Forum - View topicINTEREST: 4th One Piece Campaign to Revitalize Kumamoto Prefecture Distributes 'Hi no Kuni' Leaflets
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nargun
Posts: 925 |
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In this case, though, hi no kuni is a reference to the old hi province, which was split back in the nara periode into hither and further hi, the latter of which -- higo no kuni -- covers the same area as kumamoto-ken (Most prefecture borders line up with kuni borders: nara-ken is yamato-no-kuni to the mm, if I recall).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Province https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higo_Province The province names are still widely used in talking about culture and what have you.... except that nagoya, osaka, and tokyo happen to sit on or near kuni borders. |
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shosakukan
Posts: 292 |
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As nargun has said, in ancient times in Japan, Hi no Kuni (Hi Province) included the area which would later become Kumamoto Prefecture.
According to Nihon Shoki, when Emperor Keikō's ship sailed near to the area in the night, they saw fire in the area. Therefore the area was named Hi (火, fire) no Kuni. Nihon Shoki says:
Later the kanji for the 'Hi' part of 'Hi no Kuni (Hi Province)' was changed from 火 (hi, fire) to 肥 (hi, fertile), and Professor Inoue Tatsuo has inferred that ancient people came to prefer '肥, fertile' to '火, fire'. So the 'Hi' part of 'Hi no Kuni' as the province which included the area equivalent to Kumamoto Prefecture means 'fire' or 'fertile'. Singer Sakamoto Fuyumi has released a song of which title is 'Hi no Kuni no Onna/The Woman of Fire Province' in 1991, and the lyrics of the song have references to fire, Higo Province, Kumamoto Prefecture, and so on.
This is not a province name, but 'Naniwa', an old name of Osaka, is used in some contexts also today, to say nothing of 'Edo', an old name of Tokyo. Fans of manga here may have read Aoki Yūji's Naniwa Kin'yūdō. The title of the manga Naniwatomoare by Minami Katsuhisa is wordplay, and one of the meanings of the 'Naniwa' part of the title is Osaka, in which the manga is set. Nagoya is located in the area which was 尾張國 Owari Province. '尾張 (Owari)', '尾州 (Bishū)', and an abbreviated form '尾 (Bi)' are still used in some contexts. |
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