Turn the head and it squeaks. That squeak is how you know where it was made.
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.
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.
Pieces are found one at a time, in Japan, and photographed before they are listed. Tell us what you are looking for, and we will write when something arrives that answers it.
We write when there is something to write about — some months twice, some months not at all.
Noted. We will write when something arrives.