22nd January – 睦月

正月遊び　（Shougatsu-Asobi）No.3

かるた　（Karuta）

Karuta was originally came from Portugal, in Azuchimomoyama Era, one ship came to Japan and introduce the game called ‘ウンスンかるた(Unsun Karuta)’. Carta means ‘card’ in Portuguese. This game was popular among the nobility in Heian Era – was called 貝合わせ (Kai-awase) using the shells. Each shells were painted and written poetry, finding the paired poetry and drawing to play.

In the end of Edo era, it was used for learning the Hiragana and Proverbs while enjoying to play.

How to play: (Play with more than 3 people) Separate the card to word cards and drawing cards. Then spread the drawing cards on the floor.

One person read the 読み札(Yomifuda) with words and proverbs, and the others find the matching drawing quicker than the other players. The person who get the most cards wins the game.

花札　（Hanafuda）

Another type of Japanese card game, was introduced during the Edo era.

It was used for gambling at that time and many warrior 武士(Bushi) were addicted to it. Therefore, the government started to prohibit this game. However, those worriors were too obsessed to quit this gambling game, they arrange this game and secretly played after the prohibition law.

Long time after, in Meiji period, when Japan started to gain culture from the other countries, the card game trump came in. Then Japanese government finally allow people to play Hanafuda again only for entertainment reason, not for gambling.

If you are interested in playing this game, this website might help you: https://jpf.org.au/jpf/jpfmedia/Hanafuda-instruction.docx-A3.pdf

The reason why Hanafuda / Karuta are almost extincting is that there had been a tax called ‘Carta tax’. This tax were to paid by the companies where create card games. Therefore, many companies stopped making them or they bankrupted due to this tax.