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BLIND PEOPLE IN GENERAL

  In Comic Hokusai, you can see characteristic figures of 
the blind dedicating massage, playing various music 
insturuments like koto, shamisen, biwa and kokyu(a Chinese 
fiddle).
  It is surprising how keen the eyes of the artist were as 
we can see at a glance that they were with eyesight 
disability although it is not cynically depicted nor 
especially exaggerated.
  There we can observe many ordinary blind persons who 
popularized achievements of Yatsuhashi kengyo and Sugiyama 
kengyo, even though they hadn't marked the zenith of it like
those two kengyo.
  Massage is principal occupation of the blind, we often 
associate the job automatically with the blind. It is said 
that in those days of Hokusai, there were already peddling 
massagers known well with their pipe whistle.
  It is also believed that most of players of koto, shamisen
and teachers who instructed them to dilettante in those days
were mostly blind people.
　Although it could not serve as a good example, there is an
episode that a kengyo refused to teach shamisen to people of
kabuki theater saying that We don't have any skill to teach 
to theater folk like you.
  It shows how much pride and dignity he had in those days. 

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