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The October meeting was the first of a series to be held once again at Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen. We were pleased to have with us on this occasion Prof. and Mrs. Ian Nish from London. As noted in the caption to a photograph in The Japan Times of October 5th, Prof. Nish had come to Tokyo to accept the award of a Japan Foundation Prize on behalf of Dr. William Beasley; he was also giving some lectures while here. Dr. Berendt opened the meeting with the sad news that the mother of our host, Mr. Tetsuo Tamura, principal of Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen, had just passed away; Prof. and Mrs. Ryozo Tanaka, who were close friends of Mr. Tamura's, had attended the funeral that morning, and brought with them the Society's condolences. Dr. Berendt then introduced our speaker, Mrs. Doreen Simmons, who was perhaps best known for one of her spare-time occupations: her live commentaries on sumo on NHK's worldwide satellite service, which began in 1992. She has also for several years been working on what she hopes will be 'the definitive book on sumo', and on this occasion she gave us some of the fruits of her labours under the title"Sumo: Samurai to Cyberspace -- How sumo is adapting to the changing times". She handed out sheets of illustrations of sumo down the ages.

Mrs. Simmons began by saying that she wanted to make two points: first, that professional sumo was run somewhat on a doro-nawa-shiki basis in which the authorities took steps to deal with a contingency only after it had arisen, and second, that although it appeared to be a hidebound structure it was in fact constantly adapting to the changing times. In the first part of her talk she would attempt to trace the history of various aspects of sumo, and then she would look at the most significant of the recent changes.

If one tried first to identify the aspects of sumo that had seen little or no change, a paradoxical situation was apparent. The characteristic chonmage hairstyle, with its attendant superstition that if a man became bald he would be obliged to retire from active sumo, had in fact been the standard hairstyle for all Japanese men until 1871, when the government made the Western-style haircut mandatory. An exception was made for sumo on account of its traditional nature; this piece of sumo lore, then, could go back no earlier than 1871. The same false history concerned the hitatare costume of the gyoji, the referee. The costume did indeed date from the time of the Ashikaga shoguns; but not for the gyoji, who started wearing it in May 1910; before that they had worn the kami-shimo, the standard blue outfit of the gentleman, with the stiffened wings over the shoulders.

From time immemorial, however, sumo wrestlers had always worn a kind of loincloth that went between the legs, around the waist, and was tied at the back in a single-ended knot. It had, however, undergone considerable changes over the centuries before developing into the three forms in use today: the close-woven cotton canvas mawashi used for training, the heavy silk shimekomi worn by the men in the top two divisions for tournaments, and the kesho-mawashi, worn only for the ring-entering ceremony (dohyo-iri), that looked like an elaborately-decorated apron, but which was, like the other two, basically a long straight strip of cloth some 80 cm. wide. Men in the lower four ranks had only the one cotton mawashi, which was dyed black but faded with wear and washing. Mrs. Simmons had brought along a sample of the cream-coloured cloth used for training by the sekitori, the men in the two upper divisions.

In the Heian period, wrestlers called sumai-bito wore a voluminous length of soft white cloth called a tosagi, loose at the front and tied at the back in an elaborate series of knots. This would have given no opportunity for a belt grip, and so it is the pushing and thrusting techniques that are regarded as more traditional forms of sumo. There had been no simple progression in the development of the mawashi, and examples taken from woodblock prints and small figurines showed a variety of patterned cloth, sometimes more revealing than the mawashi of today, sometimes with a short apron-like end hanging down at the front, but more often, a sort of fringed skirt of varying lengths that went almost all the way round the hips, except for the knotted part at the rear. But by the beginning of the 19th century wrestlers were wearing a simplified version that would eventually split into the forms we see today: the businesslike mawashi/shimekomi; the gorgeous kesho-mawashi, and the fringe that separated off into the modern sagari, now a set of starched cords tucked into an upper lap of the belt for formal appearances; for the upper ranks, two sets of sagari are made from the off-cuts at both ends of the silk shimekomi; men in the lower divisions buy a set of loose cords sewn onto a strip of cloth (a sample was shown).

The kesho-mawashi is used only for the dohyo-iri, the parade of all the men on the east side and the west before their actual bouts take place. In Edo times, daimyo liked to have sumo wrestlers among their retainers, and the kesho-mawashi of such men would bear a simple device that identified their lord; in other cases the man's own fighting name would appear. The old kesho-mawashi were very simple, but gradually rich townspeople took to showing off their wealth by dressing their favourites in gorgeous and extravagant attire, until in the 20th century the 'apron' part became stiff with embroidery, appliquŽ, metal plaques, and even pearls or diamonds. There had even been one with tiny lightbulbs, lit by an on-board battery!

A picture of Tanikaze, the first 'real' yokozuna, highlighted the change in the tsuna or yokozuna, that massive rope-like belt worn by the Grand Champion in his individual dohyo-iri. Tanikaze's was very much thinner and lighter than those of today, and the gohei, strips of folded white paper hanging from it, were not only smaller but of a different shape. The official list of yokozuna, and the numbering system, is another piece of false history. An elder called Jinmaku published a list in 1900; his compilation was fiercely attacked until 1926, when it was declared 'official' to stop the contention. It is generally agreed that the first two names on the list were legendary figures; the first real yokozuna were Tanikaze and his great rival Onogawa. In any case, 'yokozuna' was written on the banzuke ranking list for the first time in May 1890, and its use as a separate rank at the very pinnacle of the sumo pyramid began in 1909. Originally the yokozuna license had been granted to certain distinguished ozeki (formerly the highest rank) allowing them to perform an individual dohyo-iri.

Court sumo in the early days was a ritual as well as a sporting event, and the bouts were interspersed with gagaku-style music. The teams of the Right and the Left each had their own referee, called tachi-awase, and their own orchestra; after each bout, the tachi-awase on the winner's side did a dance. This was apparently sumo, but not as we know it.

There was no ring at first, but the practical need to speed up timing and have a clear-cut decision led to its introduction. When Oda Nobunaga held a gala tournament of 1,500 wrestlers in 1576 to celebrate the opening of Azuchi Castle, circles were marked on the ground by some means not stated. By 1670 the circle had come to be marked out with one readily available object, the straw sacks (tawara or hyo) used for storing rice. Empty tawara were filled with earth and laid in a circle or a square on the ground (tsuchi or do). This is the origin of the word dohyo, meaning both the circle and the raised clay mound.

In time the bulky tawara were reduced in size and partly submerged in the ground, and by the middle of the 19th century the present raised mound had appeared.

The first covered arena, soon dubbed the "Kokugikan", was opened in June 1909, but suffered several disastrous fires thereafter, which may have encouraged the considerable variations in the seating, the form of the dohyo, and the shape of the roof supported by pillars that covered it.

A commemorative postcard of 1909, for instance, shows a circular arrangement of seats round a circular mound. The roof over the dohyo is supported by four wooden pillars, but unlike that of today was in the irimoya gabled style and was modeled on the Main Hall of the Buddhist Horyuji temple. A photograph of the late Taisho period, taken after a post-fire rebuilding, shows a square dohyo and a square seating pattern like that of today; but the ring was a double one, with two concentric circles of straw bales. This meant that the actual combat area was less than 4 metres in diameter; this was too limiting and the inner circle was removed in 1931. In the same year, the present style of roof, based on that of the Geku, the Outer Shrine of Ise, was introduced. This reflected a conscious move towards a connection with the Imperial Family through Shinto. While annual court sumo performances are recorded from the 7th century, the connection with Ise is more tenuous; the annual visit of the top sumo people to the Naiku, the Inner Shrine, complete with dohyo-iri and bouts, is a "traditional" custom that actually began in March 1955!

Nowhere is the slow adaptation to circumstances shown better than in the problem of the four posts that supported the roof, and the changing position of the judges. A canopy over the dohyo, partly to represent the heaven above, as the dohyo represents the earth, was already standard in Edo times. But the pillars obstructed the view of the best customers, and moreover the four judges were sitting up on the dohyo, leaning against them. This arrangement was carried over into the first covered hall in 1909. The first solution tried, in May 1930, was to move the judges down below, but as their view would also have been blocked by the pillars, they were moved to their present positions in the middle of each side. But the posts continued to obstruct the view of the customers at the corners. Not until 1952, when a new Kokugikan was being built at Kuramae, on the Asakusa side of the Sumida, did someone have the bright idea of removing the posts altogether and suspending the false roof from the real roof. This would have been technically possible in 1909, but it took over 40 years to break with tradition. The posts, which had been coloured green, red, white and black (but only since 1858; before that they had been wrapped in red cloth, or in Osaka, often striped red-and-white) were replaced by giant tassels which are hung inside the corners of the hanging roof.

The orientation of a sumo venue is based on the Chinese custom of the emperor's seat being at the north, facing south; the east is on his left hand and the west on his right. Today these directions often have no relation to the compass points; in fact in the case of the Kuramae Kokugikan they were completely reversed.

Having dealt with the "hardware" of sumo, Mrs. Simmons turned to the people. The Japan Sumo Association is made up retired wrestlers, each one possessing one of the 105 myoseki, shares of the Association, each bearing the name of a famous wrestler of former times. Each successive owner of a myoseki assumes this famous name, which is followed by the honorific "oyakata". The only qualification for becoming an oyakata that is not based on performance is the need to have Japanese nationality, a regulation that was brought in only in 1976, when Jesse Kuhaulua, a Hawaiian wrestling as Takamiyama, was one of those within reaching distance. After a year or so of agonizing, Takamiyama took Japanese citizenship. He is now known as Azumazeki oyakata -- the first foreign-born man to win a championship (July 1972), the first to become a sumo elder, and the first to start his own stable, where he trained Akebono, the first foreign-born yokozuna (Grand Champion). Quite possibly the establishment had meant to exclude non-Japanese, but having stipulated "nationality" rather than "birth" they could not have second thoughts. This is not to say that there had been no racism in earlier times; this situation had simply never arisen before.

The only way to enter professional sumo is to be recruited by a stablemaster and entered by him on the rolls of the Sumo Association. Roughly half of all the oyakata own sumo stables. The rudiments of sumo stables (sumo-beya, or heya) developed in the middle of the 18th century, but it was only about 100 years ago that the sumo-beya as a place where the wrestlers lived and trained came into being.

In the latter years of the 16th century the more desperate ronin, masterless samurai, became street entertainers putting on impromptu sumo displays (and taking fanciful names to cover up their real identities); in the course of the next 100 years those seeking a more reliable source of income gathered together into informal business associations called kabu-nakama and linked up with shrines and temples In Kyoto, Osaka and Edo to put on kanjin-zumo, outdoor tournaments designed to make a profit for the religious institution as well as the promoters. By the middle of the 18th century the system had settled down into something like the organization of today.

In Edo, kanjin-zumo was held in several places, but two predominated: the Hachiman shrine in Fukagawa, and the Ekoin temple in what is now Ryogoku. Ryogoku eventually achieved preeminence as the indirect result of a major disaster: in the Great Meireki Fire of 1657, some 108,000 people on the Edo side of the Sumida had been burnt beyond recognition. The authorities decreed that the bones were to be collected and buried in a common grave on the far side of the Sumida and a temple erected to pray for their souls; and that a bridge should be built across the river. As the Edoites could walk across Ryogoku bridge rather than having to take the ferry to the Fukagawa shrine downstream, sumo flourished in the better location. Before long, the important sumo men began to build on the cheaper land on the Ryogoku side, and to this day Ryogoku is regarded as the heartland of sumo. When the foundations were being laid for the first Kokugikan, the mass grave was discovered and the bones reinterred in the remaining, greatly reduced grounds of the Ekoin.

Mrs. Simmons now turned to her final subject, the more recent changes in sumo. The pace had quickened appreciably. The lower of two minimum height and weight qualifications for entrants, intended for younger boys who had not reached their full growth, was abolished because in postwar Japan hardly anybody was so small. The increased average height and weight of the men in the top division has brought with it a higher rate of injuries and absences, as knees and ankles (which have not increased in size proportionately) are now subjected to much greater strain.

The arrival of the men from Hawaii and Samoa pushed the weight upward to new levels. Konishiki (Salevaa Atisanoe) was the largest man ever to take part in professional sumo, but foreign journalists tended to cite him as a typical example rather than a phenomenon. (At his maximum he reached some 285 kg.) He was accused of winning simply by being too heavy to be moved (something actually seen in international amateur sumo); but in fact he was intelligent and hard-working. In only his second tournament in the top division, he came close to winning the championship. A hideous outbreak of xenophobia ensued. But when a foreigner succeeds in sumo this does not imply that sumo is being internationalized, but rather that the foreigner has to become absorbed into the Japanese way of doing things. Today this can be just as difficult for young Japanese, who are unwilling to face the strict discipline and harsh training that are required, and find the basic diet, chanko-nabe , alien and unappetizing.

A few aspirants who were too short to qualify tried silicone implants under the scalp, but these were eventually banned. In the old days a boy who was too short would get a friend to whack him on the head with a billet of wood, and qualify thanks to the resultant lump. At last, however, the Sumo Association has recognised that the old adage "Bigger is better" has outlived its usefulness, and in January this year, new tests of speed and agility were introduced for boys a little below the height and weight limits. There have also been additions to the kimarite, winning techniques. In Edo times there were several lists of Forty-Eight Techniques; unfortunately the rare ones at the end of each list varied considerably, and in the middle of the 20th century the JSA compiled a list of 70, which was made official in 1955. In 1960, two accidental ways of losing were added; but in January 2001 a further twelve winning techniques and three ways of losing were added. Again, the foreign media made a great fuss for the wrong reason; this was not an attempt to brighten up sumo by permitting more techniques; the problem had been that these things had already been happening but there was no official terminology for them. Partly responsible for these additions is the increasing number of lithe and agile men, not least the 26-strong contingent of Mongolians.

Some things, however, had not changed at all. Half the audience at sumo tournaments were now women, but there was a strong feeling that women should not touch any of the physical accoutrements of professional sumo, which had a religious, or at least a superstitious, basis. These included all stages of the making of the items worn on the dohyo . The refusal to let the first woman Chief Cabinet Secretary mount the dohyo to present a trophy was more than a matter of gender discrimination, and was not comparable to the the refusal to give the same lady access to an exclusive golf club. The present Kokugikan, opened in January 1985 just north of the true Ryogoku, had many energy-saving and environmentally-friendly installations and was equipped with spaces for wheelchairs and, more recently, narrow escalators. It was also multi-purpose: the dohyo could be recessed below floor level and the hall used for entertainments like super-kabuki, with Ennosuke flying down from the roof. Besides the Sumo Museum on the ground floor, there is in the basement a specialist clinic and a large room that can be rented for parties. One of the most striking of the recent innovations has been the change in ticket sales. The best seats at the front continue to be handled by the twenty chaya, small traditional catering businesses with a standing order for the same tickets; they make a profit in good times and take a loss in bad. Most other seats, however, can be bought not only at the venue but even by computer from a convenience store chain; and the Association has a web site that tells you, in Japanese and English, how to apply for them. During a tournament the results are also available worldwide as each bout is decided.

There was time for two or three questions, and the meeting was brought to a close with a vote of thanks by Mrs. Vivienne Kenrick, whose late husband Douglas had written a book about sumo over 30 years ago. Mrs. Simmons had started her talk by mentioning the book, and so the evening was brought to a full circle.

Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 9", November 2001, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.

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