Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 2/Chapter 3
Chapter III
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE
MILITARY EPOCH (Continued)
TURNING to the costumes of the era, we find conservatism and change side by side. One of the vagaries of fashion was a rule that the skirt of an official's upper garment should be long in proportion to his rank. In the middle of the thirteenth century it was considered de rigueur that a minister of State should have an eight-foot train; a senior councillor, seven feet; a junior councillor, six feet ; and so on down to officials lower than the fourth grade who had to content themselves with four feet. At the zenith of this fashion a prime minister might be seen dragging after him a train twelve feet long and managing it with grace and address acquired by arduous practice. Military men, however, did not obey this monstrous custom, prototype of the modern Occidental Drawing-room. The Court nobles and civil officials enjoyed a monopoly of it,—the men who, deeming themselves best attired when they resembled women most closely, shaved their eyebrows, painted their cheeks, and blackened their teeth to achieve the likeness.
It was in this period that the habit of shaving the crown of the head came into vogue. The statement does not apply to persons adopting the priesthood and receiving the tonsure as a mark of their retirement from secular life, but to the people at large. Court nobles and civil officials, however, did not in this epoch adopt the crown-shaving habit. They wore their hair long, and gathered it in a bunch with the ends evenly clipped,—the "tea-switch style," as they called it, because of its resemblance to the bamboo mixer used for stirring the powdered-tea beverage. This queue was bound with a strand of twisted paper, the colour of the paper being determined by the rank of the wearer. The Shōgun wore a vermilion strand; nobles and officials entitled to enter the audience hall in the Palace, employed purple, and officials not possessing that privilege, white. It was the military men that inaugurated the custom of shaving the crown, not for the sake of appearance, but because the weight and heat of the helmet suggested removal of the hair. At first they confined themselves to thinning the hair over the temples and tasselling the portion of it that remained. Next they shaved the crown, and, when not in armour, wore false hair arranged so as to hang in short locks over the forehead. Then, finally, the bald crown came to be an honoured mark of the soldier, and was frankly exposed, the back hair being tied in a queue, and brought forward so as to divide the crown equally. This style afterwards came into universal vogue, soldier and civilian, prince and peasant alike affecting it. Connected with this is a superstition characteristic of the age. A belief had prevailed from time immemorial that if a man bathed on a particular day in the year, without reciting an incantation to certain demons, he would lose all his hair. The inauspicious day being called gesshiki in the almanac, the soldier gave that name to a wooden instrument used for thinning his locks.
Beards and mustaches were grown freely, being regarded as manly embellishments. To be without a good provision of hair on the face gave a soldier much concern. He lamented over himself as a "defective being" or a "female man;" and there is on record a case of a samurai of Odawara who so bitterly resented a joking allusion to his beardlessness, that he fell, sword in hand, upon the joker, and both perished. Side-whiskers were much affected, because the demon-slayer Shōki had always been artistically represented with such ornaments, which consequently had the honour of being called Shōki-hige. A chin-beard alone, however, was condemned as imparting a craven aspect. Great veneration attached to a long white beard. Its fortunate possessor enjoyed the privilege of being placed socially above every one else, and was designated Shira-hige Miyo-jin, or the "white-bearded deity." A not less esteemed adornment was a battle-scar. In the middle of the sixteenth century the great captain Hōjō Ujiyasu was reputed to have slain thirty strong warriors with his own blade. He had seven sword wounds on his body and one on his face, and from that time a "fine-deed scar" on the visage went by the name of an "Ujiyasu slash."
Staining the teeth black, a habit hitherto confined to Court nobles and officials residing in Kyōtō, was universally adopted by the soldier class after it had been carried from the Imperial city to the military capital (Kamakura) by the Hōjō family. A man with white teeth was derided, and heads taken in battle counted for little unless they had black teeth.
Women continued to wear their hair long, as in the Heian epoch. They added artificial hair if nature had not been kind to them. When a lady of rank walked abroad, her long tresses were gathered into a box which an attendant carried, following behind; and when she seated herself, it was the attendant's duty to spread the hair symmetrically on the ground like a skirt. A lady lacking an attendant festooned her hair over the right shoulder, using paper to tie up the ends. Sometimes a woman "banged" her hair in a triplet of loops; and girls in their teens had a pretty fashion of wearing it in three clearly distinguished lengths,—a short fringe over the forehead, two cascades falling below the shoulders, and a long lock behind. Labouring women adopted a much simpler style. They bound the head with a gracefully folded cloth, gathering and knotting the hair under this kerchief. The process of enveloping the head in such a fashion was developed into a high art. In a moment a woman could convert the little square of cotton cloth that she carried by way of a towel, into a coiffure of the daintiest and jauntiest description. Professionals, as physicians, dancers, singers, and actors, razed the head completely, after the manner of Buddhist friars.
Speaking broadly, the costumes of the people now began to approximate to the style represented in the genre pictures of the seventeenth century. Women of the upper classes continued to wear loose trousers, but in the dress of the lower classes, and in the toilet of unmarried girls, skirted robes made their appearance. The girdle (obi) of later days, an essentially characteristic feature of Japanese costume as the Occident knows it, had not yet come into use. Ladies, indoors, tied a narrow belt of silk round the waist, knotting it in front and treating it essentially as a mere fastener. Above it they wore a long, flowing robe, reaching from the neck to the heels, with voluminous sleeves. This robe, in the case of aristocratic dames, was of magnificent quality, sometimes of rich brocade, sometimes of elaborately embroidered silk or satin. Towards the close of the sixteenth century girls began to tie several plies of silk cord round the waist, knotting it in graceful loops behind, and letting the ends hang low. This was the obi in embryo. Not until comparatively recent times, however, did aristocratic ladies overcome their objection to converting the girdle into a conspicuous article of apparel. In fact, up to the end of the Military epoch, namely, the close of the sixteenth century, the girdle gave no earnest of the wealth of care and taste ultimately lavished on it.
Perhaps the most noteworthy innovation of the epoch was the kami-shimo ("upper and lower"); a very simple costume, consisting of an upper garment without sleeves or plaits—a kind of square-shouldered waistcoat—and a lower in the form of straight-legged, vertically plaited trousers, having a broad waistband attached. The end of the kami was confined within the waistband of the shimo, and the two, worn above the ordinary costume, produced a marked effect of decorous stiffness and primness. They ultimately became the costume of ceremony for all men of the official and military classes. When Japan was re-opened to foreign intercourse in the nineteenth century, the kami-shimo with its pointed shoulders and divided-skirt trousers, seemed to be in almost universal use, and the aspect that its wearers presented was not unlike that of a butterfly with extended wings and an abnormally long body.
Head-gear took various forms,—some quaint and ungraceful, some simple and pretty. Women, when they went abroad, wore a large hat like an inverted bowl; and when they rode on horseback they suspended from the rim of this hat a curtain from three to four feet long, or threw over the crown drapery that reached to the shoulders on either side and to the elbows behind. A much more picturesque fashion was to draw the outer garment, hoodlike, over the head, leaving the face alone exposed. A hood independent of the garment was also worn, and in cold weather, or when concealment was desirable, this hood could be made to envelop the face so that the eyes only remained visible. Men, too, adopted this fashion at times. In the streets of Kyōtō there might also be observed girls wearing pyramidal caps about eighteen inches high, looking like large spirals of horizontally twisted linen. These were the Phrynes of the time. The official head-gear for men continued to be a black-lacquered cap, bound on the top of the head—which it made no pretence of fitting—and shaped like a legless and armless easy-chair with or without a jug-handle excrescence pendent to the shoulders behind. Another less ceremonious and commoner shape resembled a small cone with its base elongated behind; and the most aristocratic form of all, that worn by the Shōgun imself, may be compared to an Occidental gentleman's "bell-topper," elongated, deprived of its rim, and reduced in circumference so as not to fit the head, but merely to be poised on the middle of it.
In the beginning of this epoch artisans of all classes wore head-gear shaped like an overgrown nightcap, but they subsequently discarded this in favour of the cone-shaped hat mentioned above.
None of these head-dresses could be honestly called coverings, except, perhaps, the artisan's nightcap gear. They were as little adapted to the shape or size of the wearer's cranium as are some of the curious structures that young ladies in modern Europe pin to their hair.
As to the materials used for habiliments, they varied from the richest Chinese brocade to the coarsest home-spun. A white damasked silk robe with dark-red sleeves, purple lining, and a design of purple badges, woven or dyed, was a specially aristocratic costume; but, as a general rule, only persons of exalted rank were permitted to wear brocade unless they received it as a gift from the Shōgun's Court. The use of pure silk also was forbidden outside the Courts of the Emperor and the Shōgun, and purple lining shared the veto; but such interdicts, though frequently issued, never commanded much obedience.
Characteristic of the epoch was the use of family badges for decorative designs. A gentleman or lady might often be seen wearing a garment with large badges conspicuously blazoned on the sleeves, the back, and the shoulders. It is a curious fact that costumes brocaded with gold or silver were popularly called "passara style," an expression obviously derived from the language of some country westward of China.
Again and again legislative attempts were made to check luxurious tendencies in matters of dress, the gist of these enactments being to limit the use of pure silk to lining purposes. The Taikō extended official restrictions as far as foot-gear. Even his great power failed, however, to make these rules effective. His order that trousers and stockings must not be lined, and that sandals must be of plaited straw, not leather, was observed in Kyōtō and Osaka, but did not carry much weight in fiefs remote from the capital.
Leather socks had been in use from the twelfth century, women using them as well as men. The common leather sock was brown in colour, but those worn by great folk were blue, and had decorative designs—which ultimately took the shape of family badges—embroidered in white thread. To this latter kind the name "brocaded sock" was given, the brown variety being called "authorised leather" (gomen kawa), since ordinary people might not use it without official permission. Women wore leggings when they went on a journey, and it may be said that the costume of females in these days was much more practical than that of their successors in the Yedo epoch.
The badges here spoken of began to be devised and used during the wars of the Taira and the Minamoto, according to tradition, but they probably existed at an earlier epoch. Their original purpose was to distinguish ally from enemy, and by degrees the habit of blazoning them on garments became almost universal among the military class. A sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum and a bunch of Paulownia leaves and buds were the Imperial badges, and their employment was interdicted to all subjects. When and under what circumstances the chrysanthemum and the Paulownia began to be regarded as Imperial badges, there has not been any successful attempt to determine. So far as is known, the chrysanthemum appeared for the first time upon the hilt of a sword belonging to the Emperor Gotoba (1186–1198), and it certainly became the Imperial badge from that time. No other object occupies an equally important place in Japanese decorative art. It is used independently, or as a member of more or less elaborate designs, with remarkable ingenuity and effect. But as to Japan's title to have invented this graceful decorative motive, it is to be observed that on an early gold ornament from Camirus now in the British Museum—an ornament dating from an era many centuries before Christ—the chrysanthemum enters the decorative scheme in precisely the form given to it by Japanese artists, the number of petals alone being different. From Rhodes to Kyōtō is a long distance, yet it is extremely difficult to deny a common origin to two forms so exactly similar.
Many of the badges of mediæval Japan were designed to recall incidents in the history of the family or individual carrying them. Thus a badge in the form of a cross saltere was adopted by a warrior who found that by wiping his sword-blade again and again on the knee of his trousers during a battle, two blood-stains in the shape of a cross were produced. Another badge, consisting of two wood-doves and a bunch of mistletoe, commemorated the fact that Yoritomo, hiding from his enemies in the hollow trunk of a tree, would have been discovered had not two doves, flying out of the trunk as the pursuers were about to search it, convinced them that no one could be concealed there. Yet another—a circle and two bars—represented a cup and a pair of chopsticks, and recalled the fact that a famished soldier recovered his strength by eating the rice laid before a sacred shrine. Numerous legends are thus connected with the cognisances of great families, but many badges, on the other hand, were the inventions of purely decorative fancy. Indeed the Japanese badge was originally nothing more than an ornamental design, and the term applied to it (mon) has primarily that meaning. Afterwards it derived importance from its usefulness as an aid to identification, and soldiers blazoned it on their banners, on the front of the helmet, and on the breastplate. Every person of any social status had his badge, and noble families had three,—one principal and two alternatives,—smaller folk being content with two and the ordinary samurai with one. A general or a feudal chief sometimes conferred on a subordinate, in recognition of meritorious conduct, a surcoat having the donor's badge woven or embroidered on it, and the recipient was entitled to wear the garment as long as it was wearable, but not to adopt the badge permanently. Yet badges were not necessarily a mark of aristocracy in Japan. Merchants and manufacturers might have them woven or dyed on a garment, being careful only that the dimensions of the device should be unostentatious compared with the large badges, sometimes three or four inches in diameter, blazoned on the costumes of nobles and high officials. Even that restriction disappeared in time, and from the seventeenth century common mechanics might be seen wearing tunics with badges that stretched across the whole space between the shoulders behind. Just as in Europe a crest or a coat of arms is put upon carriages, household utensils and ornaments, so the Japanese applied these badges not only to their garments but also to their equipages, their dining apparatus, the gates of their residences, their tombstones, the tiles of their roofs, and the metal ornaments on the beams of their houses. The only place from which the badge had to be banished was a wedding robe or a mourning garment. It may be here noticed that an ingenious attempt was recently made to prove that several Japanese badges have for their chief motive the Christian Cross, being thus a relic of the brief era during which the foreign faith found powerful converts in Japan prior to its virtual extinction in the early part of the seventeenth century. It is difficult to imagine that badges having such an affinity could have continued to be openly worn in an age when even the cross of St. George displayed on the flag of an English ship precluded her admission to a Japanese port.
Family badges are among the few creations of aristocratic custom that were not systematised by the Japanese and brought within the purview of an exact code of regulations. It was necessary, indeed, that among the retainers of every noble household there should be some possessing an intimate acquaintance with the cognisances of all great personages, so that when the retinues of two dignitaries met en route, there should be no hesitation in exchanging the courtesies appropriate to their relative ranks. But no such thing as a service of heraldry existed.
To conclude this reference to the costumes of the Military epoch, it remains to note that the year was divided into three periods with respect to changes of garments,—winter (September 1st to March 31st),[1] when Kosode was worn; that is to say, a robe having a thick layer of silk wadding between the stuff and the lining; spring (April 1st to May 5th), when the Awase, a lined garment without wadding, went into wear; and summer (May 5th to August 31st), when the Katabira, an unlined robe, was orthodox. This rule never varied in subsequent ages.
Women in the Military epoch wore absolutely no hair ornaments. The fashion in this respect bore no resemblance whatever to that of subsequent eras. In the matter of shaving the eyebrows and substituting two little black dots high upon the forehead, as also in that of staining the teeth black, the rule of former times continued to be faithfully observed by girls out of their teens.
Braziers are now found in common use, and towards the middle of the fifteenth century they were supplemented by a contrivance which, though very simple in conception, added greatly to the comfort of the people. A brazier is evidently useless for warming the feet, especially in the case of persons who habitually sit upon the ground. Better suited for that purpose is even the sunken hearth of aristocratic houses in previous eras and of the lower middle classes in all eras. But the brazier, when once introduced, quickly became an ornament as well as an article of furniture. Manufactured of brass or bronze, handsomely repoussé and chiselled, or taking the form of a metal receptacle inserted in a case of finely grained or richly lacquered wood, it soon obtained recognition as the only heating apparatus adapted to refined life, the sunken hearth being banished to the kitchen and the tea-chamber. It was then that some one invented the kotatsu, a brazier which, being covered by a latticed wooden frame, could be placed under a quilt drawn over the knees, thus constituting a mechanically excellent though very insanitary method of heating the lower part of the body.
Pine torches continued to be the chief means of obtaining light at aristocratic receptions and weddings, but on ordinary excursions they began to be replaced by lanterns consisting of a candle set inside a skeleton frame covered with an envelope of thin white paper. In the fifteenth century a kind of basket lantern was devised which could be folded up when not in use. About the same time candles began to be made of greatly improved tallow, and a species of match was invented in the form of a piece of thin wood tipped with sulphur. These changes carried the Japanese far towards the limits of the improvements made by them in lighting apparatus prior to the resumption of Occidental intercourse in the nineteenth century. The basket lantern, indeed, gradually gave place to a delicate structure decorated so prettily and variously that Japanese lanterns ultimately became famous and were chosen by all civilised nations as specially suited for illuminations where spectacular effect is important. But the folding principle invented in the fifteenth century was never bettered.
With regard to diet, dwellers in the Imperial capital continued to be influenced by Buddhist vetoes against the taking of life, but did not carry their piety beyond refraining from the flesh of four-footed animals and certain birds. As for the military men at Kamakura and in the provinces, no prejudice of that kind disturbed them. They ate everything eatable, except the flesh of oxen and horses. Deer, wild boar, bear, badger, hare, wild fowl, larks, pheasant, snipe, quails, thrushes, and other field birds furnished their table, and they laughed at the citizens of Kyōtō who believed that the misfortunes of the Emperor Go-Murakami (1319–1368) had been due to his neglect of the Buddhist commandment. All kinds of fish, many varieties of sea-weed, twenty-five vegetables, twenty-one fruits, and some eight or nine flavourings constituted their staples of diet, apart from rice, barley, and millet. That universally serviceable and most profitable condiment of the Japanese kitchen, soy (shōyu), a mixture of calcined barley-meal and a special kind of beans, yeast, water, and salt, had not yet been invented. Its place was taken by the greatly inferior but much cheaper miso, a sauce made of wheat, beans, and salt.
But although his list of edibles was large, the military man nominally contented himself with two meals a day. His chief food was, of course, rice, everything else being regarded as a relish, and his normal allowance of the grain was a pint and a half daily. This he simply boiled in a pot or cauldron, instead of resorting to the more aristocratic method of steaming it in a covered jar. In the intervals between his morning and evening meals, he regaled himself, if his resources permitted, with vermicelli, macaroni, bean-jelly, rice-dumplings, and various kinds of cakes and fruits, washed down by tea or hot water scented with pickled cherry-buds.
There is no special change to be noted in the manner of serving meals or in the utensils employed, except that the use of tables in Chinese style went altogether out of fashion, and the viands were ranged upon a tray standing about four inches high, which was placed upon the ground. Every diner had his own set of trays, one for each course or class of viands. The greatest refinement of manufacture marked the various apparatus, the cups, bowls, and trays being of rich lacquer, and the wine-pourers of silver or gold. This description does not apply to the case of commoners, of course. They had utensils of plain black or red lacquer and wine-holders of unglazed pottery. From the fifteenth century China sent over vessels of porcelain decorated with blue sous couverte, or of stoneware covered with céladon glaze. At an even earlier date she had supplied objects of the same class though technically inferior, but they were beyond the reach of any save the wealthiest people. In the sixteenth century Japan began to manufacture porcelain for herself, but nearly a hundred years elapsed before it became the rival of lacquer for table utensils. It is worth noting that in the Palace as well as in the mansions of noblemen and the barracks of soldiers, the most approved kind of wine-cup was a shallow bowl of unglazed red pottery, which was never used more than once by those that could afford such extravagance.
In spite of the nominally frugal habits of the military class, Kyōtō continued its career of luxury, especially from the days of the celebrated Ashikaga Shōgun, Yorimitsu (1368–1394). The date of this ruler's accession to power corresponds with that of the establishment of the Ming dynasty in China, and relations of exceptional intimacy were established between the two Empires, Japan recovering her old-time respect for the civilisation of her neighbour. But Yorimitsu imitated the extravagant sybaritism of the later Yuan Mongols rather than the austere self-denial of the early Ming sovereigns. Of him and of his fifth successor, Yoshimasa (1449–1472), it must be said that they squandered the State's resources on excesses of every kind, but it must also be said that their aesthetic impulses and munificent patronage of art conferred permanent benefit on their country.
Perhaps the truest explanation of Yoshimasa's unparalleled devotion to art in every form, his building of the Silver Pavilion, his intimate association with great painters, his elaboration of the tea ceremonial, his extension of the incense cult, his love of landscape gardening, and his passion for objects of virtu, is to say that he responded to the remarkable movement taking place contemporaneously in China. He became Shōgun fifteen years after the conclusion of the Shun-tieh era (1426–1436), which, together with the previous era of Yung-lo (1403–1425), must be regarded as one of the greatest epochs of Chinese art,—an epoch when the manufacture of porcelain first became a really skilled achievement, and when the grand painters, Lü Ki, Liu Tsun, Bien Kingchao, and Liu Liang rivalled the renown of the immortal Sung masters. Japan would certainly have felt that remarkable movement, even though she had not been ruled by a man so singularly receptive of art influence as Yoshimasa; but the coincidence that her affairs happened to be administered by such a magnificent dilettante just at the moment when her neighbour was entering a brilliant period of art achievement, which lasted, almost without interruption, for nearly four centuries, undoubtedly helped to push her towards her destiny of æsthetic greatness. Her painters did not, it is true, immediately adopt the brilliant colouring and delicate finish of the Ming masters; they preferred the broad, bold style of the Sung artists. But had not their attention been directed to China by the general impulse of art development that followed the accession of the Ming monarchs, it is not improbable that they would never have evolved the great academy of landscape painters which numbered Sesshiu, Shiubun, Oguri Sotan, Soga Jasoku, and Kano Motonobu. This is not the place to speak of such matters in detail; the broad fact alone need be noted that for all the disorder and unrest by which the Military epoch was marked, it saw the birth of a great art movement under the Ashikaga Shōgun, and the rapid development of the movement under the Taikō. The latter it was whose practical genius did most to popularise art. Although his early training and the occupations of his life until a late period were of a nature to suppress, rather than to educate, æsthetic tastes, he devoted to the cause of art a considerable portion of the sovereign power that his grand gifts as a military leader and a politician had brought him. Not only did he bestow munificent allowances on skilled artists and art artisans, but he also conferred on them distinctions which proved stronger incentives than any pecuniary remuneration, and when he built his celebrated palace—the Castle of Pleasure—at Fushimi, so vast was the sum that he lavished on its decorations, and such a certain passport to his favour did artistic merit prove, that the little town of Fushimi quickly became the art capital of the Empire, and the residence of all the most skilful painters, lacquerers, metal-workers, and woodcarvers within the "Four Seas." Historians speak with profound regret of the dismantling and destruction of this splendid edifice after the death of the Taikō's adopted heir; but it is more than probable that the permanent possession of even such a magnificent monument of applied art could not have benefited the country nearly so much as did its destruction. For the immediate result was an exodus of all the experts who, settling at Fushimi, had become famous for the sake of their work in connection with the "Castle of Pleasure." They scattered among the fiefs of the most powerful provincial nobles, who received them hospitably and granted them liberal revenues. From that time, namely, the close of the sixteenth century, there sprang up an inter-fief rivalry of artistic production which materially promoted the development of every branch of art and encouraged refinement of life and manners.
This reference to the history of art in the context of the kitchen may seem discursive. But it is necessary to note the general spread of aesthetic influences and tastes during the Military epoch in order to understand how even the once austere soldier class were swept into the circle of luxurious living.
From the days of Yoshimasa cooking became a science. It had its two academies, the Shijo and the Okusa, each professing to be the sole repository of essential arcana which were transmitted from generation to generation. Here, again, just as in the ceremonials of tea-drinking and incense-burning, there is found an elaborate code of rules, prescribing not only the dimensions and shapes of every implement and utensil, but also the precise manner of manipulating each instrument in preparing different viands, and the mode of serving, marshalling and decorating the dishes. The vocabulary of the science is curiously abundant, probably even more so than the nomenclature of the French cuisine, and superstition is invoked to prevent combinations of viands considered contrary to natural canons. Thus, if wild-boar and leveret were served together, or pheasant and badger, or salmon and tunny-fish, or sazae (Tsubo cornutus) and dried cod, the eater might look forward to some grievous calamity within a hundred days. Another regulation prescribed that when fish and flesh formed part of the same dinner, the products of hill and garden should be marshalled on the left, those of sea and river on the right. Nearly every dish had its appropriate dressing leaves, and these were placed face upward at feasts of congratulation and face downward on occasions of mourning.
Elaborate enactments extended to the etiquette of eating and drinking as well as to the science of cooking. Wine had to be drunk to the limit of three cups, or five cups, or seven cups, or three times three cups; and even the mode of drinking had its conventionalities, three sips, five sips, the "nightingale style," the "dew-drop style," and so on. Pouring out wine was also a test of polite accomplishments. Again, in eating rice, the perfect gentleman or lady put into the mouth a chopsticks' measure on the right, a chopsticks' measure on the left, a chopsticks' measure in the centre, and masticated them all three together. In consuming the viands placed before him, a man had to follow the order of hill, sea, river, field, and garden. In taking soup, he was required to eat some of the fish, meat, or vegetable it contained, before drinking any of the liquid. In using chopsticks, the manner of manipulating them had its rules, and so also had many other parts of the procedure which need not be detailed. With regard to the position of the body, a man sat upon one heel, keeping one knee raised until the first tray of viands was placed before him, when he sat on both heels; and an attendant had to conclude his approach and commence his retirement kneeling on both knees, raising one, however, when he poured out wine or performed any other service. For ladies the code was even more rigorous. Above all they were expected to make no sound whatever in eating or drinking, — a veto that had no force in the case of a man, he being entitled to drink his soup or wine or ladle in his rice noisily, and even to mark his sense of abundance by sounds shocking to polite ears in the Occident. Ladies further employed in naming dishes a vocabulary entirely different from that used by man.
It is plain, even from the outlines sketched here and elsewhere, that to be a master or mistress of polite accomplishments in Japan during the Military epoch, to understand the flower-arranging art, the tea and the incense cults (which will be spoken of presently), the etiquette of the table, the principles of poetical composition, and the elaborate dance movements, required long and industrious study.
There was no noteworthy change in great people's manner of going abroad, as compared with the Heian epoch. They still used six kinds of ox-carriage and four kinds of palanquin. The palanquin, which was in effect a light ox-carriage with the wheels removed and the shafts carried to the same length behind as in front, found, in this time, more favour than the ox-carriage. It received great modification at the hands of Yoshimasa, the prince of dilettanti. He substituted a single pole for the two shafts, and suspended the vehicle from the pole instead of supporting it on the shafts. Thus was obtained the kago, which played much the same part in old Japan as the jinrikisha does to-day. The kago held one person. Two men carried it, resting the pole on their shoulders, and trained bearers thought nothing of walking thirty miles a day, thus loaded.
A nobleman's going abroad in state continued to be a business of great pomp and elaborate organisation. It reached its zenith of grandeur in the days of the Ashikaga Shōguns. Court nobles and high officials deemed it an honour to take part in the procession that attended such magnates as Yoshimitsu or Yoshimasa, and were particularly flattered if the duty fell to them of carrying the Shōgun's shoes, or acting as his train-bearer. This progress was called o-nari—"the honourable becoming." The Shōgun rode in an ox-carriage or palanquin, accompanied, in the former case, by an ox-driver and an ox-feeder. The animal was always a noble specimen of its kind, jet black and groomed so that it shone like velvet. The caparisons were scarlet, purple, and white, and the carriage glowed with golden lacquer and delicately tinted hangings. Before and behind and on either side marched a crowd of guards, bearers of swords and lances, attendants, "miscellaneous folks," carriers of waterproof coats, umbrellas, and so on. Officers of rank carried the Shōgun's sword and his foot-gear, and one person, the bearer of an article more necessary than euphonious, went by the polite name of "morning and evening" (chōseki). When such a procession, or even that of a lesser magnate, passed through the streets, all the citizens were required to kneel with the hands placed on the ground and the head resting on them, and the shutters of upper windows giving on the street had to be closed lest any one should "look down" on the great man. To pass across the ranks of the procession or in any way to interrupt its progress, exposed the offender to instant death under the swords of the guards.
Even an ordinary gentleman when he rode abroad was followed by at least one attendant on foot. He always carried his own bow and quiver, and sometimes his two swords also, but it was a common practice to entrust the long sword to the attendant, who bore it at the "carry." When there were two attendants, one shouldered a lance, the other a spare bow; and when a gentleman went on foot, one attendant marched behind carrying his master's long sword. The common samurai, of course, had no attendant. An exact code of etiquette guided the behaviour of processions passing each other, as well as of gentlemen meeting a procession, and any departure from the provisions of this code was regarded as a grave offence.
The military class constituted an immense standing army supported at the public charges. It was an exceptionally costly army, for the families of the samurai had to be maintained as well as the samurai themselves, and the officers, that is to say, the feudal nobles and their chief vassals, enjoyed revenues far in excess of any emoluments ever granted elsewhere on account of military service. It is now necessary to consider whence funds were obtained to meet this great outlay.
The system of taxation adopted in Japan in early times and the changes it underwent from age to age are interesting, not merely from a historical point of view, but also and chiefly as furnishing an index of the people's capacity to bear fiscal burdens. It is a somewhat obscure subject, though not so difficult to understand as the confusing attempts hitherto made to elucidate it would imply.
Land measure seems to have been based at the outset on a very practical consideration. The area required to grow sufficient rice for an adult male's daily consumption—in other words, a man's ration—was taken as the unit. A square whose side measured two paces, or six feet, being considered the area adequate for that purpose, received the name of ho, afterwards changed to tsubo. This unit of superficial measure remains unchanged until the present day. There being three hundred and sixty days in the year according to the old calendar—twelve months of thirty days each—a space measuring three hundred and sixty tsubo, and producing a year's rations, naturally suggested itself as another fundamental area, the term tan being applied to it. For the rest, the decimal system was adopted: one-tenth of a tan being called se, and ten tan a chō.[2]
Thus far as to superficial measurement. The next question is the grain grown on a given area. The basis in this case was the quantity of rice (on the stalk) that could be grasped in one hand. This was called nigiri. Three handfuls made a bundle (ha), twelve bundles a sheaf (soku), and fifty sheaves were regarded as the produce of the tan. In the earliest references to taxation, the "sheaf" is invariably mentioned. The unit of capacity was a wooden box (called masu) capable of holding exactly one-tenth of the grain obtained from a sheaf; that is to say, the hulled grain.[3] Naturally a more definite system ultimately replaced these empirical methods. At the close of the sixteenth century, under the administration of the Taikō, the measure of capacity was exactly fixed, and its volume was called tō; ten tō (i.e. a sheaf of grain, being called a koku (3.13 bushels), while one-tenth of a tō received the name of shō, and one-tenth of a skō that of gō. There were wooden measures having the capacity of a shō and a gō as well as that of a tō.[4]
The oldest historical record of land taxation shows that the tax levied on each tan of land, in the seventh century, was a sheaf and a half of hulled rice, and since the average produce of the tan was twenty-five sheaves, this represented only six per cent of the yield. Thenceforth the tendency was steadily in the direction of increase. In the middle of the ninth century land was divided into four grades for fiscal purposes; the levy on the first grade being five sheaves per tan (hulled grain must always be understood); that on the second, four sheaves that on the third, three sheaves, and that on the fourth, one and a half sheaves. This was called a tax of one-fifth or twenty per cent, the produce of the best land being then estimated at twenty-five sheaves. In fact, the tax was nearly three and a half times greater in the reign of the Emperor Saga (810-823) than it had been in that of the Emperor Kotoku (645-654). In the twelfth century the tax had become twenty-five per cent, and there was a further levy of ten per cent of the remaining grain, one-third of this extra impost being destined for the support of the governors in the provinces. Hence, at that time, the total grain tax on the land was thirty-two and a half per cent of the gross produce, the central government taking thirty per cent and the local government two and a half per cent.
It is not to be inferred that grain crops alone were taxed, other produce escaping. In addition to the levy of grain, people had to pay chōbutsu (prepared articles); as silk fabrics, pongee, and cotton cloth.[5] These were assessed at the rate of one piece of silk fabric, three pieces of pongee, and four pieces of cotton cloth per chō of land (the piece in every case being ten feet long and two and a half feet wide). Each of these imposts represented a monetary value of from thirty to forty momme.[6] There was also a house-tax (kobetsu) which took the form of a twelve-foot piece of cotton cloth per house, or six pieces of ten feet per chō of land; and, finally, the farmer had to pay "subordinate produce" (fuku-sanbutsu) to the value of thirty momme per chō. All these imposts of "prepared articles" aggregated about one hundred and eighty momme, or three ryō per chō, and since the price of hulled rice was two and a half koku per ryō and the grain tax was six and a half koku per chō, it would seem that the total imposts levied on each chō of land were fourteen koku. The average produce of rice per chō was reckoned in those days at twenty koku, and it thus appears that seventy per cent of the produce was taken by the tax-collector. The people were further required to provide weapons of war, and had to perform forced labour. The saying current in that era—from the close of the tenth century to the middle of the twelfth—was that the Government took seven-tenths of the produce of the land and left to the people only three-tenths.
It has to be remembered in this context that, in addition to the taxes enumerated above, every male between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-six was liable for thirty days' forced labour annually, and every minor for fifteen days; which corvée could be commuted by paying three pieces of cotton cloth, equivalent in value to about a koku of rice.
When Yoritomo, the Minamoto chieftain, made Kamakura the administrative capital of the Empire, he adopted the policy of lightening the people's burdens, but he did not succeed in reducing them to fifty per cent of the produce of the land, though it appears to have been the principle of his fiscal system that one-half of the yield of the soil should go to the ruler and one-half to the ruled. Yasutoki (1225–1242), the second of the Hōjō Vicegerents, a man of great governing acumen, not only lowered the taxes to fifty per cent of the produce, but also amended the law of forced labour. Another of the Hōjō chiefs, Tokiyori (1246–1263), pursued this policy still more resolutely. He enacted that the produce of the best land should be estimated at two koku per tan, and that it should be equally divided between the farmer and the Government. A tan of fertile land really yielded two and a half koku. Hence Tokiyori's system gave one and a half koku to the farmer and one to the Government, and the tax, though nominally fifty per cent, was in reality only forty per cent. Tokiyori was the first to introduce this method of lightening the taxes by underestimating the producing power of the land. It was in his time, also, that the monetary value of five koku of unhulled rice was fixed at one thousand copper cash, and a plot of land assessed to yield ten koku and therefore paying five koku, received the name of ik-kwan-mon no kiubun (a "thousand-cash-paying area").
When the Ashikaga family obtained the administrative power, its representative, Takauji (1338–1356), reverted to the methods of Yoritomo, his ancestor. But his sway did not extend effectively to more than seven-tenths of the Empire. A few years later, the Shōgun Yoshimitsu, most celebrated of the Ashikaga rulers, following the advice of a wise Minister, reduced the tax definitely to the ratio of four parts to the ruler and six to the ruled. But Yoshimasa (1449–1472), the most luxurious of Japanese rulers, unable to defray the extravagant expenditures of his court with the proceeds of such an impost, greatly raised the rate. His methods, however, were so capricious and irregular that it seems impossible to determine exactly what his levy was.
In addition to these regular taxes the Government of mediæval Japan had recourse to the ex- pedient of forced loans, issuing duly signed bonds to the lenders. Sometimes these bonds constituted merely nominal security, but in general they were redeemed wholly or in part. The great territorial magnates resorted constantly to this device, so that the strong-rooms of most of the leading merchants contained documentary evidence of large sums lent by them to their feudal rulers at merely nominal rates of interest. Ordinary borrowers, on the other hand, had to pay a very high price for accommodation, and since the interest was compounded and added to the principal at short intervals, the foreclosure of mortgages and the distraining of property were constant sources of embarrassment and distress. In times of adversity, when it seemed that the burden of debts had become excessive, or that they had been contracted under the pressure of want resulting from natural calamities, the Government sometimes adopted the course of proclaiming the cancellation of all obligations in existence at a certain date. Naturally this false policy had ultimately the effect of accentuating the distress it was intended to relieve, for by greatly increasing the risks of the lender, it compelled him to make his terms proportionately severe. Nevertheless, since the original motive of the measure was a benevolent desire to free the poor from the obligations they had contracted to the rich, and to prevent the accumulation of large wealth in the hands of individuals, it was called toku-sei, or the "virtuous system." Yoshimasa, the Ashikaga Shōgun spoken of above, abused the toku-sei in an extraordinary manner. Having resorted to forced loans from the well-to-do citizens of Kyōtō as often as eight times in a month, whereas the limit previously had been four times in a year, and having thus issued an inconvenient number of bonds, he freed himself from all these obligations by proclaiming the toku-sei, not once, but several times. In his case it was evidentlv robbery, pure and simple, but his ministers solemnly adhered to the pretence of aiding the poor and disseminating wealth. The practice of such customs renders it difficult to arrive at any precise estimate of the sums levied from the people in feudal Japan.
Hideyoshi, the Taikō, showed himself such a consummate statesman that one naturally looks for a reduction of taxation among his administrative measures. The opposite is the truth. He fixed the ratio of the landlord's share to that of the farmer at two to one, or, as the men of his time expressed it, the Government took seven parts and left only three to the people. He also altered the measure of the tan by changing the number of tsubo from three hundred and sixty to three hundred,—a step which has frequently been condemned as an arbitrary device for increasing the burden of taxation, though in reality it had no such effect. Had the nominal yield of the tan for purposes of taxation been assessed at the same figure for the tan of three hundred tsubo as for the tan of three hundred and sixty tsubo, there would have been good ground for complaint, but since the taxable yield was diminished in the same ratio as the area, the farmer suffered no hardship on that account. His genuine grievance consisted in having to pay into the treasury nearly seventy per cent of his farm's produce. The Taikō further had recourse to forced labour unsparingly. The great works that he caused to be constructed—the castles at Osaka and Fushimi—required the employment of thousands of workmen, and his example induced many of the provincial magnates to undertake similar tasks, so that the close of the sixteenth century saw the nation much distressed. Another act which added to the weight of taxation was the issue of an order for re-surveying all the land throughout the Empire, the surveyors being required to use a pole exactly six feet (one ken) in length, whereas the pole previously in use had varied from six feet three inches to six feet five inches. It is supposed that these additional inches were intended to be a space for the grasp of the measuring official, but evidently they opened the door to many abuses. A tan measured with a six-foot five-inch pole is sixteen per cent larger than a tan measured with a six-foot pole, and the taxable measure of produce being the same in either case, no little importance attached to the nature of the pole employed. The result of the Taikō's fiscal enactments and his re-surveys was that the nominal yield of rice throughout the Empire increased from eighteen and three-fourths million koku to twenty-six and a fourth millions,—a figure only twelve millions less than the crop of the present time. The exemptions fixed by him partook of the same severity. In ancient days the land tax had been remitted if the crop fell to fifty per cent of the annual average yield. Hideyoshi did not sanction remission until the yield fell to one-twentieth of the average. A saving feature of his legislation in the eyes of the people was that he put an end to the exemption from taxation hitherto enjoyed by the Court nobles and the military class, and required all grades to pay at the same rate. Another abuse corrected by him was the habit of the tax-collectors to add an arbitrary quantity as their own perquisite, calling it an allowance for loss in transit. Hideyoshi limited this to two per cent of the legal tax. The extent to which this form of extortion had been carried previously is not easy to conjecture, but it is not surprising to find that the farmers often sought to conceal or falsify the amount of the yield, and that bribery was extensively employed to influence the tax-collector's returns. Farmers often preferred to abandon their holdings and remove to some other fief where the officials were less exacting, but the law dealt with them severely if they attempted to escape in that manner, and dealt severely also with any one harbouring or concealing them. In such cases the method of "comprehensive punishment" was resorted to; that is to say, not only the offender but his relatives, friends, and neighbours were all included in the circle of responsibility.
Under the Tokugawa administration, the rate of tax fixed by law was four-tenths of the gross yield, and that figure may be taken as representing an approximation to the impost actually levied throughout the period commencing with the establishment of the Yedo Government at the close of the sixteenth century and ending with the abolition of feudalism at the beginning of the Meiji era (1867). It is only an approximation, however, for the various fiefs always enjoyed a measure of fiscal independence, and many of them regulated their system of taxation without regard to the edicts of Yedo or to its example. There cannot be much error, however, in asserting that the average rate of taxation was certainly not less than four-tenths of the gross produce,—four to the landlord, six to the tenant.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 16.
Note 16.—All the dates given here are according to the old Japanese calendar. Roughly speaking, they must be advanced about a month to obtain the corresponding Gregorian date. For example, the so-called "winter," from September 1st to March 31st, would be, according to the Occidental almanac, from about October 4th to May 4th.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 17.
Note 17.—It will be observed that the chō (thirty-six hundred tsubo) was a square having a side of sixty double paces (i. e. sixty ken, the double pace, or six feet, being called ken). The chō thus became a unit of lineal measurement, and, in accordance with a principle of uniformity which will be at once apparent, thirty-six chō were taken as a measure of distance and called one ri.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 18.
Note 18.—The loss of volume caused by hulling was counted as fifty per cent.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 19.
Note 19.—Mention may be made of another system of measurement found in the pages of early history. The unit was the shiro, a word signifying "exchange," and owing its employment to the fact that rice was the basis of all barter. The shiro signified the area of land that produced a "sheaf," and fifty shiro consequently formed a tan. Grants of land made in old times by way of salary and allowances to officials were spoken of in terms of the shiro. Five hundred thousand shiro represented the area afterwards called "one thousand chō," and gave an income of twenty thousand koku (two hundred thousand sheaves) of unhulled rice.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 20.
Note 20.—Raw silk and raw cotton were also among the articles levied, but they seem to have been taken instead of silk or cotton fabrics.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 21.
Note 21.—The ryō was the principal monetary unit. It was divided into sixty parts, each called a momme.