Paper short abstract:

Fuzoku uta were regional songs that represented the power of the sovereign and central court through their performance as offerings to the emperor upon his/er enthronement. This paper explores instances of dialect variation as symbolically potent features of language in these songs.

Paper long abstract:

Fuzoku uta "folk/regional songs," were songs performed on the occasion of the emperor's accession, the Daijōsai. In this context, the songs featured prominently as "offerings" for the emperor as part of the court's solemn accession rites. In the oldest form of the ritual, songs were chosen by divination to represent the eastern (yuki) and western (suki) regions peripheral to the court. Fuzoku uta fulfilled a critical symbolic and religious role in the context of the Daijō rites, representing the extent of the sovereign's domain, and, for the people in those provinces, it solidified their relationship to the emperor and central court as an act of filiality and allegiance. Although geography was at the center of symbolic potency of regional songs, a concept reinforced by the notion of kuni-tama "land-soul" operative in court ritual, by the mid-Heian period fuzoku composition was outsourced to court literatus. Little is known about fuzoku uta before the Heian period. However, a number of eleventh and twelfth-century manuscripts preserve the songs as they were likely performed from the tenth-century. These texts have been the subject of research on the development of waka and the history of ritual song, but little attention has been paid to the lyrics themselves.

This paper will focus on the language of fuzoku uta, highlighting numerous instances of linguistic variation usually identified as accent (namari) or dialect (hōgen). In contrast to scholars' tendency to bypass these elements of the text, this paper considers, "Is there a connection between dialect variation in fuzoku uta and its position as regional songs within the Daijōsai?" Further, if we imagine that these variants were intended elements of the text, what are the implications of dialect variation in fuzoku? In answer to these questions, I propose that the fuzoku uta featured dialect variation to invoke a sense of verisimilitude, in keeping with their ostensive provenance as regional songs. Furthermore, that this was a form of literary dialect used to imbue the text with authenticity and ritual potency.