Okage-mairi: Mass Tourism in Yedo Era

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Okage-mairi Mass Tourism in Yedo Era

• People across the Feudal Barriers
• (Yedo or Edo?)

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Before the Industrial Revolution, tourism was
not activities of the general public in many
countries. In feudal system, people were not
allowed to move beyond their feudal lords
territories usually. But in Japan, mass
tourism was appeared more than a hundred years
before the Industrial Revolution occurred after
Meiji restoration.
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Some English man was surprised to see so many
people walking on the highways to travel. He had
never seen such crowded people walking even on
the streets of London. Why?
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Shogunate System in Yedo Era (1603 1867)
?? Feudal Lords ( about 270 lords)
?? tenant farmers and peasants (more than 90 of
population), craftsmen and merchants
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Feudal Borders
Japan was divided into about 270 territories by
feudal lords. People were strictly limited to
stay within the territories they belonged to.
There were ??(sekisho) or barriers (the
customs) on every borders and at strategic points
on major highways.
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To get over borders, people had to have
????(tsuko- tegata) or simply ??
passports issued by authorities of their
territories. The authorities seldom issued
passports to lower class people in any reason,
unless they admitted exceptions.
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Exceptions for Passport
To visit to the sacred places was respectable
behavior at that age. The family temples issued
passports very easily for pilgrimage.
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Religious Activities
Many people attended to religious lectures
called ?(kou). People studied in their own
villages first, then they tried to visit to the
real sacred places. They could not afford to
travel themselves. People made reserved found
for tours, and chose a few members by lot to send
to certain sacred places, famous shrines or
temples.
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Group tour ?(kou)
Meaning of ?(kou) turned from religious
lectures to travel groups to visit sacred
places. ???(ise-kou) ???(ooyama-kou) ?????(de
wasanzan-kou) etc. This was the beginning
of group tours in Japan in the middle of the
seventeenth centuries.
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???? (okage-mairi)
In 1650 large mass tourism movements happened
suddenly. The cards on which words of gods was
written fell from the sky. People rushed to
major shrines, especially to Ise Jingu shrine -
????(Okage-mairi) . ? o(honorable prefix) ?
kage (shadow, protection, owing) ?? mairi
(visit) The cards fell from the sky every
several decades, anyhow.
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Three five million people visited to Ise
Jingu shrine a year. (After middle of Yedo Era
population of Japan was almost thirty million.)
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Travel Agents ??(oshi, onshi)
Shrines and temples had volunteer instructors
called ??(oshi, onshi) for the lectures kou.
As kou changed to be travel groups, oshi
also turn to be travel agents. They provided
tour planning, guides, attendants, caterings,
souvenir shops and every services tourist needed,
like travel agents in Japan today.
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Travel Guide Books with Illustrations
????? (Miyako meisho zue) Graphic Guide of
the Capital (1780) ??????? (Toukaido meisho
zue) Graphic Guide of Tokaido (1797)
?????? (Yedo meisho zue) Graphic Guide of
Yedo(1834) ??????? (Toukaido goju-san tsugi)
The fifty-three Stations of Tokaido (Utagawa
Hiroshige)
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Graphic Guide of the Capital Kiyomizu Dera
temple
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Graphic Guide of the Capital Gion Matsuri
Festival Parade
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Graphic Guide of the Capital Shinsen-en
(Hizen-san) Park
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Graphic Guide of the Capital Mibu Dera temple
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Graphic Guide of Tokaido Hakone Station
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Graphic Guide of Tokaido Tsuruoka Hachiman-gu
shrine
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Graphic Guide of Tokaido Nihon Bashi bridge
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Graphic Guide of Yedo Flower-Viewing from
the Stage of Kiyomizu-do
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Graphic Guide of Yedo Kanda Myojin
shrines Festival Parade
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The fifty-three Station of Tokaido Nihon Bashi
bridge
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The fifty-three Station of Tokaido Hiratsuka
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The fifty-three Station of Tokaido Goyu
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Great Pretexts for Fun
Religious reasons for tours turned to be
pretexts for people to travel for their own
pleasure. In later term of Yedo era, mass
tourism kou was established steadily as
peoples custom. Many employees went to
okage-mairi without their employers permission.
These were ????(nuke-mairi) These custom
continued until oshi was prohibited in Meiji
era. People had to wait for the next mass
tourism boom to come in 1960s.