III. Guide to Local Specialties (Part 1) Destination: Oman Inari Shrine in the Kyoho Period

There is a small shrine by the side of the street that runs north of and parallel to Yaesu Street. This is the starting point of this journey. It is hard to imagine that it has a history of about 350 years from the appearance of inserting itself into a small space between buildings. If you casually walk down the street, you will surely pass this shrine without even noticing it.

The name of the shrine is Oman Inari Shrine. Enshrined is Oman-no-kata, who was a concubine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. When she was a teenager, she was found and loved by Ieyasu, who was in his fifties. People called her a Cinderella girl. She gave birth to Tokugawa Yorinobu, Ieyasu’s tenth son who later became the founder of the Kii Tokugawa family, and Tokugawa Yorifusa, the eleventh son who later became the founder of the Mito Tokugawa family. These two sons strongly supported the Tokugawa family. She was also known as a woman gifted with both beauty and intelligence. She must have been an incredibly happy woman for her time.

Despite its inconspicuous appearance, the Oman Inari Shrine, which enshrine a woman with such a background, has long been revered and loved by the merchants in this area. Even today, on the first Uma day (a calendar unique to Japan) in February, the Hatsuuma Festival is held at Inari Shrine to pray for a bountiful harvest, success in business, and the safety of one’s family, and the local businesspeople participate. (To see the scenes of the Hatsuuma Festival, click here.) In 2004, the street facing the shrine was named Yojuin Street after the posthumous Buddhist name of Oman-no-kata.

Why has this small shrine been worshipped for such a long time?

By tracing the history, it became clear that the name Oman gradually became more than just a woman’s proper name and created a certain kind of image. It is closely linked to the history of the area and has been passed down orally, sometimes becoming the tangible form of a local specialty. In Part 1, I would like to explore the background, and in Part 2, I would like to introduce the local specialties that have actually gained a reputation.

In the Edo period, the area where Oman Inari Shrine was located was called Kamimaki-cho. “Maki” means “good wood,” such as Japanese cedar and cypress. As I discussed in Part 1 of the First Installment “Edo Harbor in the Keicho Period,” the funairi-bori waterway was dug in this area to transport building materials for the construction of the castle. The name of the area indicates that lumber was brought here because of its proximity to the outer moat and that woodworkers and merchants gathered here to work on and trade lumber.

It is said that Inari Shrine named after Oman-no-kata was built in this area after the Great Meireki Fire of 1657, which burned down most of downtown Edo. The shrine’s information board states that the name of Oman Inari is found in the records of the Kanbun period (1661–1673), which is the period following the reconstruction after the fire. According to the legend, there was a shogunate resting place here, and Oman-no-kata, who was a devout believer in the Nichiren sect of Buddhism, often stopped by to buy items to donate to the temple, which contributed greatly to the business in the area.

Oman-no-kata passed away in 1653 without seeing the devastation of the Great Meireki Fire. However, her endorsement of the stores greatly helped them rebuild their businesses after the damage caused by the fire. For this reason, the merchants of Kamimaki-cho worshipped Oman-no-kata as the guardian goddess of the area.

More than 50 years have passed since then. During the Kyoho period (1716–1736), many people visited Oman Inari Shrine every day to pray. Many of them were women.

On the street in front of the shrine, small cups with rouge in them were sold. The women all bought them and brought them to the shrine where they offered them and put their hands together in prayer. They murmured various wishes in their hearts about their loved ones, families, health, business, and so on, and bowed deeply as they left the shrine. As they stepped out into the street, dusk was approaching, and the sky was red. Clapping their hands, children sang and played innocently as they passed the women. “Kyobashi, Nakabashi, and Oman’s rouge.” The children’s singing voices echoed there, as if they were following the backs of the women as they hurried back to their homes.

Kyobashi is a former bridge name that later became a place name. So, it does not need much explanation. On the other hand, Nakabashi is the name of a bridge that used to be located between Kyobashi and Nihonbashi. I have already explained the details of the bridge in Part 2 of the First Installment “Nakabashi Hirokoji in the Tenpo Period.” The Momijigawa River, over which the Nakabashi Bridge was built, was one of the largest funairi-bori waterways, which I mentioned earlier, but was later reclaimed to become Nakabashi Hirokoji. Oman Inari Shrine was built near this place, which had become a downtown area with street stalls and people coming and going.

The song “Kyobashi, Nakabashi, and Oman’s rouge” sung by children in that neighborhood was the beginning of Oman becoming an icon representing the area.

The above description of Oman Inari Shrine is just from my imagination, but there is a description that I referred to when I wrote it. Ryutei Tanehiko, a novelist active in the late Edo period, wrote in his book Yoshabako, published in 1841, that a mysterious event occurred at the shrine in the Kyoho period and that many people rushed to the shrine, and then the children’s song was born. Unfortunately, there was no mention of what the mysterious event was. It must have been such a miraculous event that made many people want to visit the shrine after hearing about it. After this, the song “Kyobashi, Nakabashi, and Oman’s rouge” became popular among children, and even when the book was written, there were children who would play while singing this song.

What we can deduce from this description is that the term “Oman’s rouge” was used first, then perhaps “Oman Inari Shrine” and “rouge” were linked and, as a result, people came to use the rouge to make wishes. The second deduction is that the Chinese character for “Oman” was changed from the one that means “ten thousand” to the one that means “fulfillment,” making it easier for people to imagine the “fulfillment of a wish.”

Based on these deductions, I became curious to know how the phrase “Oman’s rouge,” which linked the children’s song with faith in Inari Shrine, was born.

In his book of essays Kiyu Shoran (preface dated 1830), which describes the life of people in Edo, Kitamura Intei concluded that the origin of “Oman’s rouge (Oman-ga-beni)” was “Ama-ga-beni.” Ama-ga-beni (literally translated “heavenly red”) refers to the time at dusk when the sky turns red. He said that “Ama” was changed to “Oman,” a woman’s name, but the change was gradual.

In the above-mentioned Yoshabako, in the explanation of “Ama-ga-beni” (heavenly red), it is suggested that the Chinese character for “Ama” (heavenly) was sometimes written using another Chinese character for “Ama” (nun). In addition, a children’s story was also presented that served as a trigger for the use of both heavenly and nun for “Ama.” The story was included in the Goruisetuyo shu (a kind of dictionary) compiled in 1680.

The story is like this. A nun had a secret husband. One day, she was waiting for her husband with makeup on, especially rouge on her cheeks. Someone maliciously told her parents about it. Her parents were surprised to hear it and scolded and punished her. This book also cites the poems “A nun wipes off the rouge from her cheeks” from the Takatsukuba shu completed in 1638, and “A nun puts on rouge and waits for lightning” from the Konzanshu published in 1651, concluding that this children’s story was being told until the Keian period (1648–1652).

“Ama-ga-beni” (heavenly red) originally referred to the time at dusk. It was confused with the children’s story about a nun and came to be written “Ama-ga-beni” (nun’s rouge), which later changed to “Oman-ga-beni.”

In Kiyu Shoran, the change from “Ama-ga-beni” to “Oman-ga-beni” is explained in relation to the play of little girls as follows:

“The word ‘Ama’ still means woman, so it makes sense to think of it as a women’s cheek rouge. In the old days, women wore cheek rouge. That is why little girls in those days would play with camellia flowers and put them on their cheeks and foreheads.”

It means that since a woman is sometimes referred to as “Ama,” “Ama-ga-beni” can be understood to mean a woman’s cheek rouge. The next part, “In the old days, women wore cheek rouge” may need an explanation.

When the children’s song “Oman’s Rouge” became popular, the makeup trend was also changing. In his Gareki Zakko published in 1817, Kitamura Intei, the author of Kiyu Shoran, wrote, “Until the Kyoho period, women applied a mixture of rouge and white face powder to their cheeks. From the early Genbun period, however, women of both high and low status stopped using cheek rouge and used only white face powder. Some even applied nothing. They learned the makeup methods of prostitutes.” It says that women used to wear cheek rouge until the Kyoho period but stopped using it at the beginning of the following Genbun period (1736 to 1741). Furthermore, it is said that the makeup technique was modeled on that of prostitutes with only white face powder or no powder at all. Edo’s tastes have always been a little twisted. Although heavy makeup comes to mind when we think of prostitutes, natural makeup was considered more coquettish at the time.

Returning to the main story, it is very likely that girls played with camellia petals and put them on their cheeks and foreheads, imitating the makeup technique of cheek rouge of that time. Absorbed in their play, the girls no longer distinguished between “Ama” (heavenly) and “Ama” (nun) and unconsciously changed it to a woman’s name “Oman,” which is easier to pronounce. It makes sense that this change was made by children who were good at playing with words.

Women, including a Cinderella girl of Edo and a nun in unforgivable love, have appeared in the process of change from “Ama-ga-beni” (heavenly) to “Ama-ga-beni” (nun) and then to “Oman-ga-beni” (Oman’s rouge). The seductive allure of these women, combined with the spiritual power of Oman Inari Shrine, attracted people in a mysterious way. The existence of the Momijigawa (red leaves) River near Oman Inari Shrine must have served as a link between “red/rouge” and “Oman.” In this way, the image of “Oman” spread from the small Inari Shrine to the entire city through the melody of the song sung by children (to be continued in Part 2).

References:
Comprehensive Collection of Japan’s Essays (Volume 1, Number 13) (1975) Yoshikawa Kobunkan
Comprehensive Collection of Japan’s Essays (Special Volume, Kiyu Shoran 3) (1979) Yoshikawa Kobunkan

Shinichiro Watanabe (2002) Makeup of Edo, Heibonsha Shinsho