Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
(44) Heads of puppets dating from the nineteenth century. The male head at the bottom has
moving eyes and eyebrows.
At Ise there was a street called Furuichi, full of brothels, eating houses, and souvenir
shops, and there was also the chance of seeing a
kabuki
play, or the puppets
(
44
),
or less
artistic performances—juggling, conjuring, freaks and so on—at the theatres that were set
up in the enclosures of the temples and shrines, but not of the great shrine itself, which
maintained an ambience of sanctity. Ise had the most important theatre group outside the
main centers of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and was also a stopping-place on the circuit that
actors from these centers followed during the summer months, between rice-planting and
theharvest,whenthefarmerscouldtaketimeofffromthefieldsmoreeasily.Onlytherich-
er farmers could afford to go at their own expense, and although men were in the majority,
women could go too; it could be one of the things a woman looked forward to being able
to do when her son got married and his wife took over the hard work.
