The
Japanese New Year’s Festival,
Games and Pastimes
BY
HELEN C. GUNSAULUS
Assistant Curator of Japanese Ethnology
FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CHICAGO
1923
{1}
Field Museum of Natural History
Department of Anthropology
Chicago, 1923
Leaflet Number 11
The Japanese New Year’s Festival, Games and Pastimes
The Japanese prints with which we are most familiar in this countryare those known as nishikiye, literally “brocade picture.” Generallyspeaking, they are portraits of actors and famous beauties orlandscapes and nature studies. There are, however, other woodcuts knownas surimono, “things printed,” whose subjects are characters known inhistory and folklore, household gods, incidents in the daily life ofthe people and the celebration of certain festivals, particularly thatof the New Year. From a careful study of these prints we may becomeacquainted with many of the most distinctive customs of Japan.
Though produced by the same process as that used for the nishikiye,surimono may be easily distinguished from the former. In additionto the series of wood blocks used to print the outline and colors ofthe design, surimono are often enriched by the application of metaldusts and embossing. The decorative motive is usually interpreted oraccompanied by a poem or series of poems written in the picture. Theseprints were not made for sale but were exchanged as gifts among poetsand artists on certain occasions, such as feasts, birthdays, theatricalor literary meetings, and especially as cards of greeting presented atthe opening of the New Year. The surimono in the{2} collection inField Museum of Natural History were selected primarily with the viewof illustrating the customs and mode of living of the people of Japanrather than of assembling together pictures which would be enjoyed fortheir aesthetic appeal. While these prints are of an artistic nature,they are valuable to an institution of this kind as approaches to thestudy of the ethnology of Japan. The Museum is in possession of acollection of three hundred and sixty prints which has been dividedinto four groups, in the first of which the New Year’s festival andcertain games and pastimes are pictured to a considerable degree. Thisselection is hung each year in Gunsaulus Hall (Room 30, Second Floor)from January 1st to April 1st, when it is succeeded by another group.
THE NEW YEAR’S FESTIVAL
Of the many festivals enjoyed in Japan, none is attended with moreceremony than that which opens with the New Year and is celebratedwith more or less formality for fourteen days. It was customary in theold days to celebrate the New Year at the time when the plum firstblossomed and when winter began to soften into spring, somewherebetween the middle of January and the middle of February. Since theadoption of the Gregorian calendar, this festival opens on January1st, and is attended by many of t