The natives delight in assuring you that Nagoya's summer is the worst in all Japan and that outsiders have never experienced anything like it. During these summers, a hushed current of excitement in the streets and in the many small retail stores can be felt, for this is the season the sumo wrestlers arrive, soon becoming a common sight. They are broad-shouldered men dressed in yukata, light cotton kimonos, their oiled hair drawn into topknots like the samurai of old.
Nagoya is one of four cities in Japan to host sumo tournaments; annually there are six tournaments. Three take place in Tokyo--where the season opens the second Sunday of January--and single tournaments take place in Osaka in March, Nagoya in July, and Fukuoka in November. Each tournament lasts fifteen days.
Records of sumo date to the earliest written history of Japan, the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters) of A.D. 712, which details a bout between Takemikazuchi-no-Kami (the Deity Brave-Awful-Possessing-Male), a Shinto god who wrestled for the Yamato clan, and Takeminakata-no-Kami (the Deity Brave-August-Name-Firm), the second son of the ruler of Izumo.
Although some scholars disagree that this wrestling match compares favorably with acceptable and historical forms of sumo, many popular accounts record it as being the first sumo match. The only sure conclusion from the Kojiki account and the one explained in the Nihonshoki (The chronicles of Japan, A.D 720) is that wrestling matches were held to settle disputes between warring dynasties and clans and that their outcome could change political history.
Over the years, the imperial court became closely associated with wrestling, and Emperor Shomu is credited with organizing the first national tournament in 728. Imperial sumo flamed brightly as an annual event until the end of the tenth century, when the court's power and wealth declined. As a result, the emperor's wrestling festivals in honor of the gods finally sputtered and died in 1185.
Successive shogun soldiers thereafter adopted sumo as a martial skill, together with horse-, bow-, and swordsmanship. Throughout the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Muromachi (1392-1573) periods, sumo remained in a developmental hiatus, utilized primarily in battle and for the entertainment of the shogun.
In the late sixteenth century, European firearms superseded hand-to-hand combat, and castle towns--like Himeji, Osaka, Nagoya, and Edo--were developed to defy artillery power, lessening the need for wrestlers on the battlefield. During the peaceful centuries of Tokugawa rule, sumo was adopted as a way to raise funds for religious institutions, and matches were held on the grounds of shrines and temples. Since ritual sumo exhibitions had already been performed at shrines, the transition to benefit sumo bouts was quite natural. After all, wrestlers, temples, shrines, and gods had long enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, one that continues to this day. As then, sumo wrestlers today often practice on shrine (and temple) grounds.
Without benefit matches, the development of sumo would have been very different. Through its introduction, the sport was no longer limited to entertainment for emperors and samurai, but could and did become popular among the masses. It was this benefit that
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