32Seiōbo Kasaboko
The Seiōbo kasaboko is from Tōri-chō, a former castle town of Yatsushiro Castle.
Seiōbo is a beautiful woman that appears in the Noh song, Seiōbo (Queen Mother of the West, an ancient Chinese goddess). It is an auspicious story about Seiōbo, who appears before the Emperor, praising the fact that his reign has been smooth, and dances and gives him a peach that bears fruit only once every 3,000 years.
The characters, “En, kyo, gan, nen, hinoe, ne,” which are notch marks used when assembling the kasaboko, are written on sections of the kasaboko.
Tōri-chō was called Shin-machi in the Edo period. It is said that the name of the town was derived from the fact that it was a machiya town that was allotted by new businessmen that could not be placed in Hon-machi or Nino-machi during the construction of Yatsushiro Castle town.
