U3 to reside throughout the crucial season of rice-planting and harvest.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HONMEN AND THE LEGACY OF ZEAM
By the end of the Muromachi period (c. 1568 A.D.) possibly as many as ninety per cent of the original Noh masks upon which the basic types were modelled had been created.^- These have been referred to as ho rimen in lists of the masks owned by the various schools, and are contrasted to the later masks for which they serve as a model, the utsushi-men. For some mask types, of course, the latter appeared simultaneously with the honmen for other types. This creates a problem when attempting to confine honmen and utsushi-men in separate
chronological periods for the purpose of discussing the broad lines of development of the Noh mask. However, for the sake of continuity and clarity the utsushi-men will be the focus of the next chapter on the professional mask making tradition and the present chapter will deal with honmen and Zeami's ideals.
Variants of early originals continued to evolve, thus giving birth to new honmen even after the Muromachi period. Some of the masks today classified as honmen in collections may in fact be copies, and if they have been selected by the head of a school at one time as the best mask of a particular type, they have been designated as honmen, and are presumably faithfully copied from earlier originals. Thus, although honmen, the basic models of a particular type, are usually early masks, the term clearly covers later masks as well, that have earned the
distinction by quality and have therefore become models for later utsushi-men.
56
Any attempt to trace the early development of the Noh mask is hampered by the lack of certainty in dating Muromachi period masks as well as by the lack of writings that give very detailed description of the masks. More can be said about the development of the masks
themselves, however, and about the forces inevitably working on the mask through changes in Noh form, content and patronage than can be said about the mask making tradition or specific mask makers at this early stage.
The hundred years roughly between 1350 and 1^50 are considered the formative period for Noh due mainly to the innovation of father and son, Kan-ami Kiyotsugu (1333-8U) and Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1^3), and the
fact that the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-95) gave them his patronage. This accorded a new social status to some of the Sarugaku players who
2
until then had been very low on the social scale. The young Zeami, then called Fujiwaka, was only eleven years old when Yoshimitsu saw him dance the role of Senzai to his father’s Okina at the historic
performance at Imagumano Shrine in 137^ and immediately was attracted to him. Yoshimitsu’n favour was to have a crucial effect on Zeami’s career.
This recognition of Sarugaku by the aristocracy was only one step ;in the direction toward the official, ceremonial art form that it
eventually became a little more than two centuries later. But Yoshimitsu’s patronage provided Zeami, who was not only a gifted
performer, but also to become a theoretician and dramatist, with access to education and a secure environment for much of his life, where he
2 It became common practice to give Dangaku and Sarugaku players a rank of priesthood, as indicated by the names Kan-ami, On-ami, Zo-ami, Zeami etc., a measure which allowed the upper classes to associate with people of such low social standing.
could develop ideas and a style that was to change the nö_ ('accomplishment’) 3
of Sarugaku and shape it into what is known as Noh today.
In the early Muromachi period subscription (kanjin) entertainment
became more and more common. It had started with open-air performances
held especially to collect money. One such performance of Dengaku in
13^9 was held to build the Shij5 bridge in Kyoto. The Taiheiki
describes how stands were built on the riverbed. During the dance by
a child Sarugaku player wearing a monkey mask, the audience became so
excited that the stands broke, people were killed, and in the pandemonium
4
Dengaku players wearing devil masks were seen chasing costume theives.Gradually collecting money for artistic performances became common.^
The kanjin performances centered around the capital, although Sarugaku,
Dengaku and other forms that affected Noh soon spread throughout the
country and were taken up in matsuri. In Kaga, Echizen and Mino
provinces, for instance, Sarugaku and Dengaku were performed from the
end of the Kamakura period and centered around the Hakusan shrines.
Echizen, in particular, was to be a cradle of mask making and old masks
found in shrines and temples here are very valuable in study of the
masks used in this early Noh.
The most popular forms of the day would bo performed in the early
subscription performances, forms such ns Dengaku, Sarugaku and kusemai.
Bugaku was hardly ever included in these performances. Dengaku in
particular wan in vogue and much of Sarugaku had been absorbed in it.
3 The term Noli in used here, rather than the more correct romnnization, No, simply to set apart more obvious],y the form of theatre that
emerged at this time. The term Noh is already extensively used and easier to deal with in English. This outweighs to the writer any purist argument about correctness in transcription.
h P.G. O'Neill, Early N5 Drama, pp.75-77*
9 Got5 Ilajiine, No-no keisei to Zcami , p . 39 •
50
As opposed to kamtgoto performances presented in honour of a deity, these kanjin shows had to cater to all tastes from the aristocracy to the lower classes. The element of the comic was taken out of Sarugaku and Dengaku and given separate emphasis in Kyogen plays providing one part of the audience with relief between the increasingly refined Noh that may have appealed more to aristocratic tastes. For the masks this meant that the comic element, hardly found in the Noh mask except
perhaps in some Beshimi types, was given free rein in the caricatures 7
of the Kyogen masks.
With the increase in kanjin performances the religious content of the plays decreased; the emphasis was on entertainment, and on human
characters rather than gods and demons on stage. The physical environment of the performance also changed in that payment of a fee required a
space that could be roped off and the public controlled. Theatre moved out of shrine and temple compounds. This transition from religious to popular entertainment goes hand in hand with a transition beginning in the fourteenth century from Dengaku, Sarugaku and related forms to early Noh. Behind this one can see two clearly different types of public; their tastes varied. On the one hand, there was the highly individualistic, privileged upper classes around the capital; on the other, the common people, the farmers who took up Dengaku and Sarugaku