Glossary ofJapanese Terms Aikoku-koto: Public Patriotic Party, the first party founded by Itagaki after he resigned from the government in 1873. Ainu: name of the original aboriginal inhabitants of the Japanese isles, the few who remain to be found only in parts of the northern island of Hokkaido; in the Ainu language, Ainu simply means 'man'. Akashinbun: literally meaning 'red newspaper', though corresponding to Meiji Japan's 'yellow press'; it was called red because the newspapers were printed on pink paper. Ama: a female pearl diver. Ashigaru: foot soldier, among the lowest-ranking samurai, in fact somewhat on the periphery of the samurai estate, in the Edo era. Bakufu: literally camp or tent government; when a shogun was mainly engaged in battle and hence peripatetic in nature he administered from his camp; with the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate shogunal governments maintained more permanent residences but the term bakuju was retained. Baku-han-sei: the system of bakufu and han; in the Edo era the form of national government consisted of a compromise between local (han) government and central ( bakufu) government, hence labelled 'centralised feudalism'. Bakumatsu: the closing years of the Edo era, those between Perry's treaty, 1854, and the Restoration, 1868. Bansho Torishirabesho: Office for the Study of Barbarian Writings, established by the Tokugawa bakufu in 1856 and the progenitor of the modern Japanese Foreign Ministry. Banto: The manager of an enterprise in the Edo period. Bekke: a branch ie (firm, establishment, family), derived from the honke, the head or main ie. Besuboru: baseball, imported into Japan in the early Meiji period and today the country's favourite spectator sport. Budo: the martial arts. 316 Glossary ofJapanese Terms 317 Buke: military families, as opposed to the kuge who were the civilian nobility. Buke sho-hatto: the corpus of regulations issued by the Tokugawa bakufu in 1615 to govern the conduct of buke affairs. Bunmei-kaika: 'civilisation and enlightenment', the slogan adopted with enthusiasm by the japanese intelligentsia in the 1870s and 1880s, corresponding to a period of fairly strong adulation of all things Western. Buraku kaiho: Movement for the Emancipation of the Buraku People (eta), founded in 1902 but very shortly afterwards suppressed by the government. Burakumin: village people, a euphemism for eta, but the term currently in use in japan and preferred by the burakumin themselves. Bushi: a man of arms, an equivalent term for samurai. Bushido: the way of the bushi, in other words the Japanese code of chivalry. Cha-no-yu: 'the way of tea', that is, the tea ceremony, originally an exercise performed in temples, subsequently secularised. Chigyo: the fief that only a handful of samurai retained in the Edo era which provided their revenue, different from the majority of samurai who received stipends (horoku). Chanin: townsman, a generic term used for urban dwellers of the merchant and artisan estates in the Edo era. Chonindo: the way of the chonin, in other words the merchant/artisan variant on the bushido. Chu: loyalty, one of the cardinal Confucian virtues. Daikan: a middle-ranking administrator of the Edo era, acting mainly as deputy to a bugyo. Daimyo: literally 'great name', feudal lords of the Edo era whose origins and fiefs generally dated from the sengoku era. Dairi: the part of the imperial palace where the tenno resided and one of the euphemisms formerly in use to designate him. Danson-johi: 'revere men- despise women', phallocratic slogan of the Edo era; vestiges of this spirit can perhaps still be occasionally discerned. Danzaemon: name given to the chief of the eta in Edo. Datsu-A: 'Shedding Asia', one of Fukuzawa's publications, but equally emblematic of the westernising spirit of the bunmei-kaika years. Deshi: a pupil, a disciple, apprentice. Ebisu: literally 'barbarian'; until the term Ainu became widespread inj a pan, it was the term ebisu which was used when referring to these aboriginal people. Edo-machi bugyo: chief administrator and magistrate of the city of Edo during the Tokugawa period; one of the higher-ranking echelons in the Edo bakufu administration. 318 Glossary ofJapanese Terms Eta: original term for the burakumin, Japan's outcast group. Fudai daimyo: hereditary vassals, those daimyo families which had allied themselves to the Tokugawa cause prior to the battle of Sekigahara; generally not as rich as the tozama, nor as close to the shOgun as the shinpan, judai daimyo were nevertheless in a position to exert a significant degree of political influence throughout most of the Edo era and it was from their numbers that the rojit(see below) were selected. Fujin Kyofukai: Christian Women's Social Reform Organisation, a group existing in the late Meiji era, one of whose aims was to abolish prostitution. Fujin undo: the women's movement of the Taish6 period. Fukoku-Kyohei: 'Rich Country - Strong Army', the slogan meant to encapsulate the major motivations and ambitions of the Japanese leadership in the Meiji era. Fumi-e: the practice in the Edo era of trampling on sacred Christian images to prove one was not a Christian. Furoya: bath-house keepers, the first trade group in Edo Japan to receive the right to form a guild (in 1651). Fitsetsugaki: the annual report which the chief Dutch factor in Dejima submitted to the bakuju. Gaikoku-bugyo: administrator of foreign affairs, an office created by the bakuju after the initial treaties had been signed. Gakubatsu: academic clique, namely referring to rival schools. Gaku-reki shakai: 'School-record society', a term used in contemporary Japan to indicate that one's whole life and career are determined by performance in school and which university one gains admission to. Geisha: 'artistic person', originally a term used in reference to male entertainers at the imperial court, subsequently for mainly female professional entertainers. Gekokuyo: 'rule of the higher by the lower'; a constant theme in Japanese history whereby actual power in determining events is controlled by subordinates; a complex phenomenon to describe, presented in this book as one of the historiographical elements in the denouement of Japanese history. Genro: 'elder statesmen'; this term referred to those leaders of the Restoration who retained power in the course of the Meiji era and collectively directed the affairs of state even when not necessarily holding government office; it was they, for example, who advised the tenno on who should form a government. Genyosha: Dark Ocean Society, one of the more militant radical nativist societies founded by Toyama Mitsuru in Fukuoka in 1881. Glossary ofJapanese Terms 319 Go-kajo no seimon: Charter Oath of Five Articles, the first major official document to emanate from the new government in April 1868 which set out, albeit in somewhat ambiguous language, the course Japan should follow. Go-kenin: 'personal attendants'; one of the two categories of the Tokugawa shogun's direct retainers and who held posts in the bakufu administration. Gono: 'rich peasant'; the upper stream of the peasant estate in the Tokugawa era. Go-rin: the five basic relationships of Confucianism: ruler-ruled, father-son, elder brother-younger brother, husband-wife, friend-friend. Go-sanke: the three families related to the Tokugawa, from the han of Owari, Kii and Mito, and from whom a shogunal successor might be chosen. Go-sekke: the five families descendant from the Fujiwara who monopolised the offices of sesshO (regent) and kanpaku (chief councillor). Goshi: 'rustic samurai', lower level of the samurai hierarchy in the Edo era, found mainly in the Satsuma han, who, unlike most samurai, lived not in the castle-towns but in the country and engaged in agriculture. Go-shinpei: the Imperial Guard, formed in 1871 and consisting of battalions from Satsuma, Choshil and Tosa; the original nucleus of the modern Japanese army. Gosho: 'hallowed place', name of the Imperial palace and one of the euphemisms formerly in use for designating the tenno. Goyo-kin: a forced loan extracted from merchants by the bakufu on an ad hoc basis in the latter part of the Edo era. Gozo-roppu: 'the five viscera and six entrails', term used to refer to classical Chinese anatomy according to which every bodily function and organ corresponds to an act of nature. Gundai: essentially the same as daikan (see above). Gunjin Chokugo: Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, emanating from the tenno himself, a document which became holy writ for the military and was publicly read on ceremonial occasions. Gunjin Kunkai: Admonition to Soldiers, issued by the government in 1878 following a mutiny and admonishing soldiers to be good soldiers and not meddle in politics. Gyoen: imperial park, the area in Kyoto where the kuge resided. Han: the domain or fief; a han is a geographical area, not a family or a clan, hence a han never bore the name of the ruling daimyo family: the Shimazu were the daimyo of Satsuma, the Mori of Ch6shil, the Maeda of Kanazawa, and so on. Hanpo: han law, namely the jurisprudence of the individual han. Hanseki-hokan: 'return of the land and the people to the tenno'; m 1869 the 320 Glossary ofJapanese Terms daimyii of Satsuma, Choshii, Tosa and Hizen petitioned the tenno to accept the return of their fiefs and subjects, thus marking the first official step in the centralisation of the japanese state. Hara-kiri: disembowelment; the traditional form of committing suicide by samurai, consisting of inserting the shorter of the two swords into the right side of the abdomen, moving it to the left and then up towards the heart; hara-kiri was a privilege reserved for the samurai estate in the Edo era. Hatamoto: bannermen, direct retainers of the Tokugawa shogun who were expected to assume important posts in the bakufu administration.