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A.63rd year of Keio (1867) Daisho-reki [Rabbit with mortar]
A rabbit is busily doing mochitsuki (pounding steamed rice into dough for rice cakes). Mochi (doughy rice cakes), traditional auspicious food eaten at almost every home during the New Year holidays, are made by putting steamed rice in a wooden usu (mortar) and pounding it with a wooden kine (mallet). Since time immemorial the Japanese people have thought that the dark part on the full moon resembles a rabbit pounding rice to make mochi. Thus the design shown by this picture is very familiar to the Japanese.
In the picture, Chinese characters indicating six short months appear within the rabbit, while those for the six long months are in the mortar. In fact, there is another hint that a sentence meaning long is the mortar and short is the rabbit are on the mortar in stamp-style characters. It is also noted that the rabbit is one of the twelve animals in the calendar, and 1867 was the year of the rabbit.
- Long months :
- February, April, August, October, November, December
- Short months :
- January, March, May, June, July, September
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