Ezo

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For other uses, see Ezo (disambiguation).
"Yesso" redirects here. For the footballer, see Diego Yesso.
Map of the "Land of Iesso" by French cartographer Alain Manesson Mallet (1683)

Ezo (蝦夷えぞ) (also spelled Yezo or Yeso)[1] is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu.[2] This included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido,[3][4][5][6] which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869,[7] and sometimes included Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.[3][4] The word Ezo means "the land of the barbarians" in Japanese.[8]

In reference to the people of that region, the same two kanji used to write the word Ezo can also be read Emishi. The descendants of these people are most likely related to the Ainu people of today.[9]

Etymology[edit]

Japanese sources that include an etymology describe Ezo as probably originally a borrowing from the Ainu word enciw meaning 'person; people'.[3][5][6][4] The term is first attested in Japanese in a text from 1153 in reference to any of the non-Japanese people living in the northeast of Honshū, and then later in 1485 in reference to the northern islands where these people lived, primarily Hokkaido, Karafuto (that is, Sakhalin), and the Kuril Islands.[3][4]

The kanji spelling is based on the meanings of the characters rather than the phonetics (jukujikun), and is composed of the characters 蝦えび meaning 'shrimp, lobster' and 夷えびす meaning 'barbarian'. The use of the character for 'shrimp, lobster' might be in reference to the long "whiskers" (antennae) of these animals, alluding to the prominent beards worn by Ainu men.

The spelling 'Yezo' reflects its pronunciation c. 1600, when Europeans first came in contact with Japan. It is this historical spelling that is reflected in the scientific Latin term yezoensis, as in Fragaria yezoensis and Porphyra yezoensis. However, there are species that use a different spelling, such as the Japanese scallop known as Mizuhopecten yessoensis (帆立貝ほたてがい, hotategai).

History[edit]

The first published description of Ezo in the West was brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三さん国こく通覧つうらん図説ずせつ, An Illustrated Description of Three Countries) by Hayashi Shihei.[10] This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, described the Ezo region and its people.[11]

In 1832, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of Sankoku Tsūran Zusetsu.[12] Julius Klaproth was the editor, completing the task which was left incomplete by the death of the book's initial editor, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat.

Subdivisions[edit]

Ezo (蝦夷えぞ) or Ezogashima (蝦夷えぞヶ島とう) (lit. 'Island of the Ezo') was divided into several districts. The first was the Wajinchi, or 'Japanese Lands', which covered the Japanese settlements on and around the Oshima Peninsula. The rest of Ezo was known as the Ezochi (蝦夷えぞ地ち) (lit. 'Ezo-land'), or 'Ainu Lands'. Ezochi was in turn divided into three sections: North Ezochi, which covered southern Sakhalin; West Ezochi, which included the northern half of Hokkaidō; and East Ezochi, which included the populous southern Hokkaidō and the Kuril Islands.[13]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Batchelor, John. (1902). Sea-Girt Yezo: Glimpses at Missionary Work in North Japan, pp. 2–8.
  2. ^ Harrison, John A., "Notes on the discovery of Ezo", Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep., 1950), pp. 254–266 [1]
  3. ^ a b c d "蝦夷えぞ (Ezo)". Kokugo Dai Jiten (Shinsō-ban) 国語こくご大だい辞典じてん（新装しんそう版ばん） [Big Japanese Dictionary, New Edition] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shōgakukan. 1993. ISBN 4-09-501002-9. "Hito" no i no Ainu-go kara. 「人ひと」の意いのアイヌ語ごから。 [From the Ainu for "person".]
  4. ^ a b c d "蝦夷えぞ (Ezo)". 大辞林だいじりん [Daijirin] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Sanseidō. Ainu-go no enju / enciw (hito, no i) kara to iu アイヌ語ごのエンジュ・エンチウ（人ひと，の意い）からという [Apparently from Ainu enju / enciw (meaning "person")]
  5. ^ a b "蝦夷えぞ (Ezo)". Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten Dai Go Han 新しん明解めいかい国語こくご辞典じてん 第だい五ご版はん [Shin Meikai Japanese Dictionary, Fifth Edition] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Sanseidō. 1997. ISBN 4-385-13143-0. Ainu-go encu (hito no i) no henka to iu アイヌ語ご encu （人ひとの意い）の変化へんかという [Apparently a shift from Ainu encu (meaning person)]
  6. ^ a b "蝦夷えぞ (Ezo)". Gakken Kokugo Dai Jiten 学研がっけん国語こくご大だい辞典じてん [Gakken Big Japanese Dictionary] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Gakken. «Sankō» (Ainu) enju (= hito) kara. 《参考さんこう》(アイヌ)enju(=人ひと)から。 [«Reference» From (Ainu) enju (= person)]
  7. ^ Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Ezo" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 184.
  8. ^ "Settler colonialism in the making of Japan's Hokkaido¯". The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism. Routledge. 2016. pp. 351–362. doi:10.4324/9781315544816-36. ISBN 978-1-315-54481-6.
  9. ^ Haywood, John; Jotischky, Andrew; McGlynn, Sean (1998). Historical Atlas of the Medieval World, AD 600–1492. Barnes & Noble. pp. 3.24–. ISBN 978-0-7607-1976-3.
  10. ^ WorldCat, Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu; alternate romaji Sankoku Tsūran Zusetsu
  11. ^ Cullen, Louis M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds, p. 137., p. 137, at Google Books
  12. ^ Klaproth, Julius. (1832). San kokf tsou ran to sets, ou Aperçu général des trois royaumes, pp. 181-255., p. 181, at Google Books
  13. ^ Frey, Christopher J. (2007) Ainu Schools and Education Policy in Nineteenth-century Hokkaido, Japan p.5, p. 5, at Google Books

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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