Contents This page: Of Historical Note Quiz Time! Q: Which of Fujino's four main bridges was the longest of its type in Japan?

Of Historical Note Like most parts of Japan, archaeological evidence shows that the Fujino area has been settled for thousands of years: numerous prehistoric communities have been documented along the Sagami River, including surveyed sites in Fujino's communities of Yoshino, Magino, and Nakura. Some of the objects discovered during the excavations can be seen on display at the Fujino Museum of Local History, housed in the old inn called the Fujiya. Possibly one of the earliest specific mentions of the Fujino area in historical records is found in the "register of the kami" (jinmyôchô) included as part of the ancient "Codes of the Engi Era," or Engi shiki, a body of legal, religious and other ceremonial regulations compiled in the early years of the Engi period (901-922 ). In the relevant section, the book records the deity of a shrine called the Iwatateo. Unfortunately, there are now two shrines by that name in Fujino, plus another in Sagamihara, and debate has whirled about which—if either—of these three shrines the record relates to. From the late Heian period (794-1191), the Fujino area lay on one of the major roads connecting the various provincial capitals (kokufu). As a result, that road, later to be known as the Kôshû Kaidô had the role of carrying commerce, taxes and culture between the capital region (Kyoto) and the eastern provinces, although the district was still considered on the frontier, and the concept of a "major" road must be taken with a grain of salt. The Kamakura Ura Kaidô (an alternate "back" road to Kamakura) also passed through present-day Akiyama near the southern border of Fujino, and as the warrior clans of the east extended their influence, the Fujino area came under their sway. The name of Fujino's southern community of Magino means "pasture field," indicating its status as grazing land for stock animals, and historical records have been found indicating that the village was known as a large horse-breeding area for the warriors during that period; the village was required to supply thirty horses to the warrior government in Kamakura as tax each year. Perhaps one reminder of that earlier period is the large number of stone roadside memorials to Batô Kannon, the "horse-headed Kannon." In the era of warring provinces (sengoku: 1467-1568), Fujino lay on the border between the provinces of Kai, controlled by the Takeda clan, and Sagami, controlled by the Odawara Hôjô. As a result, the area is said to have witnessed numerous fights, including several pitched battles around the crucial passage of the Kozaru Bridge, (predecessor of today's Yoshino Bridge in the Yoshino district), which crossed the Sawai River and served as an important point of passage along the Kôshû Kaidô. Other battles are said to have occurred at nearby Mt. Jinba. Although Jinba is normally written today using characters meaning "warhorse," it originated in the period of warring provinces with a different set of characters meaning "battle camp," since the Takeda army from neighboring Yamanashi set up a battle perimeter in the area when attacking the Hôjô clan.

Fujino Museum of Local History Iwatateo Shrine Batô Kannon

Yoshino Bridge

Tokugawa Ieyasu founded his warrior government at Edo (present-day Tokyo) in the early years of the 17th century, and for the next 350 years, the road through Fujino was known as one of the five major arteries connecting the far-flung corners of Japan. Referred to variously as the Kôshû Kaidô or Kôshû Dôchû (both names indicating that it was the post road to Kai Province), the road began at Nihonbashi in central Edo, extended to the first post stop at Naitô Shinjuku, and by most accounts, ended at the city of Kôfu. A subsequent connecting stretch went on from Kôfu to Shimo-Suwa, where it met the Naka-Sendô, another of the five major post highways. The overall length of the road from Nihonbashi in Edo to Shimo-Suwa was said to be 53 ri, or about 208 km, and the Yoshino post town (the Yoshino district of present-day Fujino) lay precisely in the middle of the main Edo-Kôfu stretch of the road, 18 ri from Edo and 18 from Kôfu. Of the total 45 stations of the Kôshû Kaidô, Yoshino was the sixteenth from Nihonbashi. In addition to the main post town of Yoshino, Fujino had a second official station called Sekino, located in Obuchi village west of the present-day JR station area. The post station itself was of small scale and not much used, however. Sources indicate that it was established solely because it was the nearest community to Sagami's border with the neighboring province of Kai (Yamanashi), and the authorities apparently considered it important to have a post station right beside the border. While the Kôshû Kaidô was officially considered one of the main roads in early modern Japan, it was far less traveled than the Tôkaidô made famous by Hiroshige's well-known series of prints. In fact, the feudal lords of only three domains used the road for their required "alternate attendance" (sankin kôtai) treks to Edo. Even so, Yoshino is said to have enjoyed relatively high times during the Edo period. Like other official post stations, it was required to maintain official main and secondary inns (called honjin and wakijin) for use by feudal lords and other officials of the government, and also to furnish post horses and corvée labor from surrounding villages. In addition to the rather ornate five-story honjin, the town sported numerous other public inns and "entertainment halls" as well, including six official brothels, not to mention a considerable number of unlicensed but tacitly approved "entertaining women" known as meshimori-onna, who worked at the inns. A writer of the period described Yoshino as having "hundreds of alluring fille de joie, with numerous inns aligned one next to the other." In short, Yoshino enjoyed a reputation as a "fun" town, if you were a man, at least. Young women, on the other hand, were said to come to Yoshino from as far away as the lower Tsukui area to work in some of the inns and learn "polite manners." Two devastating fires, one in 1890 and another on the last day of 1896 destroyed just about everything of the Yoshino area on the north side of the river, and today, about the only pre-Meiji building remaining is the earthen storehouse or dozô formerly attached to the honjin (it can be seen along Kôshû Kaidô directly across from Fujino's Museum of Local History located in the old inn called the Fujiya. As noted above, "Fujino" was not itself the name of the post town on the Kôshû Kaidô, but a small community neighboring the official post town, which was called Yoshino. Today, the situation is reversed: Yoshino is merely one of the geographical communities making up the town of Fujino. The turnaround began with the building of an intermediate station on the Chûô Railroad between Sagamiko (then called Yose) on the east, and Uenohara on the west in 1945. Fujino was selected as the site for the new intermediate station due to its topography, and with that, Yoshino's star quickly waned. Yoshino had already formed a partial merger with Obuchi (including the Fujino area) and Sawai in 1889, and in 1955 it also merged with the remaining four nearby villages of Hizure, Nakura, Magino, and Sanogawa. The name Fujino was apparently selected as a compromise, and since the new JR station already went by that name. Next Page: Art Resort Fujino

Green Gables: A Contemplative Companion to Fujino Township
by Norman Havens nhavens@gol.com
Updated: April 20, 2002

URL: http://www2.gol.com/users/nhavens/htmlfile/hist-e.html