Alternate Attendance Parades in the Japanese Domain of Satsuma, Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Pottery, Power and Foreign Spectacle. (December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Clements, Rebekah
• Is Part Of: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. Volume 32(2022)
• Page Start: 135
• Page End: 158
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Subjects: Japan -- Korea -- early modern -- Imjin War -- alternate attendance; Great Britain -- History -- Periodicals; 942
• DOI: 10.1017/S0080440122000056
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0080-4401

Abstract

Abstract: This study examines the practice of 'alternate attendance' ( sankin kōtai ), in which the daimyo lords of Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868) marched with their retainers between their home territories and the shogunal capital of Edo, roughly once a year. Research on alternate attendance has focused on the meaning of daimyo processions outside their domains ( han ), along Japan's highways and in the city of Edo. Here I argue that, even as daimyo embarked upon a journey to pay obeisance to the shogun, the ambiguous nature of sovereignty in early modern Japan meant that alternate attendance could also be used for a local agenda, ritually stamping the daimyo's territory with signs of his dominance, much like what has been highlighted in the study of royal processions in world history. I focus on the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, providing a case study of visits made by the Shimazu family, lords of Satsuma domain, to a village of Korean potters within their territory, whose antecedents had been brought as captives during the Imjin War of 1592–8. During daimyo visits, a relationship of mutual benefit and fealty between the Shimazu and the villagers was articulated through gift-giving, banqueting, dance and displays of local wares. This in turn was used to consolidate Shimazu power in their region.