Customs of Common People During the Edo and Meiji Periods (Cont.): Tea Whisks, Glass Mirrors, Reading Desks, and Pillows Supplementary Discussion: Customs of Common People During the Edo and Meiji Periods ( Addendum)

Abstract 　Continuing from the previous paper, this paper discusses four items related to the customs of the common people during the Edo and Meiji periods: tea whisks (chasen), glass mirrors, Japanese-style reading desks (fuzukue), and pillows. 　Tea whisks used for sencha were a low-cost essential item used by the common classes and were sold until the nineteenth century, when sencha improved in quality and no longer required a tea whisk. In particular, the chanting priests (nenbutsuhijiri) of Kūyadō in Kyoto, whose history can be traced back to the Venerable Kūya, have sold tea whisks in addition to the religious services they provide while wandering throughout cities since the middle ages. Images of these are gathered and classified into three periods. 　The transition process from bronze mirrors to glass mirrors fell into the Edo and Meiji periods, but its specific condition is yet to be studied. Based on both literature and pictorial materials, this paper notes that small pocket mirrors and larger fulllength mirrors already included a certain proportion of glass products in the Edo era, and that pocket mirrors in particular have been considered to have used domestically manufactured glass. In addition, the paper discusses the state of the transition period in the early Meiji period. 　Japanese-style reading desks were not found to have changed greatly until the early Edo period, but Chinese-style desks were introduced in the mid-Edo period, around the middle of the eighteenth century, and desks with drawers acquired mainstream status from the late Edo period in the nineteenth century. These conditions were confirmed by the following pictorial materials over time. 　The state of pillows changed greatly with the arrival of the vertically oriented wooden pillow (box-supported pillow) in the early Edo period around the middle of the seventeenth century and the trapezoidal azuchi-makura in the mid-Edo period around the middle of the eighteenth century. The fact that wooden pillows and azuchi-makura appeared in response to changes in women’s hairstyles in particular is discussed from ukiyo-e and other pictorial materials. 　Furthermore, both literature and pictorial materials indicate that, just like traditional women’s hairstyles, the use of azuchi-makura continued until the Taishō era.