Comments on Some Literature of Japanese Hawking

Old books in Japan were all written by hand, sometimes with no indication of author, date, or place, and there is, of course, no way of determining the number of volumes which were written. Printing appeared in Japan sometime after 1850. Some hawking books were carefully illustrated, but most contain rather simple sketches to illustrate particular points. The texts stressed not only various aspects of training and managing hawks but also many details concerning the relation of hawking to the protocol of Japanese society. In addition to the treatises on hawking as such there are collections of poems (uta) about hawks and hawking; these poems express opinions on both the philosophy and technique of training hawks.

This list contains only those pieces which we have studied and we have not seen most of the Japanese works listed in Harting's Bibliotheca Accipitraria (1891). Diligent search among second-hand bookstores, especially in Tokyo and Kyoto, may produce interesting and informative books and pictures probably including some not now known.

ANON. Ca 1800. Hoko no Koto (concerning perches). This book deals mostly with leashes and perches, but contains some excellent drawings of jesses and other gear. This is one of the books of the Omiya Method. Various methods of training hawks were not especially different from one another, but the Omiya Method stressed diseases of hawks and gear used in hawking. Hoko no Koto is entirely hand written and the illustrations are all original. It contains some meticulously colored drawings of jesses, leashes, and bells. This is volume III of a set entitled Taka-sho (Hawk Book), and consists of 117 pages. Volumes I and II have not been seen.

ANON. 1933. Hô Yo (Let the Hawk Fly). This is the only modern work on Japanese falconry and is without doubt the most thorough and scholarly treatise on this sport in Japan. Hô Yo deserves to be placed among the great masterpieces of falconry. This book was published by the Royal Household and is the work of a number of writers. Hô Yo describes not only the Japanese techniques of care and training hawks (goshawks and peregrines), but contains sections on history, literature, and various cultural aspects of the sport. It embraces seven hundred and eleven pages of text.

KAWANABE, DOIKU. ca 1880. Ehon Taka Kagami (Picture Book of Hawk Reflections). This is No. 371 in Harting. This fascinating set of five little volumes of prints is the best known book of Japanese hawking. The author was not only a superb draftsman but was well acquainted with hawks and hawking, and the illustrations are rich with details of the equipment used throughout the development of the sport in Japan. Many of the prints are original, but some are copied from paintings of earlier Japanese and Chinese artists.

KAWANABE, DOIKU. ca 1880. Untitled Makimono (Scrolls). These two scrolls illustrate numerous pieces of falconry equipment, and seem to have served as references for Ehon Taka Kagami. There is an inscription indicating that they were prepared for a lord (daimyo). Almost all of the drawings are original sketches but a few are block prints and all closely resemble those of Kawanabe's Ehon. These scrolls are the only original work of Kawanabe known to exist and are a previously unknown work. Many of the sketches are reproduced in the present book.

KIMOURA, K. 1799. Nippon Sankai Meisan Dsue. (Illustrated Encyclopedia of Land and Sea Activities of Japan.) This is item No. 369 in Harting. Volume II contains a nice discussion of the trapping of hashidaka (Accipiter nisus) and the care of eyasses. The "White Falcons" from Korea cited by Harting (p. 211) are pale goshawks.

KINOSHITA, YOSHITOSHI. 1857. Buyo Benyraku. (Encyclopedic Manual.) Volume VIII. Hoken no Bu. (Dogs for Hawking.) This is a reprint of item No. 367 in Harting; the work referred to by Harting was dated 1747. Although there are small inaccuracies in the author's name and the title, as recorded by Harting, this work is definitely the same as Harting's No. 367. This book is one of a set which comprise a military (samurai) manual. As a treatise on hawking it is a disappointment for it deals mostly with semantics. There are discussed in detail names for virtually every feather of a goshawk and many other trivial minutiae. Only a small part deals with the use of dogs in hawking. This work includes a good discussion of the equipment of falconers of Japan.

YOSHIDA, YUJIRO. 1932. On the hawking in Korea. Tori (Bulletin of the Ornithological Society of Japan), vol. 7, nos. 33 and 34: 340-347. Although this short article pertains to hawking in Korea, it is valuable because Korea is the source of the sport in Japan, and the text provides a means of evaluating which aspects of Japanese hawking are indigenous. This brief account describes trapping and training of goshawks in Korea.

In catalogues of books on falconry there are included several books in Japanese as well as some instructive illustrations. Occasionally, visitors to Japan have written short articles of their observations of hawking, and such brief comments are found scattered in a number of magazines and books in Europe and America. Because virtually none of the Japanese hawking literature has been translated, our knowledge of their use of hawks is derived from casual impressions reported by travelers.

Observations of visitors may be variously and sometimes incorrectly interpreted but, altogether, they represent classic hawking as it has been preserved by the Royal Household. As the nobility did not train hawk-eagles and seem to have neglected the small accipiters, the reader is left with the impression that the Japanese trained only goshawks and peregrines. Because these brief articles are the basis for the general concept of hawking in Japan, it is germane to list them here.

Among the most accurate comments are those of Harting in his Bibliotheca Accipitraria. In the discussion of the hawking literature of Japan, he reviewed the Japanese falconry literature known to him and to Schlegel and Wulverhorst (1853), and included resumés of the more important works. Harting's list is the most complete and detailed compilation up to the present time, and his summaries contain the terms and methods employed by Japanese falconers. It is an extremely useful source book.

An early, though inadvertent, reference to Japanese hawking exists in the illustrations of Cerfon's De La Basse Volerie (1887). Cerfon adopted for his book some drawings of Kawanabe's Ehon Taka Kagami in the belief that they were Chinese in origin. Kawanabe's drawings were modified to the extent that the Japanese attire of the falconers was replaced by clothes of Nineteenth Century France. There are no comments of Japanese hawking per se in the text of Cerfon's volume.

Dr. A. von Roretz observed hawking in Nineteenth Century Japan and wrote a short article in Der Zoologische Garten in 1879. (Harting published a translation of Dr. von Roretz's account in The Field (1879). He noted that in training hawks, Japanese falconers used no deprivation of food or sleep, an observation in great contrast to that of others. There is confusion in the names applied to the trained hawks he observed for he referred to an eagle-sized falcon and also mentioned buzzards capturing waterfowl in flight; the large raptor could have been a hawk-eagle, and the presumed buzzard was more likely a goshawk. He included some interesting comments on the unique combined sports of capturing ducks with nets, those escaping being pursued by trained hawks.

The Reverend H. A. MacPherson (1897), in his classic volume on bird-catching, made frequent references to the capture of birds in Japan, and provided English language readers with a fine description and illustration of a Nipponese dho-gaza.

A very lively story of hawking by the Royal Household was given by Price in The Sportsman (1937). Both goshawks and peregrines were flown, and the account is typical of those recorded by visitors who have been fortunate enough to witness the falconry of the Royal Household.

Epstein (1943), in a review of early history of falconry, mentioned the episode which resulted in Emperor Nintoku's formerly initiating hawking in Japan. Professor Epstein regarded this as the establishment of the sport in Japan, but noted that in the Harima Fudoki there are records of hunting with trained hawks under Ojin Tenno (270-313 A.D.).

Boyer and Planiol (1948) commented briefly on Japanese falconry and reproduced MacPherson's illustration of the Japanese hawk-net, which Kimoura (1799) described.

There is a vague reference by Illingworth (1947: 11) to hawking in Japan as early as 600 B. C. This writer presented an interesting story of the use of hawks in Japan, but referred (p. 82-85) to falcons in describing the methods used in reclaiming and flying goshawks.

Carnie (1956) described and published photographs of some gear employed by Japanese falconers. Like other visitors to Japan, he had been extended courtesies by falconers of the Royal Household, and therefor his observations were restricted to the use of the goshawk and the peregrine. At the the time of Carnie's visit to Japan (1953 to 1955), hawking had been suspended by the Royal Household, but in 1958 it had been resumed and newly caught goshawks were being trained.

The use of the Japanese hawk-eagle was discussed by Eiko and E. W. Jameson (1958) and later by E. W. Jameson (1960), who gave a resumé of the training of several kinds of hawks by Japanese falconers, together with a review of the current position of hawking in Japan.

Dr. Tatsuo Udagawa (1958) has offered one of the most competent descriptions of hawking in modern Japan. Dr. Udagawa's brief review is accurate and illustrated with several excellent photographs.

Another interesting review is that by Nakajima (1961) which appeared in two issues of Nature Study, a publication of the Osaka Municipal Museum. Nakajima dated the beginning of hawking in Japan from the reign of Emperor Homuda, immediately before Nintoku.

Literature Cited

Boyer, Abel and Maurice Planiol. 1948. Traité de Fauconnerie et Autourserie. Payot, Paris, 283 pp.

Carnie, S. K. 1956. Some notes on Japanese hawking equipment. Falconry News and Notes, The Journal of the Falconry Club of America, vol. I, no. 7: 8-14.

Cerfon, C. 1887. De la Basse Volerie et du Dressage Practique de l'Autour & de l'Épervier. Vincennes. 165 pp.

Epstein, Hans J. 1943. The Origin and Earliest History of Falconry. Isis, vol. 34, pt. 6: 497-509.

Harting, J. E. 1879. Hawking in Japan. The Field, for October 18, 1879, p. 513

———— . 1891. Bibliotheca Accipitraria, a Catalogue of Books, Ancient and Modern, Relating to Falconry. Bernard Quaritch. London. xxviii + 289 pp.

Illingworth, Frank. 1947. Falcons and Falconry. Blandford Press Limited. London. III pp.

Jameson, Eiko, and E. W. Jameson, Jr. 1958. Hunting with the Japanese Hawk-eagle or Kumataka. Falconry News and Notes, The Journal of the Falconry Club of America, vol. 2, no. 1: 21-23.

Jameson, E. W., Jr. 1960. A Glimpse of Japanese Hawking. The Falconer, The Journal of the British Falconers' Club, vol. 3, no. 6:

MacPherson, H. A. 1897. A History of Fowling. David Douglas, Edinburgh. liv + 511 pp.

Nakajima, Kinya. 1961. [Japanese Hawking.] Nature, vol. vii, no. 1: 8-10; no. 2: 5-8. (In Japanese.)

Price, Willard. 1937. Hawking, Royal Sport in Japan. The Sportsman, May, 1937: 38-41, 69, 70.

Schlegel, H. and A. H. Verster de Wulverhorst. 1844-1853. Traité de Fauconnerie. Leiden and Dusseldorf.

Udagawa, Tatsuo. 1958. Ancient Art of Falconry. Asia Scene, vol. 3, no. 3: 24-26.

Vögele, Hans-Heinrich. 1931. Die Falknerei, eine enthnographische Darstellung. J. Neumann, Neudamm. x+106 pp.