Recreational research into Feudal Japan
Link: A Roll of Japanese Armory
Jun 12th (a Sembu (先負))
Just found an article that’s apparently been up for a while on the Academy of Saint Gabriel where the illustrious Solveig Throndardottir discusses family crests: A Roll of Japanese Armory. It’s short, but it features several pages of mon from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, which is handy for those seeking a wider selection of Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573 to 1603) mon.
Hut in Progress
Jun 5th (a Tomobiki (友引))
I’ve long planned on making a hut based on the one described by Kamo no Chōmei in his An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut, and I’ve finally put some actual time into building it. Chōmei, after a political failure, fled the capital to become a Buddhist hermit, and while doing so wrote an account of his way of life that’s both widely acclaimed in Japan (and often compared to Walden) and handy for anyone trying to recreate such a setup. His hut is actually described as being collapsible, with hinges, for easy transport, and while mine is based more around what I can get for cheap at Home Depot than precise levels of authenticity, that is the right spirit for a SCA structure. I probably won’t have it done for Pennsic this summer, but nothing’s impossible. So far, I’ve got the frame for one wall, and it seems to be working pretty reasonably.
I’ll post some detailed instructions when I’m done, but here are some tidbits so I don’t forget.
- I seem to drill my holes with enough randomness that I can put two screws longer than half the thickness of my wood directly opposite each other without them hitting.
- If at all possible, orient your wood such that you’re not drilling through a knot.
Link: Wax-resist Dyeing
Jun 2nd (a Daian (大安))
I just found a cool description of Japanese wax resist (“batik”) dyeing (rōketsuzome/ろうけつ染め) at Blue Lotus. This way of adding a design to cloth goes back to the Nara period (710–794)(ja.wp:ろうけつ染め) and is one technique that was used to put designs such as mon on kimono. This is something I’ve been wanting to experiment with for a while, and it’s nice to see an easy-to-read description of the modern process in English.
Link: Samurai Heraldry: Flags and Standards of Samurai Armies
Dec 27th (a Tomobiki (友引))
It’s still a while before the lunar New Year, but I hope those of you with modern holidays are enjoying them. Perhaps one of these winters I’ll actually girl up to building a Sei Shonagon-style snow mountain. I just wanted to follow up my recent link post on samurai banners: some more banner depictions by the same artist and more background information can be found in a forum thread: Samurai Heraldry: Flags and Standards of Samurai Armies. May the your modern New Year be auspicious to you all.
Two Mysterious Mon
Dec 13th (a Shakkō (赤口))
Finishing off the provincial samurai mon, I have two flower designs that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere and haven’t figured a convincing explanation for.(KJ:7) Flower variations are probably the most common type of mon, so it’d make sense that there were variations that didn’t catch on, but the specific flowers these are supposed to be remains a mystery to me. The first perhaps is on a melon, and the second has an intricate angled square design. Maybe one of you will have some insight?
Mon of the Week: Bowl with Chopsticks
Dec 5th (a Sembu (先負))
The basic bowl-with-chopsticks design, simply a circle above two horizontal lines, was first used as a seal in ancient times. It is associated with a tale about the founder of the Narita family: faced with a battle after running out of provisions, he visited a shrine, ate the offering of rice left there, and proceeded to fight most impressively.(Dower:106) This variation, from the collection of provincial samurai mon,(KJ:7) has filled in the bowl with a simple perpendicular-lines pattern of a type used on fabric..
Mon of the Week: Knot
Nov 28th (a Tomobiki (友引))
Continuing with the provincial samurai mon, we have this simple depiction of a knot.(KJ:7)
This is not just any knot, however. This knot is called “agemaki” (総角) and auspiciously symbolizes the four directions. It is hung above sumo rings, and was used on samurai armor both for decoration and as a structural component.(Samurai Weapons) For these reasons and its graphical simplicity, it makes a lot of sense as a samurai mon. Slightly more stylized depictions continue to be used in mon today,(Kamon Composition Maker) albeit rarely.
Less relevantly, it names a similar-looking historical (but later) hairstyle and type of dance in kabuki. Nowadays, they are used to decorate cars in Japan’s “VIP style”.(Diamond Zeus)
On Kissing
Nov 22nd (a Tomobiki (友引))
Once, many years ago, I read the following in Shinjū, by Laura Joh Rowland, a mystery novel set in Edo Japan.
But he’d never tried seppun, the exotic practice of touching mouths that had been introduced to Japan by the banished foreign barbarians. (p. 123)
Being naturally a trusting sort, I took this at face value and assumed the Japanese hadn’t kissed before the Portuguese arrived in 1542. But more recently, I read an interesting passage in the Tosa Journal, written around 935 by a courtier.(CJP:77)
People simply kissed the lips of pressed salted trout. (I.e., nibbled at their heads.) Do you suppose the trout found it romantic?
Is this evidence of pre-Western-influence romantic kissing? Certainly looks like it. But absent other evidence, I had to wonder what exactly was in the original and if anything had been added in translation. Looking at the original, several things are clear. The expression here is “kuchi wo sufu”1, literally “suck lips”, which does seem to specifically be an idiom for kissing. The romantic bit turns out to be “omofu yau ara n ya”, something along the lines of “perhaps they helplessly have longing”, omofu having among its various possible interpretations ‘think of’, ‘recall fondly’, ‘long for’, ‘love’, and ‘cherish’. I think we can fairly say, then, that my doubts of Dr. McCullough’s translation were unmerited. As for Westerners having introduced romantic kissing to the Japanese, as we say in the biz, “Myth Busted!”
I have also posted a complete translation of these two sentences.
Many thanks to Mister Bean (ミスター ビーン), whose analysis and translation of this passage into modern Japanese was quite helpful.
Mon of the Week: Enclosed Plover
Oct 25th (a Tomobiki (友引))
At the other end of the spectrum in terms of realism from the Perching Hawk is this mon below, from the same collection of provincial samurai mon.(KJ:7) The highly stylized bird in the middle is a plover, and this depiction of plovers is still common through the present day. Plovers were a common motif in Japanese poetry, with connotations of longevity based on their cry “chiyo” (thousands of generations).(Komuso) More mysterious is the enclosure around the plover. It bears some similarity to a piece of horse equipment (aori/泥障) that would hang from the saddle and sit between the rider’s legs and the horse’s body; these could be decorated with mon the way the plover image appears here. This explanation isn’t entirely convincing, so there could be other possibilities.
