Marugame round fans

Marugame stood at a gateway for boat passengers headed toward Konpira worship, and the early odake marue fan took shape as a souvenir in that traffic. The setting matters because the object grew around movement: travelers, port access, local work, and a compact item that could be carried home. The Marugame domain later encouraged fan making as side work for retainers, and in the Meiji period the flat-handled fan appeared while production across the area became divided among specialized steps.

The fan is built from bamboo, cotton thread, and washi. Its material world reaches across Shikoku: a local verse carved near the inner moat of Marugame Castle links Iyo bamboo, Tosa paper, Awa glue, and Sanuki fans. In the finished object, bamboo becomes both handle and ribs, paper or cloth forms the face, and thread gathers the split rib tips into a steady curve.

Marugame uchiwa making is described in forty-seven steps. The broad sequence begins with cutting bamboo, splitting it into handle and ribs, fixing the ribs into a fan shape with cotton thread and related materials, then pasting washi or cloth onto the frame. Detailed work includes removing bamboo nodes, splitting the rib tips into thirty-two to forty-two pieces, shaping the arched kama piece that holds the ribs, stitching, pasting, trimming, and adding edge paper; some fans are strengthened with persimmon tannin or lacquer for particular uses.

The uses of Marugame uchiwa have long gone beyond personal cooling. They have been used to cool food, help with cooking and fire-starting, block sunlight, drive away insects, accompany clothing, and decorate rooms. Different forms, patterns, and types grew around those uses. As electric fans, air conditioners, and household kitchens changed daily life, the fan became less necessary in many homes, yet it remains tied to summer, yukata scenes, hand-finished texture, and display.

At the Marugame Uchiwa Museum in Nakazucho, Marugame, visitors can see historical materials, many types of fans, and craft demonstrations that show the steps of making. The hands-on activity lets participants choose paper and complete a fan with guidance. The experience brings the bamboo frame, pasted face, and finishing gestures close enough to understand the object as a sequence of hand movements, not only as a finished fan behind glass.

Marugame City describes current production at about eighty-three million fans a year, and Kagawa is described as holding most of Japan’s uchiwa production share. Behind those figures is still a hand-finished object of bamboo, cotton thread, and washi. The 1997 traditional-craft designation gives context for the place and technique; for a reader or visitor, the clearer memory is often the curve of the ribs, the paper surface, and the visible handwork shown in workshops and demonstrations.