24 AMAM.OBERLIN.EDU TRANSPORTATION BY LAND For short or even long-distance land travel in the Edo period, walking was by far the most common mode of transportation, and certainly the most environmentally friendly. Look closely at many of the landscape prints in this exhibition and you will see that most of the figures are traveling on foot. The main reason was the low number of draft animals in use. By the 18th century, the population in Japan was so great that very little arable land could be spared to grow feed for livestock or draft animals. Ox carts were used for moving heavy things, but only in the cities. Wheeled vehicles were prohibited on major highways because the roads were unpaved and easily torn up by heavy loads. Horses were mostly restricted tomiddle- and high-ranking samurai, although packhorses or riding horses, led by a groom on foot, could be rented for day trips. For most people, the only alternative to walking was a sedan chair (kago 駕籠), a seat mounted below a pole and carried by two bearers. Above: UtagawaHiroshige I 初代目歌川広重 (Japanese, 1797–1858) Takamiya, no. 65 fromthe series Sixty-nine Stations of theKisokaidō, late 1830s Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper MaryA. AinsworthBequest, 1950.914 Two women carrying immense loads on their backs walk toward us on the Kisokaidō from the town of Takamiya, today the city of Hikone near Kyoto. Walking was not only the typical mode of travel, it was also howmost goods were moved throughout the country. Bottomright: UtagawaHiroshige I 初代目歌川広重 (Japanese, 1797–1858) Ishiyakushi: The StationHouse, with aPoemby Tomogaki Matsura, no. 45 fromthe series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō also known as the Kyōka Tōkaidō, ca. 1840 Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper MaryA. AinsworthBequest, 1950.1018 At the important way station at Ishiyakushi was a busy station house that managed transportation on this section of the Tōkaidō. This is where porters, bearers, and horses could be changed out for the next leg of travel. At the right, porters chat while wiping off sweat. Next to them, two porters check a load while another man cleans dirt from a horse’s hoof. In the foreground a load is removed from a pack horse, and behind, a third horse drinks water from a round trough. At the left are two types of sedan chair: one, in red, is a closed chair, providing wealthier travelers with more privacy and protection from the elements; the other sedan chair is the more common, open style. Aman sits in it, waiting for one bearer to stop arguing with a dispatcher, in blue. Inside the accounting house two standing customers make travel arrangements with the other dispatchers, who are seated on a platform covered with paperwork.
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