Annual Observances, Famous Places, and Entertainment
Annual observances, which became an integral part of the culture of the four seasons, differ greatly according to place, profession, community, and period. They cover a broad spectrum of activities, from religious rituals, such as Hatsumōde (first pilgrimage of the year to a shrine) and the Festival of the Dead (Obon), to agricultural rites such as taue (planting rice seedlings) and inekari (harvesting rice). Some are held in appreciation of seasonal nature, such as cherry-blossom viewing (hana-mi), moon viewing (tsuki-mi), and bright-foliage viewing (momiji-gari). Others evolved into recreational activities, such as the Doll’s Festival (Hinamatsuri), which is celebrated on the third day of the Third Month. Most annual observances combine two or more of these functions, with one dimension dominating or evolving into another. Many, such as the Five Sacred Festivals (Gosekku), were initially court or public ceremonies, while others, such as changing to summer clothes (koromogae), were observed at home.1 In either case, these annual observances were marked off from everyday time by distinctive decorations, clothing, offerings, or foods—all of which were closely linked to the cycle of the four seasons.
Annual observances celebrated at the imperial court beginning in the Heian period (794–1185) differed radically from those held in farm villages. Whereas court ceremonies derived in large part from Chinese customs, village rituals tended to be indigenous and related to rice agriculture. A good example is ta-asobi (prayers for rich rice harvest), in which, before the gods, farmers imitated the beginning of hoeing (kuwa-ire), the planting of rice seedlings, the driving away of birds, and the harvesting and storing of rice—thereby praying for a rich harvest and prosperity for the family and its descendants. This practice, which began in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and faded in the Edo period (1600–1867), was performed in the First Month, particularly on Minor New Year (Koshōgatsu), the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the First Month. In contrast to aristocrats, who stressed Major New Year (Ōshōgatsu), the first to seventh days of the First Month, medieval farmers focused on Minor New Year.2 Another annual observance for medieval farmers was rice-seedling planting songs (taue-uta), in the Fifth Month, a ritual accompanied by music, songs, and dances that functioned as a prayer for a rich harvest and that made its way into Edo popular culture.
The military government (bakufu) in the Kamakura period generally imitated the annual observances of the Heian-period imperial court, but the bakufu in the Muromachi period (1392–1573) significantly altered them and incorporated new ones into the ceremonial calendar, probably because the weakened nobility could no longer maintain the older ceremonies. By the Edo period, the major court observances, particularly the Five Sacred Festivals, had become an integral part of the new urban commoner society. At the same time, new observances originating in the farm villages—such as Hassaku, when gifts were exchanged with neighbors on the first day of the Eighth Month—or in the metropolis were added to the dense calendars of annual celebrations for city dwellers. Since Tokugawa Ieyasu first entered Edo Castle on the first day of the Eighth Month of 1590, Hassaku also became an annual observance for provincial warlords (daimyo) and banner-men (hatamoto), who paid homage to the shogun on this day. Thus annual ceremonies had different meanings for different classes, communities, and regions, but they all served to mark social and seasonal time.
In the Nara period (710–784), the imperial court adapted Chinese annual observances, such as White Horses (Aouma), seventh day of the First Month;3 Stamping Song (Tōka), fourteenth to sixteenth days of the First Month;4 Archery Day (Jarai), seventeenth day of the First Month; first Day of the Snake (Minohi or Jōshi), often third day of the Third Month; Tango Festival (Tango no sekku), fifth day of the Fifth Month; Star Festival (Tanabata), seventh day of the Seventh Month; and Festival of the Dead (Obon), thirteenth to fifteenth days of the Seventh Month. In the early Heian period, more Chinese annual observances were adapted by the imperial court, such as Seven Grasses (Nanakusa), seventh day of the First Month; Fire Festival (Sagichō), fifteenth to eighteenth days of the First Month;5 Rabbit Stick (Uzue), first Day of the Rabbit of the First Month;6 Buddha’s Birthday (Kanbutsu), eighth day of the Tenth Month; Chrysanthemum Festival (Chōyō), ninth day of the Ninth Month; Wild Boar Day (Gencho), first Day of the Boar (Inoko) of the Tenth Month;7 and Repulsing Demons (Tsuina), New Year’s Eve.8
Most of these annual court ceremonies were sponsored or initiated by Emperor Kanmu (737–806, r. 781–806) after the move of the capital from Heijō (Nara) to Heian (Kyoto) and were intended to reinforce the power of the court. By the time of Emperor Ichijō (980–1011, r. 986–1011), when the regency system (with the northern branch of the Fujiwara family controlling the throne) was at its peak, these court observances were also being held at the private residences of aristocrats. As texts like Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book, ca. 1000) reveal, the most important annual ceremonies for mid-Heian aristocrats were the Five Sacred Festivals (Gosekku), the major banquet days based on auspicious double (odd) numbers—first day of the First Month, third day of the Third Month, fifth day of the Fifth Month, seventh day of the Seventh Month, and ninth day of the Ninth Month—which were very important in constructing a sense of the seasons.
Under the luni-solar calendar, the New Year coincided with the beginning of spring, making it the most important observance of the year for the aristocracy. In the Heian period, New Year ceremonies extended from New Year’s Day (Ganjitsu) to the Day of the Rat (Nenohi), which usually fell on the seventh day of the First Month, when courtiers went out to the fields (no), pulled up small pines,9 and gathered new herbs (wakana) as a prayer for long life. This ritual gradually spread to the provinces and to commoners, eventually resulting in the New Year practice of the gate pine (kadomatsu), in which a pair of small pines was placed at the gate of a house.10 A popular Heian-period painting topic representing the First Month was “prayers on the Day of the Rat” (Nenohi no asobi), which depicted the auspicious scene of pulling up small pines in a spring field.11 Both young herbs and gathering young herbs, particularly at Kasuga Field, became major poetic topics for the First Month, appearing in both the spring and celebration (ga) books of the Kokinshū (Collection of Japanese Poems Old and New, ca. 905).12 By the Kamakura period, the observance of the Day of the Rat had been abandoned at the imperial court, but the custom of gathering and eating young greens continued as the annual ceremony known as the Seven Grasses (Nanakusa).13
In ancient China, the first Day of the Snake in the Third Month was a ritual carried out at the edge of water to drive away evil influences. This ceremony became the Meandering Stream Banquet (Kyokusui no en), at which wine was served. Eventually, it was celebrated on the third day of the Third Month, also referred to as Peach Day (Momonohi), and became one of the Five Sacred Festivals in Japan.14 In the Heian period, this observance evolved into the Day of the Snake Exorcism (Minohi no harai), a ritual in which pollution (kegare) was transferred from a person’s body to a surrogate doll (hitogata or katashiro), which was thrown into a river or the sea.15 The custom of playing with elaborately dressed dolls emerged from this ritual, and in the Muromachi period the third day of the Third Month evolved into the Doll’s Festival (Hinamatsuri),16 which spread to commoners in the Edo period and became a topic for haikai (popular linked verse). Today, dolls are dressed as royalty and placed on doll stands with doll furniture. A noted hokku (opening verse of a renga sequence) by Matsuo Bashō’s (1644–1694) disciple Mukai Kyorai, in the spring section of Sarumino (The Monkey’s Raincoat, 1691), reads: “Celebration—last year’s doll reduced to the lower seat” (Furumai ya shimoza ni naoru kozo no hina).17 In an ironic twist, the dolls grow old from year to year and are demoted or abandoned in favor of new ones. The cultural connection between the Doll’s Festival and nature is evident in an ukiyo-e by Chōbunsai Eishi (1756–1829), one of a series of five prints called “Fūryū gosekku” (Elegant Five Sacred Festivals, ca. 1794–1795), produced in the Kansei era (1789–1801) (figure 21). A woman from an upper-rank samurai house, at the bannerman (hatamoto) level, is taking a doll from a box. The branches and flowers from a peach tree in the flower arrangement in front of her match the “natural” associations of the Day of the Snake (Peach Day), which by this time had become a major observance of late spring.
DOLL’S FESTIVAL AND IKEBANA
This “portrait of a beautiful person” (biiinga) in Chōbunsai Eishi’s series “Elegant Five Sacred Festivals” (Fūryū gosekku, ca. 1794–1795) exemplifies the ways in which an annual observance (Peach Day, also known as the Doll’s Festival [third day of the Third Month]) combines nature (white peach flowers, a prayer for immortality, in ikebana form) with the rituals of the observance (doll making). (Color woodblock print [signed Eishi zu]; vertical ōban, 14.8 × 9.9 inches. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William S. and John T. Spaulding Collection, 1921, no. 21.4905)
The most prominent summer observance in the Heian period was the fifth day of the Fifth Month, better known today as the Tango Festival,18 which was originally a ritual for dispelling evil influences. From the early eighth century, plants with strong scents, such as sweet flag (shōbu) and mugwort (yomogi), were placed close to the body, in the hair, and in the eaves and on the roofs of houses to ward off evil. With the addition of the custom of drinking sweet-flag wine and bathing in sweet-flag water, this practice continued into the Edo period. As an expression of thanks to his host who gave him sandals (waraji) as a farewell present, Bashō wrote this hokku in Oku no hosomichi (Journey to the Deep North, ca. 1694): “Grass of the sweet flag—I shall use them to tie my straw sandals” (Ayamegusa ashi no musuban waraji no o). Unlike city dwellers, who put sweet flag in the eaves of their homes, the traveler, in a haikai twist, places them on his sandals, making travel his dwelling. In the Heian period, the Tango Festival was celebrated at the imperial court with sweet flag (which closely resembles the iris) and medicine balls (kusudama) made of incense and decorated threads.19 Horseback archery and horse racing took place at the court on the fifth and sixth days of the Fifth Month, followed by a banquet.20 The word shōbu (sweet flag) was a homonym for shōbu (
; literally, “honoring the warrior”), and in the medieval period (1185–1599), the Tango Festival became a day for boys to display their martial talents.21
The Star Festival, a major topic in kanshi (Chinese-style poetry) and waka (classical poetry), was held on the seventh day of the Seventh Month, at the beginning of autumn. Tanabata was derived from Kikōden, a Chinese annual observance imported to Japan and first celebrated at the imperial court in 755. According to the Chinese legend, two stars—the Herdsman (Kengyū [Altair]) and the Weaver Woman (Shokujo [Vega])—were lovers, but were punished for a transgression and separated by the Milky Way (Ama-no-gawa). On the seventh day of the Seventh Month, the two stars were allowed to meet for one night only, and on this day women prayed to improve their skills in weaving and sewing. In ancient China, the Herdsman was associated with agriculture, and the Weaver Woman with sericulture, thread, and needle. By the Six Dynasties period (220–589) in China, the custom had developed of writing poems on the night of the seventh day of the Seventh Month, and the same tradition began in the Nara period (710–784) in Japan.22 In contrast to Chinese and Japanese kanshi on Tanabata, in which the Weaver Woman crosses a bridge that spans the River of Heaven, in waka the Herdsman crosses the river to meet his lover, following Japanese marital customs. From the Heian period, it was customary to write a poem on the leaf of a kaji (kind of mulberry tree) and offer it up to the two stars. The word kaji was a homonym for the kaji (rudder or oar) of the boat that crosses the River of Heaven. A tub of water was set out so that the heavenly meeting could be reflected, as a prayer to the two stars, as in this poem in the Shinkokinshū (New Anthology of Poetry Old and New, 1205): “In the surface of the water, where I dip my hand and soak my sleeve, I see two heavenly stars meeting in the sky” (Sode hichite waga te ni musubu mizu no omo ni ama tsu hoshiai no sora wo miru kana [Autumn 1, no. 316]).23
Tanabata did not spread to commoner society until the Edo period, when it became an official holiday. A colored poetry strip, sometimes tied with a five-colored string, was substituted for the mulberry leaf and became an offering and a prayer for excellence in sewing and other arts. The importance of the Star Festival for women is apparent in an early ukiyo-e by Okumura Masanobu (1686–1764), Tanabata-matsuri zu (Tanabata Festival [MOA Museum of Art, Atami]). In the top half is the heavens, above the clouds, in which the Herdsman, with his cow, and the Weaver Woman are separated by the River of Heaven, over which some magpies are flying (another part of the Tanabata myth). Below is a young woman playing the koto (zither), as she imagines the romance of the two stars. Behind her, on the branches of bamboo, are poetry strips and hanging robes. Surrounding the young woman are other musical instruments—drum and biwa (lute)—indicating that this is a prayer for a daughter to improve her musical skills. As Imahashi Riko has argued, this kind of print probably taught Edo-period urban commoners how to observe the various annual observances.24
The last Gosekku of the year was the Chrysanthemum Festival, held on the ninth day of the Ninth Month, at the end of autumn. Chōyō, which was originally celebrated by climbing a hill and drinking chrysanthemum wine, derives from the legend that the dew on chrysanthemums that grew on a large mountain in China became the water of a river and that those who lived near the river never grew old. Kanshi on chrysanthemum wine at the Chōyō banquet appear in the Kaifūsō (Nostalgic Recollections of Literature, 751), but there are no poems on chrysanthemums in the Man’yōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, ca. 759). It was only after the revival of the Chrysanthemum Festival banquet in 814, during the reign of Emperor Saga (786–842, r. 809–823), that the chrysanthemum became popular in both waka and kanshi. A number of poems in the autumn books of the Kokinshū are related to Chōyō, such as this one by Ki no Tomonori: “Let me break it off, still wet with dew, and place it in my hair, the flower of the chrysanthemum, so that the autumn will never grew old” (Tsuyu nagara orite kazasamu kiku no hana oisenu aki no hisashikarubeku [Autumn 2, no. 270]). Heian-period aristocrats, particularly women, wiped their faces with cloth that had been soaked in the dew of a chrysanthemum the night before, thereby praying for long life and immortality, as described in Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi.
In short, the symbolic focus of the Five Sacred Festivals, as with a number of other annual court observances, was on particular trees, grasses, flowers, and animals—such as pine, new herbs, peach, sweet flag, mugwort, chrysanthemum, wild boar, and white horse—that were thought to have magical powers, representing new life (new herbs), immortality (pine, peach, and chrysanthemum), fertility (wild boar), or the ability to ward off or exorcise evil (sweet flag and mugwort). The talismanic function of plants is evident in the peach bow for Repulsing Demons on New Year’s Eve,25 peach tree for Rabbit Stick, peach wine for the Day of the Snake, and sweet flag for the Tango Festival.26 Parallels appear in the European tradition (such as evergreens and mistletoe for Christmas and rabbits for Easter), but in contrast to Christian annual observances, which tend to be anthropomorphic (Christ and saints) and rely on symbolism of the human body, these annual ceremonies are heavily based on natural or agricultural imagery, thereby connecting them directly to the landscape of the four seasons.27
Sweets and Cakes
Sweets and cakes were an important component of annual observances celebrated at the imperial court in the Heian period and of subsequent ceremonies and festivals of all kinds. The original function of the sweet was as an offering, a prayer for a good harvest, or a means to avoid misfortune. Traditional Japanese confectionary or cakes (wagashi) are usually made of mochi (sticky cake made from pounded rice) filled with sweet red beans (azuki). The rice was originally a symbol of the rice harvest or the spirits of the dead, and the red beans—or the red color of the beans—were thought to dispel calamity or misfortune.28 In the Edo period, rice cakes were served on such annual observances as Buddhist Memorial Day (Higan), Summer Fatigue Day (Doyō), and the Festival of the Dead (Obon).
A good example of a spring sweet is the grass rice cake (kusamochi), which is made of pounded rice mixed with the leaves of mugwort (yomogi) or a similar grass. Originally, the grass (kusa) used was hahakogusa (literally, “mother—child grass”) or cudweed (gogyō), one of the seven grasses of spring. In China, the scent of this grass was thought to ward off evil, and it was customary, from the early Heian period, to eat hahakogusa rice cakes on the Day of the Snake (Jōshi), the third day of the Third Month, when sins and pollution were exorcised through ablution. When the Day of the Snake evolved into the Doll’s Festival (Hinamatsuri) in the Edo period, the kusamochi continued to be eaten in the belief that they got rid of pollution and prevented calamity.
On the Tango Festival, the fifth day of the Fifth Month, Heian-period aristocrats customarily ate chimaki, pounded rice wrapped in cogon grass (kaya) or rush (makomo) and steamed—a custom also derived from China. Today, the pounded rice is molded into a triangle or cone, wrapped in young bamboo grass (sasa), and tied with a common rush (igusa). The chimaki was replaced in the mid-Edo period by the oak-leaf rice cake (kashiwa-mochi), a circular, flat sticky rice cake that is folded over sweet bean paste and then wrapped in an oak leaf (kashiwa) (figure 22). Since old oak leaves do not drop off a tree until the new buds have grown, the kashiwa became popular among samurai and commoners as an object of prayer for the success of one’s family and descendants. The historical origins of these sweets reveal the importance of the talismanic functions of food in annual observances of all kinds.
Paintings
Annual observances, particularly those held at the imperial court, eventually became the subject of annual-observance paintings (nenjū-gyōji-emaki), of which the most famous is the Nenjū gyōji emaki (Annual Observance Scroll), executed in the late Heian period. Retired Emperor GoShirakawa (1127–1192, r. 1155–1158) commissioned the monumental picture scroll in an attempt to restore a long tradition of court observances that had gone into severe decline by his time.29 GoShirakawa’s picture scroll was followed by similar efforts to preserve or recover knowledge of these traditions, such as Kenmu nenjū gyōji (Kenmu Annual Observances), a record of court observances edited by Emperor GoDaigo (1288–1339, r. 1318–1339) in the Kenmu era (1334–1336).
OAK-LEAF RICE CAKE
Like many other Japanese sweets, this confection, the oak-leaf rice cake (kashiwa-mochi), combines nature, season (summer, Tango Festival [fifth day of the Fifth Month]), and talismanic qualities (prayer for success of offspring), here derived from the notion that the oak leaf does not drop off the tree until new leaves appear. (Photograph by the author)
The role of annual observances in the visual representation of the four seasons is also evident in four-season paintings (shiki-e) and twelve-month screen paintings (tsukinami-byōbu), which became very popular in the medieval period.)30 They were followed in the late Muromachi and early Edo periods by a wide range of what are now called fūzoku-e (paintings of scenes from everyday life, or genre paintings), many of which depict annual observances and related social activities in a four-season or twelve-month format. A good example is the Tohi zukan (Capital-Country Painting, 1691–1705 [Kobun-in, Nara]), a fifty-foot scroll by the Yamato-e—style painter Sumiyoshi Gukei (1631–1705).31 The scroll begins with spring celebrations in the houses of aristocrats (coming-of age-ceremony, waka composition, and kick ball [kemari] under cherry blossoms); moves to the homes of upper-rank samurai, who are changing to summer clothes (koromogae); shifts to scenes of urban commoners on the city outskirts, who are observing the Festival of the Dead (Obon) in the middle of the Seventh Month; and ends with farm villages in the fields outside the capital, with withered trees and accumulated snow. The Tohi zukan portrays annual observances of every major social class—aristocrat, warrior, urban commoner, and farmer—in the context of the four seasons.32 In contrast to earlier annual-observance paintings, which focus exclusively on court or aristocratic events, this scroll, much like the popular literature and poetry of the time, depicts activities in diverse social contexts in both the city and the provinces.
The role of annual observances in Edo-period painting is revealed in Katsukawa Shunshō’s (1726–1792) Fujo fūzoku jūnikagetsu zu (Women’s Customs in the Twelve Months, ca. 1781–1790), long and narrow hanging scrolls painted on silk that depict the lives of young urban commoner women. The original twelve scrolls (those for the First Month and Second Month have been lost) combine waka-based seasonal bird-and-flower motifs and portrayals of annual activities. In the Third Month, women are playing kemari under the cherry blossoms; the Fourth Month shows a woman, with a lute, peony, and small cuckoo in the background; the Fifth Month depicts women reading to the light of fireflies, with sweet flag in a vase; in the Sixth Month, a woman is cooling off and bathing in a tub of water (gyōsui); the Seventh Month focuses on women sewing and celebrating Tanabata, with poetry strips attached to young bamboo and a tub of water reflecting the stars; in the Eighth Month, a woman in a boat is watching wild geese fly past the harvest moon while two other women converse; and the Ninth Month reveals courtesans and their attendants in Yoshiwara celebrating the Chrysanthemum Festival with a large flower arrangement (figure 23).33
WOMEN AND THE CHRYSANTHEMUM FESTIVAL
Katsukawa Shunshō’s Womens Customs in the Twelve Months (Fujo fūzoku jūnikagetsu zu, ca. 1781–1790), with one hanging scroll for each month, reflects the close relationship between the alcove and the seasons and shows the importance of flower arrangement as part of women’s culture. In this scroll for the Ninth Month (late autumn), high-ranking courtesans in the pleasure quarters (above) watch their young assistants (below) carry a large chrysanthemum arrangement during the Chrysanthemum Festival (ninth day of the Ninth Month). (Color on silk; 4.5 × 10.1 inches. Courtesy of the MOA Museum of Art, Atami)
In the alcoves in the houses of wealthy urban commoners and upper-class samurai in the Edo period, it was customary to display a vertical hanging scroll whose subject was appropriate for the month, thus changing the scrolls in a twelve-month series like that of Katsukawa Shunshō as the year progressed.34 For the First Month, for example, a felicitous theme typically was an old man and an old woman at Takasago; a crane and a turtle on Mount Hōrai; the triad of pine, bamboo, and plum tree; or the morning sun (asahi) rising over the waves. In short, by the early Edo period, annual observances and their visual representations became an integral part of the interiorization of the four seasons in the residences of well-to-do families.
Kabuki
Each of the traditional arts, from tea ceremony to noh, had its own set of annual observances. To give one prominent example, the kabuki season in Edo began on the first day of the Eleventh Month with the kaomise (face-showing performance), at which the new line-up of actors was introduced to the theatergoers. This was followed by the early-spring plays (hatsuharu kyōgen), performed from the New Year. Then came the spring plays (yayoi kyōgen), staged in the Third Month, and the Fifth Month plays (Satsuki kyōgen), from the fifth day of the Fifth Month, to coincide with the Tango Festival. The theaters were originally closed in the Sixth and Seventh Months, when the lead actors went on vacation, but eventually secondary actors took advantage of the opportunity to play roles they normally were denied. The result was summer plays (natsu kyōgen), also called plays for the Festival of the Dead (Bon shibai) because they were presented in the month of Obon. The last part of the season was reserved for Chrysanthemum Month plays (Kikuzuki kyōgen) because they were performed from the ninth day of the Ninth Month.35
From the Kyōho era (1716–1736), the three kabuki theaters in Edo (Tokyo) customarily staged a new First Soga Play (Hatsu Soga)—the most notable examples being Yanone (Tip of the Arrow) and Kotobuki Soga no taimen (Felicitous Soga Meeting)—as the early-spring play. In the revenge tale Soga monogatari (Tale of the Soga), the Soga brothers (Jūrō and Gorō), after eighteen years of suffering, exact their revenge on the twenty-eighth day of the Fifth Month, killing their bitter enemy Kudō Suketsune at the foothills of Mount Fuji. The First Soga Play, which was performed at the beginning of the New Year, did not focus on the revenge scene itself but on the beginning, with a meeting among the main figures, thereby functioning as a ritualistic prayer for good luck or good fortune implied in the Soga brothers’ ultimate success.36 In the initial meeting (taimen) between the Soga brothers and Kudō, an auspicious mitate (visual transposition) usually is created in which Gorō stands in the middle, representing Mount Fuji, with Jūrō and Kobayashi Asahina (the brothers’ protector) forming the base of the mountain. Kudō, with a fan in his right hand and a sword in his left, adds a visual allusion to a crane. Both Mount Fuji and the crane were auspicious New Year images. The early-spring plays thus had the same kind of function as pulling up small pines, harvesting young herbs, and performing other New Year rituals.37
Famous Places and Urban Excursions
Annual observances such as cherry-blossom viewing, moon viewing, and snow viewing often involved visiting “famous places” (meisho), a term that became popular in the Edo period and that refers to four types of sites:
• Poetic places (utamakura), on which noted poems had been written
• Historic sites, such as a former barrier or battleground
• Famous temples or shrines
• Locales noted for their seasonal landscapes
Utamakura were places that had acquired established clusters of poetic associations as a result of their inclusion in one or more famous waka. The Waka shogakushō (First Steps in Learning Waka, ca. 1169), a waka primer by Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–1177), lists noted utamakura and their associations, including
Mount Tatsuta | Brocade, waves, robe, mist |
Mount Kasuga | Pine, wisteria |
Mount Ausaka | To meet, barrier, spring |
Uji River | Fishing weir, bridge, Bridge Maiden (Hashihime) |
The Waka shogakushō also gives twenty-two seasonal motifs and the poetic places associated with them, including
Spring mist | Beautiful Yoshino (Mi-yoshino), Ashita Field (Ashita-no-hara) |
Moon | Old Crone Mountain (Obasute-yama) in Sarashina, Hirosawa Lake (Hirosawa-no-ike), Akashi Bay |
Snow | Mount Yoshino, Mount Fuji, Shirayama of Koshi, Shirane of Kahi |
Cherry blossoms | Mount Yoshino, Mountain Crossing at Shiga (Shiga no yamagoe) 38 |
As the list suggests, many poetic places, like famous places in general, were identified with a specific seasonal motif. So close was the connection that if a painter combined a river and a fishing weir (ajiro), a seasonal word for winter, the scene immediately signified the Uji River.39
The association of season with place continued into the Edo period, when visiting famous places became a major form of recreation for urban commoners. Seasonal topics and the famous places connected with them appear in Oka Sanchō’s (d. 1828) guidebook Edo meisho hanagoyomi (Flower Calendar of Famous Places in Edo, 1827). A sampling includes
SPRING
Bush warbler | Negishi Village (Negishi-no-sato) |
Plum blossoms | Umeyashiki |
Camellia | Mukōjima |
Cherry blossoms | Tōeizan at Ueno, Sumida River, New Yoshiwara (Shin-Yoshiwara) |
SUMMER
Wisteria | Tenmangu Shrine at Kameido, Sannō Shrine at Ueno |
First Song Village (Hatsune no sato) at Takada, Surugadai | |
Lotus | Shinobazu Lake |
Cooling off (nōryō) | Ryōgoku Bridge |
AUTUMN
Moon | Mitsumata, Asakusa River (mouth of the Sumida River) |
Fields | Musashino |
Insects | Dōkan Hills (Dōkanyama), on the road from Hikurashi to Ōji |
Bright foliage | Mama (Guhōji Temple at Mama Hill) |
WINTER
Winter chrysanthemum (kangiku) | Hōon-ji Temple at Heikan-san Hills |
Withered fields (kareno) | Road from Zōshigaya to Horiuchi |
Plovers (chidori) | Susaki40 |
Snow | Atagoyama,41 Takanawa |
Edo meisho hanagoyomi describes 43 seasonal motifs and 154 famous places. Another noted guide to meisho in Edo, Saitō Gesshin’s (1804–1878) Tōto saijiki (Seasonal Almanac of the Eastern Capital, 1838), lists 37 seasonal motifs and 253 famous places. Of the 312 famous places found in these books, the largest numbers fall under entries on cherry blossoms (61), snow (23), plum blossoms (19), autumn foliage (18), and the moon (16). The familiar triad of cherry-blossom viewing, moon viewing, and snow viewing dominate. Flowers (cherry, plum, camellia, and peach) are the focus of close to 70 percent of the famous places. The remaining 30 percent center on birds (bush warbler, small cuckoo, plovers, and marsh hen [kuina]), insects, moon, and snow. Forty-four percent of the famous places are temples or shrines. Only 12 percent are flower gardens such as Somei, in which grew special flowers like the peony (botan), Chinese peony (shakuyaku), morning glory (asagao), and chrysanthemum (kiku).42
The percentages roughly reflect the seasonal pyramid of topics in classical Japanese poetry—with spring cherry blossom, autumn moon, and winter snow at the top—indicating that many of the aristocratic pursuits associated with the four seasons that emerged in the Nara and Heian periods were followed by a large number of urban commoners in the Edo period. Equally important, many famous places were built for or converted to the use of seasonal entertainment by transplanting cherry trees, releasing bush warblers, or otherwise creating seasonal motifs. The mountain cherry (yamaza-kura), which had been the focus of cherry-blossom viewing in the Heian and medieval periods, was mainly a tree planted or found in coppice woodlands (zōkibayashi) that had replaced virgin forest. Just before the Meiji period (1868–1912), the yamazakura, which Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) praised in a noted poem—“If one asks people about the heart of Yamato, it is the mountain cherry blossoms that glow in the morning sun” (Shikishima no yamatogo-koro o hito towaba asahi ni niou yamazakurabana)—were replaced by Somei—Yoshino cherry trees, which came from a gardener in Ueki in Edo43 In short, the cherry trees viewed in Edo and in Tokyo today are almost entirely the product of Japanese horticulture.
Throughout the Heian and Kamakura periods, cherry-blossom viewing (hana-mi) was largely an activity of the aristocracy and military elite.44 It was not until the Warring States period (1477–1573) that it also became a pastime for commoners. Screen paintings such as Kaka yūraku zu byōbu (Screen Painting of Amusement Under the Flowers) by Kanō Naganobu (1577–1654) and Hanami takagari zu byōbu (Screen Painting of Flower Viewing and Falcon Hunting) by Unkoku Tōgan (1547–1618), both painted in the Momoyama period (1568–1615), show commoners in a variety of dress, some playing flutes and drums, while others hold branches of cherry blossoms and fans as they dance wildly.45 In the kyōgen (comic drama) play Kenbutsu-zaemon (Zaemon the Sightseer; also known as Hanami [Flower Viewing]), the protagonist, an urban commoner, goes from one famous cherry-blossom site to another in Kyoto, reflecting the cherry-blossom craze among commoners.46 Thus by the Edo period, flower viewing had reached all levels of society, and the concomitant socializing, drinking, eating, and dancing—activities permitted by the military government (bakufu) during hana-mi time—became a major outlet for commoners’ energy (figure 24).
Another popular social practice in the Edo period was moon viewing (tsuki-mi), enjoyed especially on the evenings of the thirteenth, fifteenth, and twenty-sixth days of the Eighth Month. The evening of the fifteenth day of the Eighth Month (Hazuki-jūgoya), alternatively called the night of the fifteenth (jūgoya), was considered to be the clearest of all evenings in the year, and the harvest moon was thought to be bright from the afternoon onward. In the Heian period, a banquet had been held at the imperial court, with music and poetry composition.47 From the Muromachi period, when the term meigetsu (bright moon) came into use, offerings were made to the moon on the evening of the fifteenth. Kitagawa Morisada’s Morisada mankō (1853), a guide to Edo customs, describes offerings of sweet potatoes (imo), dango cakes, green soybeans (edamame), and miscanthus grass in ear (susuki)—no doubt derived from earlier agricultural observances. Moon viewing eventually became, among commoners, a major social event almost as important as cherry-blossom viewing.48 On the evening of the twenty-sixth day of the Eighth Month, people gathered at a place with a good view and waited for the moon to rise, eating and drinking; composing kanshi, waka, renga (classical linked verse), or haikai; and being regaled by storytellers, dancers, and other street entertainers.49 In Yoshiwara, which hosted elaborate moon-viewing parties, the female entertainers (yūjo) made every effort to empty their customers’ pockets, resulting in hokku such as “Viewing the moon until the family mansion collapses” (Ie yashiki katabuku made no tsuki o miru)?50
CHERRY-BLOSSOM VIEWING AT THE SUMIDA RIVER
This illustration in Saitō Gesshin’s Seasonal Almanac of the Eastern Capital (Tōto saijiki, 1838), a popular guide to annual commoner and warrior observances in Edo, shows one of the most popular spots for cherry-blossom viewing: the embankment of the Sumida River. The walkway is lined with food stands, including one for cherry-blossom rice cakes (sakura-mochi). (Courtesy of Waseda University Library, Special Collection, Tokyo)
Various locales throughout the country became famous places for moon viewing, among the most notable being Obasute-yama (Old Crone Mountain) in Sarashina (present-day Nagano Prefecture), Sayo no nakayama (Shizuoka Prefecture), Ishiyama Temple in Ōmi (Shiga Prefecture), and Akashi Bay in Harima (Hyōgo Prefecture). A medieval legend has it that Murasaki Shikibu began to write The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari, early eleventh century) as she watched the harvest moon over Lake Biwa from Ishiyama Temple. “Ryōya bokusui no tsukimi” (Moon Viewing on the Sumida River on a Good Night), an illustration by Hasegawa Settan (1778–1843) in Saitō Gesshin’s Tōto saijiki, shows boats on the Sumida River stocked with food and saké. In all likelihood, the men in the boat will take their time and proceed to nearby Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarters.
Thus urban commoners and samurai enjoyed nature and the four seasons not only in their alcoves and gardens, but also at famous places in Edo or the immediate vicinity. The number of meisho vastly increased in the Edo period, particularly from around the Kyōho era (1716–1736), reflecting the growing interest in visiting such sites. Another indication of the popularity of this pastime is the publication of a series of guidebooks, such as Murasaki hitomoto (Stem of the Lavender, 1683), Edo kanoko (Edo Fawn, 1687), Zoku Edo sunako (Sequel to Edo Sand, 1735), and Oka Sanchō’s Edo meisho hana-goyomi, which, like Tōto saijiki, was illustrated by Hasegawa Settan. The first two books list the famous places by topographical type, while the third and fourth categorize the meisho by major seasonal motifs, such as the entry for “cherry blossoms” in the spring section of Edo meisho hanagoyomi:
New Yoshiwara, in Sanya. Each year, from the first [day] of the Third Month, inside the Great Gate, on Naka-no-chō Avenue, they plant a thousand cherry trees. People are coming and going here all the time.
CHERRY-BLOSSOM VIEWING IN THE PLEASURE QUARTERS
This illustration by Hasegawa Settan, in Oka Sanchō’s Flower Calendar of Famous Places in Edo (Edo meisho hanagoyomi, 1827), a noted guide to seasonal activities in Edo, shows cherry-blossom viewing at New Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarters in Edo. The inscribed hokku is: “Pleasure quarters of flowers that even Saigyō did not see” (Saigyō mo mata minu hana no kuruwa kana). (Courtesy of Waseda University Library, Special Collection, Tokyo)
The cherry trees at New Yoshiwara (Shin-Yoshiwara), the official pleasure quarters in Edo (figure 25), were brought in on the first day of the Third Month and taken away after the blossoms had scattered. At night, they were illuminated, making for an incredible spectacle.
Annual observances, like festivals to the gods (matsuri) in general, derived from at least three fundamental functions tied to the seasons: to welcome or pray to a god, with the welcome generally occurring at the beginning of the year or in the spring; to drive out evil, which tended to occur in the summer (the time of plague and harmful insects); and to celebrate or show gratitude for a rich harvest, which usually took place in the autumn.)51 From as early as the Heian period, annual observances often included natural motifs (such as chrysanthemum and peach flowers) that became seasonal topics in waka and painting. By the Edo period, a large portion of the seasonal words in haikai were related to annual ceremonies. If architectural structures such as the garden of the palace-style (shinden-zukuri) residence and the alcove of the parlor-style (shoin-zukuri) residence, in which seasonal paintings and flower arrangements were displayed, served to interiorize secondary nature in the city, then annual observances in the form of cherry-blossom viewing and similar outdoor activities served to exteriorize secondary nature, placing it within easy reach, especially in the form of famous places that were constructed with increasing frequency in the major cities of the Edo period, particularly in the eighteenth century.52 Significantly, this exteriorized nature centered on waka-esque motifs (such as cherry blossoms, bright foliage, and harvest moon), thus integrating a former court tradition into urban commoner life. Indeed, as the requirements of renga and the discourse of haikai treatises suggest, the cherry blossoms and moon, representing the two major cultural seasons, became synonymous with the beauty of nature, now enjoyed in a variety of urban forms.
In the Heian and medieval waka tradition, the poetic places functioned, as Kamo no Chōmei notes in Mumyōshō (Nameless Treatise, 1211–1216), as a kind of textual garden, a means to bring nature into immediate reach and express a poet’s emotions and needs through its poetic landscape.53 By contrast, the Edo-period meisho became a kind of public garden for urban commoners, many of whom could not afford their own gardens. In carefully cultivated scenic places, they could enjoy nature with little care and almost no cost. In contrast to the rock-and-sand gardens (kare-sansui) of medieval Zen temples, which were intended to be sites for quiet viewing and contemplation, the famous places of the Edo period became spaces for unrestrained behavior and inebriation. For urban commoners, cherry-blossom viewing was more akin to a festival, a time out of ordinary time, when the social rules and boundaries were temporally lifted. Probably forgotten was one of the ancient roots of cherry-blossom viewing: the belief that green leaves and sprays of flowers, when rubbed against the body or placed in the hair or clothing, brought new life to an individual.
Four other key aspects of the cultural representation of nature emerged in the Edo period: the impact of haikai, the rise of literary and visual parody, the role of food, and the influence of medical botany—all of which built on and dramatically altered the seasonal representations of nature as they had existed for almost a thousand years.
