Running head: GEISHA1
Geisha: Ritual Kinship Supporting Art
Cena Bussey
Study in Depth
September 16, 2013
Professor Dawn St. Clare
“I certify that I have read A Student's Guide to Academic
Integrity at the University of Oklahoma, and this paper is an
original paper composed by me for this course. Except where
properly cited and attributed, it has not been copied or closely
reworded from any other source and has not been submitted as a
whole, or in part, for credit in any other course at OU or any
other educational institution. It has not been created or
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submitted for any other purpose such as a job assignment at my
workplace or any other agency.”
Introduction
The geisha of Japan are figures of femininity that have
fascinated the western mind since the island nation was opened to
the west in the mid-19th century. Limited understanding of
Japanese culture quickly turned the geisha image into one of
seduction and even prostitution. The western understanding of
what a geisha is, what she symbolizes, even now resides behind a
veil of mystery and fantasy for the majority of western culture.
The reality is much more mundane, but no less fascinating. The
geisha of Japan provide an exemplary case study in Japanese
culture, art, politics, and religion. The world of geisha is a
world of ritual, informed by centuries of culture and social
propriety. Every aspect of their lives is ritualized, from their
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very behavior, their costumes, and their living social
relationships.
The focus of this paper will be to reveal exactly how the
ritualized institution of the geisha functions as a means of
transmitting and preserving the unique culture of the island of
Japan. In examining the formal rules of ritual kinship by which
the institution is organized, the nature of Japanese kinship and
its role in both family and business are revealed. These forms of
social organization are longstanding in Japan, and tie into years
of complex relationships between the court system and that of
feudal rule. By examining the artistry of the geisha from
costumes to performance, we are introduced to both the concept of
the floating world as well as the culture of the four seasons
which are elementary to understanding Japanese aesthetics.
Finally, we will examine the transition of the geisha institution
over its long history, to reveal how it has evolved while still
preserving the traditions of ritual, art, and social custom that
are its foundation.
What is a geisha?
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Any introduction to the geisha institution should begin
here, particularly given the amount of misinformation about them
within western cultural sources. In the linguistic sense, geisha
are defined by their art. Ethnographer Liza Dalby defined the
word geisha in western terms, simply as “artist (Dalby, 1983).”
Dalby’s perspective is unique, given that she is known as the
only western women to have trained and worked as a geisha in
Japan while completing her graduate thesis in the mid-seventies.
Scholar Lesley Downer offers a deeper definition of the term,
dividing the word into its syllabic meanings, gei meaning art and
sha meaning person (Downer, 2004). This translates literally as
person of art. Mineko Iwasaki offers up a similar definition to
Downer while expressing a preference for Kyoto based alternate
term geiko, or woman of art (Iwasaki & Brown, 2002). Iwasaki
represents the native geisha, being one of the best known of
Japanese geisha during the mid-21st century. Each individual’s
definition offers subtle distinctions, particularly in terms of
gender. While the western voices prefer terms which are gender
neutral, the native Japanese voice shows preference to the
feminine-gendered orientation for defining the professional role
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of geisha. Though it is a subtle difference, it is telling in
relation to the stark contrast between western and Japanese
gender roles. It is hard to understand the role of the geisha
without a firm footing in the traditional Japanese understanding
of gender. It is these nuances which reveal the subtle line the
geisha negotiates between femininity and self-possession.
Another term of particular interest is the word maiko, which
means woman of dance (Iwasaki & Brown, 2002). The maiko is the
apprentice geisha, practicing her arts during the day and
mirroring her onesan (older sister) by night. This relationship
will be discussed in depth later in the paper, but for now it is
interesting to contrast the term maiko to that of geiko. Dance
was but one of the many artistic pursuits in which maiko trained,
yet their label specifies it. Perhaps the choice of the action
oriented word “dance” is meant to contrast with the geiko’s art.
In essence, the term maiko might indicate practice, while the
term geiko represents a person who has achieved true artistic
merit and skill.
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Another term central to understanding the geisha is the
cultural concept of ukiyo, which means “the floating world
(Hibbett, 2001).” The floating world refers to the enjoyment of
simple earthly pleasures, a sort of elegant hedonism which
conveys a spirit of material and social enjoyment. The term is an
old one in Japan, originally indicating a much more sober
Buddhist idea which emphasized the transient nature of life and
its short lived beauty (Hibbett, 2001). The word ukiyo became
fashionable during the Edo period in reference to the pleasure
quarters and entertainment avenues of urban Japan. It is in this
time and circumstance that the profession of geisha evolved as an
integral part of this urban floating world which catered to the
tastes of a growing merchant class.
The simplest way to do define the geisha is as a performance
artist with a specific social function, to entertain. Be it
through the nuances of traditional Japanese dance, music, or
theatre, or through the simple gestures of serving guests at a
gathering and making conversation. The art of the geisha is in
creating an experience for their patrons of enjoyment and
refinement. It is also important to note that a Japanese ideal of
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refinement contains none of the west’s aversion to matters
sexual. Within the Japanese religious and cultural paradigm, sex
and sensuality hold none of the taboos inherent in western
culture regarding sin (Longstreet & Longstreet, 2009). Instead,
sexuality was an accepted and acknowledged part of human nature,
and one of the greater earthly pleasures afforded by the ukiyo
ideal.
This is not to suggest that the role of the geisha was a
sexual one. In fact, there were many classes of female
entertainers and hostesses within the world of the pleasure
quarters. From the low class prostitutes to the flamboyant upper
class courtesans, from the geisha and maids and hostesses in all
types of entertainment venues, women offered their services to
the highest bidder. These services became strictly regulated
during the 17th century, and geisha were forbidden by union rules
to compete with courtesans by selling sexual favors (Longstreet,
2009). A geisha could and often did engage with men sexually. The
important distinction often lost on the West is that a geisha
does not sell sex explicitly. The correlation between geisha and
prostitution most likely came about due to the confusion of
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foreigners in distinguishing between geisha and courtesans. Sex
may be a part of the geisha’s life, but it was not her
profession. Dance, music, and entertainment were.
Ritual Kinship in Japan
The impact of Confucianism cannot be stressed enough when
examining the structure of Japanese families. As civilization
took hold in Japan, much of the social and political structures
were mirrored on Chinese models, and Confucianism in particular
melded well with the court system of the Japanese as well as
their religious worldview. By the time geisha came out in force,
Confucianism and it’s ideals of filial piety were cemented as the
ideal in terms of social organization in Japanese culture.
Stressing the importance of elders and ancestor worship,
Confucianism demanded adherence to strict terms of seniority
between parent, child, and family members (Bloom, de Bary, &
Oxnam, 2013).
Though family structures have become much more fluid in the
modern world, for most of Japanese history family and kinship
organization were strictly patriarchal and modeled on the ideal
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of filial piety. Inheritance, property, and ancestral religious
obligations passed father to son, and those without male heirs
often adopted the husband for an elder daughter to become the new
heir and continue the family line (Hearn, 1904). Seniority was
typically given to males dependent on their relation to the
patriarch of the family in the line of succession. When no male
successors were available, the head of the family would choose a
suitable male figure to continue as his heir by adoption, a form
of ritual kinship that bestowed the same rights on this
individual as if he had been the biological heir.
Within this system, women had marginal rights within her
biological family line. The power for women came from their
immediate relationships to men. Once married, a woman in essence
became a part of her husband’s family, and her seniority was
dependent upon her husband’s position within the line of
succession (Hearn, 1904). It is interesting to note that one’s
biological age often had little to do with the specific seniority
a person would have. For example, the wife of the immediate heir
would always be referred to as “elder sister” by the rest if the
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family, though she could be decades younger than those who were
below her in the line of succession.
Though there is sparse research on the history of ritual or
fictive kinship in Japan, it is logical to assume that these
functional adoptions of males were probably the first kinds of
ritual kinship ties to exist there. Regardless of its ultimate
origins, ritual kinship ties were to become a norm within the
Japanese culture, particularly within the business world. By the
time of the geishas, social proprieties were greatly influenced
by the recognition of kinship ties both biological and fictive.
Through further examination, one can see that the complex systems
of ritual kinship provided a foundation on which the geisha
institution depended.
Modern studies have illustrated well just how deeply ritual
kinship organizations are culturally and socially assimilated as
a norm of Japanese society. In the paper Oyabun-Kobun: a Japanese
ritual kinship institution, Iwao Ishino examined a company of stevedores
as a means of illustrating the common role of fictive kinship in
Japanese business in the 1950s. Oyabun-Kobun means Father-Child,
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and references the structure of this ritual form of kinship
between workers and their superiors which mirrors that of the
traditional patriarchal Japanese family system (Ishino, 1953).
The Oyabun, or father, is the ultimate authority figure within
the company, and his immediate underlings are known as elder
brothers. This system continues all the way downward in a system
of seniority within the company from the Oyabun to base laborers
as the “grandchildren.”
This same system exists in most all traditional vocations in
Japan, and even includes the aspect of inheritance. The owner of
a particular business will choose a favorite “elder son” from his
own workers and apprentices to whom the business will be given
upon his death; at which point the favored “son” will become the
new kobun and then oyabun after the owner’s death (Ishino, 1953).
Much like the Japanese family, this favorite was not always a
biological heir, but rather the person most capable of running
the business itself.
One of the more interesting points of Ishino’s research was
the way it illustrated the ritual nature of these fictive kinship
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ties, even within the secular world of business. The Oyabun
personally selected his Kobun as well as senior workers and those
directly beneath him participated in a ritual in order to cement
the bonds of kinship between them. As Ishino describes, induction
ceremonies were held in which the favored men of the drank
ritual wine mixed with fish as a representation of blood, with
each taking a drink in turn to symbolize their acceptance of the
new member as a brother (Ishino, 1953). Such ceremonies were
common in both fictive and true kinship systems in Japan.
In the paper, The Notion of Kinship, Shimizu examines theories of
kinship in Japan and attempts to create her own working model of
the ie. Ie translates literally as “dwelling house” but refers to
what scholars have termed family or the kinship structure as a
whole (Shimizu, 1991). Studies of the Yap of rural Japan are used
to illustrate how both biological and fictive kinship exists
within the “domestic corporation” which Shimizu feel is a better
definition of the ie than the word family (Shimizu, 1991). In
this system of kinship, the marriage ceremonies give females full
status as members of the ie. Yet children produced of the
marriage are affiliated with the mother’s original family until
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the time that the father of the child performs a ritual naming
ceremony which declares the child an heir (Shimizu, 1991). It is
also noted that these ceremonies could also be used in the event
no heir was produced and the father chose a child to adopt.
Regardless of biology, it was the ritual act of claiming the
child by the father which asserted their place as a full-fledged
member of the ie.
There are several aspects of the traditional Japanese view
of kinship that are important to understanding the social
organization of the geisha. The first is that the notion of
kinship in Japan has been based on patrilineage since the
beginning of civilization on the island, transitioning from a
matrilineal system in its prehistoric early agricultural era.
Though the rulership in Japan would transition from the court
system to that of feudalism and eventually to the modern
capitalist system, one’s place in the paternal line determined
the individual’s place in the complex social hierarchy of both
the ie as well as society at large. This kinship and social
propriety network was supported not only politically but
philosophically as well.
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Secondly, the ie functioned not only as a domestic structure
but a monetary one as well. Kinship in Japan hinged upon
inheritance and the production of wealth. The continued survival
of the paternal line and its fruitfulness was the primary goal
for most all Japanese ie. It was this need to continue the line
and flourish which probably created the original bonds of ritual
kinship, in the form of adoptions of male heirs by families who
could not produce male heirs.
Thirdly, this system of fictive kinship was eventually
adopted within society at large, particularly in traditional
occupations and the merchant classes, in which businesses were
inherited by the elder son, or kobun, specifically chosen by the
head of the business itself, the father or oyabun. In these
enterprises, often built on a system of apprenticeship, the
senior members were chosen by both biological connection as well
as business ability.
Lastly, the bonds of kinship were not given simply in the
event of birth, but rather became cemented by the observance of
ritual and ceremony performed by the head of the family or
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business which recognized the individual as a full-fledged member
of the ie. As the system was adopted in occupational enterprises,
these ceremonies and rituals were also adopted as necessary means
of recognizing the person as a full member of the business and
marked their place within the social hierarchy. Even in modern
Japan, such ceremonies are still performed in many occupations.
Though complex in basic structure, the universal acceptance
of the kinship organization would likely have made the role of a
traditional entertainer such as the geisha much easier. Hierarchy
was clear cut, and social propriety clearly marked by convention
by the time that the geisha profession came about. And like most
other traditional occupations, the geisha world would be modeled
on these same kinships systems which supported the whole of
society, and particularly the monied classes from which the
geisha would draw their patronage.
Women in Japan: traditional roles in family and society
Though the indigenous people of Japan originally practiced a
more matrilineal system of kinship, interactions and cultural
blending with the Asian continent shifted the focus of Japanese
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kinship to patrilineal systems. Much of this shift can be
explained by the rise of three main philosophical and religious
outlooks which were created or adopted by the Japanese from
mainland Asia. Buddhism, Confucianism, and the Samurai codes all
gave men superiority over women. Friedman cites a Confucian
saying which clearly illustrates a woman’s role in the family is
to obey her father, husband, and son throughout the various
stages of life (Friedman, 1992). Samurai codes also claimed that
“a woman should look upon her husband as if he were heaven itself
(Friedman,1992).” Even in the famous Tale of the Genji, written by
Heian period lady in waiting Marasaki Shikibu the claim is made
that a woman not fundamentally evil would “not have been born a
woman at all (Shikibu, 978)”. Some tenets of Buddhism also
claimed that women were beyond salvation.
As a result of these strict gender roles throughout the
popular philosophical and cultural movements, the role of women
was to produce children and care for the home. Unlike western
ideals of matrimony which center upon the idea of affection and
romance, the Japanese viewed marriage as a sort of “social and
practical contract (Friedman, 1992).” Displays of romantic folly
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and passion were reserved mostly for popular literature and the
theatre, which would come to play a large role in the experience
of ukiyo, or the floating world in which geisha would find their
home. But for most Japanese women, their primary role was one of
domestic obedience and care of the needs of her children and
family.
Though this primary role served the purpose of the
patrilineal kinship system well, it also left the door open for
alternative roles for females within society. Chesemore describes
these alternative professions for women in her thesis, Women of
the Floating World. She divides these into three categories:
mistress, courtesan, and geisha (Chesemore, 1990). The mistress
is a woman who has a romantic and sexual relationship with one
man, a role encompassed by the phenomena of the second wife.
Polygamy was a common practice in Japan until the influence of
the West discouraged the practice (Chesemore, 1990). Men had
multiple wives dependent upon their wealth and ability to support
them. Principal wives were often the product of political and
social contracts rather than romantic ones, so the taking of
mistresses as second wives was common to fulfill the male’s more
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passionate appetites. The principal or first wife however would
always remain the highest in the domestic hierarchy, and respect
for her was always the priority among the women of the household
(Chesemore, 1990). Such mistresses and wives were common by the
Heian era in which Murasaki composed the Tale of the Genji, yet
by the 17th century their dominance was second to the next class
of women, the courtesan.
The courtesan was a high-class prostitute, who bartered sex
for money among the wealthy men of Japan. Flamboyant and stylish,
the high class courtesan would become the highest measure of
style in the pleasure quarters which were soon created in the
larger cities of Japan. The first pleasure quarters appeared in
Edo, now modern Tokyo, not long after the cities’ creation
(Longstreet & Longstreet, 2009). The creation of this new
district for prostitution is attributed to Shogu Jingemori, a
brothel keeper who petitioned the shogunate that districts be
created to reduce harm to public morality and create a means in
which the goings on of the prostitutes and brothel owners could
be better supervised (Longstreet & Longstreet, 2009). Jingemori’s
arguments lean heavily on moral grounds, attributing the vast and
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unregulated networks of prostitution with everything from the
moral decline of wealthy men to theft and kidnapping of girls to
be forced into the profession.
Though the proposal to create such a district had been declined
by the previous shogun, Jingemori’s moral reasoning was enough to
convince them that creating pleasure quarters would indeed be a
practical solution. The creation of pleasure quarters was
approved in 1617 (Longstreet & Longstreet, 2009). Both courtesans
and geisha would come to ply their trades in these walled-in
districts of brothels, teahouses, and eventually other
entertainment venues such as the theatres. The centralization of
these questionable entertainment areas in Edo and other large
cities created a new kind of economy into which both women of
pleasure and the industries which supported them would only grow
in wealth. Men from every level of society were welcome in the
pleasure quarters, as long as they possessed the coin to pay for
the services they indulged.
The first geishas would begin to appear in Japan near the
same time that the pleasure quarters were evolving. According to
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Liza Dalby, the first geisha were men, playing the roles of
jesters and drum bearers who were sent for to entertain both the
customers and yujo (women of pleasure), during their long nights
of partying (Dalby, 1983). It is important to note that though
the pleasure quarters were essentially created for the purpose of
prostitution, banquets, parties, and other forms of entertainment
are what filled much of the time for customers and yujo alike in
the quarters. The first true female geisha appeared in Kyoto in
1751, and within a few years began to appear in the pleasure
quarters in Edo and other cities as well (Dalby, 1983). These
were not the mere waitresses and sometimes prostitutes of the
earlier Yoshiwara, but rather a new sort of female entertainer
well versed in the arts of music, dance, and most importantly the
art of conversation.
The Organization of Geisha Society
By the late 1700s the geisha had taken the ukiyo by storm,
to the point that the courtesans’ survival was threatened. Though
not sex workers by profession, geisha did engage in sexual
relationships with the men they encountered, and as Dalby
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illustrates there were many different well know types of slang
names for geisha which denoted both their social level as well as
their willingness to engage sexually with customers (Dalby,
1983). In 1779 the geisha were officially recognized as a unique
profession, were required to register in local kenban (registry
offices) in order to work, and strictly forbidden by law to sleep
with the customers of the courtesans (Dalby, 1983). With this the
profession of the geisha was cemented in Japanese society, and
geisha came into their own both socially and financially.
Just as the business world modeled its social hierarchies on
the patrilineal kinship system of the ie, geisha would also adopt
a similar system within the pleasure quarters. The chief
difference however, was one of gender. Women predominantly lived
and worked within the ukiyo, and so women became the chief
members within the geisha ie. As there is little available
research on the historical structures of geisha families and
homes, the experience of Liza Dalby and Mineko Iwasaki will be
used to examine the structure of the geisha’s social and kinship
connections. Though both experienced life as a geisha in the mid-
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20th century, their first person accounts reveal a world very
much still steeped in traditions of fictive kinship.
According to Dalby, the owner of a teahouse or geisha house
was a female who was referred to as “okasan” or mother (Dalby,
1983). Much like the oyabun or honored father and owner of a
particular business, the okasan was the highest ranked woman in a
geisha’s fictive family. Like the CEO of a company, the okasan
managed accounts and the business as well as the lives of the
geisha employed by her. She would have overseen and directed the
entirety of her business and social world, from the running of
the household to the acquiring of new maiko, or apprentices for
the business.
Of second rank within the business family was an individual
named the atotori, or heir of the okiya (Lebra, 1985). The word
okiya simply refers to the lodging house in which the maiko and
geisha live up until they have paid their debts to the owner, or
okasan. As the atotori of the home and business, it was understood
that upon the death of the okasan, the business would be
inherited by the atotori. As a result of this, the atotori was
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treated with nearly as much deference within the home as the
okasan. Iwasaki described the honor given to the okasan and
atotori in the home as comparable to the queen and and heir
apparent, with the others functioning as court members who were
to obey the queen, or okasan, without question (Iwasaki & Brown,
2002). In the early days of the geisha, the atotori was chosen by
the okasan from birth or earlier childhood, though after labor
and schooling laws for girls were passed, many were not chosen
until they had completed the required schooling, and some were
chosen from the established geisha of the house (Lebra, 1985).
The role of the atotori was integral to the survival of both the
business and the name of the owner, therefore younger candidates
were probably preferred as a means of ensuring by the okasan that
the importance of role and its duties could be internalized early
in life.
The rest of the members of a geisha house were referred to in
terms of their place in the hierarchy of experience. Maiko, or
apprentices, were below the geisha, and beneath them were various
servants and girls known as shikomi. Shikomi refers to a girl who
is to become a geisha who has not yet started her apprenticeship
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(Lockard, 2009). Shikomi girls spend some period of time simple
getting used to life at the okiya and begin to learn the myriad
rules and customs which govern the community. They also begin
attending dance and music lessons and grow their hair to
anticipate the elaborate hairstyles they will be wearing after
they become maiko (Lockard, 2009).
Maiko and Onesan: A Ritual Marriage
Established full-fledged geisha were referred to by maiko
as onesan, or older sister. Though this general term applied to
many geisha a maiko would know, each geisha was also assigned a
specific onesan whom she would shadow in her work as a means of
learning the trade (Dalby, 1983). This relationship would take
the form of a fictional kinship bond, and would be recognized by
a specific ceremony binding the two together.
The ritual kinship bonds between a maiko and her elected
onesan are integral to the continuation of the art of the geisha.
It is from the onesan that a maiko will learn how to interact
with banquet guests, sharpen her conversational skills, and truly
learn the art of entertainment by observation. As a result of the
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importance of this, the bond is solidified ritually during an
event called misedashi, a coming out ceremony for new maiko
(Lockard, 2009). This event was marked by much fanfare within the
community, as the flamboyantly dressed maiko was paraded about
town and formally introduced to teahouse owners and other
important members of the community.
One of the most important parts of the misedashi was the
maiko’s binding to her chosen onesan. The binding was ritually
signified with the same ceremony as is used in Japanese
marriages, which is called “san san kudo” which means “three three
nine times (Lebra, 1985). During this ceremony three cups of sake
are passed between the two people being bound, from which each
takes three sips from each cup. Odd numbers are considered
auspicious to the Japanese, with nine being the luckiest, the
product of three times three (Grant, 2011). The three cups used
represent both the earthly and heavenly realms and humanity. The
san san kudo ceremony that a maiko and her onesan perform
effectively cements their bond, both in spirit, physical reality,
and in the eyes of the extended community.
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Though a maiko may take an onesan outside of her own okiya,
traditionally the onesan would be a member of the same family of
geisha beneath one okasan’s power. The repercussions of this
bonding were not only a matter of training, but could be seen as
functioning as a means of support to the fictive kinship
organization itself. A maiko was dependent upon her onesan to
learn the specific skills she would need to succeed as a full
geisha. Though her training in the arts was an important
component of her education, the success of the geisha was most
dependent on her relationship with her clients. Without learning
how to converse and interact in the proper ways with their
patrons, a geisha would likely fail to succeed at the business.
By being bonded with an experienced and successful geisha she
would learn by observation. She would become the shadow of her
onesan as she attended banquets and other appointments at the
teahouses. She would learn to become pleasing in her manners and
cultivate her conversational skills. She would learn how to act
in certain situations, and how to adapt herself to the
personality of specific clients. It was not uncommon for the
clients of an onesan to become the clients of a maiko once she
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became a full geisha. Therefore, this relationship with the
onesan also functioned as a sort of networking in which the maiko
could begin to build relationships with the patrons who might
support her in her career as a geisha.
Within the specific context of the okiya, the relationship
of the onesan and maiko also had a supportive function. In the
deeply hierarchal society of the Japanese, traditional businesses
depended not only on ability but also reputation to be
prosperous. The success of a new maiko was vital to the economic
stability of the onesan and okasan’s business interests. This is
a result of the great expense undertaken by the okiya in training
the maiko, to say nothing of the myriad elements of makeup,
hairstyle, and expensive kimono that were vital to the
profession.
To understand this expense, and what it meant to both the
maiko and the okiya, it is helpful to examine what exactly these
expenses entailed. It is also helpful in understanding the
history of the institution and the role of the women who
supported it.
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The Business of Making a Geisha
Throughout history, few girls were born into the geisha
family. The prospective geisha as well as prostitutes of the
pleasure quarters were bought and sold, many times against their
will. It was considered no shame in Japan for the poor to
outright sell their daughters to the brothel keepers and geisha
houses of the Yoshiwara and other pleasure districts. And as
indicated in his 1612 letter of appeal to the shogunate,
Jingemori indicated that some girls were even kidnapped and taken
to work in the pleasure quarters in various positions
(Longstreet, 2009). Many of these were but children, and as
indicated by such traditions as the atotori, may have even been
preferable to more mature young women. Young girls are easier to
train and control, and less likely to succeed in running away
from their owners. This was the dark side of the pleasure
quarters, where women and girls were bought, sold, and even
stolen and forced to work as indentured servants to those who
bought them, until their debts were paid. These debts included
their purchase price as well as any other expenses that might
accrue, and were added to her debts liberally. As Longstreet
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explains, many young women of the Yoshiwara and assorted pleasure
quarters were forced to sell themselves until the age of 27 in
order to free themselves from debt (Longstreet, 2009). It is also
no surprise that many such women were forced to continue this
life in order to support themselves, having little other options
for making a living or marrying.
Though the geisha were not typically forced into
prostitution, they were sexually available. In some ways their
debts could be even higher than those of the tayu, or courtesans.
Not only did a geisha have to pay back her purchase price, she
also was burdened by the debts owed to the okiya for her art and
dance lessons, expensive kimono, and many other accoutrements and
necessities of the geisha life and appearance. As a Kyoto geisha
in the mid 20th century, Mineko Iwasaki estimated that one geisha
kimono cost at least two thousand dollars (Iwasaki & Brown,
2002). It is also common knowledge that for a geisha to appear in
the same kimono more than once is nearly unheard of, and will be
viewed as shabby among her community members (Iwasaki & Brown,
2002). All these expenses were paid for by the okiya, and until
GEISHA 30
her debts were paid the geisha must continue to work for her
okasan to pay them back.
The purchase price, years of training, and no guarantee of
return made the success of a prospective geisha integral to the
survival of the business. This is why the relationship between
maiko and onesan was so important, that it was recognized by
ritual kinship ceremonies tantamount to marriage. The maiko and
her onesan were bound together within the fictive kinship
structure of the okiya as a means of recognizing a relationship
mutually beneficial to themselves as well as the okiya.
For the onesan, the success of her maiko was everything in a
world where reputation was prized above all things. The
elaborately dressed maiko was welcome at any occasion, and for
the onesan would have given her a manner of respect among her
peers as well as exciting her patrons, and perhaps bringing in
new potential clients. She also had a stake in the maiko’s
success, which was bound to her guidance and mentoring. If the
maiko failed to produce money for the okiya, the status of the
onesan would likely suffer as well.
GEISHA 31
As discussed earlier, the maiko was also dependent upon her
onesan for success. She would learn the art of conversation and
entertainment from her onesan. She would also be able to
acclimate to the new surroundings within the teahouse surrounded
by strangers in the company of a sort of elder chaperone. And her
future clients might come through introductions with those in the
acquaintance of her onesan. She was dependent upon the onesan for
guidance.
In light of this, it is easy to see why the ceremony which
bound them was full of marriage symbolism. Like the marriage
within the Japanese ie, the purpose was ultimately the survival
and furthering of the family name and fortune. The relationships
were not about love or affection, but rather practical benefit.
In the same vein, the binding of maiko to onesan served the same
purpose within the fictive family of the okiya. Both were reliant
on one another to flourish at their profession, and both were
driven by the need to succeed monetarily in order to repay their
debts. And in doing so, they also served the purpose of
increasing the reputation of the okasan and her okiya, which
would ultimately increase the businesses reputation and future
GEISHA 32
prospects. In light of this, it is not difficult to see the
vested interests conveyed in the ritual binding of maiko to
onesan.
Mizuage: The geisha’s rite of passage
The term mizuage makes many both inside and beyond the world
of geisha a bit squeamish. The term itself means “raising water”
in the literal sense, yet it has many connected yet variant
meanings. Originally the term referred to the practice of goods
being unloaded from barges, and evolved into a means of referring
to that which is bought and sold, financial income (Dalby, 1983).
In the world of the pleasure quarters, mizuage came to denote the
selling of sex itself, with the process of “raising water”
referring both to the exchange of compensation for service as
well as a crude reference to female sexual fluids (Dalby, 1983).
In light of its association to sexual activity as well as
its application to both geisha and prostitutes historically, it
is safe to assume that mizuage in relation to the pleasure
quarters simply referred to the process of deflowering young
women were subjected to. There is also evidence that this
GEISHA 33
process, now simply a ceremonial transition from maiko to geisha,
did in fact happen to geisha in some instances, though lack of
sources and the reticence of geisha to speak of it makes any
knowledge of its prevalence hard to come by. Like most sexual
topics, the Japanese voice throughout history prefers to imply
rather than speak explicitly, and more modern first person
accounts on mizuage tend to glaze over the actual experience and
details of the process.
In light of this lack of explicit detail, it is helpful to
realize that like most other professions, there has always been a
hierarchy of social status. In historical Japan, there were a
great many different types of geisha associated to different
regions and social classes. Each of these had a place on the
spectrum between sex worker and serious artist (Dalby, 1983). For
the purpose of this discussion, we will focus mostly on the more
artistic classes of geisha for which mizuage was a coming of age
ceremony more so than a literal expression of the selling of
virginity.
GEISHA 34
Mizuage for geisha goes hand-in-hand with the occasion of
eri-kae, or the turning of the collar, and in modern times the
two terms have become somewhat interchangeable. This occasion
marks the transition from maiko to geisha, and functions as a
communal coming-of-age ceremony for the geisha. For this
occasion, the new geisha will wear her most formal kimono, and
will visit many teahouses and other businesses within the
quarters to present herself as a full geisha as well as thank the
community for their support of her (Kojiki, 2013). The turning of
the collar refers to the specific nuance of the maiko and
geisha’s costume; red collars are worn by maiko while white
collars are worn only by full geisha (Kojiki, 2013)..
There is no way to know the true implications of mizuage and
its link with the eri-kae, yet they could be viewed as two
processes by which the transition from maiko to geisha was
affirmed, private and public. The obvious connection and at times
interchangeability of the terms may indicate that both
represented a traditional rite of passage within the community,
both in professional and personal terms.
GEISHA 35
The transition from girl to woman is marked in many cultures
worldwide and often linked to her loss of virginity. This is
admittedly the case when one examines the conversation of Dalby
with both geisha and their patrons during her training as a
geisha in Kyoto (Dalby, 1985). Hansen discusses the common
elements of rites of passages, which fit well into the framework
of the mizuage ceremonies of maiko. During a rite of passage,
there may be several stages of ritual and ordeal through which
the individual emerges with a new social status (Hansen, n.d.).
It is common for this transition to include ritual elements such
as dance or masks as signal of the symbolic changes which the
individual has undergone (Hansen, n.d.).
These elements are evident within the frame of the mizuage
and eri-kae ceremonies. In the past, the deflowering may have
been the significant ordeal that a young woman had to endure in
order to attain status as both a woman and geisha. The eri-kae
ceremony provided the culmination of the transition, in which the
new geisha was formally costumed and presented to the community
as both a professional and fictive family member, now receiving
the full support of her community. The changes in wardrobe may be
GEISHA 36
viewed in the same light as the symbolic representations of new
status, serving the same function as theatrics or the wearing of
masks among other cultures passage rites. By “turning the
collar,” the maiko was socially transformed into a geisha, and
from that point forward her new white collar would signify her
social status as such. It was not until a maiko became a geisha
that she was considered worthy of the long years of training and
money that were put in by herself, the okiya, her onesan, and the
community at large. As a result of this, a geisha’s eri-kae has
always been an important celebratory rite for both herself and
the community. Even today the coming out of a new geisha remains
an important event that attracts community members and tourists
alike.
Culture of the Four Seasons and Communal Ritual
The role of the geisha is an entertainer, yet she is more
than a simple hostess or waitress. In a very real sense, geisha
are representatives of culture in light of their serious training
in the arts. For centuries they have made a living as such,
becoming living, walking breathing symbols of Japanese
GEISHA 37
aesthetics. Even in postmodern times as their numbers have
dwindled, they remain cherished by the people of Japan for their
preservation of culture and social tradition.
In his book Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo
Shirane surveys Japanese arts from the Nara period till the end
of the Edo period, a time when geisha were just coming into their
own golden age. When we examine this culture of the four seasons,
it becomes obvious how deeply embedded the idea is in all
traditional Japanese art forms, including the geisha. These
cultural roots go far back into the history of Japan and its
indigenous religious and ritual paradigm. In this sense, geisha
play a role in society which goes even deeper than the okiya and
the pleasure quarters. They may also play a role for the Japanese
collectively as preservers of culture and national pride.
The native indigenous religion of Japan is Shinto, an
animistic belief system which has been practiced in Japan since
before recorded history. The central belief is in the kami, or
divine spirits which reside in all natural things (Universal Life
Church [ULC], 2010). The natural world is the home of the divine,
GEISHA 38
and as such was revered greatly by the Japanese. Formal ritual
was created as a means of interacting with these spirits, and
asking for their benevolent actions in return. As the residents
of nature itself in an agricultural society, the actions of the
kami could be a matter of life and death. Survival was dependent
on the production of the land, and the kami controlled all
natural phenomena. Shinto also includes a belief in the power of
one’s ancestors to help their descendants, so ancestor worship is
also a common component of Shintoism (Universal Life Church
[ULC], 2010).
Taken at its simplest, two important aspects of indigenous
Japanese belief are obvious. These are the reverence of nature
and the importance of family. Its focus on formality in ritual
also can be seen as an important element which would also
influence Japanese culture. The later growth of religion and
philosophies such as Buddhism, Zen, and Confucianism were all
compatible with Shinto, and as a result Shinto has survived as
Japan’s indigenous belief system even in postmodern Japan.
GEISHA 39
In the form of the kami, nature was personified and given an
emotional nature. People could speak to and appeal to the kami
and their ancestors as a means of bringing about certain events
such as favorable weather or the success of the crops. In the
event of a natural disaster the people could also appeal to the
kami for help, which gave them a means of understanding the world
and a sense of comfort and hope. The rituals became embedded in
their spiritual culture as the favored means of interaction with
the spirit world.
This reverence of personified nature would evolve into an
ideal state of nature in the culture of Japan. Nature translated
to the Japanese as emotion due to the personification of it
within their spiritual traditions. As art and material culture
evolved, nature would become symbolic of human emotion as well.
During the Heian period, this spiritual and aesthetic
idealization of nature would become ingrained in what is termed
as the culture of the four seasons. This ideal would eventually
become part of and parcel of the geisha life as traditional
artists, and its influence is palpable in nearly every aspect of
GEISHA 40
their professional lives from the elaborate kimono that clothe
them to the art forms they practice.
During the Heian period and through the medieval age, the
courtly life drew the highest classes of society away from the
countryside and into large urban cities such as Kyoto and Edo
where the court and government was centered (Caiger and Mason,
1997). There was also a gradual transition of land ownership from
public allotment to the system of shoen, or hereditary estate
(Caiger and Mason, 1997). These changes created clans of nobility
that needed to be close to the centralized capitals of the court
and government in order to protect the finances and interests of
the clan itself. Ultimately the ruling power would transition
from the emperor to the shogunate, yet there was a continuing
need for the rulers of the powerful clans to be continuously in
the growing urban areas in order to secure their influence in the
political realm.
Removed from the primacy of the natural realm formerly
experienced on their estates, the aristocracy turned to the arts
to preserve their reverence and connection with the natural
GEISHA 41
realm, already deeply ingrained within the culture. Hiruao
Shirane’s Culture of the Four Seasons explains how this deep reverence
of nature led Japanese art to shift focus to secondary nature, a
kind of “recreated or represented nature (Shirane, 2012).” This
concept was a good fit with previous Japanese art forms, such as
the ancient poetic form of the waka and haiku (Shirane, 2012).
One of the central themes of these poetic forms is the connection
between nature and human emotion. In fact, feeling is rarely ever
explicitly expressed in Japanese poetics, but rather represented
by natural objects and phenomena. Nature was the means of
articulating thought and emotion, and functioned as both a
stimulus for the artist and an expression of feeling (Shirane,
2012).
Waka was a means of communicating feeling by urban elites,
and it focused on gentleness and harmony. As Shirane describes
it, waka depicted nature not as it actually was, but as it should
be (Shirane, 2012). This was the first development of the
aesthetic focus on secondary nature and it would extend into the
whole of Japanese art and culture in the coming centuries
GEISHA 42
During the premodern period, this focus on idealized
secondary nature led to the creation of many artistic styles and
forms that would come to define Japanese art. Screen painting,
palace style gardens, ikebana (flower arrangement), bonsai, tea
ceremony, the decoration of kimono, and a variety of other art
forms all focuses on the elegant beauty of idealized, secondary
nature (Shirane, 2012). By the time the geisha came into
existence, these aesthetic ideals were ingrained in the culture
of Japan, and the geisha were deeply involved in them in their
role as artists.
Geisha as Cultural Symbols
Kimono and the transmission of culture
The importance of kimono to the geisha is a topic that few
truly understand. To the average westerner the geisha’s kimono is
viewed like any other fashionable outfit, a mere means of
GEISHA 43
accentuating their youth and beauty as a means of attracting male
attention. This perspective could not be more simplistic. The
kimono is more than a mere outfit. It is an art form with
historical significance utilizing centuries of symbolism embedded
in Japanese culture.
During the Heian period, aristocratic women used their
elaborate dresses much like the poet used brush and ink, to
display their elegance and beauty using traditional natural
imagery. The juni hitoe, or twelve layered dress, was a visual
expression of secondary nature and its focus on seasonal
symbolism during the Heian period (Shirane, 2012). During each of
the four seasons specific color combinations were called for
which echoed the colors of nature during that particular season
(Shirane, 2012). To be dressed in garments symbolic of a
conflicting season would have been viewed as a great impropriety.
Evidence of this can be seen in the famous Heian era Pillow Book,
authored by Sei Shonagan, a court lady serving Empress Teishi
around the year 1000. In the section of the book titled “Awful
things” wearing a twelve layered dress outside the proper season
is comparable to “dogs howling at noon” or the use of winter
GEISHA 44
fishing techniques during the spring (Sei Shonagan, 1000). These
things are in portrayed as so nonsensical as to be truly awful.
During the Edo period a new form of dress called the kosode
was created that also functioned as wearable art. This straight
lined robe with sleeves echoed the lines of a canvas, and was
worn by common women and samurai (Shirane, 2012). This type of
dress came to be called by another name, the kimono. Like the
twelve layered robes of the Heian aristocracy, the kimono was
also decorated with seasonal motifs echoing the elegance and
harmony of the natural world. The kimono has always been and
remains the standard dress of the geisha.
Traditional etiquette on the wearing of kimono is dependent
on the adherence to certain themes of color and natural
representations based on the specific time of year. Each month
has a flower, fruit, or natural object as its symbol with
corresponding colors (Dalby, 1992). In this fashion, the geisha
transmitted the cultural aesthetics of secondary nature into the
postmodern era. This is especially true in the modern and
postmodern periods, when the expense of these luxurious
GEISHA 45
ceremonial kimono became so exhorbitant that geisha were some of
the few in Japanese society who could afford to purchase them in
enough number to keep the tradition of seasonal themes alive
(Dalby,1992).
Another cultural element of wearing kimono is best
understood by exploring what kimono mean to the Japanese. In the
paper Kimono and gender identity, author Goldstein-Gidoni explore the
place of kimono in Japan as symbols of both the feminine ideal
and the divergence of western versus Japanese culture. With the
introduction of Westerners and western cultural ideas into Japan
during the Meiji period, the Japanese began distinguishing
western (yo) with Japanese (wa) culture, particularly in the area
of clothing (Goldstein-Gidoni, 1999). Men were encouraged to
dress in western clothing and cut their hair short, yet women
were discouraged from doing so until after the Meiji period. As a
result of this, the traditional kimono became heavily associated
with the idea of Japanese womanhood, and symbolic of the inherent
national pride the Japanese had for their indigenous culture. One
popular saying is “the beauty of kimono is the heart of the
Japanese people (Goldstein-Gidoni, 1999).”
GEISHA 46
To the Japanese, the kimono is something that represents wa
culture more so than nearly any other object. In modern Japan,
there is but one form of surviving kimono, a specific type that
was once worn only by elites on special occasions (Dalby, 1992).
The geisha are the only women left in Japan who wear kimono
outside of special occasions or ceremonies such as weddings and
festivals. They are most certainly the only ones left who truly
understand the history and art of wearing kimono. It has been
said in various sources that a geisha is not a geisha without
kimono, and the kimono itself remains one of the most potent
symbols of traditional Japanese aesthetics, social customs, and
culture. As such, geisha may be revered by the collective public
for their preservation of kimono as a cherished cultural object
of great significance.
Dinner Entertainment and Social Custom
The majority of a geisha’s professional work takes place in
teahouses, restaurants, and private parties. Like many of its art
forms and primary social structures, the Japanese dining
experience is ritualized and marked by adherence to strict social
GEISHA 47
customs. The Japanese style restaurant, or ryotei, is a place
where geisha have traditionally worked as entertainers (Befu,
1974). Western restaurant service is characterized by the role
its hostesses and waiters serve, usually one of little
interaction with guests and a focus on minimal interaction
between server and patron. Ryotei dining, on the other hand, is a
complex social interaction in that both parties interact in an
almost ritual manner.
At the ryotei, each party of guests has their own separate
room, therefore the atmosphere is much more private (Befu, 1974).
Food is ordered by the host alone and often before the party
arrives at the restaurant (Befu, 1974). All guests are served the
same dishes and treated with equal propriety and respect. Befu
notes that this promotes a feeling of social cohesion between
guests which mimics the experience of dining at home (Befu,
1974). Just as fictive kinship bonds are utilized in traditional
businesses and occupations, the ryotei dining experience could be
viewed as a ritualized model of the home dining experience.
GEISHA 48
This hearkens back to Japanese ideas of the ie, home and
family. Japanese people take great pains to provide clear limits
and boundaries to those inside and outside the ie. This extends
to the physical home. To be welcomed into a person’s home
signaled a sort of belonging that could not extend to those
outside the ie, or very close personal friends. Business meetings
and other social events were not conducted within the home, so
the ryotei dining experience served as a means of creating social
bonds and communal experience outside of the home. It is worth
noting that while females have attended ryotei parties on
occasion, the phenomena itself was largely used by Japanese men
as a means of meeting and socializing for business and political
reasons (Dalby, 1983).
The hostesses and geisha took a surrogate role for the
female members of the household, as Japanese wives and mothers
were traditionally relegated to the private domestic world. The
geisha provide feminine interest and entertainment to men at the
ryotei, and also served sake, a beverage with its own long list
of ritual connotations. The geisha enabled men to socialize and
bond as a group, though their ties were based on business and
GEISHA 49
political interests rather than true kinship. The ryotei also
gave men a setting in which they could relax comfortably and be
unburdened of the strict proprieties of Japanese social life and
enjoy a sense of collective equality with his peers.
It is hard to imagine that this would be possible without
the geisha’s skills in conversation and entertainment, their
traditionally female arts. In this sense, the geisha served the
men of Japan by providing much needed female companionship in
their social obligations outside of the ie, while allowing them
to maintain a proper distance between their inner and outer
social worlds.
Working in ryotei and teahouses, geisha are also deeply
associated with the consumption of sake, a common alcoholic
beverage in Japan whose history is deeply ingrained in Japanese
culture. Sake was originally a drink with highly religious
symbolism, believed to be the drink of the gods (Befu, 1974). It
was originally drank in a ceremony called naorae, a ritual
sharing of drink before the altar of the god in which mortals
shared food and sake with the divine beings (Befu, 1974). Though
GEISHA 50
sake has long sense lost its specifically spiritual connotations
to the Japanese, it retains its somewhat ritualized protocols for
consumption. These protocols focus greatly on social communion
and propriety, which for the Japanese rests heavily on
recognizing ones place in the social hierarchy while maintaining
a general politeness of interaction that is convivial to all.
The Future of the Geisha
The geishas have always relied on a complex network of
fictive kinship ties, social hierarchies, and business
relationships as a means of surviving and passing along their
great tradition of culture and artistry. The profession of the
geisha is one of both cultural and social action deeply imbedded
within the Japanese aesthetics of beauty and art. In the modern
world, they are valued even more highly as a cultural institution
wholly Japanese, a matter of pride for the majority. Yet still,
in recent years their numbers have dwindled.
With the impact of westernization and globalization in
economics, politics, and social interaction, it is estimated that
GEISHA 51
only about 2,000 geisha still practice the profession in Japan
(Ling, 2010).
Only a century ago geisha numbered 80,000 or more (Ling, 2010).
Labor laws have forbidden the training of young girls and it is
no longer legal to obtain prospective geisha out of any means but
their own free will. In an increasingly westernized Japan, it
seems few young women can bear the expense and intense years of
training that come with the profession. Others point to financial
reasons for the decline, citing the increasing costs of training
and kimono as well as a decline in the number of men willing or
able to pay for the services of geisha.
Despite these difficulties, the tradition continues. What
was once commonplace has become a sort of revered spectacle, the
geisha have become symbolic of traditional Japan much like a
painting from a lost age might in the West. It is hard to say if
the geisha will continue to ply their trade as artists and
entertainers, or if the tradition will eventually die out in a
globalized Japan.
GEISHA 52
Conclusions
In the western mindset, the geisha have always been a
symbolic of exotic beauty and sensuality. They are also often
misunderstood. Westerners have always attempted to understand the
profession of the geisha from a western paradigm, and inevitably
failed to comprehend both the cultural and social mores of Japan
and the impossibility of “westernizing” an understanding of the
complex roles that geisha play within their society. Instead, the
focus is often attracted to their connection to the floating
world of their own imagination, where all females become
prostitutes and sex workers vying for the attention of wealthy
patrons. To the western mind, the mere idea of places such as the
“pleasure quarters” equates with sexual pleasure. For the
Japanese, the concept of pleasure does include sexuality, yet is
not limited to it by any means.
The reality is that the geisha represent much more than
simple sex workers. In fact, their role as such remains quite
ambiguous and secondary to their true profession, which is that
GEISHA 53
of the social artist. As such, the phenomenon of geisha can be
considered a cultural and social institution that is highly
valued by the Japanese, both historically and in the postmodern
age. Their work is informed by centuries of indigenous Japanese
aesthetics and social customs. This is often hard for westerners
to understand, as we have no truly comparable profession
undertaken by women in the history of our culture. One might even
say that it is this originality of culture that makes the geisha
so valuable. The geisha represents so much of that which makes
the Japanese unique in comparison to the West.
It is impossible to understand the geisha without examining
the structure of the Japanese ie, or family ideal upon which so
much of their social custom and interactions are informed. To the
west, kinship is commonly defined in terms of blood relationship,
yet in Japan it has rarely if ever been so. The Japanese have
focused instead on a system of kinship that serves the collective
ie rather than the valuation of relation by blood ties. In a
nation largely removed from the world throughout history and
self-sufficient, survival was dependent on a family’s ability to
produce for the whole, rather than pursue individual desire. The
GEISHA 54
roles of men and women were defined by their ability to sustain
the family and their own holdings. Being closed from outside
influence besides their immediate neighbors in Asia only further
solidified their need for a communal family structure that could
adapt to a variety of situations. As a result of this need, a
system of fictive kinship was adopted.
Such a system of both real and fictive kinship ties
supported the solidity of the ie, and it translated naturally to
the professional world. This was particularly true as the feudal
system began to fail in the early modern period, when merchants
and artisans grew in wealth through trade and monetary dealings
with the struggling samurai class. Urbanization and concentration
of wealth supported the growth of the pleasure quarters, the
birthplace of the profession of the geisha. Such places provided
a needed outlet for the wealthy men of the merchant classes as
well as the samurai.
Being a traditional profession, the geisha adopted the same
fictive kinship systems to support their own communal interests,
with great success. The demand for geisha was so great that true
GEISHA 55
kinship ties were rarely able to provide the labor force needed
to respond to this chain of supply and demand. The fictive
kinship bonds between maiko, geisha, onesans, and okasans
provided a structure for supporting the businesses and enabled
the geisha to depend on one another for mutual benefit. Each
member of the okiya was truly invested in the development and
success of the business, as well as the individuals within it.
Fictive kinship bonds solidified the bonds of geisha as well as
giving them a real sense of belonging and community. It gave them
job security that enabled them to focus intently on that which
defined them, the arts.
The rituals of fictive kinship between the geisha were
mirrored on traditional Japanese rites. These kinship rituals
incorporated social, cultural, and artistic elements that were
longstanding in the culture. In the ie, a child became a member
only when the father claimed the child, and this was mirrored
when the okasan claimed the geisha and chose a name for her. The
maiko’s mizuage functioned as a coming of age ceremony, another
tradition mirrored on the Japanese social custom. The custom of
adopting an atotori, or heir to the okiya was modeled on the
GEISHA 56
oyabun-kobun system of inheritance that developed from the same
practice within traditional Japanese families in order to ensure
the success of the family line.
These rituals may have functioned primarily to ensure that
the family or business flourished, yet they also incorporated
important cultural elements as well. They were often times
derived from rites that had been originally spiritual in nature,
and called upon the kami, or nature spirits for benevolence. They
also included important symbolic gestures and numeral lore that
was meaningful beyond the mundane as well. Lastly, they were
undertaken in the spirit of Japanese aesthetics, always clinging
to the value of nature as an inherent emotional and spiritual
ideal that created harmony.
Outside their primary social structures, the geisha also
played an important role to the Japanese as guardians of culture.
The Japanese aesthetic of secondary nature was created based on
ancient poetry and the importance of nature as an expression of
human emotion and thought. By the time the geisha arrived in the
16th and 17th centuries, secondary nature was cemented within the
GEISHA 57
whole of Japanese aesthetics. As artists, the geisha carried
these traditions through the centuries, evident in their music,
dance, social customs, and even the very clothes they wore. The
ability of the geisha to preserve and express culture could be
seen as directly dependent on the intense formal fictive kinship
systems they were a part of. The tight knit nature of the geisha
community was focused on communal rather than individual
interests, and as such the geisha were able to focus and transmit
traditional art from generation to generation with little outside
influence. As a result of this, today’s geisha are revered not
only for their profession, but also their role as symbols of
Japanese culture and its unique national personality.
Lastly, it would be difficult to discuss the ritual aspects
of geisha and kinship without mentioning their relationship to
their mostly male clientele. The service of companionship and
conversationalist they encompass also supports traditional
cultural and social ideals. Geisha become the missing piece in
their banquets and parties for men looking to create a relaxing
and convivial environment among their associates without
violating strict social boundaries between public and personal
GEISHA 58
life. With mothers and wives relegated to the private sphere and
the home, geisha are stand ins for the ideal Japanese female,
adding vibrancy and tending to the needs of men as they socialize
communally. In their role as servers of sake, they observe ritual
rules that also hearken back to Japanese ideals of harmony with
nature and intense respect for the social hierarchy.
Though much of the social roles that defined Japanese men
and women have changed with the impact of westernization in the
global age, the tradition still carries on. Geisha still ply
their trades in the restaurants and teahouses of the wealthy
elite, and they have become a symbol of pride for the Japanese.
The geisha of today are more likely to be dedicated to the arts
than ever, given that they must come of their own free will, and
the training requires intense discipline. Will the ritual bonds
between geisha and their fictive family members be enough to
carry them into an increasingly globalized future? Only time can
answer this question.
GEISHA 59
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