Kumemura
Encyclopedia
Kumemura located on Okinawa, in the port city of Naha
and near the royal capital of Shuri
, was a community of scholars, bureaucrats, and diplomats, and a center of culture and learning during the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
. The people of Kumemura, traditionally believed to all be descendants of the Chinese immigrants who first settled there in 1393, came to form an important and aristocratic class of scholar-bureaucrats, the yukatchu
, who dominated the royal bureaucracy, and served as government officials at home, and as diplomats in relations with China, Japan, and others.
The community's special function came to an end in 1879, with Okinawa's formal annexation to Japan, and it has since been geographically absorbed into the prefectural capital of Naha; the area is now known simply as Kume. However, its association with scholarship and culture, or at least with China, remains. It is said that there remains an expectation among Okinawans that people from Kume remain more Chinese, or at least different, from the other people of the islands.
Imperial government, traveled to Okinawa from Fujian
and settled there. Historian Takashi Uezato, however, writes that it is unknown exactly when the community was established. He points out that, in any case, Chinese communities in Ryukyu would have grown in the 14th-15th centuries as communities along the south China coast moved southward, and trade expanded between that region and Ryukyu.
The three kingdoms
of Ryukyu, which would be united within the next thirty years after the traditional date of Kumemura's founding, like many other states in the region at the time, were tributary states
in the Chinese world order
; Chinese culture, and its political and economic structures, were seen as the very definition of civilization and modernity, a view cultivated by the Chinese imperial government throughout much of its history. Thus, even though these Chinese immigrants were hardly more than ordinary citizens back home in Fujian, they were regarded by their government which sent them, and by the Ryukyuans who welcomed them, as cultural envoys, bringing civilization to a lesser nation.
The immigrants were given tax-free lands on which to build their homes, the community was granted a rice stipend from the government to help support it, and the people of Kumemura soon came to bear great status and prestige in the royal government, though the community as a whole functioned somewhat independently of any of the three kingdoms. All three kingdoms cultivated diplomatic and trade relationships with members of Kumemura's intercultural and maritime oriented community. These conditions would remain unchanged for several centuries, as Kumemura grew more established in its importance and influence.
On Okinawa, as in most pre-modern societies, literacy was rare; the people of Kumemura, literate and fluent in the Chinese language
and educated in the Chinese classics
, thus represented a close community of most of the country's most educated people. The original immigrants, and later their descendants, taught the Chinese language and administrative methods and structures, to Ryukyuan officials and others. Many were also considered experts in a variety of skills, such as astronomy, navigation, geomancy
, shipbuilding, and the production of ink and paper.
By the middle of the fifteenth century, the community was enclosed within earthen walls, and consisted of over one hundred homes, inhabited by not only Chinese immigrants (and their descendants) but Koreans as well. No remains of the earthen walls have been found, however.
One of the defining features of the scholar community at Kumemura, and its relationship with China was the system by which students and scholars of Kumemura spent periods in Fuzhou
, both as students and as members of tributary missions. Most if not all students and scholar-bureaucrats spent at least a few years of their lives studying in Fuzhou; a few traveled to Beijing
, and beginning in the 17th century, some studied in Japan, in Kagoshima
. Only a few hundred Ryukyuans were ever resident in Fuzhou at a time, and only eight at the imperial university in Beijing, where they were allowed to stay for three years, or up to eight in exceptional circumstances.
Education inevitably led to either Chinese Imperial examination
s taken in Beijing, or a less rigorous set of examinations underwent in Shuri. As in China, these exams were the gateway to placement in the government bureaucracy. In addition to serving as bureaucrats in Shuri, many took positions as teachers in Kumemura or diplomats.
This generated something of a schism within the country, as Chinese culture came to dominate life in the region immediately around the capital, while the rest of the kingdom remained devoted to traditional, native beliefs and ways of life. As all the government bureaucrats and officials came from Kumemura and Shuri, policies came to be increasingly guided by Confucian values and ideas, particularly under Shō Shōken
and Sai On
, widely considered the two most influential officials in the kingdom's history.
A Confucian
temple was gifted to the community by the Chinese Kangxi Emperor
in 1671, and extensive efforts were made by Shō Shōken and others to turn the country into one heavily based on Confucian guidelines. Among Shō Shōken's many reforms was a series of attempts to root out native animistic
rituals, particularly those involving the king. Native beliefs were seen as primitive, uncivilized, and potentially embarrassing in the eyes of both China and Japan. Thus, the system of noro priestesses was forcibly reduced in prominence, and many royal rituals were made to be performed at the Confucian temple, in a more Chinese manner, or were all but eliminated entirely, transformed into mere gestures by which junior officials would officially represent the king in performing the rituals.
Tensonbyō temple lay at the north end of the street, while a pair of Tenpigū shrines devoted to Tenpi, Taoist deity of the sea, lay at the south end of the road.
of Japan (1603-1868), the people of Kumemura came to serve an even more direct role in government and in diplomacy, at least initially. Ryukyu's strong connections to China were crucial for Japan, and were contingent upon China's ignorance of Ryukyu's subordination. Thus, the people of Kumemura served not only in the royal government, and as diplomats, but also as cultural agents. The Ryukyuan people were forbidden to speak Japanese, to wear Japanese clothes, or, in a variety of other ways, to reveal the Japanese influence upon them. Thus, the magistrate of the Kumemura community took on an unofficial role comparable to a minister of education, and the Ryukyuan people, even more so than before, were exposed to a campaign of both passive and active Sinification.
The fall of the Ming dynasty
in 1644 to the Manchu
Qing dynasty
, however, brought with it a cultural dilemma for the people of Kumemura who, though many generations removed from their Chinese ancestors, still felt very close ties to that country. The new Manchu government demanded that all Chinese subjects adopt certain Manchu customs and dress, including the wearing of the queue
. Though those in Kumemura still considered themselves Chinese subjects after a fashion, they refused to follow these orders, and adopted manners and dress more in line with native Ryukyuan traditions.
The kingdom's development was inevitably affected quite profoundly by policies imposed by Satsuma, and by the reforms instituted by Sai On, Shō Shōken and others. Though the overall economic prosperity of Ryukyu in this period remains a subject of debate among historians, the kingdom did develop economically in some ways. The anji of Shuri and the yukatchu of Kumemura developed into a semi-wealthy middle class, the economic gap between those in the cities and those in the countryside grew, as did the cities themselves. In 1653, the government forbade anyone from moving their residence to one of the major cities, and imposed a number of sumptuary law
s intended to reduce gratuitous spending; the bureaucratic elite may have been more wealthy than the Ryukyuan peasantry, but they were by most scholarly accounts still quite poor compared to the aristocrats in China and Japan.
Over the course of this period, the aristocratic class of Shuri, the anji
, gained influence and power, and eclipsed Kumemura. In 1729, the government put an end to the rice stipends which had supported the people of Kumemura since the community's founding, paying it instead to the people of Shuri. Around 1801, young men from Shuri began to be sent abroad to study in Fuzhou and Beijing, breaking the monopoly on Chinese scholarship held by Kumemura for roughly four centuries. A variety of government positions came to be open only to those living in Shuri, and of anji lineage. Allowances were made for men of Kumemura to formally change their residence to the capital, and thus gaining the same opportunities offered those originally from Shuri, but while this benefited individual scholar-bureaucrats, on the whole it only served to accelerate the decline of Kumemura's prestige and power as its formerly uniquely important role in the country's government, education and culture came to be shared, or even taken over, by Shuri. Protests were organized at the time, but had very little impact.
These developments were the metaphorical nails in the coffin of the Kumemura community, which had relied heavily on rice stipends from the government, and on its monopoly on its unique role in government. For centuries, the people had devoted themselves to scholarly pursuits, not to economic production. Shō Shōken attempted to alleviate this problem somewhat, curtailing production of crafts in the countryside and reserving this production for the people of Kumemura and other towns. Some townsmen were encouraged to leave the towns for the countryside, to pursue lives as artisans, without any formal loss of status.
The Kingdom was dissolved, and Ryukyu became formally annexed to Japan as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. Kumemura, bearing close ties to China, became a center for anti-Japanese sentiment, and many members of the community fled to China, both out of a distaste for the idea of joining Japan, and out of fear of Chinese reprisals against Ryukyu for allowing the annexation.
At the same time, as part of the wide-reaching reforms of the Meiji Restoration
, a public school system was established across Japan; though education was meant to be uniform across the country, exceptions were made in Okinawa, as they were for most Meiji era policies, which were more gradually introduced there. Academies were established in Shuri and Kumemura, and the curriculum based in the Chinese classics was maintained there for a time. By the first years of the 20th century, it is said that Kumemura's traditional scholarship had disappeared.
Naha, Okinawa
is the capital city of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.Naha is a coastal city located on the East China Sea coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands...
and near the royal capital of Shuri
Shuri Castle
Shuri Castle is a gusuku in Shuri, Okinawa. It was the palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed...
, was a community of scholars, bureaucrats, and diplomats, and a center of culture and learning during the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
Ryukyu Kingdom
The Ryūkyū Kingdom was an independent kingdom which ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th century to the 19th century. The Kings of Ryūkyū unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, and the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan...
. The people of Kumemura, traditionally believed to all be descendants of the Chinese immigrants who first settled there in 1393, came to form an important and aristocratic class of scholar-bureaucrats, the yukatchu
Yukatchu
Yukatchu were the aristocracy of the Ryūkyū Kingdom; the scholar-bureaucrats of classical Chinese studies living in Kumemura, they held the majority of government positions.-History:...
, who dominated the royal bureaucracy, and served as government officials at home, and as diplomats in relations with China, Japan, and others.
The community's special function came to an end in 1879, with Okinawa's formal annexation to Japan, and it has since been geographically absorbed into the prefectural capital of Naha; the area is now known simply as Kume. However, its association with scholarship and culture, or at least with China, remains. It is said that there remains an expectation among Okinawans that people from Kume remain more Chinese, or at least different, from the other people of the islands.
History
According to traditional accounts, the community was founded in 1393 when a number of Chinese bureaucrats and craftsmen, under orders from the Ming ChineseMing Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
Imperial government, traveled to Okinawa from Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and settled there. Historian Takashi Uezato, however, writes that it is unknown exactly when the community was established. He points out that, in any case, Chinese communities in Ryukyu would have grown in the 14th-15th centuries as communities along the south China coast moved southward, and trade expanded between that region and Ryukyu.
The three kingdoms
Sanzan period
The is a period of history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom that lasted from 1322 until 1429.The early 13th century saw a growth in the construction of Gusuku by a number of powerful kings leading to the emergence of three kingdoms in the 14th century: , and...
of Ryukyu, which would be united within the next thirty years after the traditional date of Kumemura's founding, like many other states in the region at the time, were tributary states
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
in the Chinese world order
Sinocentrism
Sinocentrism is an ethnocentric perspective that regards China to be the center of civilization and superior to all other nations. The related but distinct concept of the superiority of the Han Chinese ethnicity both within and without China is known as Han chauvinism.- Overview and context...
; Chinese culture, and its political and economic structures, were seen as the very definition of civilization and modernity, a view cultivated by the Chinese imperial government throughout much of its history. Thus, even though these Chinese immigrants were hardly more than ordinary citizens back home in Fujian, they were regarded by their government which sent them, and by the Ryukyuans who welcomed them, as cultural envoys, bringing civilization to a lesser nation.
The immigrants were given tax-free lands on which to build their homes, the community was granted a rice stipend from the government to help support it, and the people of Kumemura soon came to bear great status and prestige in the royal government, though the community as a whole functioned somewhat independently of any of the three kingdoms. All three kingdoms cultivated diplomatic and trade relationships with members of Kumemura's intercultural and maritime oriented community. These conditions would remain unchanged for several centuries, as Kumemura grew more established in its importance and influence.
On Okinawa, as in most pre-modern societies, literacy was rare; the people of Kumemura, literate and fluent in the Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and educated in the Chinese classics
Chinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts, or Chinese canonical texts, today often refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Neo-Confucian titles of Four Books and Five Classics , a selection of short books and chapters from the voluminous collection called the Thirteen Classics. All of these pre-Qin texts...
, thus represented a close community of most of the country's most educated people. The original immigrants, and later their descendants, taught the Chinese language and administrative methods and structures, to Ryukyuan officials and others. Many were also considered experts in a variety of skills, such as astronomy, navigation, geomancy
Geomancy
Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand...
, shipbuilding, and the production of ink and paper.
By the middle of the fifteenth century, the community was enclosed within earthen walls, and consisted of over one hundred homes, inhabited by not only Chinese immigrants (and their descendants) but Koreans as well. No remains of the earthen walls have been found, however.
Student exchange and education
Children in Kumemura began their formal studies at the age of five, and would travel to the palace at Shuri for a formal audience at the age of fifteen. At this point they would be formally added to the register of yukatchu scholar-bureaucrats and could begin their government careers.One of the defining features of the scholar community at Kumemura, and its relationship with China was the system by which students and scholars of Kumemura spent periods in Fuzhou
Fuzhou
Fuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area....
, both as students and as members of tributary missions. Most if not all students and scholar-bureaucrats spent at least a few years of their lives studying in Fuzhou; a few traveled to Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, and beginning in the 17th century, some studied in Japan, in Kagoshima
Kagoshima, Kagoshima
is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture at the southwestern tip of the Kyūshū island of Japan, and the largest city in the prefecture by some margin...
. Only a few hundred Ryukyuans were ever resident in Fuzhou at a time, and only eight at the imperial university in Beijing, where they were allowed to stay for three years, or up to eight in exceptional circumstances.
Education inevitably led to either Chinese Imperial examination
Imperial examination
The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...
s taken in Beijing, or a less rigorous set of examinations underwent in Shuri. As in China, these exams were the gateway to placement in the government bureaucracy. In addition to serving as bureaucrats in Shuri, many took positions as teachers in Kumemura or diplomats.
Confucianism
The area encompassing Kumemura and nearby Naha and Shuri was, metaphorically, a cultural island. Descendants of the original Chinese immigrants studied alongside Ryukyuan youths, and any number of rites, rituals, and celebrations, along with a myriad of other elements of Chinese culture, were largely unknown outside of this area.This generated something of a schism within the country, as Chinese culture came to dominate life in the region immediately around the capital, while the rest of the kingdom remained devoted to traditional, native beliefs and ways of life. As all the government bureaucrats and officials came from Kumemura and Shuri, policies came to be increasingly guided by Confucian values and ideas, particularly under Shō Shōken
Sho Shoken
Shō Shōken , also known as Haneji Chōshū , was a Ryūkyūan scholar and served as sessei, a post often translated as "prime minister," from 1666 to 1673...
and Sai On
Sai On
', also known as ' was a scholar-bureaucrat official of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, serving as regent, instructor, and advisor to King Shō Kei...
, widely considered the two most influential officials in the kingdom's history.
A Confucian
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
temple was gifted to the community by the Chinese Kangxi Emperor
Kangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
in 1671, and extensive efforts were made by Shō Shōken and others to turn the country into one heavily based on Confucian guidelines. Among Shō Shōken's many reforms was a series of attempts to root out native animistic
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
rituals, particularly those involving the king. Native beliefs were seen as primitive, uncivilized, and potentially embarrassing in the eyes of both China and Japan. Thus, the system of noro priestesses was forcibly reduced in prominence, and many royal rituals were made to be performed at the Confucian temple, in a more Chinese manner, or were all but eliminated entirely, transformed into mere gestures by which junior officials would officially represent the king in performing the rituals.
Medieval geography
For much of the medieval period (c. 1390s to 1609), the port city of Naha was located on a small island called Ukishima, connected to the mainland of Okinawa Island by a narrow causeway called chōkōtei (長虹堤, lit. "long rainbow embankment"); the center of the island was dominated by the walled community of Kumemura. A main thoroughfare, Kume Ōdōri (久米大通り) ran across the island from southeast to northwest; the TaoistTaoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
Tensonbyō temple lay at the north end of the street, while a pair of Tenpigū shrines devoted to Tenpi, Taoist deity of the sea, lay at the south end of the road.
Under Satsuma
During the period when Ryukyu was controlled by the Shimazu clanShimazu clan
The were the daimyō of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan.The Shimazu were identified as one of the tozama or outsider daimyō clans in contrast with the fudai or insider clans which were hereditary vassals or allies of the Tokugawa clan,The Shimazu were...
of Japan (1603-1868), the people of Kumemura came to serve an even more direct role in government and in diplomacy, at least initially. Ryukyu's strong connections to China were crucial for Japan, and were contingent upon China's ignorance of Ryukyu's subordination. Thus, the people of Kumemura served not only in the royal government, and as diplomats, but also as cultural agents. The Ryukyuan people were forbidden to speak Japanese, to wear Japanese clothes, or, in a variety of other ways, to reveal the Japanese influence upon them. Thus, the magistrate of the Kumemura community took on an unofficial role comparable to a minister of education, and the Ryukyuan people, even more so than before, were exposed to a campaign of both passive and active Sinification.
The fall of the Ming dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
in 1644 to the Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, however, brought with it a cultural dilemma for the people of Kumemura who, though many generations removed from their Chinese ancestors, still felt very close ties to that country. The new Manchu government demanded that all Chinese subjects adopt certain Manchu customs and dress, including the wearing of the queue
Queue (hairstyle)
The queue or cue is a hairstyle in which the hair is worn long and gathered up into a ponytail. It was worn traditionally by certain Native American groups and the Manchu of Manchuria.-Manchu Queue:...
. Though those in Kumemura still considered themselves Chinese subjects after a fashion, they refused to follow these orders, and adopted manners and dress more in line with native Ryukyuan traditions.
The kingdom's development was inevitably affected quite profoundly by policies imposed by Satsuma, and by the reforms instituted by Sai On, Shō Shōken and others. Though the overall economic prosperity of Ryukyu in this period remains a subject of debate among historians, the kingdom did develop economically in some ways. The anji of Shuri and the yukatchu of Kumemura developed into a semi-wealthy middle class, the economic gap between those in the cities and those in the countryside grew, as did the cities themselves. In 1653, the government forbade anyone from moving their residence to one of the major cities, and imposed a number of sumptuary law
Sumptuary law
Sumptuary laws are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc." Traditionally, they were...
s intended to reduce gratuitous spending; the bureaucratic elite may have been more wealthy than the Ryukyuan peasantry, but they were by most scholarly accounts still quite poor compared to the aristocrats in China and Japan.
Over the course of this period, the aristocratic class of Shuri, the anji
Anji (Ryukyu)
thumb|AjiAn aji, anji, or azu was a ruler of a petty kingdom in the history of the Ryukyu Islands. The word later became a title and rank of nobility in the Ryūkyū Kingdom. It is said to be related to the Japanese aruji , and the pronunciation varied throughout the islands. It ranked next below a...
, gained influence and power, and eclipsed Kumemura. In 1729, the government put an end to the rice stipends which had supported the people of Kumemura since the community's founding, paying it instead to the people of Shuri. Around 1801, young men from Shuri began to be sent abroad to study in Fuzhou and Beijing, breaking the monopoly on Chinese scholarship held by Kumemura for roughly four centuries. A variety of government positions came to be open only to those living in Shuri, and of anji lineage. Allowances were made for men of Kumemura to formally change their residence to the capital, and thus gaining the same opportunities offered those originally from Shuri, but while this benefited individual scholar-bureaucrats, on the whole it only served to accelerate the decline of Kumemura's prestige and power as its formerly uniquely important role in the country's government, education and culture came to be shared, or even taken over, by Shuri. Protests were organized at the time, but had very little impact.
These developments were the metaphorical nails in the coffin of the Kumemura community, which had relied heavily on rice stipends from the government, and on its monopoly on its unique role in government. For centuries, the people had devoted themselves to scholarly pursuits, not to economic production. Shō Shōken attempted to alleviate this problem somewhat, curtailing production of crafts in the countryside and reserving this production for the people of Kumemura and other towns. Some townsmen were encouraged to leave the towns for the countryside, to pursue lives as artisans, without any formal loss of status.
The Kingdom was dissolved, and Ryukyu became formally annexed to Japan as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. Kumemura, bearing close ties to China, became a center for anti-Japanese sentiment, and many members of the community fled to China, both out of a distaste for the idea of joining Japan, and out of fear of Chinese reprisals against Ryukyu for allowing the annexation.
At the same time, as part of the wide-reaching reforms of the Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
, a public school system was established across Japan; though education was meant to be uniform across the country, exceptions were made in Okinawa, as they were for most Meiji era policies, which were more gradually introduced there. Academies were established in Shuri and Kumemura, and the curriculum based in the Chinese classics was maintained there for a time. By the first years of the 20th century, it is said that Kumemura's traditional scholarship had disappeared.