Tokugawa seasonal observances

Under the Tokugawa shogunate, New Year's observances at Edo castle included the shogun's reception of daimyô and other retainers, among others, on the first three days of the new year. All daimyô resident in Edo at the time were obliged to appear at the castle on each of these first three days.

On the first day of the new year, the shogun would first grant audiences to his direct relatives, the lords of the Maeda clan, and the chief fudai daimyô, who were received in the castle's shiroshoin, the middle-ranking of the castle's three chief audience halls. Following a banquet, these daimyô would arrange themselves on the lowest of the three dan (platforms/daises) in the Ôhiroma, the most formal of the audience halls, and that used for receptions of those lower in rank, or with less strong relationships with the shogunate; the remaining daimyô, both fudai and tozama, were arranged outside of the dan, in the first anteroom (ni-no-ma), along with a multitude of hatamoto, priests, doctors, court painters, and the like. They all lay prostrate as the doors separating the anteroom and the dan were opened, and the shogun silently surveyed the gathering. A member of the rôjû then declared, on behalf of the shogun, an expression of good wishes for the new year; the doors were closed, and the shogun took his place at the upper dais, or dan, of the Ôhiroma. After a reception in which saké was drunk, the shogun returned to the shiroshoin, where he received New Year's greetings from staff members of his court, including Noh performers, painters, and pages.

The first Noh performance of the year generally took place on the third day of the year, after which the performers received new robes, as formal gifts, on behalf of the shogun. The third day of the month also included audiences with prominent merchant officials from Edo, Kyoto, Nara, Fushimi and Osaka, as well as elders from some of the chief cities and fudai domains.

Lower-ranking samurai retainers who would not normally be entitled to a shogunal audience were permitted to prostrate themselves and offer New Year's greetings on the sixth day of the new year; the abbot of Rinnô-ji in Nikkô enjoyed a private face-to-face meeting with the shogun on the first day of the second month each year.

References

• Anne Walthall, "Hiding the shoguns: Secrecy and the nature of political authority in Tokugawa Japan," in Bernard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen (eds.) The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Routledge (2006), 338-339.