Aizuwakamatsu's Hard-to-Read Place Names: Kozashi, Ikki, Monden
Kozashi, Ikki, Monden. Walk through Aizuwakamatsu and you will run into neighborhood names that give no clue to their pronunciation from the characters alone. Each is still in active use as an official address today, and each traces back to the Sengoku period.
Many hard-to-read place names survive because municipal mergers and address reorganizations since the Meiji era changed administrative boundaries and naming conventions, not the pronunciation of individual place names themselves. Aizuwakamatsu has several such names.
This article covers place names with a well-documented origin, including Ikki and Kozashi, both of which appear in Wikipedia's list of hard-to-read place names in the Tohoku region, looking at both how they are read and the history behind them.
Kozashi-machi: a phantom castle on the eve of Sekigahara
It is the site of an unfinished "phantom castle" that Uesugi Kagekatsu began building on the eve of the Battle of Sekigahara.
Kozashi-machiKozashi-machi
Kozashi is read Kozashi, not the more expected on'yomi reading of its characters. In 1600, Uesugi Kagekatsu, lord of a 1.2-million-koku Aizu domain, began building a replacement for the increasingly cramped Wakamatsu Castle on the Kozashi plain, with his chief retainer Naoe Kanetsugu as general overseer. The inner citadel alone was planned at 180 by 306 meters, and the finished castle would have been the largest flatland castle in eastern Japan, twice the size of Tsurugajo, but worsening relations with Tokugawa Ieyasu halted construction, and the castle was abandoned before it was ever used.
The unfinished Kozashi Castle and the Naoe Letter
When construction of Kozashi Castle intensified in March 1600, it became one pretext Tokugawa Ieyasu used for a punitive campaign against Aizu. Chief retainer Naoe Kanetsugu's defiant reply to Ieyasu's demand for an explanation, known as the Naoe Letter, is credited with helping trigger that campaign. Ishida Mitsunari raised his own army while Ieyasu was en route to Aizu, leading directly to the Battle of Sekigahara. Uesugi Kagekatsu was transferred to Yonezawa after the battle, and Kozashi Castle was never completed.
Ikki and Monden: readings that defy the characters
Ikki and Monden are textbook cases of place names whose pronunciation cannot be guessed without knowing the history.
Ikki-machiIkki-machi
Ikki is read Ikki; reading the character for winnowing basket as "ki" is unusual, and Wikipedia's list of hard-to-read Tohoku place names includes it among Aizuwakamatsu's entries. The neighborhood contains Iimoriyama, and the approach to Itsukushima Shrine partway up the mountain is known as the spot where Byakkotai soldiers took their own lives late in the Boshin War. When the village of Ikki, in what was then Kitaaizu County, was absorbed into the city of Wakamatsu in 1955, its name carried over directly as a neighborhood name.
Source:Wikipedia, list of hard-to-read place names in the Tohoku regionAizuwakamatsu City, an overview of the city
Monden-machiMonden-machi
Monden is read Monden. Elsewhere in Japan, the same two characters are usually read Kadota, but Monden-machi has kept the older reading. It was known as Monden village in the Edo period, an agricultural area of rice fields and small settlements. Today the area mixes housing and commerce, and it is still home to older industry, including a sake brewery founded in the early Meiji era.
FAQ
Are there other hard-to-read place names in Aizuwakamatsu?
Yes. Iidera, a district of Monden-machi, is read Niidera. A literal reading might suggest Iiji or Hanji, but it is Niidera. Older records also render it as Shinji or Niiji, and it was once split into upper, lower, and new-field sections along an old highway.
Can you still see Kozashi Castle today?
No structures survive, but part of the earthen rampart around the inner citadel remains, and the site can be visited as a historic spot within the city.
Were Monden and Ikki once the same municipality?
No. At the time of the 1955 merger, Monden village and Ikki village were separate villages within Kitaaizu County. What they share is that both, along with the villages of Kono, Kozashi, Higashiyama, Oto, and Minato, seven villages in total, were absorbed into the city of Wakamatsu that same year to form today's Aizuwakamatsu.
Are all of Aizuwakamatsu's neighborhood names read the same way?
The character used is always "machi," and the city's own convention is to read it "-machi" rather than "-cho." Kozashi-machi, Ikki-machi, and Monden-machi are all read with that ending.