Sawayama Castle: The Tragedy of “Joro-otoshi”

Mount Sawayama, in Hikone City, Shiga Prefecture, is a quiet hill today, maintained as a hiking course. But this was once the site of Sawayama Castle, the home fortress of Ishida Mitsunari, who was defeated at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Just two days after Mitsunari’s defeat and retreat from Sekigahara, this castle fell, and his family took their own lives rather than surrender. The dead within its walls were not soldiers alone.

Origins — A Home Castle That Fell Two Days After Sekigahara

Sawayama Castle was the home fortress of Ishida Mitsunari, one of the powerful Five Commissioners under the Toyotomi regime. Mitsunari was defeated at Sekigahara by the Eastern Army under Tokugawa Ieyasu, and he fled the battlefield without ever making it back to his own castle. Left behind at Sawayama were his father Masatsugu, his older brother Masazumi, and a garrison of roughly a thousand people, including elderly soldiers and women. On September 18 of the fifth year of Keicho (1600), the Eastern Army laid siege to Sawayama Castle. The defenders are said to have held out for a full day and night, but the castle finally fell when a traitor within opened its gates to the enemy. Cornered in the keep, Mitsunari’s father Masatsugu and brother Masazumi are said to have taken their own lives rather than surrender.

Mitsunari took the castle when the Toyotomi regime entrusted him with a key part of Omi Province. The castle is said to have fallen into disrepair before then; Mitsunari carried out extensive renovations and turned it into a modern castle with a tall keep rising from the summit. A rakushu, an anonymous satirical verse of the time, is said to have gone: “Two things are too good for Mitsunari: Shima Sakon and Sawayama Castle.” It was a backhanded compliment: his retainer Shima Sakon and this castle were both, the verse suggests, more than a man of his standing deserved.

Yet daily life inside is said to have been surprisingly plain. The Edo-period essay Kasshi Yawa records that many of the rooms in the castle were floored with bare boards, the walls were left with a rough finish, and even the garden trees and stones were humble. Visitors found it unexpectedly modest. Moreover, Mitsunari himself often stayed in places such as Fushimi to carry out his duties as a commissioner, and it was his father Masatsugu who actually looked after the castle. The master of such a splendid castle was, in effect, rarely there.

The Legend of “Joro-otoshi” — A Name Left on a Cliff

A place name said to have been born in the chaos of that fall is “Joro-otoshi.” According to the story, the women inside the castle, fearing the dishonor they would suffer at the hands of the enemy soldiers, threw themselves from the cliff below the main citadel. No detailed historical record survives to confirm this, but this painful place name still quietly attests, even now, that the fall of Sawayama Castle was not a tragedy for warriors alone.

Current Conditions — A Castle Dismantled Down to Its Stones

After the castle fell, it was granted to the victorious Ii Naomasa. Rather than keep it standing, the Ii clan had it thoroughly demolished and built a new castle nearby: Hikone Castle. According to tradition, even the stones from Sawayama Castle’s walls were carried off and used as building material for Hikone Castle. It was treated almost as an attempt to erase the very memory of the castle as Mitsunari’s stronghold. No structures remain at the former site of Sawayama Castle today; all that’s left is a quiet, tree-covered hill, visible from Hikone Castle itself.

Why did the Ii clan go to such lengths? One leading explanation is concern for the feelings of the local people. If the Ii had simply moved into Sawayama Castle, the townspeople might have felt that nothing had changed except that the Ishida had been succeeded by someone else, and been unable to let go of their attachment to their former lord. So the Ii abandoned the castle and chose to build a new one nearby. Naomasa himself died in the seventh year of Keicho (1602) from a wound suffered at Sekigahara, and his eldest son Naotsugu took over the plan. Sawayama Castle was formally abandoned in the eleventh year of Keicho (1606), when the keep of Hikone Castle was completed and the Ii moved there.

Other accounts speak to the sheer scale of the destruction. The base of the keep in the main citadel is said to have been cut down by more than ten meters, the main citadel scraped until bare bedrock showed, and nearly all of the stone walls hauled away. Even so, parts of the walls, earthen ramparts, moats, and the traces of the kuruwa (the castle’s enclosures) remain today, and new remains are occasionally still discovered.

One more note on how to read the sources. Edo-period war chronicles describe Sawayama Castle as going up in flames, but the roof tiles scattered across the main and western citadels show no signs of burning, and Ii Naomasa entered the castle just the year after its fall. For these reasons some have suggested it may have been closer to a negotiated surrender than a violent fall. The image of a castle burning to the ground may be one that later stories nurtured. Incidentally, the land of the castle site belongs to Ryotan-ji Temple at the western foot of the mountain, and visitors are admitted to the mountain through the temple’s goodwill.

Reflection — A Castle That Was Erased, a Name That Was Not

What draws our attention in the story of Sawayama Castle is this: even though the physical castle was thoroughly demolished, down to the very stones of its walls, the intangible memory carried by the name “Joro-otoshi” has still been passed down, more than four hundred years later. The victors may have been able to erase a defeated enemy’s castle without a trace, but perhaps they could never fully erase the memory of what actually happened there. This is only our speculation, but we suspect it wasn’t the victors’ own chroniclers who kept this place name alive — it was local people. We wonder whether, behind this eerie but sorrowful name, lies the quiet act of mourning by nameless people who wanted to preserve, at least in the form of a place name, the final moments of women whose own names were never recorded.

This, too, is nothing more than our own imagining, but we sometimes wonder whether the final cries of the women who, with no way to escape the burning castle, leapt from that cliff, still linger somewhere on this mountain today, mixed in with the sound of the wind, four hundred years on. Even now, on today’s Mount Sawayama, maintained as a hiking course, more than a few visitors say that walking alone as the sun begins to set brings a sudden, unsettling sense that the ground beneath their feet isn’t quite solid.

This, too, is nothing more than our own speculation, but the simple fact that the name “Joro-otoshi” is still in use today feels, to us, like more than a historical record — it feels almost like a quiet warning to anyone who visits this place. If the final moments of women whose names and stories were never recorded continue to be carved into this mountain, four hundred years later, in the form of a place name, then perhaps beneath the gentle hiking trails of Mount Sawayama, a memory that has never been fully laid to rest is still sleeping.

Here we would like to widen our view a little. Even allowing for the possibility that the castle’s fall was closer to a surrender, that does not negate the legend of Joro-otoshi. It is not hard to imagine the fear and resignation that swirled among those left in a castle that had just learned of its lord’s defeat. This is our own inference, but perhaps the deaths of “people who did not fight,” the ones least likely to be written down, are the ones most likely to survive in later ages by changing shape into place names and rumors. The more official history fills up with the names of warlords, the more the deaths of the nameless are pushed out into the realm of oral tradition.

There is one more layer we want to add: the political will of the victors to “erase.” The Ii clan’s building of Hikone Castle and thorough demolition of the old one can be seen as a procedure for switching the local people’s memory over to the new rule. Yet even after the mountain, stripped of its stones, was covered in quiet greenery, it must have remained “Mitsunari’s mountain” to the people. In our view, the greater the thing that was destroyed, the more people try to protect it in an invisible form, by passing it on in stories.

And let us recall the plain living quarters and the boarded rooms. A magnificent keep, and an unadorned way of life. This contrast has long been told as an anecdote conveying Mitsunari’s earnest, serious character. This is our own inference, but the people who lived in a castle under such a lord may have been closer in temperament to quietly carrying out their daily duties than to any sort of showiness. To think that those people met their end somewhere their lord could not know makes the sorrow of the legend all the deeper.

Seen this way, Mount Sawayama is both a “mountain that mourns Mitsunari’s defeat” and a “mountain that calls to mind those left outside of winning and losing.” The more you know of its history, the more naturally your steps will slow as you walk here.

A Nearby Recommendation — Hikone Castle

About four kilometers north of the former site of Sawayama Castle stands Hikone Castle, one of Japan’s five National Treasure castles. Built by the Ii clan, hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa, after Mitsunari’s stronghold vanished, its keep, along with the Hikone Castle Museum, still vividly preserves the look of the Edo period, and from the top floor of the keep you can take in sweeping views of Hikone’s old castle town and Lake Biwa below. The castle’s mascot, Hikonyan, is a beloved draw for visitors. After reflecting on the tragedy of Sawayama, it’s worth comparing it to Hikone, a castle town that has since become a peaceful place through the passage of time.

A Note on Visiting

The former site of Sawayama Castle is now open to the public as a maintained hiking trail. This is the site of a battle and a castle’s fall more than four hundred years ago, where people genuinely lost their lives, so please visit with respect for that history rather than in the spirit of a casual thrill-seeking outing. Trail conditions can change with the season and weather, so we recommend checking with Hikone City’s tourist information for the latest details before visiting.

This article touches on a castle’s fall, on suicide, and on a legend of women throwing themselves from a cliff. If you are struggling right now, please don’t carry it alone; consider contacting a support line such as the Yorisoi Hotline (0120-279-338, free, 24 hours; in Japanese).

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Did “Joro-otoshi” really happen?

A. It’s a place name said to derive from a tradition that women inside the castle threw themselves from a cliff at the fall of Sawayama Castle, but no primary historical source confirms the details, and it remains within the realm of legend.

Q. Is anything still left of Sawayama Castle today?

A. Almost no structures remain, and even the stones from its walls are said to have been reused in building Hikone Castle. The site is now open to the public as a maintained hiking trail.

Q. Has KARASU CHANNEL filmed on location at the former Sawayama Castle site?

A. No, we have not filmed there yet; a visit is currently under consideration. Location footage for other haunted spots and kaidan stories can be viewed on KARASU CHANNEL (YouTube).