Title : Yodo River

Artist : Utagawa Hiroshige

Date : c. 1834

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Source : Honolulu Museum of Art
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Description : This print was conserved with the support of the Robert F. Lange Foundation. The ferryboat pictured here is called a sanjikkoku (thirty-busheler) because it can carry a load of thirty bushels of rice (approx. 190 cubic feet). In the Edo period sanjikkoku were also used as passenger ferries. One of the most hilarious scenes in Adventures Down the Tökaidö is that which takes place on one of these Yodo River ferryboats. The happenings include fervent regional singing showcases, impressions of Kabuki actors, witty repartee, and a fight breaking out. The comic highlights of the scene entail scatology-Yaji needs to relieve himself at an inopportune moment. He urinates in a bottle, which is soon mistaken by another passenger for sake. Yaji receives his just desserts, however, when he too mistakenly drinks another passenger's urine. The night ferry that Yaji and Kita board looks like the one in this print. Here we see commoners-one yawning-monks, a woman breastfeeding her infant, and two men, apparently traveling poets, drinking sake. The boatmen gaze at the moon as they punt along. Tethered to the ferry is a kurawanka ("won't you eat?") vending boat. Hiroshige's Yodo River scene is more serene, though less comically entertaining, than Jippensha Ikku's.

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