Kyota Ko's Blog

Not a few feudal lords were known to be sexually fluid, often intimate with young samurai whom they employed as bodyguards. This became a problem when the lord was not just a regional lord, but instead the shogun, the ruler of all of Japan.

The third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu (1604 - 1651)’s biggest mission was supposed to be to produce the next-generation shogun. But he was very sexually active with his 3 bodyguards and didn’t even sleep once with his wife 🤦‍♀️.

If there was no offspring, there would be a struggle for power and the peace Japan finally attained in 1615 may crumble to the ground. So Iemitsu’s ace nanny, Kasuga, rose to the occasion. “HOLD. MY. BEER 😤.”

Kasuga started headhunting beautiful women from the city regardless of their social rank and cast them in the harem she built for Iemitsu.

In an age where there was almost no decent-paying job for women, some of these ladies were paid salaries way over the average samurai’s, because obviously, they had a far more important role.

Strict rules were set in the harem, like “No grown male shall enter except the shogun,” “No woman shall enter or leave without permission,” and “No one shall be allowed in or out after 6 pm.” It was to make sure any child given birth in the harem would be the shogun’s.

Aside from salaries, Kasuga provided benefits such as beauty allowances which the women used to purchase kimonos and cosmetics.

The best of the best were gathered and housed in the most luxurious working environment, dubbed “Ōoku.”

Just as Kasuga intended, the shogun Iemitsu started showing interest in women and ultimately, he had a girl and 4 boys, each with a different mother.

The harem lasted throughout the rest of the Tokugawa shogunate’s over-250-year rule, thanks to Kasuga the Matriarch 💪.

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▶︎ Hi, I’m Kyota, the author of Amazon Best Sellers:
Folk Tales of Japan: 28 Japanese folk tales with cultural commentary
Underdogs of Japanese History: 11 tales of iconic characters who prevailed against the odds... or didn’t
Horror Tales of Japan: 21 Japanese folktales not to be read to children, coupled with (mostly) uplifting cultural commentary

Please check out my books on Amazon or from my profile page at ☺️: https://kyotako.myportfolio.com/

A Noh theater play is about a poor man who sacrifices his cute little Bonsai trees to fire to warm the house for a stranger who needed shelter in snowy winter.

In the play “Hachinoki,” Sano Tsuneyo is an unlucky samurai who had lost his territory to a relative who embezzled it. One snowy night, he invites a traveling monk to stay for a night at his house.

As he tells how he tumbled down the samurai hierarchy, he runs out of firewood. Worried his guest would be cold, Tsuneyo takes out his plum, cherry and pine Bonsai trees—his proud collection he had grown with care—and throws them into the fire.

He kept his now-rusty armor and spear in a corner of his house, waiting for the day the shogun summons him on the battlefield. The monk thanked him and left.

Spring came and all samurai, rich or poor, were summoned to fight for the shogun. A man in rusty armor with a rusty spear, appeared on a skinny horse, and joined the march. It was Tsuneyo.

Tsuneyo was called in front of the regent to the shogun, Hōjō Tokiyori. Tokiyori confessed he was the traveling monk Tsuneyo had helped on that snowy night.

“I visited you in disguise. I’m glad to see you keep to your promise you made that night.”

Tokiyori gave the territory Tsuneyo had lost, and as a bonus, bestowed three more plots of land named after the three Bonsai trees he gave up:

梅田 Umeda (Plum-fields)
桜井 Sakurai (Cherry-well)
松井田 Matsuida (Pine-well-fields)

I’d be touched by Tsuneyo’s actions, too 🥹.

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▶︎ Hi, I’m Kyota, the author of Amazon Best Sellers:
Folk Tales of Japan: 28 Japanese folk tales with cultural commentary
Underdogs of Japanese History: 11 tales of iconic characters who prevailed against the odds... or didn’t
Horror Tales of Japan: 21 Japanese folktales not to be read to children, coupled with (mostly) uplifting cultural commentary

Please check out my books on Amazon or from my profile page at ☺️: https://kyotako.myportfolio.com/

Japanese people have habitually deified important figures who made major accomplishments for centuries. They also tend to enshrine troublemakers after their death to make them feel good so they wouldn’t come back for an encore.

But with time, the newfound deity turns into a god with positive connotations.

So here’s a folktale that follows that course:

A witch came along once upon a time in a peaceful village in Sayama and began kidnapping kids one by one. The innocent cries and squeals of children were soon heard no more.

The villagers pleaded the local Buddha statue to do something about it. So Buddha statue casually stood up and walked over to the witch’s lair, where he found 10,000 kids she looked after and loved dearly.

Meanwhile, the villagers’ kids were thrown into a small, separate hole, where they were left crying.

“Well that ain’t fair 😕.” So Buddha statue took away one of the witch’s kids on his palm.

The witch immediately realized she was missing one of her precious children, and scurried around hysterically, screaming in dismay, like how one of those distressed long-haired ghouls who are fixated on a specific obsession in horror films 😩.

Then, Buddha statue was like, “You get upset missing 1/10,000 children. Did it ever cross your mind that the villagers might feel the same?”

So witch said “My bad 😢”, returned the kids and became a disciple of Buddha statue.

She came to be called Kishimojin, and was worshiped as the god of birth and protection of children from diseases.

Bringing up 10,000 kids itself is worthy of deification !! The story is called “Kishimojin-sama.”

▶︎ Please check out my book on Japanese folk tales: Folk Tales of Japan: 28 Japanese folk tales with cultural commentary