Licence to laugh: Humour in the practice of biwa recitation in rural Kyushu

Abstract

In Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, the biwa has been played by blind males both in ritual contexts and as entertainment. The latter, secular narrative tradition continued beyond the early twentieth century only in the central region of Kumamoto, the former domain of Higo. Whereas elsewhere the biwa has been played for rites of various kinds by blind Buddhist priests (mōsō), in rural central Kyushu musicians called biwa hiki have performed both sacred and secular recitations. One such musician remained professionally active until the early 1990s. Among the principal styles of biwa narrative, only in music of the biwa hiki does the use of humour suggest that the musicians' task has been less to edify listeners than to entertain them, less to present standardized, orthodox versions of repertory than to shape the content of a performance to the needs of listeners and the occasion. Much writing on the biwa traditions of Kyushu has appeared since the early 1980s, but the biwa hiki's use of humour as such has not been addressed. Three types of usage can be identified: humour during a warm-up talk before a recitation proper is begun; independent short comic pieces; and the strategic insertion of humorous passages in tales that may take several hours to perform in full. It appears that biwa recitation in rural Kyushu never became a standardized practice grouped around individual figures of authority, and that the lack of an artistic orthodoxy enabled biwa hiki to deploy humour as a highly individualized performative resource.