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Samurai Movies (5)

October 21, 2021

In the book, 'A Samurai Family's Household Account Books', the author introduced a particular samurai family, which lived toward the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the new era, the Meiji period. This family kept their han, as well as their, account books. In the Edo period, the samurai class system was like a system of lords. Maybe in any countries, lords had their own lands and subjects. Lords would inherit their titles, their lands as well as subjects and then pass it on to their children. In the samurai's case, similarly, they themselves were subjects to a certain lord. They would pass down their class and their job to their children. If the samurai was a chief retainer in the han, he would hand down this job to his child, usually his eldest son, and then he would retire.   Actually, in his han, at the end of the Edo period, the chief retainer of the han who had received his position from his father at the age of 23, after received 15 years of service, was executed because of his decision not to support the new government of the country. This system of succession had been adopted during the Edo period for about 270 years. Anyways, in the book, this samurai family's job was accounting for the han. The author said that in the Edo period, accounting work wasn't looked highly upon. At that time, merchants were considered as the lowest caste. Farmers created food, blacksmiths and carpenters made something. But merchants just moved around or lent something in order to get money. Accounting had the same nuance. But in reality, especially in the latter time of the Edo period, each government realized that finance was important. Workers who did accounting became busier. The family's samurai was promoted because of his family's calculating skills and knowledge.   He thought about his han. His han was first wealthy because gold was found and produced. But, as times went by, the gold rush stopped, and the finance of his han became poor. And another thing, rice. His han was located in the most northern district. Rice was originally a kind of tropical climate crop. Sometimes his han's rice harvest was poor, and subsequently his han became poor. But, one time when he was listening to a radio program, the personality mentioned about the han which played an important role in forming the new government after the Edo period. The han was rich and bought a lot of new weapons, like cannons and war ships from abroad, and defeated the old Edo government. The han was located on a barren mountain side. To come to think of it, 70% of his country are mountains. He checked and learned that this han traded with other hans a lot. In his han, maybe finance and trading was not highly regarded. In the book, the samurai earned a good salary but their household was always in the red. They had to borrow money from pawnshops. The author said that it wasn't their fault. In that era, the first priority for the samurai class was status. Most samurai households, except for the lower ranked samurai, had maids and/or servants. Their salary and allowances for errands were not so small. He had heard that even there was a samurai code that detailed how many maids and/or servants the samurai should have according to their rank. At that time, private events were important. If they went to a funeral, a wedding, to visit sick person, they should have given a money gift according to their rank. In addition, they had to prepare a special kimono for each public event at the castle. It was not so different than now. But because of their status, they couldn't skip any of them. Later, he came to learn about a movie that was based on this book and watched it. In one scene of the movie, they had to reduce the budget of their son's Coming of Age event. All the family members and relatives gathered. For the party, on each tray that was placed in front of them, there was a picture of sea bream, instead of a real sea bream. Sea bream was one of the most expensive fish, and was used for celebrations because of a play-on-sounds, which makes this fish name mean "happy". The people there were speechless.   (To be continued ...)

No.451



*inherit : 相続する
*title : 肩書
*subject : 臣民、家来
*retainer : 家臣
*service : 奉仕
*succession : 相続、継承
*caste : 身分制度、カースト
*blacksmith : 鍛冶屋
*subsequently : 後に
*barren : 不毛な
*regard : みなす、尊重する
*pawnshop : 質屋
*sea bream : 鯛（たい）