Samegai-juku in Maibara from Ōmi-meisyo-zue (1814) was the sixty-first of the sixty-nine stations of the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected the ''de facto'' ...

highway connecting

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara,

Shiga Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,398,972 as of 1 February 2025 and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to th ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

History

Samegai-juku has a very long history, and was mentioned by name in the ''

Nihon Shoki The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'', which was completed in 720 AD, and in the even earlier ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' chronicle in connection with the

Yamato Takeru , originally , was a Japanese folk hero and semi-legendary prince of the imperial dynasty, son of Emperor Keikō, who is traditionally counted as the 12th Emperor of Japan. The kanji spelling of his name varies: it appears in the ''Nihon Shoki'' ...

mythology. It was located on the ancient

Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...

highway connecting the capital of

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mo ...

with the provinces of eastern Japan, and continued to be mentioned in the diaries and the poems of travelers in the

Heian The Japanese word Heian (平安, lit. "peace") may refer to: * Heian period, an era of Japanese history * Heian-kyō, the Heian-period capital of Japan that has become the present-day city of Kyoto * Heian series, a group of karate kata (forms) * ...

and

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

s. One of the main attractions of this station was the fresh and clear waters from the nearby Jizogawa river and many travelers thought of Samegai as a proper resting place.Machinami Kaidō Samegai-juku
Accessed July 23, 2007. In the early

, the system of

post stations Graham Media Group (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations) is the television broadcasting subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company. It is now headquartered in Detroit, co-locating with its local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, after spending 10 years in Chicago. ...

on the Nakasendō was formalized by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

in 1602, and it was a stopping place for traveling merchants () who originated from

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

. It was on the ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' (, now commonly written as ) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period, created to control the daimyo, the feudal lords of Japan, politically, and to keep them from attempting to overthrow the regi ...

'' route by various western ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' to-and-from the Shogun's court in

. The station was also a transportation hub, as the Jizogawa river was navigable by small boats and barges, and was used to carry goods. Samegai-juku had seven warehouses (''Tonyaba'') lining its banks, far more than most other stations. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 539 people in 138 houses, including one ''

honjin image:Ohara-juku01s3200.jpg, The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') during the later part of the Edo period. Evolution of ''Honjin ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 11 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at ''shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes and the subroutes. In addition to a place to rest, ''hatago'' also offered meals and other foods to the travelers. ...

''.

Modern Samegai-juku

There are still ten buildings remaining from the

today, giving visitors an idea of how the town looked hundreds of years ago.Samegai-juku Kankō & Rējā Gaido
. Shobunka Publications, Inc. Accessed July 23, 2007. There is also an archives museum located in a

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

former post office which gives greater detail to the post town's past.

Samegai-juku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige or , born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series '' The Fifty-three Stations ...

's ''

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

'' print of Samegai-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print is dominated by a large pine tree in the center of the composition, with the thatched roofs of several buildings in the background. These buildings are the famous ''Rokken jaya'' of Samegai-juku, six ''hatago'' built for the purposes of housing the retinues which accompanied ''daimyō'' processions (while the lord himself stayed at the ''honjin''). Two samurai retainers, one bearing a long spear, approach the buildings, while on the slope behind, four more have loads on their shoulders. The scene is observed by a seated farmer smoking a pipe, with the Hira Mountains in the background, beyond which is Lake Biwa.

Gallery

Samegai08s3200.jpg, old building in Samegai-juku Samegai03s3872.jpg, Panorama of Samegai-juku Samegai02s3872.jpg, Jizogawa 米原市醒井加茂神社 Kamo-jinja 2012.8.26 - panoramio.jpg, Kamo Jinja 醒井宿資料館(旧醒井郵便局) 2012.8.26 - panoramio.jpg, former Samegai Post Office, now a museum MWCS01s3200.jpg, Museum of Woodcarving in Samegai

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Kashiwabara-juku Kashiwabara-juku today was the sixtieth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. History Kashiwabara-juku ...

- Samegai-juku -

Banba-juku 280px, Main Hall of Renge-ji in Banba-juku was the sixty-second of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. ...

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesTakamiya-juku on Kiso Kaido Road
{{Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Shiga Prefecture Ōmi Province Maibara, Shiga