Along with our professor, Dylan, Janae and I went to the
town of Kakunodate on the 14th of October.
The new phenomena of the October typhoon had just swept through Akita
the night before leaving the streets a dangerous glistening mess of black
pavement, oil, water, and leaves.
Although early for the changing of the leaves – a sight deemed especially
beautiful in Akita prefecture – the edges of the still green sakura trees
hinted at what was to come.
Kakunodate is a preserved samurai town. It has many different small museums of sorts
all stationed within old samurai homes.
During our visit, we traveled to two such homes. The first we visited was the Ishiguro
house. It was the home of the highest
ranking family in this district and was very large. The part of the house accessible to visitors
about 4-5 rooms all of about 6-8 tatami mats.
The second home was that of the Aoyagi clan. This manner was significantly more museum-like. It was also considerably more difficult to
distinguish what parts of the manner were historic and which parts were added
during later builds. Admittedly it is
probably easier to determine if you can speak Japanese.
Although another of my classmates has already written his
thoughts on the association of Kakunodate and Edo-fying the past, I would like
to respectfully disagree with his perceived lack of connection between Gluck’s
work and the preserved samurai village.
I think that the way that information was presented in these houses for
the most part ignored history prior to the Edo period. The history presented in these preserved
homes began with the rise of the samurai and particularly in the case of the
Aoyagi manor, carried a relatively singular thought path all the way to the
current day. As someone who is not
terribly interested in history (sorry Rob), and as someone who has not
intensively studied the ways in which museums present their information I am
not qualified to give anything other than my own personal perspective on
this. I would guess museums across the
world have similar difficulties integrating history into a larger
timeline. That said, from what I have
read about in regards to painting history for the use of propaganda etc, manipulation
of the timeline is common. Therefore, I
think the emphasis on this particular time period within these museums and
their preservation as Akita’s history is potentially revealing to someone who
knows more than I. If you get the
chance, do go. Many places in the area
are relatively understanding towards English speakers, and even if not, the
large amount of artifacts and their display should be revealing to people who
are familiar with this time period.
1 comment:
Given that none of these estates were built until well into the Edo Period, and in fact most of the families weren't even in the area until the Edo Period, being mostly exiles for opposing Tokugawa Ieyasu, it strikes me as odd that we would expect there to be anything (other than swords, which were often kept for many generations and - guess what - are the only Sengoku artifacts present) pre-Edo to talk about. (from Dylan)
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