Niizima Yae (新島八重)
Yae NIIZIMA (1845 - 1932) was a Japanese woman who lived from the closing days of the Tokugawa shogunate until the early Showa period. She is famous as the wife of Jo NIIJIMA, who founded the Doshisha. Her maiden name was Yamamoto. Some historical documents refer to her as 'Yaeko NIIJIMA' because she affixed a signature 'Yaeko' to some letters.
She was born to Gonpachi YAMAMOTO, who was a gunnery instructor of the Aizu clan, and his wife, Saku. She is famous for having worn her hair bobbed, been dressed like a man, rendered service with gunnery, an art handed down from her father to her and fought hard in the battle where Aizu Wakamatsu-jo Castle was besieged, during the Boshin Civil War.
Thereafter, she married a man descended from a clansman family serving the Aizu Domain, which the Yamamoto family also served; however, she soon divorced him on grounds of incompatibility. In 1871, she went up to Kyoto where Kakuma YAMAMOTO, her real elder brother, whom she relied upon, served as an advisor to Kyoto Prefecture. The following year, she took office as principal and probationary teacher of a special school for women named Kyoto Nyokoba (the predecessor of the present Kyoto Municipal Horikawa High School) on the recommendation of her brother. The mother of Soshitsu SEN XIII (Ennosai) was working for this school as a tea ceremony instructor. This served as a starting point for Yae's interest in the tea ceremony.
She became acquainted with Jo NIIJIMA, who regularly visited her brother, then left the school and started to make arrangements for the wedding in 1875, and married him in January of the following 1876. She made good use of her experiences of working at Kyoto Nyokoba to contribute suggestions to the operation of the Doshisha. It is said that Jo, who had grown accustomed to Western-style ladies-first customs, and Yae, who was a proactive woman, were a well-matched couple.
In 1890, her husband suddenly died of illness. They had no children, and the Niijima family did not have any male members other than Jo at that time; therefore, Yae received a child for adoption. However, it is said that she was estranged from this adopted son. It is also said that Yae gradually became estranged from the Doshisha because she could not get along with Jo's disciples who supported the Doshisha thereafter. Placed in such a lonely situation, Yae was supported by Ennosai, whom she had become acquainted with while having worked for Kyoto Nyokoba; thereafter, she became a direct disciple of Ennosai to become a master of the tea ceremony, and qualified as a tea ceremony instructor. She was granted Chamei (a pseudonym specifically granted to a master of the tea ceremony), 'Sochiku NIIJIMA;' thereafter, she started tea ceremony classes for women in Kyoto to support herself and contributed to the propagation of the Urasenke school of tea ceremony.
Yae rendered services by serving as a volunteer nurse during the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, and as a result, she was awarded a silver cup at the enthronement ceremony held on the occasion of the Emperor Showa's accession to the throne in 1928. Four years later, she died at her own residence (presently called 'Niijima Jo's Old House') located at Teramachi-dori Street, Marutamachi-dori Street agaru. She was 88 years old. Her grave site is adjacent to her husband's one in Doshisha Cemetery located in Kyoto Municipal Cemetery at Nyakuoji, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto City.