Pine [松, matsu] is the name of a suit in traditional hanafuda decks. It is generally taken to be the first suit, representing the month of January [1月, ichigatsu] or the numeral 1. In Korean, this suit is commonly known as ‘Pine and Crane’ [송학, 松鶴, songhak]
The cards in this suit all feature pine trees. There are two Chaff cards, one Poetry Ribbon, and one Bright. The Bright card of the Pine suit features a red-crowned crane [丹頂鶴, tanchōzuru] among the pines as well as a red sun in the top corner of the card.
¶ Crane with Sun
“Pine with Crane” [松に鶴, matsu ni tsuru], being one of the only 5 Bright cards in the standard deck, is important for making high-scoring yaku in many games, as well as being desirable in its own right in many games that assign point values to individual cards.
In Koi-Koi, the Crane plays a role in the series of Bright yaku. In Mushi, it is necessary for making the two most valuable yaku: with the other 4 Brights it can form “5 Brights,” and when combined with the Bush Warbler and Curtain it forms “3 Brights.” In Six Hundred it can be used to make “Four Brights” (which is an instant win), “Pine, Paulownia, Baldy,” (which combines the card with the Phoenix and Moon cards) and “3 Brights” (in the same combination used in Mushi).
¶ Poetry Ribbon
“Pine with Red Tanzaku” [松に赤短, matsu ni akatan] is the Ribbon card of the Pine suit.
In the standard hanafuda design, the Ribbon on this card features the phrase aka-yoroshi written in hiragana, using a hentaigana character in place of the standard “ka.” This refers to one name of the yaku known more commonly today as aka-tan, or “Red Ribbons,” which includes this card as well as the Ribbons of the Plum Blossom and Cherry Blossom suits, and is featured in a large number of games.
¶ Chaff
The Pine suit has two Chaff cards, often with one card’s imagery weighted towards the left, and the other towards the right.
In the Echigo-Bana pattern, each of these will carry one half of the following waka poem composed by Minamoto no Muneyuki “at a poetry contest held in the palace of the Empress in the Kanpyō era” (889-897).
| Japanese | Rōmaji | English |
|---|---|---|
| ときはなに | Toki ha nani | Now that spring has come, |
| 松の緑も | matsu no midori mo | the green of the pines |
| 春くれば | haru kureba | that never changes |
| 今ひとしほの | ima hitoshiho no | more and more |
| 色まさりけり | iro masari keri. | improves its color. |
¶ Cultural significance and symbolism
Pines, cranes and rising suns all commonly feature in Japanese New Year’s decorations, making them very appropriate for the first month of hanafuda. For example, kadomatsu (門松, literally “gate pine”, emoji: 🎍) are traditional decorations with bamboo stalks and pine branches that are placed at the entrances of houses and buildings for good luck in the New Year. The red sun in the crane card’s background is meant to be the first rising sun of the New Year.
The pine tree and the crane are both East Asian symbols for long life and long-lasting youth. Pines have that association because they keep looking healthy and green even in winter. Red-crowned cranes were ascribed spiritual meaning in China, traditionally being considered the most important bird after the phoenix in Chinese culture and mythology. It was said that cranes live a thousand years.
While cranes and pines are rarely seen together in nature, they were commonly depicted together in Chinese paintings because of their overlapping symbolism – a motif that also became popular among Japanese painters of the Edo period (17th-19th centuries), right when early precursors of hanafuda were first made. (See: The Origins of Hanafuda)
In Japanese art, cranes are also commonly depicted with a red rising sun, especially in art with a New Year’s theme.
In Japanese poetry, crane [鶴, tsuru] is a seasonal word [季語, kigo] that indicates that a poem takes place in winter.
Depicted on the right: Crane in pine tree at sunrise, a painting by Utagawa Hiroshige, Japan, 1850s, public domain.
¶ External links
For examples of traditional art with the same motifs as this suit of hanafuda, see also the following categories on Wikimedia Commons:
¶ Bibliography
- Fairbairn, John. “The Poems of the Echigobana. Journal of the International Playing Card Society, Edited by Trevor Denning, XIV, no. 4, May 1986, pp. 97–102.
- Ōishi Tengudō, “花札の謎シリーズ！ 1月札『松に鶴』,” blog post, August 2014.
- Rin & Char, “各月に描かれた絵柄の意味,” りんとちゃーの花しらべ, blog post, September 2019.
- Lee Geon-eom, “알고나 치자, 국민놀이 ‘화투’,” The Financial News, September 2015.
- Park Myeong-seong, “설날. 화투의 진실을 말한다…1월 송학. 학은 장수와 가족의 건강에 대한 염원을 기원의 의미,” Seoul City Administration Daily, June 2016.
- Hanafuda Hawaii, “Symbols and Motifs in Hanafuda,” March 2025.
- List of kigo and 季語一覧 (Kigo overview) on Wikipedia