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Turn the head and it squeaks. That squeak is how you know where it was made.
Would you like one like this? ↓A kokeshi is turned on a lathe by woodturners who also made bowls and trays. They began selling them to people staying at the hot springs of the north, and the doll became the memento of a bath town.
There are eleven recognised traditional strains, and each one is a place: its own face, its own patterns, its own proportions. A collector can name the town from the eyebrows.
You may have read that this doll's name means "erased child". It doesn't. That story only shows up in print in 1965, more than a century after the first kokeshi. The truth runs the other way. Woodturners in the hot-spring villages of northern Japan made bowls and trays, and from the offcuts they turned dolls for their own children. A kokeshi was a wish: that a child would grow up healthy. Bathers took them home as lucky charms, and farmers hoped they would bring a good harvest. In Naruko, the body is painted with chrysanthemums, and the head is fitted so tightly that it squeaks when you turn it. If you'd like one of your own, Maison Homura will go and look for it. It was never about a child lost. It's a wish for one to grow.
On the shelf now, from other workshops
Not this story's piece: new work from Japan's workshops that can be ordered today.
Kutani Ryusen Vasegold leaf pine crane flower vessel$189
Hakata Ningyo Monkey FigurineQueen Mother of the West peach$179
Oga Peninsula Namahage Wall HangingJapanese Red Oni Mask$109
Seibo Kitamura Fighting Spirit Bronze Bull SculptureYokozuna Ushi Cast Metal$465Pieces like this come and go, and most of what the house finds never goes online.
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Dogwood or cherry, seasoned a year or more before it is touched.
Body and head are turned on a lathe, each in one piece.
The head is driven into the body. In some districts it is made to squeak.
Face and pattern are painted freehand, in the fixed manner of that valley.
Naruko is the strain whose head is fitted into the body so tightly that it cries when you turn it.
No arms, no legs, and no attempt at any. What the maker has to work with is a cylinder, a sphere, and a brush.
A hot-spring town in the mountains of Miyagi. The woodturners there made bowls and trays for the bathhouses, and the doll started as the thing they turned from the offcuts for the children of guests.
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