From Asama Tokyo

FROM ASAMA to TOKYO Kitasono Katue was born Hashimoto Kenkichi, the third of five children of Hashimoto Yasukichi (1865-1932.) and Hashimoto Ei (1874-192.8), on Octo· ber 2.9, 1902. (Meiji 35), in Asama village in Mie prefecture. Asama lies in a narrow valley at the confluence of the Isuzu and Asama rivers, which drain into Ise Bay, and is located about three miles from the Ise Shrine, one of the three most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan. The villagers considered them selves shinryomin (people of the gods) and prospered during the nineteenth century when thousands of people made pilgrimages to Ise. 1 Katue's ancestors were probably low-ranking samurai (goshi). 2 When feu dal stipends were eliminated in 1876, his maternal grandfather invested the settlement money in a profitable sake venture. Casks of liquor were delivered by the family's private boat up the Asama River to the pier near their house. Late in life, Katue would recall an oar in his family's backyard that remained from this time. 3 Katue's grandfathers were brothers, and his parents were first cousins. Katue's father, Yasukichi, one of the better-educated men in Asama, at tended the Kogakukan (now Kogakukan University). After graduating. he married Hashimoto Ei and was subsequently adopted into her-the richer-side of the family. Yasukichi took over the sake business, run from the house, and expanded sales to include more general necessities such as comestibles and fabrics. Yet, in spite of his efforts, the family fortune de clined in comparison to what it had been in Katue's grandfather's time. Kitasono only wrote about his parents once, in a short article for a Mie prefecture journal. He recalled his father as active in many areas: 10 From Asama to Tokyo In his spare time father made a windmill and a waterwheel to hull the rice he sold. He was a bit of a dilettante who tried his hand at everything. For example, he made an orchard and sold the pears and peaches at the market in Yamada. More interest· ing were the Bunsen's battery cell he made and the darkroom he set up to develop photos taken with his camera. I also remember that he invented a machine to coat wire and even started work on a telephone. But nothing came of any of them. He was more adept at making potted roses and chrysanthemums; in fact, he was as good as a professional.4 Y asukichi was born at the end of the Edo period, and he embodied both the fading Edo-period traditions and the exciting new frontiers of Meiji modernization. Katue took after his father in finding pleasure in that which has no purpose and in being fond of novelties (Y asukichi was the first in Asama to own a bicycle and a wristwatch).5 Katue respected Yasukichi's technological innovativeness but did not have a high regard for his poetic ability: "(My father) would go around delightfully humming kyoka (mad verse] that his friends had composed. He was always making up Shin kokinshu-style waka poems/ but they were dreadful. He liked the poem 'Hinkoko' and would chant it in a muttering voice." 7 Even though Katue was unimpressed with his father's old-fashioned poetry, early and constant ex posure to the art gave the young boy a solid foundation in traditional verse. He seemed more interested in taking his father's inventive attitude toward technology and applying it to modern poetry.8 Katue's mother, Ei, was nine years younger than Yasukichi. Skilled at household activities, she could embroider, dye clothes, weave, and cook Western as well as Japanese food. 9 Katue later recalled: "My mother studied English and math and didn't seem like the country woman she was. Her textbooks from then remain. I still have a manuscript of the Shin-kokinshu style poems she wrote."10 Although they owned a camera, 11 there are no extant family photos be sides the one taken, without Y asukichi, at a studio in Ise City around 1905 (Fig. 1). The oldest son, Heihachi (1897-1935), who became one of the foun ders of modern sculpture in Japan and a member of the Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Fine Arts Academy), did individual sketches of his parents and Katue in 1925-26. All of them are dressed in kimono; Y asukichi and Katue have bowls of Japanese tea in front of them, whereas Ei has a Western coffee cup and saucer (Figs. 2-4). Katue had one older sister and one older brother and .

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