#134
                  134.TERAO SHIGETAKA'S COMING OF AGE, 1431
                             (Terao docs.; also KK, VIII.)
AFTER having undergone gradual changes, the ceremony of marking the attainment of majority by
a warrior in this period seems to have taken a form somewhat like the following. When he was
fifteen or more years old, a lucky day was selected for the occasion, when a relative or friend whose
personality and social position commanded respect, assisted by another, officiated. The latter pre-
pared the hair1 of the youth, and the former put upon his head a cap called eboshi, which signal-
ized his coming of age. There ensued an intimate relationship through life between him and the
officiating warrior, called, respectively, the eboshi-go and eboshi-oya, that is, cap-child and cap-
father. When the young man was thus initiated into manhood, he discarded his boyhood name,
and was given a formal name, usually written in two characters one of which was often common
with the names of his fathers. Sometimes, if the youth was of an important family, the cap-father
was his lord himself, and a part of the latter's name was granted as part of the new name to be
assumed by his cap-child.2
  In the present instance, the young man was the heir-general of the Terao branch of the Iriki-in
family, and his cap-father the eighth lord, Shigenaga, of the main stock. Dropping the name Chiyo-
wo-Maru, the lad took the name Shigetaka, which was apparently selected by his cap-father; the
first part of the new name was common to men of the Iriki-in and other families of the Shibuya.
His popular name, that is, the name by which he was informally known, was Shiro. The eboshi-oya
certified his act of christening in the following document.
This ceremony was followed by a feast, and an exchange of gifts, (see examples in the Iriki-in
genealogy appended to this volume), but no tournament; such was the sum total of the formality
of attaining knighthood in Japan. Nor was there a separate class or distinct order of knighthood
which, as in European feudalism. partly coincided with vassalage and partly was independent of
and parallel to it; knights and vassals were practically synonymous.
"Shibuya Shiro
         Taira no Shigetaka.
"Ei-kyo3y. 11 m. 15 d. [19December 1431].
                                  Dan-zho sho-hitsu Shigenaga (monogram).
      "Shibuya Shiro dono."




1 The custom of shaving the forelock, which became increasingly common after the sixteenth
century, seems to have been rare at the time of this document. As regards the shaving, cf. the
Roman customs of "capillatura" and "barbatoria"; see Guilhiermoz, Essai sur l'origine de la noblesse
en France, 405 ff., and Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, I. 77f., II, 70, n. 18.
2 Ko-zhi rui-en: rei-shiki bu, chaps. 9-11; Bu-ke zhi-ki, Chap. 44.