Thank you for your patience! As far as I've read, farmers (also referred to in academic literature as peasants or cultivators) were originally members of the koumin class, i.e. citizens or freemen.
I say originally because most of the farmlands that farmers worked on were public lands that they paid rent/ taxes to the government to cultivate. It used to be the primary way the Heian government collected taxes from its populace. However, there existed a system of private land ownership, called the shoen (荘園) system, where the once public lands (by imperial charter) became tax-exempt. Aristocrats & religious officials sought to cultivate wealth and power by claiming large portions of public land as part of their respective shoens and using the would-be tax money as funds for their personal ambitions.
Eventually, so few public lands were left to cultivate, farmers were forced to work the fields of shoen. This was problematic in that, over time, many of the shoen owners and managers found legal loopholes to trap the farmers in the shoen, turning them into a kind of slave class known as "shoumin" (荘民). Now, shoumin isn't an official caste in the social hierarchy, so those farmers weren't literally slaves, even if they functioned as such.
However, shoumin did have a few vestiges of their original koumin status preserved.
Firstly, every owner/ manager had to have a legal contract (a.k.a. shiki) on file for every farmer on the shoen to prove that the farmer had agreed to (or sold) their right to cultivate the land to them. If such a contract couldn't be found, the farmer had a much greater chance of leaving a shoen he'd been previously bound to. If the shoumin were slaves, who can be bought & sold at will, such a formal contract wouldn't have been necessary.
Secondly, the shoumin farmers were prohibited from selling their children during times of crisis. You see, famines were tragically common throughout the Heian period and many farmer families attempted to sell their children to save them (and possibly themselves) from starvation. However, selling a person is something done to the lower senmin classes, not the upper ryoumin classes, of which these farmers technically were. So, by imperial decree, the shoumin couldn't sell their children because of their "high" social status.
Lastly, only citizens (i.e. koumin) were required to pay taxes/ tributes for working someone else's lands. On public lands, these payments would go to the government. On private lands (i.e. shoen), these payments went to the owners. So, the shoen owners/ managers used a feature of their original koumin status as the rationale for why they taxed these poor people into poverty.
So, technically, farmers were koumin throughout the Heian period. I know this explanation was a little long, but I hope it answered your question!
Thank you so much Koikishu for your kind words and all the effort you put in researching. Years ago you answered my ask on how i could see a Tayuu in kyoto and you made a long list of events along with a map. Thank you for helping my dream come true. I won't forget your kindness. Have a beautiful day.
Oh. My. GOD! I can't believe you're the same anon from 2020!
I'm so happy I could help you with this dream! I'm overjoyed that my answers to your questions helped you to plan your trip! I wish you the very best on your trip and I hope you get an excellent view of Shimabara tayuu! Safe travels!
Hello, i'll be at Arashiyama this November 12 and am hoping to see a Tayu. What would be better to attend the Yoshigiri memorial in the morning or the momiji matsuri in the afternoon? Thank you.
Wow! Firstly, let me say that I'm very jealous of you being in Japan for one of these Wachigaiya tayuu-dochu events! Secondly, I've never been to a Wachigaiya tayuu-dochu before, so I'm not very helpful in terms of personal experience. However, I can help in terms of research!
So, the two events in question are the (1) Yuugiri-tayuu Kuyo-sai at Seiryo-ji Temple and the (2) Arashiyama Momiji Festival near the Togetsukyo Bridge and the Suiran Luxury Collection Hotel Kyoto.
The Yuugiri-tayuu Kuyo-sai (according to their website) memorial service is around 10 a.m. and I'm pretty sure they mean just the service. Other websites (link) suggest that the memorial service will be held in the main hall, the tayuu will perform a dedication dance, and then the tayuu and kamuro will perform a tayuu-dochu to Yuugiri-tayuu's grave, where they will leave flowers. The path of the tayuu-dochu may go from the Main Hall to the Main Gate around the outside of the temple grounds to Yuugiri-tayuu's Ruins (夕霧大夫遺跡).
The Arashiyama Momiji Festival is (according to their website) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Based on what I can tell from years prior, the viewing of the festival boats happens on the downstream side of the Togetsukyo Bridge, where they perhaps have paid seating but it's otherwise free to view from either side of the river. The Shimabara tayuu of the Wachigaiya participate near the end of the festival where they perform a tayuu dochu and then a tea ceremony.
If I had to make a choice, I would go with the Arashiyama Momiji Festival instead of the Yuugiri-tayuu Kuyo-sai.
The Yuugiri-tayuu Kuyo-sai is going to be within temple grounds and the dedication dance will definitely be indoors, making it harder to see if you can't get good seating or tickets into the main hall.
The tayuu-dochu to Yuugiri-tayuu's "'grave" seems like it's going to navigate some really tight streets, so there might be limited viewing space along the path.
The Arashiyama Momiji Festival is a more outdoor-style festival, so there are better-viewing angles all around. Even the tea ceremony is usually held in the open air, so you can get gorgeous pictures. And the tayuu-dochu should have excellent viewing space since they're using a more modern road.
I hope this information was helpful! Enjoy your trip!
Hello! Do you know the location of Suehiro okiya? I know it's in Shimabara, but I can't find an address.
Hi!
No, I don't know the address for the Suehiroya okiya/ ageya and I suspect that that's by design. Remember that the Suehiroya is a breakaway of the Wachigaiya, so they don't have a traditional building to host events. It's likely a more private, modern location used for storage and non-ozashiki work. The Suehiroya is also a much more public-facing okiya/ ageya than their predecessor, so they probably want to maintain some privacy when they're not officially working. It's okay though! The Suehiroya's social media accounts (1, 2, & 3) always detail the location of all their events very clearly. Why not enjoy them there, if you can?
Hello, as a kimono scholar, i was wondering if you could share your opinion on the 2015 Boston Muesum scandal, wherein the museum allowed people to wear an uchikake and recreate Monet's painting La Japonaise. What can be improved in order to avoid causing offense? Should people even be offended? Thank you
Hello and thank you for your question!
I actually wrote something related to the scandal in this post from July 2015, but seeing as this was a response from over 6 years ago, I would add that the scandal is a matter of perspective. I still think that my assessment of the kimono itself is accurate and that Japanese people in Japan (then and now) would likely see no offense in the exhibit, but it seems I also missed the point that the protestors were trying to make.
It's become clearer over the years that the question of cultural appropriation is a matter of historical context. There have been many videos on Youtube of foreigners asking young native Japanese people if they mind non-natives wearing their national/ traditional clothing, to which they all seem to either have no opinion or think it's fine. Ask anyone who works in a kimono-related business what they think and they'll tell you that foreigners wearing kimono is how they're staying in the black. The video creators imply that if the country of origin has no issue, then the diaspora should also have no issue.
However, these videos miss the point ENTIRELY. A Japanese person in Japan has never been looked down upon for wearing a kimono. Historically, Japanese people began adopting Western clothing in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) of their own initiative, and by the Taisho period (1912-1926) western clothes & kimono had found a happy balance between tradition and modernity. Japanese people were never forced out of wearing kimono or made to seem backward, or uncultured, for wearing it, not by their fellow Japanese or even the Americans who occupied the island after WW2. The post-war decline in kimono use was due to a lack of material resources, a decimated economy, and a desire to leave behind anything associated with a way of thinking that lead to their then-current suffering.
However, if you were a Japanese person outside of Japan, that's a whole other story. Japanese immigrants, and other East Asian immigrants, famously suffered intense legalized discrimination since the 1850s in the United States. Numerous federal, state, and local laws banned the various ethnicities from wearing their traditional clothes/ hairstyles as well as practicing their religions or celebrating important holidays.
The struggle for many immigrant communities to this day is the struggle between honoring their roots and assimilating into the culture of their host country. And when the dominant population group in that country goes out of their way to:
Stereotype your people based on their physical appearances
Tell you your homecooked foods smell disgusting or look weird
Tell you the language of your parents sounds like gibberish
Tell you your accented English is reason enough to diminish your intelligence
And make endless assumptions about you as a person based on their infinitesimally-small, misinformed "knowledge" of your culture
you get to be as sensitive as you want about how non-native people choose to use items from your culture that YOU get ridiculed for wearing/ doing/ having, while they are celebrated as worldly/ fashionable/ cultured for doing the same.
Sadly, I don't think there's any way to prevent offense completely. If the exhibit had happened in Japan, where it's highly likely that public opinion would've been overwhelmingly positive for reasons described earlier, it'd be unsurprising to find that some portion of Japanese people would find it exploitative, or feel that foreigners have no business wearing kimono in any context. For example, I've only ever worn kimono in a respectable, traditional manner to events connected to Japanese culture here in America. Yet, despite my attempts to be respectful, I've still had several older Japanese women glaring at me while wearing my kimono. You just can't make everyone happy all the time because how someone feels about a non-native person wearing their national/ traditional clothing depends on the historical relationship between those two cultures as well as their own personal history/ traumas regarding that relationship.
Also, something I seem to take for granted in my July 2015 response is that Japanese people/ members of the Japanese diaspora would have as much historical kimono knowledge as I do. There are plenty of Japanese and Japanese-Americans who readily admit to not knowing anything about kimono, neither it’s practical wearing nor historical origins. Why was I so certain that any present-day Japanese person would immediately see that the replica kimono is a "costume”? Did I really think that the average Japanese person today would just casually possess intimate historical knowledge of a piece of clothing they might see exactly once in their lifetime? How arrogant I was!
On that note, any museum interested in dealing with cultures not their own would do well to hire a few people from the culture in question to help create a well-rounded, culturally sensitive and relevant exhibit. Not just subject matter experts from that culture, but individuals from that culture who live in the local community. A subject matter expert would serve to make sure that everything is factually accurate, while the local representative would bring valuable lived experiences to the forefront which could help to address community concerns. If they had, for example, reached out to leaders in the local Asian or Japanese-American communities, I Imagine the question of whether this exhibit was promoting cultural appropriation would’ve been addressed much earlier in the design of the exhibit. What would’ve made for a better solution? I don’t know, but I’m certain some sort of compromise could’ve been reached.
Hello, I came across my family crest on your site. Can I use it for a small candle company that I am starting? :)
You came across your family crest? I mean, feel free to use it as you like, it's not like I own your family's crest or anyone else's for that matter. However, I would think a website like the one below would be a better place to source an image for your company's products. Good luck in your endavor!
Hi there! I know what Tayuu and Kamuro are, but what is a Shoujo?
So, to the best of my understanding, a “shoujo” (written 少女) is a middle step between “kamuro” and “tayuu” that use to be common in the Shimabara before WW2 and earlier. It’s apparently pronounced “shoume” (しょうめ), so I need to go back and fix my previous posts.
In Aoi-tayuu’s article (link: https://hakken-japan.com/columns/kyoto_shimabara5/), she explains that the original path to becoming a tayuu in the Shimabara pre-WW2 looked something like this:
As she explains, the “shoujo/ shoume” stage was when the proprietor of an ageya would decide if a kamuro had what it took to become a tayuu or not. If she was deemed capable, this stage would be when the young girl started taking specialized classes in earnest and trained to become a proper tayuu. If she was deemed incapable, the proprietor would have her train to become a geisha. I don’t know if that meant turning the former kamuro over to a willing geisha okiya, or if she was trained within the Shimabara to take on an entertainment-only role.
Aoi-tayuu is interested in bringing back these middle ranks for many reasons. Firstly, she wants to restore as many traditions as possible within the Shimabara. These middle ranks of shoume and tenjin were possible when the Shimabara was still a busy and well-funded entertainment district, so she wants to give modern people a glimpse of this former glory. This is true of other traditions being revived by her ageya, the Suehiroya (末廣屋), such as the Tayuu Hassaku every August 1 and the Tayuu Mochitsukai every December.
Secondly, it’s probably due to her own experience with training to be a Tayuu at her former ageya, the Wachigaiya (輪違屋). At the Wachigaiya, the path to becoming a tayuu currently looks like this:
Aoi-tayuu discussed how she was a kamuro from ages 2-12, a furisode-tayuu from ages 12-27, and a tayuu from age 27 to the present. As she tells the story, her promotion to furisode-tayuu seemed rather haphazard with no special recognition or ceremony from the Wachigaiya. It’s my belief that she may have felt like her dedication to the traditional arts and culture as a kamuro wasn’t being appreciated or acknowledged by her ageya. This may be why, now that she has several dedicated young girls working at the Suehiroya, she would want to bring back the shoume rank as a way to recognize their dedication to traditional arts and culture.
I also wonder if the optics didn’t have something to do with it. After all, most yukaku made sure to let you know which women were “available” by having them wear their obi musubi (knots) in front. So, kamuro, shoume, maiko, and geisha are clearly “unavailable” because they wear their obi musubi in the back. However, Aoi-tayuu was 12 when she was promoted to furisode-tayuu and would’ve worn her obi musubi in front, accordingly. Even though modern-day tayuu don’t offer sexual services, the idea of a 12-year-old signaling her sexual availability must leave a bad taste in the mouth of modern-day sensibilities. The shoume rank could help alleviate this situation by providing a way to acknowledge & signal the girl’s growth without any sexual implications.
So, in summary, a “shoujo” is a middle rank on the path to becoming a tayuu that was common in the Shimabara before WW2. Aoi-tayuu, as part of her Suehiroya ageya, is reviving the rank because she wants to revive as many Shimabara traditions as possible. And, I suspect, it may also be a way for Aoi-tayuu to acknowledge the growth and dedication of her apprentices without giving them a title that has sexual implications/ connotations. I hope I answered your question!
