伝統文化を知る

宙ちゃんの「伝統文化一直線」　第１６回　火事が育んだ江戸の粋

近藤宙時＝日本伝統文化検定協会理事

さまざまな意匠を凝らした江戸時代の印籠。もともとは携帯用の薬入れとして使われたが、武士や裕福な町人の間で装身具としての人気が高まった。（いずれもメトロポリタン美術館蔵）

イギリスの作家ギャビン・ライアルが１９６３年に発表したハードボイルドの名作『もっとも危険なゲーム』（邦訳はハヤカワ・ミステリ文庫）は、冷戦下のフィンランド北方、ソ連（現ロシア）との国境地帯が舞台です。水陸両用機を操縦する主人公ビル・ケアリは訳ありのプロの運び屋。彼の一人称で展開する物語にこんな一節が出てきます。「持ち物は見るポイントを知ってさえいれば色々なことを教えてくれるものだ」

依頼主の洗面道具入れの中にあった、どこにでもある安全カミソリや、分厚い銀のバンドが２本付いた象牙の柄のシェービングブラシなど、最高級品ながら個人の好みが表れていない持ち物を見て、主人公が「（依頼主は）金持ちだが、女性の影響でいやが応でも自意識を持たされるという経験がなく、かといって持ち物全部にイニシャルを付けるほど独身を意識してもいない」と分析してみせた場面です。

これを読んだ時、「ビル・ケアリは江戸の町人の持ち物を見ても正確に持ち主の人物像にたどり着けるだろうか」と、ふと思ったものです。

江戸時代、江戸の町人が家を出る時にまず身に着けるものとしては、印籠にキセル、たばこ入れが挙げられるでしょう。商人であれば、これに当時の万年筆である矢立（やたて）が加わります。女性の場合は髪を飾る簪（かんざし）や櫛（くし）が欠かせません。

印籠には蒔絵（まきえ）や螺鈿（らでん）細工を施した豪華で凝った意匠のものが多かったことが知られていますが、たばこ入れも同様です。ふたの開け閉めに使われるボタンのような前金具一つ取っても銀や金を惜しげもなく使い、竜や虎など定番の吉祥文様から、「雀のお宿」などのおとぎ話を題材にしたものまで実に多種多彩で、今も多くのコレクターがいます。

しかし、これらを見ても、ビル・ケアリは、持ち主が大店（おおだな）の主人ほどの金持ちなのか、あるいは大工の棟梁（とうりょう）なのか雇われ大工なのかさえ分からないかもしれません。なぜなら、江戸の町人たちは、こうした持ち物の趣味の良さを競い合い、自慢し合い、会話の糸口にしていたからです。落語に出てくる長屋の熊さん、八っつぁんでさえかなり凝った物を持っていたようで、食費以外は全ての収入をこうした持ち物に費やすというのが江戸っ子の身上だったのかもしれません。

逆に大店の主人の中には、「そんなに金があるならツケを棒引きしろ」と言われるのを恐れてか、普段は意外にありきたりで質素な物を使っていた人も少なくなかったようです。さらに言うと、持ち主が武士ではなく町人の場合、これらの物に名前は入っていませんし、名前に代わる家紋が入ることもまずありませんから、持ち主が独身かどうかなども分かりません。

翻って現代の東京。ＪＲ山手線の上野から御徒町（おかちまち）にかけての一帯には宝飾・貴金属店、それも他の街では見ることの少ない問屋さんの看板が目に付くことをご存じの方も多いと思います。宝飾関係の店舗数、なんと２０００店。全国の店舗数の８割が上野・御徒町に集まっているといわれます。しかも、その多くが江戸時代にルーツを持つそうです。

この辺りは浅草にも近く、金銀の細工物を必要とする神社や仏閣があちこちにあったことに加え、御徒町の名が示すように刀の目貫（めぬき）や笄（こうがい）、小柄（こづか）などの刀装具を求める武士たちが多く住んでいました。その上、神田や日本橋などから吉原、猿楽町などの遊び場に行く経路の途中でもあったため、江戸中の町人の需要が加わったことで東洋一の宝石街が成り立ったのです。

それにしても、どうして江戸の町人たちは身に着けるものにそれほど凝ったのでしょうか。一番の理由は、「江戸の華」といわれた火事にあると思っています。

江戸の火事は本当に多く、ある研究によれば、住民の誰もが２０年に１度は焼け出された経験を持つほどだったといいます。「人生５０年」といわれた時代、死ぬまでに平均２回半も火事で家を失ったわけです。家財を持ち出す暇などないケースも多かったでしょう。そんな時に頼りになるのは、身に着けた簪に櫛、そして印籠やたばこ入れ、矢立であったはずです。常に需要があり、すぐにも換金できるからです。

自然環境は、知らず知らずのうちに「何を良しとするか」という物の見方に影響を及ぼし、伝統文化を育んでいきます。台風や地震などの災害の頻発は日本人の物の見方に大きな影響を及ぼしましたが、江戸の粋を育んだ要因の一つは火事だったと言ってもいいでしょう。

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【English version】

Chu-chan's ‘Traditional Culture in a Straight Line’ No. 16 Edo's chic fostered by fire
Kondo Chuji = Director of the Japan Traditional Culture Certification Association

Edo period inro with various designs. Originally used as portable medicine cabinets, they became increasingly popular as ornaments among samurai and wealthy merchants. (Both from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

British author Gavin Lyall's 1963 hard-boiled classic The Most Dangerous Game (Japanese translation in Hayakawa Mystery Library) is set in northern Finland during the Cold War, in the border region with the Soviet Union (now Russia). The main character Bill Keari, who pilots an amphibious aircraft, is a professional courier for a reason. The story unfolds in his first-person narrative with this passage. ‘Belongings can tell you a lot, as long as you know where to look.’

Looking at the belongings in the client's toiletry case, such as a ubiquitous safety razor and an ivory-handled shaving brush with two thick silver bands, which are top-of-the-range but do not express personal taste, the protagonist says: ‘[The client] is rich, but he is influenced by a woman who makes him self-conscious, whether he wants it or not. He has no experience, nor is he conscious enough of his single status to initial all of his possessions’.

When I read this, I wondered if Bill Carey could look at the belongings of an Edo merchant and accurately identify the owner.

In the Edo period, the first things an Edo merchant would wear when leaving his house would be an inro, a kiseru and a cigarette case. Merchants would add a yatate, a fountain pen of the time, to these items. For women, a hairpin or comb was indispensable to adorn their hair.

It is known that many of the inro (medicine cases) had luxurious and elaborate designs with makie and raden (mother-of-pearl inlay), and the same applies to cigarette cases. Even the button-like front metalwork used to open and close the lid is lavishly decorated with silver and gold, and there is a wide variety, from standard auspicious designs such as dragons and tigers to fairy tale motifs such as ‘sparrow inns’, which are still widely collected.

However, looking at these, Bill Keary may not even be able to tell whether the owner was as rich as the owner of an Ooden (large shop), or whether he was a carpenter's wingman or a carpenter for hire. This is because Edo townspeople competed and boasted about their taste in such possessions and used them as a source of conversation. Even the tenement bears and yatsuyas in rakugo stories seem to have had quite elaborate possessions, and it may have been the status of Edo children to spend all their income, except for food, on such possessions.

Conversely, it seems that not a few of the owners of big shops used surprisingly ordinary and frugal items in their daily lives, perhaps fearing that they would be told to ‘draw down the tab if you have that much money’. Furthermore, if the owner was a merchant rather than a samurai, these items would not have his name on them and would rarely have a family crest in place of his name, so it would be impossible to tell whether the owner was single or not.

In modern Tokyo, many people know that in the area between Ueno and Okachimachi on the JR Yamanote Line, there are many jewellery and precious metal shops, and that you can see signs for wholesale stores, which are rarely seen in other towns. The number of jewellery shops, a whopping 2,000. It is said that 80% of the total number of shops in the whole country are concentrated in Ueno and Okachimachi. Moreover, many of them have their roots in the Edo period.

The area is close to Asakusa, where there were many shrines and temples that required gold and silver work, and as the name Okachimachi suggests, many samurai warriors lived in the area who required sword ornaments such as menuki, kougai and kogara (small hairpins). In addition, the town was on the way to playgrounds such as Yoshiwara and Sarugakucho from Kanda and Nihonbashi, so the demand from townspeople all over Edo added up to make it the best jewellery town in the East.

But why were the townspeople of Edo so particular about what they wore? The main reason, I believe, lies in the fires, which were known as the ‘flower of Edo’.

According to one study, every inhabitant of Edo experienced a fire once every 20 years. In those days, when life was said to last 50 years, people lost their homes to fire on average two and a half times before they died. In many cases, there would have been no time to remove household goods. What they would have relied on at such times would have been their hairpins and combs, as well as their inro, tobacco pouches and arrowheads. These items were always in demand and could be quickly converted into cash.

The natural environment unwittingly influences our view of what is good, and nurtures traditional culture. The frequent occurrence of disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes had a major impact on the Japanese way of looking at things, but it is fair to say that fire was one of the factors that fostered Edo chic.