Genealogie

1820 · réf. 218338 — Japan. 1820- 1850s. Hand-written manuscripts twelve personal letters two string-bound booklets 25 double-folded leaves 6 double-folded leaves A collection of handwritten documents once belonging to a Japanese family under the name of the Hayashi and spanning the years from 1826 to the 1850s. One document in the collection is a genealogical table for a family named Hara descendants of one Hara Seizaemon from the Nagato area of what is now Yamaguchi Prefecture up to Hayashi Yukiyoshi 林行義. His name also appears on a document "shumon aratame" 宗門改 which declares that he and his compatriots are not the Christians as they are affiliated with Buddhist temples. It is dated on February 1835. The genealogy was compiled in 1840 by a man named Hayashi Chikudayu Yukiyoshi and the surname Hayashi recurs in many of the documents including a handwritten chronology of family events from 1826 to 1864 compiled by Chikudayu's adoptive grandson. The collection also includes numerous letter most of them sent by or to members of the Hayashi family. A particularly interesting item in the collection is a black ink painting of a foreign boat which was washed up on Japanese shores in 1857. The picture provides details of the structure of the boat and the location of its four seats. Since western whaleships were very active in the seas around Japan at the time it is possible that this is an image of a western whaleboat though the rather broad and blunt shape of the boat suggests that it may have come from another source possibly from China or Korea. . unknown