Therefore, all narratives about the commoners in the Heian period were more or less mediated. In this case, the petitions were not voiced by the commoners, but through the local notables who could write. The court aristocrats could not knew a lot about the commoners in the provinces, unless they went there in person. The court aristocrats’ igonorance of the provincial life is evidenced in the absence of the detailed description about Suma in The Tale of Genji. As a female, the author of the novel, Murasaki Shikibu, was unlikely to have the experience of traveling to the provinces, not even to mention talking to the commoners. Like his character Genji, “everything at Suma was different”, and mountain folks were “a mystery” to her (Shikibu
Therefore, all narratives about the commoners in the Heian period were more or less mediated. In this case, the petitions were not voiced by the commoners, but through the local notables who could write. The court aristocrats could not knew a lot about the commoners in the provinces, unless they went there in person. The court aristocrats’ igonorance of the provincial life is evidenced in the absence of the detailed description about Suma in The Tale of Genji. As a female, the author of the novel, Murasaki Shikibu, was unlikely to have the experience of traveling to the provinces, not even to mention talking to the commoners. Like his character Genji, “everything at Suma was different”, and mountain folks were “a mystery” to her (Shikibu