A Miniature Origata Hinagata

I'm sure a Japanese-speaker would be horrified at this title, but I just couldn't resist the rhythm of the words.

In Japan, origata is the folding of formal wrappers and containers for such things as flowers, cooking ingredients, and gifts given on special occasions, such as birthdays. This kind of etiquettical paperfolding is evidenced from the late 17th century in Japan, but probably dates back to much earlier times. Originally there were several schools of etiquette, each of which would have taught their adherents to fold origata in different ways, but gradually one of these, the Ogasawara school, became more influential than the others. A hinagata is a book of patterns or samples.

The little book shown here is owned by Shoko Aoyagi. It cannot be dated with certainty, but is probably from the Meiji period (1868 to 1912). Originally the samples were glued to the pages, but it is old enough that the glue has weakened and many of them have come loose.

It was made by someone called Kamiya, about whom nothing else is known. He, or  she, but most probably he, will almost certainly have folded these samples under the instruction of a master of the Ogasawara school of etiquette, the purpose of the book being to ensure that they could be reproduced as accurately as possible when they were folded again.

Immediately I saw the photos Shoko kindly sent me, I noticed that several of the designs were not ones I had previously thought of as origata. They are more decorative, more like origami designs than just wrappers or containers (though they are wrappers and containers, of course). 

The one that particularly caught my eye was the Crane Envelope. I already knew this as a traditional Japanese design (it appears, for instance as the 'Carrier Pigeon' in the classic book 'The Art of Origami' by Samuel Randlett from 1961, and in Isao Honda's 'Origami: Part One' from 1932) but I had not realised before that it was a type of origata and so potentially comes from a much earlier date. Shoko tells me that this particular design of wrapper is used to contain a gift of money for a new born baby boy.

Other similar hinagata exist. The oldest one I know of dates from 1697 and is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. If you are interested you can find more details here.

My thanks to Shoko Aoyagi for letting me use these pictures of her beautiful book.