Dokoro - looking for information

[Sam Elliott]

Good day all,

 

I have recently come across a subject known as Dokoro while doing a bit of poking around. I’ve seen a bit of it reflected in Fuchi Kashira, however when I try to find further information online or examples I run into anime and the like. It seems it may have slightly macabre overtones which do not really appeal to me, but I would still like to learn more.

Can anyone direct me to a valid resource where I could learn a bit more about the subject?

 

Thanks,

 

Sam

[k morita]

Hi,

 

Dokoro?

 

Isn't it DOKURO (skull)?

[Sam Elliott]

You may very well be correct in the spelling - so thank you. And that would actually make perfect sense as the pieces I have seen are represented by skulls and - or bones. I have seen it represented on a few pieces and it seems to be something that was done around the Sengoku jidai period.

 

Thanks again,

 

Sam

[hxv]

Sengoku jidai is a time of terrible destruction. The pieces seem to fit, then.

 

Hoanh

[cabowen]

As I recall being told, the skull/bones amongst the weeds are an allusion to the famous Basho haiku....

[Baka Gaijin]

Good morning all

 

Skulls, bones, pieces of rib cage amid grasses do not generally have the connotations of the macabre or the Vanitas as was known in the Western aesthetic. (Skulls, broken violin strings, candles just snuffed out with smoke rising etc).

 

It is much more subtle and sublime....

 

Donald Keene translated the Basho Haiku Chris mentions:

 

夏草や

兵どもが

夢の跡

 

natsukusa ya

tsuwamonodomo ga

yume no ato

 

The summer grasses—

For many brave warriors

The aftermath of dreams.

 

(Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 316)

 

Other translations exist.

 

Cheers