Samegai-juku in Maibara from Ōmi-meisyo-zue (1814) was the sixty-first of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

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 characteriz ...

Japan. It was located in the present-day city of

Maibara is a city in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 38,259 in 14761 households and a population density of 150 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Maibara is located in northcentral Shiga Pr ...

, Shiga Prefecture,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Samegai-juku has a very long history, and was mentioned by name in the '' Nihon Shoki'', which was completed in 720 AD, and in the even earlier ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' chronicle in connection with the

Yamato Takeru , originally , was a Japanese semi-legendary prince of the Yamato dynasty, son of Emperor Keikō, who is traditionally counted as the 12th Emperor of Japan. His name written in kanji can vary, in the '' Nihon Shoki'' it is spelled 日本武尊 a ...

mythology. It was located on the ancient

Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...

highway connecting the capital of

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mov ...

with the provinces of eastern Japan, and continued to be mentioned in the diaries and the poems of travelers in the Heian and

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

s. One of the main attractions of this station was the fresh and clear waters from the nearby Jizogawa river and many travelers thought of Samegai as a proper resting place.Machinami Kaidō Samegai-juku
Accessed July 23, 2007. In the early

, the system of post stations on the Nakasendō was formalized by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

in 1602, and it was a stopping place for traveling merchants () who originated from Ōmi Province. It was on the ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' ( ja, 参覲交代/参覲交替, now commonly written as ja, 参勤交代/参勤交替, lit=alternate attendance, label=none) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period of Japanese history.Jansen, M ...

'' route by various western ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' to-and-from the Shogun's court in

. The station was also a transportation hub, as the Jizogawa river was navigable by small boats and barges, and was used to carry goods. Samegai-juku had seven warehouses (''Tonyaba'') lining its banks, far more than most other stations. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 539 people in 138 houses, including one ''

honjin The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku.">Ōhara-shuku.html" ;"title="Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku">Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') dur ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 11 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at '' shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes The , sometimes translated as "Five Highways", were the five centrally administered routes, or ''kaidō'', that ...

''.

Modern Samegai-juku

There are still ten buildings remaining from the

today, giving visitors an idea of how the town looked hundreds of years ago.Samegai-juku Kankō & Rējā Gaido
. Shobunka Publications, Inc. Accessed July 23, 2007. There is also an archives museum located in a

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

former post office which gives greater detail to the post town's past.

Samegai-juku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige's ''

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

'' print of Samegai-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print is dominated by a large pine tree in the center of the composition, with the thatched roofs of several buildings in the background. These buildings are the famous ''Rokken jaya'' of Samegai-juku, six ''hatago'' built for the purposes of housing the retinues which accompanied ''daimyō'' processions (while the lord himself stayed at the ''honjin''). Two samurai retainers, one bearing a long spear, approach the buildings, while on the slope behind, four more have loads on their shoulders. The scene is observed by a seated farmer smoking a pipe, with the Hira Mountains in the background, beyond which is Lake Biwa.

Gallery

Samegai08s3200.jpg, old building in Samegai-juku Samegai03s3872.jpg, Panorama of Samegai-juku Samegai02s3872.jpg, Jizogawa 米原市醒井加茂神社 Kamo-jinja 2012.8.26 - panoramio.jpg, Kamo Jinja 醒井宿資料館(旧醒井郵便局) 2012.8.26 - panoramio.jpg, former Samegai Post Office, now a museum MWCS01s3200.jpg, Museum of Woodcarving in Samegai

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Kashiwabara-juku Kashiwabara-juku today was the sixtieth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. History Kashiwabara-juku ...

- Samegai-juku -

Banba-juku 280px, Main Hall of Renge-ji in Banba-juku was the sixty-second of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. ...

References

* * * *

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesTakamiya-juku on Kiso Kaido Road

Notes

{{Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Shiga Prefecture Ōmi Province Maibara, Shiga