A continuation of walking Edo Castle (the Imperial Palace) out of Palaceside Building.
In this blog on January 22 and February 6 I wrote that the large Naka-no-mon repair (August 2005–March 2007) unearthed an inscription of the 1704 repair by Ikeda Yoshitasu, third lord of the 320,000-koku Tottori domain, and that the Ikeda house was given standing next to the Tokugawa kin (shinpan), including the right to use the Matsudaira name.
The inscription reads “Lord of both Inaba and Hoki / Matsudaira Uemon-no-kami Yoshiaki built this” (Yoshiaki was Yoshitasu’s childhood name). It uses “Inaba” and “Hoki”; there is no domain name “Tottori.” Tottori domain as a country consisted of those two provinces.
“Han” and “kuni” vary nationwide, as do names. Satsuma domain comprised Satsuma and Osumi (Kagoshima Prefecture) and Hyuga (part of Miyazaki); after the 1869 return of lands and people the official name was Kagoshima domain, though some call it Shimazu after the lord. Choshu was Suo and Nagato; the seat was at Hagi in Nagato, so it was also Hagi domain; around the Restoration the seat moved to Yamaguchi in Suo, returned to Hagi amid two Choshu expeditions, and was sometimes called Suo-Yamaguchi domain.
Call them as you like—but Tottori people seem a little unhappy with the inscription, or rather with the notice board in front of Naka-no-mon that introduces it. Tottori Prefecture’s official Tokyo-office page has a column, “Visiting places linked to Tottori (Edo Castle Honmaru Naka-no-mon),” that says (photo below＝http://www.pref.tottori.lg.jp/116517.htm):
“The new board set up after the wall repair does not call Ikeda Yoshiaki ‘lord of Tottori domain.’ Though the inscription says ‘lord of both Inaba and Hoki,’ it is hard to see that this was Tottori’s achievement. The same board says the Manji 1 (1658) repair was by ‘Hosokawa Tsunatoshi, lord of Kumamoto domain,’ so I cannot be the only one who feels a little disappointed.”
Behind such a note lies the tangle of the Meiji abolition of domains. In 1871 (Meiji 4) Inaba, Hoki and Oki became Tottori Prefecture, then in 1876 were merged into Shimane. Earnest campaigning, mainly by Tottori shizoku, succeeded: in 1881 Tottori was separated again, leaving Oki in Shimane. So Tottori people still take pride in “Tottori domain.” There is talk of merging the Shimane and Tottori Upper House districts—an echo of that abolition, perhaps.
(The top maps are “Complete map of Hoki Province under Shimane Prefecture,” 48 × 69 cm, above, and “Complete map of Inaba Province under Shimane Prefecture,” 47 × 70 cm, below. Maps from the Shimane era published in 1881 (Meiji 14), from the Tottori Prefectural Library site.)