Toyoda Sakichi fine-tuned the Toyota assembly line after working with mechanized dolls. Japan’s early engineers employed the puppets to explore physics and automation.Ī revered karakuri maker, Tanaka Hisashige, founded the precursor to Toshiba. Their first experiments involved clocks and mechanized dolls. During the Edo period’s enforced seclusion, Japanese scientists absorbed whatever western technology they could find and adapted it to their purposes. A banner unfurls, bearing a message about the virtues of modesty.Īs the first automata in Japan, karakuri played an important role in the rise of technology. For the finale, Hotei’s fan shoots up to become a flagpole. During festival performances, the little boy and girl puppets swing like acrobats on trapeze bars to land, as if by magic, on Hotei’s shoulders. One of Takayama’s oldest floats, Hoteitai, features three beloved characters: Hotei, the pot-bellied god of good luck, and two impish children. These proto-robots typically bring myths or legends to life, often reenacting a scene from a larger play. The puppets’ faces are carved and painted so that subtle head movements and the play of light and shadow will convey varied emotions - joy, fear, anger, sadness and surprise. Hidden springs and gears imbue the mechanical dolls with surprising, lifelike gestures.
While other marionettes are controlled by visible strings or wires, these ones are maneuvered by 36 baleen strings concealed in a wooden arm. “Ningyō” loosely translates as puppet, doll or effigy. It relies on the element of mystery and surprise. “Karakuri” refers to a mechanical device designed to trick, tease or inspire wonder. Hiding below, a team of nine puppeteers manipulates each doll by gently tugging on invisible strings. Called karakuri ningyō, these mechanical dolls spring to life on the float’s raised stage. Kame Yatai sports a giant turtle with a weird, human-like head - apparently the father and son who carved it in the early 1800s had never seen a real turtle.Īnd there’s something else on board some of the floats: Japan’s prototype robots. Golden phoenixes symbolizing eternal life rise from the top of one float, and delicate, carved peonies and chrysanthemums decorate the wheels of another. At twilight, hundreds of glowing paper lanterns add shine to the carved floats’ lacquer and gold accents.Įach yatai has a unique name and history. Nighttime processions are even more magical. As the procession travels across Takayama’s glossy red bridges, the carriages’ vibrant colors reflect in the streams below. Hypnotic flute and drum music transports participants back in time. Three-hundred-and-fifty years later, Takayama residents still dress in costume and pull the yatai through the town’s narrow streets at harvest time. Several stories tall, the dazzling wheeled floats weighed so much that heaving one through town required 20 men. The result? Opulent carriages embellished with gilded animals, silk brocade, and shiny red and black lacquer. Merchants hired skilled craftsmen to build and decorate yatai more magnificent than those of their neighbors. The mountain town’s twice-annual harvest festivals offered an outlet for creative competition between various districts.
Since Samurai rulers forbade the business class from flaunting its wealth, affluent merchants poured their resources into elaborate religious ceremonies instead. Woodworkers, silk merchants, and other skilled artisans populated 17th-century Takayama. In isolation, Japanese artists flexed their creativity - and fabricated a few high-tech surprises, too. These ornate yatai date back more than 350 years to Japan’s surreal, culturally rich Edo period, when the nation was closed to the outside world. Twice a year, the village of Takayama in the Japanese Alps parades its treasures through town: 23 carved wooden floats covered in gold and lacquer.
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