eschewed it, and the military men throughout the provinces took it up, treating it as one of the exercises that a soldier should practise. Thereafter it was classed with the dances and mimetic dramas performed at shrines and temples in honour of the deities and to attract monetary contributions, and Kanjin-zumo, or wrestling displays for charitable purposes, became one of the regular performances of the time. The professional wrestler made his appearance at this stage, and the yose-zumo, or "collection of wrestlers," is for the first time mentioned. By yose-zumo, as then practised, is to be understood a kind of wrestling in which a champion set up a booth and challenged all comers, meeting them one after another until he was ousted from the championship or confirmed in it. Such a method suited the mood of the Military epoch, and was so zealously patronised by the great captains, Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi (the Taikō), that the samurai of the sixteenth century paid almost as much attention to wrestling as to archery or swordsmanship. Under the Tokugawa Regents, who had their court in Yedo, the sport was not less popular. In the year 1630 an athlete, Akashi Shiganosuke, opened lists at Yotsu-ya in that city, and for six days held his own against the strongest men of the time. Shiganosuke is as famous in Japan to-day as though he had been an illustrious scholar or a great legislator. But some fierce quarrels broke out among the samurai who
68
