Would nishikigoi had developed outside of Japan?

[MikeM]

Niigata is the home of Nishikigoi... not Japan.

Before there was electricity, reliable transportation, media entertainment, or the other mundane features of contemporary life, there was a people in desolate mountains, wed to the barren land by feudal custom. Uneducated, impoverished, and isolated. During the winter months they were even isolated from one another. In the snowbound darkness of winter, with every piece of fuel precious, the boredom had to be indescribable, but all the senses would be sharpened by the quiet ... and the certainty that survival could not be assumed. For days and weeks. And months of deep snows.

And in the mean structure considered home were the carp saved as the source of life in the year ahead. Would they be ignored? The living things that spoke no words, but moved about in their rough reservoir. Those carp would be the center of much attention. Just as the arabian tribes would study the stars and develop astronomy in their barren desert homeland, and the native peoples of the arctic would develop more descriptions of snow than our language can convey, the Niigata peasants would study their source of life on those long tedious times. Imagine how in such a world the one that was red or white or even just mottled must have been seen. All that had been for generations before was changed.

And when a peasant braved the snows to visit a neighbor down the road? What was there to say or do? What that had not been done repeatedly for a hundred years of short-lived generations of these mountain people? It is not difficult to hear one say: "The white one is getting a black spot." There is a cause for serious discussion.The unchanging repetition of days was broken.

Niigata. It had to be Niigata. There had to be isolation. There had to be poverty. There had to be little freedom of movement. There had to be winter. There had to be a community. There had to be a culture that valued beauty in nature. Not scandinavia, the people moved about. Not north america, there was great richness of foodstuffs, even in winter for nomadic peoples. China? Perhaps, but the chinese sense of beauty was drawn from the fantastic, the monsters of imagination where deformed goldfish and deformed feet are beautiful. Central europe? They did create the better food fish with gross size and lacking scales, but those people's were to survive by their ingenuity in warmaking, not in artistic appreciation. Isolation is a form of security.

A thousand monkeys would not know what they had done, and so it would be lost. In Niigata they knew.

It had to be Niigata.

[matt]

wow. beautifully said Mike.

That should be part of a forward to a koi book. If you do not write one, somone should quote you.

[dick benbow]

I think you have to really look at the people and the culture of Japan
to appreciate it could not have happened anywhere else.
Look at the influenence China had. Yet the japanese people changed thier major arts and religion to suit thier own culture. look at bonsai, also gardens,quite different in japan than china. look at the religion, it came from india via china yet without the two japanese sects that defined buddism in japan today. things would not be as it is. China developed carp with extreme body shapes and finage, Japan was seeing a more natural expression
The art of suiseki, rock appreciation gives an idea of the ability to notice subtle images of things recognizable in the world around them.
It was the japanese people that noticed besides color, things like gin rin
and the scaless carp of germany.

[Fishbreeder]

That is quite an interesting question with many thoughtful responses.

I have to beleive the answer lies between. I've no doubt that "colored carp" would have come around at some place and some time. Too many carps being bred around the world for food that would eventually bring out unusual variants.

Too many other parallels. Dogs, chickens, horses cows, sheep. etc. all having been selectively bred, ultimately for show. Even in more recent times selectively bred ornamental fish af many species. The search for unusual and beautiful specimens through selective breeding is inherint to mankind in general.

Saying that much, without fish farmers in Niigata, Japan, who had lives steeped in culture and tradition, there would be no koi as we see them today.

Koi are the result of a lot more than simple selective breeding of domesticated livestock. The murky beginnings might have been along those lines, but the koi we've seen for at least the last fifty years are different. The koi we see today, and have seen since the onset of "Modern Nishikigoi" many decades ago, are the result of powerful vision as developed from the culture and the life of the breeders in Niigata and directed through selective breeding and keeping techniques there. The work others have done has been built upon that initial foundation.

So, for me, koi as we know them today are uniquely Japanese. Any other type of colored carps that might have come along as the result of some other culture/situation/process would not be "koi."

Brett

[luke frisbee]

All the "sizzle" of the carp steak was developed by the Japanese, So "koi" wouldn't have been "developed" anywhere but in the good ol Ni Pon A.
But thinking that humans back then were bored is egocentric thinking. Struggling to survive is not boring. The religions back then were more central to ones life and definitely were not boring, AND lastly no matter where someone lives, or in what time, if they are bored they are the bore.
To simplify major populations and determine discoveries came from boredom is not right.
As in the arabs and there rapid development of navigatiing by the stars. Several factors aided the rapid development:
The first was that the terrain(desert) was an ever changing sea of sand dunes. therefore trails (trade routes) were never permanent, or even semi-permanent. (there was a need)
The second was that travelling at night was preferred due to high day time temperatures. (there was a solution)
And thirdly the skies are much more consistently clear in that global region. (it was even easier for people in this region)
the last I'll mention is that navigating using the stars was easier to come to understand than navigating on open water due to a solid platform and the additional variable concerning currents. (and of course other populations and races needed to navigate using the stars they just had more obstacles to overcome.)
other populations in different parts of the world either had a stable land and landmarkers or were unlikely to have a clear or stable sky.(ditto)
And the above is still a simplistic veiw, but alittle more fleshed out than the "barren desert" theory. (politics, religion, trade secrets, dogma)

has anyone promoted the idea that the unique coloration of koi might have been developed for practical reasons? easier to catch them if you can see them, and they'd look cooler on a plate.

I'm not looking to argue, just to point out ain't nothing simple and ain't none of them people back then thought the same way as you or me.

[Doug Ward]

I just want to get the first largemouth Kohaku that Brett shows up with !

Heres a link to Waddys Koi history comments
http://www.koikichi.com/info/article...revisited.html

[MikeM]

Yeah, Luke. A bit of poetic license taken. I recall clearly the stories of winter told me by elders who knew Appalachia as the only world that existed before electrification. The snows there are not so often nor so deep. Strange and beautiful interests arise when poverty and time seem to have no end ... and one's vision of the possible is limited by the past. Different from feudal status, but only in degree.

If you have Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson around, read the chapter entitled Sad Irons. .. in volume II I think. Niigata pre-electrification would have had to be so much worse than rural Texas in the early part of the last century. ... How loudly I complain if the air conditioning goes out for a night.

The notion that necessity is the mother of invention is not one I find very satisfactory. The needs have existed since pre-history, but invention occurs in spurts. I think of it more as necessity preserves invention; and the human need to fill the time on one's hands triggers the curiosity that breeds invention. Of course, today, the weekly paycheck has its role. In any event, we do not disagree on the conclusion, just on the steps of getting there.

DOUG: Great link. I'll not argue with that gentleman.

[Bancherd]

Brian, is this a trick question? Of course NOT!. Nishikigoi is a Japanese word, is it not? :lol:

Seriously. I think it is possible but might not be as refined as we know today.

[luke frisbee]

MikeM,
Another explanation for the advancement of our knowledge was posed by one of my science prof's. He said that social disruption/stress was a prompter of understanding. He pointed to many examples, but the one I remember is that Newton was forced to be out on the farm when he was "hit on the head by that apple" because of the plague. Everyone with Money fled the towns when the plagues were rampant.

luke

[James P]

Colored carp appeared in many other countries over the last several centuries. Notably, China as many of you have mentioned. But also Korea, Europe and Eurasia. But these are mutations and not test crosses. I believe only the Japanese had both the mutation and cross approach. They also had a very unique gene pool. Not just local feral carp as an isolated genetic pool but also imported genetic pools of food, feral and wild carp from the Dutch, Portuguese and Germans and probably Korea and China via Okinawa ( and Kyushu by association). . This capturing of wild carp, their isolation to create a ‘unique pool’, and then release back into the wild, creates a very unique situation. That is, creatures that can breed readily but have distinct and unique genetic mixes within groups and individuals. The number of mutations and possibilities from crosses is compounded dramatically.
So from as far back as the Roman empire, Chinese dynasties and Babylonia kingdoms, carp have been isolated and released ( escaped actually) to form new combinations of genetic pools.
And finally to this stew add the power and magic of culling. When you have an entire population of a region making a living from this some powerful results are bound to occur.
Isolation of genetics, isolation of a people, love of carp as a myth figure , long winters, good water ,large water systems and fish as a main stay of diet-- it all comes together!


JR