Sumo Exposed: The Invention Of Tradition In Japan's National Sport

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sent that constitute a mechanism of "normative transmission" between generations (1998:2). Tradition thus serves as a tie that transcends time and binds generations together, making sure that the values and knowledge of the past survive and get adopted by new generations. The problem is, as in the case of sumo, the assumption of unilinear inheritance -- such an account implies that both the content of the culture transmitted and its origin, the culture of the past, are simple, static and monolithic (Vlastos 1998:3).

Unilinear inheritance in the case of sumo is simply not the case. Recent studies have exposed large discontinuities between the sumo of today and the sumo of "old" Japan. Harold Bolitho's study of sumo in Tokugawa period, for instance, is quick to draw a distinction between sechie-zumo, the ceremonial form of sumo performed in the imperial court prior to the rise of the Shogunate, and the sumo that arose during the mid- to late Tokugawa period, which, formed the basis of sumo as "we know it today." In Bolitho's words,

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