Wandering Street Vendors, the Botefuri – The Poor Entrepreneurs of Edo Who Carried the Metropolises of the Shogunate on Their Shoulders

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

The Excluded, Indispensable to Urban Life

At dawn, the streets of Edo pulse with sounds, scents, and motion. Before the first rays of sunlight can reflect off the calm surface of the canals, the city is already awake—it never truly sleeps. Narrow alleyways echo with the cries of vendors: “Hiyakkoi mizu da yo!”, “Namadako, madai!”, “Tokoroten! Tokoroten!”. Figures weave through the crowds, bearing long poles across their shoulders, with baskets and boxes full of goods hanging from either end. They carry rice balls, tofu, hot sweet potatoes, dried fish, colorful fans, goldfish, and children’s toys. These are the botefuri—wandering street vendors who, like mobile shops, fed, clothed, and satisfied the desires of the world’s largest metropolis of the eighteenth century.

But botefuri are not merely figures from ukiyo-e prints or boisterous peddlers from urban legend. They represent a living microcosm of Tokugawa society, full of contrasts and paradoxes. In an age when some merchant families—such as Mitsui and Sumitomo—handled fortunes, financed daimyō, and established proto-banking institutions, and when tonya oversaw the commerce of entire regions, the botefuri stood as the lowest link in that structure. Without shops, guilds, or privileges, but armed with a pole, a voice, and a keen sense of timing. And though their earnings were meager and their social status even more so, it was they who met the city’s most basic needs: water in summer, warmth in winter, dinner after a long day. They were the last, yet indispensable element in the urban economy—the missing cog without which the entire organism would grind to a halt.

At a time when Edo had more inhabitants than Paris and London combined, and when the majority were solitary men—samurai without families, peasants without land, laborers without roofs over their heads—it was the botefuri who met the city's needs. Tireless, mobile, agile, they formed a complex distribution network without which the city would have suffocated. Today, their memory lives on in the calls of market sellers and the hum of bustling side streets. But to truly understand this phenomenon, one must delve deeper—into a world where a humble pole with baskets full of goods at either end was a symbol of modernity and entrepreneurship. Let us then explore what urban life was like in the days of the Edo shogunate.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

Who Were the Botefuri?

Colorful, lively, and constantly on the move—wandering through the bustling streets of Edo—the botefuri (棒手振 – “pole + hand + to sell”) were an inseparable element of the urban landscape during the Tokugawa period. Their figures, bent under the weight of baskets suspended from their shoulders, appear not only in paintings and woodblock prints but also in the language and cultural memory of the era. They were sometimes referred to as furiuri (振売), which literally means “those who shake their goods”—from the verb furu (振る), meaning “to shake,” “to swing,” or “to sway.” This term was no coincidence—botefuri would often walk the streets, rhythmically swinging their wares suspended on a wooden yoke called tenbinbō (天秤棒 – “balance + scale + pole”), loudly calling out to potential customers. Their presence was audible, visible, almost physically palpable—they were the living, dynamic background of urban life.

Their merchandise was simple and portable—vegetables, tofu, bowls, brooms, sweets, paper, charcoal, fish, tokoroten (chilled agar noodles), fried sweet potatoes, and in summer, even small bowls of cold sweetened water with rice flour dumplings—known as hiyamizu. Their work had one essential characteristic: the absence of fire, meaning they could not prepare hot food on the spot. Botefuri offered items ready to eat or use, which made them exceptionally mobile and safe—in a city regularly ravaged by fires, open flames in public space were strictly forbidden.

Botefuri operated without guilds, permits, or privileges—which is precisely why they were so often represented by people from society’s margins. When the bakufu decided in 1659 to regulate the activity of street vendors, it introduced a licensing system intended not only to organize the commercial space of the city but also to provide aid to those marginalized by society. According to the new regulations, the legal right to work as a botefuri was primarily granted to the elderly (over 50), children (under 15), and people with physical disabilities. In practice, it was not just an act of administrative control, but also a form of early social welfare—a way to provide income to those who had no other means of subsistence within the rigid structure of feudal society. Over time, these restrictions began to be ignored, and becoming a botefuri turned into the simplest form of self-employment—it only took a few coins to buy merchandise, a pole with baskets, and knowledge of where to go with one’s wares.

For many unemployed individuals, peasants who had fled their villages, people who had lost everything in fires or other disasters, and newcomers from the provinces with no means of livelihood—becoming a botefuri was the most straightforward way to earn money. One didn’t need to learn a trade, belong to a guild, own a shop, or even have connections. All it took was visiting a wholesaler or a wealthy merchant who would lend a pole and baskets, provide an advance of 600–700 mon (approximately 7,000–8,000 yen in today’s value—at the time, equivalent to about 2–3 days of modest meals) for the first round of merchandise, and then… push the novice out into the street. The vendor would return in the evening, repay the money with a small interest, and whatever remained was their daily profit. On average—580 to 600 mon a day, enough for a modest life. Some saved up in hopes of becoming independent vendors, others lived day to day—because in Edo, not everyone had a family, and many residents were solitary men.

But botefuri were not merely “people from the margins.” In many cases, they demonstrated entrepreneurship, adaptability, and cleverness. They adjusted their product selection to the seasons—selling chilled foods and goldfish in summer, roasted sweet potatoes and warm red bean soup in winter. Some even devised entire marketing strategies—like the chili pepper vendor who wore a giant, nearly two-meter paper chili on his back to attract children, who in turn brought their mothers (and their wallets). Their calls were colorful, rhythmic, and distinctive—dynamic audio advertisements, Edo-style. They often created their own local subcultures of commerce—so recognizable that artists like Kitagawa Morisada devoted entire series of illustrations to documenting their style, the way they carried their baskets, their calls, and even the regional differences between vendors from Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka.

Botefuri were more than just vendors. They were the living bloodstream of Edo, a reflection of its needs, inequalities, and ingenuity. Carrying their goods through the city, they connected different worlds—the hungry and the full, the everyday and the festive, the poor and the aspiring. Their presence was so ubiquitous that, as one chronicler wrote, “on the map of Edo, there were more botefuri than trees.”

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

What Did They Sell?

In the morning, before the sun had fully risen above the densely packed rooftops of Edo’s houses, the silhouettes of botefuri were already gliding through the alleys—their voices signaling the start of the city’s day, just as a rooster’s crow would in the countryside. Each carried across their shoulders a tenbinbō—a wooden rod resembling a balance beam, with baskets, boxes, or pails suspended on either end. And what did they bring to the residents?

Everyday Food: The Citizens of Edo Do Not Cook

Edo was a city of men—samurai, laborers, students, solitary officials. Few had the time or space to cook for themselves, which is why it was the botefuri who provided the city with its basic nourishment. Their baskets brimmed with tofu, still steaming, sold in various forms: firm (momen), soft (kinugoshi), and sometimes sweet-fried. Alongside the tofu was tokoroten—a jelly-like snack made from seaweed, cut into long threads and served with vinegar.

Some offered sweet potato snacks, others carried small boxes of sushi—but not the kind we know today. Edomae sushi was a form of fast food “to go,” wrapped in bamboo leaves: rice with pressed seaweed, slices of tamagoyaki, herring, or octopus (learn more about this here: The True Origins of Sushi – Fast Food in the Bustling Streets of Edo under the Tokugawa Shogunate).

Their boxes also held dried fish, portions of rice, soybeans, and even bowls of miso soup sold in returnable ceramics.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

Flavors of the Seasons: Food in Harmony with Nature

The rhythm of Edo was dictated by the seasons, and the botefuri were like a walking calendar on the streets. In spring, they would carry fresh bamboo shoots (takenoko)—crispy and aromatic, a symbol of new life. In summer, they sold hyakkoi mizu—cold water with added sugar and rice flour dumplings (mochi)—a refreshing drink sold for just a few mon. The vendor would call out loudly: “Hiyakkoi, hiyakkoi!” meaning “Chilly, chilly!”

In winter, their baskets would be filled with mikan tangerines, the symbolic fruit of the New Year, along with warm sake, sweet red bean soup with rice dumplings (oshiruko), and roasted chestnuts. In autumn, botefuri offered matsutake mushrooms—a luxurious delicacy, fragrant like a forest after rain.

Unusual, Curious, and Surprising Goods

Not all of them sold food. In some baskets, goldfish swam in clay jars. Others offered “singing” insects—crickets and cicadas in bamboo cages, the CDs or MP3 players of Edo times. Some botefuri sold fans, incense, toys, washi paper, or even furoshiki—multi-purpose wrapping cloths used for everything from gifts to lunchboxes.

On the outskirts of Edo, even more unusual items were sold: ashes from hearths (used as fertilizer or cleaning agent), used candles (for remelting), and even old calendars and paper scraps, which were directed into a kind of early recycling system.

The Art of Street Commerce – Performance as Salesmanship

Street selling in Edo was a form of theater. Botefuri didn’t just carry their goods—they presented, promoted, and praised them in a way we would now call branding. Many wore gigantic paper props of their wares—for example, enormous red chili peppers, fans bigger than their heads, or fake tamago made of papier-mâché. They shouted slogans whose melodic rhythms were recognizable from afar:

"Namadako! Madakai! Taiya-tai!"
(Octopus! Mackerel! Sea bream straight to your hands!)

Some of these chants were so distinctive that they were preserved in literature and ukiyo-e prints. The street noise of Edo was its music—and botefuri were the loudest and most creative soloists.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

The Social Microcosm of Botefuri in Edo

Amid the clamor of Edo's daily life—one of the most densely populated cities in the world—botefuri were not merely vendors. They were living cells in the urban organism—flexible, able to reach where needed, and indispensable in distributing food and goods in conditions where traditional logistics simply didn’t work. In a city of narrow streets, ceaseless movement, and a constantly shifting population, people were needed who could go where no ordinary shop could reach: into cramped alleys, behind temples, under bridges, between samurai quarters and merchant districts. Botefuri were distributors of the everyday, operating between institutional commerce and private households, between the official economy and immediate need.

But their role also carried a deeper social dimension, often overlooked by economic perspectives alone. Botefuri represented a quiet system of social support in a society that had yet to develop any notion of public welfare. The licenses issued by the bakufu starting in 1659 were not merely tools of regulation—they were also a means to provide employment to those whom Confucian hierarchy pushed to the margins: children, the elderly, and the physically disabled. Paradoxically, this model was more humane than many modern systems—it was built on the assumption that society must find a place for its most vulnerable, even if that place was on the street, with a basket of tofu and a sales chant on one’s lips.

Of course, Edo’s reality was more complex. Although licenses were theoretically limited to certain groups, in practice street vending also attracted the unemployed, provincial migrants, and the desperate—since it was one of the few occupations that required no initial capital, education, or connections. One only needed the strength to carry, walk, and speak. Yet this low barrier to entry was a double-edged sword. The lack of oversight and intense competition bred opportunities for fraud, and stories of vendors faking meat (e.g., making "chicken" from dried okara—the pulp left after making tofu) were more than just urban legends. In the Shōsai Manpō, it was noted with disgust that some sold “fake meat made of tofu” or mixed spices with sand to increase volume.

This contrast—between the honest botefuri and the swindler, between a mission of care and cynical exploitation of the system—reflected broader social tensions in the Edo period. It was a stratified world, but one full of leaks. Official ideology exalted the samurai and scorned the merchant, yet in practice, it was the merchants—especially the lowest tier like the botefuri—who kept the metropolis alive through the rhythm of daily exchange. They were both victims of the system and its silent heroes.

In their world resided the entire microcosm of Edo: poverty and creativity, oppression and care, routine and unpredictability. Perhaps this is why botefuri appear so often in contemporary literature, ukiyo-e prints, and even in gossip and memoirs. For to tell the story of the botefuri is to tell the story of people who faced the city every morning—with goods on their backs and dignity on their faces.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

Masterful Organization

In the Edo period, there were no warehouses, refrigerators, or delivery vans. Goods spoiled quickly, and fresh products were needed—just like today—every single day. In a city as massive and densely populated as Edo—with a population exceeding one million, no sewage system, wooden buildings, and narrow streets—the distribution system had to be fast, flexible, and alive. Botefuri were its lowest yet essential link. But alongside them existed a more formal world of trade—with wholesale stores, rice depositories, official guilds, and the mysterious chaya system.

The absence of refrigeration and kitchens in many urban homes meant that food had to be purchased daily—often right on the street, from a botefuri. But at the same time, intermediate points emerged, such as chaya (茶屋 – literally “teahouses”), which over time began to function as storage spaces, warehouses, or even distribution hubs. It was there that botefuri could pick up goods prepared by the owners, with which they then went out into the city. Transactions were recorded on chaya-fuda (茶屋札)—wooden tags bearing a signature and symbol—forming a kind of proto-invoice. Sometimes the chaya owner would give goods to the botefuri on credit—trust had to be great, but the system functioned for decades.

On the other end of the chain were the wholesale merchants—especially those clustered around the Nihonbashi Bridge, the financial and commercial heart of Edo. It was there that fishermen and rice traders brought their goods, and where botefuri, who were slightly more organized and independent, could purchase fish, vegetables, or even charcoal for resale. Some of them operated without the classic tenbinbō—instead of carrying baskets themselves, they rented carts, used crates, or hired others to do the lifting. Unlike the botefuri working on the outskirts, these “urban” ones were often tied to specific neighborhoods or clientele and traded along established routes.

All of this reveals the remarkable multi-layered structure of Tokugawa-era commerce. At its summit stood powerful merchant families such as Mitsui and Sumitomo—running vast commercial houses (gofukuya) dealing in silk, credit, financing of daimyō, and later even banking. Beneath them were the wholesalers, tonya (問屋), who controlled entire industries and cities. Further down were shopkeepers, roadside stall owners, and pavilion vendors. And at the very bottom of this intricately constructed pyramid—botefuri, people without shops, without surnames, without guild crests.

They were the ones who filled the gaps between wholesaler and consumer, between morning and noon, between a dream and a fleeting need. Without botefuri, the urban metabolism of Edo would have stalled—there would have been no hot sweet potatoes for the boy returning from the temple, no cold water for the weary worker, no newspapers, insects, or fans for the women gazing out the window. And though their social status was low, they were closest to daily life—pulsating, diverse, and fragile as a paper lantern at dusk.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

What happened to the botefuri?

When the Edo period came to an end, it wasn’t only the Tokugawa shogunate that fell. The entire urban lifestyle changed—its rhythms, scents, and sounds. With the arrival of the Meiji era in 1868, Japan launched a rapid modernization—not only importing locomotives and machinery but also new visions of cities, trade, and logistics. Along streets where once botefuri called out their tofu and tangerines, bicycles with baskets began to roll. Later—trucks. In place of the tenbinbō came shops, kiosks, and warehouses. The state introduced modern regulations, and society adopted new hierarchies. The botefuri, symbol of flexible, grassroots entrepreneurship, began to vanish from the urban landscape.

But their spirit did not disappear completely. Contemporary Japan, though digital and modern, retains echoes of the old botefuri world. Summer festivals draw crowds to goldfish-seller stalls—carrying clay jars reminiscent of those from Edo. Amezaiku—sugar sculptures shaped before the eyes of passersby—imitate the craft of movement: the art of fleeting attention and instant sales. Even today’s street cries—those short, melodic calls of yaki-imo (roasted sweet potato) or ramen vendors from mobile carts—recall the old botefuri songs, voices that carried not just goods but the rhythm of the city.

Botefuri were more than peddlers. They were a living metaphor for everyday life in Edo. Their journey through the network of alleys, carrying a pole and baskets, was like a bloodstream—a physical connection of needs, relationships, and the right moments. They were movement and moment, the announcement of lunch and the memory of childhood. Their voices—sharp, nasal, trained—were like the haiku of daily life: fleeting, precise, rooted in a specific time and place.

Today, when we look at old woodblock prints depicting their figures, when we hear the singing voice of a sweet potato seller on an autumn street in Osaka, when we see a boy with a plastic bag of goldfish—botefuri echo back to us. For although they vanished from the map, they never disappeared from Japan’s memory.

An essay about a social group in Tokugawa shogunate Japan—the botefuri, Edo's itinerant street vendors. - text divider

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