Otsuru

Otsuru was born on July 26, 1654, in a small upland settlement in Bitchū, under the Tokugawa order. Officials counted households through village registers tied to a Buddhist temple, and village headmen carried domain rules down to families who rented their fields. She spoke the local Japanese dialect and grew up with both temple and shrine obligations: incense and rice at the household memorial tablets when there was any to spare, and sake offered at the village shrine at festival time.

Her father, Genzō, did not live in the household. In Otsuru’s earliest memories her world had women’s hands and women’s voices: her mother Omasa, and an older female relative, Oba Kiyo, who slept near the cooking hearth and woke the children before dawn. Otsuru was very small even as a toddler. When she was sent to fetch water or carry kindling, she had to make extra trips. Omasa put a bundle on her back anyway. When it fell, Omasa struck her and shouted until she did it again.

Otsuru had four older siblings. Oharu, born in 1646, moved with purpose and kept the younger ones quiet. She slipped Otsuru bits of roasted soybeans from the pot and showed her how to fold rags into footwraps. An infant brother, Jinzaburō, had died the year he was born, and his name surfaced at memorial offerings: a pinch of rice, a cup of water, a stick of incense. Otsune, born in 1650, watched everything and remembered who had borrowed what. Shōsuke, born in 1652, tried to act older than he was and liked to test whether he could lift what grown men lifted.

Between Otsuru’s sixth and twelfth year, the household ran on strain. During planting and weeding, Omasa left Otsuru with the smallest tasks that still hurt: scraping ash from the hearth, watching a pot that boiled over, rocking a neighbor’s baby while her own stomach clenched with hunger. When Otsuru missed a cue or spilled grain, Oba Kiyo slapped her and twisted her ear. Omasa beat her with a switch and called her slow. Otsuru learned to anticipate the next order before it was spoken. She learned to hand over her own portion to keep the peace when Shōsuke demanded it.

Oharu died in 1670, at twenty-four. The household brought her body to the temple, and the priest Sōen chanted while smoke rose from incense sticks stuck into ash. At home, Omasa added her tablet to the small shelf and made offerings when she could: rice water, a sliver of dried radish, a few grains of salt. Without Oharu, Otsuru became the one who watched children and kept a ladle moving. Her small body did not stop her from working; it only made it easier for others to load her with work that needed patience rather than strength.

Oba Kiyo also pressed Otsuru to learn letters. She traced kana with a brush on scraps of paper used once before. Otsuru copied the shapes carefully, then forgot them, then learned them again. She could write a few words for a note to a neighbor and could read simple lines in kana, especially when they were prayers or familiar phrases. Numbers gave her trouble. When someone said “two mon” or “five shō,” she repeated it, then looked to Otsune or Shōsuke to confirm.

Oba Kiyo died in 1672, after a fever that would not break. That same year, at seventeen, Otsuru married Heisuke from a nearby village and walked a short distance to his household. The marriage was arranged around labor and tenancy more than affection. Heisuke expected obedience and quiet. Otsuru gave it. When he spoke sharply, she lowered her eyes and answered softly. When he pushed her or grabbed her arm hard enough to leave marks, she cleaned herself up before anyone outside could see. She avoided scenes that drew attention from other households or the headman Gorōbei.

Her first son, Takesaburō, was born in 1673. Three years later Kichinosuke arrived. She carried both boys on her back while she weeded, then set them near the field edge and fed them rice gruel from a small wooden bowl. The household’s duties to the domain did not pause for childbirth. She returned to work quickly each time, tying her hair up, stepping into mud again.

A daughter, Oito, was born in 1679. Otsuru brought her to the village shrine at the first opportunity, paid respect, and later at home placed a few grains of rice before the memorial shelf for safe growth. Omasa died in 1680. Otsuru walked back to her natal village for the funeral, stood before the incense, and returned to her own household the next day. Oito died in 1682 at three years old. The child’s fever and loose stool lasted days. Otsuru held her and tried to keep her lips wet with water. After the funeral at the temple, Otsuru kept Oito’s small garment folded in a box and did not let anyone throw it out.

Late that year, Otsuru became pregnant again. In 1683 she worked in the fields through the heavy season, and one day pain took her while she was bent over pulling weeds. The pregnancy ended with a stillbirth. She bled heavily and shook with fever for days. Okane, the village birth attendant, came with boiled water, cloths, and herbs. Otsune traveled from Otsuru’s natal village and stayed long enough to cook, to wash, and to keep Heisuke from forcing Otsuru back to labor too soon. Otsuru survived and returned to work thinner and quieter, with a habit of pausing to press a hand to her lower belly when she thought no one watched.

Okiku was born in 1684 and died the next year. Another daughter, Oume, lived only a short time after birth in 1686. By then Otsuru’s offerings at the butsudan were routine and exact: a small cup of water replaced each morning; rice when there was rice; incense on memorial days. She also went to the village shrine festival and clapped her hands in front of the honden with the others, praying for harvest and children who stayed alive.

Oshino, her last child, was born in 1689. She grew into a sturdy girl who followed Otsuru everywhere. Oshino liked to eat roasted sweet potato, and Otsuru shared it with her by the fire at night. The two of them laughed once, quietly, when a neighbor’s rooster ran into the kitchen and knocked over a basket. Otsuru did not laugh loudly. She pressed her lips together and shook with it, then covered her mouth with her sleeve.

In 1691 the harvest failed again after earlier poor years, and rent and village dues came due anyway. Heisuke and Otsuru went to Mataemon, a wealthier farmer who lent rice and coin. Otsuru sat on the edge of the room, repeating amounts under her breath, losing track when the numbers grew. Heisuke agreed to terms she did not understand. They pawned tools and a few household goods. Otsuru and the older children took day-labor where they could: weeding in other people’s fields, carrying bundles of firewood and charcoal, hauling cut grass for compost. She tightened meals to thin porridge, and when someone complained she apologized as if she had chosen the bad weather.

Genroku-era cash dealings reached even their valley. There were more transactions, more small obligations, more chances to be short by a few mon. Otsuru made simple notes in kana—who had borrowed a hoe, who had promised a measure of barley—but if there was a sum to tally, she asked someone else to check it. Osei, a neighbor woman, sometimes sat with her after dusk to spin thread. They traded small comforts: a handful of pickled greens, gossip about a headman’s scolding, a story about a pilgrim who had passed through.

Takesaburō died in 1700 at twenty-seven. Kichinosuke followed in 1702, twenty-six years old. Two adult sons gone in two years left a hole in the household’s labor and in its plans for continuity. Otsuru leaned on her brother Shōsuke for help negotiating and for protection in disputes, but Shōsuke died in 1703. After that, her older sister Otsune became her strongest connection to her natal family, offering practical help when she could and scolding Otsuru when Otsuru gave away too much to keep peace.

Oshino married out young and died in 1713 at twenty-four. Otsuru attended the funeral rites and returned home to a household that had already been rearranged by necessity. Before Takesaburō died, he had married, and his widow remained in the household. She remarried within the village and kept her mother-in-law. It was through this arrangement that Otsuru stayed.

Otsune died in 1719. She had been the last of Otsuru’s siblings, and after that funeral Otsuru had no one left from her natal household. She focused on tasks she could still do well: cooking, cleaning, watching children, spinning when her fingers cooperated.

Heisuke died in 1726. Otsuru, now an old widow, lived in the household of her son’s widow and her grandchildren. She rose before dawn, put water before the memorial tablets, and folded her bedding away neatly. She minded grandchildren, told them to stay quiet during official visits, and taught them to bow properly at the temple on memorial days. When she did errands, she chose paths where she would not have to argue with anyone.

During the Kyōhō famine years of 1732 and 1733, prices rose and grain grew scarce. The village tightened its controls, and Gorōbei brought instructions that nobody argued with openly. Otsuru ate smaller portions and kept the hearth going with carefully saved fuel. She offered water and incense to the household dead and said the same short prayers she had said for decades.

In May 1741 she stayed on her bedding most days, speaking little, no longer trusted to carry even small loads. On May 19, she died in the house with family around her. The household washed her body, dressed it simply, and brought it to the temple for chanting and burial; incense burned before her posthumous tablet beside the other names she had offered to for so long.