Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重

Three goze, or blind female musicians, traverse a lonely landscape of seemingly endless rolling hills and valleys. Depicted here is Monkey Plateau, or Sarugababa, a site close to the Futakawa post station on the Tokaido road, a heavily traveled route between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto during the Edo period. Busy routes like this one were filled with music supplied by blind musicians. Licensed by local authorities, goze traveled in small groups, playing the shamisen and singing in the villages and towns on the routes. This trio is approaching a teahouse famous in the area for rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves, a confection known as kashiwa-mochi.