I'd rather walk

An ancient Japanese torture device!

OK, not really but... picture riding in this, sitting on your legs, while being carried over hill and dale for hour after hour, sometimes day after day! The life of a Japanese noble woman wasn't all tea and crumpets!

For example say you're a noble lady lady in the family of a lord back then say maybe the lord of Himiji. Well, the Shogun required that he, the lord spend every other year in Edo (Such annual trips kept the lords too poor to wage war against the shogun.). Of course he'd take his family, retainers etc., with him back and forth. So! Every year you, as part of that group, would make a journey over 300 miles, probably along the Tokaido (Eastern Sea Road) riding day after day in a contraption such as this. Hum, maybe it is an ancient Japanese torture device after all!


Seen in Uwajima.