Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 595, Kulme's World, Part 2.

Year of the Rooster, first month, first day, clear skies, today Takahashi Sabu-Oymon brought

one sake coupon and two writing brushes. So begins the diary of Kauai Kolme, without any preface or fanfare, the beginning of our

ability to look back into her world.

And despite the rather Spartan nature of her first entry, there's already a lot to unpack

here.

For a start, there's the lack of preface itself,

the fact that the narrative, well, just starts.

That suggests right from the bat

that the parts of Colmé's diary that survived

might not be everything.

Remember, the version we have was compiled

by her great-grandson based on surviving papers

over a century later, and things get lost, get

damaged, become unreadable, or though in this instance I do want to be clear there's no evidence

of this, sometimes things do just get edited out when the manuscripts are transcribed.

We can't be sure precisely what happened, but it seems pretty likely there was initially more

of this diary than what we have today, based on how it starts.

The rather basic factual description of events, meanwhile, is suggestive of the purpose

of the diary.

Koalme was by this point the wife of a head of household for a samurai family that was, if not part of the elite of Kishu domain, at least possessed of some status.

That meant managing the household finances, dealing with tangled webs of friendship and obligation.

...