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Paper short abstract:

This presentation will analyse the kabuki play ‘The Beginning of Shin-Fuji at Meguro (Yamabiraki Meguro no Shin-Fuji),’ in 1893. This play describes the adventures of Ezo explorer Kondō Jūzō, and reflects Japan-Russia relations and the increase of interest in “alien” people in the Meiji Era.

Paper long abstract:

‘The Beginning of Shin-Fuji at Meguro (Yamabiraki Meguro no Shin-Fuji)’ is a Kabuki play written by Takeshiba Kisui (1847-1923), a leading disciple of a playwright Kawatake Mokuami, and first performed in 1893. This play was based on the adventures of Kondō Jūzō (1771-1829), a retainer of the Tokugawa Shogunate who explored Ezo (current Hokkaido) and the Northern Islands. Although the latter half of the play is allotted to an episode of a murder case caused by his son, the first half describes Jūzō’s adventure at the Iturup Island, one of the islands now disputed by Japan and Russia.

　　In the beginning of the play, Kondo redraws the border between Japan and Russia by pulling out a Russian territorial monument and fighting against a brown bear, and the Ainu people. In the following scene, “iomante,” an Ainu ceremony in which a brown bear is sacrificed and its “kamui (spirit)” is sent back to “kamui mosir,” the world which the Gods live in, was represented on the stage.

　　The play was performed again in 1902, two years before the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, and at that time, the play was retitled to ‘Glorious Japanese Weather and the Spring Thaw of Russian Land (Nihonbare Roryō no Yukidoke).’

　　This play reflected the will of expansion of its territory by the Empire of Japan and an increase of interest in the “alien” people, including Ainu. In the play, traces that the playwright and the actors made efforts to describe Ainu custom comparatively realistically can be found. On the other hand, the fighting scene was obviously influenced by the famous battle scene between a superhero Watōnai and a tiger in Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s masterpiece ‘The Battles of Coxinga (Kokusen’ya Kassen),’ first performed as a puppet play in 1715.

　　By examining the conflicts described in this play, I will show one example how Japanese people in the Meiji Era understand and represent “alien” people.