(9) Gion Festival. The wagons, with the shoulder-borne floats that alternate with them, date from the Tokugawa period, though the Festival is much older, having been started in the tenth century in an attempt to terminate an epidemic. Each vehicle belongs to a ward of the city, whose men don traditional dress for the occasion. Those on the roof are there to fend off overhead wires.

      The wars had dispersed many of the adherents of the Imperial court, so that there were far fewer who resided in the capital, now called Kyoto, and the great annual festivals which had been carried on by these courtiers came to a halt. They were restarted by the townsfolk, and a wave of enthusiasm for participation in this sort of gay ceremonial spread through the cities—the Gion festival, which still trundles its great wagons through the Kyoto streets in July, is an instance of this (9). Other new entertainments were developed: the fūryū dances were among these and spread far and wide. They were great jollifications, often connected with the Buddhist bon festival in the height of the summer, when the spirits of the dead come back to earth and are entertained with singing and dancing. In the fūryū, disguises and fancy dress were assumed, and there was dancing in the streets. Women’s fashions became much simpler in form so that movement was easier, but the materials were more elegant in pattern, especially for the wives of merchants.

      It was a time when a lively trade was being carried on with the outside world. In 1543 the first Europeans, some Portuguese, had landed in Tanegashima, an island to the south of Kyūshū, and Francis Xavier came in 1549 to start the Jesuit mission. This was so successful that soon the Jesuits had virtual control of the city of Nagasaki, and churches were established even in Kyoto and Osaka. Christian emblems became popular as decorative motifs, and among the disguises worn in the fūryū, foreign garb, and foreign headgear in particular, had considerable vogue. Strange beasts were exhibited in menageries, and in Kyoto and elsewhere sideshows and puppet-shows were given, as well as crude dramatic performances. Farmers were doubtless less happy than the rest, but the spread of settled government, and a spirit of national unity, partly aroused by the contact with foreigners and in reaction to the threat against national security which their presence seemed to offer, led to an improvement in public morale. The painted screens that were a feature of the period very often illustrate the life of the times, mainly in the towns, with frequent scenes of much activity and jollity.

      These entertainments and festivities carried on into the seventeenth century, and became the ancestors of, among other things, the live popular drama. But the spirit of the nation changed, as the puritanical and coldly calculating rule of the Tokugawa family tightened its grip on the country after the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, and the defeat of his son in 1615. Foreign influences dwindled, and prohibitions and persecutions, started under Hideyoshi, became increasingly the lot of Christians in Japan. A largely Christian revolt at Shimabara, near Nagasaki, was put down in 1637, and everything was done to stamp out Christianity, more for political than for religious reasons. At the same time, a policy of seclusion was instituted, the aim of which was to avoid any foreign involvement that might lead to disturbance of internal peace. All Japanese overseas, whether engaged in trade in the Southeast Asian peninsula, or as wives or entertainers in Java, were cut off from the homeland, and the only contact with the outside world was through the small and closely supervised Dutch and Chinese trading-stations in Nagasaki, all other foreigners having been expelled. This policy of isolation was reinforced by a prohibition on the building of ocean-going ships, and no Japanese was allowed to leave Japan.

      This state of affairs lasted until 1853, when Commodore Perry’s ships appeared in Edo Bay, and forced the government to open some ports. Foreigners began to reappear in Japan. The Tokugawa regime, already under internal pressure, with the country seething with great restlessness, lasted only another 15 years before rule passed back to the young Emperor and his supporters: new ideas flooded in, bringing an end to the feudalism of traditional Japan.

      The Government after 1603

      A description of everyday life in traditional Japan would be difficult if not impossible to understand without some knowledge of how the government of the country was organized, and for this it is necessary to understand the position of the Tokugawas. The founder of their power, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a man of outstanding ability if not genius, had been an associate of both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, his predecessors. Under Hideyoshi, he had held the east of Japan, having a fortress at Edo (the present-day capital, Tokyo). When he formally became Shogun in 1603, it was to Edo that he transferred the seat of his government, partly so that it should be surrounded by his supporters and partly because, like some military rulers of earlier times, he considered that the atmosphere of the capital, Kyoto, with its devotion to the fine arts and its sophisticated living, would corrupt the simple virtues of his followers.

      After the death of Hideyoshi’s son in his stronghold of Osaka Castle, taken in 1615, the greatest immediate threat to Ieyasu’s power was removed. He died the next year, but members of the Tokugawa family succeeded one after another in the position of Shogun (which in effect became a hereditary one), having full control of all the land of Japan. Whatever threats there remained to this control, whether from the Emperor, religious groups, or military lords, were met with cunning and ruthless efficiency, the government being above all determined to keep the country at peace.

      The Emperor in his court at Kyoto was theoretically the source of power, and indeed it was he who gave the Shogun his title. This ancient title, an abbreviation of a longer expression with the meaning of “Commander-in-Chief for quelling the barbarians,” was in effect equivalent to military dictator of the country. Once the Tokugawas had taken over the reins of government, the Emperor’s duties were confined to bestowing this title and to conferring lesser titles on such persons as the Shogun nominated. His time was to be spent in literary and ceremonial pursuits; his needs, and those of his courtiers, were met by a grant of land to provide them with an income. His activities were supervised by the Kyoto Deputy, a government official, so that he was a mere figurehead, albeit one widely respected throughout the country. At no time did there cease to be an emperor, lip-service continued to be accorded him, and it was round his person that final revolt against the Tokugawa régime was