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Created page with "*''Japanese'': 御手洗 ''(Mitarai)'' Mitarai was a port town in Hiroshima han, located on an island in the Inland Sea, located roughly halfway between the cities of..."
*''Japanese'': 御手洗 ''(Mitarai)''
Mitarai was a port town in [[Hiroshima han]], located on an island in the [[Inland Sea]], located roughly halfway between the cities of [[Kure]] (in Hiroshima domain) and [[Imabari]] (in [[Iyo province]], on [[Shikoku]]). Today, Mitarai has been absorbed into Kure City.
A major regional port town, Mitarai got its start around the mid-18th century, and grew in the early 19th century as the archipelago-wide "travel boom" burgeoned. Like many other prominent Inland Sea ports, Mitarai was chiefly home to warehousers, affiliated with wealthy, powerful warehousing guilds in [[Osaka]]; essentially they served as middlemen, buying, storing, and selling a variety of goods which sea captains transported across the Inland Sea and beyond. By the [[Bakumatsu period]], however, many sea captains bypassed the warehousers and simply bought and sold directly with producers in cities like [[Onomichi]] and consumers in places like Osaka. By that time, too, fears of foreign ships led to Mitarai being equipped with shore batteries.
During the [[Edo period]], Mitarai was among the more typical stops for ''daimyô'' and their entourages to stop during their ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' journeys to and from [[Edo]]; [[Korean embassies to Edo|Korean]] and [[Ryukyuan embassies to Edo]] also stopped here, and a ''hengaku'' plaque featuring calligraphy by Ryukyuan envoy [[Ryo Kochi|Ryô Kôchi]] can be found in the temple of [[Manshu-ji|Manshû-ji]] in the town.<ref>Shirarezaru Ryûkyû shisetsu 知られざる琉球使節, Fukuyama-shi Tomonoura rekishi minzoku shiryôkan (2006), 37.</ref>
Like many such port towns, Mitarai was home to a number of [[prostitution|brothels]], catering to sailors and travelers. Hiroshima domain authorities paid little attention to regulating or forbidding prostitution; Mitarai competed with other neighboring ports which offered other entertainments, including plays, lotteries, and teahouses. There were four main brothels in Mitarai: the Sakaiya, Wakaebisuya, Tomitaya, and Ebiya. In the mid-18th century, the town had a population of just over 500, of whom roughly 100 were indentured women. However, by the 19th century, this proportion dropped considerably. In the 1860s, the Wakaebisuya, which employed around a hundred women by itself at its peak time, now had only around a dozen; meanwhile, the other brothels were on the brink of closing.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Amy Stanley, ''Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan'', UC Press (2012), 163-187.
<references/>
==External Links==
*[http://www.yutaka-kanko.jp/ Mitarai Official Tourist Webpage] (Japanese)
*[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Yutakamachimitarai,+Kure,+Hiroshima+Prefecture,+Japan/@34.2051563,132.7893314,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x3550158a07dd2d1f:0x399ab9134939078d Mitarai on Google Maps]
[[Category:Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Edo Period]]
Mitarai was a port town in [[Hiroshima han]], located on an island in the [[Inland Sea]], located roughly halfway between the cities of [[Kure]] (in Hiroshima domain) and [[Imabari]] (in [[Iyo province]], on [[Shikoku]]). Today, Mitarai has been absorbed into Kure City.
A major regional port town, Mitarai got its start around the mid-18th century, and grew in the early 19th century as the archipelago-wide "travel boom" burgeoned. Like many other prominent Inland Sea ports, Mitarai was chiefly home to warehousers, affiliated with wealthy, powerful warehousing guilds in [[Osaka]]; essentially they served as middlemen, buying, storing, and selling a variety of goods which sea captains transported across the Inland Sea and beyond. By the [[Bakumatsu period]], however, many sea captains bypassed the warehousers and simply bought and sold directly with producers in cities like [[Onomichi]] and consumers in places like Osaka. By that time, too, fears of foreign ships led to Mitarai being equipped with shore batteries.
During the [[Edo period]], Mitarai was among the more typical stops for ''daimyô'' and their entourages to stop during their ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' journeys to and from [[Edo]]; [[Korean embassies to Edo|Korean]] and [[Ryukyuan embassies to Edo]] also stopped here, and a ''hengaku'' plaque featuring calligraphy by Ryukyuan envoy [[Ryo Kochi|Ryô Kôchi]] can be found in the temple of [[Manshu-ji|Manshû-ji]] in the town.<ref>Shirarezaru Ryûkyû shisetsu 知られざる琉球使節, Fukuyama-shi Tomonoura rekishi minzoku shiryôkan (2006), 37.</ref>
Like many such port towns, Mitarai was home to a number of [[prostitution|brothels]], catering to sailors and travelers. Hiroshima domain authorities paid little attention to regulating or forbidding prostitution; Mitarai competed with other neighboring ports which offered other entertainments, including plays, lotteries, and teahouses. There were four main brothels in Mitarai: the Sakaiya, Wakaebisuya, Tomitaya, and Ebiya. In the mid-18th century, the town had a population of just over 500, of whom roughly 100 were indentured women. However, by the 19th century, this proportion dropped considerably. In the 1860s, the Wakaebisuya, which employed around a hundred women by itself at its peak time, now had only around a dozen; meanwhile, the other brothels were on the brink of closing.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Amy Stanley, ''Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan'', UC Press (2012), 163-187.
<references/>
==External Links==
*[http://www.yutaka-kanko.jp/ Mitarai Official Tourist Webpage] (Japanese)
*[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Yutakamachimitarai,+Kure,+Hiroshima+Prefecture,+Japan/@34.2051563,132.7893314,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x3550158a07dd2d1f:0x399ab9134939078d Mitarai on Google Maps]
[[Category:Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Edo Period]]