![A great find - Nakagawa Kiun's Kyō Warabe (京童) Guide to famous places in Kyoto, vol. 4, Meireiki 4, 明暦4[1658] in emakimono form, colored version](http://paperowlprints.com/cdn/shop/articles/Untitled_7.jpg?v=1706735837&width=1100)
Sometimes I get lucky, it happens especially in rainy winter days. Some world meltdown crises and a few regional-threatening to go global wars are usually required for this to happen. As conditions were met, last week I received from one of my book dealers in Kyoto a quite strange emakimono which proved to be quite rare also.
TL:DR Long story short, what initially thought to be a Meiji scroll is in fact the fourth volume of Kyō Warabe (京童 loosely translated as "Guide to Famous Places in Kyoto") published in Meireiki 4 (1658) made (most probably for better preserving) into an emakimono mounting. To my knowledge, there are only 2 libraries in Japan that hold the volumes (Waseda, missing the fifth volume and Ritsumeikan Univ. and in Tokyo Museum)
Skip to the end of this textulation for photos.
None of those libraries have or mention a color version. (kappazuri-e (合羽摺絵)
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Now let's talk a bit about the author and context
I found the book in the 2 databases mentioned purely by luck. I don't read kanbun/bungo/kuzushiji and none of the persons I asked knew what the heck it is. But I love riddles and after about 5 hours of browsing, voila!
1. A few things about the title, -- Kyō Warabe [Kyōdō?] 京童 ----now, I see it was translated as "guide to famous places in Kyoto" and for good reasons, because it opened and marked the beginning of an endless "meisho zue" series culminating in Meiji era (to my thinking the golden age of meisho). But 童 warabe/warawa means child/children as in がくどう【学童】gakudō/pupil/schoolboy so the expression Kyo wara(n)be should mean "Kyoto's young people; young Kyotoites". Looking more down the rabbit's openings we also find 京童の口に上る - "become the talk of the town"
And since I never knew the expression, I fired up my EBWin dictionaries and here it is:
きょうわらべ ⇒関連項目 〈きょうわらわ〉〈きょうわらんべ〉とも読み，複数形では〈京童部（きようわらわべ）〉になる。〈京の都に住む，口さがない無頼の若者〉の意味で，平安時代後期から江戸時代にかけて各種の文芸にあらわれている語。古くは11世紀初めころの《新猿楽記（しんさるがくき）》に猿楽の芸態の一つとして〈京童の虚左礼（そらざれ）〉がみえ，空戯（そらざれ）(ふざけごと)を弄する京童の姿がおもしろおかしく演じられて笑いを呼んだらしい。ちゃかし，ののしり，笑わせる京童というイメージは，その後も一貫して保たれ，痛烈な風刺・批判の言動とも結ばれ合いつつ，〈京童ノ口ズサミ(口遊)，十分一ヲモラスナリ〉で閉じる《二条河原落書》に結実した。京童の実体は，京都において自治・自衛の組織体を編成し〈町衆（まちしゆう）〉としての成長をみせるまでの庶民にほかならない。室町時代以降は，〈京童〉の語は比喩的で情趣的な意味合いをしだいに強めていった。
"The term "京童" (Kyōwara-be) is related to "きょうわらべ" (Kyōwarabe) and can also be read as "きょうわらわ" (Kyōwarawa) or "きょうわらんべ" (Kyōwaranbe). In plural form, it becomes "京童部" (Kyōwara-wa-be). The term refers to a youth of the capital city, a blunt and reckless youngster, and has been featured in various literary works from the late Heian period to the Edo period. Originating from around the early 11th century in the "Shin Sarugaku-ki," one of the earliest records, the performance of a "Kyōwara" playing the "Kyōwara no Sora-zare" (a playful and mocking act) brought laughter as it depicted the humorous antics of a carefree youth living in the capital.
The image of the Kyōwara as a mocker, abuser, and entertainer persisted over time. The association with sharp satire and criticism culminated in the "Nijō Kawara Rakugaki" that closed with the phrase "Kyōwara no Kuchi-zusami (Kuchi-asobi), Jūbun Ichi o Morasu Nari" (The mouthplay of Kyōwara, enough to satisfy fully). The tangible reality of Kyōwara was nothing more than common people in Kyoto who organized themselves into autonomous defense organizations and grew as townspeople.
From the Muromachi period onwards, the term "Kyōwara" gradually took on metaphorical and aesthetic connotations."
And:
きょうわらべ ⇒関連項目 仮名草子，地誌。6巻6冊。中川喜雲作。1658年(明暦4)刊。部分，また全体が復刻にかかる別版が3種存する。喜雲の処女作であり，近世初期に刊行された地誌・名所案内記に先鞭をつけたものであった。賢い少年に案内させて見物をする，という形式をとり，京都を中心に山城国一円にわたる87ヵ所を，1ヵ所ずつ挿画を付し，古歌をひき，自作の狂歌，俳諧を添えて記している。喜雲は，続編として1667年(寛文7)に《京童跡追》を刊行し，のちに両書の一部をつなぎ合わせて再構成した《都案内者》を1671年(寛文11)に刊行した
The term "京童" (Kyōwara) is related to "きょうわらべ" (Kyōwarabe). (See related items: Kana-zōshi, Chishi.) Consists of 6 volumes, authored by Nakagawa Kiun. Published in 1658 (Meireki 4). There are three different reprint editions, both partial and complete. This was Kiun' s debut work, pioneering the genre of local gazetteers and guidebooks published in the early modern period. Following the format of guiding a clever young boy through sightseeing, it covers 87 places across Yamashiro Province, with Kyoto at the center. Each place is accompanied by illustrations, ancient poems, Kinu's own humorous poems (kyōka), and haikai. Kinu later published "Kyōwara Atosoi" in 1667 (Kanbun 7) as a sequel, and in 1671 (Kanbun 11), he released "Miyako-annai-sha," a reconstruction combining parts of both earlier works.
So considering all those things, the title translated by Marcia Yonemoto in the wonderful A Kamigata Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, 1600–1750 as "Denizens of Kyoto" seems a wee bit inaccurate and I myself see no denizens there, only "thugs and bad boys"
But aside from that, her remarks offer more interesting insights ( I should note that I haven't yet looked for a translation in contemporary japanese, nor am I aware if it indeed exists):
"Denizens of Kyoto (Kyō Warabe, 1658) is an archetypal example: it is a travel guide written with both stylistic flair and heavy-handed moralism. Although the title literally translates as “child of Kyoto,” its connotation is closer to the English term “native son”—namely, someone who is born and bred in a given place and knows that place extremely well. This is the sort of authoritative perspective on the city that Kiun strives to replicate in Denizens of Kyoto. In the preface to the book, the author explains that he wrote it to serve as a guide to Kyoto and its environs for visitors from the provinces, like he himself once was. In simple prose occasionally ornamented by the author’s poems, cautionary tales, and often ribald commentary, Kiun takes the reader on a tour of more than eighty famous places and historical sites in the imperial capital. Denizens of Kyoto was the first published guide to the city of Kyoto and formed an important model upon which later travel accounts, of Kyoto and elsewhere, were based. Indeed, the reader cannot fail to notice that many of Kiun’s descriptive phrases reappear almost verbatim in later travel guides, though transposed onto different locales. In particular, parts of the passage below describing the theater district of the Shijō Riverbank are incorporated Exploring Japan Traveling the Freeways on Foot 139 into the description of the theater district in Edo in Asai Ryōi’s Famous Places along the Tōkaidō, which is also partially translated in this section. In terms of style, the translations given here of Kiun’s descriptions of Buddhist priests’ predilection for male-male love found at the end of the “Shijō Riverbank” passage and in the “Chion-in” passage do not do justice to the sexual innuendoes, erotic imagery, and puns of the originals. For example, the poem ending the “Chion-in” section puns on the name of the temple, Ōtanidera, read also as “Daikokuji.” The latter is homonymous with daikoku, referring simultaneously to the deity Daikoku (who, like Ebisu, is one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune) and to, in a derogatory term, a priest’s kept woman. In other places, however, Kiun’s descriptions are more staid. Like all classical writers, Kiun was highly sensitive to the natural world, and he often included poems that draw attention to durable themes such as the changing of the seasons. The inclusion of such poems gave an air of refinement that stood in contrast to the coarser passages in the book. This fluid movement between the refined and common dimensions of the capital is written into the account itself, as Kiun guides his reader through the city, beginning at its political, cultural, and symbolic center, the imperial palace. He reflects on the classical past at the grave of the great tenth-century poet Izumi Shikibu and moves on to describe the major temples and shrines in the center of the city. But he soon fixes his attention on the centers of popular culture—the theater district at Shijō and the brothel district nearby"
A few more info on Nakagawa Kiun: Short biography
2. Form
I'll take some wild guess here: the ehon was mounted later, probably early Meiji, as an emakimono, to avoid destruction. For an almost 400 years old book, I'd say it still looks acceptable.
The scroll is 23.5 x 654 cm long, the shaft is bone. The kappazuri is done with the utmost attention to details, I could see very precise edges, no bleeding which makes me believe it was done by a very skilled dude. Under 50x magnification (which is a very very fine line), the yellow and orange pigment shakes hands with the main black lines of the woodblock but keeps it to itself, no boundaries crossed!
