The Curious Case of The Maple Viewers Initial Attempts at Recreating a Japanese Woman's Hat

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1 The Curious Case of The Maple Viewers Initial Attempts at Recreating a Japanese Woman's Hat When most people think of creating Japanese women's garb, they picture the elaborately color-coded layers of the Heian period or the simple red hakama and white kosode of Kamakura. Visions of white-faced women with long dark tresses cascading down their backs leap to mind. Which is a lovely picture but causes a bit of a dilemma for those of us with more modern styling. What's a girl to do when she wants to look "right" but her hair is short or dyed colors not found in nature? Unlike many European cultures, Japanese women of the middle ages didn't tend to wear hats. Except for the wide (and sometimes curtained) straw hats used for sun and bug protection when traveling, or the occasional head scarf seen on a worker, Japanese women aren't usually shown in hats. There are religious wimples, and women are frequently shown with their outer robes pulled up over their heads to avoid sun exposure. But long hair is a key accessory for the pre-modern Japanese lady -- various traditional hairstyles even have special names. Reenactors have the option of wearing an eboshi, a man's hat that can be worn in different ways to indicate status. However, the eboshi looks a little out of place when the rest of your attire is definitely feminine. Others use wigs which, while they certainly give the right look, can be hot and difficult to deal with, especially at camping events like the Pennsic War. Elliot Evans An eboshi. The Maple Viewers Hat Enter Maple Viewing at Takao, a six-panel folding screen painting by Kano Hideyori, created during the Muromachi Period (16th century) and often referred to simply as the "Maple Viewers". The piece is a National Treasure of Japan. According to the Grove Dictionary of Art, [its] focus on human figures of various classes enjoying themselves makes it one of the earliest examples of Japanese fuzokuga. The depiction of famous places and seasonal motifs also reflects the origins of fuzokuga: the traditional modes of meishoe (paintings of famous places) and shikie (paintings of four seasons). 1

2 Tokyo National Museum Maple Viewing at Takao, a six-panel folding screen painting by Kano Hideyori, created during the Muromachi Period (16th century); National Treasure A (This painting is a great resource for costuming, especially since it's available online from the Tokyo National Museum website.) One of the interesting things about the painting is the group of six women on the right. Obviously at ease and enjoying their picnic, three of them are wearing curious white cloths around their hair. One of the women is also wearing a sugegasa, a conical straw hat. At first glance, the hats look similar to white eboshi. However, eboshi do not have dangling ends as these do. A question posted to SCA Japanese online discussion groups yielded the suggestion that they might be a less exaggerated version of binanboshi. Tokyo National Museum Detail showing women in white headgear. Binan-Boshi and Other Possibilities On its website about Noh & Kyogen, the Japan Arts Council says a binan-boshi is used to highlight female characters (who are played by men). It's described as "a 5-meter piece of white linen that is wrapped around the head, in such a way that long sections fall from the head down, like braids..." Likewise, in her review of "The Blindman of Kawakami" for the In the Noh newsletter, author Carolyn A. Morley refers to female characters wearing the binanboshi; however she states that the wraps are made of cotton, not linen. 2

3 Japan Arts Council A 1986 performance of the kyogen piece, "The Fortified Beard". The women all wear binan-boshi. There are several significant differences between these hats and those in The Maple Viewers. The hats in the period painting do not seem to have the same characteristic fabric roll around the crown of the head that appears in pictures of binan-boshi from the modern kyogen performance. It's possible, however, that these headdresses are exaggerated for the theater, as often happens with Noh and Kyogen costumes. In a slightly post-period depiction of the same performance, the binan-boshi appear more similar to the hats in The Maple Viewers. An early Edo-period performance of "The Fortified Beard". Three actors at center left portray women and wear binanboshi. From Old Noh and Kyogen Illustrations from the Early Edo Era. Japan Arts Council 3

4 Another suggestion was that the head-wear was a tenugui or katsura-tsutsumi. Tenugui are all-purpose scarves or handkerchiefs that are used as bath towels and head wraps. Similarly, a katsura-tsutsumi -- shown in the image at right of a peddler from Katsura -- is a long white cloth rolled on the head. This version is tied in front and no bands are left dangling. It would seem that without the knot in front, the katsura-tsutsumi would likely fall off the wearer's head. Right: The Costume Museum's reproduction of a katsura-tsutsumi The Costume Museum Likewise, although similarities exist, the head-wear is not the same as that depicted in this post-period print of Uesugi Kenshin, a daimyo who ruled Echigo province in the Sengoku period ( ). Although it has the dangling ends of the hats in The Maple Viewers, Kenshin's headdress is more likely that of a priest (like many powerful men of his time, Kenshin took religious vows in his later years). It has a peaked form similar to an eboshi and seams are readily apparent, as is a rolled or twisted knot. It is harder to tell whether the cloth on his shoulders is attached to the hat or is a separate piece but no such shoulder covering appears in The Maple Viewers. Detail from woodblock print titled "Returning Geese - Kenshin" by Yoshitoshi and dated 20th March Japan Print Gallery 4

5 More poking and prodding around the Internet revealed another series of panels from the Muromachi Period (16th century) titled "Genre Scenes of the Twelve Months". An Important Cultural Property, the screen shows various ceremonies and activities that occur in different months of the year. In one panel, farmers work the rice paddy as a group of musicians performs dengaku (field music). Each of the workers appears to be wearing the same headdress and sugegasa as one of the women in The Maple Viewers. So, we can confirm from multiple period sources that the hat exists -- it is not Tokyo National Museum Detail from Genre Scenes of the Twelve Months. Muromachi Period, 16th century. Important Cultural Property A particular to one artist. We also see that the hat was worn by farmers, who are thought to be the highest class of peasant people in medieval Japan. (Because there was so little land that could be cultivated in Japan, farmers were honored over artisans and tradesmen.) (Tokugawa, 24) Analyzing the Maple Viewers Because The Maple Viewers gives us the best view of the hat, we took a closer look at it to try to decide what the structure of the head-wear might be. The first thing we noticed about the hats is they do not have a "wrapped" appearance like the binan-boshi, tenugui, or katsura-tsutsumi. Instead they seem to have a baggy body piece with attached straps. This makes sense because it would be hard to fit all of that material and your hair comfortably under a sugegasa. It also appears that the body of the hat may have a center seam, although this line could also be artistic license to Tokyo National Museum Detail of women from The Maple Viewers 5

6 show fullness of material. Both women also have some portion of their hair visible beneath their hats. The hanging straps caused some initial confusion. Were they purely decorative? Were they meant to tie under the chins? (The "Genre Scenes" painting answered that question. Surely if you were going to be working in the fields, that would be the time to tie your straps!) After looking at the lines and the way the straps fell, we decided that these hats have not one but two pair of ties. One goes underneath and around the back of the head to tie, the other is purely decorative. You can easily spot the "accessory" ties in the lines of the woman wearing plaid. And the woman wearing stripes seems to have a tight piece of cloth bound low around her forehead which could be the front portion of the "working" ties. This construction is similar to a European hat called a "Flemish coif," which has a wide front strap that flips up to frame the face. A quickie diagram of the proposed two-tie system. Unfortunately, The Maple Viewers is damaged at exactly the spots that show the ties overlapping. Is the outer tie hanging down or is the inner tie hanging down? Also, the two hats in the scene look slightly different. One seems to have a wide band and one has a narrow band. We had some debate over whether the hair-covering Detail with different sets of ties color-coded. part was one piece of fabric or included seams. Japanese art is frequently very literal about showing garment construction, but it's hard to tell whether the lines on the top and back part of the hat are seams or fabric creases. And if they are seams, how many are there? 6

7 Another issue that wasn't entirely obvious from the painting was what happens at the back of the hat. We haven't found any paintings that show the nape of the neck. We can guess from the exposed hair in The Maple Viewers that the hat remains open at the bottom, but we can't see how much fabric is left to cover the neck. It's possible that the functional tie originates from the back of the hat and somehow wraps around the top of the head invisibly. The ties on a Flemish coif come from the back of the hat, at the nape of the neck, and tie under the band at the top of the head (the tie is completely hidden). It's possible this hat does the same thing -- we just can't tell from these pictures. Historic Enterprises A Flemish coif, showing ties around the head. As a side note, it's possible that these accessories were made out of whatever fabric the wearers had left over after making another garment. The construction, the placement of the ties, and the shape of the body may have depended on the shape of the fabric available. For instance, a cap could be constructed from fabric left over from creating a kosode (the pre-modern kimono). The extra fabric left from the diagonal cut in the frontcenter panels could make the body of the cap, with some additional shaping. Both sets of ties seem to be consistent with the size of the collar on a kosode. This theory would also explain what appears to be the center seam -- it's because the hat is pieced from scraps of a white "underdress" kosode. Right: Illustration of how the hat material could be remnants from a kosode. 7

8 Making the Hat Looking at pictures is one thing, eventually you have to try it out. We made a prototype hat using the layout in the "three rectangles" sketch above as a pattern. The prototype is made from three pieces of linen: a long scarf that covers the hair is sewn into a double-layered H-shaped piece that forms the two ties. The hair covering is one piece of fabric, not multiple pieces like the sketch for using remnant fabric (or like the hat in the woodcut print of Kenshin). The prototype hat. Wearing the prototype showed some flaws in the theory. At first, we tried using the lower tie to gather in the hair covering piece and leaving the upper tie as the decorative one (similar to how a Flemish coif is worn). But worn that way, the upper tie flopped over instead of falling straight from the crown of the head as shown in the painting. This could be a failure of tailoring skills -- cutting the ties on a slight angle instead of straight would probably allow the top tie to lie flat. Or it could mean that the top tie is the functional one and the lower tie is decorative. Tying the hat that way allowed the ties to lay flat. Prototype with lower ties used to gather in the hair covering piece. The prototype also covers quite a bit more head and neck than is shown in the painting. We can partly blame this on our "model" not having much hair to hold it up -- the ladies in the painting have elaborate hairstyles peeking out from under the scarf -- but another possibility is that there is too much fabric in the prototype. Areas for Further Prototype with upper ties used to gather in the hair covering piece. 8

9 Study As we continue studying this hat and its potential use in Japanese historical reenactment, we expect to explore several avenues: Future physical prototypes will likely include pieced crowns, and we will experiment with different arrangements of the functional tie and the decorative one. We hope to find more scholarly information about The Maple Viewers and the women wearing the hats. Since hats are uncommon, why do they have them at all? Is it just because it's fall and the weather is cold, or do the hats mark women of a particular station in society? One of the picnickers' companions is a nun in a black robe and wimple -- it's possible that the ladies' hats are related to a religious ritual and more similar than we'd thought to the priest's hat in the print of Kenshin. Another area that deserves more study is the binan-boshi and other scarf-based women's hats. We are not the first modern, non-japanese women to have the question of what to do with our hair when portraying Japanese persona! We hope to continue improving and sharing our understanding of medieval Japanese hats and how they can be recreated. Bibliography "Artists biographies: Kano Hideyori." The Grove Dictionary of Art. New York: Macmillan Publishers, Ltd., Also available in print form. (Accessed March 7, 2010). Costume Museum, The. "Costume History in Japan." The Costume Museum: The Rebirth of the Tale of Genji. (Accessed March 9, 2010). Japan Arts Council. Various Costumes of Kyogen. Noh & Kyogen. (Accessed March 7, 2010). Morley, Carolyn A. The Blindman of Kawakami: A Kyogen Play. In the Noh 1, no. 2: 4-5 (March 2004). (Accessed March 7, 2010) Tokugawa, Yoshinobu. Shogun and Daimyo. In Shogun: The Shogun Age Exhibition, edited by The Shogun Age Exhibition Executive Committee, Tokyo: The Shogun Age Exhibition Executive Committee, Tokyo National Museum. "The Maple Viewers." Tokyo National Museum Collection. (Accessed March 26, 2010) 9

10 Further Reading Leiter, Samuel L. Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theatre. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., (Accessed Marach 7, 2010). Noma, Seiroku. Japanese Costume and Textile Arts, translated by Armins Nikovskis). New York: John Weatherhill, Inc., Oiwa, Keibo and David Suzuki. The Japan We Never Knew: A Journey of Discovery. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited,