LIFE IN CASTLE AND YASHIKI.[33]
The seclusion of the Emperors and the gathering of the reins of
government into the hands of Sh[=o]guns was a gradual process, beginning
not long after the introduction of Chinese civilization, and continuing
to grow until Iyéyas[)u], the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, through his
code of laws, took from the Emperor the last vestige of real power, and
perfected the feudal system which maintained the sway of his house for
two hundred and fifty years of peace.
[33] _Yashiki_, or spread-out house, was the name given to the palace
and grounds of a daimi[=o]'s city residence, and also to the barracks
occupied by his retainers, both in city and country. In the city the
barracks of the samurai were built as a hollow square, in the centre of
which stood the palace and grounds of their lord, and this whole place
was the daimi[=o]'s _yashiki_. In the castle towns the daimi[=o]'s
palace and gardens stood within the castle inclosure, surrounded by a
moat, while the _yashikis_ of the samurai were placed without the moat.
They in turn were separated from the business part of the village
sometimes by a second or third moat. By life in castle and _yashiki_ we
mean the life of the daimi[=o], whether in city or country.
The Emperor's court, with its literary and æsthetic quiet, its
simplicity of life and complexity of etiquette, was the centre of the
culture and art of Japan, but never the centre of luxury. After the
growth of the Tokugawa power had secured for that house and its
retainers great hereditary possessions, the Emperor's court was a mere
shadow in the presence of the magnificence in which the Tokugawas and
the daimi[=o]s chose to live. The wealth of the country was in the hands
of those who held the real power, and the Emperor was dependent for his
support upon his great vassal, who held the land, collected the taxes,
made the laws, and gave to his master whatever seemed necessary for his
maintenance in the simple style of the old days, keeping for himself and
for his retainers enough to make Yedo, the Tokugawa capital, the centre
of a luxury far surpassing anything ever seen at the Emperor's own
court. While the _kugé_, the old imperial nobility, formerly the
governors of the provinces under the Emperors, lived in respectable but
often extreme poverty at Ky[=o]to, the landed nobility, or daimi[=o]s,
brought, after many struggles, under the sway of the Tokugawas, built
for themselves palaces and pleasure gardens in the moated city of Yedo.
At Yedo with its castle, its gardens, its _yashikis_, and its
fortifications, was established a new court, more luxurious, but less
artistic and cultivated, than the old court of Ky[=o]to. In the various
provinces, too, at every castle town, a little court arose about the
castle, and the daimi[=o] became not only the feudal chief, but the
patron of literature and art among his people, as the years went by
filling his _kura_ with choice works of art, in lacquer, bronze, silver,
and pottery, to be brought out on special occasions. These nobles, under
a law of Iyémits[)u], the third of the Tokugawa line, were compelled to
spend half of each year at the city of the Sh[=o]guns; and each had his
_yashiki_, or large house and garden, in the city. At this house, his
family must reside permanently, as hostages for the loyalty of their
lord while away. The annual journeys to and from Yedo were events not
only in the lives of the daimi[=o]s and their trains of retainers, but
in the lives of the country people who lived along the roads by which
they must travel. The time and style of each journey for each daimi[=o]
were rigidly prescribed in the laws of Iyémits[)u], as well as the
behavior of the country people who might meet the procession moving
towards Yedo, or returning therefrom. When some noble, or any member of
his family, was to pass through a certain section of the country, great
preparations were made beforehand. Not only was traffic stopped along
the route, but every door and window had to be closed. By no means was
any one to show himself, or to look in any way upon the passing
procession. To do so was to commit a profane deed, punishable by a fine.
Among other things, no cooking was allowed on that day. All the food
must be prepared the day before, as the air was supposed to become
polluted by the smoke from the fires. Thus through crowded cities, full
and busy with life, the daimi[=o] in his curtained palanquin, with
numerous retinue, would pass by; but wherever he approached, the place
would be as deserted and silent as if plague-stricken. It is hardly
necessary to add that these journeys, attended with so much ceremony
and inconvenience to the people, were not as frequent as the trips now
taken, at a moment's notice, from one city to another, by these very
same men.
One story current in T[=o]ky[=o] shows the narrowing effect of such
seclusion. A noble who had traveled into Yedo, across one of the large
bridges built over the Sumida River, remarked one day to his companions
that he was greatly disappointed on seeing that bridge. "From the
pictures," he said, "which I have seen, the bridge seemed alive with
people, the centre of life and activity, but the artists must
exaggerate, for not a soul was on the bridge when I passed by."
The castle of the Sh[=o]gun in Yedo, with its moats and fortifications,
and its fine house and great _kura_, was reproduced on a small scale in
the castles scattered through the country; and as in Yedo the _yashikis_
of the daimi[=o]s stood next to the inner moat of the castle, that the
retainers might be ready to defend their lord at his earliest call, so
in the provinces the _yashikis_ of the samurai occupied a similar
position about the daimi[=o]'s castle.
It is curious to see that, as the Sh[=o]gun took away the military and
temporal power of the Emperor, making of him only a figure-head without
real power, so, to a certain degree, the daimi[=o] gave up, little by
little, the personal control of his own province, the power falling into
the hands of ambitious samurai, who became the councilors of their lord.
The samurai were the learned class and the military class; they were and
are the life of Japan; and it is no wonder that the nobles, protected
and shielded from the world, and growing up without much education,
should have changed in the course of centuries from strong, brave
warriors into the delicate, effeminate, luxury-loving nobles of the
present day. Upon the loyalty and wisdom of the samurai, often upon some
one man of undoubted ability, rested the greatness of the province and
the prosperity of the master's house.
The life of the ladies in these daimi[=o]s' houses is still a living
memory to many of the older women of Japan; but it is a memory only, and
has given place to a different state of things. The Emperor occupies the
castle of the Sh[=o]gun to-day, and every daimi[=o]'s castle throughout
the country is in the hands of the imperial government. The old
pleasure gardens of the nobles are turned into arsenals, schools, public
parks, and other improvements of the new era. But here and there one
finds some conservative family of nobles still keeping up in some
measure the customs of former times; and daimi[=o]s' houses there are
still in T[=o]ky[=o], though stripped of power and of retainers, where
life goes on in many ways much as it did in the old days. In such a
house as this, one finds ladies-in-waiting, of the samurai rank, who
serve her ladyship--the daimi[=o]'s wife--in all personal service. In
the old days, the daughters of the samurai were eager for the training
in etiquette, and in all that belongs to nice housekeeping, that might
be obtained by a few years of apprenticeship in a daimi[=o]'s house, and
gladly assumed the most menial positions for the sake of the education
and reputation to be gained by such training.
The wife and daughters of a daimi[=o] led the quietest of lives, rarely
passing beyond the four great walls that inclose the palace with its
grounds. They saw the changes of the seasons in the flowers that bloomed
in their lovely gardens, when, followed by numerous attendants, they
slowly walked through the bamboo groves or under the bloom-laden boughs
of the plum or cherry trees, forming their views of life, its pleasures,
its responsibilities, and its meaning, within the narrow limits of the
daimi[=o]'s _yashiki_.
Their mornings were passed in the adorning of their own persons, and in
the elaborate dressing of their luxuriant hair; the afternoons were
spent in the tea ceremony, in writing poetry, or the execution of a sort
of silk mosaic that is a favorite variety of fancy work still among the
ladies of Japan.
A story is told of one of the Tokugawa princesses that illustrates the
amusements of the Sh[=o]gun's daughters, and the pains that were taken
to gratify their wishes, however unreasonable. The cherry-trees of the
castle gardens of T[=o]ky[=o] are noted for their beauty when in bloom
during the month of April. It is said that once a daughter of the
Tokugawa house expressed a wish to give a garden party amid the
blossoming cherry-trees in the month of December, and nothing would do
but that her wishes must be carried out. Her retainers accordingly
summoned to their aid skillful artificers, who from pink and white
tissue paper produced myriads of cherry blossoms, so natural that they
could hardly be distinguished from the real ones. These they fastened
upon the trees in just such places as the real flowers would have chosen
to occupy, and the happy princess gave her garden party in December
under the pink mist of cherry blooms.
The children of a daimi[=o]'s wife occupied her attention but little.
They were placed in the charge of careful attendants, and the mother,
though allowed to see them when she wished, was deprived of the pleasure
of constant intercourse with them, and had none of the mother's cares
which form so large a part of life to an ordinary Japanese woman.
When we know that the average Japanese girl is brought up strictly by
her own mother, and thoroughly drilled in obedience and in all that is
proper as regards etiquette and the duties of woman, we can imagine the
narrowness of the education of the daimi[=o]'s poor little daughter,
surrounded, from early childhood, with numerous attendants of the
strictest sort, to teach her all that is proper according to the
highest and severest standards. Sometimes, by the whim or the indulgence
of parents, or through exceptional circumstances in her surroundings, a
samurai's daughter became more independent, more self-reliant, or better
educated, than others of her rank; but such opportunities never came to
the more carefully reared noble's daughter.
From her earliest childhood, she was addressed in the politest and most
formal way, so that she could not help acquiring polite manners and
speech. She was taught etiquette above all things, so that no rude
action or speech would disgrace her rank; and that she should give due
reverence to her superiors, courtesy to equals, and polite condescension
to inferiors. She was taught especially to show kindness to the families
under the rule of her father, and was early told of the noble's duty to
protect and love his retainers, as a father loves and protects his
children. From childhood, presents were made in her name to those around
her, often without her previous knowledge or permission, and from them
she would receive profuse thanks,--lessons in the delights of
beneficence which could not fail to make their impression on the child
princess. Even to inferiors she used the polite language,[34] and never
the rude, brusque speech of men, or the careless phrases and expressions
of the lower classes.
[34] The Japanese language is full of expressions showing different
shades of meaning in the politeness or respect implied. There are words
and expressions which superiors in rank use to inferiors, or _vice
versa_, and others used among equals. Some phrases belong especially to
the language of the high-born, just as there are common expressions of
the people. Some verbs in this extremely complex language must be
altered in their termination according to the degree of honor in which
the subject of the action is held in the speaker's mind.
The education of the daimi[=o]'s daughter was conducted entirely at
home.[35] Instead of going out to masters for instruction, she was
taught by some one in the household,--one of her father's retainers, or
perhaps a member of her own private retinue. Teachers for certain
branches came from outside, and these were not expected to give the
lesson within a certain time and hurry away, but they would remain,
conversing, sipping tea, and partaking of sweetmeats, until their noble
pupil was ready to receive them. Hospitality required that the teacher
be offered a meal after the lesson, and this meal etiquette would not
permit him to refuse, so that both teacher and pupil must spend much
time waiting for each other and for the lesson.
[35] The establishment of the peeress' school, mentioned in the last
chapter, is a great innovation upon the old-time ways of many of the
aristocratic families.
Pursued in this leisurely way, the education of the noble's daughter
could not advance very rapidly, and it usually ended with an extremely
early marriage; and the girl wife would sometimes play with her doll in
the new home until the living baby took its place to the young mother.
The samurai women, who in one position or another were close attendants
on these noble ladies, performing for them every act of service, were
often women of more than average intelligence and education. From
childhood to old age, the noble ladies were never without one or more of
these maids of honor, close at hand to help or advise. Some entered the
service in the lower positions for only a short period, leaving sooner
or later to be married; for continued service in a daimi[=o]'s household
meant a single life. Many of them remained in the palace all their days,
leading lives of devotion to their mistress; the comfort and ease of
which hardly compensated for the endless formalities and the monotonous
seclusion.
Even the less responsible and more menial positions were not looked down
upon, and the higher offices in the household were exceedingly
honorable. When, once in a long while, a day's leave of absence was
granted to one of these gentlewomen, and, loaded with presents sent by
the daimi[=o]'s lady, she went on her visit to her home, she was received
as a greatly honored member of her own family. The respect which was
paid to her knowledge of etiquette and dress was never lessened because
of the menial services she might have performed for those of noble
blood.
The lady who was the head attendant, and those in the higher positions,
had a great deal of power and influence in matters that concerned their
mistress and the household; just as the male retainers decided for the
prince, and in their own way, many of the affairs of the province. The
few conservative old ladies, the last relics of the numerous retainers
that once filled the castle, who still remain faithful in attendance in
the homes now deprived of the grandeur of the olden times, look with
horror upon the innovations of the present day, and sigh for the glory
of old Japan. It is only upon compulsion that they give up many of the
now useless formalities, and resign themselves to seeing their once so
honored lords jostle elbow to elbow with the common citizen.
I shall never forget the horror of one old lady, attendant on a noble's
daughter of high rank, just entering the peeress' school, when it was
told her that each student must carry in her own bundle of books and
arrange them herself, and that the attendants were not allowed in the
classroom. The poor old lady was doubtless indignant at the thought that
her noble-born mistress should have to perform even so slight a task as
the arranging of her own desk unaided.[*182]
In the daimi[=o]s' houses there was little of the culture or wit that
graced the more aristocratic seclusion of Ky[=o]to, and none of the
duties and responsibilities that belonged to the samurai women, so that
the life of the daimi[=o]'s lady was perhaps more purposeless, and less
stimulating to the noble qualities, than the lives of any other of the
women of Japan. Surrounded by endless restrictions of etiquette, lacking
both the stimulus that comes from physical toil and that to be derived
from intellectual exertion, the ladies of this class of the nobility
simply vegetated. There is little wonder that the nobles degenerated
both mentally and physically during the years when the Tokugawas held
sway; for there was absolutely nothing in the lives of the women to fit
them to be the wives and mothers of strong men. Delicate, dainty,
refined, dexterous in all manner of little things but helpless to act
for themselves,--ladies to the inmost core of their beings, with
instincts of honor and of _noblesse oblige_ appearing in them from
earliest childhood,--the years of seclusion, of deference from hundreds
of retainers, of constant instruction in the duties as well as the
dignities of their position, have produced an abiding effect upon the
minds of the women of this aristocracy, and to-day even the youngest and
smallest of them have the virtues as well as the failings produced by
nearly three centuries of training. They are lacking in force, in
ambition, in clearness of thought, among a nation abounding in those
qualities; but the national characteristics of dignity, charming
manners, a quick sense of honor, and indomitable pride of race and
nation, combined with a personal modesty almost deprecating in its
humility,--these are found among the daughters of the nobles developed
to their highest extent. With the qualities of gentleness and delicacy
possessed by these ladies, which make them shrink from rough contact
with the outer world, there are mingled the stronger qualities of moral
and physical courage. A daimi[=o]'s wife, as befitted the wife of a
warrior and the daughter of long generations of brave men, never shrank
from facing danger and death when necessary; and considered the taking
of her own life an honorable and easy escape from being captured by her
enemy.
Two or three little ripples from the past broke into my life in
T[=o]ky[=o], giving a little insight into those old feudal times, and
the customs that were common then, but that are now gone forever. A
story was told me in Japan by a lady who had herself, as a child,
witnessed the events narrated. It illustrates the responsibility felt by
the retainers for their lord and his house. A daimi[=o] fell into
disgrace with the Sh[=o]gun, and was banished to his own capital,--a
castle town several days' journey from Yedo,--as a punishment for some
offense. The castle gates were closed, and no communication with the
outer world allowed. During this period of disgrace, it happened that
the noble fell ill, and died quite suddenly before his punishment was
ended. His death under such circumstances was the most terrible thing
that could befall either himself or his family, as his funeral must be
without the ordinary tokens of respect; and his tombstone, instead of
bearing tribute to his virtues, and the favor in which he had been held
by his lord, must be simply the monument of his disgrace. This being the
case, the retainers felt that these evils must be averted at any cost.
Knowing that the Sh[=o]gun's anger was probably not so great as to make
him wish to bring eternal disgrace to their dead lord, they at once
decided to send a messenger to the Sh[=o]gun, begging for pardon on the
plea of desperate illness, and asking the restoration of his favor
before the approach of death. The death was not announced, but the floor
of the room in which the man had died was lifted up, and the body let
down to the ground beneath; and through all the town it was announced
that the daimi[=o] was hopelessly ill. Forty days passed before the
Sh[=o]gun sent to the retainers the token that the disgrace was removed,
and during all those forty days, in castle and barrack and village, the
fiction of the daimi[=o]'s illness was kept up. As soon as the
messengers returned, the body was drawn up again through the floor and
placed on the bed; and all the retainers, from the least unto the
greatest, were summoned into the room to congratulate their master upon
his restoration to favor. One by one they entered the darkened room,
prostrated themselves before the corpse, and uttered the formal words of
congratulation. Then when all, even to the little girl who, grown to
womanhood, told me the story, had been through the horrible ceremony, it
was announced that the master was dead,--that he had died immediately
after the return of the messenger with the good tidings of pardon. All
obstacles being thus removed, the funeral was celebrated with due pomp
and circumstance; and the tombstone of the daimi[=o] to-day gives no
hint of the disgrace from which he so narrowly escaped.
Another instance very similar, throwing some light on the custom of
adoption or _y[=o]shi_, referred to in a previous chapter, was the case of
a nobleman who died without children, and without an heir appointed to
inherit his title. It would never have done, in sending in the official
notice of death, to be unable to name the legal head of the house and
the successor to the title. There was also no male relative to perform
the office of chief mourner at the funeral; and so the death of the
nobleman was kept secret, and his house showed no signs of mourning
during a long period, until a son satisfactory to all the members of the
household had been adopted. When the legal notice of the adoption had
been sent in, and the son received into the family as heir, then, and
only then, was the death of the lord announced, the period of mourning
begun, and the funeral ceremony performed.
Upon one occasion I was visiting a Japanese lady, who knew the interest
that I took in seeing and procuring the old-fashioned embroidered
_kimonos_, which are now entirely out of style in Japan, and which can
only be obtained at second-hand clothing stores, or at private sale. My
friend said that she had just been shown an assortment of old garments
which were offered at private sale by the heirs of a lady, recently
deceased, who had once been a maid of honor in a daimi[=o]'s house. The
clothes were still in the house, and were brought in, in a great basket,
for my inspection. Very beautiful garments they were, of silk, crêpe,
and linen, embroidered elaborately, and in extremely good order. Many of
them seemed not to have been worn at all, but had been kept folded away
for years, and only brought out when a fitting occasion came round at
the proper season of the year. As we turned over the beautiful fabrics,
a black broadcloth garment at the bottom of the basket aroused my
curiosity, and I pulled it out and held it up for closer inspection. A
curious garment it was, bound with white, and with a great white crest
_appliqué_ on the middle of the back. Curious white stripes gave the
coat a military look, and it seemed appropriate rather to the wardrobe
of some two-sworded warrior than to that of a gentlewoman of the old
type. To the question, How did such a coat come to be in such a place?
the older lady of the company--one to whom the old days were still the
natural order and the new customs an exotic growth--explained that the
garment rightfully belonged in the wardrobe of any lady-in-waiting in a
daimi[=o]'s house, for it was made to wear in case of fire or attack when
the men were away, and the women were expected to guard the premises.
Further search among the relics of the past brought to light the rest of
the costume: silk _hakama_, or full kilted trousers; a stiff, manlike
black silk cap bound with a white band; and a spear cover of broadcloth,
with a great white crest upon it, like the one on the broadcloth coat.
These made up the uniform which must be donned in time of need by the
ladies of the palace or the castle, for the defense of their lord's
property. They had been folded away for twenty years among the
embroidered robes, to come to light at last for the purpose of showing
to a foreigner a phase of the old life that was so much a matter of
course to the older Japanese that it never occurred to them even to
mention it to a stranger. The elder lady of the house was wonderfully
amused at my interest in these mute memorials of the past, and could
never comprehend why I was willing to expend the sum of one dollar for
the sake of gaining possession of a set of garments for which I could
have no possible use. The uniform had probably never been worn in actual
warfare, but its owner had been trained in the use of the long-handled
spear, the cover of which she had kept stored away all these years; and
had regarded herself as liable to be called into action at any time as
one of the home guard, when the male retainers of her lord were in the
field.
There are in the shops of T[=o]ky[=o] to-day hundreds of colored prints
illustrating the splendor of the Sh[=o]gunate; for the fine clothes, the
pageants, the show and display that ended with the fall of the house of
Tokugawa, are still dear to the popular mind. In these one sees
reproduced, in more than their original brilliancy of coloring, the
daimi[=o]s, with their trains of uniformed retainers, proceeding in
stately pageant to the palace of the Sh[=o]gun; the games, the dances,
the reviews held before the Sh[=o]gun himself; the princess, with her
train of ladies and attendants, visiting the cherry blossoms at Uyéno,
or crossing some swift but shallow river on her journey to Yedo. There
one sees the fleet of red-lacquered pleasure barges in which the
Sh[=o]gun with his court sailed up the river to Muk[=o]jima, in the
spring, to view the cherry-trees which bloom along the banks for miles.
One sees, too, the interiors of the daimi[=o]s' houses, the intimate
domestic scenes into which no outsider could ever penetrate. One picture
shows the excitements consequent upon the advent of an heir to a noble
house,--the happy mother on her couch, surrounded by brightly dressed
ladies-in-waiting; the baby in the room adjoining; another group of
brilliant beings preparing his bath; while down the long piazza, which
opens upon the little courtyard in the centre of the house, one sees
still other groups of servants, bringing the gifts with which the great
mansion is flooded at such a time. Still further away, across the
courtyard, are the doctors, holding learned consultation around a
little table, and mixing medicines to secure the health and strength of
both mother and baby.
The fall of the Sh[=o]gunate, and the abolition of castle and _yashiki_,
have made a radical change in the fashions of dress in Japan. One sees
no longer the beautiful embroidered robes, except upon the stage, for
the abolition of the great leisure class has put the flowered _kimono_
out of fashion. There are no courts, small and great, scattered all
through the country, where the ladies must be dressed in changing styles
for the changing seasons, and where the embroideries that imitate most
closely the natural flowers are sure of a market. When one asks, as
every foreigner is likely to ask, the Japanese ladies of one's
acquaintance, "Why have you given up the beautiful embroideries and
gorgeous colors that you used to wear?" the answer always is, "There are
no daimi[=o]s' houses now." And this is regarded as a sufficient
explanation of the change.[*192]
I have in my possession to-day two dainty bits of the silk mosaic work
before mentioned, the work of the sixteen-year-old wife of one of the
proudest and most conservative of the present generation of nobles. A
dainty little creature she was, with a face upon which her two years of
wifehood and one year of motherhood had left no trace of care. Living
amid her host of ladies and women servants, most of them older and wiser
than herself; having no care and no amusements save the easy task of
keeping herself pretty and well-dressed, and the amusement of watching
her baby grow, and hearing the chance rumors that might come to her from
the great new world into which her husband daily went, but with which
she herself never mingled,--her days were one pleasant, monotonous
round, unawakening alike either to soul or intellect. Into this life of
remoteness from all that belongs to the new era, imagine the excitement
produced by the advent of a foreign lady, with an educated dog, whose
wonderful intelligence had been already related to her by one of her own
ladies-in-waiting. I shall always believe that my invitation into that
exclusive house was due largely to the reports of my dog, carried to its
proprietors by one of the lady servitors who had seen him perform upon
one occasion. Certain it is that the first words of the little lady of
the house to me were a question about the dog; and her last act of
politeness to our party was a warm embrace of the handsome collie, who
had given unimpeachable evidence that he understood a great deal of
English,--a tongue which the daimi[=o] himself was painfully learning. The
dainty child-wife with both arms buried in the heavy ruff of the
astonished dog is a picture that comes to me often, and that brings up
most pathetically the monotony of an existence into which so small a
thing can bring so much. The lifelike black and white silk puppy, the
creeping baby doll from Ky[=o]to, the silk mosaic box and chopstick
case,--the work of my lady's delicate fingers,--are most agreeable
reminders of the kindness and sweetness of the little wife, whose
sixteen summers have been spent among the surroundings of thirty years
ago, and who lives, like the enchanted princess of the fairy tales,
wrapped about by a spell which separates her from the bustling world of
to-day. The product of the past,--the daughter of the last of the
Sh[=o]guns,--she dwells in her enchanted house, among the relics of a past
which is still the present to her and to her household. So lovely, so
æsthetic, so dainty and charming seems the world into which one enters
there, that one would not care to break the spell that holds it as it
is, and let the girl-wife, with her gentlewomen and her kneeling
servants, hurry forward into the busy, perplexing life of to-day. May
time deal gently with her and hers, nor rudely break the enchantment
that surrounds her!