Performers and Peddlers Who Visited the Pit (Yama) in the Meiji Era (1868-1912): Charlatan
March 1966

Meiji Yama o Otozureshi Geinin Shonin: Yashi
[Performers and Peddlers Who Visited the Pit (Yama) in the Meiji Era (1868-1912): Conjurer]
38.0 x 54.1 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

He stood two bamboo sticks as tall as about seventy centimeters and separated them about eighty centimeters apart. He put a tea cup filled with water on a plate attached to the top of each bamboo stick. He put another bamboo stick about 25 millimeters in diameter and about ninety centimeters in length on the two tea cups. Then he skillfully cut this bamboo stick in half with a stroke of his wooden sword. The water in the tea cups did not ripple at all.
Additionally, he hung a piece of eight-centimeter-wide toilet paper or chirigami (also dialectically called shiroho) from a crosspiece on top of each of the two bamboo sticks. He made a slit in both pieces of the paper and put each end of a new bamboo stick into the slits so that the stick was held with the paper. Then he yelled and cut the stick with the wooden sword. Also in this case, the paper was not broken. When large crowds gathered around him to see these splendid performances, he started to sell his goods as usual. This kendo fencer sold parallel-crossed enlargers for letters and pictures. It was in the autumn of 1902 that he visited K Coal Pit.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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