known as haniwa or "circle of clay," also being used within a ritual context. Rather than being used in fertility rituals, the haniwa were widely employed in funerary rites for the nobility where they served as substitutes for human sacrifice. We find a wide variety of figures, much like the celebrated Han and Tang dynasty funerary ceramics of continental China, including horses, small houses, ceremonial sunshades, armaments, and vessels all fashioned out of a porous red-tinted earthenware known as haji. But the most celebrated haniwa figures are those depicting human shapes. These include warriors, shamans, noblemen, women, men, nursing babies, and children. The simple but elegantly fashioned figures have done much to reveal styles of dress, personal ornamentation, hairstyles, and religious rites of the period. Part of the tumulus burial practices adopted from the Korean peninsula, these earthenware forms were placed in concentric rings around a central mounded tomb. Legend posits the origins of this practice with the tenth emperor, Suinin, during the third century. According to the Nihongi, first compiled in 720, when the brother of Emperor Suinin died, his funeral followed the then-current practice of partially burying alive the personal attendants of the deceased, leaving them with their lower extremities trapped in the earth to die a slow and agonizing death, ultimately rotting in the sun and falling victim to wild dogs and crows, as part of the interment ceremonies. Following this grisly spectacle, Suinin mandated that an alternate method be found. A potter from Izumi named Nomi no Sukune declared: "It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. How can such a practice be handed down to posterity.... Henceforth let it be the law for future ages to substitute things of clay for living men and set them up at tumuli." The emperor agreed and began following this practice following the death of the Empress Hibasuhime no Mikoto. According to archeological excavations, the earliest form of haniwa were perforated jars buried inside the tumulus. Gradually, more sophisticated figures were developed, culminating in the sixth century with finely attired martial figures depicted with close-fitting helmets, plated armor, billowing trousers, swords, and bows and arrows resting atop perforated cylinders which have been set in the ground to anchor the piece. Beginning with the haniwa, we find ningyō playing the role of substitute, replacing a live individual with a doll form within a ritual context, a practice which was to be echoed in funerary and purification rituals in later eras.
In the centuries that followed the ending of the Kofun period, as tumulus-style burial practices and their associated rituals faded with the introduction of Buddhism, we find the emergence of another ningyō form known as the hito katashiro or, simply, katashiro. The katashiro were flat or tubular roughly human-shaped sculptures very rudimental in design and far more stylized than the highly realistic haniwa of the previous period. Although Buddhist sculpture from the period also reveals what levels of sophistication in carving could be achieved during the time, katashiro were extremely minimalist in execution, with crudely painted features and rough hashes for the arms and legs when depicted. Frequently wrapped in cloth or dressed in textiles, katashiro were included in numerous rituals. The katashiro form is largely considered a funerary object, being placed in the coffin along with the body and other offerings for cremation. However, the discovery of mass burials of these figures at the gates and along the walls in Nara suggest their substitution role during funerary rites had expanded into more talismanic functions, possibly to repel disease and malevolent influences. A variety of katashiro forms emerged over time, including flat pieces of wood representing a human silhouette, images in profile with separately formed arms in a marionette style, tubular sections of wood not unlike a modern baseball bat with painted features. Varying sizes of katashiro have been found in clay, stone, wood, leather, metal, paper, and straw. Documents from the succeeding Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods describing the continued practice of using katashiro, particularly in a funeral context, attest to the longevity of this early form of ningyō and its established role in the religious rites of the period.
An evolution of the katashiro is found in the talismanic doll form known as nademono (lit. "rubbing thing"), the final in this brief survey of early ningyō forms. Over the centuries, Japan has been greatly influenced by beliefs and practices introduced from China and Korea. Native, what are now loosely termed "Shintō," beliefs and practices were modified in reaction to Buddhist beliefs and practices surrounding death, Taoist practices associated with magic and yin/yang theory, and even Korean shamanistic beliefs concerning the afterlife. Beginning in the Nara period (710-94), we find specific references to practices involving dolls and the transmission of evil elements from the person to ningyō or purging of impurities or malevolent influences through the use of the doll as a scapegoat. These practices were centered around purification rituals (oharai), most notably around the New Year, in early spring around the third month, and early summer around the fifth month. Paper dolls called nademono, very similar in shape and degree of simplicity to the katashiro, were rubbed over the body, blown upon, and then either ritually destroyed or set adrift. This was to remove accumulated negative elements from the body by transferring them into the substitute nademono. This practice was to continue uninterrupted through to the Edo period when it melded closely with the doll festival known as the Hina-matsuri. Many of these practices can be traced to similar rites in Chinese culture. Specifically, the third month third day celebrations originally known as Joshi in ancient Japan, more commonly known today as the Hina-matsuri or Girls Day doll festival, had its origins in Chinese purification rites involving ritual ablution and the burning of doll images which were considered important for insuring the health of the entire community, not just children. Similarly, the fifth month fifth day gogatsu celebration now known as Tango-no-sekku or Boy's Day, also had its origins in the Chinese practice of placing doll forms fashioned of mugwort and iris leaves on the doors of houses to ward off evil spirits. Each of these festivals will be addressed in greater depth in the book. What is important to note is that the origins and development of dolls in Japanese culture were from objects closely associated with specific rituals regarding fertility, death, health, and purification. As such, ningyō are by definition closely intertwined with these larger issues. Despite the outer camouflage of sumptuous textiles and lighthearted subject matter, at their core ningyō remain in essence powerful emblems, a buffer between this world and unseen forces, imbuing even the most fanciful of figures with a power and meaning not shared by their Western counterparts.
And so it was in 1854, at the end of the Edo period, when Commodore Mathew Perry of the United States Navy, representing the "progressive" forces of the West, came to Japan and after much saber rattling and rhetoric met with officials of the Tokugawa government, among the official gifts received from Japan was a small gosho-ningyō. It was of a young boy clothed in a simple bib holding a double gourd emblazoned with auspicious characters. This was not the only gift, nor nearly the most important exchanged on this momentous occasion—the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa. But imagine an analogous situation, for example when US President Richard Nixon first went to China to meet with Chairman Mao Tsetung in 1972, or when President Ronald Reagan first clasped hands with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov in 1985, if among the official gifts had been a Malibu Barbie or a Gl Joe.... Such an exchange is near inconceivable because the values, meanings, and associative qualities of a "doll" in the West are far removed from those that orbit around a Japanese ningyō. But given the historical function of the gosho-ningyō as a traditional gift, one presented to daimyō visiting the imperial court in Kyoto, combined with the multitudinous traditions surrounding ningyō in Japan and the important roles they have played for millennia in Japanese culture and psychology, such a gift was entirely natural, if somewhat perplexing to the recipients.
Takeda-ningyō: Takenouchi-no-sukune
Edo period, 19th century
Height 19 inches
Herring Collection
EDO NINGYŌ STYLES
Ningyō as a term applies to a vast array of figures in Japanese culture, from the minimalist Daruma tumble toy to the highly stylized and fantastic shapes of contemporary artists who explore the lighter and darker aspects of the human psyche using dolls as a medium of expression. In the Edo period, the word ningyō was used to describe an equally wide variety of forms.
