Kiseru (Japanese Pipe)

The kiseru is Japan's traditional tobacco pipe: a tiny metal bowl no bigger than a thimble sits at one end, a thin stem runs through the middle, and a metal mouthpiece closes the other end. Its typical length runs 15 to 25 centimeters.

Shaped in the wake of tobacco's arrival in Japan in the 1570s, it had spread widely enough by the early 17th century to be mentioned even in textbooks written for children. In the Edo period it was both an everyday habit and, in ornate form, an object signaling its owner's standing. Within the world history of the pipe, the kiseru represents a branch that developed independently of the West's wood and clay traditions.

Structure and Main Types

The kiseru's classic form has three parts. The metal bowl and the curved fitting beneath it are called the gankubi (雁首, literally "goose neck"); in some sources the bowl itself is separately called the hizara. The middle stem is the rao (羅宇); the name is said to come from the Laotian bamboo once preferred for this part. The mouthpiece is the suikuchi (吸口), and the metal ferrules where the stem seats at each end are called kata.

The most common type is the rao-kiseru, whose stem is bamboo (rarely a hardwood). The second type, the nobe-kiseru, has no bamboo at all; the body is metal from end to end and is called the do. Brass and silver lead the metalwork, though examples in glass or ceramic are also known. Sub-forms are distinguished by the cross-section of the kata in a rao-kiseru or of the do in a nobe-kiseru; Japanese sources list names such as sekishu (石州), joshin (如心), natamame (刀豆), tazuna (手綱), and kodai-ji (光大寺). Examples with an unconventional body are described in sources with the term kawarigata.

The origin of the word is disputed: it's suggested both that it comes from a Khmer word meaning "pipe" and that it derives from a Portuguese or Spanish verb meaning "to suck."