By Alexandra Alarcon
After decades defined by motherhood and household duty, a growing number of women in Edo-period Japan—spanning the early 1600s to the mid-1800s—set off on long pilgrimages, searching not just for sacred sites, but for parts of themselves they’d never had the freedom nor space to fully explore.
“These trips and the diaries that came from them became a way to find something for themselves, after decades spent in service to others,” said Erin Trumble, a UC Santa Barbara graduate student, during a recent talk hosted by the UCSB History Department and History Associates.
Trumble’s research examines how different stages of life shaped expectations of femininity in early modern Japan, and how retirement—when women passed household duties to the next generation — allowed some to redefine themselves beyond domestic roles. Drawing on the travel diaries of Nakako, Shigako, Aijo, and Ieko, she explores how these retired women used writing and pilgrimage to assert personal identity through literature, spirituality, and self-representation.
During a recent lecture, UCSB graduate History student Erin Trumble displayed handwritten entries from the personal diaries of traveling women in Edo Japan.
“Retirement in this time period was defined as a time when they were able to pass on their household duties to their daughters-in-law,” Trumble explained. “It was a period in their lives when they had more authority, which came with age, and also more freedom to do as they pleased.”
With their family obligations behind them, Japanese women began taking extended pilgrimages, like the one Nakako took through 34 Buddhist temples in what’s now Okayama Prefecture — all dedicated to the goddess of compassion. These journeys could last weeks or even months.
Although many women traveled with family members or attendants, those companions are rarely mentioned. The writing presents the journeys as solitary, even when they weren’t—an intentional move to center the self after years of prioritizing others.
These diaries weren’t private reflections like we think of diaries today. They were carefully revised—sometimes over decades—and shared within literary and social circles. One woman began documenting her travels at 57 and didn’t finish editing her diary until she was 78. Writing wasn’t just about documenting where they went; it was a way of deciding what to preserve and how they wanted to be remembered.
While the official purpose was often religious, Trumble stressed that the diaries these women left behind show deeper personal motivations. Nakako’s, for example, blends Buddhist devotion with reflections on her troubled childhood and a desire to assert herself as a serious literary thinker.
Erin Trumble, a graduate student in history, presents her research on women’s pilgrimages in Edo Japan. The talk was hosted by the UCSB History Department and History Associates.
“Though their travel documents might have suggested that pilgrimage was their main or only goal, their diaries reflect a much greater set of interests,” Trumble said. “They all expressed religious devotion. They all traveled far beyond their original religious pursuits.”
They visited temples, but also literary landmarks, battlefields, scenic spots, and even pleasure districts.
Nakako wrote about encountering a set of monuments dedicated to female poets, an experience she found powerful and inspiring. At a time when women were rarely commemorated in public, seeing their names carved in stone offered a sense of liberation that female voices could be remembered.
“She’s really struck by them,” Trumble said. “She has this kind of emotional reaction to the fact that women poets had been made famous enough to have these monuments.” For Nakako, it marked a moment of connection—with history, with legacy, and with the possibility of leaving something of herself behind.
The diarists wrote about what interested them most, and no two diaries were quite the same. One traveler planned her route around temples that displayed samurai armor. Another sought out landscapes tied to classical poetry. A third focused on the culture of the pleasure districts, describing theater performances and nightlife in vivid detail. Each diary revealed a different part of the writer’s identity and the version of herself she wanted to present in retirement.
“All of these women had different interests and different parts of themselves they wanted to put on display in their diaries,” Trumble said. “They represented a concentrated effort to create distinct identities in their retirements.”
UCSB History scholar Erin Trumble displays an excerpt from one of the Edo-Japan era women's diaries, which reflects how writing became a space for self-expression and liberation.
While these journeys weren’t accessible to everyone, they gave women a rare chance to step outside domestic life and explore who they were on their own terms. In retirement, they weren’t just pilgrims—they were writers, thinkers, and observers, placing themselves at the center of their own stories with every step and every sentence.
Alexandra Alarcon is a graduating UCSB student who majored in Sociology and minored in Professional Writing in the journalism track. She is also a Web and Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.