Tomonoura
- Japanese: 鞆の浦 (Tomonoura)
Tomonoura is a harbor in modern-day Fukuyama City, Hiroshima prefecture, which historically was a significant Inland Sea port. It was a port of call along the Western Circuit shipping route of the kitamaebune, and a stop for Ryukyuan, Korean, and Dutch embassies to Edo.
One of the chief famous local products (meibutsu) is a form of medicinal liquor called homeishu (保命酒). The Nakamura family, known for their homeishu, also hosted daimyô, Ryukyuan embassies, court nobles, and other elite visitors in a set of buildings which together functioned as the town's honjin; two of those buildings are today known as the Ôta family house (Ôta-ke jûtaku) and the Chôsôtei, and have been designated National Important Cultural Properties.[1] Another establishment in the town, known as the Neko-ya, was run by goyô shônin in service to the Shimazu clan, and also regularly provided accommodations to the Shimazu and to Ryukyuan missions.[2]
Komatsu-ji (小松寺), a Rinzai Zen temple of the Myôshin-ji branch located near the harbor is home to the grave of Shô Dôkyô Yoseyama Peechin, a musician and member of the 1790 Ryukyuan embassy, who died on the way to Edo on 10/13 in that year. A plaque was later donated to the temple in his memory, by Yoseyama's grandfather, Fukuyama ueekata Chôki. Another plaque, hanging over the main gate to the temple, features calligraphy by a man named Wu Taihe, but little else is known about this figure.[3]
Tomonoura is also home to the shop of Uoya Manzô, where Sakamoto Ryôma engaged in negotiations surrounding the Iroha-maru Incident.[1]
References
- Watanabe Miki. "Nihon ni okeru Ryûkyû shiseki" 日本における琉球史跡. Personal website.
- Maehira Fusaaki, "Edo nobori no tabi to bohimei" 江戸上りの旅と墓碑銘, Okinawa Bunka Kenkyû 21 (1995), 83ff.
