What do you think of as mourning clothes?
I was inspired to update as I sat down tonight to do something Genji. I had intended to read Seidensticker’s version of chapter 31, and still may, but then I started to think of why I hadn’t gotten chapter 30’s script done that weekend. Which brings me to fujigoromo, literally “wisteria garments” but in practice, mourning clothes. My family suffered a loss with a decline that began just after my last post. My partner was over 1,000 miles away, and neither of us knew when they were coming home. My father-in-law passed, and my husband came home. It’s been a rough month.
With a heavy heart I meet another sunrise knowing you are gone
Sometimes you get haiku instead of tanka. One might say the last couplet is missing on purpose.
I’ve discussed wisteria cloth before, conjecturing, and then knowing that it existed literally, not just figuratively. Fujigoromo is definitely a poetic allusion as well. I do not read Japanese (yet) but there is quite a bit to be learned through translation software on the internet. In a blogpost about fuji in Japanese, the author says something along the lines of “it is said that among the nobility in the Heian period, wisteria clothing was worn only during mourning.”
This makes sense to me. Wisteria cloth, fujifu, has been made for maybe 16,000 years. The Jomon figured it out. It’s a bast fiber, and hemp, another bast fiber would have started to replace it after its arrival 6-10,000 years ago. Meanwhile silk arrived merely 2000 years ago. It would make sense for the nobility of the Heian period to relegate this homely cloth available to all from commoners up, to a time of grief, anguish, sadness, and religious observance or austerity after 1000 years of sericulture. Was fujifu used for the nobility in the Heian period? Had it just become a poetic allusion by then? Questions swirl. Fujifu is also known to be worn by nuns, priests and ascetics, and in that respect reminds me of the hair shirts, the rough garments, worn by clergy and the penitent in Western tradition.
It just makes sense.
Fujigoromo are the first garments mentioned in chapter 31. Both Tamakazura and Yugiri, Genji’s son, are dressed in mourning clothes, his being slightly darker than her light grey to show his close relationship with their grandmother, Princess Omiya. The mourning period was 5 months for that relationship, and it made me wonder what my mourning period for my father-in-law would be. Murasaki did not mourn when Genji lost his father, but they weren’t officially married yet. When Fujitsubo died, the entire court went into mourning. So rank has a bit to do with it too. Color ranged from Tamakazura’s light grey to poor Atekimi’s near black when mourning her benefactor, Aoi. More questions.
With that spark of inspiration, I thought I was sitting down to hash out a new schedule (doing that next) as my partner has said quite plainly that everything is ok now and I need to stop slacking on my Genji Project because he would like to see me finish it. But instead you get some information on mourning clothes. And my life.
I’m going to go work on that schedule now.
