Laura Rozenberg wrote:
>As far as I have it in records, the Senbazuru Orikata was published in
1797. However, Gershon Legman had a copy of the book (photostats) which was
mailed to him by Akira Yoshizawa in 1958. The copy has a note saying that
the book was published in 1789. ...Also, Legman notes that the book in
Japanese is called "Chiwa tsuru" or "Sen U Kaku", he does not mention
Senbazuru Orikata, although the book is Senbazuru Orikata, no doubt about
it.
I think I can help a little here. As Legman notes, the publishing
date is Kansei 9, but he misinterprets the counting system. The Kansei era
(the reign of the Kansei emperor) lasted from 1789 to 1801. Kansei 9
would be the 9th year of that reign (ie 1797) and not the 9th month of the
first year, as Legman seem to think.
As to the title, "Chiwa Tsuru" and "Sen U Kaku" would be other ways of
pronouncing the characters used in the title, but very non-standard
readings. I'm guessing that Legman just looked up the characters in a
dictionary and made a guess. I can't be entirely certain that *every*
Japanese reader in 1797 saw "Senbazuru" when they looked at the cover,
because some books did have rather strange titles, but neither "chiwa" nor
"sen u" are possible expressions any more.
By way of adding a pedantic aside, I might note that "Orikata" here is
written with characters that mean something like "folded shape," rather
than the "method of folding" that a modern Japanese would expect on hearing
the title. Some books of the period also use the word "weave" ("oru")
instead of the more familiar "fold" ("oru"). Writers were just beginning
to publish on the subject, and making up the phrases as they went along!
The names of all the pieces in the book are very poetic, by the way,
but that's another story...
I hope this helps?
Andrew Dewar
