Types of Hakama and Nagabakama

[Nanashi]

Greetings,

I have been spending some time on the Costume Museum website ( www.iz2.or.jp/english/ ) to try and solidify my research on a very early Kamakura era persona. I have been leaning strongly towards making Heian garb simplified. My confusion comes from the pants/undergarments named on that sight. As I understand it, men wore traditional Hakama and women whore Nagabakama however the sight names the pats on the women as:

ueno-hakama, koki-hakama: www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/1.htm
kiri-bakama: www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/2.htm
sashinuki or nu-bakama: www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/3.htm (this is a mail costume but it looks like he is wearing a Nagabakama. (even has Bakama in the name))
aka no hakama:http://www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/5.htm (one example of a few)

I could probably go on but it would be redundant. My question is this, what exactly are these different types of Hakama and Nagabakama? I can’t help but look at the root words hakama and bakama and wonder if it’s the basis of the design and then I have to wonder if Hakama where really restricted to men and Nagabakama to women? Any thoughts or discussion would be fascinating and very helpful.

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

a) Your links all point to the index, not to the individual outfits you want. To link to an individual outfit, you'll need to right click -> open in new tab an outfit, and then paste us the link to that.

b) Hakama are, well, hakama. Naga-bakama is, as you suspect, a type of hakama- "bakama" is what happens to the word when it comes after certain other words for ease of pronunciation. From what I understand, nagabakama are hakama that are long enough that one must walk on the hems. I believe these are mostly female garments in SCA period, but there is an Edo period men's outfit with nagabakama in the Costume Museum somewhere. Sashinuki are hakama that have ties at the bottoms that let you pull them up and tie them to adjust the hanging length.

Aka just means red, so aka-hakama are just red hakama. Note that most underwear hakama in early period were red from what I have seen, so that probably indicates an underwear layer.

c) I always have to make a Willpower roll to not answer this question by saying that nagabakama are hakama worn by snake people.

[Nanashi]

Boy do I feel foolish about the links. I have fixed them. Also I understand what your saying and it makes since, (I’m just beginning the study the language and didn’t remember the change to ‘ba’ until you mentioned it.) However I also thought that traditional male-hakama had more pleats in the front then that back and tied in the front, and that Nagabakama had many pleats in the front and back and tied on the side. But looking at the pleats in some of these pictures (the ones with bakama as opposed to hakama) make it seem as thought they have more then the standard pleats in the back.

It seems strange to me that they use many different names for hakama (not counting the aka I thought it was do to the color and was more concerned that it didn’t say Nagabakama.)

I think it comes down to reading many second hand accounts of Nagabakama, how they are maid and who wore them, without having yet found any information from some kind of source such as the museum.

Thank you for your reply and for the little laugh, when I first started looking things up I thought the same thing about snake people.

[Suzuki Ken'ichi]

Oct 23, 2011 2:53:56 GMT -5 Nanashi said:

It seems strange to me that they use many different names for hakama

Pants. Trousers. Slacks. Jeans. Britches.

How confused would a non-english speaker four hundred years from now be?

[Saionji Shonagon]

www.sengokudaimyo.com/garb/garb.ch01.html may be worth having a look at, for the men's garments, at least. He also has instructions for men's hakama at www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.ch16.html (click on the yellow "Hakama" button for the PDF).

My copy of Jidai Isshou Nuikata has a pattern for women's nagabakama (side tied) with 8 pleats across the front and six at the back.

"Pants. Trousers. Slacks. Jeans. Britches." Chinos, pedal pushers, capris, biballs.....

[AJBryant]

Oct 23, 2011 2:10:43 GMT -5 Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa said:

a) c) I always have to make a Willpower roll to not answer this question by saying that nagabakama are hakama worn by snake people.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D