Specimen of “Sashigami.�
To Sh�zabur� Esq.
As we have a guest to-day, we desire to engage the services of a courtesan belonging to your house named Tsumasaki during the day-time. I guarantee that my guest is not one of those persons who are “wanted� by the authorities, but a respectable party, and should anyone be found to allege anything to the contrary I am prepared to offer an explanation of the matter at any time or place. The above is written for future reference.
5th day of the 5th month.
| (Signed.) | Kyūyemon. (Proprietor.) | |
| (Countersigned.) | Ch�bei. (Monthly Manager.) |
The above was issued in the “year of the dog�—the second year of Tenna (1682)—and at that time Sh�zaemon was the keeper of the “Kadomanji-ya� in Sumi-ch�. Again, in the same book, (Kwagai Manroku) are given the following rules, relating to age-ya, which were in force in the Tenna era:—
- 1.—Yūjo shall not be detained after the departure of a guest.
- 2.—A man-servant shall be provided by the ageya for the purpose of escorting yūjo to and from the tea-house: such servant to be barefooted (su-ashi.)
- 3.—Should a courtesan be unwilling to attend any particular guest, the yarite (female manager of a brothel) shall endeavour to prevail upon her to reconsider her decision, and, if the negotiation be successful, a summons shall be sent to her and the fee paid at the time of settling accounts. [In practice, the yarite had the option of deciding whether or not the guest should be accepted.]
- 4.—When a yūjo who had a previous engagement has been induced to attend to a later guest, the latter shall pay shurai-gin (an extra fee) to the tea-house which first engaged her. In case, however, of a substitute yūjo being chosen, no shurai-gin shall be paid, and if the original guest who had made special arrangements beforehand fails to appear, no room-rent (zashiki-dai) shall be charged.
Thus, when one wished to engage a courtesan in those times, he had to make a special arrangement in advance, fixing the date so as to avoid inconvenience, this agreement was termed a ken-yaku (兼約 = a previous convenant). The act of inducing a woman to cancel a previous engagement in favour of a later guest was called “morai� (貰� = something received, (a gift)), and when this was insisted upon, the successful bidder had to pay, besides the regular fee, an extra sum as compensation to the age-ya which was party to such previous engagement. This extra fee was the “shurai-gin� referred to in the above rules. The origin of the “age-ya� dates back to the Moto-Yoshiwara, and by the eras of Tenna (1681–1683) and Teiky� (1684–1687) these establishments had reached the zenith of their popularity. Since the sancha-j�ro appeared, the age-ya gradually declined until the 10th year of H�reki, when they completely disappeared, leaving hikita-jaya in their place.
“Kuruwa-kotoba� or Yoshiwara Dialect.
It appears that owing to the Yoshiwara being a rendezvous of people from various parts of the country, there were a great many provincialisms spoken. This caused considerable inconvenience to persons visiting the quarter, and therefore, for the purpose of making the language used as uniform as possible, a kind of dialect known as the “sato-kotobaâ€� (里言葉 language of the prostitute quarter) was coined, and all the prostitute were taught to speak it. The “Hoku-jo-ryo Kigenâ€� (北女é–起原) says:—