Mimizuka

A still controversial site in Kyoto today, Mimizuka (“Ear Mound”) is a tomb “where were buried the ears and noses of Koreans slain in the wars waged by Hideyoshi [Hideyoshi Toyotomi 豊臣秀吉] against their country in the years 1592 [1592–93] and 1597 [1597–98]” (Imperial Japanese Government Railways, 1914, 253).

As a place for pilgrimage, sightseeing, and political theatre, Mimizuka had a long history, with Korean and Dutch envoys to Japan escorted there on the way to audiences with the shogun in Edo (cf. Toby 2008). 

Close to the Daibutsu and, later, the Kyoto Imperial Art Museum, it commonly featured in recommended tours of the eastern hills, from the earliest English-language guides like Yamamoto’s Guide to the Celebrated Places in Kiyoto (1873), Stray Notes on Kioto (1878), and Keeling’s Tourists’ Guide (1880) to the various editions of the Murray’s and Terry’s series.

Mimizuka was picked up in some Japanese-produced itineraries — as seen in the quotation above, the Official Guide to East Asia (vol. 2, 1914), produced by Japanese Government Railways, described the site. However, especially into the twentieth century, it is more notable by its absence from “Guide to Kyoto” (Tsūrisuto, Dec. 1914), Kyoto City’s Kyoto Calls You (1929), Akiyama’s A Complete Guide to Kyoto (1937), and the two later editions of Government Railways’ official guide (1933 and 1941). 

The Miyako Hotel Guide to Kyoto (1906), quoted above, is exceptional for the explicitly critical stance it takes on the site. 

Nevertheless, as the above postcard suggests, the Mimizuka could be easily incorporated into inbound touristic imaginaries and practices of Kyoto. This postcard was sent from Osaka to a Mr Ernest Houlaest in Bruges in January (?) 1914, perhaps by a fellow collector in Japan. In the top-right hand corner of the postcard, the sender has affixed a small portrait photograph of a geisha (likely the Akasaka geisha and well-known beauty Manryū), thereby conjoining Mimizuka with what was becoming, already by the time, one of the predominant symbols of Kyoto inside and outside Japan. 

For more information on Mimizuka's history, see the chapter in Daniel Milne's unit on Modern Kyoto's War Sites.