Commerce and towns in medieval JapanThe ambiguous periphery: border zones and commerce
As part of “thinking medievally,” we now move far from Kyoto to focus on communities on the
periphery as essential to an understanding of medieval commerce and towns. Particularly fruitful
is to challenge Kyoto- centric thinking by considering border areas or zones on the edges of Japan
as vital centers of commerce and other human activity. Peripheral communities typically com-
prised both sides of a border—a liminal zone, in other words, sometimes vast in scope, sometimes
on land, sometimes even encompassing the seas as well, whose residents used the entire area as
their sphere of activity, irrespective of national identity.^19 Names redolent of peripherality can be
found in such areas: Sotogahama (outer shore), Genkaijima (dark realm island), and Kikaigashima
(Kikaijima today, demon realm island), for example. As will be shown, labeling these as remote,
nether regions reflected primarily the insularity of the center toward places that were in fact
vibrant with the activities of a diverse population.
Among its many subplots, The Tale of the Heike contains the story of the priest Shunkan, aide
to retired emperor Go- Shirakawa, exiled to Kikaigashima in 1177 for plotting with two others
to overthrow Taira no Kiyomori. His co- conspirators were granted an amnesty two years later,
but he was left on the island, described as utterly desolate, where he starved himself to death.
That’s the story as Tale of the Heike gives it to us: a tragic ending in a forsaken, isolated setting.^20
Reading the Heike historically and supplementing it with other sources give a fuller picture of
life on the island.^21 These indicate that the people there were strange to Shunkan, perhaps simply
meaning unlike people in the capital. But the character ki in the island’s name means demon, a
sub- human characterization, suggesting possibly that the inhabitants included Japanese and non-
Japanese. A former servant of Shunkan who visits from the capital finds the speech of the locals
unintelligible, furthermore, which could mean that they are either non- Japanese or simply
beyond the pale of the Kyoto world.^22 We find references to minerals on the island that were
mined and sold, the same that would later figure in the island’s trade with Ming China. From this
we can assume that merchants were active there, even in the late twelfth century. The fact that
one of Shunkan’s co- conspirators was able to arrange for supplies to be delivered from a family
holding in mainland Kyushu also suggests a less than isolated exile.
Kikaigashima is a prime example of an ambiguous, lively border zone. Off the coast of south-
ern Kyushu in the string of islands leading to the Ryukyus, it was known on mainland Japan in
premodern times as a place of exile. By approaching it instead as a thriving border zone, we can
re- characterize it more accurately as a commercial hotbed.
While the Kyoto cognoscenti saw it as beyond the land of Japan, various Kyushu warriors
valued it enough to stake claims to it.^23 The Shimazu military governor was ultimately success-
ful, its hereditary manager (daikan) rights re- confirmed by the Ashikaga shogunate in the early
Muromachi period. On the other hand, a fifteenth- century map records Kikaigashima as belong-
ing to the Ryukyu kingdom. In 1450, moreover, two Korean officials recorded that half the
island belonged to the Shimazu and half to the Ryukyus. With the unification of the Ryukyus in
the late medieval period, Kikaigashima was claimed by that kingdom but the Satsuma domain
continued to assert its claims as well. For most of the medieval period, then, Satsuma and the
Ryukyus both claimed Kikaigashima, which meant that neither fully controlled it. Thus the
island enjoyed a certain ambiguous status, carrying on prosperous trade with both sides. Kikai-
gashima is an example of a medieval border zone inhabited by various types of people who traded
with both Japan and the outside world—in this case, the Ryukyus.
Less remote than Kikaigashima but another example of a border zone in medieval times was
the island of Tsushima, between Kyushu and Korea.^24 Controlled by the Sō family from early
medieval times except for a period of conquest by the Mongols in 1274, the island was a nexus