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The Remembrance of the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Takayama Village As a Contemporary Trauma in Village Life Today

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The Remembrance of the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Takayama Village As a Contemporary Trauma in Village Life Today ❚ First published in Sven Saaler and Wolfgang Schwentker (eds), The Power of Memory in Modern Japan, Folkestone, Global Oriental, 2008, pp. 337–59. 16 The Remembrance of the 1871 Nakano Uprising in Takayama Village as a Contemporary Trauma in Village Life Today a INTRODUCTION he trauma about the past survives in our present memory. For many Japanese Tresidents of Takayama village today, remembrance of the 1871 Nakano Uprising encapsulates a collective and personal trauma of the present, even though none could have seen or experienced the event that happened more than a century ago, just after the 1868 Meiji Restoration. In my view, the suppression of the Nakano uprising by the ‘modern state’ of Japan as represented by the new Meiji regime, catapulted the entry of the people in this region into the history of modern Japan as silent victims who suffered under a permanent label of having been ‘traitors’ to the new imperial polity that suggests why this memory of the past is still in some respects even today so traumatic for the surviving members of Takayama village (or, formerly, Takaino village). If they had been peasant rebels of the feudal Tokugawa era which had ended only a few years ago in 1868, probably, the memory of this defeat would not have caused such a painful wound in the village collective psyche for the following generations. Thus the story of this traumatic memory is actu- ally more about the political regime of twentieth century Japan and the underlying rhythm of life memory in rural Japanese communities than about the events of 1871 per se. This article will attempt to understand the rural twentieth century memory of Takayama and it will hope to refl ect upon the personal experiences of this author concerning the trauma of memory of contemporary Takayama residents. A mountain village spread out in the valley going up to Yamada springs in Takai mountain, Takayama village, a large community of about 5,000 residents is located east of Nagano city in central Japan that is part of Nagano prefecture, the old Shinshū or Shinano province of historic Japan noted for its rugged mountains inhabited by rustic highlanders. Takayama was called Takaino during the Tokugawa period (1600–1867) and belonged to the tenryō, ‘celestial domains’ of the Tokugawa 266 THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE 1871 NAKANO UPRISING IN TAKAYAMA VILLAGE Shogunate, the feudal government of Japan (also Bakufu), the national military rulers of Japan between 1600 and 1867 until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 brought a new political elite to power. This is a story of the role of memory for the Takaino peasants and their descen- dants today concerning the 1871 Nakano uprising which their forefathers had orga- nized as a militant protest against the high taxes demanded by the new regime, but it is also the story of the author herself evolving as a historian of modern Japanese history who chose to study this uprising many years ago. My encounter with the uprising memory of the Takaino inhabitants began while I fi rst undertook research on the topic of this early Meiji revolt in Nagano city and Takayama village during the autumn and winter of 1977 as part of my research for a PhD in Japanese history. This experience was followed by subsequent visits in 1983 and 1999, and continued communication during these years which has formed my lasting relationship with the community to this day. Back in 1977, the memory of the uprising for present day Takayama residents did not entail the major topic in my intellectual agenda then, although I had taken note of its signifi cance from my personal experience talking to the village residents. The result of these series of encounters and my research on the topic was the volume Even the Gods Rebel that came out in 1998 and which can be seen as my ‘historical narrative’ of the event that was profoundly inspired from the Annales school perspec- tive which had impressed me in my graduate years. Hence, the analysis went beyond the 1871 event and attempted a long durée analysis of the political, social and economic processes of the community in the region. I was particularly inspired by the works of the grand historian of the French Annales école, Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie on the Peasants of Lanquedoc and Montaillou as examples of local peasant community studies which bore into the roots of confl ict in the existing social and economic conditions. The conclusion of my dissertation was that the village community had not suffered that much under the feudal regime as is commonly argued. However, they suffered abruptly for the change of governance to centralized authority from Tokyo and stiff tax demands of the radically minded Meiji authorities who desperately needed cash for the army and the project of the modern state. The fi nal revised version of the dis- sertation was published in 1998 in book form with a new title that added the words Even the Gods Rebel, referring to my growing awareness of the role of Shintō traditions in forming the mentality and organizational foundation of Japanese peasant rebellion (ikki) while I pursued my investigation on the topic after it had been fi nished as a dissertation which had led me to materials of a cultural/religious character. Still, the study, in the fi nal analysis, was primarily based on the available written documents on the topic in which I made a brief reference to the memory of the event as a traumatic one for the surviving members of the families who had experienced the catastrophic events of the 1871 uprising and the subsequent government tough measures of sup- pression leading to the severe punishments of Takaino peasants.1 THE T AKAYAMA UPRISING AND T AKAYAMA IDENTITY According to my narrative in the Rebels study, the Nakano uprising was one of the yonaoshi, ‘world renewal’ uprisings of the early Meiji years that sparked off an upheaval of unprecedented violence and destruction in this mountainous 267.
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