When you think of traditional images from the Edo Period, firemen probably don’t immediately spring to mind. And yet for centuries, the brigades of hikeshi, literally “those who put out fires,” have been extremely important in keeping Japan’s cities from going up in flames on a regular basis. Although we might think of Japan as being a backward nation during its 250-year period of sakoku (“chained country”), when it was death for any Japanese to leave Japan or for any foreigner to visit, the sprawling metropolis of Edo (renamed Tokyo in 1868) was actually the largest city in the world, with as many as 1.25 million residents at the time of the national census of 1720, compared with just 860,000 in London.
With so many people living in buildings made of wood, bamboo and paper, fires were a constant danger, and so teams of firemen wearing thick, multi-layered kimonos of cotton and special sandals were organized to keep them under control. Since there were no water pumps back then, the main way they accomplished this was by tearing down houses that weren’t burning yet in order to isolate fires to a single part of the city, essentially creating fire lanes in the middle of the city. These heroic men were celebrated with a special genre of the ukiyoe art, and every year we sell these firefighter art calendars on the site.
There’s a famous story related to fires in the Edo period, the tale of a girl named Oshichi, who became the most famous arsonist in Japanese history. She was born in the year 1666 in present-day Chiba Prefecture, and was adopted by a family who sold vegetables in Edo. When she was 16, a fire burned through much of the city, and she was forced to evacuate with her adopted family. While fleeing the flames, she met a page from a Buddhist temple named Shonosuke and they fell madly in love with each other. After she returned home, she found herself thinking of the young man endlessly, and her obsession became so great that she decided to start another fire in the city, so that she might be able to see her lover again. She was caught and executed, but her story became a legend in a Guy Fawkes sort of way, and has been used as the basis for traditional Kabuki plays for centuries.
The legend would have surprising consequences in modern day Japan. Oshichi was the first Hinoeuma (hi-no-EU-ma) or “Fire Horse,” the beginning of the superstition that girls born in the Year of the Horse every 60 years will grow up to be headstrong and will cause sadness for their family. The last Hinoeuma year was 1966, and so many women avoided having children that year that it caused a noticeable drop in Japanese population numbers, altering Japanese demographics in a visible way. And there’s another Hinoeuma fire horse year coming in 2026. What will happen this time around?
Did you enjoy reading about the tradition of Firemen in Old Edo?
