Early modern archives in Japan

From the perspective of their use

Abstract

Some examples of noteworthy ways of managing archives in the Edo era, i.e. early modern Japan, are discussed in this article. In the first section, the author has analysed previous works on record administration using categories such as “historical studies of document management from the perspective of modern archival theory”and “the history of records management in the context of rituals associated with document disposition and certain events”.

In section 2, an example of preservation, management and use of public documents by the villagers of Okkoto-mura in Suwa-gun, Shinano-no-kuni is discussed. In Okkoto-mura, a large-scale rearrangement of records was undertaken in 1813 which involved the creation of a list which allowed item-level retrieval of documents was created; and the construction of a chō-gura , a dedicated muniment repository. Thereafter,when a village headmanʼs term of office expired, all the documents generated by him were examined by other senior village officials in order to classify them into three categories based on their function and how they would be stored: 1）non-current documents to be housed in the chō-gura , 2）current documents to be handed on to the next headman, and 3）documents relating to tax and village expenditure to be retained by the headman who created them.

In section 3 follows with a discussion of a tradition called the kenchi-chōmatsuri , or land ledger festival,performed in Ōno-mura in Hiki-gun, Musashi-no-kuni. This demonstrates that the physical existence of documents was ritualised in early modern Japan.