Kyoto. John H. Martin
the procession returns to Yasaka Shrine.
From July 15 to 17 the main events of the Gion Festival occur. This great festival is celebrated by the people of Kyoto as well as by thousands of visitors who come to the city specially for the occasion. On July 15–16, the festival carts are stationed along Shijo-dori west of the Kamo River, where they may be viewed close up, and music and festivities occur each night. On the morning of July 17, the festival parade of many large and small floats takes place along Kawaramachi-dori and Oike-dori; stands along Oike-dori provide seats, which may be reserved in advance. This summer festival provides a colorful and intriguing time, both for its participants and those who observe the carts and the costumes of other centuries. Other festivals and ceremonies occur at the Yasaka Shrine throughout the year. These are listed in the monthly calendar distributed by hotels and the Kyoto Tourist Office.
2 THE PLEASURE QUARTERS
Leaving Yasaka Shrine from the main entrance at Higashi-ojo-dori, Shijo-dori lies straight ahead. This street is the main route for the next portion of this walk, some diversions to its north or south occurring along the way. The geisha districts of Gion are to the south of this street, while the geisha areas of Shimbashi are to the north.
Beginning in the late 1500s, with the revival of Kyoto life at the end of a century or more of wars, the original pleasure districts of Kyoto developed on either side of the Kamo River just below and above Shijo-dori. Today, the geisha quarters, ochaya (tea houses), restaurants and theaters are still located in these districts.
Performers in the classical Japanese dance-drama kabuki wear elaborate costumes and make-up.
The Pleasure Quarters of Kyoto, in particular the Pontocho, Gion and Shimbashi areas, present aspects of Japanese life that deserve an adequate description. Since the activities of portions of these quarters are by their nature only quasi-public (language, expense and proper introduction barring most foreigners from the ochaya and the world of the geisha), and since the theater performances that offer a sampling of geisha talents and an introduction to the tea ceremony are restricted to certain times of the year, an introduction to the Pleasure Quarters follows.
The areas on either side of the Kamo River at Shijo-dori (as well as the dry areas of the river bed) became the center of the Pleasure Quarters of Kyoto from the late 1500s. With the prosperity that began under Hideyoshi in the 1580s, and which continued under the Tokugawa Shoguns, a new merchant class developed in Kyoto. Although the merchants were the lowest class of society as far as official policy was concerned, they were prosperous and had money to spend. Thus, the Shoguns permitted them some leeway in behavior (other than was normally prescribed for their class) in the “licensed quarters,” where they could find entertainment and pleasure of various kinds.
Four elements composed the divertissements of the Pleasure Quarters. There were the restaurants or tea houses on either side of the river—as well as on the dry river bed in the summer, where dining could take place— and many of these continue to serve the public today along the narrow stone-paved pathway of Pontocho and on the west bank of the Kamo River. There were the ochaya, in which the geisha and maiko (apprentice geisha) entertained the wealthier of Kyoto’s pleasure seekers. There were, as well, the theaters for kabuki, bunraku (puppet plays), and other such forms of cultural entertainment. Lastly, there was the illicit trade of prostitutes (both female and male), of which the puritanical Shoguns did not approve but condoned, within limits, in recognition that certain activities could never be fully controlled by either Confucian precepts or governmental decrees.
KABUKI The art of kabuki had its beginnings here in the late 1590s when a young woman, in the service of the great Shinto shrine of Izumo on the Japan Sea, appeared in Kyoto. A performer of sacred Shinto dances, Izumo-no-Okuni began to offer such dances in 1596 in an improvised “theater” on the dry bed of the Kamo in the Shijo-dori district. (A plaque on the west wall of the Minami-za Theater at Shijo-dori on the east side of the Kamo River commemorates Okuni’s perfor-mances at this river bed location.) Okuni and her small group of female dancers performed the Nembutsu Odori, a religious dance that had its roots in the religious “dances” practiced by Priest Kuya (see Rokuhara-mitsu-ji in Tour 4) many years before. This religious observance had developed into a type of folk dance that, although it had roots in religious practice, had become a form of popular entertainment as well. (The O-Bon dances in many communities in Japan in August continue this tradition.)
Maiko (apprentice geisha) stop for a chat in the Gion district.
THE ENIGMATIC GEISHA
Despite Kyoto’s male-dominated associations, the women in Kyoto have always had a part to play in the pleasure quarters (aside from the activities of prostitutes, whom society neither recognized nor condoned but who continued to flourish). A group of entertainers known as geisha sprang up, women of talent who could dance, sing, play on traditional instruments, carry on witty conversations and, above all, please the male patrons of the ochaya in which they practiced their arts. The role of the geisha was an honorable one, the word itself implying a trained artist. Geisha were not prostitutes, as is sometimes supposed in the West, although they often became the lovers of well-to-do patrons who supported them, the cost of their costumes and grooming and their general upkeep being exceedingly expensive.)
Two areas became the center of the ochaya in which geisha entertained those who could afford an evening of their professional services of song and dance—as well as the delights of the palate as catered to by the ochaya owners. These ochaya developed both north and south of Shijo-dori— along Hanami-koji-dori on either side of Shijo and along the Shirokawa River to the north of Shijo. This latter came to be known as the Shimbashi (New Bridge) district, from a bridge across that narrow river. Both the Kamo and Shirakawa Rivers were much given to flooding; by 1670 an attempt was made to control the overflowing of these rivers, and they were contained within walls. This led to an increase in the land available for development. An improved and expanded pleasure district resulted to the east of the Kamo River, tea houses and theaters flourished, and from 1712 the ochaya of Gion were licensed by the government for geisha performances.
In Okuni’s hands, the Okuni Odori was able to blend folk, Shinto and Buddhist dance forms into a popular format that was soon imitated by other female performers. The popularity of her dances can be ascertained by the fact that Toyotomi Hideyoshi is said not only to have viewed them with pleasure, but that he rewarded Okuni with a coral necklace. From these religious dances, Okuni and her group soon branched out into a type of primitive theater of a farcical nature that came to be known as kabuki. Many of her skits (for they were not really plays in an artistic sense) were of an erotic nature, concerning the relationships of young men and prostitutes in bath houses and tea houses. (Some of her cohorts were well suited by inclination and experience to portray aspects of the seamier side of life with great realism.) These farcical skits eventually came to the attention and displeasure of the authorities, and by 1629 the Shogun had banned such female performances.
Accordingly, another form of kabuki developed, with young men (many of them very attractive late adolescents) as the actors. Much given to acrobatics and mock sword play, these young actors soon developed a following of their own—particularly among the samurai and Buddhist priests who vied for the young men’s charms. These two social classes were not supposed to attend functions that were primarily licensed for the merchant class—the lowest form of society in Tokugawa times. But attend they did, and many of these attractive youths aroused a passion among their viewers (homosexuality being accepted by many samurai and priests.) In the fights that broke out among the members of the audience for the favor of particular actors, there was a breakdown of decorum that the Shogun could not permit. Thus, in 1652 “young men’s kabuki ” was banned—but not until after the death of Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–51), who himself reputedly had a certain fondness for youthful actors.
Thereafter, kabuki was permitted to continue if the performers were adult males— and o stensibly less physically or emotionally attractive to the audience. Women’s roles were taken by males (onnegata), a tradition which continues to this day.