The Modern History of Tachinbo: Women “operating” under temple floors and in graveyards… “Tachinbo at the Bottom” mushroomed during the Meiji Era.

This is the second installment in a series of articles by sex-journalist Akira Ikoma, who unravels the history of tachinbo, a type of brothel that has continued uninterrupted from the Edo period to the present-day Okubo Park and Umeda area.

“Bottom-feeding tachinbo” used park benches and other places as places to earn money.

In the previous article, we noted that tachinbo in the Edo period were called “yotaka,” and that there were special types of tachinbo such as “bicuni (prostitutes dressed as nuns)” and “funamanju (prostitutes who invited customers on small boats). The following is a brief description of this type of prostitute. In the Edo period, tachinbo were “prostitutes of the lowest class” who stood on the streets because of their “poverty. In this article, we will look at the situation of tachinbo during the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods before World War II.

The term “tachinbo” originated in the Meiji era (1868-1912). Initially, they were called “tachinbo,” referring to day laborers who stood at the bottom of a hill and helped push rickshaws and carts that were struggling to climb the hill for a fee. The word “tachinbo” was a corruption of the word “tachinbo” and became “tachinbo. It was not until the Taisho era (1912-1926) that “tachinbo” came to refer to “street prostitutes. Incidentally, the term “street whore” began to be used around the end of the Taisho period and became common after World War II. It was used as a generic term for street prostitutes, which included not only street prostitutes but also prostitutes on boats.

After the Meiji Restoration, “prostitutes not authorized by the Edo shogunate (private prostitutes)” continued to exist, but as social and economic life changed, the number of lower-class city dwellers increased, and the number of “bottom-ranking prostitutes” increased in terms of both supply and demand. The number of “tachinbo” (prostitutes) continued to exist. In May 1868, about a month after the bloodless opening of Edo Castle during the Boshin War, a war broke out between the Shogitai (an organization formed by former shogunate vassals to support the continuation of the Edo shogunate) and the new government forces in Ueno, and “amateur female street prostitutes” who had lost their husbands and jobs and were in dire straits appeared at night. “amateur female street prostitutes” emerged at night. In this chaotic world, simple “standing prostitutes” were the first to appear.

Most of these prostitutes were found in poor and working-class neighborhoods. From the Meiji to the end of the Taisho era (1912-1926), “shirakubi,” or white-necked men with a thick coating of white powder on their necks, appeared in Nihonbashi, Senju, Asakusa, and other areas of Tokyo. They were an extension of the old night hawkers and were also called “hakkiri,” “goukaia,” or “gasebiri. They brought their customers into their homes or invited them in from indoors, but some of them also used outdoor places such as park benches, under the floors of shrines and temples, and graveyards as their places of business, and these were called “rokko” (open whore ).