SOURCE: “Tamekane's Life: The First Rise and Fall,” in Kyōgoku Tamekane: Poetry and Politics in Late Kamakura Japan, Stanford University Press, 1989, pp. 19-40.

In the following excerpt, Huey discusses Abutsu's position in the conflicts between Tameie's heirs.

To some degree Tamekane's problems were not of his own creation but repercussions of events that occurred a half-century earlier, in the days of his great-grandfather and grandfather. Tamekane's great-grandfather was the illustrious Fujiwara Teika, recognized as a poetic genius in his lifetime and practically deified by succeeding generations. His grandfather was Teika's only legitimate son, Tameie.¹

Much as Teika had wished to pass on his poetic knowledge (and his land rights) to his son, Tameie at first showed little inclination for verse; he seemed to prefer kemari (a kind of kickball). Indeed, members of the Mikohidari house, Teika's branch of the Fujiwara family, were almost as famous for their...