Chonmage

The is a type of traditional Japanese topknot haircut worn by men. It is most commonly associated with the Edo period (1603–1867) and samurai, and in recent times with sumo wrestlers. It was originally a method of using hair to hold a samurai kabuto helmet steady atop the head in battle, and became a status symbol among Japanese society.

In a traditional Edo-period , the top of the head is shaved. The remaining hair was oiled and waxed before being tied into a small tail folded onto the top of the head in the characteristic topknot.

History

The origins of the can be traced back to the Heian period. During this period, aristocrats wore special cap like crowns as part of their official clothing. To secure the crown in place, the hair would be tied near the back of the head.

Between the 1580s (towards the end of the Warring States period, 1467–1615) and the 1630s (the beginning of the Edo period, 1603–1867), Japanese cultural attitudes to men's hair shifted; where a full head of hair and a beard had been valued as a sign of manliness in the preceding militaristic era, in the ensuing period of peace, this gradually shifted until a beard and an unshaven pate were viewed as barbaric, and resistant of the peace that had resulted from two centuries of civil war. This change was also enforced during the Japanese invasion of Joseon (1592–1598), where some Japanese commanders forced the submitted Koreans to shave their heads to this hairstyle, as a method of converting their identities to that of Japanese.

A shaven pate (the ) became required of the samurai classes by the early Edo period, and by the 1660s, all men, commoner or samurai, were forbidden from wearing beards, with the deemed mandatory.

Under the Meiji Restoration, the practices of the samurai classes, deemed feudal and unsuitable for modern times following the end of in 1853, resulted in a number of edicts intended to 'modernise' the appearance of upper class Japanese men. With the Dampatsurei Edict of 1871 issued by Emperor Meiji during the early Meiji Era, men of the samurai classes were forced to cut their hair short, effectively abandoning the .

Sumo

In modern times, the only remaining wearers of the are kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers.

The sumo style of the is slightly different, in that the pate is no longer shaved. However, the hair may be thinned in this region or the crown of the head shaved, called , to allow the topknot to sit more neatly.

All professional sumo wrestlers wear a as soon as their hair is long enough to do so. Sumo wrestlers with status are required on certain occasions, such as during a , to wear their hair in a more elaborate form of topknot called an or ginkgo leaf style, where the end of the topknot is splayed out to form a semicircle, resembling a hand fan (). Given the uniqueness of the style in modern Japan, the Sumo Association employs specialist hairdressers called to cut and prepare sumo wrestlers' hair.

The is of such symbolic importance in sumo that snipping it off is the centerpiece of a wrestler's retirement ceremony. Dignitaries and other important people in a wrestler's life are invited to take one snip, with the final one taken by his trainer. For most wrestlers who never reached a sekitori rank, his retirement ceremony will be the only time he wears the more elaborate .

See also

* or , the traditional Chinese topknot
* Khokhol
* Queue, the Qing-dynasty Chinese hairstyle also involving a shaved pate
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References

Further reading

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External links

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{{Human hair

Sumo terminology
Hairstyles
Samurai
Japanese fashion
2010s fashion