TREASURE HOUSE OF JAPANESE TRADITION
If one stands on a high spot in Tokyo on a clear day and looks to the northwest, a mountain range is visible in the distance, between the cluster of skyscrapers in West Shinjuku and the soaring tower of Sunshine City. Often during winter sunsets, the undulating mountains are silhouetted against a bright glow in the western sky. In about the middle of that range is Chichibu. Before tall buildings and smog obscured the view, the mountains were much more easily visible from Tokyo, and the citizens of Edo, as Tokyo was then called, were attracted by the wonders of nature they found there. Among those who cherished the region was the athletic brother of the Emperor Showa, who in 1922 took the title of Prince Chichibu, for the first time using a place name of northern Japan in a royal title.
Chichibu is actually a basin encircled by mountains. Now part of Saitama Prefecture, it comprises the city (shi) of Chichibu, the five towns (machi) of Ogano, Yoshida, Minano, Nagatoro, and Yokoze, and the four villages (mura) of Arakawa, Ōtaki, Ryōkami, and Higashi Chichibu. The surrounding mountains are not very high, the tallest peaks at the western and southern borders of the basin rising from 1,000 to 2,500 meters above sea level. They are, however, quite steep, and the fast-running rivers have cut deep valleys into them. Most of the small mountain streams flow into the main channel of the Arakawa, a river that flows diagonally across the basin and gushes out through the spectacular gorge of Nagatoro in the northeast. The Sumida river, which bisects Tokyo’s old downtown district, is a tributary of the Arakawa.
The mountains have always protected Chichibu, from military invasion in feudal times and from large-scale industrialization over the past several decades. Its relative isolation has helped preserve a rich legacy of folklore and traditions. Although little known to the general public, Japanese or foreigners, Chichibu is recognized as a treasure house by folklorists and anthropologists. There one can still see, for example, an old woodcutter who, before cutting a tree, prays to the god of the mountain for permission to take something from the deity’s domain. Shrines and temples dedicated to deities of Buddhism, Shinto, and folk belief dot the landscape, and traditional festivals are numerous.
No one really knows how many large and small annual events take place in the basin. Although the great majority are simple affairs, they nonetheless impress onlookers with the obvious sincerity and zeal with which they are celebrated. Many ritual acts and performances are employed to gain the favor of, and show respect to, various deities, among them shishimai (lion dances), kagura (shinto dances), folk Kabuki, and old-fashioned puppet shows. These may be performed in wooded temple precincts, on stages at Shinto shrines, or on festival floats. Though urbanization is eroding local traditions to some extent, almost everyone in Chichibu is able to dance, sing, act, or play a drum or flute. Traditional Japanese celebrations are often difficult to find and observe, particularly for non-Japanese tourists; thus, some time spent in Chichibu, only ninety minutes from downtown Tokyo, is a convenient way to touch the heart of old Japan. For those wishing to observe or participate, Part Two, Festivals, describes one important festival or event for each month of the year, while the Schedule of Festivals lists over 125 others.
Chichibu is also the setting of an important religious pilgrimage. The course comprises thirty-four temples dedicated to Kannon, who, together with Jizō, is one of the most popular Buddhist deities in Japan. Worship of Kannon, regarded as infinitely merciful and concerned with the welfare of all sentient beings, was popular in eleventh-century Kyoto and became widespread throughout Japan by the eighteenth century. Three important courses of pilgrimage to Kannon temples survive, one centered around Kyoto, another around Kamakura, and the most manageable of the three, in the Chichibu basin. Owing much to the voluntary efforts of citizens to keep it alive, the Chichibu course continues to attract dedicated pilgrims, as well as avid hikers. For those wishing to follow all or part of the course, Part One, Pilgrimage, outlines six itineraries encompassing all thirty-four temples.
Topography has clearly influenced the pattern of life in the Chichibu basin. Archaeological remains at approximately 160 sites indicate that the natural protection provided by the basin encouraged settlements in the upstream areas as early as Japan’s neolithic Jōmon period (ca. 10,000 B.C. to ca. 300 B.C.). By contrast, the far fewer (approximately twenty) relic sites from the Yayoi period (ca. 300 B.C to ca. A.D. 300) indicate that the soil was not suitable for rice cultivation and could not support such a thriving population.
Indigenous inhabitants of Chichibu basin were presumably bound together by the worship of a prominent mountain, now called Mt. Bukō, which stands out at the southern border of the basin. The very first record of the name Chichibu appears in the Kujiki, a late eighth-century historical text. It describes the legendary appointment of 137 governors to provinces ruled by Emperor Sujin from Yamato, near present-day Nara, including a special commission given to the governor of Chichibu. The unique order, brusquely written in four characters, states: “Worship the Great God.” Though scholars debate the historicity of material in the Kujiki, the fact remains that only Chichibu is mentioned in this highly religious context, suggesting that more than a thousand years ago the area already had some mystical significance. The “Great God” is generally interpreted as the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu, mythological founder of the Japanese imperial line.
In 708, copper was discovered in the Chichibu basin and was presented as an offering to Emperor Genmei in Nara. The emperor commemorated this tribute by changing the name of the year to Wado, meaning “Japanese copper,” and having coins minted.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, Chichibu and its neighboring areas were close to the northern limit of political control exercised by the central government at Kyoto. Used as grazing land for horses of the imperial guard, they were administered by court officials. Concurrent with a gradual decline of the power of the aristocracy in Kyoto, the descendants of these administrative officials became powerfully armed and organized mounted warriors. In Chichibu, there were two major military clans, the Tans and the Chichibus. As were other clans in and outside Chichibu, they were actively engaged in the development of farmland, adding the newly developed estates to their private domains. Thus provided with both military and economic resources, they became independent from Kyoto.
While the Tans continued to live in the area, the Chichibus expanded to the east and south. In the waves of ambitious expeditions in the early twelfth century, one member of the clan reached Kawagoe, and another reached Edo. The latter, based at the site of the present Imperial Palace, called himself Edo Shiro and established the Edo branch of the family. Other branches of the Chichibu family spread throughout the area that is present-day Tokyo, taking the names of the places in which they settled: Toshima, Iikura, Shibuya, Nakano, Asagaya, Kasai, Kawasaki. When Minamoto Yoritomo decided in 1180 to raise an army against the Heikes in Kyoto, he asked for the support of the Edo family in the uprising.
Buddhism had spread from western Japan by this time. Ascetic monks, first becoming active in Kumano, south of Nara, came to the mountains of Chichibu to practice an austere regime and to promote their half-shamanistic, half-Buddhist religion. Their influence grew strong in the medieval age and continued until the nineteenth century, when the Meiji government officially banned mountain asceticism.
The middle ages were a period of chaos, caused by infighting among the country’s military leaders. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, new warlords emerged, who grew more powerful through the conquest of neighboring clans. All of present-day Saitama belonged to the Hōjōs, who ruled from their base at Odawara. The castle of Yorii on the Arakawa river, just outside the Chichibu basin, was an important military base of the Hōjōs. Occasionally, troops of the Takedas, another warlord clan based in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture, stole into Chichibu to attack Yorii, causing great loss of life and property. For the most part, however, the basin was more of a refuge for fugitives of war than a battlefield.
After the Tokugawas unified Japan and made Edo the capital in 1603, the western half of Chichibu was ruled directly by the shogunate, because of its strategic position guarding Edo from invasion via the mountains. The eastern half was the fiefdom of a lord who controlled northern Saitama. During the Edo period (1603-1868), the whole basin of Chichibu rose to fame as a silk-producing region.