1. 徳川日本
EDO JAPAN:

2. Early Modern Japan 1603-1854 Edo Period Tokugawa Period Also known as…
HOW DO WE THINK OF SAMURAI & WHY?

3. WHY IS TOKUGAWA IMPORTANT?
Formation of core values and norms for
social interaction.
Critical transition from “feudal” to “pre-modern”
society and economy.
The “closed country” (sakoku）policy should not be misunderstood as isolation or stagnation.
Case study in how historiography changes.　
Creates conditions that enable Japan to modernize so rapidly in Meiji period ( ).

4. The lead-up to Japan’s early modern period: Three unifiers
Oda Nobunaga
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Tokugawa Ieyasu
HOW DO WE THINK OF SAMURAI & WHY?

5. Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) Oda kamon (family crest)
Bring all of Japan “under a single sword” (tenka fubu)
Embrace of Westerners (Portuguese and Spanish traders, arrival of Christainity to Japan with Francis Xavier)
Oda Nobunaga ( ) was the first individual to attempt to unify Japan at the end of the Warring States period; his ultimate goal, though he never realized it, was to bring all of Japan "under a single sword" (tenka-fubu ). Like so many others in the history of Japan, he rose from an obscure family through ruthless ambition to become one of the most powerful men in Japan. His rise to power was slow and deliberate and his use of power unforgiving. The most significant step he took in unifying the country was the destruction of the Buddhist monastery of Mt. Hiei. All throughout the medieval period in Japan, from the Heike war onwards, the monks of Mt. Hiei had played a significant role in both the political and military course of Japan. Seeing Mt. Hiei as a threat to future stability, he destroyed the monastery and hunted down every single Hiei monk and slaughtered them, regardless of their age or innocence.    Perhaps one of Oda's most significant contributions to Japanese history, outside of laying the groundwork for the future unification of the country, was his eager embrace of Westerners. Perhaps out of his dislike of esoteric Buddhism, he was fascinated by Christianity and welcomed Jesuit missionaries. As a result, he's the first Japanese leader to appear in Western histories. He also, very shrewdly, embraced Western technology—firearms, in particular. Firearms had been imported into Japan since the late fifteenth century; although these weapons were primarily firelocks and inherently unstable (you can't use a firelock in the rain or snow, for instance, and they have a disturbing tendency to blow up in your face), Oda Nobunaga was the first Japanese to figure out both offensive and defensive tactics with the new weapons. Besides retraining his armies for new tactics, he also built massive stone forts that would resist the new firearms. Finally, he was the first Japanese leader to employ iron-cladding on his warships, which made them virtually unbeatable.    Oda never succeeded in unifying the country; just as he was on the verge of success, he was assassinated by two of his generals at the age of forty-eight. Although he had eliminated the wild card of the Mt. Hiei monks, there remained much to do. The hardest task would be to restructure the country to guarantee a lasting peace among the warring feudatories. That task largely fell to the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the "Wealth of the Country."

6. Nobunaga as administrator Nobunaga the tactician
Use of muskets first imported from Portuguese traders
New military techniques and technologies
Encouraged the opening of markets by merchants in areas under his control, offering protection & tax immunity. Curbed the trade monopolies by occupational guilds (za).
Helped commerce by abolishing toll stations; encouraging the building of ships and the construction of new roads.

7. Nobunaga also strategically welcomed foreign traders and Christian missionaries, strengthening ties with the outside world.

8. Brings Christianity to Japan 1542
Francis Xavier
Jesuit missionary
Brings Christianity to Japan 1542
17th century Japanese Bible
The persecution of Christianity was initiated by a “Statement on the Expulsion of the Padres” issued in early 1614 over Shogun Hidetada’s seal but drafted on the orders of Ieyasu himself. This document defined Japan as the “Land of the Gods and the Land of the Buddhas.” It stressed, moreover, that the whole realm followed the Confucian “Way of Humanity and Righteousness.” In other words, Shinto, the spiritual core of the native tradition, was amalgamated with the sublime elements of the Indian and Chinese traditions to form the national polity of Japan. This unique polity was under attack, the shogunate’s decree asserted, by the Christian missionaries—“that notorious band of evildoers, the padres”—who not only defied governmental regulations but ridiculed Shinto, slandered Buddhism, and violated Confucian morality. The conclusion was that under a virtuous ruler—“a recipient of the Mandate of Heaven”—the disseminators of the “pernicious” Christian doctrine must be expelled or executed. The daimyo and the regional agents of the bakufu correctly interpreted this decree as an order not only to rid Japan of the missionaries but also to stamp out the adherents of their faith. At the time, there were approximately 300,000 Christians in the country. The priests were harried from the land or tracked down and martyred. Although most of the Japanese Christians abandoned their religion and were registered as parishioners in Buddhist temples, those who refused to recant and died for their faith in the ensuing two and a half centuries of persecution numbered in the thousands. The Christian religion never died out in Japan, as small communities of farmers and fishermen kept its fading tradition alive in remote locations, such as the islands offshore from Hirado. Having been inspired by the regime’s founding father, the deified Ieyasu, the decrees prohibiting Christianity acquired the character of the Tokugawa shogunate’s ancestral law. Their inertia was evidently difficult to counteract. They survived the fall of the bakufu by five years, remaining on the books of the new Meiji government until Missionaries were not the only foreigners to suffer under the Tokugawa; so did their fellow Catholics, the Portuguese traders. These merchants, whose ships had first called at Kyushu ports in the early 1540s, enriched themselves through their monopoly on the carrying trade from China, importing Chinese silk to Japan through the harbor of Nagasaki. Sanctioned by the Tokugawa bakufu, which itself profited from the silk trade through monopolistic arrangements made with a select group of Japanese merchants as early as 1604, the Portuguese pursued their profitable activities well into the fourth decade of the seventeenth century.

9. Westerners were the subjects of the so-called nanban (“southern barbarians”) genre of painting

10. The lead-up to Japan’s early modern period:
Three unifiers
Oda Nobunaga
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Tokugawa Ieyasu
HOW DO WE THINK OF SAMURAI & WHY?

11. Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598)
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who unified Japan in 1590 and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603, were loyal followers of Nobunaga. These two were gifted with Nobunaga's previous achievements on which they could build a unified Japan. There was a saying: "The reunification is a rice cake. Oda made it. Hashiba shaped it. At last, only Ieyasu tastes it."[citation needed] (Hashiba is the family name that Toyotomi Hideyoshi used while he was a follower of Nobunaga.)
Hideyoshi was brought up from a nameless peasant to be one of Nobunaga's top generals. When he became a grand minister in 1586, he created a law that the samurai caste became codified as permanent and heritable, and that non-samurai were forbidden to carry weapons, thereby ending the social mobility of Japan from which he himself had benefitted. These restrictions lasted until the dissolution of the Edo Shogunate by the Meiji revolutionaries. Hideyoshi secured his claim as the rightful successor of Nobunaga by defeating Akechi Mitsuhide within a month of Nobunaga's death. A

12. Unification under Toyotomi Hideyoshi
By 1590, completes national unification started by Oda Nobunaga after Nobunaga’s assassination in 1582.
Strikes alliance with major rival Tokugawa Ieyasu, granting him Kanto as a fiefdom and a 2.5 million koku empire.
Named regent (kampaku) and eventually takes title of taiko (retired regent).
Kanto

13. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s domestic policies
Freeze the class structure (samurai can’t farm; peasant can’t leave the land or travel)
Measures to ensure more efficient tax collection:
National land survey to assess land value,
Punishment for any peasant seeking tax exemptions.
Made the koku unit of rice (approximately 5 bushels) the standard measurement for rice & salaries of samurai

14. Hideyoshi’s Sword Hunt of 1588 (katana-gari)
Domestic Policies:
Class immobilization
Hideyoshi’s Sword Hunt of 1588 (katana-gari)
Collects swords from all members of the population except samurai, who now have the sole right to carry them.

15. The lead-up to Japan’s early modern period:
Three unifiers
Oda Nobunaga
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Tokugawa Ieyasu
HOW DO WE THINK OF SAMURAI & WHY?

16. Tokugawa Ieyasu
Grasps power after a decisive battle at Sekigahara on October 21, By 1603, Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun by the emperor and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate (Tokugawa bakufu)

17. Rigid social structure and urbanization around new capital of Edo
Major themes:
Pax Tokugawa
Rigid social structure and urbanization around new capital of Edo
Chonin culture:
theater: kabuki / bunraku
ukiyoe woodblock prints
popular literature
HOW DO WE THINK OF SAMURAI & WHY?

18. Capital city moves to Ieyasu’s domain of Kanto, capital city established at Edo (modern-day Tokyo)
Because the city of Edo (now Tokyo) was its capital, the Tokugawa shogunate is frequently identified as the Edo bakufu, and the period of Tokugawa rule is often labeled the Edo era. But the shoguns did not rule the country by themselves. Rather, the bakufu and the daimyo domains or han controlled Japan together.

19. Related to Tokugawa (kinship)
幕藩体制
Structure of Tokugawa government
Edo shogunal HQ
The polity of the Tokugawa era was a multifaceted but comprehensive governmental organism. That organism is commonly called the bakuhan system, after its key constituents—the bakufu, a military term meaning “general headquarters” but used historically for a national government headed by a shogun (hence synonymous with the word shogunate); and the multiple han, the domains of provincial lords known as daimyo, “great names.” In this context, the word shogun signifies much more than its literal meaning, “a general.” It refers to the government’s chief executive, the supreme power-holder in the state. Another title held by the shogun, “pillar of the military,” reflected the fact that the government he led was run by members of the military class, that is, by samurai.
According to the definition current in the Tokugawa era, a lord was considered to be a daimyo if his domains had an annual productivity equivalent to at least 10,000 koku of rice (one koku equals 5.1 bushels). In other words, all daimyo were lords from the samurai class, but not all samurai lords were daimyo. The daimyo were classified in three categories according to their relationship with the main line of the Tokugawa family. Highest in status were the shinpan (collateral) lords, the descendants of the founder Ieyasu’s younger sons. The existence of these branch families safeguarded the continuity of the Tokugawa lineage, but their members were not usually appointed to the shogunate’s governing councils. The daimyo called fudai (hereditary vassals) came from families that had owed allegiance to their Tokugawa overlord before Ieyasu’s decisive victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and had risen to prominence in his service. These were the bulwarks of the bakufu. They were placed in domains that surrounded Edo or protected other strategic areas of Japan, and were entrusted with the highest posts in the shogunate’s official authority structure. The tozama (outside lords) were the third category of daimyo. They were from families that had achieved daimyo status prior to the Battle of Sekigahara, independently of the Tokugawa, to whom they did not swear fealty until after that crucial combat. Literally and figuratively, they were kept on the margins of the shogun’s realm. In a word, the shinpan were of Tokugawa stock. The fudai owed everything to the Tokugawa. And the tozama were outweighed by the rest of the daimyo—at the start, in any event; for at the end (as seen in the essay on the Meiji Restoration) it was the intrusion of a few prominent tozama domains into national politics that upset the balance of the bakuhan system and led to its collapse.
Tozama Daimyo
Fudai Daimyo
Shimpan Daimyo
Opposed Tokugawa
Sworn allies
Related to Tokugawa (kinship)

20. Edo Yellow: Han of tozama daimyo (opposition) Green: Tokugawa holdings
Pink: Shimpan (kin) and fudai (allied) han
Edo
The daimyo domains varied greatly in size. The largest han, estimated to yield 1,025,000 koku of rice a year, was the domain of the Maeda, a tozama family, with its capital at Kanazawa in Kaga Province on the Sea of Japan. The rest ran the gamut from large, province-sized dominions to minuscule enclaves in the territories of more powerful lords. Their number fluctuated. The names of no less than 603 different han were recorded over the long course of the Tokugawa period, but no more than 270 or so ever existed at the same time; at the very end of the era, in 1865, there were 266. Each was in theory a realm in itself, run by its daimyo from his castle, but all were in actuality overshadowed by the bakufu. The shogun had the power to make and unmake daimyo. He could move them from one part of the country to another. He could increase or reduce the size of their domains. And he could confiscate those domains altogether for a real or perceived infraction of his rules. As a contemporary simile put it, the daimyo were the shogun’s “potted plants.”
Yellow: Han of tozama daimyo (opposition)
Green: Tokugawa holdings
Pink: Shimpan (kin) and fudai (allied) han

21. Tokugawa Strategies
Internal: Establish controls over daimyo (regional warlords)
* collect weapons
* renew loyalty oath w/ new shogun
* all marriages approved by Tokugawa
* alternate attendance and hostage system
Use of modified hostage system to cement alliances
Controls on travel
Domestic travel: Barrier stations (seki)
International travel also strictly restricted

22. Impacts of sankin kotai (alternate attendance system):
参勤交代
Impacts of sankin kotai (alternate attendance system):
Suppressed possibility of rebellion (wives, children of daimyo remain in Edo as hostages)
Economic costs of travel on daimyo ensured lack of funds for rebel armies
That the han mimicked the bakufu was no accident. The Tokugawa prescribed its model to the daimyo. The final article of the “Regulations for Military Houses” as revised under Shogun Iemitsu in 1635 put it in black and white: “In the various provinces and localities, observance shall abide by the laws of Edo in everything.” First issued in 1615, in Ieyasu’s lifetime, these “Regulations” told the daimyo that they could not undertake repairs on their castles or plan to be married without its prior approval; cautioned them that addiction to sex and indulgence in gambling were the foundations of ruin; determined what kind of clothing was proper and who was or was not permitted to ride in sedan chairs; and put the lords under various other constraints and obligations. The revised version of 1635 additionally instructed them to keep their roads, post stations, ferries, and bridges in good repair so that there would be no tie-ups anywhere; moreover, they were prohibited from instituting toll stations or imposing new embargoes. Conducive to the free flow of trade throughout the country though these regulations may have been, they were clear intrusions into the autonomous sphere of the daimyo domains. The most significant of the new regulations of 1635, however, was the one requiring the daimyo to take turns in attending on the shogun in Edo, which institutionalized the sankin kôtai (alternate attendance) system. Eventually, this requirement came to mean that most daimyo spent every other year not in their domains but in the shogun’s capital. Their wives and children lived in Edo all the time, being in effect hostages of the shogunate. A daimyo was therefore obliged to lead a double life or, rather, to keep up two establishments, maintaining both a provincial castle and a metropolitan residence, not to mention detached villas and other dependencies. As though being required to flaunt his lordly status in two separate domiciles—his han and Edo— were not wasteful enough, a daimyo could not do without a large entourage and an ostentatious display on his yearly journeys back and forth between them. In the case of the more distant domains, this meant a continuous road show for many hundreds of miles, and was ruinously expensive.

23. Sankin kotai (alternate attendance system) 参勤交代
That the han mimicked the bakufu was no accident. The Tokugawa prescribed its model to the daimyo. The final article of the “Regulations for Military Houses” as revised under Shogun Iemitsu in 1635 put it in black and white: “In the various provinces and localities, observance shall abide by the laws of Edo in everything.” First issued in 1615, in Ieyasu’s lifetime, these “Regulations” told the daimyo that they could not undertake repairs on their castles or plan to be married without its prior approval; cautioned them that addiction to sex and indulgence in gambling were the foundations of ruin; determined what kind of clothing was proper and who was or was not permitted to ride in sedan chairs; and put the lords under various other constraints and obligations. The revised version of 1635 additionally instructed them to keep their roads, post stations, ferries, and bridges in good repair so that there would be no tie-ups anywhere; moreover, they were prohibited from instituting toll stations or imposing new embargoes. Conducive to the free flow of trade throughout the country though these regulations may have been, they were clear intrusions into the autonomous sphere of the daimyo domains. The most significant of the new regulations of 1635, however, was the one requiring the daimyo to take turns in attending on the shogun in Edo, which institutionalized the sankin kôtai (alternate attendance) system. Eventually, this requirement came to mean that most daimyo spent every other year not in their domains but in the shogun’s capital. Their wives and children lived in Edo all the time, being in effect hostages of the shogunate. A daimyo was therefore obliged to lead a double life or, rather, to keep up two establishments, maintaining both a provincial castle and a metropolitan residence, not to mention detached villas and other dependencies. As though being required to flaunt his lordly status in two separate domiciles—his han and Edo— were not wasteful enough, a daimyo could not do without a large entourage and an ostentatious display on his yearly journeys back and forth between them. In the case of the more distant domains, this meant a continuous road show for many hundreds of miles, and was ruinously expensive.

24. Social Classes during the Tokugawa era
Tokugawa hierarchy based on 4 hereditary “estates” which
reflected Confucian values:
Samurai Farmers Artisans Merchants
shi nō kō shō
shi-no-ko-sho
士農工商
“four class system” of warriors, farmers, artisans and merchants
Japan: Life in Tokugawa Japan    Life in Tokugawa Japan was strictly hierarchical with the population divided among four distinct classes: samurai, farmers, craftspeople, and traders. Prior to the Tokugawa period there was some movement among these classes, but the Tokugawa shoguns, intent upon maintaining their power and privilege, restricted this movement. In particular they tried to protect the samurai, making upward mobility from the farming class to the samurai impossible. The shogun Hideyoshi decreed in 1586 that farmers must stay on their land. In 1587 he decreed that only samurai would be allowed to carry the long sword, which would later define them as a class. As economic conditions changed, the shoguns were less successful, however, in maintaining the rigid boundaries separating the other classes.

25. shi no ko sho chonin 町人 hinin 非人
Japan: Life in Tokugawa Japan    Life in Tokugawa Japan was strictly hierarchical with the population divided among four distinct classes: samurai, farmers, craftspeople, and traders. Prior to the Tokugawa period there was some movement among these classes, but the Tokugawa shoguns, intent upon maintaining their power and privilege, restricted this movement. In particular they tried to protect the samurai, making upward mobility from the farming class to the samurai impossible. The shogun Hideyoshi decreed in 1586 that farmers must stay on their land. In 1587 he decreed that only samurai would be allowed to carry the long sword, which would later define them as a class. As economic conditions changed, the shoguns were less successful, however, in maintaining the rigid boundaries separating the other classes.
chonin　町人
hinin　非人

26. 侍 Samurai: Literally, “one who serves” 1/15 of the total population
Samurai themselves divided by hierarchy of ranks
Bound by code of ethics known as bushido
Special rights:
myoji-taito 名字帯刀 “surname and sword(s)”
dai-sho 大小two swords (large and small)
kirisute-gomen 切捨て御免right to cut down offending commoners without rebuke
Samurai    The samurai were the warrior class. At the top was the shogun himself. Beneath him were the daimyo, local lords who controlled large amounts of land. The daimyo had their own collection of samurai, who would serve them in various ways. Some were advisors, some guards for his castle, and some comprised his private army. In addition, samurai in the large cities such as Edo might fulfill a variety of functions--as officials in the Shogun's government or as policemen, for example. Finally, there were the ronin, who were "masterless" samurai, without a lord to answer to, but also without any definite means of support. The ronin might settle down in a particular location to teach or perform other duties, though many of them wandered the countryside, looking for gainful employment. Some sold their services as hired warriors to the highest daimyo bidder. Of the approximately 30 million Japanese during the Tokugawa period, about 2 million were samurai.
seppuku 切腹 right to ritual suicide (self-evisceration)

27. New social roles for samurai during the great Tokugawa peace
Teachers of schools of swordsmanship
Teachers
Poets, scholars, writers
Buddhist monks
Government posts -- civil administration

28. Neo-Confucianism
Kansei Edict of 1790 made Neo-Confucians official philosophy of the shogunate.
Adapt Confucianism into a social-legal system that will promote stability  Three components of Confucianism were useful to Tokugawa government
1. Reverence for past
2. Maintaining proper place in an unchanging hierarchy
3. Social hierarchy based on contributions to good of whole
The Kansei Edict. Neo-Confucianism was made the official philosophy of Japan in 1790, when the shogunate issued the Kansei Edict in This law forbade the teaching or propagation of "heterodox" studies, that is, anything in disagreement with the teachings of Neo-Confucianism. The edict established a post filled by two men to oversee all teaching to make sure it conformed to the law.

29. Tokugawa-era commoner school (terakoya) for girls

30. Farmers & Peasants: More than 80% of total population
Expected to conform to the ethos of frugality in their lifestyle.
Taxed 40-50% of the crops they produced.
Forbidden access to all recreation and games other than local festivals.
Required to provide labor for public works upon demand (construction of roads, bridges, etc.)
Governed by the village (mura) unit, led by the village headman.
Farmers    The glue that bonded the social hierarchy was rice, produced of course by the farmers. The standard of measurement for rice was the koku, equivalent to approximately 5 bushels. One koku could feed one person for a year. The estimated annual production of rice in Japan at this time was 25 million koku. The shogun was responsible for the distribution of this national crop. He took 20% off the top for himself. In addition, he distributed significant amounts to the local lords, the daimyo. According to Charles J. Dunn, the most powerful daimyo (the Kaga in northern Japan) received 1,300,000 koku. There were over 270 daimyo in Tokugawa Japan who received at least 10,000 koku.
   What was left for the farmers? That depended on the weather. Often farmers gave up over half of their rice crop to the system. In bad years the shogun and the daimyo did not reduce their demands, so the farmers were forced to live on even less. Famine in the countryside was not uncommon during this period. Thus, though farmers held a privileged position in society--just below the status of the samurai--their lives were often hard. Rice requires a great deal of hard physical labor, and even today much of the work is done by hand. In difficult times, farmers were tempted to defy the prohibition of the shogun and move to the cities to engage in trade. Many younger sons did just that when their father's land was inherited by the eldest son.

31. Townspeople and Merchants:
Townsperson culture (chonin culture).
Lifestyles were strictly governed by sumptuary laws dictating what they could wear, where they could live, size of home, etc.
Major commercial centers emerge.
Osaka -- sake, soy sauce, cloth, paper, iron Kyoto - textiles, pottery.
Trade along the Tokaido Road
Craftspeople    The dividing line separating craftspeople from merchants was difficult to determine because their economic activities often overlapped. A clothmaker, for example, would likely engage in the selling of his products and the enterprise might also extend in other directions, to moneylending perhaps. Those crafts that were most in demand by the samurai, such as swordmaking, were highly prized in Tokugawa society, so sword makers had a great deal of status. Common crafts in Tokugawa Japan included carpentry, stonemasonry, sake-brewing, and lacquering.
Merchants    Merchants, especially those in the cities, were in a position to become wealthy, but they were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. This was due to the Confucian belief that merchants did not produce anything, like farmers or craftspeople did. Instead they made their money off the productive labor of others. Nevertheless, there was money to be made, and those in the other class positions--even the lower ranking samurai--were sometimes tempted to accept this lower status. Furthermore, as the Tokugawa period progressed and the economy gradually shifted from a feudal to a commercial one, merchants as a whole were able to improve their social standing. Trade was generally a slow and cumbersome enterprise in Tokugawa Japan. Though the road system was extensive and well-maintained, the shogun prohibited wheeled traffic on roads for his own military protection. Thus, most goods moved overland on the backs of horses or humans.

32. Bookstore in Edo

33. Travel
THE TOKAIDO, Japan’s busiest transportation corridor, links Tokyo and Yokohama, the country’s two largest cities, to Osaka (#3) via Nagoya (#4) and Kyoto (#7)–every one with more than a million people. Those who want to hit the road have their choice of JR’s Tokaido main railway line, the Tokaido Shinkansen, and the Tomei and Meishin expressways.
Hiroshige scene of Shirasuka
The Japanese have been hitting this road for a very long time. Records show that government officials used parts of it in the ninth century. But it wasn’t until Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns, ordered the construction of 53 post stations along the road in 1601 that it became a key part of the national infrastructure. In those days, the Tokaido (which means East Sea Road) connected Tokyo, then called Edo, where the Shogun held court, with Kyoto, the home of the Imperial Court.
The Shogun also ordered the country’s feudal lords to alternate their residence between their home fiefdoms and Edo once a year, all the better to keep an eye on them. (Those who lived in less accessible places had to show up only once every three years.) In short order, the road became a pageant of Japanese humanity–the pomp and circumstance of daimyo processions with the lords carried in palanquins suspended from poles shouldered by retainers, while everyone else, including monks, samurai, and just plain folks, traveled by horseback and on foot. Small businesses catering to the travelers thrived along the roadside and in the post station towns. And what better scenery for a trip could there be than the views of the sea to the east and Mt. Fuji to the west?
It was inevitable that the Tokaido would grow larger than life in the popular imagination, and it came to be used as the subject of many works of art and literature. Perhaps the most famous of these is Hiroshige’s woodblock prints of The Fifty-Three Stations of Tokaido dating from 1832.
The road also inspired the creation of a new folk art form in the town of Otsu in what is now Shiga, when artists began producing inexpensive prints in quantity to be sold as souvenirs to the people passing through. Called otsu-e, or Otsu pictures, the form is still used by contemporary artists. Meanwhile, the centuries-old originals, originally meant to be quick one-offs for a quick buck, are exhibited in art museums in Japan and overseas.
With all those travelers doing all that traveling, a cottage industry of travel guides was sure to follow. In a brilliant stroke, Jippensha Ikku combined one such guide describing the sites and scenes along the route with picaresque tales of the adventures and misadventures of two Edo men on a pilgrimage to the Ise Shrine. The collected stories were called Tokaidochu Hizakurige, translated as The Shank’s Mare, and it is still available in English today. Hiroshige contributed some artistic synergy by carving woodblock prints illustrating scenes from the book.
The days of palanquin-borne feudal lords, samurai, and a pair of rascals surreptitiously sliding into the futon of women slumbering in roadside inns are long gone, but fascination with the Tokaido still remains.

34. Travel Utagawa print: 53 stations of the Tokaido Road: Barrier station
歌川広重作　東海道五十三次之内　庄野・人馬宿継之図　（行書版）
庄野・人馬宿継之図　（行書版）。
庄野 【しょうの】 Shouno (p,s) 【しょうのざき】 Shounozaki (s) 【しょうや】 Shouya (s) 【しょの】 Shono (s) NA
人馬 【じんば】 (n) men and horses; ED
宿 【やど】 (n) inn; lodging; (P); EP
継之 【つぐゆき】 Tsuguyuki (u) NA
図 【ず】 (n,n-suf) figure (e.g. Fig 1); drawing; picture; illustration; (P); EP
行書 【ぎょうしょ】 (n) (See 六体) running script (a semi-cursive style of kanji); ED
版 【はん】 (n) edition; version; (P); EP

35. Travel
狂歌入り東海道　　関 大名も素泊まりが原則で、調理はもちろん風呂桶まで持って歩いたようだ。その意味では本陣は木賃形式の宿泊施設といえる。 沼津宿の下本町には街道の東側に清水助左衛門本陣、街道の西側には間宮喜右衛門本陣があった。 本陣には、連日大名が泊まるわけではなく、一般の旅人は宿泊出来ない為、経営は苦しかったようである。大名が本陣を利用した際の宿銭は、大名の石高によって差があったらしい。家々の品格に応じて、利用者が宿賃を本陣などに賜るという形を取っていたようだ。嘉永４年に、沼津清水本陣を利用した大名は１９家で、２８両２分が清水本陣に支払われている。 狂歌 【きょうか】 (n) comic (satirical) tanka; ED
入り 【いり】 (n,n-suf) (1) entering; (2) setting (of the sun); (3) containing; content; audience; (4) income; (5) beginning; (P); EP
東海道 【とうかいどう】 (n) Tokaido (name of Edo-Kyoto highway); ED
関大 【かんだい】 (p) (abbr) Kansai University 【せきおお】 Sekioo (p) NA
名 【な; めい】 (な) (n) name; reputation; (めい) (ctr) (1) (hon) counter for people (usu. seating, reservations and such); (n) (2) first name; (pref) (3) famous; great; SP
素泊まり 【すどまり】 (n) staying overnight without meals; ED
原則 【げんそく】 (n) principle; general rule; (P); EP
調理 【ちょうり】 (n,vs) cooking; food preparation; (P); EP
もちろん (adv) of course; certainly; naturally; ; KD
風呂桶 【ふろおけ】 (n) bath tub; ED
で持って歩いたようだ。
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (te-form) 持つ 【もつ】 (v5t) (1) to hold; to carry; (2) to possess; (P); EP
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (plain, past) 歩く 【あるく】 (v5k,vi) to walk; (P); EP
ようだ (aux) (1) (usu. at sentence-end) seeming to be; appearing to be; (2) like; similar to; (3) in order to (e.g. meet goal); so that; (4) indicates hope, wish, request or mild command; ; KD
その意味では本陣は木賃形式の宿泊施設といえる。
意味 【いみ】 (n,vs) meaning; significance; (P); EP
本陣 【ほんじん】 (n) troop headquarters; daimyo's inn; stronghold; ED
木賃宿 【きちんやど】 (n) cheap lodging house; ED [Partial Match!]
形式 【けいしき】 (n) (1) form (as opposed to substance); formality; (2) method; system; style; (3) format; mode; appearance; form (something takes); (4) math expression; (P); EP
宿泊 【しゅくはく】 (n,vs) lodging; (P); EP
施設 【しせつ】 (n,vs) (1) institution; establishment; facility; (2) (army) engineer; (P); EP
といえる one can say that ...; ; KD
沼津宿の下本町には街道の東側に清水助左衛門本陣、街道の西側には
沼津 【ぬまず】 Numazu (s) 【ぬまつ】 Numatsu (s) 【ぬまづ】 Numadzu (p,s) NA
宿 【やど】 (n) inn; lodging; (P); EP
下本町 【しもほんちょう】 Shimohonchou (p) 【しもほんまち】 Shimohonmachi (p) NA
街道 【かいどう】 (n) highway (esp. one existing from the Edo period); main road; (P); EP
東側 【ひがしがわ】 (n) east side; east bank; (P); EP
清水 【しみず】 (1) (n) spring water; (2) Shimizu (surname); SP
助左衛門 【すけざえもん】 Sukezaemon (m) NA
西側 【にしがわ】 (n,adj-no) west side; west bank; (P); EP
間宮喜右衛門本陣があった。
間宮 【まみや】 Mamiya (p,s) NA
喜右衛門 【きえもん】 Kiemon (g) 【きうえもん】 Kiuemon (u) NA
本陣には、連日大名が泊まるわけではなく、一般の旅人は宿泊出来ない
連日 【れんじつ】 (n-adv,n-t) every day; prolonged; (P); EP
大名 【だいみょう】 (n) daimyo (Japanese feudal lord); daimio; (P); EP
泊まる 【とまる】 (v5r,vi) (1) to stay at (e.g. hotel); (2) to be docked; to be berthed; to be moored; (P); EP
ではなく (adv) is not; ; KD
一般の 【いっぱんの】 (n,adj-no) general; liberal; universal; ordinary; average; (P); EP
旅人 【たびにん】 (n) (see 旅人・たびびと) nomad; person who goes from place to place, gambling, etc.; pilgrim; SP
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (plain, negative, nonpast) 出来る 【できる】 (v1,vi) (1) (uk) to be able (in a position) to do; to be up to the task; (2) to be ready; to be completed; (3) to be made; to be built; (4) to be good at; to be permitted (to do); (5) to become intimate; to take up (with somebody); (6) to grow; to be raised; (P); EP
為、経営は苦しかったようである。
為 【ため】 (n) (1) good; advantage; benefit; welfare; (2) sake; purpose; objective; aim; (3) consequence; result; effect; (4) affecting; regarding; concerning; (P); EP
経営 【けいえい】 (n,vs) management; administration; (P); EP
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (adj., past) 苦しい 【くるしい】 (adj-i) painful; difficult; (P); EP
である (v5) to be (formal, literary); ; KD
大名が本陣を利用した際の宿銭は、大名の石高によって差があったらしい。
利用した 【りようした】 (n,vs) use; utilization; utilisation; application; (P); EP
際の 【さいの】 (n-adv,n) on the occasion of; circumstances; (P); EP
宿銭 【やどせん】 (n) hotel charges; ED
石高 【こくだか】 (n) (1) (crop) yield; (2) stipend (orig. assessed on the basis of a crop); salary; ED
によって (exp) according to; by (means of); due to; because of; ; KD
差 【さ】 (n,n-suf) difference; variation; (P); EP
ったらしい (suf,adj-i) (after a noun or the stem of an adjective) seeming very... (usu. with a negative connotation); ; KD
家々の品格に応じて、利用者が宿賃を本陣などに賜るという形を取って
家々 【いえいえ】 (n) every house or family; ED
品格 【ひんかく】 (n) dignity; quality of character; (P); EP
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (te-form) 応じる 【おうじる】 (v1,vi) to respond; to satisfy; to accept; to comply with; to apply for; (P); EP
利用者 【りようしゃ】 (n) user; end-user; consumer; (P); EP
宿賃 【やどちん】 (n) hotel charges; ED
賜る 【たまわる】 (v5r,vt) to be given; to be granted; to be honored with; to be honoured with; ED
という (exp) said; called thus; ; KD
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (te-form) 形を取る 【かたちをとる】 (exp,v5r) to take the form (of); to assume a shape; ED
いたようだ。
嘉永４年に、沼津清水本陣を利用した大名は１９家で、２８両２分が
嘉永 【かえい】 (n) Kaei era ( ); ED
４ 【し; よん; よつ】 (n) four; SP
年 【とし; ねん】 (n-adv,n) year; age; SP
清水本 【しみずほん】 Shimizuhon (p) 【しみずもと】 Shimizumoto (s) NA
陣 【じん】 (n) battle formation; camp; encampment; ED
１９ 【じゅうきゅう】 (n) nineteen; SP
家 【いえ; うち; け; か】 (n) (いえ) house; (うち) house (one's own); (け,か) (suff) house; family; person; expert; -ist; SP
２８ 【にじゅうはち】 (n) twenty-eight; SP
両 【りょう】 both; counter for vehicles; SP
２ 【に; ふたつ】 (n) two; SP
分 【ふん; ぶ; ぶん】 (ふん) (n) minute; (ぶ) (n) rate; part; percentage; one percent; thickness; odds; chance of winning; one-hundredth of a shaku; one-quarter of a ryou; (ぶん) ; (n,n-suf,pref) (1) part; segment; share; ration; (2) rate; (3) degree; one's lot; one's status; relation; duty; kind; lot; (4) in proportion to; just as much as; SP
清水本陣に支払われている。
Possible inflected verb or adjective: (passive) 支払う 【しはらう】 (v5u,vt) to pay; (P); EP

36. Tōkaidō road

37. Outcastes or “non-persons”
The “invisible” class of occupational outcastes (butchers, leather tanners, etc).
Forced to live in designated districts of Edo.
Called eta or hinin (non-persons非人)
Often worked as itinerant entertainers.
1873 photograph by Shinichi Suzuki depicting leather workers (tanners). One man scrapes the hide of a slaughtered deer, while another seems to be discussing a piece of finished cat skin to cover an old samisen. On the right stands a young man with a load of pelts.
Current events link: Google Map issue
Other Groups    Several other groups of people existed outside this class system, including actors and entertainers, priests, and the eta. In some respects, this outsider status allowed members of these groups a relative degree of freedom, since it was the class system that organized Japanese society in rigid patterns. However, living outside the system also brought its disadvantages because the system also afforded protection of life and livelihood.
   The eta were outcastes, forced to live in their own communities and avoided by other members of Japanese society. They held this low status due to their occupations, which were associated with death: disposing of animal carcasses and tanning animal hides, for example. The eta faced a double religious whammy. Japanese were generally vegetarians as a result of Buddhist influences which prohibited the taking of life. And Shinto required purification following any contact with death. Discrimination against the eta persists even in modern Japan, where lists of eta families secretly circulate in the society. Conservative Japanese families consult such lists to prevent the marriage of a son or daughter to someone with eta ancestry.
However, there were two groups of untouchables, the lowest of the low. The non-humans (hinin,　非人) were the victims of the last remnants of social mobility. They were registered beggars, essentially ex-convicts, prostitutes and vagrants. However, even these people had slightly more privilege than the outcasts (eta, 穢多, ‘abundance of filth’). This group was hereditary, composed of people who slaughtered animals and dead humans. They often called themselves kawata (‘leather-workers’) which was one of the principle occupations of the eta. Their taint (kegare, 穢れ) comes from the Shinto belief that working with the unclean brings a person further from godliness, a matter made more taboo by Buddhist tenets against killing. It is the eta who the modern-day burakumin hail from.
The eta had been an important group during sengoku jidai, when the continual fighting demanded leather for armour. The unification and peace that followed Hideyoshi and Tokugawa meant that this fortune did not last. The development encouraged to foster good relations with the kawata ended and they were ostracised, subject to discrimination that found its roots way back in the Heian period ( ).
Discrimination: Past
The eta were segregated from Japanese society. They were given their own temples and prohibited from visiting other religious sites. While Buddhists were given kaimyou (戒名, ‘regulation name’), two-character posthumous names sold by temples by the character, eta were only able to receive derogatory characters such as ‘beast’ and ‘ignoble’. They were not allowed to tend to paddy fields and could often be found on the banks of dried-up rivers. Discriminatory legislation was largely decentralised but were varied in nature: restrictions on clothing, hairstyles and footwear, and prohibiting eta from entering towns at night, having windows facing the street, buying land, and entering the homes of peasants.
In 1871, the Meiji government declared the Emancipation Edict (kaihourei, 解放例) which incorporated the eta-hinin into Japanese society. This removed their monopoly on the ethically undesirable jobs but by no means reduced the discrimination inherent in societal opinion of the workers of such jobs, and so they benefited little in practical terms. The eta, by now known as burakumin after the designation of their ‘ghettos’ (for lack of a better term) as tokushu buraku (特殊部落, ’special villages/hamlets’). While former status barely affected other members of Japanese society, the burakumin faced discrimination in employment, marriage, education and in many other areas.
Discrimination: Present (An Introduction)
Anyone with ties to the buraku, be they current residents, those that have ‘passed’ out of them and into non-buraku communities, or even the children of the latter group, tend to keep their heritage quiet. Despite the fact that discrimination against them is generally less rampant today, in the south of Japan, particularly in the Kansai region, the burakumin and their ancestors are still ostracised. Continued discrimination has kept them typically in the lower brackets of socio-economic status, and ‘marrying into the buraku‘ is forbidden by a number of parents. Buraku are still largely consist of the areas where eta used to live, and modern-day discrimination occurs largely on this basis. Even people without hereditary ties to the eta or burakumin can be victims of discrimination simply for living in the buraku.
The Activists

38. Google Accidentally Offends Japanese Sensibilities May 04, 2009 (AP)
TOKYO —  When Google Earth added historical maps of Japan to its online collection last year, the search giant didn't expect a backlash.
The finely detailed woodblock prints have been around for centuries, they were already posted on another Web site, and a historical map of Tokyo put up in 2006 hadn't caused any problems.
But Google failed to judge how its offering would be received, as it has often done in Japan. The company is now facing inquiries from the Justice Ministry and angry accusations of prejudice because its maps detailed the locations of former The maps date back to the country's feudal era, when shoguns ruled and a strict caste system was in place.
At the bottom of the hierarchy were a class called the "burakumin," ethnically identical to other Japanese but forced to live in isolation because they did jobs associated with death, such as working with leather, butchering animals and digging graves.
A Google Earth windows displaying an old map of Tokyo with the word 'Eta' clearly marked.
Other Groups    Several other groups of people existed outside this class system, including actors and entertainers, priests, and the eta. In some respects, this outsider status allowed members of these groups a relative degree of freedom, since it was the class system that organized Japanese society in rigid patterns. However, living outside the system also brought its disadvantages because the system also afforded protection of life and livelihood.
   The eta were outcastes, forced to live in their own communities and avoided by other members of Japanese society. They held this low status due to their occupations, which were associated with death: disposing of animal carcasses and tanning animal hides, for example. The eta faced a double religious whammy. Japanese were generally vegetarians as a result of Buddhist influences which prohibited the taking of life. And Shinto required purification following any contact with death. Discrimination against the eta persists even in modern Japan, where lists of eta families secretly circulate in the society. Conservative Japanese families consult such lists to prevent the marriage of a son or daughter to someone with eta ancestry.
However, there were two groups of untouchables, the lowest of the low. The non-humans (hinin,　非人) were the victims of the last remnants of social mobility. They were registered beggars, essentially ex-convicts, prostitutes and vagrants. However, even these people had slightly more privilege than the outcasts (eta, 穢多, ‘abundance of filth’). This group was hereditary, composed of people who slaughtered animals and dead humans. They often called themselves kawata (‘leather-workers’) which was one of the principle occupations of the eta. Their taint (kegare, 穢れ) comes from the Shinto belief that working with the unclean brings a person further from godliness, a matter made more taboo by Buddhist tenets against killing. It is the eta who the modern-day burakumin hail from.
The eta had been an important group during sengoku jidai, when the continual fighting demanded leather for armour. The unification and peace that followed Hideyoshi and Tokugawa meant that this fortune did not last. The development encouraged to foster good relations with the kawata ended and they were ostracised, subject to discrimination that found its roots way back in the Heian period ( ).
Discrimination: Past
The eta were segregated from Japanese society. They were given their own temples and prohibited from visiting other religious sites. While Buddhists were given kaimyou (戒名, ‘regulation name’), two-character posthumous names sold by temples by the character, eta were only able to receive derogatory characters such as ‘beast’ and ‘ignoble’. They were not allowed to tend to paddy fields and could often be found on the banks of dried-up rivers. Discriminatory legislation was largely decentralised but were varied in nature: restrictions on clothing, hairstyles and footwear, and prohibiting eta from entering towns at night, having windows facing the street, buying land, and entering the homes of peasants.
In 1871, the Meiji government declared the Emancipation Edict (kaihourei, 解放例) which incorporated the eta-hinin into Japanese society. This removed their monopoly on the ethically undesirable jobs but by no means reduced the discrimination inherent in societal opinion of the workers of such jobs, and so they benefited little in practical terms. The eta, by now known as burakumin after the designation of their ‘ghettos’ (for lack of a better term) as tokushu buraku (特殊部落, ’special villages/hamlets’). While former status barely affected other members of Japanese society, the burakumin faced discrimination in employment, marriage, education and in many other areas.
Discrimination: Present (An Introduction)
Anyone with ties to the buraku, be they current residents, those that have ‘passed’ out of them and into non-buraku communities, or even the children of the latter group, tend to keep their heritage quiet. Despite the fact that discrimination against them is generally less rampant today, in the south of Japan, particularly in the Kansai region, the burakumin and their ancestors are still ostracised. Continued discrimination has kept them typically in the lower brackets of socio-economic status, and ‘marrying into the buraku‘ is forbidden by a number of parents. Buraku are still largely consist of the areas where eta used to live, and modern-day discrimination occurs largely on this basis. Even people without hereditary ties to the eta or burakumin can be victims of discrimination simply for living in the buraku.
The Activists

39. Traveling Book and Print Salesman

40. Yoshiwara pleasure districts
The Three Entertainments
kabuki
sumo
Yoshiwara pleasure districts

41. Yoshiwara pleasure district

43. Hiroshige, “Crowds in the Theater Quarter” from 100 Famous Views of Edo, 1848-1858.

44. Kabuki

45. Woodblock print of a kabuki actor

46. Bunraku puppet theater