III. APPENDIX III
CARE AND SELECTION OF COSTUMES
III. (From another talk with Umewaka Minoru)
The clothes are put away in tansos (?), the costly
ones on sliding boards, only a few at a time.
Ordinary ones are draped in nagmochi (oblong
chests). The best ones are easily injured, threads
break, holes come, etc.
Costumes are not classified by the names of the
rôles, but by the kind of cloth or by cut or their
historic period, and if there are too many of each
sort, by colour, or the various shape of the ornamental
patterns. The best are only used for royal
performances. The costume for Kakitsubata is the
most expensive, one of these recently (i.e. 1901)
cost over 500 yen. (Note.—I think they are now
more expensive.—E. P.)
One does not always use the same combination
of costumes; various combinations of quiet costumes
are permitted. His sons lay out a lot of costumes
on the floor, and Umewaka makes a selection or a
new colour scheme as he pleases. This does not
take very long.
All his costumes were made before Isshin, and
he will not have new ones. When the daimios
sold their costumes after the revolution, he might
have bought the most splendid, but he was poor.
He saved a few in his own house. He collected
what he could afford from second-hand shops.
Many went abroad. He sold his own clothes and
furniture to buy masks. Only Mayeda of Kashu
kept his masks and costumes.
Varia. — The notations for singing are very
difficult. Takasago is the most correct piece. If
a student sings with another who sings badly, his
own style is ruined.
Umewaka's struggles to start Noh again after
the downfall of the old regime seem to have been
long and complicated. Fenollosa has recorded
them with considerable detail, but without very
great clarity. This much seems to be certain,
that without Umewaka's persistence through successive
struggles and harassing disappointments,
the whole or a great part of the art might have
been lost.
