Posted by John Fiorillo on February 13, 2002 at 23:53:28:
In Reply to: Prints of female shakuhachi players posted by Catherine Whyte on February 08, 2002 at 15:20:28:
Catherine,
I can provide only a preliminary response to your question, which I find interesting. Female players of 'shakuhachi' (end-blown bamboo flute) are a curious topic in ukiyo-e. It has been said that, typically, Edo-period women did not play the shakuhachi, ostensibly because of its phallic shape, whose mouthpiece was located at the end. In fact, "playing the shakuhachi" was a euphemism for fellatio. I don't know how far one can go with this claim, and anyway ukiyo-e artists were notorious for breaking the rules, but the undesirable association may perhaps explain why prints of women playing the shakuhachi are difficult to find. In contrast, it is easy to find prints of women playing the 'yokobue' (side-blown flute). Also, ukiyo-e prints of men playing the shakuhachi (including blowing into the mouthpiece) can be readily found.
A glance through ukiyo-e publications will produce a few examples of women holding, but not playing, shakuhachi either inside or removed from their cases. Often they are dressed as 'komusô' (mendicant monks of the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism). In these images the sexual connotations are usually obvious because the women are often assumed to be in disguise, perhaps running away or engaged in illicit liaisons with their lovers. There are also quite a number of examples showing 'wakashu' (attractive young men, often male prostitutes) who are shown as komusô holding or playing shakuhachi, with sexual implications again clearly intended. In addition, male actors in female roles ('onnagata') are found holding or fingering shakuhachi.
A few other examples show women fingering the shakuhachi but not pressing their lips against or blowing into the mouthpiece. Some have their heads turned away, looking at other figures in the picture. Finally, there are a few examples where the women are truly playing the shakuhachi, although the mouthpiece is just at the lips, which are fully visible. There is an exquisite early Okumura Masanobu (ca. 1686-1764), once in the famous Henri Vever collection, of a young couple, each playing a shakuhachi, the man dressed as a komusô. They are both fingering their flutes and blowing into them (or about to do so) without their lips quite touching the mouthpieces. Also in the Vever collection was an unsigned print (probably by Kitao Shigemasa, 1739-1820), depicting a kneeling woman playing the shakuhachi, again with her mouth visible, while a standing woman holds an insect cage.
It is somewhat of a challenge to find a female 'shakuhachi' player performing in an actual musical setting (female yokobue players are far more common), but I did find a "chamber music" triptych by Kunisada in which 3 women perform (a 'koto' [plucked, usually thirteen-stringed, zither-like instrument] player on the right, shakuhachi player in the middle, and a 'kokyû' [bowed three-stringed instrument] player on the left). The shakuhachi player fingers the holes of the flute but turns her head toward the kokyû player on the left. The middle figure is clearly intended to represent a woman actually playing the shakuhachi, but she is not blowing into the instrument.
Given the sexual overtones of this topic, I glanced at some shunga books, thinking more overt subject matter might yield an example of a woman both fingering and mouthing a shakuhachi, but could not find any. However, I have just so many books and limited time to search.
So it appears to be difficult to find a traditional ukiyo-e print of a woman fully engaged in playing the shakuhachi. Only a few examples are readily available.
John