Horse trapping

This horse trapping and the other one also exhibited in this case are of a type called yuiage (literally, "tied up"). Yuiage sometimes appear in images of horses pictured on ema, votive tablets offered at shrines. Yuiage like these, with their extremely long end-pieces, may be associated with a centuries-old annual procession of horses, a festival that is still held today in the city of Morioka in Iwate prefecture.

Of this generally H-shaped horse trapping, the central portion covered the belly (the hara in haragake) of the horse, while the two long panels at each end were tied on the horse's back, as seen in the accompanying illustration. A family crest (mon) of crossed falcon or hawk feathers seen among fern fronds in the central portion was done in white and two shades of blue in the tsutsugaki technique, characterized by the freehand application of resist paste through a tube. In contrast, the ties are a product of the katagami technique, where resist paste is applied through a stencil.