Kasshi yawa

• Japanese: 甲子夜話　(Kasshi yawa)

Kasshi yawa is a diary written by Matsura Seizan (1760-1841), lord of Hirado han, between 1821 until his death in 1841. Spanning about 7,000 entries across 278 volumes, it is a valuable source of information on a wide range of topics pertaining to Edo period politics, foreign relations, elite and commoner life, and other themes. Four volumes, bearing the subtitle Hoshin ryûheiroku ("Record of Ryukyuan envoys of the Dragon year of the Tenpô era"), include textual descriptions and illustrations of numerous aspects of what Seizan saw of the 1832 Ryukyuan embassy to Edo or read or knew about the Ryukyu Kingdom more broadly.

Manuscript copies of the original diaries are held at the Matsura Historical Museum in Hirado, and have been designated Nagasaki Prefecture Cultural Properties. Translations into modern Japanese were published by Heibonsha as part of the Tôyô Bunko series in twenty volumes over the course of 1977 to 1983.

Seizan first began writing the diary in Edo in 1821, after being encouraged to do so by Hayashi Jussai. The first entry is dated Shimotsuki kasshi「霜月甲子」, literally the Wood Rat day (the first of the sixty combinations in the sexagenary cycle) in the Month when Frost Descends, or 1821/11/17. Because Seizan often wrote his entries at night, or did so for this first entry, he named the diary overall Kasshi yawa, or "Stories of the Night of the Wood Rat."

References

• Gallery labels, Hirado castle.[1]