Danjo Shussan Takara no Yamairi (Male and Female Birth: Entering the Treasure Trove)

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Danjo Shussan Takara no Yamairi ["Male and Female Birth: Entering the Treasure Trove"]

Mantei, Ōga [text by]; Ōju Seisei [Kawanabe], Kyōsai [illustrated by]. 

[Tōkyō]: Kodama Yakichi, Meiji 14 [1881]. 

Possibly one of the scarcest Kyōsai-Ōga creations, this allegorical map was doubtlessly inspired by the creators' collaboration on a single-sheet map in the same month of the same year and a guidebook a year before. The map shows a man (Izanagi, the creator deity of all life) and a woman (Izanami, the creator deity, Shintō mother goddess, and sister and wife of Izanagi) shaped like mountains, with 'grandmother' and 'grandfather' mountains in the background. A single path leads from the womb - represented as a Shintō shrine - up a hill (the "sixth-year slope") to Izanami's knee, where it forks, the insinuation being that children have the same life milestones up until their sixth year, when girls and boys begin on different journeys based on sex. Different life milestones on the varying paths that follow are depicted as physical places and are creatively captioned. Some paths lead to pitfalls; others to success. The message is unchanging from the conservative views Ōga espoused in earlier works: women and men have intrinsically different paths in life (he states in the text above the illustration that "men should learn the ways of men and follow them, and women should learn the ways of women and follow them"). Ōga also uses the opportunity to declare that "there is no greater treasure than the safety of a family through the harmonious union of husband and wife". 

     Ōga mentions in the accompanying text that a book titled Takara no Yamairi should be considered an appendix to the print. It is unclear whether this title refers to the 1843 gōkan Zendama Akudama Takara no Yamairi authored by Tamenaga Shunsui (1790-1844) and illustrated by Utagawa Kuninao (1795-1854) or, as seems more probable, a Kyōsai-Ōga book that was never published. A colour woodblock-printed edition of the same illustration is known to have been produced in the same year. The word yamairi (to enter a mountain) in the title is presumably a phonetic pun on the word yomeiri (marriage). A fascinating use of the creation myth of the Japanese archipelago to introduce conservative societal roles and perceived intrinsic differences between the sexes and their relative 'correct' and 'incorrect' paths in life. 

Single sheet woodblock-printed on one side, complete. Discolouration to extremities. Light soiling to verso. A few folds and creases. 37.3 x 51 cm. 

Danjo Shussan Takara no Yamairi (Male and Female Birth: Entering the Treasure Trove)
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