Shinsarugakuki (新猿楽記, also pronounced Shinsarugōki, An Account of the New Monkey Music,[1] or A Record of New Sarugaku)[2] is an 11th-century Japanese work of fiction written by Fujiwara no Akihira (989–1066).
[2] The work consists of an introduction and twenty-eight short chapters and portrays a sarugaku performance took place in Kyoto and the family of a military official Uemon-no-jō in the audience.
For example, the book provides in the introduction an account of various performances, including comic sketches, lion dances, puppets, rice-planting songs, and solo sumo wrestling.
The farmer is also present during the planting of all other crops, such as barley, wheat, soy bean, cowpea, millet, buckwheat and sesame in the regular season, assuring that they are all strictly observed, and that the workers, both men and women, who help him in this planning process, are duly rewarded.
[4] In more detail, they are "spices and fragrances such as Aloeswood (agalloch, Garro/Gharo), musk, cloves, sandalwood oil, frankincense (or retinite), birtwarth root, borneol, camphor; precious woods such as sandalwood, Sandarswood, Bichofia and sappanwood; medicines such as Alum, elixir of gold, elixir of silver, croton oil, orpiment, myrobalans, betel (areca nuts); pigments such as Gamboge, indigo, lac, verdigris, azurite, Minium, cinebar and ceruse; textiles such as twill, brocade, scarlet raiment, “elephant eye” damask, soft Koryo brocade, Tonkin brocade, silk gauze and crape; other items such as leopard and tiger skins, rattan, teacups, wicker baskets, rhinoceros horns, water buffalo (horn) scepters, agate belts, glass urns, Chinese bamboo, sweet bamboo, and hollow glass balls.