Top knots (chonmage)

[Wave Tossed]

I don't know how important this is, but I'm curious: When did men during the Meiji period stop wearing their topknots? And I'm curious as to why -- what impelled them to cut their hair rather than continue to wear it in the traditional ways?

I used to believe that laws were passed, dictating the hairstyle, such as the laws banning the wearing of swords. However, looking at pictures and reading some sources, it seems that the short hairstyles evolved rather than being legislated. Was it because these men of the Meiji era wanted to be "Western"?
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"Walk the thousand mile road, step by step" -- Miyamoto Musashi

[Obenjo Kusanosuke]

Wave,

Good question. As you no doubt probably noticed while watching jidai geki from your impressive collection (that’s meant as a compliment), there are a tremendous variety of chonmage hairstyles among the Japanese during the Edo period. Based on the style of one’s hair, one’s social status, profession, wealth and rank could be determined. Even among the samurai, there was a wide range of ways by which one could display his status and wealth by the way the pate is shaved and the way the topknot is styled.

Even before the Meiji government came into power, people began cutting their topknots and adorning western attire in an attempt to ride the wave (no pun intended) of modernism and or because of a fascination with foreign culture and fashion. However, most Japanese kept the top knots—it’s not so easy to get rid of a top knot culture that had existed since at least the Heian period.

But if you can accept that modernization was one of the main goals of the Meiji government, than you can understand that it became necessary to bring about and end feudal institutions and things that represented feudalism. Thus, the chonmage hairstyle was a vestige of feudal society and culture that needed to be ‘cut’. Some local municipalities tried to outlaw chonmage early on in the Meiji period, as early as 1871, but it didn’t fly to well because of the long history of wearing them and also, closely cropped hair was affiliated with the clergy and criminal prisoners. As you can imagine, some people didn’t want to look like a criminal. Others were flocking to barbershops. I guess it was a matter of taste. However, by 1876, the Meiji government decided the time had come to bury the last visible signs of feudalism among the population and banned the samurai from wearing their swords and banned the chonmage for all strata of society except for sumo wrestlers. This edict went into effect at the end of March 1876 (I believe!!). It should be noted that the Emperor Meiji cut his topknot in 1873, so if the Emperor has gone and done it, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the rest of society to conform.
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Heee heee! Shita iro! Shita iro! Here comes his lordship, Baka Tono!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rekishinotabi

[Matsuhide]

[BlueCollarRonin]

[Obenjo Kusanosuke]

[Tatsunoshi]

Here are a few, courtesy of the PMJS list:

Nihon no kamigata = traditional Japanese coiffures : dentō no bi kushimatsuri sakuhinshū.
Kyōto : Kyōto Biyō Bunka Kurabu, 2000. ISBN: 4838199023


Nihon no josei fūzokushi = The history of women’s costume in Japan / [hensha Kirihata Ken]. Kyōto-shi : Kyōto Shoin, Heisei 9 [1997] ISBN: 4763615254


Edo 300-nen no joseibi : keshō to kamigata / Murata Takako.
Kyōto-shi : Seigensha, 2007. ISBN: 9784861521263


In English there is an exhibition catalog:
The shape of chic : fashion and hairstyles in the Floating World : Yale University Art Gallery, March 18-May 4, 1986 / Shauna J. Goodwin.
Publisher [New Haven] : The Gallery, c1986.

[Wave Tossed]

[heron]

I just came across a reference to this in a book I am reading about Takasugi Shinsaku. Takasugi shaved his head in 1863, for various reasons, and then let it grow into a zangiri (normal Western haircut) style, as can be seen in the 1865 and 1866 photos of him. The five from Choshu who went to England cut their hair on the way: when Ito and Inoue came back to Japan villagers would not believe they were Japanese, because of their short hair. Westerners associated the chonmage with backwardness and a lack of civilisation and this was one reason why Japanese cut their hair. But Inoue and Ito commented they felt like children with short hair. For Takasugi who was torn throughout his life between his feudal background as a samurai and his appreciation of the demands of the modern world, his haircut could be seen to symbolise a definitive break with his father's household.

According to this book the law sanpatsudattou 散髪脱刀 was enacted in 1871, and that is what koujien says too

[Bethetsu]

[onnamusha]

[BlueCollarRonin]