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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba‘s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kochi is located in the southern part of Shikoku, long and narrow from east to west, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean to the south and the Shikoku Mountains to the north. It will be a southern country rich in nature with some of the most beautiful clear streams in Japan, such as the Shimanto River and Niyodo River.
Kochi appears in history from ancient times. The deity Ajisukitakahikone no Kami, enshrined at the ancient Tosa Shrine, is said to be the son between Okuninushi no Kami and Takiribi no Mikoto, one of the three goddesses of Munakata, and was also the deity worshipped by the Kamo clan as described in “On the Road: The Katsuragi Path. The Kamo clan is also famous for the presence of Abe no Seimei, a famous yin-yang master, and En no Gyoja, the founder of the ninja clan, who was mentioned in “Koka to Iga no Shigaraki no Michi“.
In the Kamakura Period, Asakage Kajiwara, the younger brother of Kajiwara Kagesutoki, mentioned in “Kaido yuku – Miura Peninsula Ki“, was dispatched as the de facto first guardian of the area. In the Muromachi period (1336-1573), it was ruled by the Hosokawa clan, which is mentioned in the book “Kaido yuku Awa to Awaji Island no Tabi to Rekishi” (Travels and History of Awa and Awaji Island).
In the reign of Oda Nobunaga, this was unified by Nagasogabe Motochika, who then set out to pacify Shikoku, but was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s advance into Shikoku in 1585, and was reduced to being the sole lord of Tosa.
The Chosokabe family was defeated in the Battle of Sekigahara by the western forces, and their lands were confiscated, and the whole Tosa region was given to Kazutoyo Yamauchi, lord of Kakegawa Castle in Enshu, who belonged to the eastern forces.This area is also depicted in the story of Motochika Sogabe in Ryotaro Shiba’s “Natsukusa no utsu” (A Tale of Summer Grass).
One of the most famous episodes of Yamauchi Kazutoyo’s reign was his marriage to Gishonin, “Yamauchi Kazutoyo’s wife. This is the story of how Yamauchi Kazutoyo, who was poor, used his wife’s gold to buy a good horse at the horse show in 1581 to appeal to his master Toyotomi Hideyoshi, thereby giving her husband the honor of a samurai.
The book about Kazutoyo Yamauchi is “Kounaga Tsuji” by Ryotaro Shiba, and “Kounaga Tsuji” was also made into a historical drama by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation).
When the Yamauchi clan entered Tosa, the Nagasogabe’s vassals, the Iryogusoku, put up a strong resistance, and the matter was finally settled when many of their former vassals were killed by treachery during the revolt. Even after Kazutoyo’s entry into the capital, sporadic rebellions continued for several years, including the Takiyama Revolt. This group of Nagasogabe vassals was suppressed under the rule of the Yamauchi clan and forced to live on the periphery of Kochi, where their rebellious spirit would continue until the end of the Edo period.
In such Kochi, this trip is centered on Yusuhara, which borders the neighboring country of Iyo, as described in “On the Road to Southern Iyo and Western Tosa: Clouds over the Hill and the Date Family in the Southland“.
Yusuhara is a small town in the mountains rich in nature, where 91% of the town area is covered with forests and is nestled in the majestic Shikoku Karst at an elevation of 1,455 meters above sea level.
Yusuhara is a small mountain town rich in nature. The Shikoku Karst Plateau is a high plateau karst topography that is rare in Japan, and untouched nature remains everywhere.
In Tosa (Kochi), there are deliberate terms such as “ichigai” and “igotsuso,” which refer to the act of doing something rash and sudden, and words to describe mental phenomena and personalities that do not listen to others’ opinions. According to Ryotaro Shiba, Iyo, a neighboring area, has a culture with good manners, which imposes a sense of balance on its people and produces superior students, whereas Tosa‘s manners are austere.
The Tosa culture of rebellion has given birth to many of the samurai of the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. What differentiates the Tosa samurai from those from other regions is that while the Satsuma and Choshu samurai were tied to their clan leaders and the clan system, the Tosa samurai, including Sakamoto Ryoma, were active outside the clan (i.e., they broke away from the clan).
Yusuhara became a small place to escape from Tosa, and it is said to have been the gateway to the freedom that the Tosa people were pursuing. For example, the monks of the Kamakura Gozan (Five Mountains of Kamakura), mentioned in “History of Zen, Temples, and Kamakura (Rinzai Zen and the Five Mountains of Kamakura),” were the most advanced cultural figures of their time, traveling to China as well. Both were from the Tsuwa clan of Yusuhara, and the poems they wrote were highly respected by the educated people of the time.
After Yusuhara, the topic of conversation turned to Tosa Kagura. Kagura has various lineages, including miko kagura, Izumo kagura, Ise kagura, lion kagura, and yamabushi kagura. Kagura in Kochi falls into the Izumo kagura lineage, which consists of dances with bells, sakaki, and other objects in hand and dramatic dances based on the myths of the Chronicles of Kiki. The Izumo Kagura is characterized by sword dances, acrobatic dances, and dances to exterminate demons (called “daiban”), in which the interaction between dancers and udeshi is also enjoyable.
After viewing Kagura, climb Shikoku Karst. Shikoku Karst is one of the three major karsts in Japan, along with Akiyoshidai in Yamaguchi Prefecture and Hiraodai in Fukuoka Prefecture. The karst plateau stretches for about 25 km along the ridge that straddles Ehime and Kochi Prefectures, and is located at an altitude of 1,000 to 1,500 m. The magnificent landscape stretches from the Tengu Plateau in the east to Ohnogahara in the west, via Himezuru-daira and other areas, and is compared to “the Switzerland of Japan. The area has a spectacular landscape that can be likened to the “Switzerland of Japan”.
Here, red and black cattle graze. In Ryotaro Shiba’s time, all cattle on the Ehime side (Iyo) were black cattle, and all cattle on the Kochi side (Tosa) were red cattle.
This trip ends amidst the tranquil highland scenery.
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