To a woman, O-Kuni, a ritual dancer attached to the great Shinto Shrine of Izumo, in the “Province of the Gods”, belongs the credit of founding the popular theatre, some time in the year 1596, on the dry bed of the Kamo River in Kyoto.

According to Izumo O-Kuni Den, or The Biography of O-Kuni of Izumo, in the possession of the late Baron Senge, from whose family come the hereditary ritualists of the Shrine, O-Kuni was a miko, or sacred dancer. Her father was called Nakamura Sanyemon, and served the Shrine in the capacity of an artisan. The family name of Nakamura was derived from the district of Nakamura in Kitsuki, where O-Kuni’s family lived, the site of the great Shrine of Izumo then as now.

O-Kuni left Kitsuki on a pilgrimage, so the story goes, wandering through several provinces, performing her dance, and asking for contributions for the repair of the Shrine, and at last reached Kyoto. Evidently the gay capital exerted such a powerful fascination over her, that she felt no inclination to return to her duties in connection with the Shrine. There is no record that tells of O-Kuni’s change of heart, or what eventually prompted her to set up a platform on the banks of the Kamo, where were to be found all the motley train of entertainers who flourished at that time.

Kyoto, the birthplace of the popular theatre, was, when O-Kuni made her appearance, a city of half-a-million inhabitants. Murdoch says in his History of Japan: “It is well to remember that if Japan had no Free Cities, she had what Germany, or indeed any other European country, had not,—a single great city with a population of half-a-million. Such Kyoto was even at one of the lowest ebbs in its prosperity at the date of Xavier’s visit to it in 1551. In 1467 at the outbreak of the war of Odin, it contained 160,000 families, or, perhaps, 900,000 souls. Few cities in contemporary Europe could boast even a tenth of that population.” Captain Francis Brinkley also refers to the splendours of Kyoto palaces and fine residences in the fifteenth century, and says that even men who made medicine or fortune-telling their professions and petty officials such as secretaries had stately residences.

Fenollosa in his Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art writes about Kyoto civilians, and as to the patrons of the artists, he asks: “Who were Okio’s patrons? Why, the silk weavers, bronze casters, the embroiderers and fine lacquerers, the æsthetic priests of Kyoto temples, the great potters grouped at the foot of Arashiyama, the great merchants who sent their fine wares all over Japan even to the daimyo’s yashiki.”

Such was Kyoto, the political as well as artistic centre of Japan, when O-Kuni gave the impetus that started the movement to establish Kabuki, the people’s stage, that to-day has inherited all the wealth of past materials and is turned resolutely toward the promise of the future.

Her performances were of the simplest character. She has been described as wearing a priest’s robe of black silk, with a small metal Buddhist gong suspended from her neck by a vermilion silk cord, and as she struck the gong with a mallet, she danced and chanted a Buddhist sutra.

Seiseiin Ihara, Kabuki’s leading historian and one of the prominent dramatic critics of Tokyo, who was born in the shadow of the Shrine of Izumo, has taken great pains to gather from the old records the story of O-Kuni. He says that it may seem incredible that a Buddhist dance should have been performed by the miko of Izumo Shrine, but he points out that it was the period when Shinto, or the “Way of the Gods”, the reverence and worship of the ancestors of the race and departed souls who were great in life, and Buddhism, the “Way of Buddha”, or the faith in a universal being and a future state of happiness, lived peacefully together. Buddhist priests were prominent at Izumo, and a bronze image of Buddha was placed in front of the Shrine where incense was burned, and the sutras were recited by eight females who performed to musical instruments used in Buddhist as well as Shinto ceremonies. To-day the combination seems hard to believe, since Shintoism and Buddhism are strictly separated.

It was therefore not unusual that O-Kuni’s Shinto dance should have been modified by Buddhism, and that her performances were later greatly influenced by the sermons of the priests, as an old book about the people of Kyoto records.

But if her dances had remained in a simple and semi-religious state, it is doubtful if O-Kuni would have succeeded in impressing herself so vividly upon her day and generation as she did. Her art was to undergo a sudden transformation. One day she met Nagoya Sansaburo, one of the handsomest and bravest young samurai of Kyoto. They fell in love and married. Sansaburo, who was famous for his military exploits, joined O-Kuni in her public appearances and soon became renowned as an actor. He recognised that her dance was not sufficiently interesting, and set himself to carry out improvements that soon made O-Kuni one of the most popular personages of the time.

Sansaburo’s ancestors had been samurai in the Province of Owari. His father served under the great general Hideyoshi, and was advanced to a post of honour. He was blessed with ten children, Sansaburo being the seventh. And as the father’s income was not sufficient to maintain such a large family, he was sent at an early age to Kennin-ji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, to be brought up by the priests.

In 1590, when Hideyoshi attacked the Castle of Odawara, one of his right-hand men was Gamo Ujisato, whom Murdoch, in his history of the early relations between Japan and other countries, characterises as the most brilliant proselyte the Jesuits had made. Gamo Ujisato was one of the bravest captains of the age, and Hideyoshi began to fear his ascendency. He was poisoned at a tea ceremony party by an underling who acted on a hint from Hideyoshi, and so died in his fortieth year.

This Gamo Ujisato held a review of his troops in the neighbourhood of Kyoto previous to the storming of a feudal stronghold. The inhabitants of the city went to see the spectacle, and young Sansaburo clad in a priest’s purple robe was among the curious throng. Ujisato on horseback caught sight of the acolyte and was greatly taken with the handsome boy. Later he asked his father if he might engage Sansaburo as a page. Soon after Ujisato returned to his domain in Izu, and Sansaburo followed in his suite.

At the time that Ujisato undertook one of his most daring military campaigns, Sansaburo followed his master, wearing a garment of pure white silk lined with crimson, and armour woven with variegated colours, and carrying a spear in his hand. His courageous conduct in this campaign formed the theme of a popular song, and his name soon spread to all parts of the country.

After Ujisato’s death, Sansaburo returned to Kyoto with considerable property left him by his lord, and led an extravagant life, passing his time in the pleasures of the capital. It is easy to see that the alluring O-Kuni, who was such a novel amusement to the citizens of Kyoto frequenting the popular entertainment resort on the Kamo River, must have captivated his fancy, for he quickly decided to cast in his lot with hers.

Sansaburo, bred in a military family and having associated with one of the celebrated feudal lords of the period, was in consequence acquainted with the best in literature and art. That he was familiar with the Nō stage, particularly with the Kyogen, or comic pieces given between the Nō plays, is very certain, for he soon changed O-Kuni’s simple Shinto-Buddhist dance into the nature of Kyogen. No doubt he considered that her performances savoured too much of religion to please all and sundry, so he taught her popular songs and also composed pieces for her.

She did not, however, succeed in winning the highest popular favour until she transformed herself into a male, wearing swords and covering her head with a peculiar head-dress. From the time that O-Kuni assumed the outward guise of a man, dancing with two swords thrust through her belt, the people flocked to see her.

For the first time Sansaburo called her performances Kabuki, the name by which the Japanese stage is known at the present day. The word was no new invention. It had been in use for a long period to signify something comic, and gradually came to lose its original meaning and was used to denote the particular kind of theatrical entertainment that had arisen, and from that time forward Kabuki was applied to everything pertaining to the popular stage.

The word for theatre, “shibai”, also came into general use at this time, meaning to sit on the lawn or grass, from the fact that the platform for performances was a temporary affair and the audience sat on the ground.

Still later Sansaburo introduced more and more of the Nō elements, the externals of O-Kuni’s stage being largely borrowed from the aristocratic theatre. And how the present highly complex stage of Japan developed out of O-Kuni’s dance is the story of the rise of Kabuki.

O-Kuni was not only popular with the masses, the nobility patronised her. On one occasion she was invited to the Fushimi Palace, near Kyoto, to entertain Hideyasu. He was the son of Iyeyasu, who was later to found the Tokugawa Shogunate. But Hideyasu had been adopted by Hideyoshi, Japan’s military overlord at this period, and was held as a hostage and guarantee of Iyeyasu’s good faith. When O-Kuni danced before this young prince, she wore around her neck a crystal rosary, which is evidence of the Jesuit influence upon Kyoto, for the Portuguese and Spanish priests at this time went about wearing their long strings of beads to which was attached the cross. In imitation, O-Kuni, when performing, hung one about her own neck, more as a decoration than a declaration of the Christian faith.

This novelty of the day interested Hideyasu, but he considered that it was not good enough for her, and taking some coral ornaments from his armour presented them to her. At parting, O-Kuni conveyed her thanks in a poem which she composed on the spur of the moment. He was so much impressed by her performance that it cast him into a melancholy mood, and he made the comment to one of his retainers that among thousands of women this one had won fame for herself as the greatest dancer, and yet he had not been able to obtain any special distinction.

Hideyasu might well reflect upon O-Kuni’s reputation, for although he distinguished himself for his valour and military genius, he was not chosen from among his many brothers to succeed as the second Tokugawa Shogun.

There is also an account relating how O-Kuni was appreciated at Court; how an Imperial princess held an entertainment in 1601 to which the actress was summoned to dance, and how the younger members of the court imitated her.

In 1607 she went to Yedo, the seat of the shogunate, now Tokyo and the capital of the Empire. She performed on a temporary stage that had been used by Nō actors who had just held Kwanjin Nō, or performances to raise funds for the repairing or building of temples and shrines. In Yedo, these Nō performances were given under the patronage of the Shogun, and were often not so much for religious purposes as to help swell the incomes of the Nō actors. They were generally held within the compound of the Shogun’s palace, the performances taking place on a temporary stage erected for the occasion, to which, as a great concession, thousands of the common people of Yedo were invited. The leading actors of the Kwanze and Komparu Nō schools had just ended their programme, and it was on this stage that O-Kuni appeared.

It is also related that she danced before Oda Nobunaga, one of the foremost military leaders of the time, by whose death Hideyoshi was able to rise to power. And it is said that both Hideyoshi and his chief retainers patronised O-Kuni. There is a story that she was invited by Hideyoshi’s faithful lieutenant, Kato Kiyomasa, to the southern island of Japan, where he held sway as the daimyo of Kumamoto. But it seems impossible to believe that O-Kuni should have been engaged to such an extent, and more probable that some of the great ones recognised her talent, and the story was applied to all the outstanding personalities of her time. For, after all, while the great and noble of the land may have appreciated her, it was to the people that O-Kuni particularly addressed herself.

Kabuki Koto Hajime, or Beginnings of Kabuki, a book written by a Kabuki playwright, Tamenaga Icho, and published in 1762, says that O-Kuni was beautiful, that she was skilled in calligraphy—an important female accomplishment—that she had a sympathetic nature, loved flowers and the moon, and that a snowy evening or a maple scene in the autumn inspired her to poetry. There is an account of O-Kuni written by an author who must have attended her performances, and yet he does not dilate upon her beauty, which must have been an oversight, for judging from the general details known about her she certainly possessed some superior power of attraction.

Both Sansaburo and O-Kuni died while the O-Kuni Kabuki was at its height. The chroniclers do not tell how they parted company, or ended their stage careers, but Sansaburo gave up acting and became a retainer of the lord of Tsuyama, whose wife was his sister. He was killed by the daimyo’s chief retainer during the building of Tsuyama Castle. This man had been long in the service of the daimyo, but Sansaburo aspired to outrival him on account of his relationship, and because of his association with the illustrious Gamo Ujisato. The two had a dispute and fought, and Sansaburo was killed. His friends retaliated by immediately taking the life of the chief retainer, and his two brothers were also punished by self-inflicted death at the command of the daimyo.

When O-Kuni grew old, and had outlived her career on the stage that she had created with Sansaburo, she returned to her old home in Kitsuki, near Izumo Shrine. Here she retired from the world, and lived in a rustic cottage, spent her time in reciting the sutras, writing verse, and died at a ripe old age. This account of O-Kuni’s last days appears to be very reliable, as it is from Izumo O-Kuni Den, or Biography of O-Kuni of Izumo, from records preserved among the Shrine archives. The exact date of her death is not given in this record, and her last resting-place is also unknown.

Seiseiin Ihara, who has made exhaustive researches concerning O-Kuni, finds many conflicting statements in the old books, which were written without much care for accuracy regarding names and dates. Kabuki Koto Hajime, or Beginnings of Kabuki, says that Yoshiteru, one of the last Ashikaga Shoguns, summoned her to dance in his presence several times and praised her. But this is somewhat imaginary, since in such a case she would have appeared in Kyoto many years previous to 1596, in which year, most of the records agree, she began to practise the new art. Kabuki Koto Hajime also says that Sansaburo was in the service of the Shogun Yoshiteru, as was O-Kuni, that they fell in love, were dismissed and became ronin, which is one of the many improbable tales related of the pair.

Another book says O-Kuni went to Sado Island, following the report that gold had been discovered there. This is quite possible, but on the strength of this story some writers state that she was a native of Sado, which is certainly not true. Other writers are so mixed up in their dates, that they make out there was a wide gulf in years between O-Kuni and Sansaburo, and that it was impossible that he should have married a woman so much his senior, while others declare that it was O-Kuni’s daughter that Sansaburo married. In Tokaido Meishoki, or Noted Places of the Tokaido (the great highway between Kyoto and Yedo), O-Kuni is said to have married a Nō Kyogen actor, and there are other misleading and confusing stories.

One of the most interesting of these is attributed to Lafcadio Hearn. He objected to the account of O-Kuni in Things Japanese by Basil Hall Chamberlain, especially to that sentence where it is written that the reputation of O-Kuni and her companions was far from spotless. Hearn’s story is to the effect that O-Kuni was a priestess in the great temple of Kitsuki, and she fell in love with a swashbuckler, Nagoya Sansaburo, and fled to Kyoto with him. On the way her extraordinary beauty caused another soldier of fortune to make love to her; Sansaburo killed him, and the dead man’s face haunted the girl. She supported her lover by giving dances on the bank of the Kamo River, and he became a famous actor. When he died she returned to Kitsuki, becoming a nun, and built a temple that she might pray for the soul of the man who had been killed.

Hearn’s love of the ghostly carried him very far away from the true facts, but nevertheless he felt the romance of the O-Kuni legend strongly enough not to wish to tarnish her name, as the more matter-of-fact Mr. Chamberlain does so lightly.

It was long after O-Kuni’s day, when the second and third O-Kuni were carrying on her traditions, and this woman’s stage employed mixed players, that the laxity of morals set in.