The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (40 page)

Europeans began selectively breeding larger horses for mounted combat during the Middle Ages. The demands of increased weight (armor for the horse as well as the rider) and the pounding impact of combat, often in damp soil, led to the development of metal horseshoes to protect horse hooves from splitting, cracking, deterioration, and bruising.
¹¹
As Frois suggests, the Japanese used relatively impermanent shoes or slippers (
umagutsu
) made of twisted straw. Thus, Kaempfer
¹²
commented, “… this country hath more farriers, than perhaps any other, tho' in fact it hath none at all.” Although the superiority of iron shoes, particularly on rocky surfaces and ice, convinced some samurai to copy the Portuguese, iron horseshoes were largely unknown in Japan a century after Frois. Indeed, the re-introduction of iron horseshoes in the nineteenth century (after Japan was re-opened to the West) caused quite a sensation. Today, Japanese horses all wear horseshoes.

8. Among us, the footman walks ahead of the horse, leading it by the halter; in Japan, depending on the condition of the road, the footman is loaded down with straw shoes for the horses
.

Japanese footmen had to be “straw farriers,” ready at a moment's notice to replace a worn-out horse slipper. Thus, many carried a load of straw shoes while leading their master's horse.

9. Among us, the bridle has a little tongue and rings that go inside the horse's mouth; in Japan they have nothing more than a piece of iron crossing the horse's mouth
.

Europeans during the Middle Ages developed and made use of a bridle with various bits and snaffles (metal bars and rings, respectively) that allowed the rider to essentially control the horse via the horse's mouth and head. Again, horses were never central to Japanese culture and thus the Japanese did not develop a bit technology comparable to that of Europe. This may help explain why Japanese horses often were said to be out of control (see
#2
above).

10. We mount with the left foot; the Japanese with the right
.

Okada explains that the samurai held his bow in his left “bow hand” and the rein in his right “rein hand.” Today the Japanese (no bows, of course) mount from the left.

11. Our reins are leather and are very well made; theirs are made of strips of cloth that is painted and rolled
.

Although Frois' Portuguese usage speaks of Japanese reins as rolled (
emrolada
), Okada notes that “ancient” Japanese reins generally were made of white, dark blue, and pale blue hemp that was twisted into a triple braid, which kept it from unraveling.

12. We use a saddle and full-length stirrups
¹³
; in Japan they ride with only short stirrups
.
¹⁴

Europeans embraced the long stirrup during the Middle Ages because it gave the rider greater control of the horse and made it possible to wield a large, heavy sword or crossbow. It also provided stability for those wearing heavy armor and wielding a heavy lance.

Japanese horsemen rode in the manner of present-day jockeys, which presupposed strong, powerful legs (otherwise encouraged by the squatting behavior common to Japanese and Asian cultures, more generally). The Japanese may have favored short stirrups because their horses were relatively short and short stirrups made it easier to see over the horse's head when shooting a bow. Recent studies of jockeys using high-speed cameras show that much of the time that a horse is galloping the jockey “floats” above the horse; short stirrups and powerful legs (both rider and horse) may have made for a fearsome combo.

13. Our stirrups are made of iron and are open in the front; theirs are made of wood, closed in the front, and very long and narrow, like Moorish slippers
.

The Japanese at one time used open-loop stirrups (adopted from the Chinese) that were similar to those of the West. By the eighth century
¹⁵
these stirrups were superseded by a stirrup that had a toe bag, and at times a hard tongue, or what Westerners would call a sole that extended the length of the foot and provided added support.
¹⁶
With the exception of horses ridden on ceremonial occasions, the Japanese today use Western-style stirrups.

14. We use spurs; they do not, using instead only very short stalks of vara, which are like our reed canes
.
¹⁷

Europeans began using spurs at least as early as the eleventh century. As Frois suggests, the Japanese encouraged their horses with whips of bamboo grass (i.e.
sasa
) with the leaves left on the end.

15. The pommel on our saddles is completely closed in front; theirs has a hole that one can grab and hold onto
.

Frois is apparently referring here to a handhold (
tegakari
) under the front edge of the Japanese saddle. Presumably it was grabbed on to when going uphill or over rocky terrain. If European saddles generally were in the shape of a lazy, inverted “U,” Japanese saddles tended to be in the form of an inverted “V,” or as Isabella Bird phrased it, “… like a saw-horse.”

16. On our horses we use cruppers, caparisons and equipment adorned with brass tacks
,
¹⁸
on the horses in Japan they use none of these things, only a type of caparison made of tiger hide with the fur side out
.

Europeans once spoke readily of cruppers and caparisons the way people today speak of ABS brakes and four-wheel drive. For those unfamiliar with equitation, a crupper is a leather strap that is attached to the back of the saddle and goes under and around the horse's tail, keeping the saddle from creeping forward. Caparisons are robes; many of us have seen them in movies on horses ridden by medieval knights competing in jousting matches.

Frois' larger point here seems to be that 1) Japanese horses ordinarily were less well furnished and, 2) the tiger skins that were used by the Japanese as caparisons (mostly by the shogun and nobility) had the fur side out; presumably Frois felt the normal or logical thing was to have the fur side in, as per the following distich.
¹⁹

17. Our saddles
²⁰
are made of leather and wool; theirs are made of wood and lacquer
.

Saddles in the West are still made of leather and usually placed over a “blanket” made of wool, felt, or cotton. Again, the horse was not central to Japanese culture and the wooden saddle here mentioned by Frois was designed with a mounted archer in mind rather than a Japanese elite travelling from Kyoto to Edo.
²¹

18. Our stables are always behind or in the lower part of the house; in Japan they are built at the front of the house
.

Okada cites a contemporary account of the residence of a Japanese magistrate, which also places the stables near the front of the house. Although in 1585 the mounted samurai warrior no longer decided battles (infantry with rifles now made the difference),
²²
ownership of a horse (made apparent by a stable at the front of the house) was of great symbolic importance for samurai.

19. In the homes of European nobility guests are first welcomed in the living quarters; in Japan their first reception takes place in the stables
.

For guests and horses alike the Japanese welcome is arguably both more efficient and friendlier. Because horse fanciers always will take you to their stables to show off, one might as well get it over with at once, at the same time you have your own horse “parked” and groomed down.

It is somewhat surprising that Frois did not comment on how differently horses were stabled in Japan as compared with the West.
²³
This was one of the first things
that nearly every nineteenth-century visitor noted. Here is Alcock, the first British Ambassador to Japan:

… the horse's head was where his tail would be in an English stable, that is, facing the entrance. It certainly seems a much more rational thing, to be able to go up to your horse's head, when he has an opportunity of recognizing you, rather than to his heels, with a preliminary chance of a kick and a broken leg.
²⁴

Mr. Ed, the famous talking TV horse, always faced the camera, so either he was acting Japanese or sometime in the middle of the twentieth century Americans came to place the “head where the tail ought to be!” Nowadays most “box” stalls are big enough that a horse can face any way it pleases and some people feed them from an inside window and others hang a bucket from the front of the stall in what is (unbeknownst to them) the Japanese style. The world of horses, like that of humans, is becoming gray.

20. Our horses are cleaned with a currycomb; theirs are cleaned using either the hand or a tool made of cords
.

The Japanese did in fact use a comb called an
akatori
or “crud-remover,” but apparently relied mostly on their hands and the corded tool spoken of by Frois.

21. Our horses have mangers; Japanese horses eat from low troughs
.

Okada has suggested that Frois is pointing to a contrast between the use of individual mangers or “hay-tubs” (which was the norm in Europe) and the use of a collective hay trough in Japan. Frois' use of the adjective “low” may also be speak surprise, as low troughs are what pigs ate from in Europe.

When most English speakers think of a “manger,” they think of a Christmas nativity scene rather than a small bucket or hay tub. In her otherwise uninspiring book,
A Diplomat's Wife In Japan
(1899), Mrs. Hugh Frazer recounted how the term's multiple meanings posed problems for the Japanese:

I did not realize the intense difficulty of translating our thoughts into Japanese till the day after our Christmas tree, when O'Matsu came to me looking very puzzled, and said she would like to ask a question: Why did Imai Sam (the gentlemen who made the little address about the meaning of Christmas) say such a dreadful thing about “Jesu Sama”? He had said that Jesu Sama was put into a bucket, such a thing as ponies have their food in!
²⁵

22. In the stables of our nobles, the horses often lie down; those in Japan, day or night, are nearly always kept standing by a belt tied around the belly
.

Horses do not usually sleep for extended periods like humans. They instead take frequent short naps of several minutes duration. Adult horses mostly sleep standing up, with the front legs and one hind leg doing most of the weight bearing (the horses shift their weight and have leg bones with a “stay apparatus” that allows their muscles to relax without collapsing). Lying down is more stressful for an adult horse, although horses will lie down for a brief rest if given the opportunity.
²⁶
In this regard, and as Frois suggests, the stables of European nobility seem perfectly suited to horse behavior.

Japanese screens, or
byôbu
, from the early seventeenth century affirm the use of a rope tied around the horse's stomach and attached to the rafters overhead.
²⁷
Such stabling of horses, particularly the emphasis on restricting the horse's behavior while at rest, often has appeared cruel to outsiders. First, Alcock:

When not eating, however, their head is often tied up rather above the level of the neck, without any freedom or power of moving from right to left, merely to keep them quiet, which is great cruelty, and all to save a lazy groom the trouble of cleaning them if they lie down.
²⁸

Although Alcock makes no mention of a belly lift, not allowing the horse to lie down is the same idea. For reasons made clear in the next contrast, a Japanese stable might not make a good bed, anyway. This was further suggested by Isabella Bird, who observed the belly sling used with ponies in Korea.

At the inn stables they are not only chained down to the troughs by chains short enough to prevent them from raising their heads, but are partially slung at night to the heavy beams of the roof. Even under these restricted circumstances, their cordial hatred [of one another] finds vent in hyena-like yells, abortive snaps, and attempts to swing their hind legs round. They are never allowed to lie down, and very rarely to drink water and even then only when freely salted. Their nostrils are all slit in an attempt to improve upon Nature and give them better wind. They are fed three times a day on brown slush as hot as they can drink it, composed of beans, chopped millet stalks … I know not whether the partial slinging of them to the crossbeams is to relieve their legs or to make fighting more difficult.
²⁹

23. Our stables have earthen floors; theirs have wood plank flooring
.

Stable floors of wood planking, particularly of cedar, undoubtedly kept the unshod hooves of Japanese horses relatively free of moisture, which otherwise would have caused the hooves to deteriorate and crack. (Europeans used metal
horseshoes in part to keep their horses' feet dry.) Frois noted elsewhere that in 1565 he visited a Kyoto mansion that had a stable at the entrance made of
sugi
(
Cryptomeria japonica
), a fragrant smelling Japanese cedar that is always used for constructing Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, and other sacred or honored places. According to Frois, the only part of the stable that was not of cedar were the rush mats used by the horses' human attendants!

24. Horses in Europe urinate on the floor of the stable; in Japan they remove the horses' urine with long-handled ladles
.
³⁰

The Japanese made use of two kinds of ladles, one for scooping up water to wash the horse and another for receiving the horse's urine. The latter had a handle that was a little over five feet long and a scoop that was nine inches across and ten inches deep. While horses can drop their dung on the run, to urinate they must “set up” by moving their legs apart. Attentive grooms who were quick to the ladle apparently were successful in keeping the stable floor reasonably clean.