| Samurai Movies (28) |
April 14, 2022
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| [Village] In the movie 'Yaji Kita Dochu Teresko', Yaji and Kita visited a woman's hometown village in which the villagers' lives didn't look so bad. When he was young, he had a favorite manga named 'Kamui'. 'Kamui' is the name of a young man who was born in a poor village in the Edo Period and became a ninja. His life was harsh and he struggled to live. In the story of 'Kamui', villagers were always poor and exploited by samurai. Farmers sometimes organized uprisings because they couldn't eat, but they failed. Their leaders and even their families were executed in cruel ways. Recently, he had a chance to read a book about uprisings in his han. In the book there were 116 uprisings with detailed information. The success rate of the 116 uprisings was about 70%, meaning that their wishes were accepted. The biggest uprising consisted of about 16,000 villagers. A couple of leaders were arrested, and died in jail. The basis of those uprisings was to change the samurai in charge of their area because they did unreasonable things. Surprisingly, several of their appeals were accepted. Some books which he had read recently said that historical books which talked about the Edo Period sometimes ignored the numbers. For example, in the Edo Period the population was about 30 million,  production of rice per year was about 30 million koku. (Koku is 180 liters, 150 kg.) Farmers and their families comprised of more than 80 percent of the population. The nation was closed toward foreign countries. In this case, if farmers didn't eat rice, who ate the rest of the rice? Seemingly, farmers would ate rice in their regular lives. But a lot of textbooks read that farmers rarely ate rice. To come to think of it, the Edo Period was a kind of capitalism. In capitalism, the balance of supply and demand decides its price. Maybe it wasn't so different between now and then. If the food became expensive, more farmers would make it, and the price would go down, then farmers would plant less. But, for rice, it was different because samurai received their salary by rice. Not all, but partly. They also needed to sell some of their rice to make money in order to buy other things. In this case, if the price of the rice was unstable, samurai's life would be unstable, so the Tokugawa Shogunate must have made policies to stabilize rice prices. And because of this system, they probably checked rice fields attentively. But, how about other crops? To check rice fields was kind of easy because rice needs flat fields and a lot of water. Whereas to check other crops, it is more difficult to know when and how much were produced. In the Edo Period, farmers made various types of goods like oil (for eating and lighting) from plants, materials of wax, paper, silks and cotton, lumber for buildings, firewood and charcoal for cooking, bamboo wares, thatch for roofs, tatami mat materials, incense materials, dying materials, tobacco leaves, etc. Fishermen caught fish and processed their catch, like dried bonito, dried squid, dried kelp, etc. Samurai mainly lived in castle towns and other towns. They didn't live in villages. In villages, there were leaders called 'shoya' and other group leaders and they made rules for their villages amongst themselves. Although sometimes samurai came to check, but normally they were left alone. In one scene of the movie of 'Yaji Kita Dochu Teresko', there was a wedding party in a house in the village but no samurai was there. Maybe during this era, the authorities only asked for a small of the other crops and products, which should have been more than rice. It was a mercantile economy. So farmers could earn money if they had a good sense of business. (To be continued ...) April 14, 2022 No. 474 *exploit :搾取する *uprising :蜂起、一揆 [Hobbies] In the movie 'Yaji Kita dochu Teresko', there were various scenes that were related to people's hobbies. ・Shogi Two men were playing 'shogi' on the main street. One person asked the other what pieces he had. In 'shogi', players can use the pieces they took from their opponent. He showed the pieces and one of them was the king. He was upset and asked, "When did you take my king?" The other answered, "When I tried to take either your king or 'hisha' (a piece which can move vertically and horizontally in any frame). When it was your turn you moved your 'hisha' to safety, so I took the king." Then the opponent said that it was nonsense, and that he would keep fighting without the king anyhow. Maybe this was a joke from the original story, or a citing from a 'rakugo', a comedy performed by a single person sitting on his knees on a stage. 'Rakugo' performers have a lot of types of small jokes, and will use them in some spots of their main story. He checked on the internet about shogi. In the Edo period, the Tokugawa Shogunate gave prestige to masters of 'shogi' and 'go', then those games became popular among common people. Maybe the Tokugawa government  wanted people to enjoy something, not to criticize their policies. Soon after the end of the Edo Period, a famous 'shogi' player appeared, 'Sankichi Sakata'. He was so famous that there were plays, and movies, even a song written about this master's life. In samurai movies, there are a lot of scenes of samurais' playing 'go'. He could remember that in one TV samurai drama, a young Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, was always playing 'go' by himself, it was as if he was thinking about strategies in his upcoming battles. ・Pets A female owner of the brothel always had a cat in her arms. In the Edo Period, rice was very important because they used it as money. Mice were people's main enemies, so cats were important. People had cats as both a guard against mice and as a pet. Dogs were the same, but, different from now, dogs were fed outside in order to guard against robbers and wild animals, like wolves, foxes, etc. ・House Plants In the corridor of the brothel, there were some pots of bonsai trees. He had heard that there were several "booms" to have house plants in the Edo Period. It became big business to sell special plants, like chrysanthemums with strangely shaped big petals or special types of foliage plants. When he worked for the board of education of a city, there was an anual cultural exhibition and some plant lovers exhibited their elaborate works of different types of chrysanthemums, bonsai trees, azaleas, etc. He had once watched on TV that growing morning glories became very popular in Edo. They developed different shaped and colored flowers using cross-breeding techniques. People in Edo (and other castle towns) lived closely together in small houses because the lords' and other high ranked samurais' premises were very large. But, even in a small space, people could enjoy morning glories, ivy-like green leaves and their colorful flowers. Maybe they also gave a certain comfortableness in the hot and humid season. ・Flower Arrangement Most middle and upper class samurai, as well as wealthy merchants and wealthy farmers had in their houses a guest room that had space to display flower arrangements. In those houses, it was popular for women to gather to learn how to arrange flowers. This custom has been passed down until now. You can see this still in some houses which display flower arrangements in their entrance halls and tatami mat rooms. ・Tea Ceremony Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi liked tea ceremonies very much and it was brought to the Edo Period. Many daimyos liked to hold tea ceremonies to communicate with others while keeping their status. In the world of tea ceremonies, simplicity and equality was important. Because of this, attendants could relax and enjoy conversation and the taste of 'macha' in a quiet atmosphere. (To be continued ...) |
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No. 474
*exploit :搾取する
*uprising :蜂起、一揆
*comprise :からなる
*stabilize :安定させる
*attentively :注意深く
*whereas :一方で
*thatch :萱などの茅葺の材料
*incense :お香
*amongst : = among
*mercantile :商業の