50th Station: Minakuchi

This post station and castle town was developed as early as the Muromachi period (1333 to 1573), as its location was convenient for travelers going to Ise Shrine and Ise Bay. In 1634 the Tokugawa Iemitsu shogunate constructed Minakuchi Castle specifically as a rest stop where he could stay during his travels between Kyoto and Edo on the Tokaido and the town expanded as it grew up surrounding the castle.

In this scene Hiroshige shows a solitary traveler walking through the village, where women peel and dry gourds. This station was famous for its production of dried gourd shavings (kanpyou) which were used as edible garnishes on Japanese dishes. Here the technique is demonstrated as one woman shaves a gourd, one helps the shavers, and two other women hang the gourd shavings on ropes to dry, one in the enclosure in the foreground and another along the fences in the background.

Although Minakuchi Castle, in its original state, is not pictured in Hiroshige’s print, today most of it lays in ruins, with the exception of some walls, two gates, and a turret reconstructed in 1991.