tanzaku 短冊

Small vertical poem cards, approximately 36 cm long x 6 cm wide that may be decorated with colored designs, sprinkled with cut gold, silver or mica, or covered with silk. The origins of this form may be connected to small slips of paper used for divining in ancient times. Another possible origin of tanzaku comes from the Heian period, when small rectangular pieces of paper, on which one poem was written, were used for poetry anthologies. The earliest extant examples from the 14th century are of waka 和歌 poems on white tanzaku with no decoration. It was during the Muromachi period that tanzaku became highly decorated with cloud patterns overlaid with cut pieces of gold and silver.