appeared, and ordered him to reconsider. If he persisted, the duty of investigating the complaint was given to a yoriki, who would normally carry the inquiry through, although in difficult cases it might have to go back to the magistrate, who would, in any event, deliver the final verdict.
This description of the machinery of justice in Edo serves to give some impression of the way officials worked, and of the sort of situation in which they came in contact with ordinary people. Some samurai would of course be in direct touch with farmers and with suppliers, but others also managed certain enterprises that would more usually be run by merchants. One outstanding example of this was the notorious gold mine of Aikawa in the island of Sado, where folk memory has preserved tales of the harshness of the samurai overseers, and of the sufferings of young men forced to labor in the galleries and workings. They were in charge of an official who was equal in status to the Edo town magistrate. In other territories and domains there were other enterprises administered by samurai, which means that there were many who acquired experience in industrial matters: with the growth of industry after the middle of the nineteenth century, many former samurai were thus able to play their part in the new developments.
In their leisure pursuits as much as in their working hours, the samurai were supposed to be a class apart. However, many of them spent their spare time in ways that were frowned on, since they were not encouraged to participate in any of the leisure activities of the townsfolk, things such as theatre-going and visiting the brothel districts, although it is quite clear that they did so all the same, and with the minimum of subterfuge. Many other entertainments were officially available. Of course, lower samurai, who might be called upon to use their fighting skill if it came to an encounter with robbers or fractious peasants, would do a certain amount of military training, and wrestling, swordsmanship, archery, riding, and swimming were all practiced. Upper samurai, while learning swordsmanship with some seriousness, pursued the study of other military sports in the same sort of spirit as they did tea ceremony and flower-arrangement (21)—that is, as something more like a hobby, but learnt and practiced with great seriousness and a constant search for inner significance.
All these artistic pursuits were organized into “schools”, and learnt from authorized teachers only, who taught strictly in accordance with the rules of their individual schools. Differences between them were sometimes quite small, and very often without practical importance. Even a non-artistic pursuit such as swimming was organized on a “school” basis, each one teaching different strokes of the arms and legs, or the tactical use of various swimming styles, or horsemanship in water. The Ogasawara school was supreme in the study of polite behavior, which included methods of greeting, posture, manners at mealtimes, and so on, and also dealt with archery, a ritualized sport with considerable formality of procedure, in which as much, or even more, importance was placed upon gracefulness of movement and correctness of etiquette, as upon hitting the bull’s-eye. Cruder archery competitions were sometimes indulged in, but only by lower samurai: one of these that is remembered took place at a temple in Kyoto, the Sanjūsangen-do, which has a hall over 200 feet long crowded with statues. The outside gallery of this hall was used in a competition, the object of which was to shoot as many arrows as possible in a given time from one end to the other. An overhanging roof made it impossible to flight the arrows high (the beams still bear the marks where stray shots have hit), so that a strong, flat trajectory was necessary. The best performance is credited to a samurai in 1686, who shot 13,000 arrows, of which 8,033 reached the end of the balcony.
(21) Samurai view flower-arrangement. A senior samurai, with two of less exalted rank, gaze at a flower-arrangement in a toko-no-ma (see p. 147). The figure on the right, with shaven head and fan in hand, is a Buddhist priest.
A more active sport for senior samurai was hunting. The taking of life was against the tenets of Buddhism, according to which the killing of animals might bring punishment in the next world; nevertheless, many hunted game for food, and the use of the matchlock was common, although it is unlikely that shooting was considered a sport. Quite different from this practical hunting were the large-scale expeditions by great lords. Indeed, some of the earlier Sho-guns indulged in these from time to time, until they were brought to a halt by the fifth Shogun, Tsunayoshi (1680-1709). He is remembered as the “dog” Shogun, because of his protection for these animals, occasioned by the advice received from a Buddhist priest that his childlessness was a punishment for having taken life in a previous existence: he chose the dog for his particular favor because it was the calendar sign of the year of his birth. The power of the Shogun is demonstrated by the effect that this idiosyncrasy had on the country. Some persons were even banished for killing dogs, a vast dog-pound was established in Edo for the care of strays, paid for by a special dog-tax, while the general ban on animal-killing made it difficult for the farmer to protect his crops. All this did not bring Tsunayoshi a son, however, and he was succeeded by a nephew, who immediately brought the dog-favoring edicts to an end. The Shogun Yoshimune (1716-45) was an energetic instigator of reforms, and also endeavored to bring the samurai back to their early simplicity by encouraging them to take physical exercise. In particular he favored hunting, and in the list of nicknames of Shoguns he is called the “falcon” Shogun. On his hawking expeditions he was accompanied by a large retinue, and the victims were cranes and other wild birds. He also revived the deer and boar hunts that had been favorite sports of some of his predecessors: these were decidedly unsporting affairs in which the game was driven towards the “hunters,” who dispatched them with arrows or gunshot from the safety of horseback.
An anecdote preserved in the diary (1692) of a samurai in Nagoya reveals the standard of values at the time.
The lord of Iyo (in Shikoku) lost a favorite hawk, and sought for it throughout his domain. One day a certain farmer went out to tend his fields, while his wife stayed at home with her weaving. A hawk flew in and perched on her loom. The wife took her shuttle and struck the bird, which straightway died. The farmer returned home and was told by his wife how a beautifully marked bird had settled on her loom, how she had struck at it without intending to kill it, but how the bird had unfortunately died. Her husband looked at it and saw it was a hawk. He was greatly alarmed, for he knew that the lord was searching for such a bird. With much trepidation he told the village headman about what had happened, and the occurrence was reported to the bailiff. The latter, in great anger, had the husband and wife bound, and taken before his lord for trial. The lord, too, was enraged, and had the wife crucified, but pardoned the husband because he was not at home at the time in question.
The story goes on to relate that when the husband went to pray for his wife, he found that she was still alive, and the lord, hearing this, had her taken down. She claimed to have been saved by a protective deity. The samurai who noted all this did not seem to find the treatment of the woman surprising; it was her return to life that astonished him.
However, the hunting Yoshimune was exceptional, as the Shogun did not normally participate in active sports. Their amusements were usually much less energetic, and they would be spectators rather than participants. For example, they and the daimyō supported sumō, a form of wrestling, which already had a long history of popularity in Japan, as well as the patronage of the Imperial court. Another source of entertainment was the drama. Samurai were discouraged from going to the theatres where the merchants formed the audiences, but this did not prevent daimyō and others from summoning companies or individual performers to their residences. The Shogun would have nō plays given in the Castle, and would allow the townsfolk to see one of the performances. Surviving records show that the lords of Tottori were great patrons of the nō when they were doing their obligatory attendance upon the Shogun. The daimyō himself played the chief role in many of the plays, which were put on to entertain his guests, often other daimyō, at parties, in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Actors and musicians were paid with money or clothing, and, if asked to travel, were given special allowances and an escort. Kabuki and the puppet-plays were also to be seen in the residence, but less often than the nō,
