(no subject)
Sayashi Riho presents an interesting quandary to me. I just spent several hours researching her surname. XD
I was listening to Riho-Deli, her new radio show, and she reveals that there are only 12 households in the whole of Japan that bears her surname. And apparently, they're all her relatives. XD
That intrigued me of course. But what really got my attention was the origin of that name. Apparently she had an ancestor that was a scabbard maker in Himeji castle. 鞘 = scabbard, so 鞘師 = maker of scabbards.
I do remember reading that in the social hierarchy of the time (as set up by Totoyomi Hideyoshi which restricts social mobility), craftsmen are ranked third in the social strata, below samurai and farmers (merchants are the lowest caste). Only samurai and above have family names in that era, you have to be an official in order to bear any kind of family name. So it interests me that her family draws their surname from their craft, since craftsmen are not officials.
Of course, during the Meiji era they finally drew up a law where surnames are now given to everyone. 1875 it was, I believe. Wiki is good, especially if one can read Japanese. XD Since English wiki doesn't have that kind of detail...
If one assumes that they took their surname from their craft during the 1875 law, there is a major loophole in that line of thought. If that is the case, why is the name "Sayashi" not more widespread? You'd think that they can't be the only family practising that craft in the whole of Japan. That's quite unlikely, considering how swords are so prestigious for so much of Japanese history.
Of course, there's the possibility that since weapon crafting (all aspects of it) were so heavily regulated in the past -- to the point where such craftsmen lived in separate, walled-in districts to keep their secrets from being spread around to the plebians -- it is not entirely impossible that they kept the craft within the family. However, Japan isn't that small, so that's still a moot point, even if Japan was unified at the time.
The more likely line of thought is that Riho's ancestor, that scabbard master, must have performed some kind of distinguished service for some lord, such that he was granted a minor official position (not very likely) or at the very least, the right to bear a family name. It's possible that he managed to secure his family as the sole provider of that craft to the lord --- and since it was Himeji castle, and Totoyomi Hideyoshi used that as a base to capture the Chuugoku region -- it seems entirely possible that he was the chief scabbard maker at the time, which would have provided invaluable service for the war effort, in a sense.
Furthermore, a lot of judicious googling (I am proficient in google-fu) revealed that while most of the Sayashi households existing now are scattered in the Kansai area (Hiroshima, Hyogo -- where Himeji castle was etc), there are interestingly TWO Sayashi households in Chiba prefecture. Chiba is in Kanto. While the source was unsure whether the Kansai Sayashi are related to the Kanto Sayashi, if we take Riho's word for it and they are related somehow, it does provide some hazy links to support my theory. Very vague and probably not very well corraborated links, but it's still an interesting point to consider.
While my first theory was that Totoyomi Hideyoshi granted them that name, I'm now beginning to doubt that in the light of the historical background and little details of things. We can only be sure that Riho's ancestor served as a scabbard maker in Himeji Castle. The time period was never stated, but since Himeji Castle was abandoned in the 1800s, we can only assume that it was before that. While Hideyoshi might not have being the one granting them the family name, well, there's always Tokugawa Ieyasu. XD
After the battle of Sekigahara, Himeji Castle was granted to the son-in-law of Ieyasu. If it wasn't him, then it could have been any one of the following lords that inherited the Himeji domain, notably the Matsudaira who were related to the Tokugawa line. In any case, I have a sense that it was probably one of the Matsudaira clan...one Matsudaira Tadaaki seems a likely candidate. He inherited Himeji domain in 1619, and helped to manage the Tokugawa Shogunate in its early years. He was also Ieyasu's grandson. He also died in Edo in 1644, which supports my initial theory -- that a lord took one of the Sayashi craftsmen with him to Edo in the Kanto region, and from there was established an offshoot of the Kansai Sayashi.
It's a nebulous, tenuous sort of link, but hey, it's a fun exercise to make logical links with mere scraps of evidence. XD
If my theory is in any way true though, that would make Riho's family traceable all the way back for 400 years. Wow. XD
And I love how I managed to meld history, wota-ism, and geeky research skills to present a crack theory of epic proportions. Now I kind of want to write an MM story set in the Edo era. Great, just great. XD
This is fun!
I was listening to Riho-Deli, her new radio show, and she reveals that there are only 12 households in the whole of Japan that bears her surname. And apparently, they're all her relatives. XD
That intrigued me of course. But what really got my attention was the origin of that name. Apparently she had an ancestor that was a scabbard maker in Himeji castle. 鞘 = scabbard, so 鞘師 = maker of scabbards.
I do remember reading that in the social hierarchy of the time (as set up by Totoyomi Hideyoshi which restricts social mobility), craftsmen are ranked third in the social strata, below samurai and farmers (merchants are the lowest caste). Only samurai and above have family names in that era, you have to be an official in order to bear any kind of family name. So it interests me that her family draws their surname from their craft, since craftsmen are not officials.
Of course, during the Meiji era they finally drew up a law where surnames are now given to everyone. 1875 it was, I believe. Wiki is good, especially if one can read Japanese. XD Since English wiki doesn't have that kind of detail...
If one assumes that they took their surname from their craft during the 1875 law, there is a major loophole in that line of thought. If that is the case, why is the name "Sayashi" not more widespread? You'd think that they can't be the only family practising that craft in the whole of Japan. That's quite unlikely, considering how swords are so prestigious for so much of Japanese history.
Of course, there's the possibility that since weapon crafting (all aspects of it) were so heavily regulated in the past -- to the point where such craftsmen lived in separate, walled-in districts to keep their secrets from being spread around to the plebians -- it is not entirely impossible that they kept the craft within the family. However, Japan isn't that small, so that's still a moot point, even if Japan was unified at the time.
The more likely line of thought is that Riho's ancestor, that scabbard master, must have performed some kind of distinguished service for some lord, such that he was granted a minor official position (not very likely) or at the very least, the right to bear a family name. It's possible that he managed to secure his family as the sole provider of that craft to the lord --- and since it was Himeji castle, and Totoyomi Hideyoshi used that as a base to capture the Chuugoku region -- it seems entirely possible that he was the chief scabbard maker at the time, which would have provided invaluable service for the war effort, in a sense.
Furthermore, a lot of judicious googling (I am proficient in google-fu) revealed that while most of the Sayashi households existing now are scattered in the Kansai area (Hiroshima, Hyogo -- where Himeji castle was etc), there are interestingly TWO Sayashi households in Chiba prefecture. Chiba is in Kanto. While the source was unsure whether the Kansai Sayashi are related to the Kanto Sayashi, if we take Riho's word for it and they are related somehow, it does provide some hazy links to support my theory. Very vague and probably not very well corraborated links, but it's still an interesting point to consider.
While my first theory was that Totoyomi Hideyoshi granted them that name, I'm now beginning to doubt that in the light of the historical background and little details of things. We can only be sure that Riho's ancestor served as a scabbard maker in Himeji Castle. The time period was never stated, but since Himeji Castle was abandoned in the 1800s, we can only assume that it was before that. While Hideyoshi might not have being the one granting them the family name, well, there's always Tokugawa Ieyasu. XD
After the battle of Sekigahara, Himeji Castle was granted to the son-in-law of Ieyasu. If it wasn't him, then it could have been any one of the following lords that inherited the Himeji domain, notably the Matsudaira who were related to the Tokugawa line. In any case, I have a sense that it was probably one of the Matsudaira clan...one Matsudaira Tadaaki seems a likely candidate. He inherited Himeji domain in 1619, and helped to manage the Tokugawa Shogunate in its early years. He was also Ieyasu's grandson. He also died in Edo in 1644, which supports my initial theory -- that a lord took one of the Sayashi craftsmen with him to Edo in the Kanto region, and from there was established an offshoot of the Kansai Sayashi.
It's a nebulous, tenuous sort of link, but hey, it's a fun exercise to make logical links with mere scraps of evidence. XD
If my theory is in any way true though, that would make Riho's family traceable all the way back for 400 years. Wow. XD
And I love how I managed to meld history, wota-ism, and geeky research skills to present a crack theory of epic proportions. Now I kind of want to write an MM story set in the Edo era. Great, just great. XD
This is fun!