stuffu

|feeling my way around sand.sea.grass.soil from under a rock*|

"Very clever," said Takashi. "You have a very nice hotel. Old style."
"Difficult to keep neat," I said. "We have nowhere to put the suitcases."
"Yes," he said. "Everyone owns many things. In the old days, the rich families, they would have a storehouse for their stuffu."
"Stuffu?"
"Stuffu," he said again, then turned to Charley. "You know, stuffu."
"Stuff, Dad," Charley said. "Worldly goods."
"The merchants got so rich, but it was against the the law for them to be higher than the samurai. Still, they have lots of stuffu. Dangerous for them to show off, I think. Cut their heads off if they get too high. So nice they build a simple house, looks simple, but very expensive to make. And they show just one expensive thing at a time, here in the tokonoma."
This was the only time I heard this intriguing suggestion, that the origins of the tokonoma lay in the old sumptuary laws.
"These days everyone has stuffu. I show you."
-- from Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey