EARLY MODERN JAPAN 2008 Samurai and the World of Goods: vast majority, who were based in urban centers, could ill afford to be indifferent to money and the Diaries of the Toyama Family commerce. Largely divorced from the land and of Hachinohe incumbent upon the lord for their livelihood, usually disbursed in the form of stipends, samu- © Constantine N. Vaporis, University of rai were, willy-nilly, drawn into the commercial Maryland, Baltimore County economy. While the playful (gesaku) literature of the late Tokugawa period tended to portray them as unrefined “country samurai” (inaka samurai, Introduction i.e. samurai from the provincial castle towns) a Samurai are often depicted in popular repre- reading of personal diaries kept by samurai re- sentations as indifferent to—if not disdainful veals that, far from exhibiting a lack of concern of—monetary affairs, leading a life devoted to for monetary affairs, they were keenly price con- the study of the twin ways of scholastic, meaning scious, having no real alternative but to learn the largely Confucian, learning and martial arts. Fu- art of thrift. This was true of Edo-based samurai kuzawa Yukichi, reminiscing about his younger as well, despite the fact that unlike their cohorts days, would have us believe that they “were in the domain they were largely spared the ashamed of being seen handling money.” He forced paybacks, infamously dubbed “loans to maintained that “it was customary for samurai to the lord” (onkariage), that most domain govern- wrap their faces with hand-towels and go out ments resorted to by the beginning of the eight- after dark whenever they had an errand to do” in eenth century.3 order to avoid being seen engaging in commerce. While this characterization of engagement Always claiming to be an iconoclast, Fukuzawa with the commercial economy holds for most proudly stated, “I hated having a towel on my samurai, it was particularly true of the Edo-based face and have never worn one. I even used to go retainer. During periods of service to his lord in out on errands in broad daylight.”1 Edo, who was in turn in attendance on the Toku- Of course it is problematic to take Fuku- gawa shogun, the domainal samurai had ample zawa’s comments as representative of all samurai, spare time to take part in the commercial econ- or even those of his lowly economic status. In omy of the Tokugawa capital by dining at restau- fact we know that samurai had a much more rants, food stalls and drinking establishments; complicated relationship with money and the searching for medications to treat bodily ail- principles of commerce and trade. While some ments or simply to maintain health; going to might have felt on a certain level that arithmetic public baths; making pilgrimages to local shrines was the tool of the merchant, the lowest social and temples, as well as attending festivals there; estate in the Neo-Confucian scheme, Dazai and, of course, shopping. Shundai (1680–1747) was representative of a Alternate attendance, therefore, by definition, number of prominent intellectuals who did not created an instant class of consumers, separated see “trade and market economies as functionally from home and family. The domainal samurai, specific to the merchant class…” 2 Whatever like the commoner on pilgrimage, is well known public face some samurai may have put on, the to have bought souvenirs, or miyage, while on 4 duty in Edo for family and friends back home. 1 Fukuzawa Yukichi, The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, trans. Eiichi Kiyooka (New 3 For Tosa, see Luke Roberts, Mercantilism in a York: Columbia University Press, 1966), p. 11. Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of 2 Tetsuo Najita, “History and Nature in Economic Nationalism in 18th-century Tosa Eighteenth-Century Tokugawa Thought,” in (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University John W. Hall, ed., Cambridge History of Japan, Press, 1998), pp. 92–95, 155–56, 171–73. vol. 4: Early Modern Japan (Cambridge, 4 See Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Breaking England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern 611. Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Council on 56 EARLY MODERN JAPAN 2008 This, however, only partially describes their ac- amusement and activities for relaxation—parts tivities as consumers. Some samurai of more of a consumer society that in Japan, as well as in substantial means used the opportunity of a year- Europe, is “nearly four hundred years old.”7 long tour of duty in Edo to collect material ob- jects of artistic and/or martial interest. Tosa re- The Toyama and their Diaries tainer Mori Masana, for example, purchased at The Toyama family had a history of service least twenty-one sword guards on his trip to, and to the lord in Edo. With the exception of the stay in, Edo. He was also an avid collector of art founder, the other seven generations completed of various types, including calligraphy, scrolls, at least one tour of duty there. Both Heima, who poem cards and woodblock prints.5 Others, like assumed the family headship in 1791, and his Tosa Confucian scholar Miyaji Umanosuke, took son, Tamuro, who succeeded him in 1825, made advantage of their presence in the largest city in multiple trips. The last three generation-heads the land to purchase a vast array of commodities maintained diaries, spanning more than a century, for household and personal use.6 from 1792–1919, and 109 volumes. The first and While a tour of duty in Edo could have a second of these, Heima (father) and Tamuro transformative effect on an individual’s career (son) both kept detailed diaries of their lives in and life, a samurai serving in Edo could also be- Hachinohe and Edo, designating different vol- come an integral part of a wider human network, umes for their experiences in each locale, even across which the material culture of Tokugawa though much of the contents of what they wrote Japan was dispersed throughout the country. Us- demonstrates the extent to which the two were ing personal diaries brushed by two retainers, intertwined. Their accounts over a period of six father and son, from Hachinohe domain, this years, from 1828–34, are particularly well article will analyze the Edo-based domainal re- documented and thus serve as the chronological tainer’s engagement with the commercial econ- focus of this essay. omy. Specifically, it will focus on the types of The locale in which the Toyama household commodities purchased, rather than the other originated, Hachinohe, was a small, branch do- types of activities mentioned above, and offer an main of Morioka, located in northern Japan, es- assessment of the meanings of these goods. In tablished in 1664. Its ruling family, the Nambu, doing so it will explore the hierarchy of values presided over a domain with an assessed total implicit in them for samurai and the larger soci- agricultural output of only 12,000 koku, just ety in which they lived. Furthermore, it will be 2,000 more than the minimum required. In the argued that consumption may be driven as much mid-eighteenth century the domain had a total by fashion as economic necessity, and that many population of roughly 71,352, which included of the commodities samurai purchased reflected 2,833 people (4%) belonging to the bushi status concerns with personal appearance, a taste for group.8 Hachinohe was also among the minority East Asian Studies, 1994), pp. 205, 222–24; 7 Ann Bermingham, “Introduction. The Laura Nenzi, Excursions in Identity: Travel and consumption of culture; image, object, text,” in the Intersection of Place, Gender, and Status in Ann Bermingham and John Brewer, ed., Edo Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Consumption of Culture, 1600-1800: Image, Press, 2008), especially chapter six. Object, Text (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 6, 5 I first explored the shopping habits of domainal argues that “consumption is driven largely by samurai in "Edo e no tabi. Tosa hanshi Mori-ke fashion and not economic necessity.” The quote nikki nado ni miru sankin kōtai no sugata,” is from Bermingham, p. 3. Kōtsūshi kenkyū, vol. 34 (December 1994), pp. 8 Hachinohe shi hensan iinkai, ed., Hachinohe 52–67 and Constantine Vaporis, “To Edo and shishi tsūshi hen (Hachinohe: Hachinohe shi, Back. Alternate Attendance and Japanese Culture 1976), pp. 234–35. Figures for the first year of in the Early Modern Period,” Journal of Japa- Meiji (1869) indicate that there were 63,374 nese Studies 23, 1 (1997), pp. 44–46. commoners and 3,968 who were of former bushi 6 Vaporis, “To Edo and Back,” pp. 47–49. status. 57 EARLY MODERN JAPAN 2008 of domains, roughly twenty per cent of the total, points of Edo and Hachinohe. More specifically, in which retainers continued to hold actual—in it included responsibilities such as oversight of contrast to fictive—fiefs. However, their ties to the transport between Edo and Hachinohe, the the commoners residing there were more circum- fixing of prices for domainal products in Edo as scribed in Heima and Tamuro’s time than was the well as the sale of these commodities to whole- case in the seventeenth century. sale merchants there. Their jobs might have In economic terms, the Toyama family was made them more knowledgeable about the Edo relatively well off. In the late-eighteenth century, market and more disciplined recorders of this when Heima had become househead, the family data than many other diarists, but there is little had a landed estate (chigyō chi) valued at 100 about their experience as consumers which koku. In Hachinohe only eighty-five of the 375 would mark them as exceptional for samurai of samurai in the daimyo’s retainer corps had hold- their status.