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is a Japanese
historic
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
term referring to
visually-impaired
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment†...
Japanese women, most of whom worked as musicians.
Etymology
The ideographs for mean "blind" and "woman." The
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
are so because the individual ideograph for already existed. is most likely derived from , which also means "blind woman" ( is a formal
second-person pronoun). Although the term can be found in medieval records, other terms such as , were also in use (especially in written records) until the modern era. In spoken language, the term is usually suffixed by an
honorific
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
: , , , etc.
Organizations
From the
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...
(1600–1868), goze organized themselves in a number of ways. Few large-scale organizations have been found in urban areas, though during the nineteenth century some documents speak of a goze association in the city of
Edo. In
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
and some regional towns, goze were sometimes informally linked to pleasure quarters, where they were called to perform their songs at parties.
Goze organizations developed most in rural areas and continued to exist in
Niigata (once known as Echigo) and
Nagano Nagano may refer to:
Places
* Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan
** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture
*** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics
*** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano
*** Nagano Universi ...
prefectures well into the twentieth century (the last important active goze, , died in 2005 at age 105).
From the Edo period onward, other goze groups were found from
Kyushu in the south to the
Yamagata and
Fukushima
may refer to:
Japan
* Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture
** Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan
***Fukushima University, national university in Japan
*** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...
prefectures in the north. Blind women farther north tended to become
shamans
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...
(known as , , or ) rather than goze. Large and important groups were especially active in the
KantÅ and surrounding areas, in what are today
Gunma
is a prefecture of Japan located in the KantÅ region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima P ...
,
Saitama,
Chiba,
Shizuoka
Shizuoka can refer to:
* Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture
* Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture
* Shizuoka Airport
* Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture
...
,
Yamanashi, and
Tokyo-to
Tokyo (; ja, æ±äº¬, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, æ±äº¬éƒ½, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.4 ...
. Other groups were formed in the Nagano and
Gifu prefectures, and the
Aichi
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefecture ...
prefecture farther south. In addition to the well-known groups of Niigata prefecture, groups existed in other areas along the western seaboard, including
Toyama,
Ishikawa, and
Fukui prefectures.
Suzuki ShÅei (1996 and elsewhere) divides the organizations of Echigo goze into three main types:
* goze organizations such as the one in Takada (today the city of
JÅetsu), in which a limited number of goze houses (17 in the early twentieth-century) were concentrated in the city and in which each house was led by a master teacher who passed on the rights to her position and property to her top (or favorite) student after her death. Girls who wished to become goze had to move to the city and enter the house (fictitious family) of the goze teacher. Sometimes they were adopted by the teacher as a daughter.
* Organizations such as the one centered on
Nagaoka, in which goze remained in the countryside and often their own home, after completing their apprenticeship with a goze elsewhere. These goze teachers were loosely linked to one another by their relation to the goze head in Nagaoka (a position assumed by a goze who, after becoming the head, assumed the name Yamamoto Goi). Once each year the goze of the Nagaoka group assembled at their headquarters, the house of
Yamamoto Goi, to celebrate a ceremony known as in which their history and the rules of their organization were read out loud. They deliberated on what to do about members who had broken rules, ate a celebratory meal, and performed for one another.
* Organizations such as the one found in
Iida (Nagano prefecture), in which the position of head rotated among members.
Rules
Goze organizations existed to allow blind women a degree of independence in pursuing their careers as musicians (or in some cases, massage). The rules that governed Echigo goze were said to have been decreed by ancient emperors, but no copy of these rules earlier than the late seventeenth century have been found. The central rules governing goze behavior was to obey teachers, be humble towards donors, and not engage in activities that might contravene the morality of the feudal society in which goze operated. Although not stipulated in detail, perhaps the most important rule was
celibacy. If such an offense was detected, it easily resulted in the expulsion of a goze from the group. These stipulations were made and enforced for several reasons: if a goze did have a lover or if she married, she would have financial support from an outside source, and thus needed no further charity. Furthermore, the stipulations were developed to protect the image of the goze group as a legitimate
non-profit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
and protect it from the appearing to be, or devolving into, a
prostitution ring.
Rules were also necessary in part because many goze spent a good part of the year on the road, touring from village to village and depending on farmers to allow them to spend the night and use their houses as makeshift concert halls. Reputation and recognition as an officially sanctioned, upright occupation was thus of great importance in making the career of the goze possible. In addition, because Edo-period society was rife with discrimination against women, itinerants, musicians, and anyone with a visual disability, membership in an association that was recognized as legitimate and honorable was an important credential which allayed suspicions that the woman might be a wandering vagabond or prostitute. HonjÅ HidetarÅ (born 1945) and Kosugi Makiko (born circa 1940) were two of many renowned professional folk song () performers who, in their childhoods, were criticized by their parents for "acting like goze".
Songs
The repertory of most goze has been lost, but songs of goze from the Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, and Kagoshima prefectures have been recorded. The vast majority of these recordings are from what is today Niigata prefecture.
The repertory of Niigata (Echigo) goze can be divided into several distinct categories:
* : Long
strophic
Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, ...
songs in a 7-5 syllable meter, often based on archaic tales and sometimes with a
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
message. The melody to which these texts were sung was most likely a variant of the Echigo folk song . These songs were probably created during the eighteenth century, though elements of the texts are far older. They were usually only transmitted from one goze to another.
* : Long strophic songs in a 7-7- syllable meter. Texts usually feature double love-suicides or other melodramatic themes. The melody to which these texts were sung is a variant of the Echigo folk song . did not appear until the mid-nineteenth century. Although they were a highly typical goze song, they were sometimes also sung by other types of performers.
* : A functional designation applying to any song used by goze as they made their way from door to door collecting donations. Goze usually sang whatever inhabitants of a given area wished to hear, but in the Niigata goze repertory, some unique songs were used exclusively for such purposes.
* : Rural songs, usually with no known composer, learned by the populace informally. Many types of folk songs constituted an important part of the goze repertory, and were especially useful in livening up parties when goze were summoned to perform.
* "Classical" or "semi-classical" songs: Most goze also knew songs belonging to genres such as , , , or . Such songs were often learned from professional musicians outside the goze community.
* To please their customers, goze would also sing various popular songs. Sugimoto Kikue of Takada (1898–1983), who was designated a
Living National Treasure in 1971, added to her repertoire in 1922 two recently composed popular songs (both using a folk-song-style pentatonic scale), and .
See also
*
Lady Saigo
*
Haru Kobayashi
* ''
Ballad of Orin'' (1977 film)
* ''
Ichi
The International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) is a system of classifying procedure codes being developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is currently available as a beta 3 release. The components for clinical documentat ...
'' (2008 film)
Notes
References
* Fritsch, Ingrid. “The Sociological Significance of Historically Unreliable Documents in the Case of Japanese Musical Guilds,†in Tokumaru Yosihiko, et al. eds, ''Tradition and its Future in Music''. Report of SIMS 1990 Ōsaka, pp. 147–52. Tokyo and Osaka: Mita Press.
* Fritsch, Ingrid. “Blind Female Musicians on the Road: The Social Organization of ‘Goze’ in Japan,†''Chime Journal'', 5 (Spring) 1992: pp. 58–64.
* Fritsch, Ingrid. ''Japans Blinde Sänger im Schutz der Gottheit MyÅon-Benzaiten''. München: Iudicium, 1996, pp. 198–231.
*
* Groemer, Gerald. ''Goze: Women, Musical Performance, and Visual Disability in Traditional Japan.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
* Groemer, Gerald. ''Goze to goze-uta no kenkyÅ«'' (瞽女ã¨çž½å¥³å”„ã®ç ”究). Nagoya: University of Nagoya Press (Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai), 2007. Vol. 1: Research; vol. 2: Historical materials.
* Harich-Schneider, Eta. “Regional Folk Songs and Itinerant Minstrels in Japan,†''Journal of the American Musicological Society'', no. 10 (1957), pp. 132–3.
* Harich-Schneider, Eta. “The Last Remnants of a Mendicant Musicians Guild: The Goze in Northern Honshū (Japan).†''Journal of the International Folk Music Council'', 11 (1959): 56–59.
*
* KatÅ, Yasuaki (åŠ è—¤åº·æ˜). ''Nihon mÅjin shakai-shi kenkyÅ«'' (日本盲人社会å²ç ”究). Miraisha, 1974.
* SaitÅ, Shin’ichi (斎藤真一). '' Goze: mÅmoku no tabi geinin'' (瞽女 盲目ã®æ—…芸人). Nippon HÅsÅ Shuppan KyÅkai, 1972.
* SaitÅ, Shin’ichi. ''Echigo goze nikki'' (越後瞽女日記). Kawade ShobÅ Shinsha, 1972.
* Sakuma, Jun’ichi (ä½ä¹…間淳一). ''Agakita goze to goze-uta shÅ«'' (阿賀北瞽女ã¨çž½å¥³å”„集). Shibata-shi: Shibata-shi Bunkazai ChÅsa Shingikai, 1975.
* Sakuma, Jun’ichi. ''"Goze no minzoku"'' (瞽女ã®æ°‘ä¿—) (''Minzoku mingei sÅsho'', vol. 91). Iwasaki Bijutsu-sha, 1986.
* Suzuki, ShÅei (鈴木æ˜è‹±). ''Goze: shinkÅ to geinÅ'' (瞽女 信仰ã¨èŠ¸èƒ½). Koshi ShÅin, 1996.
* Suzuki, ShÅei, et al., eds. ''Ihira Take kikigaki: Echigo no goze'' (伊平タケèžã書 越後ã®çž½å¥³). KÅdansha, 1976.
External links
Musizierende Frauengemeinschaften in Japan- Beobachtungen von Studenten der musikwissenschaftlichen Genderforschung an der
Universität Paderborn und der
Hochschule für Musik Detmold
The Hochschule für Musik Detmold is a university-level music school situated in Detmold, Germany.
Academics
The Hochschule offers performance degrees in composition, all orchestral instruments, piano, voice, opera, art-song, conducting, as we ...
* Two old photographs from the late Edo period of models posing as
* A video of three on the road; broadcast in 1971, probably filmed earlier
{{Authority control
Japanese women musicians
Japanese musicians
Japanese traditional music
Japanese words and phrases
Shamisen players
Japanese blind people
Blind musicians