Yaoya Oshichi

Yaoya Oshichi (八百屋お七^?, ca. 1667 – 29 March 1683), literally "greengrocer Oshichi", was a daughter of the greengrocer Tarobei. who lived in the Hongō neighborhood of Edo at the beginning of the Edo period. She was burned at the stake for attempting to commit arson. The story (see below) became the subject of joruri plays. The year of her birth is sometimes given as 1666.

In December 1682, she fell in love with Ikuta Shōnosuke (or Saemon), a temple page, during the great fire in the Tenna Era, at Shōsen-in, the family temple (danna-dera). The next year she attempted arson, thinking she could meet him again if another fire occurred. She was caught by the police and burnt at the stake in Suzugamori for her crimes.

The magistrate at her trial, though knowing she was sixteen years old, asked her, ”You must be fifteen years old, aren't you?” At the time, boys and girls under the age of sixteen were not subject to the death penalty, and since strict family registration systems were not yet widely implemented, confirmation of age by a bureaucrat was sufficient. Misunderstanding the magistrate's intentions to try her as a minor, she replied that she was sixteen. At a loss, the magistrate asked her firmly again, ”You must be fifteen years old, are you not?” Not taking the hint again, she honestly stated her age as sixteen, leaving the magistrate no alternative but to sentence her to burn at the stake.

There is a memorial to Oshichi at Enjō-ji in Tokyo.Daien-ji in Tokyo has a Hōroku Jizō (ほうろく地蔵, hot pot Jizō) with a cooking pot on his head to symbolically take away the heat from the fire of the stake that Oshichi was sentenced upon. Cooking pots and origami cranes are still offered to this day.

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