The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese peopleRobertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
General
The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese people
Robertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
Agriculture -- Japan; Country life -- Japan; Japan -- Description and travel; Japan -- Social conditions
Happily there was nothing semi-official about the wrestling to which
we were invited later in the day. A special little platform had been
put up for us. The ring was made on rice chaff and earth. The
wrestlers squatted in two parties at opposite sides of the ring. They
did not wear the straw girdles of the professionals. Each man had a
wisp of cotton cloth tied round his waist and between his legs. One of
the best things about the wrestling was the formal introduction of the
competitors. A weazened little man with a tucked-up cotton kimono and
bare legs, but with the address and dignity of a "Nō" player,
proclaimed the names and styles--it seems that the wrestlers have a
fancy to be known by the names of mountains and rivers--in a fashion
which recalled the tournament. There was also another personage, with
a Dan Leno-like face and an extraordinary gift of contorting his legs,
who played the buffoon, and gyrated round the dignified M.C., who
remained unmoved while the audience laughed. It was evidently the
right thing for the prizes--they were awarded at the end of each
bout--to be presented as comically as possible; and some of the
Shakespearean humours which appealed so powerfully to the groundlings
at the Globe were enacted as if neither space nor time intervened
between us and the Elizabethans.
The bouts were not so fast as professional wrestlers are accustomed
to, but they were none the less exciting. The result was invariably in
some doubt and often entirely unexpected. The usual rule was that he
who threw his man twice was the winner. In some events, immediately a
wrestler had been thrown, a succession of other contestants rushed at
the victor, one after the other, without allowing him time even to
straighten his back. Some of the competitors were poorly developed but
the lankiest and skinniest were often excellent wrestlers. At an
interval in the wrestling the committee flung hard peaches to
wrestlers and spectators. I wanted to make some little acknowledgment
of the kindness of the young men's association in providing us with
our little platform, and it was suggested that autographed fans at
about a penny three-farthings apiece for about forty wrestlers would
be acceptable. This gift was announced on a long streamer. The funny
man of the ring also made a speech of welcome. I may add that the
young men's association had fitted up on the way to the scene of the
wrestling a number of special lanterns which bore efforts in English
by a student home for the holidays.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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