Japanese mekuri deck – Sakuragawa pattern. Ohishi-Tengudo, Kyoto, Japan. Regular deck, Japanese, 48 cards. Size: 31mm x 51mm.
Deck make-up:
Clubs, swords, cups, coins: A, 2-9, jack (female), knight, king.
It is tempting to assume that Japanese playing cards would have borrowed from, or at least been influenced by, Chinese cards. In a way they were because European patterns derived from the Chinese money-suited system. But the patterns in Japan came about via a longer route than simply hopping over the border.
In 1633, in response to the perceived threat to Japan from foreign influences such as Spain and Portugal, the ruling Tokugawa shogunate enacted its sakoku ("locked country") policy. Relations and trading between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all foreigners were banned from entering while most nationals were kept from leaving. Prior to this lockdown, Portuguese sailors on trading vessels had brought Western playing cards with them of a pattern used in Portugal at that time.
These decks were 48 cards strong, with the 10s missing and the aces represented by dragons. The packs carried the four Mediterranean suits (which as you can read had been derived from those in use in China) of clubs, swords, cups and coins. The decks had three court cards per suit, the lowest of which was an unusual female jack / knave. The sword and club graphics had distinctive intersecting patterns which passed downstream to subsequent Japanese decks.
With the number of available Portuguese decks limited, the Japanese set about producing their own close copies of these, called Tensho karuta after the Tensho period (1573-1592), when they were made for the first time, and "karuta" meaning "cards" in Japanese. They were physically smaller than their Portuguese ancestors – a trait that would pass on to most Japanese cards.
With sakoku now in force, playing cards which were perceived to contain Western imagery or influence were banned; according to some sources, possession even drew the death penalty! Christianity was also banned.
A side development was another pattern, Unsun karuta, from around 1680. This moved yet further away from its Portuguese roots, although it is debated as to whether it was an expansion of Tensho karuta, or a new design to suit more players but again inspired by Portuguese cards. In Unsun, the dragons now occupied a card of their own, with true single-pip aces introduced. The number of court cards was now five (the two new ranks featured gods and important Chinese personages). Most significantly, a whole new fifth suit was introduced, consisting of whirligig-type symbols called guru. The deck was mainly used for a number of trick-taking games.
The next development was a whole slew of patterns derived from Tensho karuta, collectively referred to as mekuri karuta, which had much more of a traditional Japanese flavour about them than what had gone before. You may not like these patterns, but you can't argue they're not distinctive! It is widely said that these assorted patterns grew to prevent the Japanese authorities recognising the cards as tools for gambling (which was banned), with the next design modification springing up as each earlier type was banned. While this may be partly true, it's rather more likely that, for the most part, the differences between the patterns are more down to regional artistic variation.
Mekuri decks have three courts, and aces which were derived from the dragon cards of the Portuguese decks mentioned above. Only red and black with silver overprint were ever used on these cards, with occasional yellow / gold. The court cards have hardly any remnants left of their Western ancestors, with only (depending on pattern) a few odd glimpses of faces or horses' legs (on the knights) remaining. Huge swathes of clumsy fill adorns the cards – are they "so ugly they're beautiful" or are they just ugly?
An incomplete list of these four-suited pattern names is (in alphabetical order): akahachi, fukutoku, hifumi, Ise, jitensho, jurosan, kagiya, kinkyoku, kojishi, komatsu, kotensho, kurofuda, kurokaruta, kuroma, mitsuogi, Sakuragawa, shimotensho.
A wide range of games were played with these decks and usage of mekuri patterns continued until the middle of the 20th century, after which they died out. Tastes changed, and single-suited derivatives of the mekuri patterns called kabu and mame (links forthcoming) were developed to be more appropriate for games which did not rely on suits.
The design specifics of mekuri patterns vary enormously. Various sample cards are given below to show the variation. As always, click for a bigger look.
The sole mekuri deck now being produced is a collector's version of a pattern named after the place Sakuragawa. This is made by Ohishi-Tengudo, and is shown below.
According to the Japanese Wikipedia, the Sakuragawa pattern was used in Ishikawa and Toyama and "is thought to have been inspired by the stylized beauty and image of the Noh play Sakuragawa written by Zeami Motokiyo".
Click on any card to explore the design.
(Comments or corrections, please e-mail: Click to see e-mail address.)
Card image size, below:
The rank here is deducible by counting the bars (the little "tail" of a bar at the bottom of some cards counts too but not any similar one shown at the top), though the ranks 2 through 5 need a bit of creative thinking (ironically it's the more painless cards which have their rank shown!) Of the courts, only the knight is readily discernible due to the horses' legs still being visible through the mess (this applies to the other suits below too).
In ranks 2-5, the swords do still seem to be displaying their handles.
The kings of swords, cups (below) and coins (below) are very similar indeed, and I struggle to see how any card-players managed to tell them apart.
Note the faces visible on the first two courts.
The two in this suit doesn't seem to bother with the coin motif.
A face is visible on the jack.
There were no jokers or extra cards in this deck.
The presentation box was supposed to be made of paulownia wood. According to the net, that's a hardwood. But this box was a very, very soft wood – something like balsa. Hmm.
