yogi (night garment)

yogi (night garment) , late 1800s or early 1900s, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: tsutsugaki; dyeing; cotton

Dimensions:
Object Length/Width (Length x Width): 200.66 x 160.02 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 79 x 63 in
Object Height/Width/Length (Height x Width x Length): 13 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 85 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Barbara Benton Wescoe Fund

Accession number: 1993.0013

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
“Flowers, Dragons and Pine Trees: Asian Textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art,” Nov-2005, Mary Dusenbury
A yogi (night garment) is a heavily padded, kimono-shaped bedcovering, a form that developed from the practice of using an extra garment as a bedcover. Designed to cover two people, it was generally wider and longer than a kimono.
This yogi was probably part of a bride’s dowry in a rural village on the islands of Kyushu or Shikoku. It would have been paraded through the village with her other household furnishings and textiles, in a festive bridal procession that ended at the groom’s house. Bride and groom would have slept under it for the first nights of marriage and then stored it away to be brought out only on special occasions.
The whole garment is treated as a single canvas and depicts the well-known kiri-take-ho-o- (paulownia-bamboo-phoenix) motif, one often associated with weddings. In East Asia, the mythical phoenix was associated with peace and prosperity, long life and fidelity. It mated for life, alighted only on paulownia trees, and fed only on bamboo seeds. Its tail feathers represented the traditional virtues of truthfulness, propriety, righteousness, benevolence, and sincerity. As they lay together through the first nights of marriage, the young couple would have been covered with these familiar and time-honored symbols, wishes for prosperity, harmony, virtue, and a long, happy marriage.

Archive Label 2003:
Yogi (kimono-shaped coverlets) and futon (cotton mattresses) were often included in dowries. The imagery on this yogi is especially appropriate for such a function. The mythological phoenix is a symbol of marital felicity, since phoenixes were believed to mate for life. The phoenix was also believed to appear only in times of peace and prosperity. Additional imagery associated with the mythology of the phoenix is included on this yogi. The phoenix will only alight on a paulownia tree and has a restricted diet of young bamboo (susa), both are depicted on the lower half of this yogi.
In technique and design, this yogi is typical of the San-in coast of Japan, the northwestern coast of the main island. The style of this area is characterized as more restrained, with clear designs often done in one or two shades of indigo.