Tabako-ire and Tonkotsu (Japanese Tobacco Containers)

Tabako-ire literally means "tobacco container"; for centuries in Japan it served as the general name for any container used to carry tobacco outside the home. In the language of collectors it now carries a narrower meaning: a soft-bodied pouch is called tabako-ire, a hard-bodied box tonkotsu. This two-way naming is said not to have been fixed usage in Japan before the 20th century, but it has stuck among collectors because it is useful. Both containers are part of the Japanese personal smoking set and form the outdoor counterpart to the tabako-bon tray kept at home.

The Soft Pouch's Two Forms

Two main forms can be distinguished among early pouches. The drawstring-bag type gathers at the opening with a bead threaded on the cord (ojime); this form is thought to derive from the coin purse kinchaku. The lidded rectangular type is believed to descend from the hiuchi-bukuro, used for carrying flint and tinder; its lid was secured with a cord (himo) wound around the body. This second form soon took the lead and became the standard for everyday use. Inside rectangular pouches there is usually a pocket rising about halfway up the body; thought at first to have been set aside for flint-striking gear, it is said later to have been used to carry a short kiseru.

In materials, a path runs from paper toward leather. Records say the earliest pouches were made of polished paper in Kyoto in the mid-17th century; by the century's end, paper pouches had spread across the country and remained popular throughout the 18th century. As decorating paper grew more costly, leather and fabric came to the fore, becoming the dominant materials of the 19th century.

The Lid's Metal Clasp: Kanagu

18. th- and 19th-century rectangular pouches, the lid closes with a metal fitting called kanagu or kanamono. The fitting has three parts: the omote kanagu (mae-kanagu) on the lid's outer face is almost always relief-decorated, the uraza on the inner face is either left plain or engraved, and the third part is a catch fitted to the body that locks into the uraza. Since relief work and engraving are separate branches of craftsmanship, a clasp decorated on both faces usually has two craftsmen behind it.

The clasp was not treated as a permanent part; it could be changed to suit the season or the destination, and a single set might be assembled with several kanagu. On some examples the omote kanagu was not originally made for this purpose at all: a sword-hilt ornament (menuki) or a sash pin was later adapted into a clasp. There is a history behind such adaptations. The 1876 Haitōrei edict banning the wearing of swords put metalworkers who fitted sword mountings out of work; some turned to making kiseru and kanagu. Even so, the person who assembled the set as a whole was not the metalworker but the pouch and bag maker, the fukuro-monoya.

Tonkotsu: The Hard-Bodied Container

Hard-bodied containers were mostly made of wood, occasionally of metal, and their history likewise goes back to the mid-17th century. Among wooden examples, four forms stand out:

• a thick round body with the lid set in the middle;

• a body opening from the top that keeps the shape of a natural object such as a tree burl or a horn;

• a body carved as a three-dimensional figure — Hotei, Daruma, or a skull, for example — opening from the top or the side;

• a rectangular body with rounded corners, usually opening from the top.

The last of these is considered the most suited to carving, inlay, lacquer, and applied metalwork. A tonkotsu is almost always single-chambered; the known exception is a rare early two-tiered rectangular form. Its dimensions appear in only one source: roughly 10-13 cm in height, 8 cm in width, and 5-8 cm in depth. The shallow lower tier was set aside for flint-striking gear, the deeper upper tier for tobacco.

A tonkotsu is often mistaken for an inrō. The inrō is a compartmented sagemono used to carry a seal and medicine; having multiple compartments, generally staying smaller, and being mostly lacquerwork is enough to tell the two apart.

Prevalence and the Later Period

In the period's paintings and prints, the soft pouch appears distinctly more often than the hard container; the pouch is thought to have been the everyday choice for hair-thin-sliced kizami tobacco. As the 19th century drew to a close, a trend toward smaller sizes appears in both types; some examples shrink to half the usual size. For pouches, this shift is explained by the set coming to be carried in the pockets of Western-style clothing.