- Japanese: オムシャ (omusha)
Omusha were ritual meetings between representatives of Ainu communities and Matsumae han retainers. They stemmed out of a traditional Ainu practice known as umusa, in which gifts were exchanged as a polite custom when meeting someone again that one had met before. However, over the course of the Edo period, these ritual meetings and gift exchanges evolved from something performed voluntarily by the Ainu out of a sense of tradition, propriety, and etiquette, into something the Japanese obliged them to perform each time Matsumae domain retainers or officials made their annual visit to a given village.
A painting held by the Hakodate City Central Library depicts an omusha ceremony performed in connection with the visit of Aizu han officials to Kushun kotan on Sakhalin Island in 1808. It illustrates an outdoor area defined on several sides by large curtains and paper lanterns emblazoned with the Matsudaira clan crest. A row of samurai officials sit on mats to one side, in front of a row of suits of samurai armor, while other samurai sit on mats alone or in small groups in several other locations around the space. A group of Ainu elders are seated in the center of the gathering, without mats, directly on the ground. Some are shown bowing to the samurai. Larger groups of Ainu sit to one side. A number of casks of sake, bushels of rice, tobacco, tsuba (hilt guards for Japanese swords), bows and arrows, teppô firearms, and other goods are displayed as well, presumably being presented as gifts from one side to the other.
Another such painting, also held by the Hakodate City Central Library, shows a large group of Ainu dressed in colorful, presumably expensive, likely Japanese-made, clothing, some with large Japanese kamon crests, seated on a mat or rug in the garden of a Japanese-style building, bowing to a group of samurai officials seated inside the building, facing out towards them. The samurai are seated on tatami or on the bare wood of the building's veranda; one is seated on a piece of red carpet atop the tatami. Fine lacquerwares, folding screen and wall paintings, and a tokonoma with a hanging scroll on display can be seen within the building; curtains emblazoned with the Tokugawa clan crest are folded up to allow the Japanese indoors and the Ainu outdoors to see one another. A number of gifts are arranged in a row between them. Large groups of Ainu are gathered to one side of the garden, and outside of the gate.
References
- Gallery labels, Hokkaido Museum.[1]