Pilgrimage to the Torinomachi Festival across the Ricefields of Asakusa (Asakusa tanbo Torinomachi mōde), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

A cat sits by a latticed window in a second-story room of a brothel located near the Asakusa Tanbo, literally, the "Asakusa Ricefields,” a marshy, open agricultural tract located north of Sensōji temple and surrounding the Shin-Yoshiwara pleasure quarters in eastern Edo. At twilight, Mount Fuji towers over the horizon. Across paths through the ricefields, crowds of people make their way to Washi Daimyōjin (Ōtori) Shrine to participate in the Torinomachi Festival, which was celebrated on the two (or sometimes three) days of the rooster in the eleventh month of the lunar calendar (and in November in modern times). At stalls of the festival, people buy lucky miniature bamboo rakes (kumade) decorated with symbols of prosperity and sweet yams (yatsugashira). In the lower left of the room, there is a set of rake-shaped hairpins that we may imagine were likely trinkets bought at the festival by a male client for a courtesan. In premodern times, on Torinomachi festival days, the Yoshiwara was open to everyone, including ordinary women, who were normally prohibited to enter, and it was a busy day for the denizens of the demimonde.