Paper short abstract:

In this talk, I will tackle the issue of orality and historiography through the example of Mukashibanashi, a mid-Edo period collection of war anecdotes by Chikamatsu Shigenori. I will also determine the influence of traditional war tales in the re-imagining of Owari domain's past.

Paper long abstract:

Mukashibanashi ("Tales of Long Ago") by Owari-domain military strategist Chikamatsu Shigenori collects the memories of old battles such as the Battle of Sekigahara. According to the author, what motivated him to pick up the brush was the desire to pass down to his comrades and disciples the stories he had listened to in his youth as a page, as he feared those memories would fade away if they were confined to his private notes.

By the first decade of the 18th century, all secret chronicles and records of the domain were either burned or lost, leaving little chance to learn about the past. Shigenori wrote this book with permission from the Lord of Owari, Yoshimichi, on the condition that he would not reveal its contents to other clans. Hence, this work resulted from the process of committing to the page the oral traditions hitherto transmitted and kept secret within a local group of people. As I shall argue in my talk, these writings reveal the literary qualities of oral storytelling made manifest in the written medium. Accordingly, I will re-discuss the genre of memoirs (oboegaki) from this vantage point of storytelling, and explore how traditional war tales—namely Heike monogatari and Taiheiki—served as a reference for describing historical battle scenes.