著者

富澤 達三

出版者

東京大学大学院総合文化研究科附属アメリカ太平洋地域研究センター

雑誌

アメリカ太平洋研究 (ISSN:13462989)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.5, pp.31-40, 2005-03

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1. Kawaraban in the Edo Period In the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, many kinds of Kawaraban (used as News sources of the commonalty) were published in the metropolis like Edo and Osaka. In the past, it was said that the oldest Kawaraban prints were published in the days of the Osaka War (1615), but the recent research has brought a new theory that they were made in earlier period. Kawaraban had several distinctive features. * news were their main contents * people paid money to read them * instant prints* publisher was anonymous * no fixed format and low quality prints There were many kinds of news printed in the Kawaraban such as catastrophe (fire, earthquake and eruption), murder cases (Katakiuchi (vengeance) or Shinju (double suicide)), strange incidents (appearance of monster or ghost), and the arrival of the foreign ships called Kurofune. The Edo-bakufu strictly prohibited production and selling of the prints that dealt with such topics. But in the end of Edo-era, enormous amount of public prints were produced for the mass while the censorships by Edo-bakufu became nominal, and Kawaraban were published openly. In particular, big fires broke out frequently in Edo and the Kawaraban often reported their damages. The disaster information of the Kawaraban was relatively credible, and therefore served to calm people's fears and also transmitted the situations of the damages from Edo to provinces. 2. Kawaraban of Black Ships (Kurofune Kawaraban) In 1853 (Kaei-6), Admiral Perry voyaged to Uraga, and urged Japan to start commerce. Edo was thrown into an uproar, and hundreds of Kawaraban which informed this incident were produced. These "Kurofune Kawaraban" told the people the circumstance by the stereotypical images and some fultual information. The Kurofune Kawaraban were non-censored illegal prints, and many of them were one-sheet-type. It was rare that such printings containing political information were published in a large quantity and were purchased by the general public. In this paper, I will analyze the image of the Kurofune Kawaraban, and examine their roles in the public world.