By Rafe Calder
Pick a year. Nippon.com says the modern kendama began in 1921. A tourism ministry database says a craftsman redesigned it in 1918. The Japan Kendama Association says the patent was registered in 1919. They look like rivals. They are not, and the sources, read side by side, line up.
What it is
Nippon.com, a Japanese news and culture site, calls the kendama Japan’s variation on the cup-and-ball game. It gives the parts as a ball, three cups of different sizes and a spike at the end, and says the name comes from ken, a sword or handle, and tama, a ball. Children do simple tricks, it says, and adults more complex ones.
Before the modern kendama
The Japan Kendama Association says there is no clear evidence of when cup-and-ball toys reached Japan, and that the first mention it knows of is in an encyclopedia from around 1777 to 1778, when the game was a drinking game for adults. A child-education guide of 1876 introduced it as “Cup and Ball”, and the Association says that over the following century it changed from an adult device into a children’s toy. The tourism ministry’s database says the kendama is likely based on the sixteenth-century French bilboquet, and that woodworkers in Hatsukaichi began making kendama in the Meiji era to sell to pilgrims on their way to Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima. Those early ones were mostly a single cup with a handle, a ball and a string.
Three dates, three steps
According to the tourism ministry’s database, in 1918 a craftsman named Egusa Hamaji redesigned the toy with three cups, a handle and a spike, creating the modern kendama. It says he named it the “sun-and-moon ball”, nichigetsu boru, with the round ball for the sun and the curved cups for the moon, and had a local factory make it. The Japan Kendama Association says a patent application was made in 1918 and registered in 1919, and that the modern kendama derives from that design. The Hiroshima Tourism Association says that three years after the 1918 redesign he began manufacturing kendama in Hatsukaichi.
So: 1918, the redesign and the patent application; 1919, the registration; about 1921, manufacturing in Hatsukaichi, which matches Nippon.com’s 1921. The sources name the man in both orders, Egusa Hamaji and Hamaji Egusa. Our reading: that is one name, written family name first in one place and last in the other.
Hatsukaichi
The ministry database says Hatsukaichi became the birthplace of the modern kendama because its woodworkers were famous across the country. At the peak of the toy’s popularity, in the 1970s, it says the city turned out about 400,000 kendama a year, about 70 per cent of Japan’s total. Kendama are still made there.
Association and competition
A Japan travel guide says the Japan Kendama Association was founded in 1975. The tourism ministry’s database says the Kendama World Cup was first held in Hatsukaichi in 2014.
Dates in order
- Around 1777 to 1778: first known mention of a cup-and-ball toy in Japan, according to the Japan Kendama Association.
- 1876: introduced as “Cup and Ball” in a child-education guide, according to the Association.
- 1918: redesign with three cups, according to the tourism ministry; patent application, according to the Association.
- 1919: patent registered, according to the Association.
- About 1921: manufacturing starts in Hatsukaichi, according to the Hiroshima Tourism Association.
- 1970s: peak output, according to the tourism ministry.
- 1975: Japan Kendama Association founded, according to a Japan travel guide.
- 2014: first Kendama World Cup, in Hatsukaichi, according to the tourism ministry.
What kind of sources these are
A government tourism database, the Japan Kendama Association’s own history page, the Hiroshima Tourism Association’s story, Nippon.com and a Japan travel guide. We read no patent record, and we name no maker or shop.
What we left out
The names of players, makers and designers, brand names and prices. We also left out the Association’s grading system, because the sources we read describe it in different ways, and the account of the wood, which none of them gave.
Quick answers
Where was the kendama invented? According to the tourism ministry’s database, the modern kendama was redesigned in 1918 by Egusa Hamaji, a craftsman from Kure, and Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima, became its birthplace as a manufacturing town.
When was the kendama invented? The dates are steps in one story. The ministry says the redesign was in 1918. The Japan Kendama Association says the patent application was made in 1918 and registered in 1919. The Hiroshima Tourism Association says manufacturing began about three years after 1918.
What does kendama mean? According to Nippon.com, the name comes from ken, a sword or handle, and tama, a ball.
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