Historical Sumo

[Suisunoyama]

Dear Sumo Forum list members,

Looking through a local archive of Japanese slides from the Meiji period, we found a slide that was labelled (the German equivalent of) "Sumo in Nagasaki 1899." It shows a dohyo with sumo wrestlers, surrounded by a large group of local onlookers.

Will attach image ---

Does anyone know anything about sumo performances in Nagasaki at that time? Were there annual events - or semi-permanent performances? Any useful resources on Meiji period sumo?

Thanks for any information!

Suisunoyama

[Obana]

I just purchased a scanner to scan many carousels of slides from my parent's home. The device was also able to scan a couple of sumo lantern slides that I received a number of years ago.

The first is Yokozuna Umegatani's dohyo iri.

larger image http://i.imgur.com/Ws3mhAN.jpg

Edited September 17, 2014 by Obana

[Obana]

A torikumi.

larger image http://i.imgur.com/OQvBPk0.jpg

Edited September 17, 2014 by Obana

[Obana]

The lantern slide of Umegatani's dohyo iri is the basis for Yoshitoshi's wood block print from the series, Kinsei jinbutsu shi (Lives of Modern People), a supplement of the Yamato shimbun published in 1887.

[Suisunoyama]

The lantern slide of Umegatani's dohyo iri is the basis for Yoshitoshi's wood block print from the series, Kinsei jinbutsu shi (Lives of Modern People), a supplement of the Yamato shimbun published in 1887.

Thanks for the great images!

[Yasashiryu]

Great pictures, feel free to share more all. :)

A ton of old historical stuff, including women in fundoshi:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/okinawa-soba/sets/72157604412233226

Edited September 14, 2014 by Yasashiryu

[Obana]

土俵入 士力總出 渡米歸朝石山女角力

Here is a slightly larger scan

http://i.imgur.com/BiG8Ok7.jpg

Edited September 17, 2014 by Obana

[ALAKTORN]

^I’m not sure why you say you had to delete it? If for some reason it won’t let you post more pictures you can upload them to http://www.imgur.com or any such website and then post the link. The link you posted there gives me a “403 Forbidden” error and I can’t see it.

Also, I had no idea there was “female sumō”. Is that still a thing?

[Obana]

Alaktorn > Thank you for the valuable tip.

Here is a link to the Yoshitoshi print:

http://imgur.com/BR8tUkF

And here are three more female sumo pictures (the link is the third set on the page). Different but some of the same women as the postcard I posted.

http://lenaambrose.tumblr.com/page/31

[torquato]

土俵入 士力總出 渡米歸朝石山女角力

A small flaw in converting old right to left into new left to right...

It's 力士 off course.

BTW I didn't know 角力 as a writing alternative for 相撲.