For a different perspective on the lifestyles of the Heian nobility . . .
なぜ、『源氏物語』には食事・入浴の話がないのか
Naze, Genji monogatari ni wa shokuji, nyūyoku no hanashi ga nai no ka?
Why is there no talk of food or bathing in the Tale of Genji?
A translation by Gregory Smits of Chapter 3, Section 1 of Higuchi Kiyoyuki 樋口清之, Himitsu no nihonshi 秘密の日本史 (Secret history of Japan), Shōdensha, 1988, pp. 29-36. Translator’s notes and additional comments appear in brackets [ ]. All links are optional.
Murasaki Shikibu’s nostrils were completely black
If the longest selling book in the world were the Bible, in Japan it would surely be the Tale of Genji. Because it has hardly declined in popularity in the 1000 years since it was written, the Tale of Genji cannot be compared with Das Kapital [Marx’s Das Kapital is generally regarded as having been the best-selling book of the twentieth century]. Moreover, since the Meiji period, Genji has appeared in such derivative forms as stage performances, movies, and colloquial translations (and indeed, literary giants such as Yosano [Akiko], Tanizaki [Jun’ichirō], Funabashi, and Enchi [Fumiko] have all translated it into modern Japanese).
Even today, there are people who are completely carried away by the tale, heave a nostalgic sigh and think that they would like to have been born in the Heian period. However, at the risk of sounding overly protective, I can assure you that not having been born in the Heian period is much better for your physical wellbeing. Obviously, it is impossible to transport ourselves back in time, but more to the point, however much our present lifestyle causes us to suffer, it is still better than the Heian period. And the present age allows us to hope for a better tomorrow. After you have understood what I explain below about the situation in the Heian period, I think you will realize that my admonition is no lie.
However, owing to the spread of narrative picture scrolls, the world of the Tale of Genji appears glittering and romantic. One reason is that the author, in her expressions and in the way she handles the characters, gives this impression, but I think that this [elegant] world—even at that time—was nothing but an illusion.
The father of Murasaki Shikibu [978?-1026?] the woman who wrote Genji, was Fujiwara-no-Tametoki [died, 1029], Governor of Echizen, and her mother was the daughter of Fujiwara-no-Tamenobu, Governor of Settsu. In other words, Murasaki was born into the status of zuryō [provincial governors who resided in those localities while on duty], the lowest rung of the attendant nobility. [Zuryō were high-ranking officials in the overall bureaucracy but were the lowest of the elite group of officials who served the emperor directly as courtiers. Their court rank would typically be the fifth grade. They were on the borderline between the elites officials in the emperor’s court and the large numbers of rank-and-file bureaucrats occupying the lower levels of officialdom.] However, [her husband, Fujiwara] Nobutaka died [in 1001] while Murasaki was giving birth to her daughter Kenshi. These circumstances forced Murasaki into a lonely lifestyle filled with uncertainty as she raised her daughter alone.
It was after this time that she began creating her masterpiece. Moreover, she worked in the night, while her child slept, writing while staying close to the lamp. Out of this poor, lonely, and dark lifestyle came something quite the opposite: a masterpiece featuring the unfolding of a dream-like romance between an ideal male protagonist and over twenty beautiful women (though some unexpectedly ugly women like Suetsumuhana also make an appearance), interwoven with images of women consumed by their anxieties and the providential workings of karma. Consisting of roughly forty-five fascicles, it is truly worthy of a life’s work, with incomparable excellence in the quality of writing and overall sense, I agree with those who rate Genji as the best literary work.
However, to understand the lifestyle of the lowest rung of the attendant nobility of that day, would reveal the darkness of the author’s personal situation, which was incompatible with the setting of her novel. The lamps of the time consisted of an oil-filled vessel attached to a candle holder, in which two wicks burned. The resulting light was about two candles in strength. Any distance from the light source greater than about fifteen centimeters would render reading impossible. What an unflattering image: Murasaki Shikibu’s nostrils must have been jet back from the oil smoke.
Having accompanied her parents during their terms as provincial governors, her life after their deaths must have been difficult. Therefore, she later became an attendant of [royal consort] Jōtōmon-in [988-1074]. To put it in today’s terms, this widow’s job search was a success. Because she had to work to get by, she began her great literary project. I suspect that Murasaki created this fantasy world as an alternative world for which she yearned—in contrast to the reality of her situation. [Note: Jōtōmon-in gathered around her as attendants some of the best writers of the time. Her entourage functioned as Japan’s first literary salon.]
Average Life Expectancy of the Time: Women, 27; Men, 32
What I particularly have in mind here is that actual living conditions in and around the imperial court were, by today’s standards, unimaginably unsanitary and unnatural. According to books on the history of epidemic disease and medical treatment, aristocratic women, on average, died at age 27 or 28, while men died at age 32 or 33. In addition to the infant mortality rate being extremely high, the rate of women dying at childbirth was also high. Another reason for these figures was physical weakness and a lack of exercise.
Murasaki Shikibu herself died at around age 40. Her lifespan was slightly shorter than that of Sei Shōnagon, but by the standards of the time was a long, full lifespan. Murasaki, who caught a glimpse of the elder Sei Shōnagon living beyond 40, expressed the sentiment that women would be better off dying early. In addition to the attitude that women loose their value as women when their charm deteriorates, in fact, there surely would have been very few white-haired, wrinkled old grandmothers in existence. Looking at the specific causes of death at the time, tuberculosis (possibly including pneumonia cases) accounted for 54%, beriberi for 20% [image], and diseases of the skin (including smallpox) for 10%. According to a courtier diary account of that time, his scabs itched so much that he could not sleep, so he spent the whole night riding a horse around the base of Mt. Higashi.
The Awful Smelling Heian Nobility
Tuberculosis is caused by a vitamin A deficiency [Say what??], and beriberi by a deficiency in vitamin B—together they indicate a nutritional imbalance. The reason was that their diet was poor. First, regarding the meat of four-legged animals, owing to Buddhist prohibitions against killing, banishment was the [most severe] punishment, and [the Heian elites] did not eat chicken [and other such meat]. Animal protein came almost exclusively from dried fish and shellfish. However skillfully one might reconstitute these products, their rate of absorption in the digestive tract is low. And a lack of physical activity further slowed digestion. Rice consisted of steamed, half-husked grains, and, while it did provide calories, it was also hard to digest. Fresh seafood was rare. Their only salvation was that at each meal they ate seaweed. The long hair of Heian women is thought to have resulted in large part from young girls slicking down their hair each day with an extract from the Sanekazura tree [a type of magnolia] and the iodine obtained from the seaweed.
This matter comes up in a passage from the Ōkagami about Fujiwara-no-Yoshiko’s marrying into the court of Emperor Murakami: “To enter the palace she got in a palanquin. Her body was inside, but the train of her hair extended all the way to the base of the pillar in her mother’s room.” She must have looked much like a long-tailed rooster. Based on the size of aristocratic houses, her hair must have been nearly five meters in length. Long hair was the foremost aspect of beauty for women of the time. The cropped hairstyles of many women today would, in Heian times, been an indication of a “tare-ama” (a half-hearted nun), a woman who has half-way despaired of the world and given up. In any case, there is no point in cultivating such log hair exclusively if one’s body is frail and unhealthy.
Furthermore, the custom of bathing was not widespread among the nobility of that time. For one thing, there are no descriptions in Genji of eating or of bathing. Sei Shōnagon wrote of the situation in which powder adhering to a woman’s neck, being red, floats up and stains the collar of her robe. In the summertime, the aristocrats might sprinkle water on themselves or wipe with wet towels, but especially in the winter, there was not custom of immersing one’s self in water. A steam bath was sometimes a treatment for illness, but their skin was dirty and smelly.
This situation gave rise to mixed perfumes called takimono, but no mater which scents one blends into the mix, in the end, body odor and artificially-created scents co-exist. Although beyond the imagination of people today, if a Heian noblewoman were to approach you, her body odor would likely be powerful. Moreover, whenever they caught colds, they would chew on raw garlic, increasing the odor level even more. A passage in Genji clearly illustrates this point: a woman writing a reply to a man asks that he please not stop by tonight since she reeks from eating garlic.
Please accept my apologies for discussing one unpleasant thing after another, but we can also suppose that the interior of the palace and the aristocrats’ rooms also smelled bad. The reason is that toilets were not in locations separated from the living areas. Instead, the aristocrats utilized rectangular “privy boxes” (boxes in which sand had been spread along the bottom) inside the rooms. On occasions such as winter nights, instead of taking the trouble to haul the boxes to the Kamo River for emptying, they would remain in the rooms. In such instances, should someone stop by for a visit, the house would probably smell bad despite setting out perfume.
Finally, there is the matter of the winter cold. The late Heian period corresponds to the time when Japan’s climate was at is coldest and was much colder than today. Nevertheless, the palaces, and, of course, the individual aristocratic residences featured wooden floors and no ceiling boards. In wide, expansive rooms of 20-30 tsubo [one tsubo = 3.95 square yards or 3.31 square meters], a subitsu (rectangular hibachi) or a hioke (an oval-shaped hibachi) would hardly be sufficient for warming. When sleeping, in addition to today’s futon, they used a large cloth called a fusuma. However, many nights would have been cold, and sleep would have been difficult. In that case, it would probably not be long before [these aristocrats] would have started conjuring up vengeful spirits and mononoke in their minds.
--end--
Chapter 3 (HIST 157)
