File:IROHA AND ODE-CARDS. (1910) - illustration - page 311.png

English: Illustration from page 311 of IROHA AND ODE-CARDS..
Caption: "IROHA AND ODE-CARDS. Quote: Among other New Year’s games may be mentioned the cards known as the Iroha and uta cards. Iroha, being the first three characters of the Japanese syllabary or alphabet, is the name given to the whole syllabary; and the iroha cards are so called because they have inscribed on them each a proverbial saying beginning with a different character of the syllabary. There are forty-seven characters in the Japanese syllabary, and another card is added to make the number even and divisible. Besides the pack of forty-eight cards with the proverbs, there is another of the same number of cards with pictures corresponding to these proverbs; these latter have also marked in the corner the first character of the proverbs they illustrate to facilitate identification. Thus, if the card in the first pack has the proverb, inu mo arukeba bō ni ataru (A dog, by walking, may come upon a stick, a saying which is now taken to mean that by wandering about, one may meet with good fortune), the corresponding card in the other pack has a picture of a dog knocking against a stick and the character i in the corner. The card of the second character of the syllabary has the proverb, ron yori shōko (Proof is better than argument), and the third has hana yori dango (Better a dumpling than a flower, that is, use is better than ornament), and so on. The illustrations in the second pack are often fanciful, as they cannot but be when the proverbs do not refer to concrete objects. Thus, the illustration to the second proverb above given has an angry man with one hand on his sword and holding in the other the straw figure which the jealous wife used in the old days to nail to a tree at dead of night when she invoked curses upon her rival. The man is apparently showing his wife in spite of her protestations the straw image she has been using against his mistress. "