Maruyama

For other meanings of Maruyama, see 円山 (Maruyama)

• Japanese: 丸山 (maruyama)

The Maruyama was the chief courtesan district of Nagasaki in the Edo period, serving chiefly the Chinese and Dutch communities of the port city.

The courtesans of the Maruyama pleasure district were the only Japanese, other than shogunate officials, permitted to enter the Dutch neighborhood on Dejima; they also served the Chinese merchants of the city, Japanese residents, and Japanese visitors to Nagasaki from other parts of the archipelago. The courtesans were officially required to return from Dejima in the morning, but in practice, often stayed for up to a week; they were not permitted to stay overnight in the Chinese district. The courtesans are said to have preferred the company of the Chinese, however, and so charged higher rates to the Dutch. Enforcement of restrictions on the island were quite lax at times, and on occasion, courtesans even escorted Dutchmen off Dejima (into Nagasaki proper), or accompanied them out of the country. A number of Maruyama courtesans also had children with members of the Dejima community; some of these children came to be regarded as "Japanese," being accepted and incorporated into Japanese society, and remained in Japan for the rest of their lives, banned from leaving just like any other Japanese, while others were deemed foreigners, and lived on Dejima or outside of Japan the remainder of their lives, banned from entering or traveling freely within the archipelago like any other foreigner.

References

• Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 72-100.