Masaya Konaka×Chisako Takashima

A symbol of prayer? Fragrance is used differently in Europe and Japan.

Takashima

Please tell me how fragrance was used in ancient Japan?

Konaka

Fragrance has been an important part of people’s lives since ancient times. For example, aristocrats in the Heian era would impregnate their clothing with fragrances in a fusego (a basket used upside-down to cover incense burners or braziers). It was not customary for them to take a bath every day like today, and since they seldom soaked in the bathtub, I would suppose that it was also a means to deodorize themselves.

Takashima

I see. I have heard that in Medieval Europe, too, the sanitary conditions were terrible, and since there were few toilets in the Palace of Versailles, people used perfume as deodorants. I guess that is why many foreign perfumes have strong scents.

Konaka

That is true. Perfume is used very different in Europe. In Japan, even in modern times, people tend to prefer to use fragrance indirectly. The Japanese enjoy using scented softeners when washing their clothes or burning incense.

Takashima

The Europeans and the Japanese do have different approaches to fragrance. Did fragrance have any special meaning to people in Europe?

Konaka

Like in Japan, fragrance was used for prayers in Europe as well. The English word “perfume” originates in a Latin word meaning “through smoke”, and as this work implies, people used to let their prayers be carried by the scented smoke. In the Christian belief, the three wise men from the East offered gold (symbol of the throne), frankincense and myrrh (symbol of death; used as antiseptics for corpses) to baby Jesus. Frankincense is resin obtained from trees of the Boswellia genus and an expensive fragrance used for worship. It is a symbol of prayer.

Takashima

So it was sacred.

Konaka

People used scents to purify themselves. When the plague broke out in Medieval Europe, people blended spices to make perfume, which they would use as an antiseptic. They believed that the scent would keep the plague away.

Takashima

So that is how perfume came to be widely used in Europe.