was sheer luck. This is what I heard from Roseki, a man of Osaka but born in Kyoto.

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Kiseki was the founder of the Daibutsu-mochi of Kyoto. People took to it and he prospered. A man of many talents, Kiseki wrote many gesaku works under the name of Jisho ... , but later decided to publish under the name Jisho Kiseki. For some reason or another, this name stuck. Therefore he handed it down to his son Ejimaya Shirouemon (Kiseki's real name) who used it as his penname. Ejimaya produced the woodblocks of many of his works but, unlucky as he was, none of his works sold and he incurred great loss. Undoubtedly, the works written [earlier] under the name Jisho were by Kiseki. Nanrei on the other hand, a man knowledgeable in Kokugaku, was a much better writer than Kiseki. In old age, he wrote gesaku under the name Jisho, but this did not last. He joined with Kiseki and writing together, they both were successful. (This is my theory. I cannot believe that Nanrei was as good as Kiseki. Even now when I come across some joint publication [soshz1 by Nanrei, I do not find that he was inferior at all. Kiseki was just one of the gesaku writers. None in Osaka knows when he died. Inquiring about what became of Kyoto's Daibutsu-mochi, I hear they handed over their shares to someone else, but I have not heard of it. In Kyoto and in Osaka no one is left who knows.) Hachimonjiya Jisho claimed to be of Fujiwara ancestry and assumed the family name Ando. Jisho is buried at the temple Honkaku-ji at Nijo and Teramachi in Kyoto. The present-generation Yazaemon is his eighth descendant. Uisho died on 11 November 1745, aged over eighty) After the Kyoto fire a year ago, Yazaemon moved to the area of Shinsaibashi Suji and Ando-machi of Osaka and lives a simple life. I went to see him and asked him about Jisho but was told that nothing special has been transmitted. The present Yakusha Hyoban Ki was Yazaemon's own work and the Edo version, the work of Ohashi of Motomachi .... Uisho's descendant in the second-generation was Zuisho but from him on downwards they again used the pen-name Jisho but produced nothing. Yazaemon now seems over fifty but he also does not know how to write gesaku. Therefore, he decided to write a new version of the Yakusha Hyoban Ki. But despite his effort to copy the original Kiseki version, I believe it does not come up to the quality of the original). 27 Another story he tells us from Osaka is that of Koman the Servant: Her real name was Yuki and her family belonged to the Miyoshi clan. She is now a nun and goes by the name of Shokei and is living in seclusion in the village of Nanba. She was the daughter of a wealthy family, the Kizuya of Nagabori in Osaka. Next to Izuya at Nagabori Dobuki there is now a large empty house, they say was Shokei's house. When Yuki was seventeen or eighteen, from what I heard from a man in Nanba, she swore never to marry, but rumours had it that this was not because she disliked men but that, for some reason, she was unable to find the man she wanted and that this was the reason why she disliked men. Yuki was a masculine woman who spent much time reading and writing. Before she would venture out into the streets of Osaka, she would always apply charcoal to her face and white powder on top of it and thus went out in this strange make-up. (This was to not attract men's attention) One day, consequently, a mole appeared on her cheek, another day it was on her forehead. Therefore,

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everybody called her Yakko [Servant]. In the meantime, a Kyoto nobleman lost his position and moved to Osaka. She became his mistress and, after he had settled in Nanba Shinchi, they met frequently and passed nights together. After a while, the nobleman had a change of heart and Yuki threw him out in anger. For a while she could not get used to another man. At that time, a gang member, so-and-so, had broken the law. He was hiding somewhere in Osaka but none knew his whereabouts. A man called Ryukyo (Yanagisawa Gondayu) asked Yuki to seek him out. Yuki found him in no time and had him arrested. Hence her name Koman the Servant in theatrical plays. Akinari wrote that Yuki was in fact none other than Ryukyo but I do not believe it. To think of it, the times Ryukyo and Yuki lived do not match. Komon the Servant lived in the Genroku period [1688-1704] and they probably mixed them up. Shokei was born in 1730 and, now, in 1802, she would be seventy-four. On 2 August, I went to Nanba village to pay Shokei a visit. (Shokei is the priestly name of Koman the Servant) ... I asked Kamada, a doctor, to announce my visit. Shokei's house was in Kizu. So as not to be disturbed by the people, she gave the house to a temple in Kizu and moved to Nanba where she lived in someone else's house but not permanently. I asked Kamada to prepare my visit and was able to meet her without much delay. She said she was seventy-four. Her face was already showing signs of aging but her past beauty was still very much apparent. She was still walking and moving youthfully. Though she forsook the mundane world, she liked reading but not writing [about herself]. We talked and I asked her to write something for me on a fan and she obliged whole-heartedly. She wrote a Chinese poem and the starting verse of a linked-verse in exquisite calligraphy ... She seemed to have composed the Chinese poem all by herself [without alluding to any other]. Her language was masculine. She commented: 'I dislike the taboos [limiting female expression] and am like a drunkard with his cat.' From time to time she took an interest in strange things. A year ago, [Kimura] Kenkado had her paint something on the side of his writing box called Kenkado's Ink, but selected the title himself. This writing box is still in Osaka. Shokei was a good painter but she refused to paint on demand. The people of Osaka do not call her by her priestly name but refer to her only as Koman the Servant. (To think of it, the lesbian Koman the Servant lived in the Genroku period and Shokei must have been given this name because she reminded people of her Genroku predecessor.)28 After that, Bakin visited the graves of famous writers (including Ihara Saikaku), poets, pleasure girls and warriors and recorded their stories. He regretted the absence of notable scholars: 'There is no great person now living in Osaka, only Kenkado, and, he too, passed away in the spring of this year.'29 Bakin reassumes what he had set out to write, namely a travelogue, during his excursion to the Sumiyoshi shrine: On 3 August, it had rained since last night but stopped raining at noon. Intent on visiting the Sumiyoshi shrine, bookshop-owner Ono Boku

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arranged for a boat (in Osaka they call it yahata-bune not to be confused with the yahata-bune of Edo) and invited me to join. We boarded the boat at Shinsaibashi and went to the Sumiyoshi Myojin [shrines]. From Sumiyoshi beach one could see in the distance to the right, the Muko mountains [now Kobe]. Awaji island on the other side of the sea was veiled in mist. One could see as far as Ichinotani [now Kobe]. Hundreds of pines stood along the beach, their green branches unchanged for a thousand years. The Four Shrines were old and awe-inspiring. There was an arched bridge, a stone stage, and a stone inscription. Then I went to the subordinate shrines. Both the iris of Asazawa and the cherries of Kurumagaeshi were not blooming then but I went to see them anyway. The sacred rice field was green but the flowers had not yet sprouted. Then I visited the temples Jingu-ji and the Oku no Tenjin. We ate and drank at the Itamiya. What is there in this world To hate, When you have fun At Sumiyoshi Beach In Naniwa Bay?30 Bakin once more mentions the devastating effects of the big flood of the Kansai in 1802. In Osaka it made the river water undrinkable: In Osaka, they always use the rivers for their drinking water but now that a flood has occurred in Omi province, the rivers have become polluted and the water, undrinkable. Therefore, there are men in Osaka who draw water from the clear Masui well at Imamichi village or from the well near Tennoji. They go in the evenings and place huge lanterns before the houses of Imamichi and along the rice fields to illuminate the road and well. All of Osaka is like this. They hate missing a business opportunity. When the flood tore away the small bridges, they petitioned the officials and built temporary bridges, each contributing to the cost. They put out lanterns on which it says that using the bridges is free. They do this at their own initiative and vie with each other as to who is first to do the job. 31 Bakin turned his attention again to the pleasure quarters. About the language of the pleasure girls of Gion and Osaka he observed: 'Kyoto and Osaka differ slightly. In Osaka their language is more straightforward than in Kyoto.' Most Kyoto and Osaka girls have round faces. The Kyoto girls are thinner whereas the Osaka ones, more robust. When it comes to complexion, the Kyoto girls are prettier. 32 Then Bakin retells the story of an Osaka pleasure girl named Kubinobu: In Shimanouchi in Osaka, there was a pleasure girl called Nobu. People gave her the nickname Kubinobu because she was very pretty and had a beautiful neck. People used her to measure the beauty or ugliness of other girls' necks. Last year she passed forty (Uryu claims she was forty-three) but she still looked only twenty-five or twenty-six. She was a true beauty, even without make-up. Her father was a sumo wrestler called Goshozakura Chobee who later became a toshiyori leader. Nobu became a geiko in the

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Gion district at the start of the Annei years [1772-81] and had a stunning success. Rich men poured their money on her; among them, wealthy Mitsui spent tens of thousands of ryo on her. Deeply disturbed, his relatives and clerks got together and decided to disinherit him and sent him away at once to manage a shop in Matsuzaka, Ise province, giving him a yearly allowance of only one hundred ryo. Thinking that in good times they had much fun together and that, now that he had fallen low, it was unfair to sever her relations with him, Nobu determined to follow him to Matsuzaka. For thirteen years she lived with him in Matsuzaka. She took good care of him and, while in Matsuzaka, became Motoori Norinaga's disciple and heard him lecture on the Genji monogatari [Tale of Genji]. She also learned how to weave. One day a Mitsui clerk discretely came to see her, telling her how much the family appreciated her thirteen years of such dedicated service one cannot even expect from one's own wife. He said that his relatives were still unappeased and that he will only be rehabilitated on condition that she abandon him, despite all her affection for him. 'If you really love your master, ask to be relieved and return to Kyoto!' Nobu did not argue for her or her master's sake, and begged him to let her go back to Kyoto. Happy about this result, the relatives secretly bought her gifts and gave her enough money for the trip. Back in Kyoto, Nobu sold these gifts for over seventy ryo, bought hair ornaments and kimonos and reassumed her job as a Gion singer. Her reputation grew beyond what it had been before. Later, actor Arashi Hinasuke (he later changed his name to Arashi Shota, which may have been the name of his father who lived in Edo) fell in love with her and they became secret lovers. People spoke of nothing else. Five or seven sumo wrestlers (Goshozakura's followers) went to Goshozakura's house on the pretext of business and reported that his daughter had become Hinasuke's mistress. 'How can you allow your daughter to become an actor's mistress? She is soiling herself only for the sake of profit. If this is indeed true, we will cease to be your disciples.' Goshozakura was deeply disturbed as he listened to them and decided to talk about it with Nobu and to have them separate. Nobu informed Hinasuke about this. Hinasuke said: 'What difference is there between a sumo wrestler and an actor? Neither is superior nor inferior vis-a-vis the other, and, though he voluntarily abandoned his life as a ronin, our money comes from the same source. In the past, actors [and sumo wrestlers alike] were summoned to the imperial palace and performed in front of the nobles. As far as origin is concerned, none of us is either superior or inferior,' he said. But the controversy did not stop there. Nobu thought that, as a member of a family of court sumo wrestlers, she should not insist on such a bad relationship, especially now that her father was getting old and about to retire. She felt that she should find him a suitable house and nurse him. By that time, Goshozakura had already left the world of sumo and retired but the quarrel went on unabated. Soon after, Hinasuke died of an illness and Nobu became a widow. She kept on working as a singerentertainer. After some time, the actor Bunshichi (Yoshio) fell in love with her and she ended up becoming his wife. But their relationship was short-lived.

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Bunshichi became ill and he was in danger of losing his life and nothing seemed to help him. Nobu prayed to the gods, cut off her hair and went on a pilgrimage to Konpira in Sanuki province. However, Bunshichi died before Nobu came back from her pilgrimage ... Nobu did not marry again after that. She moved to Shimanouchi in Osaka and entertained there. She became a success once more. She was good at waka and haikai no renga poetry. One day while I was in Osaka, I spent an evening at the Chikutei in Dotonbori and met Nobu. When she came and sat down I called her by her name as if we had known each other for a long time. Though she came before all the other singers and drummers, she did not know who I was. But I knew who she was without asking. How strange! I asked her for a hokku. After bowing three times she composed: Cricket! Do you chirp at night Knowing full well That people will laugh at you? This was her verse. Her calligraphy was not bad either. Nobu insisted I write something on a fan. So I wrote something humorous and added a funny verse and gave it to her. The other guests joined in the fun and all the singers and drummers improvised hokku. Many asked me to write or sing something and this went on until the Fourth Hour [c. llpm].33 On 5 August, Bakin left Osaka by boat for Fushimi amidst heavy rains, which caused new flooding. In Matsuzaka he visited Ohira, Norinaga's adopted son: Originally he was from a tofu-producing family but, attracted to Kokugaku, became a disciple of the late Norinaga. He was so dedicated to his studies that Norinaga appointed him heir. Ohira seemed to be in his forties and a very good person, indeed ... 34 Bakin also mentioned that Gessen Shiba Kokan had visited some years before. Bakin arrived home on 24 August: I hastily entered Edo and was nearing my home when my four children overjoyed and clinging to each other's sleeves came running out the gate towards me. I was away on my journey for over one hundred days. No one at home got sick and, me too, I came home from my journey sound and well. Without catching cold Nor suffering from stomach pains, From the countryside into Edo It is the autumn harvest We must feast. 35 Bakin added an appendix (juroku) to his travelogue. It contained advice to travellers and a statement about writing and publishing his diary:

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Advice to the traveller:

o If you do not want to spend your money, cross the river yourself. (To cross a river is expensive, as expensive as medicine for the sick. Everybody thinks one should not try to save on medicine when one wants to get better. If you want to live, what money is there to regret? River transport is also like that. It is merely a fee you pay for your safety and you should not regret spending it, someone told me on 18 or 19 August, in the Hakone mountains.)

o Even if you are bored waiting for the flood to recede, do not try to cross a forbidden river, even when you believe no one is watching.

o If you want a short-cut, do not use a boat. (It is better to take a short-cut on land. On the sea you are likely to face adverse winds and many lose their lives. A traveller should keep this in mind more than anything else.)

o If you want to travel comfortably, you should not leave before dawn (You should leave early in the morning and rest early in the evening. If you leave when it is still dark, it is like walking in a graveyard. If you leave late in the morning, you loose half a day.)

o Do not drink water, do not eat mushrooms or any other exotic dish. o Think of the road as enemy territory and always be on the look-out. (Assume a bold appearance but be soft at heart. At night make sure you have everything and place your belongings near your pillow. However they may offer themselves, do not buy your maid for the night. If you do so, you will lose much of your energy; secondly, you may lose your way next day. You must observe this rule.)

o Change your worn-out straw sandals sooner than later. (Do not regret spending your money on shoes. Wear good-quality straw shoes. They are to the traveller what armament is to a warrior. If your straw-shoes are worn out, your feet hurt; then, next day, even a coin is too heavy to carry.)

o Eat only one or two bowls of rice for lunch and each time you get hungry, eat little. With a full stomach the going is painful.

o After a rest, say: Onna to miso haka haka (nothing but women and miso) before you leave. So doing prevents you from forgetting things.

(However, in case the inn or tonya is crowded, bring your luggage before the carriers leave. Because when you are in a hurry you will even forget your onna to miso haka. I lost two pipes, one towel and a hat during the hundred days on the road. Do not hurry on the road but avoid taking it too easy either. If you travel thus you will get there fast enough.)

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o In the summer do not ride on horseback (In summertime, plagued by flies, it happens your horse jumps unexpectedly. Riders will always fall asleep and many fall.)

o If you are tired, to ride a horse may be to your great disadvantage. You

should ride on a horse or litter in the morning only. It is cheaper in the morning. As you approach your inn in the afternoon, your feet will carry you of their own accord. However, if you tire out your feet in the morning, then you will be too tired to move on the next day. After five or six days on your journey you will realize how far your feet will carry you. (If you ride all day, then you get lower backache, which is the last thing you want from your ride. This comes from uncomfortable saddles.)

NOTES

1. Nikki Kika Shu, Yuhodo Bunko (Tokyo: Yuhodo Shoten, 1935) p. 512. 2. p.517. 3.p.519. 4. pp.519-20. 5. p.521. 6. p. 521. 7. p. 521. Ujigami means local deity. 8. pp. 524-5. 9. p.525. 10. p. 526. 11. p. 527. 12. 528. 13. p.537. 14. p. 538. 15. Nikki, Kika Shu, Yuhodo Bunko (Tokyo: Yuhodo Shoten, 1935) pp. 540-541. King Hui of the kingdom of Liang (also Wei) is known as an interlocutor of Mencius. 16. p.547. 17. p. 550. Itakura: an Edo-periodfudai: daimyo. 18. p.555. 19. pp.559-60. 20. p.564. 21. p.569. 22. p. 574. 23. p.590. 24. p.596. 25. p.602. 26. p.603.

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27. pp. 603-605. Ejima Kiseki (1666-1735) wrote his Yakusha Kuchijamisen (1699) as an actors' reputations (yakusha hybanki). 2S. pp. 605-60S. 29. p.626. 30. pp. 62S-9. 'Sumiyoshi' literally means 'Live Well'. 3l. p.630. 32. 636-7. 33. pp. 639-42. 34. p.655. 35. pp. 672-3.

CHAPTER

12

HISHIYA HEISHICHI (DATES UNKNOWN)

HISHIYA, WHOSE BIRTH name was Yoshida Shigefusa, was a rice merchant from Nagoya's Tamayacho district. Very little is known about Heishichi from other sources besides the preface of his Tsukushi Kika, which states that he was born in Ono in Mino province, and was adopted by his uncle Hishiya who had no son of his own. Heishichi inherited his uncle's business and maintained its profitability to such an extent that he could afford to retire at age forty and depart on a journey 'to widen the horizon of the frog in the well'. 1 He appeared to be flourishing well enough to spend his money lavishly during his journey. He left Nagoya on 16 March 1802 and travelled by boat to Kyushu via Kyoto and Osaka through the Inland Sea and Suwo province. In Kyushu, he visited the Usa Hachiman shrine and climbed Mt Hiko. He arrived in Nagasaki on 2 May, and stayed seventeen days. He returned via Hakata, Shikoku island, Himeji, then proceeded to the Shirozaki spa in Tanba province. Travelling for four months, the highlights of his journey were Miyajima, Dazaifu, Mt Konpira, and the Zentsuji temple on Shikoku. Along the way, he visited many other temples and shrines, as well as historical places. About the motivation for his journey he writes: 'I am going on a journey to distant and remote places, regardless of my health and without burdening my children.' He was rich enough to fully enjoy the best that travel had to offer at that time. He fulfilled his aspiration to become a writer and kept a diary: 'In order that it may serve as a guide for later generations of like-minded people.'2 Although he was not a great observer, Heishichi was extremely thorough and modest in his writing. Besides describing the scenic beauty of the places he visited, Heishichi also recorded facts about local products and trade, customs and road facilities. One of his travelling pleasures was to rest in tea-houses. He mentioned two hundred and seventy-seven tea-houses between Suwo and Osaka alone. He complained about the absence of tea-houses in Kyushu: 'There are one hundred houses here, but not a single tea-house.' And: 'In these desolate mountains, there is no tea-house worth entering. So I sat down in the shade of trees and rocks and took a rest.'3

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TSUKUSHI KIKO (ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY TO TSUKUSHI [KYUSHU])

Hishiya Heishichi had long wished to visit Nagasaki but his business had prevented him from carrying out this intention. After consulting with a likeminded merchant whose name was Shioya, he decided to undertake the journey. He left in the morning of 16 March 1802 and was seen off by friends and family. On the way he visited his birth mother and found her in good health and spirits. On the 17th at noon he reached Sekigahara. The next day he proceeded through Moriyama to Kusatsu. Heishichi told the carriers to hasten to Otsu. There was a large tea-house called Harimaya at Ishiba where he rested. The house was built on the lakeside of Lake Biwa so that the waves came in just below the veranda. His companions said that they had never seen a house built over the water like this and remarked that it 'felt like riding on a big boat'. 4 Wherever one looked, the lake was as smooth as a mirror. The high Hira mountains stretched out into the distance where one could see the mountains of northern Koshi. One could also see the pretty bays and the beautiful islands of Chikubujima and Takejima nearby which 'beheld the eyes of many generations,' Heishichi wrote. 5 The charm of this scenery was unequalled but because the wind was so chilly, 'we could not enjoy it long enough and had the sliding doors closed again'. They enjoyed the sake and Heishichi remarked: 'Though the entertainment was vulgar, we often laughed.'6 In Kyoto, they stayed in the house of merchant Owariya Heizo at Tominokoji. Heishichi greatly enjoyed the urbane hospitality he received there. On the 20th he got up at the Hour of the Serpent (9-11a.m.) to see the Hongan-ji temple and to visit an acquaintance with whom he had corresponded for a long time. On the 21st it rained and he passed his time playing Japanese chess. On the 22nd four or five Nagoya friends came to visit. The next day he and his friends went sightseeing in Kyoto, commenting on the women and on the geiko and maiko in the Gion district. On the 24th he and his companion Shioya went to Fushimi to take the riverboat to Osaka. 7 Tossed by the boat, Heishichi and his companions fell asleep, but woke up at the rude and loud shouts of a sake vendor: I raised my head to see and Shioya also woke up and rubbing his face, said in a sleepy voice: 'Let's have something to eat and drink!' As soon as he said this, a vendor approached with his boat and offered us something looking like a sake bottle or a tea bowl, saying: 'Have some!' His forehead was shaven but his side locks fell loosely down over his hairpin towards his chin, where it mixed with his thick half-white beard. He had a very dark complexion, which made his large pupils seem even larger; he was an extremely ugly and ill-tempered person. Shioya took the tea bowl and slurped his sake looking at the extraordinarily fearful face of this man. 8 In Osaka, Heishichi stayed in the house of Kawachiya Shirotaro. He commented: 'This, too, was an inn where I used to stay so I know the innkeeper and his wife well.' They had come to stay with him in Nagoya and insisted that he should stay with them when passing through Osaka. They were kind-hearted people, offering Heishichi and Shioya a warm welcome:

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Shirotaro said: 'Let us go over there!' And guided us to a small room in the rear ... As we were exchanging impressions about our journey, the keeper and his wife came in to tell us that many regular customers from many provinces were scheduled to stay tonight and that all other rooms were taken. In fact, there was no other room available for us than this small one but were concerned that the noise might be too much for us. Therefore, they said, they would move the guests to another room to give us more space to sleep and they had the room cleaned. They insisted that we move to the other room, begging our forgiveness for causing us trouble. Upon their insistence, we transferred and discovered the same clean and spacious room I had occupied before. The innkeeper's concern for our comfort impressed me deeply. 9 On the 25th, Heishichi inquired about a boat bound for Nagasaki and they left on the 26th. During the 27th they travelled on the Inland Sea, passing Kobe and Suma and spending the night on the boat. On the 28th, they passed Takasago, Sonenomatsu and Himeji and arrived at Muro, a place Heishichi found poorer than when he had last visited it.l0 They offered prayers at the Muro Myojin shrine and enjoyed the view. In the evening they decided to have a look at the pleasure quarters of Muro town and have some fun. Shioya also insisted that they might discover something of interest there. So they set out, guided by two boatmen. It was in a desolate place, the decay of which had reached a pitiful degree, but the pleasure house, built in the lattice style, looked much better. The girls sat facing the garden, but were all wearing crude and shabby clothing. Heishichi and his companions selected the Yamatoya, the cleanest among the local establishments. When they went to the guest room upstairs, they discovered an eight-mat room with an incense-blackened scroll that had been painted by an unknown artist. The only flowers in the room were arranged in a bamboo vase hanging at the pillar; there were no others. There was no candle stand either. They brought an oil lamp instead and ordered sake. The food was well prepared but simple and stale: The manner in which the innkeeper's wife served us sake was exceedingly crude and her conversation was cold and impersonal. Everything was disappointing and we said to each other jokingly that coming to such a place must be the punishment for evil actions in our previous lives. But we enjoyed ourselves as well as it was possible under these circumstances. 11 Then the boatmen suggested summoning geiko 'to help us with our drinking'. Heishichi agreed, hoping that this, too might turn out to be an unusual experience. After a while, they brought two girls, one about seventeen or eighteen, the other fifteen or sixteen years old. They were wearing worn-out silk belts with a rice plant pattern over a silk crepe kimono. Their heads were adorned with a water buffalo design comb and silver hairpins. Their names were Kokichi and Komakichi of the Tashimaya. They did not know how to entertain and sang three or four songs unprofessionally accompanied by the shamisen. Then a geiko named Ninomatsu came in. She was dressed in a colourful kimono and her demeanour, her language and manner of drinking was distinguished but natural:

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Unlike her two predecessors, there was something interesting about her. She looked to be about twenty. She must be the most popular entertainer in town. Her touch in playing the shamisen was in no way inferior to those in Kyoto, but her singing was marred by her dialect and sounded funny. The entertainment tonight was provincial but, at places, unique enough to draw us in and we returned drunkenly to our boat past the Hour of the Boar [9-11p.m.].12 After this, Heishichi described the food in detail: Cakes were piled up in a cup placed on a tray and there were tea sweets and snacks to go with the sake. The trays designed by Kanamori Sowa [1584-1656]; they were eight-sun square and about four sun high, red in the inside and black on the outside. On these trays were salted plums, bound kelp, and sliced dried cuttlefish. In one bowl there was a lettuce soup, in another, fried tofu and boiled shiitake mushrooms, in a third, fried things and a miso soup with fresh tofu, rhubarb and five small sake bottles, all for the price of twelve monme (for eight persons including the geiko). The hana fees of the geiko were sixteen monme. (Calculated at ten monme of silver per kanmon). Such details are usually left out of diaries, but they were rare enough to deserve detailed and undistorted recording regardless of the literary traditions [of diary writing]. 13 Heishichi was only interested in conveying the facts and did not intend to ' ... distort the facts in order to embellish the style.'14 The next day, they set out again by boat to sail further west in the Inland Sea. On 1 April, Heishichi and his companions visited the Konpira shrine on Shikoku island. When they descended the sacred mountain, the innkeeper of the Kojimaya was waiting for them and served them sake. The food consisted of rice, sliced carp and raw tofu boiled in miso. He served fish cakes (kamaboko), bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, bracken, butterbur, which had been boiled, chilled and served cold on a plate. He served pickled vegetables, fruit and toffee in sugar, bean-jam water, deer meat, and cake with dried fruit on small plates. Eggs mixed with shiitake, pickled plums with shiso (beefsteak plant, Perilla frutescens crisp a) and seasoned radish were served on an ink stone lid. In a big bowl he served udo (Aralia cordata) asparagus with ground Japanese pepper and in a separate bowl, carp sashimi with udo and Mishima seaweed. For soup, they had squid with refoil in a clear broth. 'For the five of us, the sake fee for all was twenty-two monme, five bu. It was too cheap to be true, so I record it here.'15 The girl who served us the sake had a flat face and roundish wrists and was plump. She had a coarse voice and her language was provincial. It was funny to watch her serious face when she replied to our questions about the place. When we got a bit tipsy and began enjoying ourselves, the innkeeper joined us and kindly served us with his own hands. 16 For Heishichi, this place resembled the small tea-houses of Kyoto. Although it had a rustic and unusual look. He was told that all the pleasure girls and the geiko here were from Osaka and that one could summon them at the inns and tea-houses and that they entertained both travellers and locals. Heishichi then

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visited Zentsu-ji temple, the birthplace of Kobo Daishi (Kukai, 774-835). The boat left again on the third and Heishichi proceeded along the Inland Sea. They travelled by boat, landing at Obata and then at Tanokuchi. At Tanokuchi (Okayama prefecture), about two hundred houses were lined up between the beach and the mountains. On 4 April, they climbed Mt Yuka, about 36 cho from Tanokuchi and climbed about twenty cho. On top, they found a clean tea-house with new tatami mats. They enjoyed the view and a puff of tobacco. Then they visited the shrine. From there the road was flat and they reached a place with fifty or sixty tea-houses and inns lining both sides of the road: Two or three girls were standing at the gate of each house and as soon as they caught sight of a traveller they invited him in, shouting all at once: 'Pass the night here!' Or: 'Eat here before you visit the temple. We'll serve you good sake and a variety of foods. Or, at least have some udon or soba noodles!' They spoke in the local dialect and accent that sounded odd. Nevertheless, they must have chosen to do this job because of their beauty and it was rare to see an ugly girl. Their gorgeous hair-style was bound on top of their heads. They applied heavy make-up and looked elegant to a degree one did not at all expect in these remote mountains. 17 On the 18th, they arrived at Akama barrier Western Japan's largest harbour. N ear the barrier was a pleasure town called Inari with three or four pleasure houses. Heishichi offers us a detailed account of the place. He was told that under the regulations, the tea-houses were no longer able to display the girls up front. To avoid censorship, they called themselves geiko schools. Heishichi heard that the girls would come with shaven eyebrows and wearing simple kimonos. On the second storey of the pleasure houses were stages for plays and dances. Some years ago, the locals staged plays with the pleasure girls as actresses and charged the audience five ryo per night. In recent years, however, they had been stopped for being wasteful: The pleasure girls are ranked in three categories; for the girl and her miscellaneous duties; the highest-ranking girl receives sixteen monme, the lower ones, thirteen monme and four bu, respectively. For the various hana, they charge nine monme. When summoned to an inn, they charge one bu of gold. They wear silk crepe kimono over which they wear an uchikata coat, all of which are shop property ... 18 At nearby Izaki (Yamaguchi prefecture), there was another pleasure town called Shin chi, which contained three establishments. Then they went to the Amida-ji, a temple of an income of seventy koku. This temple contained one image of Amida and one representing Emperor Antoku (1180-85). Portraits of the Heike adorned one set of sliding doors and the illustrations of the life of Antoku and the Genpei battles before Antoku's drowning adorned the others. They showed Heishichi these paintings for a fee of one hundred mon. 19 Heishichi heard that after the defeat of the Heike, the ladies-in-waiting became pleasure girls and that the present pleasure girls carryon their traditions. This evening they had plenty of time and had some sake and summoned pleasure girls. One was Osato, aged about forty:

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She was wearing a kimono with an island design and an embroidered black obi. She had two hairpins, one made of something like ivory and the other a silver one. She also wore a wooden comb, the edges of which were plaited in silver. The other girl was Okinu. She was about thirty. She was wearing a black kimono and a black embroidered obi belt. In her hairdo was an ornamental hairpin like that of the other girl. She did not wear a comb. Because this was a well-known place, I thought that the geiko must be accordingly beautiful but I was mistaken. Looking like old married wives who had children, they were an ugly sight and I lost all interest. 2o At noon, Heishichi heard that this was because of a law prohibiting the girls from making themselves beautiful during times of mourning. He managed, however, to obtain a girl from the Kamigata, who sang songs and played the shamisen without going out of tune. 'As I got a bit drunk on sake I praised her for its excellence. The owner came in with a so-called ogo-san who tuned in. The room turned lively and I drank until midnight.' The hana charges of the geiko amounted to two bu and their miscellaneous services to twenty-seven monme. 21 On the 19th, Heishichi and his party were unable to leave because of the tide. At noon Kinu, last night's geiko, came to visit Heishichi, bringing with her a four-year-old girl. She breast-fed the child as they talked for a while, and then she left. 'Such geiko are indeed a rarity,' commented Heishichi. 22 To cross over the straight to Kyushu, he rented a boat for nine hundred mon and left Akama barrier after the Hour of the Serpent (9-11 a.m.). On the other side of the strait, he proceeded to Shimada and stayed with Yorozuya Shozaemon, a cotton merchant. Because there was no bath in Shozaemon's house, he went to a bathhouse. Next day he visited Usa Hachiman shrine (Oita prefecture) and Yagate Rakkan-ji temple. The inn's guestrooms were not that dirty but they gave them only one mattress per guest. For dinner, they served a broth made of mountain yams and pickled vegetables. As if this disappointing frugal meal were not enough, they had to put up with an exceedingly stubborn hag 'who broadcasted her shrieking voice, sounding worse than the cicadas in autumn'. She was only one paper door away from our room, which made Heishichi feel uncomfortable: 23 I found some consolation, however, when a very pretty girl came in to serve us. It felt like being in front of a limpid well or a beautiful rock in the mountains; her skin was pure and white and was shining like snow. Her eyes and face were lovely and I sat there in wonder all evening, baffled that one can find such a beauty in such a [remote] place. 24 Shortly before arriving in Nagasaki, Heishichi sent a messenger to Nagasaki to reserve an inn and after waiting for the reply proceeded to Nagasaki. He needed a special passport to enter the city. A passport allowed a visitor a certain period oftime depending on the nature of the visit: one hundred days for sightseeing, one hundred and twenty days for business, one hundred and eighty days for business with foreigners and five years for women who work in the entertainment business. He got the one-hundred-day pass and stayed at the Tajimaya. 25

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On 3 May, Heishichi first recorded what he felt the reader should know about Nagasaki and its administration, highlighting those aspects which differed from Edo or his native Nagoya. Nagasaki was an exotic place for the Japanese at that time, arousing curiosity and considerable interest. The otona (town elder), Heishichi found, received a yearly stipend of four silver monme, but he was not allowed to trade despite his merchant status. The kumigashira was earning four hundred and thirty monme and the monthly overseers were given four hundred, all distributed from the local government. 'Most houses had tiled roofs and those with shingles had stones to weigh them down. Thatched roofs have disappeared completely.'26 They went to see the pleasure quarters with the innkeeper as their guide. The stalls had thickly latticed walls and the pleasure girls lined up behind were very beautiful in their make-up. Numerous candle-stands stood in front of each of them. Like the Shinmachi district of Osaka, the place was crowded and the onlookers thronged to see the girls. The pleasure girls were wearing silk crepe kimono. They entered the tea-house of Tabakoya Danroku and had a drink. The keeper's wife, daughter and servants came in to greet them: Unlike the Kamigata region, they were quite robust. Since we wanted something better, we summoned some geiko; they lacked charm and were dressed in unexpectedly simple dress. Then a woman who was more than forty years old came in, saying that she was their superior. She had high cheeks and a very red, flat nose, a bold forehead, a short chin, drooping eyelids and a large mouth with a thick layer of rouge on her lips. Her teeth were blackened but her eyebrows still unshaven. From the first glimpse, she was funny and her dialect stronger than all the others. Heishichi's companions wanted her as a drinking companion. They returned to the inn at the Hour ofthe Boar (9-11p.m.).27 At the inn Heishichi wrote letters to Osaka and to his family and went to bed. Next day it rained and Heishichi stayed all day in his room. On the 5th, Ebiya Zensuke, a relative of the innkeeper, came into the room and they became acquainted. 'He seemed like a good-natured man, whose trade was money-changing.' In the evening, the innkeeper took them again to the Tabakoya and summoned Kuniyoshi, the same geiko as the preceding night and the wives of Kawachiya and Yasutomi who, despite their age, were beautiful and their pretty servants also joined. 'We had a good time with the girls and went back to our inn close to midnight.'28 In the morning of the 6th, the geiko Kuniyoshi brought them sugar-seasoned mandarin oranges and tenmonto [a kind of asparagus] in a box. As the rain thinned out, they visited the local temples, including the Chinese temple Sufuku-ji. After visiting the temples, they called on the merchant Ebisuya Zensuke and returned to their inn. Chinese interpreter Yanagiya Shinbee 'a versatile man of good character' came to drink at the house of his concubine. He invited Heishichi to join. Shinbee's twenty-six-year-old concubine played the shamisen and they enjoyed themselves until midnight. 29 Next morning, Yanagiya came to the inn with gifts.

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The next day, on the 7th, they went back to the Tabakoya with the innkeeper and Shioya and summoned two geiko and two pleasure girls and drank. They had the following small dishes: Chazuke set: bean paste with miso, onions, pickled vegetables, rice, sake; and the following foods: shrimp in vinegar, river mushrooms, abalone, fish cakes, rakkyo (pickled scallion); on a round tray: a small dish of shrimp and bean curd and Nara-pickled radish; raw fish, cucumber, sliced horse-mackarel, boiled vegetables in soya sauce. On a big dish: bamboo shoots, plover-shaped shrimp, wheat bran, rhubarb, and fish cakes. In a donburi bowl: mochi in the shape of shrimps and radish and in another donburi bowl: abalone, onions and ginko nuts: 30 One of the pleasure girls was Chiuta of the Hiketaya who must have been twenty-one or twenty-two. Her beauty was ordinary but she was goodnatured. Her jewelled tortoise hairpin was one sun, over one shaku and two or three sun long. She wore eight or nine tortoise hairpins, and two silver ones, and a tortoise comb. Her kimono had a design of Chinese balloon flowers and, in front, an edozuma [oblique] design. She wore red underwear and a black velvet belt. After changing her kimono, she wore a pink crepe kimono with an overlapping pattern on the bottom and a black velvet coverlet and a scarlet silk crepe nightgown of pink damask and scarlet silk crepe on the inside. The other pleasure girl was Hiketaya's Mishio. She wore tortoise combs, ornamental hairpins and five or six silver hairpins. The bottom of her kimono had a violet crest pattern and she wore red silk underwear with a design and a striped velvet belt bound in front. One of the geiko was Kuniyoshi whom we knew from before, who wore a kimono with a rocky-island design and an old cotton belt. The other was Ichiya. She wore a coarse gunnaijima [night underwear] with Chichibu lining and a belt that was of the same kind as Kuniyoshi's. Their combs and hairpins were simple. It was pleasure house policy that the pleasure girls cannot wear kimono and hair decoration as beautiful as those of the geiko. They drank from evening till late at night. As the main guest, Heishichi was treated most lavishly, and slept there a while before returning to his inn. The costs of that night were less than one hundred monme. 'I did not feel like indulging in pleasure like a man in his prime, but I stayed with her because I wanted to hear from her the details of how the Chinese make love. This was one of the rare experiences one can enjoy in such a distant and exotic place.'31 On the 8th, the weather had still not cleared and the rainy season continued. Heishichi decided to stay in the inn when a letter came from Yanagiya asking him to visit. Accompanied by the innkeeper, he left about the Hour of the Monkey (3-5p.m.) to go to Yanagiya's place. Heishichi wrote, 'The host came and gave us a hearty welcome and, after we had hastily exchanged greetings, we were taken to the reception room.' The room was clean and neatly decorated. In the tokonoma alcove hung a Chinese-style painting of Mt Fuji. In front of the painting was a tray, also of Chinese style, with a ceramic lion on it. The host had also invited a colleague named something like (Nakayama) Tashiro, who joined them and offered them a good array of foods, including various Chinese dishes. 'I heard many unusual and interesting things.'32 The table conversation went on for several hours and Heishichi returned to his inn at the

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Hour of the Boar (9-11 p.m.). Here is a list of what they had for dinner. To begin, a tea sweet of sun-dried persimmons, tenmonto (a kind of iris) seasoned in sugar, meigetsu-mochi, Chinese cakes and sake were served. Then they brought a long tray with shrimp, fish cakes, daikon radishes seasoned in miso paste, fruit of lycoris radiate, perilla leaves; soup, and fillet of red snapper. On a sarahiki (dish to be passed around) were fish slices with Mishima seaweed served in a boar-mouth-shaped ceramic container resting on a copper plate. In a jar on an under tray there was salted goose, shiitake and ginger. On a small sarahiki was parched pork. For soup: shinsho consisting of fish flakes and potatoes, and another soup of swell beans, ichimonji sliced fish and stoneless plums. There was chazuke consisting of pickled vegetables Nara-style and two fried rice dishes served in a small saucer made in China and in a tea bowl. 33 On the 9th, they went to the Dutch outpost and visited Chinatown. It was surrounded on three sides by a dry moat and bamboo fence. The front gate was a double-gate called Ninomon [Second Gate] guarded by Japanese officials in charge of the Chinese. Junzo approached the three or four Chinese who were standing near the gate and told them something in Chinese. He nodded and went to the gate. I asked Junzo what they had talked about. He said: 'I told the Chinese to instruct the captain that we will come at a later hour.' They exchanged greetings at the front gate. Among the various restrictions governing this place, Heishichi reported, was that the law allows no women into the area except the pleasure girls. This law also applied to the Dutch headquarters. 34 They looked at the junks moored at Umegasaki. They were painted red with shutters like cannon holes on both sides of the hull. The captain's cabin was on the deck where the hull was highest and its door had a painting depicting a man. The hull was covered with a deck of planks tightly fitted so that no water could spill in. Below the deck were a cargo room and a place for the crew to sleep. The kitchen and a place reserved for the sick were above the deck. The boat had three masts with sails made of reef leaves woven tightly together with bamboo, like a basket. The hawsers were made of hemp palm perhaps one shaku and four or five sun thick. There were also hoses made of round wisteria. There was a three-ken log, used to bind up sails, attached sideward to the mast. The junk was six ken wide and twenty ken long. The carpentry was very coarse and rugged. Since the junk was empty, two Japanese officials from Nagasaki were guarding it. Affixed on deck was the seal of the Nagasaki bugyo [magistrate] . The rain stopped at the Hour of the Horse (11 a.m.-1 p.m.) and the sky cleared, but fearing that the weather might change abruptly, Heishichi returned to his inn. On the 10th, the weather was fine and pleasant and they decided to go on a boat ride. The party consisted of Yanagiya Shinbee, Nakayama Tashiro, Ebiya Zensuke, and Tanaka Junzo. They invited Tashimaya Ubee and the three geiko, including Kuniyoshi and Ichiya. With the three boatmen and the cooks and waiters, there were twenty persons in all. They boarded a roofed boat, a kind of heita boat used for the transport of gold dust in high winds. They rowed out of Umegasaki at the Hour of the Horse (11 a.m.-1 p.m.) and visited the Ebisu shrine at Inasa. Then they visited the Kanzaki shrine. Heishichi greatly enjoyed

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the scenery of the bay, shore and islands. At the mouth of the bay, many islands were scattered out as far as Amakusa, Goto and Hirado. 'The bay was surrounded by mountains, all different in shape and looking strangely Chinese. Looking at them from our boat, it was like being transported to another country.' While they saw many places along the bay and praised their beauty, the long day was drawing to an end and they rowed back to Umegasaki. From there they went their separate ways and Heishichi returned to his inn.35 Here is what they ate on the boat: First lunch box: Fish cake, shrimp, eggs, squid, shisobo, myrica fruits, kawatake. Second box: three sake cups full of vinegar, dried sliced shell, and cucumbers. Third box: fish and vegetables boiled in soya sauce, fried fish cake, sliced gobo roots, bamboo shoots, dried tara [Borassus flabelliforms] braised tofu, rhubarb, lotus. Fourth box: white buns, soup, red snapper filet, mudfish in bean paste and ground pepper, thinly sliced orange sasagaki in milk, bamboo shoots, shiitake grains, ginger, onion and Sarahiki: tuna with shaved daikon radish in vinegar and soya sauce. In a big bowl: makura shells, matsutake mushrooms, suisenji seaweed. In a tea bowl: pork, eggplant, rhubarb, shiitake, ichimonji. 36 On the 11 th, they visited the Sufuku-ji, a temple of the Obaku school and the burial place of priest Ingen (1592-1673), the founder of the temple. They also visited the Suwa shrine, Nagasaki's tutelary shrine. They returned to their inn at the Hour of the Dog (7-9 p.m.). On the 13th they visited the Shofuku-ji, another Chinese temple, at the time when they celebrated the founder's anniversary. On the 14th and 15th it rained, Heishichi remarked: 'It is as if the weather does not want me to leave.'37 On the 17th the river flooded and Heishichi was unable to leave: Here are some of his impressions of Nagasaki just before leaving: The people here are lenient and good-natured. The officials go about their duties like the samurai officials in Edo. When Nagasakians meet travellers for the first time, they treat them like friends. As it is usually the case with the well-to-do, they eat day and night and conduct their commercial transactions very smoothly. There are many small rocks in the ground, which makes the going hard even in the city streets. The city is surrounded on three sides by mountains and, with the ocean in front, the climate is extremely humid. The food is adapted to the Chinese style and they have a special liking for fish, pork, chicken and goat (a kind of sheep). Therefore, many suffer from skin rashes. The language is similar, but there are some things that are difficult to understand, particularly, in the daily speech of the wives and the poor. I noted down some as follows: Father: chan, elder brother: habo, daughter/girl: kogo, child: ama, husband: gotei, someone else's wife: okassan, grandmother: banbasan, grandfather: hiyaahachi, to be surprised: tamagaru, to drop something: ayashita, to fall: aeta, to walk: saruku, inspire: aruhattenkara, to come: wataa, body: gotai, to go the pleasure quarter: yama e yuki, the visitor to the pleasure quarters: suneburi, lie: suragoto, the town streets: baba, well: igawa, entrance: togochi, There is more but I have not included them. 38

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When Heishichi left Nagasaki, on 19 May, the innkeeper's wife and servants assembled to say good-bye. He took the boat from Kikitsu to Omura where he stayed with Nagasakiya Gengozaemon. On the 20th while he was travelling along the coast of Omura bay there was such a storm that 'the road came to resemble a muddy rice field'. He feared falling into it with his litter and baggage. He tried to hire three or four carriers to carry his luggage across the Ichinose river but the river had swelled so much it could not be forded. Finally, he found carriers further up river who joined hands to carry his luggage across the river. At Akama barrier he returned to the same inn he had stayed at on the outgoing trip. Here he sent letters to Nagasaki and sent pottery to Osaka. Near Iwakuni, Heishichi saw two female pilgrims. Today, I met two sixteen and seventeen-year old girls in the mountains about half a ri from Katsurano. They were on a nukemairi pilgrimage to Ise. One of them had sunstroke and lost her voice; she was pale and seemed in pain. I took pity on her and gave her some medicine before I continued on my way. They were from Murozumi and set out on their pilgrimage after the rice-planting season had passed. I wonder if she will recover.39 After they had passed Hiroshima on 2 June Heishichi was suffering from the intense summer heat: Today again it was unbearably hot and, in my litter, it was like being in a steam bath. My robe was so soaked with sweat that one could wring it. We all got rid of our clothes, wiped off our sweat and let in the wind. We stopped to have something to eat. 40 Later that day, when a pretty girl served him in a tea-house, he forgot all about the heat. He stayed at Daikokuya Sobee. On the 4th, it was still unbearably hot: In the afternoon the heat became unbearable. There was no shade from roadside trees, so it was hot like fire in my litter. Though I was suffering, I watched the old women, mothers and young girls weeding their fields and listened to their country songs they sang vigorously with their shrill voices. The manner in which they weeded the fields letting the hot sun burn their bent backs reminded me of the fact that life may be hard for all the four classes, but that there is nothing as hard as a peasant's life. Someone of old has said they have to work hard for each grain of rice gained to feed the people and I think he was right. 41

On the 6th, they entered a tea-house called Yamamotoya to have lunch and ordered a dish of flatfish. When they finished eating and asked for the price, an old woman came out and gave us a price several times the usual. One of Heishichi's companions would not take it and cursed the old woman saying: 'We will pay what you charge us, but it is extremely outrageous to demand a high price to those who come from afar and pass here only once. The old woman replied: 'This is because the price we paid was already high. They would not sell it for anything less.' The man became even angrier and said: 'How dare you say such a thing? If you were a man I would not let you get away with it.' And when they were about to leave, the old innkeeper came in and

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said: 'My wife made a mistake. I am returning the money to you.' Heishichi replied 'Though your price was several times the normal, we always pay the asking price,' and they left. They came upon a large river about one hundred ken wide called Yoshii river (Okayama prefecture). They crossed it by ferry and walked along the bank for about ten cho when they heard someone calling them from behind. They turned around and saw a man about thirty years running towards them on the white, sun-bathed sand on the bank. When he was near enough, he said, wiping off the sweat and trying to catch his breath: 'I am a neighbour of the Yamatoya you have just visited and heard the couple quarrelling. I went to mediate, but the old woman and the innkeeper were angry at each other. The innkeeper asked me to come and apologize.' So saying, he prostrated himself and apologized profusely. We smiled and, after having calmed him down, sent him back politely. Heishichi commented: 'Such greedy old women exist everywhere, whereas the innkeeper was ashamed at heart about what she had done to travellers who will never return.'42 On the 5th, Heishichi complained again about the heat that kept making him suffer. 'Today was another unbearable day. It would not surprise me if many get sick.' At the boundary of Harima and Tanba provinces, there was a pass. Descending one cho from the pass, there was a shop selling sweet mochi called doyo-mochi. They entered and entirely against their expectations were able to eat a seasonal doyo (hottest mid-summer) dish: It was like finding a treasure lying unnoticed on the road! Our baggage carrier arrived. Wiping off his sweat, he complained how hot it was. He said he had fallen twice not knowing why. The other guests laughed and Heishichi heard them saying: 'How come the festive rice cakes stick to your ass?' When Heishichi heard this he composed a pun: Though we're not Carrying doyo-mochi, It is so hot, The rice cakes Stick to your ass. Heishichi's companion who heard this came forth and offered the following poem replying to him in the carrier's stead: Because it's so hot, The carrier who is not a doyo-mochi Notices not that A shirimochi is sticking to his ass. 43 All had a good laugh. The carrier was vexed, saying that they were laughing at his misfortune, which made all laugh again. 44 On the lOth, at Naya, a village ofthirty or forty houses, he rented a riverboat to cross to Yunoshima for 280 mon per person, maximum five persons, which would have been enough to hire two carriers. 'A pole-box' would not have cost more. To put a roof over the boat would have cost an additional forty mono

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When there was more than five passengers, it cost even more and when there was only two, they doubled the price. 45 At Yunoshima (Gifu prefecture), Heishichi stayed at Isuzuya Rokubee's house. The next day, he visits the spa. He noticed that only sick people were taking the waters. There were no pleasure girls. The spa inn cost two monme. They served him chazuke for breakfast and a honzen (a full meal) for lunch and dinner. One could also just rent a room and bring food from elsewhere. 46 The room cost three monme. The merchants supplied rice, miso and firewood. There was a twice-a-day service called takidashi for those who wanted to cook their own rice. In this case the inn provided the soup and a vegetable dish for the cost of one monme and five bu, in all, four monme, five bu for the room. The spa was free-of-charge. Payable spas, accessible three times a day, were six monme. There was also a separate-room spa offered twice a day at one bu of gold. When a patient arrived at the spa, it was customary to give gifts, one hundred hiki, one hundred hiki for the four spa service girls and the spa men, six monme for the spa women and one silver ryo to the spa owner, Kikuya Genshichi. There were five bathing facilities, one called Arayu with its entrance in the lower portion of the town. It was clean and the waters extremely hot. Arayu consisted of Ichinoyu (First Hot Water), Ninoyu (Second Hot Water) using the same source. The spa was good for blood circulation, skin disease, syphilis and infected cuts, Heishichi reported. On the 12th, he visited the local shrines and temples. The next day he complained about the mosquitoes. 'One needs a net even during daytime,' he writes. He ordered a litter and two carriers for six days to go to Osaka via the famous places of Tango province. The cost: 12 monme for miscellaneous expenses, ferry service and five bu and two monme per day for any additional day. He paid fifty monme in advance, the rest payable in Osaka. 47 During the next five days he stayed with merchant acquaintances. At Motoise on the 16th, he paid with paper money. On the night of the 18th, the mosquitoes, ants and lice as well as the thunder prevented him from getting any sleep and the next day the heat made him suffer. 48 He reached Osaka on the 19th. D Here, Hishiya Heishichi ends his journal. Its detailed accounts of pleasure girls, food, entertainment and lodging make this diary a document of considerable historical interest. It is written in an I-centred style, filled with subjective reactions, which make this into a highly personal travel account. Of particular interest are his descriptions of details of dress, hair-styles, make-up, food, prices and roadside facilities. Among our travellers, Heishichi represents the leisurely travel of a rich merchant in pursuit of pleasure.

NOTES

1. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 20 (Tokyo: San ichi Shabo, 1972) p. 157 (Preface).

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2. p. 157 (Preface). 3. Heishichi also authored Kansei Kibun, I