1 Yūkwaku is a segregated town provided with brothels and assignation houses.

2 Keisei-machi:—A courtesan quarter. Keisei means a castle falling into ruins, the idea being that such women lead to the destruction and ruin of the State.

3 Yūjo-machi:—A courtesan quarter.

4 The decisive battle between Ieyasu and Hideyori, son of the great Hideyoshi (“Taikō Sama”) was fought at Seki-ga-hara, Mino Province, in the year 1600.

5 Masterless swashbucklers.

6 These “bath-houses” were in reality houses of assignation and unlicensed brothels. Carrying on their business under this innocent title they engaged women called “Kami-arai-onna,” or (for want of a better word) “shampooers,” but these females were really “jigoku” (“Hell women”) and were selected for their beauty in order to attract persons to “take baths.” The “bath-house” women were not only as beautiful and accomplished as the regular courtesans, but they were cheaper and would accommodate guests either day or night, whereas, the regular girls were only permitted to exercise their calling in the day time. These unlicensed prostitutes were so numerous that they seriously interfered with the business of the real Yoshiwara, and it was to the interest of regular brothel-keepers that they should be suppressed.

7 It is interesting to note that even in those times the Government recognized the principle of granting compensation when the right of eminent domain was exercised.

8 Vide chapter entitled “The Furisode Kwaji.”

9 Ageya (揚屋) were houses of assignation where, in accordance with the customs of the time, a visitor could stay and to which he could invite any prostitute with whom he had, or wished to have, a liaison. The age-ya made all arrangements for procuring the attendance of courtesans when required.

10 “Named after their native place in order to perpetuate the memory of their ancestors.”

11 The Japanese pronunciation of the character 西 (sai) in the name “Sainen” is “Nishi” (West); hence the name of Nishi (West) + gashi (river bank). It is a very common custom in Japan to compose names in this manner.

12 The story of Watanabe no Tsuna’s adventures has been published in the Kōbunsha “Fairy Tale Series” under the head of “The Ogre’s Arm.”

13 Tenjin is the name under which Sagawara-no-Michizane is apotheosized. He was a great minister and scholar, but falling a victim to calumny was banished and finally died in exile. He is worshipped as the God of Calligraphy.

14 Trees planted in this manner by the authorities were called “goyō-boku,” or “government trees.” Lacquer trees are poisonous, and the sap produces a severe rash on the skin if handled.

15 It should not be forgotten that no samurai (feudal warrior class) was allowed to enter the brothels wearing his swords. The swords were taken charge of by attendants at the doors before the samurai guest went into the house. Mr. A. B. Mitford says in his “Tales of Old Japan”—“When a Japanese enters a house of ill-fame he is forced to leave his sword and dirk at the door for two reasons—first, to prevent brawling; secondly because it is known that some of the women inside so loathe their existence that they would put an end to it, could they get hold of a weapon.”

16 Chi Hwan-ti (始皇帝), builder of “Great Wall.”

17 “Leading-by-the-hand tea-houses.”

18 Literally a “sign-board lantern” so called because the lantern bears the name of the hikite-jaya. It is the custom for the maid to carry a lighted lantern (even inside the brothel) as far as the door of the room of the courtesan to whom the visitor is introduced. This lantern serves as a token to identify the hikite-jaya to which the maid belongs. On arriving before the door of the room the lantern is extinguished by shaking it, and not by blowing out the light in the usual way. A superstition exists against blowing out the light with one’s lips:—it is supposed to be unlucky.

19 The haku-chō or white porcelain saké bottles used on these occasions hold about 1 shō, or say about 3 pints.

20 As these places depend upon the custom of persons entering them, it is considered as unlucky to speak about blowing anything out. The hozuki is bitter or acid, and as a pregnant woman is supposed to like sour or acid things courtesans think that to blow the winter cherry is most ominous as it may presage pregnancy and injure their profession. The ordinary geisha (dancing girl) in Japan delights to sit making a squeaking noise by means of blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the dried and salted berry of the winter-cherry, from which the pulp has been deftly extracted at the stem. This practice seems as pleasant to the geisha as that of chewing gum does to some foreigners.

21 In ancient Rome, until the lowest age of Roman degradation, no man of any character entered a houses of ill-fame without hiding his face with the skirt of his dress.

22 The best women in a brothel were always placed in the middle of the misé (shop) and those of inferior beauty or attainments were placed at the sides. Whence the name hashi-jōro (“end” courtesan.)

23 Tsubone-jōro were generally quartered in the second story. Tsubone,—the “women’s apartments” in the courts of princes and daimyō—was added to jōro to find an appellation for a daughter of Ichinomiya, a noble. She set out on a journey, so the story runs, to Hatake in Tosa, but was driven by stress of weather to Hiroshima, where poverty presently forced her to become a prostitute.

The country folk of that district possessed no word in their vocabulary, applicable to a jōro of such high social status, so they coined one and handed down to future generations in the Yoshiwara the name tsubone-jōro.

24 Ohaguro is a dye made by immersing heated iron scrapes in water and then adding to it a small quantity of saké. It is used (mixed with powdered gall-nuts) by married women, and formerly by court nobles, to blacken their teeth. The custom is dying out fast.

25 Ashi-odori is shown in the wood-cut, Suteteko is a vulgar pantomimic dance, and Hadaka-odori a dance in puris naturalibus.

26 The following explanations of the origin of the word “oiran” are given:—

The “Kinsei jibutsu-Kō” (近世事物考 Reflections about modern things) says:—the higher priced women of the Shin Yoshiwara are now called “oiran” The reason for giving them this name is that in the era of Genroku (1688–1703) the courtesans of the Yoshiwara all planted a large number of trees in the Naka-no chō (central street). About this time a Kamuro (female page) attached to a certain house called the “Kishida-ya” wrote a stanza of poetry which ran:—

“Oiran ga itchi yoku saku sakura kana!” which means in ordinary language “Oira no ane-jōro no ueshi sakura ga ichi-ban yoku sakitari” (The cherry-tree planted by my ane-jōro blossomed more luxuriantly than the others).

This poem, which the little Kamuro so proudly wrote, is a proof that the word oira (“I,” or in connection with no or ga “my” or “mine”) had been corrupted to oiran in the Yoshiwara. It would therefore appear that the present word oiran, which is universally used, arose from the fact that the attendants of courtesans anciently spoke of them as “oiran” (oira no ane = my elder sister).”

The Dōbō-Go-yen-ho 洞房語園補 says:—

“Oiran means “ane-jōrō” (elder-sister, or “senior,” courtesan) or “my elder sister” in the vocabulary of the Yoshiwara. The word oiran is applied to a mild and gentle courtesan.”

Another explanation is that the oiran were so beautiful that even when an old person (Oi-taru mono) met them he was apt to be excited, agitated, and half crazy (亂 = ran) for the love of their pretty faces. Thus the word oi+ran (an aged person + excited half crazy with agitation). The word “oiran” is written 花魁 (hana-no sakigake) and means “the leader of flowers” (i.e.—the most beautiful of all flowers) because a beautiful woman may be compared to a flower, and oiran occupy the same position among other courtesans as the cherry does among other flowers.

The oiran is also compared in a poem by Senryū to the “renge-sō” (Astragalus lotoides? a small wild flower of a whitish pink colour closely resembling a lotus blossom in shape) when he says:—

“Te ni toru na! Yahari no ni oké, Renge-sō.”

“Gather not the blossom of the Renge-sō. Better leave the flower blooming in the meadows.”

This poem conveys a warning to young men not to choose wives from among the denizens of the Yoshiwara.

The word oiran appears in a famous satirical poem, as follows:—

“Oiran no Namida de Kura no Yane ga mori”

“The tears of an oiran cause the roof of one’s house to leak.”

27 Mr. Henry Norman says in the “The Real Japan”:—“There is nearly always a large written and framed scroll in a conspicuous position, exhibiting some scrap of appropriate poetry tersely told in the complicated Chinese characters. One I was shown had the four characters matsu kiku nao sonsu, literally, “Pine chrysanthemum still are,” i.e., the pine and the chrysanthemum always preserve their charm, even in winter when other flowers die, and by implication, “My charms are everlasting, like the pine and the chrysanthemum.”

28 Goddess of Love.

29 Mawashi-beya 廻し房 is a kind of spare room in which a guest is accommodated when the yūjo he hires has another visitor in her own apartments.

30 The Yoshiwara Office publishes these guide-books at intervals. The books contain the names and fees of inmates of the various brothels.

31 Said by a courtesans to a guest detained in a brothel owing to rainy weather.

32 For the derivation of this phrase see page 118.

33 God of wealth and guardian of markets

34 This will not bear translation. The idea conveyed as explained by a poet-friend.

35 Vide further statistics in appendix.

36 Shimai is changed into jimai after “hiru” and “yo” for the sake of euphony.

37 Also see appendix.

38 During the Genroku (1688–1703) and Shōtoku (1711–1715) eras, “shinjū” or double suicides of guests and “jōro” became so common that the jōroya were forced for the sake of self-preservation to expose the bodies of both the man and the woman on the Nihombashi for three days. The eta or “outcasts” then buried them, and writing their story, read it about the streets of Yedo. The burial of those who committed “shinjū” was the burial of dogs. Their hands and legs were tied together, and the bodies were wrapt up in straw matting and thrown into a common grave. The people of the jōroya believed that this would prevent the ghosts of the dead haunting the house where they died, the superstition being that animals had no ghosts.

39 Now called the “Ko-gwan-zan Saihōji” situated at No. 36, Shōden-chō, Asakusa district.

40 Formerly this was the case, but now the obi is tied in front merely out of deference to old custom. The ancient sumptuary regulations have been abolished long ago.

41 This involves a pun on the words jōro (女郎 “a harlot”) and jōro (上臈 “a lady in waiting attached to the court.”)

42 Movement in favour of the abolition of licensed prostitution.

43 Millionaires.

44 Toshi-koshi. The ceremony of scattering parched peas about in an occupied house to drive out evil spirits, crying aloud the while “fuku wa uchi, oni wa soto,” (good fortune is within, and devils outside). This ceremony is also known as “mame-maki” (bean throwing) and “oni-yarai” (casting out devils.)

45 A fête in honour of the god of trade and industry.

46 Saruhiki. One who goes about getting money by leading a monkey who performs tricks.

Dai-kagura. A kind of dance performed in the streets by boys wearing wooden lion-head masks. Also called “Shishi-mai.”

47 Inari. Goddess of rice (written with the two characters 稲荷 = “rice bearing”). Inari is sometimes spoken of as the “fox-deity,” but the foxes appear to be mere guards to the temples dedicated to the Goddess. There is more or less confusion as to the sex of Inari as sometimes “she” (sic) is represented as a bearded man!

48 Kagura. An old Japanese dance which may yet be seen in the grounds of certain temples. The performers wear masks and quaint gowns of real or imitation damask. The kagura mentioned above was probably a profane invention of a comic nature.

49 Third month. It must be remembered that this was April according to the present calendar.

50 Shime-nawa. A rope with tufts of straw or of cut paper at fixed intervals, hung before shrines in order to sanctify the place within. It is a relic of the straw-rope which Futodama-no-mikoto stretched behind the Sun-goddess to prevent her returning to the cave after Tajikarao-no-mikoto had pulled her out and thus re-illuminated the universe which had been plunged into darkness.

51 See special chapter on this subject.

52 Chōyō no sekku. The 9th day of the 9th month (o.s.); a festival day of the chrysanthemum.

53 This is a pun on the name of Mino province and the Japanese word for straw rain-coat (mino).

54 Or “Nightless City,” the title of this book.

55 This paragraph of course refers to the inmates of the Yoshiwara.

56 The monastery of Ishi-yama was founded in 749 by the monk Riō-ben Sūjō, at the command of Shōmu Tennō. It was destroyed by fire in 1078 and rebuilt a century later by Yoritomo. The present hon-dō (main hall) was built by Yodo-Gimi, the mother of Hideyori, towards the end of the 16th century. The little room to the right of the hon-dō, known as Genji-nō ma, is said to have been occupied by the famous authoress Murasaki Shikibu during the composition of her great romance, the “Genji Monogatari.” Ishiyama-dera is famous for the beauty of its maple-trees in autumn. (Murray’s Hand-Book of Japan.)

57 Wife of an ancient Chinese King who was held by the enemy as a hostage in a foreign country.

58 A family badge in the form of a tuft of five overlapping bamboo leaves with their apexes spreading downwards, and surmounted by three little flowers.

59 For latest regulations, see appendix.

60 i.e.—Written in a very easy style so that even illiterate women can read the same.

61 Brothel-keeping; prostitution; introducing houses.

62 See Appendix under the head of “Hospital Regulations.”

63 Illicit prostitution has actually increased in Gumma and Wakayama since the abolition of licensed brothels.

64 A great many of these women are by no means virtuous. These statistics are very incomplete, inasmuch as they fail to take into account the vast number of secret prostitutes in Japan. Even in the case of courtesans and geisha, it is almost certain that the numbers are understated.

65 It used to be the custom for lower class houses to air all their showy bedding on the balconies facing the road.

66 The actual word used is “Ki-yaku” (規約) “an agreement” or “covenant,” but, in the sense in which it is used here the term “Constitution” seems most appropriate.

67 The wards are divided of follows:—

(1)	For	syphilis.
(2)	“	gonorrhœa.
(3)	“	chancres.
(4)	“	skin diseases.
(5)	“	miscellaneous diseases.
(6)	“	cases of serious illness.
(7)	“	isolated rooms for infectious diseases.

68 Yoshi-chō, Hatchō-bori, Shimmei, and Yushima.

69 Copies of these works are rare and the Japanese Government will not allow them to be reprinted for sale. The language of these books is not in any way disgusting, and the style is florid and pleasing. It is the subject only which is “off colour.”

70 “The most beautiful of flowers.” Complimentary name for a superior harlot in the Tōkyō Yoshiwara.