The Forgotten Japanese (published in 1960 )(5/6)、忘れられた日本人 part5

Author : Miyamoto Tsuneichi（1907-1981）、著者：宮本常一

Part1 of this article

 

Lovemaking、男女間の楽しみ（性愛の楽しみ）

・TOSA GENJI、土佐源氏

 Many topics about lovemaking are written in this book, however, this one is a must-read story. The author interviewed a short man who was over eighty, was a beggar and lived in a mountainous area in Shikoku Island of western Japan.

 He was a cattle trader. He became blind around thirty years ago. He built a hut under the bridge and lived there with wife. A one-man stage play themed his has been played more than one thousand and two hundred times.

 He was an illegitimate child and his mother died soon, so his grandparents raised him. He didn’t go to school and played with babysitter girls. He had the first sexual experience with them when he was around ten.

Big sisters and little brothers in the Land of the Rising Sun—Yokohama (1904)、横浜の子守　https://www.loc.gov/item/2020637848/

 When he was fifteen, his grandfather died. Then, he moved to a cattle trader’s house as an apprentice. 

 The trader (his boss) was a malicious man. He sold a weak cattle to a farmer and bought a better one. The interviewee said, “A farmer raised a weak one to a healthy one only in a half year. Farmers were diligent.” Moreover, his boss had sexual relationships not only with his common-law wife but also with others. He entered a house even during a daytime and enjoyed.

 When the interviewee was twenty, his boss died; so, he took over the cattle trading work. He wandered inns that his boss had often visited, and he had sexual relationships with the mistresses. He couldn’t have a relationship with an ordinary villager, because lads got rid of him. At that time, a lad usually visited a women’s room secretly at night. However, he wasn’t  a villager, so he was expelled.

A trader and castles、博労と牛たち　The Cattle Museum、牛の博物館

 There were many widows back then. A pretty one was a concubine of a wealthy villager. On the other hand, farmers didn’t keep a concubine. They always worked with their wife, and slept with her.

 He learned sexual techniques from a woman of an inn for a long term. Afterward, he run away with her daughter who had grown up. They got married! However, he continued making relationships with others. There are many astonishing topics for me. Although men didn’t believe him, women relied on him. He said, he had never done what women didn’t want.

 He related to two women who were in a high social class, although he was afraid to cause trouble to them by a bad rumor. One of them was a wife of an ex-village head, who was in the late 30s. She was beautiful and quiet. Her husband hired helpers, but she willingly took care of a cattle. She cleaned up the cowshed and polished the cattle. When the cattle left home because of a selling off, she gave a special (red) rice and sake (alcohol) to it. She shed tears and talked to it “Hope encountering a good person, and being treated politely.” It was a precious pet for her. Her tenderness attracted him. He started having a relationship with her, however, she suddenly passed away a half year later.

 Thereafter, he suffered from eye pain for three days and he lost his eyesight. He visited his wife who returned to her parents' home. She kindly started a pilgrimage with her blind husband to pray for getting eyesight. They visited eighty-eight temples in Sikoku and settled at the village. It meant villagers accepted the couple.

 It is a lovemaking story, it is the one of the nature of people or something I don’t know. I have to add that it is known that the author dramatized the facts. It was not a usual lifestyle of a wanderer back then, I just reckon.

 

男女間の楽しみは、本書のあちこちに出てきますが、この話は外せません。そんなことがあったのかという驚きです。宇和島（愛媛県）に近い山中の村・梼原（ゆすはら）に住む八十を超えた盲目の小柄な乞食の老人からの聞き取りの記録です。

彼は、牛を売り買いする博労でしたが、30年ほど前に盲目になり、橋の下に小屋を作って夫婦で住んでいました。坂本長利（1929-）がこの老人を演じた一人芝居は上演回数が1200回を超えています。

彼は、私生児で母を早くに亡くし、爺と婆に育てられました。学校には行かず、子守の女の子たちと遊んでいて、10歳のころに経験しました。

 

　15の時に爺が死んだのを機に、博労の家に奉公に出ました。親方は、農家に悪い牛を売り良い牛を買って稼いでいました。でも、「しょうもない牛は半年もたてば百姓がええ牛に育ててくれる」そうです。大きな牛を宇和島に売りに行きました。

親方は助平で、内縁の妻だけでなく、なじみの家をでは、昼でも座敷に上がって女を「ころがし」ました。二十歳の時に、親方が死んで、独り立し、親方なじみの博労宿を渡り歩いて可愛がってもらいました。家のない彼は村の若衆仲間に入れないので村の娘に夜這いはできなかったのです。

 

後家さんはたくさんいて、小ぎれいな人は村の旦那衆の妾になっていました。一方、百姓はかたくて、昼は夫婦一緒に働き、夜は夫婦で納戸に寝て、妾は持ちませんでした。

彼は、博労宿の女から女の喜ばせ方を教わり、その後、大人になった彼女の娘を連れて逃げました。今の婆（妻）です。その後も、他の女にかまい続けました。驚くような話が続きます。男たちは彼を信用しませんでしたが、「どういうもんか女だけはわしのいいなりになった」、「わしは女の気に入らんような事はしなかった」と話しています。

 

　その中で、彼が相手に迷惑をかけてはいけないと思いながらも、関係をもった身分違いの女性が二人いました。その一人は、県会議員をしている庄屋の妻でした。四十前の別嬪のおとなしい人でした。使用人がいる家にもかかわらず、奥様は好んで牛の世話をしました。小屋をきれいにして、牛をぴかぴかにするほどみがきました。奥様は牛を家から出すときには、赤飯を食べさせ酒を飲ませました。そして、ボロボロ涙を落としながら、「ええとこへいって大事に飼うてもらいや」と声を掛けました。奥様にとっては、牛は大切なペットだったのですね。彼は「なんとまァやさしい人もあるもんじゃ」と思い惹かれていきました。半年あまり関係が続きましたが、奥様はポックリとなくなってしまいました。

その後、彼は、三日三晩、目が痛んで見えなくなりました。実家に戻っていた婆のところへ行き、婆に手を引かれて目が見えるようにと四十八か所の旅に出て、この村に落ち着きました（＝村にいることを認めてもらいました）。

 

　男女間の楽しみというか、サガというか。ロングランの芝居の題材でもあり、また、著者が少々創作したことが明らかになっています〔1〕。当時の人びとの楽しみというよりも、少し特異な話でしょうか。

参考文献〔1〕網野善彦(2003）：『忘れられた日本人』を読む

Asama-yama, Japan's largest active volcano, wreathed in sulphurous steam clouds, n.w. from Katsukake (1904)、沓掛から望む浅間山　https://www.loc.gov/item/2020684784/

 

・Knowledgeable person、 世間師（二）

 Sakon Kumada who lived in the south part of Osaka Prefecture also talked about lovemaking when he was young. His face was unhappily ugly because he got heavily burned during the Satsuma Rebellion (1877).

 He said, everyone could do whatever they wanted do on the 22^nd of April in Kami-no-Taishi. Everyone could have sex with someone, so people went to the venue (temple) in that evening. A tall lantern(s) was raised up in front of the temple. People gathered in front of the hall and called out, “Give us liquor, give us liquor, otherwise yo-ho-houi". A man started sliding an arm around a woman's shoulders. If she didn’t shake off the arm, that meant they could go into a forest nearby together. Female participants dressed up. Even daughters of a good family used to join in order to get good offspring long time ago. If a child was born, they were raised and were cherished even if their father was unknown. They were so generous.

 Sakon went to the event when he was fifteen; it’s his first time and the first experience. After that, he went there every year. However, the event discontinued at the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912). It was a time when the authorities imposed strict controls on public morals.

Religious facilities, photo by Arnold Genthe (1908)、宗教施設　https://www.loc.gov/item/2018719495

 

河内長野市の左近熊田翁も若い時の経験を語っています。彼は西南戦争で火傷を負い、見にくい顔をしていました。

旧4月22日に、一年に一度だけ、好きなことをして良い日がありました。上の太子の会式（えしき）で、この夜は、誰と寝ても良く「太子の一夜ぼぼ」といってたくさんの人が出かけました。寺の前に高い燈籠を立て、堂の前に集って、「出せ出せや酒を、酒を出さねばヨーホーホーイ」と音頭をとって、その中で、男は女の肩へ手をかけます。女が振り払わなければ約束ができたことになり、近くの山の中に入りました。女の子は着飾っていました。良い子種をもらうためだといわれ、ずっと昔は良家の娘も多く、この時の子は、父なし子でも大切に育てられました。おおらかですね。

翁は、15の時に行って、初めて女とねました。その後、ずっと出かけましたが、明治の終わり頃にはなくなってしまいました。風紀の取り締まりが厳しくなった時期です。

 

 

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