[sumo] 100 years ago on Friday

[rowan klein]

September 28th 1907 was the date that Hitachiyama met President Roosevelt for the first time, 100 years ago Friday. Here is an article about the impending visit to America. Hitachiyama would again meet the President on November 11, this time performing a demonstration in the White House.


The San Francisco Call, Sunday 25th August 1907

JAPAN'S "MOUNTAIN OF FAT AND MUSCLE" TO VISIT AMERICA 

 HITACHIYAMA, CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS OF ALL WRESTLERS; - 300 POUNDS - TO INITIATE THE WESTERN WORLD IN THE MYSTERIES OF "SUMO: AFTER THE SKILL OF THE SAMURAI

    HITACHIYAMA, Japan's greatest wrestler, has perfected arrangements for his tour of the United States and Europe. He will have with him three or four other
heavy weights, with a corps of attendants, to give a complete presentation of the ancient sumo - one of the most interesting forms of athletics in the world.

    Hitachiyama is the idol of the sport lovers, young and old, of Dai Nippon. His immense size, his great strength, his perfect skill have made him champion of
champions, while the fact that he comes of a samurai family, and therefore ranks in the social order above 95 per cent of the people, doubtless adds materially to
the size of his halo. Ordinary wrestlers are held in high esteem in Japan; wrestlers extraordinary taste the sweets of adulation. Hitachiyama holds about the same, place in the body politic that John L. Sullivan held in his palmiest days. 
    The outward and visible signs of the wrestler in Japan, aside from his size, which marks him a giant in a nation where the average man is undersized, is the
peculiar topknot of hair that adorns his head and the inevitable crowd of admiring small boys following his heels. In the wrestling season the contents form the
principal if not the only topic of general conversation. The progress of the contests is spread upon the bulletin boards in front of the newspaper offices, where crowds are to be found all day long. Special sporting extras appear every hour. Every boy in Japan, and apparently every man, knows the record of each
contestant; slant eyed little women in the shops join in the general discussion and have even been known to cast furtive and admiring glances at the men of might and fat as they pass by. 
    The great wrestling meet of the empire occurs each year at Tokyo. There for a season of daily contests, covering about two weeks, assemble all the noted
wrestlers of the country. Before this meet at the capital, and after it, smaller parties visit other cities and provinces, but at Tokyo alone all the numerous and sundry champions and would be champions are to be seen. The contests, strangely enough, take place in the grounds of a Buddhist temple. Here is erected a great tent capable of accommodating several thousand spectators, and each day, especially in the afternoon, when the chief wrestlers enter the arena, this is packed with people - women and children as well as men and boys. 
    The contests begin in the early morning and last until sundown. In the center of the tent is built a circular stage with a canopy top held by four tall upright pillars. The walls of this stage, or rather the circular wall, are of stone; the substance of the stage is earth, rising a little above the stone lining. This is the wrestling ring; It is about 15 feet in diameter, perhaps a little larger. 
    The game consists in an effort on the part of each contestant to push or throw his adversary outside the earthen circle. If one puts so much as the tiniest fraction of a foot on the stone lining he is defeated. The bouts are conducted under very strict rules as to holds and movements of the hands and feet, there being 48 principal movements and many subsidiary ones, with a lot of technicalities that few outside of the members of the wrestling sect understand. It is absolutely impossible to translate into English, or any other foreign language, a newspaper report of one of these contests, as impossible as it would be to convert into intelligible Japanese the average newspaper story of an American baseball game written by a reporter given to the slang of fandom. 

                                                     Relic of the Samurai
    This form of wrestling, which is called sumo, bears no relationship whatsoever to jiu-jitsu. The latter is more or less modern; sumo belongs to the old Japan of
daimyo days, when the feudal lords with their two sworded samurai nourished and ruled over the land. Then each daimyo had his wrestlers, and the contests
between the different provinces were great events. It is even of record that the throne of Japan was once disposed of in a wrestling contest, two sons of a dead or deposed mikado settling their claims to rulership by submitting their aspirations to a trial of strength between their respective champion wrestlers. 
    Wrestlers form a cult unto themselves. They have an elaborate ceremonial which sometimes precedes and is sometimes injected into the middle of the long array of bouts that furnish the amusement of each day of exhibition. In these ceremonials the participants wear highly decorated apron-like regalia, but when they get down to business their costume consists of a heavy leather waistband or girdle with a G-string effect. From the girdle leather thongs of about a foot in length hang, but these seem to be purely ornamental; practically, the wrestler is stripped. As fat is the chief asset of all or almost all of these athletes, they look, with their long hair curled in a top knot on their heads, more like a lot of fat old brown women than like men. But there are exceptions. Some few are cleanly cut and powerfully built. Hitachiyama has upon his bones what a prize fighter would consider a great surplusage of fat, but this is not enough to conceal the fact that he is well
 muscled and exceedingly strong. 
    A bout is preceded by announcement in a shrill voice of the names of the contestants: this is by an official who first raps sharply together two small sticks to attract attention. The same unnatural tones are used in the wrestling ceremonies that rob the Japanese stage of any semblance of realism. The umpire wears a very handsome kimono of the style shown in the old Japanese pictures and carries in his hand a as badge of authority. Seated at the four corners, their backs against the uprights which hold the canopy top, are the four judges, whose services are, however, not called into requisition save in case of doubt over some technical question raised by the umpire. Then he first consults with three of them; if there is no agreement the three judges and the umpire squat gravely before the fourth or senior judge and talk until final decision is reached. 
    As their names are announced the two contestants arise from their places on the low benches around the ringside and mount to the scene of the conflict. The first thing each does is to face his fellows with whom he has been sitting, raise aloft first one leg and then the other, bringing them down with a resounding smack as the foot touches the bare earth. This is to show the men on his side that he is in proper condition. Then the contestant face one another, taking position at equal distance from an imaginary line upon which the umpire stands. Here they go through the same motion of raising aloft first one foot and then the other, bringing them down to earth with all their force. 

                                                      Then They Glare
    Then, at a signal from the umpire, the two men crouch after the manner of a sprinter awaiting the pistol fire and glare at one another at close range. Slowly and deliberately, one puts a tightly clenched fist upon the ground in front of him; the other follows suit. Then after another brief wait the first man puts down his other fist. The other bides his time. Evidently the rules provide that all four fists must be touching the ground when the spring is made. 
    All this time the umpire has been calling out a warning, "wulla-wulla-wulla," which is a term peculiar to the wrestling game - a sort of "wait-wait-wait." If the
second man does not regard the conditions altogether auspicious he rises without putting down his second fist. Then both walk to their foreign spectator; but it is taken as a corner to take a sip of sake. Either wrestler has the right to bring on this intermission, the first by raising one of his fists before the other has put down both of his. 
    This gives rise to many delays. Occasionally they get together pretty promptly, but usually there are 8 or 10 or more of these false starts. This is in the nature of a warming up, and often it becomes very tedious to the matter of course by the natives, who, whatever else they may have learned from the western world, have not yet learned the value of time. 
    When finally the contestants grapple the fun is fast and furious. Then there is excitement enough all around. The contestants strain and push, their brown bodies wriggling about in the strenuosity of contest; the umpire is kept on the jump; the crowd cheers on one or the other; all the delays are forgotten, even by the most pessimistic spectators. 
    Weight counts greatly in this game. Every thing else being equal, the heavier man is usually able  to force his opponent slowly but surely outside the charmed
circle. But superiority of skill often more than offsets the superiority of weight. I have seen a tall, lithe make a sudden twist when the odds seemed all against him and with apparent ease toss a man of almost twice his weight over his shoulder and out of the ring. 
    When the contestants evenly matched and have been at it for three or five minutes without making headway, the umpire breaks them apart; but he carefully notes their position and their holds at the time, and when he calls them places them exactly as they were. 
    Sometimes the two men roll out together. Then there is grave counsel between umpire and judges to decide whether one of the other is entitled to victory, or
whether the bout is to stand as a tie. The decision of the judges is never questioned by contestants or crowd. 
    When there is a decision the victor walks gravely to his side of the and squats upon his heels, while the umpire, holding his fan over the winner's head, makes
formal announcement of the result. 
    Wrestlers usually take fantastic staged names. Hitachiyama, for instance, is Mountain of Hitachi - Hitachi being his home province. In private life he is Mr.
Taniyemon Ichige, the son of an old Samurai warrior. When a boy at the Mito middle school his prowess in athletics attracted general attention and led to his
casting his lot with the wrestlers. He stands 5 shaku 8 sun high, which is about 5 feet 10 inches, and weighs 37 kwamme, or 306 pounds. His admirers point to him
as literally a "mountain of fat and muscle." 
    In the size of some of these wrestlers is found one of the many contradictions which Japan furnishes at every turn. It is easy enough to account for that squat fat
ones but how is it that a race which merits, by comparison with other races, even if it does resent, the classification "dwarfs' given it by the Chinese, is able to
produce some men who run six feet four inches skyward? Yet these men 
are pure Japanese. 
    The explanation is probably a very simple one. In all races some men are naturally taller than their fellows. When a Japanese boy gives promise of being either
very fat or very large and strong he is turned over to the wrestlers - this being regarded as a highly honorable vocation. Plenty of muscle making and fat producing
food does the rest. 
    All the wrestlers are great eaters and drinkers. The national diet of fish and rice - an inheritance of the palmy days of Buddhism with its prohibition of the eating
of meat - is not for them. They consume meats and everything else they can get, in large quantities. And they literally wax mighty and grow fat. 
    Japanese wrestlers are usually pictured as simply great fat persons and nothing more. While that description may fit some of them pretty well, the more
prominent and successful show splendid muscular development with no very great surplusage of fat. They may not go through the same regime of training as
athletes in other parts of the world, but they appear to be in good physical condition and evidently are. With a few exceptions the foremost of the exponents of sumo look like real athletes. It may be that they would be easily handled by American or European heavy weights in any other form of wrestling, out it remains to be seen whether the champions of the west can meet these Japanese experts at their own game. 
    Hitachiyama says his is not to be in the nature of a professional tour. It is not his purpose to give performances, but and his subordinates will carry with them all the necessary wrestling articles to enable them to furnish a complete exhibition of their art should they by any chance be invited by distinguished persons to give a practical demonstration of sumo. 
    It will be a very easy matter to convert the White House tennis court into a sumo ring. 
  


       
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