其二市井之圖

About this print

This picture shows a town lined with tile-roofed shops, drawn across two facing pages. At a shop hung with colorful cloth, customers and shopkeepers face each other, and out front women walk with baskets on their heads. Behind a man wearing a sword at his waist follow attendants carrying long poles and boxes on their shoulders. The words "Sono ni, Shisei no Zu" in the frame at the upper right mean "Part 2, a picture of the town (shisei)." It is one leaf of Saiyu Kaido Zue (Pictures of the Road West), a book copied out by hand (a shahon), and when it was drawn is not known.

The town in this picture is said to be Kokura (now part of Kitakyushu). Kokura prospered as a castle town in the Edo period. Tokiwa Bridge, over the Murasaki River that flows through the town, was the starting point of five roads leading to many parts of Kyushu, such as the Nagasaki Kaido and the Karatsu Kaido, which were called the Five Roads of Kokura. In the castle town, samurai are said to have lived west of the Murasaki River and townspeople to the east.

In 1995 (Heisei 7), Tokiwa Bridge was rebuilt as a wooden bridge, just as it was in the Edo period, and you can still cross it in the middle of Kokurakita Ward, Kitakyushu.

Glossary