Waranawa 藁縄

Rope twisted from straw, an everyday Japanese material attested since at least the fifteenth century; rope glossaries pair it with aranawa.

Waranawa (藁縄) is rope made by twisting straw, as both the Daijisen and the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten define it (Kotobank). The earliest example the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten cites is a 1489 entry in the Inryōken nichiroku, describing a man who wore straw rope as a belt. Andrea Ropes’s kinbaku glossary lists waranawa as rice straw rope and refers readers to aranawa, the rough straw rope that Shibari Study says appears in older kinbaku photographs.

Sources

  1. 藁縄 — Kotobank (Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten)
  2. Glossary — Andrea Ropes
  3. Glossary — Shibari Study