Heisei 24 (2012) had its share of events, and little time remains in the year. Shops selling New Year pine decorations have appeared on the streets as preparations for the year-end proceed steadily. At the Palaceside Building in Takebashi, Tokyo, we have carried out the year-end big cleaning and begun modest preparations to welcome the New Year, including offering kagami mochi at the main entrance.
Many people hope to see a good first dream of the year and start a wonderful new year.
A lucky first dream is said to be "Mt. Fuji first, hawk second, eggplant third." Why is it said this way? Mt. Fuji, often visible from the Palaceside Building rooftop=photo, is magnificent even from afar and seems auspicious in a dream—but people often ask why the hawk and eggplant. There are various theories, including one that they refer to acts of vendetta.
That is: "Fuji" comes from the vendetta of the Soga brothers—Gorō and Jūrō, whose father was killed by Kudō Suketsune, avenged their enemy at the foot of Mt. Fuji. "Hawk" comes from the Akō rōnin raid: the crest of their lord Asano Takumi-no-kami was "maru ni chigai taka no ha" (crossed hawk feathers in a circle). "Eggplant" comes from the stem (heta), which suggests Iga—linking to the vendetta across Iga, the duel at Kagiya Crossroads. That duel refers to the incident on November 7, 1634 (Kan'ei 11), when Okayama domain samurai Watanabe Kazuma and Araki Mōemon killed their younger brother's enemy, Kawai Matagorō, in Iga Ueno.
It sounds rather far-fetched, but as a family member of a crime victim who lost a parent or child, one can understand the wish to see even vendetta fulfilled in a dream.
There is a continuation to the lucky first dream: "fourth fan, fifth tobacco, sixth blind musician." Linking these to vendetta seems quite difficult.
Yet if one insists on connecting them: "fan" spreads wide (suehirogari) and becomes "eight" (hachi)—the vendetta at Jōrurizaka, when Okabe Genhachi and forty of his clan stormed the residence of falconer Toda Shichinosuke in Edo Ichigaya Jōrurizaka on February 3, 1672 (Kanbun 12), to kill their father's enemy Okabe Hayato. "Tobacco" leads from smoke to fire—the vendetta at Gojōinbara near Kanda Nishiki-chō, close to the Palaceside Building, which became a firebreak after the Kyōhō Great Fire introduced in this blog earlier. "Blind musician" suggests a blind person—the Blind Kannon Hall where Shimoda Tsuru of Kumamoto domain, whose husband Heihachi was killed, prayed for years for vendetta; on April 16, 1871 (Meiji 4), Tsuru, her eldest son Tsunehei, and her brother Shimazaki Shinpachi killed Heihachi's colleague Iriza Iyūemon in the Ishiki vendetta at Utsurogi Valley, Tamana, Kumamoto. Far-fetched, perhaps...
In the Jōrurizaka vendetta, Okabe Genhachi and others disguised themselves as firemen to raid the house, and after fulfilling their purpose presented themselves to the shogunate—becoming a model for the Akō rōnin raid thirty years later. Together with the Akō raid and the Iga-crossing vendetta, these are counted among Edo's three great vendettas.
Even if the first dream is not about vendetta, we would like an auspicious dream to come true.