# Sketches of Tokyo Life/Chapter 4

BEFORE A “GEISHA”-HOUSE.
CHAPTER IV.
The Geisha’s Calling.
he centuries of peace under the Tokugawa Shogunate brought a grateful relief to the nation exhausted with years of internecine war. Under that rule, men could pursue their vocations unmolested. The peasant, the artisan, and the merchant, each went his way contented with the domination of the military class, which, if sometimes oppressive, still extended to him their effective protection. The samurai who had to keep and maintain with the sword what that weapon had won for him, never allowed it to leave his side; but even he was girt with it more from custom than from necessity, and was seldom called upon to draw it in defence of his rights. It crossed his girdle in a sheath of rare workmanship, but the hilt was tied down and the blade often unwhetted. The daimyo, a despot in his own territory, was laid under wholesome restraint by the shogun’s central government, ​which was quick to punish him in case of local risings by transferring him to a smaller daimiate. In his own interest at least, the daimyo was a lover of peace, and in the seclusion of his palace, he imitated the customs of the courts of Kyoto and Yedo. The common duties of life were invested with elaborate formalities, and his councillors who studied to beguile his listless leisure made of him as idle a figure-head as his military liege the shogun. Military arts were encouraged, it is true, but only as a matter of duty in later times, by the class whose profession was the sword. This ease and luxury pervaded the whole samurai class, whose offices under their lords had become hereditary; and few of them could have exhibited that martial prowess which had won for their ancestors the positions they now held as their birthright. The same listlessness also made itself manifest in the other three classes, the agricultural, industrial, and mercantile; and time which hung so heavily on their hands was accounted of no value. They showed the same deliberateness in their occupations as the samurai who lived at ease on the implicit understanding that he should always be ready to lay down his life at his lord’s bidding.
If all classes of men took their time in the serious business of life, they were even more leisurely in the pursuit of their pleasures. To pleasure they were addicted, and pretexts were never wanting. Local fêtes, flowers of every season, family events, all furnished plausible excuses for convivial parties. Especially, the flowers, snow, and the full moon gave the better classes opportunities for gathering in companies in picturesquely-situated tea-houses; and such meetings were naturally protracted by the national custom of drinking saké hot in tiny cups which go twenty or more to the pint. As, at these parties, the tea-house waitresses were too busy with their own duties, a new class of entertainers arose, known in Yedo as geisha (or accomplished ones) whose function was to serve the saké, to play music, ​sing, and dance, and generally to diffuse gaiety and good humour among the convives. They continued to rise in public favour through the last century of the Tokugawa dynasty; and the immediate effect of the Restoration upon them has been to increase their popularity. The samurai and others who flocked from the provinces to the capital when all offices were thrown open to talent, took kindly to the sybaritism which had been one of the causes of ruin to those they were supplanting. It is certainly strange that this leisurely form of pleasure should be so extensively patronised by the very men who, by their restless energy, have brought to their country a new era of extraordinary progress. The old order has passed away, and now the new order is taking shape; and the unrestrained licence of the intervening period is beginning to lose countenance. But the process of social reconstruction is inevitably tardy; and at the present moment it cannot be denied that the number of geisha in Tokyo has enormously augmented in response, it is to be inferred, to an increasing demand.
The geisha’s praises have been sung abroad, because her parallel is nowhere to be found, and unlike the demi-mondaines of other nationalities, her lapses from virtue appear to leave her still in possession of her modesty and native grace. Whether it is due to her indifference to reputation or to her acknowledgment of such lapses as part and parcel of her profession, we cannot say; but even among her class a woman with a virtuous reputation is more sought for at the best teahouses than her lax sisters. Her vices as a class, however, are forgotten in her individual charms, and her presence has by custom become almost indispensable at convivial parties which would be insipid without her contagious vivacity.
The geisha’s chief attraction, in addition to her graceful manners, is her exquisite taste in dress, the harmonious blending of its hues and tints being according to Japanese canon unsurpassed. The actual style she adopts differs ​with the locality of her home and the class of her patrons. Rusticity can never be charged against it; and it is either gay without tawdry or sober without sombreness. It is, however, not only in her dress that the geisha shows her taste; but the style of her hair also excites admiration. There are various styles of coiffure in Japan, the total number known past or present being said to exceed a hundred; but those actually in use are comparatively few if we set aside the slight variations that come into fashion from time to time. The formal coiffure of the geisha is the shimada, so called
THE “GEISHA’S” COIFFURE.
from its coming into vogue two centuries ago at a postal town of that name on the highway between Yedo and Kyoto. In this a tuft of false hair is tied at the crown to the natural hair; and the whole is made into a large chignon fastened down in the middle and spread out in front, with the ends gathered in on the crown. Sometimes the marumage, or the rounded coiffure of married women, is affected, in which the entire chignon is turned upon a thick ​paper-wadding, the ends being gathered in at the top with a short tortoise-shell or lacquered bar passing horizontally through it; but the lightest and most common coiffure is the ichogayeshi, or the inverted maidenhair-leaf, which requires no false hair, but consists of two tresses parted at the crown, made into rings, and gathered in like the others at the top. Young girls under fifteen wear the tojin coiffure, which is the ichogayeshi, with the rings spread out and pressed down in the middle by a third tress. Besides these, are the mitsuwa, or the three rings, which is a combination of the marumage and ichogayeshi, and the tenjinmage, which consists of two looped tresses held down by a hair-pin passing through a third at the crown. In every case, the tress over the forehead is bound into a tuft which is held back by a comb; the side-locks are swollen out; and the back-hair is brought stiffly down with a jerk before the whole hair is tied at the crown. A string of little coral or other balls is fastened round the root behind the chignon, and a fancy piece of cloth also adorns the neck of the marumage, mitsuwa, and sometimes shimada. Hair-pins of gold, silver, or brass, surmounted with coral or other ornaments, are also worn. The hair is dressed every third or fourth day and causes quite as much concern to its wearer as her dresses.
The geisha has little history. She came into existence about the middle of last century and soon acquired popularity. Her first regular home was in the purlieus of the shrine of the War-god Hachiman, in Fukagawa, on the east side of the River Sumida, not far from which the annual wrestling-matches were held last century. Little pleasure-boats would put off from this quarter and, going up the river, moor at a landing-stage at the entrance of a tributary of the Sumida. Here boat-houses grew into tea-houses, which were frequented by the Fukagawa geisha; but before long, Yanagibashi, as the outlet is called from the bridge spanning it, produced its own geisha and, after a ​prolonged rivalry which lasted till the Fukagawa quarters were closed fifty years ago, became the most prominent of all geisha homes in Yedo. Geisha, however, soon flocked together wherever people gathered, and their houses were to be seen near the principal public resorts and at the termini of the great highways running into the city. They also adapted themselves to the prevailing taste of their patrons. Thus at the present time, their manners and styles of dress in mercantile districts are distinct from those where Government officials are the chief patrons. In the latter case, musical accomplishments are not so necessary, as less interest is taken in them, and the dresses are gayer than in the former; but the geisha, in whatever quarters she may be, is expected to possess some knowledge of the samisen, which is indeed her only musical instrument, though young fledgelings play on the tsuzumi (a drum with a long body), or make fearful music on the common drum.
THE “SAMISEN” AND THE DRUMS.
The samisen, the Japanese national musical instrument, came originally from the Loochoo Islands. It has been suggested that the instrument was introduced into the archipelago by the Spanish adventurers, the earliest of them being Magellan, who discovered the Philippines in 1520; but it is not likely that it is in any way connected with the Spanish guitar. Various accounts are given of the manner in which the samisen first came into Japan. The Loochooans, according to one of these accounts, whose islands are infested with snakes, used ​to play an instrument, the body of which was made of snake-skin, to ward them off, as the sound it emitted resembled the cry of a certain animal that preyed on them. Thus, from necessity the instrument came into general use with the Loochooans, among whom it was known as the jamisen, or snake-skin strings. It was introduced into Japan about 1558, and a blind musician named Ishimura improved it by substituting cat-skin for the snake-skin, making the body square instead of round, and tuning its three strings to the first, second, and fourth strings of the biwa. The samisen was further improved by two other blind musicians, Yanagawa and Yatsuhashi, who brought it to its present state in the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. Yatsuhashi died in 1685, at the age of over seventy. A contemporary of theirs named Sawazumi, also a blind musician, applied the samisen to the joruri, and after that, it soon found its way to the stage. By the end of the seventeenth century it had become the favourite instrument of the people. In its usual dimensions, the samisen consists of an oblong belly with convex sides, 7¾ inches long in the middle and 7 inches at the edge, and 7 inches wide in the middle and 6¼ inches at the edge, to which a neck, about two feet and an inch long is attached, with a tail-piece 5½ inches long. There are three pegs on the tail-piece for tightening the strings which are carried over the neck to the other end of the belly where a further tension is given them by a little movable bridge. The belly rests on the right knee of the player, who strikes the strings with an ivory plectrum, while the fingers of the left hand support the neck and stop the strings. The range of the samisen is about three octaves. The top-string is the thickest and the third the slenderest. Its thirty-six notes, including the sharps and flats, are usually distributed five to the first string, seven to the second, and twenty-four to the third; but two notes are sometimes shifted from the second to the first or the third string.
​When called to a teahouse, the geisha always plays a piece of serious music, unless her guests expressly dispense with what they do not understand. After this duty is discharged, she may play whatever she or her guests please; and she generally takes to popular songs as they are the easiest to render. With Government officials and others who do not pretend to be musical connoisseurs, the geisha finds it all plain sailing as they appear satisfied with whatever she may thrum on her samisen; but at a party of amateur singers or musicians, her knowledge and skill are taxed to the utmost. She would then be required to play the most difficult pieces that they know; but though she does as best she can, there are not many geisha who can always pull through such trying ordeals. Some indeed throw up the game at the outset, while others calmly advise their guests to go to professional musicians if they wish to hear good music. But beyond these occasional calls for her skill when she may have to blush for her imperfect knowledge, the geisha has little to do. Her most important duty is to impart animation and often to arouse mirth where there is none, and one’s finer sense is sometimes jarred by the hollowness and affectation of her loud peals of laughter; but it is too much to expect that when, behind the gay and insouciant life that the world imagines with envy to be hers, the same cares and troubles oppress her as prey upon the rest of mankind, there would always be sincerity and spontaneity in her actions.
The geisha plays the samisen, sings, dances, and talks on the most trivial topics. Her object, her raison d’être, is to beguile the time that is irksome to her guests. Sometimes she fails to conjure up merriment, or she is too indifferent and makes no efforts in that direction. The silence or dull talk becomes oppressive; and in such cases she fortifies herself against ennui by blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the berry of the winter-cherry, from which the pulp has been deftly extracted at ​the stem. The noise is most irritating to others, though many geisha and tea-house waitresses appear to take delight therein.
But this winter-cherry blowing is not the geisha’s only occupation when she is neither playing nor talking. Among the amusements at these convivial parties, the principal are the games of ken, or the fist, which are not, however, confined to geisha. These games, which are played by two persons, are of Chinese origin, and were invented to stimulate drinking at parties, for the defeated person was always made to drain a cup of wine. There are two main divisions of ken games, the ken proper, in which both parties guess the number of fingers put out, and the san-sukumi, in which there are three positions of the hand, each of which defeats one, and is defeated by the other, of the remainder. In the ken proper, the players simultaneously hold out a certain number of fingers on the right hand and at the same time call out the total number put out by both. The one that guesses aright is the winner, and the game is closed by either player first winning five times. This game, which was introduced by Chinese in Nagasaki in 1642, is now seldom played; but early in this century it was in such vogue that regular ken matches were held at a miniature wrestling-arena, before which the umpire for the occasion sat all day watching the games with far greater attention than he had ever bestowed on his own proper calling. There are modifications of the game, one of which is played by blind-men, another by the dumb, and a third is practised at the present day in which either player has three bits of a chopstick and guesses the total sum of the bits held in a closed hand by the other, added to his own.
Of the second kind of ken, there are four forms in practice, namely, the worm, the stone, the fox, and the tiger. The worm is played mostly by children. Either party hides his right hand under the sleeve and, after a signal, brings it out simultaneously with the other player. The hand is ​closed; but the thumb put out stands for a frog, the fore-finger for a snake, and the little finger for a slug. Here the frog is stronger than the slug which is stronger than the snake, and the last beats the frog. This is the simplest of the ken games. The stone is also played with the right hand. The hand entirely closed stands for a stone, and only the index and middle fingers put out with the tips apart represent a pair of scissors, while the whole open hand signifies a piece of paper. Now scissors are ineffectual against a stone, while they can cut a piece of paper which can, on the other hand, wrap up a stone. Thus the stone beats the scissors which beat the paper, and that beats the stone. This game is played more than any other as the quickest way of deciding a case where otherwise lots would have to be drawn. Coolies and
THE GAME OF FOX “KEN.”
jinrikisha-men resort to it when they wish to settle their turn in any work. It is in short the Japanese equivalent of tossing a coin. The game, however, which is more played for amusement than any other and is in fact the only one played by geisha, is the fox ken. Both hands are used, the three positions of which are supposed to stand for a fox, a hunter, and a village headman. The first is represented by putting up a hand on either side of the forehead, in imitation ​of Reynard’s ears; the second puts forward a closed hand to represent a gun in his possession; and the last has his hands on his knees, for being a gentleman, he sits primly. Now the fox which is popularly believed to possess supernatural powers, can bewitch the headman, but is shot by the hunter, who pays his respects to the headman as his superior. The game is played continuously and in such rapid succession that it requires considerable experience to follow skilled players. The tiger ken owes its origin to the story of Kokusenya, one of the best historical plays of Chikamatsu Monzayemon. Watonai, the hero, goes to the forest of Senrigatake, with his mother, to meet his elder sister’s husband. There a tiger rushes upon the mother, but is soon despatched by the hero. Thus, the tiger is stronger than the mother but weaker than Watonai, who, however, must submit to his mother. The positions assumed are the following:—Watonai raises a clenched fist to strike the tiger; the latter goes on all fours; and the mother hobbles with a bent hip as if leaning ona staff. The players hide behind a screen, from which they issue, each representing one of these characters.
According to tradition, Sorori Shinzayemon, the Taiko’s jester, was the originator of the san-sukumi ken; but an old Corean picture exists which represents positions closely resembling those of the fox ken. It is, therefore, surmised that the game was introduced from the neighbouring peninsula like many other more useful arts; but there is no doubt that the Taiko frequently played the game with Sorori. As the fox ken requires considerable experience to play as rapidly as it is generally played, geisha have to practise it frequently by themselves. A young geisha is often seen sitting before a wall and playing with her shadow without coming to a decisive conclusion; but she learns to be quick and graceful in the movement of her hands.
The geisha, in their domestic economy, may be divided ​into three classes, the jimaye, the kakaye, and the tataki-wake. The jimaye is the freest of all. She is her own mistress, and, living in her own house, does just as she pleases. Not so the kakaye, to which class a great majority of geisha belong. Having no means of buying her own dress or renting a house, the kakaye enters service in a geisha-house for a certain term, varying with her age and other circumstances. Her life is far from happy, though much naturally depends upon the disposition of her task-mistress. While she is lodged, boarded, and clothed, she is expected to hand over all her earnings to her mistress. It is usual, on the other hand, for her to receive a tithe of her earnings for her private expenses; but as this rule does not always hold good, the geisha seldom gives up all her receipts; indeed, without retaining a considerable portion of them she could not possibly buy those articles of ornament to which geisha are addicted in a greater degree than other women. To her mistress her engagement is a purely speculative business; she may become a popular favourite when the outlay would be repaid many times over, or she may turn out to be a tea-grinder, as a stay-at-home is facetiously called on the supposition that she remains indoors to grind tea into powder such as is drunk at a tea-ceremony. The number of kakaye in a single house varies in different localities. In many houses the jimaye has two or more kakaye of her own, against whose attempts to appropriate any portion of their earnings she guards by appearing as far as possible at the same tea-house with them. In some quarters a single house engages ten or more kakaye so that there may be some among them popular enough to offset others who may be tea-grinders. The articling of a kakaye is sometimes a matter of difficulty. The girl must, before her engagement, apply in person for a license at the Metropolitan Police Board, where a middle-aged police-sergeant warns her of the temptations of the new life she is about to enter, and only grants her ​the required license if she persists in the application, notwithstanding his paternal admonition. When she is questioned respecting the house she is going to, she generally answers that her new home is kept by an aunt of hers. If she trips in the catechism, the license is refused as, according to the law, she cannot be bound for a term of service to any employer. The third and last class of geisha is the tataki-wake, who has money and ability enough to set up on her own account, but is in want of an effective introduction to the teahouses of the locality where she is a stranger. She, therefore, puts herself under the ægis of a geisha of established reputation, with whom she lives, and agrees in return to share her earnings equally with her mentor. She is almost as free as a jimaye, except that she must earn enough to bring a fair profit to the house, though she entails on it no expense beyond her board.
Among the geisha are many who are yet too young to become full-fledged ones. These are called hangyoku (or half-fees) as their charges are always half those of their older sisters.
A TEA-HOUSE ENTRANCE.
They are generally under sixteen years of age and always kakaye. A hangyoku is usually bound to serve for five or seven years, though she is registered at the district office as the adopted daughter of her employer; but she is not, except in rare cases, of much profit to the latter, for she has to be taught the usual geisha accomplishments, and, by the time she has become mistress of her art, ​her term of service expires and she leaves the house if it is not to her taste. On the other hand, the little kakaye’s life is a hard one, for she is condemned to the drudgery of a scullery-maid if she shows any proneness to tea-grinding.
The geisha’s earnings are of two kinds. The first is the gyoku, which is her regular charge for entertainment. She never receives it directly from her guest, for it is always put down in the tea-house bill. The rate of payment is by time; and the charge in first-class quarters is twenty-five sen per half-hour. The time is supposed to be measured by the burning of a joss-stick, which is calculated to take half an hour; but, as a matter of fact, no one takes the trouble to burn joss-sticks or to look at the clock, and the time is put down at the fancy of the tea-house accountant. A whole evening is usually assumed to be covered by the burning of four joss-sticks. As the time is thus left uncertain and the tea-house mistress is seldom guilty of undercharging, there is often a great discrepancy in the calculations of the tea-house and the geisha-house, in which case the excess is always swept into the tea-house till. But there are not a few teahouses that forget to pay the geisha their joss-stick accounts which are made up at the end of every month; and the geisha, knowing the customs of these houses, does not put false hopes on their payment. Her income is mostly derived from the gratuities of her guests. These gratuities are supposed to be given by the guest of his own will and accord; but practically the custom has become an unwritten law which is invariably observed. In first-class quarters, the traditionary law has put such douceurs at one yen each; but the geisha’s gratitude is only half-hearted at the sum. A popular geisha is called to several houses in the course of a single day or evening. She may appear at a party for half-an-hour or less when her legitimate charge is only twenty-five sen; but as the gratuities must be given even if she puts in only a few ​minutes’ appearance, her receipts therefrom come to a respectable amount.
The geisha’s expenses consist mostly of dresses and ornaments, among the latter being combs, hair-pins, rings, purses, and tobacco-pouches; but there are occasions when she is compelled to contribute to a general subscription, such as the presentation of a curtain by the whole geisha quarter to a theatre or to a favourite actor, for it is a great honour for an actor to have a curtain hung in his name at the theatre where he is engaged. If, without being actually a favourite, he has relatives or connections among the geisha-houses or tea-houses of the locality, the presentation is sometimes made as a mark of friendship. Many geisha also take an active part in the annual festivals of the local deity, when in gay dresses they precede the procession-cars that are drawn through the streets of the district under the god’s protection. It is a great advertisement for them, though the dresses are very expensive. The geisha’s profession naturally leads her to extravagance; and very few succeed in making both ends meet. Most geisha are acquainted with usurers, while almost as many put their dresses, when out of season, in mine uncle’s charge.
THE BOX CARRIERS’ OFFICE.
The geisha is always accompanied to a tea-house by the box-carrier, whose duty it is to take charge of her samisen-case, and dresses which she often changes, especially in summer. The carrier is sometimes a woman, but more generally of the other sex. There are three kinds of such carriers. In some quarters, every geisha has her own ​carrier, who is at the same time her valet; in others, every tea-house has a carrier who calls for a geisha whenever she is wanted; and in others again, there is a carriers’ office which sends a man to fetch a geisha and escort her to the tea-house that applies for her. In the latter two cases, the geisha always takes care to stand well with the carriers as they can, if they please, prevent her being called to any tea-house by pretending that she is already engaged elsewhere. The carrier receives a small gratuity from the guest at whose call he has brought the geisha. The carrier’s calling is not a dignified one, but is said to be very lucrative.