User:LordAmeth/Notes

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NOTES for later articles:

  • Some 10,000 people took part in the Chichibu Incident. - Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 164.
  • Tigers were considered a master of the earthly realm, and were commonly paired with dragons, though typically in an inferior position - the left side of a pair of screens, with the dragon on the right. Leopards (with spots) were mistakenly believed to be the female of the striped tiger, so while a tiger alone is a masculine symbol of strength and power, a tiger depicted alongside a leopard is a symbol of fecundity and succession - appropriate in family areas of a castle, for example, but not in most other places. - timon screech, Obtaining Images, 36. - This likely derived from the Korean belief in a paired spotted female 麒 and striped male 麟, whereas the Japanese kirin was a singular creature. p350n8.
  • The guards of the Hyakunin bansho and the Dôshin bansho at Edo castle were charged with the security of the area around the dismounting place, including the walkways from Ôtemon to Naka-no-mon. - Yamamoto Hirofumi, Edo jidai - shogun bushi tachi no jitsuzô, Tokyo shoseki (2008), 70.
  • Ayutthaya: 1575 sends envoy to Ming to get a new royal seal to replace the one destroyed in fighting with the Burmese; 1592 King Naresuan sends envoy to Ming to offer to send navy to help defeat Japan. - Kang, David C. “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900.” Asian Security 1, no. 1 (2005): 62.
  • Omote and uchi: A fine example of omote and uchi: in 1627/4/27, the retired daimyo Hosokawa Tadaoki of Kokura arrived in Edo. However, he was ill, and Shogun Iemitsu was ill too, so they didn’t announce his arrival, and gave the tatemae of his not being in the city. However, this also meant not being able to have any other daimyo (or other people) officially/publicly visit him.

Similarly, in 1644, Mori Hidenari, lord of Hagi/Choshu, received his official leave from the shogun, and sent his official notice that he would be departing Edo. But then his stomach began to hurt, and so he stayed secretly recovering for a time. However, a notice came from the roju, which he was obligated to sign. His rusuiyaku submitted it quickly, pretending that though the lord was on his way back to Choshu, this response had simply come quite quickly… (Yamamoto Hirofumi 山本博文, Sankin kôtai 参勤交代, Kodansha Gendai shinsho (1998), 178-179.)

  • Ryôsai kenbo - good wife, wise mother 良妻賢母.
  • In the late Asuka & Nara periods, the militias from the Kantô and southern Mutsu were known for having the best horses, and the best horsemen, and so when larger groups needed to be mobilized, it was these eastern warriors who were often called upon. The system of military conscription was eventually ended in 792, and though foot soldiers continued to form the core of Japanese armies in the 8th-10th centuries, by sometime in the 10th century, mounted warriors from select families - i.e. the samurai, or their precursors - came to be the dominant form of military power. - William de Bary, Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol 1, Columbia University Press (2001), 266.
  • Buddhist temples: Since Buddhism is not congregational, and there are no fixed periodic assemblies, the regular or occasional opening of the doors (kaichô) to show hidden Buddhas (hibutsu) was one way for temples to regulate or at least predict attendance. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 119.
  • Dragons were an auspicious sign. They were believed to appear when the world was in order, and to be absent when the world was corrupt. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 35.
  • The falconry hawk was a symbol of the samurai, as it was trained, controlled, and awaiting orders. - Obtaining Images 30.
  • The most fundamental purpose of hanging a painting was that it brought auspiciousness, in accordance with the season or occasion. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 40. I imagine something could be said for it simply augmenting or emphasizing the occasion as well, making spring feel more like spring, and making a somber occasion feel more somber, etc.
  • In East Asia, the representation of realistic likeness in painting or sculpture was always considered an expert artisan skill, but not something of artistic talent. This is the work of the anonymous if skilled craftsman, not of a great man whose name should be lauded. Figures such as Wu Daozi and Zhang Sengyou painted creatures as they were, not as they looked, paintings that contained "spirit resonance" or vitality as described by Xie He (気韻生動). - Timon Screech, Obtaining Images, 26.
  • Buddhist sculptures: Traditionally, in the Edo period and earlier, people were generally not concerned with the aesthetic beauty of Buddhist sculpture, but rather with its efficacy. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 119.
  • Portraits - were chiefly made "to aid memory or for the ritual purpose of veneration or funeral." The more elite someone was, the more elite someone would need to be to see that person's portrait; "the rule of thumb seems to have been that if you could meet the person, you could view their portrait; if not, not." - Timon Screech, Obtaining Images, 165.
  • Meiji slogans: bunmei kaika, fukoku kyôhei, wakon yôsai 和魂洋才, shokusan kôgyô 殖産興業.
  • Meiji: Though in retrospect it may seem like the Meiji government addressed all the relevant problems in good order, in quick time, to the contrary, during that time from 1868 until the promulgation of the Constitution in 1889, things were quite unstable. The Restoration could have fallen apart, or gone in a dramatically different direction, at any of numerous points. Further, David Lu asserts, we should not take the adulation of the emperor in many early Meiji documents at face-value - it was only after the 1895 victory over the Chinese that the early 20th century mode of emperor-worship began to settle into place. - David Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, 306.
  • Paired screens were the loftiest format; triptychs were one step down. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 33.
  • Outer Mongolia officially secedes from China in January 1946. - Ping-Ti Ho, "The Significance of the Ch'ing Period in Chinese History," Journal of Asian Studies 26:2 (1967), 190.
  • Though women were banned from professional sumo, and banned from even touching the dôhyô, all the way up until the 1950s there were unofficial, misemono matches with mixed-gender or all-female fighters. ("Tongue in Cheek: Erotic Art in 19th-Century Japan," Honolulu Museum of Art, exhibition website, accessed 30 November 2014.)
  • In the Edo period, there was in most regions no peasant custom as to a widow's obligations to her late husband's family. In widowhood, a woman was particularly free to do as she wished, to remarry or not, to remain with the husband's family or not, to return to her own parents' household or not, to travel, and so forth. Many took the tonsure in order to cement their new status, independent of any family obligations. - Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 124.
  • In aftermath of 1616 bans on Christianity, loads of Japanese converts who had simply adopted Christianity at the orders of their lord renounced the religion. A written oath was required in many cases. Christianity enjoyed numbers around 300,000 in Japan at its peak around 1615, but by the late 1630s was reduced to only kakure Kirishitan pockets. - Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagements, 47.
  • In the Edo period, many domains ranked their vassals on three axes: honor ranking (kaku), government office (shoku), and basic income level (hôroku). Mentioned in Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 133, but explained more fully in Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai, 267-277.
  • Statues of Shimazu leaders at Terukuni Shrine completed in 1917. - gallery labels, Shokoshuseikan.
  • Fukuoka han lost 2000 soldiers in the Shimabara Rebellion, in which Fukuoka, Karatsu, and Kagoshima together supplied around 700 ships. - Kalland, 214.
  • Samurai - up until Ieyasu's reign, peasants/commoners could prove themselves worthy in battle and be promoted to full samurai status. The lines between the status categories were much blurrier. But in Edo, one could only be samurai if one was born into it. - Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 129.
  • Kirisute gomen - samurai could not simply kill anyone whenever they so desired without consequences. Only when survivors/witnesses could report that a samurai's conduct was so flawless, and the other party's misconduct so clear, would the samurai be able to escape some sort of punishment. - Luke Roberts, "Mori Yoshiki: Samurai Government Officer," in Anne Walthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan, Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 33.
  • During the Edo period, Emperor was expected to devote himself to ritual; his courtiers, to maintaining the ancient customs of their ancestors, including literary practices, appreciating nature, and managing estates. - Anne Walthall, Human Tradition in Modern Japan, 1, 3.
  • Term "bakuhan taisei" coined by Itô Tasaburô　(伊東多三郎). Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain, 22-23.
  • Kangaku: The shogunate was not only concerned about Western books, but also Chinese books coming in through Nagasaki, which might have Christian elements. The shogunate's censorship project began with the establishment of a temple in Nagasaki, and the conscription of two Nagasaki book dealers into the shogunate's service. In 1639, Mukai Genshô, a Saga han Confucian scholar & physician, was appointed chief censor. He was followed by at least seven generations of successors. Book dealers were obliged to issue a pledge of their loyalty to uphold the polity (kôgi), etc., and to report any suspicious printed/written matter - including discussions of Christianity or military matters - which appeared at Edo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sakai, or anywhere else. A list of banned books was also circulated, and a number of prominent intellectuals are known to have possessed copies of the list, indicating their interest in what was censored. (Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World, 72-73)
  • Generally, only samurai, priests, physicians, and a few favored commoners (e.g. goyo shonin) were permitted to have surnames in the Edo period. (Kalland, 28.)
  • Satsuma, Choshu, Hizen and Tosa have together been called the seinan yûhan 西南雄藩, the great southwestern domains which overthrew the shogunate. - Ravina, Land and Lordship, 14.
  • In First and Second Choshu Expeditions (1864, 1866), Fukuoka han contributed 2,000 corvee laborers (fishermen etc who transported troops), who were enlisted away from home for a span of two whole months. - Kalland, 214.
  • Roberts draws a distinction between samurai (retainers with the right of audience, the right to bear two swords, and the right of entry into domainal registers of retainers, known as bugen'iri) and other figures such as ashigaru, kachi, and others not possessing such rights. All were bushi (warriors) or hôkônin (military servants), but samurai made up only the top 10 percent of retainer households. - Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain, 33.

Tsushima officials worked with Korean officials to ensure that Christian devotees or materials were not permitted to enter Japan. Satsuma officials, similarly, sent a special envoy to Shuri to speak to the court about the shogunate's concerns that Christians might have fled to Ryukyu and might be hiding out there; also, that Spanish missionaries from the Philippines should not be allowed to land in the Ryukyus (particularly the more remote southern islands) and preach there. Shuri then strengthened its coastal surveillance efforts in the southern islands. Over the course of the entire Edo period, Satsuma conveyed more than 20 anti-Christian directives to the authorities at Shuri. - Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagements, 47-48.

  • Though the term chôtei is used quite standardly today to refer to the Imperial Court, the terms used in the Edo period were, much more commonly, kinri 禁裏 and kinchû 禁中. - Watanabe Hiroshi, Luke Roberts (trans.), "About Some Japanese Historical Terms," Sino-Japanese Studies 10:2 (1998), 38-39.
  • David Noble translates 中華 as "central flowering." - Mitani Hiroshi, David Noble (trans.), Escape from Impasse, 38.
  • Vietnam, while under Chinese control from c. 112 BCE until 907, was Sinicized through increased use of Chinese written language, the introduction of the exam system, the rise of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, Chinese-style clothing and marriage ceremonies, the establishment of confucian schools, and a militia employing Chinese technology. - David Kang, “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900.” Asian Security 1, no. 1 (2005): 58.
  • In Meiji, as part of trying to make Japan look as civilized as Europe, European titles are adopted - Lord of the Privy Seal is basically just the position of naidaijin, reinvented. - Ben Ami Shillony, "Restoration, Emperor, Diet, Prefecture, or: How Japanese Concepts were Mistranslated into Western Languages," Collected Writings of Ben-Ami Shillony, 67.
  • The word yari is said to appear for the first time in the Miidera chapter of the Taiheiki, and in no earlier literature. - Told Round a Brushwood Fire, 142, 294n180.
  • Samurai were required to provision themselves. Arms and armor were not provided by the lord, but rather each man was expected to show up fully equipped and prepared, or else suffer severe consequences. (see docs read in sorobun class)
  • Scholar-officials came to be known as "mandarins" from a Sanskrit word for "councilor" which entered Hindi, then Malay, where it was picked up by the Portuguese and was then adopted by other Europeans. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civ, 109.
  • In the Forbidden City, during the Tang Dynasty, emperors sat together with their grand councilors to discuss matters of state. In the Song, officials stood in the emperor's presence. In the Ming, the emperor sat on a raised dais, and the officials knelt in his presence. Behind the audience hall were the emperor's private chambers and harem. In 1425, the palace had 6300 cooks serving 10,000 people every day. By the 17th century, there may have been as many as 9000 court ladies and 70,000 eunuchs. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 107-108.
  • The Yongle Emperor's rebuilding of Beijing involved 100,000 artisans and one million laborers. The city lay within three sets of walled enclosures; the imperial city lay within the outer walls, and beyond that, within an inner set of walls, was the Forbidden City. The palace itself contained some 9000 rooms, and front courts measuring 400 yards on a side, furnished with impressive marble terraces and curved railings. - Worlds Apart Worlds Together, vol B, 431.
  • Railways expanded from 350 to over 2000 miles of track in 1885-1895. The last link in the Tokaido line connecting Tokyo to Kobe was completed in 1889. In 1891, this line was extended to connect Ueno to Aomori, and by 1901, down the other way as far as Shimonoseki, where it connected up with Kyushu railroad networks already in place. By 1907, there were over 5000 miles of track. - Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 202.
  • The number of county seats in the Chinese bureaucracy remained relatively stable over the centuries, as county boundaries were regularly redrawn to accommodate the growing population. They numbered 1180 in the Han, 1235 in Tang, 1230 in Song, 1115 in Yuan, 1385 in Ming, and 1360 in Qing. - Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, University of California Press (2000), 130.
  • Agriculture began in China in the Yellow River valley c. 5600-4000 BCE. The chief crops were millet, taro, and yams, with rice cultivation first emerging in southern China & Vietnam, and wheat being later introduced from the west. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 2.
  • Bronze appears in China c. 2000 BCE, which is 1000 years later than Mesopotamia, and 500 years later than in India. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 6.
  • Watanabe Kazan, in his Saikô seiyô jijôsho 再校西洋事情書, wrote that the major part of India had become a British possession, and that some coastal areas were Portuguese and French colonies. - Rambelli, Idea of India, 263.
  • The character 士, which comes during the Warring States era to refer to scholar-bureaucrats, did prior to that refer to warriors. (Craig, Chinese Civ, 12) Thus, the Japanese usage, as in bushi 武士、士族, sort of comes back around, referring specifically to the warrior class while also possessing the connotation of the refined, cultured, cultivated scholar-bureaucrat.
  • Hawaii enjoyed most favored nation status, and thus extraterritoriality in Japanese ports. - Masaji Marumoto, "Vignette of Early Hawaii-Japan Relations: Highlights of King Kalakaua's Sojourn in Japan on His Trip around the World as Recorded in His Personal Diary", Hawaiian Journal of History 10 (1976), 62.
  • The popularity of imported karamono in the Muromachi period, and the need/desire to display them, contributed to the development of shoin architecture, including the chigaidana shelving, tokonoma alcove, etc. - H. Paul Varley, "Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and the World of Kitayama: Social Change and Shogunal Patronage in Early Muromachi Japan", in John Hall and Toyoda Takeshi eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age, 1977, University of California Press, (Berkeley), 192.
  • Heian gardens are viewed from a stationary position from within the palace, versus Zen gardens meant for contemplation – not for beauty or for poetry - , versus Edo gardens which are walking gardens, for moving through.
  • Genghis Khan was his Persian name; Crossroads & Cultures p441 gives his name as Chinggis.
  • The earliest extant record listing the names of kyogen pieces dates to 1464 and is known as the Tadasu-gawara Kanjin-Sarugaku. The diary of Shôjô shônin of Ishiyama Honganji, written c. 1532-1554 indicates some as well, and a volume known as the Tenshô-bon, written in 1578/7, contains synopses of over 100 pieces. Kyôgen no Hon (1642), written by Ôgura Toraaki (d. 1662), 13th head of the Ôgura school, is the earliest real volume of kyogen scripts. In addition to other writings by Toraaki, four other anthologies of kyogen plays were compiled between 1646 and 1660. - Andrew Tsubaki, "The Performing Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan: A Prelude to Kabuki," Educational Theatre Journal 29:3 (1977), 302.
  • On origins of samurai/bushi, Karl Friday writes that during the Heian period, they were essentially miyako no musha, with much closer associations to their social peers within the Court & aristocracy than to a warrior or bushi identity, and that it was only after the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate and of the gokenin hierarchy that a distinctive bushi identity began to emerge. More details of his argument/explanation can be seen at: Karl Friday, Samurai Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan, Routledge (2004), 10.

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Roger Keyes, Ehon, NYPL 2006, p70.

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  • hikime kagihana 引目鉤鼻 - simple line for the eyes, hook for the nose (in Heian/Kamakura emaki, e.g. Tale of Genji.
  • fukinuki yatai 吹抜屋台 - "blown off roof" pictorial technique.

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Jack and Isabella Stewart Gardner visited Kyoto in 1883, and may have stayed at Chion-in.

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Lane p311 for pigments

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Tim Clark's article on Kabuki, for bios of Nakamura Nakazo I, Yanagisawa Nobutoki, and other good stuff.

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  • Several historical figures are believed to have been manifestations of the Guze Kannon, starting with Queen Srimala (勝鬘夫人) who heard the dharma directly from Shakamuni, the Chinese monk Nanyue Huisi 南岳慧思, King Songmyong 聖明 of Paekche, and finally Shotoku Taishi, believed the final living manifestation of Guze Kannon. - Rambelli, The Idea of India, 245.
  • Ataka & Kanjincho take place in Komatsu, Ishikawa-ken
  • Noodles from millet first made in China c. 3000-2000 BCE. (Crossroads & Cultures p379)
  • Tsuruya Shôgen 鶴屋将監 - wakô raider
  • Kaiin Jôko, a monk from Kyoto who became abbot of Shuri Enkakuji
  • Mie and Yarazamui gusuku lasted until the pre-war, and can be seen in a photo from Meiji 24. - Uezato Takashi. Fireweapons of Ryukyu. p86. More on the castle too.
  • Hachisuka clan were not samurai!? but were merchants, arms merchants.
  • Gusuku article needs expansion, from articles, from Kerr, etc. - currently cites only Kitahara
  • Wet rice cultivation in mainland SE Asia by c. 1st century CE, spread to Java by 8th century.

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"The magistrate offices of North and South Edo, which took turns overseeing city administration, from fire prevention and publishing activities [i.e. censorship], to the adjudication of civil suits, operated with a staff of about 500 samurai officers. Of this number, only 24 were assigned to 'patrol duties' resembling the function of a modern police officer." - Ikegami Eiko, Bonds of Civility, p307.

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roughly 3000 oyatoi gaikokujin came to Meiji Japan at the invitiation of the government. By far the most of them were employed by the Ministry of Education, and were specialists in engineering and architecture. -Coaldrake, Art and Authority. p216. ---

It is believed that over two thousand travel accounts were composed in the Edo period, including more than sixty relating to the island of Ezo. -- Plutschow Edo Period Travel Reader, p2

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Over 11,000 terakoya were established in the Edo period. - Arts of the Bedchamber exhibition website. Honolulu Museum of Art. (http://shunga.honolulumuseum.org/index.php?page=1)

  • First day of the 8th month was generally considered an auspicious day for giving gifts. The shogunate claimed the date to be in commemoration of ieyasu's first entry into the kanto in 1509. (Anne Walthall, Hiding the Shogun, p332)
  • See Dusinberre (Hard Times in the Hometown) pp34-36 for effects of Meiji changeover on port towns. after 1871, han are abolished, and local/regional taxes come to be paid in cash, not in kind, eliminating a large sector of the shipping of rice and other goods through the inland sea. Domainal monopolies and monopsonies also come to an end, exposing local industries to international competition – local industries in salt, cotton, etc. suffer or struggle. // most private merchant shippers (kitamaebune operators) cannot afford to purchase steamships, and so lose out to corporations like Mitsubishi, who can afford such investments, and who then come to dominate the shipping industry.
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