Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita
Eli Bartra and Kanae Omura

Although folk art is considered a core element of “Japan‑ness”,little attention
has been paid to the gender aspect of its production,distribution,and representation.
This collaborative study by Mexican and Japanese scholars examines two types ofJapanese folk art,which differ not only in their production and use,but also in theirrecognition as “authentic”Japanese folk art. Shunkei lacquer from Takayama, amountainous region in Gifu prefecture,is a product of its natural environment,and
because of its simple,elegant beauty has been conferred the title of “National Folk
Craft”since the 1970s. Edo‑Hagoita, the product of the flourishing urban, popular
culture of Edo, the old name of todayʼs capital of Japan, is widely known by its
elaborate decoration and the lively street market where it is sold. Its official
recognition, however, is limited within the metropolitan Tokyo. This study examines the socio‑cultural background of folk art in Japan, including the important
influence of the Mingei M ovement and its ideas. It describes the role of men andwomen in the artistic process of creating these objects, and points to their unequal
visibility in folk art representations.

Key Words: Gender, Folk Art, M ingei Movement, Lacquers, Hagoita

The century which is now underway was born with the deep scars of various kinds of
migrations upon it;multiculturalism is the order of the day. Our collaboration reflects all this;thebig difference, of course, is that in our case transculturalism has been voluntary and pleasurable
and not a response to hunger or violence. This research has been carried out by two academics,
a Japanese and a M exican,and so it will be noticed that our views of the artistic processes we willbe speaking of−which are simultaneously those of a an insider and of an outsider−are inextricably intermingled. This, we think, lends an interesting and rather unusual aspect to our work.
Generally,a single text will give either an interpretation from within or from without,but not bothat the same time.
We will be looking at the shunkei lacquers from the town ofHida Takayama,in the Prefectureof Gifu, and at the decorated paddles or battledores known as hagoita from Tokyo, giving
particular attention to the gender divide and the importance of women throughout the wholeartistic process;we have chosen two examples offolk art that are completelydifferent from almost
all points of view. The shunkei lacquers are authentic works of Japanese folk art, praised andindeed almost venerated. This has been so to the extent that by the nineteenth century there was19Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

a general tendency in Europe to refer to lacquer work as japan or japanning,in the same way thatporcelain is still referred to in English as china (Mitsukuni 1992, 6). The hagoita, on the other
hand, are not considered “
authentic”and are not to be found in the list of traditional handcrafts
at the national level, although they are so regarded at the local level.
Nonetheless, for our present‑day purposes, both are objects of folk art that have developed
from an original production for the nobility,but with the passing of time,have become “popularized”,declasse. The Takayama lacquers,whose origin is rural,are characterized by their simplicity,elegance,fine workmanship and sobriety;they are monochromatic and almost completely lackdecoration of any kind. In contrast, the hagoita, of urban origin, are decorated in the extreme,
loaded with Churriguresque complexity,saturated with information and loudly clashing colours to
the limit of the conceivable. At the same time they absorb other elements of folk culture,such as
the characters of the Kabuki theatre, and turn them into visual folk art.
It is curious to discover that, as in many other parts of the world, certain objects, culinary
items, songs, local or regional representations of folk art or culture, are raised to the level ofnational emblems. The lacquers of which we are speaking are a symbol of the Japanese nation
while the hagoita, on the other hand, are not, despite the fact that, apparently, the lacquers werefirst introduced from China and the hagoita are ofJapanese origin. (In this case too,there are somewho claim that the game with the battledores also came from China, but be that as it may, thedecorated hagoita as they are today are eminently home‑grown.)
It seems necessary−as a prelude to consideration of the particular objects that concern us
here−to say a few words about the examples of folk art that can be seen in Japanese museums.
In the National Museum of Tokyo,all the lacquers on exhibition carry the name of the maker,and
all of these are men. This matter of signatures is an extremely curious phenomenon when dealing
with folk art;we find it, above all, when such objects begin to be admitted into museums (which
is precisely when they begin to be regarded as “art”). In the National Crafts Gallery of Tokyo,
likewise,all the pieces on exhibition carry the name of their maker;and in the Nippon Mingeikan(Japanese Folk Art) museum, in the same city−which is devoted basically to the Mingei
M ovement−the names of the creators of eachpiece are given, except in the case of antique
works. In the Edo Shitamachi Crafts Museum ofTokyo there are some fifty photographs of recognized craftsmen of the city (and not a single
woman). Just for the sake of comparison,in the
M useu do Folclore in Rio de Janeiro,the exhibited photographs show a total of 54 craftsmen and17 craftswomen. Of course,in the real world,thewomen are always there, although often in a
supporting rather than a leading role. To give an

20

Shunkeilaquer artisan,GalleryofArts andCrafts inKyoto,Feb.2006

ジェンダー研究 第10号

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example, in the Gallery of Arts and Crafts in Kyoto, we found three women carrying out ademonstration of craft labours,one painting on ceramic,another doing lacquer work and anotherweaving baskets and sunshades.
Today it is impossible to speak of folk art in Japan without referring to the Mingei M ovement
which began in the second decade of the twentieth century led by Soetsu Yanagi (1889 ‑1961);
Yanagi launched an attack on the traditional art historythat had established a cult ofgenius which
was, so he said, a “history of heroes and not of the common people”(Yanagi 1949, 5). The
influence of Yanagi and his movement was so pervasive in re‑creating Japan‑ness in Post‑war
Japan that it is only recently that critical studies about the Mingei movement started to appear(See, for example:Takenaka 1999;Kanetami 2000;Kikuchi 2004).
Soetsu Yanagi was also against the modernization ofJapan and the out‑and‑out individualism
it brought in its wake;in contrast, he praised the art of the people, of craftsmen who served thegeneral public, that art which is above all utilitarian and has nothing of pure aesthetics. He
thought that folk art was a necessary part of a full life and hence its importance, although it isprecisely this quality of practical utility that has led it to be considered inferior.
Like many other promoters of folk art,such as the M exican Dr.Atl (1875‑1964),for instance,
Yanagi held a somewhat romantic and unreal idea of folk art. For him this art of the people
consisted of simple products and not works of genius;he believed that the common people were,in general,also the consumers of this kind of art (op. cit., 7). Folk art,according to Yanagi,is the“culture of the great masses of the people”;it is that which is made by the many for the many,
unlike the beaux arts which are made by the few for the few (Yanagi 1989, 103). Craftworks are“things made to be used by the people in daily life”(ibid., 197).
Yanagiʼs classifications of folk art are extremely interesting. He divides crafts into two
categories: folk art proper and artistic crafts. The first of these groups comprises the“guild arts”
and the industrial arts;the second group is made up ofaristocratic handcrafts and individual crafts(ibid., 198). For Yanagi,therefore,the crafts that interested him had to be anonymous,cheap,andhand‑made for use by the masses, functional in daily life and representative of the regions fromwhich they came.
For this intellectual the basic characteristic of folk art, besides its simplicity, was its traditional and non‑individual nature;thus “
no work of peopleʼ
s art is signed by the creator”(Yanagi
1949, 13). Nowadays, however, it can be fairly stated that individualism has permeated much offolk art. As is well known (and as we shall be seeing), in Japan itself tradition and modernity(which implies individualism),are not always opposed but often go hand in hand. Yanagi affirmedwith lucidity that “
now that capitalism has killed handcrafts, the only way is the guild system”(Yanagi 1989,208),which in our opinion is absolutely true. We have indeed noted the proliferationof the modern equivalents of the guilds−trade associations (some official and others not) andproduction cooperatives−as a way of surviving in this ferocious world of competition andcommercialism.

21

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

Surely one result of the Mingei Movement has been modern Japanʼ
s heightened concern for thecontinuing existence of a space for folk art among the other arts;this has been reflected,on the one
hand, in the mushrooming of galleries and museums and, on the other, of laws and regulations.
Two important laws were introduced after 1950: the Act for the Protection of Cultural Properties(Bunkazai‑Hogoho)was passed in that year and rectified in 1954 by the Education Ministry (Sato
1996). The other was the Act for the Promotion of Traditional Crafts (Dentouteki Kougeisangyono
Shinkounikansuru Horitsu: Densan‑Ho) promulgated in 1974 by the Economics and Industry
M inistry.
What stimulated the introduction of the Bunkazai‑Hogoho was the fire in the historic templeof Horyu‑ji in the town of Ikaruga that destroyed its famous mural (Sato 1996,183). the purposeof the law was basically to protect and conserve Japanʼ
s tangible and intangible national treasures.
Lacquers are included in the section on intangibles (Living National Treasure),being viewed not
as so much objects but rather as a traditional technique (waza)that must be conserved. While theBunkazai‑Hogoho was impelled by cultural and nationalist considerations, what motivated thepromulgation of the Densan‑ho was surely Japanʼ
s rapid economic growth and the disappearanceof traditional cultures.
In 1975,in accordance with this law,the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Crafts
Industries was set up;this Association recognizes 198 object types as constituting “traditional craft
industries”and also provides official recognition of the status of Master Craftsman. For an object
to be considered a traditional craft product by the M inistry of Economics, Trade and Industry−eligible for protection by the law on Promotion of Traditional Craft Products−it must satisfy thefollowing criteria: (1) the object must be essentially for use in everyday life; (2) it must bebasically hand‑made; (3) it must be produced using traditional techniques with a history goingback at least 100 years;(4) the principal materials used must be those used traditionally,and (5)the industry in question must be of a regional nature.
In Japan there are 4,592 registered M aster Craftsmen,of whom 520 are women. The shunkei
lacquer of Takayama was designated a Traditional Craft at national level,and in 1975 twenty‑one
master craftsmen were designated (in this case no women are listed). The hagoita, on the other
hand,has not been defined as a traditional craft at national level,though for the last twenty years
it has been recognized at the prefecture and local levels only. The associations at this level also
issue certificates of authenticity for objects that comply with the requirements, organize exhibitions,events abroad and promote the creation ofwhat are called “modern traditional crafts”(sic).
The hagoita is a traditional craft of the Tokyo metropolitan area−where there are 504 M aster
Craftsmen (no data are available regarding women)−and of several other localities such as Taito‑ku (where the biggest hagoita market, Torino‑ichi has grown up), and Sumida‑ku, where the“3M ”started up in 1987.
In the late nineteenth century Japan was an exporter of raw materials and folk art to Europe,
there being at that time no industrial products available for export. The high quality of Japanʼs22

ジェンダー研究 第10号

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art and craft exports won it a considerable reputation in the West. According to some authors,animportant impulse for the boom in Japanese folk art was the Universal Exhibition in Vienna inwhich Japan participated in 1873 (Haino 1994;Mitsui 1999 ).
This was during the M eiji period (1868‑1912)and Taisho period (1912‑1926),when a powerfulwesternizing movement was underway in Japan;yet at the same time−perhaps in reaction to thiswesternization and the increasing industrialization that accompanied it−an increasing concern for
the roots of Japanese identity became manifest. It was as part of this search for identity that
attention turned to the folk arts, and the Mingei Movement gave a strong impulse to these arts
whose impact has lasted to the present day.
Robert M oes states that “The Japanese have never recognized the basic distinction betweenʻ
artʼor ʻ
fine artsʼ(painting, sculpture, architecture) on the one hand, and ʻ
craftsʼor ʻ
applied artʼ(ceramics, metalwork, textiles, woodwork, lacquer, basketry, paper, etc.) on the other, that we
make in the West.”(M oes 1985,11). We do not agree with this statement since in all the existing
literature, in museums, galleries and in daily life one can verify the enormous difference madebetween the two spheres of art. Nevertheless,this author is right when he says: “This distinction
is, after all, really quite an arbitrary one”(idem).
In our opinion,one can distinguish between crafts−whose function is primordially utilitarianand practical−and other objects that can fairly be called folk art and which are eminently“ornamental”. There are a number of features that serve to differentiate handcrafts and folk art,
but often the frontier is not very clear;one difference is perhaps the fact that in the former a muchgreater emphasis is placed on the technical aspects than on those of creativity and the expressionof ideas.
As for the two examples of which we are speaking here,we think that both can be classified
as folk art, since their value, nowadays is fundamentally aesthetic rather than practical orfunctional. However, in the case of the shunkei lacquers the technical question occupies theforeground;it is thanks to the consummate skill of its makers that pieces of such extraordinary
beauty are created: “All crafts demand technical skills,but perhaps none entails so much expertiseas lacquer, where technique determines everything”(Okada 1982, 9 ). As for the hagoita, thequestion of technique is of course also fundamental,but perhaps here there is a greater allowancefor the expression of imagination and creativity.

The shunkei lacquers of Takayama and women extras
Much research has been carried out into the Japanese lacquers and their fame throughout thewhole world,and many commentaries have been published both in Asia and the West.

Thus ourintention is now only to present a brief approach to this artistic process in a concrete geographicalspace, with close attention to gender, and posing the specific question: Where are the women?
There are more than twenty different types of lacquer‑work regarded as traditional Japanese23Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

crafts.Several of them bear the name shunkei, like the Awano shunkei of the prefecture of Ibarakior the Noshiro shunkei from that of Akita. We chose Takayama shunkei for eminently aesthetic
reasons, on account of its elegance and simplicity (in order to contrast as much as possible withthe hagoita, since these display the opposite characteristics).
The origin of Takayama shunkei can be traced back to 1606 in the times of the feudal lord
Arishige Kanamori. Two Takayama craftsmen, the carpenter Kizaemon Takahashi and thelacquer worker Sanaemon Narita, presented a varnished tray to the lordʼs son Shigechika
Kanamori. The latter−who is nowadays recognized as an important figure in the development of
the tea ceremony−assigned the name of shunkei to this type of work because of its similarity incolour to that of a famous tea vessel known as the hi‑shunkei.
It was at the beginning of the twentieth century when the red shunkei began to be made;previously, since the seventeenth century it would seem, only the yellowish lacquer was made.
Nowadays there are approximately forty lacquer workers in Takayama. Supposedly,some years
ago−maybe ten−there were 250 people devoted to this craft in Takayama, of which thirty‑one
were acknowledged masters at national level.
Attempting to find the women throughout the process of elaboration of the lacquers is likesearching for pearls in the sea. They are there to be found, but scarce. In a video made in 1975
two women appear fleetingly working wood, although one of them is “
sewing”a box with little
strips of wood in order to close it (which is unusual because generally women are not involved inthis part of the process).
The process of elaboration of the lacquers at Takayama differs from craftsman to craftsman,
but in all cases is very long drawn‑out and laborious. In fact the process consists of three quite
separate parts. The extraction of the lacquer is carried out by certain people,the making of thewooden pieces by others, and finally the application of the lacquer to the wood is the work of
specialized artists. In order to elaborate a lacquer without any decoration a total of thirty‑threeoperations is required and in the case of decorated work, this may rise to seventy.
Generally speaking,the process is as follows: first the sap ofthe urushi tree (Rhus verniciflua)
is collected on some twenty occasions at five‑day intervals by means of incisions in the bark down
to the endodermis. A tree of some fifteen years of age will produce 135 grams of sap, following
which it will normally die (Sawaguchi n/d). Unlike other lacquers, urushi requires heat andmoisture in order to harden.The piece to be varnished is obtained from cypress or chestnut woodand coated first with a past made of lacquer mixed with mud which is known as tonoko;it is thenpolished. The next step is to paint it with a yellow or red pigment (chakushoku),and later a soy‑bean juice is applied (shita‑nuri). After this, successive coats of lacquer are applied, being left
to harden for long periods of time in a kind of wooden cupboard built especially for the purpose,the interior of which is made to rotate by means of an electric motor (kaitenki o kaiten‑buro). The
work has to be done in the hot and humid season,thus hardly any of it takes place in the winter.
If the work has a painted decoration this is executed before the final application of the lacquer.

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For the last stage (uwa‑nuri),special clothing is worn that does not give off any kind of fluff,and
every care is taken to keep the space free of dust. The lacquer is highly toxic and it is necessary
for the workersʼ
skin to acclimatize to it;some skins,however,do not develop resistance to contact,and such people are unable to do this work. The finest pieces are also polished (shiage‑migaki)with ash obtained from burned deer horn,also as a finishing operation. The preferred brushes are
made from womenʼ
s hair,the best being from women who engage in diving (ama)since this resultsin their hair being less oily.
We will now present our reports of three interviews which will enable us to get a closer lookat the process of elaboration of the shunkei and some aspects of relations between the genders thatwill come to light. The first interview was with master craftsman Hiromi Takimura and his wife
Keiko,an institution in their own right on account of the degree of development of their lacquers,
which are genuine marvels. The second was with Toshifumi Suzuki,an eminent craftsman froma family that has been devoted to the elaboration of shunkei through no less than fifteen generations. The third is with a woman resident in Tokyo,new to the craft of decorating on lacquer,sheis the only woman we know of who does this kind of work for the shunkei of Takayama. We
believe that these interviews are of particular interest,each one for a different reason,since theyfacilitate an understanding from within of the process of elaboration of the shunkei.

A famous couple
On the outskirts of Takayama (70,000 inhabitants),in the Prefecture of Gifu,is the delightful
house of Hiromi Takimura and his wife Keiko, whom we interviewed on February 7,2006,whilea tremendous snow‑storm raged outside at a temperature of seven degrees below zero. The houseis situated on a hill and thus has a spectacular view of the city, which is no chance matter−thiscouple of artists shows exquisite taste in everything. He is from a family of craftsmen working
shunkei lacquer−the cityʼ
s main craft activity after woodworking−for years,and the tradition isalready being carried on by his son who also devotes himself to the same trade. Beside the houseis the ample studio where he has worked for 26
years. We sit on the floor, on an electricallyheated carpet, in front of bowls of green tea justbrewed for us by our hosts, in the traditional‑style Japanese living‑room where a Siamese catwith enormous blue eyes entertains us with continual dramatic entrances and exits. We begin totalk under the attentive surveillance ofthe collection of maneki nekos (the kittens that greet one
with a raised paw), which keep an unblinking
Hiromi Takimura, Takayama, Feb. 2006

watch on us from their shelf,as do the telephone,25

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

the fax and an object that is never absent from anyJapanesespace:the clock. There is no house,office,classroom,shop,
hotel, ryokan or any other place where there is not, inevitably, a clock.
Right from the start we ask about the women in theprocess of making lacquer and he, in jest, says he would
prefer the women to stick to having babies! Nevertheless,throughout the conversation we realise that his wife isindispensable in both his life and his work.
He was born in 1940 in Takayama and has always lived
there. His wife is also from the region. They have been
together for thirty years and have a son and a daughter.
Despite the fact that his father was a lacquer‑maker, aged
fifteen, Hiromi decided to go to a master, Tani Ichiro, for

Keiko with a shunkeiplater,Takayama,Feb.2006

whom he says he had a deep respect. He achieved his independence in 1965,but the first workshop
he had got burnt down;most craftsmen manage to become independent after some five years ofworking for a master, but his father urged him to stay with the master for ten years in order tolearn the trade perfectly. There were also women working for master Tani but they gave up thecraft on getting married.
Generally, the craftsmen work for the shops that sell folk art, but Hiromi does not. He
arranges with the wood‑workers for them to supply him the pieces he requires,instead of letting
a shop organize the whole work process,as is normally the case. He creates the designs;first hesets them out on cardboard in order to see how they look and in this part of the process Keiko also
takes part with ideas and suggestions. He buys the lacquer and stirs it himself until it turns black.
This town is one of the few places where the craftsmen who apply the lacquer actually prepare itthemselves. Elsewhere, this is a separate process carried out by different people.
Normally the women are occupied in painting the pieces with soy;in Hiromi and Keikoʼs case,however,she only polishes and cleans the pieces of wood and at the end polishes the lacquer. “Itʼswork that isnʼt seen, but thatʼ
s what my wife helps me with”, says Hiromi. When the work ispainted with soy,the wood becomes less absorbent,and so less lacquer is used. Hiromi disapprovesof this practice since it means that the lacquer is also more prone to lifting off.
The particular characteristic of shunkei is that it is a transparent lacquer that allows the veinsof the wood to be seen underneath. But the Takimurasʼlacquer is not so transparent as the more
typical lacquer because they donʼt mix oil with it. Hiromi has developed his own style of working
the lacquer. When oil is mixed in,it becomes easier to work,but the resulting lacquers are weakerand donʼt stick so fast to the wood. He tries to make the traditional designs that have existed in
Takayama for a long time and also to make new designs. He is teaching the traditional style tohis son but not the new ones since he says that his son must develop a style of his own. He feels

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ジェンダー研究 第10号

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that if you mount an exhibition there shouldnʼ
t beidentical objects made by father and son. He
makes the same type of piece for a period ofaround three years and then changes.

If hereceives an order he will interrupt his cycle anddevote some four to six months to completing theorder and then go back to his own cycle ofproduction. When he has an exhibition of eighty
pieces, for example, he has to have anothereighty ready in order to replace the ones he sells.
Shunkei plater created byTakimura, Takayama, Feb. 2006

But his own style does not change in response to

the galleries where he exhibits. In Takayama he has only exhibited his work on one occasion. His
wife thinks that one needs to have courage to mount exhibitions in the town, because of therivalries that exist there. Hiromi criticises the mentality of the local people because they talk a
lot about culture but their own awareness is not very cultured. The townspeople always keep tothe fold, and if someone wants to break free they all take a knock at him to prevent him fromstanding above the rest, he says. For instance, he makes bowls, which is not traditional in thetown,and they criticise him for this. There are some pieces that have been made for centuries andothers that are innovations:the bowls are an example. They find themselves always trapped in the
net between tradition and modernity,in a permanent tension. If people ask him for something inparticular,he will do it. And when people criticise his work they donʼt voice their criticisms to him
directly but to his son.
Hiromi Takimura exhibited in Germany around 1997 in a joint exhibition on the crafts ofJapan. At first nobody wanted lacquers, but the organizer ended up buying the whole lot. They
werenʼ
t able to go themselves because his wife was ill. They have never been abroad;he says heʼ
safraid of flying. He only speaks Japanese,but has had to learn the language of the Internet. He
also exhibited in Saitama (Japan) in M arch, 2006. He mounts two or three exhibitions a year,
some of them together with his son, who began to do lacquer work when he was eighteen. Now
the son is married to a nurse,whose work helps to keep the family economy afloat;and meanwhile
Keiko looks after her grandchild. Hiromi also helps with the domestic chores,washing the rice forexample, especially since his wife fell ill.
The pieces he works on are not supposed to clash with what else there is on the dining room
table;there has to be harmony. From his point of view,his work is utilitarian,he is a craftsman
and what he does has to be useful for everyday life. A vase is a utilitarian object because it also
has an everyday purpose. He thinks that the material is what decides and the lacquer‑ware ismeant to be used. What he most likes doing are serving pieces. He doesnʼ
t decorate his lacquerswith designs; his only decoration is the vein of the wood. Each finished object is carefully
examined by both partners to ensure the absence of the most minimal flaw.

27

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

According to Hiromi, there are two categories of lacquer craftsmen: those who make theutensils necessary for the tea ceremony,who are regarded as those of the highest level,and those
who make objects for everyday use. He learned the former art but decided to devote himself tothe latter. The former has very strict rules that leave no room for creativity;this was not to his
liking so he gave up that path.
On being asked whether what he does is art, craft or folk art, he takes a lengthy pause forthought. His lacquers are very expensive;they are all unique objects that carry his signature,andin this sense one could say that he is an artist. He doesnʼ
t agree with this opinion,however,andsays that he signs them because, should there be any problem, that is his way of accepting
responsibility. If after selling a piece it becomes necessary to repair it, he is willing to do it.
His wife remarks that the lacquers are bought by a wide variety of people.Some buy them forspecial occasions like weddings. The public relations are basically her department. He criticises
people who publicize their work;but she says that if the work isnʼt publicized it doesnʼ
t get sold.
“I never thought Iʼ
d do anything other than lacquer‑work”, he says with passion. “If I wasborn again I would chose to do the same”.

Living history
Toshifumi Suzuki is another great master in the elaboration of shunkei in Takayama. He isa direct descendant of the lacquer‑worker Sanaemon Narita (who created the first piece of
shunkei), as his calling card informs.
In February,2006,this rather shy man,in his
fifties, allowed us to look around the spacious
workshop which forms part of his large house,
and we had the opportunity to chat while observing his way of working. He warned us that hecould only spare an hour to attend to us;nevertheless, an hour went by and M r. Suzuki
continued to talk uninhibitedly and finally cancelled the appointment he had arranged. M oreover, he invited us back the following day to see
Toshifumi Suzuki, Takayama, Feb. 2006

how he applied the final coat of lacquer to someplates. It is a very delicate operation because the atmosphere must be completely free of dust;hetherefore asked us to be very still.It was an enormous privilege to be allowed to be present in order
to witness this very special part of the process.
The shunkei technique, as Suzuki explains to us, is very simple and even primitive, but
precisely on account of its simplicity, once you embark on the journey, you find yourself deeply
involved because, since the lacquer is transparent, you canʼt make mistakes and correct them28

ジェンダー研究 第10号

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afterwards. He learnt the trade aged eighteen and so has been working lacquer for nearly forty
years. He has a son and a daughter and neither of them has continued with the family tradition.
He believes it is difficult to live solely from the lacquers;his wife works in the ryokan and atweekends helps her husband. He accepts orders of lacquers but apart from that he is always atwork building up stocks. This is very good,because if a shop suddenly needs lacquers they can go
to him since they already know what he aims to keep in stock.
He signs certain pieces, the most valuable ones, with the name Yoshikata (his family has
always had two names), but the simpler pieces (worth five or six thousand yen) go unsigned.
He makes the same designs his ancestors made,but also,like Takimura,produces new things,
and even experiments−for example with colours, since he uses black, yellow, green, and this isnew. To change colours is difficult because it means using other instruments, different temperatures and levels of humidity. He believes that other people too want to introduce changes,but since
it involves so much work they donʼt do so.
Suzuki belongs to the Takayama shunkei craftsmenʼ
s association, of which he was director
some fifteen years ago: the directorship is rotating. In other places,there are isolated craftsmen,
but no guild associations. The wifeʼ
s family had no involvement with lacquer work. She began
to do it when she was twenty,but she never felt much involvement nor any wish to sign her work;
she only helps. He believes that his daughterʼs character is more suited to being a craftswoman,
but neither does she get much involved.
He would like to stage more exhibitions;the problem is that they are expensive to mount andso it is very difficult for him. He has had three exhibitions in large stores in other cities that haveapproached him, but in those cases the costs were covered by the shops.
Suzuki produces both utilitarian and ornamental objects; he doesnʼ
t make an importantdistinction between them. He has objects meant for adorning houses and even some plates
decorated with designs, but as he himself says, he hasnʼ
t much talent for the designs, and so has
someone else do them.
After observing and becoming quite well informed about the work process of shunkei making,we realised that women are almost always present in it, carrying out fundamental tasks, but
without playing a leading role.

All by herself
On seeing some pieces decorated withdesigns we immediately thought that they musthave been done by a woman,and indeed when wefollowed the thread we found Fusae Tabi who
Shunkei laquer with painted decoration, Takayama, Feb. 2006

lives in Tokyo,and we were able to talk to her on

29

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

February 10, 2006. It is interesting that from the beginningwe established an empathy with her that was no doubt due
to the gender factor. She is a woman with a smiling face
who was born in Tokyo forty‑nine years ago. It is only ayear since she began to paint lacquer, but she was alreadypainting on glass a year before that.
One day she gave a glass object that she had painted toa friend, and the owner of the Lacquer M useum in Takayama saw it and liked it. He asked her to try painting onlacquer. At first she didnʼt think she could do it but themeeting with the museum owner pleased her and she
accepted the challenge, although there wasnʼ
t much money
to be made out of it. She earns 500 yens from each little
plate she decorates,and so far they have only placed a few

Fusae Tabi, designer, Tokyo, Feb. 2006

orders of thirty pieces each.
Since she was a child she wanted to be a fashion designer;she began making clothes for her
dolls. As an adolescent she took a correspondence course in fashion design and, after leaving
school,she got a place at a design school where she graduated at the age of twenty. Then a friend
offered her a job designing material for kimonos,and she spent a number of years doing that. She
got married several times and had one child. When the boy started primary school she changed
her way of working so as to have more time to spend with him and she began to do her designs
at home,although,naturally,her earnings fell and so she had to take an evening job as a waitressin a restaurant serving traditional food. Now she only has her mother to look after,who suffersfrom Alzheimerʼs disease,and she devotes the free time she has left to her designs. It was an auntof hers who was learning the technique of painting on glass who showed her how to do that.
It is extremely sad to discover time and time again that the lives of women in the world of folk
art−but of course not only there−are always determined by their marital or couple relationships
and that they invariably organize their work,when it is possible to do it at all,around the demandsof their role as mothers,or the needs of elderly or sick relatives. These points may seem obvious,thatʼs how things are with gender relations, but the fact that one continually finds the same
situation and realizes how exceptional those who manage to override these constants are doesnʼ
tmake it any the less overwhelming.
At first,the owner of the lacquer shop only entrusted her with two or three designs as a trial,
but she felt the need for a greater variety and she did about five designs. She is still nervous about
it because painting on glass,plastic or paper is very different from doing it on wood. She has only
once seen the finished shunkei with her designs;that was because she bought a piece to give as apresent. She also gives classes in painting on glass to a few students who come to her home. Her
dream is to earn enough money from her designs to live on, since at her age it is virtually30

ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

impossible to find work in a company. For the moment she survives on money she receives fromthe government out of her motherʼs pension in return for looking after her.
Of course, she would also like to stage exhibitions, but she has not been lucky in this. Whatshe most likes is painting on glass since as a beginner with the shunkei she still doesnʼ
t feel very
confident. When she does the designs she calls her friends and asks for their opinions on what
seems best to them, and at times their opinions are the opposite of what she herself feels, and so
she gets disoriented.
We asked her what she thought of the hagoita and she said that she didnʼt think it was rightthat they should be made as purely decorative objects;they ought to be seen as toys for children
to play with. Once again one meets the idea that folk art ought to be above all useful and not
merely ornamental. She does say,however,that the craftsmen decorate their work with love andit is this feeling that she likes about Japan. She has seen many exhibitions of ancient Japanese art
and thinks that this feeling of the Japanese craftsmen regarding their decorations is in the processof being lost.
Her grandmother was an expert in the art of flower arranging (ikenobo)and her uncle was agraphic designer. Now she regrets not having learnt her grandmotherʼs art, but when she was achild she didnʼ
t want to learn anything so formal and so she missed the opportunity.
Fusae Tabi thinks that one can perceive a difference between male and female designs.
However,although she paints flowers,which might appear essentially feminine,she actually sees
her work as rather masculine, since she uses a very rough stroke. But since she doesnʼ
t have somuch confidence when she does her designs on lacquer, her stroke is less strong, and perhaps
because of this they turn out more feminine. In general she does what she is asked to do,but shetries to express herself within the parameters available to her. For example,when she was doing
dress design she always did three kinds: one just like she was asked to do, another with smallchanges and a third quite different, but with an eye to what would suit the person giving her theorder. She felt very satisfied when the customer chose the third option.
She doesnʼ
t see herself as an artist;her uncle told her one day that she would only be a partof the company she worked for;she would have no individuality. She is clearly waging a fierce
battle against this notion whenever an opportunity presents itself. If the shunkei museum asks her
for several pieces with the same design,for example a bamboo pattern,she will do it,but she paints
every one differently. She complies with the customersʼrequests,but at the same time tries to give
expression to her feelings.
In such highly developed societies as that of Japan it is all the more remarkable to submerge
oneself in the world of folk art with its ancestral techniques that have been so little modified withthe passing of the centuries. Practically the only“modernity”in the elaboration of lacquers is theautomatically rotating cupboard where they put them to dry;they also sometimes use a vacuum
cleaner to remove the dust from the pieces before applying the final coat of lacquer,and that is all.

31

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

Hagoita for Japanese girls
The decorated paddles or battledores known as hagoita are made from a Japanese timber
known as paulownia, a very lightweight wood;their original purpose was for women and children
to play a game (hanetsuki)similar to badminton,but without a net. A shuttlecock (hane‑ume)isused, made with the hard berry of the soap‑tree or mukuroji (whose scientific name is Sapindus−which is about a centimetre in
mukurossi). To make the shuttlecock, the berry or “soap‑nut”
diameter−is surrounded with feathers painted in lively colours, giving it the appearance of aflower. The idea of the game is to keep the shuttlecock in the air;each time a player lets it fall
she has a point marked against her on the forehead with Chinese ink. When her face is all black
the game is over and this player is the loser. It is not strictly speaking a sport but just a pastime
for women and children. The battledores are given to girls at birth or at New Year,which is whenby custom the game is played. Apparently they have also been used as ex‑voto offerings to beplaced in temples in order to drive away evil spirits and bring good luck. The sizes range fromaround 20 cm.to a metre and the prices from 4,000 yens for a small one to as much as 250,000 yensor even more. It was Bunka‑Bunsei of Edo period (1804‑1929 )that representations of charactersfrom the Kabuki theatre began to appear on the hagoita: a practice that has continued to thepresent day (Edo Oshi‑e Hagoita).
There is much uncertainty regarding the exact period when the hagoita began to be elaborated,particularly as regards the decorations. The practice appears to go back to the Edo period (1603‑1868), but the game is known to have existed at least since the fourteenth century. The firstwritten mention of a hagoita is in the Kanmongyo‑ki, the diary of the Imperial Prince Sadafusa
compiled between 1416 and 1448 (Hagoita, Kites and Tops, 1992). There are several antiqueengravings that show girls or women playing at hanetsuki, but they are from the nineteenth
century. There is an engraving by the artist Kunisada (1786‑1864) dating from ca. 1850 whichshows two girls playing with hagoita. There is also an engraving by Georges Bigot of 1886 where
two women are seen playing hanetsuki (Edo‑Tokyo M useum). It began no doubt as a game playedby the nobility before spreading to women of thefamilies of rich merchants,and then little bylittle
becoming popularized.By the mid twentieth century little girls were playing hanetsuki throughout the countryin cities and villages. The hagoita
market at Asakusa began some 350 years ago,around 1658, during the Edo period.

A long‑established family business
Noguchi Toyoo, Tokyo, Feb. 2006

32

In Tokyo there are only about five studioジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

‑shops specializing in hagoita, and in Asakusa‑bashi there are several shops devoted to Japanese
dolls that also sell the decorated battledores. We went to visit Noguchi Toyoo in February,2006,
in his studio‑shop called “M usashiya Hozan”in the Ryogoku district of Tokyo,the neighbourhood
where he was born in 1950. Owing to the damage caused by World War II there are no documents
preserved regarding the history of the manufacture of hagoita. He represents the fifth generationof his family devoted to this craft.He began when he was twenty‑two,and now has a twenty‑year
old son of his own;it is too early to say whether the son will continue with the trade.
To manufacture hagoita one needs actually very little raw material and the total material input
cost amounts to some 20 per cent of the selling price. The business is better for those who live inthe villages because the costs are lower than in Tokyo where everything is very expensive.
Noguchiʼs most highly‑priced hagoita cost about 600,000 yens. They are made with silks,some ofwhich are imported;he buys, for example, from a company in Kyoto that imports the silk from
China. They are cloths made especially for the manufacture of the typical Japanese dolls. Red andpink are the prominent colours since more female than male figures are made;as theyare normallygiven to girls, female figures are preferred. It is a family business in which he, his wife, and his
mother collaborate, with parts of the process being put out sometimes to other workers.
Noguchiʼs mother (who came originally from the countryside)is eighty‑four years old,but she
continues to work.She smiles saying,“
There is no retirement in our business”.She devotes herself
above all to making the hair of the figures in silk, which is one of the parts that women most
specialize in.His wife does what is called oshi‑e: she covers various parts made in cardboard withthe different pieces of silk, putting in the cotton stuffing and sticking it all together.
Demand for hagoita is falling off significantly, more than anything because of the changing
style of home living. People no longer have a special place to display them as was the case in the
traditional Japanese houses where there was always a wooden crossbeam (kamoi) that was theideal spot and provided room for many. For this reason the smaller ones are sold nowadays witha base so they can be displayed on a table,but now there is only room for a few. Another reason
is that there are no longer so many little girls. The birth‑rate has fallen drastically,to the pointthat the overall population is declining.
The hagoita are made in a four‑stage process. First the basic paddles are made out of wood
(Ita‑zukuri);these are bought in ready‑made for decoration. Secondly,there are people who makethe faces and the whole design;this process is called menso (the people who do menso are known
as menso‑shi, and they have most control over the work;normally some ten years of practice arenecessary to reach the stage of menso‑shi).Thirdly,there are the people−generally women−who
do oshi‑e;and finally,the fourth stage is when the oshi‑e is assembled into a single piece by being
fixed with copper nails (toritsuke) by the master craftsman (or craftswoman) onto the wooden
hagoita.
The technique of oshi‑e was probablyintroduced into Japan from China and in the seventeenth
century was known as isho‑e, which means “
picture of dresses”, perhaps because the same cloth33

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

was used as for kimonos. It is said that the oshi‑e was elaborated first of all by the women of thecourt, people of the class of Samurai. The most representative figure was the daughter ofHidetada Tokugawa,the empress Tofukumon‑in (Fister 1994,93‑95). At the beginning of the Edo
period oshi‑e was popularized due to books like Hana musubi nishikie awase (lit.“
Flowers joined,brocades fixed”) published in 1736. In the late Edo period women of the lower classes began tomake ema (ex‑votos)with oshi‑e for temple offerings (ibid ). This same writer comments that theoshi‑e, together with the embroideries,were excluded from the history of Japanese art on accountof having been made by women lacking official artistic training (ibid., 96).

This work was notregarded as professional, but merely a “pastime”of the women;each menso‑shi needs ten oshi‑e‑shi.
Noguchi had to go to learn with another master in order to achieve a command of the wholeprocess since his father was only a designer. He makes the designs based on antique Japanesedrawings or paintings,and one of the most difficult things is to make them fit into the rectangularform of the racket. There are certain rules of design and colour regarding the characters of the
Kabuki. For example,the wisteria girl is supposed to wear a kimono with wisterias. This flower
has to be painted on the cloth;but if they need to lower the price,they leave this part out. Noguchi
belongs to the Doll Association which also has members who make hagoita. He feels himself to bea craftsman and not an artist;he signs his pieces,but with the surname of a family of craftsmen:
Hosan.
The customers are of various types,but mainly they fall into three groups: those who buy fora new born girl;the collectors;and those who buy them to take abroad as presents.
It would seem that in the past acquiring a hagoita with the favourite character from the Kabuki
was equivalent to acquiring nowadays a photo of a favourite film star or pop idol. It is thoughtthat they were mainly women who bought them.
The hagoita are traditional and what is new about them has to do with the characters
represented on them. For copyright reasons,it is not possible to make scores ofhagoita ofa famous
television actor, for example;only if someone requests a special order is this done, but one canʼt
go making dozens of the same thing and selling them in the shops because this could give rise toa lawsuit.
Every year,the Traditional Folk Arts Association in Tokyo organizes a great fair in Asakusa
which represents the big sale of the year;practicallyeverybodycomes. Noguchi takes part;he also
once went to an exhibition in Chicago and comments that it was interesting to see the diverse
reactions of the public of Japanese descent: the older people were more appreciative than theyoung.

A“
mistress”of the craft
Almost by accident, and when we had already lost hope of finding a craftswoman who made34

ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

hagoita, we came across Akiko Goto in her shop
“Harimaya”, the name of a well‑known Kabukifamily;this shop has existed for 150 years. She isa woman of sixty‑five,taciturn to begin with,butin the end quite friendly,as she got talking to us
and, once again, an immediate empathy appeared. She tells us that she began to make hagoita
when she was thirty and by now has been doing
it for thirty‑five years. Her parents‑in‑law used
to do it,but as she was busy bringing up her two
Akiko Goto, Tokyo, March 2006

daughters she did not take up the work immedi-

ately. Her husband makes the traditional Japanese dolls. Neither of the daughters is following in
her parentsʼfootsteps.
She gets up at half‑past‑four every morning and works until seven.For the details she needs
sunlight,so she works on these later in the day. She has breakfast,leaves home at nine oʼclock forthe shop, which opens at ten and closes at six oʼclock in the evening. She works as maker andsaleswoman,cleans the shop and attends to the customers,does everything in fact,and goes to bed
at nine. Her husband has no time for domestic chores. “Heʼs very busy”.
She is hoping to make it to her eighty‑eighth birthday,because the government gives a prize
to the craftsmen and women who spend most time in their trades. She works 360 days a year andrests five, during the New Year. She says that if she doesnʼ
t make at least one hagoita a day she
doesnʼ
t earn enough to eat. She can make a hagoita that measures half a metre in two days if she
already has several parts of the process under way. She uses a glue that she has made specially;in the past she used a paste made from rice, but this is no longer available.
She began when the older daughter started primary school, the grandmother helped with thechildren then. First she worked at home,but after the older daughter started at secondary school
she was able to look after the shop. She wanted to work anyway, but her father‑in‑law insisted
on it because,as he said,since his own daughters refused to work,his daughter‑in‑law must taketheir place. The result is that they are mere housewives, while Akiko is happy to be making
hagoita because this is something she could do anywhere as long as she had the instruments to doit. Both she and her husband,each involved in their own thing,work there in the rear part of theshop.
She wanted to make the hagoita figures with a very different sense of movement from thosewhich existed and she thus decided to design them in full body. She would thus free herself ofcompetition since hers, she said, would be unique. She works alone and does it all herself, evenpainting the faces that other makers buy printed from Taiwan in order to lower costs. One of thethings that seems most difficult to her is to find adequate material;she says that when she travels
she always goes looking around and when she finds something good she buys a lot of it.

35

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

In Japan tradition must be maintained irrespective of hopes of profit. Thus the hagoita haveto be made well although it costs more to do so,and people who understand this buy them. Hers
normally cost three times as much as those of other makers. “Itʼs like the difference between a 100
per cent cashmere sweater and any old pullover”.
One of the questions that particularly call for attention regarding her hagoita−and which wehavenʼ
t noticed in the work of others−is that she reproduces in them works of famous painters.
For example, she reproduces the paintings “Wind”by Shoen Uemura (1875‑1949 ), “Selflessness”
by Yokoyama Taikan (1868‑1958), or “Yayoi”by Ito Shinsui. She thus achieves a syncretism
between folk art and fine art that is highly suggestive.
She says that there are examples of her work in the British royal household,because theyhave
a boat for the disabled and the volunteers who work on the boat went to buy in her shop. One
person was particularly taken with a hagoita which was extremely expensive,but she lowered theprice and it went away to England. Some twenty years ago she took part in an exhibition in Los
Angeles, California, and that has been all.
In order to do the designs she goes to see Kabuki;she finds inspiration watching the movements of the actors,and this is reflected in her designs. She also goes to see the Noh theatre. The
faces of the figures she makes are traditional Japanese female faces;she doesnʼ
t make “modern”
figures like other workshops. The “modern”consists, in many cases, in making the eyes lessslanted, more western, for example.
Akiko thinks that the difference between male and female craftsmen is a matter of sensitivity.
The parts of the hair or the way in which the underwear to the kimono is placed so that it is justvisible−only women know how to do this kind of thing. Another difference between the work ofmen and women is that the former are more rigid,and once they have their design,thereʼs no room
for change. The womenʼ
s designs, however, do change;they are more flexible. Even when they
copy a model,a painting by some artist,for example,they make changes. Sometimes they ignore
the design altogether and make something completely new. For instance,women know what kindof clothing the female figures ought to wear, and she thinks that in this the artistic sensibility ofwomen shows through.
She says she knows no other master craftswoman who does hagoita. She devotes a lot of timeto teaching oshi‑e. She has about twenty pupils aged between thirty and eighty. She also regards
herself as a craftswoman, although of a low level, because her master used to tell her that when
one reaches mastery one has to return to the basic level because otherwise one ceases to grow. She
is never satisfied with what she does;she always wants to do it better. This is why she regards
herself as a beginner and not a “mistress”of the art.
She has an assistant who is also a craftsman and helps her with the sales. He has been withher since he was fifteen and was there before she got married. He helps to nail the oshi‑e to theracket;sometimes he doesnʼ
t ask her what colour she wants and uses something she doesnʼ
t like,but as she doesnʼ
t want to take his work away from him, she keeps quiet.

36

ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

She is a member ofthe Hagoita Shopkeepersʼ
Association, but not of the national Traditional
Folk Arts Association, and probably will neverbe accepted since her work is not considered
traditional enough for them. She thinks that
there is much rivalry among the craftsmen of thedifferent shops. There are few who do the wholeprocess and most just sell what others make.
Once she put together a collection ofeighteen
relatively small hagoita representing Kabuki
plays and each one costs 50,000 yen. She sold theHagoita with“
NaozaneKumagai”createdbyGoto,Tokyo,March2006

set for a million yen to the Kabuki‑za. The largest figure measured 1.80 cm.and cost 500,000 yen.
The fair at Asakusa is fundamental as far as sales go because there she sells in three days the workof a whole year. There is also a shop outside Tokyo that sells her hagoita.
She has never felt that being a woman made things difficult for her; she only experiences
certain physical problems,such as when she wants to take down the hagoita from a high shelf anddoesnʼ
t reach them easily (of course, if the person who put them there was somebody taller thanher−her husband perhaps−we chip in).
She signs her hagoita, but with the name of the shop,in other words there is no way to know
who actually made them. Perhaps it is for this reason that no other craftsman we spoke toadmitted to knowing of the existence of a “master craftswoman”. Her work is thus,to a certain
degree, anonymous like much folk art and in fact,in the end,she is invisible. Could one say that
her labour as a craftswoman parodies the well known invisibility of the domestic work of women?
The now deceased craftsman Hideo Hiroshima stated in an interview in Internet that those
who buy hagoita are mainly women over sixty. Women aged between thirty and forty donʼ
t buy
them.

Nonetheless, the craftsman Ikuo believes there are buyers of all ages.

Every time we get to interview a craftswoman there is that rapid empathy between them andourselves that we have already mentioned;all of them smile and burst into laughter more easily
than the men:once again a matter of gender.

The Little Museum
In the old Mukojima neighbourhood of Tokyo one finds this tiny hagoita museum. The signat the entrance says that it is also a “
M odel Shop”. There is an exhibition of some sixteen antiquehagoita that are not for sale;all the remaining hagoita that are on show are the work of craftsman
Kogetsu Nishiyama. The museum is a family project.
Kogetsu Nishiyamaʼs wife,eighty‑year old Atsuko Nishiyama,has to do everything,she tells
us;there is literally nothing that she doesnʼ
t do. She was born in Tokyo of a family that had no37

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

connections with hagoita; she got married attwenty‑two with Kogetsu and it was then that
she began to help with the craft work. Theyhavea son who also works at hagoita;he is aged forty‑two and does almost the whole process,besides
going to exhibitions and looking after themuseum.

Unlike Akikoʼs shop, here in thismuseum, they only make hagoita, no dolls.
Although she used to take part in all the craft
operations she has never done the designs, since
Atsuko Nishiyama, Tokyo, March 2006

this required a special technique that she doesnʼ
tpossess. “The only thing my husband said to me when we got married was:just be calm,because
otherwise youʼll put me off with the expressions of the hagoita characters”. Nowadays, she still
makes all the hat strings. In other workshops they just buy them ready made. The album with thephotos of the customers who have bought hagoita is a treasure for those who share in their tiny
museum. “There are people who order them because the daughter is going to dance in some play
and they want us make the same character on the hagoita”. They also make them to be given as
presents to daughters or granddaughters,following the tradition.
Her husband has grown very fond of schools
and schoolchildren and goes to give talks on
handcrafts. He lived in Asakusa before the war,
but his house got burned down and so the family
moved to M ukojima.

In the old days, manygeishas used to walk past the house but
nowadays that hardly ever happens. They used
to enter with their patrons so that theywould buy
them a hagoita, but none of that exists now.

Kogetsu Nishiyama, Tokyo, March 2006

The hagoita they make are very different from the rest. For example, her husband paints
patterns on cloth of the kimonos and also paints the back side of the paddles and writes both hisname and that of the person who is to own the piece. In this case,the work is not at all anonymous.
Several articles have been written about Kogetsu Nishiyama in important journals;there is alsoa video (in which his wife doesnʼ
t even appear)and a book. For more than sixty years he has been
devoted to his work, has travelled to England (1978), to the United States (1981), China (1981),
France (1983), Thailand (1992), Australia (1994), and has even been visited by the German
Chancellor (1986) to whom he gave a demonstration of his technique and his work.
Atsuko Nishiyama tells us that he sells more hagoita with female characters than with maleones. They put on exhibitions every year in hotels and department stores. Sometimes the stores38

ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

call them to place orders of hagoita, but as they have no catalogues, he asks them to call at the
shop. When the orders are placed from far away, they send them photos of specimen hagoita forthem to choose. Both he and his son love going to see Kabuki. She on the other hand doesnʼ
t govery often. She hardly talks about herself;she talks of her husband,her son,and occasionally she
refers to herself as “the craftsmanʼs wife” (in the third
person). We, however, had the luck to chance upon one
more invisible craftswoman.

A workshop specializing in oshi‑eIn this studio‑shop called “M inamikawa”in Takasago,in the Katsushika district of Tokyo, they donʼt make thehagoita, but basically they buy and elaborate certain partsof the process. They neither make designs nor paint thefaces, they are not menso‑shi but only oshi‑e‑shi.
M ichie Nitta has worked there for twenty‑seven years,
since she was twenty‑three. She began oshi‑e because her
Michie Nitta, Tokyo, March 2006

children were starting kindergarten and she needed a job.

She lives nearby and goes to work by bicycle. She didnʼ
t know how to do the work,nor had she
had anything to do with hagoita before, but now she loves it. The details of the oshi‑e are her
speciality nowadays.
The other woman who works there, who is the wife of the owner and master, is Yoshiko
M inamikawa;she tells us that she began to do oshi‑e immediately after getting married at thirty
years of age. She has two children and neither of them has followed her in the trade. Five or six
people may be involved during the process of making ahagoita. There they cut the cardboard,make the filling andmount everything on the wooden racket. She selects thematerial and makes the combinations. They have to buy a
lot of fabric because they only use the parts where thedesigns suit the hagoita and throw the rest ofit away. Thereare cloths with classical and modern designs and one or theother type is chosen in keeping with the kind of hagoita
being made. To see the new fashions in kimonos she goes togirlsʼcoming‑of age ceremony; she also tries to keep
abreast of the fashions in European clothes.
They talk to us about two types of hagoita that represent women:the classic and the modern. Among the classic
models there are some that have received the seal of tradi-

Yoshiko Minamikawa, Tokyo, March 2006

39

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

tional metropolitan folk art−these are the most expensive−and others that have not. Among the former,there isalso a new model that is characterized by the fact that thesleeves of the kimono project over the sides of the battledores so as to make them more imposing. The faces aredifferent according to the type, especially as regards theeyes: in the modern type they are slightly rounder, as wehave already mentioned. Young people tend to buy themodern kind and older people prefer the classic.

The

craftswomen too like the classic models best.
Ikuo M inamikawa is Yoshikoʼs husband;as soon as heenters the room, he dominates the space and the conversation taking place in it. His wife and Michie merge into theModern style Hagoita with “
a girl with a long‑sleeved kimono”, Tokyo, March 2006

background;the wife gets up to bring the tea, she serves it
and sits behind him, practically ceasing to speak. He wasborn in the Sumida neighbourhood, but since, as
he says, there were many houses burnt down
during the war, he went to Katsushika. Basically,the three of them work together alone,but
if the work accumulates they have to put out
some part of it to others.
He has been director of the Asakusa hagoita
market for more than ten years. He says that
previously he used to sell more hagoita with malefigures, but this is no longer the case since thepeople who used to buy them keep dying or else

Ikuo Minamikawa, Tokyo, March 2006

they no longer have money to spend;the purchasers nowadays prefer female figures.
Prices range from 3,500 to 700,000 yen. The ones that sell most are in the 18,000 yen bracket,
although they would cost twice as much if you were to buy them in the department stores.

Characters on the hagoita
As regards the main figures represented on the hagoita, one can say that women always show
a passive,expectant attitude with the face inexpressive and slightlysweet,with an indifferent gaze.
Their clothes and their hairdos change,but the faces are always the same. Often they are a mereadornment, showing how beautiful the woman and her attire can be. Even those who are shown
dancing have a hieratic face,although it seems that as far as the craftsmen are concerned,this is
not so. The craftsman at the Little M useum, Kogetsu Nishiyama, is quite positive that he gives40

ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

a different expression to each female figure, because a geisha is not the same as a housewife, aprincess,or a servant. The men,on the other hand,display strong attitudes,their expressions area lot more variable,their faces expressive and often even look annoyed. Neither of the two sexes
looks directly at the beholder;they are always looking the other way,at a 45 degree angle. Thisis so to a considerable degree because in the Kabuki likewise−from whence the great majority of
the characters represented originate−the women almost always keep a frozen expression on theirfaces. The men,on the other hand,move their faces and their eyes,they are more expressive. Only
the old women make more gestures with their faces. The women in the Kabuki often weep, but
without altering their expressions.
The Kabuki theatre was begun by a woman called Okuni in the early seventeenth century andit was soon after that this type of performance and form of entertainment won the name of Kabuki
in reference to its scandalous nature. It is curious that Okuni was able to wear menʼs clothes. After
Okuni,came the continuation which was a Kabuki staged entirely by women and was called Onna
Kabuki. In 1629 a prohibition was placed on women acting, and it became for a short time atheatre for adolescents of thirteen or fourteen years only, known as Wakashu Kabuki. In 1652 it
was prohibited once more,but in 1653,the prohibition was lifted (Shaver 1996,39 ‑40). Ever since,it has been a theatre in which only men act,interpreting the roles of both sexes. The actors who
specialize in female roles are known as onnagata.
The craftsmen and women may represent in the hagoita whatever the customer asks for,whatever characters they wish,and there are an endless succession ofthese among both the leadingroles of the plays and the secondary ones,plus the characters of the dance.

However,there arecertain favourites, the most common being, for example, Sukeroku (a male character), the twolions, one with a long red mane, and the otherwhite, from Kagamijishi (the “lion dance”), or
the three picaresque characters from Sannin
Kichisa (which features two men and one woman,
all called Kichisa); foremost among the femaleroles are Sagi Musume or Fuji Musume (dancing
girl with wisteria). According to Kogetsu Nishiyama, the Kabuki characters most often represented are:the temple dancer from Kyo‑Ganoko Musume Dojoji, and Benkei from the play
This photo was found at the El Nacional Archive of the INEHRM
in Mexico City. An excerpt of a text (perhaps a telegram) thatcomes with it says: “InternationalNews Photo. Doug makes a hit
with manufacturers Tokyo, Japan. Gen. Douglas MacArthur isgiven what the Japanese consider a signal honor. A military
portrait of the supreme allied commander now adorns Japanʼ
s［...］ This is the first time that a foreign personality
ʻbattledoresʼ
has had his portrait on the battledores. One of the girl workers
of a toyshop places finished samples ofthe newʻ
hagoitaʼon the
shelf with some of the older types. Photo byCharles Rosecrans.
(Nov. 13, 1946)”.

Kanjincho.

The colours that characterize thecostumes of the Kabuki theatre characters are
reproduced exactly in the hagoita, but one canʼt
say the same for the delicacy and finesse of muchof the decorative elements of the theatre. That
aspect is not at all integrated in the hagoita.

41

行
送
り
縮
め
て
ま
す
︒

Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

Apart from the Kabuki characters other subjects from the real and imaginary worlds havebeen represented. In the 1930s, for example, a lot of “
M odern Girl”figures were made on themodels of Shirley Temple or Norakuro,Betty Boop or Kurobe (Hagoita, Kites and Tops). In the
1940s General Douglas MacArthur made his appearance on the hagoita scene. Nowadays there arealso hagoita with Snoopy, the M ona Lisa, Hello Kitty, rabbits or dogs with kites in the form ofclowns and a multitude of television actors, sumo wrestlers, sportsmen and women,the Japaneseroyal family, pop singers or contemporary politicians, whether Japanese or foreign (George W.
Bush for instance).

Conclusion
After having taken a close look at two examples of Japanese folk art and the men and women
who create it,we realize the importance of technical perfection in achieving the aesthetic effect of
the objects. A greater mastery of the techniques seems to result in a greater aesthetic value of thepieces,although this can not be absolutely guaranteed. There are some objects of folk art in which
technical perfection is not so important for the aesthetic effect;nonetheless,in the case of both thelacquers and the hagoita its importance is not to be doubted.
Given the constant and persistent invisibility of women and their work,it is indispensable tolook closely at their part in the process and bring them to the surface. In the Japanese books on
handcrafts women are almost completely absent. From time to time,some embroideress or weaver
appears,but in many cases even these are ignored. Women are always left in the background;they
do not appear as craftswomen, their names are not mentioned, their faces are only fleetingly
glimpsed, they are hidden and so is their work. The men,however,are present,perfectly visible,
their names are known. That is why our work attempts to uncover the women.
The shunkei lacquers are the epitome of Japan‑ness on account of their simplicity,discretion,
elegance, beauty and technical perfection. It is not surprising that they have been the pride ofJapan for hundreds of years. Their ultimate origin is foreign,like much that exists in this country,
but it was here that they attained their supreme degree of artistic excellence.
In the highly developed and ultra‑modern Japan of the twenty‑first century, the hagoita
represent a conjunction of efforts to achieve the survival of a very long‑established folk culture
given static visual form,but for all the effort that has been invested in these objects,they will no‑doubt become, in the not‑too‑distant future, a mere relic of the past in museum show‑cases. In
this case,Japan‑ness is underlined,above all,by the representation of women in kimonos and all
the traditional costume. It is thus possible to see the woman in traditional attire as an archetypethat represents the essence ofJapaneseness,rather like the figure ofthe China Poblana in M exico .
（Eli Bartra, Professor, Departamento de Politı
ca y Cultura, Area de Investigacion M ujer,
Identidad y Poder, Universidad Autonoma M etropolitana.)(Kanae Omura, Visiting Scholar International Institute, Latin American Center,
University of California, Los Angeles.)42ジェンダー研究 第10号

2007

＊ This article was originally written in Spanish and translated by Christopher Follett.
＊ We received permission to use all of the photos that are used in this article.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Monica Cejas,artificer,discreet but crucial,ofthis project,and the Institute for GenderStudies of the Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, which supported our work in several ways, but above all throughits invitation to Eli Bartra as a visiting professor for a period in Japan. Our thanks are also due to M rs. Ogawa,of the Lacquer Museum and to M iss Tozawa of the Tozawa Shikki shop in Takayama, for their valuable
information;likewise to all the craftsmen and craftswomen who so generously spared time for our interviews.
We are also very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Omura of Shirotori who so kindly extended us their hospitality
during our fieldwork in Gifu;and, last but not least, to John M raz who, once again, revised and pulverized theoriginal to give it better form,and to Maiala M eza,who gave a final reading and polish to the text. Many,many
thanks to all of them.

Notes
１

Kanae Omura is a Japanese specialist in M exico who has spent long periods of time in the latter country;Eli
Bartra, who is M exican, spent several months in Japan delighting in Japanese culture.

２

In fact,in England the terms ʻjapan,japanningʼwere already in use in the late seventeenth century,and metal
with a glossy black coating is still called “black‑japanned”.

３

In January, 2006.

４(http://kougei.or.jp/laws/tml). As regards the laws regarding folk arts and lacquer work in particular, see
M asami Shiraishi, 1982, pp.15‑23.

５http://www.kougei.or.jp/kougeishi/f‑index/htm/

６

Ibid.

７

http://www.dentoukougei.jp/kougeilist.htm/

８

See http://www.kougei.or.jp/english/promotion.html

９3M refers to Master Craftman, Museum, Model Shop. “M odel Shop”is a kind of small museum of a didactic
nature where the process of elaboration of the object is demonstrated;it also functions as a sales outlet.

10 For a brief history of the shunkei lacquer see Tadashi Inumaru, 1992, pp.126‑7.
11 http://www.b‑zenjapan.com/crafts/gifu‑02.phtml
12 Video “Hida‑Shunkei Lacquerware”, 1975.
13 And this exclusion lasted down to our days. Of course the hagoita are not to be found in the books on Japanesefine art,but they are also seldom mentioned even in books on folk art. See,for example,Timeless Beauty, 2002,
where the total lack of mention is noteworthy.
14 http://www.edocraft.com/products/harashima/creator.htm
15 For example, in 1832, Ichikawa Danjuro selected 18 Kabuki plays as the most important: Fuwa, Narukami,
Hudou, Uwanari, Zohiki, Kagekiyo, Shibaraku, Kanjincho, Sukeroku, Uirouri, Yanone, Oshimodoshi, Kanu,
Nanatsumen, Kenuki, Gedatsu, Jayanagi and Kamahige.
16 Legend and history have amalgamated around a mythical character called La China Poblana. It is also atypical female dress, and an archetype of Mexican women.

43Eli Bartra, Kanae Omura Gender and Japanese Folk Art: Shunkei Lacquers and Edo Hagoita

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