Sumo is a traditional Japanese wrestling sport that has
always included a strong element of religion and ritual.
With its complex hierarchies and systems of play, sumo
is an exclusively Japanese practice, even when practised by non-Japanese athletes.
History
Some historians have used archaeological evidence,
such as the terra-cotta figures known as haniwa, to
claim prehistoric origins for sumo. Others have seen
the beginnings of sumo in the mythic hand-to-hand
unarmed combats recorded in the 8th-century Kojiki
(“Record of Ancient Matters”). In fact, sumo can be reliably traced no farther back than 821, when sumo
matches constituted one of the three great annual tournaments of the imperial court, recently moved from
Nara to Kyoto.
The sumo tournament was held on the grounds of
the imperial palace. An area behind the Shishinden
(“Hall for State Ceremonies”) was strewn with white
sand for the ceremonial occasion. Thirty-four
wrestlers, drawn from the “right” and “left” imperial
bodyguards, entered the garden to the accompaniment
of two drums and two gongs. They were followed by officials, musicians, and dancers. Then came the emperor
and his courtiers. The “left” team wore paper hollyhocks in their hair, the “right” wore calabash blossoms.
Matches were decided by falls or when a helpless
wrestler was dragged by his opponent to the tent that
housed his team. (In today’s matches, winning and losing are determined in almost the same way: the winner
is the wrestler who throws his opponent to the ground
or forces him out of the ring.) After each match, the
musicians beat their drums, struck their gongs, and
performed a ritual dance. The results were recorded by
arrows thrust into the sand.
These annual tournaments were suspended from
1120 to 1156, sporadically revived until 1185, and then
discontinued. Sumo, however, persisted in other
forms—as no sumo (field wrestling) and kusa sumo
(grass wrestling) or as shinji-zumo (wrestling in the
service of the gods). The most famous version of the last was karasu-zumo (crow wrestling). It took place at
the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto, where boys who represented
the god Takemikazuchi wrestled against other boys
who represented the secular world. There was also
onna-zumo (women’s wrestling), which seems to have
been arranged for men’s titillation.
Modern sumo can be traced to the early 18th century, when Yoshida Oikaze and other toshiyori (elders)
codified the sport and introduced some of the rituals
that make sumo a distinctively Japanese form of
wrestling. Matches were staged for the pleasure of the
shoguns who, until the Meiji Restoration of 1868,
wielded far greater political power than the emperors.
According to P. L. Cuyler’s Sumo: From Rite to Sport
(1979),“Shogunal sumo lifted the sport out of the vulgar world of entertainment and imparted to it a sense
of ritual that later became its major characteristic.”
Rules and Play
The administration of the sport, even today, is a complex mixture of traditional and modern elements. All
sumo wrestlers are members of a heya (room), the
equivalent of a stable in horse racing. The most famous
of these heya were established in Edo (modern Tokyo)
between 1751 and 1781. The elders who ran them received official recognition by the shogun in 1773 and
by the emperor in 1885. At that time, there were 105 elders. The organization was restructured in 1926 when
heya from Tokyo joined those from Osaka to form a
more nearly national organization. In 1958, this organization, frequently reformed and renamed, became the
Nihon Sumo Kaikyo (Japanese Sumo Association). In
1989, there were 41 heya informally organized into five
great families. The Yoshida family, which claims to have
been involved with sumo since the 13th century, was so
dominant in the administration of the sport that it was
not until 1951, after a 17-year-old became the official
head of the family, that they finally agreed to let the official sumo organization decide which wrestlers should
be elevated to the top rank.
The pyramid of ranks is extremely complicated. Beginners enter the system as maezumo (before sumo).
They receive room, board, and a small allowance. They
are also given new names, which are invariably written
in kanji (Chinese characters). If the maezumo are successful in the six annual 15-day tournaments, they rise
to become jonokuchi, who are given individual rankings. Further successes mean promotion to the
jonidan, sandamme, makushita, and juryo ranks. Only
about 1 in 60 wrestlers rises to juryo status. If they
reach this rank, they are classified as sekitori and allowed to change from black or dark blue loincloths to
white ones and to participate in the ring-entering ceremony. They wrestle daily during the tournaments, receive a regular salary in addition to their winnings, and
have apprentice wrestlers to assist them.When they are
not actively engaged in the sport, they are also allowed
to wear kimono and haori (a man’s light coat).
The five ranks above juryo—the maegashira, komusubi, sekiwake, ozeki, and yokozuna—comprise the
makuuchi division. Wrestlers of this elevated status are
allowed four minutes for shikiri, the crouching, stamping, and glaring that precedes the actual combat
(which usually lasts only a few seconds).
Election to the 11th and highest rank—that of the
yokozuna—is a great honor that is bestowed on very
few wrestlers. From all other ranks, one can be demoted after a number of losses. A yokozuna cannot be
thus humiliated. (If his powers begin to wane, he is expected to retire.) A series of successful tournaments
will raise a gifted wrestler to the ozeki rank, but promotion to yokozuna is granted only to wrestlers who
are deemed by the elders to have seishin (spirit). Although a few foreigners have become ozeki, it is all but
impossible for them to become yokozuna. When
Hawaii-born Jesse Kuhaulua retired in 1976, the elders
ruled that foreign-born wrestlers not be allowed to
achieve elder status. The elevation of the American
Chad Rowan (“Akebono”), however, may signal a shift
in Japanese attitudes.
Westerners who attend a sumo tournament are
struck not only by the huge size of the wrestlers, some
of whom weigh over 182 kilograms (400 pounds), but
also by the many rituals that characterize the sport.
Among the ritual elements is the design of the doyo
(the ring), which consists of a circle inscribed in a
square. The doyo, which dates from the middle of the
17th century, is flanked by four pillars that stand at the
four corners of the rectangular “ring.” These pillars are
painted blue for the god of spring, red for the god of
summer, white for the god of autumn, and black for the
god of winter. At some moment in the 18th century, it
became customary for four elders to lean against these
four pillars in order to assist the referee in his decisions. They were known as the naka aratame (middle
determiners). The circle within which the wrestlers
grapple is formed by 20 bags of rice straw stuffed with
earth. Before each bout, the doyo is purified by handfuls of salt. The shimenawa, or ropes that the yokozuna
wear wound about their waists, represent the ropes that
adorn Shinto shrines. These ropes date from the 16th
century Some of sumo’s many traditions are very old, but
others can be traced back only to the 18th century.
Yoshida Oikaze, for instance, introduced the ring-entering ceremony in 1791 when sumo was staged for the
Shogun Ienari and something suitably ceremonial was
in order. Today, all sekitori participate in the ceremony,
which includes an entrance by means of the
hanamichi (path of flowers). The wrestlers circle the
ring, face inward, clap their hands, raise their arms, lift
their aprons slightly, and file out. For the yokozuna, the
ceremony is slightly different. He appears with a tsuyu
harai (dew sweeper) and a tachi mochi (swordbearer). He wears a thick white rope over his apron.After his hand movements, he goes to the center of the
ring, stamps his feet, lies down, rises, stamps again,
and repeats his hand movements. The stamping is intended to drive away demons. (The salt that the
wrestlers strew upon the doyo has the same function.)
The yumitorishiki (bow dance) first occurred at this
time, when the shogun expressed his pleasure by
handing one of the wrestlers, the great Tanikaze Kajinosuke, a bow. Tanikaze’s dance was an expression of
his gratitude.
Unlike most sports, sumo has not undergone a
steady process of secularization to rid it of its religious
elements. On the contrary, sumo has been characterized less by modernization than by “traditionalization,”
by a conscious effort to introduce religious elements
into a previously secular institution and to link the
sport more closely to the culture of medieval Japan.
The referee’s hat, which looks like the headgear of a
Shinto priest from the Heian period (794–1185), was
adopted in 1909. His colorful kimono, which mimics
Heian courtly attire, also dates from this period of nationalistic fervor. The roof that is suspended above the
doyo, for indoor matches as well as outdoor ones, was
originally shaped like the roof of a traditional Japanese
farmhouse. In 1931, in the midst of another highly nationalistic period, the roof was redesigned to resemble
the roof of the Ise Shrine, the most sacred of all Japanese religious sites.
The elders who “traditionalized” 20th-century
sumo were quite successful. Sumo flourishes today
as baseball’s only serious rival among spectator sports.
Together, the two sports aptly symbolize Japan’s desire
to be, simultaneously, a traditional and a modern
society.
—ALLEN GUTTMANN
Bibliography: Cuyler, P. L. (1979) Sumo: From Rite to Sport.
New York: Weatherhill.