[5] Murray's Handbook for Japan, by B. H. Chamberlain and W. B. Mason.
[CHAPTER XX: FANS]
The Significance of the Japanese Fan
"Her weapons are a smile and a little fan." This quotation from Mr. Yone Noguchi only illustrates one phase of the Japanese fan, the phase with which we are familiar in our own country. The Japanese fan is not merely a dainty feminine trifle to be used in conjunction with a smile or with eyes peeping behind some exquisite floral design. Nippon's fan has a fascinating history quite outside the gentle art of coquetry, and those who are interested in this subject would do well to consult Mrs. C. M. Salwey's Fans of Japan. Here the reader will find that the fan of the Land of the Rising Sun has performed many important offices. It has been used by ancient warriors on the battlefield as a means of giving emphasis to their commands. On one occasion it was the mark of Nasu no Yoichi's bow, and although the sun-marked fan was whirling in the wind, tied to a staff in the gunwale of one of the Taira ships, Yoichi brought it down:
"Alas! the fan!
Now driftwood on the sea.
The lord Nasu,
Skilful with the bow,
Yoichi's fame is spread."
A certain Japanese fan, of gigantic size, is used in the festival of the Sun Goddess in Ise, and there is a pretty story told of the widow of Atsumori becoming a nun and curing a priest by fanning him with the first folding fan, which is said to have been her own invention.
One of the most important parts of the Japanese fan, as of any other, is the rivet, and concerning the rivet there is the following legend. Kashima on one occasion stuck his sword through the earth, with the idea of steadying the world and thus preventing earthquakes, phenomena still prevalent in Japan. Eventually the sword turned into stones, and it was called Kanamé ishi, or the Rivet Rock, and this was the origin of the name kanamé as applied to Japanese fans.