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Appendix 2. Money and Measurements
- University of Hawai'i Press
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Appendix 2 Money and Measurements 445 For a large part of its recorded history, Japan used foreign currency, mostly Chinese. Although coins were struck in Japan for a period in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, they were not minted again on a national scale until the close of the sixteenth century.1 The coinage used at the time of Kaempfer’s visit was mainly the so-called Keichō (1596–1615) coinage, minted by the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, after 1600. There were three different gold coins, the ōban, the koban or ryō, and the bu. The ōban and koban were oval-shaped, measuring 147 ⫻ 92 mm and 71 ⫻ 38 mm and weighing 44.10 momme (approx. 165 grams) and 4.76 momme (approx. 18 grams) respectively . The exchange rate between the ōban and koban varied, but at Kaempfer’s time it was generally seven koban to the ōban. The third gold coin was the bu, worth one-quarter of a koban. The bu was square in shape, measuring roughly 17 ⫻ 11 mm and weighing 1.2 momme (4.5 grams). Two types of silver coins existed: the oval chōgin, weighing about forty-three momme (162 grams), and the round mame’itagin, varying between one and five momme (3.75 and 18.75 grams). The exact value was determined by the coins’ weight, that is, scales had to be used at each transaction. As Kaempfer noted, the common units of weight used for monetary transactions were kan (kamme), momme, bun, rin, and futsu.2 These units stood in a metrical relationship and were often used like figures to the right of the decimal point in the West. Moreover, ten kan (37.5 kg) of silver counted as “one box.” On average, there were sixty momme of silver to one ryō, or koban, fifteen momme to one bu. There was also the measurement of shu, with sixteen shu of silver to one gold ryō, or koban, and four shu to one bu. There was one common copper coin referred to as sen, zeni, kansen, or mon, Kaempfer’s “pütjes” or “casjes.” This was a flat, round coin with a square hole in the middle , four characters denoting Keichō tsūhō (Keichō currency) being placed around the square sides of the hole. The coins were modeled on the equivalent Chinese coin, which had four characters reading (in Japanese) Eiraku tsūhō. Some coins in circulation in Japan were of Chinese origin, with the two characters for Eiraku changed to Keichō.3 As Kaempfer notes, zeni were carried on a string to cover small expenses when traveling. One thousand zeni made up one kan, and four thousand zeni, one koban or ryō. As might be obvious from this brief summary, the fact that specific fixed-weight coins coexisted with coins of varying weights and values, that some coins were referred to by terms denoting also units of weight, and that units of weight existed in great numbers lent a certain complexity to the monetary system. In addition, there were regional preferences for gold or silver as well as units of weight, and exchange rates fluctuated both regionally and daily. To add to the confusion, parts of the community created their own terminology: thus in the pleasure quarters the term momme was used for ryō,4 pre- Appendix 2 446 Kaempfer’s sketch of a koban and bu. (Courtesy of the British Library, Sloane 3060, folio 463) sumably to bypass the government’s ceiling on prostitutes’ fees. As Kaempfer points out, when bids were received for goods, generally no two offers were directly comparable on account of the many different possibilities of expressing monetary values.5 It is also telling that a Japanese work written as late as the Ansei period (1854–1860) still bemoaned the complexity and confusion of the Tokugawa monetary system.6 Apart from the monetary system was the calculation of samurai income. Here the unit was rice counted in koku (47.654 U.S. gallons, 5.119 U.S. bushels) for high-ranking samurai, or fuchi for low-ranking ones. The latter unit was based on the consumption of rice per person per day, with the daily consumption set at five gō (0.9 liters). Thus a low-ranking samurai might receive a five-person or a thirty-person fuchi. The monetary value of the income depended in both cases on the fluctuations of the price of rice. Trading in Japan, the Dutch...