Rikishi
A, or, more colloquially,, is a sumo wrestler. Although used to define all wrestlers participating in sumo wrestling matches, the term is more commonly used to refer to professional wrestlers, employed by the Japan Sumo Association, who participate in professional sumo tournaments in Japan, the only country where sumo is practiced professionally.
Professional follow traditions dating back to the Edo period, and therefore follow a number of codes and customs in their daily lives that distinguish them from other martial artists. Their life as professionals revolves around the observance of traditional rules that apply both to their life in the community and to the way they dress, the latter rules evolving according to the rank a wrestler has reached during his career.
Coming from many nationalities, are the only employees of the Japan Sumo Association who can run the organization once they have chosen to retire. However, only a tiny fraction of wrestlers are given this opportunity, leaving the vast majority of the sport's retirees in a precarious situation.
The number of active peaked at 943 in May 1994, at the height of the "WakaTaka boom", but had declined to 599 by January 2024. The decline in the number of recruits applying to become professionals is a major topic in sumo, as it regularly breaks records for the lowest number of recruits.
Terminology
In popular use, the term refers to professional sumo wrestlers only and is an alternative term to sumotori or the more colloquial osumosan. It has been noted by authors such as Dorothea Buckingham and Mark Schilling that these terms should be preferred to 'sumo wrestler', because since sumo has little in common with Greco-Roman wrestling but more with judo or aikido, it was pointed out that it was a mistake to use the term 'wrestler' to define the competitors in sumo matches.The two kanji characters that make up the word are that of 'strength' or 'power' and 'warrior' or 'samurai' ; consequently, and more idiomatically, the term can literally be defined as 'strongman' or 'powerful warrior'.
is often defined as the more appropriate collective name for the wrestlers as a group or as individuals. The term itself comes from an abbreviation of the word, used in the early Edo period to define sumo wrestlers. There is no implication of hierarchy between and, the two terms being interchangeable. However, some wrestlers prefer to be referred to as.
A more prestigious term referring to wrestlers who have risen to the two highest divisions also exists. The word refers to senior who have significantly more status, privilege and salary than their lower-division counterparts and excludes the lower-rankers. Wrestlers who qualify as are also given the suffix at the end of their name. That term, found also in the sumo terms sekitori, and, comes from, a road barrier which was used to control the movement of people from place to place within Japan. In feudal Japan, many wrestlers were recruited from the big, strong guards who manned the. Later "" came to mean an unbeaten performance.
History
Origins of the wrestlers
Mention of wrestlers can be found in traditions predating the emergence of sumo in Japan, in traditions on the mainland of the Asian continent. In Korea, in the tombs of the T'ung-kou valley, murals depict wrestlers in loincloths seemingly performing wrestling duels for the pleasure of court nobles. Traces of wrestling activities have been demonstrated by the exhumation of pottery depicting wrestlers in Korean wrestling attire dating from the Kofun period. As sumo became embedded in Japanese myths and legends, stories of powerful wrestlers began to appear in the , and with them the first accounts of matches held during the Yamato kingship period. At the same time the function of sumo wrestler began to appear under the term. The latter were conscripts from the provinces sent to the Heian court as tribute organized by local governors who, in order to supply the court's festivities with participants, ordered the communities to send to the capital any man gifted in wrestling, horse-racing or archery. Although at the time wrestlers enjoyed a certain degree of recognition, with some being recruited into the palace guard; sending wrestlers was compulsory throughout the territory, and any delay was punishable by imprisonment. In 821, codes resembling the beginnings of etiquette were introduced at the court to organize the tournaments held during banquets. With the Minamoto clan's rise to power, sumo and its wrestlers began to shift their practice from a court entertainment to a real military training. During the Sengoku period, Oda Nobunaga made sumo a popular sport, aided by the emergence of large cities, which soon began to compete with Kyoto's cultural monopoly, as it had been Japan's only metropolis. These new cultural centres saw the emergence of wrestling groups, from both the commoners and the warrior classes, who took part in festivities at shrines.Edo period and sumo structuring
During the period of peace established under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan experienced an unprecedented period of vagrancy for many samurai who had lost their social standing with their previous masters, who had been deposed or killed so that the shogunate could assert itself. These masterless samurai, called, could not engage in any activity under their social category under threat of punishment, and with the period of peace, it had become almost impossible to be recruited by local lords who no longer needed to build up a sizeable military retinue. During the same period, sumo was gradually establishing itself as a popular sport, and two extremes coexisted side by side. On one side, certain powerful clans formed suites of wrestlers organized into royal households called, and elevated them to the status of vassals. On the other, a number of had no choice but to put their martial art skills to good use in street sumo tournaments, called, for the entertainment of passers-by. Similarly, a number of street entertainment wrestling groups formed and began touring, sometimes with the support of shrines that occasionally recruited them as part of religious festivities and to help priests raising money for the construction of buildings.Eventually, this mix of professional wrestlers and disgraced, along with the commoners who took part in the contests of strength of the street tournaments, came into conflict over money. Tense brawls, even deaths, sometimes occurred. Public order became so disturbed by 1648 that Edo authorities issued an edict banning street sumo and matches organized to raise funds during festivities. The edicts did not stop there, however, and also had an impact on wrestlers for some thirty years, with the publication of an order banning the use of, or ring name, a tradition observed since the Muromachi period. At the same time, instructions sent out to local lords advised drastic savings on suite costs, and the maintenance and recruitment of vassalized wrestlers ceased altogether. Over the next two decades or so, the wrestlers, now without any income, decided to petition the authorities to lift the bans, forming coalitions of interests to protect themselves from any violent repression of their movement.
In 1684, a named Ikazuchi Gondaiyū, leader of one of these coalitions, obtained permission to hold a tournament after proposing a new etiquette associated with matches organization. In fact, the systematization of sumo in Edo went hand in hand with the authorization of sumo tournaments. As sumo inevitably became systematized, new wrestler ranking systems were put in place with the development of the use of and the introduction of the ranks of, and.
File:Asashio Tarō I.jpg|thumb|right|200px| Asashio Tarō I with his bearing the "sparrows and bamboo" crest of the Date clan, as he wrestled under the Uwajima Domain.
Around 1717, local lords, who had ceased to maintain suites of wrestlers, revived the practice. The term also appeared at the same time, along with the more specific term, which referred to wrestlers attached to the patronage of local lords. With the emergence of etiquette, notable differences began to emerge to differentiate retainers of local lords from wrestlers who were not under the protection of a patron. were allowed to carry two swords, while wrestlers without patrons carried only one, or even a dagger. Wrestlers who took part in tournaments without the patronage of lords did not yet have samurai status or a salary and their finances depended largely on donations they could receive from the organizers of charity tournaments or admirers. Their participation was motivated in particular by the fact that they could be scouted by the lords' households, if their results or popularity were worthwhile, and by the fact that they were fed and housed for the duration of the tournament. In those days the promotion system was decided by the tournament organizers who then distributed the profits to the elders who then redistributed funds to their wrestlers, with the wrestlers under the protection of the lords receiving bonuses and having financial security and the others being kept in poverty.
The lords' wrestlers were given samurai status and a salary. They were allowed to participate as special guests in official tournaments organized with the approval of shrine authorities. During these tournaments, they represented the power of the domain in whose name they wrestled, and wore the lords' symbols on large aprons called. As representatives of their domains, wrestlers attended tournament matches at the foot of the ring, and made a point of contesting decisions unfavorable to their lords, as part of rivalries between clans. To avoid confrontations, it became customary to declare draws or postpone the decision on the outcome of a match.
Since professional sumo was intrinsically linked to the domains of the local lords, the sport also reflected their health and the political situation in Japan. During the Tenpō era, the feudal system was shaken by famine and rebellions, and the wrestlers who took part in the tournaments gradually withdrew to perform their duties at the households of the who maintained them. With this lack of the most popular figures, the public gradually deserted the tournaments, leading to a recession within the sumo associations. During the period, the feudal system collapsed, leading to a period of uncertainty about the future of the sport and therefore of wrestlers. Nevertheless, sumo had succeeded in establishing itself as a popular sport, recognized as the national sport, leading to the survival of the wrestlers' status.