Kisokaidô: Godo - Station 54

Keizai Eisen - Series of the 69 stations of the Kisokaido: Station Godo (56th print estampe) (Godo - The cormorants fishing boats on Nagara-gawa River)

© Trustees of the British Museum

Cormorant fishing or ukai in Japanese has its origins in China: Cormorants are trained to bring back fish to the boat and bands around the neck of the bird prevented it from swallowing the fish. This fishing technique is still employed in Southern China and in the Gifu region of Japan. In this print, there is a boat with firelight suspended over water to attract fish. One of the fishermen has just released their birds, the other smokes his pipe. One bird has already caught a fish in its beak and the others are fishing around the boat. On the broad river behind them, five other boats are seen in silhouette and in the distance Mt.Kinka.

As with all Eisen’s print in this series, the signature, then the publisher’s seals disappeared from the image after the second edition. There were no other changes, although the palette became darker as the editions progressed.

(Source: The 69 stations of the Kisokaido, Sebastian Izzard, Brazillier 2008)

Cormorant fishing on Nagara-gawa river in 1910

Cormorant fishing on Nagara-gawa River in 1898

Cormorants before the fishing party ca. 1880

Cormorants fishing ca.1882

Cormorant fishing in 1897

And now ?

From Kano to Godo, the road crossed the Mino plain. Now the road crosses the city of Gifu where Godo is its western section. The two characters used for Godo (河渡) mean “river crossing” and the station was created where the ferry to cross the Nagara-gawa river was located. But the station located at 420km/262 mi from Edo never became a major station with only eight inns, mostly used by travellers who missed the last ferry. Following the 1945 bombings, nothing is left of the station, but a small Kannon-do shrine has been reconstructed near the former ferry landing.

Cormorant fishing has been done for over 1000 years. It is done only in summer now and mostly for tourists. Looking at 19^th century pictures or 1930’s prints or today’s photos, we can see that nothing has changed since Eisen drew his print. There are six master fishermen (there were 21 in 1840) and they all belong to the Imperial household. They have special clothing with a distinctive straw-made skirt (see below).