| | 1 | Author: | Fenollosa
Ernest Francisco
1853-1908 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | "Noh", or, Accomplishment  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Our ancestor was called Umegu Hiogu no Kami
Tomotoki. He was the descendant in the ninth
generation of Tachibana no Moroye Sadaijin, and
lived in Umedzu Yamashiro, hence his family name.
After that he lived in Oshima, in the province of
Tamba, and died in the fourth year of Ninwa
Moroye's descendant, the twenty-second after Tomotoki,
was called Hiogu no Kami Tomosato. He
was a samurai in Tamba, as his fathers before him.
The twenty-eighth descendant was Hiogu no Kami
Kagehisa. His mother dreamed that a Noh mask
was given from heaven; she conceived, and Kagehisa
was born. From his childhood Kagehisa liked
music and dancing, and he was by nature very
excellent in both of these arts. The Emperor
Gotsuchi Mikado heard his name, and in January
in the 13th year of Bunmei he called him to his
palace and made him perform the play Ashikari.
Kagehisa was then sixteen years old. The Emperor
admired him greatly and gave him the decoration
(Monsuki) and a curtain which was purple above
and white below, and he gave him the honorific
ideograph "waka" and thus made him change his
name to Umewaka. By the Emperor's order,
Ushoben Fugiwara no Shunmei sent the news of
this and the gifts to Kagehisa. The letter of the
Emperor, given at that time, is still in our house.
The curtain was, unfortunately, burned in the great
fire of Yedo on the 4th of March in the third year
of Bunka. Kagehisa died in the second year of
Kioroku and after him the family of Umewaka
became professional actors of Noh. Hironaga, the
thirtieth descendant of Umewaka Taiyu Rokuro,
served Ota Nobunaga.1
1Nobunaga died in 1582.
And he was given a territory
of 700 koku in Tamba. And he died in
Nobunaga's battle, Akechi. His son, Taiyu Rokuro
Ujimori, was called to the palace of Tokugawa Iyeyasu
in the fourth year of Keicho, and given a territory
of 100 koku near his home in Tamba. He
died in the third year of Kambun. After that the
family of Umewaka served the Tokugawa shoguns
with Noh for generation after generation down to
the revolution of Meiji (1868). These are the outlines
of the genealogy of my house. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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