The Nakamura-ke nikki, or "Diary of the Nakamura Family," is a set of records maintained by the Nakamura family of the port-town of Tomonoura, who were both owner-operators of the town's chief honjin (elite lodgings) and purveyors of a local specialty liquor called homeishu.
The Diary, surviving in 26 volumes, covers a period from 1646 to 1866. However, there are frequently only a few tens of entries per year, skipping over a great many days (and events), and offering only a very few lines for those events that are mentioned. For example, a Ryukyuan embassy to Edo that passed through Tomonoura in 1790 is mentioned in two entries, very briefly summarizing that the mission arrived at Tomonoura in the evening on 10/13, and that Yoseyama peechin, a member of the mission, had died of illness, and was buried early in the morning (on 10/14) at Komatsu-ji in Tomonoura.[1] The Ryukyuan mission which passed through Tomonoura on the return from Edo in 1851 is mentioned briefly as well.[2] However, there are no entries for the dates when Ryukyuan missions would have passed through the town in 1796 or 1806.[3]
References
- Aono Shunsui 青野春水, "Kaidai" 解題, in Harada Tomohiko 原田伴彦 (ed.), Nihon toshi seikatsu shiryô shûsei 7 (Minato machi hen II) 日本都市生活史料集成７ （港町編II）, Tokyo: Gakushû kenkyûsha sha (1976), 25-27.
- ↑ Shirarezaru Ryûkyû shisetsu 知られざる琉球使節, Fukuyama-shi Tomonoura rekishi minzoku shiryôkan (2006), 147.
- ↑ Aono Shunsui 青野春水、"Edo jidai Tomo machi no seiritsu to kôzô - chôsei o chûshin ni" 「江戸時代鞆町の成立と構造－町政を中心に－」、in Tomo no tsu Nakamura-ke monjo mokuroku IV 『鞆の津中村家文書目録 IV』, Fukuyama, Hiroshima: Fukuyama City Tomonoura Rekishi Minzoku Shiryôkan (2009), 253-255.; Shirarezaru Ryûkyû shisetsu, 44.
- ↑ Harada, 400-401, 423.