Karuta

In the mid-16th century, paper cards carried by sailors on a Portuguese ship arrived in Nagasaki. The Portuguese word carta became, unchanged, karuta. Domestic production later began in Miike, Chikugo (now part of Omuta), and cards survive bearing the maker's mark "Miike-ju Sadatsugu." But very few Tensho karuta survive at all — the best known is a single "King of Clubs" card held at the Tekisui Museum of Art in Ashiya, because throughout the Edo period the cards were repeatedly banned as gambling tools, burned, and thrown away. A game made of paper was also a game that burned easily. From here, the cards split into two lines. The gambling side went on to unsun karuta, and then hanafuda. The poetry side became uta-garuta — the Thirty-Six Poetry Immortals, the Tale of Genji, and eventually the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. The poetry anthology called Hyakunin Isshu is about eight hundred years old; the game of racing to grab its cards is about four hundred.