What’s In a Book? Part 22
I’ve had this book for almost a week now, and I just love it! So I figured I’d skip another feature to do a book review ^^
Book’s cover courtesy of Amazon Japan. 京・嶋原太夫―太夫・髪型の世界 (Kyō - Shimabara Tayū - Tayū - Kamigata No Sekai) by Tetsuo Ishihara (石原哲男) (ISBN 4-7636-3169-1) Date of Publication: 1991 Language: Japanese Format: Hardcover Availability: Beyond Absurdly Rare Price: $150 - 200 USD Errors: 0 This was Tetsuo Ishihara’s first book on traditional hairstyles and you can definitely see how this book became the prototype that eventually lead to the Maiko No Kamigata book and then the Nihongami No Sekai series. It is an incredibly simple book as the majority of it consists of images of tayū hairstyles, but what makes it great is that there’s at least 4 different angles given for each look so that you can see how they differentiate from one another. For some of the initial images it appears as though Mr. Ishihara used a model, but then it becomes evident that the women modeling the hairstyles are real tayū. The book looks at 23 different hairstyles, ranging from junior tayū to senior tayū, both in age and in rank. They are: 1) Wareshinobu (割れしのぶ/われしのぶ) 2) Ohatsu (お初/おはつ) 3) Oshidori (おしどり) 4) Osome (お染/おそめ) 5) Tachibana (橘/たちばな) 6) Tachibana Kuzushi (橘くずし/たちばなくずし) 7) Kansuzume (寒雀/かんすずめ) 8) Tsubushi Shimada (つぶし島田/つぶししまだ) 9) Mitsumage (三つ髷/みつまげ) 10) Nage Shimada (投島田/なげしまだ) 11) Yūgao (夕顔/ゆうがお) 12) Sakkō (先笄/さっこう) 13) Kinshōjo (錦祥女/きんしょうじょ) 14) Onna Genroku (女元禄/おんなげんろく) 15) Otoko Genroku (男元禄/おとこげんろく) 16) Ofuku (お福/おふく) 17) Katsuyama (勝山/かつやま) 18) Kago Shimada (かご島田/かごしまだ) 19) Genroku Shimada (元禄島田/げんろくしまだ) 20) Tatehyōgo (立兵庫/たてひょうご) 21) Yoshino Mage (吉野髷/よしのまげ) 22) Osafune (長舟/おさふね) 23) Sagegami (下げ髪/さげがみ) All styles are spelled exactly as they appear in the book (including the furigana for the kanji). This is followed by one section where there’s some images of one of the hairstyles being put together in a step by step fashion, and it really makes you wonder how some of those styles stand up to gravity! Even with so many mottoi it’s a magnificent sight to behold! After this part there’s information about Shimabara and it introduces the five tayū who were active at the time of the book’s publishing. They were Hanaōgi Tayū (花扇太夫), Tsukasa Tayū (司太夫), Wakagumo Tayū (若雲太夫), Kasuga Tayū (春日太夫), and Usugumo Tayū (薄雲太夫). It shows them both in their lovely outfits and images in and around Shimabara itself (including inside the Wachigaya). There’s also pictures of a tayū dochu, the process of putting make up on, and mochitsuki, the annual mochi making ceremony that tayū used to take part in. The book finishes up with the history of Shimabara, with so many amazing images of tayū in their resplendent outfits. What really piqued my interest was some of the younger tayū wearing what looks identical to a maiko’s darari obi! It’s tied in the usual tayū kokoro (heart) knot, but you can clearly see the kamon on the tare end (it’s the Wachigaya’s peony). I may scan this image at a later date as I have never seen this used before, but it makes so much sense as the tayū would have needed a way to identify their allegiances when not surrounded by kamuro, especially since tayū weren’t exactly independent. Overall, this book is meant to be viewed based on its images, and there’s no other book that has this much visual detail about tayū, and there likely never will be due to their decline. It’s a wonderful treasure in any collection, but its scarcity and price will likely put it out of the hands of most collectors. Rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ (out of 5)
