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Paper short abstract

This paper aims at understanding narratives of foreignness in the 1804 kabuki play Tenjiku Tokubee Ikokubanashi vis-à-vis increasing contact with foreign powers during the Kansei era. Here, an ambivalence arises, of both fascination with and anxiety toward the foreign.

Paper long abstract

The protagonist of the 1804 kabuki play Tenjiku Tokubee Ikokubanashi (written by Tsuruya Nanboku) is Tenjiku Tokubee, a historical boat captain who, prior to the 1635 edicts enforcing national seclusion, is said to have voyaged twice to Southeast Asia for trade. In the 1757 Osaka performance of the kabuki play Tenjiku Tokubee Kikigaki Ōrai (written by Namiki Shōzō), Tenjiku Tokubee is reimagined as none other than Nanakusa Shirō, identified with Amakusa Shirō, the leader of the 1637 Shimabara Rebellion, and is portrayed as a figure who employs magical powers derived from a gama. This gama magic is associated with the Chinese immortal known as the Toad Sage (Gama Sennin). The linkage between gama magic and Christianity can be traced to the 1719 jōruri piece Keisei Shimabara Kaeru Gassen (by Chikamatsu Monzaemon).

The staging of Tenjiku Tokubee Ikokubanashi in 1804 must be understood against the backdrop of increasing contact with foreign powers such as Russia during the Kansei era and the growing body of travelogues that included descriptions of foreign lands. Underlying these developments was a popular sentiment characterised by both fascination with and apprehension toward the foreign: an ambivalence arising amid anxieties over the destabilization of the sakoku system.