鬘

In the Edo period, hairstyles are said to have been largely determined by status, age, and occupation. Kabuki's wigs carry that code onto the stage, with set styles fixed for each type of role—katahazushi for a samurai household's lady, fukiwa for a princess—so that a character's identity can be read from the hair alone.

Each wig is born of a divided craft: a copper base beaten to the actor's head and planted with hair by the wig maker, then styled by the tokoyama. Beyond mirroring real coiffures, kabuki developed exaggerated styles all its own, such as the kurumabin and ende.

The kuruma ('wheel') in kurumabin is said to come from the spokes of a wheel: the sidelocks are divided into stiffened bundles that jut outward like radiating spokes, and the styles are named by their number—three-, five-, or seven-lock kurumabin. Even the naming shows aragoto's delight in exaggeration.

The kurumabin is the style of aragoto heroes, seen on Kamakura Gongorō in Shibaraku and, in its five-lock form, in Kagekiyo. The faces of the heroes the Ichikawa Sōke created are completed by these exaggerated wigs, together with kumadori makeup.