#obata domain

[odaclan]

“Oda pounded and Hashiba kneaded", but there’s no Tokugawa to eat the mochi

In Kanramachi in Gunma there is a garden called the Rakusan’en 楽山園, designated as a national Place of Scenic Beauty in 2000. This garden was believed to have been built by Nobunaga’s second son, Nobukatsu, after being awarded the Obata domain (where Kanramachi now is) by the Tokugawa shogunate. 

In the grounds near where the mansion/residence formerly stood, there is a statue of two people pounding mochi. It looks like an arbitrary statue at a glance, but at closer look, it turns out to be a depiction of the famous satire poem often referred to as the “Tenka mochi poem” (天下餅の歌 Tenka Mochi no Uta):

織田がつき　羽柴がこねし　天下餅　すわりしままに　食うは徳川

“Oda pounded and Hashiba kneaded the Nation mochi, and in the end the one who sat and ate is Tokugawa”

The mochi mortar has 天下 (the nation) engraved into it, and the statue kneading the mochi has a monkey-like face to represent Hideyoshi. Nobunaga looks rather generic, but once you recognise the other two elements, the statue with the large mochi pounding mallet can’t possibly be anyone else.

The curious part here is that there’s no depiction of Ieyasu eating the mochi. I’ve searched around for explanation, but there doesn’t seem to be any provided, either by the city’s official materials or by visitors. The guests seem to be confused, and a lot of them don’t even seem to realise what this was in the first place. One blog says “I think these are vassals/employees?” and another says “I don’t understand what these mochi-making statues are all about”.

Perhaps it’s because that last part of the poem about Ieyasu eating is a slight against him (it was basically saying that he contributed nothing to the unification). Even if the statue is modern and not built in the Tokugawa era, people still tend to avoid making any of the historical figures look bad in official sites and displays like this. 

Why choose this satire poem to build a statue out of to begin with, then, is beyond me. There was a statue of Nobukatsu inside one of the buildings, but this mochi statue doesn’t feel like it made much sense. I felt that it would’ve been more reasonable to create statues of the other lords of the domain (the Oda family was eventually replaced by another clan as the rulers here), or even just Nobunaga alone. 

[odaclan]

do you have any information about joshin? ive been trying to find stuff about nobukatsu's later years but only know surface level stuff (bulit a big garden, had a silkworm farm and sold them, and lived a carefree life as an old man etc) though i want to know if theres a little more or if im missing something.

There is nothing much to it. He already retired after the Osaka battles, and even the silkworm farm seemed to have nothing to do with him either. His domains in Obata and Matsuyama were apparently run by his sons and/or vassals, and he himself just lived a retirement life in Kyoto. The garden was built, but he himself didn't even go to see it.

The only interesting thing that happened that I was able to find was that in 1628 Hidetada or Iemitsu invited him for a tea ceremony. By all accounts it appears he just didn't really do anything but just have a relaxed retirement once the Edo government is settled.

The cited materials are books and government documents that isn't free to view on the libraries I usually use, unfortunately. I actually have to have some sort of verified registration to look at it, so if there's actually more info in there, I can't see.

Now, if you're asking for Joushin in the time before Hideyoshi's death, Sekigahara, or the Osaka battles, there has been a lot of conspiratorial speculations there.

I will need to pull up the reference later, but I remembered reading in passing a story from one of the Tokugawa chronicles where Ieyasu told his vassals to make sure to get Nobukatsu out of Osaka safely. Tokugawa chronicles are propaganda so aren't entirely reliable, but if this one happens to be truthful, then it supports the version of narrative where he was present in Osaka during the Summer or Winter campaign.

[odaclan]

Speaking of Rakusan’en, though. They recently released this new souvenir card for Rakusan’en, featuring Nagano Tsuyoshi’s Nobunaga artwork and some fancy gold foil lettering.

These souvenir cards are called Gojou’in 御城印, which are commemorative cards that you can buy at various castles in Japan. Castles usually would have a booth with a stamp of the castle’s site, and you can stamp on pamphlets or your personal journals as "proof” that you visited the place. These cards are intended to be stamped with those castle stamps, to keep as extra special memorabilia of your visit. 

Rakusan’en is just the garden, but it seems that the residential mansion that was attached to the garden is actually Obata Castle. Since Obata Castle no longer exist, they offer cards for both Rakusan’en and Obata Castle that applies to the same site. I didn’t realise this at first because there are other Obata Castles in other places, and I’d gotten slightly confused before.

I’m not sure why the office didn’t just commission Nagano-sensei to draw the proper lords of the domain, but maybe Nobunaga is just more recognisable and therefore more attractive to customers. Though Nobukatsu is ostensibly the first lord of the domain entering the Edo period, he doesn’t seem to be distinguished as an independent lord of his own right by the city. All the Oda lords are collectively remembered as “Nobunaga’s bloodline”.

（Edit: Just to avoid being misleading, I meant “first” lord of the restructured/reorganised domains, that is, in the Edo period. Naturally, before the Oda were assigned here, this area was governed by different families. The city claims that the Oda were the ones who revitalised the area, so all the fanfare is about them, and Nobunaga is a very well-known name besides. I’m not sure if there’s much talk about the clans that lived there prior to them.）

The "castle stamp” is not even some unique design either. Instead of a special design that says either Obata Castle or Rakusan’en, it’s literally just the Tenka Fubu seal. Example of a stamped card being sold in the Mercari reseller site: