Japanese Plays and Playfellows

by Osman Edwards

It was Iyeyasu, the great organiser, who made it part of the State’s business to centralise and control sporadic vice in the capital. Before his time the “social evil,” as it is called, was free to spread its virus where it might, to the hurt of private and public weal. But one day, as the conqueror was returning from the battle of Sekigahara and taking his lease in the tea-house of Shoji Jinyemon, at Shinagawa, the proprietor, whose efforts to please were seconded by eight red-aproned waitresses of unusual beauty, so impressed the Shōgun with his talent for that kind of management, that he was appointed nanushi, or director-in-chief, of the Moto-Yoshiwara, founded in response to many petitions in 1618. Into this quarter, which either took its name from Yoshiwara, a town on the Tokaido famed for the prettiness of its daughters, or from its literal import, the “place of reeds,” being situated in a marsh on the outskirts of Yedo, all the courtesans who had infested various portions of the city were gathered, licensed, and supervised. It at once became a little city in itself, wisely and usefully administered, and, being burnt down fifty years later, was replaced by the new or Shin-Yoshiwara, which remains in most essentials to this day a copy of its predecessor. It was divided into eight wards, each of which had responsible recorders, whose duty was to keep order, to guard against fires, and report suspicious characters to the police. Policemen stood at the gates, and every guest was required to enter his name in a register, though he might disguise it by changing the characters, if it were phonetically correct. At one time Christians and gamblers were forbidden to enter, while the samurai, or military retainer, whose Roman discipline excluded visits to Capua, was provided by the Amigasa tea-houses with a large braid hat to conceal his features. Espionage, as always under the Tokugawa régime, was a pronounced feature of this autonomous system, which was, and still is, of immense service in the detection of crime, since ill-gotten gains were generally disbursed in that locality, affording clues to the identity of their possessor.

The organisation of each house, or kashi-zashiki, was elaborate and peculiar. The master, or teishu, though compelled to live on the premises, was seldom visible. His was the unseen hand which directed and received. He engaged at least three wakaimono (young fellows), supplied to him by a detective agency, of whom the banto, or clerk, made purchases and kept accounts; the mise-ban, or lady’s attendant, walked behind her with open umbrella to avert sun or rain, when she passed in procession through the main street, Naka-no-cho; the nikai-ma-washi, or upper-storey man, looked to the lamps, the bedding, and other details of domestic comfort. Beside these were messengers, gardeners, bath-men, cooks, and night-watchman, who hailed the advent of each nocturnal hour with noisy wooden clappers. The staff of female assistants varied with the status of the house. If the girls belonged to the highest class, called taiyu or oiran, to each was allotted two child attendants, kamuro, whose dress must be of white bleached linen, decorated with a pine-tree pattern and crossed on the left shoulder by a black cape bearing in gold letters their mistress’s name. When these little girls reached the age of fourteen, if their parents so wished it, they became furisode shinzo, or shinzo with flowing sleeves, and, without altogether ceasing to be attendants, began to learn the arts of singing, and arranging flowers and making tea. Yet a third class of servants bore the name of banshin. These were generally discharged jōro, who wore striped crape with a sash of black satin, and had the right to refuse admission to any whose respectability appeared doubtful. But the most powerful and most unpopular person in the whole establishment was named Yarité, or Spear-Hand. She was responsible for the behaviour of all under her charge, and might administer corporal punishment. If a girl were summoned before the local justice, it was she who escorted her and answered the questions of the judge. Her room faced the top of the staircase, and none could pass to the inner chambers without propitiating the dragon on the threshold.

But to pass from the inner chambers to the world without the Yoshiwara was rarely permitted to such closely guarded prisoners. The prison might be known as the “House of the Myriad Flowers,” or the “House of the Eight Banners,” or the “House of the Ten Thousand Plums,” but it was none the less a prison. Not one of its inmates, neither “Evening Mist,” nor “Filmy Cloud,” nor the “Face of Evening,” could glide imperceptibly from its vigilant constraint. If her parents were dangerously ill and lived not too far away, a girl was sometimes allowed to visit them, being given a label, which she must return at sunset. If she were ill herself, she might consult a doctor outside the quarter; and all had the privilege of going in a party to Mukōjima in the season of cherry-blossom. But no other exeat was accorded. A runaway was invariably caught, and the expenses of capture were deducted from her subsequent earnings. At the age of twenty-five she was sure of regaining her liberty.

It must not be supposed that the five years’ durance were years of unrelieved servitude. As month followed month, the monotony was broken by a round of kindly festivals. On New Year’s Day the whole household was assembled by Spear-Hand to pay conventional compliments to the master and mistress, who requited this courtesy with handsome presents. Every jōro received two dresses of silk crape; every shinzo two of pongee; every child attendant a dress of white linen with pine-tree pattern. Branches of pine and bamboo were suspended from the entrance, and above the lintels of the door-posts flamed a scarlet lobster. On each associated tea-house were bestowed saké cups of kiri wood, stamped with the donor’s crest. At least three grand processions were held to celebrate the planting of the flowers. In April, when cherry-blossom was set before the tea-houses and along the main-street of Naka-no-cho, the balconies were crowded with spectators, the doorways hung with cherry-coloured curtains, as the stately line of magnificently-attired beauties with their attendant children and umbrella-bearers moved slowly on its way to the temple of Inari. In June, when iris was planted, the heavily-wadded dresses were laid aside, and lightly robed, like winged zephyrs, as though to personify their names, “White Cloud,” and “A Thousand Springs,” and “The Smell of the Plum Blossom” would pass with all their fanciful cortège through the sun-lit Place of Reeds.

“It ver et Venus, et veris prænuntius ante

Pennatus graditur Zephyrus, vestigia propter

Flora quibus mater præspargens ante viaï

Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.”

October brought chrysanthemum and signalised the close of summer. The imperial blossom soaked in saké was eaten on the ninth day; the big hibachi were lit; the human butterflies took a last flutter through the streets, their frail wings sheathed in velvet and brocade against the winter.