- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- One of 11 paper balls of various colours, this one is plain red. [ZM 12/9/2005]
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Japanese
- Person
- Field collector Mr Kurosaki
- Field collector Basil Hall Chamberlain
- PRM source Edward Burnett Tylor
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1883-1884?, uncertain
- Date collected
- by November 1884 or September? 1883
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1910
- Materials and processes
- Material Paper Plant, Material Pigment, Process Wound, Process Painted
- Dimensions
- Diameter: max 50 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1910.42.11.6
- Research and responses
See below, there is also a set of correspondence [Tylor papers Box 13 N1-N9] from Bunyiu Nanjio [apparently a Japanese citizen living in Kingston Road, Oxford] who asked a friend Mr Kurosaki to send him a set of accessories 'of the Japanese horse-back game called [Japanese characters] Da-kin', unfortunately Nanjio himself had to travel back to Japan and though he asks another friend to look out for the objects and give them to Tylor it is not clear from the correspondence whether Tylor ever gets them, therefore Kurosaki and Nanjio are possibly as likely to be donors as Chamberlain [AP 09/04/2013]
There are several letters in the Archive from Chamberlain to Tylor regarding the procurement & posting of a set of Japanese polo rackets, balls & a net, which probably refers to objects (1910.42.10 - 12). A letter dated October 4, 1883 (Tylor correspondence C2) states that, "Since returning to Tokio [sic] I have procured the polo rackets and balls... The rackets and balls are so cheap that I thought I would be justified in sending a whole set, - with net and all complete". In another letter (Tylor corr. C3: 2/2/1884) he says that a polo racket with balls & a net were sent to the Bodleian Library. He notes that the price of the articles & postage is about 15/8 (Tylor corr. C4: 29/2/1884). He explains the origins of the game in a letter dated 10 July 1884 (Tylor corr. C5): "I am glad that the polo racquet and balls please you. The game, as you suppose, was introduced into Japan from China, in which latter country it flourished under the Tang dynasty. It was introduced into Japan before the year 727 A.D., when we find it mentioned in "Man-yo-shin" or "Collection of a Myriad Leaves" (see my [B.H. Chamberlain] 'Classical Poetry of the Japanese', p.102). After that, during the Middle Ages there is occasional mention of it in the national annals. The character with which the term da-kiu (the Japanese for "polo") are written are [2 Japanese characters] , and signify literally "hitting a ball". The Pellingase (?) pronunciation is ta ch'in... It so often turns out, on looking closer into matters, that things supposed to be original Chinese inventions come from further West, that I think it would be well worth trying to find out whether the Chinese polo was not itself of Indian or Tartar origin. I doubt the Chinese inventing such a violent game". [CF 2/5/2001]
Search terms: Sport, Toy and Game, Game Accessory, Ball