From Country to Nation: Ethnographic Studies, Kokugaku, and Spirits in Nineteenth-Century Japan

By Gideon Fujiwara

From Country to Nation tracks the emergence of the modern Japanese nation in the nineteenth century through the history of some of its local aspirants. It explores how kokugaku (Japan studies) scholars envisioned their place within Japan and the globe, while living in a castle town and domain far north of the political capital.

Gideon Fujiwara follows the story of Hirao Rosen and fellow scholars in the northeastern domain of Tsugaru. On discovering a newly "opened" Japan facing the dominant Western powers and a defeated Qing China, Rosen and other Tsugaru intellectuals embraced kokugaku to secure a place for their local "country" within the broader nation and to reorient their native Tsugaru within the spiritual landscape of an Imperial Japan protected by the gods.

Although Rosen and his fellows celebrated the rise of Imperial Japan, their resistance to the Western influence and modernity embraced by the Meiji state ultimately resulted in their own disorientation and estrangement. By analyzing their writings—treatises, travelogues, letters, poetry, liturgies, and diaries—alongside their artwork, Fujiwara reveals how this socially diverse group of scholars experienced the Meiji Restoration from the peripheries.

Using compelling firsthand accounts, Fujiwara tells the story of the rise of modern Japan, from the perspective of local intellectuals who envisioned their local "country" within a nation that emerged as an empire of the modern world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
• Release date: May 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781501753947

Book preview

FROM COUNTRY TO NATION

Ethnographic Studies, Kokugaku, and Spirits in Nineteenth-Century Japan

GIDEON FUJIWARA

CORNELL EAST ASIA SERIES

AN IMPRINT OF

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

Ithaca and London

CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures

Acknowledgments

Explanatory Notes

Introduction

1. Seeing the Country of Tsugaru in Northeastern Japan

2. Visions of Japan and Other Countries in the World

3. Hirata Kokugaku and the National Network

4. The Academy and the Tsugaru Disciples

5. Locating Tsugaru within Sacred Japan

6. Sacred Mountain, Landscape, and Afterlife

7. Supporting the Restoration in War and Ritual

8. Modern Society and the Tsugaru Disciples

Conclusion: Ethnography, Kokugaku, and Community in Modern Japan

Appendix

Selected List of Characters

Bibliography

Index

TABLES AND FIGURES

Table

1. List of Hirata Disciples in Tsugaru

Figures

Cover Image Tsugaru Customs Painting Scroll ( Tsugaru fūzokuga maki ) by Satō Senshi. Private collection. Digital data courtesy of Aomori Prefectural Museum.

1.1. Map: Early Modern Japan and Hirosaki

1.2. Map: Hirosaki domain

1.3. Hirosaki castle

1.4. Hirao Rosen portrait (Private collection)

1.5. Tsuruya Ariyo portrait ( Gappo sharimoishi )

1.6. Nebuta image ( Tsugaru Customs Painting Scroll )

1.7. Mount Iwaki worship image (Private collection)

1.8. Sled pulling image ( Tsugaru Customs Painting Scroll )

1.9. Winter work and tools image ( Tsugaru Customs Painting Scroll )

2.1. Steamship ( Taihei shinwa )

2.2. Map: Rosen’s Visit to Ezo

2.3. Matsumae Harbor image ( Hakodate kikō )

2.4. Official Minor official ( Yōi meiwa )

2.5. Guangdong officials image ( Hakodate kikō )

2.6. Mochi-pounding in the twelfth month ( Hakodate kikō )

4.1. Kanehira Kiryō image ( Gappo sharimoishi )

4.2. Turtles by Kanehira Kiryō

5.1. Thunder beast image, Aki province ( Yūfu shinron )

6.1. Mount Iwaki

6.2. Torii gate, Iwakiyama Shrine

6.3. Iwakiyama Shrine

7.1. Shōkonsai ; bird’s-eye-view diagram (Ono Wakasa letter).

8.1. Stone monuments honoring Tsuruya Ariyo and Hirao Rosen, Tenmangū Shrine, Nishi Shigemori, Hirosaki

9.1. Neputa festival, Hirosaki, August 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to everyone who supported me in writing this book. Peter Nosco inspired, then supervised, my studies of kokugaku and taught me to think for myself. He guided me at each stage as I wrote this book. Nam-lin Hur taught me Japanese history and the joy of grappling with primary sources. Kojima Yasunori introduced me to Hirao Rosen and helped me navigate the country of Tsugaru. Anne Walthall shared her insights on Hirata kokugaku and reviewed two versions of this book. Hasegawa Seiichi advised me on early modern history while hosting me at Hirosaki University. Helen Hardacre imparted knowledge of Shinto and Japanese religion, while John Bentley refined my readings of poetry and texts.

My thanks to Miyachi Masato for teaching me about Hirata kokugaku and late-Tokugawa history, and to Endō Jun, Yoshida Asako, Matsumoto Hisashi, Kate Wildman Nakai, Nakagawa Kazuaki, and Kumazawa Eriko who shared their invaluable knowledge at the monthly Hirata kenkyūkai hosted by the Hirata Shrine. Commuting between Hirosaki and Tokyo by midnight bus, I felt the power of scholarly networks. Kitahara Kanako, Namikawa Kenji, Watanabe Mariko, Honda Shin, Fukui Toshitaka, and Sato Akira generously supported my studies of Hirosaki. For permission to use their precious documents and artwork, I thank the Hirosaki City Public Library, Hirosaki City Museum, Aomori Prefectural Museum, and Aomori Prefectural Library. I thank the owners of Hirao Rosen’s and his disciples’ artwork for permission to use their images.

From my MA years studying Japanese Intellectual History at Tohoku University, I have been guided by Sato Hiroo and encouraged by Kirihara Kenshin, Motomura Masafumi, Okawa Makoto, Suzuki Hirotaka, and Nakajima Eisuke. Since my PhD program in Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, I am indebted to Harjot Oberoi, William Wray, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Joshua Mostow, Christina Laffin, Jessica Main, Chris Rea, David Edgington, Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, Glen Peterson, Nathen Clerici, Eiji Okawa, Robban Toleno, Jeffrey Newmark, Oleg Benesch, Ben Whaley, and Weiting Guo. I have learned much from Luke Roberts, David Howell, Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Laura Nenzi, Brian Platt, Caroline Hirasawa, Shion Kono, Job Jindo, Miyamoto Takashi, Hakoishi Hiroshi, William Puck Brecher, and Peter Flueckiger.

My sincere thanks to Cornell University Press and Cornell East Asia Series. Mai Shaikhanuar-Cota, Alexis Simeon, and Ange Romeo-Hall provided excellent editorial support and took great care of the images. Julene Knox and Chris Ahn copyedited my work. Mike Bechthold designed the maps. Any mistakes and shortcomings are my sole responsibility.

I express gratitude to my University of Lethbridge colleagues and friends. Special thanks to my fellow historians: Chris Burton, Chris Epplett, Sheila McManus, Carol Williams, David Hay, Craig Cooper, Chris Churchill, Janay Nugent, Kristine Alexander, Amy Shaw, Lynn Kennedy, Heather Stanley, and Chris Hosgood, as well as Darren J. Aoki, Carly Adams, and Malcolm Greenshields. I thank my Asian Studies colleagues, especially John Harding, who offered valuable feedback on my manuscript. Bev Garnett provided assistance and chocolates. I thank Darcy Tamayose, Madison Allen, and my many students at the U of L for their enthusiasm for learning and for our great discussions over the years.

The Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship allowed me to conduct archival research across Japan. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship supported my graduate studies and dissertation writing. The University of Lethbridge provided research and travel funds, including a subvention arranged by Claudia Malacrida and Erasmus Okine. I have also been funded by the Monbukagakusho (MEXT)/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), a UBC University Graduate Fellowship, and the Okamatsu Family Scholarship.

I wish to thank the following publishers for their permission to reproduce portions of what I previously published with them: The Journal of Japanese Studies; Brill; Iwata shoin; and Seibundō. Full publication data are included in the bibliography.

Thank you to my senpai, to all my friends, and to the Ecclesia for their prayers. I thank Mitsunaga Shunsuke, Hiroshi Karaki, Al Wolfe, and Kazumitsu Kawai.

I express heartfelt gratitude to my father, Kenichi Abraham, and my late mother, Michiko for their love and sacrifice. My sisters, Sara and Rina, and my brother, John, and their families have always listened and provided encouragement. Sugata Sueo and Hiroko have been there for us constantly.

My thanks to my wife Nobuko for her enduring love and support, together with our children, Kiyomitsu, Tabitha, and Leah for lots of love, laughter, and light.

Thanks and glory to God, my refuge and strength.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Japanese and Chinese personal names are written in the native order, starting with the surname. Following the conventions of Japanese scholarship, historical figures are often referred to by their given names, i.e., Rosen, Ariyo, and individuals from the contemporary period are referred to by their surname, i.e., Moriyama, Watanabe.

Macrons are used to indicate long vowels in Japanese, except in the case of commonly known place names such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Honshu, and Tohoku, and well-known terms like shogun and Shinto.

Dates are given according to the lunar calendar through 1872, i.e., the first month of 1600, and by the Gregorian calendar after January 1, 1873. I have converted Japanese years, but not months or days, to the Gregorian calendar. Personal age is reckoned in the Western manner, as zero at birth, one after a year, and so on.

The following abbreviations are used in the notes and bibliography:

AKS Aomori kenshi shiryō hen kinsei gakugei kankei . Edited by Henshū Aomori kenshi bukai. Aomori: Aomori kenshi tomo no kai, 2004.

MNZ Motoori Norinaga. Motoori Norinaga zenshū . Edited by Ōno Susumu and Ōkubo Tadashi. 20 vols. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1968–75.

NST Ienaga Saburō, Ishimoda Shō, Inoue Mitsusada, Sagara Tōru, Nakamura Yukihiko, Bitō Masahide, Maruyama Masao, Yoshikawa Kōjirō, eds. Nihon shisō taikei . 67 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970–.

SHAZ Hirata Atsutane. Shinshū Hirata Atsutane zenshū . Edited by Hirata Atsutane zenshū kankōkai hen. 21 vols. Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 2001.

Introduction

There was a fascinating group of intellectuals in the nineteenth century who lived in the country (kuni) of Tsugaru, otherwise known as Hirosaki domain, on the northeastern fringe of Japan’s main island of Honshu. They consisted of scholars of various backgrounds—merchants, Shinto priests, domainal samurai, and one female painter—who became posthumous disciples of the late Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), a man who had disseminated his teachings from his academy in Edo, present-day Tokyo, and engaged in kokugaku or Japan studies, the study of classical texts to glean an ancient Japanese Way.¹ Led by Tsuruya Ariyo (1808–71) and Hirao Rosen (1808–80), these intellectuals from the north imagined a dual identity that combined the local identity of their native Tsugaru with a renewed national identity for Imperial Japan. The juxtaposition of these two countries (kuni)—Tsugaru and Imperial Japan—affords us a nuanced look at how these individuals experienced a multilevel transition of community from early modern to modern times.

This book tracks the emergence of the modern Japanese nation in the nineteenth century through the history of some of its local aspirants. It tells the story of intellectuals on the periphery of the nation trying to secure a place for their community in a transforming Japan. Its protagonists are kokugaku scholars from Tsugaru, who wrote of their local country on the northeastern edge of the main island as being a part of the sacred nation of Japan. Following the opening of Japan from 1853 to 1854, Hirao Rosen, a merchant-class ethnographer and kokugaku scholar, visited the northern port of Hakodate in 1855 where he discovered a Japan situated within a world that included Americans, Europeans, and Qing Chinese. This led him to reorient his native Tsugaru’s place within the spiritual landscape of an Imperial Japan blessed by the gods, and to assert the reality of the spirit realm. His fellow aspirants were also active through 1868 and the Meiji Restoration. Fellow merchant Tsuruya Ariyo used poetry to link their sacred country to an enjoyable afterlife; a samurai fought and died for the emperor in the Boshin civil war; and Shinto priests used ritual to deify this fallen warrior along with the spirits of other loyalist martyrs. While Rosen and his Hirata school commoner-fellows celebrated the rise of Imperial Japan and the contributions of both Tsugaru and their academy, their resistance to Western ideas and institutions, as embraced by the Meiji state, ultimately resulted not in the community they envisioned but rather in their own disorientation and estrangement.

In the title and throughout the book, I primarily rely on the Japanese term kokugaku to refer to this school and its intellectual tradition, while occasionally referring to it as Japan studies and its practitioners as kokugakusha or Japan studies scholars. In doing so, I acknowledge the limitations of translating kokugaku as nativism or National Learning, as explained in the scholarship to date.² Indeed, no translation can fully and accurately represent the depth and variety found within this intellectual tradition, and even "kokugaku is a problematic and anachronistic label, projected back in time to name this school from its beginnings in the early Tokugawa period. As documented in the following pages, students of this scholarly tradition in Tsugaru and across Japan referred to their work by multiple names, including Ancient Learning" (inishie manabi), Imperial studies (mikuni manabi), Loyalist studies (kingaku), and "kokugaku."³ Nevertheless I argue that the growth of scholarship to date on the subject in Japan and globally allows us to refer to this intellectual tradition as kokugaku or Japan studies, while recognizing the above trends, problems, and debates within the growing historiography.

On Nation, Community, and Kokugaku

Scholarship has examined kokugaku, literally the study of the country, or nation, primarily in the singular context of Japan. In this regard, Ernest Gellner’s assertion that it is nationalism which engenders nations suggests to us one interpretation—which has been dominant to date—that focuses on how kokugaku scholars conceived principles about the nation prior to the rise of the Japanese nation in modern times.⁴ However, the scholarship and life experiences of Japan studies scholars of the Hirata school in Tsugaru demonstrate a more complex imagining of community—in the words of Benedict Anderson—on multiple levels not limited to the nation, and this book demonstrates the style in which these individuals conceived of their specific communities on multiple levels.⁵ Informed by Prasenjit Duara, I also challenge the linear, teleological history that privileges the nation, and introduce the Tsugaru kokugakusha as historical actors who appropriated dispersed meanings as their own in identifying with and mobilizing various representations of nation or community.⁶ Anthony D. Smith’s insight on the inner antiquity of modern nations is useful for understanding kokugaku and community, by showing how the premodern identities of ethnies, or ethnic communities, including their symbols, myth, memory, and territorial associations were fused with modern civic elements to generate the modern nation.⁷

This book sheds light on the ways in which intellectuals from diverse social backgrounds studied, imagined, and experienced a multiplicity of community, which included but was not limited to the nation of Japan. As demonstrated in debates between Luke Roberts and Mark Ravina, the early modern notion of community was multidimensional and multileveled and encompassed the country of Japan, which converged to varying degrees with the countries of the provinces and domains within the bakuhan system, the shogunate-domain political structure founded by the Tokugawa, and an emerging Imperial Japan centered on the emperor.⁸ Roberts presents the compelling case of the economic sovereignty of domains such as Tosa and its influential role in shaping the modern nation, while Ravina shows how Hirosaki officials acted with the autonomy of a country until their domain was eventually destroyed internally by imperialism.⁹ J. Victor Koschmann demonstrates how the ideology of Mito reformists affirmed the hierarchy of loyal service from domains to shogunate to imperial court, as well as asserted the domain’s autonomy as a microcosm that seriously challenged Tokugawa authority.¹⁰ Kären Wigen shows how Tokugawa state leaders and Meiji-era reformers appropriated the classical map for the purpose of administrative reform, while local literati made maps of the entire kuni, or province, of Shinano in Central Japan, envisioning it as a locus of identity.¹¹ Kawanishi Hidemichi chronicles how modern Japan, in its construction of a nation-state, cast the northeastern region of Tohoku to the periphery as a backward outland, and sheds light on the diversity found within the region and larger nation.¹² Further, Kawanishi, Namikawa Kenji, and M. William Steele critique the nation-state, as they study local history within a global context, shedding light on multiculturalism and recognizing subjective agency in minority groups within Japan.¹³

This book seeks to further our understanding of community in Japan, not as a monolithic entity, but as a collection of converging, multilayered parts. Scholarship to date has offered us various insights on the relationship between kokugaku and the nation. Susan Burns, writing in 2003,¹⁴ describes how kokugaku scholars imagined Japan in their readings of mythical texts before the emergence of the modern nation. Peter Flueckiger in 2011¹⁵ showshow Confucianists and kokugakusha utilized politicized poetry as a means to express their visions of an idealized society. In his monograph of 2013, Michael Wachutka¹⁶ chronicles how kokugaku scholars contributed to the formation of scholarly societies, as well as national studies of history, literature, and language in modern times. However, these works have focused on kokugaku thought primarily as it pertains to the singular community of Japan, and none has yet incorporated the above-outlined historiography, which reveals the dynamics and conflicts between the multiple layers of community not limited to the nation.

Scholars of Hirata kokugaku who have focused on local communities have regarded the local scene as a source of disciple-recruitment as chronicled by Itō Tasaburō in 1966;¹⁷ agrarian villages linked through Hirata nativist ideology to the Ancient Way as shown by Harry Harootunian in 1988;¹⁸ or a stage for disciples participating in a social movement surrounding the Meiji Restoration as demonstrated by Anne Walthall in 1998.¹⁹ This book examines how the local scene of Tsugaru was very much an imagined community and source of identity in its own right for Hirata disciples who inhabited the region and were active in local society. Whereas Wilburn Hansen in 2008²⁰ explores Atsutane’s ethnography of the other world, the current study considers the relationship between Hirao Rosen’s ethnographic studies and Hirata kokugaku to shed light on the interplay between various layers of countries—local, foreign, and national. The spirit world of yūmeikai—a major subject of focus for Mark McNally in 2005²¹—is examined here with an emphasis on how it connected local Tsugaru to the larger spiritual landscape of Japan.

The early 2000s ushered in a revival for studies in Hirata kokugaku, spear-headed by scholars working with the National Museum of Japanese History and then museum head Miyachi Masato who hosted a Special Exhibit in 2004 entitled "The Meiji Restoration and Hirata Kokugaku." With the generosity and cooperation of the Hirata family descendants who administer the Hirata Shrine located in Yoyogi, Tokyo, that venerates Atsutane, these scholars have introduced to the public over ten thousand pieces of new historical materials—including diaries, letters, memos, artistic images, and artifacts—surrounding Atsutane; his head school, the Ibukinoya academy; and his national network of students. Analyses of these new materials have yielded a more nuanced perspective on Hirata kokugaku in the context of early modern Japanese society.

Endō Jun’s monograph of 2008 was the first to study the new materials, and helped to place Hirata religious thought and practice within Tokugawa society, shedding light on the school’s relationship with the Yoshida and Shirakawa Shinto houses and their priesthoods.²² In 2012, Nakagawa Kazuaki offered new insights on the Hirata family and disciple communities during Atsutane’s lifetime and beyond into Meiji, drawing on analyses of texts and letters.²³ Later that same year, Yoshida Asako traced the social history of books and publishing within the academy to demonstrate the spread of Atsutane’s thought among his followers throughout Japan.²⁴ Endō, Nakagawa, and Yoshida have each introduced new sources and reevaluated Atsutane’s writings and the importance of his work broadly in terms of society, religion, publishing, and intellectual history in Tokugawa Japan. My book builds on this new research to focus in depth on the case of Tsugaru and the north—which have received limited attention to date—and to contribute new insights to the broader narrative. In 2015, Miyachi shed light on the thought and actions of disciples in Nakatsugawa in contemporary southeastern Gifu and the surrounding area, famous as the stage for the historical novel Before the Dawn (Yoake mae), in which followers of Hirata kokugaku and Revival Shinto (Fukko Shinto) pursued visions of a new era of imperial rule during which they demonstrated political subjectivity at the grassroots level.²⁵ Miyachi calls for intellectual histories to be written that are not limited to the canon of major thinkers, but which focus on the subjectivity and personalities of those who adopted and practiced this thought. I too draw on the new Hirata materials to document the reception of Hirata kokugaku and its practice in Tsugaru, and to contextualize this discourse of Tsugaru and Japan within their sociohistorical context.

This book bridges the gaps between separate bodies of scholarship on nation, multilayered community, and kokugaku by demonstrating how a diverse group of intellectuals not only studied and imagined Japan as a monolithic entity, but how they studied and engaged multiple countries—local, national, and foreign—while experiencing the transformation of community in nineteenth-century Japan. In relative seclusion, many kokugaku scholars imagined the Japanese self and foreign others based on the minimal number of sightings of foreigners in Tokugawa society possible under the state’s restrictive foreign policy. Hirao Rosen’s personal observations of Westerners and Qing Chinese in Hakodate after Japan was opened therefore reveal unique perspectives and experiences of community in a more global setting.²⁶ The arrival of US Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858) and the resulting treaties and opening of Japan’s ports significantly increased contact and relations between Japan and Western countries. As well established in recent decades, however, Tokugawa Japan was part of a larger regional order of commercial and diplomatic relations, and not fully isolated under a simplistic sakoku (closed country) policy. This book takes a fresh new perspective in examining the dynamic interplay between countries in transition from early modern to modern times as expressed through poetry and prose, artwork, historical writing, armed combat, and the carrying out of both religious ritual and reform.

Studying the Countries of Tsugaru and Japan and Chapter Overview

My research on the Tsugaru group of posthumous Hirata disciples allows me to join the discussions on statehood, nation, and the transition to modernity by emphasizing the dynamics between local and national identities. Moreover, I build on kokugaku studies in the West and Japan by introducing, as new players to discussions to date, the merchant-class painter and ethnographic researcher Hirao Rosen, merchant and poet Tsuruya Ariyo, and the Tsugaru group; new materials in the form of their essays, poetry, letters, diaries, liturgies, and artwork; and a new vantage point from the northeast in Tsugaru and Ezo, the northern island known today as Hokkaido.²⁷ Focusing on the Tsugaru group will provide an opportunity to examine the Meiji Restoration and the experience of modernity in the context of northeastern Japan.

This book has five major goals. The first goal is to highlight the diversity found within "sōmō no kokugaku, or grassroots Japan studies," as demonstrated through this community of intellectual townspeople centered on merchants.²⁸ Hirao Rosen explored the mysterious spirit realm as manifested in his locale in a series of essays; in contrast, Tsuruya Ariyo’s work included essays, waka poetry, and norito, or liturgies—ritual prayers on spirits, the afterlife, and the sacred landscape of Tsugaru. Second, this book pinpoints the dynamics seen in the juxtaposition of two identities—the local country of Tsugaru and the national country of Imperial Japan. Third, I uncover the links between ethnographic studies and kokugaku, which intertwine within the local-national dynamic, and identify ethnographic studies as a significant component of kokugaku. I analyze Rosen’s rich narratives of the strange and miraculous as witnessed and recorded across Tsugaru to illuminate his scholarly method, which integrates these two intellectual traditions. Fourth, this study documents the adoption of spirituality and religiosity found in Hirata kokugaku, and its expression through worship, writings, and the activities of the Shinto priesthood. In particular, I study Ariyo’s norito and his essay on enjoyment, as well as the Shinto funerary ritual to venerate fallen soldiers of the Boshin War to show how members of the group engaged both spiritually and intellectually with matters of worshipping the kami, or gods, and existential questions of life and death. Fifth, this study traces commoners’ experiences of modernity and their navigation through the multilayered transformation of local community from an early modern domain to a modern prefecture in Meiji Japan.

While sharing the attributes of a country with provinces and domains, Japan ultimately transcends this designation because it is also the protonation, or early modern nation, that transitioned to the modern nation through the Restoration and ensuing state-building. The Tokugawa shogu-nate represented central state authority and generally regarded the domains as subordinate regional political units, although they varied in terms of their political, economic, and military strength and sovereignty relative to the shogunate. Rather than asserting an either/or proposition on the balance of authority and sovereignty, this book focuses on how a group of intellectuals observed and identified with community at the multiple levels of castle town, domain, shogunate, and the nation of Japan, while observing contact with foreign countries. These Hirata disciples of Tsugaru pursued the collective interests of their community to favorably position their country within the larger, sacred country and nation of Imperial Japan. Wigen argues that an eighteenth-century geographer and fellow scholar made maps of their entire kuni, or province, of Shinano, representing it as an integral part of the emperor’s realm.²⁹ Here, I recognize that the term kuni can be applied to multiple levels of territorial and political entities, including provinces, but primarily apply it in reference to Tsugaru and other domains, as well as to Japan and other nations.

Due to Tsugaru’s remote location on the northeastern fringe of Honshu, local leaders and intellectuals from the early Tokugawa period onward harbored insecurities about their place on the periphery of the Japanese state, separated by vast distances from the political and cultural centers, namely Kyoto and Edo. This awareness fueled efforts to demonstrate the vital role of this country as well as prove its loyalty and justify its place within the larger state comprised of the shogunate and domains, the Imperial country, and the new Meiji state. Tsugaru represented both a hinterland of Japan’s main island and a gateway to the northern island of Ezo, homeland of the Ainu people, and was repeatedly called on by the shogunate for military duty in the north. In response, in late Tokugawa, Tsugaru frequently stationed its soldiers in Ezo to defend against attacks on the Japanese and, during the Boshin War, the port city of Aomori served as a base to stage the Imperial troops in preparation to attack shogunate forces in Hakodate. Hirosaki domain subjugated the Ainu people living on the Tsugaru peninsula, forcing many to assimilate to Japanese society. Furthermore, many from the region expressed anxieties about being far removed from the centers of culture and education. As we will see, therefore, the efforts of the Hirata disciples in Tsugaru to utilize Hirata kokugaku as a means to locate their own local country within the larger nation of Imperial Japan represent an intellectual and spiritual endeavor to justify the region’s place within the realm of the rightful ruler. As a result, the community, which the Tsugaru group of kokugaku scholars ultimately envisioned, identified with, and secured their place within, expanded from the country of Tsugaru to the nation of Imperial Japan.

Throughout this book I use Hirosaki or Hirosaki domain to refer to the political-geographical unit of the domain located in Mutsu province, within the political state of Tokugawa Japan. However, when referring to the same area in more general cultural, social, and geographical terms, I use Tsugaru which is the name of the region’s ruling family and, consequently, the name commonly used to refer to this domain and territory in early modern documents. The domain’s official journal refers to this land as "Tsugaru no kuni, literally country of Tsugaru, or Tsugaru ryō which is Tsugaru territory. When I juxtapose the local region of Tsugaru with the national state of Japan, I use Tsugaru to denote the region imagined by the Hirata disciples and their contemporaries, rather than the political unit of the Hirosaki domain. I make this distinction because I wish to use the official name of Hirosaki, adopted in modern scholarship to date, to be consistent with the Meiji government’s formal recognition of the region and its publicizing of it as Hirosaki domain" in 1870, along with the more than 260 other domains.³⁰ At the same time, I retain Tsugaru in keeping with the way in which this region is identified by the Hirata disciples and others in early modern times. While a case can be made for unifying these as one appellation for simplification, it is hoped that the dual naming reflects the complex multiplicity of identities. Note, I use Hirosaki castle town to refer to the urban center and capital of Hirosaki domain.

The main body of this book contains the following eight chapters. Chapter one chronicles the history of Hirosaki domain to late-Tokugawa times, charting rule by the Tsugaru clan and developments in the local politics, economy, society, and military defense of Ezo, which was inhabited by the Ainu. We will see how two merchant-class scholars navigated this history: Hirao Rosen established himself as a painter and ethnographic researcher, and Tsuruya Ariyo made his name as a poet in local literati circles. Chapter two begins by outlining Commodore Perry’s arrival and the opening of Hakodate port, then documents Rosen’s journeys to Ezo in 1855. On the northern island, Rosen observed Ezo locals and European, American, and Qing Chinese visitors and discovered Japan’s relativized position within the world. Chapter three introduces Hirata Atsutane and his thought, and examines the Ibukinoya academy, its succession by his descendants, and the national network of disciples. I read Hirata kokugaku through the lens of the Tsugaru disciples, thus highlighting their common interests, which included ethnographic research, attention to the north and spirits, and faith in the gods. Then in chapter four I chronicle the formation of the Tsugaru group of posthumous Hirata disciples and highlight Tsuruya Ariyo’s efforts as leader. This circle was devoted to poetry composition, study of the Ancient Way, and worship of their late teacher’s spirit, while retaining some scholarly autonomy.

Chapter five explores the dynamics between ethnographic research and kokugaku since the late eighteenth century, then focuses on Rosen’s three major works from 1855 to 1865: Strange Tales of Gappo, Echoes of the Valley, and New Treatise on the Spirit Realm. The interplay between Tsugaru and Imperial Japan culminates with Rosen’s full engagement with Hirata kokugaku, following his enrollment as an official Hirata disciple. Rosen recounted the strange, mysterious, and spiritual matters in local society, and utilized the Hirata kokugaku teachings to thrust Tsugaru into the larger spiritual landscape of Imperial Japan. In chapter six, the imagining of the dual countries of Tsugaru and Imperial Japan is examined in Ariyo’s poetry and prose about the sacred Mount Iwaki and the gods who preside over the peaks. His Enjoyment Visible and Invisible emphasizes enjoyment as the key to living a meaningful life extending from this world to the afterlife, while his norito reflect his reverence for gods and ancestors.

Chapter seven tells the history of the Meiji Restoration in Hirosaki domain. Amid the turmoil and uncertainty of the Boshin civil war, Hirosaki domain transferred allegiance from the shogunal forces to the new government and demonstrated its loyalty to the court by fighting rival Morioka. Hirata disciple Yamada Yōnoshin (1843–68) died in this battle. Shinto priests then performed the shōkonsai (call back the soul) funerary ritual to honor these soldiers who died for the emperor. The eighth and final chapter illustrates how the Tsugaru group experienced modernity in the early Meiji period, including the transformation of their country into a prefecture within the modern nation of Imperial Japan. The astonishing growth of the Hirata academy followed by its precipitous decline reflect failed attempts to make Shinto and kokugaku the central ideology of the Meiji state, which increasingly adopted Western thought and institutions for modernizing society. Ariyo served as leader of the group until his death. Shinto priests carried out the Separation of Shinto and Buddhism reform, and Shimozawa Yasumi (1838–96) was commissioned to immortalize Tsugaru history by compiling histories and poetry anthologies. While holding fast to his devotion to the gods and Imperial studies, Rosen was startled by the drastic changes in modern society, which appeared to him increasingly alien to the true nature of Japan.

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1. The Japanese term kokugaku has been variously translated into English as nativism, National Learning, and exceptionalism. I prefer to translate kokugaku as Japan studies, given that this school covered diverse fields—including philology, poetry, literature, myth, history, ethnographic studies, spirituality, and religious practice—and people in the early nineteenth century used various terms for it aside from kokugaku. Broadly speaking, kokugaku refers to the study of Japan. Specifically, it refers to the study of classical texts to glean an ancient Japanese way. During the Tokugawa period, the kokugaku school emerged from its earlier roots of Japanese studies more generally, partly in reaction to officially sponsored Neo-Confucianism as well as the Confucian Ancient Learning school kogaku, the latter of which influenced kokugaku scholarship in terms of its methodology. Kokugaku studies began primarily as literary and philological studies in Japan in the seventeenth century, but became increasingly religious and ideological in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as greater attention was devoted to identity formation based on myth and history, which essentialized Japanese identity as sacred and unique. Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1990), 9.

2. I also acknowledge Mark McNally’s argument for the use of exceptionalism to highlight the primary objective of some kokugaku scholars who asserted that Japan, its people, and culture were exceptional, unique, and superior in the world, as opposed to identifying this school’s activities with the specific cases of anti-foreign nativism that surface in mid-nineteenth-century Japan and the United States. Mark Teeuwen, Kokugaku vs. Nativism, Monumenta Nipponica 61, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 227–42. Mark Thomas McNally, Like No