The author of the "Sho-rei Hikki" makes no allusion to the custom of
shaving the eyebrows and blackening the teeth of married women, in
token of fidelity to their lords. In the upper classes, young ladies
usually blacken their teeth before leaving their father's house to
enter that of their husbands, and complete the ceremony by shaving
their eyebrows immediately after the wedding, or, at any rate, not
later than upon the occasion of their first pregnancy.
The origin of the fashion is lost in antiquity. As a proof that it
existed before the eleventh century, A.D., a curious book called
"Teijô Zakki," or the Miscellaneous Writings of Teijô, cites the diary
of Murasaki Shikibu, the daughter of one Tamésoki, a retainer of the
house of Echizen, a lady of the court and famous poetess, the
authoress of a book called "Genji-mono-gatari," and other works. In
her diary it is written that on the last night of the fifth year of
the period Kankô (A.D. 1008), in order that she might appear to
advantage on New Year's Day, she retired to the privacy of her own
apartment, and repaired the deficiencies of her personal appearance by
re-blackening her teeth, and otherwise adorning herself. Allusion is
also made to the custom in the "Yeiga-mono-gatari," an ancient book by
the same authoress.
The Emperor and nobles of his court are also in the habit of
blackening their teeth; but the custom is gradually dying out in their
case. It is said to have originated with one Hanazono Arishito, who
held the high rank of _Sa-Daijin,_ or "minister of the left," at the
commencement of the twelfth century, in the reign of the Emperor
Toba. Being a, man of refined and sensual tastes, this minister
plucked out his eyebrows, shaved his beard, blackened his teeth,
powdered his face white, and rouged his lips in order to render
himself as like a woman as possible. In the middle of the twelfth
century, the nobles of the court, who went to the wars, all blackened
their teeth; and from this time forth the practice became a fashion of
the court. The followers of the chiefs of the Hôjô dynasty also
blackened their teeth, as an emblem of their fidelity; and this was
called the Odawara fashion, after the castle town of the family. Thus
a custom, which had its origin in a love of sensuality and pleasure,
became mistaken for the sign of a good and faithful spirit.
The fashion of blackening the teeth entails no little trouble upon its
followers, for the colour must be renewed every day, or at least every
other day. Strange and repelling as the custom appears at first, the
eye soon learns to look without aversion upon a well-blacked and
polished set of teeth; but when the colour begins to wear away, and
turns to a dullish grey, streaked with black, the mouth certainly
becomes most hideous. Although no one who reads this is likely to put
a recipe for blackening the teeth to a practical test, I append one
furnished to me by a fashionable chemist and druggist in Yedo:--
"Take three pints of water, and, having warmed it, add half a
teacupful of wine. Put into this mixture a quantity of red-hot iron;
allow it to stand for five or six days, when there will be a scum on
the top of the mixture, which should then be poured into a small
teacup and placed near a fire. When it is warm, powdered gallnuts and
iron filings should be added to it, and the whole should be warmed
again. The liquid is then painted on to the teeth by means of a soft
feather brush, with more powdered gallnuts and iron, and, after
several applications, the desired colour will be obtained."
The process is said to be a preservative of the teeth, and I have
known men who were habitual sufferers from toothache to prefer the
martyrdom of ugliness to that of pain, and apply the black colouring
when the paroxysms were severe. One man told me that he experienced
immediate relief by the application, and that so long as he blackened
his teeth he was quite free from pain.