When the visiting actor drew near the theatre that had engaged him, the entire fraternity of shibai people, dressed in kimono of the same colour, waving fans, came out to meet the newcomer and shouted a noisy welcome, clapped their hands in regular rhythms, to which the actor would respond by clapping his own. Afterwards a feast was spread and sake cups exchanged. This began in Yedo, and was also observed in Osaka, but the Yedo Norikomi was always much more gay and festive.
These are a few of the many interesting shibai customs that were in vogue in Yedo, Osaka, and Kyoto, before such world events as the Declaration of American Independence or the French Revolution.
Ceremony of welcoming an actor. It represents the onnagata, Segawa Kikunojo, returning to the Nakamura-za in Yedo after an absence of two years in Osaka. (From a colour print by Utagawa Toyokuni.)
CHAPTER XIX
SHIBAI AND OUTSIDE INFLUENCE
The rills of outside influence that trickled into shibai during the 225 years of Tokugawa peace were very small, but the real hunger of the people for knowledge from overseas is shown in the eagerness with which Kabuki appropriated such information as could be smuggled into the country.
From the time that O-Kuni and her successors wore rosaries with the cross attached as a decoration for their stage costumes, Kabuki exhibited receptiveness to imported ideas from Europe and China.
When O-Kuni was attracting the populace of Kyoto everything European became suddenly the vogue. Murdoch in his History of Japan refers to this period of Western influence as follows: “Western dress became so common that on casually meeting a crowd of courtiers it was difficult to say at once whether they were Portuguese or Japanese. To imitate the Portuguese some of the most ardent votaries of fashion even went so far as to commit the paternoster and the Ave Maria to memory. Reliquaries and rosaries were eagerly bought; all the lords, Hideyoshi and his nephew, went about with crucifixes and reliquaries hanging from their necks, a tribute not to piety, but to fashion.” Murdoch also mentions a feudal lord who marched to Yedo at the head of two thousand picked men, whose banners all bore beautiful crosses, while on his own helmet was a great “Jesus” in gold.
It was in the middle of the sixteenth century that the relations between Japan and the West first began, with the coming of the Portuguese ships to the coast of Kyushu in 1543. They were followed by the Spanish, English, and Dutch. Xavier reached Japan in 1549 and left in 1551.
As the result of the Jesuit missionaries’ activities, Christianity spread in the neighbourhood of Kyoto, where churches were built. An English factory was established in Japan in 1613, but withdrew ten years later. The Jesuits came to be looked upon as political intriguers, and Hideyoshi issued orders to suppress Christianity. The expulsion of the Spaniards took place in 1624, followed by edicts against the Portuguese and Dutch.