Page 163 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing
P. 163
They sold their snails to whichever shoreline village had charge of the water in which
they dove. Villages welcomed them, sometimes giving them land in addition to fishing
rights, for every village owed a certain amount of noshi awabi to its feudal lord, who took
it to the Shinto shrines and gave it to the kami.
Sumiko's grandmother told stories of noblefolk who envied her great-great-grandmother.
She was always chasing discoveries, Sumiko said of her great-great-grandmother, free
to be a loudmouth and a dirty one at that. Highborn women had to be quiet and sweet
