Recreational research into Feudal Japan
Kihō
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Posts by Kihō
Link: A Roll of Japanese Armory
June 12, 2011 - 10:57 pm
Tags: Azuchi-Momoyama period, Sekigahara, Solveig
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
Hut in Progress
June 5, 2011 - 1:21 am
Tags: Chōmei, hut, SCA
Posted in Crafts | No comments
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 [...]
Link: Wax-resist Dyeing
June 2, 2011 - 12:21 am
Tags: dyeing, kimono, Nara period, rōketsuzome
Posted in Crafts | No comments
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 [...]
Link: Samurai Heraldry: Flags and Standards of Samurai Armies
December 27, 2010 - 12:31 am
Tags: links, samurai
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
Two Mysterious Mon
December 13, 2010 - 12:34 am
Tags: flowers, provincial
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
Mon of the Week: Bowl with Chopsticks
December 5, 2010 - 10:49 pm
Tags: Narita, provincial, rice
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
Mon of the Week: Knot
November 28, 2010 - 7:13 pm
Tags: agemaki, knot, provincial, samurai
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
On Kissing
November 22, 2010 - 12:27 am
Tags: Edo period, fish, Heian period, Muromachi period, seppun, Tosa
Posted in Classical Japanese, Literature | No comments
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 [...]
Mon of the Week: Enclosed Plover
October 25, 2010 - 1:13 am
Tags: bird, plover, provincial, samurai
Posted in Mon | No comments
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 [...]
