lumberlady | Post-Noctium Fic

Excerpts from The Tsurugi Jinba Herd, with a Focus on Abnormalities in Education and Folk Tradition by Oyama Haruka (1988)

The change in lifestyle exhibited by the Tsurugi herd seems to have begun in the year 1621, which is the date provided on the first page of Konoha's Diary, a journal purportedly written by a woman named Konoha, who served as clan matriarch from 1629 until her death in 1667. According to the contents of this journal, only some pages of which researchers have been permitted to examine, the herd consisted of seven members upon Konoha’s marriage in 1619. However, the most recent census (1987, Sakamoto), counts over 400 jinba living in and around the former Echizen Province bearing the family name “Tsurugi”, which was given to the herd by local administers in 1875 after the Meiji government’s decree to register surnames for all jinba regardless of status.

Most jinba genealogies do not begin until the mid-Edo period (1603-1867), due largely to the destruction of family units caused by the jinba hunts that were common during the Warring States period (1467-1615). This was exacerbated by a general lack of literacy and reliance on oral tradition amongst jinba at that time, most of which died with elder members of the herds. However, the Tsurugi herd is once again distinguished by recording their patrilinear ancestry from approximately the mid-1500's, claiming a pure mountain jinba bloodline that theoretically stretches back centuries unrecorded. This genealogy is still held by the head of the Tsurugi clan, Tsurugi Yasuha (b. 1910), and new births within the five main family lines are still recorded to this day. (See FIGURE 3 and FIGURE 4.)

FIGURE 3: Excerpt from the Tsurugi herd genealogy, a designated Important Cultural Folk Property, as first presented in Konoha’s Diary

FIGURE 4: Excerpt from the Tsurugi herd genealogy, a designated Important Cultural Folk Property, as first presented in Konoha’s Diary

Excerpts from The Tsurugi Jinba Herd, with a Focus on Abnormalities in Education and Folk Tradition by Oyama Haruka (1988)

One of the more unusual traditions in the Tsurugi clan is the passing down of items known as "the five treasures" (See FIGURE 9) within the family. According to Konoha's Diary and oral history, Konoha gave each of her children a gift when they came of age. Each of these gifts was purported to be precious items brought back to Mt. Tsurugi "after Konoha's travels", and each item was originally fashioned to be worn as a necklace by Konoha herself, who is said to have never taken them off. Since their first gifting, these "treasures" have been passed down to the eldest child of each lineage at their coming of age.

Each of the items is distinct, and seem to bear no relation to each other. Most notably, none of them seem to have originated in Japan, nor do they match the capabilities or extant work of craftsmen that would have been available to a jinba in seventeenth century Echizen Province. Three items are reportedly made of silver, which was indeed mined in nearby Izumo Province, but none of the three match crafts or tools typically produced at that time. The silver key passed down through the Komatsu lineage is seemingly designed to fit a pin tumbler lock, which was common in the West at that time, but had not yet began to supplant plug key padlocks in Japan (1943, Hiragi). The silver coin passed down through the Mikuni lineage seems to match more Western conventions of circular coinage as opposed to the flat, oblong koban or the holed kanei tsuho, and the writing on the coin has yet to be identified (1930, Mizuchi). The ring passed down through the Harukaze lineage features a two-headed eagle crest, which also seems to match Western aesthetic traditions. Some have pointed out that the crest resembles one used by the Russian Empire, but though there is evidence of occasional trade and contact between Russia and Japan in the seventeenth century, this trade usually occurred much farther north in Hokkaido, and these crests were not utilized often in jewelry before the empire's founding in the early eighteenth century (1921, Kovtun).

The other two of the "five treasures" likewise present questions for researchers. The string of beads made of polished seeds passed down in the Mochiyuki lineage is the only one of the five that has ever been examined by Ministry-licensed researchers. Amongst their published finds, the most notable is that the seeds were determined to be from the linden tree-- specifically, the Tilia platyphyllos variety, not the Tilia japonica variety native to Japan (1955, Fujiseki). Though the pressed flower necklace passed down in the Umeha lineage has never been examined by botanists outside of photographs, the species of flower has so-far eluded identification by several experts (Gravlin, Yamamoto, Kanesaki, and Brown) approached during the writing of this thesis.

The "five treasures" all have legends associated with them, but the strongest seem to be associated with the linden seed beads and pressed flower. Konoha's Diary state that the wearer of the pressed flower necklace "will never fall or stumble upon a mountain", and the wearer of the linden seed beads "will always be protected by the jinba in the stars". Members of the Umeha and Mochiyuki lineages have provided testimonials and anecdotal stories from various ancestors that support belief in these claims, but none of them can be scientifically verified.

The eldest child of each of the five lineages is purportedly in possession of their bloodline's "treasure". None of the five owners responded to requests to examination of the items in a laboratory setting, but their existence was confirmed as recently as a Tsurugi clan reunion held in 1984 (although it could not be proven through visual examination alone if these "treasures" were truly the same ones reportedly passed down by Konoha approximately 350 years ago).

FIGURE 9: Illustrations depicting the "Five Treasures of the Tsurugi Clan"

Excerpts from The Tsurugi Jinba Herd, with a Focus on Abnormalities in Education and Folk Tradition by Oyama Haruka (1988)

One cannot discuss the Tsurugi herd without examining the life of Konoha, the author of the eponymous Konoha's Diary. Konoha claims to have been born sometime between 1598 and 1599 to an Armless mare who may have escaped from the breeding stable of the lord of Echizen Province. In those years, that would have been Honjo Shigenaga (1540–1614), who records indicate did license a large jinba stable for the raising of indentured jinba in Toyama castle town. After her mother's death, she was adopted as an infant and raised by a childless human couple in Tateyama, where she worked as a lumberyard foreman for the regionally renowned jinba merchant Sha Gozen from approximately 1612 to 1620. Upon the occasion of her marriage in 1620 to Gonta, a mountain jinba who had been employed temporarily on her lumber yard, she moved with her new husband to Mt. Tsurugi.

The pages of Konoha's Diary that have been provided to researchers do not address the events of the year 1621 past an entry in the spring that notes her first child, Komatsu, has learned to walk. Whatever occurred in that year, however, seems to have drastically changed the course of the herd and her descendants. Because the events are referred to in various other entries only vaguely as "my travels" or "our travels", some hypothesize that Konoha and Gonta may have undertaken a long-distance wedding procession or "honeymoon" of sorts. Wherever the destination, it seems that Konoha herself learned to read and write during that period, and may have come into contact with foreign merchants or educated men. The skills and items procured during these "travels" were later passed down to her children.

In 1629, upon the death of her aunt-in-law Koume, Konoha undertook the role of Tsurugi clan matriarch alongside her husband. Notable events she helped lead the clan through included treating with local magistrates to ban human incursion higher than the second peak of Mt. Tsurugi, helping to improve the roads between Tsurugi and Tateyama, sponsoring a school for jinba in Echizen Province, and helping local villages to rebuild after the Kanbun Omi and Wakasa earthquake, furthering better jinba and human relations in the area. After Gonta's death in 1641, she never remarried, and led the clan as a widow until her own death in 1667. Konoha was survived by five children, twelve grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

The final entry in Konoha's Diary is dated to one month before her death and contains her last will and testament. In addition to typical requests, such as instructions to bury her bones in the roots of the oldest tree on Tsurugi beside her husband's and an unborn daughter, one curious request states that her children should "keep the sealed letters that I have written for my friends, even long after I have died." (See FIGURE 11.) Though her will does not specify how she came to know these friends, she specifies that she "[does] not know if they will ever make it to Mt. Tsurugi, but if they do [...] Please give them my letter and tell them that I waited as long as I could, and I am very sorry to have missed them. But do not let them feel too guilty for having come late to visit, because we know time can be rather strange when traveling such a long, long way." Strangely, she specifies these guests should be served imoni for the evening meal, "like I always made it, please".

After further reflections and discussions of inheritance, Konoha ends the entry simply with: "I have lived such a good life."

FIGURE 11: Inventory of "letters" from Konoha's last will and testament, as presented in Konoha's Diary (with annotations by Oyama in red)

Excerpts from The Tsurugi Jinba Herd, with a Focus on Abnormalities in Education and Folk Tradition by Oyama Haruka (1988)

Many researchers, while acknowledging the unusually activity of the Tsurugi jinba herd, have cast doubts on the veracity of Konoha's Diary and the claims made within. Because the Tsurugi clan have continued to deny researchers access to the full contents of the diary, some believe that the redacted portions contain information that could be easily disproven, thus disparaging the factuality of the entire journal. Notable jinba scholar Ishizume Hokuto has posited that the journal may have been manufactured in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century by a descendant hoping to further legitimize the Tsurugi clan's place in local history, or by descendants attempting to collate generations of oral history within the family.

It is undeniable that some of the abnormalities are not easily explained. As seen in Figures 9 and 11, Konoha seems to have come into contact with persons of various nationalities that have no substantial recorded presence in Japan during her time period. Mt. Tsurugi's isolated location, moreover, makes it even more unlikely that she would have encountered non-Japanese citizens, as official trade with other countries was in that era restricted to the island of Dejima in Nagasaki, and travel by foreigners was heavily restricted and monitored. Even considering the possibility of shipwrecked Europeans, contact that did occasionally occur in coastal villages, Mt. Tsurugi is located over thirty kilometers inland. The origins of the "five treasures" of the Tsurugi family, though purportedly passed down from Konoha herself between the years of 1640 and 1650, likewise cannot be easily explained without some sort of access to overseas trade and a level of wealth that jinba simply did not possess in that time period. Their condition, likewise, is unusually good for items that should have been exposed to weathering and handling for over three centuries.

However, even if the contents of the journal are set aside, it must be acknowledged that the leadership attributed to Konoha in the early to mid seventeenth century advanced the Tsurugi herd in an undeniable way. Literacy rates in jinba in the mid-Edo period are estimated to have been only 15%, as many Buddhist temples, the primary providers of education through terakoya schools, denied entrance to jinba until 1876. Every member of the Tsurugi herd beginning with Konoha's children seems to have at least obtained basic reading and writing skills, and several of her descendants used this ability to obtain employment often unavailable to jinba, such as lumber merchant, scribe, private tutor, and the notable achievement of shogunal secretary. Once Mt. Tsurugi was incorporated into the Tateyama township in 1891, descendants of the Tsurugi clan often served roles in local government, including several prolific mayors and mountain deputies.

In addition to literacy, the Tsurugi clan was instrumental in furthering human and jinba relations in Echizen Province. Though sexual relations between jinba and humans were still considered scandalous and taboo (and still are in some circles), Konoha's second daughter Umeha was recorded as entering a relationship with a human deer hunter named Sansaburo, and the clan geneology (see FIGURE 3) records their marriage in the exact same way that jinba couples are recorded. It seems that he was formally adopted into the Tsurugi clan, and the human descendants of Rin, a human girl adopted by the couple who was said to be Sansaburo's orphaned niece, lived on Mt. Tsurugi with their jinba cousins and were later granted the Tsurugi clan name alongside the jinba herd members in 1875. Records remain from shogunate archives that prove Konoha was instrumental in negotiating a land deal with local magistrates to preserve the upper reaches of Mt. Tsurugi for jinba fleeing persecution or unable to acclimate well to life among humans, and in return she served an ambassador-like role to human settlements that were gradually built up at the mountain base.

The high regard in which Konoha was held seems to have had some influence on surrounding herds and humans, and she is often cited alongside the merchant Sha Gozen as one of the trailblazers for jinba, especially jinba women, in Echizen Province and neighboring Shinano Province. Through various interviews with Tsurugi clan family members, I have observed first-hand the affection with which Konoha is still regarded by her descendants, even though most members when questioned admit that her claims may seem "hard to believe". (It is worth noting that none of the owners of the "Five Treasures" agreed to be interviewed at this time.) Whether the contents of Konoha's Diary can be believed is certainly an issue that warrants further study, but even setting aside the abnormalities raised within its pages... the story within is a compelling one that, if true, could redefine certain academic assumptions about life for jinba in the Edo period.