This text is a reprint of the March 3, 2018 article of the blog "Bingoya-san" that I "Zubonbo" has been writing since 2012.
It is a continuation of the other day.
Let's go from bamboo.
The representative of bamboo local toys is the bamboo snake. This is also a local toy in Ise and Oyama, and not in other production areas. It's just an old toy.
Shibamata's playing monkey, which makes use of the spring characteristic of bamboo, is famous. Playing monkeys are widely made from Tohoku to Kyushu. It was made everywhere in the Edo period and sold at fairs.
It is a magic of a monkey (flicking away, removing) playing "disaster".
It is still sold at the Sonoda Buddhist tool store in front of Teishakuten in Shibamata.
Here, wood-carved monkeys, monkeys, and monkeys in the shape of a god are also sold in front of the gate.
At Teishakuten, amulets for garden balls were also sold, and Kei Nishikori also came, so Mr. Nakamura went to buy with his grandson playing tennis and was very pleased.
The windmill in Kozakai, Aichi Prefecture, was in the shape of a bale and was sold at a shrine once a year to pray for a good harvest. Now the people of the preservation society are making it.
Bamboo flutes used to be everywhere. Currently, only one Aoba whistle from Hyogo prefecture remains as a local toy.
There are relatively few toys made from bamboo. Bamboo baskets and wagtails are made.
Next is straw. Straw is the stalk of rice after cutting and removing rice. A typical local toy is a straw horse. Straw means a good harvest because it is after the rice is harvested. This may be the reason why many straw horses have a wish for a good harvest and a wish for the prosperity of their descendants. Straw is used for sacred nashime, so it may have magical power to prevent disasters.
As you can see, the straw horse in Kirihara, Nagano Prefecture is a talisman for the prosperity of descendants.
The straw snake in Tokyo is a magical spell that protects against water in the summer.
Omori (this year's exhibition), which is known as a famous toy, is the representative of the straw work.
In addition, Shuzenji and Kinosaki are production areas.
Omori was the gateway to Tokyo, and the straw work was a good souvenir. Straw is fragile and hardly remains, but Morse, who discovered the Omori Shell Mound in the Edo period, brought back common items such as clogs and signboards, but there is also straw work in it, and the beautiful ones remain. I am.
In Ota Ward, I sometimes hold workshops and try to make straw work, but even if I try to imitate what was made by unknown craftsmen in the Edo period, civilization progresses and it becomes a modern person who should be clever and dexterous. It is strange that he cannot do well.
When I first collected local toys, I thought that straw horses were what local toy makers and folk art stores wanted as local toys.
It came to live here, and one day when I went fishing near Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture, the straw horse was abandoned in the river with the bamboo grass of Tanabata. I think it was washed into the river with bamboo grass, but it was very shocking. I witnessed a straw horse still alive as a talisman, not as a local toy. As I mentioned last time, the Tanabata horses in Chiba and the Obon festival horses in Oimachi (currently mostly made in China) introduced in Seifu Shimizu and Takeo Takei's books have been promoted to local toys. Is just an adjunct to the event, and it's hard to stay in the future.
What were the other plants?
I used things that can be used as plants at random.
In the Kanto region (Chiba and Saitama), Kaya has a habit of making horses with Makomo, which is squeezed into riverbanks. It is a spirit horse.
There are also Itaya horses from Akita prefecture and dogs made from rice flour, but they are moldy and do not remain.
Among other plants, the zodiac of Kanuma millet gala is now made by Sanae Maruyama. Kanuma is famous for producing high-quality brooms, and it is made from broom grass, that is, scraps.
I also use pampas grass. Mizuku in Zoshigaya, Tokyo is a local toy from the Edo period. A stall will open in the precincts of the ceremony in mid-October. In the old days, it was also sold by the prince. It is said that Japanese pampas grass is cut and laid down with flowers in the fall and made into water the following year.
Now all that remains is paper.
Paper is said to be one of the three major inventions in China. It is said that around 100 AD, a Chinese man named Cai Lun made paper by combing wood chips and linen rags.
Was it transmitted to Japan by envoys to Tang? It must have been very expensive. It seems that used paper (dead paper) was also traded at a high price. It was probably from the late Edo period that it could be used freely.
It seems that the technique of making a Chinese Buddha statue called a real ship served as a model for making papier mache.
In the scenery of the Terakoya in Ukiyo-e at that time, you can see the scenery of the practice of writing the penmanship written many times in black. It may have been expensive even if it became free.
Inuhariko is the representative of Tokyo's local toys. It is a talisman for safe delivery for dogs that give birth to many children. Called Inuhariko in Kodenmacho, he was the king of Inuhariko in Japan, but the last author died at the end of last year (2016). Mr. Isetatsu Yanaka continues that trend. Ironically, next year's (Heisei 30) New Year's stamp is a bamboo basket dog made by the same author. Unfortunately, the product of Sukeroku Asakusa, the author who doesn't even know the meeting, became a model. The author of Kodenmacho was my best friend, so I can't do anything.
On the right is Hoko Takamatsu, and the servant who served the castle palace became "Hoko".
Below that is the red beko, but the right side is the real red beko. The one on the left is made by a different author currently in use. I don't have the copyright, so I'm not convinced that it's sold a lot now because it's red.
Paper does not shatter like clay dolls, but it is fragile. Therefore, few of them are from the Edo period. An example like Miharu Papier-mâché in the Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba is rare.
I remembered that it was fragile, but there is Tsuneishi papier mache in Hiroshima prefecture. Originally made from Mihara clay dolls, it is a rare local toy that replaces papier-mache with its mold because it breaks because it is transported by ship. Since it uses a female type, it can be expressed in detail.
In recent years, the author has become Mr. Miyaji, and he doesn't make much.
By the way, unlike thin Japanese paper, papier-mâché paper uses thick paper-mâché paper.
I put the dead paper in water and recycle it into paper, but now there are few makers, and in the Kanto region, my Daruma doll friends are in Ogawa Town, Saitama Prefecture. I like to mix old newspapers with the old paper. When he had a heart problem and took a leave of absence about two years ago, he received paper inquiries from various papier-mache shops. Now I'm a little healthier and I'm sipping a little paper, but I don't have a successor. I'm sorry. I think there are only a few people in Japan who make papier-mache paper.
Papier-mâché dolls are made by sticking this waste paper on a wooden mold and drying it, then removing it from the wooden mold, sprinkling it with whitewash, and coloring it. Since the dead paper is used up from Daifukucho and fusuma paper, the place where it comes out is the samurai residence or the place where there is a merchant house, that is, the castle town.
Here are some rough types of papier-mache toys.
There are various types of papier-mâché, such as masks, Daruma dolls, and swinging dolls, and there are many fun toys. There are many collectors who have decided their purpose, such as papier mache or clay dolls.
Clay dolls and papier-mache have molds and can be made with just the materials, so I think many production areas were born. It has been reduced to about half compared to around 1975.
There are various local toys made of paper, not just papier mache.
In Gokayama, Toyama Prefecture, which is famous for making gassho, there is a paper plastic doll made by pushing locally made Japanese paper into a glass and hardening it. And the masterpiece is the Ukiyo doll made by the creator of Hariko Hamamatsu. This is a doll made by squeezing paper like paper clay. It is an honor of my hometown.
But unfortunately, this also disappeared before the war.
It's not a papier mache, but Anesama is also a toy made of paper.
From other foreign materials
Fugu lanterns, Ainu shoes with salmon skin, stone dolls from Kintaikyo Bridge in Iwakuni, and Enoshima shellwork (Dharma dolls with shells pasted on the road, etc.) (The ones imported from), Dharma dolls (light stones from Kagoshima, Nachi dolls used for go stones, obsidian dolls from Tokachigawa), Daruma lacquer dolls, and Otokoyama Hachiman Kanzashi made from rice ears It was made in various ways as a lucky charm, but it is no longer there.
Itoma, Akebino pigeon car, lacquered Ouchi Urushi chick (made to encourage the clan),
Utsunomiya's Fukube work,
Poppen (Bedro) made of glass is sold once a year at a shrine in Kobe, doll ink, kelp daruma (awarded at a temple in Hyogo prefecture)
Kinosaki's doll brush was crafted so that the doll would pop out of the brush because the young man in the castle didn't like penmanship.
In the compound (material matching), kites, windmills, goldfish lanterns, etc.
In the old days, if it was made of paper, it would have been a castle town, or if it was a daruma doll, it was made in a place where stones were removed from the mountain.
Furthermore, it is an eco-friendly material that is recycled like paper. The white gofun that is the undercoat of clay dolls and papier mache is also made from shells, and the glue that connects the gofun and the paint is made from fish bones. That is the basis of local toys, but now that there is no nature around them, things that were almost free become imported products and become expensive, which is one of the causes of being forced out of business.
The materials for local toys were familiar, cheap, or almost free.
But now I can't get the materials, and many of them come from abroad, so it's expensive. Since it is a local toy, it must be something that can be attached to the local area, but the person who makes it is just a local person. I think the challenge for the future is how to survive and how to convey the climate.
#paper mache