Changes

Sumô was originally performed as part of shrine festivals, as part of Imperial court ceremonies such as ''[[osechie]]'', or as part of military parades in which lords or officials "showed off" their best strongmen in front of the Emperor. As late as the 1500s, there was no wrestling ring; wrestlers performed sumô in an open, unmarked, area.

Sumô was originally performed as part of shrine festivals, as part of Imperial court ceremonies such as ''[[osechie]]'', or as part of military parades in which lords or officials "showed off" their best strongmen in front of the Emperor. As late as the 1500s, there was no wrestling ring; wrestlers performed sumô in an open, unmarked, area.

It was in the [[Edo period]] that sumô became more of an entertainment form. By the 1750s, sumô was often being performed in a ring, under a roof, with a referee, and spectators who paid to see the match. Ostensibly, most such performances/matches were ''kanjin-zumô'', being performed in order to help raise money for Buddhist temples. This framing context was necessary for the matches to be permitted under [[Tokugawa shogunate]] policies. However, in their actual practice, these matches shared much with the realm of entertainment: spectators bought food and drink at the event, and took breaks from watching the show to patronize teahouses nearby; further, certain wrestlers attracted considerable popularity, and were featured in ''[[ukiyo-e]]'' woodblock prints, becoming popular stars much like [[kabuki]] actors or famous [[courtesans]].

These early shrine festivals were often associated with shrines to [[Hachiman]], a god of war. Matches at that time were performed in front of private patrons. While wrestling frequently took place in public down through the Edo period, the line between "professional" or "formal" sumô performed in public, and people simply wrestling in the streets, was vague enough in the eyes of the authorities that public sumô was illegal throughout the Edo period - thus leading it to be performed only within certain legal frameworks, e.g. as ''kanjin sumô'', performances done in order to raise money for Buddhist temples or for other similar purposes.

Many sumô wrestlers served individual [[han|domains]] or [[daimyo|lords]], in a role akin to ''[[goyo shonin|goyô shônin]]''; some were granted the right to bear a surname, and to wear swords. They often traveled across the archipelago, or simply within a given region, to engage in symbolic battle against other domains, on behalf of their lord.

 

Many sumô wrestlers served individual [[han|domains]] or [[daimyo|lords]], in a role akin to ''[[goyo shonin|goyô shônin]]''. Though bearing a rather marginal status in earlier periods, alongside ''[[kawaramono]]'' and the like, in the Edo period some wrestlers were even granted the right to bear a surname, and to wear swords. They often traveled across the archipelago, or simply within a given region, to engage in symbolic battle against other domains, on behalf of their lord. Domains of [[Bizen province]], [[Sendai han|Sendai]], and [[Matsue han|Matsue]] were among those which strongly supported sumô, and dispatched wrestlers to major competitions in [[Edo]] and [[Osaka]]; meanwhile, domains such as [[Tosa han|Tosa]] and [[Satsuma han|Satsuma]] also maintained notable "stables" of sumô wrestlers, but participated chiefly in more local/regional events in Shikoku and Kyûshû, not typically sending their wrestlers to Osaka or Edo. Many sumô wrestlers also developed professional guilds or families, akin to the family lineages of kabuki actors. The sumô ring and stage developed into a relatively standard form, and matches began to be regularly advertised used standard forms of ''[[banzuke]]'' (playbills). There was considerable overlap: wrestlers associated with a domain were also often prominent in the realm of popular entertainment, and were included in guild lineages and ''banzuke''.