This document discusses three woodcut prints from Hiroshige's series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" that depict miniature versions of Mount Fuji located near Edo. These mini-Fujis were connected to a popular religious cult centered around ritual ascents of Mount Fuji during the Edo period. The woodcuts show the mini-Fujis had paths mimicking Fuji's zigzag trails and included landmarks like "Flat Rock" associated with the cult's mythology. However, Hiroshige portrayed the mini-Fujis' visitors in a recreational mode rather than as religious pilgrims, with men, women and children relaxing under cherry trees instead of wearing pilgrim garb. The document explores what

1. PLXfE i. LItagawa Hiroshige. Ori,inalFuji in Aleguro, from the
series One Hundred FRnaous Viens oJ'Edo 856-58. Color woodcut,
18
6hban, 36.2 X 23.7 cm approx. Courtesy Sotheby's, London
2
See Takeuchi, p. 4.

2. PLATE 2. Utagawa Hiroshige. Neir Fnji infMegaro, from the series
One Hundred Famons Vhuies oJ'Fdo. 1856,-58. Color woodcut,
iban. 36.2 X 23.7 cm approx. CourtCsV Sotheby's, London
See Takeuchi, p. 2 4.
IM PR S S 0 N S i

3. PLATE 3. Katsushika Hokusai. Group Climbing] the .Mountain,
from the series Thirty-Six Vie••s of Mount Fuji. Early 183 ON.
Color woodcut, jSban. Courtesy Sothebv's, London
See Takeuchi, p 36.

4. PLATE 4. Hashimoto Sadahide ( 1807- 1873). Pilqrimns in the I VOnib Caiv
on Mount Fuji. 18 57. Color woodcut triptych, Oban- 3 5.4 x 24.4 Cut
approx. each. D. Max Mocriman Collection. Photo: John Deane
See Takeuchi, p 37
I M P R E S S 1 0IO S 2 1
N

5. 14

6. 1*
< PLATE 5. Utagawa Hiroshige. "Mountain Opening" at PLATE 6. Utagawa Hiroshige. Manpachi Restaurant:Evening View of
Fukagawa Hachiman Shrine, from the series One Hundred Yanagibashi (Ynagibashiyakei, Manpachi), fiom the series Collection of
Famous liews o?fEdo. 1856-58. Color woodcut, 5ban. FTmors Edo Restaurants (Edo konei kaitei zukushi). 18 38-40. Color
36.2 X 23.7 cm approx. Courtesy Sotheby's, London woodcut, 6ban. 2 2.1 x 35-5 cm. Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence,
See Takeuchi, p. 44. Kans., Gift of H. Lee Turner. Photo: Robert Hickerson
See Thonsen, p. 48.
IM P R E S S I 0 N S 24 15

7. I
i
1
y4 .
4'Th
H

8. PLATE 9. Utagawa Hiroshige. Uekiya Restaurant:SnoW
Viewing at J)okuboji Temple (Mokuboy Yukimi, Uekiva), firom the
series Collection of Famous Edo Restaurants (Edo k6mei kaitei
zukushi). 1838-40. Color woodcut, oban. 22.9 x 35.2 cm.
Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-
Madison, Bequest of John H. Van Vleck, 198 0.1474
See Thomsen, p. 54.
< PLATE 7- Utagawa Hiroshige. Tagaivaya Restaurant: In
Front of Daionji Temple (Daionji mae, Tagavaqya), from the
series Collection of Famous Edo Restaurants (Edo k5mei kaitei
zukushi). 1838-40. Color woodcut, 5ban. 22.5 X 35 tM.
Spencer Museum of Art, Laxrence, Kans.,
Gift of H. Lee TIurner. Photo: Rohert Hickerson
See Thomsen, p. 52.
< PLATE 8. Utagawa Fliroshige. lusashiva Restaurant:
Ushijima (Ushijima, Musashiya), friom the series Collection
of •amous Edo Restaurants (Edo kt7mei kaitei zukushi).
1838 -40. Color woodcut, 51'an. 26. 1 x 37.7 cm.
Hiraki Ukiyo-e Museum, Tokyo
See TAomsen, p. 53.
I NI P R E S I (O N S 2 1

9. PLATE i i. Utagawa Hiroshige. Aoyagi Restaurant:Ry6goku Diistrict >
(Ryoqoku, Aoyagi), from the series Collection of Famous Edo
Restourants (Edo komei kaitei zukushi). 1838-40. Color wAoodcut,
5ban. 23 x 35. 5 cm. Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kans.,
Gilt of H. Lee Turner. Photo: Robert Hickerson
See Thomsen, p. 55.
PLATE io. Utagawa Hiroshige. Mokuboji Temple, from Picture PLATE 12. Utagawa Hiroshige. Shokintei Restaurant: )Jushima Tenjin >
Book of Edo Souvenirs (Ehon Edo miyage), vol. 1 8 5o. Color Shrine (Yushona Tenjin, Shokintei), from the series Collection oJ
famous
woodblock-printed book. I8.r X 14.6 cm. Former collection Edo Restaurants (Edo k6mei kaitei zukushi). 1838 -40. Color woodcut,
of Arthur Wesley Dow. C. V Starr East Asian Library, oban. 23 x 3 5.5 cm. Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kans.,
Columbia University; New York City Gift of H. Lee Turner. Photo: Robert Hickerson
See Thomsen, p. 54. See Thomsen, p. 67.
18

10. IMPRESSIO NS 24 19

11. PLATE 13. Toyohara Kunichika. Eight Views of'Edo: Clear
Breezes at Ry53goku Bridge (Edo hakkei no uchi: Ry5goku no
seiran) c. 1867. Color woodcut, iiban triptych.
34.7 X 23.5 cm approx. each. Spencer Museum of Art,
Lawrence, Kans., Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Colom.
Photo: Robert Hickerson
See Thomsen, pp. 6o-6i.
(30

12. IM 11 R E S S I1 N S 2 121

13. PLATE 14. Okumura Masanobu. Burning Maple Leaves to Heat
Sake. c. 17
750. Color woodcut, large oban, benizuri-e.
41.6 X 29.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund and Rogers Fund, 1949
(JP 3079). Photo: © 1994 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
See Thompson, P. 72.

14. PLATE 15. Suzuki Harunobu or pupil. Hakt Rakuten.
c. i77o. Color woodcut, chuban. 27.8 X 20.9 cm.
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Gift of James A.
Michener, 1971 (21, 7344)
See Thompson, p. 81.
I M P R E S S I 0 N S 24 23

15. 4-
Fig. i. Utagawa Hiroshige. Original liji in Megunro, from the series Fig. 2. Utagawa H iroshige. Nevv Fup in fepuro,
One Hundred Fainous Qeivs ofEdo, 1856-58. Color woodcut, jb(n. from the series One Hundred Fainous Wews ot Edo.
36. 2 x 23.7 cm approx. Courte.s Sotheby's, London i856-58. Color woodcut, oban. 36.2 X 23.7 cmn
This Mini-Fuji was constructed in 18 12, 17 years before the "New approx. Courtesy Socheby's, London
Fuji" (pl. 2/fig. 2) located 5oo yards tarther north.

16. Making Mountains:
Mini-Fujis, Edo Popular Religion
and Hiroshige's One Hundred
Famous Views of Edo
ME/LINDA TAKEUCHI
T IHREL 01 THL WOODCIITS from the series One Hundred Famous Q}eis
Edo, produced by Utagawa Hiroshige ( 79 7- 18 58) from 18 56 to
Of
58, show climbable replicas of Mount Fuji located in and S
around the Eastern Capital of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Although it is dif-
ficult to tell from Hiroshige's images, these simulacra were connected with
a flourishing Edo-period ( 1615- 1867) cult centered on the ritual ascent of
the sacred mountain. In two of the woodcuts the little fabricated Fujis
mirror the "original" Mount Fuji in Suruga Province (hereafter called the
Suruga Fuji), while wittily playing havoc with scale (pIS. 1, 2/figs. 1, 2). It
may seem ironic to have to distinguish the "original" Fuji from the others,
but in addition to the manmade replicas there are numbers of similar
cone-shaped mountains scattered throughout Japan, formed by the same
volcanic process that created the Suruga Fuji and nicknamed Fuji.' The
Fuji mounds include the zigzag path to the "summit" in imitation of the
switchback routes up the Suruga Fuji's slopes. The New Fuji in Meguro
pictured in figure 2 displays one of the religious landmarks associated with
the cult: the "Fiat Rock" (eboshi iwa) central to the hagiography of this new
religious movement. Hiroshige's climbers appear to be in what might be
called "recreation mode": tea stalls and benches refresh these urban pil-
grims-men, women and children-who seem to have come more for an
outing under the beautifil spring cherry trees than for the religious expe-
rience of ascending the proxy of a sacred mountain. No one wears the
white pilgrims' clothing normally donned by the supplicants who climbed
Japan's holy mountains and besides, the season is wrong for the ritual as-
cent. Furthermore, women and children were banned from the male-
dominated space at the summit of the Suruga Fuji, whereas Hiroshige's
images make clear that this proscription did not apply to the Mini-Fujis
(to use Henry Smith's term).
In all, over a hundred artificial Mount Fujis were built during the Edo pe-
riod, mostly in Eastern Japan, beginning in the late eighteenth centuryv Fifty-six
survive in one formn or another. Hiroshige's cool, distant vision affords
little sense of the popular enthusiasm that these structures generated.
How might we categorize these fabrications? Are they little artificial land-
scapes? Do they belong to the realm of topographically mimetic gardens,
like those at Suizenji in Kvushu or the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto, which in-
clude conical forms intended to suggest Fuji? Are they visualizations of
IM P R I S S I () N S 2

17. paradise, like the garden at the Phoenix Hall in Uji? Are they instruments
of devotional praxis? Theme parks for an affluent leisure society.,? Cheap
dilutions of a sacred site? Despite their elusive epistemological status,
these heaps of dirt and stone projected a high profile-both cognitively
and literally-in the Edo imaginary' To ignore them is to overlook one
critical facet of the complex, discursive landscape of Japan. The Mini-Fujis
illuminate aspects of the interaction of imagery; religion, nature and cul-
ture. Politics, economics and gender are also part of this configuration.
Perhaps the best way to understand the dynamics of these unusual struc-
tures is to review some of the notions surrounding simulacra and minia-
tures; to consider the Fuji cult itself and its reception in the Edo period;
and then to speculate on why Hiroshioe coded his representations of this
phenomenon as he did.
SIMULACRA AND MINIATURES
In the Western philosophical fabric, associating the simulacrum with cheap
sentimentality, nostalgia and reductionism indicates a prominent strand of
distrust of the replica. Plato's denunciation of the effigy as an instrument of
deception (recall that he banished painters from his Republic) finds echoes
in the charge of the French theorist Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929) that in simu-
lation resides a false and infantile undermining of the real.' When in i9 19
Marcel Duchamp painted a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa,
he offered glimmers of the problems that the technolo_ of replication was
going to unleash upon world culture. As artists are often uncannily able to
do, he raised the question of the collision between the aura attached to the
"real" and the scent of legerdemain or chicanery that lingers about the
"false." The need to differentiate between authentic and not authentic mav
well be rooted in survival itself, biologically programmed into our species
along with the fight-or- flight mechanism. It was once a life-or-death matter
to be able to distinguish a real tiger from a shadow shaped like a tiger. Clones
like Dolly the Sheep, quasi-humans like Darth Vader (part man, part ma-
chine), technological marvels like Carol Doda (part flesh, part silicone), cyborgs,
hydroponic vegetables and science fiction all work towards pushing the simul-
acrum ever closer in our perception to some nightmarish twilight zone.
In contrast, East Asian tradition, and Western too before (and after) the
advent of scientific "logic," has employed the practices of symbolic substi-
tution/replication to evoke and explicate the transcendent. Crystal and
other precious objects substitute for physical relics of the Buddha in the way
that wine and wafer are transubstantiated into the blood and body of Christ.
The practice of equating real and fabricated mountains is verv ancient in
Japan. The enormous man-made mounds (kqitin) in which rulers were
entombed signiG' the magical potency associated with the replication of
mountains. One finds sacred peaks duplicated in massive scale at the huge
Buddhist stupas of Borobudur in Java and Bodhnath in Nepal, or reduced
to the tabletop-sized forms of the magical Daoist hill-censer (poshaiihi),
designed to emit the vapors of sacred mountains in the form of incense
smoke. In the northeast of his capital the Song-dynasty emperor Huizong
(i o8 2- 1 3 5) erected an artificial hill that replicated "the celebrated sites
T A K E U C HI1 MA K I N G M O UN T A I N S

18. of the universe," including the canonized scenery of the region around
Lake Dongting (one of China's hallowed views)., The motivation was not
re-creation but sympathetic magic.
Multiplication and reduction often accompany substitution and replication.
The original Buddha Sakyamuni becomes the Thousand Buddhas, cursorily
delineated on sanctuary walls from Ajanta in India to Dunhuang in China.
Asian religious praxis, particularly Buddhist, is also filled with examples of
shortcut/optimal-gain rituals: to give but one example, in many Buddhist
countries worshipers can twirl a prayer wheel (called a chorten, a kind of
virtual-reality circurnambulation technology) round and round in lieu of
actually walking around the stupa. Each rotation, accomplished in seconds,
is the equivalent of an often arduous physical circuit. Merit multiplies geo-
metrically. Yet proliferating and abbrexiating something diffuses its original
impact. This no-muss, no-fuss approach to salvation has a curiously
postmodern feeling to it.
Prior to the appearance of reduced-scale replicas of Mount Fuji, other
kinds of symbolic equivalence played a role in its worship (as they do in
religious practice in general). According to the preface of a printed version
(dated i6o7) of the medieval Take of Fuji's People Catvrn (Fuji no hitoana zoshi),
simply reading the tale, which describes religious experiences of transfor-
mation in the Hitoana ("People Cavern"), one of Fuji's caves, counts as
much towards salvation as the act of climbing the mountain itself.4 Even
texts, then, can substitute for deeds. Assertions like this were often tinged
with economic self-interest, but devotion and economics are sisters. The
purpose of the preface was simultaneously to promote the tale and encour-
age sales. Even bathing in an urban replica of one of the purification huts at
the shrines at the foot of Fuji, a costly activity, was deemed to confer merit
comparable to an actual ascent.
Questions of simulacrum and substitution in Asian culture, then, invoke
many dynamics, some otherworldly, others worldly, operating simultaneously.
As contemporary Westerners, we need to set aside some deep-rooted as-
sumptions about the value and propriety of replication and ruminate on
more chthonic notions of the transmutability of physical stuff.
FUJI CULTS AND THE LANDSCAPE OF FUJI
The Suruga Fuji's sheer physicality pushes to the limit our ability to com-
prehend the colossal. Its enormous yet readable scale, combined with the
lack of vegetation and its stark geometry, elicits unsettling sensations of
antlike vulnerability. The rocky austerity of the mountain affords few of the
protective amenities of the prospect-refuge environment which the human
species is said to be biologically programmed to prefer.' The soaring peak
touches the skies: the mountain's head is often literally in the clouds. Fuji
offers a space between heaven and earth, a liminal zone where divine and
earthly beings commingle. Permanent yet ever-changing in different condi-
tions of light, time of day and season, it seems alive. The plume of smoke it
emitted during much of its geologic history led to the practice of offering
incense to divinity in the hope of bridging the terrestrial and celestial zones.,
I5M P R E S S I 0 N S

19. Fig. 3. Katsushika Hokusai. The Over the long course of time Fuji accrued a massive dossier-a "mount-
Formation offt4ount Hoei, from One ography" one might call it--of literary, political and religious history This
Hundred Viens of Fuji (Fugaku h•akkei), comprises a voluminous literature, starting with poems from the eighth-century
%ol. 1. 1834. Noodblock-printed book. 11anr'yoshu, themselves reflections of earlier thought. By the mid-nineteenth
22.5 x i 5.6 cm approx. each page, century, when Hiroshige depicted the Mini-Fujis under discussion, the Suruga
Spencer Collection, New York Public
Fuji was a heavily coded, one might even say overdetermined, piece of real estate.
Library, Astor, Lenox and Tildcn
Foundations Death and destruction figured among the various meanings linked to
This last recorded eruption of Fuji took Mount Fuji. During Japan's long history its eruptions, which rained lava,
place in 1707. ash and cinder over huge areas of the countryside, repeatedly brought di-
saster to the farming communities in the enVirons. Placating it was a high
priority in the religious and political sectors: Fuji's (leity was accorded
court rank in the ninth century in an effort to cajole the volcano into qui-
escence. The Formation of Mount Jioei by Katsushika Hokusai (176o-1849),
from his One Hundred Vieus oj Fuji, shows Fuji's terrible destructive powers
(fig. 3). This last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji took place in 1707, be-
fore Hokusai was born but within living memory in his time. In keeping
with the linkage of Fuji and death, one of the earliest extant images of the
mountain shows it as a place of suicide. In an episode from the famous Lip
of Priest Ippen scrolls of 1299, the lay monk Ajisaka drowns himself in the
Abe River in the shadow of Mount Fuji.'
Fig. 4. A collective giave at
Motornura,iama in Fuji City Photograph. Death, however, as Ajisaka's final act implies, brings the hope of rebirth/
From Riji, special issue of Bessutsu nivo, salvation. Immortality looms large in the complex, sometimes contradictory
no. 44 (winter 1983), 138 lore surrounding Fuji. Cultic beliefs incorporate Chinese Daoist legends
TA K E U C H I MAKING
N M O LI NTA I N S

20. Fig. 5. Katsushika Hokusai. Circling the concerning the elixir of immortality concealed within its summit. Prior to
Craterof Fuji, frorn One Hundred tiei,n oJ the modern age, when there was no standardization in the characters used
Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei), Vx)]. 3. 1834. for Japanese names, "Fuji" was sometimes written with two characters
'Aoodblock-printed book. 2 2.5 X i 5.6 cm
meaning "Not" and "Death": deathless life, that is, immortalitx. The collec-
approx. each page, Spencer Collection,
tive designation for these cults that centered on mountain worship is
New York Public Lihrari, Astor, Lenox
Shugendo. Cultic practices included stringent rituals of fasting, meditating,
and Tilden Foundations
praying, chanting mantras, ringing bells and hanging over cliffs in order to
achieve the supplicant's spiritual goals. Worshipers assumed white clothing
for the climb (as they do today), white being the color for dressing a
corpse, and they wore their hair unbound, in corpselike fashion. Pilgrims
thus carried on their very bodies the mark of death necessary to achieve
svmbolic rebirth.
Those who ascended Fuji subjected themselves to potentially grueling physi-
cal and mental ordeals. People climbed prepared to lose their lives. Figure 4
is a photograph showing a muenzuka (literally, a tomb for those with no con-
nections), a collective grave for the numerous anonymous casualties of the
mountain-a pilgrim's equivalent of the Tomb of the Unknow,,n Soldier.
Aside from the danger of being bloNvT to bits in an eruption or being caught
in an avalanche, unexpected storms could bring instant, or lingering, death.
During circumambulation of the formidable summit, climbers who put a
Fig. 6. Caldera on Mount Fuji, 1902. foot wrong on the rocks faced a drop of 8 2o feet into the caldera (figs. 5, 6).
Photograph. From lFui, special issue of Certainly, the ascetic practices of fasting or poising motionless (sometimes
Bessatsu Ta1ivc, no. 4-4 (winter 1983), 136 naked) in the elements contributed to many deaths. In addition there were
I N1 1) R F S S I 0 N S

21. psychological perils. It was believed that climbers who ventured into this
nether zone could be set upon by the innumerable malevolent spirits lurk-
ing in the mountains; these would be all the more terriI,ing because they
represented the terra incognita of the psyche.
Fuji's religious history is long and complex. Vlhat follows is a brief synopsis, the
purpose of which is to orient the reader rather than present new intbrmation.9
Shinto, Buddhist and a mishmash of popular faiths all claimed the mountain
as their own. In Fuji the rich lore of many traditions coalesces. As was usual
in mountain worship, Fuji's (e]ity was seen as female, an ironic inversion of
the fact that women were forbidden to climb the sacred mountains. She was
a syncretic deity, called by various names: Asama Daimy0jin, Asama Gongen,
Sengen Daibosatsu or simply the generic Daigongen. After the separation
of Buddhist and Shinto faiths during the Meiji period (i 868-i 912), the
deity came primarily to be known as the goddess Konohanasakuva-hime, a
properly Shinto-sounding name. As was the practice in portraying such
goddesses, she was pictured as a resplendent court lady (fig. 7). When the
Esoteric Buddhists appropriated Fuji's deity, they linked her with the Bud-
dha of Essence, Dainichi, giving the mountain a male as well as a female
aspect. This undoubtedly relates to the Chinese cosmological system,
which genders mountains masculine 0yang) and valleys feminine (yin).
Fuji's caldera was designated as having eight peaks (which in reality it does
not), each corresponding to a petal of the Womb Mandala. The paradises
of other deities, including Amida, Yakushi and Miroku, were mapped onto
this mandala and joined the paradise of Dainichi on the summit. The
mountain also played host to myriad other godlings, spirits, demons and
souls of the dead. It teemed with unseen, unknowable presences.
Just as the peak of Fuji was home to different paradises, its many caves were
considered secret passageways to various hells. The People Cavern (men-
tioned above) in particular possessed a rich mine of lore and legend. Tales
were told of famous historical personages having transformative visionary
experiences as they penetrated this symbolic entrance to the underworld.
The caves, of course, were also explicitly associated with the womb. Pilgrims
Fig. 7. KIatsushika Hoku.ai. The Goddeos entered them and conducted rituals in order to die and be reborn. These are
refFuji, Konohanasaktu-himne (Princess of but some examples of the relentless application of shifting male and female
the Flowering of TrIce Blossoms), from sexuality to natural phenomena.
One Handred bew offhj (Ftiquku hyakkei),
No]. 1.I 834. Woodblock-printed book. Although it is difficult to separate legend from history, documented cultic
2 2.5 X i 5.6 cm. Freis Collection ascent of Fuji had begun by the twelfth century, once a spate of disastrous
eruptions in previous centuries had subsided. Votive sutras dating to the
mid-twelfth century excavated on the summit represent the inscription onto
(and into) the mountain of a record of people's religious aspirations in an
age when it was feared that the Buddhist law would be lost.' During the
subsequent medieval period a base for climbing Fuji was located at the Sengen
Shrine in Muravama on the southwestern slope, which controlled access to
the mountain. Because of fees and donations, the Murayama Sengen Shrine
became a flourishing enterprise and its priests correspondingly powerful.
After the seat of government moved eastward to Edo in the early seven-
teenth century, a new kind of Fuji worship emerged: it consisted almost
30 TA K E U C H I MA KING MNIOU NTAI NS

22. exclusively of lay people-mostly merchants, artisans and farmers. The
mountain provided a splendid new identity for the metropolis, whose lack
of historic sites was sorely felt. Kyoto might have Mount Hiei and other
natural and fabricated nostalgic places, but for sheer visual impact nothing
could rival the Suruga Fuji, which could be seen from the city proper. It was
quickly enfolded into the rhetoric of identity by different sectors of society.
The founder of this new populist movement, Kaku• o Tobutsu (0 541-
1646), was a charismatic mountain ascetic from Nagasaki who proselytized
in Eastern Japan.'2 As his dates suggest, Kakugy6 seems to have discovered
the secret of longexity in his mystical union with the deity of Fuji: he died
at the age of i o 5. Like many other supplicants, KakugyO performed the
standard ascetic practices on Mount Fuji such as fasting, standing naked in
the cold and bathing in icy water. He is said also to have meditated in the
People Cavern for a stretch of one thousand uninterrupted days. He en-
gaged in the yogic practice of poising motionless for long stretches of time
and standing on tiptoe on a vertical beam (physically acting out the concept
of replicating Fuji as the central pillar of the universe) in the attempt to
entice the deity to enter his body: " Kaku-6 was believed to have the
power to cure illness, and he was mobbed as a faith healer. His cult used
the northern entrance to the mountain at the locality of Yoshida (revealed
to him in a dream as the most efficacious route), and this brought him into
conflict with the Murayama faction, which tried to monopolize access from
the south; religious dreams have traditionally been a means for contesting
authority The priests of the Murayama faction never entirely relinquished
control, and as we shall see, they sometimes interfered with the new cult.
The type of Fuji worship founded by Kakugyo consisted of Fuji-ko, or Fuji
associations. At their peak it was said that there was one association in each
block of Edo. These mutual assistance groups (ko), some religious, some fra-
ternal, were (and still are) a prominent feature of Japanese society beginning
in the middle ages. The Fuji-ko constituencies (or confraternities) even pooled
funds so that all able-bodied (male) participants could make the climb.
The Fuji associations proliferated during the tenure of the colorful sixth
leader, the oil merchant and visionary' Jikigyo Miroku (1 671-1733), even-
tually' garnering an estimated 70,00o members by the late Edo period.14 It
was Jikigy who had the idea of constructing urban replications of Mount
Fuji of the type seen in Hiroshige's Hundred i$ei's.
JikigyO appears to have been something of a religious zealot, to the point of
irritating even his own followers. In his fervent visions the deity of Mount
Fuji revealed what became the core of the Fuji cult's "philosophy" It cen-
tered on the connection between Mount Fuji's deity and rice, an idea that
was in fact very ancient and based on the relationship between mountains
and agriculture.' Mountains being the source of water, they provided the
spiritual essence that made the growing of rice possible. By ingesting rice,
human beings became absorbed into the deitx' Because the members of the
four classes all eat rice--although the lower orders were supposed to be
content with cheaper grains-Jikigy6 reasoned that there was no essential
difference among human beings. (This was but one of many unorthodox
I M 1 R F S S I 0 N S ) I

23. Fig. 8. Artist unknown. Airoku
2,1andala. Hanging scroll.
5o x 6o cm. From Tup, special
issue of Bessatsu Tai,0, 110. 44
(winter 1983), 86
3 2 ~~~T EU C
AK HI NI AK I NG N10U N T AIN S

24. Fuji-cult notions that the authorities of the Tokugawa regime, committed
to keeping the classes separate, found uncongenial; soon after Jikigy6s
death, government officials issued successive proclamations banning the
Fuji-ko.) Jikigy6's name literally means "the practice, or religious protocol
(gy6), of eating (jiki)." He also claimed that the deity of Mount Fuji directed
him to adopt the name Miroku, pronounced with the same sounds as the
name of the Buddha of the Future, although written with different charac-
ters. There was another Miroku, a folk god who took care of humanity in
times of famine, so Jikigyo picked a name with many potent associations."
Jikigyo, who was only marginally literate, wrote the name Miroku with
characters of his own deevising, claiming, again, to have had these revealed
to him by the deity of Mount Fuji herself.'
In 173 3, the year following the Kyoho Famine of 73 2, Jikigyo sacrificed
himself in order to ensure an abundant harvest after the hardship of the
preceding year, although he had been making plans for this deed for some
years. In the sixth month he ordered a three-foot portable shrinelike hut to
be carried to the Hat Rock above the seventh station of Mount Fuji. Al-
though he would have preferred to die on the summit, the rival Murayama
faction would not permit it. So he fasted at the Hat Rock for thirty-one days
until he died. During this interval Jikigy6 dictated his final visions-no
doubt made the more fervent by increasing lightheadedness-to a disciple.
Upon Jikigyo's death, the disciple piled up stones to convert the shrine
containing Jikigy6s body into a tomb. Jikigy-o thus achieved his aspiration
to become physically united forever with the mountain.
A mandala unique to the Fuji cult, desiglned to visualize Jikigy6's cosmology,
shows Jikigy6 at prayer at bottom center, his head unshaven in the manner
of a confraternity layperson (fig. 8). Balancing him at the top on the central
axis is a triad of Buddhist deities (probably Amida w,ith Seishi and Kannon)
hovering over the tripartite peak. The sun and the moon (symbols of the
Diamond and Womb Worlds), which along with the stars play a prominent
role in Jikigy0's eschatology (as they had in past mandalas), flank the Bud-
dhist deities. In the middle of the composition, rising from cloud-swathed
peaks, is the stone stele found near the fifth of the ten stations on the climb-
ing route, marking the horizontal boundary between earth and heaven. The
stele is inscribed in large characters "Daigongen," one of the names of the
Fuji deity. Flanking the stone marker are the customary long-nosed, winged
demons (the large tengu and small tengu), devious creatures thought to inhabit
mountains and bedevil humans. An image like this would have hung on the
altar (luring a Fuji cult service, although Jikigyo himself preached that images
were not necessary in order to receive the bounty of Fuji.' Fortunately his
instructions were not widely observed or we would not have the legacy of
visual imagery that helps us better to understand this cult.
Reconstructions of the altars used in the rituals also illustrate some of the
cult's beliefs and practices (figs. 9, 1 o). The leader of each association kept
a portable altar in his residence. Since the location of meetings rotated
among the membership, the altar could be set up as needed. The associations
gathered monthly to participate in ceremonies that included lectures or
sermons, chants and prayers in front of the portable altar, burning torches
I M I 1I. F S I 0 N S

25. Fig. 9. Altar of the fokwo Adachi Ward
Avase Sanp&-maiiufuchi ratrnitN- 0iy.<
18277, mioder-n r-eco[nstruction. From
fuji, special issue of Bessatsu Taiyo, no. 44
(villter 1983), 86
00<
Fig. io. Altar of the Tokyo Itabashi
Vard Nagata Fraternity. 18 5 5, modern
recostr uction. From Fuji, special issue
of Bessatsu Tai&5, no. 4-4 (-Minter 198 3),
86
and eating a meal cooked over an open fire (this element being associated
Sfwwith volcanoes)."
As is clear from a comparison of the two altars in figures 9 and i o, there
was little standardization in the ritual paraphernalia necessary beyond
candles, vases with floral offerings, a sculpture of Fuji and a hanging scroll
inscribed Aith the spells chanted to invoke the deities. These scrolls display
the special characters invented by the cult leader-a kind of "writing in
4! tongues." The lack of standardization underscores the loose organization of
the confraternities. The independence of the various chapters is further
suggested by the presence of each association's crest on its paraphernalia.
The more elaborate altar of the Awase Sanpo-marufuchi association (fig. 9)
is furnished with a triptych combining a scroll of the mantras with their
special characters at left, an image of the Fuji goddess in the center and at
right an abbreviated version of the Miroku Mandala seen in figure 8. It has
a miniature Shinto shrine gateway equipped xwith the traditional folded
paper and straw rope. In the center of the altar on a table stands an ex-
traordinary mirror, a traditional Shinto symbol of divinity. This mirror is
set into a naturalistically sculpted Fuji (complete with the bump that ap-
peared after the eruption of I 707), on whose slopes waft clouds support-
ing the traditional sun and moon at right and left respectively. Where the
slopes become foothills are two monkeys, hands clasped in prayer. These
whimsical creatures are there because, according to Fuji lore, the mountain
appeared in the koshin ("Elder Brother Metal Monkey") year of the
34 TAKEUCHI MAKING MOUNTAINS

26. sexagenary cycle; a monkey god named Sarutahiko was included in Fuji wor-
ship. The form of Fuji in the simpler altar of the Nagata confraternity follows
the more archaic, stylized three-peak shape (fig. i o). These altars show how
Fuji-ko worship combined aspects of Shinto, Esoteric Buddhism, mountain
cults and popular folklore.
From the prominence accorded the beautiful female defty, it is clear that
the feminine as an object of desire played a significant role in Fuji's
gendered landscape. The reverse, the feminine as an object of loathing,
obtained equally strongly. The pervasive culturally sanctioned misogynism
that kept women out of sacred space was officially written into the religious and
political ideology of traditional Japan (and most of Asia, for that matter). A text
dated 18 , for example, describes the raison d'&re of the popular Buddhist
82
Menstruation Sutra (Ketsubon-kyo), one of China's gifts to Japan:
All women, even those who are the children of high families, have no faith
and conduct no practices, but rather have strong feelings of avarice and
jealousy, These sins are thus compounded and become menstrual blood,
and every month this flows out, polluting the god of the earth in addition
to the spirits of the mountains and rivers. In retribution for this women
are condemned to the Blood Pool Hell."
Whereas in Confucian tradition women were flawed because of their per-
ceived weakness of character, in both Shinto and Buddhist belief their infe-
riority stemmed from biological causes as well. Blood, undoubtedly owing
to the stain it leaves, constitutes a very serious form of pollution. Women,
because of their potential for defilement (even when not actually menstru-
ating or giving birth), could unpredictably inject impurity into the natural
world and thereby bring divine wrath on human affairs. When, for ex-
ample, heavy rains threatened to spoil the crops in 18oo, a special "good
karma" year when women were allowed farther up the mountain than
usual, local farmers attributed the bad weather to the presence of the fe-
male pilgrims and successfully petitioned for a stop to their dangerous pro-
fanation of sacred space.2 ' On the face of it, women were unlikely devotees
of mountain -climbing cults. But religious establishments made increased
efforts to accommodate the biologically disadvantaged half of the popula-
tion during the Edo period-a classic case of entrepreneurship in which a
need is created and then addressed by the same party
The primary boon that the deities of Fuji and other mountain cults offered
women was a predictable one, namely, procreation. Fuji's Sengen Shrines
did a brisk business in the sale of safe-childbirth talismans, to be carried in
a woman's obi for the duration of her pregnancy Wealthier or more fer-
vent devotees could bux sanctified sashes to wear during pregnancy"' It is
likely that these lucky objects were bought at the shrines by Fuji-associa-
tion husbands as souvenirs for their stay-at-home wives.
If a woman were particularly energetic and devoted, she too could make a
pilgrimage to Fuji. In a normal year women would be allowed, after seven-
teen days of purification (more than the time required for men), all the
way to the second, and sometimes to the third, of the ten stations. The
optimum opportunity for women's salvation occurred once every sixty
IMPRESSIO NS 24

27. Fig. ii. Katsushika Hokusai. Group years, during the koshin combination in the sexagenary cycle discussed
Climbing the lountain, from the series above. According to Fuji lore, it was in the koshin year traceable to 2 8 6 B.C.
Thirq-Six Viens of',Mount Fuji. Early that the mists parted and Fuji's form miraculously appeared. Climbs dur-
18 3os. Color woodcut, iban. Courtesy ing the koshin years (the so-called goen nen, "[good] karma years") were
Sotheby's, London
touted as being sublimely efficacious. A climb during a good karma year
was worth thirty-three climbs in ordinary years. During these years (unless
special circumstances, like the heavy rains of i8oo, interfered), women
flocked to climb as far as the "rvonin kekkai" (women's off-limits), located
between the fourth and fifth stations. There they were welcomed by the
nyonin oitate kekkai, literally the "driving-women- away barrier."'
At what point does ritualized gendering of landscape elide into questions
of sexualization? Fuji's Womb Cave and the practices associated with it
blur that boundary. Much has been wTitten about the telescoping of the
notions of entering a cave and entering the womb, thus to be reborn, in
Carmen Blacker's lovely phrase, "by the mimesis of symbolic action." This
is certainly not unique to Fuji-cult thought. From Daoist to Shugendo
writings one finds explicit linkage of caves and wombs.2 4 Hokusai's Group
Climbing the M1ountain, from his series Thirty-Six Vicls of Mount Fuji, shows
white-clad pilgrims curled in the fetal position literally enacting this pro-
cess of rebirth (pl. 3/fig. ii).
Not only would pilgrims enter the womb to be reborn, they would also
nurse at the breast of the Great Mother. This too has counterparts in
Daoist lore, which likens the cave's stalactites to the "bell teats" of Holy
TAKEUCHI IMAKING MOLINTAINS

28. Fig. 12. Hashimoto Sadahide (1807-
80
1873). Pulgrims in the 0h6nib Cave on Mount
Fuji (detail of Amida Cave) 1857. Color
woodcut triptych, Oban. 3 5.4 x 24.4 cm
each. D. Max Moerman Collection.
Photo: John Deane
See Pl. 4 for full triptych.
SMother Earth, thought to secrete a nourishing essence (pl. 4/figs. L2, 13).2'
h When a grown man suckles at the breast, that act takes on erotic overtones;
womb elides with vagina. Since entering the womb and penetrating the va-
741, gina are operations wholly difterent in nature, the erotic implications of
sucking the Womb Cave's stalactites cannot be denied. It is hard to imagine
how this topographical feature could serve the spiritual needs of women or
how women might feel participating in such a ritual. The enactment of re-
entering the womb and nursing at the breast would have very different psy-
Fig. 13. Stalactites in cave on Mount F'uji. chological nuances for the two sexes.
Photograph. From luji, Special issue 01f
Bessatsu TThyo, no. 44 (winter 1983), 1 33
MOUNT FUJI IN EDO
If women, the weak-bodied, children and the aged were excluded from full
participation in the rituals connected vith the Suruga Fuji, replication pro-
vided a solution for their salvation. In the spirit of the inclusionist trend of
Edo popular religion in general, the Mini-Fujis managed to accommodate
those whom the sacred peak itself couhl not. 7 It is here that men's and
women's devotional practices overlap to the greatest degree.
Physically replicating NIount Fuji for ritualistic purposes was not a wholly
new phenomenon. Starting in the fifteenth century, a few Sengen shrines
(that is, shrines dedicated to Sengen, another name for the Fuji deity) had
been built on eminences, mostly old burial mounds. The Sengen Shrine at
Komagome in Edo, pictured in the Record of Edo's Famous Places (Edo
I N1 P R I S 5 I 0 N s

29. Fig. 14. Artist unknown. Fuji Sengen
Shrine at Komoaome in Edo, from Record -
Edo's Famous Places (Edo oeishoki), vol. 2.
r 66 2. Woodblock-printed book. s"
2 6 x 18.3 cm. Spencer Collection,
New York Public Library, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations
meishoki) of 1662, exemplifies this older configuration (fig. 14). It differs
from the later Mini-Fujis in a number of respects. A straight stone stair-
case leads directly to the shrine at the top. The designer makes no attempt
to duplicate the process of climbing Fuji, to copy the switchback trails to
the summit or to incorporate Fuji's famous landmarks. Sengen Shrines
conducted festivals connected with the opening of the Suruga Fuji's climb-
ing season, and it is possible that with time the general populace did not
differentiate between the new cultic Mini-Fujis and the older forms such
as that at Komagome. We will return to this point below
By way of explaining the motivation for the creation of the Edo Mini-Fujis, the
Jiiscell,neous Historv'oJippoan (Jippoan yureki zakki, i 8o4 8) states:
Mount Fuji is so high that even in the case of men, those with a weak
heart fall ill because it is difficult to climb a 0o-ri mountain. How much
harder then is it for women with their defilements and many obstacles!
And it is arduous also for the verv voung anti the old to climb Fuji. Feeling
sorry for these people Ch6jiro [sic] had the sincere wish that exeryone
would be able to climb the mountain, and he made a copy of it so that
men, women, young antI old could set their hearts at peace.'
The Chojiro men-tioned in the account was a follower of Miroku Jikig6
named Takata Toshiro (religious name Nichigy6 Seizan, 170 5-1 782). A
gardener by trade, Toshiro is said to have climbed Fuji seventy-three times,
although this may be part of the hagiography that quickly enveloped many
T A K E U C 1I-: M A K I N (I M ( Ll N T A I N S

30. Fig. iS. Utagawa 1-firoshige 1I. Takata: cult leaders. To commemorate the thirty-third anniversary of Jikigyo's
Takata Fuji, fi-om Picture Book of Edo death in 1765, T6shir6 decided to build a "Fuji utsushi," or, in Henry
Soulvenirs (Ehon Edo nimage), vol. 8. 1861 Smith's phrase, a "transferred Mount Fuji," in keeping with Jikigyo's
Color " oodb lock- printed book. Wishes.2' In 1779 Toshiro and some disciples began work on a mound six
14.6 x 18. 1 cm. C. V Starr East Asian
meters high in the Mizu Inari Shrine in the precincts of the Tendai temple
I ibrary; Columbia UniversitN, Nex
Hosenji at Takatanobaba in Edo (fig. 15). Like the older Fuji Sengen
"•ork Citv
shrines, Toshiro's Fuji seems to have had an ancient burial mound as its
base. Because T6shir6 lived in the Takata area of Edo, his "surname" (as
was often the case with commoners) reflects his area of residence. His
mound thus came to be called the Takata Fuji.
To imbue his Mini-Fuji with authenticity, Toshiro used black volcanic rock
transported from Mount Fuji for the upper part of the structure. He also
furnished his miniature with Fuji's legendary sites: the Womb Cave, the
switchback route consisting of nine "turns" with markers for each of the
nine stations, the Sho Ontake Shrine at the fifth station along with the gir-
dling road called the Ochudo (the midway circuit marking the boundary
between heaven and earth), the Hat Rock near the seventh station and the
Okunoin Shrine at the top. By including the Hat Rock, the site of Miroku's
self- sacrifice, Toshiro fused religious lore and historical personality. In
similar fashion a statue of Toshiro himself was used in the opening ceremo-
nies (yanibiraki)of the Takata Fuji. It would seem that the charismatic per-
sonalities of various association leaders were embedded into the fabric of
cultic worship-they became folk deities themselves. Toshiro, who died a
I M P R E S S 1 0 N S 39

31. Fig. 16. Hasegawa Settan. Pilgrimage at mere three years after the construction of the Takata Fuji, arranged to be
1hip Sengen Shrine at Komugome, fi-or buried at the foot of his creation.
Guidebook to Edo's famous Places (Edo
The Takata Fuji was supposedly open to the public for climbing only (lur-
lislho zuc), Vol -. 185--34 36.
'oodblock-printed book. 26 x [ 8.3 cm. ing the time that the "mountain opening" ceremonies for the "real" Fuji
Spencer Collection, New York Public
took place. This varied friom the end of the fifth lunar month to some time
Iibrars, Astor, Lenox and Tilden after the middle of the sixth. The inscription on the guidebook image in
Foundations figure 15 reads: "Takata. Fujisan. This is located in the Takata H6senji
Mizu Inari compound. It is unlike the other Fujis. Pilgrimage goes on till
the eighteenth day of the sixth month. Snakes made of straw are sold.
"Teashopsand other enterprises appear. This continues for several days."
The observances held at the Mini-Fujis seem to have overlapped with an-
nual festival customs already in place at the older Fuji Sengen shrines like
the one at Komagome. An illustration by Hasegawa Settan (1778- 1843)
from the 1834-36 Guidebook to Edo's Famous Places (Edo ineisho zue) shows
the festive pilgrimage that took place annually at the Komagome Sengen
Shrine around the first (lay of the sixth month (fig. i6). Throngs of fash-
ionably dressed people of all ages, samurai and commoner alike, worship,
sightsee, buy, sell and stroll. In addition to the straw snakes, fans and five-
colored string bags noted in the caption (many of the same festival souve-
nirs listed for the Takata Fuji), there are tea sellers, watermelon vendors
and people selling dried fruit and grilled delicacies on skewers. ' I have not
come across any illustrations of a Mini-Fuji showing anyone wearing the
TAKEUCHI MAKINC( MOUL]NTAINS

32. white pilgrims' garments described in the texts. Those climbing wear the
everyday clothing of sightseers.
That large numbers of the Edo populace came to consider the Mini-Fujis
as part of the enormous annual round of observances that guided them
through the seasons is clear from the example of the scholar Saito Gesshin
( 804-1 878). Gesshin, the third generation of a family of writers who had
compiled numerous monumental guidebooks such as the Record of Annual
Events of the Eastern Metropolis (Toto saijiki) of 1838 and the Guidebook to Edo's
Famous Places, seems to have made a business of attending as many seasonal
events as was humanly possible-sometimes several in one (lay. Detailed
knowledge of local customs was, of course, mandatory for the author of a
thirty-eight-volume account of the annual events of Edo. Although Gesshin
cannot be made to speak for all Edoites, his comprehensive polytheistic
approach seems fairly typical of the dominant premodern (and even mod-
ern) style of worshiping whatever deity claimed center stage on a given oc-
casion, in a gregarious, communal celebration. The Mini-Fujis did double
duty as festival and entertainment sites as well as serving as a focus for
Fuji-ko devotionalism.
Gesshin's Record of the Annual Events of'the Eastern Metropolis mentions at least
fourteen other Edo Mini-Fujis that had come into existence (luring the
half-century since the creation of the Takata Fuji. I He ends his list with
the remark that these mounds had recently become quite popular. Gesshin
himself attended the Fuji "mountain opening" festivities at Komagome,
Kayacho and Yanagihara. At the end of the fifth month he also went on a
pilgrimage to climb the "original" Fuji in Suruga."4
Given the documented popularity of Edo's Fuji cult and its mounds, the
image of the 'akata Fuji in the 18 5o-67 ten-volume Picture Book of Edo Sou-
venirs (Ehon Edo miyage) by Hiroshige and Hiroshige 11 (1826- 869) shows
a curiously denatured scene (fig. i 5). Even though the seasonal teashops
indicate that this is the Tlkata Fuji at peak tourist season, so to speak, the
handful of tiny figures of men and women is at odds with the image of
thronging celebrants so vividly described in other sources.
It is possible that common models existed for the depiction of Edo's fa-
mous sites and that artists freely borrowed and adapted them. Consider,
for example, a comparison of two renditions of the Mini-Fuji located
within the precincts of the Fukagawa Tomigaoka Hachiman Shrine. One is
from the Record of Annual Events of the Eastern 41etropolis, compiled by
Gesshin, illustrated by Hasegawa Settan and published in 18 3 8, the other
from the Picture Book ofEdo Souvenirs (figs. 17,18). Each employs the same
general composition: the mound, anchored at left, is viewed from such an
elevated perspective that the viewer can see over its summit, over city roof-
tops and a large body of water, to distant mountains behind. The illustra-
tion by Settan teems with people of all ages jostling each other on the nar-
row path (fig. 17). It accords with the written descriptions of the Mini-
Fujis as popular pilgrimage sites. There is no Suruga Fuji on Settan's hori-
zon. Although the caption from the Picture Book of Edo Souvenirs describes
the "mountain opening" days and the sideshows that accompany them,
I t, P R F 5, I 0 N S ?

33. Fig. 17. Hasegawa Settan. Hachinan there are only two couples participating in this lonely spectacle (fig. 18). The
Shrine at Fukayawa Tomigaoka, from artist seems to have been more interested in illustrating the part of the inscrip-
Record ofAnnUal Events in the Eastern tion that describes the distant views from the summit, which includes mention
Metropolis (Tto saijiki), vol. 3. 18 38. of tie Suruga Fuji itself Possibly Hiroshige I and Hiroshige II both took the lib-
Woodblock- printed book. 22.6 x i 5.9
erty of making a visual play between the real Fuji mound and the imitation Fuji,
ckn. Hans Thomsen Collection as in figures i and 2. Were the Suruga Fuji actually visible from the Fukagawa
Hachiman Mini-Fuji, it is inexplicable that Settan, under the direction of the
ubiquitous, indefatigable and positivist Gesshin, neglected to include it.
The third Mini-Fuji depicted by Hiroshige in his One Hundred Famous Views
ofEdo is this same Fukagawa Tomigaoka Hachiman Shrine (pl. 5/fig. 19).
Henry Smith draws attention to the ambiguity in the caption to this print-
Fukayawa Hachiman vamabiraki-which he translates "Open Garden at
Fukagawa Hachiman Shrine." It could also mean "Mountain Opening at
Fukagawa Hachiman," although Smith believes that )yamabiraki (mountain
opening) in this case refers to the annual opening to tourists of that shrine's
famous old garden for a few (lays in the third or fourth month." Hiroshige
thus played down the importance of this Fuji mound by depicting it out of
season but with a few sightseers climbing it. As if to deemphasize further the
garden's connection with Fuji worship, Hiroshige did not include the Suruga
Fuji in the background.
The Meiji Restoration did not put an end to the Fuji-k6. On the contrary,
erection of the mounds seems to have reached a high point in the 189os.16
TA KE U CH I, MAKING MOUNTAINS

34. Fig. 18. Utagawa Ifiroshige II. But their popularity did not necessarily depend on their religious aspect. The
Huchiman Shrine at tFukagjaia Tmiogaoka, thirty-three-meter Mini-Fuji in Asakusa (fig. 2o), built by an entrepreneur in
from Picture Book o?fEdo Souvenirs (Ehon 18 8 7, stood in the newly created Asakusa Park in the company of music
Edo miooage), vol. 9. j 864. Color halls, a movie theater and other up-to-date entertainments. Although an un-
woodblock-printed book. 14.6 x 18.1
generous observer likened it to an apparition of a freshwater snail, fashion-
cm. From Asakura I laruhiko, ed.,
able people flocked to it. It lasted only ten years before a typhoon damaged it
"Nihonmeisho.fl-zoku zzzc (Pictorial
beyond repair.
compendium of the Japanese famous-
places genre), vol. 3 (Tok-vo: Kadokawa A simulacrum of a natural landscape exposes underlying social formations.
Shoten, 1979), 320
The various protocols assigned to the Mini-Fujis are a case in point. It is
time now to put these into sharper focus. Bernard Faure has written that,
"The world in miniature is said to call the powers of the macrocosm,
which flow into it, fusing with it.",' While concentrating the manna of a
large sacred form into a smaller one, the process of miniaturization also
profoundly alters the nature of the copy: And once meanings are assigned,
they slip. This process in turn opens up new areas of discursive meaning.
Miniatures, for example, have been equated with the domain of the
marginalized, and particularly with women, as Donna Haraway and Susan
Stewart argue."s As simulacra the Mini-Fujis, unlike nature's more vulner-
able original, become, ironically, undefilable sites. They are impervious to
the blood pollution of the unclean. The presence of women, old people,
the handicapped and the very young-society's more fragile members
whose vulnerability may bring ritual pollution to everyone-cannot ad-
versely effect the essence of these structures now under human control.
IM PRESS IO NS 214 43

35. The process of substitution has conquered
nature. Mini-Fujis are surrogates that receive
and deflect defilement.
The miniatures transform Fuji's "fearful syrtn-
metrv" (to borrow Blake's phrase), revealed
to the intrepid pilgrim episodicalN; segment
by segment on the actual mountain, into
something whose totality is immediately ap-
A, i prehensible on a human scale. In a mini-
pilgrimage to a Mini-Fuji, time and space,
ritual and religious "reality" are collapsed.
Miniaturization replaces narrative with tab-
leau.s" The climber is able to participate and
to bear witness at the same time. In hind-
sight it seems almost inevitable that phe-
nomena like the Asakusa Fuji would come
to represent the ultimate conflation of the
miniaturize(] pilgrimage with sheer enter-
tainment.
Hiroshige had a curiously, detached vision of
Edo's Fuji mounds. Its marked difference
from both the literary evidence and the bus-
tling air given these sites by other artists
suggests that a process of editing and omis-
sion was operating. This decidedly reserved
point of -iew invites us to contemplate the
subjective nature of representation. Hiroshige,
a man of minor samurai status, invests most of
the panoramic scenes in One hludred Famous
Views oJ Edo with an emotional distance and a
Fig. 19. Utagawa Hiroshige. "Alountain sense of propriety. These qualities pervade his Picture Book ojEdo Souvenirs
Opening" at Fukagawa t1achiman Shrinc, as well. It is as if Hiroshige set out to represent a xieNv of the city quietly
fi-om the series One Hundred Tamous Views compatible with the Tokugawa notion of an ideal Confucian order. This
,J
fEdo. 18 56-58. olor woodcut, oban. detachment distinguishes his later work from earlier scenes such as the
36.2 X 23.7 cm approx. Courtesy
more lyrical series of 18 34 depicting the Tokaid6 Highway. Perhaps, as he
Sotheby's, London
aged, he became more conservative and decorous, as is often the case.
Hiroshige was fifty-nine y,ears old (sixty by Japanese count) when he
started the set, and he had just taken the tonsure. He may have had the
sense that he was coming to the end of his life. He died just two years
later, before the set had been completed.
It is also possible that Hiroshige's "cool" representation of the Mini-Fujis
had to do with the status of the Fuji cults in Edo society. Not everyone
viewed this populist religious movement with enthusiasm. Perhaps
Hiroshige's samurai sensibility put him in sympathy with the authorities,
who saw the Fuji-ko as a social nuisance undesirable in an orderly society.4,
It may not be a coincidence that the most severe edict against the cults was
issued in 1849, the year before the first volumes of Hiroshige's Picture Book
of Edo Souvenirs were published (and seven years before he began One
T A K E U C H I MAKINCG MOLI NTAIN,S

36. Fig. 2o. Ikuei (Kobayashi Eijiro, active Hundred Famous Vieus of Edo). Hiroshige mayx well have considered the ac-
i8 Sos). Asakusa Park: The Prosperit, o/ tivities of the Fuji fraternities with the distaste with which a High Episco-
4lount Fuji. 1 887. Color
0Woodcut, palian views a televangelist.
ohan triptxch. From -U)ji,special isSLC o0
Bessatsu Tah,6, no. 44 (wxinter 1983), 90 Are the Mini-Fujis artificial landscapes, topographically mimetic gardens,
instruments of devotional praxis, trivializing theme parks or dilutions of a
sacred site? The answer is, they may be all of these. Whatever the explana-
tion, Hiroshige's presentation of the Fuji mounds offers a nonstandard or
alternate perspective on an important Edo-period phenomenon. An ex-
amination of his Mini-Fujis demonstrates that while the One Hundred
Famous Vieis"oj'Edo appears to be objective reportage, it still encodes the
artist's own subjective vision of his times. E
I NI P R E S S I () N 5 " I 4

37. Notes i. See, for example, the"MOUnit Akan Fuji" no ,anlaku shinko (Histors of the Fuji cult: Fdo
and NIount YC(tei, known as the "Fuji of townspeople and mountain worship) (lbkvo:
Hokkaido." There is also the "Satsuma Fuji" Mteiclxo, 1983). See also Royall Tvler, "A
I would like to thank I lenry D. Smith 1I foir (Mount Kaimon) and the AizuAVakamatsu Glimpse of Mount Fuji in Legend and Cult,"
generously sharing his enormous stash of "Little Fuji" in Bandai-Asahi National Park. jonin-nal f the Associon of 7eather, ojuan,po,ise,
material on Miii-Fujis gathered over mainy vol. 16, no. 2 (1981), l4o-65, and Henry 1).
2. For a synopsis of Western thinking on this
years. A special debt of gratitude is expressed Smith 11, Hokusai: One 1-hindred Uems of'Aft.Filp
issue, see Michael Camille, "Simulacrum," in
also to Julia Meech, the most fiercely riigorous (New York: George Braziller, 1988).
Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shift, eds.,
editor in history. Thanks are due in addition to
Critical Terinsjfo Art Historv (Chicago and i o. For an example of this configuratio(n, see
Christine Guth, Tom Iltare, Caroline Kakizaki,
London: Unimersitv of Chicago Press, 1996), lecc, Reflections, fig. 93.
SLIsan Matisoff, FLuMiko Miyazaki, David
3 -44.
Moernian, Mikiko Nishimura and Suz,an1C i i. See, for example, a set of sutras executed
Wright. 3. RolfA. SteCin, The IVrld in Aliniature: in ciinabar ink on paper in Nara National
Container ("arens and Diiellings in Ihar Eastern Museum, ed., Saon aku shinko no iho (Relics of
Rdigions Thlouqht (Stanford: Stanford University mountain cults ) (Nara: Nara National
Press, 1990), 24. MuseuC11, 198 5), 110. 43. (Cinnabar is a
4. Mikiko Nishimura, "Circulation oflthe Fuji no substan e considered by Daoists to confMir
immortality) It is said that the Buddhist monk
hitoona zoshi and Its Influence on the Cult oi1Fuji
Matsudai established a temple at the top of
during the Medieval Period," seminar paperi
Fuji and buried 5,196 sutras there in i, 149,;
Stanford Univer-sits, 2 i. This tale, which is
Nishimura, "Circulation of the Fuji no Hnoana
thought to originate in the late Kaniakura or eailI
1ýshi"," [ 1.
Muromachii period, was widely ciiculated during
Japan's medieval period. Nishimura cites as hei f 2. For KakugyC, see Royall Tyler, "The
source Koyama Kamunari, "Fuji I [itoana zoshi "li6kugawa Peace and Popular Religion: Suzuki
kenkyuinooto" (Research notes on the luji Shosan, Kakugso Tobutsu, and Jikiý-vo Miroku,'"
Hitoona zoshi), in Rissho daigakU kokugo in Peter Nosco, ed., Confiticianisn0 Tokngaioa
and
koknbunoakn (March i976 and March i978). The Cuhnmre (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversitA
notion that reading a holy text was equivalent to Press, 1984), 1011-9; Martin Collcutt, "Mouilt
making an actual pilgiimage was not unique to Fuji as the Realm of IMiroku: The Transfor
this work, but a fairly widespread helief. mation of Maitreva in the Cult of Mount Fuji
5. Mikiko Nishimura, "The Popularity of Fuji- in Iarlly Modern Japan," in Alan Sponbeqrg and
ko and Its Influence on Image Production I lelen Hardacre, eds., Alonrew:a The Fbuinr
during the Later Edo Period," serninar paper, Buddha (Cambridge and London: Cambridge
Stanford University, i 3. These replicated huts Unliversity Press, 1988), 2 ý 3-59.
were Popular in the Kyoto area but not in Fdo.
13. Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Boi:A Stwudi ii"
For the income generated by the sale of the
Shanianistic Practices in Japan (London, Boston,
white ritual clothing and xxalking sticks, and by and Sydney: George Allen and Un%xin, 1986),
fees charged IOr climbing the mountain,
8 I o 3. Oin ascetic initiation and visionary
purification services and lodgings, see
and symbolic journeys, see chaps. 9-[ i.
Nishimura, "Circulation of the 1-ilp no Hitoana
zoshi," 1 3. 14. Martin Collcutt, "Mount Fuji as the Realn
of Miroku," 256, citing Aizaxxa Seishisai's
6. Jay Appleton, The Svinbolisn of ila,itat:An
Shinron of i 825.
Interpretation of Landscape in the Arts (Seattle and
London: UniversitY of VWashington Press, 1 5. One of the ancient etymologies of Fuji
1990), 15. suggested a mountain of piled-up rice. For
infoirmation oni late-Fdo Fuji cults, see FLumiko
7. Although Fuji is dormant, it is not extinct.
MiYazaki, "Emperor
0 or1iship and Fujido,"
8. See Sherman F. Lee, Rflections of Realm JapaneseJournalof Reliqious SiudiCS, ol 1 7, u0s.
(Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art in 2- 3 (June-Sept. 1990), 28 i-314, and
cooperation with Indiana Univexisity Press, Mivazaki Fuiniko, "' Fuji no bi to shinko saiko'
1983), p1. Vi. iiinotoit in no shiten kara" (A reconsideration
of 'Fuji aesthetics and worship' from the
9. Some of the key works on Fuji worship
viewpoint of the locals), KAN, vol. 2 (surniner
include Inobe Shigeo, E-uji no rekishi (Historv of
2000), i24 3i.
Fuji), 5 vols. (-likvo: Kokon, 1928-29) and
lwashina Koichiro, Eujiko no rekishi: Edo shoinin i t. For more about the conflation of the
TAKEUCHI: MAKING MO4
t UNTAINS

38. deities, see Collcutt, "Mount Fuji as the Realm Stipas, Mandalas: Fetal Buddhahood in from Matsunosuke Nishivarna, Edo Culture:
of Miroku," 259 6e, and Miyazaki, "Emperor Shingon," Japanese Journal of Reliqtous Studies, Daibs lije and Diversions at Urban Japan, i6oo-
Worship," 287-88. Vol. 24, iios. 1-2 (spring i997), 1-38. s868 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press,
17. The mi is written with the ideograph 1997), 80- 91.
25. Stein, The If arld in Miniature, i i o.
meaning status, oneself, or one's person; the 33. The list given in Nishiyama, Edo Culture,
26. Helen Hardacre, "The CaVe and the
Kenkyo-usha dictionarv gives the meaning ofroku 85-87, does not altogether match the one in
Womb World," JapaneseJournalof Reliqipous
as a fief stipend or ration [of rice]. Jikigyo is the transcription of Rewrd uf Annual Events oj the
Studies, vol. io, nos. 2-3 (June-September
indicating the link between the physical self Eastern Metropolis in Asakura, Nihon meishofazoiku
1983), 14 9-76, esp. 166-74. Hardacre's
and the boUnty of rice. Mue,vol. 3, 148. The latter includes: Asakusa
article centers on a contemporary Shugendc
Jariba, Fukagawa Hachimango, Fukagawa
iS. Iwashina Koichiro, "Edo shomin no Fuji ceremony of entering a cave at the Oku-no-in
Morishitacho Shinmeigei, Teppozu Inari,
shinko" (The Fuji worship of Edo commoners), Peak at Mount Omine, Nara Prefecture.
Kayacho Tenmangu, Ikenohata Shichikench6,
Fuji, special issue of Bessatsu Tag"a, no 44
27. The information in this section was taken Yanagihara 'Yanagimori Inari, Kanda Myojin
(winter 1983), 96.
from Henry D. Smith I1, "Fujizuka: The Mini- Yashiro, Kanda Matsushitacho uclo,
19. Cornelius Ouwehand, "Fujisan-the Mount Fujis of Tokkyo," Bulletin ofthe Asiatic Koarnichobori Inari, Shitaya Ono Terusaki
Centre of a Nation-wide Mountain Cult," Socien, ofJapan, no. 3 (March i986), 2-5, and Myojin, Takanawa Sengakuji/Nyoraiji, Honjo
SinssairGazette (October 1984), i 5. some unpublished materials provided by Mutsume and Meguro Gysninzaka. Oddl),
Professor Smith; Iwashina Koichiro, "Takata Gesshin does not mention the laMkata Fuji.
20. Momoko Takemi, "'Menstruation Sutra'
Fuji," Ashinaka, no. 38 (October 1953), 18-2 8;
Belief in Japan," JapaneseJournal cflReligious 34. Nishiyama, Edo Culture, 87.
and Iwashina Koichiro, "Tokyo no Fujizuka"
Studies, vol. io, nos. 2 3 (983), 235.
(The Fuji mounds of Tokyo), Ashinaka, no. i 48 35. See Henrv D. Smith 11's caption to no. 68
2 1. Iwashina, "Edo shomin no Fuji shinko," 95. (December 1975), i-26. in Hirishise: One Hundred Fanious ie is ofEdo
(New York: Braziller, 1986).
22. For a reproduction of such a sash, see Fuji, 28. Iwashina, "Takata Fuji," 23.
special issue of Bessatsu Toapa, no. +4 (winter 36. Henry D. Smith If, unpublished chart.
29. Smith, "Fujizuka," 3.
1983), 76.
37. Bernard Faure, "The Buddhist Icon and
30. f-ianscribed in Asakura Haruhiko, ed., Nihon
23. It was not until 1872 that the Meiji the Modern Gaze," Critical hIquir Vol. 24,
tneissosuzoku zue (Pictorial conmpendium Of the
government lifted this ban, and women were no. 3 (spring i998), 799-
Japanese famous-places genre), vol. 3 (Tokyo:
allowed all the way to the summit. Miyazaki,
Kadoskaxa Shoten, 1979), 3 i o. Since Japanese 38. See Donna Haraway, "A Cvborg Mantifesto:
"'Fuji no hi,'" i 26-29, gives an account of the
does not diff erentiate between singular and Science, `echMology, and Socialist-Feminism in
Various struggles by women to climb Fuji and
plural, the statement "It is unlike the other Fujis" the Late Twentieth Century," in Donna
the strategies employed by the local farmers
could also read "It is unlike [the Suruga] Fuji." Harassay, (jvborys, Siunans and l'Faien: The
and pilgrimage leaders to keep them out. In
Reinvention of Nature (New '•oik: Routledge,
183 2 the first woman, accompanied b) five 3 1. These items became standard commodities 199 1), i 4 9-8
f. See also the chapter on the
men, climbed secretly to the top after the for sale at Fuji shrines. Carried by women with miniature in Susan Stewart, On Longing:
official season for climbing had closed. After a children, fans, bags of cancy and straw snakes Narratives ofthe Miniature, the Giqantic, the
sufficient number of women had ventured attached to sprigs of bamboo appeai, foi Souvenir, the Collection (Durham, N.C., and
beyond the permitted boundary, local officials example, in a triptych by Utagasa Kunisada London: Duke University Press, 1993), 37 69.
erected a sentry station. Many mountain- (1 786--i864), ShoaVer on the lKy Honiefrom the
crashers were apprehended in the years between SixthAfonth Fuji. See JeizO Suzuki and Isaburo 39. Stewart, On Longing, 56.
183o and f s50, but many more successfully Oka, ,1asstet,vorks sf Ukivoe: The Decadents 4o. See Smith, "Introduction," Hiroshige: One
used side routes around the barrier. (Tokyo, Ness York and San Francisco: Kodan- Hundred Iaous
n1oieivs, 10.
sha International, 1982), figs. 1 3-I 5. I am
24. See, for example, the phraseology of the 41. Proscriptions against the cults started
grateful to Ellis Tinios for this reference. appearing in public documents beginnino in
Japanese Shugendo master S7th-century
Gakuhis, who describes the experience at 32. For example, see nos. 2952, 2953, 2242, 1794. The most serious persecution took place
Mount Ominc as "rainai shupao" (womb 2243, 2245-47 and 3330 in Oka Masahiko et in 1849, but it failed to eliminate the cult. See
devotionalism). Quoted in Blacker, Catalpa Boa-, al., Edo Printed Books at Berkelev (TIokvo:
ciYumani, fvashina, "Fdo shomin no Fuji shtnkc," 97,
2 12. See also James Sanfsird, "Win]d, NVaters, i99o). The information on Gesshin comes and Mivazaki, "Emperor Worship," 289.
I Ni P R E S S 1I N S

39. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: Making Mountains: Mini-Fujis, Edo Popular Religion and
Hiroshige’s One
SOURCE: Impressions no24 2002
PAGE(S): 25, 10-24, 26-47
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