[sumo] Any More Surprises? Sumo, Violence and Secrets

[Carl Freire]

At 7:51 PM -0700 10/4/07, Takanomizu wrote:
>Let me throw this out:
>I admit I'm a little naive. But even with following sumo for @ 15 
>years and living in Japan for four, I never knew about the hazing. 
>The deshi-on-deshi violence surprises me. Is hazing something male?

Well, girls are plenty bad to each other in in-groups, are they not? 
I suspect the gender difference lies more in the degree to which it 
becomes physical.

>  The only other situation I associate it with is fraternities. Is it 
>a secret society thing?

See the above.  (As a related aside to the gender matter, are we to 
assume sorority women are always nice to each other?)

I don't think it's a "secret society" thing so much as an "in-group" 
thing in those groups where hierarchy and proving yourself to your 
seniors matters most.

>I always thought that, along with tradition, money was the reason 
>most people act the way they do in the Sumo world, but I never 
>thought that matches were fixed. Is it possible?

Plenty of writing on fixing in all sports.  I can't recall offhand if 
any "yaocho" scandals have actually been *proven*, but there's plenty 
of circumstantial evidence and even a couple of suspicious deaths 
along the trail.

<http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/02/03/wrestle.2.t.php>

For that matter, without digging into the academic discourse, plenty 
of "traditions" in and out of sumo tend to be more recent inventions.

>Any more surprises for the naive old broad?

Well, the more you learn about anything, the more there may be to 
surprise you, until you reach that tipping point where "ah ha!" 
becomes just "ah, uh huh" :-)  Like, did you know that they throw 
salt on the the dohyo because all the junior wrestlers are expected 
to eat it after the basho is finished? ;-)

Cheers,
Carl
-- 

**********

Carl Freire
cfreire-[AT)-ix.netcom.com
Tokyo, Japan