GAMES AND PASTIMES
Several of the most popular games of Japan are represented on surimono and only those games will be mentioned herein. To those who would study the subject exhaustively, S. Culin’s “Corean Games” is recommended. With the possible exception of chess (shogi), no game is more widely played than go, which has been erroneously identified with the game gobang, somewhat similar to our game of checkers. Go, a far more difficult contest than that European game, was introduced into Japan from China in the eighth century. For generations it has occupied the attention of the Japanese, there being clubs and schools devoted to the playing of go. It is played on a square, raised wooden board on which nineteen straight lines drawn from one side to the other of the board cross nineteen other lines drawn at right angles, making three hundred and sixty-one crosses on which the men are placed. One hundred and eighty white, and one hundred and eighty-one black stones, are used in the playing. These represent respectively day and night; the crosses represent three hundred and sixty degrees of latitude and the central intersection stands for the primordial principle of the universe. The object of the game is to capture the opponent’s pawns by enclosing at least three crosses around his stone, and to cover as much of the table as possible. Military men have always been devotees to the game of go, seeing in it the rudimentary tactics necessary for successful warfare.
FIG. 5. THREE GIRLS WRITING NEW YEAR’S POEMS.
BY KATSUCHIKA HOKUSAI.
FIG. 6. GAME OF JUROKU MUSASHI.
BY HOKUSAI SORI.
Juroku musashi (“sixteen knights”) is a favorite New Year’s game which is illustrated in Fig. 6. It is played on a board divided into diagonally-cut squares. One player holds sixteen round paper pawns representing sixteen knights; the opponent has but one large piece known as the general (taisho) which has the power to capture enemy pieces when they are immediately on each side of it with a blank space beyond. The holder of the smaller pieces seeks to completely hedge in and thereby capture the big piece.
Sugoroku (“double sixes”) is similar to the European “race-game.” It is played with dice and the succeeding spaces on the board generally represent the stations of a journey. Brinkley, in his Japan and China (Vol. VI, p. 56), tells us that this game was imported from India in the eighth century and was at first prohibited on account of its gambling character. Eventually the Buddhist priests took it up and converted it into an instrument for inculcating virtue by making the spaces on the board represent a ladder of moral precepts which marked the path to victory. Sugoroku, with the travel board, is commonly played by children at New Year’s time. The name is also given to the more difficult game of backgammon which may be studied in one of the surimono in this museum. The board on which the game is being played is now obsolete. It is divided longitudinally into two fields with an intervening space between. Each field has twelve narrow subdivisions in which the men are placed.
Games of cards (karuta from the Spanish carta) are altogether different from the European card games, though it is commonly supposed, on account of the derivation of this name, that card playing was introduced in the sixteenth century by Portuguese travelers. It is interesting to note here that card playing was known in China in the twelfth century. It would seem that Japan must have made her first contact with the game through a source other than Spain, for the majority of the forms and methods of her playing cards in no way reflect European influence. The fact that cards are quite often called fuda (“ticket”) would also add in casting doubt on the European origin. The hana-garuta or “flower cards” which are widely played are small in size, black on the backs and adorned on the face with flowers and emblems belonging to the twelve months. A set comprises forty-eight cards and the values vary from one to twenty points. The game consists in drawing, playing and matching in suits or in groups.
In the game of uta garuta (“poem cards”), there are two hundred cards. One hundred of these are decorated with portraits of poets and the first two lines of famous classic verses. These are to be matched with the corresponding hundred on which the remaining lines of the poems are inscribed. Of the many ways of playing uta garuta, chirashi, “spread out,” is the most exciting. The cards bearing the last part of the poems are laid face up on the floor. Those inscribed with the first lines are held by the “reader,” who reads them aloud one by one. The other players strive to pick up the corresponding card and he who at the last holds the most is declared winner.