About
Tea Kettles
Have you ever hear the story of the "Bunbuku Tea Kettle?"
There are many different versions. In one, a tanuki (wild raccoon-dog)
is helped by a poor man, so in return, he turns into a tea kettle
and earns money for the man by walking on a tightrope. In another,
a priest tries to catch the tanuki to have it for dinner, but the
tanuki tries to escape by turning into a tea kettle. The priest
takes the kettle home, but when he puts it on the hot fire, the
tea kettle starts to sprout arms, legs, nose and ears, and soon
it has turned back into a tanuki!
The "Bunbuku Tea Kettle" stories are not as interesting
if you do not know what tanukis and tea kettles look like. Many
Japanese children have never seen a traditional tea kettle, but
non-Japanese children have probably never seen a tanuki either.
A tanuki is a wild raccoon-dog (see Museum Dictionary, No. 8 for
another tanuki story). Japanese people think of tanukis as having
big, round bellies sticking out in front. It just so happens that
Japanese tea kettles also have rounded middles.
Kotenmyo Skirted Tea Kettle (Private
Collection)
This shape looks just enough like a tanuki's belly to make you believe...
Well, anyway, lots of people thought that tanukis and tea kettles
were similar enough to make a good story. Thus the "Bunbuku
Tea Kettle" tale became one of the most popular stories of
the Edo period (1600-1868 A.D.) and was the plot of many picture
books. This story was very popular because, unlike children today,
Japanese children in the Edo period still used tea kettles in their
everyday lives.
The kind of tea kettle we are talking about here doesn't actually
hold tea but instead is used to boil water for the Japanese tea
ceremony. When do you think that these kettles were first made?
Actually, kettles like this were used widely at least as long ago
as the Kamakura Period (1185-1333 A.D.), but at that time they were
used not only for boiling water for tea, but for boiling hot water
for cooking, bathing, and other purposes. Back then, there was no
hot running water like we have today!
Until the Muromachi period (1333-1573), tea was considered to be
an important medicine. After a Zen priest named Eisai brought matcha
tea (the strong, green tea powder used in the tea ceremony today)
from China to Japan, however, tea began to have other functions
in Japanese society, as seen by the new popularity of the tea-related
guessing game "Tocha." This taste contest, in which the
drinker tried to guess the origin of each variety of tea, was one
example of a new trend of drinking tea for fun. With the growing
interest in the tea ceremony, kettles began to be made especially
for boiling tea water. The tea ceremony gained rapid popularity
in the 16th century, from the late Muromachi period through the
Momoyama period. Samurai and merchant classes in cities such as
Kyoto, Sakai (Osaka Port), and in castle towns in the provinces
began to compete among one another by holding lavish tea ceremonies.
With this, the orders for tea kettles came rolling in to the famous
kettle-making regions.
Many kettles were made from the 15th-16th centuries in such regions
as Ashiya (today's Ashiya Town, Fukuoka Prefecture), Tenmyo (present-day
Sano City, Tochigi Prefecture) and Kyoto. The craftspeople in these
regions were regarded as the best in Japan at that time, and still
are today.
Look at the photo below:
Ashiya Shinari Tea Kettle with Hailstone
Ground and Deer and Maple Patterns
(Private Collection)
This kettle shape is called the "true shape" (shinnari
kama in Japanese). It is round and originally had a rim like a belt
running around its lower half. Such kettles were made in the tradition
of kettles of the past. In the Edo period, many new and different
kettle shapes were created, but the "true shape" remained
the most popular and common. I bet that the tanuki in the "Bunbuku
Tea Kettle" story turned into a kettle of this shape!
The tea ceremonies in which these kettles were used were huge, expensive
events with many guests and the finest tea bowls and utensils. Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, who ruled Japan in the 16th Century, once had a Tea Ceremony
in a Golden Tea Room using all golden bowls and utensils! One of
the most powerful merchants of the time was a man named Chaya Shirojiro,
whose estate was next to the present-day Prefectural Government
seat in Kyoto. All kinds of beautiful and luxurious tea bowls and
utensils have been excavated from his estate, proving that he spent
a huge amount of money on the tea ceremony. However, the tea ceremony
was not only for rich people. In recent years, tea utensils have
been excavated from all over the country. In large cities, where
the tea ceremony was especially popular, numerous "true shape"
kettles made of clay instead of iron have been excavated from former
middle-class and lower-class neighborhoods. These excavations prove
that the Way of Tea has been enjoyed in different ways by people
of different classes over the years.
The Bunbuku Tea Kettle story became popular at a time when the tea
kettle was still an important part of daily life in Japan. If you
ever get a chance to see one in real life, take a good look at it
and remember the people who made and used tea kettles every day in
old Japan. If you look long enough, you might see it turn into a tanuki!
Text by Tomoyasu Kubo, Department of Archives
Illustrations by Satoshi Ichida, Department of Public Relations
English translation by Melissa M. Rinne, Department of Archives
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