Votive slip folio 22 recto 3, NE1184.35.N67 v.34
Item
Title
Votive slip folio 22 recto 3, NE1184.35.N67 v.34
Description
This slip is part of a series based on iroha karuta, a card-matching game linked to the Japanese syllabary. In its orthodox form, one set of cards would each have a poem on it beginning with a different syllable. Another set of cards would have that syllable accompanied by an illustration. The picture-cards would be scattered on the floor, and one person would read the poem while other players scrambled to find the matching card. In this case, instead of a poem the lower card contains a phrase having to do with senjafuda or one of the members of the ren. Here it’s Ōta Setchō, the name of a senjafuda participant. The picture on the top card is of an oni, which of course begins with the same syllable as Ōta. The match of image to name entails a playful suggestion that Setchō himself is an oni – in this case, a rather dumpy-looking ogre with a bulbous red nose and bright red loincloth.
Source
Gertrude Bass Warner Memorial Library, Japanese Art, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.
Identifier
NE1184_35_N67_v34_046c