[sumo] Japan Times Women's Sumo article

["Barbara Ann" <baklein@attglobal.net>]

Complete with link that has a photo of a gyoji officiating the women's sumo
way back when........


BACK TO THE 19TH CENTURY
Women's sumo re-evaluated

By AKIKO YAMAZATO

YAMAGATA (Kyodo) Female sumo wrestlers wearing "mawashi" belts over their
underwear once competed in tournaments throughout Japan, Taiwan and Hawaii,
a popular entertainment until it disappeared in the 1960s. 

News photo <http://www.japantimes.co.jp/images/photos2005/nn20050630f2a.jpg>

	
Female sumo wrestlers grapple in a tournament promoted by the late Heishiro
Ishiyama in Tokyo's Asakusa district in 1958. PHOTO COURTESY OF KUNIHIKO
ISHIYAMA/KYODO 	

But women's sumo is attracting attention again. 

A biography of a former ozeki, the top rank for women wresters, was
published last year. In addition, novelist Akira Hayasaka plans to stage a
play on female sumo wrestlers, and a university in Yamagata Prefecture,
where women's sumo originated, is promoting studies on its roots. 

"Female wrestlers wore light makeup, so they looked not only gallant but
also beautiful. They were like present-day Takarazuka (female theatrical
troupe) stars," Hayasaka said. 

He still remembers a women's sumo tournament he watched under a tent on a
vacant lot in Ehime Prefecture around 1941, when he was a student in
elementary school. 

The trained women wrestlers fought in tournaments and "gonin nuki" matches,
in which a wrestler beat five rivals in succession. 

They also entertained audiences by staging popular shows called "hajikara"
in which a wrestler would try to lift a bale of rice with her teeth or in
events where steamed rice was pounded onto her abdomen into dough used for
rice cakes. 

In the early 20th century, pictures of women sumo wrestlers sold like hot
cakes, and at one time women's sumo was more popular than the male version. 

But out of consideration for men's sumo, there was no yokozuna (grand
champion) in women's sumo. 

Women's sumo is believed to have been created by Heishiro Ishiyama, an
entertainment promoter in Tendo, Yamagata Prefecture, in 1880. 

"The wrestlers took pride in competing in the sacred national sport, even
though they were women," said Kunihiko Ishiyama, 65, the promoter's
grandson. 

Last year, Yasuo Endo, 57, who runs a "chanko" (sumo wrestlers' stew)
restaurant in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, published a biography of his
mother, ozeki Wakamidori, through the Asahi Shimbun Publishing Co. 

"I wanted to let it be known that my mother was the first woman to go up on
the sumo ring, which was exclusively for men," he said. 

Matsuno Miura, 90, a former women's ozeki, still lives in the city of Tendo.


"I wrestled for about 10 years. I injured my leg in a hajikara, but I am
proud of having been a woman wrestler," Miura said. 

The sumo world today is closed to women, with a persistent prejudice against
them, and many people related to women's sumo remain tight-lipped about the
sport. 

But Koichi Sato, a history expert who lectures on women's sumo at Tohoku
University of Art and Design in Yamagata Prefecture, said it is time to give
women's sumo its due. 

The Japan Times: June 30, 2005

 
 


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[EndPost by "Barbara Ann" <baklein@attglobal.net>]