Chishō Takaoka lived one of the most dramatic lives in modern Japanese history. Born in 1896 in Nara Prefecture, her birth was registered at Osaka City Hall. Her mother, Oda Tsuru, died — or disappeared — when Chishō was just two years old. Her grandmother stepped in to raise her. By age seven, she was already working as a waitress in her aunt’s tea parlor. By age twelve, her father had sold her to Oume Tsujii, the courtesan of kabuki actor Onoe Kikugorō V. Her childhood was over before it truly began.
At fourteen, she was adopted by a man named Kagaya and made her debut as a geisha under the stage name Chiyoha. Her beauty was immediately striking. Her mizuage — the formal ceremony marking a geisha’s debut into adult service — was purchased by a chairperson of the Osaka stock exchange, a sign of just how much attention she commanded from the city’s wealthy elite.
At fifteen, she fell for Otomine, a well-known playboy and upscale clothing dealer in Osaka’s Higashi ward. The two eloped together to Beppu Onsen, a famous hot spring resort. But the relationship fell apart when Otomine found a photograph of a kabuki actor hidden in her hand mirror. He took it as proof of infidelity and ended the relationship.
Chishō’s response was extreme, but it was also a recognized gesture of devotion in that era. She cut off her pinky finger with a razor and gave it to Otomine as proof that she belonged to him alone. The act did not save the relationship. While Otomine was later at the Beppu spa for arthritis treatment, he reportedly proposed a love suicide pact. She refused. But she had already given him her finger in a desperate bid for his love.
Around this same time, she received news that her younger brother had been burned to death in a fire — the day before her debut. The grief from the separation and the loss of her brother hit her at once. The finger-cutting was both a declaration of love and an act born from overwhelming sorrow. The scandal made it impossible for her to stay in Osaka.
She was taken under the care of Kiyoka, a Tokyo geisha and mistress of Lord Taketatō Gōtō. During her time in Kōfuen, Mukōjima, she accumulated 3,000 yen in debt under Kiyoka’s care. But her reputation as a beauty only grew. Men came from across the city to see her.
She became one of the most photographed geisha of her time. Her image was printed on postcards and sold widely as a commercial commodity. The demand was so high that men began illegally copying and distributing the cards without her permission. Chishō took legal action against those who infringed on her rights — an unusually bold move for a woman of her time and position.
Her nickname, the “Nine-Fingered Geisha,” followed her everywhere. It was a reference to the missing pinky, the one she had cut off for Otomine. Rather than hiding from the story, her image and fame were built around it. The postcards showing her face were sold across Japan, making her one of the most recognized geisha of the early twentieth century.
Despite the chaos of her early life, Chishō was serious about learning. She was described as modest and quiet in the zashiki parlor. She read extensively and taught herself kanji through books, eventually developing skills as a writer. Her intellect set her apart from the role she had been forced into as a child.
In 1919, she married Suezo Oda, a market player from Kitahama and a runner for a motion picture company. The two traveled to the United States together. She spent eight months studying English while living in a dormitory at a girls’ school. But after returning to Japan, tensions in the marriage grew, linked to her experiences and behavior in America. She attempted suicide twice. The marriage ended in divorce.
She returned to work as a geisha and, under the name Teruha Oda, took on an acting role. In 1923, she starred in director Shiro Nakagawa’s film Ai no tobira, translated as The Gate of Love. Her real name was Tatsuko Takaoka, but the public knew her by her stage names — Chiyoha and Teruha — long before they knew anything else about her.
She married again and ran a bar in Osaka alongside a medical doctor. In 1928, she published her first autobiography, titled Teruha Zange. The book gave readers a direct account of her life in her own words. It was a rare thing — a geisha telling her own story in print.
At age thirty-nine, she made one of the most significant turns of her life. She became a Buddhist priest at Temple Kume, taking the religious name Chishō. She then traveled to Kyoto and found Giōji, a temple that had fallen into ruin. She took on the work of rebuilding it. Under her care, Giōji became a refuge for women who had suffered — a place of healing for those society had overlooked.
Her life also inspired literature. Jakuchō Setouchi, a celebrated Japanese author, based her novel Jotoku on Chishō’s story. The novel brought the geisha’s remarkable journey to an entirely new audience and cemented her place in Japanese cultural memory.
Below are more photographs of Chishō Takaoka taken across different periods of her life — from her days as one of Japan’s most photographed geisha to her later years as a Buddhist nun.
Chishō Takaoka died on October 22, 1994, at the age of 98. She had been sold as a child, survived scandal, divorce, two suicide attempts, poverty, grief, and war. She had rebuilt a ruined temple and sheltered broken women within its walls. She was born into a world that gave her no choices, and she spent her long life making them anyway.
