＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・「蝋人形」や「生き人形」はリアルに実在の人間を模していて不気味でもある
<Added on September 9, 2022> Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) passed away on September 8th at the age of 96 due to old age. We offer our deepest condolences.
The image above is not a group photo of Queen Elizabeth’s family, but rather a wax figure from Madame Tussauds in London. It’s incredibly lifelike!
1. What are wax figures?
A wax figure (wax sculpture) is a figure made from wax, a sculpture made of wax.
In Europe, until around the 14th century, they were used as funeral figures, and it was customary to line church walls with these figures as a memorial to deceased loved ones. Gradually, they also became toys for children.
From around the 17th century, the center of wax figure production shifted to Austria, and they also became popular in France and England. They developed in response to the desire to know the true appearance of famous historical figures, who were recreated as figures.
A key characteristic is that they are made to look “lifelike,” and the most elaborate ones use real hair, with individual eyebrows implanted.
In the 18th century, hair model dolls for fashion designers appeared in France, but in the 19th century, wax figures with moving eyes were created in England.
Marie Tussaud (1761-1850) of Switzerland (pictured above) is famous as a wax maker who created wax figures of the heads of royalty executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. She opened her own wax museum, “Madame Tussauds,” in London, and became a pioneer of wax museums worldwide.
Wax figures are characterized by a unique production technique in which realistic sculptures are colored and then covered with wax.
2. What are Living Dolls?
“Living dolls” are a type of doll craft, also written as “活人形” (katsu-ningyo). They are primarily life-sized and realistically crafted to resemble living people.
While various doll craft shows and performances emerged from the early Edo period, these living doll shows rose to prominence towards the end of the Edo period.
In 1852, in Osaka, doll maker Ooe Shinbei created life-sized, actor-like dolls using papier-mâché and performed them. The following year, in Edo, Kyoto’s Oishi Ganryusai presented a similar show in the entertainment district of Ryogoku Bridge, achieving great success.
Then, in 1854, in Osaka’s Namba Shinchi district, Matsumoto Kisaburo from Kumamoto, Kyushu, created papier-mâché dolls of foreign figures and performed them as “living dolls,” marking the beginning of the name.
Kisaburo showcased this lifelike doll at the opening of the Asakusa Kannon Temple in Edo the following year, 1855, and further gained popularity when he performed it in Asakusa Okuyama in 1856.
There is also a painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi titled “Asakusa Okuyama Lifelike Doll” (1855) (image below).
Afterward, he toured various parts of Japan until the early Meiji period, and his “Saigoku Thirty-Three Kannon Miraculous Tales” is considered his most representative work.
The image below is a statue of Kannon from Tanigumi, created by Matsumoto Kisaburo (at Jokoku-ji Temple in Kumamoto Prefecture).
Another doll maker, alongside Kisaburo, was Kamehachi Yasumoto. Kamehachi applied this technique to the “Chrysanthemum Dolls” of Dangozaka in Tokyo, and also created severed heads for theatrical props.
The performance of living dolls continued as a sideshow at Asakusa Hanayashiki until the early Showa period. They were also used in exhibitions and displays in kimono shops, but the advent of “mannequin dolls” eventually replaced the old and new living dolls.
I, too, as a child, went to see the “Chrysanthemum Dolls” at Hirakata Park (abbreviated as “Hirapa”) in Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture, almost every year.
3. Something Similar to, Yet Different from, “Wax Figures” or “Living Dolls”
(1) Mummies
In ancient Egypt and other places, mummies were created out of a desire to preserve the appearance of the deceased, rather than through cremation or burial.
The custom of mummification is said to be widely distributed across the world’s continents. Throughout history and across cultures, humans mourn and remember those who died with whom they had close relationships, but they also feel fear and disgust towards decaying and disintegrating bodies.
There are, so to speak, two extremes: “preservation” and “destruction.” The Japanese cremation method destroys the decaying body and carefully preserves the remains. On the other hand, the culture of mummification is a method of preserving the body without destruction or decay.
(2) Embalming
Despite being over 90 years old, the body of Lenin (1870-1924), remarkably lifelike, is enshrined in Moscow’s Lenin Mausoleum.
This is due to a technique called “embalming,” where various parts of the body are replaced with plastic or other materials to preserve them.
This technique, the result of over 100 years of trial and error by Russian researchers to prevent the deterioration of the body, is said to have potential applications in real-world medicine. However, the method of preserving the body remained a mystery for a long time, leading to theories such as “taxidermy” or “wax figure.”
Incidentally, Lenin’s embalming was reportedly carried out on Stalin’s orders.
Lenin himself apparently wanted to be buried in a normal grave, and former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky stated, “It’s absurd that Lenin hasn’t been able to rest in peace 88 years after his death.”
However, President Putin has repeatedly postponed the decision regarding Lenin’s burial, stating that “for many elderly Russians who remember the past, Lenin remains a symbol of Russia.”
Both Stalin and President Putin seem to have considered Lenin’s remains a useful tool for uniting the nation, meaning that “Lenin continues to be utilized even after his death.”
This is similar to how powerful figures in ancient Japan used the “Emperor” to legitimize their own authority.