July 16, 2016

MINGEI - mushikago insect cages in Edo

http://omamorifromjapan.blogspot.jp/2014/09/kago-basket.html

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. mushikago 虫かご / 虫籠 basket for keeping insects .
box for keeping insects, mushikago, mushiko 虫籠 insect cage
dealer for insects, mushiya 虫家, mushi-uri 虫売り
.. knowledgeable about insects, mushi-kiki 虫聞き
- kigo for all autumn -
mushikiki at Dokanyama, Edo 道灌山 道灌やま虫聞 - by Utagawa


source : surugaya.com/sensuji/sakuhin/musikago
mushiko uri 虫籠売り vendor of insect baskets
Some sold empty baskets, some came from the nearby villages to the center of Edo and sold baskets with the insects and some food already inside.


- reference source : woodblockprints.org/index -
極印千右衞門 Gokuin Senemon holding am insect cage
Utagawa Toyokuni III 歌川国貞) (三代豊国) - Gokuin Sen'emon

"Sen'emon is holding an insect cage (mushikago - 虫籠) in which you can see two lightning bugs which he has caught. He has put in a sprig of a nadeshiko (撫子) or Japanese pink as food for his captives.
"At the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, Karigane Bunshichi, Gokuin no Sen'emon, An no Heibei, Hote no Ichiemon, and Kaminari Shokurō haunted the streets of Osaka, robbing, beating, and even killing fellow residents.... "

kirigirisu キリギリス / 螽斯 long-horned grasshoppers were sold for 8 Mon 八文, now about 200 Yen. So keeping an insect in autumn was quite possible for the townspeople.
The baskets to keep the insects had many forms, from square to elongated to almost round. Others had the form of a boat or a handfan.
The craftsmen who made them during the winter time took pride in making decorative cages.
They were made from thin bamboo stripes.
Many lowly samurai, who lived in 千駄ヶ谷 Sendagaya, made these baskets as their side income.

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