- 金沢大学環日本海域環境研究センター = Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology Kanazawa University
- 日本海域研究 = Bulletin of the Japan Sea Research Institute, Kanazawa University (ISSN:13477889)
- no.47, pp.49-69, 2016
Benkiti Ohno, a technician who made mechanical dolls, wrote about mechanical dolls who had metal-coiled springs in his notebook "Ittousi Kyuroku". In this article, we described the structures and working mechanisms of his dolls. These included the 'tea-cup serving doll' and the 'Sanbasou-festival doll.' We discovered how original the specified structures of the machines were, which are different from those ofYorinao Hosokawa's tea-cup serving dolls. The dresses of the Sanbasou-festival doll showed that the upper clothing was made of the linen cloth, Linum usitatissimum. This is a characteristically Japanese cloth called "Sanbon Roh". The "Hakama" skirt was also made of a very beautiful and valuable silk cloth embroidered flowers and grass. Other figures, which were related to artillery and bullets that were described in "Ittousi Kyuroku", were copies of the real life and large size working pieces used at the Kanazawa Clan's Suzumi artillery production factory in 1856. This article describes Benkiti's activities in Kanazawa in the second half of the 19th century.