Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/200

 same purpose. As a general rule it was simply a bead of some substance regarded as precious by the Japanese, though occasionally it was made of cloisonné enamel, porcelain (Chinese), gold, silver, shakudo, shibuichi, ivory, wood, or the kernel of a peach, microscopic sculpture being added in the case of the last seven substances. No less than sixty-four different kinds of minerals and other matters were used to form these beads when the beauty of the substance alone was relied on. Among them were coral (pink, white, and black), amber, lapis lazuli, pearl, rock-crystal, aventurine, agate, marble, garnet, malachite, the skull of the crane, and prehnite. These details are mentioned for the purpose of showing how large a measure of care was bestowed on the appurtenances of the inro, and how unlikely it was that the button in which the ends of the silken cord were united for passage through the girdle would have been less ornate than the bead just spoken of. In point of fact the button of the inro did assume the form of the beautiful object called netsuke (ne means "root" or "end," and tsuke, to fasten) as early as the end of the fifteenth century, when the dilettante Shōgun Yoshimasa set to the nation an example of luxury and elegance in almost every department of daily life. There has been circulated in Europe a theory that the introduction of tobacco in the sixteenth century called the netsuke into existence, its original use being to serve as a button for the tobacco-pouch; and it has further been suggested that the chiselling of the netsuke would never have been carried to such a degree of elaboration had not a great number of idol-carvers found themselves without occupation during the second half of the seventeenth century. The