''Hokuetsu Seppu'' (北越雪譜 "Snow stories of North Etsu Province"; translation: ''Snow Country Tales: Life in the other Japan'' by Jeffrey Hunter with Rose Lesser, Weatherhill, 1986) is a late

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 characterize ...

encyclopedic work of

human geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social i ...

describing life in the

Uonuma is a city located in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 35,027 in 13,289 households, and a population density of 37 persons per km2. Its total area is . The city is famous for its ''koshihikari'' rice, which comm ...

area of

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 ...

's old

Echigo Province was an old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen, Iwashiro, Kōzuke, Shinano, and Etchū Provinces. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Echigo''" in . It corresponds today to Niigata ...

, a place known for its long winters and deep snow. Hokuetsu Seppu - Figure of snow crystals

First published in

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 ...

in 1837, ''Hokuetsu Seppu'' was written by (1770–1842), a textile merchant and leading townsman of Shiozawa, a settlement on the old Mikuni Highway. The work, an immediate best seller that eventually encompassed seven chapters when a second volume was published in 1841, covers a wide range of local topics from the varieties of snow to the customs, lifestyles, local dialects, industries, and folk tales of Japan's

snow country is a novel by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel is considered a classic work of Japanese literature and was among the three novels the Nobel Committee cited in 1968, when Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Writ ...

. The text covers 123 themes from multiple angles and is also richly illustrated with detailed sketches. —a

gesaku is an alternative style, genre, or school of Japanese literature. In the simplest contemporary sense, any literary work of a playful, mocking, joking, silly or frivolous nature may be called gesaku. Unlike predecessors in the literary field, gesak ...

writer and brother of

Santō Kyōden Santō Kyōden (山東京伝, 13 September 1761 Edo – 27 October 1816) was a Japanese artist, writer, and the owner of a tobacco shop during the Edo period. His real name was Iwase Samuru (岩瀬醒), and he was also known popularly as Kyō ...

—assisted with publication of the text. He wrote the preface and drew the illustrations, which were based on Bokushi's originals. Some of the material in the book is of scientific interest. For example, it contains the first Japanese sketches of 86 types of natural

snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

flake

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

s. An 1840 edition included an additional 97 sketches that

Doi Toshitsura was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Edo period, who ruled the Koga Domain. He served as a ''rōjū'' for Tokugawa Ienari during the Tokugawa shogunate. References * Bolitho, Harold. (1974). ''Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Ja ...

made with the aid of a

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisibl ...

during his 20 years as

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 ...

of the

Koga Domain file:Koga castle kannonjikuruwa dorui.jpg, alt=, Site of Koga Castle, administrative headquarters of Koga Domain was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shimōsa Province, Honshū. The d ...

. Thereafter, the snow crystal became a popular design motif on

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

and on

chawan A ''chawan'' (; literally "tea bowl") is a bowl used for preparing and drinking tea. Many types of ''chawan'' are used in East Asian tea ceremonies. The choice of their use depends upon many considerations. History The ''chawan'' originated in ...

, Japanese tea bowls.

External links

Scans
of a c. 1840 manuscript at the

Waseda University Library The collections of Waseda University Library (早稲田大学図書館; ''Waseda Daigaku Toshokan'') form one of the largest libraries in Japan. Established in 1882, they currently hold some 5.6 million volumes and 46,000 serials. History The W ...

Sources

* Suzuki, Bokushi. ''Hokuetsu Seppu.'' Edited and annotated by Okada, Takematsu.

Iwanami Shoten is a Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo.Louis Frédéric, ''Japan Encyclopedia'', Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 409. Iwanami Shoten was founded in 1913 by Iwanami Shigeo. Its first major publication was Natsume Sōseki's novel ''Ko ...

. Tokyo, 1936; republished 1978. * Yamaoka, Kei. ''Echigonokuni Yukimonogatari: Suzuki Bokushi to Hokuetsu Seppu'' (Snow tales of Echigo province: the story of Suzuki Bokushi and his ''Hokuetsu Seppu''). Kobunsha. Tokyo, 1996. *Hunter, Jeffrey and Lesser, Rose, translators. ''Snow Country Tales: Life in the other Japan''. John Weatherhill Inc. Tokyo, 1986. {{ISBN, 0-8348-0210-4 Cultural history of Japan Edo-period works

See also

External links

Sources