Actors and Outcasts - Everyday Life in Traditional Japan - page 136

directions from their local lords prohibiting the lodging of actors in quarters that would be
available to ordinary travelers. Shrines and temples where there had been theatres still of-
tenhavevotivepicturesorstonefence-postsinscribedwiththenamesoftheiractor-donors,
who to some extent viewed these trips as pilgrimages.
Kabuki actors (and this also applies to the chanters, musicians, and manipulators of the
puppet theatres in the great centers) were only the apex of a pyramid of entertainers of
all sorts ( 70 ) . Some of these led a comparatively sheltered life in the restaurants and oth-
er places of entertainment. Such were the male jesters whose function it was to do com-
ic dances and sing comic songs and generally make the party go. Their female colleagues
lived in their own strictly stratified society, which they entered either of their own accord,
when deprived of other livelihood by death of a husband, or by divorce, or for one of the
many reasons that might make a girl leave home, or because of their duty to some impov-
erished peasant of a father, who had received a sum of money in return for their services
over a period of years. While one lucky girl might escape when her term was over and re-
turn home to make a decent marriage, the father of another might be forced to take more
money and condemn his daughter to a further period; there was always the hope that some
rich client would pay off the money that had been advanced and take such a woman into
his household, possibly as a wife ( 71 ) .