Tada Makiko is a kumihimo master who has been studying the braids for over 50 years. Makiko has learned techniques of braiding from other cultures, mastering Andean braids, which often represent stories in their designs. Unfortunately, much of the ancient meanings of kumihimo have been lost, but the restoration of this material folklore is culturally important even if some of it can never be recovered.

 

Similar to Liège puppetry, kumihimo was passed from master to student strictly, much like how the apprentice puppeteers had to attach themselves to a master for years in order to learn the traditions and be considered of the "lineage" (Gross 2001, 110). But, in recent years, outsiders like Makiko have learned under a master and opened up the tradition to others, paralleling similar developments in Walloon puppet theaters in an effort to keep the cultural and contextual history of their respective folklore alive (Gross 2001, 128).

 

Makiko's daughter-in-law, Masumi, has trained under her for

more than 20 years. Together, they have worked to study

structures from ancient braids, even ones that have only left

impressions in pottery recovered at archaeological sites.

Masumi takes both a traditional and modern approach to

problem-solving the structures of lost braids that have

survived from the oldest periods in Japan’s history. Many of

these braids are often deteriorated to the point that large

sections are missing. She has approached the process of re-

creation with the mindset of cultural preservation, and her analytical approach shows both a desire to preserve these cultural objects and a passion for learning the process by using new techniques. No longer bound by oral traditions alone, she is ensuring that the tradition can be re-created, renewed, and recorded to be passed on to future generations (Tada et al. 2020, 409).