豆田町（Mameda-machi）

 

日田市は、江戸幕府が西国筋郡代の陣屋を構え、政治・経済・文化の中心地として九州随一といわれる繁栄を極めました。掛屋を中心とした豪商達が活躍し、独自の町人文化が花開きました。豆田町は、今でも江戸時代の古地図を持って歩けると言われるほど、町並みは、当時の町割がそのまま残っています。近世後期の町人・商人町の面影を色濃く残す貴重な地区として、平成１６年に国の重要伝統的建造物群保存地区に選定されました。

また、古い町並みを活かした個性的な商店街作りをやろうということから、昭和５４年に「日田天領まつり」が始まりました。
 

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Architecture and Atmosphere of Dynamic Edo Period Merchant Culture Preserved in Hita City’s Mameda-machi

Having united the country after a destructive period of warring states, the Edo Period bakufu (shogunate) government implemented various measures to ensure the loyalty of the han (clans) that ruled regional domains. The most well-known was the requirement for daimyo (lords of the clans) to regularly visit and lodge family members in Edo (Tokyo).
Another measure was the appropriation of strategically important land, etc., that then came under the direct jurisdiction of the bakufu government: such properties were called “tenryo” or “chokka-tsuchi.”
Hita borders on several of these domains: Buzen (including parts of present-day Fukuoka and Oita prefectures), Bungo (Oita prefecture), Chikugo (including the Chikugo R. basin and Ariake seacoast in Fukuoka prefecture) and Higo (Kumamoto prefecture). It is also intersected from four directions by the Oyama, Kurume, Chikugo, Yamakuni and other rivers, and so it has been known from ancient times as an important crossroads.
This attracted the attention of Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who appropriated it as a chokka-tsuchi area in 1594. Hita became the location of the bakufu government’s “Saikoku-suji Gundai,” which signifies the official or office responsible for exercising jurisdiction over bakufu matters in Kyushu, for example, by presiding over tax collection and legal disputes. The Saikoku-suji (literally "west country line") gundai (literally "regional deputy") was one of four such gundai, the other three being the Kanto, Mino and Hida gundai.
As such, Hita also became the location for a Kakeya, an office in charge of allocating and otherwise managing public funds belonging both to the bakufu and to the han domain courts. For example, when necessary it took care of remitting funds.
 One result was that Hita City became so prosperous as to be considered the greatest political, economic and cultural center in Kyushu. With the presence of the kakeya financial offices, wealthy merchants were very active in Hita, and the dynamic culture of the independent urban merchants and tradesmen of Japan’s Edo Period flourished.
The Mameda-machi section of Hita City preserves the architecture and atmosphere of these lively times. Its streets and neighborhoods are so well preserved that people say you can find your way around using an Edo Period map. As a precious example of an area deeply imbued with the feeling of a merchant/tradesman's neighborhood just as it was in the latter part of the Edo Period, it was selected as a "Preservation District for a Group of Traditional Buildings" by the national government in 2004.
Also, since 1979, the "Hita Tenryou Festival" has been held as a way of celebrating the old town and its dynamic past by creating a unique market street.