SPORTS AND GAMES.
Hunting—Horse-racing—Fishing—Outdoor
games—Billiards—_Sugoroku_—Iroha-cards—Ode-cards—_Ken_—Japanese
chess—The moves—Use of prisoners—The game of _go_—Its
principle—Camps—Counting—“Flowers-cards”—Players—How to
play—Claims for hands—Claims for combinations made—Reckoning.
Field sports cannot be said to thrive in Japan. Fox-hunting, as
practised in England, is unknown; indeed, hunting on a grand scale
seldom takes place. Every year a large number of shooting licenses
are issued; but reckless shooting has made game so scarce in the
neighbourhood of Tokyo that any one in search of good sport must go a
considerable distance from town. Game preserves are also very few in
number, for there is scarcely one man of means in Tokyo who keeps such
grounds. Nearly all the small birds are protected.
Horse-racing came into vogue soon after the Russian war. Many
horse-race companies were formed; they throve as they sold pari-mutuel
tickets on which they took a commission. The races became enormously
popular; and people who knew nothing of horses or racing rushed in
crowds to the races to buy these tickets. The thing became barefaced
gambling, and so great was the scandal caused by these races that the
sale of pari-mutuel tickets was prohibited, with the result that the
races were entirely deserted and the shares of these companies fell
from ten times their face-value to almost _nil_. Remedial measures
were tried, but without success. These races had at first been
encouraged by the authorities as it was believed that they would help
to improve the breed of horses in Japan; but there was little prospect
of that object being achieved, for the frequenters of the race-courses
did not appear to take much interest in horse-racing beyond the
opportunities it gave for gambling.
[Illustration: CORMORANT-FISHING.]
Fishing has many votaries. Boats put off from Shinagawa for
fishing in the Bay of Tokyo, especially in summer and autumn; the fish
are caught either with nets or with rod and line. Anglers may be seen
at all seasons on the banks of the little rivers and canals which
traverse the city; but their catch is quite insignificant. The most
interesting method of catching fish is, perhaps, cormorant-fishing
in the Tamagawa, a river which runs a few miles west of Tokyo, where
cormorants are, as in the River Nagara in Gifu Prefecture, which
is celebrated for this form of fishing, employed to catch the
_plecoglossus altivelis_, which abounds in the river. The bird has a
tight ring around its crop, and when it has dived into the water and
swallowed enough fish, the ring is pulled up and the bird is made to
disgorge them. Another curious sight is the angling for the sillago.
This fish is keen-sighted and very active, and takes fright and darts
away as soon as it sees a boat rocking on the water. As, however, it
is to be found in comparatively shallow water, a gigantic stool is set
on a shoal, and the angler sits on it and patiently waits for the fish
to take the bait. A boat remains not far off for emergencies, as when
the angler, in his eagerness, loses his balance and goes bodily after
the sillago. On a calm day, several of these stools are to be seen off
the beach at Shinagawa.
[Illustration: ANGLING-STOOLS.]
Of the outdoor games which have been introduced in recent years
from abroad, the oldest is, perhaps, lawn-tennis, which is still
extensively played, although it must now yield in popularity to
baseball. A Japanese baseball team crossed the ocean some time
ago to play on the Pacific Coast of the United States, though not with
very brilliant results, while similar teams have come from Hawaii
and the Pacific States to challenge the Japanese college teams.
Boat-racing is also very popular; and races are held annually on the
River Sumida by the Imperial University of Tokyo and other educational
institutions in April when the cherry trees are in bloom on the
river-bank. Football is played to some extent, and hockey has been
tried with little success, while cricket is seldom played.
Of the European indoor games, the one which has found most favour in
Japan is undoubtedly billiards, at which many Japanese have attained
considerable skill. Ping-pong enjoyed a temporary vogue, but has now
become as obsolete as diabolo, the craze for which reached Japan not
long after it arose in Europe.
[Illustration: _SUGOROKU_.]
We may now pass on to the principal games which are played in Japan.
_Sugoroku_ is a game played on a board by two persons. It is similar
to backgammon, with the difference that the grand object of _sugoroku_
is to get all one’s men into the enemy’s territory. There are twelve
men on each side and twenty-four points to move to, and two dice are
thrown alternately as in backgammon. It is a very ancient game which
is hardly ever played nowadays; and what is now known as
_sugoroku_ was originally called the _dochu sugoroku_ or travelling
_sugoroku_. The earliest of its kind is a large sheet on which the
views of the fifty-three postal stations on the highway from Yedo to
Kyoto are given in order in as many squares. The starting-point is
Yedo in one corner of the sheet, from which the squares are ranged
along the edges until one of them touches the Yedo square, and then
they are continued along the inner edges of the first squares, and
still another set is formed along the edges of these second squares,
until Kyoto is reached in the centre of the sheet. Each player has a
slip of paper with his name or mark inscribed on it; it is put with
the others in the Yedo square. He throws a die in turn and moves
forward according to the number turned up; and the one who reaches
Kyoto first is the winner. As there are fifty-three squares, the
minimum number of throws of the die is nine; but the game may become
complicated if, as is usually the case, the die must in the last throw
turn up the exact number required for reaching the goal. Thus, if five
is turned up when only two is needed to reach Kyoto, the player is
made to go back three squares from the goal and await his turn for the
next throw. Again, when a player comes to a certain square, he may
be made to forfeit a turn or go back a number of squares. When these
rules are introduced, the game is very much prolonged. Hence, later
forms of _sugoroku_ have a smaller number of squares; indeed, if,
further, the place to move to is named in every square for every
number turned up, a very few squares will suffice; and some _sugoroku_
have no more than a dozen squares and yet an exciting game may be
played on them.
[Illustration: _IROHA_ AND ODE-CARDS.]
_Sugoroku_ is played in the long winter evenings, and especially
during the first days of the New Year. Among other New Year’s games
may be mentioned the cards known as the _Iroha_ and _uta_ cards.
_Iroha_, being the first three characters of the Japanese syllabary or
alphabet, is the name given to the whole syllabary; and the _iroha_
cards are so called because they have inscribed on them each a
proverbial saying beginning with a different character of the
syllabary. There are forty-seven characters in the Japanese syllabary,
and another card is added to make the number even and divisible.
Besides the pack of forty-eight cards with the proverbs, there is
another of the same number of cards with pictures corresponding
to these proverbs; these latter have also marked in the corner
the first character of the proverbs they illustrate to facilitate
identification. Thus, if the card in the first pack has the proverb,
_inu mo arukeba bō ni ataru_ (A dog, by walking, may come upon a
stick, a saying which is now taken to mean that by wandering about,
one may meet with good fortune), the corresponding card in the other
pack has a picture of a dog knocking against a stick and the character
_i_ in the corner. The card of the second character of the syllabary
has the proverb, _ron yori shōko_ (Proof is better than argument), and
the third has _hana yori dango_ (Better a dumpling than a flower, that
is, use is better than ornament), and so on. The illustrations in
the second pack are often fanciful, as they cannot but be when the
proverbs do not refer to concrete objects. Thus, the illustration to
the second proverb above given has an angry man with one hand on his
sword and holding in the other the straw figure which the jealous
wife used in the old days to nail to a tree at dead of night when she
invoked curses upon her rival. The man is apparently showing his wife
in spite of her protestations the straw image she has been using
against his mistress. The game is played sometimes by spreading all
the pictures in the middle and the players sitting around them. One
person reads out the proverbs in any order he pleases, and the
corresponding pictures are seized and put away. The player who has
taken the largest number of cards in this way is the winner. The game,
however, is more frequently played in the following manner:—The cards
are dealt evenly among the players who spread them out exposed before
them. When a proverb is read out, a player takes out the corresponding
picture if he has it, and if not, he looks over the other players’
hands and seizes the card as soon as he sees it. He takes it and gives
one of his own exposed cards to the player from whose hand he has
taken it. A slow-witted person’s hand is always full, while a sharp
player clears his quickly; and the one who has first got rid of his
hand is the winner. As the cards are often pounced upon at the same
time by several players, the game is an exciting one, and not a few
come out of it with their hands scratched and bleeding. Friends and
relatives of both sexes join in these games in winter evenings, and
some of them, it is said, consider it the best part of the game that
they can touch or squeeze the hands of the players of the opposite
sex by pretending to seize the same cards. For this reason, a strict
paterfamilias not unfrequently forbids his household to play the game
with those who are not its members.
[Illustration: PLAYING ODE-CARDS.]
The _uta_ or ode-cards are in two sets of a hundred each. There is a
famous collection of a hundred odes composed by as many poets, which
used in former days to be learnt by heart. These odes are used for the
ode-cards. An ode, as has been explained in a former chapter, is made
up of two couplets of five and seven syllables each, closing with a
line of seven syllables. For the purposes of the cards, the odes are
divided into two parts, the first comprising the first three lines,
that is, the lines of five, seven, and five syllables, and the second
the last two lines of seven syllables. The cards in one set give
each the whole ode with the name and picture of the poet, while in
those of the other set appears generally the second part, and rarely
the first part, of the ode. Thus, in the first set the first ode of
the hundred runs:—
_Tenji Tenno_
_Aki no ta no_
_Kariho no iwo no_
_Toma wo arami_
_Waga koromode wa_
_Tsuyu ni nuretsutsu._
Emperor Tenji
Decayed is the rush-thatch of the watch-shed in the autumn
rice-field,
And the sleeves of the robe are becoming wet with dew.
And the card of the second set has the lines _Waga koromode wa Tsuyu
ni nuretsu_. The game is played in the same manner as the _iroha_
cards; and the scramble for the cards is more exciting as the players
do not always wait till the whole ode is read out.
There is a curious diversion called the game of _ken_, or fists,
which, its name notwithstanding, has nothing to do with pugilism. The
principle of the game is that there are three positions of the hands
or fingers, each one of which beats one and is beaten by the other,
of the remaining two. The game is played with one or two hands. That
played with both hands is called the fox-_ken_; its three positions
are the putting of the open hands with the palms outward close to the
temples in imitation of the fox, the stretching out of the right arm
with the hand closed while the left hand is brought to the breast,
which represents the huntsman with a gun, and the placing of both
hands on the knees to show the staid manners of the village headman.
The fox may bewitch the headman as that animal is popularly believed
to possess magical powers, but may be killed by the huntsman, who,
however, must not shoot the headman; thus, the fox beats the headman,
who beats the huntsman, who, in his turn, beats the fox. The game
is played by two persons, who must move their hands with uniform
rapidity, for the game is spoilt if either side moves more quickly or
slowly than the other. It is a favourite game at convivial parties,
especially if one of the parties is a geisha, though it is not so
popular now as it used to be. The person who beats the other
three times running is declared the winner, and the defeated party
has, as forfeit, to drink a cup of _sake_. The stone-_ken_ is played
with one hand; in this the closed hand represents a stone, the open
hand a piece of paper, and two fingers or a finger and the thumb
spread out a pair of scissors; the stone may be wrapped in the paper,
but is proof against the scissors, which may, however, cut the paper.
This ken is played less often as a game than for deciding in a case
where one would toss a coin in England, for tossing up is unknown in
Japan.
[Illustration: THE GAME OF _KEN_.]
The Japanese indoor games we have above described are played mostly by
children and young men and women, with the exception of the fox-_ken_,
which is almost confined to convivial parties. The great serious games
for grown-up people in the evenings, or in the daytime for that
matter, are chess, _go_, and “flower-cards.”
_Shōgi_, or Japanese chess, is played on a board with nine
squares a side, or altogether eighty-one squares. There are twenty men
on each side. The nine men on the end-row are the king in the middle,
with _kinsho_ (gold general), _ginsho_ (silver general), _keima_
(knight), and _kyosha_ (kind of rook) on either side; on the second
row the men are _hisha_ (rook proper) and _kakko_ (bishop) on the
second square from the right and left ends respectively; and the third
row is filled with pawns. The pieces are all of the same form; they
have each a base with two converging sides surmounted by two others
which make an obtuse angle at the apex, and are thicker at the base
than at the top so that they can readily stand, though they are always
laid flat. The name of each piece is written on the upper surface. The
largest of these men is the king, next to which are the pieces on the
second row, followed by the men on the end-row, while the smallest are
the pawns.
The king can move one square in any direction; the _kinsho_ has the
same moves except to the diagonals behind; and the _ginsho_ moves one
square forward and diagonally in the four directions; and the _keima_
and the _kyosha_ have, one the forward moves only of the knight and
the other the forward move only of the rook. The _hisha_ and the
_kakko_ have the same moves as the rook and the bishop respectively.
The pawns move one square forward and take the hostile pieces in front
and not diagonally. When the pieces enter the enemy’s territory, that
is, within the furthest three rows, they are not queened as there are
no queens in _shōgi_, they acquire the moves of _kinsho_. In that case
they forfeit their own moves, with the exception of the _hisha_ and
_kakko_, which retain them. When the pieces are thus changed in
character, they are turned the reverse side up.
The capture of the men and checking of the king are the same as in
European chess; but stalemate is unknown, for the reason that we can
make use of any pieces of our adversary that we may have taken, and
if our king is in danger, we can readily defend him by putting in the
field some of our prisoners. This causes no inconvenience as there is
no distinction of colour between the hostile pieces; their side is
shown by the direction of the pointed ends of the pieces. The enemy’s
pieces may be brought into requisition in his own territory; but
they must move at least one square forward before they can be
converted into _kinsho_.
[Illustration: JAPANESE CHESS.]
_Shōgi_ is universally played; but it is more especially the favourite
game of the lower classes Among the better classes, _go_ is in greater
vogue; it is much affected by retired old gentlemen, officials,
school-teachers, and others of the professions. It is certainly more
difficult and probably more scientific than the other.
_Go_ is played on a thick square board with heavy legs. The surface is
marked with nineteen parallel lines crossed by as many similar lines,
making the total number of points of intersection three hundred and
sixty-one. The game is played on these points, and not in the squares
formed by the parallel lines; and like _shōgi_, two persons take part
in it. Either side has a box of round, flatfish pebbles small enough
to be placed without overlapping on consecutive points. They are
distinguished by colour; and the black is always given to the poorer
player who opens the game, while the other takes the white.
[Illustration: THE GAME OF _GO_.]
The object of the game is to take as many as possible of the enemy’s
stones by surrounding them with one’s own. A stone once put on a point
is immovable unless it is surrounded and taken off the board; it
cannot move from one point to another. This siege of the enemy’s stone
lies in cutting it off along the lines passing through the point it
occupies. The siege is successful in its simplest form when a single
stone is surrounded on the four adjacent points on the two lines
intersecting at its point. There is no way of breaking the square
formed by these four stones, for the only way in which relief can be
brought to a threatened stone is to make it a part of a chain which
cannot be completely surrounded by the enemy. When a stone is thus
surrounded on all sides, it becomes a prisoner and is taken off the
board. A stone at a corner of the board is imprisoned by two stones
as there are no other adjacent points, and one on the edge by three
stones. In a word, a stone cannot act diagonally, but must always work
along a line. In practice, of course, it is usually a group of stones,
rather than single stones, that find themselves prisoners, as the
siege operations are more difficult to detect when carried out on a
large scale.
If it was only to surround the enemy and capture his stones, the game
would be comparatively simple. It is complicated by the formation
of vacant enclosures, within which if the enemy ventures, he must
infallibly be captured. The object is to make these enclosures as
large as possible, and since such camps, as they are called, would
narrow the enemy’s field of operations, he does his best to break the
cordon by intruding a chain of stones before it is completed. Hence,
there are four operations going on at the same time: we must break up
the enemy’s attempted cordon and surround his stones, and prevent his
surrounding our stones and form our own cordons. This formation of
camps, though really nothing more than a defensive measure, is in fact
more important and difficult than the capture of the enemy’s stones;
and the issue of the game depends generally more upon the size of
these cordons than upon the number of prisoners actually taken.
Though the game should theoretically be continued till the board is
completely filled with stones, it is seldom pursued to that extent;
for where there is a great inequality of skill, the issue can be seen
long before the finish and the game given up, or where camps have
been formed, the vacant space need not be filled in. In most cases,
therefore, plenty of stones remain in hand. When the game is finished,
the number if points enclosed by the camps, if any, is counted and
reckoned as so many stones gained; and the difference between it and
the number of prisoners in the enemy’s hands is one’s net gain
or loss according as the former is greater or less than the latter.
And the one with the larger net gain is naturally the winner.
Neither _shōgi_ nor _go_ is a lively game. The latter, especially,
calls for patience and hard thinking; it may take hours or even days
to conclude a single game. Besides, it does not lend itself to
betting. The great gambling game is that of the cards known as
“flower-cards,” which is rapidly played and depends more upon chance
than upon skill.
The pack is made up of forty-eight cards, about an inch by an inch and
a half, which are in twelve sets, each set representing a month of the
year. The first set has a picture of the pine-tree, which, being the
principal part of the New Year’s outdoor decorations, symbolises the
first month. It is followed in order by the plum-tree, cherry-tree,
wistaria, sweet-flag, tree-peony, and lespedeza, which flower in the
second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh months respectively.
The eighth month is represented by the eularia, the ninth by the
chrysanthemum, the tenth by the maple-tree, the eleventh by the
willow-tree, and the last by the paulownia. It may be stated in
passing that these months follow the old lunar calendar and are
therefore some weeks later than the corresponding months of the solar
calendar. All the cards are not of the same value. The highest, which
is twenty points, is assigned to the pine-tree with a crane in the
middle and a red sun above, the cherry-tree in bloom with a curtain
underneath for a picnic party, the eularia under the full harvest
moon, the willow under which a great scholar is learning perseverance
from a frog which succeeds after many hours’ vain attempts in reaching
a branch, and the paulownia with the phœnix flying over it. Ten
points each are given to nine cards, namely, the plum-tree with the
bush-warbler, the wistaria with the cuckoo, the sweet-flag beside a
plank path, the tree-peony with butterflies, the lespedeza with the
wild boar, the eularia with wild ducks, the chrysanthemum with a
wooden cup for the chrysanthemum-_sake_, the maple-tree with the stag,
and the willow-tree with the swallow. Five points are the value of the
cards with a _tanzaku_, a long strip of paper for an ode; there are
ten of them, that is, all the sets except the eularia and
paulownia. The remaining twenty-four cards are worth only a point
each. Thus, five cards at twenty points, nine at ten points, ten at
five, and twenty-four at a point each, make the total value of the
pack two hundred and sixty-four points.
[Illustration: “FLOWER-CARDS.”]
The game is played by three persons. As many as six may join in it
and the cards be dealt to them; but three of them must throw up their
hands. First, the dealer declares whether he will play or not and is
followed in order by the rest. If any players remain after three have
declared their intention to play, such persons may quietly give up
play or, if their hands are good, they may insist upon being bought
out. The player who has a free choice and elects not to play, has to
pay a forfeit, from which those forced to retire are exempted. The
players may be reduced to two, and sometimes only to one, in which
case he is declared the winner.
The cards are first dealt out seven to each player and six others are
turned up on the table. The players who retire return their cards,
which are shuffled into the pile of undealt cards. When it has been
settled who are to play, the dealer, or if he does not play, the one
nearest to him looks at his hand to see if he has one of the same suit
as any of the open cards; if he has, he takes the latter with his
card and put the two aside; but if he has none to match or thinks it
disadvantageous to take a card, he throws down a card which has no
match on the table. Next, he takes the top card of the pile and opens
it; if it matches with any of the open cards on the table, he takes
the pair and puts them aside; but if it does not match, he throws
it down exposed among the open cards. The others follow in the same
manner. As the number of cards in the three hands is twenty-one and
six are open on the table, the undealt cards also number twenty-one;
and as every player matches or throws down a card in his hand and
opens one of the pile, the last card of the last player is played when
the last of the pile is turned up. The players then reckon the total
value of the cards in their possession; and according as that value is
more or less than eighty-eight, which is one-third of the value of the
whole pack, the difference between the two represents their gain or
loss. The winner of the largest number also gets the forfeits
paid by the retired players.
This is the simplest form of the game. It is usually complicated by
claims allowed for certain combinations found in the hands dealt.
Thus, if three of the seven cards are of the same suit, the holder can
claim a forfeit of one and a half dozen points from each of the other
two; the forfeit becomes two dozen points for two or more _tanzaku_
cards among plain ones, three dozens for a plain hand with only one
card of a higher value, four dozens for three pairs of suits or a
complete hand of plain cards, six dozens for two sets of three cards
of the same suit, and so on to the highest which is twenty dozens for
four cards of one suit and three of another.
Then again, if certain sets of cards are won in the course of a game,
that game is closed and the value for such sets is claimed from each
of the other two. Thus, six dozen points are allowed for the three
purple-_tanzaku_ cards of the chrysanthemum, tree-peony, and maple,
or the three red-_tanzaku_ cards of the pine, plum, and cherry trees,
and ten dozens for the four twenty-point cards of the pine, cherry,
eularia, and paulownia, and twelve dozens if that of the willow is
added to them.
These payments for combinations make the game very exciting. Twelve
games, to match with the months of the year, make a rubber, at the
end of which the reckoning is made. For counting purposes two sets of
counters are distributed, one of the value of one point each and the
other of a dozen points. First, counters to the amount of ten dozen
points are allotted to each player; but of this amount three or four
dozens are pooled to be given to the highest winner of the rubber, and
so that lucky person really gets far more than his actual winnings.
When a player has gone through his first lot of counters, he borrows
more from the bank. At the end of a rubber when the settlement is
made, the payment, if the game is played for money, is made at so much
per point; and even though the unit may be of a small value, the total
account often comes to a respectable sum.
不許複製
明治四十三年十月一日印刷
明治四十三年十月五日發行
著作者 井上十吉
東京府败多摩那大久保百人町三百九十番地
發行兼印刷人 古作勝之助
東京市日本橋區兜町三番地
印刷所 東京印刷株式會社
東京市日本橋區兜町二番地
Transcriber’s Notes.
1. Obvious typos have been silently corrected.
2. Text contained within underscores is italicised.
3. Table of contents page numbers have been corrected.
4. Captions for images in the original text located within a paragraph
have been moved to either before or after the paragraph.