old film of sumo

[shimodahito 317]

Good day all,
   This was posted on reddit.  It may already be on the forum somewhere.

Start quote from poster: 

Earliest known footage of sumo from 1900

This was filmed by Tsuchiya Tsuneji in 1900 inspired by his trip to the US where he learned how to use a camera and saw some early boxing films. Around 5.30 you can see the first ever henka caught on camera.

Edit: The Yokuzana here is Konishiki Yasokichi I - The 17th Yokuzana. Apparently he went 5-3 in this tournament (May Basho) and it was his final before he retired in 1901.

Edit 2: I did some additional digging and these bouts may have actually taken place in 1897, although confusingly Tsuchiya Tsuneji did not return to Japan until 1898. As a few others have pointed out the huge guy is Ozutsu who was Komosubi in 1897 but is listed as Ozeki in the original video (he later became Yokozuna). This would also put Konishiki's record at 6-2-1-1d.

https://meiji.filmarchives.jp/works/03_play.html

[Asashosakari 19,668]

I suppose I can just repost my two comments from the Reddit thread. 

Quote

FWIW, it doesn't look like a honbasho to me at all - just look at Ozutsu being all smiles after his victory at 7:05, or the exaggerated reaction of the winner (Inagawa) at 9:15. Several of the rikishi shown also never advanced beyond juryo, so their bouts would be an odd thing to record with limited resources available, unless that was all that was there to record. Probably some sort of local tour by a handful of stables.

According to the title cards, the second match at 1:50 features (future yokozuna) Tachiyama on the right.

https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Rikishi.aspx?r=3565

Considering he's super skinny here and not at all 139 kg like the historical records have for his prime, this must have been very early in his career, right at the start if the dating of the movie to 1900 is correct. The opponent given is Komagatake, who would have also been below juryo at the time.

https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Rikishi.aspx?r=3568

Quote

Taking the title cards at face value:

1:00 Kaizan (Tomozuna) vs Sakahoko (Izutsu)

1:50 Komagatake (Izutsu) vs Tachiyama (Tomozuna)

3:05 split-second appearance of a title card for Osaki (Oguruma) vs Kaneyama (heya unknown), bout not shown

3:10 Midorishima (Kasugayama) vs Nishikiyama (heya unknown)

Not entirely sure I've identified the correct Midorishima here; the shima kanji on the DB is different. Could be a mistake by the filmmaker, or perhaps the shikona history on the DB is incomplete and the rikishi used 緑島 before 緑嶌.

4:45 another title card flickers into view without a corresponding bout, Tonegawa (heya unknown) vs Yashuzan (Dewanoumi)

4:50 Komidori (heya unknown) vs Osaki (same shikona as in the bout not shown at 3:05)

Same less than 100% certainty on Komidori as there was on Midorishima, though this time it's because of the midori kanji. The 綠 on the title card is an older/deprecated version of the 緑 used on the DB (and probably many other sites, the recording of unusual kanji variants is a recurring problem even in recent rikishi shikona).

As mentioned in another comment, the strike through the shikona on the title card is apparently meant to indicate the winner of each bout. The card suggested the left-hand side rikishi as the winner here, but the gunbai went to the right-hand side. It's possible that the card has the two shikona the wrong way around. (There's another match coming up that supports that notion, see below.)

5:50 Konishiki (Takasago) vs Ozutsu (Oguruma)

7:15 Yokozuna dohyo-iri by Konishiki

8:10 Kunimiyama (Tomozuna) vs Inagawa (Takasago)

Note the sprinting yobidashi at 8:20. :)

9:25 Umegatani (Ikazuchi) vs Asashio (Takasago)

This one poses a bit of an issue for the dating of the movie, as Umegatani was still competing as Umenotani through 1901. It's conceivable that the title cards were only created at a later date than the actual recording, or possibly the whole thing is from the second half of 1901, shortly before Ume[no/ga]tani started to use the new shikona in honbasho.

Of course a late 1901 dating runs into a different problem as Konishiki's last official tournament was in January 1901, although I believe in those days the implications of "retirement from sumo" were not nearly as strictly defined as they are today. (Konishiki no longer being a properly active rikishi at the time might also explain why Ozutsu looked so jolly after their match, i.e. it being even more of an exhibition than the other matches shown.)

10:50 Hitachiyama (Dewanoumi) vs Araiwa (Oguruma)

This is the other match that poses a left/right issue. The title card marks Hitachiyama as the winner on the left-hand side, but the gunbai goes to the right. The DB lists Hitachiyama as almost 40 kg heavier in his prime than Araiwa was, and it certainly looks like it's actually the right-hand side rikishi who is significantly larger, so I suspect the card has their two shikona the wrong way around.

All in all: The rikishi who were actually in the top division when this movie was recorded are large to very large for the time, I would say. The skinny guys were almost all in juryo or even lower.

The closing comment was an aside to various "they look so much smaller than today" remarks in the thread.

The website that hosts the recording calls it a "re-enactment of Ryogoku Ekoin temple ozumo (i.e. of a Tokyo honbasho) in front of a camera". That doesn't necessarily mean it was recorded at the temple, and I'm also somewhat doubtful of the idea that this was staged strictly for the filmmaker. Feels simultaneously like too large a cast to me, especially all the random non-makuuchi guys, and also too small a cast in that the participating rikishi appear to be from just a few different heya.

Edited January 3 by Asashosakari

[Tigerboy1966 1,474]

Wikipedia has a blank for Konishiki's dohyo-iri style, but that looks like Unryu to me. Is that right?

[kedevash 43]

Fantastic video ! Thanks a lot !

[sumochuck 1]

What an incredible video! One thing I love about sumo is how little it has changed over the years. So awesome to see the sport I love over 100 years ago.

[Pitinosato 120]

Hey, really cool !

Thank you very much.

I noticed that the tachi-ai was completely different back then

They didn't start after all 4 hands were on the ground, but when they picked them up again