Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

The author of the "Sho-rei Hikki" makes no allusion to the custom of
shaving the eyebrows and blackening the teeth of married women, in
token of fidelity to their lords. In the upper classes, young ladies usually
blacken their teeth before leaving their father's house to enter that of
their husbands, and complete the ceremony by shaving their eyebrows
immediately after the wedding, or, at any rate, not later than upon the
occasion of their first pregnancy.
The origin of the fashion is lost in antiquity. As a proof that it existed
before the eleventh century, A.D., a curious book called "Teijô Zakki," or
the Miscellaneous Writings of Teijô, cites the diary of Murasaki Shikibu,
the daughter of one Tamésoki, a retainer of the house of Echizen, a lady
of the court and famous poetess, the authoress of a book called "Genjimono-gatari,"
and other works. In her diary it is written that on the last
night of the fifth year of the period Kankô (A.D. 1008), in order that she
might appear to advantage on New Year's Day, she retired to the privacy
of her own apartment, and repaired the deficiencies of her personal appearance
by re-blackening her teeth, and otherwise adorning herself. Allusion
is also made to the custom in the "Yeiga-mono-gatari," an ancient
book by the same authoress.
The Emperor and nobles of his court are also in the habit of blackening
their teeth; but the custom is gradually dying out in their case. It is said
to have originated with one Hanazono Arishito, who held the high rank
of Sa-Daijin, or "minister of the left," at the commencement of the twelfth
century, in the reign of the Emperor Toba. Being a, man of refined and
sensual tastes, this minister plucked out his eyebrows, shaved his beard,
blackened his teeth, powdered his face white, and rouged his lips in order
to render himself as like a woman as possible. In the middle of the
twelfth century, the nobles of the court, who went to the wars, all
blackened their teeth; and from this time forth the practice became a
fashion of the court. The followers of the chiefs of the Hôjô dynasty also
blackened their teeth, as an emblem of their fidelity; and this was called
the Odawara fashion, after the castle town of the family. Thus a custom,
which had its origin in a love of sensuality and pleasure, became mistaken
for the sign of a good and faithful spirit.
The fashion of blackening the teeth entails no little trouble upon its followers,
for the colour must be renewed every day, or at least every other
day. Strange and repelling as the custom appears at first, the eye soon
learns to look without aversion upon a well-blacked and polished set of
teeth; but when the colour begins to wear away, and turns to a dullish
grey, streaked with black, the mouth certainly becomes most hideous.
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