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Sumo
| Article
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14132 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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1 / 1988 |
4,200 Words |
| Author
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Paul Crook
Paul Crook is a free-lance writer and photographer of
Australian descent. Now residing in Japan, he focuses on the
Japanese culture and way of life. |
The natives delight in assuring you that Nagoya's summer is the worst in all Japan and that outsiders have never experienced anything like it. During these summers, a hushed current of excitement in the streets and in the many small retail stores can be felt, for this is the season the sumo wrestlers arrive, soon becoming a common sight. They are broad-shouldered men dressed in yukata, light cotton kimonos, their oiled hair drawn into topknots like the samurai of old.
Nagoya is one of four cities in Japan to host sumo tournaments; annually there are six tournaments. Three take place in Tokyo--where the season opens the second Sunday of January--and single tournaments take place in Osaka in March, Nagoya in July, and Fukuoka in November. Each tournament lasts fifteen days.
Records of sumo date to the earliest written history of Japan, the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters) of A.D. 712, which details a bout between Takemikazuchi-no-Kami (the Deity Brave-Awful-Possessing-Male), a Shinto god who wrestled for the Yamato clan, and Takeminakata-no-Kami (the Deity Brave-August-Name-Firm), the second son of the ruler of Izumo.
Although some scholars disagree that this wrestling match compares favorably with acceptable and historical forms of sumo, many popular accounts record it as being the first sumo match. The only sure conclusion from the Kojiki account and the one explained in the Nihonshoki (The chronicles of Japan, A.D 720) is that wrestling matches were held to settle disputes between warring dynasties and clans and that their outcome could change political
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