Futon

This article is about the Japanese mattress. For the research bias,
see FUTON bias. For the Missy Higgins song, see Futon Couch
(song).

A futon (布団) is a traditional Japanese style of bedding.

Japanese-style futons laid out for sleeping in a ryokan (inn). In green, three shikibutons
per bed; in red, turned-back kakebutons. The top two futons in each stack are covered
in white fitted sheets, matching the pillowslips.

A complete futon set consists of a mattress (敷き布団, shikibuton, lit.

"spreading futon") and a duvet (掛け布団, kakebuton, lit. "covering
futon").[1] Both elements of a futon bedding set are pliable enough to
be folded and stored away in a large closet (押入れ, oshiire) during
the day. This allows a room to serve as a bedroom at night, but serve
other purposes during the day.[2]

Traditionally, futons are used on tatami, a type of mat used as a

flooring material. It also provides a softer base than, say, a floor of
wood or stone. Futons must be aired regularly to prevent mold from
developing, and to keep the futon free of mites. Throughout Japan,
futons can commonly be seen hanging over balconies, airing in the
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 sun.[3] Futon dryers may be used by those unable to hang out their
futon.

History and materials

Sleeping on tatami, with no futon, and clothes used as

coverings. Early 14th century

Child's shikibuton, late 1800s. Boroboro (patchwork) held

together with over-all quilting stitching; see sashiko.

A warm winter yogi, front

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 Back. Early 20th century.

Typical Tokyo family sleeping arrangements of 1910

See also: tanmono

Before recycled cotton cloth was widely available in Japan,

commoners used kami busuma, stitched crinkled paper stuffed with
fibers from beaten dry straw, cattails, or silk waste, on mushiro straw
floor mats. Later, futons were made with patchwork recycled cotton,
quilted together and filled with bast fiber.[4] Later they were filled
with cotton. Wool and synthetics are now also used.[5]

Yogi (よぎ, literally "nightclothes") are kimono-shaped bedclothes.

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 They were used in the 1800s and early 1900s.[6] Rectangular
kakebutons are now widely used. Kakebutons vary in materials; some
are warmer than others. Those with traditional cotton filling feel
heavier than those with feather or synthetic fillings.[5]

Traditional makura (まくら) are generally firmer than western pillows.

[5] They may be filled with beans, buckwheat chaff,[5][7] bran,[8] or,

modernly, plastic beads,[5][7] all of which mold to the head.

Historically, some women used wooden headrests to protect their
hairstyles.[6]

Dimensions
Futons are traditionally laid on tatami rush mats,[7] which are resilient
and can absorb and re-release up to half a liter of moisture each.[9]
Tatamis measure 1 by 0.5 ken, just under 1 by 2 meters,[10] the same
size as a Western twin bed. A traditional shikibuton is also about the
size of a Western twin bed. As of 2010[update], double-bed-sized
shikibutons were available, but they can be a bit heavy and awkward
to stow.[5]

The shikibuton is usually 2–3 inches (5–8 cm) thick,[7] and rarely as

much as 6 inches (15 cm) thick; they need to dry well, or they will
become heavy and mouldy.[5] A shikibuton is thus about as thick as a
Western mattress topper.[11] If more thickness is needed, shikibutons
are layered.[5]

Kakebutons may be wider than shikibutons,[12] and they vary in

thickness. Depending on the weather, they may be layered with a
warm mōfu (毛布), or replaced with a lighter taoruketto (
タオルケット).[7]

The traditional makura is generally smaller than a western pillow.[5]

:
 Futons hung out to air on a balcony.

Futons stored in an oshiire, in a tatami-floored washitsu

(traditional Japanese room)

Cross-section of a tatami mat with a hidden extruded-

polystyrene core and layers of the traditional igusa (common
rush) top and bottom.
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 Pillow filled with tiny sections of plastic tubing.

Western-style futons
Western-style futon, folded into a sofa on a sofabed-futon
frame

A shop in France selling westernized futons with frames

In the 1980s, futons became fashionable in North America.[13] The

construction method was similar to that of contemporary Japanese
futons: cotton batting, covered in cotton ticking and held in place
with hand-sewn tufting (through-thickness stitches).[13] This was
also the structure which had been used in the United States' 1940-
1941 Cotton Mattress Program, designed to use excess cotton
production by subsidizing materials for people to make their own
cotton mattresses.[14][15]

However, Western-style futons, which typically resemble low,

wooden sofa beds, differ substantially from their Japanese
counterparts.[1][16] They often have the dimensions of standard
western mattresses, and are too thick to fold double and stow easily
in a cupboard. They are often set up and stored on a slatted frame,
[13] which avoids having to move them to air regularly, especially in

the dry indoor air of a centrally-heated house[17] (most Japanese

homes were not traditionally centrally-heated[18]).

Futon-like traditional European beds

See also: bed base

Traditional European beds resembled Japanese-style futon sets,

with thin tick mattresses. These were only sometimes set on a
bedframe. The term "bed" did not originally include the bedframe,
:
 but only the bedding, the same components included in a Japanese
futon set.[19]: 674-5 vol1 

It was also traditional to air these beds, and duvets are still aired in
the window in Europe. In English-speaking cultures, however, airing
your bedding outdoors came to be seen as a foreign practice, with
19th-century housekeeping manuals giving methods of airing beds
inside, and disparaging airing them in the window as "German-style".
[20]

A mattress topper (white) on a boxspring mattress (grey).

Mattress toppers are generally structurally similar to futons.
Note the tufting.

Museum samples demonstrating a 1590s bed: the bedcords,

bedmat, three tick mattresses in dun and striped ticking, and
the bedlinen.

The fairytale The Princess and the Pea exaggerates the

traditional European layering of thin mattresses

"Beds airing, Camp Funston, Kansas", in 1917 or 1918.

Airing a feather duvet in Dubrovnik, 2010

See also
:
 Bed base, for a comparison with similar beds
Boroboroton, a spirit-possessed boroboro futon
Day bed (bed used for other purposes during the day)
Futon dryer, for airing futons when they can't be placed outside
Housing in Japan, for cultural context
Ken (unit on which houses are traditionally built)
Mattress topper (a type of thin Western mattress, similar to a
futon)
Tick mattress, futon-like European bedding
Washitsu (the type of rooms in which futons are frequently
used)
Zabuton (sitting futon, a smaller cushion)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Futons.

1. ^ a b Evans, Toshie M. (1997). A dictionary of Japanese

loanwords. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
ISBN 0313287414. OCLC 528863578.none
2. Glaskin, Katie; Chenhall, Richard, eds. (2013). Sleep around the
world : anthropological perspectives (1st ed.). New York:
Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137315731.
OCLC 854835429.none
3. Otowa, Rebecca (2010). At home in Japan : a foreign woman's
journey of discovery (1st ed.). Tokyo: Tuttle Pub. ISBN 978-
1462900008. OCLC 742512720.none
4. Wada, Yoshiko (2004-01-01). Boro no Bi : Beauty in Humility—
Repaired Cotton Rags of Old Japan. Textile Society of America
Symposium Proceedings.none
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hones, Jenny Nakao. "The Pros and Cons of the
:
 Japanese Futon – Asian Lifestyle Design". Asian Lifestyle
Design. Retrieved 23 January 2022.none
6. ^ a b c Inouye, Jukichi (1910) [digitized July 2021]. "11". Home
Life in Tokyo. “In Japanese houses there are, as has been
already stated, no rooms exclusively set apart for sleeping. The
beds can be laid anywhere on the mats. The bed consists of
one or two thickly-wadded mattresses of cotton or silk, usually
three feet wide by about six feet long, that is, nearly the size of
a mat. These are laid on the mats and over them a large, thickly-
wadded cover of the shape of a winter kimono with open
sleeves and a quilt, also heavily wadded, of about the same
length as the bed but wider. They are both of silk or cotton,
figured or striped, with linings of a dark-blue colour. They both
have a black velvet band where the sleeper’s face touches
them. The two are used in winter; but in spring and autumn only
one, usually the kimono-like cover, is thrown over the sleeper. In
midsummer, even that is too hot, and is replaced by an ordinary
lined kimono or a thinly-wadded quilt. The pillow for men is a
long round bolster filled with bran; but women, whose coiffure
would be deranged by such a pillow, lay their heads on a small
bran bolster, two inches or so in diameter, which is wrapped in
paper and tied on the top of a wooden support. It is very
uncomfortable at first, though most women are used to it. As
the bolster soon gets hard, the skin about the ear often
becomes red and rough if one sleeps all night on the same side.
Though the beds may be spread anywhere, their places are
always fixed for the members of the family. The master and
mistress sleep in the parlour or some other large room with the
youngest children, the mother with the baby in her bed and the
father sometimes with the next youngest in his. The rest of the
children sleep either in the same room or in another and with
some other member of the family, unless they are quite grown
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 up. The sitting-room is usually left unoccupied. The servants
sleep in a room next to the kitchen and the house-boy in the
porch. It is important to group the sleepers as much as possible;
for in summer when mosquitoes are out, nets are hung over the
beds by strings attached to the four corners of the room, and to
economise these nets the beds are brought together wherever
practicable.”none
7. ^ a b c d e "Futons- Overview and Brief History of styles".
Retrieved 23 January 2022.none
8. File:THE FAMILY IN BED. (1910) - illustration - page 137.png
9. "Traditional Japanese Houses". nippon.com. 23 July 2016.
Retrieved 23 January 2022.none
10. See Tatami#Size for details
11. "Mattress Topper Types - Materials, Thickness, Density".
Mattress Nut. 9 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2022.none
12. "FAQs – Futons From Japan".none
13. ^ a b c Littman, Karel Joyce (27 September 1984). "FUTON
MATTRESSES: WHAT AND WHERE". The New York Times.
Retrieved 31 January 2022.none
14. Dean, Virgil W.; Powers, Ramon (2014). ""In No Way a Relief Set
Up": The County Cotton Mattress Program in Kansas, 1940–
1941" (PDF).none Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
15. "Make a Mattress With Free Cotton". Wallace's Farmer. Illinois
Digital Newspaper Collections. 28 December 1940.none
16. Cole, David John; Browning, Eve; Schroeder, Fred E. H. (2002).
Encyclopedia of modern everyday inventions. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313313458. OCLC 49627783.none
17. See Airing (air circulation)
18. Nute, Kevin (2004). Place, time, and being in Japanese
architecture. London: Routledge. ISBN 0419240101.
OCLC 53006895.none
19. Dictionnaire de l'ameublement et de la décoration depuis le
:
 XIIIe siècle jusqu'à nos jours, Havard, Henry, 1838-1921
20. "Featherbeds, duvets, eiderdowns, feather ticks - history".
www.oldandinteresting.com. 2006.none
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