Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/203

 on ordinary days and five times on each of the first three days of the year. The eyebrows were shaved and artificially replaced by various forms, as the "crescent moon," the "cloud-dividing," the "heavenly," and the "natural." These fashions remained inviolate at the Court throughout the Tokugawa era, the only changes being in the coiffure and in hair-ornaments. But there was no such immutability in the costumes of the samurai and the commoner, which, for the rest, resembled each other closely in the early part of the epoch, since tradesmen and artisans, being imbued with the martial spirit of the time, modelled themselves in every respect on the soldier. From the beginning of the military era, a samurai's coiffure was dictated by his helmet, the heat and weight of which compelled him to shave the pate and tie his remaining hair into a queue. This queue began to display fashionable caprices in Tokugawa times. Instead of being small and unpretentious, it became either thick and quaintly twisted or ostentatiously thin. In other matters of personal adornment also the tendency of the time found expression. A samurai, in the early part of the epoch, prided himself on having a thick beard, and took such care of it that a pair of tweezers had to be furnished with the tobacco-box to every male visitor in fashionable houses. The commoner, also, when he walked abroad adorned himself with a false beard and moustache. As to