Karakuri ningyo are automata who can trace their history back to eighteenth century Japan. Introduced via karakuri-zui (a book which contains information regarding mechanical engineering written by Hosokawa Hanzo Yorinari and published in 1798) the karakuri ningyo are just as much a marvel today as they were when they were introduced.

Karakuri refers to a mechanical object which creates an air of mystery that surprises the individual interacting with it, while ningyo roughly translates to doll; thus giving us a mechanical doll that amazes the viewer.

Utilizing a basic wood skeleton in combination to a series of steam, mercury, springs, and sand the traditional karakuri ningyo comes to life to delight us. Modern karakuri ningyo can be made of various metals and plastics.

There are three main types of karakuri ningyo. There is the dashi karakuri (automata used in festival floats), butai karakuri (automata used on the stage), and zashiki karakuri (small automata which are used idomestically).

In Japan there are many festivals that contain “floats”, dashi, of various sizes. The floats tend to be made of wood and are pushed, pulled, and carried by volunteers. It is an honour to participate in the transportation of one of these floats. Depending on the size of the float it lends you the right to do a bit of macho bragging because if you are physically carrying a float by the beams you also toss it up in the air and catch the beams of the float on your shoulders (some repeat volunteers of the Gion Matsuri have permanent indentations from carrying and tossing the floats). Then there are those that participate in matsuri (festivals) where people crash the floats into each other in a game where the last float standing wins!

The more elaborate floats can be made of three levels with the top level containing various intricate karakuri ningyo. These particular automata, dashi karakuri, are usually mythological in nature and act out particular myths with their motions.

It is often said that the performances of Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku (puppetry) are heavily influenced by the movements of the karakuri ningyo. It is no woner that karakuri ningyo accompanied actors on stage and gave entire performances on their own as butai karakuri. Karakuri ningyo is most often used in the heads of puppets to change a beautiful maiden into an evil demon:

There are many types of zashiki karakrui (domestival autmata). You have he dankaeri, a doll which is traditionally powered by mercury and completes summersaults down a flight of stairs.

There is the ryohusha, an automata which appears to be a box with a fan but when we look inside we find a small boy is causing the fan to move.

There is the shina-tama which is a boy who sits upon a box. The child holds a box in his hands and when activated he lifts the box to reveal an object, puts the box back down, and lifts the box again to reveal a different object.

There is the haurokoma which is a boy on a hobby horse who walks through the room while both he and the horse turn their heads. There is the haikara who is a lovely lady going for a stroll. There is the koteki which is a small girl who plays two instruments when activated (a fife and a drum). There is the toukei, powered only by sand, which depicts a boy refereeing a cock fight before a dog comes and scares the boy and two cocks away. And there is the karakuri ningyo that stands at least twenty feet tall, O-nyudo:

There are also karakuri ningyo which complete complicated calligraphy!

And the amazing karakuri ningyo which shoots arrows at a target.

But the most popular, and most well known, of the zashiki karakrui (domestic automata) is the chahakobi doll. This particular automata is used when entertaining guests. He, or she, is activated and proceeds to walk towards your guest while carrying a cup of tea. When he bows his head your guest lifts the tea cup to stop him from moving. Once the tea cup is given back to him, the automata turns around and returns to his starting place. But I will get into him with a tad more detail in a post I will make at the start of next week: Karakuri (Part 2).

In short, karakuri ningyo have managed to capture the imagination of people for hundreds of years and provide the basis for many physical movements in traditional Japanese theater and the starting the point for robots in Japan.

This entry was created for the Japan Blog Matsuri for the month of December (2009). This event is hosted by Dumb Otaku.