Masumi Sugae

Japanese: 菅江真澄 - すがえ・ますみ

Year of death: 1829.8.18 (1829.7.19)
Year of birth: 1754
A writer from the mid- to late Edo period. Some say he was born in the third year of the Horeki era. His surname was Shirai, and his real name was Eiji. From the middle of the Bunka era, he used the surname "Sugae Masumi". His given name was Tomoyuki, Hidetaka, Hideo, etc. His family occupation was prayer and medicine, and he was of the Shiratayu lineage. His father's name was Hidemasa. He was born and raised in Okazaki, Mikawa Province (Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture), but as he grew up he had no permanent residence and spent his life traveling. As a boy, he became a child at Jojuin Temple in Okazaki Castle Town, where Ueda Yoshikata showed him the steps of Japanese studies. In his adolescence, he moved to Owari, where he became acquainted with Awata Tomochika, a scholar of Japanese classics and a shrine official at Atsuta Shrine, and gained experience in cultivating medicinal herbs at the Nagoya Domain's botanical garden, where he mastered botany. In 1777, he studied Chinese classics under Niwa Shaan, a Confucian scholar from Owari. He left Mikawa in 1783 (Tenmei 3) and visited the Tohoku region for the first time, traveling to Ezo. After three years of travelling, he returned to the mainland in 1792 (Kansei 4). In 1797, he entered the territory of the Tsugaru domain, and by the end of his seven-year stay in Tsugaru, he had served as a medicinal herb collector, but he was eventually accused of suspicious behaviour, his diary and travelogue were confiscated, and he was placed under house arrest. After moving to the Akita domain in 1801 (Kyowa 1), he never traveled outside the area for the rest of his life. He attracted the attention of the domain's lord, Satake Yoshitomo, and planned to write a geography of the Akita domain, but this was blocked by the domain's retainers, and after Yoshitomo's sudden death in 1814 (Bunka 11), he was forced to stop writing for seven years. He resumed writing in 1822, producing works such as the historical essay "Fude no Manimani," and, under orders from the feudal domain, began work on the geographical works "Snowy Dewa Road Hiraka County" and "Moonlit Dewa Road Senboku County." However, he passed away in the area before he could finish the work on the geographical works. Written mostly in pseudo-classical Japanese, the travel diary is an enormous number of pages long, and together with the author's hand-drawn sketches, it is a detailed illustrated encyclopedia that sheds light on the historical geography of the Tohoku region in the late Edo period. <References> "Complete Works of Sugae Masumi," edited by Uchida Takeshi and Miyamoto Tsuneichi.

(Robert Campbell)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：文政12.7.19(1829.8.18)
生年：宝暦4(1754)
江戸中期から後期にかけての執筆家。生年には宝暦3年説も。姓は白井,本名英二。文化の半ばから「菅江真澄」の姓名を使う。名を知之,秀超,秀雄などという。家職は祈祷施薬,白太夫の家筋であった。父の名は秀真。三河国岡崎(愛知県岡崎市)に生まれ育ったが,長じてからは定住の地はなく,行脚に明け暮れる一生を送った。少年時代は岡崎城下成就院の稚児となり,植田義方に和学の階梯を示された。思春期に尾張へ移り,国学者で熱田神宮の祠官粟田知周の知遇を得,また名古屋藩の薬園で薬草栽培にたずさわり,本草学を修めるという経験をつんだ。安永6(1777)年に,尾張の儒者丹羽謝庵から漢学を学んだ。天明3(1783)年三河を発ち,はじめて東北地方を訪ね,蝦夷へ渡った。行脚すること3年,本土へ戻ったのは寛政4(1792)年であった。同7年,津軽藩領へ入り,合計7年間の津軽逗留を終えるまでには,採薬御用を勤めたりもしたが,ついに行動不審を問われて日記や紀行を押収され,軟禁に処された。やがて享和1(1801)年に秋田領内に移ってからは,終身,同地の外に旅することはなかった。藩主佐竹義知に注目され,秋田藩の地誌作成を計画したが,藩士たちに阻止される向きもあって,文化11(1814)年の義知急死以後は,7年間の断筆を強いられた。文政5(1822)年から執筆再開,考証随筆『筆のまにまに』などの著述をものするとともに,藩命の下に,現地踏査に基づいた地誌『雪の出羽路平鹿郡』および『月の出羽路仙北郡』に着手した。しかし地誌の業は終えないうちに当地で逝った。概ね擬古和文によって綴られた紀行日記は,膨大な枚数に上り,著者の筆によって添えられる写生図とともに,江戸後期東北の歴史地理を浮き彫りにする精細な総図鑑である。<参考文献>内田武志・宮本常一編『菅江真澄全集』

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