Temari, literally "
hand ball," is a traditional
Japanese craft involving
balls of
brightly colored thread embroidered with intricate
designs.
Believed to have originally been
kemari, or "
foot ball," this was a game introduced from
China in the
7th century. Kemari was played by a group of children, who kicked a
deerskin ball high in the air. The
object was to keep the ball off the ground and in the ten
square foot playing field. The point was not only to make a
high score, but to show off graceful
kicking form. The game was popular in the
Emperor's courts, but
samurai considered it frivolous.
Hacky Sack is one of its
direct descendants.
Temari, basically a game of
catch, was a pastime of the children of
nobility. The balls were made from
thread and scraps from old
kimono. After the introduction of
cotton into
Japan, the balls were made of more inexpensive cotton and introduced into the
lower classes. In the
feudal periods, this game became again popular in the
noble classes, because it could be played indoors when wars with neighboring
clans made outdoor play unsafe. The game evolved into bouncing the balls and
chanting nonsense rhymes similar to
jumprope rhymes, and the balls began to be wound in
bright colors and beautifully embroidered.
After the introduction of
rubber into Japan during the
Meiji era, temari went out of style, replaced by
rubber balls. However, because of the strong
tradition behind temari as an
art form, it survived
industrialization to this day. The balls are
traditionally given to young girls by their mothers and grandmothers as
New Year's gifts.
Temari
patterns range from the simple to the complex, drawing inspiration from
natural phenomena, such as
spiderwebs,
nets,
leaves,
stars, and
waves. Flowers like
chrysanthemums and
plum blossoms are popular designs, as are interlocking
geometric shapes -
squares,
diamonds, and even
circles. The
designs were once
regional over different areas, but with the advent of
mass-media communication, several temari
societies have been created, in which designs are registered and shared.
A
method of creating temari has been refined by
Diana Vandervoort, involving a
styrofoam sphere at the core, as opposed to the wadded up
paper used currently in Japan. Cotton
batting is wrapped over the styrofoam, then
yarn, then
thread. Guidelines for
stitch placement are wrapped on in bright metallic
floss, and fastened in place. Finally, bright
mediumweight cotton
embroidery thread is stitched onto the ball in the desired pattern.