比丘尼など
多少余裕のあった一時期を除けば、私の一生は貧乏神が離れずついて回った。貧にいて道を楽しむとまではいかないとしても、何かにつけ貪ることが少なかったからか、気楽な人生だったとは言えそうだ。
「貧」という字を取り上げてみよう。現代ではどのように解釈されているのか分からないけれども、かつては「貝」「分」の会意だったと言えば意外と感じる人がいるかも知れない。取りあえず、意味符を合わせて新たな意味を作り出すのが会意と言っておこう。
「貝」はそれ自身海などに居る生き物だが、中国では古くから宝ものとして珍重され、周代には銭として通用し財貨とみなされていた。戦国時代から秦に至り通貨としての機能は失ったが、文字としてはその痕跡を遺している。貝のつく字は凡そ財貨に関わり、「貧」もまたしかり。としても「分」が少し分かりにくい。
私は郡上でもしばしば使われる「たわけ」がこれに通ずると考えている。「たわけ」は「田分け」で、田を分けず長子へ引き継げば何とか食つなぐことができるのに、田を子供たちに分けることにより、皆食えなくなって家が滅びてしまうことを戒めているのだ。「貧」もこれと同じで、財産を分けてその核を失ってしまうことで、一族みな貧乏になることを戒めている。
これらからすれば、長男に家督を譲るとして、二男三男は単なる労働力として家に残るとか、未開の地を開墾するとか、町に出て商人や職人になるという具合である。女性の場合もこの原則は変わらず、嫁として地元に残れるのは恵まれている方で、奉公に出たり、食えずに尼さんになったりした。
尼さんになった人でもいろいろだっただろう。其の地では食えなくなった人もいただろうし、修行などで各地を巡る人もいただろう。
郡上でも小字として「比丘尼（びくに）」という地名が結構ある。八幡小野、八幡相生などである。地名として残っているのだから、何らかの縁でこの地に住み着いたことになる。
郡上では八百比丘尼系と熊野比丘尼系があり、大まかには吉田川以北の八百比丘尼と以南の熊野比丘尼に分けられる。前者は恐らく越前から伝わったと思われ、通称地名まで含めれば結構な数になる。後者はその分布からすれば、美並や和良から伝わったと考えてよかろう。熊野のお札を売りながら各地を回ったようである。
美並白山に「辨在（べざい）」という小字がある。「べ」で始まる和語は割合少なくて、地名でも珍しい。擬声語や擬態語の他、漢語など外来語が多いとされる。
また「弁在」と書くこともあるので、「辨在」は「弁在天」のことだろう。「弁在」「弁才」は通じ、「弁才」は弁才船を指すことが多いが、それほど大きな船を造っていたとは思えないので、ここでは売春婦を指すのではあるまいか。そう言えば比丘尼にも、村の若衆が足しげく通う色っぽい話が残っている。 髭じいさん
Bikuni etc.
Except for a period when I had some leeway, the god of poverty has been with me all my life. Although I wouldn’t say I enjoyed living in poverty, I can say that I had an easy life, perhaps because I didn’t have much to covet.
Let’s take the word “貧 poverty”. I don’t know how it is interpreted in modern times, but some people may be surprised to hear that it used to be the compound characters of”貝 kai shell” and “分 bun to devide”. For now, let’s just say that the idea is to form new meanings by combining meaning marks.
Shellfish are creatures found in the sea, but in China they have been prized as treasures since ancient times, and during the Zhou Dynasty they were used as money and were considered to be treasures. Although it lost its function as currency from the Sengoku period to the Qin period, traces of its use as letters remain. The characters for shellfish are generally related to wealth, and “貧 poverty” is also the same. However, “分” is a little difficult to understand.
I believe that ”Tawake”, which is often used in Gujo, is related to this. ”Tawake” means ”田分け tawake,” which means that if they don’t divide the rice field and pass it on to their firstborn son, they can manage to feed themselves, but by dividing it among their children, they wouldn’t be able to feed them all and their family would be destroyed. The same is true for ”貧 poverty,” which warns against dividing one’s assets and losing the core of them, thereby causing the whole family to become poor.
From this perspective, even if the head of the family is handed over to the eldest son, the second and third sons may remain at home as mere labor, cultivate undeveloped land, or go to town and become merchants or craftsmen. This principle remained the same for women. Some were lucky enough to remain in their hometowns as wives, some went to work as servants, or became nuns because they could not make ends meet.
Even those who became nuns may have had different experiences. There may have been people who could no longer eat food in their area, and there may have been people who traveled to other places for training.
Even in Gujo, there are quite a few place names called ”Bikuni” as koaza, a small administrative unit. These include Hachiman Ono and Hachiman Aioi. Since it remains as a place name, it means that they settled in this area through some kind of connection.
In Gujo, there are the Yaobikuni lineage and the Kumano Bikuni lineage, which can be roughly divided into the Yaobikuni line north of the Yoshida River and the Kumano Bikuni line south of the Yoshida River. The former is probably introduced from Echizen, including common place names, there are quite a number of them. Judging from its distribution, it is safe to assume that the latter was introduced from Minami and Wara. It seems that she traveled around the country selling Kumano bills.
There is a small aza called ”Bezai” in Minami Hakusan. There are very few Japanese words that start with ”be”, and even place names are rare. In addition to onomatopoeic words and mimetic words, there are many foreign words such as Chinese words.
Also, since it is sometimes written as ”benzai,” which probably means ”benzaiten.” The words ”弁在 benzai” and ”弁才 benzai” are used interchangeably, and ”benzai” often refers to benzai ships, but since I don’t think they built such large ships there, I wonder if it refers to prostitutes. Come to think of it, there are still some sexy stories that young people from the village often visited them.
Higejiisan
