Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/121

 cascades falling below the shoulders, and a long lock behind. Labouring women adopted a much simpler style. They bound the head with a gracefully folded cloth, gathering and knotting the hair under this kerchief. The process of enveloping the head in such a fashion was developed into a high art. In a moment a woman could convert the little square of cotton cloth that she carried by way of a towel, into a coiffure of the daintiest and jauntiest description. Professionals, as physicians, dancers, singers, and actors, razed the head completely, after the manner of Buddhist friars.

Speaking broadly, the costumes of the people now began to approximate to the style represented in the genre pictures of the seventeenth century. Women of the upper classes continued to wear loose trousers, but in the dress of the lower classes, and in the toilet of unmarried girls, skirted robes made their appearance. The girdle (obi) of later days, an essentially characteristic feature of Japanese costume as the Occident knows it, had not yet come into use. Ladies, indoors, tied a narrow belt of silk round the waist, knotting it in front and treating it essentially as a mere fastener. Above it they wore a long, flowing robe, reaching from the neck to the heels, with voluminous sleeves. This robe, in the case of aristocratic dames, was of magnificent quality, sometimes of rich brocade, sometimes of elaborately embroidered silk or satin.