The woman of the occupation to add to the fun of the seat by a song, a dance at the seats of the banquet, and to please a visitor. A geisha . The person who is good at artistic accomplishments. Art is in good health.
The Old designation of the geisha and a common name. I commonly am called it a geisha girl (geisha girl) in Kansai. A woman to play performing arts by a restaurant, waiting for, and to perform mediation (mediation) of food and drink, and to add to the fun of. The source is seen in ancient a kind of rhythm of Japanese court music and is kind of the service girl of the Orient with singers of former China.
The forerunner of the geisha had a thing of two different form in (1688-1704) approximately at the same time in the Genroku era year. This made one a primary occupation in the drum prostitutes who were born to make up for the performing arts lack of the harlot in a red light district (I say I write) more, and age of an emperor (give it up and come) came to be called a geisha from (1751-64) a year.
A geisha was a good person of the art, and the person with advanced martial arts skills was a geisha not only artistic accomplishments in those days. In the red light district, I distinguished it from the jester of the professional jester (I feel one) and read with a geisha girl (the geisha came to stab only a geisha girl, but it became the abbreviated designation of the jester adversely in Kansai, and the geisha girl became the geisha girl). The geisha girl was under contract to the brothel at the start, but I came to go on a business trip to other brothels later, and the Nakanocho geisha (it is said with the geisha agency geisha) who did not live together in the brothel emerged in Yoshiwara.
It was the most characteristic, and, as for the geisha of the red light district, in the case of Yoshiwara, this characteristic was protected to Meiji after generous politics (1789-1801) with the thing which showed the judgment of Yoshiwara geisha different from the harlot as an employment good technician only as for the performing arts (samisen music and dance) without selling itself.
Other one is street walkers called the dance girl who appeared in Genroku (I do it and occur). It was a form to go on a business trip depending on an invitation as a name by a dance like the name. There were many girls, but women of marriageable age gradually increased and moved to art of the samisen music from a dance, and Meiwa came to call this with a town geisha girl from the comparison with the geisha girl of the red light district in (1764-72) a year at the start.
It followed a dance girl that a town geisha girl went on a business trip to me's house of a samurai and the merchant, but I was often called to the restaurants, and I came to wait on customers as the main place where one go to, and the prostitution was half open, and a restaurant, a boat rental house were performed before long.
The geisha of 2 above systems was different in outbreak, but there was no substantial difference in 2 systems because I was common at the point to attend to a visitor in singing and dancing sound music, and the prohibition was incomplete, and the geisha girl of Kansai had even a red light district geisha assuming prostitution as for the others of Edo Yoshiwara about the prostitution while most belonged in a red light district. But, judging from the later numerical development, I increased so that a lot of town geisha girl system was said to be it in conjunction with the prosperity of the street walker street in Edo if there were not two or three towns where a geisha was not.
Above all, the geisha of Fukagawa was said to be the representative of the town geisha girl and received the support of the visitor with spirit and the chivalrous spirit (I come today) in a figure, a waiting on customers manner, feelings and was given a special name with Tatsumi (Tatsumi) geisha (Fukagawa by the thing equal to the direction = southeast of Tatsumi of Edo). Because it was unusual for a geisha, and the manners and customs such as letting I hung down a wide obi behind, and a kimono of the black crepe (crape) make rouge a barefoot nail (nail) wore a haori with the thing which was the best (breath), I was called the geisha of Fukagawa. It was different, but, as for the outfitting thing, as for the woman with the left skirt who raised a hem (hem) with the left hand in the case of going out, it was with the nickname of the geisha by a characteristic gesture as it amounted to a geisha girl of Kansai later by the times and land.
I was put under the control of the police after the Meiji era, and geishas came to be used many for a bureaucratese, and increase of the gay quarters power let geishas increase rapidly. The use of waiting for, the geisha of influenced this deeply and was given the position of the service girl who was higher-ranking than a high-class prostitute as central existence of the polite society. Movement to plan the qualitative improvement of performing arts with this happens in a part, and the geisha as it is appointed by an intangible cultural asset appears by a kind of ballad-drama, tradition of the classical samisen music including the Miyazono clause later.
However, it followed that the increase in geisha let you produce a barmaid and a geisha almost of the low performing arts that it was hard to distinguish or a prostitution primary occupation. This is because the one which became famous was thought to be a prostitute of the Orient as a geisha girl globally.
I am put under the control of the Public Safety Commission after (22, Showa) in 1947 after World War II, and a range of the place where one go to is regulated by the business of offering food and entertainment enforcement regulations of the local government.
The geisha that the classic samisen music that should be the original performing arts of the geisha was played gradually decreased, and had the hem (hem) of the kimono installed according to the increase of the Western-style hairdo recently; "the promise to wear person clothes collapses, and a considerable change appears".