Organizer: Laura Nenz-Detto-Nenzi, University of California, Santa Barbara
Chair: Harold Bolitho, Harvard University
Discussant: Constantine Vaporis, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The culture of travel in Edo period Japan represents a microcosm reflecting the ‘greater picture’ of its time. By the closing years of the Edo period, despite the strict regulations initially imposed by the government, every road had become the stage of a colorful parade of travelers taking advantage of the lenient attitude of the declining system towards its own rules. Tourist journeys to famous places (meisho) and sites of historical interest, the flourishing of the souvenir industry, the popularity of travelogues and printed materials inviting people to experience the pleasures of travel, pilgrimages ending in collective parties that had little to do with abstinence and purification, and the proliferation of illegal activities such as prostitution in the tea houses along the roads were, by the late Edo period, sweeping away the idealized image of a Tokaido along which only official envoys and alternate attendance daimyo traveled. The world of official journeys—carefully planned and regulated by the government—eventually collided with the world of commoners taking the road and enjoying its pleasures. An excursion into the culture of travel and into its representations will provide the opportunity to explore the late Tokugawa period from a different perspective, and will reveal in itself the fundamental character of Edo period Japan: its evolution from a culture of warriors to a culture of commoners.
Sagami Oyamamairi: The Role of Pilgrimage in an Early Modern Regional Communications Network
Barbara Ambros, Harvard University
In early modern Japan, the pilgrimage to Sagami Oyama (present-day Isehara City, Kanagawa-ken) was popular throughout the Kanto region, making the road to Oyama an important secondary artery through Sagami Province. This paper studies the regional spread of pilgrims to Oyama, major pilgrimage routes, pilgrimage practices, and motivations that brought pilgrims to Oyama’s deities—the Buddhist deity Fudo Myoo and a sacred rock deity Sekison Daigongen. The yearly pilgrimage of Oyama confraternities in late summer was an important element of Edo culture and became a popular theme for woodblock prints and gesaku literature. However, the pilgrim’s motivations, organizational structures, and practices exceeded the popular image of Oyama as a locus for rain-making rites: they were shaped by seasonal, regional, and occupational variations that changed over the course of the early modern period. Oyama had a highly developed oshi system (shugendo-derived innkeepers licensed by Oyamadera who acted as proselytizers) with about one million parishioners spread throughout the Kanto region. Parishioners and confraternities turned to Oyama for healing, the performance of agricultural rites, safety at sea, protection from fires, and memorial rites.
The Making of a Meisho: The Province of Sagami as a Preferred Travel Destination in Edo Period Japan
Laura Nenz-Detto-Nenzi, University of California, Santa Barbara
Despite its regional character, the province of Sagami is highly representative of the reality of recreational journeys in Edo period Japan. A study of leisure journeys in its relatively limited area provides a series of basic concepts which can be applied to significantly different geographical zones of Tokugawa Japan: first and foremost the idea that ‘famous places’ were created by a combination of influences coming from art, literature, and the general cultural background of those who traveled. Sagami was not only a preferred destination, it was a ‘pre-meditated’ destination, an entity whose features were already in the minds of travelers. A survey of several travel accounts of the Edo period will demonstrate that, whenever a celebrated site was contemplated, beauty did indeed lie in the eyes of the beholder, far more than in the innate magnificence of the place per se. Cultural influences played a significant role not only in the making of a meisho but also in the creation of associations and links between different locations which took advantage of each other’s proximity, as well as of each other’s distinctive merits. For example, an exclusively religious place such as Oyama could maintain, in fact increase, its popularity thanks to its less numinous yet more alluring neighbors, Fujisawa and Enoshima. In turns, the exceedingly voluptuous atmosphere of Fujisawa was conveniently mitigated by the revered sacred aura of Oyama. A beneficial combination of culturally imposed perspectives created what I will henceforth refer to as the ‘Sagami package.’
Space of Representation—Representation of Space: The Case of Tokaido’s Post-Stations
Jilly Traganou, Tokyo Keizai University
This paper will discuss the double-bound relation between space and representation through the case of Tokaido’s post-stations. Space perception is being shaped through corporeal processes, and also by conceptions articulated through the realm of representation. Spatial representation is not merely a descriptive expression of the perceptible reality, but rather reflects the aspirations of its producers—artists or institutions—and their encompassing epistemological frameworks. By comparing diverse representations of the Tokaido in the Edo era, we can detect a variety of standpoints that derive from different socio-political environments. Although Tokaido was an important subject of the bakufu cartography, as a means of administration and territorial control, most of its representation was associated with the commoners, who used Tokaido as a meta-subject in order to express their fascinations. In a similar manner, space itself carries a capacity of representation. This is not only achieved through the intentions of the empowered producing bodies, but also in the way space is used by the participants. Tokaido’s post-stations obtaining the character of sakariba (literally "the crowded places") represented the realm of collective escape, associating the space and time of the journey with activities that challenged the existing social order. Particularly, I will claim that the commoners took advantage of the infrastructure provided by the authorities, appropriating the post-stations for their own desires. Using the term of De Certeau, Tokaido and its post-stations became a ‘field of practices,’ overcoming the strategic applications of the Tokugawa and undermining their authority.