Country of (■1)(■2) - Okono Country

...The entry for July 29, 880, in the Chronicles of the Three Generations reads, "Ukonoe Uchinoue no Tomitsugu and Nagao Yonetsugu are good at performing arts and sangaku, making people laugh. They are similar to the so-called Hu people." This shows that people who perform sangaku were considered to be oko people. There has been a long-standing theory that these Hu people were from the country of (oko) (a country with foolish customs like the Southern Barbarians) mentioned in the Book of the Later Han, but here we can consider them to be oko people. Sangaku was a variety of arts performed at the time, including acrobatics, acrobatics, comical impersonations, dwarf dancing, puppetry, and comical dialogue. It was also considered the epitome of humor, as in the saying "Today's things are like Sangaku" (Shoyuki), and it was also called Sarugaku (Sarugō), and became a common word meaning something humorous.

*Some of the terminology explanations that refer to "Country (■1)(■2)" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…《三代実録》元慶4年(880)7月29日の条に〈右近衛内蔵冨継，長尾米継，伎に散楽を善くし，人をして大咲(笑)せしむ，いはゆる滸人これに近し〉とあって，散楽を演ずる人物がオコな人間と考えられていたことがわかる。この滸人を《後漢書》などにいう（おこ）の国(南蛮の愚かな風俗をした国)の人とする説が古来行われているが，ここはオコな人と考えてよい。散楽は当時行われた雑芸で曲芸，軽業，滑稽な物真似，侏儒舞（ひきひとまい），傀儡子（くぐつ），滑稽な対話芸などがあったが，〈今日の事散楽の如し〉(《小右記》)などのように滑稽の代表のようにも考えられ，さらに猿楽（さるがく∥さるごう）ともいわれて，滑稽なことを意味するふつうのことばともなった。…

※「(■1)(■2)の国」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報