Honjin

• Japanese: 本陣 (honjin)

Honjin were a special type of elite inn maintained in post-towns and port towns of Edo period Japan. They were most typically used by daimyô traveling on sankin kôtai journeys, but also occasionally housed figures of similar status, such as the lead ambassadors of Ryukyuan embassies to Edo.

A honjin might house a daimyô along with as many as sixty of his higher-level retainers, but rarely if ever housed an entire sankin kôtai mission; not only were few (if any) honjin large enough to accommodate that many people, but the idea of lower-ranking followers sharing the same lodgings with the lord went against social norms. Honjin were often accompanied by secondary establishments known as waki-honjin, where additional members of an elite group might stay; for example, when the lead ambassador (seishi) of a Ryukyuan embassy stayed at a honjin, his vice- or deputy envoy (fukushi) typically stayed at the town's waki-honjin, along with other members of the embassy above a certain rank, while the remaining, lower-ranking, members of their mission were given lodgings at hatagoya - a more regular sort of inn, frequented by individual samurai and commoner travelers. Lower-ranking members of a mission might also be housed in private homes, Buddhist temples, or Shinto shrines.

Honjin and waki-honjin sprang up quickly after sankin kôtai was made obligatory for all daimyô in 1642, and soon became standard fixtures in major ports and post-towns across the realm. While some towns had only one honjin (and perhaps not even a waki-honjin), larger towns often had several of each.

Daimyô typically established regular reservations with honjin along their sankin kôtai routes, such that the honjin would know to expect them on particular dates each year, and to have a reception prepared for them in a particular manner, with the daimyô paying a pre-arranged amount as a show of gratitude. Such arrangements helped avoid difficulties which might otherwise emerge from negotiating and re-negotiating the schedule, and the terms, each time. Still, there were times when a daimyô arrived in a town to find that another daimyô (or Imperial envoy, or another guest of similar elite status) had booked the inn for the night; most of the time, this resulted in the newcomer taking up lodging in the town's waki-honjin, or another similar establishment, when available. Daimyô also quite regularly passed through post-towns, not staying the night, but merely using the honjin as a place to rest for a bit, and to perhaps enjoy a meal. Such meals and rest-stops were also often pre-arranged, but daimyô could also simply arrive and have their men make an arrangement on the spot.

As a daimyô and his entourage approached a post-town, they would send a messenger ahead to alert the honjin to the daimyô's impending arrival. A special curtain was hung over the entrance, and a number of other preparations were done, including arranging small mounds of sand or salt, called morisuna, and a decorative broom and bucket (known as kazari-hôki and kazari-oke), outside of the inn as symbolic indications of the cleanliness and preparedness of the honjin. The messenger would often exchange a sekifuda, an official indication of his lord's wishes, for a receipt from the honjin confirming their acknowledgement of the reservation. When the daimyô then arrived in town, he would be greeted near the entrance to the town, and led to the honjin, where a proper reception awaited. It was not uncommon for all the officials of the post-town to contribute directly to the process of receiving a daimyô (or other figure of similar status), with some officials performing the greetings and formal reception, some ensuring the streets and the honjin itself were clean and in good condition, and others overseeing guardsmen and security concerns.

Honjin were often the largest building in a given town. The sole honjin at the small post-town of Futagawa-juku, along the Tôkaidô highway in Mikawa province, survives today as a local history museum; the building is 17 1/2 ken wide, and covers a space of roughly 525 tsubo.

The largest honjin on the Tôkaidô highway were at Odawara-juku. This was in large part because of its location. The castle-town is both close to Edo, meaning that most daimyô and other travelers from western Japan would come that way, and it is located between a difficult mountain pass & a river crossing; as a result, Odawara was a place that few travelers merely passed through, and where most instead stayed the night.

References

• Watanabe Kazutoshi 渡辺和敏, "Sankin kôtai to honjin" 参勤交代と本陣, Honjin ni tomatta daimyô tachi 本陣に泊まった大名たち, Toyohashi, Aichi: Futagawa-juku honjin shiryôkan (1996), 53.